Bloggers Unite for Human Rights 2008
Bloggers Unite for Human Rights is taking place on May 15! This “blogging event” is being sponsored by Blog Catalog and they are urging all the bloggers out there to blog about human rights and draw attention to the challenges and successes of human rights issues.
For those of you out there (much like myself) who are thinking “This is a great event! However, human rights is a very broad topic, so what am I supposed to be blogging about?” Well, they have a few suggestions. Topics for Bloggers Unite may consist of the wrongful imprisonment of journalists covering assemblies, governments that ignore the plight of citizens (*ahem* Sound familiar?) and censorship of the Internet.
No matter what you write about, what is important is that on one day, thousands of bloggers will unite and share their unified support of human rights everywhere.
In order to participate, sign up for Bloggers Unite on their website, add one of their badges to your website’s sidebar and on May 15, share your human rights post with the Bloggers Unite community on Blog Catalog.
Happy International No Diet Day!
Today is International No Diet Day, which I think is a fabulous day to celebrate!
I believe that women should not be seen purely as sex symbols and that there is no such thing as a “perfect weight.” So often, when women are trying to reach their “perfect” weight by going on a diet, they become obsessed with weight loss and diets in general to the point where their perfect weight keeps getting lower and you fall victim to the evil life of anorexia or bulimia. People so often forget that there are physical and mental health risks when going on a crash diet that at first you swear is temporary.
The diet industry manipulates people into believing that they will never be seen as attractive or sexy unless they are a size two which is not only disgusting, but something that the diet industry should be of ashamed of themselves for. However, they do not feel ashamed or sorry for the amount of lives that they have ruined while reinforcing the idea of being the perfect size, specifically to women. Making billions of dollars per year, the industry understands the minds of women; they understand that if they make women believe that they aren’t skinny enough or that they aren’t beautiful, that they can ultimately cash in on other people’s self loathing and that is both terrifying and disgusting.
So today, in celebration of International Diet Day, I am urging people out there not only to break away from their diets today, but for good. It has been proven that diets do not work and if you lose weight at first, weight management is a bitch and more often than not, people not only gain their weight back, but they put on more weight from binge eating after starving themselves or not allowing their bodies the necessary nutrients that it needs to live.
If you are dieting to lose weight for health reasons, it is always wise to get the facts about diets or to consult your doctor and stress that you will not be taking pills, drinking weight loss beverages and etcetera and see if they have any other ideas as to how you can effectively lose weight and maintain your health.
Today would be a great day to strip down, maybe take a nice bubble bath, drink some wine and then afterward, look at yourself in the mirror–Yes, completely naked. While some may not like what they see, you must realize that your body is solely yours and putting it through hell will not make you feel better and ultimately will not make you look better. You are beautiful just the way you are and no one else has any right to tell you or lead you to believe any differently.
You may also want to check out a fabulous, fabulous post, A public service announcement from your body and also check out some fat acceptance blogs, such as the Big Fat Blog, Shapely Prose, or some others that are listed ideally on the Shapely Prose blog.
Report It on Angela Shelton Day
Happy Angela Shelton Day!
Today is the day where the Report It campaign, a campaign motivating survivors of sexual assault to report their cases via an online form at the Report It website, comes to a close with the biggest rally of unified sexual assault survivors taking place at various courthouses across the country! Today, on Angela Shelton Day, survivors are being asked to go to your local courthouses and say that the silence of sexual assault survivors has went on for far too long.
Sexual assault is the most under-reported crime in the world and it is also the least talked about. By being a survivor and living through your abuse and talking about your abuse, you are breaking the silence surrounding this pandemic. One person can change the world, so if you are able, please go to your local court house and speak up for the rights of survivors everywhere.
Here is the statement that is being read at rallies across the country:
“Sexual assault is the most under-reported crime in the world. All too often victims do not report the crime to authorities for fear of not being believed, mistrust of the legal system, because they blame themselves for the crime or fear of retaliation. It’s time to address why this happens to sexual violence victims, while victims of other crimes, like robbery, don’t hesitate to seek justice. Victims of sexual violence deserve the equal protection of our laws. They deserve to be heard and validated. The Report IT Campaign is a first of its kind effort on behalf of all victims — an initiative designed to give hope to all victims that we can end the silence surrounding sexual violence. Our loud, unified voice today will be the first step in a multi-year effort to inspire much needed reforms and better access to justice for all victims.”
But this isn’t the end of the collaborative rally from Angela Shelton and PAVE. In fact, PAVE will be collecting reports from survivors for the next year, in 2009 this rally will run again just as it did this year but hopefully with even more people and in 2010, PAVE is taking this rally straight to Washington DC.
If you haven’t already, report your case today on Angela Shelton Day by filling out the online form. I filled mine out this morning and now it’s your turn!
If you need someone to talk to remember that you can always call RAINN. It’s safe and confidential. 1.800.656.HOPE or check out the online hotline.
Help Us Help You Help Others
SkirtSports, a retailer for sports apparel for women and children, has recently put together a campaign that will help their customers give back to the organizations and charities that mean the most to them.
Help Us Help You Help Others is a campaign unlike most others I have seen. Not only can you donate to a charity and help that charity help others in need, but you, as a SkirtSports customer, can choose the charity that Help Us Help You Help Others donates to.
Over a period of a month, SkirtSports asks people to nominate their favorite charity and the charity that receives the most submitted nominations will receive a $500 donation from the SkirtSports Help Us Help You Help Others campaign plus whatever amount is received through your donations, which range from donations of $5 to $100.
For the month of April and in honor of Sexual Assault Awareness Month, Help Us Help You Help Others will be donating to SOAR (Speaking Out Against Rape) SOAR is an amazing non-profit organization which runs national awareness, education and prevention programs to help survivors of sexual abuse reclaim their voice, confidence and lives. You can learn more about SOAR at their website here.
In order to donate to SOAR through Help Us Help You Help Others, go here and select the amount you would like to donate. 100% of your donations go straight to SOAR; there is no tax or fees of any kind and it gets donated directly. As an added bonus, SOAR has a special promotion through SkirtSports where if you buy from their website you receive 10% off on all online purchases by using the promo code SOAR–and while you’re at it, don’t forget to make a donation to SOAR.
5th Annual Race to Stop the Silence
I thought I was too late with this, but luckily, I’m not!
This Sunday, April 13, is the 5th Annual Race to Stop the Silence, presented by the Ms. Foundation for Women and The Washington Post, in an effort to raise awareness and stop the silence surrounding child sexual abuse. It will take place at 8:30am in Anacostia Park in Washington DC.
If you are around the Washington DC area, I cannot urge you enough to go and be part of this amazing activist effort. Child sexual abuse is a silent epidemic and it is only growing more rapidly out of control. If you wish to take part in the 10k race and the 5K pledge walk you can register either today, tomorrow or Sunday before the race at a tent near the skating rink at Anacostia Park, which will open at 6:30am. Download the registration form here and bring it to the balcony of the Old Post Office Pavilion at 1100 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W., Washington, D.C. Also, you can download the agenda of activities here. (PDF)
This is definitely a great cause; for those of you who are already signed up and ready to go, good luck; and for the rest of you, go download the registration form!
This is What a Feminist Looks Like
This video was put out by the Feminist Majority Foundation and has been out for a little while now, but it is truly a timeless video debunking those stereotypical feminist myths and using celebrities and familiar faces such as America Ferrera, Larry David, Michael Moore and Lisa Loeb to tell people what feminism is, who feminists are and what feminists stand for.
Blogging Against Sexual Violence Using Creative Expression
Today is A Day to End Sexual Violence. Courtesy of abyss2hope, today is the second annual Blog Against Sexual Violence Day.
I’ve been thinking for a few days about what I wanted to write about. I cover sexual violence quite a bit here, but I wanted this to be a bit different and have deeper meaning to me, so I finally decided to share a piece of my own creative writing that tells a little but about my childhood and my own past with sexual violence.
This is a short prose piece entitled Stonewalled and was written on May 8, 2005. It was featured in North Eastern Pennsylvania’s Women’s Resource Center’s “An Empty Place at the Table” art gallery.
Stonewalled
Go brush your teeth and I’ll be right up to tuck you in.
And with that statement, you were gone. The door slammed, the car’s ignition hissed, and the tires roared away from our townhouse apartment – home for needy welfare mothers who spend their earnings from their spread your leg careers on “I’m sick of feeling like this, I want to be someone else” hallucinogens and “My veins are pretty empty and could use a lift of spirits” syringes. Where were you this time? Because I’m still in bed peering from the turned-down comforter to see you and smell the musty scent on your breath, on my face, on your clothes. When do you think you’re coming back?
This is because you couldn’t mother a pair of mistakes; the first a little more damned than the second. If the men had the money you would introduce them to your shining star concubine – age’s six to twelve. Sifting into nothing but a corpse; unable to do anything but lay there, engulfed in a wonderland of dead fairies that all look identical. Laying there as if nothing happened; gyrating into outlandish figures – all bleeding from one sacred pore.
Blog Against Sexual Violence
April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month. Sexual assault awareness is very close to my heart, as a survivor myself and April is a very important month to me, especially this year since abyss2hope is creating even more outlets for awareness by hosting the second annual Blog Against Sexual Violence.
On April 3rd, bloggers from across the blogosphere will have the opportunity to speak out about sexual violence and how important it is to end the pandemic that exists across the world and within every culture.
I cannot urge bloggers enough to get involved with this and I hope to see a lot of positive posts on ending sexual violence this month.
Report IT Rally for Victim’s Rights
I’m a little late in posting this, which I apologize for. I’ve known about this for a little while now and until I received an email from Angela Shelton, I remembered that I needed to write about this.
1 in 3 women and 1 in 6 men will be sexually assaulted in their lifetime.
Angela Shelton, Wendy Murphy, Angela Rose and PAVE have teamed up and created the Report IT campaign.
Sex crimes are the most under-reported crime in the US.
It is widely known that more than 80% of sex crimes go unreported and when they are reported, the victim is re-victimized by the police department as well as the juror or jury if their case makes it to court. In effort to shatter the silence that revolves around sexual assault and raise awareness about the amount of sex crime cases that go unreported, the Rally for Victim’s Rights will give survivors the voice and unity in their neighborhoods to demand justice for survivors of sex crimes.
Gather at your local court house with other survivors, friends of survivors and anyone else you can get to get themselves to their local court houses to say that survivors of sexual assault deserve a voice and justice! Report IT’s Rally for Victim’s Rights will take place in dozens of city court houses across the country on February 19 at noon.
For a list of cities already participating in the rally check after the jump. For a toolkit to hold a rally in your community, email info@pavingtheway.net and they will send you all the tools needed!
Everyone knows someone who has been sexually assaulted.
But February 19 is only the beginning!
While the Rally for Victim’s Rights starts on February 19, this campaign will turn into a nationwide state-to-state protest on April 29, which is Angela Shelton Day!
Blog for Choice 2008
Today is the 35th anniversary of Roe v Wade. 35 years ago abortion was made legal for all women and now, 35 years later, it is important to celebrate this day in history as well as continue to educate ourselves and each other about safe sex and contraception and the right to safe and legal health care.
Celebrating Roe this year is extremely important, especially since 2007 initiated quite a few new abortion bans and even more that are on their way to passing. These points have marked the undeniable war that politicians, anti-abortion and religious organizations, and extremists have declared on women’s rights.
With the elections coming up and the possible overturn of Roe v Wade due to the Republican side of the presidential candidates, all of whom who vote to overturn legislature that gives women the right and control over their own bodies, it is very important to take a closer look at these candidates and choose to vote pro-choice.
I vote pro-choice because I believe in women and I believe that women are capable of making their own informed decisions about what they can and cannot do to their own bodies. I vote pro-choice because women are smart and educated and they deserve to choose for themselves whether or not to go through a pregnancy. I vote pro-choice because no other person–women, and definitely not men, have the right to tell me what I can and cannot do with my body. I vote pro-choice because I believe that every child should be wanted.
It is important to vote for the candidate who will protect the rights of women because no matter what the laws say, women will continue to have abortions. Before Roe v Wade was passed women had abortions and women died in tremendous and tragic numbers. It is important to realize that abortions will always occur and it is imperative to protect the lives of the people of this country. It is imperative to ensure that all women will have access to safe health care and not doing so is simply turning your back on the people who live in this country and saying that you do not care and that your religious views mean more than their lives.
It is ridiculous to assume that because of your personal morals, that you and your opinions hold more weight than 35 years of helping women live the lives that they want for themselves. That your opinions mean more than the rape and incest survivors who sought abortions and not being able to receive that health care would in turn jeopardize their lives and overall well-being. The outright arrogance that goes on in this country and in the minds of extremists who are willing to jeopardize the lives of so many women to “save” an unborn fetus is absolutely disgusting. By voting for a candidate who will do what it takes to save Roe v Wade and save the lives of so many women, you will be saying that no, women will not go back 35 years in time and that no, women do not deserve to die in the streets after receiving a botched abortion because they were that desperate not to go through 9 months of pregnancy and birth a child that is not wanted. Each and every single child should be a wanted child and by voting for a candidate who supports that, that is exactly how it will continue to be in America.
So on this 35th anniversary of Roe v Wade, we must ask ourselves, how important are the lives of women? What will we do to ensure that women will not have to resort back to back-alley abortion days?
Get Social
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Out Campaign
The OUT Campaign allows individuals to let others know they are not alone. It can also be a nice way of opening a conversation and help to demolish the negative stereotypes of atheists. Let the world know that we are not about to go away and that we are not going to allow those that would condemn us to push us into the shadows.
