Last night, a man was shot in the streets of New York in a hate crime marked by homophobic slurs. Bigotry kills. A survivor argues that military sexual trauma should be treated as as national security issue. Radio host Pete Santilli says Hilary Clinton needs to be “shot in the vagina.” A proposed law to protect Afghan women was blocked [...]

http://youtu.be/3A0Jk2o_bNg California domestic workers demand a Bill of Rights. Remember when prison abolition was a feminist priority? In case you needed another reason to hate drones , Amanda Marcotte has you covered. “What theory did you use to stay warm at night?” A map of New York publications. NC Senate passes bill erroneously listing abortion as a cause of preterm birth. Inspired [...]

Women of the 113th has created an infographic depicting the gender breakdown of the 113th Congress, an update on a similar design for the 112th. In a way that statistics alone can’t, the chart shows how few women can be found on either side of the aisle despite gains in the 2012 election. You can find [...]

http://youtu.be/ooiVcFFY1aY Tonight, reproductive justice advocates in New York City will join together in a flashmob to demand over-the-counter emergency contraception for people of all ages. As Feminsting has written about before, the Obama administration refuses to respect voluminous research that EC is really, really safe and instead relies on sexist, paternalistic instinct to deny access to young people and other marginalized [...]

Angelina Jolie published a op-ed in this morning’s New York Times detailing her double mastectomy. Because of her family history of breast and ovarian cancer, Jolie chose to investigate her own risk through genetic testing. When her doctor determined she had an “87 percent risk of breast cancer and a 50 percent risk of ovarian cancer,” the actress and [...]

“Very important group selfie with my SLR (no iphone baby!) – My mom, my sis and me.” — Syreeta Happy Mother’s Day! A Mother’s Day letter by Gloria Malone: “The problem with being a teen mom is that I don’t hate myself nearly as much as you wish I did.” “Me and my mama April 2009. I [...]

This week’s New Yorker cover queers Mothers’ Day. Air Force brochure on sexual violence tells victims to “submit” (and tells rapists… nothing). More women are getting cosmetic surgery on their arms, and the trend is attributed to the FLOTUS. “As uncomfortable as it is for some parents to imagine their teenage children as sexual beings, that discomfort is [...]

“What would you think of Elizabeth Colbert Busch if I told you she had had an abortion?” As Sesali reported last week , South Carolina voters were asked this very question by a polling group seeking not to crunch numbers in preparation for today’s election but rather smear Mark Sanford’s Democratic opponent for the South Carolina’s First Congressional District. [...]

http://youtu.be/2ye1CBGbq_s Remember  PINK loves CONSENT ? The activists behind the brilliant pank campaign to promote communicative, hot, consensual sex have been building temporary tributes to survivors of sexual violence (like the projection above) on the national mall while working to create a permanent national monument. FORCE: Upsetting Rape Culture is now planning its biggest intervention yet. The [...]

Check out this open letter from Assata Shakur, the revolutionary living in exile in Cuba who recently became the first woman  named by the FBI to its “Most Wanted Terrorists” list. In the letter, which is from 1998, the author details her history with the criminal justice system, but focuses not on what makes her life exceptional [...]

http://youtu.be/tEddixS-UoU Autostraddle takes on misogyny within butch communities . Feminists aren’t the ones who think all men are rapists. Rapists are. An open letter to Eve Ensler. 17-year-old girl wins hackathon. Angela Davis and Lennox Hinds denounce the FBI for naming Assata Shakur a “Most Wanted Terrorist.” Why the hunt for Shakur matters. Cosponsor the Employment Non-Discrimination Act here. Demand access to emergency contraception for [...]

Feminist in-fighting is still a problem. Why aren’t men funny? ” Newsrooms should also hire a few journalists who aren’t effete liberal p*ssies. ” A class analysis of Jason Collins’ announcement. “Natural” isn’t always feminist. Newsflash, Fox News: teen sex isn’t illegal . Bloomberg can’t defend “stop and frisk” policies. One fake rape threat doesn’t mean all women “cry rape.” Don’t punish sexually active girls with pregnancies. Exploring verbal consent … through The [...]

Ed. note: This is a joint post by Maya and Alexandra in response to Kitty Pryde’s recent article at Noisey about the on-stage assault of her friend and  fellow rapper Danny Brown, with whom she has been touring. As KP wrote, “This past Friday, in Minneapolis, the tour made some waves when a female fan pulled Danny’s [...]

There’s been a lot of recent discussion recently about feminism’s supposed public relations problem. Both Hanna Rosin at Double X and Abigail Rine at the Atlantic have suggested we might want to abandon the “f-word” altogether. People like our ideas, they argue, but have negative associations with feminism. I appreciated Samhita’s recent intervention about creating a movement open to those who [...]

Last Saturday night, SUNY Plattsburgh students marching for Take Back the Night were met with victim-blaming, slut-shaming catcalls while passing the AXP fraternity house. As one participant recounted, “I heard ‘sluts’ and ‘Shut up, sluts… There’s dozens of (sexual-abuse) survivors and their allies marching that heard the derogatory comments.” While the campus is rightly outraged, and the [...]

Jessica found this amazing graphic on One More Soul, a website dedicated to “fostering God’s plan for love, chastity, marriage, and children.” Click on the image to view its full glory.

As absurd as the graphic is, understanding the argument against contraception makes it easier to refute. Know your enemy, right?

This is a guest post from Angie Epifano. Angie is a 20-year-old Survivor of rape who formerly attended Amherst College in Amherst, Massachusetts. Since leaving Amherst she has begun to finally heal and find herself, and this summer she will finally be traveling to West Africa. At the beginning of every Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (SVU) [...]

Amherst students circulated this ad (for a furniture sale, supposedly) to the entire senior class. Mia McKenzie on white liberals, racism, and eroding empathy . Guilty of rape at Oxy? Write a book report. Learn about the history of gun control in the U.S. “Imagine being examined for ‘evidence’ by a doctor and telling your single-parent father that his only [...]

Choice USA has announced its first Bro-Choice Week of Visibility, a campaign to engage men in the fight against rape culture and for reproductive justice. The organization writes:

One year ago we hosted our first  Bro-Choice panel to talk about ways young men can become authentically involved in reproductive justice. With the response to that panel, we [...]

http://youtu.be/6SrqIibUxl4 A group of current Dartmouth students spent the school’s multi-day event for admitted high schoolers making sure the “prospies” know the New Hampshire campus is not without urgent and inexcusable problems. Using a series of media–from chalking to chanted protest–the activists exposed the university’s shameful practices while the rest of the school worked to sell [...]