Philly Stands Up: Inside the Politics and Poetics of Transformative Justice and Community Accountability in Sexual Assault Situations
Social Justice › Vol. 37 Nbr. 4, October 2011
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Summary
When they first organized, the collective viewed women as a category of people who are primarily targeted by sexual assault. [...]women- as the survivors of this violencewere best equipped to provide emotional, psychological, legal, and general support. Since much of our work is with men who have caused harm, our members must hone a sharp analysis of patriarchy and apply these understandings to struggles with internalized male supremacy that arise in our interventions.
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Philly Stands Up: Inside the Politics and Poetics of Transformative Justice and Community Accountability in Sexual Assault Situations
PHILLY ' S PlSSED AND PHILLY STANDS Up EMERGED IN RESPONSE TO A SERIES OF SEXUAL assaults that consumed me anarcho-punk community during a summertime festival in Philadelphia in 2004. Both arose as expressions of a community grounded in "do-it-yourself anarchist politics, accustomed to political organizing in times of need, particularly times of crisis. Though our community differs from those earlier days , Philly Stands Up has gleaned informative lessons from nearly one decade of on-the-ground work responding to sexual assault situations and directly engaging people who have caused harm. Our organization resists dichotomous approaches to this work, balancing national organizing with local education and community-based antiviolence work. This article is an account of our journey, organizational transformations , lessons learned, and the politics developed through this vital organizing.1
Roots and RadicalsPhilly's Pissed (Pissed) and Philly Stands Up (PSU) started as volunteer collectives consisting almost entirely of white, cis-gendered,2 mostly heterosexual but also queer, punk-affiliated anarchists in their early 20s to late 30s . When a series of high-profile sexual assaults devastated die punk community of West Philly in the summer of 2004, some community members decided that they had had enough. West Philly punks who were survivors and bystanders to sexual assault that summer and throughout their lives were "pissed," and they got organized.Philly's Pissed set out to be a group by women for women. When they first organized, the collective viewed women as a category of people who are primarily targeted by sexual assault. Therefore, women- as the survivors of this violencewere best equipped to provide emotional, psychological, legal, and general support. As in many communities in the United States, the women who established Pissed had had a lifetime of informal experience in supporting friends or family through the trauma of sexual assault. Enou...See the full content of this document
