"Welcome to the pre-release version of the Creative Interventions Toolkit: A Practical Guide to Stop Interpersonal Violence. While we are waiting for the finalizing of the designed version of this Toolkit, we wanted to make the contents of the Toolkit available for the public. These pdf versions are being made available for your use. Because the pdfs were not meant as a final version, some of the formatting is awkward. We hope to have the designed version available by the end of Summer 2012. Due to the length of the full Toolkit, we have the pre-release version available as a complete document, or you can download the Toolkit in sections."

Toolkit | Creative Interventions

gonna take a look at this later!

(via iinventedeverything)

(via iinventedeverything)

"I do feel sorry for these boys. And not only because they will be put in cages that will not make them any better. I also feel sorry that two 16-year-olds are capable of the things these boys have been found guilty of doing. That makes me deeply, deeply sad. ​That we have created a world in which, at just 16 years old, and even younger, boys can already hate girls this much. That they can already dehumanize and degrade them. That misogyny is so insidious and so effective as to make 16-year-old boys incapable of respecting this girl, of seeing her as a human being with the right to make her own choices, even when drunk, and the right to remain unviolated, even when passed out. I am sorry for these boys that, at 16, some of their humanity is already gone. The cruelty of kids is not new, and I guess it should not shock me, but this specifically gendered cruelty, at such extreme levels and at such a young age, is shocking to me. And I do feel very sorry for these boys.

Just not as sorry as I feel for the girl they raped."

Mia McKenzie, On Rape, Cages, and the Steubenville Verdict (via sugaryumyum)

I’m sorry that, when they go home, they will be coddled and comforted and cooed over by people who will reinforce the notion that they did nothing wrong. They will learn nothing, and they will do it again.

It’s irresistible to call for their permanent incarceration. Viciously, I would be happy if they never saw the light of day again. But that solves nothing - it doesn’t teach them or any other young men that young girls and women are human beings deserving of respect and humanity. It doesn’t lessen this brave girl’s trauma, or make her community realize what monsters they’ve been and rally to support her.

There have to be alternatives to imprisoning people, I just don’t know what they are. I’m going to be scouring McKenzie’s Resources page for more insight.

(via gardeningoctopus)

ohmyloria:

antivian:

bebinn:

craftychristianmamma:

Don’t punish the child for the horrific acts of the father.

Don’t revictimize the survivor by forcing them to let their body be used against their will for months on end. You have no fucking idea what that’s like.

^This

Not going to comment on the issue because its clearly a touchy subject. Granted it is not the child’s fault, the mother is the one with control. It is always the mother’s choice. Life is unfair and cruel, and choosing whether to keep or give up a baby isn’t fair either. But what child wants to grow up knowing he or she is a product of rape? I don’t know, I think its no one’s business but the mothers.

It’s not the fetus’ fault it exists like it’s not the bullet’s fault it’s lodged in your stomach, like it’s not the knife’s fault it’s buried in your chest, like it’s not the rope’s fault it’s wrapped around your throat. You can’t blame those things for the harm they’re doing you, but that doesn’t mean you don’t get to remove them from your body.

(Source: reflections-of-shadows)

Need help? Here are some links for you

fuckyeahsexeducation:

Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network, America’s largest anti-sexual violence network. Website includes a Sexual Assault phone and online hotline, find a local counseling center,  how to help a loved one, information to educate yourself and a list of international resources

1-800-656-HOPE

http://www.rainn.org/

Gay Men’s Domestic Violence Project, provides crisis intervention, support and resources to victims and survivors of domestic abuse. Includes a hotline and a list of events

1-800-832-1901

http://gmdvp.org/

Help Guide, find any kind of helpful organization including domestic abuse. Includes a help guide, hotlines, and where to find a safe place to stay.

http://www.helpguide.org/mental/domestic_violence_abuse_help_treatment_prevention.htm

Kids Help, an organization that focuses on helping children and teens in Canada. Includes a phone and online hotline, helps set kids and teens up with a resource in their area.

1800-668-6868

http://org.kidshelpphone.ca/en

Youth Homelessness and Runaway Prevention, to help keep runaway and at risk children off the streets and safe. Provides support and solutions to keep kids safe.

1-800-Runaway

http://www.1800runaway.org/

The National Herpes Hotline provides information and referrals to help treat and live with herpes.

(919) 361-8488

http://www.herpesonline.org/articles/herpes_hotline.html

A list of National hotlines for STDS and/or substance abuse

http://www.stopthinkbesafe.org/youngpeople/hotline.asp

Hopeline, run by the Kristin Brooks Hope Center, A hotline that helps you deal with feelings of depression or the thought of suicide. Amazing organization to give you hope.

1-800-442-HOPE

http://www.hopeline.com/gethelpnow.html

Reproductive Health Reality Check | Ignore That Self-Affixed Halo: Anti-Choicers Know Just What They Are Doing to Incite Violence →

prolifehypocrisy:

They know, and they don’t care.

What’s most interesting to me about this article is that it explains something that I missed when people were posting about the chalk drawings with guns. Some protestors at a clinic drew a picture of a gun and wrote “Would it bother us more if they used guns?” Pro-choice tweeters and bloggers posted a picture of it, and that’s all I could see. I thought that it was probably some hipster kid who was trying to be creative but didn’t have any ill intentions. This article notes that another one said “What would Jesus do?” with a picture of a gun.

…That’s a little disconcerting and confusing, to say the least. I don’t think that one was so innocent.

They use scare tactics to make their followers angry and scared, then throw their hands in the air when somebody acts on it. They think they can distance themselves from the extreme consequences of their actions.

Perhaps, in their minds, they can. To the rest of the world? They absolutely cannot.

Patients Remember Dr. Tiller →

stfusexists:

Two years ago today, Dr. George Tiller, one of only three practitioners providing late term abortions in the US, was viciously gunned down in church in front of his wife and other parishioners who tried to stop the shooter. He was an incredible man, who never intended to carry on his father’s practice after his parents, brother, and sister-in-law were killed in an aircraft accident. But when he moved home to Wichita to take care of his one year-old nephew, he found that his father had left behind a community of desperate women who needed services free of judgment. After one of these women died from a botched illegal abortion, Tiller took over his father’s clinic in 1970, and ran it for 39 years (in which time he was fire-bombed in 1986, and shot in his car 5 times in 1993).

In this article, various patients remember Dr. Tiller and how he affected their lives. I truly defy anyone, anti-choice or not, to read these stories and still be incapable of feeling any empathy for Dr. Tiller or his patients.