Strike | Dance | Rise! To end violence against women

“One billion women violated is an atrocity. One billion women dancing is a revolution.”

Violence against women is an unchecked epidemic. According to the United Nations [PDF], 1 in 3 women worldwide will be beaten or raped in her lifetime. One billion women. Gender-based violence causes more deaths and disability among women aged 15 to 44 than cancer, malaria, traffic accidents, and war combined.

Violence against women isn’t a local issue, or a cultural issue, or a national issue. It affects every woman in every country on the planet. It is a widespread pattern of women being devalued and dehumanized, regardless of where they live.

Victims of sexual violence, intimate partner violence, religious violence, economic violence, environmental violence, war zone violence. Rape and sexual assault, domestic abuse, incest, female genital mutilation, acid attacks, war crimes, child marriage, sexual slavery, forced childbirth, dowry murders, honor killings, murders of female infants, girls and women, lack of education, substandard or non-existent medical care, high unemployment, lack of proper housing or nutrition.

V-Day began in 1998 as a “global movement to end violence against women and girls.”

On February 14, 2013, the 15th anniversary of V-Day, women and men who support them — grassroots activists, writers, celebrities, politicians, artists, and ordinary citizens around the world — will join together and dance as a form of protest, until there are ONE BILLION RISING.

Eve Ensler, author of The Vagina Monologues and creator of V-Day:

“When One Billion bodies rise and dance on 14 February 2013, we will join in solidarity, purpose and energy and shake the world into a new consciousness.

Dancing insists we take up space. It has no set direction but we go there together. It’s dangerous, joyous, sexual, holy, disruptive. It breaks the rules. It can happen anywhere at anytime with anyone and everyone. It’s free. No corporation can control it. It joins us and pushes us to go further. It’s contagious and it spreads quickly. It’s of the body. It’s transcendent.”

—
Watch the trailer:

TRIGGER WARNING for violence, abuse.

Learn more at www.onebillionrising.org

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Jenn’s Sunday Sermon – Feminist Edition

What is a feminist?

The answer changes from person to person. The MRA’s tell us women are out to dominate the world and reduce men to babbling pink and lavender shells of their former selves. There are women, like Phyllis Schafly, who have made careers out of telling other women not to have careers – but don’t anyone think about telling them to get back to the kitchen. There are patriarchy-haters who see anything associated with men, marriage, and/or children as evil. There are feminist-haters who see all change and progress after the 1950’s to be evil.

So, what exactly is feminism? What separates a “feminazi” from a “feminist”? Who draws those lines that say “this” is okay, but “that” isn’t, and “that one” is in the murky gray area?

The problem is the lines change depending on who’s drawing them.

Conservatives drive me batty because every single line they draw is contradicted by another line they draw.

You have those who say women shouldn’t work, that they should get married, stay home, raise their children. But, show a woman who does that and needs the help of a government program – SCHIP, for example – and suddenly she’s drawing fire for spending time at home.

That’s just one example, but it applies to nearly everything “they” believe about what women “should do.” If you’re well-to-do or even wealthy because of your educational and career choices, then your ass belongs at home raising and nurturing your children. If you’re poor because of a lack of skills or lack of jobs above minimum-wage, then your ass belongs in the workforce.

Except, it’s not that simple, because some study is going to come out showing children of fulfilled career mothers do better in school or something, and then another will come out that says children whose mothers work have lower self-esteem or something, and then another comes out that says children do better in school if their mothers stay home and teach them happy little songs, and then another comes out…. Well, you know the drill. No choice we make is ever going to be the right one.

And that’s just the motherhood example. The “debate” between those who are childless by choice and those who choose motherhood (or had it chosen for them by failures in birth control, etc) can be even more vicious, but trust me, there is so-called “debate” over every possible choice a woman could possibly make about her life.

So, you’re asking, what do I call a feminist?

Richard Petty: still believes women don’t belong in NASCAR

Richard Petty – a longtime hero of mine – really disappoints me with his belief that women don't belong behind the wheel.

From Fox Sports:

Richard Petty didn't think women belonged on the race track when Janet Guthrie became the first female driver to compete in the Coca-Cola 600 in 1976.

Thirty years later, his opinion hasn't changed.

"I just don't think it's a sport for women," Petty said in an interview with The Associated Press. "And so far, it's proved out. It's really not. It's good for them to come in. It gives us a lot of publicity, it gives them publicity.

"But as far as being a real true racer, making a living out of it, it's kind of tough."

His son, Kyle Petty, seems to feel a little differently – sort of.

Kyle Petty, who currently runs the two-car operation built by his grandfather and father, said he would never rule out having a woman driver. He also pointed out that Petty Enterprises was one of the first teams in the garage to employ female engineers and mechanics.

But he said his father will never budge on his belief that women don't belong behind the wheel – even if Kyle Petty's daughter one day decides she wants to be a racer.

"His position is not going to change because that is who he is, that is part of who he is," Kyle Petty said. "That's just a fact of life. That's how he was raised, when he was raised, the era he was raised in. And that's just the way it is."

I can understand what Kyle Petty's saying. A lot of men of that generation, not just race car drivers, believe that women really don't belong in certain places, whether it's behind the wheel at NASCAR or behind the stick in an F-18, or even in the Chair's seat in a boardroom. 

However, I do hope that more women, especially his granddaughter, take him up on the challenge. What exactly is it does he think makes racing so difficult for women?

Yeah, it's tough and there are a lot of challenges where physical strength are important, but honestly – don't you think that maybe – just maybe – flying the world's most expensive, most technically-advanced fighter jets and helicopters in combat might be just a bit tougher?

So, if the military thinks women can do that – and do it as well as their male counterparts – driving a real expensive stick-shift in left circles for a few hours certainly shouldn't be considered male-only territory.

Especially when you consider that even Petty Enterprises allows women to be part of the teams that build and maintain these vehicles.

Save Your Sons!

*snicker*

I can't even try posting this without gales of laughter.

Save the frat boys! From MzNicky over at Tennessee Guerilla Women:

Every now and then you come across a news report that’s just so heartbreaking, so unremittingly lamentable, that you have to stop reading for a moment, close your eyes, and take a deep, shuddering breath before you can continue.

After double-checking the source to make sure it wasn’t really from the Onion, I forced myself to read all about the crushing "epidemic" currently sweeping the nation’s college campuses: Erectile Dysfunction (ED).

That’s right. It seems there’s a pandemic of limp-dicked frat rats.

[snip]

I know that by now you are rending your garments and wailing, "Why, oh why? What could possibly be at the, er, root of this catastrophe?" And yet, you knew the answer, didn't you?, before you even knew there was a question. No, it’s not the binge drinking, the pot, ecstasy, or meth; it's not the antidepressants or the smoking, or even the sitting for hours on end stuffing the face with Chee-tos® while surfing for porn or pounding the X-Box instead of bench-pressing and hoops-shooting—although the WaPo writer dutifully mentions in passing these possible explanations for this plague of undergraduate impotence. No! It is, of course, the damned oversexed college-aged women who, through their misguided ideas about sexual entitlement, are creating this oppressive sucking vortex of tragically unspent seed!

[snip]

Still another tale of woe concerns a George Washington University manly man who is “tall and good-looking with dark hair and gray-green eyes, [a] member of a fraternity so bad and so much fun that university officials refuse to sanction it.” (Wow! Beat that, you non-Animal House losers! Sorry; bad choice of words No offense, Big Guy.) In furtherance of his erstwhile fuckability, we are told that “he works at a bank and has a job lined up after school — a fact that the ambitious women at GW love.” (Of course they do! That’s what “ambitious women” do—seek out future six-figure-earners and then rob them of their manly essences!) “He has charmed probably two dozen girls away from bars and into his bed over four years at school, all consenting partners, he says.” (Police records were apparently unavailable.) A litany of disappointing “hookup” failures follows, during which the studly dude's revolving door of receptacles all expressed such frustration and impatience that, "Not surprisingly, system shutdown ensued.”

Oh…god….can't….stop….laughing!!!!