Ripples of War

“Orphanage robberies." What did that even mean? The words weren't quite sinking in. Who would rob an orphanage? That hardly sounds like a lucrative racket. What's there to steal?

Then I realized what it meant. The horror of that thought washed over me, the full weight resting on my lungs causing me to exhale slowly: they steal the children.

For many of us, when we think of war, we only weigh the loss of military life. Don’t misunderstand, I have nothing but respect for our men and women in uniform. Their bravery and daily sacrifices are absolutely worthy of our support. I know and love a number of service members which is one of the reasons I hate war so much to begin with. Having a strong military that we never have to use is the best way to protect their lives too. 

But we must also be aware of the ripples of war; the subsequent effects; the displaced, scared, and vulnerable people caught in the crossfire. They are just like us. Their lives and stories are equally as complex and real as our own. And the love they have for their children, compounded by the pain they experience when they are in harm's way, runs just as deep in their hearts as it would our own. 

When communities are flipped upside down, children become easy targets for those looking to exploit them. Young girls are snatched from their mother’s arms when their villages are taken over; orphanages are "robbed" for their most precious assets; girls are stolen in the dead of night from refugee camps targeted by terrorists. Many are then divvied up among ISIL fighters, while others are exploited for profit, being forced to see upwards of 40 men a night. You begin to wonder how anyone could endure a life of such violent abuse, but that's when I learned that in some parts of the world the average girl will only survive 7 years of trafficking before injury and disease ultimately take her life. 

Thankfully there are a number of organizations working to rescue these children. I saw a photograph of a girl who was only 12 when she taken. My oldest daughter is about to turn 12. The hardest thing she has to deal with is finding time to practice her violin before she heads off to her swim meets. I couldn’t fathom knowing my child was experiencing such wicked and vile abuse. These mothers must feel so powerless.

I looked at their children and saw my children.  

And rescuing these girls is only half the battle. After that, teams of highly trained counselors must care for them. Sadly they've seen many victims return to their capturer's if they do not receive proper treatment. The trauma they’ve experienced is so great that many don’t know how to re-assimilate back into their communities, and even sadder still, some families will not accept them back. However, there are also some beautiful stories of truly astonishing strength that have come out of this darkness.

One was of a girl who was only 14. After her rescue, she was being cared for in a makeshift facility on the outskirts of town. She learned that the team who had recovered her was going back for more children the following day and she asked if she could go along. She wanted to be there to comfort the other girls as they were pulled out so they wouldn't be so scared. I cannot even imagine the amount of inner strength it must've taken her to do that. She quite literally used her own freedom and liberation to save others. 

At the end of the day, I truly believe that's what all of us want. Our aim is to help those who are suffering and protect the vulnerable. But it cannot be done merely with missiles. If we are gone once the rubble clears, then it is nothing more than virtue signaling to the rest of the world, and the oppressed are still no better off. We must be there to truly help them heal.

The tides are turning...

Destiny here, reporting live from a bathroom stall at the LSU student center where I'm currently crying. BTW, I might be doing feminism wrong.

Sike. We're evidently doing it totally right, which is why I'm in this predicament. Allow me to explain....

So Aimee and her crew from Rehumanize International are tabling at LSU this morning and I got suckered into coming along. I say 'suckered' because I hate intentionally engaging people in this debate. I prefer a more organic app...roach usually involving booze. But, I digress. If anyone can do it right, it's Aimee.

She has this big banner that reads, "Can You Be Pro-Life and a Feminist?" which she posts up next to her table, and then she invites students walking by to log their vote on a poster board marked "YES" or "NO."

We'd been standing around for about 30 minutes when a bus full of college students pulled up, unloaded, and started walking towards us.

One by one a group of about 20 women took the time to cast their votes. Unanimously they said YES, you CAN BE prolife and a feminist. And now you're all caught up.

I had to walk away because we weren't trying to poll students on whether or not you could be a blubbering, middle-aged, purple haired, hormonal mess on a college campus. (That's really more of a "should you" vs a "can you" anyway.)

Bottom line, we started a national conversation in January with the Women's March and now at college campuses across this nation we're hearing the answer.

Yes.

Yes, you can be prolife and a feminist. Yes, you can demand better for pregnant and parenting students on campus. Yes, you can keep your child and still succeed in life. Yes, women are finished with the lie that we must accept violence against the weakest and most vulnerable human beings - our own children - in order to achieve true liberation. Because we know, WE KNOW, authentic empowerment does not oppress others, it stands up and empowers them as well.

And we won't accept anything less.

Btw, I'm the jerk who added the "no" vote... just so that it would be less intimidating. And then no one followed suit! :)

Father's Day

This morning I listened to a talk on the power of fatherhood.

I won't lie, it was hard to hear what the speaker was saying without feeling a bit defensive.

He began by citing statistics for children who are raised in homes without fathers and how they face higher rates of depression, drug use, incarceration, and academic failure.

Check, check, almost, and check.

He went on to say that adolescent females raised without fathers are more likely to fall into promiscuous lifestyles, and subsequent unplanned pregnancies.

Check, and check.

He was describing me.

A self-proclaimed feminist. A feminist who was raised by an amazing, strong, hard-working mother... but no matter how hard she tried, she could never be my father.

And this might not be anyone else's experience, but it is mine.
I'm strong like my mother. I'm opinionated, and stubborn. But there's a part of me - and there probably always will be - that's broken because I never knew my real dad.

My mother took me to see him just once, thinking it might cause him to change his mind. I was two weeks old. He commented on how long my eyelashes were, then he never laid eyes on me again.
I wasn't enough... or maybe he wasn't enough. I really don't know. But for years I tried to reach out to him; my letters and phone calls always going unanswered.

So I looked for validation in others. Mostly guys. I told myself that this behavior was empowering. They wanted me.... someone wanted me, at least for a little while... and that felt powerful.
I would leave them before they could leave me, because that's what badass chicks did. Then I'd bask in how liberated and cool I was.

"Look at me, I don't need them... maybe I'm more like my dad than I realized..."

But at the end of the day it was my lack of self-worth, not empowerment, that led to those actions. And before I knew it, I was repeating my mother's life. Pregnant, single... having to be even stronger now that someone else would be depending on me, like I depended on her. So much of our strength came from their weakness.

I am a man-made feminist. And I hate that.

I hate that my strength often feels inauthentic because would I even be who I am today if so many men along the way hadn't failed me?
Perhaps I'll never know. But I do think this is what makes my mission with New Wave Feminists a bit different. I know that bad guys exist, but I haven't lost faith in the good ones. I understand the power of fatherhood because I've experienced the pain of its absence.

I've often said that when women are better, men are better. That is why NWF will never be about trashing males. It'll never be about embracing the toxic elements of radical feminism that tell us we don't need them, or that our power comes through controlling men with our sexuality. Because I've lived both of those lies, and I know better.

Fathers are irreplaceable. Period. Full stop.

So to all the good guys, to all the men who are making this world and the women in it better through their love and support, Happy Father's Day.

What you are doing matters so much more than you know and the ripples of your impact on our lives will affect more generations than you will probably live to see.

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As a side note, I found out two years ago that my biological father passed away. And while I'm sad that I never got to know him, he was the one who missed out. My children, his grandchildren, would've filled his life with so much joy.

So, if you're reading this and you have a son or daughter out there that you're afraid to reach out to because you're just not sure how they'll react, please don't let that fear stop you. I wish I could've told my father that. If you still have air in your lungs, it's not too late...

Post by Destiny

Can you imagine a world without abortion?

What would it look like? Pro-choicers want us to believe it would be filled with hemorrhaging women, self-aborting and dying in the streets, but I'm not buying that. 

When I imagine what the world would look like if our fertility were treated as the super power it is, and the life of the unborn human given the respect it deserves, I see a place that's a whole hell of a lot more pro-woman than what we have now. 

Think about it. Currently when a low-income woman gets pregnant (or a young woman, or a single woman, or really any woman who doesn't have a life deemed “suitable” by society to bring children into) she is met with all types of hostility. Simply for having the audacity to, ya know, actually have the kid that clearly already exists inside her womb.

She basically has to make her case for why she should be able to STAY pregnant and how she plans on supporting said child with the least amount of inconvenience to society as possible. 

Her partner resents her; her boss resents her; her community resents her. She and her child--whose life is considered "a choice" (and because she CHOSE to keep the baby this is all her responsibility of course)--are now a burden to others. An inconvenience. This makes the fertile female person a liability to employers and partners. 

But what if we lived in a world that realized that once a new life had come into existence, the time for "choosing" whether or not it existed, was over? What if we lived in a world where that woman, no matter her age, income, or status, was accommodated rather than resented? 

Because more than 50 million unborn children have been aborted over the last 43-years, we can't know how society would have accommodated women if such a high number had continued with their pregnancies. 

Had the unborn person not been viewed as disposable, the world would've had to adjust.

Our culture and our corporations would have had to accept that--guess what!--women sometimes grow new people in their bodies and it's freakin' amazing. And not only should we respect the hell out of that, but we as a society might want to help a sister out a little bit more because without happy healthy women, society screeches to a halt. 

Unfortunately, we don't live in that world though. We live in a world where if you experience an unplanned pregnancy you are expected to work twice as hard to make up for you fertility. That child is not a blessing, it's a burden. It's not a person, it's a problem. 

Because abortion is an option, when a woman doesn't "choose" to terminate her pregnancy, by default she's choosing to burden her employer, her partner, her community. 

And we hate her for it. 

Abortion creates a world that is undeniably anti-woman. 

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Post by Destiny

The Past, The Present, & The Future Of Feminism

A few weeks ago I went to hang out with a friend of mine who's battling cancer. I decided to pick up some movies on the way, so I rented a serious one that looked really good and a stupid, funny one, in case she needed a laugh. At the time I didn't realize how ironic my choices were: I'd grabbed 'Suffragette' and 'Trainwreck.'

Here we had, in just 2 DVD's, feminism of the past and modern day fauxminism.

We went with Trainwreck, which was just that, but later that night I came home and watched 'Suffragette' with my daughters.

The feminism depicted in Suffergette (which desperately needs reclaiming btw) focuses on what women are capable of accomplishing, despite their gender. While Schumer's brand of feminism is all about what women can get away with, BECAUSE of their gender.

It's nothing more than pussy power fauxminism and it's weak.

"Men are pigs! And look, now women can be pigs too, because equality or something! I can screw a new guy each night and still totally love my existence... Oh wait, until I fall for one of them and then I cannot exist without him! Because MENMENMENMENMENMENMEN!!!!"

Whoops, sorry, I guess should've said spoiler alert first since that's basically the entire plot line of Trainwreck. #soempowering

Here's an idea, maybe the feminism of the future shouldn't focus so hard on gender, but rather what we can all do as human beings to just, be better.

Nobody be a pig. Everybody operate at the highest standard, not based on what's between your legs, but just as human beings. And while we're at it, can we please stop saying men are pigs? I have two sons and that's certainly not the way I'm raising them... or my daughters for that matter. No more excuses for bad behavior or double standards because boys are "just" being boys. That's bullshit. My sons are just as capable as my daughters are at controlling their urges and respecting others. And my daughters are just as capable as my sons are at controlling their emotions and using their brains. I expect them all to be upstanding, respectful, powerful members of society and change the freaking world for the better.

So, moral of the story, if your friend is already dealing with Chemo then for the love of gawd don't make them suffer any more by imposing 2 hours of Amy Schumer on 'em. Btw, my friend's a total warrior and she's gonna be just fine... despite what I put her through.

#commonsensefeminism

Representation Matters

Recently I had a gut-wrenching response to the casting of Zoe Saldana to play Nina Simone. My reaction surprised me and threw me into a state of uncontrollable sadness.

It hit me personally because being a dark-skinned black woman with a wide nose, big lips, and kinky hair is still apparently not good enough. I know, I know, where am I going with this? You see, representation matters.

Instead of getting an actress that best fits the physical description of this incredible woman, they choose someone who looks NOTHING like her, paint her skin, and add a prosthetic nose and wig. These are the lengths they had to go to create this non-fiction character instead of getting someone who naturally fits the mold. For those who don't quite understand, just do some research. Colorism is real and many women are still discriminated against because of the shade of their skin. Many women still struggle with major self-hatred and insecurities because society has built a standard for what true beauty is.

Just Google “beautiful women” or “beautiful hair” and see if you can find anyone who looks remotely like me without scrolling until your finger hurts. Yes, I am not ignorant to the fact that many women of all shapes and sizes will be omitted from this list, but stick with me here. Representation matters in more ways than you or I can count.

And that’s easy to say, but what does that really mean?

Last month I saw a meme that had a little black girl looking up at a black female character from Star Trek that said just that: “Representation Matters.” It then went on to quote Whoopi Goldberg. 

“When I was nine years old, Star Trek came on, I looked at it and I went screaming through the house, ‘Come here, Mom, everybody, come quick, come quick, there’s a black lady on television and she ain’t no maid!’ I knew right then and there I could be anything I wanted to be.”  — Whoopi Goldberg

THIS… All of this.

(In this moment I’m holding my newborn son tightly as tears stream down my face and I whisper to him, “I want a better world for you”.)

When women of color see that they can do something, they can be somebody, it makes a world of difference. We are so much more vulnerable to oppression when we think we we’re not good enough, or we can’t be anything we want to be.

Later that week Destiny tagged me in a post on Facebook that stated, “Black women have almost 40 percent of total U.S. abortions each year, despite Blacks being only 12 percent of the population.”

I already knew this; it hurts my heart every time I read it. Why aren’t people talking about it? Why does the black community treat abortion as though it’s a necessary evil, as though without it black women will never be able to succeed?

Destiny went on to say:

“College groups across the country - made up mostly of white young adults - ARE talking about it, but all that is doing is infuriating people of color. It comes off as a white savior complex. This is something that is impacting the black community so enormously but yet people within that community remain silent. That has to change, and it has to be black men and women leading the charge.”

She is absolutely correct. The question remained… where is the representation? Why the silence? Where are the people of color fighting for these unborn children who are dying at alarming rates?

My heart aches. The deepest part of me is in anguish because we still have a long way to go. Buzz words such as White Privilege, White Savior Complex, Institutional Racism, Infant and Maternal Mortality, Pre-school to Prison Pipeline…Abortion. These words inflame an uncomfortable response in me. A response that - especially when filled with birth hormones – turns me into a weeping mess drenching my infant’s head with tears.

Why?

Because all of these words provide a very sad commentary on the value of black life today. We have come a very long way but we still have a ways to go. This is the very reason why in order for anything to change we must first start where life begins and that is within the womb. If we cannot value the least and most innocent of us then it certainly should not matter who plays whom on the cinema screens. By WE, I mean African Americans, Blacks, People of Color, however you like to be recognized. WE must take a stand against injustice and be the change we wish to see. We cannot just sit and watch as others who are not directly affected by our plight take the reins and lead.

Representation Matters.

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Post By Cessilye Smith

I didn't have an abortion, and it saved my life...

This week we've been bombarded with stories from celebrities, CEO's, and all around successful women who claim their abortion(s) saved them. They talk about how they wouldn't have been able to be successful and still fulfill their dreams without sacrificing the lives of their children.

I don't know about you, but "I couldn't have" is not a phrase fit for feminism. The beliefs we have as women needs to be built on, "I can" and "I did," because therein lies a message of strength and resilience that all women should hear. They need to know they are capable of facing an unplanned pregnancy and persevering. They need to see that there is a way for them to pursue their dreams without sacrificing such a powerful part of themselves along with the life of their child. They need to know they are not alone.

True feminism surrounds those women with support, encouragement, and resources... not a violent "choice" she might live the rest of her life regretting. 

With that said, I decided to dust off this short essay from our facebook about my own "I can and I did" moment. Because we as women and we are capable of anything. We're done sacrificing either our dreams or our children... when we know we're strong enough to have both.

"The panic is temporary. The fear is temporary. The crisis is temporary. The days when you wake up thinking “how did I make such a huge mistake” are so few in retrospect.

You have nine months for all that, but then it gets good. Still difficult, don’t get me wrong, but so, so good…

My “crisis pregnancy” turned 15 today. He’s just a year shy of the age I was when I became pregnant with him (a thought that absolutely terrifies me, trust). However, he’s anything but a mistake.

He’s the other half to all my inside jokes. He’s the best person I’ve ever known. He’s the one who binge watches Doctor Who with me and teaches me about robots and video games. He’s the reason I started New Wave Feminists. He’s the owner of a pure heart, swiper of my favorite CDs, and contributor of copious amounts of laundry. He’s the kid who still has me hanging around skateparks a decade and a half later. He’s often my (much needed) filter, because he’s a stereotypical naturally mature firstborn, and the last one to ever let me down. He’s the kid that I didn’t really raise at all, but instead grew up alongside. He’s my heart and soul.

I didn’t know it at the time, but choosing life for him would give me a life that I wouldn’t trade for the world.

See, you don’t realize how temporary the “crisis” is when it’s consuming your every waking moment, but as soon as you get beyond that… Such beauty can be born from that which we never planned.

Fear is temporary, but the courage you gain facing it lasts forever. Panic subsides, but the strength you find in the midst of the crisis endures. Perhaps the most amazing thing though is how the love you feel for this new life, whether it was intended or not, suddenly turns a “mistake” into a miracle.

I didn’t save my son by “choosing life.”

He saved me."

The March for Life 2016 changed everything.

On January 22, 2016, for the first time in the history of the March for Life, a chanting blockade of counter-protesters from pro-abortion group Stop Patriarchy met the first wave of pro-life marchers, and those marchers were holding signs reading: “I AM A PROLIFE FEMINIST.”

However it happened, whether it was fate or luck, the very first people the Stop Patriarchy counter-protesters saw were not old men, not blue-haired ladies with Bibles, not priests or nuns, not frat boys or politicians or church leaders. They were young women, carrying signs declaring themselves feminists.

It was a moment I will never forget as long as I live.

And not only was it a badass moment for those of us who were there, it was also symbolic of what is happening in the pro-life world. Young women are getting out in front of a movement that has, in some ways, stopped moving. For many major pro-life groups and individuals, the approach hasn’t changed much in the past 43 years. There are still those who cling to their bullhorns, huge photographs of dismembered fetuses, and a one-size-fits-all overtly religious approach. There are still people getting arrested on purpose – as if that’s going to help any mothers or babies – and seeming more concerned with name recognition and speaking fees than changing the culture.

Overall, the movement as a whole is still taking a somber, deadly-earnest approach to being pro-life. This has to stop. We will never convince the culture to come over to our side when our side looks like a total drag.

Photo by Robin Marty

It was anything but a drag that frigid morning in D.C. A legit blizzard was going to start any minute when New Wave Feminists came over the crest of a hill in front of the Supreme Court and saw Stop Patriarchy’s familiar orange signs and blood-spattered pants. There was no one between us and them but the police.

Surge of adrenaline. We sped up almost to a jog, so they would see our signs first: “I AM A PROLIFE FEMINIST.”

We didn’t slow down until we were directly in front of them. We blocked their signs with our own signs and banner. They were chanting “WE ARE THE LIBERATION GENERATION!” So we started chanting it with them. Because, um, we are.

When the police told them to leave the street, they eventually did. (As opposed to last year, when several of them got arrested.) They started their own small rally, replete with P.A. system, just off the street. They did their best to drown out the testimonies of the women of Silent No More, who were on the steps of the Supreme Court building sharing stories of how abortion destroyed their lives and bodies. Meanwhile, our friends at Stop Patriarchy chanted ridiculous sing-songs about how babies aren’t real until they come out of a vagina, as if a woman’s birth canal is an enchanted doorway. (They also read us “science lessons” about this fact. “A FETUS IS NOT A BABY!” was screamed repeatedly.)

Definitely their most convincing argument was when one of the women screamed “F—k God!” at the top of her lungs.

The New Wave Feminist response was to be there, be living proof of how wrong they are, and show them there is joy when you let go of the lie that your womb has to be invaded by death in order for you to be a liberated woman.

We also had a lot of fun appropriating their chants. “EVERY GENERATION HAS AN OBLIGATION TO WOMEN’S LIBERATION!” Sure, we’ll chant that right along with you. “THEY ARE KILLING WOMEN!” Yeah, we’ll chant that, too, and remember the many women who have died from “safe, legal, and rare” abortions.

But you know what? We were having fun. That’s supposed to be a bad word, I know. You’re not supposed to have fun being pro-life. You’re supposed to be somber and on the verge of tears for all the missing children and wounded women. But I have long been firmly convinced that the appropriate response to tragedy is joy – joy in spite of everything.

And joy was the word of the day. Destiny and I couldn’t stop laughing. I mean, the situation in front of the Supreme Court was so absurd it was funny. We were all grown women. Couldn’t we have a conversation? Instead the Stop Patriarchy people wouldn’t even look us in the eye. They looked through us, and kept chanting and screaming. It was surreal to stand a few feet from someone, to be having a vocal disagreement with them, and yet have no conversation whatsoever. Just chants and signs and, most of all, shrieking. Next year I’m bringing them lozenges.

The only time anyone made eye contact with us was when a girl who looked like Zooey Deschanel shouted “YOU’RE NOT A FEMINIST!” at our faces. It was the closest thing to a conversation we had with Stop Patriarchy. Our response was to smile and say “Yet here we are!”

It’s important to remember that Stop Patriarchy is not the voice of the entire pro-choice movement. They are extremists, and a lot of people who believe in abortion rights find them gross and ineffective.

But these are the ones who braved the blizzard and came out. These are the true believers. We have at least that much in common with them. In fact, we probably have more in common with them than we think.

I’ll never forget looking up and seeing that barrier made up of women with their signs: “ABORTION ON DEMAND AND WITHOUT APOLOGY.” I’ll never forget the anger I felt – not at them, but at the lie. They believe it. They really do. They believe abortion is their liberation. They believe they can be released from oppression only by the deaths of their innocent children. They believe it so strongly they can’t even let themselves admit those children were once alive.

It’s crushing, it’s horrifying, and it’s gone on too long. 

We aren’t fighting them. We’re fighting for them. We’re fighting the lie that has twisted their hearts, invaded their wombs, and killed their children: that abortion is liberation.

Abortion is not liberation. Abortion is misogyny in action. 

On paper, the theme of this year’s March was “Pro-Woman, Pro-Life.” It didn’t really feel like that in reality – the majority of speakers at all the major events were still men - but New Wave Feminists and our allies are working toward a future when we don’t need to designate that theme, when the pro-life movement is truly a woman-centered and woman-led movement.

For me, the theme this year was Joy.

Joy was what separated us from the wounded and enraged women (and men) of Stop Patriarchy. Joy is what draws people to New Wave Feminists. 

Joy – just being happy to be alive – should be a cornerstone of the pro-life movement. 

We are here not just to defend, but to celebrate Life. If it’s not worth celebrating, then why are we fighting so hard for it?

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Post by K-Hatt

Playboy isn't giving up nudes for any valiant reason (and isn't even trying to claim to)...

I know, as a feminist, I'm supposed to be SUPER FREAKIN' EXCITED about Playboy's announcement that they will no longer line the pages of their magazines with nude images of women. I know I should be celebrating this “victory for womanhood,” viewing this as a major porn giant conceding to the reality that women aren't products or property to be exploited for profit. But, I can't. I can't celebrate that a major pornography giant has come crumbling down under the pressure of seeing women for who they are, and I can't celebrate Hugh Hefner's long-awaited admission that women are actually people. Because none of that actually happened.

I have long held a determined resentment toward Playboy magazine. Maybe I'm old-timey in my more traditional view on sexual ethics, but I loathe pornography. I really do. I hate, especially, multi billion dollar industries which profit off of the sale of women's body parts masquerading as consumer goods for the entertainment of men.

So imagine my disgust when I read that Playboy's reasoning for abandoning its long-time sale of porn-lined pages, according to their chief executive, was simply: “You’re now one click away from every sex act imaginable for free. And so it’s just passé at this juncture.”

“Passé.” Going out of style. Boring. Normal. Expected. Playboy isn't giving up nudes for any valiant reason (and isn't even trying to claim to); they're jumping the porn ship because society is so drunk on porn it isn't even fazed by it anymore. Pornography is passé. Naked women aren't edgy. Naked women are everywhere, their forms easily accessible and therefore, no longer prime for turning a profit.

Not only are women merely parts for sale, we're no longer profitable enough for Playboy to think we're worth selling. The porn giant wasn't forced to admit that women are more than what they've said we are for over half a century; rather, they've been forced out of the business of porn because women's bodies are more accessible for viewing pleasure, with zero commitment and zero sense of responsibility and zero hangups and strings attached, elsewhere, for cheaper, and without all that “really great articles” shit to stifle through. What Playboy once offered for sale down the street is now not only free but mere clicks away.

What Playboy helped set into motion, it's now reaping the consequences of – and I can't even enjoy watching them burn for it. I really wish I could. I wish we could think of this as women finally being viewed as people and not products. I wish it weren't the case that women are just another thing getting popular and therefore going cheap. But, unfortunately, in a world where women aren't viewed as people, we can expect to not be regarded as people. Maybe someday that will change, but not today, and definitely not as a result of anything Playboy does.

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Post by Tori Long

My Right to Vote

A right I too often take for granted was won for me 95 years ago today as a result of a brave and exhausting battle when the Constitution of the United States was ratified, allowing women the right to vote.

I wonder if perhaps the women (and men) who demanded that women receive the right to vote would actually be happy with us growing content with it; forgetting it exists because it's so common and expected that we rarely think about it, if we ever do.

But, I know that's simply not true.

These activists gave up so much time and energy for me to have something I take for granted. And not only that, they didn't fight for me to be able to just mindlessly fill in a bubble and put on a sticker. They fought so I could have a voice and make an impact on my community and country by taking a stand and being heard.

Today, I've been a mix of grateful and ashamed. Grateful for the sacrifices of women who came before me. Ashamed because they thought more of my voice than I do.

Regardless of my history of selective apathy in this regard, reflecting on this has me nearly in tears at this moment. I can only hope that I will one day appreciate my right to be heard as much as the women who fought for it did.

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Post by Tori Long