femifesto

femifesto is committed to being part of movements to end rape culture, stop survivor shaming and blaming, and create safer spaces in our communities.

[teen-stuff-at-the-library]

A Great Guide on How to Cite Social Media Using Both MLA and APA styles

[skokielibrary]

You’ll probably find this useful at some point.

[uberwench]

Man, where was this chart when I was in library school?

[thewritershelpers]

Reblogging because EVERYONE (ESPECIALLY COLLEGE STUDENTS) needs this in their life. -H

[dudeimjarell]

ha

[so-treu]

CITE ME AND OTHER TUMBLR USERS IF YOU USE US IN YOUR SCHOOL/ACADEMIA SHIT

I’M SO FORREAL

CITE. US.

[brownroundboi]

Cite people in the margins! Trans, POC, immigrant, sick and disabled, women, youth, queer, black, indigenous, two- spirit, gender non-conforming, poor—- Nothing we say can or should be borrowed or stolen. We are resources & references to our lives & global praxis! Respect this.

[ourfemifesto]

"How To Not Get Raped" A Tip Sheet By femifesto & Collaborators

On July 14th there were two sexual assaults reported to the police in Ottawa. The safety messaging released by the police and the mainstream media as a response continue to be directed at women. These "safety tips" are unfortunately not unique to Ottawa. Versions of them are repeated in communities across the country on a daily basis. This has inspired femifesto and collaborators to make our own tip sheet on how to avoid sexual assault.

End #rapeculture & #victimblaming.

Safety Tips Released By the Ottawa Police:

"Ottawa Police have issued safety tips on their website to help females protect themselves:

Try not to walk alone at night but if you do, be alert and avoid dark or isolated areas.  Instead, walk out in the open, away from walls, doorways and pillars.

Whether you are walking or driving, determine the safest route before you leave.  Take the longest route if that is the safest.

Tell friends or family members where you’re going, and then let them know when you reach your destination.

Have your key ready as you approach your house or vehicle.

Don’t enter environments where you feel unsafe. Trust your instincts.

Know your physical capabilities and limitations.

Don’t carry offensive weapons such as knives. They may be used against you.

Ottawa Police say if you suspect you are being followed:

Cross the street or walk on the side of the road.

Go immediately to the nearest well-lit or populated area.

If others are within hearing distance, turn to the person following you and say in a loud and assertive voice: “Stop following me!”

Contact Police immediately—go to a house or a store and call the Police or flag down a taxi and ask the driver to call the Police for you.

If the person following you is driving a car, take out a pen and paper, look at the licence plate and write the number down, making sure that the driver sees you do this.

Ottawa Police say if you are attacked:

Try to remember the complexion, body build, height, weight, age, and type of clothing worn by the attacker. If possible, write down the information while it is still fresh in your memory.

If an attacker is after your purse or other valuables, don’t resist. If you have the opportunity, throw your purse away from you to the distance the attacker from you."

Source: http://ottawa.ctvnews.ca/ottawa-police-investigate-two-sexual-assaults-in-city-s-west-end-1.1914522#ixzz37kNBGLiP

Image transcript:

How To Not Get Raped: The smart way

Start Young: Learn self defence but know that you are physically limited and cannot defend yourself. Learn not to talk to strangers before you learn to talk. Learn not to walk alone before you learn to walk. Especially learn how to be accountable for your rapist’s actions.

Trust Your Instincts: Avoid all environments where you feel unsafe and where sexual assaults commonly take place: walls, doorways, pillars, streets, sidewalks, corridors, elevators, lobbies, parking lots, cars, public transit, cabs, parks, bars, restaurants, apartments, houses, offices, universities, colleges, nursing homes and government institutions.

Always Conform: Don’t embrace the power and pleasures of your own desires. Don’t dress to impress - yourself. Don’t find yourself gorgeous and alive and wanting to share that. Don’t wear flirty skirts or revealing dresses. On the other hand do not be tomboyish. Avoid any expression that does not conform to gender norms as some people may use rape as a way to “discipline” you.    

Don’t Ask For It: Do not smile or be charming. Be pleasant and polite to everyone you meet -- if you’re hostile, you may be asking for assault. Also, be sure you don’t lead on your attacker. Never invite anyone into your home, but never be alone. Don’t be coy. Don’t be brazen. Don’t confuse anyone -- mixed messages can be dangerous.   

Protect Yourself: If you live alone, install extra locks, buy a dog, and carry a small weapon. If you live with others, carry the dog and weapon around your home. Also, make sure you don’t carry the dog or weapon with you, as weapons could be used against you.

Date Smart: Don’t go on dates alone, you could be attacked. Don’t go on dates in groups because then you could be attacked by a number of people. But don’t decline date offers either - insulting a potential suitor is just asking for trouble.

If Attacked: Scream and struggle unless your attacker is the type who will kill you for fighting back. If you stay still for survival, make sure that they wouldn’t have let you go if you had resisted. Talk kindly to them, but don’t say anything that might sound bad in court. Protect yourself from injury, but make sure you get some bruises to count as evidence.

Call the Police: Unless you face institutional barriers to accessing justice i.e. Aboriginal peoples, women of colour, persons with a disability, trans* people, queer folks, sex workers, Muslim women that wear the niqab, youth, low income individuals, homeless people, newcomer women, those with precarious status, Deaf people...you get the picture.

Avoid Rapists: Most importantly stay away from those who commonly commit assaults; strangers, family members, friends, partners, spouses, co-workers, bosses, clients, teachers, doctors, teammates, and police officers. Be extra careful during peak times when rapes occur i.e. daytime, nighttime, dawn, afternoon, early evening, tea time, nap time. If you suspect you are being followed, go to a well lit area: unless you can’t because it’s dark outside - then set off a flare gun or light a torch. (Why are you outside when it’s dark anyway?)

Created by femifesto: Sasha Elford, Shannon Giannitsopolou, Farrah Khan, in collaboration with Rebecca Faria, Stephanie Guthrie, Julie Lalonde, Chanelle Gallant, and Lisa Mederios.

Inspired by the Ottawa Police:

http://ottawa.ctvnews.ca/ottawa-police-investigate-two-sexual-assaults-in-city-s-west-end-1.1914522#ixzz37kNBGLiP

[ourfemifesto]

[maxamillionracism]

Some people say I have “Minority Privilege.” Here is a list I complied of my 50 Black Male Minority Privileges in the 24 years of my life. You can choose from the ones you would like to possibly incorporate. There is enough to go around for everyone.

.

My Black Male Minority Privilege

My...

[coalitionzine-deactivated201704]

Remember several weeks ago when blogger and writer Jincey Lumpkin called Miley Cyrus a feminist icon? Outspoken Black feminists took her to task for ignoring Miley’s exploitation of Black women. The backlash was so fierce that Jincey apologized. Fast forward to November 13th, an ordinary day made extraordinary by the declaration of Lily Allen’s “Hard Out Here” as a feminist anthem and her video as a “genius” satire of pop videos. The video swerves into Miley’s lane featuring a relatively covered pop singer surrounded by scantily clad Black women. It features close-ups of Black women twerking, a long-standing hip hop dance for which has bizarrely been given credit Miley Cyrus. Lily Allen herself claims it’s satire but, given her iffy take on the black female body during a spat with Azlia Banks and the lyric “I don’t need to shake my ass for you because I have a brain,” timed right as one of her Black dancers bends over, it’s unclear what she’s satirizing, exactly. What is clear is that Jincey should have never apologized. Miley Cyrus IS a feminist icon and now, so is Lily Allen. They are feminist icons, and that feminism is White, cis, well-to-do and disingenuous. Black women have been fighting for space in feminism since Sojourner asked anti-abolitionist suffragists “Ain’t I a woman?” There is a long, sad, and complicated history of white women being active participants in the (ongoing) colonization and exploitation of Black and brown women the world over. Funnily enough, Lily Allen sings in her slut-shaming “feminist” anthem “We’ve come a long way, and if you don’t see the sarcasm in that, you’re missing the point.” We see this history come out to play when mainstream feminism shuns Black celebrities for the very things they laud their White peers for. So far, the list who gets the feminist badge looks very Caucasian and contradictory. Miley Cyrus is a feminist icon for getting naked. Lily Allen is a feminist for slut-shaming Miley Cyrus. With this happening so frequently, it begs the question: what is the standard for mainstream feminism when it comes to claiming pop singers and celebrities? It seems that any white celebrity who is both successful and female gets branded as some sort of feminist whether or not she has even called herself one. Looking at the low standard for who gets to be a feminist pop icon, I’m left wondering why Rihanna hasn’t gotten her badge yet. Rihanna has done more work in the field of feminism than any of the pop stars in her age group. She quite eloquently discussed rape and rape culture in her Man Down video. She chose to address domestic violence in her “We Found Love Video.” Most recently she centered the female gaze AND celebrated the athleticism of strippers in her Pour It Up video. Since the infamous domestic violence incident, Rihanna has made a commitment to live her life on her terms. It permeates her every choice, especially the ones we, the public, do not like. That alone is a powerful statement to other survivors of domestic violence, like myself. All Miley had to do was sit on a wrecking ball, naked. While almost every White pop star gets rewarded a feminist badge, the list of who mainstream feminism has declared “bad for the movement” looks quite uniform and Black. Beyonce suffers from internalized misogyny. Nicki Minaj is oversexed and suffers from internalized misogyny. Rihanna is a confused, oversexed victim…who suffers from internalized misogyny. The fact is, Rihanna doesn’t get dubbed as a feminist icon for the very same reasons her white peers do: the black female body is deemed as overtly sexual. So much so Miley Cyrus can derive a sexual identity just by associating with Blackness and Lily Allen can make a critique of hyper sexuality on our backs. Rihanna being Black and female must work from proving she isn’t just a sex object. Miley gets to be naked and feminist because it is presumed that she is “innocent” and that enjoying sex—for White women like her—isn’t the norm, but a revolutionary act. This was the justification for the rape of Black women, the very reason Saartjie’s genitals were carved from her body, to prove our inherently sexual nature and to prove the White woman’s asexual (and therefore, pure) one. When pop stars are declared to be shining examples of feminism while continuing a legacy of shaming and sexualizing black bodies, mainstream feminism is sending a clear message: we still ain’t women.

“Why We Can’t Have Black Feminist Icons" written by Lesli-Ann Lewis - hoodfeminism.com (via theblackgrlcoalition)

[chiefelk]

Dear Eve Ensler,

I want to start off by saying thank you. I appreciate the time you took to reach out to me, because I know you’re incredibly busy. I know there are much more important people in this world than myself, so I appreciate you engaging in dialogue with me and my colleague Kelleigh...

[ninjabikeslut-deactivated201605]

First, there is no naturalized gendered body. All of our bodies are modified with regard to gender, whether we seek out surgery or take hormones or not. All of us engage in or have engaged in processes of gender body modification (diets, shaving, exercise regimes, clothing choices, vitamins, birth control. etc) that alter our bodies, just as we’ve all been subjected to gender related processes that altered our bodies (being fed differently because of our gender, being given or denied proper medical care because of our gender, using dangerous products that are on the market only because of their relationship to gender norms, etc). The isolating of only some of these processes for critique, while ignoring others, is a classic exercise in domination. To see trans body alteration as participating and furthering binary gender, to put trans people’s gender practices under a microscope while maintaining blindness to more familiar and traditional, but no less active and important gender practices of non-trans people, is exactly what the transphobic medical establishment has always done.

Dress to Kill, Fight to Win (via ninjabikeslut)

[fka-feminish]

Massive TW: Racism

The latest comment from this thread.

How can people say we live in a post-racist society, when the above is so casually joked about by the systematically untouchable?

[pax-et-triumphus]

Regardless of whether you watch Scandal or not, everyone needs to watch this and see Lisa Kudrow fucking nail her scene exploiting misogyny and sexism.

[sistermaryfake]

the greatest

[crissle]

seriously this was like a religious experience

[zaksaidso-deactivated20210503]

"Don’t interrupt me when I’m speaking."

[morecoffee]

I am tired, not of arguing in favour of equality, diversity and tolerance, but of having to explain, over and over and over again, why such arguments are still necessary, only to have my evidence casually dismissed by someone too oblivious to realise that their dismissal of the problem is itself a textbook example of the fucking problem. I am tired of being mocked by hypocrites who think that a single lazy counterexample is sufficient to debunk the fifteen detailed examples they demanded I produce before they’d even accept my point as a hypothetical, let alone valid, argument. I am tired of assholes who think that playing Devil’s Advocate about an issue alien to their experience but of deep personal significance to their interlocutor makes them both intellectually superior and more rationally objective on the specious basis that being dispassionate is the same as being right (because if they can stay calm while savagely kicking your open wound, then clearly, you have no excuse for screaming).

Foz Meadows from “I Am So Very Tired” in shattersnipe: malcontent & rainbows October 4, 2013 (via nonmono-perspective)

[fliponymous]

Whenever I hear the "Women are paid $.78 for the man’s $1" I flip it around. Men make $1.22 for every woman’s $1. It interests me that even the most common simple measure of gender inequality is firmly based on male-as-normative …

bisexual activist and queer theory blogger Patrick RichardsFink (via fliponymous)

this is an interesting point, although mathematically inaccurate: assuming the women:men, 0.78:1 ratio is correct, men make $1.28 for every woman’s $1

(via haveyouevercriedwolf)

White people are still the ~standard so that’s not so revolutionary.

(via dykeprivilege)

A white man makes $1.34 for every dollar that a black man makes

A white man makes $1.52 for every dollar that a latino man makes

A white man makes $1.24 for every dollar that a white woman makes

A white man makes $1.44 for every dollar that a black woman makes

A white man makes $1.67 for every dollar that a latina woman makes

That’s some bullshit right there.

(via little-bulldozer)

[djennneba-blog]

Here are some shirts available for sale out of my 'Radical Aggression' shop on Skreened!

I’m taking some time out to create a series of aggressive tees aimed at informally educating folk on basic social concepts that will either stimulate meaningful dialogue or deter family and peers from hitting you with some Don Lemon sh*t off the bat without knowing what’s up. (Win/Win, amirite?) 

Check them out here! http://skreened.com/radaggression/ Note: all designs may be swapped out onto different colors & templates - tank, long sleeved, tee, etc. Play around with them :]

Because of Black Friday, all shirts may be ordered with free shipping until midnight tonight (12/29)!

Questions, comments, or requests: message or email me! [email protected]

[technicolorcloset]

Plus sizes are available

[brutereason]

I remember working with a law school in which white men heavily dominated the faculty. They used lots of sports metaphors (doing an end run, Monday morning quarterbacking, and so on), with legal jargon thrown in for good measure. I suggested that this was not a particularly welcoming trait in their school, that in fact it was sexist, but they paid little attention. I made my point by speaking for about five minutes in dressmaking terms: putting a dart in here, a gusset there, cutting the budget on the bias so it would be more flexible, using a peplum to hide a course that might be controversial. The women in the room laughed; the men did not find it humorous….Language is power, make no mistake about it. It is used to include and exclude and to keep people and systems in their places.

Frances E. Kendall, Understanding White Privilege (via brute-reason)

[socialismartnature]

Instead of freedom, Marissa Alexander gets new trial date

Marissa Alexander, the black Florida mother who was sentenced to 20 years in prison for firing a warning shot against her abusive husband, will get a new trail this spring. But her supporters were calling for the charges to be dropped altogether.

As we’ve previously covered, Alexander had a restraining order against her husband when he yelled, “Bitch, I will kill you!” and charged toward her during the incident in 2010. She fired a single shot into the ceiling, and no one was hurt. The sentence Alexander received would seem absurdly harsh in general, but especially since we’re talking about Florida here, where the right to “stand your ground” apparently applies to aggressors “threatened” by a bag of Skittles, but not to abused black women. 

Last month, a court overturned Alexander’s original guilty verdict, and activists have called for the charges to be dropped. Instead the state is going to prosecute her once again. Alexander, who has already been in jail for three years while this all plays out, will find out next week whether she will be released on bail. The Free Marissa Now campaign will be fundraising to cover her legal costs for the new trial in March. The goal is to raise $10,000 by the end of the year, and you can help here.

[cocoavalentines-deactivated2017]

Lord.

[ourfemifesto]

"we’re talking about Florida here, where the right to “stand your ground” apparently applies to aggressors “threatened” by a bag of Skittles, but not to abused black women."

[sungodsinexile]

From Lorde to Macklemore, it’s a sentiment that’s galling for its popularity: white artists need to stop using the wealth signifiers of rap music to gesture at their self-important “anti-consumerism.” What Allen misses as she washes rims in a kitchen decorated only with bottles of champagne is that it’s not anti-consumerism when it only targets one type of consumer. Rap owns a unique history soundtracking the triumph of financial success in a country that long barred black Americans from that success. It shouldn’t be an opportunity for white artists to wax superior. Beyond poor taste, it’s the myopia of latent racism that’s more anxious about gold chains on a rapper than an Armani tie on a hedge fund analyst. Similarly, Lily Allen’s response to sexist industry demands for thinness becomes entirely ineffectual when it lashes out against women who succeed despite those demands. Allen is not savily critiquing the world of Robin Thicke’s “Blurred Lines” and Miley Cyrus, she’s resentfully bemoaning not getting to enjoy the same success. “Hard Out Here” is the opposite of Mileywave. Instead of using black women as props to further her career, Allen blames them for its stagnation. In full-sleeved dresses Allen mocks her inability to twerk amidst women of color in body suits who launch into exaggerated dance moves, licking their hands and then rubbing their crotch. Her older white male manager tries to get to her to mimic them. Meanwhile she sings, “Don’t need to shake my ass for you/‘Cause I’ve got a brain.” Cut to black women shaking their ass, so much for sisterly solidarity.

Lily Allen’s Anti Black Feminism (via alittlelateforalot)

[evolutia]

Star Jones Kicks Racist Lawyer From Her Show

I really appreciate Star Jones speaking about rape culture with regards to an 13 year old child who was solicited for sex by his teacher.

Star: How does a 13 year old child a child consent to go with a grown woman to have sex?

Lawyer: I resent the term child. This kid is a latino, latino machismo, he’s manly. Is there anyone who has a higher sex drive than a teenage boy?

Then Star booted him.

[lori-en-rose]

Gooooood! That lawyer was horrible. You can’t take somebody’s heritage and background, and use that as grounds to say that because they’re 13, they’re not worthy of protection. That little boy was RAPED. Plain and simple. But because he’s ~latino~ and because of the concept of ~Machismo~ combined with him being a 13 year old boy, he MUST have wanted it? That’s just another way of saying, “he ASKED for it,” and “Brown children aren’t allowed to be innocent, they can’t be raped.” That was a GROWN WOMAN coercing a 13 year old boy, who isn’t old enough to consent to sex with an adult. If this were a Latino woman sleeping with a little white boy, you KNOW that woman would be facing three life sentences right now. Deemed unrapeable (unable to be raped) because of skin color. Isn’t that a familiar narrative.

[latinagabi]

'I resent the term child. This kid is a latino, latino machismo, he’s manly.'

Children of colour can’t even be children. I hope this piece of shit person falls of the highest cliff. 

[onbeingawesomeatlife-deactivate]

Recently, at work, I saw a...

[theresalwaysalwayssomething-blog]

The bold will be me, GoldenPhoenixGirl, explaining how to avoid writing victim-blaming or hurtful posts when trying to help abused followers. I’ll be using this typical example of common mistakes. Possible trigger warning for victim blaming.