Thursday, October 31, 2013

Judge orders new trial for Marissa Alexander in Florida self-defense case


A Florida woman whose controversial conviction and 20-year sentence for firing a warning shot at an abusive ex-husband were recently overturned must remain in jail for at least another week, a judge ruled on Thursday.

Marissa Alexander’s supporters had hoped the mother of three would be set free during her first court appearance since an appeals panel set aside the guilty verdict and prison term last month over the August 2010 shooting.

Instead, circuit court judge James Daniel set a bail hearing in Jacksonville for 8 November, and ordered that Alexander, 33, face a new trial to begin on 31 March next year. Hers is one of a number of recent high-profile self-defense cases involving Florida’s stand-your-ground laws and is being pursued by Angela Corey, the state attorney who put George Zimmerman on trial for murder this summer over the February 2012 killing of the unarmed black teenager Trayvon Martin in Sanford.

Read more here.

Via: theguardian.com 

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Shadow Town

Her Story Theater FB

I will be volunteering this Saturday, November 2nd  for the production of Shadow Town at the Her Story Theater. Shadow Town is a compelling play about sex trafficking here in Chicago.

Via Her Story Theater FB:

Don Rose is a political columnist and the former press secretary of Martin Luther King. He came to see SHADOW TOWN last Saturday night and this is what he wrote in his column today. Thank you, Don, we are very grateful. SHADOW TOWN has 3 more weekends, we hope you'll join us. www.HerStoryTheater.org

"...More on changing from an appointed to an elected board in forthcoming columns, but I must take a moment to comment on a riveting new play, written and directed by Mary Bonnett, dealing with the rarely exposed but horrific topic of sexual trafficking in Chicago--a contemporary slavery that holds Asian immigrants, vulnerable local black, Latina and even white suburban children in medieval bondage.

I expected Shadow Town to be a typical, didactical rendering of a huge social problem. What I found instead was a compelling, maturely written and beautifully acted play with caustic use of music and dance that’s Brechtian in concept, sucking you in then alienating, then bringing you in again to the story of four girl-children and how they descended into “the life” of prostitution.

Our guide is a satanic super-pimp who introduces himself as “a man of wealth and taste,” then becomes a sardonic Virgil leading us down through his hell in 10 lessons, mixing sweet-talk, beatings and murder. Rashawn Thompson is magnificent in the role.
 


Will you join me? I will be representing The Dream Catcher Foundationwhich is a non for profit organization that services girls ages 12 to 24 who are at risk or currently in Human trafficking. The proceeds from the ShadowTown performances will benefit The DreamCatcher Foundation along with the The Salvation Army- PROMISE program established Anne's House, which provides long term residential care for sex trafficked girls, ages 12-21.

There is a Q & A after each performance. Each performance has a different Chicago notable who performs the role of Samantha's parent, (Samantha is the child from Naperville who disappeared from a connection she made on the internet followed by her parents frantic search for her), along with a celebrity singer opening the show, followed by a reception where the singer performs for that night's audience in the comforts of the theaters lounge. Below is a full list of celebrity appearances:

This Saturday R&B artist Tressa Thomas 




& Award winning actress Cheryl Lynn Bruce


October 31, 2013   ANITA ALVAREZ,  IL Cook County State's Attorney, advocateNovember 1, 2013  Congresswoman JAN SCHAKOWSKY, U.S. House of Reps
November 2, 2013  CHERYL LYNN BRUCE, Award winning actress
November 3, 2013  VICKY CURTISS, Assoc. Pastor of Mission, 4th Presbyterian Church
November 7, 2013  SYLVIA EWING, WTTW, Channel 11, journalist
November 8, 2013  ERIC ZORN, Chicago Tribune Columnist, noted author
November 9, 2013  DENNIS ZACEK, Tony Award winner, founder Victory Gardens
November 10, 2013  JOEL DALY, award winning news anchor, lawyer and actor
November 14, 2013  BEN JORAVSKY, editorialist for The Reader, author Hoop Dreams
November 15, 2013  WARREN CHAPMAN, Senior Vice President, Columbia College
November 16, 2013  ALEX KOTLOWITZ, awarded author, There Are No Children Here.
November 17, 2013 Honorable VIRGINIA KENDALL, U.S. District Federal Judge 

You can buy your tickets by clicking here.

3 hours of free CEU credits are applicable to all 24 performances, complements of the Graduate School of Social Work at Dominican University.

Don Rose commentary Via: Her Story Theater Facebook 

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Thursday, October 24, 2013

The State of Women in America A 50-State Analysis of How Women Are Faring Across the Nation

WomanSOURCE: AP/John Bazemore

Women and their families deserve a fair shot so that they can get ahead and not just get by.

 

The role of women in the United States has changed dramatically over the past few decades. For one, more and more women have taken on new responsibilities outside the home by joining the paid workforce. While women made up only about one-third of the workforce in 1969, women today make up almost half of all workers in the United States. Women are also stepping up to lead the country; a record number of women ran for public office in 2012, and a record-high percentage of women are serving in Congress. In addition to making progress on issues of economics and leadership, women have made progress on health issues, which impact women’s personal well-being, as well as their economic security. Over the past few years, women have been able to end gender discrimination by big insurance companies and gain free contraception coverage because of the Affordable Care Act.

Read your state's report here. 

 

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Via: americanprogress.org

 

 

 



Tuesday, October 22, 2013

The Best Reaction To A Report Card, Probably Ever (VIDEO)



Report card time may be stressful for kids and parents alike, but for one proud father in the U.K., it's a time for celebration.

In a video posted on YouTube Monday, a dad reacts with joy after learning his son finally passed his math course.

"Is that real? IS THAT REAL?!" the proud father exclaims.

Read the full story here. 

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Via: Huffingtonpost.com/parents

Two women turned to writing to cope with breast cancer

Breast cancer Wendy Hunsaker of Houston distracted herself during treatment by writing a screenplay for a movie.(Photo: Thomas B. Shea, for USA TODAY)

Treatment for breast cancer can take a lot of courage, but it can also inspire creativity. Two women turned to their pens — and their laptops — to cope with the emotional and physical tests they endured through breast cancer treatment.

When Wendy Hunsaker, 48, of Houston was diagnosed with breast cancer about a year ago, it came completely "out of the blue." She had no family history of the disease and was otherwise healthy.

She was shocked by the news, and going through treatment felt "surreal," she says. She figured she could sit in the waiting room and stew while all this was going on, or she could distract herself by doing something creative.

She decided to dust off a screenplay for a romantic comedy she had started about 10 years earlier and work on it while she went through two lumpectomies and radiation treatments at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.

"It was nice to focus on something creative and positive because so much of cancer treatment is out of your control," says Hunsaker, who is married and has a 21-year-old son.

While she waited for appointments before and after surgery, she wrote and edited the script about a young woman's attraction to the wrong kind of men. It's a time travel romance that begins in the Middle Ages and moves to the present, then back in time again. "It's about facing fear and finding love."

She listened to soundtracks (Crystal Castles, Sarah McLachlan, Taylor Swift) that she thought would work well with the screenplay if it ever becomes a movie. The music helped to "fuel my creativity and shut out the hospital noises. My imagination would go into that world. It was a lot more fun to think about Ally's struggles than mine, and it was easier to give her fortitude when she needed it than to think about me."

Read the full story here.

Via: USAToday.com



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The Gifts of Imperfection

https://mail-attachment.googleusercontent.com/attachment/u/0/?ui=2&ik=46779c147e&view=att&th=141e18b39a2942a7&attid=0.1&disp=inline&safe=1&zw&saduie=AG9B_P-GVdNKt0HEkwKpXD3La8PR&sadet=1382469186456&sads=YowbaN1-ZykhXLQ4oRkg6jZJf2Y

By: Angela Mayah Solstice

I'm doing Dr Brené Brown The Gifts of Imperfection   E-Course from Oprah's Lifeclass. Per our first week assignment, I  am posting a Selfie with Brene's Perfection Pledge written on my hand! There is still one day left to join in if you'd like. Just click the link to find out more information here.


P.S.~
I found it so appropriate that I couldn't get my picture to rotate or edit!!

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Monday, October 21, 2013

Marianne Williamson Announces She's Running For Congress!


" For thirty years, I have worked up close and personally with people in crisis. I have found that when things are truly down, you have to do more than just fix something here and fix something there. You have to dig deep into yourself and ask yourself some serious questions -- about who you really are and what you're doing.
 
As I see it, the United States is a country in crisis. We won't get out of it just by fixing something here and fixing something there. We as a country now have to dig deep down and ask ourselves some serious questions -- who we are as a nation, and what we're doing.

I've longed to see that kind of conversation and that level of consciousness inform the leaders of our country. I have asked myself how I could foster that, and have decided that the best way I could do that would to be run for office myself."
Read More Here.
Via: http://marianneforcongress.com/
 
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New Ad Campaign Uses Popular Search Terms to Show How the World Really Feels About Women

Though women’s status across the world has improved over the last few decades, we’re still largely second-class citizens in comparison to men: we make less money, have more difficulty accessing education and affordable healthcare and face much more violence than our male counterparts.

To emphasize the extent of global gender inequality, UN Women–an arm of the U.N. that focuses on women’s issues–has created a powerful advertising campaign that uses data collected from Google on the most popular search terms. As it turns out, the most popular Google queries are indicative of entrenched sexist attitudes that still persist today.
UN-Women-Search-Engine-Campaign-1

Read more: http://newsfeed.time.com/2013/10/18/new-ad-campaign-uses-popular-search-terms-to-show-how-the-world-really-feels-about-women/#ixzz2iNpmPnIG

Via: Time.com

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Another Month, Another 50 Women Dead




 October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month, but most people are in fact unaware. One reason is that Republicans in congress frittered away most of the month by closing the government and creating a manufactured crisis over the debt ceiling.

But the statistics on domestic violence and guns ought to get our attention. If October is like every other month, nearly 50 women in the U.S. will be murdered with a gun by an intimate partner -- overwhelmingly a husband or boyfriend. We've had so many mass shootings in places like Tucson, Aurora, Newtown, and the Navy Yard that it would be easy to conclude gun violence knows no gender. But that's not quite true.

Women are over three-and-a-half times more likely than men to be killed by an intimate partner. And a gun in a household with a history of domestic violence increases that risk by twenty fold. Stalkers also use guns to harm their victims -- and you guessed it -- more than 75 percent of those victims are female.

A few common sense changes in the law would make women safer. For starters, we need to close the loopholes on background checks for gun ownership. Right now, if you want a gun without submitting to a background check, just pick one up at a gun show or online. No problem -- no questions asked.

Read the full story here.

Via: www.Huffingtonpost.com/politics

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Friday, October 18, 2013

A lesson in cause and effect: Drunk women do not cause rape. Rapists cause rape. Lumping responsibility on the survivor helps rapists justify their actions to themselves, and helps them get away with it

The fight against rape culture feels like an uphill struggle. Our victories are largely incremental: tweaking the discourse a little here; changing a few hearts and minds there. Yet over the years we have achieved improvements, and I had thought that perhaps we were finally starting to see a shift in attitudes towards rape.

I was dismayed, then, when I saw an article published in Slate magazine which seems to undo much of the progress we had started to make. In her article, agony aunt Emily Yoffe argues that to prevent rape, young women need to stop getting drunk. I wondered at first whether this was an archive piece, run from the 1970s, but sadly it was not. Indeed, Yoffe seems to be under the impression that what she is saying in somehow novel rather than a trope so tired I had thought it almost dead.

Yoffe points to evidence that about 80 per cent of women at college who have been sexually assaulted had been drinking, and they are unlikely to report it to the police. The fact they had been drinking at the time was a source of guilt and shame. Yoffe concludes from this that young women ought to “take responsibility” and stop drinking in the hope that “their restraint trickles down to the men.” My interpretation is somewhat different: I think Yoffe might have got cause and effect the wrong way round.

Despite what Yoffe seems to think, she is not the first to suggest that women are somehow responsible for stopping themselves from getting raped. She says: “That’s not blaming the victim; that’s trying to prevent more victims.” To me, this is still called victim-blaming. It shifts responsibility from the perpetrator to the survivor. It entails undue focus on the survivor’s behaviour or attire. Survivors are often reluctant to report rape because of the belief that they brought it on themselves. Such victim-blaming beliefs have also been found to differentiate between men who were sexually coercive or aggressive and those who were not in one study. In other words, lumping responsibility on the survivor helps rapists justify their actions to themselves, and helps them get away with it.

Read the full story here.

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Via: http://www.independent.co.uk

Xerox's Ursula Burns wishes she would have had more kids




They talked about power and leadership. They shared advice and offered inspiration. Many of them also mentioned their kids, spouses, parents. At Fortune magazine's 15th annual Most Powerful Women Summit, attended by more than 450 professionals at the top of their fields, there were no sessions about how to balance the personal with the professional. The topic just became part of the conversation, sandwiched between discussions about government shutdowns, entrepreneurship and corporate boards.

Fortune senior editor Pattie Sellers, who has been covering heavy hitters in the corporate world for nearly 30 years, says that's what makes women so interesting to write about. Compared with men, "Women naturally think about their lives more holistically," she says. "Success for women tends to be broader."

Thursday, Ursula Burns, chairman and CEO of Xerox, acknowledged that if she could do it over again, she would "have more kids." Chelsea Clinton, vice chair of the Clinton Foundation, said one of her goals was "just to make sure my mom had this year to rest and relax." When introducing Yahoo President and CEO Marissa Mayer, Sellers noted that Mayer missed last year's summit because she was otherwise occupied — having a baby.

Speakers sounded similar themes. "Pick the place where you want to be great, and then relax," Burns said. Designer Tory Burch said being successful is "a lot about being patient, and waiting for a great opportunity."

 Read the full story here.

Via: USAToday.com 

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Wednesday, October 16, 2013

Shadow Town

The young girls of SHADOW TOWN...Genesis Salmanca, Kenesha Reed, Lindsey Scalise, Hisako Sugeta, Danielle Nicholas...talented cast

I will be volunteering tomorrow night October 17th and Saturday, October 19th, for the production of Shadow Town at the Her Story Theater. Shadow Town is a compelling play about sex trafficking here in Chicago.

Will you join me? I will be representing The Dream Catcher Foundationwhich is a non for profit organization that services girls ages 12 to 24 who are at risk or currently in Human trafficking. The proceeds from the ShadowTown performances will benefit The DreamCatcher Foundation along with the The Salvation Army- PROMISE program established Anne's House, which provides long term residential care for sex trafficked girls, ages 12-21.

There is a Q & A after each performance. Each performance has a different Chicago notable who performs the role of Samantha's parent, (Samantha is the child from Naperville who disappeared from a connection she made on the internet followed by her parents frantic search for her), along with a celebrity singer opening the show, followed by a reception where the singer performs for that night's audience in the comforts of the theaters lounge. Below is a full list of celebrity appearances:


October 18, 2013   MARTHA NUSSBAUM, law professor at University of Chicago, author
October 19, 2013   MARION BROOKS  NBC  5 Chicago, anchor and reporter
October 20, 2013   NATALIE WEST, famed for Rosanne Barr TV series, actor 
October 24, 2013   JAMES SHERMAN, award winning playwright
October 25, 2013   WILL CLINGER, Channel 11 Wild Chicago fame, actor and comedian
October 26, 2013   CEDRIC YOUNG, award winning actor for film and stage
October 27, 2013   THERESA GUTIERREZ, Emmy award winning journalist, ABC 7
October 31, 2013   ANITA ALVAREZ,  IL Cook County State's Attorney, advocate
November 1, 2013  Congresswoman JAN SCHAKOWSKY, U.S. House of Reps
November 2, 2013  CHERYL LYNN BRUCE, Award winning actress
November 3, 2013  VICKY CURTISS, Assoc. Pastor of Mission, 4th Presbyterian Church
November 7, 2013  SYLVIA EWING, WTTW, Channel 11, journalist
November 8, 2013  ERIC ZORN, Chicago Tribune Columnist, noted author
November 9, 2013  DENNIS ZACEK, Tony Award winner, founder Victory Gardens
November 10, 2013  JOEL DALY, award winning news anchor, lawyer and actor
November 14, 2013  BEN JORAVSKY, editorialist for The Reader, author Hoop Dreams
November 15, 2013  WARREN CHAPMAN, Senior Vice President, Columbia College
November 16, 2013  ALEX KOTLOWITZ, awarded author, There Are No Children Here.
November 17, 2013 Honorable VIRGINIA KENDALL, U.S. District Federal Judge 

You can buy your tickets by clicking here.

3 hours of free CEU credits are applicable to all 24 performances, complements of the Graduate School of Social Work at Dominican University.

Shadow Town in the media:
 

"The plight of women in prostitution has always captured our attention. We've seen plenty of plays, movies and books written about and by women of the streets -- all usually through a dreamy vaseline lens.

Now comes to Chicago Shadow Town, a play by Mary Bonnett, artistic director of Her Story Theater, a theater for social change. Bonnett's production aims to blow the fog away to reveal a bracing portrait of an ugly world forced upon innocents, some 11 years old or younger."

Read the full story here.

Via nwitimes.com:
 
"I first heard about human trafficking 25 years ago, while working on a documentary about kids in Uptown, a poor Chicago neighborhood. When I asked a young mother about her kids, she said, "The oldest is gone. She was only twelve. They shoved her in a car and took her away. White slavery, that's what it is."

What? I didn't know how to prove or disprove this. My documentary was about something else, so I filed it under "Things I Don't Understand."

"We're taking a closer look on who these women are," Lake County Sheriff John Buncich recently said. "They are not just prostitutes on the street. They came from somewhere, they belong to someone. There's a story behind these girls."

Mary Bonnett, a 60-something Chicago writer and producer, artistic director of Her Story Theater, is telling some of those stories now.

Bonnett spent close to two years interviewing dozens of people connected to sex trafficking including undercover detectives, caseworkers, FBI, vice squad, parents, pimps, therapists, and trafficked girls and young women of Chicago.

She wrote and is producing a play, Shadow Town, featuring four girls’ journeys into ‘the life.’ The little girl I remember from Uptown could be one of them. But she's probably dead. According to the American Journal of Epidemiology, the average lifespan of someone in prostitution is 34, with violence and drugs the predominant causes of death."

Read the full story here.

Via Timeoutchicago.com :

"But with a production as interwoven with a cause as this one, the acting isn’t nearly as important as the brutal subject itself. Proceeds from the play benefit The Salvation Army PROMISE program and its residential care facility, Anne's House, as well as the Dreamcatcher Foundation; local experts who work with sex trafficking victims are on hand for a Q&A after each performance; and a rotating roster of different Chicago musicians and notables—from news anchors to state’s attorneys—take on two guest roles each night, generating even more buzz about an oft-overlooked issue that deserves the long, hard examination it gets here. It’s an effective approach, to say the least."

Read the full story here.

Read more media coverage on the following links:

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2013-10-06/news/ct-met-trice-sex-trafficking-1007-20131007_1_brenda-myers-powell-chicago-pimps-dreamcatcher-foundation 

http://blogs.chicagotribune.com/news_columnists_ezorn/2013/09/doing-my-part.html

http://newcitystage.com/2013/10/08/shining-light-into-the-shadows-her-story-theater-exposes-sex-trafficking-in-chicago/




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Monday, October 14, 2013

Abuse-Free World


By: Angela Mayah Solstice

October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month. I pray for the day we live in a world where an awareness month is not needed. Yet for now I would be grateful if people were able to just consider the topic without turning away from it due to shame, fear, or harsh judgment.Ending my abusive marriage served as the catalyst that helped me to change my life. I would like to share with you my story in hopes that it may inspire you to help yourself or a loved one. Below is an excerpt from my forthcoming book "The Courage To Change":


When my parent arrived, I drove home the point that we were not dealing with the man they thought they knew. I had recently started working with an excellent therapist who specialized in treating women in abusive relationships; I was loaded with new information and shared everything I had learned. They helped me set up a joint banking account with them. In the past, my husband cut me off financially whenever I challenged him. It was the price I paid for standing up for myself. My own bank account gave me my power back. I was starting to think solely about myself for once and was gaining some control over my life. We ended my parent’s stay by doing an intervention of sorts. My husband, true to form, gave an emotional performance and promised to change. He said that he loved me and the children, and that he was sorry. Yet my parents had barely left for the airport when I saw the glare in his eyes change. A few nights later he claimed to be leaving for his support meeting joining such a group was part of the agreement he had made with me and my parents. But he didn’t return home until early the next morning. I was too scared to confront him but smart enough not to wait for the next blow-up and so I went to the courthouse to obtain an order of protection the next morning. Handicapped and emotionally wrecked, I had just enough strength to make it through the process.

I was granted the order the same day. The next morning, the Sheriff’s department arrived shortly after my oldest two children had left school. As my two youngest were sleeping, several sheriff deputies came crashing through our front door and apprehended my husband. They gave him time to retrieve his belongings. As he bullied through the house I knew he was stalling because he wanted to see my face, but the cops made sure I was out of sight and guarded. I thought my heart was going to jump out of my chest, but soon enough he was gone. I sat there in almost disbelief. That night, my children and me huddled in bed together, too scared to sleep, even with a police car stationed out front. Police protection may have been standard in these kind of cases, but I still couldn’t help but wonder-how had it come to this? This was my rock bottom. My abusive marriage no longer a secret, I was vulnerable yet finally ready to surrender. I was in the eye of the storm but I could see land. And this is where I truly began to do some of my realest self-inventory work, in order to change my life.

Unfortunately my story is all too common. Millions of women, young and old, are abused daily. As an empowered woman, it is your responsibility to get educated on the signs of abuse as well as resources available to women in your area so you can pass along information when needed. If you know of someone in an abusive relationship do not put them down in any way! Give them love, encouragement, and assistance if you can. You have an obligation to the women in your care, family, and community to speak out. If you are in an abusive relationship, know that there are resources and support available to you if you need it. I was fortunate to have family who could help me financially when I stood up to my Goliath, which is a hard cold fact why many women do not leave for fear of abandonment. Even so, there are some well run domestic violence organizations that can help you with counseling; legal representation, and even housing—free of cost and without involving the police. I pray for miracles and that an abundance of Angels come into your life right now…You can heal your life.

Journal: Write in your journal the following contract and sign at the bottom:

I _____(name)______commit to giving my love, encouragement, and available resources to whoever is placed in my path, and are being victimized due to domestic violence. I declare this moment that I am against domestic violence. I am a woman of my word and will stand by my declaration. I am committed to do doing my part, even if it is a simple prayer, to help make this world abuse-free for the young women of the future.

Additional Journaling: Abuse affected my life when…

Prayer: (Higher Power of your understanding) I pray for abused women (me) today. Please send an Earth Angel in their (my) path to help them (me) onto the road of recovery. Protect them (me), heal them (me), and guide them (me).

Affirmation:  “I WILL NO LONGER BE A VICTIM IN MY LIFE”

Reading Recommendations & Resources:
The Betrayal Bond: Breaking Free of Exploitive Relationships By: Patrick Carnes
Peace from Broken Pieces By: Iyanla Vanzant
The Verbally Abusive Relationship By: Patricia Evans ***
Why Does He Do That? By: Lundy Bancroft











Excerpt from "Why Does He Do That?" By Lundy Bancroft:


 If you would like to make a significant difference in the life of an abused woman you care about, keep the following principles fresh in your mind: your goal is to be complete opposite of what the abuser is.



The abuser: Pressures her severely

SO YOU SHOULD: Be patient. It takes time for an abused woman to sort out her confusion and figure out how to handle her situation. It is not helpful for her to try to follow your timetable for when she should stand up to her partner, leave him, call the police, or whatever step you want her to take. 



The abuser: Talks down to her

SO YOU SHOULD: Address her as an equal. Avoid all traces of condescension or superior knowledge in your voice. If you speak to an abused woman as if you are smarter or wiser than she is, or as if she is going through something that could never happen to you, then you inadvertently confirm exactly what the abuser has been telling her, which is that she is beneath him. Remember, your actions speak louder than your words.



The abuser: Thinks he knows what is good for her better than she does

SO YOU SHOULD: Treat her as the expert on her own life. Don't assume that you know what she needs to do. Ask her what she thinks might work and, without pressuring her, offer suggestions, respecting her explanations for why certain courses of action would not be helpful. 



The abuser: Dominates conversations

SO YOU SHOULD: Listen more and talk less. Talking too much inadvertently communicates to her that your thoughts are more important than hers, which is exactly how the abuser treats her. If you want her to value her own feelings and opinions, then you have to show her that you value them.  



The abuser: Believes he has the right to control her life

SO YOU SHOULD: Respect her right to self-determination. She is entitled to make decisions that are not exactly what you would choose, including the decision to stay with her abusive partner or return to him after a separation. Stay by her even when she makes choices that you don't like.



The abuser: Assumes he understands her children and their needs better than she does

SO YOU SHOULD: Assume that she is a competent, caring mother. Remember that there is no simple way to determine what is best for the children of an abused woman. Even if she leaves the abuse, the children's problems are not necessarily over, and sometimes abusers actually create worse difficulties for the children post-separation than before. You cannot help her to find the best path for her children unless you have a realistic grasp of the complicated set of choices that face her.



The abuser: Thinks for her   

SO YOU SHOULD: Think with her. Don't assume the role of teacher or rescuer. Instead, join forces with her as a respectful and equal team member.




 
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Saturday, October 12, 2013

[FEARLESS LIVING] A Black Woman Reborn, Remade, Renewed...in Africa

 
I felt like I’d been lied to all of my life. When I was growing up in Tulsa, Oklahoma, I’d never heard or learned anything positive about Africa or Africans. In fact, I’d mainly heard negative stories, except for the ones about the animals. Within my own family and among friends at school, to be called an “African,” was a fighting word. And of course, the media didn’t help. Most TV and newspaper stories then highlighted only negative stereotypes of Africans, like starving children with bloated stomachs and flies flitting about.

So when I first landed in South Africa in 1994, I didn’t expect to see anything much different than what I’d always heard. For sure, I definitely didn’t plan on staying longer than the three weeks I was there to cover the first democratic elections. My goal was to gain international TV news reporting experience, return to the US, and land myself a big-time anchor job with CNN

via: Ebony.com

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Wednesday, October 9, 2013

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CFW

By: Angela Mayah Solstice


I attended a wonderful luncheon yesterday for the Chicago Foundation for Women. The keynote speakers were New York Times writer Nicholas Kristof and his wife Sheryl WuDunn. The luncheon was well presented and hosted by ABC 7’s Cheryl Burton. Attendees were ushered into the ballroom by the sounds of the Kan-Win Drummers which stands for Korean American Women In Need which is an organization dedicated to serving Asian American survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault in the Chicagoland area. Several speakers graced the stage before the keynotes. One standout was a female military veteran who had been sexually assaulted TWICE while serving in the military. She bravely shared her story and advocated for mental health care and women’s rights within the military. Shortly after the dynamic and motivating Nicholas Kristoff and his wife came on stage. He lobbied for many issues in concern to women and promoted his book Half The Sky. The heart of his message was the ending of the human trafficking of young women. Him speaking on that topic was moving to me because in my interactions during the afternoon I was representing The Dream Catcher Foundation and talking about the same topic to others. He ended with a poignant message, which was that we all can make a difference. Which may sound cliché but it is so true! That each of us stepping into our roles helps to chip away at the bigger problem. One cause particularly close to my heart is the ending of the human trafficking of girls. I shared recently about a play called Shadow Town debuting here in Chicago this week. The proceeds will benefit The Dream Catcher Foundation and The Salvation’sArmy PROMISE Program-Anne’s House. Please come out to support if you can! I will be there October 17th & 19th as well as November 2nd and would love to meet you! Below is a small list of  Chicago Foundation for Women’s grantees and partners, please browse through them and find an organization that may interest you to volunteer with, or could be of service to you or a loved one.  Wanted to share with you all of this! Have a great day!

Angela   

Chicago Women's Health Center http://chicagowomenshealthcenter.org/

Connections for Abused Women and their Children http://cawc.org/


Options for Youth http://options4youth.org/


Young Women's Empowerment Project http://ywepchicago.wordpress.com/


Girls 4 Science http://girls4science.org/


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