Bruin Consent Coalition @bruinconsentcoalition - Tumblr Blog

cwote

12 Steps For Self Care

If it feels wrong, don’t do it

Say exactly what you mean

Don’t be a people pleaser

Trust your instincts

Never speak bad about yourself

Never give up on your dreams

Don’t be afraid to say “no”

Don’t be afraid to say “yes”

Be KIND to yourself

Let go of what you can’t control

Stay away from drama & negativity

LOVE

plannedparenthood

“I thought that because he was not hitting me, he was not abusing me — but he was.”

Lizzie, a Planned Parenthood patient, writes:

I lived far from my family for seven years. I got married during that time, and my son was born shortly thereafter. I would never have used the word at the time, but my husband abused me from day one. He belittled me, isolated me from family and friends, forbade me from leaving the house, and took away my control of my own finances.

He was an alcoholic and would shout at me for suggesting he address the problem. I felt unsafe, small, and powerless every day. I witnessed him physically and verbally assault children in our family. I thought that because he was not hitting me, he was not abusing me — but he was.

In 2015, I returned to my home town with my toddler son to find work here, expecting to bring my husband with me soon after my arrival. As we spent more time apart, I began to realize how much better my life was without him, and was shocked when people I met liked me. Regardless, I was convinced that we had just been having a rough patch and that I needed to toughen up.

During our marriage, my husband was personally offended if I ever wanted to have an appointment to be tested for STDs, despite the fact that I was almost certain he was having sex with other women. When I came home, I decided to make an appointment for the STD testing that I had been forbidden from getting. I went to the only place I knew I could go hassle free: Planned Parenthood.

At my appointment the nurse asked, “Do you feel safe at home?”

I burst into tears on the spot. I realized that I DID feel safe at home — for the first time in years. The thought of him joining me and my son filled me with dread and fear.

The nurse asked me what was going on, and listened to what I had to say. She encouraged me to get help, and to find a good therapist. She took me seriously, which nobody else had done. She made me realize that my experience was real, my feelings were real, and the abuse that I experienced was real. Now, two and a half years later, I am divorced, and am dealing with the PTSD that I was diagnosed with shortly after that appointment.

The emotional and verbal abuse that Lizzie experienced is a form of domestic violence (sometimes called intimate partner violence). Sexual and reproductive control, like preventing someone from getting health care, is also a form of domestic violence. Sexual and reproductive control includes things like:

preventing you from getting health care, like STD tests

forcing your partner to have sex, or do something they don’t want to do sexually

threatening to break up with someone if they don’t have sex with you

having sex with someone who is too drunk or too high to consent to having sex

refusing to wear a condom, or pressuring your partner not to use one

hiding or throwing out birth control

taking off or purposely breaking condoms (AKA stealthing)

lying about using birth control

threatening a partner who doesn’t want to get pregnant

forcing a partner to have an abortion when they don’t want to

forcing a partner to carry a pregnancy to term when they want to have an abortion

All of these actions prevent you from making decisions about your own body — and all of them are abusive behaviors.

If you’ve experienced sexual or reproductive control in your relationship, or any other kind of abuse, you’re not alone, and there’s help available. You can contact the National Domestic Violence Hotline, or if you’re a teen, check out Love Is Respect. Or, like Lizzie, your local Planned Parenthood health center may be able to help you find the best resources for you in your area. Planned Parenthood health centers also offer birth control methods that are private, like the implant and shot, as well as STD and pregnancy testing.

If you’re worried about someone in your life who may be in an abusive or unhealthy relationship, the National Domestic Violence Hotline is also a great resource to help you figure out how to help.

taylorswift

Something I wish I knew about when I was 18 and voting for the first time: ✨EARLY VOTING✨. It makes it so quick and easy to go and cast your vote before November 6. Early voting starts TODAY in Tennessee and goes to Nov 1 🇺🇸

You can check out your state’s early voting dates at https://www.vote.org/early-voting-calendar/

staff

cwote

be patient, good things are coming your way :)

amargedom

dduane

And that’s all she needs to be. (via Katie Benoit at Twitter)

profeminist

“Seeing how so many people have come out to love and support both me and Nia shows me that all hope is not lost.”

“The range of superheroes that are populating the large and small screens is becoming as rich and diverse in race and gender as it is in creative superpowers, and now actress Nicole Maines is adding TV’s first-ever trans superhero to the cast of the CW’s Supergirl.

“It means everything to me,” says the 21-year-old actress of the opportunity. Maines has been living in the public eye since she was a teenager at the center of a landmark 2014 Maine case, which ruled that barring teens from using the gender bathroom of their choice violated the state’s human rights code. Her personal journey as a young transgender woman has been chronicled in both a book and documentary films, and after making her acting debut on an episode of Royal Pains, she was tapped for the groundbreaking turn on Supergirl as the nascent crusader Nia Nal, a.k.a. Dreamer.

“I think that we are in a place in our country and in our society right now, where we really need a trans superhero as the most logical next step,” Maines told Vulture at the CW’s Fall Preview event. “And seeing how so many people have come out to love and support both me and Nia shows me that all hope is not lost … It shows that we can be anything that we want, and that being trans is not a limiting factor in anything that we want to do in our lives.”

Read the full piece here

GO NICOLE GO!!!

amargedom

Daily Reminder!

kelseyridge13

Suppose, for instance, that men were only represented in literature as the lovers of women, and were never the friends of men, soldiers, thinkers, dreamers; how few parts in the plays of Shakespeare could be allotted to them; how literature would suffer! We might perhaps have most of Othello; and a good deal of Antony; but no Caesar, no Brutus, no Hamlet, no Lear, no Jaques –literature would be incredibly impoverished, as indeed literature is impoverished beyond our counting by the doors that have been shut upon women.

Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own (via dostevsky)