Powerful Words

Bodily Autonomy, you say?

I agree with 100% of everything Emma Watson said.

I hate inequality. It’s the absolute worst.

And ending gender inequality will take all of us. Equal rights for women requires male participation too, because males are an intricate part of our civilized society as well, and for women to become equal we must include those whom we deserve to coexist alongside.

Emma Watson says this all quite beautifully. And then she adds the following…

“I think it’s right that I should be paid the same as my male counterparts… I think it's right that I should be able to make decisions about my own body…”

At which point she has to stop because uproarious applause breaks out.

She had made numerous powerful points, with not even a single audible clap, and then came a line which we all know is synonymous for “abortion rights" and the crowd is in a tizzy.

And here's the deal, on the surface I absolutely, whole-heartedly agree with what she is saying. Our bodies are ours. You can no more tell me I have to get a tattoo across my forehead than you can demand I bear children I choose not to conceive.

…However, if that child is already in existence, well, then suddenly we have another body, another set of autonomous rights, to consider. That’s what everyone keeps wanting to forget. I'm fairly certain this fact will receive no applause from the UN.

Yet, if we hop back over to the issue of equality for a second, we’ll find it’s spelled out quite clearly there. If a man murders a pregnant woman, it’s a double homicide. If a male abuses his pregnant girlfriend and kills the baby, it’s murder. If a guy secretly drugs his partner with an abortifacient causing her to miscarry, it’s a crime.

When a woman ends the life of an unborn child however, it’s merely a "choice."

So much for equality, Emma.

My Abortion Story

Originally posted on Stand True.

In a half-asleep daze, with my abdomen in knots, I stumbled to the bathroom, fell to my knees, and began throwing up into the toilet. After a few heaves jolted me fully awake, I sensed someone standing behind me. Before I could turn my head to confirm my suspicions, my mother’s delicate hands swept past my cheeks and lightly pulled my hair out of my face.

In that moment I felt like a little girl again – cared for, watched over.

No matter how bad things were growing up, my mother always gave me as much unconditional love as any two parents combined. Oftentimes, our unshakeable familial love was all we had.

She helped me up to the sink. As I began rinsing my mouth, she eyed my midsection as if expecting to see something. I rolled my eyes and assured her it was just a bug, probably something I ate the night before. “I am not pregnant!” I said.

In my mind though, I knew she wasn’t the only one I was trying to convince. I was only 16, and my on-again, off-again boyfriend had started using drugs again – this time more than just recreationally. As I stared into the sink, my hand nervously jostling the toothbrush around my mouth, my mother disappeared.

I wanted nothing more than to shut down my brain and push these anxieties as far out of my mind as possible. I climbed back into the reassuring comfort of my warm bed. As my eyes grew heavy, the hum of my fan lulled me back to sleep.

What must have been hours later, since the sun was shining through my window, my mother walked back into my room and gently placed her hand on my arm. “I need you to get up and pee,” she said. What? When did I suddenly become a toddler again, in need of reminders for this sort of thing? That’s when I rubbed my eyes open and noticed the Dixie cup and tiny white stick resting in the palm of her hand.

Immediately, my heart plunged down to the base of my spine. No! Was this really happening? I reassured myself that there was nothing to discover, and so with the last sliver of blissful ignorance I would ever have, I scooped up the cup and did as I was told.

When I returned from the bathroom, I handed over the paper cup and I found my way back to the warmth of my bed. I could only see the lower half of my mother’s body as she leaned over the sink. And just as my head rediscovered the pillow I saw her rock back on her heels, letting out a slow and steady sigh. Surely, she couldn’t tell anything yet.

“How long do those things normally take?” I asked.

“Three and a half minutes,” she replied.

But before I could relish my relief, she finished, “But it only took 30 seconds.”

And then, my world imploded.

As I wailed into my mother’s embrace, all I wanted was to rip my stomach out of my body, or better yet leave my body behind all together, for someone else to deal with.

How could I have done this? I knew better. I knew better.

I knew the damage being a single teenage mother would do to a child, because I was that child. My mother was only 19 when she became pregnant with me. She was a sophomore at the University of Texas with such a bright future ahead of her when I came along. Because of me, our lives were racked with hardships. Was I prepared to put an innocent child through that, seeing as I was little more than a child myself?

The following days were a blur, and so many choices lay ahead of me. Being single and 16, it seemed only logical to have an abortion – at least to other people. Every time someone suggested it, though, I would flinch. Didn’t they realize all of the reasons they were giving that I should abort were the very same reasons my mother should have had an abortion? Didn’t they realize every time they said I’d be better off without this baby, they were saying the world would be better off without me?

I was spared from death and, while life hadn’t always been perfect, it was much better than the alternative. Who was I to take the life of this child, brought into the world by no fault of his own? I felt like I would have been a coward to make such a choice. And if my mother had taught me anything, it was how to be strong. No matter how many times life kicked us down, we got right back up.

This was no different. I wasn’t going to let the world tell me how weak I was, how this precious child was going to ruin me, how miserable we would be because of our circumstances. I knew since my mother was strong enough to choose me, I was strong enough to choose him.

Thirteen years later I look back on that time and I see how much I’ve grown, how much this child has changed me for the better. It’s hard to remember that day’s fear and the panic now. The only time I feel those emotions is when I realize how easy it would have been to buy into the lie the doubters told me and lost my child forever.

I panic when I imagine my life without this kid.

I feel scared for women going through crisis pregnancies with less support than I had. My heart breaks for the girls who choose abortion because, rather than believing they are strong enough, they’re told, “You can’t.”

If you want to know where the “stigma” surrounding abortion comes from, it is from pregnant women being told they are not good enough, strong enough, or woman enough to be a mother. It’s not the pressure society puts on women to carry children in less than desirable circumstances; it’s the fact that they know when they make the choice to abort they are accepting defeat. They are denying the biological awesomeness their bodies are capable of, and the inherent strength they have to turn “a mistake” into the best thing that will ever happen to them.

So, until you find a way to rid us of the sense of our own feminine strength, you will never be able to remove the stigma of abortion, which denies it.

*Oh, and as you can probably see, not all abortion stories have to end in abortion, some can end like this…

New Nail Polish Detects Date Rape Drug; Infuriates Feminists

I hate victim-blaming. It's one of the few things in the world I could say truly disgusts me, and not be speaking hyperbolically. There is no excuse -- ever -- for sexual assault in any form. There is no excuse for rape. However, even with all that said… I can't say there's any reason to ignore our need to protect ourselves.
If we admit we live in a rape culture, why are my fellow feminists in uproar at the thought that women should be taught and equipped to protect themselves from something so heinous?
Yes, teach men not to rape, definitely. I could talk about it until I ran out of breath. But to neglect to equip a woman to defend herself from assault in what we already acknowledge is a rape culture isn't just ignorant, it's batshit insane. It's like saying "We live in a burglary culture. No one should ever lock their doors."
We shouldn't have to protect ourselves from sexual assault. But if we can and need to we should be able to if we so choose. Affecting the culture at large does not and should not require an absolute abandonment of practicality and common sense on an individual basis.
Let's hope for and work towards a future in which those who would be victims don't have to worry, and those who would be aggressors would never think to commit violent acts. Let's stop blaming the victim, and stop placing fault on someone who didn't consent to what unfolded. In the meantime, why are we shaming dudes for making nail polish? For trying to help? For actually doing something to make rape less likely to occur, for someone, somewhere?
Complain all you want, I guess. But I, for one, won't be turning in my stun gun so I can jump on this "Screw protecting ourselves!" weird feminist band wagon.

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Post by Tori Long

Booty Positivity? Sorry Guys, But We're Popping The Myth That This Has Anything To Do With You...

A new pop star has been born, America! Meghan Trainor, a 20-year-old from Massachusetts, possesses the #2 spot on iTunes for her single “All About That Bass”. For the record, I love this song. It’s catchy and hilarious and I totally relate to it. But I don’t think it should be heralded as the big “F-You!” to the man (or men in general) that it has been. Although I don’t think this is her intention, it’s easy for girls to interpret this song to mean that bigger is better. Yes, some guys will naturally be more attracted to heavier girls, but I don’t think we’re doing women any favors by saying their figure is less “womanly” than another’s. For years I’ve had to deal with insinuations (or outright observations) that I’m a little bigger than what’s ideal. I love that some areas of our culture are getting over the fact that not every girls is going to be perfectly trim, but that is not an excuse to tell thinner girls that they’re not good enough either! Let’s just agree that women come in all shapes and sizes, okay? Some girls have flat butts, some have big boobs, some (like me) have hardcore muffin tops. And that’s okay, because WHO CARES? “Yeah, my mama she told me don't worry about your size She says, "Boys like a little more booty to hold at night."” Oooh! So it’s okay for my jeans to be size 16 because guys like big butts? Um, no. Since when is the fact that guys will like to cuddle with you a reason to finally be happy in your own skin? “Since always”, you say? I say it’s time we start busting that myth. I like my body. Not because I have “all the right junk in all the right places”, but because this is how my body is and until I decide to change it, I might as well be happy with it! If you think your body is acceptable because some guys prefer whatever size you are, if you wear sweatpants out because some guys might find it sexy, if you skip makeup because guys find the “natural” look alluring...you’re missing the point. It’s just another way of basing your appearance off what guys think is hot. Sometimes I wear outfits that, I admit, could be more flattering. And guess what? I like it anyway! And sometimes that’s good enough. It makes me a little nervous to say that because we live in such a “Me” culture. But I feel like this is one of the times when girls seem to forget that they should think of how they feel first. It hurts my heart that girls do their hair this way or buy that swimsuit so they can draw the attention of guys and feel desired. When a good guy likes you, it wont just be because you have a great figure. A woman is so much more than just a body. Let’s start acting like it.

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Post by Elizabeth May Vos

Why This Video Matters To Me Personally

Most of us think we know what rape is. Whenever someone forces themself onto another person without consent, it's sexual assault. It's very black and white... except when it isn't.

It took me ten years and ultimately a very honest and kind friend to tell me that when I was "taken advantage of" in high school that one time, I had actually been raped. I mean, had I said "no"? Yes. Had I been crying? Yes. Had I asked him to stop? I had. But in my mind, because he had not beaten me up and wasn't holding me down, it wasn't really rape - it was just a teenage guy "taking advantage of the situation." For years I used that term. For years I made excuses for his behavior.

We live in an increasingly violent world, where most adolescent boys are brought up on a steady stream of pornography. The images they see are far from those in their father's Playboy. They are inundated with women being dominated, overpowered, and placed increasingly in states of pain. Their natural, instinctual reaction to protect their partners from harm, or to stop when their partners are expressing discomfort, has now been replaced with the exact opposite. Inflicting pain becomes a turn-on. These boys confuse faces twisting in agony with pleasure based on the pornography they've fed their minds for years. Sexual intimacy is rapidly being replaced with violence in our modern-day society.

And it's not just the guys who are learning this. Young women are constantly being told that their power lies in their sexuality; every magazine stand and billboard screams it. You want to exude confidence and strength? Become the ultimate sex kitten. Act like the girl in the porn or like Anastasia in Fifty Shades of Grey.

I didn't get up and run away that day because the very thing that was supposed to make me confident and strong was now breaking me - making me feel scared and weak. I froze. Between the two of us, we'd created the perfect storm: a girl so insecure that she couldn't forcefully demand that the boy stop violating her, and a boy who thought "no" meant "yes," and that "stop" meant "go."

As I watch Live Action's latest undercover investigation into Planned Parenthood, SexEd, I want to jump through the screen and shake the nurse who thinks it's okay to talk to a 15-year-old girl about "safe words" and BDSM - who's telling this girl that words like "no" and "stop" can get "mixed up when you're having intercourse," or that "usually a lot of people will say 'stop' even though it feels good." She has no idea of the long-term damage she's doing - or, honestly, maybe she does have an idea, and it's simply good for business.

When we tell teens to engage in this type of destructive behavior, we are telling them they are not worthy of love. We are saying they do not deserve to be cherished, that they deserve only to be hurt. We are telling them abuse is affection. And furthermore, when we instruct them that "stop" is not a good safe word because "usually people say 'stop' even though it feels good," we are reinforcing the lie, to a generation of confused young men, that yeah, she really did want it. And we are telling the girls hurt by these young men that they were probably asking for it.

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Post by Destiny