Because I am a Woman
This blog is about sex-positivity, sex-ed, feminism, reproductive justice, birth justice, intersectionality, and activism.
Feel free to send me a message with your questions about sexual health, feminism, or anything else!
For more information about any of these things please check out the resources tab or leave me a question in my ask box! I would love to talk to you!
If you have anything you would like to bring to my attention or ask that you do not feel comfortable submitting to this page send me an email at: becauseiamawoman.tumblr@gmail.com
Many thanks to Susan of susanharkins.com for designing my logo!
Not everybody who is in a crisis or struggling with suicidal thoughts can bring themselves to pick up a phone, and 30% of people who call suicide prevention hotlines hang up as soon as they hear a human voice. If you’re in trouble, and you need chat, forum, or e-mail based support, please look at this list. You are not alone.
- IMAlive: An Online Crisis Network: IMAlive is an online suicide prevention hotline where you can chat live, one-on-one, with trained volunteers, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
- RAINN: the Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network: RAINN provides live, one-on-one chat with trained volunteers for victims of sexual violence, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Their website also offers extensive, compassionate information that may help you to understand and come to terms with what has happened to you.
- The GLBT National Help Center: This organization offers live, one-on-one chat with trained volunteers for people struggling with GLBT issues. Their chat service is available from 4 PM to 12 AM EST Mondays through Fridays, and 12 PM to 5 PM EST on the weekends. This site is also a wonderful source of information, so if you are in pain because of, or confused by, something to do with your sexual orientation or gender identity, this site may offer you something that you need.
- Veterans Crisis Line: This organization provides special services for veterans, including live, one-on-one chat with trained counselors, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, regardless of whether or not you are enrolled in Veterans Affairs health care. The Veterans Crisis Line is run by the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention and the Department of Veterans Affairs.
- Befrienders Worldwide: Befrienders offers e-mail based crisis support, organized by country, in many different languages. Befrienders is owned and organized by the Samaritans, a UK/Ireland-based humanitarian organization. Their site has compassionate information and first-hand stories relating to suicidal feelings and warning signs, depression, self-harm, and bullying.
- Suicide Forum: This is a peer-to-peer support forum for people in crisis. You must be a member in order to post, but membership is free, instant, and asks for no personal information. Every effort is taken to ensure that this is a positive, supportive, non-triggering environment, but the staff of Suicide Forum are not actually trained in suicide prevention. This forum is for meeting and talking to other people who share and understand your pain in a supportive, safe environment. Suicide Forum is not a substitute for professional help, so if you are currently in a state of crisis, please, try one of the other sites on this list first.
Many of these sites are looking to train new volunteers. I know so many of you want to help; an organization like IMAlive may be your best opportunity.
Please allow yourself to get help if you need it. Remember that your life has value.
As I’ve said before, the RAINN one on one chat saved my life when I couldn’t form actual words & speak them out loud. Spreading the knowledge….
(via fuckyeahfeminists)
A presentation on how to find the right condom size and fit for you, and the fit of different condom varieties in different brands. It’s very extensive, and provides a lot of information on each specific condom (including Durex, Trojan, LifeStyles, Kimono, Sir Richard’s, ONE, and others)
I know many people want to learn about non-hormonal options for birth control. This could be a great place to start.
In ARHP’s introduction, they write
Knowledge is power, and it’s important for women and health care providers to be aware of the seven most effective contraceptive methods available in the US: tubal occlusion or ligation, vasectomy (for men), transcervical sterilization (Essure® micro-inserts), two reversible IUDs (Mirena® and Paragard® “Copper-T”) and a reversible implant (Implanon®). Most of these methods are hormone-free, although Mirena and Implanon do contain hormones. Other non-hormonal methods such as barrier and fertility-based awareness methods (Standard Days® and many others) also can be effective if they are used correctly and consistently, which often hinges on appropriate counseling and education. In the case of these less-effective methods, the guiding principle is that use of any method is better than use of no method at all, with its attendant 85 percent risk of unintended pregnancy.7
*Women are not the only ones who use birth control.
trigger warning. this post is rife with REAL LIFE examples of really sick, misogynist hate against a feminist.
I really like a quotation included in the articlefrom Ally Fogg, who wrote recently:
What you fail to understand is that the use of hate speech, threats and bullying to terrify and intimidate people into silence or away from certain topics is a far bigger threat to free speech than any legal sanction.
Imagine this is not the internet but a public square. One woman stands on a soapbox and expresses an idea. She is instantly surrounded by an army of 5,000 angry people yelling the worst kind of abuse at her in an attempt to shut her up. Yes, there’s a free speech issue there. But not the one you think.
