Feministing Year in Review: Samhita’s picks

It’s hard to just pick a few blog posts, since not only has Feministing been delivering super strong content for seven years, we kind of went next level this year with a slue of new writers that truly brought in a new era of feminist thought leadership. We are just so f-ing good you guys!!

We also had a year full of feminist wins and losses–high profile cases that needed dissection, analysis, story-telling and whistle-blowing, whether it be the head of the IMF being accused of a violent sexual assault or the importance of Slutwalk. What a year for feminism!

Some of our most important and critical work is calling out how the mainstream media represents things–whether that be claiming lady candidates are somehow inherently good for women or slut-shaming victims of sexual assault. In that same vein, there are two blog posts that stick out to me from this year, the first of which is Vanessa’s post, “Why there is no way in hell Michele Bachmann can become America’s first woman president.”

Like, with most of Vanessa’s writing, you don’t actually have to read the rest of the piece to agree with it, since she is able to reduce really complex ideas into a few sentences–an incredibly effective method of blogging–in fact, that is what blogging should be and V-money kicks ass at it. So, why can’t MB be our first female prez?

So let’s remind ourselves of exactly how extreme and warped of a human being Michele Bachmann is — and how having her as the first woman president of the U.S. would not only just be the worst thing ever, but would also probably mean the demise of this country. Let’s see…

• She would ban abortion in all cases — that includes women who were victims of rape and incest
• She’s said that black people and “other minorities” are to blame for the financial crisis
• According to her, not only are the gays coming for your kids, but that LGBT folks have “sexual disfunction” and “identity disorders”
• She’s trying to convince folks she’s been anointed by God to stop the gays from marrying each other
• She has said global warming is a “all voodoo, nonsense, hokum, a hoax”
• She implies evolution might be as well and advocates for the teaching “intelligent design” in schools

And that’s only half the list.

Secondly, one of our newest writers Zerlina Maxwell, has come in with fury. If you can’t tell how hyped she gets about issues on the blog–you should check out her twitter feed. Zerlina is a pro at turning frustration and anger into effective sound bytes. Just last week, she wrote her strongest piece yet–“Binge drinking, straw man arguments and rape prevention.”

It’s not as important to make the connection between drinking and rape as it is to make the connection between rapists and rape.

After my rape I was blamed for my assault because I had been drinking. I was told that I shouldn’t have been wearing a short skirt. Or let the man into my apartment even though he was a friend. I was told that if I had just done [insert 100% you would not have been raped if you had just done this piece of advice here] you wouldn’t have been raped.

And all of this is a lie. It’s just a damn lie. I was assaulted because a rapist decided to commit rape. If I had been sober and he chose to rape me guess what? Same result. If I had worn sweatpants and he chose to rape me you guessed it, same result. If I hadn’t let him into my apartment that night you could argue it wouldn’t have happened that particular day, but the problem is he was dating one of my roommates and wasn’t even there on my invitation. So how do I prevent him from being there and in turn prevent the rape? I can’t. And you can’t. And until we focus on the real issue of targeting the people, mostly men, who are committing rape it will continue to happen.

Amen to that and another great year at Feministing. Happy feminist new years everyone!