my vagina is PISSED OFF

The following is written by Natalie Camastra, one of the most passionate women's advocate on the Berkeley campus and a dear friend of mine. Her op-ed was published in the Daily Cal after the repeated sexual assaults that took place in Berkeley. It is her response to the skirt rally and the serious need for us to break the silence surrounding sexual violence.

I am worried. I am worried that the Skirt Rally that took place yesterday on the steps of Upper Sproul Plaza will be remembered as just another typical Bezerkeley protest- just another display of quirky activism from the bra burning types who are desperately trying to make a statement. I am worried that our community does not take this recent wave of violations against Berkeley students seriously. I am worried that we are increasingly becoming a culture of violence where Chris Brown’s repeated and forceful beatings of his partner Rihanna, and statements such as “Now I really am going to kill you” are met with Kanye West’s suggestion that we give the man a break. I am worried that a video game - whose objective is to rape as many women as possible and encourage impregnated women to seek abortions - is defended by the video game company because it passed “domestic ratings of an ethics watchdog body’. I am worried that no one cares about the violence anymore – that the violence has become so pervasive that it is muddled in silence. And we all know that silence is deadly.

As an organizer in the Skirt Rally, I can tell you that the ‘point’ of our protest was not to demonstrate that “Leggings under skirts” is “the latest defense against a serial molester”. Our message instead is that what we wear should have no bearing on our safety. Reporting what women wore at the time of the attack is completely irrelevant. As we saw last weekend, the molester attacked women in pants. He only discriminates on the basis of one thing, and that is sex. And all too often women are blamed for the violence that was inflicted on them. Why was she wearing that? She was drinking, right? Why was she out so late at night? Um, she was asking for it. Of course we all have to be responsible and aware of our surroundings. However, just go to CNN and we see “Woman raped in such and such”. Already the emphasis is on her and her actions, not those of the perpetrator.

The violence in our community is not about one pervert, one molester, one perpetrator. It is about the violence that takes place every day on our streets, behind closed doors and in the bedroom. It is about telling people what they do not want to hear; that every two minutes a woman will be sexually assaulted, that 60% of sexual assaults are never reported, that only 6% of rapists will ever spend a day in jail, that domestic violence affects 25% of all US households.

I realize that men face violence too. Men are much more likely to be victim of assault in their lifetime than a woman although women are 12 times more likely to die from intimate partner violence from a partner than men. However, I believe that just as women have been oppressed by gender stereotyping- the separate spheres ideology that defines the role of women are strictly mothers and wives, men to have been suppressed by the gender constructions of masculinity; of masculinity as inextricably linked with violence and aggression (sexual and otherwise). Just last year, a member of our community, ChrisWootten’s life ended tragically in a violent confrontation.

Many people have asked me recently if I knew how to prevent or stop violence against women. All I know is that as a country, we have not yet engaged in a national conversation about violence OR sexuality. Both violence and sex saturate our media, yet we are not comfortable discussing either within our own homes. How many of us received comprehensive sex education from our parents? How many of us are comfortable discussing violence, especially the violence against women? As a friend of mine once told me, when we do not discuss safe sex, teens face sexually transmitted diseases and unintended pregnancies. When we do not discuss consent, people get raped. As a community in Berkeley and as a nation, we must face the difficult questions surrounding sex and violence.

The Skirt Rally was about starting to address some of these issues as situated in our community. It was about breaking the silence surrounding sexual violence. My only hope for Berkeley is that people give a care.

why I do the work that I do, and why the Vagina Monologues is still so pertinent

SF Chronicle (10-28) 16:40 PDT MARTINEZ  Costa County prosecutors charged a 47-year-old Oakland man Tuesday with murdering his estranged wife, Elnora Caldwell, saying he admitted to stabbing her repeatedly in a fit of rage in his pickup truck after failing to persuade her to come back to him. Caldwell was a Nordstrom department store employee in San Francisco who had obtained a domestic violence restraining order against her husband earlier this year. Read more.

It angers me that domestic violence not only exists, and so close to home, but that the law does little to protect those who seek to escape such violence.

Vietnamese American 18-year-old student raped and beaten in Florida

By D'ANN WHITE | The Brandon News & Tribune
Published: September 17, 2008

TAMPA - The story spread like wildfire through the close-knit Vietnamese-American community.

In churches around the nation, they held special services to pray for the 18-year-old woman of Vietnamese heritage who was brutally raped and beaten April 24 at Bloomingdale Regional Library in Brandon.

In Westminster, Calif., Michael Nguyen, a member of the Union of Vietnamese Student Associations of Southern California, organized a carwash and bake sale to help pay her medical bills.

Closer to home, Michelle Phan of Tampa and her friends were considering a similar type of fundraiser after learning the victim likely will need expensive, long-term rehabilitation.

"I first heard about the rape victim on a MySpace bulletin," said Phan, a 21-year-old student studying illustration at the Ringling School of Art in Sarasota. "A lot of young people were talking about it so, after hearing her story, how she had this full scholarship to college and so much promise that was destroyed, I just felt compelled to help her."

Phan said their first idea was to host a barbecue or carwash. But when she announced her plans on her Web site, xanga.com/ricebunny, the fundraiser evolved into Fashion for Compassion, a benefit fashion show.

"People just started offering to help," Phan said. "We got the ballroom at the Tampa Convention Center for a huge discount, free food, and a lot of independent Asian and American designers from around the country contributed fashions for the show; everything from T-shirts and street wear to couture."

Amid it all, Phan and her partners, Yvette Nguyen, 20, of Sarasota and Wey Nguyen, 25, of St. Petersburg, received an unexpected phone call two weeks ago.

The rape victim's mother called to say she heard about the benefit and appreciated it, Phan said. The mom said her daughter, who is undergoing inpatient rehabilitation in Sarasota, can't walk or talk and is partially blind, but she can smile in response to questions, Phan said.

"Our hearts just dropped when we got that call. She invited us to meet with her and her daughter," Phan said, adding the women gratefully accepted the invitation. "The family is really private, and we felt so honored, so trusted and so inspired."



i'm angry and frustrated about what happened to this woman, and why. it makes me feel sick and disgusted. it hurts. i wonder why people could be so cruel. and then i think about the people who have supported this woman, and women throughout the world, to stop violence. i think my role as director for Cal's Vagina Monologues. my mission, my community. i think about the kindness and courage of such people like Phan and her fellow designer friends. and i am inspired.

niptuck upset

"As plastic surgery becomes something of a national pastime, Asian-Americans are proportionally represented among the ranks willing to plop down cash for a nip or tuck. Last year, the greatest number (39 percent) of Asian-American facial surgery patients opted to tweak their eyelids. But in that time, some 20 Asian women have come to the California Pacific Medical Center clinic of Dr. Edward Miranda for a procedure popular in Asia, yet still catching on stateside: to shear off a piece of their jaws.

The goal? A more tapered face, says Miranda, a dashing doc whose own mug could inspire jealousy from the camera-ready plastic surgeons on Dr. 90210. In most patients he sees, a muscle over the jaw creates a strong, boxy jaw line, which can be shrunk with Botox once a year at $1,500 a pop. But for women where the bone is the culprit, he enters through the mouth to remove a chunk.

Just as with the much-discussed surgery to sew a crease into a flat Asian eyelid, whether the goal of the surgery is for a more Caucasian face is up for debate. Mira Coluccio counsels patients in the CPMC clinic of Dr. Douglas Ousterhout, who is internationally renowned for feminizing the faces of transgender women, though he has also performed jaw reductions on Asian women — and men — since the 1970s. "They want to have a more Caucasian angle to the face ... they want to be more angular," she says. "We've had Asians come in here with photographs saying they want to look like Audrey Hepburn."

Miranda calls the notion that the surgery is to erase ethnic features "total bunk." In fact, he says, his patients bring in photos of Asian friends, Chinese Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon star Ziyi Zhang, or the Korean movie actress Ha Ji-Won. Too bad the women themselves aren't speaking: None of his patients would talk with us, even though we promised anonymity." Read More from SFWeekly here.

this saddens and disgusts me as i too have wished other "caucasian" facial features upon myself.

Finding happiness in body and soul

Eve Ensler, creator of The Vagina Monologues, shares how a discussion about menopause with her friends led to talking about all sorts of sexual acts onstage, waging a global campaign to end violence toward women and finding her own happiness.

MY VAGINA IS OBSCENE

Participating in the Vagina Monologues has guided me in my vagina-related explorations. For example, saying the word VAGINA. I was a little timid at first when it came to tabling on Sproul and saying the word vagina in public, but having come to acknowledge and appreciate it..IT FEELS DAMN GOOD.

some of this stuff baffles me..



A Los Angeles high school confiscated an issue of the school paper because of the presence of an anatomically-correct diagram of a vagina. "The special Valentine's Day issue of Grover Cleveland High School's Le Sabre newspaper featured an article on the front page about The Vagina Monologues, a play by Eve Ensler, that was accompanied by a labeled diagram of a vagina and a hot-pink headline reading: "Happy Vagina Day," according to UPI. Principal Bob Marks confiscated the issue before it could distributed. The editor-in-chief of Le Sabre, Richard Edmond, said he thought the vag was no big deal, and that the diagram was meant to increase awareness about violence against women. The day after V-day, Edmonds and two other students got sent home for wearing t-shirts which read, "My vagina is obscene." He should totally make friends with the "safe sex or no sex" T-shirt girls from Illinois! [UPI]

this and much more can be found at: jezebel

Vaginas Take to the Mic

I love vaginas.
No, I'm not some sick pervert or self-obsessed and I'm certainly not a "pimp."

Actually, I'm just getting acquainted with my opening line for this year's performance of "The Vagina Monologues."

And that's got me thinking. What's there not to love? The vagina is so beautifully powerful and profound it floods deep crimson, and its gates, so mighty, can open far and wide to bear fruits of another life. The vagina, many times, unwillingly, takes responsibility for unbearable pain and loss. At the same time, the vagina is the source of unbelievable amounts of pleasure.

While "The Vagina Monologues" began as a worldwide movement to create awareness of violence against women, it also voices the explorations of women's sexuality and, more importantly, asks: If your vagina could talk, what would it say?

That's right. It's time vaginas stood up and spoke out. After all, I'm tired of having to hide all things vagina-related. For example, my tampons. I can't ever seem to find them when that time of the month comes without notice, and I'm alarmed, rushing, scrambling my hand to find one somewhere down in the bottom of my backpack. And I can't help but flush every time I see one pop out.

But I'd beware-after all, the vagina possesses special powers. I only need one word to explain this theory: clitoris. "The Vagina Monologues'' playwright, Eve Ensler, cites the clitoris as a happy fact, "an organ purely designed for purpose, for pleasure. Constructed with 8,000 nerve fibers, the clitoris holds more nerves than any other part of both the male and female body, including the fingertips and tongue, and it has twice the number in the penis."

The performance is an entertaining ride, and it's got a clear message. The monologues' goal is to eradicate violence against women in all aspects-domestic violence, genital mutilation, violence against oneself, violence in war and violence by other women. I'm advocating that women have a space to connect and be heard as part of a healing and empowering process.

But that right is denied to so many. In New York, three students were suspended for using the word "vagina" during their readings of the monologues at their public high school. And at Providence College in Rhode Island, the president cancelled the student-run performance, and instead suggested prayer and a mass.

There's no wonder vaginas are angry. They need attention; they need to talk; they need tending; they need to celebrate. We need to celebrate vaginas-and not at some dirty, smoke-stuffed strip club.

We, women, are talking about respect. That our vaginas not confine us to sexual objects, but embrace us as human beings. Our vaginas are dignified, and so are we.

I love vaginas. I love women. I do not see them as separate things.
Neither should you.

Vagina Monolgoues at CAL

www.vday.berkeley.edu




I'll be playing "The Woman who Loved to Make Vaginas Happy." Should be a festive event..save the date!

"for girls, it's be yourself, and be perfect, too"

I receive daily digests from the N.Y. Times and Washington Post. At the time of subscribing it seemed like a good idea. My editor and poli-sci professor like to send me links to stories I should check out, and then I figured, why not just hear and read about them on my own. But having done so my inbox is inundated with daily headlines and it's sad to say that it's not uncommon for me to just click delete.

Sometimes it's different, like this morning. My friend Amber called to tell me class would be starting an hour late. So with plenty of time on hand and cheerios to devour I came across this article about high school girls striving as all-around over-achievers to obtain admission into America's top colleges while also battling pressure and insecurities.

For Girls, It's Be Yourself, And Be Perfect: read article here.

"If you are free to be everything, you are also expected to be everything. What it comes down to, in this place and time, is that the eternal adolescent search for self is going on at the same time as the quest for the perfect résumé."

Now a sophomore in college I can say that not much has changed.