many-worlds:

vagina-pagina:

I like to remember the badass historical roots of Mother’s Day:

• The first attempts to establish a “Mother’s Day” in the United States were mostly marked by women’s peace groups. A common early activity was the meeting of groups of mothers whose sons had fought or died on opposite sides of the American Civil War.
• In 1868, Ann Jarvis created a committee to establish a “Mother’s Friendship Day” whose purpose was “to reunite families that had been divided during the Civil War”, and she wanted to expand it into an annual memorial for mothers, but she died in 1905 before the celebration became popular. Her daughter, Anna Jarvis, would continue her mother’s efforts.
• “Mother’s Day Work Clubs” were organized in the late 1800s by the Jarvises to improve sanitation and health in the area. These clubs also assisted both Union and Confederate encampments controlling a typhoid outbreak.
• In New York City, Julia Ward Howe led a “Mother’s Day” anti-war observance on June 2, 1872, which was accompanied by a Mother’s Day Proclamation. The observance continued in Boston for about 10 years under Howe’s personal sponsorship, then died out.
• In May 1877, a Mother’s Day observance was held in Albion, Michigan over a dispute related to the temperance movement. According to local legend, Albion pioneer Juliet Calhoun Blakeley stepped up to complete the sermon of the Rev. Myron Daughterty who was distraught because an anti-temperance group had forced his son and two other temperance advocates to spend the night in a saloon and become publicly drunk. From the pulpit Blakeley called on other mothers to join her. Blakeley’s two sons, both traveling salesmen, were so moved that they vowed to return each year to pay tribute to her and embarked on a campaign to urge their business contacts to do likewise.
• Mother’s Day founder Anna Jarvis herself became a major opponent of what the holiday had become, spending all her inheritance and the rest of her life fighting what she saw as an abuse of the celebration. She decried the practice of purchasing greeting cards, which she saw as a sign of being too lazy to write a personal letter. She was arrested in 1948 for disturbing the peace while protesting against the commercialization of Mother’s Day

So, here are some ways to honor the people who made you

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fromonesurvivortoanother:

lots of love this mother’s day for everyone who has a complex relationship with their mom, everyone who has ceased communication with their mom for reasons of self-preservation, and every person whose mom is deceased

smith-q-and-a:

For people who want updates about trans* women at Smith, major developments have happened in recent meetings with the administration and admissions. Here they are:

-Smith admissions will accept alternative documentation to confirm gender identity if there are inconsistent or non-female gender markers on admissions materials. It is still indeterminate what kind of language will be used on the website in the implementation of this change.

-Smith admissions will not consider financial aid/FAFSA documents when evaluating an applicant for consistent gender markers

-Smith will allow Q&A to create a “best practices” protocol for admissions employees to use when interacting with or advising trans applicants

-Further meetings with other administrators will discuss inclusion of information specific to trans women’s issues/transmisogyny during diversity trainings, use of preferred name in Smith documents and directories, and reporting/oversight on implementation of demands

-Smith can’t publish statistics about number of trans women applicants and acceptance ratios for confidentiality reasons, but might be able to direct trans women applicants to student organizers who can help oversee the process

-Student organizers and administrative officials will form a committee that will meet, ideally, 3 times a semester to talk about trans women’s inclusion at Smith college which will be co-facilitated by the student RCSG Coordinator (Q&A’s Emily Coffin) and Audrey Smith (Associate Vice President for Enrollment)

Published by Smith Q&A

smith-q-and-a.tumblr.com

fb: Smith Q&A 

q_and_a-admin@lists.riseup.net

Now let’s see whether they actually follow this…

dollyfarton:

ineedmasculism:

lundsdotter:

The strongest ‘pound for pound’ muscle is the uterus: it weighs around 2 pounds but during childbirth can exert a downward force of 400 Newtons, which is one hundred times as strong as gravity and equivalent to the power in a fully extended modern longbow. 

I need masculism because I am afraid.

you should be

chiefelk:

Dear Eve Ensler,

I want to start off by saying thank you. I appreciate the time you took to reach out to me, because I know you’re incredibly busy. I know there are much more important people in this world than myself, so I appreciate you engaging in dialogue with me and my colleague Kelleigh Driscoll.

This all started because on Twitter, I addressed some issues that I had with V-Day, your organization, and the way it treated Indigenous women in Canada. I said that you are racist and dismissive of Indigenous people. You wrote to me that you were upset that I would suggest this, and not even 24 hours later you were on the Joy Behar Show referring to your chemotherapy treatment as a “Shamanistic experience.”

Your organization took a photo of Ashley Callingbull, and used it to promote V-Day Canada and One Billion Rising, without her consent. You then wrote the word “vanishing” on the photo, and implied that Indigenous women are disappearing, and inherently suggested that we are in some type of dire need of your saving. You then said that Indigenous women were V-Day Canada’s “spotlight”. V-Day completely ignored the fact that February 14th is an iconic day for Indigenous women in Canada, and marches, vigils, and rallies had already been happening for decades to honor the missing and murdered Indigenous women. You repeatedly in our conversation insisted that you had absolutely no idea that these events were already taking place. So then, what were you spotlighting? When Kelleigh brought up that it was problematic for you to be completely unaware that this date is important to the women you’re spotlighting, your managing director Cecile Lipworth became extremely defensive and responded with “Well, every date on the Calendar has importance.” This is not an acceptable response.

When women in Canada brought up these exact issues, V-Day responded to them by deleting the comment threads that were on Facebook. For a person and organization who works to end violence against women, this is certainly the opposite of that. Although I’m specifically addressing V-Day, this is not an isolated incident. This is something that Indigenous women constantly face. This erasure of identity and white, colonial, feminism is in fact, a form of violence against us. The exploitation and cultural appropriation creates and excuses the violence done to us.

When I told you that your white, colonial, feminism is hurting us, you started crying. Eve, you are not the victim here. This is also part of the pattern which is a problem: Indigenous women are constantly trying to explain all of these issues, and are constantly met with “Why are you attacking me?!” This is not being a good ally.

You asked me what would it mean to be a good ally. It would have meant stepping back, giving up the V-Day platform, and attending the marches and vigils. It would have meant putting aside the One Billion Rising privilege and participating in what the Indigenous women felt was important.

At the end of our conversation you offered me the opportunity to join V-Day. Offered me money. Offered me to become a spokesperson for Native American women. These are things I am not interested in. I do not want to be part of the white savior industrial complex, and I never want to duplicate saviorism and colonialism within my own organization, Save Wiyabi Project, and I’m surely not interested in selling my soul and integrity for a bit of cash and perceived prestige.

I’m not here to speak for Ashley and how she felt about her photo being used, and I’m not here to speak for the Indigenous women in Canada. Indigenous women in the United States and Canada have agency, self determination, and are quite capable of telling their own stories, and have been doing so for thousands of years. We are aware of the violence we face, and are also aware this just isn’t about individual acts of violence. We expect not only our bodies, but our agency, work, and contributions to be respected. None of this is new, and we do not need a white person to legitimize our history and existence.

I entered this conversation with uneasy feelings about V-Day and your work, and left feeling completely dismissed – much like the Indigenous women in Canada. You might have been listening to what I was saying, but you definitely didn’t hear me. You dumped all of my concerns onto someone else and did not take personal responsibility for anything. Eve, this is YOUR organization. My hope is that you do some self examination about what’s happening here. You have to see this before you continue doing this work because this is epistemic and imperial violence. Your actions are assisting violence, not ending it.