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Rosario Dawson on MSNBC right now - One Billion Rising
find a V-Day event near you - http://vspot.vday.org/vday/events
Stop violence against women - one billion women rising.
3 replies
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The courage of the vigilante feminists is contagious
Protesters hold up knives in a show of defiance during a protest in Cairo
against rape and sexual harrassment on 6 February 2013.
'I'm sick of being ashamed." Three days ago, an anti-harassment activist said those words to me in a flat above Cairo's Tahrir square, as she pulled on her makeshift uniform ready to protect women on the protest lines from being raped in the street. Only days before, I'd heard exactly the same words from pro-choice organisers in Dublin, where I travelled to report on the feminist fight to legalise abortion in Ireland. I had thought that I was covering two separate stories – so why were two women from different countries and backgrounds repeating the same mantra against fear, and against shame?
From India to Ireland to Egypt, women are on the streets, on the airwaves, on the internet, getting organised and getting angry. They're co-ordinating in their communities to combat sexual violence and taking a stand against archaic sexist legislation; they're challenging harassment and rape culture. Across the world, women who are sick and tired of shame and fear are fighting back in unprecedented ways.
Like the Arab spring and Occupy in 2011, local movements with no apparent connection to one another are exchanging information and taking courage from one another's struggles. The fight against misogyny is spreading online and via networks of solidarity and trust that develop rapidly, outside the traditional channels. I met Swedish and Iranian feminist activists in Dublin, and British feminist activists in Cairo, and have seen live information about the women's marches in Egypt spread quickly through chains of activists from South Africa to the American Deep South.
It's too early to say whether the mood of mutiny will last. When people fight misogyny, they aren't just fighting governments and police forces, religious organisations and strangers in the streets – they also have to deal with intolerance from their loved ones, from their colleagues, from friends and family members who can't or won't understand. Over the last few weeks I have been humbled by the bravery of the activists I've met, particularly the women. It takes a special sort of courage to cast off shame, to risk not just violence but also intimate rejection for the sake of a better future. And the thing about courage is that it's contagious.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/feb/13/new-feminism-defying-shame
Great to see the 'contagion of courage' in so many different places in the world.
Protesters hold up knives in a show of defiance during a protest in Cairo
against rape and sexual harrassment on 6 February 2013.
'I'm sick of being ashamed." Three days ago, an anti-harassment activist said those words to me in a flat above Cairo's Tahrir square, as she pulled on her makeshift uniform ready to protect women on the protest lines from being raped in the street. Only days before, I'd heard exactly the same words from pro-choice organisers in Dublin, where I travelled to report on the feminist fight to legalise abortion in Ireland. I had thought that I was covering two separate stories – so why were two women from different countries and backgrounds repeating the same mantra against fear, and against shame?
From India to Ireland to Egypt, women are on the streets, on the airwaves, on the internet, getting organised and getting angry. They're co-ordinating in their communities to combat sexual violence and taking a stand against archaic sexist legislation; they're challenging harassment and rape culture. Across the world, women who are sick and tired of shame and fear are fighting back in unprecedented ways.
Like the Arab spring and Occupy in 2011, local movements with no apparent connection to one another are exchanging information and taking courage from one another's struggles. The fight against misogyny is spreading online and via networks of solidarity and trust that develop rapidly, outside the traditional channels. I met Swedish and Iranian feminist activists in Dublin, and British feminist activists in Cairo, and have seen live information about the women's marches in Egypt spread quickly through chains of activists from South Africa to the American Deep South.
It's too early to say whether the mood of mutiny will last. When people fight misogyny, they aren't just fighting governments and police forces, religious organisations and strangers in the streets – they also have to deal with intolerance from their loved ones, from their colleagues, from friends and family members who can't or won't understand. Over the last few weeks I have been humbled by the bravery of the activists I've met, particularly the women. It takes a special sort of courage to cast off shame, to risk not just violence but also intimate rejection for the sake of a better future. And the thing about courage is that it's contagious.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/feb/13/new-feminism-defying-shame
Great to see the 'contagion of courage' in so many different places in the world.
