fuckyeahfeminists:

Dear beloved followers of FYF:

Today’s my 26th birthday (!) and I’m asking you to pitch in if you’ve enjoyed this site this past year. 

As you may know, I am amongst the population affected by Sandy. One of the impacts of the Hurricane is that many people like me – hourly workers – have missed out on work. Long time followers of my blog are familiar with my history of financial insecurity and it’s frustrating to find myself around $400 in the hole this month due to loss of income.

This blog has been a labor of love and I am asking that if you are able, please consider supporting this blog. One of the reasons why I started this blog was because I felt that as a low-income woman of colour my voice was mostly ignored by the mainstream feminism media. Please consider supporting this blog (and me!) by contributing in any of the following ways:

• Buy ad space through BlogAds: Consider buying an ad on this site. The follower count is constantly growing with an increasing number of visitors each month. This is a great opportunity to reach an engaged, feminist audience while directly supporting feminist! This requires providing text and an image. For a limited time offer, you can enter the coupon code ‘birthday’ for 75% off my advertising rates!
• Become a sponsor: For those of you who do not have the time or resources to create an image for an ad, a sponsored link can be purchased for place on our front page in the sidebar. You can choose to have it for a varying amount of time (days, weeks, months, etc.)
• Paypal/Chipin: If you don’t have a link/product you want to promote and still want to donate, please consider giving a donation through my chipin widget.

We have 19,375 followers if just 25% of you donated $5 or less, I not only would be able to expand this site, but also make it ad-free. I know there are others struggling with the aftermath of Sandy and even more folks are unable to give due to other circumstances. I just want to give my deepest thanks to those who have been a great emotional support just by being a follower! I am continually awed and humbled by the amazing feminist community on this site.

P.S. Yes, that’s me dancing behind a painted cannon that says “Consent!” It’s from my days at Tufts as a peer educator about sexual and domestic violence.

I had one of my first major lessons about gender and power dynamics in third grade playing Catch a Girl, Freak a Girl during recess at Henry C. Lea School in West Philadelphia. In our version of the game, which is known in other regions as Hide and Go Get It and—alarmingly—Rape, the boys would chase girls around tag-style. If a girl got caught, her captor would dry-hump her on the spot or march her off to a less visible crevice of the schoolyard for dramatic effect.

(Trigger warning for rape/assault - especially in comments)

Maya and the Pretend Boobs, Brookline 2007 - By Rania Matar

Born and raised in Lebanon, Rania Matar moved to the U.S. in 1984. Originally trained as an architect at the American University of Beirut and Cornell University, she worked as an architect before studying photography at New England School of Photography, and at the Maine Photographic Workshops in Mexico with Magnum photographer, Constantine Manos. She currently works full-time as a photographer and teaches documentary photography at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design. She also teaches photography in the summers to teenage girls in Lebanon’s refugee camps with the assistance of non-governmental organizations.

Matar’s work focuses mainly on women and women’s issues. Her previous work has focused on women and children in the Middle East, and her projects – which examine the Palestinian refugee camps, the recent spread of the veil and its meanings, the aftermath of war, and the Christians of the Middle East – intend to give a voice to people who have been forgotten or misunderstood. In Boston, where she lives, she photographs her four children at all stages of their lives, and is currently working on a new body of work, “A Girl and her Room,” photographing teenage girls from different backgrounds.

As many as seven in 10 women in the world report experiencing physical and/or sexual violence at some point in their lifetime, leaving a devastating aftermath for individuals, communities and nations.

Despite stepped up efforts, support services are of limited scope and quality, and often depend where in the world you live.

Access can be especially problematic for women in rural and remote areas, or women belonging to excluded groups or ethnic minorities, indigenous and migrant women, adolescent girls, and those with disabilities or living with HIV/AIDS, among others.

But a growing number of countries are intensifying their efforts to prevent and address violence against women. It is now clearly recognised that a systematic, comprehensive, multi-sectoral and sustained approach is necessary to address both the symptoms and roots of the problem.

Marai Larasi is the director of Imkaan, a UK-based organisation dedicated to challenging violence against black, minorities and refugee women and girls. She is also the co-chair of the countrywide End Violence against Women Coalition.

Read her interview by following the link.

In Haitian refugee camps, women are still crammed under plastic or cloth tarps that provide no security and quickly become overheated by the sun. Sexual abuse, harassment, assault and rape run rampant, even as political responses to these dangers have stalled. But KOFAVIV, a women’s organisation founded by and for rape survivors, offers a glimmer of hope.

In the Question and Answer session with IPS they told them how.

by Craig Woodhouse and James Clayton from The Evening Standard

More than 2,100 women and girls in London have sought hospital treatment for genital mutilation over the past six years, figures revealed today.

Phillip Toledano explores the definition of beauty through his photography. He has photographed people who have chosen to change their looks through cosmetic surgery.

WARNING: FEATURES NUDITY.

“I’m interested in what we define as beauty, when we choose to create it ourselves.

Beauty has always been a currency, and now that we finally have the technological means to mint our own, what choices do we make?

Is beauty informed by contemporary culture? By history? Or is it defined by the surgeon’s hand? Can we identify physical trends that vary from decade to decade, or is beauty timeless?

When we re-make ourselves, are we revealing our true character, or are we stripping away our very identity?

Perhaps we are creating a new kind of beauty. An amalgam of surgery, art, and popular culture? And if so, are the results the vanguard of human induced evolution?”

The perfect blend of humour and bile.