do you trust me?

I just found out about this, but I already really like it: Men Who Trust Women. As my non-U.S.-based readers may or may not already be aware, there's been a lot of shameful, sexist, back-peddling talk and action lately around women's reproduction freedom. This website was formed to start to address that, or more specifically, to help broaden the conversation: 

"There aren’t a lot of women’s voices in this conversation, and that needs to change. But there also aren’t a lot of pro-choice men speaking out. We aren’t hearing from enough men who trust women. That needs to change, too. Luckily, there are a lot of pro-choice men in America. These men believe that women are capable of making their own choices about what happens to their own bodies. These men believe that no man, whether he’s a politician, a priest, or a partner, knows what’s best for a woman better than she does. These men are appalled at the way that the national conversation about women’s healthcare has been dominated by anti-choice men. Men who trust women are a group that is ever-growing, but largely invisible. It’s time to end that invisibility."

Chloe Angyal is the creator of the website, and I find it very interesting (and cool) that a woman and self-identified feminist is creating a space to encourage male feminist allies to talk about why they trust women. And I'm intrigued that she's building this campaign around the issue of "trust." At this point, you may be wondering (and fairly so): Why provide a space for men to talk, rather than one to encourage women to do so? To this, Angyal responds "Men Who Trust Women is a tumblr where men who believe that bodily autonomy is every woman’s right can share their stories. It’s not about speaking instead of women, or on behalf of women, but alongside them and in support of them."

I confess, I didn't get quite the feedback I was hoping for when I posted about men and feminism in mid-March (although props to Dom for a thoughtful and articulate response!). But this is for real. This is for everybody. I need you. Here's my call to action, people: If you're a man, and you're reading this, and you trust women, submit a story. If you're a woman and you're reading this, share it with at least one man you care about and encourage him to submit. And then just spend some time reading the site. There are some gorgeous, heartfelt, articulate posts on their.

a brave new pedagogy

“Education either functions as an instrument which is used to facilitate integration of the younger generation into the logic of the present system and bring about conformity or it becomes the practice of freedom, the means by which men and women deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world.” 
― Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed

I talk and write about education so much not only because I work in it, but because it's become a kind of failed state within our country. Fewer low-income students are graduating college than in decades, and high school graduation rates are sadly stratified along racial lines (check out California's data). Land of the free and home of the brave, right? It is hard to change education. It is especially hard to make sweeping change. But looking local, looking at where you live, and at what can be done right now, for this generation, well, some change is possible.

Which brings us to Grace Lee Boggs, who's been doing rocking work for radical education since at least the early 90s – and she's 96 herself. Wow. She lives in Detroit, and her current project is the Boggs Center to Nurture Community Leadership, whose mission is "to nurture the transformational leadership capacities of individuals and organizations committed to creating productive, sustainable, ecologically responsible, and just communities. Through local, national and international networks of activists, artists and intellectuals we foster new ways of living, being and thinking to face the challenges of the 21st century."

I've said here before that the patriarchy hurts everybody, and let's face it, school is often (usually) a place where students, male and female alike, are taught to accept the established order, to fall in line, and to perform within existing systems in order to be rewarded. So when I hear about a non-authoritarian, student-focused, community-empowerment-based system, it really warms the cockles of my heart.

(Cheers to Angie for today's topic.)

p.s. Special bonus at no extra cost: Grace wrote a book called Women and the Movement to Build a New America. I can't seem to get any decent information on it, but I sure do love the title.

how to heal that?

Hats off to housemate Annabel for submitting an idea to the Month of Feminist Action! (Yes, you can submit one, too!) She was actually the first person to tell me about the City of Joy, a project in the Democratic Republic of Congo aiming to address the after-effects of the traumatic violence so many women have suffered. The name of the organization couldn't be clearer about the seriousness of the problem: STOP RAPING OUR GREATEST RESOURCE: Power To The Women And Girls Of The DRC. It's sponsored by UNICEF, Eve Ensler's V-Day, and the Panzi Foundation, an organization whose mission is "to raise awareness about the challenges in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo and partner with Panzi Hospital to heal women and restore lives." Heart-rending statistics from the Panzi Foundation's website:

• It is estimated that there are over 200,000 surviving rape victims living in the Democratic Republic of the Congo today.
• From 2006 to 2007, an estimated 1,100 women were raped EVERY DAY.
• Today, it is estimated that 36 women and children are raped daily.

It's so hard to take that in.

The goal of the City of Joy is to "support women survivors of sexual violence to heal and provide them with opportunities to develop their leadership through innovative programming. Through its groundbreaking model, the City of Joy will provide up to 180 women a year with an opportunity to benefit from: group therapy; storytelling; dance; theater; self-defense; comprehensive sexuality education (covering HIV/AIDS, family planning); ecology and horticulture; and economic empowerment." They seem to have had a rocky first year, and they're so new it's obviously hard to tell what their ultimate impact will be. But the need couldn't be clearer. In addition to monetary donations, the City has a registry where you can provide them with everything from pencils to tables. Let's hope they're able to grow this program to help meet the needs of so many women and children in the DRC. The ultimate goal of the City is to "provide women a place to heal emotionally as they rebuild their lives, turn their pain to power, and return back into their communities to lead."

naked people have little or no influence in society

I like clothes. I also hate injustice. So this is actually a big quandary. Even if you're not as mad crazy about cute dresses as I am, you probably wear clothes. And your clothes are probably made by exploited workers in third world countries. This is one of those things we all prefer not to think about, because what can you do, right? Right. I wish I had an easy answer. Obviously I don't, but I do have a few ideas.

For one, I'm happy to have learned about the existence of the Clean Clothes Campaign.  They focus on:

• Putting pressure on companies to take responsibility to ensure that their garments are produced in decent working conditions;
• Providing solidarity support in urgent cases of labour and human rights violations;
• Raising public awareness about working conditions in the garment and sportswear industry and mobilising consumers to push for change;
• Exploring legal possibilities and lobbying for legislation to promote good working conditions and to compel governments and companies to become ethical consumers.

 (kindly note the British English spelling). I am, however, a little depressed by two things: 1) they're active in 15 European countries, but no North American ones, and 2) they've been around since 1989, and well, here we are. That's not their fault, of course. It's a lot of people's faults. Yours, mine, and most especially various governments. Because it is still really hard to buy fair trade clothes.* (And why is it so much easier to buy fair trade coffee? If you know, please tell me) I want to buy a new bra, and I thought to myself, I wonder if I can buy a fair trade bra? The internet has only succeeded in showing me these four, none of which I'll buy. Ugh.

Another thing I love (although it doesn't solve my bra problem) is shopping at thrift stores. What a nice way to op-out of exploiting labor and also not be naked! In San Francisco, at least, you can dress yourself real nice, pretty much head-to-toe (at least outerwear) from thrift stores.

Finally, I want to point out the genuine and total awesomeness of women-owned co-ops. Poking around the internet just now to see what I could find that would be positive and inspiring and action-oriented, after getting all depressed (justifiably so!) over sweatshop labor, I came across Mata Traders. They have some super cute dresses, as well as jackets, jewelry, and more. Got a couple leagues up on Ideeli, that's for sure.


And if you're all like wait, what does this have to do with feminism? Well, let's see: Women are constantly being encouraged to adorn themselves and their attention is constantly directed away from the way they're participating in post-colonial oppression of women, men, and children in other parts of the world. I'll go ahead and chalk this up to a feminist issue.


(p.s. Know of an awesome anti-sweatshop movement or source of fair trade clothing that I'm ignoring? Super! Tell me all about it!)

*And I am not even going to start on American Apparel. Talk about a wasted opportunity to be awesome. That's all I'm going to say about them.
 

our bodies, our selves

There are several important issues that are being addressed by Peer Health Exchange, including obesity, alcoholism, and drug-abuse. And while I'm comfortable asserting that all of these issues have intersections with feminism, I particularly want to give PHE mad props because they're also tacking violent relationships and teen pregnancy. Which is important, because they work with high schoolers. Apparently one in three teenage girls in this country becomes pregnant. Meanwhile, conservatives throw their aprons over their faces at the thought of teenage girls taking sex ed. Because, you know, obviously all the girls who are pregnant had great sex ed classes in high school. Of course, the science doesn't bear that out. And while (predominantly male) politicians dither about if and how to teach our youth about consent, safety, personal boundaries, and contraceptives, girls are getting unintentionally pregnant. Male and female people are entering and staying in violent and unsafe relationships. Which brings us back to PHE. PHE targets "high schools that lack health education and in which the majority of the students live at or below the poverty line" and then "recruits, selects, and trains college student volunteers to teach high school students a comprehensive health curriculum consisting of thirteen standardized health workshops on topics ranging from decision-making and sexual health to substance abuse and nutrition." In a nutshell: Free, quality, no-agenda sex- and health-ed for underserved youth. Now you see why I'm excited. 

Was sex ed a lousy, insulting, awkward joke and complete waste of time when you were in high school? Yeah, me too. Wouldn't it be awesome if that stopped being the case? We talk a lot about individual rights in this country. But I for one refuse to believe that a parent's right to raise their child "the way they see fit" trumps a child's right for safe and honest information about their own body. Children and teenagers are also citizens, and it's past time we start treating them as such.

So, PHE? They're hiring and looking for volunteers. (And of course, they'll take your money, too.) Check 'em out, & spread the word.

rooms of their own

Wait, literacy and a focus girls' education? Be still my heart! That's exactly what's going on at Room to Read, an international nonprofit organization based (yup) in San Francisco. Their website is full of shitty-but-true statistics like this one, "In the developing world, 42% of girls are not enrolled in school," and, "Of the 793 million illiterate people in the world, two-thirds are female." On the other hand, they also have awesome-and-true statistics such as, "Providing a girl with one extra year of education beyond the average boosts her future wages by 20%," and, "More than 13,000 girls in eight countries now have access to improved educational opportunities and holistic support as part of Room to Read’s Girls’ Education program." Can we just stop and look at that for a minute? 13,000 girls. 13,000, since 2000! Room to Read's programs focus on girls transitions into and out of secondary school, the organization engages with government officials and school admin, buys uniforms and ensures safe transportation, they get parents involved – and many of the girls they work with are the first in their families to finish secondary school. Let's think about that for a moment, too. The wasted talent, intelligence, and potential around the world. They're changing that.

Room to Read also builds schools, school libraries, provides reading and writing instruction, and, in an especially cool twist, produces children's literature in local languages. Are you excited yet? This is so awesome. You should really consider giving them some of your money.

that money is just sitting in your bank account anyway

People, I am late. As a matter of fact, I am very late. But I am not so late that I won't start. 

It's March, my friends, and that means it's Women's History Month. Loyal readers may recall that two years ago, I ran a "lesser-known-but-exceedingly-awesome-woman-of-the-day" feature. Other loyal readers may recall that last year I did nothing. This year, I've decided, will be based on action. Everyday for the rest of the month, I'm going to tell you about an awesome organization that's doing rad things that empower women, fight the patriarchal hegemony, etc. You will have the opportunity to Take Action. And so, without further ado, I present:

Kiva.org
You may already be familiar with this microlending site. After all, it's been around since 2005. Their mission statement is pretty straightforward, "We are a non-profit organization with a mission to connect people through lending to alleviate poverty. Leveraging the internet and a worldwide network of microfinance institutions, Kiva lets individuals lend as little as $25 to help create opportunity around the world." What does that have to do with women? Well, investing in women in developing countries is generally a good idea (there are so many articles on this, you guys, check it out). Women don't have access to the same opportunities or education. But they're damn good at running businesses, at investing back in their community, and at raising up their society right along with them. You don't have to take my word for it; in addition to reading the above, spend five seconds on google.

What I especially like about Kiva is how easy it is to loan someone your money. It is $25 (min.) to you, but that money goes a lot further in poorer parts of the world. And you'll get it back. And maybe then you'll be so inspired, you'll loan it again. That's my plan, anyway. In January I made a loan to Yadira, a baker in Nicaragua looking to buy a refrigerator to expand her business. My $25 just covered a small part of the expense, of course, but she's already started to pay it back. And once it's paid back in full, I intend to loan it to someone else. Because how much interest was $25 collecting in my bank account, anyway? Next to none. I don't have a lot of money. But I can use just a little bit of what I have to do some good for struggling women in the world, and I urge you to do the same.

Cheers to March!