Category Archives: Feminism

Women Confronting ISIS: How to Disarm Rape as a Weapon of War | Demanding Rights, Resources & Results for Women Worldwide

Under even the harshest circumstances of brutal occupation by ISIS fighters, Iraqi and Syrian women are organizing to save lives and demand their rights. They are setting up shelters to protect women and girls, maintaining escape routes, providing humanitarian aid, advocating for international policy action, and so much more.

These women-led solutions must be spotlighted. That’s just what happened at MADRE co-sponsored symposium with locally-based Iraqi and Syrian women activists and international experts who are addressing the crisis of women’s human rights under ISIS.

via Women Confronting ISIS: How to Disarm Rape as a Weapon of War | Demanding Rights, Resources & Results for Women Worldwide.

▶ Buffy Sainte Marie – “I’m Going Home” – YouTube

Heaven isn’t so far away as people say

I got a home high in my heart

Heaven is right where I come from; I never throw it away

I know the place and I’m going home

I’m going home

I’m going home

See up there, it’s not the same

They know your name

And I’m not ashamed to need it I’m going home

I’m going home

I’m going home

You keep on knocking but

I’m not coming out of this state I’m in

I’m travellin’ right, I’m gonna get there soon

I’m standing up praying, I’m singing

Saying Heyo ha ha heyo ha hey ya

I know the way and I’m going home.

I’m going home

I’m going home

That’s where the heart can rest

The best is there

And only a fool would leave it. I’m going home

I’m going home

I’m going home

I’m going home

I been around, I been to town

Hey, where you think I learned right from wrong

And I’m going home

I’m going home

via ▶ Buffy Sainte Marie – “I’m Going Home” – YouTube.

I Am Voting With My Vagina: Hillary Clinton For President | Dame Magazine

This is not an essay about how you should vote in the next presidential election.

I believe you should vote in a way that reflects your own personal blend of what you value and what you can stomach in a presidential candidate. If that comes down to registering your support for someone who has no real chance, writing in your ideal candidate, or even staying home on election day, I respect that. Your vote is yours, and you don’t owe anyone an explanation, let alone justification, of how you decide to use it.

Me, I intend to vote with my vagina. Unapologetically. Enthusiastically. (Metaphorically, for those concerned about ending up in line behind me.) And I intend to talk about it.

**

During the 2008 Democratic primaries, I supported Hillary Clinton over Barack Obama for two main reasons:

 

She was older, which mattered to me a small amount in terms of experience, and a large amount in terms of the difference eight years would make. President Obama is younger than two of my siblings. If he ran today, at 53, he’d still be younger than most of his opponents. Hillary Clinton is now 67—in apparently great health, and willing to go through all this bullshit again, so more power to her! But now, in addition to the usual sexism coming her way, we’re about to endure 18 months of hearing what a shriveled old crone she is—and wouldn’t she be better off staying home and dandling wee Charlotte on her wrinkled knee? I was really hoping to avoid that.

She’s a woman, and President Obama is a man.

via I Am Voting With My Vagina: Hillary Clinton For President | Dame Magazine.

“Woody Allen is a genius. Woody Allen is a predator”: Why Mariel Hemingway’s new revelation matters – Salon.com

She nails Allen and the delusion many have lived with!

Woody Allen is a genius. Woody Allen is a predator. He put those two sides of himself together, hand in hand, and dared us to applaud. And we did — over and over. We all have our blind spots, but after a while, we also have to admit what we have deliberately refused to see.

via “Woody Allen is a genius. Woody Allen is a predator”: Why Mariel Hemingway’s new revelation matters – Salon.com.

Creative Hell-Raising Pledge — May My Work Be So Damn Real. | Rebelle Society

“May my work be so damn real that they cannot un-see it;

So sense-numbingly beautiful that they cannot unfeel it;

So achingly naked that they’ll never, no matter how they try, be able to return to the world unchanged.

via Creative Hell-Raising Pledge — May My Work Be So Damn Real. | Rebelle Society.

Afghan Women’s Writing Project | Farkhunda’s Force

Farkhunda, what shall I say

How to tell this endless story

From her eyes of tears

To the boldness in her face

Her injured body

I cry out with her pain

They broke her legs and hands

Yet still she stood

They pulled her silken hair

They razed her beautiful skin

Her face was bloody

They kicked her thin body

With a closed mouth

She begged with her eyes

For the sake of God

I am innocent, innocent

They uncovered her

But she still stood strong

I haven’t done anything wrong

They burned her body, could not mute her voice

They were men

Famous for bravery

Surrounding one woman

They were men

Called themselves manly Muslims

Tortured a helpless woman

Setting fire to a defenseless woman

Calling themselves patrons of Islam

They were men

Mark them forever as traitors

Those savage rioters

In the bodies of men

Farkhunda suffered and died

But her force lives on

By Sitara

via Afghan Women’s Writing Project | Farkhunda’s Force.

In One-Woman Show, Arafat Protégée Offers Personal Take on Conflict – NYTimes.com

With that story began the sold-out closing performance last week of the autobiographical one-woman show “Where Can I Find Someone Like You, Ali,” written and performed by the Palestinian writer Raeda Taha and directed by Lina Abyad at the Babel Theater in Beirut.

Ms. Taha’s show has drawn large crowds and critical acclaim since it opened here last month because of its deeply personal and often ironic take on a life shaped by the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Ms. Taha’s pedigree gives her a rare tie to the Palestinian struggle: her father was a militant killed by Israeli commandos after hijacking an airplane in 1972. Mr. Arafat then virtually adopted her and her sisters, lavishing them with gifts as the daughters of a “martyr.” As an adult, she worked as Mr. Arafat’s press secretary.

via In One-Woman Show, Arafat Protégée Offers Personal Take on Conflict – NYTimes.com.

Bertha Benz Memorial Route – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Bertha did it! She proved her husband’s work as first long distance driver and mechanic. Bertha Benz’s husband, Karl Benz, patented the first automobile designed to produce its own power in January 1886 (Reichspatent No. 37435).[3][4]

In early August 1888,[5] without her husband’s knowledge, Bertha Benz, with her sons Richard (aged 14) and Eugen (aged 15), drove in Benz’s newly constructed Patent Motorwagen No. 3 automobile, from Mannheim to her own birthplace, Pforzheim, becoming the first person to drive an automobile over more than a very short distance.[6] The distance was about 104 km (65 mi). Distances driven before this historic trip were short, being merely trials with mechanical assistants.[7][8]

via Bertha Benz Memorial Route – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.