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Permalink Reply by Melanie Coffee on February 14, 2013 at 10:30am

You're right and that's why I spoke up. Who knows who my story could touch. :)

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Permalink Reply by Kerry Moynihan on February 14, 2013 at 7:08am

This is from a blog from which I recently created:

Yes, it is in fact true that I created this blog for one reason and one reason only: to describe my immense grief for the way that women are treated in this world, the ways we are depicted through slang words, the way we ourselves seem to give our lives to men--and, unfortunately, with the levels of uncontrollable testosterone that the male human being contains, they will take the recognition of being superior to a female at any opportunity.

I may only be 17 years old, but I've learned many things through the short time period in which I've been aware of exactly how women and men both seemingly work--so different physically and emotionally, yet so alike in the aspect that both the male and female sex are humans. For whatever reason, men have found superiority over women, and, whether you want to believe it's through intelligence, sexuality, physical ability or all of the following, male superiority MUST be abolished in the liberal media and the world.

Fellow girls and women, there is not any piece of us in which we owe to a man. Even the men who we may feel we love we owe nothing to. Emotionally, physically, you name it, we owe them nothing. In fact, if anything, men owe us more respect for the way we have been portrayed in the media. Women are used in the media as an asset, to arouse the male population, create pornography (which denounces our womanhood because our bodies are in fact being used to make money) and allow men to see themselves in a more dominant form, with women constantly being depicted as having an only purpose to "hook up" with men in liberal TV shows. I believe personally that this is what allows men to believe that they can freely sexually and physically harass women.

Females all around the world: we are beautiful, strong, and capable. We do not need a man to make us happy, and we are not inferior to the male human being. We are in fact immensely stronger than them emotionally (and even physically if we truly wanted to be), and we are capable of keeping them from abusing us emotionally and physically. We do not deserve any of that. Ever.

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Permalink Reply by Krissa Lagos on February 14, 2013 at 8:56am

Very well put, Kerry, thank you!

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Permalink Reply by Shannon Drury on February 14, 2013 at 8:15am

I wrote a post on my blog, The Radical Housewife, called "Wonder women rising."  Enjoy!

http://theradicalhousewife.com/2013/02/wonder-women-rising/

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Permalink Reply by Krissa Lagos on February 14, 2013 at 8:59am

Wonderful post, Shannon, thank you. Really inspiring.

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Permalink Reply by Shannon Drury on February 14, 2013 at 2:51pm

Thank YOU Krissa, for being sure that She Writers were aware of this important issue.  

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Permalink Reply by Marisa Labozzetta on February 14, 2013 at 9:51am

This is a version of a piece just published in VOICE MALE (Winter, 2013, p. 39) that will also be available online later this week.

Calling All Men to Join Women in Ending Violence

 

            I recently read about a report pointing to a dramatic rise in rapes of women and girls in Somalia, where severe drought and famine have killed tens of thousands of people and forced countless more, especially females, into refugee camps notorious for rape and female brutality. I am particularly sensitive to this issue; I spent several years researching and writing an historical novel, Sometimes It Snows in America, about a Somali princess I came to personally know quite well. She had suffered domestic abuse in her native land, and much more in the United States.

 

            “I resent that every time I pass a woman in the street, she regards me with suspicion, like I want to drag her into an alley. She hates me just because I’m a man, my husband said to me one day about twenty years ago, when the news of rape of females ranging from young children to old woman was being used as a form of warfare from the Balkans to the Sudan, when the world began to acknowledge that the violation of women had indeed always been a side effect of male aggression from grassroots revolutionary movements to wide scale military invasions and occupations.

 

            A brutal rape and beating of a twenty-eight-year-old woman in Central Park made daily headlines around the same time my husband became despondent;  just about the time a young intern at the Federal Bureau of Prisons, Chandra Levy, disappeared in Rock Creek Park.

 

            In 2000, western Massachusetts, where I live, saw its share of horrific crimes against women. Sixteen-year-old Molly Bish from rural Warren was abducted and murdered while working as a lifeguard. Nearby, a nine-year-old girl was abducted and murdered while walking to a neighbor’s home to see new puppies, and yet another twelve-year-old while riding her bike in the Berkshires. And in the city of Springfield, female drug addicts were being assaulted and killed by a serial rapist. Anger, resentment, and fear indeed spread to my hometown of Northampton—so filled with capable women the entrance to the parking garage sports the city’s slogan, where the coffee is strong and so are the women. That year my twelve-year-old daughter and I attended a course on self-defense for women at the YMCA.

 

            We women are used to living with fear. We are taught early to be street-smart. To walk close to the curb and traffic, away from alleys, car keys positioned between each finger, poised for attack to a male throat, high heels ready to stomp on the accessible and more fragile metatarsals of the foot, knees prepared to aim at a man’s groin and hit him where it really hurts. To survey the area around our car when returning to a parking garage or lot. To peek into the backseat of a vehicle, making sure no one is lying on the car floor, before entering. To take the elevator rather than the lonely stairwell. “If a man tries to get into your car, just step on the gas and run him over,” my father told me when I learned to drive. “And don’t look back,” he added. “Don’t trust anyone, not even your uncles,” my mother said when I was a little girl, having certain family members in mind but covering all bases.

 

            When I lived in Washington, DC, I signed up for a self-defense program for women. “Only when the knife is at your throat, when the gun at your head is cocked, should you try to fight. Otherwise, just submit and hope he doesn’t kill you, because 9 out of 10 times, you’ll never be able to fight him off. In fact, your efforts will only enrage him,” were the male instructor’s parting words after six sessions of drilling numerous karate like maneuvers. Yes, we women enter the boot camp of self protection at an early age and live with the fear of being overpowered by the physically stronger sex forever.

 

            But what about the kind, gentle, pro-feminist males like my husband, the fathers, brothers, boyfriends, and sons who do not act violently to other men, let alone women? Why should they bear the stigma of the ugly male? Why should they be made objects of cynical looks cast by women who take a step away from them when they cross their path on a lonely street at night? “I’m a good guy,” the men cry out. “Why should we believe you?” the women respond.

 

            I did answer my husband, the day he expressed being offended by the anti-male attitude that seemed to be hovering over him like a giant pall. “Don’t look to us to clean up this mess for you too. We women can’t do everything,” I said. “Only when you men make an effort to get the situation in hand and show that you won’t put up their bad behavior any longer, when you teach them how to act, how to respect, will men stop behaving badly.”

 

            A group of local men felt the same way and organized what is now called the Men’s Resource Center for Change, an antiviolence organization that provides support programs that help men to channel their violence and develop healthy self-awareness and meaningful personal relationships with women, children, and other men.  A version of this blog appears in the latest issue of their magazine, Voice Male (Winter 2013, p30), which chronicles the changes in men and masculinity. Still, their work, and that of organizations like them, must grow bigger and stronger.

 

            Domestic violence in the US is still the leading cause of injury to women between the ages of 15 and 44. According to a recent United Nations report, violence against women remains widespread across the world, exacerbated by traditions and customary practices that determine the way women are treated in families, places of work, and communities.

 

            Whether considering the recent gang rape of a University of Massachusetts coed in her dorm room or that of a medical student on a bus in New Delhi—whose brutal attack caused her death—it is time for all good men around the world to speak up and take action. Therefore, with greater conviction than ever I ask: Where are the Lancelots of our day? Gather together. Stand alongside your women. Change yourselves to save yourselves.

 

 

Sometimes It Snows in America (Guernica Editions) is available in paperback and as an ebook. To contact Marisa visit: www.marisalabozzetta.com

 

 

 

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Permalink Reply by Marina DelVecchio on February 14, 2013 at 11:35am

Marisa, this is an excellent post on men's roles in ridding these attitudes towards women. There are a lot of great guys out there who don't go around raping and beating up women, but this cannot be our fight alone. Men need to change their attitudes towards women. They need to stop objectifying them, because when women are dehumanized, it makes it easier for men to treat them as less than human and as an inessential objects. Glad to see that your voice is getting out there.  

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Permalink Reply by Marina DelVecchio on February 14, 2013 at 11:29am

Hi there! I own a blog called Empowering Girls and Women, and I just published a post on my site about One Billion Rising and the movement to end violence against women!

This is an excellent way to honor these organizations and to honor women!

Here's the link: http://marinagraphy.com/vday-join-billion-rising-violence-women/

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Permalink Reply by Julie Henderson on February 14, 2013 at 1:04pm

http://www.shewrites.com/profiles/blogs/feminine-rising

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Permalink Reply by Annie Finch on February 14, 2013 at 7:24pm

So glad this discussion is happening here---it's such an important and exciting day and the kind of topic that inspires me to write!  Here's the poem I wrote in honor of One Billion Rising and premiered today at the Portland, Maine event.  Love to all, Annie

http://www.shewrites.com/profiles/blogs/invocation-for-the-one-bill...

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Permalink Reply by Jennifer Simpson on February 15, 2013 at 12:36pm

I know I missed the deadline ...  but this isn't even my writing, wanted to share with you a special issue of As/Us literary journal (a space for women)  The did a V-Day issue and there is some amazing work showcased there:

http://asusjournal.org/2013/02/14/letter-from-editors-v-day-issue/

check it out.  

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