Are we equal?

Women are responsible for two thirds of the work done worldwide, yet earn only 10% of the total income and own 1% of the property. It’s not just about money and power. Every year 70 million girls are deprived of even a basic education and a staggering 60 million are sexually assaulted on their way to school. We’re afraid to walk the streets at night, yet some of us are even more afraid to return to our own homes. At least 1 in 4 are victims of domestic violence. And every week 2 women in the UK are killed by a current or former partner. So. Are we equals? Until the answer is ‘yes’, we must never stop asking. These are staggering statistics, and yet not powerful enough to make arguing for women's rights a respectable pursuit. Useful links: Women's Aid UK Equals Refuge End Violence Against Women The Great Initiative Good reads:

[im-a-kittycat-blog]

“First you’re taught to fear a phantom, a man in black, a man with a knife, a man who’ll pounce in dark alleys. Well-intentioned women—mothers, aunts, teachers—will train you to protect yourself: Don’t wear your hair in a ponytail; it’s easier to grab. Hold your keys in one hand; hold your pepper spray in the other. Avoid dark alleys. When you reach young adulthood, the lessons change. They acquire an undertone of disgust: Don’t drink so much. Don’t wear such short skirts. You’re sending mixed signals; you’re putting yourself at risk. If you follow the advice and it never happens—if you end up one of the three out of four—you can convince yourself that safety is a product of your own making, a reflection of inherent goodness. But if you’re paying attention, you realize something doesn’t add up. Because it keeps happening: to your sisters; to your friends; to little girls and grown women you’ll never meet, in places like Cleveland, Texas; Steubenville, Ohio; New Delhi. Good people, bad people, neutral. It keeps happening in TV shows and novels and movies—they open on the missing girl, the dead girl, the raped girl. If you’re paying attention, you begin to realize that it isn’t happening. It is being done. And you are not safe. You have never been safe. You were born with a bulls-eye on your back. All you have ever been is lucky.”

— The Female Gaze: SO MUCH PRETTY by Cara Hoffman via Unpacking the F Word (via im-a-kittycat)

[fka-feminish]

A Sex Video That Will Surprise You - Girls Going Wild in the Red Light District

Keep watching till the very end. It’s bloody brilliant, not to mention very moving.

[lipstickandligature]

Everyone watch this. Please. Amazing and … just…so moving.

[secret-icecream-empress]

YES.

[qveeraskvlt]

the faces the audience makes at the end.

[leonhotsky-blog]

How to tell a rape joke: Take a metal bar, beat a rapist or rape apologist repeatedly and say “so a rapist walks into a bar” with each stroke.

[2343454254356]

A few weeks ago my mom stapled pages of a story in one of her women’s magazines together and handed it to me. She gave it to me pretty much with the tag lines “for your feminist blog” and “something new to consider.” Indeed it was; she knows me well.

The story is titled “I was forced to be pregnant.” With a title like that, reading it was actually not on the top of my to read list. I thought it was about women not exercising their right to choice. I was very, very wrong on that one.

Have you ever heard of Reproductive coercion? It is a term that was quite recently coined by the advocates against domestic violence to describe a certain type of abuse some women face. It occurs when a man pressures their partner to have kids and/or impregnates them against their will. Reproductive coercion comes in three different types: 1. Emotional pressure that turns into verbal and physical abuse. 2. Sabotaging birth control 3. Marital rape Over 75% of women 19-49 who reported once experiencing domestic violence also endured some type of reproductive control by men. It’s all about control and domination over a woman’s body.

The first story in the magazine is about a woman who got married around 36 years of age. After a few months of dating her boyfriend talked excitedly about having children. After he proposed he began calling her “The Babymaker.” She then confided with him that one of her fallopian tubes was blocked. He in return insisted she see a fertility doctor. She recounts, “I had finally met a great guy who was eager to start a family with me. What woman wouldn’t fall for that?” Soon after her honeymoon he persisted on in an obsessive manner, but his efforts had to be temporarily halted as she had to get emergency back surgery. Alas, 6 months into recovery he was back to pressuring her again. She was in much pain at the time due to her back, but she agreed to In Vitro Fertilization. She then became pregnant, but soon miscarried. In response, her husband grabbed her by the neck, choking her. He apologized, blaming his outburst on his grief and had her sign up for another round of IVF. And then a third round. She tried to put him off with the excuse that she needed to weigh more before she could take treatments, her husband forced her to get on the scale often and filled the fridge with fattening foods. “It hurt that all I was good for was getting pregnant.” She recounts. At the end, he screamed at her, threatening to replace her with a maid if she couldn’t get pregnant and she told him she no longer wanted to have his child. He destroyed bedroom furniture, pushed her down the stairs and threatened her with a gun. She fled to a domestic violence shelter.

The second story was about a woman who faced marital rape. This woman was 40, had a then boyfriend and two children from a previous marriage. After telling her boyfriend she did not want any more children, her boyfriend refused to wear a condom and began to rape her.  She then became pregnant with her third child. Birth control was never an option for her because she couldn’t hide pills anywhere for he went through all of her belongings. Three months after giving birth, he raped her again, impregnating her with twins. She lost the twins in a physical fight with him, but soon became pregnant again. During her recovery she begged her obstetrician to remove her ovaries and devise a lie to tell him; that she had cancer. After a decade of sexual abuse and violence she was able to get a job that kept her out of the house and often times traveling.

One in four callers to the National Domestic Abuse hotline said that their partners had tried to force them to become pregnant. Why? As one woman stated, “Its like he wants to own me from the inside out.”  Having a baby is the perfect tie that binds. These type of abusers want to create a circumstance in which their partner is dependent on him.

WHAT’S THAT HAVE TO DO WITH PLANNED PARENTHOOD?

Many voters never consider how defunding these clinics could hurt victims of domestic violence who turn to them for counseling as well as pregnancy prevention. Abused women will turn to health care providers long before they will turn to domestic abuse hotlines and organizations. Many women in abusive relationships rely on life saving, affordable care programs such as Title X. It is critical that such places are open and operation when women and children need them so desperately.

[dosajam]

tw: abuse, rape, domestic violence

[babsissuchafuckinglady-deactiva]

holy fuck im crying.

[cg-is-lying-in-wait-blog]

I know I’ve told this story before, but my abusive ex refused to let me take birth control.  I was on the pill until he found them in my purse. 

I went to the Student Health Center—they were completely unhelpful, choosing to lecture me about the importance of safe sex (recommending condoms) instead of actually listening to my problem.

Then I went to Planned Parenthood. The Nurse Practitioner took one look at my fading bruises and stopped the exam. She called in the doctor. The doctor came in and simply asked me: “Are you ready to leave him?” When I denied that I was being abused, she didn’t argue with me. She just asked me what I needed. I said I need a birth control method that my boyfriend couldn’t detect. She recommended a few options and we decided on Depo. 

When I told her that my boyfriend read my emails and listened to my phone messages and was known to follow me, she suggested to do the Depo injections at off hours when the clinic was normally closed. She made a note in my chart and instructed the front desk never to leave messages for me—instead, she programmed her personal cell phone number into my phone under the name “Nora”. She told me she would call me to schedule my appointments; she wouldn’t leave a message, but I should call her back when I was able to.

And that was it. No judgment. No lecture. She walked me to the door and told me to call her day or night if I needed anything. That she lived 5 blocks from campus and would come get me. That I wasn’t alone. That she just wanted me to be safe.

I never called her to come to my rescue. But I have no doubt that she would have come if I had called. She kept me on Depo for a year, giving me those monthly injections in secret, helping me prevent a desperately unwanted pregnancy. 

I cannot thank Planned Parenthood enough for the work they do.

[d-mm-e]

I’ve posted this before, but it is worth reblogging again for this story ^

[feministthinking]

what do you do to help feminism? post on tumblr? oh man tell me more. feminism is so hindered by batshit crazy feminists who say men are dogs. well guess what? women are too. worldwide a lot of shit happens, too bad you live in a first world country where you can access the internet and complain about what you think is a just cause. go fucking join a feminist group and go do something about it besides posting on tumblr you dumb bitch.

[hatebrow]

Society has allowed rapists to define what resistance is: screaming, crying, scratching, pushing, kicking, biting, punching. I didn’t resist like that. My resistance was to wriggle a bit, turn my head away when he tried to kiss me, try to stop his hand going into my bra and knickers, push him ineffectually, talk about wanting to get my cab; all things which normal men recognise as not being enthusiastic participation when they are engaging with women but pretend it’s a grey area when they talk about rape. Rapists have managed to get society to believe, that what I did, was consent. Because I didn’t resist in the way rapists - and society - say that women should resist, they define our non-participation as consent.

A section of the article “How I became a rape victim”

(via sociolab)

[volatile-bodies-blog]

sometimes i just want to get a fake orange spray tan and bleach my hair blonde and wear hollister and a&f and american eagle and uggs exclusively and wear frosted lipglosses and make ducklips faces and care about jersey shore and gossip girl. because apparently “nice” dudes hate when girls that...

[spookyxqueen-deactivated2014091]

You don’t have to be pretty. You don’t owe prettiness to anyone. Not to your boyfriend/spouse/partner, not to your co-workers, especially not to random men on the street. You don’t owe it to your mother, you don’t owe it to your children, you don’t owe it to civilization in general. Prettiness is not a rent you pay for occupying a space marked “female”.

Erin (from A Dress A Day)

[feministthinking]

click the link to sign the petition that fights for equal pay between men and women.

[feministthinking]

I Never Said Yes

http://www.bbc.co.uk/i/b01f6sgk/

Watch this.

Presenter Pips Taylor explores why thousands of rapes go unreported and conviction rates remain low. Ultimately Pips asks - who is really to blame for rape?

[ghoulgrooves]

[feministthinking]

#WomenLieAbout

is this shit really trending?

also trending: #AndYouWonderWhyYouAreSingle - must be talking about the people who are trending offensive generalisations about women.

[feministthinking]

Michael Fassbender on Top Gear

Jeremy Clarkson is a sexist arsehole.

'so in your new film you spank Keira Knightley'

Fassbender then gives a brief description of the film and its exploration of the relationship between Freud, Jung and Spielrein, to which Clarkson replies with something along the lines of:

'so after you read in the script you get to spank Keira Knightley how much further did you have to read before you decided to do it'

Imagine if Keira Knightley had been there, how would that have made her feel? Way to be completely reductive of the film and misogynistic in your line of questioning in what could otherwise have been an interesting interview. fuck off back into your sexist hole Clarkson, where you treat women as objects and are incapable of examining anything other than on a completely basic and misogynistic level.

[feministthinking]

#chrisbrownpickuplines

I have had it up to here with people making a joke of domestic violence. It is not, and never will be, funny. This trending topic, and Chris Brown, make. me. sick.

It's not okay that people are okay with this.

[stfusexists-blog]

Internalized misogyny is totes awesome.

Oh, Zoe. You do everything BUT get it. You play into the most shallow stereotypes about feminists, you stick up for men when it comes to all the hyperbolic and completely imagined slights against them, and demonstrate that you have absolutely no understanding of what feminism is, does, or has ever done outside of what a patriarchal society has taught you. Rush Limbaug would be proud.

(Thanks to rainbow-flag for submitting!)

[feministthinking]

[oldhollywood]

From Katharine Hepburn’s 1981 interview with Barbara Walters: 

Hepburn: “I have not lived as a woman. I have lived as a man…I’ve just done what I damn well wanted to and I made enough money to support myself. And I ain’t afraid of being alone.”

Walters: “Is that why also you wear pants?”

Hepburn: “No, I just wore pants because they’re comfortable.”

Walters: “Do you ever wear a skirt, by the way?”

Hepburn: “I have one.”

Walters: “You have one.”

Hepburn: “I’ll wear it to your funeral.”

(via/photo via)