These words are the full text of a poem by an anonymous rape survivor. Yesterday they were floated in the Reflecting Pool, with symbolic resonance, between the Lincoln and Washington Memorials in Washington, DC. The letters were put into the pool yesterday afternoon by the guerilla art movement FORCE: Upsetting Rape Culture. Over the course [...]
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International Feminism: Battling Street Harassment
Wir haben uns so an sexuelle Übergriffe jeglicher Art im Alltag gewöhnt, dass wir manchmal vergessen, uns dagegen zu wehre “We have become so accustomed to sexual assault of any kind in everyday life that we sometimes forget to defend ourselves against it.” This comes from German blogger Maike Hank who was quoted in a [...]
#HealthyLove Tweetchat on 2/11!
What makes a relationship healthy? What are the warning signs of abuse? How can you help someone you know is in an abusive relationship? If you’d like to start these conversations with yourself or someone you know, now’s the time because February is Teen Dating Violence Awareness Month. The stats show that 33% of teens in [...]
5 Ways To Use Music To End Violence Against Women
From Bob Dylan protesting for peace to Bruce Springsteen railing against Wall Street, music has always been a powerful medium for raising public awareness about the important issues of the day. Indeed, music is the original viral messaging tool as songs were one of the main ways of keeping cultural and political messages alive and [...]
Dispelling the “Super Bowl Myth”
This Sunday, millions of people will tune in to watch the Super Bowl. While it’s an exciting time for football fans across the nation—including this lifelong 49er fan—it also conjures up an old study that has been historically misquoted and misused surrounding domestic violence and the Super Bowl. There is no hard evidence to support [...]
Trigger Warning, A Documentary
“A man walks into a bar…” Every joke can be a setup for a rape joke. When rape victims turn on their TVs, they face a strong possibility of being confronted with reminders of one of the worst experiences of their lives. What’s worse, these experiences are likely to be laughed at. Rape jokes [...]
Rape Culture Fatigue
Over the last few weeks I have said the word ‘rape’ so many times I have lost count. It isn’t just the re-telling of one story; it is the telling of several stories of women and girls being treated so savagely by fellow human beings. There has been one horrific story after another of an [...]
Woman Raped by Uber Cabdriver: From New Delhi to DC, We Need Solutions to End #VAW
In December, a Yahoo! Group for DC’s Cleveland Park neighborhood, posted a message detailing a rape allegedly committed by an Uber cab driver a few days prior. According to the post a 20-year-old woman who used Uber, an “on-demand” cab service accessed via a smartphone app, was attacked, knocked unconscious, and raped by her driver after receiving a ride to her [...]
On Topic Of Rape: As Men We Mostly Don’t Know What We’re Talking About
It really didn’t have to come to this, but now that we’re here: why are we men suddenly so intent to make asses of ourselves in conversations about rape? I’m an American man — like many other American men, I was raised to believe my opinion has inherent value. Like other American men, I feel entitled [...]
Knowledge is Power: Modern Day Slavery in America
I remember sitting in church on New Year’s Eve, hearing my Pastor say, “It was on this night, 150 years ago, that slaves sat patiently waiting to hear the verdict of their freedom.” I immediately started to think about when I was enslaved. Enslaved, in 2005, in an America that is now celebrating the 150th anniversary [...]