Feminist pirate song

Here I have a little funny video from Key & Peele for your amusement. Pirates can be feminists too. Enjoy :)

Feminist Eco Village "Herland"

IHBG has been introduced to a Feminist Ecovillage project called Herland. The idea is based on the novel by the Charlotte Perkins Gilman who was not only an author but also an anthropologist and sociologist. One of the project members have agreed to tell us what Herland is all about!

The Herland Intentional Community is an organization to design, create and build a new way of life in the form of an intentional community of the ecovillage form. With the express intention of being sustainable both ecologically and socially for the foreseeable future. You may be wondering what an intentional community is let alone an ecovillage. The intentional community movement is about creating a village or town with a purpose. Each community has certain ideals but most center on creating something more community oriented than the current system offers, hence the name. An ecovillage is a community which is designed with sustainability in mind so that humanity can continue into the future working with the environment as a system rather than attempting to conquer it.

Ecovillages are designed to be positive spaces both for the members and the planet in general. They acknowledge that mainstream society does not work for the needs of everyone and should not be the solution to protecting the environment. Typically in ecovillages you will see that houses are built using simple techniques and from local materials so that the craft of house building can be passed down easily from generation to generation ensuring that important skills that support nature are not lost. In contrast Intentional communities that are not ecovillages often use existing buildings often modernizing them by adding solar panels and water collection units, this does have it's advantages as reform means that members don't need to build from scratch however there are obvious disadvantages.

More and more as time goes on the current civilization is changing, inequality increases and this problem is only going to get worse as pointed out by historian Sir Glubb. This results in humanity working longer and longer hours only to be paid less and less, causing a never ending decline in living standards. (Not that the conservative alternative is any better, as it asks women to enslave them selves as both domestic servants and sex slaves aka housewife's). The situation has gotten so bad in fact that people today work longer hours then at any other point in human history, thus in terms of enslavement it can be legitimately be argued that the current system is the worst in history. Not only is this unsustainable from a sociological perspective but also from an environmental one as the current society destroys the planet which it needs to sustain itself, even NASA has been forced to point out that civilization will end relatively soon in catastrophic manner. It is out of these political conditions that ecovillages are born, the desire to protect the environment while also finding more long term safety and security, so that members can live happy and secure lives. As a result Ecovillages tend to be very positive and safe spaces which are ideal for creative and intellectual development as basic needs are dealt with, without the need to slave away in the daily grind known as work.

So what makes the Herland ecovillage unique compared to other ecovillages and intentional communities? Well, the Herland ecovillage is based on the values demonstrated in the novel Herland by Feminist and Sociologist Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1915). In the story she outlines a society based in a combination of cooperation and meritocracy, where the long term benefit is always seen as favorable rather than merely short term gain. Other factors that make this community so unique is not just the fact that it is a secular organization with anthropology and intersectional feminism at its core. But also the fact that it is a community for people in the LGBT community (including the T), serving as a much needed refuge, as 40% of homeless youth are LGBT. By including a wide range of people including LGBT people of color, those who are autistic, some who suffer from PTSD, all of whom are particularly vulnerable, the outreach of the Herland community is particularly impressive.

Herland is an independent housing village, each member having their private home available to them. While at the same time there is a community center so members can eat and play together to build on the community spirit. This design maximizes the ability to cooperate and accomplish things together while also providing for everyone's need for space and privacy. While the community encourages interpersonal relationships it does not require the members to be in any kind of relationship and so even those who are asexual will not feel any pressure to be in a sexual relationship if they don't want to. Basic housing is provided by the community however members are both allowed to and encouraged to experiment with different forms of architecture, from tree houses to earthships and every thing in between.

Herland is using permaculture to build a food forest for the members rather than using modern monoculture agricultural methods. This will help it blend into and heal the environment rather than mining the soil and causing harm as is currently done by mainstream society. This is diametrically opposed to modern methods which mine the soil and lead to desertification. It is also another example of looking towards the long term, as over a life time food produced from permaculture requires very low amounts of labor to maintain without pesticides, all while producing more food on less land and minimizing the negative impact on the environment. Even though the term permaculture was coined after the writing of Herland the agriculture seen in the novel closely resembles permaculture, as both have the same core values of protecting the earth and providing good lives for the people not just today but also moving forward for the foreseeable future and beyond.

The location of Herland is also currently unoccupied and so no indigenous people will be harmed and the area will be preserved for posterity. In fact it is the indigenous people who chose the location of herland specifically because they value the project. The location will be in the rainforests of south america in an english speaking location, high above sea level in the mountains. The area is rocky and the soils are poor. Locals are keen to see if permaculture can prove to be a productive system for what considered to be land that is too rugged and poor for most human activity.

While the Herland community is designed to be ecologically friendly and sustainable it is not about primitivism (it is not about returning to the stone age or stifling advancement at all). Members of the Herland community are well networked in the open source world (both software and hardware), working to create the worlds first feminist crypto currency and developing software that will help spread internet access to the poorest people so that more people will have the opportunity to learn from and contribute to the giant library known as the internet. All of this means that Herland is not just a community that offers a refuge for a few but also offers an example to show that women can work together in a practical way to build a better life that is in tune with nature, while also helping to improve the world for the 99%.

As a result of all of this I am sure we can all agree that whether we want to join the Herland Ecovillage or not it is a project of which we can all benefit from in some way shape or form. And as you can imagine there have been a number of people who have tried to stop the Herland Ecovillage and prevent it from forming. MRA's have tried trolling them and conservative Christians have tried demonising them. But the ones who have done the most to try and harm them have been Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminists who are both envious of the project but also hate it as it supports Trans women, as a result Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminists have tried bullying the trans members taking some transwomen near the brink of suicide. So supporting the Herland ecovillage is not just about supporting humanity, it is also about supporting trans rights.

If you would like to support Herland, the best thing you can do is visit their website www.jungle2jungle.org and follow them on their various social networks. However if you would like to join them then the best way is to join their facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/herlandcommune/ attribution: Shania Foley

Freedom at Midnight, an Indian Yearning

The peaceful, silent street on a day that I took a walk alone late at night in Indiranagar, Bangalore.

“Girls are supposed to be seen, not heard” – I grew up listening my matron in the liberal boarding school I attended repeat this old adage over and over again back in 1994. Girls, she believed, were always to be seriously disciplined, discouraged from speaking up and punished often if they asked questions. One of the many rules the school enforced, I remember, was that we weren’t supposed to roam around campus at night on our own. Anywhere girl students went, an escort — either a staff member or a house warden — would be beside them so that they didn’t “misbehave”.

For several years, throughout high school and university, I found that this strange rule was observed in almost every private hostel for girls or young women. Our college hostel warden urged us to return to the premises by 6 pm. If we returned any later, we would have to pay a fine. At home, my parents would ask us to call if we were going out with friends in the evening. The night, as so many of us knew it, was out of reach. It was a time of day that was a mystery, filled with questions. Every now and then we would hear a story about women who had chains snatched, or were groped or molested on the road. Yet, to many of us, the night held promise of solitude, romance, parties, and long hours spent in reckless abandon.

To me, the darkness evokes mixed emotions. It brings back memories of the night of my first kiss with my childhood sweetheart, when we stood under the lamppost clinging on to each other, our hearts beating wildly against our chests. But it also brings back the intense fear I felt when I was first attacked on my way home in the evening; flashes of light as I was being dragged along the corners of the road by thieves on a motorcycle, thrown in front of a car while they wrenched my belongings away from me. I came home that night, my head bleeding, bruised all over my body. The policeman asked me two days later when I went to complain – “What were you doing out at night alone? Girls shouldn’t be walking alone at night.”

On December 2012, when a young physiotherapy student was brutally gang-raped on a moving bus, there were several voices in the Indian public arena openly asking whether she invited the assault by breaking the rule. Why did she step out at night?  Dr Asha Mirge, a member of the Maharashtra Women’s Commission, asked more than a year after the incident. Mirge famously commented on the Delhi gang rape and the Shakti Mills gang rapes, asking, “Why Nirbhaya, the victim in the infamous Delhi gang rape case in December 2012 should go to movie for a late night show (11 PM), and similarly the photo-journalist in Mumbai go to an isolated place of Shakti Mills at 6 PM?"

Now, after so many years, this sparked a revolution on the ground. It was a silent revolution, not one that was violent and filled with rage. Instead, women across the city were coming together to claim all of the day. They were stepping out to parks, going on picnics, enjoying exploring the city and travelling alone at night. Even better, they were challenging their own stereotypes about men and darkness. The campaign which gently ushered them to do this was called #WhyLoiter, a simple movement started by two young men asking women across India to post a photo of themselves loitering the streets, venturing out any time of the day and enjoying their public spaces. In just a few weeks, nearly two million women responded with photos of them taking on their freedoms; exploring dark alleyways, sleeping in the parks, eating chaat in the streets and climbing mountaintops. A rule had silently been broken.

Walking out alone at night in Bangalore

That night, I stepped out and decided I’d go for a walk alone. It was 11.45 pm and the streets were empty. Even the main road, which was usually lined with groups of twenty-somethings smoking or enjoying a laugh outside a pub, was quiet and dark. At first, I was cautious, ensuring that I stayed on the side of the street lamp all the time. Then, I didn’t care. It took me some time to breathe easy but I did it. It’s a feeling I cannot explain; that sense of lightness I felt when I didn’t turn around every second to look out for strangers, or speeding motorcyclists, or sounds. I just walked, strolling along at the usual pace that helped me relax. Fear, I realized, is often such a heavy and comforting feeling that it wraps women in a tight embrace they cannot break free from. Fear is comforting because it makes you take fewer chances; it feeds on your insecurities to keep you on the straight and narrow road. But freedom is silent, waiting for you to step outside the shadows of doubt.

#© Meera Vijayann

We don't want to take it any more!

Youtube entertainment group BuzzFeed have created various videos on topic of women empowerment which perfectly displays the situations with what women have to deal on daily basis but shouldn't be like that.

We are living in a society where female bodies and choices are criticized constantly. It comes from media and sometimes even very close people. We are tired of all that - listening that our bodies are not OK the way they are, catcalling, online harassment and being called in the worst names when we decide to take a stand for our decisions.

Nowadays we are having many stereotypes on what is feminism. It has become a negative concept despite the actual fact that feminism is a movement towards equality between genders. My guess is that it came out as a negative concept because women are getting angry and becoming more aggressive because of the way we are treated.

Unfortunately, almost all women can relate abusive, harassing and/or uncomfortable situations from men and we are the ones who are blamed for that.  The problem is that if we say "no" or express our aversion in a calm, polite way it's almost never taken seriously. And this is what makes us angry and more aggressive. We don't want to be puppets of the patriarchy, we want to be in charge of ourselves and that our choices are respected no matter which way of living we choose.

We want to be heard and we want to protect our sisters all over the world. We simply won't take it any more, it's time for development and changes.

Hysteria FemCon 2015

2015 is already starting with loud events towards women empowerment and gender equality. "Hysteria" is coming soon and will take place in India, Kolkata from 10th to 12th of January. It is creation by Eye Art Collective; group of young artists, enthusiasts and activists who combine their interests and skills to create world a better place.
Before the event we contacted people who stand behind it and they were happy to answer our questions and share their good practices despite their busy schedules. In this article we will get to know what is Eye Art Collective and their creation "Hysteria", what are their main goals and difficulties to create such an event.

Manisha Ganguly (Co-Founder/Editor of Eye Art Collective) :
"We at Eye are an independent art collective that is anarcha-feminist, anti-racist and queer-positive. Our main tool is artivism, using art as a form of activism, to create awareness about socio-politico-cultural issues in the all-pervasive, bold way that only art can, transcending language barriers. Feminism as an ever-changing ideology-movement is one that is viewed with much trepidation, fear and suspicion by the layperson. Feminists are often typified as “ugly” and or “man-haters” (as feminists are mostly female, you follow-great sarcasm at play here,folks-), among other unflattering adjectives; the Feminist vision is often obscured by radicals within the Feminist fold who envision a matriarchy as their final goal and take away from the real problems on the ground – patriarchal oppression, gender violence and deep-rooted sexism that pervades every pore of the skin of society.
Hysteria, aims to address all of these issues and more with the use of varied mediums to understand the prevailing pre-conceived notions, right them and help all participating persons to be more gender-tolerant individuals. With the help of diverse mediums from good old fashioned discussions to air everyone’s views, to screening topical films to workshops on self defence to music, theatre and slam poetry, we wish to use all available means to reach our end of gender sensitivization and creating general awareness.
Obstacles will crop up, and always will, especially when an event of such a singularity is on the cards. From being misunderstood as to our objective (anarchism is not taken lightly by institutions or blindly collectivist individuals who are either a>not enlightened or b>refuse to be enlightened as to what it really entails) to having the usual event hiccups in terms of logistics, finance and manpower, we have persevered and how.
Hysteria is a-go from the 10th to the 12th of January at Max Mueller Bhavan, Kolkata. We hope our initiative, albeit a drop in the ocean, makes a difference in the way we view the world. For the better."

More info:
http://www.aneyezine.com/hysteria/
https://www.facebook.com/events/324680227736726
If you are around the area you are very welcome and we highly recommend you to join Hysteria FemCon 2015!

New year, new ambitions and even bigger love for Being A Girl!

Last year have been very important for women empowerment! Many loud events and happenings took place all over the world which are developing the movement. New years resolutions are important but it's also important to remember what happened and inspired us in the last year! Here are five of the brightest moments that keep us going:



♥  A 17 years old girl from Pakistan took a stand for her and thousand of other young girl rights and received the Nobel Peace Prize. Malala Yousafzai made huge impact on women empowerment worldwide and proved that feminism changes the world.

♥ He for She by Emma Watson in the UN. This woman is an Idol and/or appreciated by women and men all over the world. Her speech shook the world. It created bigger interest on gender equality and fact that feminism is not only a girl issue.

♥ A group of feminist advocates, including Soraya Chemaly, won a fight in worlds biggest social media! Facebook changed its policies towards breastfeeding and currently the pictures of nursing women are no longer banned from the social media.

♥ Many pop artists, top actors and musicians have declared themselves as feminists, such as Beyonce, Taylor Swift, Lena Dunham, Aziz Ansari and previously mentioned Emma Watson. It helps to lessen the stigma and stereotypes towards feminism and increases the involvement which, we believe, is a step forward towards gender equality.

♥ This year Sweden took it in brand new level by creating new word in their vocabulary. Sweden created "hen" which stands for gender neutral pronoun which can be used when talking about someone whose gender in unknown. Gender-neutral feminism revolution.

New year, new ambitions! We hope that the world is inspired by 2014, so 2015 is going to be a very exciting year towards women empowerment! What do you want to achieve in this year? Here you can find some inspiration from leading feminists.

I ♥ Being a Girl team wants to thank every single person for being together with us in 2014! Thank you for reading and sharing! Special thanks to our amazing supporters for guest articles! Every single contribution is appreciated and we love you as much as we ♥ Being a Girl! We can do it!


I ♥ Being a Girl Team

World needs feminism!

Girl Who Cycles the World: Shirine

"Anyone can follow their dreams, us girls included!" Shirine

At twenty years old I decided I was going to cycle around the world alone. Having been raised in a hippy Oregonian town in the United States, I never thought twice about the fact that as a women I was setting out to do what so many believe is impossible. I have always loved to travel, and having already spent an amazing year (at eighteen) backpacking alone through South America, I really didn't consider this next adventure to be all that crazy. I never thought twice about being at a disadvantage because of my gender because I was raised in a family and by a community that valued me just as much as they valued my brother. Gender had never been an issue for me so I had never given it much thought, I'm one of the lucky few who grew up reaping the benefits of the previous feminist movements before me and therefore grew up knowing without a doubt that I'm equal in every way to my male peers.

But then I spent six months cycling alone through India and my world was torn open in a painful yet insightful way. I couldn't stop to eat in some parts of the country because when I did, I would be surrounded by every single man in the village starring leeringly at me. I was grabbed multiple times as I quietly made my way down the road, and more than once men tried to push me down a ditch while I was cycling because they wanted to have their way with me. Men handed me porn asking for naked photos of me (because every white women in their mind is a porn star), men yelled "I want to fuck you" as I walked by, and worst of all, men considered me inherently inferior just because I was born with boobs instead of a penis. Of course, there are wonderful people in India, and there is a slowly growing movement for women's rights as well, but as a whole, India is one of the worst countries in the world for women - not just due to the constant rape and abuse - but because so many men, and even many women, truly believe they are inferior because they have been told so from birth.

Most of the women in India thought I was crazy - not just in the "oh wow that's a great adventure" - sort of way, but in a "what are you doing, this is not your place as a women." I was asked by every single women I encountered if I had run away, because they couldn't imagine a farther or husband allowing me to walk around alone, and they often couldn't get their mind around the fact that I didn't have a husband or father "controlling" me at all. I never felt unequal because I know that I'm not. I never felt that what I was doing was wrong, because I know it wasn't. But what about all of the girls who grow up believing they are inferior? What about the millions of girls who truthfully believe that rape, abuse, or unequal treatment of any kind is ok, because they have never been taught otherwise? 

I hope that every single girl or women reading this knows that they are equal in every single way to men. I hope that all of you realize that no matter how others treat you, what others say, or what your community wants you to believe, you are an amazing human being who deserves to be recognized and not just pushed to the side. As a women you can do anything, you can become a doctor, a teacher, a housewife, or, like me, you can cycle around the world all by yourself. This isn't a one sided fight though. This isn't about being superior to men, or hating men, or even disgracing men in anyway, it's about working with men to be considered their equals just as we need to consider them our equals as well. It's about someday having every singe man and women on this planet realize that we all deserve the same respect and kindness not matter who we are, or where we are born

This women kept me safe one night when I slept in a small roadside slum. The men were drunk and abusive, so the women kept out of their way and helped me do so as well. These women work all day alongside the men breaking large rocks into smaller stones on some of the worst roads in the world, yet when they come home exhausted, they are still expected to cook, clean, and fake cars of the children while the men wander around doing whatever they please. Even though they do all of the work, they get no respect whatsoever.

I stayed with these children and their parents for two weeks in a very small rural Indian village in the hills. I loved this family, especially the wife, as she was funny, happy, and an amazing mother. She had a supportive and loving husband who worked hard to provide for the family and let his wife run the house as she saw fit. Her children, these two kids below, were some of the most respectful and smart children I met throughout my stay in India because they had parents who taught them that everyone is equal.

This was a lovely women I stayed with in Spiti Valley, a high altitude Tibetan Buddhist region in northern India which I loved. Here the women are considered equal to their male counterparts, and do most of the work both around the house, in the fields, and with the animals. They are well respected and I enjoyed being with them because I was never treated as an inferior.

I loved the women throughout India and Nepal because they were fun, lively, and strong willed even though their husbands may not know it.


 

Check out more of my adventures:
Blog: awanderingphoto.wordpress.com
Twitter: @awanderingphoto

A Tribute To African Women

Antonio Sacristan is 29 years old volunteer from Madrid, Spain who spent 6 months of his life in Zambia, Mongu village. During his stay he was doing community development work. Together with his colleagues they saw that many woman are harassed and abused on the streets, so they decided to create a workshop for a men, women, teenagers and children to talk about feminism, gender roles and sexism.

The workshop was even more difficult than expected. Woman role in the Zambian society is very important because she is doing everything from household and childcare to earning money for the family. In many cases the money that is earned by the men is spent firstly on his needs and entertainment and after for the well-being of the family. Suddenly this model of living was questioned by three men from Europe. It created a lot of thinking and was taken serious but it didn't create any solutions.

The main feeling after the workshops was that people can be informed but not changed in six months. People must be educated daily and it has to start from the childhood, then the situation can be improved. The system must be developed in order to improve women's health and possibilities from the big cities to African villages.

Before the experience in Africa Antonio was interested in gender equality, now he is loud enthusiast. Fighting for women rights and educating other people to have a better tomorrow for the whole world.