Rise Up, Oh Heart, For There is Another Battle to Win

jewlesthemagnificent:

curiousgeorgiana:

babstheartist:

themindislimitless:

tw: abuse, rape, domestic violence

feministblackboard:

A few weeks ago my mom stapled pages of a story in one of her women’s magazines together and handed it to me. She gave it to me pretty much with the tag lines “for your feminist blog” and “something new to consider.” Indeed it was; she knows me well.

The story is titled “I was forced to be pregnant.” With a title like that, reading it was actually not on the top of my to read list. I thought it was about women not exercising their right to choice. I was very, very wrong on that one.

Have you ever heard of Reproductive coercion? It is a term that was quite recently coined by the advocates against domestic violence to describe a certain type of abuse some women face. It occurs when a man pressures their partner to have kids and/or impregnates them against their will. Reproductive coercion comes in three different types:
1. Emotional pressure that turns into verbal and physical abuse.
2. Sabotaging birth control
3. Marital rape
Over 75% of women 19-49 who reported once experiencing domestic violence also endured some type of reproductive control by men. It’s all about control and domination over a woman’s body.

The first story in the magazine is about a woman who got married around 36 years of age. After a few months of dating her boyfriend talked excitedly about having children. After he proposed he began calling her “The Babymaker.” She then confided with him that one of her fallopian tubes was blocked. He in return insisted she see a fertility doctor. She recounts, “I had finally met a great guy who was eager to start a family with me. What woman wouldn’t fall for that?” Soon after her honeymoon he persisted on in an obsessive manner, but his efforts had to be temporarily halted as she had to get emergency back surgery. Alas, 6 months into recovery he was back to pressuring her again. She was in much pain at the time due to her back, but she agreed to In Vitro Fertilization. She then became pregnant, but soon miscarried. In response, her husband grabbed her by the neck, choking her. He apologized, blaming his outburst on his grief and had her sign up for another round of IVF. And then a third round. She tried to put him off with the excuse that she needed to weigh more before she could take treatments, her husband forced her to get on the scale often and filled the fridge with fattening foods. “It hurt that all I was good for was getting pregnant.” She recounts. At the end, he screamed at her, threatening to replace her with a maid if she couldn’t get pregnant and she told him she no longer wanted to have his child. He destroyed bedroom furniture, pushed her down the stairs and threatened her with a gun. She fled to a domestic violence shelter.

The second story was about a woman who faced marital rape. This woman was 40, had a then boyfriend and two children from a previous marriage. After telling her boyfriend she did not want any more children, her boyfriend refused to wear a condom and began to rape her.  She then became pregnant with her third child. Birth control was never an option for her because she couldn’t hide pills anywhere for he went through all of her belongings. Three months after giving birth, he raped her again, impregnating her with twins. She lost the twins in a physical fight with him, but soon became pregnant again. During her recovery she begged her obstetrician to remove her ovaries and devise a lie to tell him; that she had cancer. After a decade of sexual abuse and violence she was able to get a job that kept her out of the house and often times traveling.

One in four callers to the National Domestic Abuse hotline said that their partners had tried to force them to become pregnant. Why? As one woman stated, “Its like he wants to own me from the inside out.”  Having a baby is the perfect tie that binds. These type of abusers want to create a circumstance in which their partner is dependent on him.

WHAT’S THAT HAVE TO DO WITH PLANNED PARENTHOOD?

Many voters never consider how defunding these clinics could hurt victims of domestic violence who turn to them for counseling as well as pregnancy prevention. Abused women will turn to health care providers long before they will turn to domestic abuse hotlines and organizations. Many women in abusive relationships rely on life saving, affordable care programs such as Title X. It is critical that such places are open and operation when women and children need them so desperately.

holy fuck im crying.

I know I’ve told this story before, but my abusive ex refused to let me take birth control.  I was on the pill until he found them in my purse. 

I went to the Student Health Center—they were completely unhelpful, choosing to lecture me about the importance of safe sex (recommending condoms) instead of actually listening to my problem.

Then I went to Planned Parenthood. The Nurse Practitioner took one look at my fading bruises and stopped the exam. She called in the doctor. The doctor came in and simply asked me: “Are you ready to leave him?” When I denied that I was being abused, she didn’t argue with me. She just asked me what I needed. I said I need a birth control method that my boyfriend couldn’t detect. She recommended a few options and we decided on Depo. 

When I told her that my boyfriend read my emails and listened to my phone messages and was known to follow me, she suggested to do the Depo injections at off hours when the clinic was normally closed. She made a note in my chart and instructed the front desk never to leave messages for me—instead, she programmed her personal cell phone number into my phone under the name “Nora”. She told me she would call me to schedule my appointments; she wouldn’t leave a message, but I should call her back when I was able to.

And that was it. No judgment. No lecture. She walked me to the door and told me to call her day or night if I needed anything. That she lived 5 blocks from campus and would come get me. That I wasn’t alone. That she just wanted me to be safe.

I never called her to come to my rescue. But I have no doubt that she would have come if I had called. She kept me on Depo for a year, giving me those monthly injections in secret, helping me prevent a desperately unwanted pregnancy. 

I cannot thank Planned Parenthood enough for the work they do.

If you can read this, and still think there is no situation in which a woman should have access to safe abortions, basically you’re saying that you value women as little as the abusive assholes in these personal, true stories did. That you’d rather have a woman die at the hands of her abuser than terminate a pregnancy, and that you’d rather have numerous children born into a dangerous, damaging, terrifying home than allow a woman to have control over her own body and her own reproductive choices.

(via cthulhu-with-a-fez)

liquidcoma:

stfueverything:

[tw: rape, victim blaming]

thaaaaaaank youuuuuuu holy shit so many people reveal their inexperience with being put in these situations when they victim-blame and this is a good resource

(via fireflyca)

maddiethealchemist:

fallenangel-risingdemon-hellatus:

cinematicsuicide:

seabornunicorns:

seikosnows:

meeghp:

happy-for-hell:

cancerfreak69:

So, last night, I was getting ready to go out with my boyfriend to a dance at my school (which was cancelled due to lack of ticket sales) and, I had a nice black vest and a nice white shirt, and my uncle had just came home the other day from the mine (my uncle is homophobic and he has abused me many times throughout my child hood) and when I had came out of my room to show my memere how nice I looked, my uncle was in the room that i thought my grandma/memere would be in (she was downstairs doing laundry), and he asked me why I wasnt wearing a dress.
my memere and dad both know that I am transgendered and they respect that, however, my uncle does not, and he did not know.
so I decided to sit down and tell him the truth.
he listened carefully and quietlly through all of it, but at the end of my explanation he had said, “I didn’t raise you to be fucked up.”
I agreed, I am a huge mess, I have been for years, but my sexuality and gender identity is not a fuck up, so I argued with him.
he got to a point where, after so many months of piece, he slapped me.
and threw me to the ground and kicked me in the stomach, of course I had puked, and it hurt, a lot.
he grabbed me by the shirt and asked me, “are you a girl”, I said no, my sex is female, but my gender is male..and he dragged me to his room.
he once had a big dog, and he made that dog wear an eletrical dog collar, and weve always kept it in his room, because we dont need it (my uncle killed the dog), he threw me onto the bed and said,” ill ask you one more time, are you a girl” I said no.
held grabbed my wrist, and held onto it tightly, I have a bruise from how tight he was grabbing it, and he pulled out the dog collar, threw me back onto the bed, sat on me, and put the collar on me… then he began yelling, are you a girl, you are a girl, are you a girl, you are a girl, and my response of course was no, no, no, I am male, I am male.
whenever I said that, he would shock me, and it was /hell/.
I was screaming, which only caused the shocks to get worse and worse, and then he said, “do you want to find out how faggots have sex!?” of course I already know this, but still I said no no no no stop stop stop.
my memere had finally heard me and came rushing to the bedroom, and tried to make my uncle stop, but he pushed her down, and thanked god she was okay.. since shes very fragile and all.
she then ran back to the stairs to call up my dad, and oh boy did he run.
he ran up stairs and shoved my uncle away from me and started fighting with him, yelling, punching, kicking, and such so on.
my memere got the collar off of me and brought me into her room, and after my dad and uncle were done fighting, my uncle had grabbed the things he needed and left, shouting a few insults at us.
we called the police today, but they cant find him.
we dont have money for a lawyer,  all we have is a counsellor, im not going to ask for money, all I ask for is support.
I dont know what this will do, but please spread this around,  this has affected me and family members greatly. I was taken to a hospital today to check if there was any damage on my insides that we dont know of and thankfully there was no damage, just scarring, emotionally and physically. i had a horrifying nightmare relating to this as well.
If you have abused somebody, raped somebody, insulted somebody, in any way possible, I hope this can somehow change your way of heart, and realize how much this can horrify a person, and ruin their lives. it made my life 97x worse than it already is.

If you don’t reblog this that’s okay, but I hate you and you are wrong

Fuck…

STOP SCROLLING PEOPLE!!! Read and think,

reblog something because you want to, because you want your followers to see and have it go through their minds for just a moment, not because some asshole commented on it that you’re wrong to scroll past a post, and they’ll hate you for it. they may not torture you, but they’re on the same level of misunderstanding how people should interact/talk with one and other as the post they’re defending.

this post scares the crap out of me because I do not understand how someone could react that way to this poor boy, i will never be able to connect with emotions forcing someone to be something they’re not, torturing them, making their life worse because of something that makes them more comfortable about themselves

the fact that this happens to people everyday, all over the world, and no one can stop them- that’s what scares me

i hope people see this post and think to themselves, no matter their situation, that there’s going to be someone who recognises you’re not being morally corrupt by being yourself, you’re being you, and the person who hurts you is the one who needs to hide away from society and change who they are, open their mind, be more accepting, and learn the real moral values of being a member of society.

im so upset over this

to all followers and tumblr in general im not gonna force you to reblog but you should. this is the kind of stuff people need to be aware of. this is the worst kind of person out there please show this boy some support.

Guys…this is really sad…

(Source: guguguguu, via adelindschade)

stfueverything:

[tw: rape, victim blaming]

(via cthulhu-with-a-fez)