Advance Legislation That Will Reduce Violence Aimed At Women And Girls

Introduced by Senator Biden and Senator Lugar on October 31, 2007, the International Violence Against Women Act (S. 2279) is a historic and unprecedented effort by the United States to address violence against women globally. The law would make ending violence against women a diplomatic priority for the United States and create the first high-level position in the U.S. Department of State to coordinate efforts to combat violence against women. It will also make sure that the U.S. is able to develop emergency measures in a timely fashion to respond to critical outbreaks of violence against women, such as to address the mass rapes in the armed conflict in the Congo.

The Act recommends allocating more than $1 billion over 5 years in U.S. assistance to support international programs that prevent and respond to violence, including health programs and survivor services, legal reform, public awareness campaigns, women’s economic opportunity projects and education, and activities to better address violence against women in humanitarian situations.

The inspiring thing about this legislation is that it incorporates training, protection, and services for women across a range of situations, from the fight against HIV-AIDS, to school and health clinics, to court systems, to workplaces, to refugee camps. It also supports the efforts of local women’s groups overseas that are already working to end violence against women in their countries.

Call your Senator today, and tell him or her that you want them to sign on as co-sponsors of this bill, S.2279. It’s simple:

• Call 202-224-3121 and ask for the office of your Senator. (If you don’t know who they are, you can find out at www.senate.gov.)
• Tell their office that you are a constituent, and you care about the well being of women and girls around the world.
• Urge them to cosponsor S. 2279, International Violence Against Women Act (I-VAWA).
• If you feel so moved, share one reason why this issue matters so much to you.

One easy phone call can help bring safety, security, and new options in life to women and girls worldwide.

If you prefer to email, go to http://www.senate.gov/reference/common/faq/How_to_contact_senators.htm

You can use the same easy steps outlined above. A short letter is fine.

Please click here for a MODEL LETTER TO SENATORS TO CO-SPONSOR

Please click here for a MODEL THANK YOU LETTER TO SENATORS BIDEN AND LUGAR

For more information about I-VAWA (S. 2279), please visit:
Women’s Edge Coalition

Amnesty International

Family Violence Prevention Fund

Source: V-Day

Mind on the Media is excited to announce the launch of our new website! You will find great information about what you can do to promote healthy body image and expand the definition of beauty!At www.motm.org (www.mindonthemedia.org) you’ll find tools to help you:

Educate
We want girls and women to be recognized as leaders of social change, critical thinkers, role models, and acknowledged that their beauty exists independent of negative media stereotypes. Learn some shocking facts about the media, and help us move our community toward acceptance and celebration of the true beauty of women and girls.

Take Action
Through our grassroots campaigns, you can influence the media by being active consumers, protest negative images of women and girls in advertising. In the Turn Beauty Inside Out Action kit, you’ll also find fun ways to get involved, volunteer, coordinate events in your local area, and help spread the news about our organization.

Learn
In our Features section, we will soon hear from guest contributors - influential women that are making a difference. You can discover more about joining our organization and you’ll be able to see exactly why we’ve built Mind on the Media in our “About Us” section. Finally, check back into our new weblog for insights about what’s going on in today’s media, written by our Board of Directors.

Source: Mind on the Media

Join the Sheila Wellstone Institute and the Wellstone Native American Leadership for a training on voter engagement in Minnesota’s Indian Country. Voter Engagement Schools teach organizational leaders and community members the skills of civic engagement and nonpartisan voter organizing. This specific training will focus on needs for battered women, sexual assault and harassment and stalking victims and the need to protect vital information to be able to vote. This program will be taught by Peggy Flanagan (Ojibwe) Native American Leadership Program at Wellstone Action and Lonna Stevens (Tlingit/Dakota) Director of the Sheila Wellstone Institute, along with local organizers who work to end domestic violence and sexual assault.

When: Wednesday, December 19th, 2007 from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Where:  Russ Ewald Center for Urban Service, 1100 E Lake Street Minneapolis, 55407
Cost is free for materials and meals.

Scholarships are available for hotel and travel. Please contact Lonna Stevens at swi@wellstone.org or 651-414-6034 for an application.

Contact Lonna at 651-414-6034 to register or email swi@wellstone.org.

Source: The White House Project

The Third Wave Foundation just released their Fall 2007 newsletter issue. Get a copy of it here: http://thirdwavefoundation.org/file_download/34.

What is the Third Wave Foundation?

Third Wave is a feminist, activist foundation that works nationally to support young women and transgender youth ages 15 to 30. Through strategic grantmaking, leadership development, and philanthropic advocacy, we support groups and individuals working towards gender, racial, economic, and social justice.

Third Wave is led by a board of young women, men, and transgender activists striving to combat inequalities that we ourselves face as a result of our age, gender, race, sexual orientation, economic status, or level of education. By empowering young women and transgender youth nationwide, Third Wave is building a lasting foundation for young feminists around the country.

Visit their website for more information: http://thirdwavefoundation.org/.

Visit them at Facebook: http://apps.facebook.com/causes/view_cause/7421.

www.vdaypriorlake.org

Check out the videos on our right sidebar from the Feminist Antipornography Conference: Pornography & Pop Culture - Rethinking Theory, Reframing Activism held at Wheelock College in Boston on March 24, 2007.

Thanks to MN Valley NOW’s Media Watch Activist, Micki Lechner Riehle, for bringing these videos to our attention.

Here are direct links to the videos on YouTube and our pod at VodPod:

http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=%22feminist+antipornography%22

http://mnvalleynow.vodpod.com/

Not A Dent, But An Impact

The latest Youth Worker News from the National Youth Development Information Center talks about the powerful and positive impact that youth generated media has on youth. From the newsletter:

“Youth media is an exciting way for young people to express themselves and create change, especially in a time when young people are so often portrayed negatively in mainstream media. By creating their own media, young people begin to realize that their voice matters and that they can make a difference in communities.”

This speaks directly as to why Nancy Gruver founded “New Moon: The Magazine for Girls and Their Dreams” almost 15 years ago. Learn more about the impact of youth media by clicking below. Help us by telling your friends about “New Moon” and other youth generated media out there!

Youth voices matter!

“Girls Rock!” The Movie

Girls Rock is a documentary about a community of women who are using rock and roll to empower and transform the lives of girls of all ages through the Rock ‘n’ Roll Camp for Girls. The camp provides “a place where it is 100% O.K. to be exactly who you are.” Through the stories of several of the girls, the movie charts the powerfully positive impact the camp and rock has on the rising epidemic of low self-esteem in girls.

The movie hits theaters in 2008 but there is already an online community inspired by the movie and the camp. Check it out to learn more about “Girls Rock” and the Rock ‘n’ Roll Camp for Girls.

Rock on!

Plastic Surgery?!

A recent survey conducted in Australia shows that a quarter of the 4000 girls surveyed (ages 11-1 say they would get plastic surgery. Dr Jenny O’Dea, associate professor of child and adolescent health at the University of Sydney said “I think the whole trend towards plastic surgery is very worrying because there’s a big myth that it can actually build true self esteem. In the long term, what makes teenage girls really happy are their friends, their relationships and what they do with their lives — nothing to do with how they look.”

Read the rest of the results on The Border Mail website. http://www.bordermail.com.au/news/bm/national/896766.html

Also, a new study published in the August issue of the Annals of Plastic Surgery states that women who get plastic surgery are more likely to commit suicide. Read more about the report and its results by visiting our blog. Don’t forget to leave your comments about the rising popularity in getting plastic surgery and its effects on women and girls.

Blog it!

Inner Beauty Camp: One Girl’s Dream

Recently, 14 year old Tayla wrote to us about her vision of starting an Inner Beauty Camp. We are so inspired by Tayla’s dream, that we wanted to share it with you! Tayla on why she wants to start an Inner Beauty Camp:

“With all the media images and fake information that tells teenagers they are ’supposed’ to look a curtain way it can be hard to stay true to your inner self. By starting this camp, I hope to guide the girls away from the media images and toward their own unique beauty and inner self.”

Visit our blog to read Tayla’s full letter and to learn how you can help make her dream a reality.
Go Tayla!

hangPROUD

A new global online community has popped up called hangPROUD. Founded by two business women, their mission is “to powerfully and positively impact women around the world to hangPROUD and be confident in themselves and their unique strengths in a world dominated by celebrity style, behavior and lifestyle.”

The site includes a store (with real women models, yay!), a special section for girls and articles.

Check it out and hangPROUD!

About This Newsletter

New Moon’s Friends News is a free email newsletter published by New Moon® Publishing. It contains news and information of interest to adults who care about girls.

From Melanie McDowell, Administrative Assistant, and the rest of the New Moonies

New Moon®
2 W. First St. #101
Duluth, MN 55802

Click here to sign up for New Moon’s Friends News!

V-Day is a global movement to stop violence against women and girls. V-Day is a catalyst that promotes creative events to increase awareness, raise money and revitalize the spirit of existing anti-violence organizations. V-Day generates broader attention for the fight to stop worldwide violence against women and girls, including rape, battery, incest, female genital mutilation (FGM) and sexual slavery.

MN Valley NOW has partnered with The Chameleon Theatre Circle for performances of The Vagina Monologues in February 2008 as part of V-Day 2008. This will be the 10th anniversary of V-Day.

The Vagina Monologues is a collection of monologues read by a number of different actresses. A recurring theme throughout the production is the vagina as a tool of female empowerment and individuality. The Vagina Monologues is performed annually around the world to bring attention to V-Day in thousands of cities and colleges. The performances generally benefit rape crisis centers and similar resource centers for women.

The Chameleon Theatre Circle will hold auditions on Saturday, September 8 and on Monday, September 10 at the Arts at River Ridge at 109 River Ridge Circle in Burnsville, Minnesota (formerly known as the Minnesota River School of Fine Arts). Each candidate will have three minutes to perform a monologue. Auditions will be by appointment only. Please e-mail andi@seetheatre.org or call 952-937-5645 to set up your audition time.

Please note that these positions are unpaid and will require rehearsal commitments that will be several hours in length 2 to 3 times a week for the six weeks prior to performances.

Twin Cities NOW is planning a rally in response to Attorney Earl Gray’s comments to the Star Tribune regarding his client’s, Dominic Jones, charges of sexually assaulting a woman while she lay unconscious. Gray states that he believes his clients case is defensible because there were, “no weapons, no injuries and no force” alleged.

This is a multi-coalition effort and you are invited to stand together with the National Organization for Women to tell Earl Gray, and those who believe as he does, that sex with an unconscious woman IS rape, and that RAPE IS INDEFENSIBLE.

The Rally is tentatively set to occur simultaneously with the next pretrial hearing on September 18, 2007 from 9am to 10am with a press conference at 9:45.

We will post additional details as they are made available. Please email MN Valley NOW if you are interested in participating in the event and/or helping to prepare signs and materials for the rally.

Eve Ensler, author of “The Vagina Monologues” appeared on NBC’s Today Show this morning in support of three 16-year-old students who were suspended for saying the word “vagina” during an open-mic performance at their high school.

The excerpt from “The Vagina Monologues” that the girls read at the performance, and repeated on the Today Show, reads: “My short skirt is a liberation flag in the women’s army. I declare these streets, any streets, my vagina’s country.”

Prior to the performance, their principal gave them two options: either perform the piece without the word “vagina”, or not perform at all. The girls chose option “C” - they performed the piece as it was originally written. The principal says the girls have been suspended because of their insubordination, not because their use of the word “vagina” itself. The girls felt it would be inappropriate to perform the piece without the word “vagina”; that it would lose its message and moral integrity.

What is interesting to note is that another student wasn’t reprimanded for using the “F-word” during his performance the same night.

I have to wonder about sex-ed at this school (if there is any) - are students allowed to use the word “vagina” in class?

To read more about the story and see the video at the Today Show site, go to: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17535427/ .