‘women’

Badass-Activist Friday presents: REGINA YAU of The Pixel Project

It’s Friday, and we all know what that means! Interviews with your favorite badass feminists and activists. Whether social media queens and kings, creative artists, sex educators, or just kick-ass personalities, these people harness righteous anger, instigate movements and inspire culture change. We’re here to honor them and their work, but more importantly, to highlight how we can all get up, plug in, and Just Start Doing.

Without further ado…

We’re presenting Regina Yau, the Founder and President of The Pixel Project!

The Pixel Project is an innovative virtual volunteer-led global non-profit organisation that uses social media and online strategies to turbo-charge global awareness about violence against women, while raising funds and volunteer power for the cause. Whoa! Without a doubt, Regina is one of our digital activism heroes. And here’s what she has to say.

1. What inspired you to create The Pixel Project?

I started The Pixel Project in response to a cry for help from Malaysia’s Women’s Aid Organisation. Their need emerged when the global financial crisis started in late 2008 and donors and funders rescinded, froze or reduced financial pledges. The National Coalition Against Domestic Violence (NCADV) who came on board a couple of months later were in the same position as WAO.

I hatched the idea in early January 2009 in the shower (yes – the shower! Archimedes was really on to something!), resulting in me rushing out to call WAO to pitch the idea while I was still dripping wet!

My motivation for getting involved with the cause is personal though. There is a history of domestic violence against the women in my mother’s family, starting with my grandmother who was a battered wife.

Starting The Pixel Project is my way of using what talents, skills and resources I have on hand to help stop the violence and, if I can, prevent other women and girls from experiencing any form of violence against women (VAW).

Also, working in this field has always been my calling. In fact, I have always been devoted to feminism and women’s issues in one way or another since I was 12!

Initially, I was on track to becoming an academic specialising in Anglophone Chinese women’s literature and women’s issues as I loved academia. However, a serious case of chicken pox derailed that career path. I ended up working in Public Relations as a way into the corporate world to hone my skills and build my network of contacts.

Eventually, I started working on women’s issues again by using my professional skills for charity work in my spare time, first doing Breast Cancer campaigns and then, finally, putting everything I have to work for The Pixel Project and the cause to end Violence Against Women when WAO came a-calling.

2. What tools did you use?

I essentially started The Pixel Project from scratch – no funds, no backers, no high profile supporters during what was – to paraphrase Charles Dickens – the best of times and the worst of times.

It was the “worst of times” for such an ambitious social enterprise because we kicked off at the height of the global recession of 2008/2009 when there was very little funding to be had. I mean, it was the reason I started The Pixel Project to begin with – because WAO and NCADV were facing a funding crisis and ironically, The Pixel Project itself needed resources in order to take off! *laughs* So I found other ways to compensate for the lack of funds.

I rolled up my sleeves and put my experience in setting up and running campaigns on little to no money to work. I structured The Pixel Project to mostly run on a combination of skilled volunteer power, donated or sponsored services and products and help from my network of contacts. Anything that needed cash such as photo shoots would be run on a shoestring budget. I wanted to prove that you can run a world-class nonprofit
organisation and first-rate global campaigns on very little cash.

That I was proven right shows that it was also the “best of times” for The Pixel Project to come into being because the time is right and ripe for the first wave of next-generation 21st century nonprofits to take off. With social media technology being free-to-use and easily accessible, increasing numbers of people getting wired up to the internet and the ascent of Web 2.0, we are an offshoot of what Forbes calls “the cheap revolution” where you can start an organisation without overhead costs – just set up shop online and you’re ready to go… and to go global with a keystroke!

So I made The Pixel Project a completely virtual non-profit social enterprise start-up using social media and other virtual and online tools to raise the triple bottom line of awareness, funds and volunteer power for the cause to end violence against women. Everything we do from our Twitter Tag Team programme to our annual “Paint It Purple” campaign is designed to take the cause to end violence against women into the 21st century. We don’t even have or need a physical office because our team members can work on our campaigns wherever they are in the world – have internet, will volunteer!

3. Did anyone say “you can’t” or question why it was useful?

Definitely. The Pixel Project started life as – and still is – an idea and vision with a scope so ambitious that many people who didn’t know me doubted my ability to bring it to fruition. In a way, I don’t blame the early naysayers for their take on it. To them, I was an “unknown quantity”, and The Pixel Project started with no funding, no celebrities signed up, no high profile partners or no Big Corporate backers.

Now, after two years of successful digital and hybrid digital/offline programmes and the Celebrity Male Role Model Pixel Reveal campaign just about ready to launch as I write this, early critics have largely been silenced or have become staunch allies. Now, we face those who loudly and vehemently criticise us for our laser-like focus on violence against women. They are the usual suspects who attack anyone working to make women’s lives better.

Funnily enough, we are rarely questioned as to whether our digital advocacy is useful. It’s probably a sign that unless you have been living under a rock during the past 5 years, the typical person on the street with internet access will have seen, heard of and probably participated in one form of digital activism or another be it signing an online petition or helping to take a Facebook campaign viral.

4. How did you respond?

With the early naysayers, I just thought: “Watch me!” in response to their cynicism, and got on with what I set out to do with The Pixel Project. I’m a pretty determined person and I really believed in The Pixel Project and so I just went with my gut feeling and pushed forward with plenty of sheer grit, strategic thinking, hard work and chutzpah.

You have to pick your battles. My priority is channelling my energies and my team’s energies towards building The Pixel Project and its work to prevent, stop and end violence against women. So my team and I have always tried to the other cheek to vitriol, and just relentlessly keeping our eye on the ball. We are here for our mission to raise the triple bottom line of funds, awareness and volunteer power for the cause, and to get men and women from all walks of life and all over the world working together to end violence against women. Nothing more, nothing less.

This is not to say that we do not defend our work but we feel that the best way forward is to be relentlessly positive and constructive, and to build a formidable body of programmes, initiatives and campaigns that effectively contribute towards preventing, stopping and ending violence against women.

The proof of the pudding is, after all, in the eating.

5. What impact has PP had, how do you measure, can you share some of your
favourite responses?

The Pixel Project is still a very young non-profit and we are still gathering momentum for the very long journey towards ending violence against women. Indeed, we are just setting up or had just completed the pilot of campaigns and initiatives that we hope will either be held annually or be ongoing. So in a sense, it is a little early to provide accurate, tangible measurements of the impact that we are working to achieve.

Nevertheless, while we continue to work hard towards fulfilling the triple bottom line of raising awareness, funds and volunteer power for the cause, we have had some surprising feedback. To our supporters, survivors and fellow activists and nonprofits, our positive, solutions-based approach means that the biggest impact on their lives is to give them hope in the long battle to end violence against women.

For survivors, it is the hope that they can come out of abusive and/or traumatic violent situations intact, that they can get help and that their voice matters.

For our supporters, our efforts give them hope that there is help out there should they or the women in their lives need it. Hope also comes from the fact that we provide them with so many opportunities to contribute to the cause.

For fellow activists and nonprofits, we keep hope alive that the younger generations (most of us working on The Pixel Project are in our early twenties to mid-thirties) can and will continue the cause to end violence against women.

Hope is an intangible, abstract notion. You can’t measure it. Yet it is a positive galvanising force that helps people keep going for this very tough cause which has a long way to go. That we have achieved this impact so early in our existence as a change organisation is amazing!

As for my favourite responses, there are so many! Some of the ones that stand out include:

- A couple of our staunch supporters, one of whom is a long time volunteer on our
team, getting our ribbon tattooed on their ankles to remind them that they will
never again let a man hurt them.

- A dedicated informal group of followers on Twitter devoted to re-tweeting every single helpline we tweet during our daily helpline retweet session.

-A domestic violence survivor who emailed The Pixel Project team to tell us that our work has empowered her to begin sharing her story and speaking up so other battered women can break free of their abusers.

6. What is your hope for the future of the project? (and humanity!)

It is my hope that The Pixel Project will continue to steadily mature into an independent and sustainable non-profit social enterprise that continuously leads the way with fresh, workable ideas that will be the engine behind digital and technology initiatives,programmes and campaigns that will help end violence against women by:

- Growing a strong, united, and vibrant network of partners comprising nonprofits working to end violence against women and our allies across other sectors. We really do mean it when we say that “it’s time to stop violence against women. Together”. Nobody can do it alone because of the complexity, scope and entrenched nature of the issue.

- Changing public perception of the cause from a negative one focused on the ugliness of the social ills we are battling into a positive one focused on putting solutions into practice and empowering communities to take action.

- Galvanising action to prevent, stop and end violence against women by providing inspiration to act and creating opportunities for anybody in the world in fun yet effective ways.

I truly believe that The Pixel Project’s work is done when organisations like us are no longer needed – that will the day when violence against women and girls has been truly eradicated. In the meantime, we are here for the long haul.

As for humanity, despite having to face the ugliness of violence against women, I maintain an unwavering belief that most people are good people who want to help. They just need a nudge, a roadmap and an opportunity to get engaged and get involved with the cause. It may sound idealistic but we lose nothing by believing in the best of humanity. Gandhi expressed it best when he said: “You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.”

For more, follow The Pixel Project on twitter.

Badass-Activist Friday presents: SADY DOYLE of Tiger Beatdown

2.4.11 Trisha | 2 Comments »

Dear Readers, Happy Friday!

The WIYL blog is kicking off an all-new series of interviews with your favorite badass feminists and activists. Whether social media queens and kings, creative artists, sex educators, or just kick-ass personalities, these people harness righteous anger, instigate movements and inspire culture change. We’re here to honor them and their work, but more importantly, to highlight how we can all get up, plug in, and Just Start Doing.

Without further ado…

One of the most relentless and passionate voices on the Internet, blogger extraordinaire and twitter activist Sady Dole of Tiger Beatdown!

You’re one of our favorite, most unapologetic and opinionated bloggers. Can you talk a little about what made you start Tiger Beatdown, voice your opinions with such conviction, and what challenges that might have posed you in the course of your work?

Aww, thanks! Tiger Beatdown started the way most blogs start: I had a lot of things to say every day, and didn’t think the people in my life would be interested. It was pretty common for people to make fun of me, even just affectionately, for being “too feminist.” But I needed a place to be as feminist as I wanted. As more people started to read the blog, I felt more empowered to take my opinions seriously and value them and voice them loudly. Now, people still make fun of me for being too feminist, and there are still moments when I feel insecure about being accepted socially or professionally because of that, but the people who make the jokes are also aware that they can’t freaking stop me. There’s a different tone to the jokes now, because I’m not the one who’s feeling threatened.

In the past two months, you have launched two Twitter campaigns — #DearJohn and #Mooreandme — defending the rights of rape victims, illuminating how bogus and dangerous a redefinition of rape will be, demanding justice, accountability and making some serious noise. What happened as a result? Were/are they successful? Why twitter?

I think in terms of #MooreandMe, our impact on the narrative looks pretty small, but it was profound. There are no longer stories about how these women have to be lying, stories which openly seek to discredit them without a trial; Naomi Wolf is no longer saying that an unconscious person can give consent. People are still minimizing the charges, and there’s still a false dichotomy being put forth, that you can either support WikiLeaks or believe Assange might be guilty, but not both; anyone who doesn’t say Assange is innocent is still accused of saying he’s guilty. And the charges are still being downplayed by the press. But we stopped the very worst manifestations.

The thing is, with #DearJohn, we’re challenging the exact same misconceptions that informed the Assange case: The idea that rape has to be “forcible” in order to be rape. People who couldn’t wrap their heads around the idea that coercion or unconsciousness equaled non-consent in the Assange case are now shouting from the rooftops that unconsciousness and coercion equal non-consent, in order to oppose the GOP. It’s a little irritating, but I’ll take it.

Twitter was an instinctive choice for #MooreandMe, because it made the target of the protest accessible and ensured that he could hear us. But I liked it as a medium for #DearJohn too, because it was really equalizing, it wasn’t hierarchical, it ensured that voices and perspectives could influence the conversation regardless of how well-connected or well-known they were, and it was a very visible, trackable way to register dissent.

And that has to do with the other major accomplishment of these campaigns, in my opinion: We’ve mobilized sexual assault survivors, and made them a powerful base. I’ve gotten so many letters from survivors about how these protests made them feel like they could finally speak up, and gave them hope that their concerns actually mattered. Instead of being silent or divided, survivors are speaking up and exercising political and cultural power, as a group. Which is really impressive. I like the idea of the people in power being intimidated by rape survivors, and having to take them into account when they make decisions. That really brings me great joy, just to contemplate it.

Do you speak to a specific/target audience, or do you speak mostly for yourself, with the responses you receive as a side effect?

I try to be as inclusive of as many people as possible, while also not speaking for anyone else. I try to listen as closely as I can to legitimate criticism, because I’m not useful or interesting when I speak only to my own concerns, but I also can’t say what it’s like to be a woman of color in this society, or a lesbian, or a trans woman, so everything I write comes specifically from me and my base of knowledge. I do like getting responses. I even like getting critical responses, if they’re smart. And as I’ve grown, I’ve become more focused on who I’m serving, and not just on my own need for self-expression. Sometimes I don’t want to talk about rape at all, but I still think people need to hear it. So it’s my job to drag my ass to the computer and repeat the basics about why rape is bad, again.

What do you think is the most harmful gender stereotype out there and what’s the best way to combat this? Humour plays a large part in your writing – are these things related?

I mean, there are so many. If you speak about sexism, you’re a bitch. Or you’re a whiner. Or you’re making things up, you’re delusional. You’re too serious; your issues aren’t serious enough. You’re too intimidating; you’re too weak. Everyone’s a winner. I definitely make jokes, sometimes just to keep the posts interesting and because it’s how I talk, but also because it’s hard to call someone an over-serious bitch or a weak, hypersensitive whiner when she’s got a big shit-eating grin on her face. If you’re clearly laughing, it doesn’t even matter if anyone else thinks you’re funny; you’re not coming from a defensive position any more.

You’re also one of the most committed online feminist activists out there – what keeps you committed and motivated to keep catalysing change? What movements inspire you?

I just have this really serious problem with not being listened to. I don’t accept it. If I know I’m right, then I just get louder and more persistent as more and more people disagree with me. Sometimes it’s not even because I think I’ll win; I just do it to annoy people. I don’t think it’s a gift. I think it’s just my innate obnoxiousness. Did you not hear me talking? I’ll yell. Did you not hear me yelling? I’ll get a megaphone. Did you not hear me with the megaphone? I’ll stand over your bed at night and aim my megaphone directly into your ear. DO YOU WANT ME TO SHUT UP? HOW ABOUT NOW?

I’m always keeping my eyes open, and trying to stay tapped into all the vital stuff that young feminists are doing, especially online. I read a ton of blogs every day, just to get a sense of what people are thinking and talking about; it helps me, not just as a writer, but as someone who is hopefully serving a community when I organize. Even if I see something that irritates me, or something I disagree with, it informs what I WON’T do, next time I’m planning a similar action. What energizes me is not so much any particular movement, but the fact of so many movements and individuals in dialogue with each other, particularly online.

Is there anything you’d like to say that we haven’t asked — ?

I would just like to remind readers that they’re powerful enough to do this sort of organizing themselves. The key is to reach out to each other and work together. #MooreandMe involved a whole lot of people, but I wasn’t taking steps to delegate anything to anybody, so I actually felt really isolated and drained and martyred. I felt alone, when actually I was surrounded by people who wanted to help, and some (like my co-blogger, Garland Grey) who were taking key roles in the protest.

With #DearJohn, I actually took the time to talk to everybody I knew, and to draw in people I didn’t even know that well, so that they could to serve vital functions within the protest. The result is that I feel empowered, I feel like part of the community, I’m doing better work, and I have a ton of people to talk to and learn from as we form strategy and talking points and such. One of the strengths of the political Internet, which a movement like #MooreandMe or #DearJohn makes clear, is that there are so many great voices and so many ways for people to connect and influence each other. So if you see something that you think you have to oppose, use your voice to speak up against it, and try to get any friends or sympathetic people in your online space involved as well. The way you go from a blogger to a person building a movement is simple: You say, “hey, I want to build a movement, who’s interested?” And when they’re interested, you start talking to them, and then you start to move.

For more, visit Deanna Zandt’s Guide to the #DearJohn campaign and Sady’s Resources for the Digital Activist. For background on the #DearJohn movement, read Amanda Marcotte and Sady.

Remember, getting pissed off is good. Channel it, get inspired and we’ll move with you. You can start by signing the Petition to stop HR3 here.

another kind of coercion.

2.1.11 Rachel | 3 Comments »

If a boy doesn’t respect me for recovering from anorexia, and instead uses my insecurities in his game, he’s crossed my line!

The thing is, finding a guy who respects me for the person I am today – a recovered anorexic – and who is proud of everything I have achieved, is really hard to come by.

I’ll be the first to admit that anorexia is an illness that is very difficult to comprehend. I would understand why a guy couldn’t deal with an anorexic girlfriend – but recovery is something I’m proud of. I was discharged from outpatient care in 2009; I have been an ambassador for Beat (the national charity in the UK for eating disorders) since September 2005. I speak about my eating disorder as honestly as I can in order to raise awareness of eating disorders as a symptom of unachievable standards of female sexuality and beauty. So my question is if I am not ashamed of my anorexia, why are other people?

I’ve been with a boy, only to find out he had joked about my anorexia behind my back to his friends.

I’ve had boys I’ve dated tell me they think they can be the one to ‘change’ me.

But most of all, I have had boyfriends – guys I have trusted, even one I was even in love with – play on the insecurities I still have and use them to their advantage. By refusing me compliments and speaking instead of all the other girls who were sexually interested in him, my ex began to chip away at my self esteem until I did everything he wanted – I didn’t like saying no to him; I didn’t want to lose him. To emotionally manipulate me because of these insecurities around body image was simply his way of coercing consent.

Never again will I waste my time on a guy who plays on my insecurities to his advantage or a guy who thinks anorexia is a big joke. These boys crossed my line and no one’s ever going to do it again.

Labels Are For Soup Cans

1.25.11 Jordana | No Comments »

I am a woman. But what does that possibly mean in this modern society? What defines me? Is it my affiliations: political, religious, and social? Is it my race, body type, education, or socioeconomic standing? How can anyone ever truly define womanhood in any era, let alone in ours with the insistence of being smart, strong, gentle, and outwardly beautiful? Is womanhood ever going to be anything more than a system of applied labels from the outside world?

I am a Jewish woman. Generally when people hear that they will ask “what kind?” As if my desert wandering ancestry is somehow differentiated by which synagogue I attend. The answer is the Jewish kind. I have experiences in all levels of practice, I don’t fit a mold or a sub-type.

I am a liberal woman particularly when it comes to social politics. I believe in a society that believes in the greater good and helping the poor advance. According to some conservative cable news station, that may make me Hitler. Ironic, since I am also Jewish. However, economically – I am not sure where I stand. There is some value to conservative political economic ideas of what to do with our nations growing deficit.

I am a sorority woman. Specifically, a member of a Panhellenic Sorority. That’s one of the big 26. The ones you think of when you think Elle Woods from Legally Blonde . Depending on your campus experience you may immediately associate me with many stereotypes of vapid party girls, who are only interested in chasing Frat Boys, binge drinking, and tanning. However, in my house there was a large emphasis on women’s campus leadership, charity work, and academics, in addition to the social life. Yes, there were matching tee shirts and Rush songs, but those were small parts of a larger experience. Thinking of me as a Sorority Girl may lead you to label me inaccurately.

So, why am I writing about this here? The thing is, I don’t label myself feminist and I owe it to you to explain further. Yes, this blog is certainly feminist. Books I have read are feminist. I have worked for both the Institute for Women’s Research and Sexual Assault Services on my campus. I am never shy to express my views on gender roles, hetero-normative culture, beauty myths; the thin ideal, and general stereotyping of women. I certainly do not like the idea of being boxed in because of my gender.

Just like being labeled a Sorority Girl can lead others to an image of bleach blonde drunken sluts, being labeled a feminist can conjure images of angry man hating protesters. These images create dividing lines: what kind of woman is the appropriate woman to be, when can you be her, and where? And if I am not her – am I worth your time?

I am a woman, and that doesn’t include a laundry list of outwardly applied labels. Being victimized isn’t a sorority girl at a party thing. Consenting to sex isn’t a feminist thing. Equal, pleasurable, involved consented upon participation is a woman thing. It’s a man thing. It’s a partners in pleasurable sex thing. And labels don’t have anything to do with that.

MPAA & Blue Valentine.

1.21.11 Caroline | 2 Comments »

When Blue Valentine managed to get its NC-17 rating reduced to an R-rating, everyone breathed a sigh of relief. For a second it seemed as though the MPAA realized that its ratings system, which routinely awards violent films PG-13 ratings, but slapped Blue Valentine with an NC-17 rating for a single scene depicting a woman receiving oral sex, is highly hypocritical. But the rating was reduced and so all is well!

…but it’s not, really, is it? As sexologist Dr. Logan Levkoff points out, we live in a culture in which violence, and especially violence towards women, is tolerated to the point that it becomes white noise. Meanwhile, sex remains a taboo topic.

A quick survey of the MPAA film rating system confirms that any nudity or swearing used in a “sexually oriented” manner immediately bumps a film’s rating to R, and it’s sex that bumps it to NC-17 nine times out of ten. As Twitter user @nevpierce put it, “Saw 3D has a woman bisected by buzzsaw. Blue Valentine has a woman orgasm by oral sex. Guess which the US censor will allow teens to see…”

So while the triumph of Blue Valentine’s reduced rating is certainly a victory (and we found a new feminist hero in Ryan Gosling as he publicly slammed the NC-17 rating), the fact that it needed to be reduced at all is indicative of a dangerous double standard in our media. A woman enjoying oral sex received an NC-17 rating while we constantly see men enjoying the same in R or even PG-13 rated movies. And while Black Swan also includes a woman receiving oral sex, the scene (SPOILER) is presented as the product of a fragmented mind. The fact that it was also a woman-on-woman scene perhaps sensationalized it to the point that the MPAA could pretend it wasn’t as “realistic” (…how ratings treat homosexuality could be a post all its own).

What it comes down to is this: media’s representation of people enjoying sex is so skewed towards men that it’s immediately considered problematic when women are portrayed as sexual beings. A woman’s naked body gives a film an R-rating, but a woman (even clothed) enjoying sex can land a film in the no man’s land that is NC-17.

Further, it’s this kind of sexist, terrified-of-women-enjoying-sex stigma that can lead to sexual assault. When we are fetishized as objects but not allowed to enjoy our sexuality in media, we feel the ramifications in our daily lives. It’s high time our media reflects reality, and allows women to be fully-fleshed, sexual beings instead of the sexualized object the MPAA clearly prefers.

Giving Girls Choices Around the World

1.19.11 Bryce | No Comments »

You’ve probably heard of the Girl Effect. It’s the name of a project that the Nike Foundation started in 2008. There’s been quite a lot of press coverage. Big names like Larry Summers, Joseph Stiglitz and Paul Farmer have endorsed the concept. The buzz is about data that shows when a developing country invests in young girls, the economic benefits multiply. Give her an education and she’ll start a business, then invest her money in her village and improve their lives while proving that girls are valuable (and making room for more girls to be like her). Data also shows that giving women money has greater benefits than giving it to men – “when women and girls earn income, they reinvest 90 percent of it into their families, as compared to only 30 to 40 percent for a man,” according to The Girl Effect’s fact sheet. The amount of attention focused on the need to invest in women’s education and well-being is almost astonishing and incredibly important. These have been ignored for too long.

But as an Aid Watch blogger pointed out, there are some flaws amid the hype. The project relies on the notion that women are good investments because they are inherently more nurturing and inclined to take care of others. But why are we not addressing “the structural factors that underlie men’s apparent disinterest in the health and education of their children?” Aid Watch asks. Why reinforce the stereotypes of women as caretakers and men as negligent without examining why these roles are so rigid? And by focusing on economic growth as the end goal, as opposed to gender equality in and of itself, it ignores some important issues. Aid Watch points out, “The greatest subordination felt by women is within their own home, yet the girl effect has nothing to say about domestic violence, rape, the wage gap, or the many other systemic problems.”

Perhaps, then, one of the best ways we can empower young girls is to focus on giving them viable choices about sex, not just on how well they take care of others. Give them contraception so that they can choose when and how often to get pregnant. As noted in Half the Sky, a recent book by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl Wudunn, “122 million women around the world want contraception and can’t get it… up to 40 percent of all pregnancies globally are unplanned or unwanted.” Rather than rely on her to spread her money among many children, give her contraception and she has a better chance of controlling the size of her family and spacing out her pregnancies. Then she can make her money go further and have more agency over her own life. According to the Guttmacher Institute, reducing unplanned pregnancies gives girls more educational and employment opportunities while reducing public sector spending. (Not to mention that condoms save lives. Talk about economic benefits – it costs only $3.50 a year to save a life through distributing condoms and preventing HIV, versus $1,033 to save her life through a treatment program once she has AIDS, according to Half the Sky.) Westerners can help this cause while making the choice to have safe sex themselves by buying Sir Richards Condoms, which will donate a condom to a non-profit in the developing world for every condom they sell. Now that’s a real girl effect!

We also have to address the issues of rape, child marriage and other ways in which women are not in control of their sexual choices. Many women (in developed and developing countries alike) live in an environment that doesn’t value their choices about when and how they want to have sex. Just as it is important to focus at home on combating rape, global aid can help fight the forces that lead to it elsewhere. For example, The Girl Effect rightly focuses on giving girls an education, many of whom aren’t allowed or are unable to attend school. But it’s also important to educate boys about their responsibilities to respect women and their bodies and to educate all about safe and consensual sex.

Meanwhile, these projects depend on the stereotype that women in developing countries need to be saved. As Aid Watch points out, the video invites First World citizens to “fix” the lives of Third World women. “This message gives more agency to Westerners than to the girls it claims to be empowering,” the blog says. Why do we assume we know what they “need” more than they do? Western activists and aid workers have to acknowledge that those who are best able to address their problems are the women themselves. This is why it may be most helpful to focus on giving women as many choices as possible – give her the opportunity to control her reproduction so she can dictate her own life path. There’s clearly a demand for it.

Addressing these concerns means putting a woman’s well-being and equality first. It’s fantastic that empowering women has extra benefits. But it can’t be the only reason we work toward women’s rights around the world. Making sure that women have agency over their lives – particularly over their sexuality – is job number one.

Pop-cultural change: from within!

1.12.11 Caroline | 1 Comment »

me senior ball

Hi everyone, I’m Caroline! I like pop culture, popsicles, blogging, biting wit and/or commentary, television and talking…pretty much equally.

My senior year at Smith College was dominated by papers with titles like, “Internalized Sexism and Wedding Crashers” and “Phenomena and Hysteria: The Beatles and Twilight” no matter what the subject…which was when I realized that my passion wasn’t so much in translating Chaucer a la my English major. Instead, I love to dissect popular culture such as celebrity gossip, television and social media, and I want to change it from within.

I heard about The Line through my job blogging and doing social media at Women’s Media Center and for SPARK Summit. I immediately loved it. Though the concept of drawing the line in a sexual situation seems like a no-brainer, we live in a culture that constantly has sexual assault, aggression and rape as punchlines to jokes that are never funny, and should never be made.

Is it funny when your friends’ boyfriends feel entitled to sex anytime anywhere? Is it funny when you wake up to some guy on top of you and you have to wonder what would have happened if you were more tired? Is it funny when it’s late and you want to leave but the person you’re with is stronger and insistent? Never. But I can’t count the amount of times I’ve heard about these situations…or seen them play out in movies or television with a sexy soundtrack or laugh track not far behind.

Hopefully, you’ll see my name on the credits of a hilarious and progressive TV show in the future, but for now I’m so excited to be blogging for The Line! You can also follow me on my Twitter, or join the feminist chat I run for @womensmediacntr, #sheparty (Wednesdays, 3-6 pm EST). Let’s get this dialogue going!

hollaback looking for badass bloggers!

1.11.11 Trisha | 1 Comment »

Consider blogging for our friends& sisters-in-arms Hollaback!

“Hollaback embodies all that is strong, powerful, and badass about being a woman today, and reflects a global female solidarity that knows no racial, age, or geographical boundaries. As such, we seek three men or women who can represent and illustrate these values in written form.

Selected writers need to be able to commit to blogging a minimum of twice per week about key stories and milestones in the anti-harassment movement in a voice that is bold and street harassment savvy.

Interested candidates should submit a sample piece for publication by February 10, 2011 on a topic that you feel is important, timely, and of interest to Hollaback readers. Accompanying your piece should be a brief description of you, why the anti-harassment movement is important to you, and how you represent a unique voice.

Bloggers will be selected for diversity of voice and quality of writing and can hail from anywhere in the world. To submit your sample piece and accompanying information, please email everything in the body of an email to violet@ihollaback.org.”

Nation Mourns, Looks for Answers Following Tragedy in Tucson

1.11.11 Miranda | 3 Comments »

A vigil outside Rep. Gabrielle Giffords' office in Tucson. From the Christian Science Monitor

I’m from Tucson, Arizona. This is not something I readily admit to people, especially those I meet for the first time here in Chicago. This is mainly because I don’t want anyone to assume I’m a racist, homophobic, gun-toting, birther meth addict just because my state (like many others) is widely criticized for housing a fair number of ‘em. In fact, by and large, Tucson is far more politically moderate than most of the rest of Arizona. So when I sat down with a cup of tea to read the news on Saturday, my stomach hit the floor.

Twenty-two year old Jared Loughner opened fire at a community event in a grocery store parking lot not far from my neighborhood in Tucson on Saturday afternoon, killing six people and wounding 14 others. Among those killed are Judge John Roll and a nine-year-old girl with the face of a little angel. Democratic Rep. of Arizona, Gabrielle Giffords, was shot in the head and is alive and in critical condition, at the same hospital where my nephew was born. She is the third woman in Arizona’s history to be elected to Congress. Loughner was apprehended at the scene and was charged with attempted assassination in court on Monday. Apparently, he went to Pima Community College (PCC), where my brother is earning his degree. In September, Loughner was suspended for multiple disruptive incidents leading to campus police intervention. At the time, PCC recommended that Loughner “obtain a mental health clearance indicating, in the opinion of a mental health professional, his presence at the College does not present a danger to himself or others.” No word yet on how that panned out or why the recommendation didn’t come with a court order.

In the wake of violence, it’s natural and understandable for people to search for reasons why someone would do such a thing. Following an inappropriate but understandably heated comment from Sheriff Clarence Dupnik, many writers and radio hosts are blaming “toxic” rhetoric from the political right. In the New York Times, Paul Krugman wrote that the vitriolic language and escalating tension from the far right is at fault for inciting violence.

Last spring Politico.com reported on a surge in threats against members of Congress, which were already up by 300 percent. A number of the people making those threats had a history of mental illness — but something about the current state of America has been causing far more disturbed people than before to act out their illness by threatening, or actually engaging in, political violence.

Krugman names Glenn Beck and Bill O’Reilly as potential culprits. Others have highlighted Sarah Palin’s use of that problematic target graphic. In an article for The Guardian, Jessica Valenti points out that this persistent rhetoric of violence in politics is a cornerstone of our culture’s obsession with violent masculinity. It’s clear that eliminationist rhetoric has skyrocketed in the U.S. since swaggery man’s man George W. Bush employed such charmingly medieval epithets as “evildoers” and “crusade” to justify war and, as Susan Faludi demonstrates, exploited our country’s Puritanical ideals about the gendered roles of protector and dependent to pursue it with such zeal.

But as long as we’re identifying potential causes of violence, I think we also need to take a closer look at the culpability of broader systems that continually fail to provide adequate and widely accessible mental health care to people in need. Let’s talk about the estimated four million Americans who are believed to have severe psychiatric disorders. Let’s talk about how few of them have emotional support from friends or family, and how when they turn to the state for help, they get stuck in a revolving door and usually come out empty-handed. Let’s talk about the serious lack of federal funding for mental and behavioral health. Or the fact that, even if you have insurance, odds are it won’t cover mental health. Or, you know, we could talk about how the American Dream is sort of crumbling under the reality of our recession, and maybe the pressure is weighing on some people more heavily than others. Let’s ask how many missed opportunities there were to keep Loughner from hurting these people.

It’s easy to blame sensationalists like Palin, Beck and O’Reilly for extreme behavior. But obviously not everyone who listens to them will take a semi-automatic weapon on a murderous rampage. It’s easy to label Loughner a “nutjob” and tuck him away under maximum security somewhere. Then we can just forget about him since he’ll no longer be a threat to society — that’s what we do with criminals, “out of sight, out of mind,” right? It’s a lot harder to assess the serious flaws in those institutions responsible for providing the kinds of social services that prevent violence from happening in the first place. Doing so requires massive policy reform and fundamental soul-searching in the ways our country treats those afflicted with mental illness.

Krugman also writes,

The vast majority of those who listen to that toxic rhetoric stop short of actual violence, but some, inevitably, cross that line.

I have a serious problem with calling an incomprehensible tragedy like this “inevitable”, even if it’s to make a broader political point with which I might agree. Sorry, no, this was not inevitable. I will say it again and again and again: Violence is never inevitable. Watch the news in the next couple of days: we will start hearing reports from friends and family lamenting early warning signs, maybe we’ll hear about the bureaucratic red tape Loughner may have faced if he did seek help. I am personally very distraught about the shooting, as I’m sure are many of our readers. But this violence was absolutely, 100 percent preventable. As we learn more details about the circumstances surrounding that day, I encourage readers to think carefully and critically about the failed systems that allow Loughner and others to fall through the cracks. As always, I encourage readers to challenge the ways in which our culture facilitates and contributes to acts of violence, and I encourage readers to promote positive social change.

Please send your thoughts and prayers to those whose lives have been impacted by this tragedy. If you are inspired to make a positive gesture at this time, Rep. Giffords’ husband has suggested making a charitable donation to one of her favorite charities. If you are thinking about hurting yourself or someone else, or if you’re in crisis and need help, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255). If you’d like to share any thoughts or personal experiences with mental health services, please do so in the comments — this is a safe space, we value and welcome your input.

Empowering young leaders to end sexual violence.

‘women’

Badass-Activist Friday presents: REGINA YAU of The Pixel Project

Badass-Activist Friday presents: SADY DOYLE of Tiger Beatdown

another kind of coercion.

MPAA & Blue Valentine.

Giving Girls Choices Around the World

hollaback looking for badass bloggers!

Nation Mourns, Looks for Answers Following Tragedy in Tucson

All Posts Tagged ‘women’

search our site

Goodies

Subscribe

archives