By Gabrielle Alexa
Originally Published on the I Am Woman Project
There is an unspoken loneliness when you have an invisible identity.
Our culture has always centered and praised heterosexuality, and then positioned homosexuality as its reverse. Bisexuality sits somewhere in the middle, further marginalized and stigmatized, but above all, erased. And just as bisexuality is overwhelmingly misunderstood, so is biphobia.
Photo by Linh Koi
By Heather McNamara
If you’ve been paying attention to the backlash after the story on Babe.net wherein a woman named Grace describes a very unsettling date with Aziz Ansari, your feelings on the #MeToo movement may recently have muddied a bit.
The original article is difficult to read. Grace met Aziz, gave him her number, agreed to a date, and ended up at his apartment. He made some pretty bold moves, grabbing her hand and putting it on his genitals and sticking his fingers in her mouth over and over. She never said no, but she did move away and ask him to slow down. She said “next time.” But he kept pushing and eventually, she relented. Grace never called what happened “rape” but she made it pretty clear that Ansari’s advances were unwelcome.
Photo by Sean Kong
By Jasmine Lane
Something interesting happened today.
I was going through my photos on my phone, like everyone does, and I came across a picture from about 9-10 months ago. I remember taking it and thinking how much I hated it, how disgusting I looked, how fat my face was, etc. You know, the typical body-shaming that women do to themselves.
Well, today was different. I looked at that same picture and thought, “Wow, you don’t look half bad. And your skin is nice. And your smile. And your hair. And your face is on fleek.”
What was different today was that I have grown to love myself.
Photo by Xan Griffin
By Kelcie McKenney
One-in-three women have been victims of domestic violence.
According to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence (NCADV), one-third of women have been victims of some form of physical violence by an intimate partner within their lifetime. For men, it is one-in-four. Those types of statistics paint a vivid picture for the reality of unhealthy relationships: they’re far more common than you’d think.
“In an unhealthy relationship there almost always tends to be a power dynamic in place and the person who’s being abusive, whether it’s emotionally or psychologically or physically, makes it pretty much impossible for that other partner to be able to win any kind of argument,” said Becky Redetzke Field, the University of Minnesota Aurora Center Legal Advocacy Coordinator.
Photo by Lorna Scubelek
By Nicolette Clairmont
This article was originally a response by the author to an unsavory post on Reddit on the sexualization of women.
Have you ever seen images in a documentary of African bushmen and their tribes? Where the women are able to walk around topless and no one gives a shit? Why do you think that is? Because the cultural mindset of those tribes does not view women as sexualized objects, therefore their exposure is not cause for any arousal.
Photo by Frankie Cordoba
Catcall 