When filling out your Christmas Cards this year...

Take one card and send it to:
A Recovering American Soldier
c/o Walter Reed National Military Medical Center
8901 Rockville Pike
Bethesda, MD 20889-5600

Over It

Eva Ensler

From: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eve-ensler/over-it_b_1089013.html

Posted: 11/11/11 04:37 PM ET

I am over rape.

I am over rape culture, rape mentality, rape pages on Facebook.

I am over the thousands of people who signed those pages with their real names without shame.

I am over people demanding their right to rape pages, and calling it freedom of speech or justifying it as a joke.

I am over people not understanding that rape is not a joke and I am over being told I don't have a sense of humor, and women don't have a sense of humor, when most women I know (and I know a lot) are really fucking funny. We just don't think that uninvited penises up our anus, or our vagina is a laugh riot.

I am over how long it seems to take anyone to ever respond to rape.

I am over Facebook taking weeks to take down rape pages.

I am over the hundreds of thousands of women in Congo still waiting for the rapes to end and the rapists to be held accountable.

I am over the thousands of women in Bosnia, Burma, Pakistan, South Africa, Guatemala, Sierra Leone, Haiti, Afghanistan, Libya, you name a place, still waiting for justice.

I am over rape happening in broad daylight.

I am over the 207 clinics in Ecuador supported by the government that are capturing, raping, and torturing lesbians to make them straight.

I am over one in three women in the U.S military (Happy Veterans Day!) getting raped by their so-called "comrades."

I am over the forces that deny women who have been raped the right to have an abortion.

I am over the fact that after four women came forward with allegations that Herman Cain groped them and grabbed them and humiliated them, he is still running for the President of the United States.

And I'm over CNBC debate host Maria Bartiromo getting booed when she asked him about it. She was booed, not Herman Cain.

Which reminds me, I am so over the students at Penn State who protested the justice system instead of the alleged rapist pedophile of at least 8 boys, or his boss Joe Paterno, who did nothing to protect those children after knowing what was happening to them.

I am over rape victims becoming re-raped when they go public.

I am over starving Somalian women being raped at the Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya, and I am over women getting raped at Occupy Wall Street and being quiet about it because they were protecting a movement which is fighting to end the pillaging and raping of the economy and the earth, as if the rape of their bodies was something separate.

I am over women still being silent about rape, because they are made to believe it's their fault or they did something to make it happen.

I am over violence against women not being a #1 international priority when one out of three women will be raped or beaten in her lifetime -- the destruction and muting and undermining of women is the destruction of life itself.

No women, no future, duh.

I am over this rape culture where the privileged with political and physical and economic might, take what and who they want, when they want it, as much as they want, any time they want it.

I am over the endless resurrection of the careers of rapists and sexual exploiters -- film directors, world leaders, corporate executives, movie stars, athletes -- while the lives of the women they violated are permanently destroyed, often forcing them to live in social and emotional exile.

I am over the passivity of good men. Where the hell are you?

You live with us, make love with us, father us, befriend us, brother us, get nurtured and mothered and eternally supported by us, so why aren't you standing with us? Why aren't you driven to the point of madness and action by the rape and humiliation of us?

I am over years and years of being over rape.

And thinking about rape every day of my life since I was 5-years-old.

And getting sick from rape, and depressed from rape, and enraged by rape.

And reading my insanely crowded inbox of rape horror stories every hour of every single day.

I am over being polite about rape. It's been too long now, we have been too understanding.

We need to OCCUPYRAPE in every school, park, radio, TV station, household, office, factory, refugee camp, military base, back room, night club, alleyway, courtroom, UN office. We need people to truly try and imagine -- once and for all -- what it feels like to have your body invaded, your mind splintered, your soul shattered. We need to let our rage and our compassion connect us so we can change the paradigm of global rape.

There are approximately one billion women on the planet who have been violated.

ONE BILLION WOMEN.

The time is now. Prepare for the escalation.

Today it begins, moving toward February 14, 2013, when one billion women will rise to end rape.

Because we are over it.

Follow Eve Ensler on Twitter: www.twitter.com/eveensler

New Film!

Hi all, Just received the following email...if you check out the film, tell me what you think!

Dear Friends,

I am excited to announce that my new film, xoxosms will be premiering at the 22^nd annual New Orleans Film Festival on Sunday October 16^th. If you will be at the festival, it will be opening for the documentary (A)Sexual at 2:20 PM at the Theaters Canal Palace, 333 Canal Street in New Orleans.

If you can’t make the festival, the film will be streaming online all weekend, starting October 14th - 17th at www.xoxosmsfilm.org

xoxosms follows the story of Gus and Jiyun, two star crossed lovers in a digital age who meet, connect, and maintain their relationship predominantly over the Internet. It raises the questions of intimacy and love, and whether or not this is possible—or in some instances better—over a digital connection.

What are your thoughts? Is there such a thing as “digital intimacy”? Can online love work in real life? What is a connection? Go to our website, watch the film and let us know what you think on Twitter, @xoxosms—don’t forget to hashtag #xoxosms. Spread the word with our Facebook invite.

Thanks, and hope to see you at the theater or on twitter using #xoxosms!

Warmly,

Nancy
--
Nancy Schwartzman
Filmmaker: xoxosms, The Line
Founder: The Line Campaign
Filmmaker. Speaker. Activist.

Sexual Victimization of Teenage Girls

From Shield Women's Self Defense-May 19, 2011


Beginning in high school environment where most physical forms of sexual violence are taking place, proactive immediate actions are needed to provide sufficient protective measures for teenage girls.

Consider the following facts:

In 2007, there were approximately 128,532 sexual assaults against girls under 18. That translate to every 4 minutes a teenage girl under 18 is sexually assaulted in the U.S.
[U.S. Department of Justice's National Crime Victimization Survey]


Age range of sexual assault and rape victims
• 15% are under age 12
• 29% are age 12-17
• 44% are under age 18
• 80% are under age 30
• 12-28 are the highest risk years.
• Girls ages 16-19 are 4 times more likely than the general population to be victims of sexual assault.
[U.S. Department of Justice. 2004 National Crime Victimization Survey. 2004]

93% of juvenile sexual assault victims know their attacker.
• 34.2% of attackers were family members.
• 58.7% were acquaintances.
• Only 7% of the perpetrators were strangers to the victim.
[U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics. 2000 Sexual Assault of Young Children as Reported to Law Enforcement. 2000]

• 43% of girls experienced unwanted sexual attention
[The Impact of Bullying and Sexual Harassment on Middle and High School Girls VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN 2007; 13; 627]


• 1 in 5 high school girls have been physically and/or sexually assaulted by a dating partner, significantly increasing their risk of drug abuse, suicide and other harmful behavior.
[Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), Maternal and Child Health Bureau, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) (2002) 5. Fact Sheet on Violence: Adolescents & Young Adults]


• 61% of 10th to 11th grader girls reported they had been physically/sexually harassed at school
[The Impact of Bullying and Sexual Harassment on Middle and High School Girls VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN 2007; 13; 627]


• 46% of teens who have experienced sexual or dating violence say the worst incident happened on school grounds or in the school building.
[KCSARC teens&adolecents updated 2007]


• Girls and women between the ages of 16 and 24 experience the highest rates of intimate partner violence and rape.
[Callie Marie Rennison (2001). Intimate partner violence and age of victim, 1993-1999. Washington, DC: U.S.]


• 45% of teen girls know someone who has been pressured or forced into having intercourse or oral sex.
[Liz Claiborne Inc. Teen Dating Violence Survey, 2005.]

• Pregnancies Resulting from Rape. In 2004-2005, 64,080 women were raped. According to medical reports, the incidence of pregnancy for one-time unprotected sexual intercourse is 5%. By applying the pregnancy rate to 64,080 women, RAINN estimates that there were 3,204 pregnancies as a result of rape during that period.

RAINN (Rape Abuse National Network); U.S. Department of Justice. 2005 National Crime Victimization Survey. 2005

While other protective measures such as better school policies on sexual assault, improving campus safety, or educating boys on dating violence are necessary, empowering the young women with actual self-defense training has no substitute.

SHIELD has been partnering with various high schools and women's groups in providing self-defense training for teenage girls. We have provided self-defense workshops in an assembly format, took over PE classes period 1-6, provided moms/daughters training workshops, and conducted on-going after school programs to empower the young women in various high schools.

Would Your Rape Count?

Borrowed from the Public Insight Network...

"Each year, tens of thousands of rapes occur in the U.S. each year that are never counted by the FBI's yearly crime report. There are many reasons rapes go unrecorded. Sometimes survivors are actively discouraged from reporting--even by authorities who should know better, such as police or college administrators. Some cases are excluded by the FBI's narrow "forcible rape," which doesn't include male victims, anal or oral rape.

Furthermore, women frequently don't recognize that they were raped, often because of societal messages that say that only a very specific, and rare, type of scenario constitutes rape."

Read more here...

AAUW Action Network

Help Stop Sexual Violence on Campus!

Take Action!

At their best, institutions of higher education are academic oases where the collective contributions of students, professors, and administrators support a healthy community aimed at the pursuit of knowledge. Students (and their parents) invest in higher education because they know college is a well-trodden and successful path to a meaningful career. For women, access to educational opportunities helps lead to financial security and economic independence.
Yet college can only be these things if it is a safe environment. Far too often, college women are the target of sexual violence or assault that shakes or shatters their college experience in a profound way.

A 2007 campus sexual-assault study by the U.S. Department of Justice found that around 28 percent of women are targets of attempted or completed sexual assault while they are college students. The Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network (RAINN) reports that college-age women are four times more likely than any other age group to face sexual assault. There is an epidemic of sexual violence on campuses, and we must take steps to stop it.

The Campus Sexual Violence Elimination (SaVE) Act (S. 834) would help to end sexual assault and violence on campus by requiring schools to spell out their policies, conduct prevention activities, and ensure necessary assistance for victims. It would constitute a step toward ending the sort of violence which prevents women from attaining their educational dreams.
Ask your senators to cosponsor and support this important piece of legislation!

To send a message, click on the "Take Action" link in the upper right hand corner of the email.
Follow AAUW on Twitter, and read our award-winning AAUW Dialog Blog for discussion, information, and advocacy for women and girls!

General AAUW questions? Please contact connect@aauw.org or call 800/326-2289 between 10 am and 5 pm Eastern, Monday through Friday.

tell somebody.

Image from Glamour.

Relationship Violence: The Secret That Kills 4 Women a Day

Check out the June issue of Glamour...

"Why is this still happening in 2011? After all, as women, we’re clearly no longer second-class citizens, so dependent on men’s earnings and support that we must put up with brutal relationships simply because we have no choices. We have more choices than ever—and men are surely more enlightened. So why are women more likely to be killed by their boyfriend than they were 35 years ago? And what can we do to reverse the trend?"

Read More http://www.glamour.com/tell-somebody/2011/05/relationship-violence-the-secret-that-kills-4-women-a-day#ixzz1LLU0ILrG