theme: #womensstories (feimineach)

#womenslives: “I stumbled across the gravel walkway to the main office. A bell dinged when I opened…”

September 7, 2017 Leave a comment

I stumbled across the gravel walkway to the main office. A bell dinged when I opened the door, but the receptionist didn’t greet me. There was an unspoken agreement between us. If she didn’t look at me, she wouldn’t have to acknowledge that she knew what I was doing – that I would be checking out in two hours with […]

#womenslives: costly, traumatic nightmare of being undocumented and pregnant – @Madame_George on @broadly

June 2, 2017

Undocumented migrants already struggle to access healthcare, but doctors warn that the problem is especially acute among pregnant women. Li fled to the UK in 2012, escaping persecution in China for being a Christian. But her problems got exponentially worse when she found out she was pregnant. Turned away from her local GP because she didn’t have documents to prove […]

#womenslives: If you want to know about Muslim women’s rights, ask Muslim women

May 17, 2017

Islam’s patriarchy and western feminism have said a lot. Now Muslim women who fight sexism (yes we exist) must be heard Within minutes of arriving to collect my professionally bound thesis, I found myself on the receiving end of an unsolicited and impenetrable rant about female genital mutilation. It’s uncanny how often people try to demonstrate their concern about the […]

#womenslives: “My abortion made me appreciate all that abortion providers do for women” – @broadly

March 13, 2017

I was nervous before my abortion. Even though I was confident in my decision to end my pregnancy, and even though I knew I would receive excellent care, I found myself shaking as I climbed onto the exam table. My doctor and nurse weren’t in the room yet, but a patient advocate was. Her name was Katie, she told me […]

#womenslives: “Most women can think of many occasions on which they were told…”

December 30, 2016

#womenslives: Most women can think of many occasions on which they were told that what was hurting them was not. I remember a gynecologist with thick and senseless hands, who expanded the speculum angrily and shot a meteor of pain to the base of my spine; the fontanelles in my skull seemed to separate and pain poured in like ice. […]

#womensstories: abortion was my only choice -@msmagazine

December 20, 2016

So what were my options? Force my grief stricken self through 9 months of pregnancy? Raise a child I was unfit to care for, or give the baby up? Anti-choice advocates are always so quick to suggest adoption, as if that is somehow an easy option. I have seen first hand the amount of guilt, longing and pain that comes […]

#womensstories: I had a miscarriage. Fetal burial rules would only amplify my grief – @voxdotcom

December 12, 2016

My son would be turning 20 this month. He was due on December 15, 1996. But in June of 1996, when I was entering the second week of my second trimester, I had a miscarriage — in medical terms, a spontaneous abortion — while preparing to deliver a paper at a prestigious women’s history conference a thousand miles from home. […]

#womenslives: No sleep for Congolese mothers trying to save their girls from rape

December 7, 2016

The mothers of Kavumu hardly sleep. But on rainy nights, they don’t even try. The rain pounds on their tin roofs so noisily that they worry they won’t hear rapists breaking in to steal their daughters. So they sit up all night, just watching their front doors. Since 2013, 49 young children, one only 18 months old, have been abducted […]

#womenslives: I’m with her (still)

November 25, 2016

I’m with her (still). @medium: @FitLizzy: #womenslives: On Thursday, I woke up defiant. I put my Hillary t-shirt back on. I charged the streets in broad daylight, so everyone would see. Cars honked. Men rolled down their windows. “Nice ass!” they shouted. Until I ran facing traffic, and they saw what my shirt said. “You’re a fucking pig,” snarled a […]

#womenslives: “I have never been sexually assaulted.”

November 25, 2016

#womenslives; #womensstories: I have never been sexually assaulted.When I was eight, I was riding my bike down a main street in my home town when a group of men drove by. I would never have noticed them if one hadn’t yelled, “I WANT TO LICK YOUR PUSSY!” to me through the rolled down window as they passed. The men probably […]

#womensstories: Girl power: four Irish women and what feminism means to them

August 12, 2016

Girl power etc. (Irish Examiner) #womenstories from Ireland. The first excerpt is from Louise O’Neill. Tara Flynn, Andrea Horan, and Sarah Maria Griffin also contribute. (Aside: have you ever seen a list of such Irish names in one place?) “This was particularly true when it came to sexual agency. The teenage girls I knew who were exploring their sexuality were […]

#womenslives: he thinks you’re a hoe anyway! the -1 vs. +1 woman’s value theory – @thefeministwire

August 5, 2016

By the by, this is a really great series of posts (feministwire) where women talk about their lives, stories, experiences, and feminisms. Look for emerging feminisms on feministwire. This one: He Thinks You’re A Hoe Anyway! The -1 vs. +1 Woman’s Value Theory Narrative: A woman’s “value” lowers as her sexual partners increases, while a man’s “value” rises as his […]

#womensstories: Sexual education was severely lacking at my grade school

July 27, 2016

Sexual education was severely lacking at my grade school, because the students were only allowed to know sex is on a biological level, and how bodies grew when they went through puberty. We weren’t informed of the bigger, cultural picture of how pleasure, non-hetero relationships, and sexual health are integrated into everyday life, or the effects of what gendering and […]

#womensstories: “I carried his name on my body for nine years”

May 23, 2016

#womensstories: ‘I carried his name on my body for nine years’: tattooed trafficking survivors reclaim their past The flower on Jennifer Kempton’s neck starts just behind her right ear, fanning in inky petals out towards her jawbone, a tropical medley of yellow and pink and green against her skin. When she gets up in the morning, the flower is the […]

#womenslives: “Having an abortion was one of the most difficult decisions I’ve ever had to make…”

May 20, 2016

Having an abortion was one of the most difficult decisions I’ve ever had to make, but it was the best decision for me, at that time in my life.In November 2012, I was living the dream—literally. In 2009, I had left my small-town life in the suburbs of Philadelphia to live and work in the resort town of Cancun, Mexico.It […]

#womenslives: “We need to move away from the oppressive myth that rape and assault…”

May 19, 2016

“We need to move away from the oppressive myth that rape and assault only happen in violent fits of rage” Every woman has been a little bit raped’: the complicated politics of ‘No’ – Elizabeth Skoski,@rolereboot (emphasis added, as always) We need to move away from the oppressive myth that rape and assault only happen in violent fits of rage, […]

#womenslives: “My one minute rape story.”

May 19, 2016

My one minute rape story (on @estblshmnt) I was raped again last night. Again. It was a small rape. Un petite râpé (it sounds so much softer, less threatening, in my mangled French). A rape with a soft small limp dick, no bigger than three inches at its height, that felt barely even there. There was no tearing, bruises, or […]

#womenslives: “Getting pregnant was one of the darkest points in my life…”

May 6, 2016

[…] Getting pregnant was one of the darkest points in my life. I was broke from quitting my job, going back to school, and then accepting a low-paying fellowship. I was alone and living in a brand new city that I hated. When I did get an abortion, just a few weeks into my pregnancy, I had to ask a […]

#womensstories: my mom was an underground railroad for abused women -@xoJane

April 26, 2016

What She Taught Me About Feminism And Fear Once, my mom spotted a bruised woman with three children holding a cardboard sign in the Wal-Mart parking lot. It was pouring down rain. I was seven. “Stay in the car,” she said, locking me in. HALEY B. ELKINS on xojane: As a child, I didn’t understand most of the midnight phone […]

#womenslives: Four women share their stories about rape, disclosure, and dealing with rape myths

March 31, 2016

Grim reading on openDemocracy. Four women share their stories about rape, disclosure, and dealing with rape myths. TW. Women of the World (WOW) created a public, cultural space where women’s stories of survival and their manner of telling them expanded their particular narratives into the universal and political. Four women, from Pakistan, the US, Britain and Germany, sit quietly on […]

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