LAVENDER archives

largest collection of healing resources for domestic & sexual violence

[lavendermuseums]

DRAWING: healing projects #1

Our Galleries are becoming so large, I’m going to start organizing them in wings.

14 Powerful Images Remind the World That Women Can Change the Course of History 

Dissociate by Super-Chi - ink and pencil 

Revolving Vulva’s - mixed media 

The Chemistry by Patricia Ariel 

LOOK @ THIS TECHNIQUE

Freeing my voice by navelgazingwriter 

When I was six years old -  were-all-queer-here 

Broken body and broken soul -  shoshienoren 

“Love me hard”  - rachelpursall 

Don’t Shrink Yourself -  It helps to Dream

#NotMyFault -  moneydarlingblog

“she went away and became one of the stars…” -  deadgirlwalking69 

I love Myself

[blackgirlsreverything]

[lavendermuseums]

all Asian American Pacific Islander domestic violence & sexual assault  

all Afro American domestic violence & sexual assault  

all Hispanic American domestic violence & sexual assault  

all Native-American & Indigenous domestic violence & sexual assault  

[armeleia]

Reminders for the Anxious/Depressed Creatives

You’re more than what you make.

Your productivity does not determine your value.

It’s okay to do nothing sometimes.

Not everything you do has to result in a product.

Not everything you make has to be important, significant, or even good.

You can make things just for yourself.

You can keep secrets for yourself, whether it’s not posting some of your projects or not sharing your techniques.

You’re allowed to say no.

You’re allowed to rest.

[lavendermuseums]

During these cold winter days and the tv sucks.  Relationships with family members are back in focus.  Most of the answers that you are looking for are not in a magic book but more that you need to create a business plan on yourself.

CREATING A BUSINESS PLAN ON YOURSELF

is probably the most important thing you can do to improve your life.  It will take time because you must do a good through job.  I would take at least 1 month on each section.

Section A -needs to be analysis of your present environment.  

Section B - needs to be a moral evaluation of your priorities

Section C -devise a plan to get to from A to B.

Does it mean that you will achieve it? NO.

But trust me if your goal is to sail from Los Angeles to Hawaii, you better believe your going to study the currents, weather patterns, learn to be excellent at fishing, distilling water and use that compass to figure out how to get back on course after that hurricane threw you off course. 

and the most important questions you need to answer for yourself is, 

Do I even want to go to Hawaii? 

and I know that sounds weird but what happens when a guy comes by with a yacht?  

The questions come more in the form of should I move in with him or move out. 

Until you’ve clarified in you mind the difference between what you want and what is given to you,  neither you or I can make those decisions. 

I can’t tell you what to do?  I can only show you how to figure it out for yourself and then you become confident in your decisions because your really clear on what you want. 

[bossybroads]

“I’ll tell you why. I keep a shotgun in every corner of my bedroom and the first cracker even look like he wants to throw some dynamite on my porch won’t writes his mama again. Sometimes it seem like to tell the truth today is to run the risk of being killed. But if I fall, I’ll fall five feet four inches forward in the fight for freedom. I’m not backing off.“ - Fannie Lou Hamer

[lavendersisterhood-deactivated2]

Remembering Patricia Douglas, the first woman to call out Hollywood for sexual assault

In 1937, Patricia Douglas took legal action against MGM after being raped at a party for the company's salesmen.

I wrote about this docs about 3 yrs ago.  This poor woman.  

She was one of those back-up dancers in the MGM films and was told to show up at a Hollywood party where the men thought they were there for sex.

She stands up and takes them to court, but her own mother, betrayed her and took $$$ from the studios and lied on the stand about her daughter.

Imagine your relationship with your mother, when your own mother, takes your sexual abuser’s side for the $$$$.  You are unable to marry, so you live with her until her death.  

[laughingacademy]

You Must Remember This discusses the Patricia Douglas case in an episode on “studio fixer” Eddie Mannix, part of their series “MGM Stories” (the section on Douglas starts around the 16:20 mark). 

There’s also a slate.com article: http://www.slate.com/articles/podcasts/you_must_remember_this/2015/11/eddie_mannix_mgm_s_fixer_and_the_scandal_of_patricia_douglas.html

[lavenderlibrarys]

To help me find and repost, I’ve created hallways to store by subject(s).

#LAVENDER advocates - advocate ideas, opinions, heroines & rebels

#LAVENDER advice - not therapy, but woman to woman

#LAVENDER afro  -  Feb devoted to all Afro/Black opinions, advocacy,  heroines & rebels

#LAVENDER asian - May devoted to all Asian opinions, advocacy,  heroines

#LAVENDER basics - Most popular posts - educational basics

#LAVENDER campus - University, Title IX, heroines & rebels

#LAVENDER dating - dating problems and advice

#LAVENDER faith - faith based issues and problems

#LAVENDER family - dealing with all types of family relationship dynamics and advice

#LAVENDER kids - advice for dealing with kids, or healing your inner kid

#LAVENDER latina - Sept/Oct devoted to all Latina opinions, advocacy, heroines & rebels

#LAVENDER patriarchy - all the opinions and advice related to patriarchy

#LAVENDER psysoc - where I keep copies of all the hard core psychological and sociological educational basics. 

#LAVENDER rebels - women making a difference being rebels against patriarchy

#LAVENDER relationships - problems, advice & opinions on romantic relationship dynamics

#LAVENDER queen BEES - OUR MATRIARCHAL PRIDE 

#LAVENDER sex - problems, advice & opinions on sexual dynamics and issues

#LAVENDER trafficking - problems, advice & opinions on sexual slavery and issues

[lavendermemoirs]

[lavendermuseum]

Artemisia Gentileschi wasn’t just a badass because of her amazing artwork and career at a time when this wasn’t a socially acceptable choice for women, she also was a rape survivor who bravely stood up to her attacker in court and used her art as an outlet for healing.

Her most famous piece, Judith Slaying Holofernes (c. 1620; featured above) is thought to have been painted as a revenge piece after her attack. 

[lavendermuseums]

Keep reading

[ibeoutchea]

Art is the UNAPOLOGETIC celebration of culture through self-expression.

[prober2020]

Think It's Creepy When Men Pursue Underage Girls?

It’s a well-known fact in feminist circles that our society sexualizes girls from a very young age – and that that’s fucked up. From Brooke Shield’s infamous 1981 ad for Calvin Klein jeans to then ten-year-old French model Thylane Blondeau’s controversial 2011 Vogue photoshoot, the debate over girls being too sexy, too soon rages on.

In the meantime, attitudes towards men who pursue underage girls continue to be frustratingly lax on the whole.

Last year, 36-year-old James Franco tried (and failed) to hook up with a 17-year-old Scottish girl via Instagram. After a month of denial, he fessed up, joked about it, and more or less emerged unscathed with his career intact.

When a guy can nonchalantly poke fun at himself for almost committing statutory rape of a girl half his age, that’s probably a sign that we, as a society, need to be more vigilant and protective of our young women.

Because girls pick up on these social attitudes very early on.

Keep reading

[lavenderlibrarys]

Activism comes in many different forms.  1 powerful image can dominated the news cycle for over a week and lead to Congressional change.   If your talents are composing a powerful picture?   Please step up and do your part.

Donna Ferrato: Living With The Enemy

In the 1980s, Donna felt the problem had been concealed from public view for too long and it was important to show as many aspects of the problem as she could.

She rode over 6,000 hours with police around the country to get some of the photographs in Living With the Enemy which was reprinted everywhere and raised the topics of conversation about dv.

In the introduction to “Living With the Enemy”, Donna writes,

“Much of the book was born out of frustration – first, because I felt powerless in the face of the violence I had seen, and, second, because for a long time no magazine would publish the pictures.

It was only when I received the W. Eugene Smith Award in 1986 that magazine editors began to take the project seriously.”

[lavenderarchives-blog]

Categories

#LAVENDER queen BEES & heroines

#LAVENDER advocates & rebels

#LAVENDER art museum, art therapy & galleries

#LAVENDER pioneers, herstory

#LAVENDER library, books, psy/soc resources

[lavendermuseums]

First observed in 2003, the International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers was founded by Dr. Annie Sprinkle and the Sex Workers Outreach Project USA (SWOP-USA), an American sex worker rights organization.

Sex workers experience high levels of sexual violence. 

Globally, sex workers have a 45 to 75% chance of experiencing sexual violence at some point in their careers and a 32 to 55% chance of experiencing sexual violence in a given year.

Sex workers frequently aren’t protected by rape shield laws. 

New York and Ohio explicitly exclude prostitution to be used as character evidence against rape victims. Judges in states without explicit exclusion of sex work often allow for prostitution to be brought up.

Sex workers are often ineligible for rape victim compensation funds or receive reduced amounts.

In United States, sex worker survivors cannot receive compensation for lost wages from engaging in illegal forms of sex work. In Arkansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Florida,and Ohio, individuals with felony convictions are not eligible for compensation at all while in others, such as Rhode Island, discretion is given to agency administering the victims assistance fund. 

Perhaps the largest barrier, many states deny or reduce awards for any actions which may have contributed to victimization, with most states categorically denying compensation if the assault happened to the victim while they were voluntarily engaging in illegal activity. 

For example, Indiana specifies that “a victim who was injured while committing, attempting to commit, participating in or attempting to participate in a criminal act” is ineligible for victims’ compensation.

Judges, police and juries often hold bias against sex workers.

 In Philadelphia, Judge Teresa Carr-Deni called gang-rape of a sex worker at gunpoint “theft of services” and refused to allow prosecution to press aggravated sexual assault charges.

Sometimes sex workers are arrested when they report violence, including trafficking to the police

.This practice has been documented in the United States, United Arab Emirates, and Central and Eastern Europe. Undocumented migrant workers can face deportation if they report crimes, and while visas exist for migrant trafficking victims, some countries, including Norway, regularly deport non-native victims of trafficking in the sex trade when they come forward for help.

[lavendersisterhood-deactivated2]

Can you explain who/what you are? Is this a group? Do you have a presence outside of Tumblr? I'm just confused about the multiple blogs which I'm assuming are some sort of collective? Thanks!

#LAVENDER sisterhood answer:

YES, that’s a great description. I am an internet collective, but also add marketing, promotion & social media. 

Long ago, 20 yrs, I started to understand that building a place for sexually assaulted women to support sexually assaulted women needed a place to collect. No one will give $$$$ to even pay me, so take that off the table. 

But I can make a meeting place.  A place where everyone can post their materials and I send them thru 6 blogs.  

The main reason I have 6 blogs.  I don’t have $$$ to reach you.  I am limited at asking 150 new each day.  Although I try to target just women, you can’t always tell and numerous women are not interested.  So I’m limited at 900 per day, if I have full energy.  Readers come and go. 

But the ones that stay.  

Keep Me Going!

I use images and an advertising style to make things easier to read.  I can’t satisfy every rape victims needs, but I do try to rotate numerous articles from raw basics to today’s political opinions.

I rotate the subjects to keep readers entertained, intrigued, inspired and learning.  

And it just got so big, I needed to focus key areas being healing, museums, cafe, energy were I try to keep the focus in those area.  

I ENCOURAGE ALL #LAVENDER sisters, to use the same tags so I can find and promote your journey, get you support, help you come out of your fear and claim your assault and name, and place to practice your advocacy and find your voice.

I WANT SUBMISSIONS.  

I do have some rules. 

Mainly stay on sexual assault and domestic violence and the belief that it is patriarchy.   Yes, you can go down certain hallways because it’s all related to misogyny and rape culture but I don’t deal with abortion unless rape, or other feminist issues. 

You must be a woman and acknowledge you are a rape survivor.  I’m not here to convince you what happened to you is rape. 

You have to be able to actively pursue your recovery.  I believe in leading women to the answers, but it’s not my/our responsibility to activate it in your life.  Only you can make the moves to get unstuck.

[prober2020]

Love is so universal.  We know exactly what it is because we all feel it’s warmth, yet so hard to describe when we really look at it.

Love is so many things and at the same time you can say that is not love.

Love is when someone shares their economic resources with you; and at the same time giving someone material things is a deflective replacement for emotional connection.

Love feels like it should come naturally; innate in all human beings.  And then you get into a relationship and discover you or this person never learned to love.

Humans do need to learn how to love.  

Women socially are taught more often how to do this and what it requires, and men are discouraged from developing those skills and see them as a weakness.  And of course there are women who don’t learn to love, and there are men who do learn to love, but statistically these genders traits are consistent.

Many of you are asking the questions?  

Why can’t my father, mother, mate love me?  

What is wrong with me?  

Why won’t they go to therapy and fix these problems?

All I do know after 30 yrs of therapy is that you need see the ability to love in the same way as learning a new language.

Once men get past the emasculation issues that prevents them from loving, it becomes frustrating for them, just like learning Spanish for the the first time.

They don’t want to stay in the awkward learning stages.  Stumbling along sentence structure, painfully searching for the right words that barely has any context.

If you learned a new language later in life, you have very familiar with this process.  They teach you Aqua = water, Verde = green, and if you want to make a statement a question you have to reverse the noun/verb position.

Because English is your base, you think in English and figure out all your noun/verb conversions, and then apply all your new grammar rules, and try to spit out a perfect Spanish sentence.   It’s a rote memory exercise of substituting equivalents.

Eventually you get so fast at this thru repetition it becomes conversational and if you continue long term at it, you actually start thinking in Spanish and we call this bi-lingual. 

LEARNING HOW TO LOVE is exactly like this and very few people will stay in that vulnerable learning space long enough to get to the promise land, to the level that will satisfy your emotional needs.  

What often happens is that in teaching them, 

we give them a couple verbs and nouns examples of what love looks like, and they do try to incorporate that, buy you flowers, unload the dishwasher, and you are appreciative of their progress but still feel the emptiness and pain because your wounded and need someone who fully speaks the new language before you will feel the emotional warmth and security that will satisfied your wounded heart. 

Only a person with a high emotional intelligence has the ability to treat your wounded heart and I’m sorry there are not that many of them out there.  

Even being a therapist doesn’t translate into emotional intelligence, it only means they successfully completed their academic requirements and is the main reason I never recommend male therapists for you.  Women also have the same problem, but you have a greater chance of finding an E.I. woman that started learning this language in childhood and then perfected it in college. 

Everyday I publish posts that describe what validation, connection should look like and what is not love, but actually putting that knowledge into repeated practice is much harder.  

I know this isn’t an answer to your problems.  All I can do is get you closer to the solutions of …..

Why can’t my father, mother, mate love me?  

What is wrong with me?  

Why won’t they go to therapy and fix these problems?

[lavendersisterhood-deactivated2]

Julie is a survivor of domestic violence who has worked in the field of violence against womenand women’s empowerment since 1989. She has founded a hospital DV crisis response team, a transitional shelter, advocacy groups and training programs. 

She has worked with trauma survivors and addicted survivors, and was a research, co-investigator, project director and trauma therapist on studies at the National Center for PTSD. She was also co-investigator of a study using PET scans to examine DV-related PTSD.

http://www.domesticviolenceexpert.org/

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