For the Girls

When I first got to AU, these signs used to annoy me. They're on the back of almost every door in every restroom on campus. 

I took them as constant reminder to never let my guard down.

Somehow though, I've come to see them more as a sign of solidarity. 

Happy International Women's Day!

Speaking Up & Out

I am the gift. Even if it took me a while to see it. 

Though I am not a fan of cable news, I was recently floored by the intensity of MSNBC's Melissa Harris-Perry, a fellow survivor of sexual assault, in her open letter to yet another asinine politician who thinks he has the right to tell women what to do with their bodies. 

More women & men, in & out of the media, need to stand up to these bullies. 

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

I am all for religion as a guiding principle in life, but when you want to force your religious beliefs onto someone else - as Indiana Senate candidate Richard Mourdock would like to do - especially someone who has already been violated, you are not good enough to lead anyone anywhere at anytime, ever. 

I can imagine the joy I will feel & how amazing it will be when I one day have a baby with an awesome partner. But already knowing how it feels to be sexually violated, I cannot believe that some men, and even some women, think they have the right to dictate when I should conceive, and that the father could potentially be anyone who forces himself on me. 

Please vote wisely, citizens. 

Blame the Rapist Not the Victim

Funny (not ha ha) how within a week of my stories on sexual assault, which focused in part on how the media (mis)handles such horrors, the New York Times fell on its face by reporting on the gang rape of an 11-year old from the perspective of the (18!) rapists as the real victims.  


Florida's freshman Rep. Kathleen Passidomo followed suit by citing a quote from the article, that the victim could have prevented the multiple sexual assaults from 18 males aged preteen to 27 if only she hadn't been dressed like "a woman in her 20s."


Let's examine that statement. Do women in their 20's deserve to be raped? Just the slutty ones? 


What about nudists? Are they asking for it? And if that's true, someone please explain to me why Muslim women, especially in nations that require them to wear the head-to-toe burqa, are sexually assaulted as much if not more than women in the U.S.? 


Thank goodness the public editor had the heart AND sense to call the NYT's mistake because no one else at the paper stood up. When our media "gatekeepers" are uneducated and insensitive about an issue, how can we expect the public to be any better?


Let's demand a smarter media. And a smarter U.S.