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By Katie Halper • @kthalps • 10 years ago

Hands Up for Rehtaeh: raise your hand against rape

rpRehtaeh Parsons was a 17-year-old Canadian high student who hanged herself in April. Rehtaeh started having suicidal thoughts when she was 15 after she was raped by four boys who photographed the violation and sent it around to their friends and classmates. As if that weren’t bad enough, for the next 17 months, Rehtaeh’s classmates shunned, tormented and bullied her mercilessly. No charges were ever filed.

Two months to the day after Rehtaeh’s death, feminists are launching a day of awareness around violence against women and a commemoration of Rehtaeh. As the organizers explain on the Hands Up for Rehtaeh page,

in light of this [Rehtaeh’s story], Steubenville, and numerous other rapes and sexual assaults in the news, we are making a call to action.

We are tired of girls and women being treated like sexual objects and the effect rape culture has on global society.

To that end, we are organizing a global day of awareness on violence against women, particularly rape culture (the institutional bias against victims and failure to prevent rape and sexual assault).

We ask you to join us on June 7th and write “Rehtaeh” on your wrist to let the world know you stand against rape culture.

Also: post pictures of your wrist (with “Rehtaeh” written on it) on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter and explain why you’re doing so.

So join the Hands Up for Rehtaeh Facebook event and participate by writing Rehtaeh’s name on your wrist. Then upload the photo to Facebook and Tumblr and Instagram. Use the #HandsUp4Rehtaeh hashtag. And check out some of the uploaded photos after the jump. tumblr_mo1dszvXEv1sug2c8o1_500 tumblr_mo1dxs5ghq1sug2c8o1_500 tumblr_mo1b5eSw4b1sug2c8o1_500 tumblr_mo1anldvAo1sug2c8o1_500

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Born and raised on the mean streets of New York City’s Upper West Side, Katie Halper is a comic, writer, blogger, satirist and filmmaker based in New York. Katie graduated from The Dalton School (where she teaches history) and Wesleyan University (where she learned that labels are for jars.) A director of Living Liberally and co-founder/performer in Laughing Liberally, Katie has performed at Town Hall, Symphony Space, The Culture Project, D.C. Comedy Festival, all five Netroots Nations, and The Nation Magazine Cruise, where she made Howard Dean laugh! and has appeared with Lizz Winstead, Markos Moulitsas, The Yes Men, Cynthia Nixon and Jim Hightower. Her writing and videos have appeared in The New York Times, Comedy Central, The Nation Magazine, Gawker, Nerve, Jezebel, the Huffington Post, Alternet and Katie has been featured in/on NY Magazine, LA Times, In These Times, Gawker,Jezebel, MSNBC, Air America, GritTV, the Alan Colmes Show, Sirius radio (which hung up on her once) and the National Review, which called Katie “cute and some what brainy.” Katie co-produced Tim Robbins’s film Embedded, (Venice Film Festival, Sundance Channel); Estela Bravo’s Free to Fly (Havana Film Festival, LA Latino Film Festival); was outreach director for The Take, Naomi Klein/Avi Lewis documentary about Argentine workers (Toronto & Venice Film Festivals, Film Forum); co-directed New Yorkers Remember the Spanish Civil War, a video for Museum of the City of NY exhibit, and wrote/directed viral satiric videos including Jews/ Women/ Gays for McCain.

Katie is a writer, comedian, filmmaker, and New Yorker.

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