Menstrual Poetry

Feminism at its Finest: 4th of July Edition

The last edition of Feminism at its Finest was put on hold for this month on purpose and what’s even more important, is that it was held for today, specifically.

I don’t celebrate the 4th of July; in fact, I don’t celebrate any holiday that is meant to celebrate a country who won’t fight for its people, but expect its people to fight for it so instead of celebrating the independence of a country consistently screwing over its citizens, I am going to celebrate feminism and intelligent feminist writing.

Amber Yoder presents Shove It: Part 2 - Don’t write a poem about rape posted at The Buffaloe Pen.

Amber Yoder submitted her mother’s blog post of a personal story about writing a poem about the rape of someone very close to her. Upon submitting it to a literary journal, she received a six-page, single-spaced letter in return from the editor that was a frightening rant against women. The letter said that he would never, ever publish a poem about rape because most women who are raped have it coming just by the way they dress and act around men. He said, in exact words, that he was “sick of wenchy women poets who are always bashing men.” He said that he was sick of hearing women whine and moan about the subject and that the subject of rape is “too baggy” and long and said that no poem should ever be longer than 15 to 20 lines. I urge you to go read the poem posted, it’s amazing and was also published in the summer 1992 issue of Calyx: A Journal of Art and Literature by Women.

Andrew Heath presents Abortion - Why It’s Important to Serve Everyone’s Rights posted at Rants of a Gay Lunatic.

A “semi-objective” view on abortion and why it is necessary to keep the option of abortion open for those cases that it is needed.

First Lady Of Poker presents Don’t Listen to the Fashion Police posted at Shopping Blog, saying:

“One of the most important things to remember about fashion is that it’s not meant to be the center of anyone’s world, but rather a tool for expressing your individuality and uniqueness “

Ian Welsh presents Clinton’s Legacy: Never Say Die posted at Firedoglake.

This is a fabulous post on the legacy Hillary Clinton has built for herself through the Democratic primary to the presidency. Even if she lost the candidacy, she did not give up until there was absolutely nothing else that could be done. While a great deal of Americans bashed her through the primary and are continuing to do so after, Hillary Clinton was the fighter in this primary election and as Ian Welsh explains, her second wind simply came too late and even though the Oval Office will not be hers in November, she built a legacy not only as the possibility of a woman president, but simply as a person who never gave up.

Jason presents 1950: Milada Horáková, democrat and feminist posted at Executed Today.

A look at the life of Milada Horáková as well as her death and last words. The letter written to her daughter and a few words written to her loved ones just before her hanging still hold more truth than most of what I have ever read in my life. She was a firm, fighting woman and while she died, she did not once ever go back on what she had believed was true.

Jenny presents The Media Makes Mom’s Look Unrealistic posted at the so called me.

How many moms out there dress like they’re going out on a hot date when they go to the grocery store with their kids? The media makes moms look like they have it all under control–The house, the husband, the kids, the dog and themselves. The media portrays moms as more as Stepford Wives than as real people, struggling along with the rest of us.

Madeleine Begun Kane presents Is Olbermann Turning Into O’Reilly? posted at Mad Kane’s Political Madness.

A limerick on Olbermann’s narcissism and misogynist commentary.

Sarah McClellan-Brandt presents Wise words from former boy band member? posted at Fort Worth Feminism.

A fabulous post about former NSync boy band member turned judge on America’s Best Dance Crew, JC Chasez voicing his disappointment about Distorted X, a group comprised mostly of beautiful women, was named one of the bottom two teams as a result of “America’s” vote and in turn said that “society hates seeing a beautiful woman succeed.” I also agree with Sarah when she says that she would expand that sentence to “Society hates to see women succeed.”

Sarah McClellan-Brandt also presents Tracy Roberson posted at Fort Worth Feminism.

Interesting post on Tracy Roberson, a woman from Fort Worth, who was released on bond after being sentenced to five years in prison for a murder her husband committed.

Shaheen Lakhan presents Woman Comparable to Men in Domestic Violence: Stereotypes and their Consequences posted at GNIF Brain Blogger.

An in depth look at violence against men and studies done on how violence against men is not taken as seriously by the media, legislators, and even some women crisis centers.

Tali presents Contemporary Pinup Dilemma: Classic Sweetness Vs Modern posted at The Pinup Blog.

Tali’s post asks the question is contemporary pinup considered porn after receiving comments on her blog, which speaks a lot about classic and modern pinup art, asking where all the “real women” were, as they obviously weren’t being granted material to stroke to by visiting her blog.

Tali presents 10 Reasons Why We Love Pinups posted at The Pinup Blog.

10 reasons why people not only love pinups, but why pinups are especially important when it comes to art and peaking into a time capsule of what the world looked like then and what it is now, as pinups have progressed with society and the times.

And that’s it for this edition, please submit your posts for the next Feminism at its Finest carnival, to be up on July 31.

Rape and Victim Blaming

Derek, a lovely feminist blogger and vlogger over at Doing Feminism has an incredible new vlog up over at his site on rape and victim blaming. With recent accounts of rape happening within 10 blocks of his house, he decided to make a vlog about rape and how so many people blame the victims for rape even existing and using such bullshit lines like “Well women shouldn’t wear short skirts or go to bars or stay out after dark.”

You should go watch the video, it’s fabulous.

Woman Experiences 19 Hour Rape and Torture

On April 13, 2007, a 23-year-old Columbia University journalism student was followed from the elevator in her apartment building to her apartment door by Robert A. Williams. He asked if she knew where a Mrs. Evans lives and when she stopped and hesitated, her had the perfect opportunity to force himself into the woman’s apartment.

After forcing himself into the woman’s apartment, Robert A. Williams, 31, put the woman in a chokehold and slapped her cellphone out of her hand. After turning a clock to the wall so the woman didn’t know what time it was, he raped her repeatedly and cut her hair because “he wanted to see her face, her fear and humiliation.” He made her sit in her bath tub and told her to gouge her own eyes out with a pair of scissors. When she refused, he punished her by throwing boiling water onto her face and body which caused such a jolt, that she broke her wrists out of the restraints he had put on her earlier.

Throughout the 19 hour ordeal, he had also doused the woman with bleach, forced her to swallow handfuls of pills and chase them with beer, sealed her mouth with glue, and bound her wrists and legs with shoelaces, cords and duct tape. When told to gouge her own eyes out with a pair of scissors the second time, she held the scissors in between her knees and lowered herself onto it, turning her head at the last minute and stabbing herself in the neck, hoping to kill herself–But it didn’t work.

After slicing the woman’s eyelids open intending to ruin her vision because “a blind witness could never identify her attacker,” he fastened her legs and arms to a futon, and she lost consciousness. When she awoke, she smelled smoke and got herself (and the futon she was fastened to so she couldn’t move) to the fire and used it to free her arms.

This is an intense, scary, horrific and very, very real story. More people need to speak up about this type of violence because it happens and it isn’t always making headlines.

Update on WrongCards

Earlier this month I wrote a post on a particular ecard I saw on WrongCards.

A week later, I received an email from the person who created the card. While they noted that what they sent me was a personal letter and I will not publish it in its entirety here, here are the important parts:

“i created the ‘come back to my place for coffee and rohypnol’ card’ as a satyrist and not a celebrator of violence against women. satire here, in my view, shouldn’t be gentle - this is in an your face, offensive statement: ‘look at yourself, society and be aware’. The idea that people intoxicate themselves and make themselves vulnerable in public is a fact that cannot be reasoned with. in the same way: its bad to smoke, but it cant be reasoned with either. to explain that ecard: people seem to need pretexts for intimacy, so they can say ‘oh i didnt mean to do that, i was drunk’- for what? dignity? the fact people seem to need that is one point worth underscoring. we can’t stop them. The ecard is satire. it’s like adbusting in an unlikely place. as a subtle PSA, the hope is that if people carry it in their mind as something funny that they saw, they may remember the next time a stranger (or even someone they think they know) offers them a drink. Preaching, in my belief, doesn’t work. nobody thinks they’ll make a mistake like that. i’ll do things like that at wrongcards, i just have to be careful about not doing it too often or people won’t come and it’ll be irrelevent.”

First of all, I am all about public service announcements that are intended to help others from, in this case, making a decision such as accepting a drink that you did not see made for you. However, I can still think of about a hundred different ways to go about creating a PSA that is geared towards trying to warn people of the dangers surrounding them rather than publishing an ecard that says “Wanna come back to my place for coffee and rohypnol?” on a website that prides itself on being wrong.

The people who visit that site are mostly the kind of people who find jokes about rape funny and would most definitely see the card in question as funny and then move on, rather than lay in bed, waiting to fall asleep and think back to that funny picture that they saw on that website about rohypnol and think a little more in depth about it. Most likely, the people who saw this card did think it was funny and probably sent it to their friends to get their kicks from for about five seconds before moving on to the next wrong, but equally as “funny” picture.

While the creator’s intentions may have been good and while they thought that targeting their idea on a website with high traffic would be an effective ploy to place a subtle PSA, I am going to call this one like I see it–Ineffective.

WrongCards Aren’t Only Wrong, They’re Disgusting

I came across this site a few days ago and while the website name alone should have tipped me off to the type of content I would find there, I was pretty disturbed by a few of the images that I saw.

With a name like WrongCards, sure, you can suspect that the content is going to be pretty far from politically correct, but what I found completely crossed the line from wrong to sick and disgusting.

Apparently we can add date rape to the list of things people find funny right alongside of sex criminals and being kicked in the stomach while pregnant.

However, WrongCards doesn’t stop there; they also have another card that reads “I’m still waiting to be sexually harassed.“

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 underreported 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 sport 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.