WARNING: This article or pages it links to contain information about domestic abuse and sexual violence which may be triggering to survivors. No matter what you call it abuse is abuse. This is highlighted in the popular book and now movie Fifty… Read More ›
A few weeks ago, I came across a postcard that I was given at a conference last year. I got the postcard (advertisement?) because it has a picture of Fannie Lou Hamer on it, and in my home and office,… Read More ›
It’s been almost two years since I lost someone I loved. The relationship was short, tortured, unhealthy (as all my romantic relationships have been, but that’s another story…) However, I fell particularly hard for this one. When we separated, the… Read More ›
Although putting women in charge of drafting new policies that address the “woman problem” currently facing the NFL, it too reeks of the similar dismissive and patronizing actions women face when trying to obtain leadership roles in their religious traditions. Supercilious progress for the sake of progress isn’t progress and progress under the guise of silence is still misogyny. We need women in positions of leadership in both the NFL as well as in religious traditions. The culture of violence and silence will only continue, albeit with a Band-Aid firmly in place, holding the painful experiences and histories of women, long forgotten and often overlooked, until society values their rights just as much as the men leading the prayers and those that are being prayed for on Sundays across America.
Roughly seven hours prior to my composing this blog, a report was disseminated across the Internet offering what is being called a first-hand account of Mosul women’s prison currently in Iraq where possibly thousands of Yazidi, Christian and Muslim women… Read More ›
In these last several weeks, the horror that one out of four women will encounter domestic violence- sometimes referred to as “intimate partner” violence- in their life time has come to the national forefront. Indeed, women are more likely than… Read More ›
I don’t want to be an angry feminist. I don’t want to be angry. I’m angry. I’m angry a lot. I’m sad more often than I am angry. The sadness that I speak of runs deep. I had an entire… Read More ›
#YesAllWomen proved that although not all men commit horrible crimes against women, the men that often get the headlines and create the most controversy are the ones that need to be watched out for.
While I was in Crete on the Goddess Pilgrimage teaching about and experiencing a Society of Peace where violence and domination were neither celebrated nor encouraged, another war broke out in Iraq, breaking my heart, breaking all of our hearts—yet… Read More ›
As I return home from a busy day signing off on proofs and churning out cutesy paper patterns, I find my husband, Neil, at the kitchen table. He wears a complicated frown as he pores over a score of tiled… Read More ›
Last October, 2013, I filed charges with the New England United Methodist Conference against my former partner who is a Pastor with the New England United Methodist Church. I was in a relationship with this man for a little over… Read More ›
I had the honor of speaking at the United Nations during the Commission for the Status of Women this past March about the Feminization of Poverty and the Impact on Migrant Mothers. Below is the text of my speech delivered. By posting… Read More ›
Every February I gear up to participate in local V-Day 1 Billion Rising events where activists rise up to end violence against women and girls. This year’s theme was the journey to justice, and there were two local events. I… Read More ›
It is so easy to blame feminism for the ills of the world – mainly because of continued misconceptions and misunderstandings about the definition or meaning of feminism. Feminism is responsible for poverty, bad leadership, wars, the polar vortex, the… Read More ›
October 11th was International Day of the Girl – a movement that empowers girls around the world to see themselves as powerful change agents. This year’s theme is “Innovation for girls’ education.” Certainly, this makes sense given that education is… Read More ›
The invisible war of sexual assault of female and male military personnel by their fellow soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines continues even as the U.S. Senate holds hearings and presses for substantive changes in the way cases of sexual assault… Read More ›
As most of us are aware by now, there is a “feminist-sextremist” group from Ukraine called “Femen.” This group has been very controversial by their public demonstrations of nudity, the words they paint on their bodies, and their explicit condemnations… Read More ›
Before the play begins, the audience is invited on stage; we walk around, not quite knowing what to do, gazing at the props, uncertain. A few chairs, scattered jars of honey, jugs of water beside a free-standing waist-high faucet, a… Read More ›
Tomorrow is Good Friday on the western Christian calendar, the day when western Christians remember Jesus’ death on the cross. The day is often memorialized in ways that recall Jesus’ last moments, from his final steps to his final words,… Read More ›
This article is in response to a post by Qasim Rashid of the Muslim Writers Guild of America titled, “The Islamic Solution to Stop Domestic Violence” published in the Huffington Post‘s Religion Blog on March 5th, 2012. Although this post… Read More ›
The nation has watched over these last several months as the rape case in Steubenville, Ohio has unfolded in the media. On March 17, 2013 the verdict was announced and the two teenage boys accused of raping a 16 year… Read More ›
This Saturday I will be presenting a paper about Cyberbrides at the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women. While my focus for that paper is the impact on mothers and families, my research also revealed how some Cyberbrides… Read More ›
gendercide it took a full week of straitjacketing generations of genocidal femicidal trauma for the clay dam wall to explode and flood me in torrents of collective grief a poet with no words a lifelong activist struck dumb i choke… Read More ›
Deconstructing masculinity isn’t the key to solving social, sexual, and domestic violence across the world but it is a step worth taking when attempting to engage men in affecting change to stop these violent actions since men, statistically are the perpetrators of such crimes that both cause such outcry as well as perpetual silence.
Upon the recommendation of several friends and colleagues I decided to see the film Les Miserables. It is rare these days that I make it to the movies. My life is generally over scheduled and spare time is nonexistent. So… Read More ›
Once again, recent events have me thinking of the ethical paradigms people utilize to comprehend and explain violent acts against women. These violent acts galvanize our moral compasses and beg for answers to our most fundamental moral questions. Do cultural… Read More ›
This post is part of the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence, a global campaign dedicated to ending gender-based violence. Preachers. We preach sermons for people we often do not know, in times of great joy and deep sorrow,… Read More ›
Sometimes we are told that domination and violence and war are innate in human nature; therefore, it is futile to protest war. But this is not true. I oppose war because I oppose all forms of power-over, domination, and violence. As a radical… Read More ›
Art can provide a balm for the modern soul – Claude Monet Living in New York has its vices, and anxiety-triggering space is one of many. Though the city offers ailments just the same, whether they are in the form… Read More ›
Born into a Lutheran family of academicians, from earliest childhood I questioned their divisive, anti-Catholic rhetoric and systemic methods of indoctrination. The punitive consequences of my rebellion against their worldview were swift, harsh and unrelenting. Separated emotionally from my mother,… Read More ›
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