fuckyeahfeminists:

thugzmansion:

☼ thugzmansion presents the GODDESS SHIRT for Spring/Summer 2013 !
now available @ the thugz maison bigcartel shop ☀

god·dess [god-is] 
1. a female god or deity who does it, does it, and does it well. 
2. Audre&Gloria&Angela&bell.

A Thugzmaison Spring/Summer 2013 exclusive, screen printed by hand with love.

Ana María Agüero Jahannes (pictured) is the founder of Wild Seed Wellness, the first donation-based bodyworks service based in Oakland to offer exclusive support to queer people of color. She will do magic upon your bod, trust! Book an appointment today.

Plz reblog to support the qpoc hustle!

❥❥☺

ordering one as soon as I get paid!

kiriamaya:

mocosyamores:

Hi everyone,

I’m getting over my shame and internalized ableism and asking for help. I’m a chronically ill unemployed trans gurl who just left sex work (as in, yesterday) because I finally lost my shit. I’m also moving out of my abusive household in June, around the 15th or so. I don’t have a place to stay yet so the more money I have saved up, the more likely someone is going to trust me to move in with them.

Thanks to sex work and friends donating, I’ve saved up $2,000 for deposits, first/last month’s rent, housing applications, etc. I’m trying to raise another $2,000 to get me through the summer. Starting September/October, I should be receiving financial aid from my university, so that will help.

To give you an idea of where the money is going:
- Rent for a shared room is $500-$550/month
- Utilities are anywhere between $20-$60/month
- I’m limiting myself to $100-$125/month for food
- Gas is $40 a full tank, so about a $80/month if I do this right

I’ll also be looking for a job at this time. I have an open interview tomorrow so hopefully I’ll get called for a second interview!

Important to note! My memoir, Trauma Queen, is aiming to be published on May 31st, 2013. It’s going to cost $20, so if you want to hold off donating to buy the book, that’s totally understandable. I have a collection of writing and art here (x) that you can read/watch, and a zine here (x). I’ll also be selling various articles of clothing, shoes, collector’s items, etc. in the next week or so.

Signal boosting would be appreciated, and any donations would be very helpful. <3

¡Gracias! / Thank you!,
Lovemme/Sirena

- 

P.S. (if the link doesn’t work, there’s a donate button on my page.)

Boost the shit out of this!

dancepunksnotdead:

You know, the one that gives housewives/full-time mothers a pension— wages for housework?

It’s ONLY A HUGE VICTORY FOR FEMINISM, SOCIALISM, AND WOMEN OF COLOR. Not a big deal or anything. Tumblr is mysteriously silent about this.

http://rabble.ca/columnists/2013/05/venezuelas-new-labour-law-best-mothers-day-gift

nbcnews:

Teen’s invention could charge your phone in 20 seconds

(Photo: Intel)

Waiting hours for a cellphone to charge may become a thing of the past, thanks to an 18-year-old high-school student’s invention. She won a $50,000 prize Friday at an international science fair for creating an energy storage device that can be fully juiced in 20 to 30 seconds.

Read the complete story.

Peggy Robles- Alvarado is a Puerto Rican and Dominican poet who despite her petite frame commands and infuses great strength into her spoken word bringing life to verses relating to identity, sensuality, and spirituality.

Raised in Washington Heights and currently living in the Bronx with Master’s degrees in elementary education and bilingual education, she has taught in bilingual and ESL elementary school classrooms since 2001.

She has connected and deeply impressed audiences when featuring at Nuyorican Poets Café as part of the Tribute to Tato Laviera , The Cemi Underground, The Clemente Soto Velez cultural and educational center, The Salsa Lounge at Salsa Caterers, Lolita’s, The Brecht Forum, Hunter College and Bronx Community College.

She has been published online at Dealmas.org and Sofrito for your Soul. Her work will also be featured in the online publication for Hunter College’s Center for Puerto Rican Studies titled Letras.

Peggy Robles-Alvarado is a Puerto Rican and Dominican educator and writer who inspires triumph and embodies strength. Her incredible rhythmic energy paired with her “raw truth style” has seduced audiences with verses relating to identity, sensuality and spirituality and has made her the recipient of the 2012 “Mujeres Destacadas Award,” a recognition given annually by El Diario-La Prensa to the most outstanding women in the Latino community. She was also awarded second place in the category of Best Poetry Book in English by the 2012 International Latino Book Awards, and she received the 2012 Womyn Warrior Award presented by Casa Atabex Aché, a center that provides holistic and alternative healing techniques for the self-empowerment of women of color.

This profound petite powerhouse has been featured at Lincoln Center Out of Doors for La Casita, Pregones Theater Block Party, The Bronx Museum of Art, Bronx Community College, Hunter College, New York University, Hostos Community College, The 2011 Brooklyn Book Festival, The Nuyorican Poets Café, The Milford Fine Arts Center, Fairfield University, Brecht Forum, Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural Center, as well as other culturally notable venues throughout the tri-state area.

She has been published online in Letras, a publication by the Center for Puerto Rican Studies at Hunter College, on Dealmas.org and Sofrito For Your Soul. She has also been a guest on Open 2.0, Open, Diálogo Abierto, and The Bronx Journal aired on BronxNet.org. In addition, Peggy has participated in panel discussions focused on contemporary Latina writers through the Sangre Viva Arts Alliance.

Peggy’s emphasis on the value of words for healing, transformation, and the fostering of a positive cultural identity have allowed her to work closely with The New York City Latina Writers Group and The DeAlmas Women’s Institute. In 2011, Peggy became a contributing writer and featured spoken word performer for Plantando Banderas (Planting Flags) a high-energy theatrical and musical presentation that fuses dance and spoken word to enrich and inspire the community by annually celebrating the accomplishments of Westchester-based Latinos. Most recently, she has co-curated a spoken word performance in conjunction with Latin Flavored Productions, Inc. titled Soledad Speaks - A Spoken Word Journey that celebrates the strength of the Latina spirit when dealing with issues of displacement, culture, and self- acceptance.

Her award winning and emotionally evocative first book, Conversations With My Skin published in 2011, details Peggy’s poignant and powerful transformation from a pregnant fifteen-year-old girl scarred by relationship abuse and her resiliency as she evolves into a woman determined to redefine herself. Her vivid and oftentimes violent poetic journey is one of resolve, redemption and healing for both mother and child.

Her latest book, Homenaje a las guerreras / Homage To The Warrior Women, is a collection of poetry and prose dedicated to the inherited strength of women as expressed in their labor, love, sensuality, spirituality and movement. This book honors the vitality, power and prowess of everyday women and how their rituals, wit, and perceived imperfections can create an evocative legacy.

Keiko Fukuda: Why she kicks ass

• She was a martial artist, who was the highest-ranked female judoka in history, holding the rank of 9th dan from the Kodokan and the United States Judo Federation (USJF), and 10th dan from USA Judo, as well as being the last surviving student of Kanō Jigorō, founder of judo.
• She was a renowned pioneer of women’s judo, being the first woman promoted to 6th dan (c. 1972), and later 9th dan (2006), by the Kodokan. She is also the first and, so far, only woman to have been promoted to 10th dan in the art.
• After completing her formal education in Japan, Fukuda visited the United States of America to teach in the 1950s and 1960s, and eventually settled there. She continued to teach her art in the San Francisco Bay Area until her death in 2013.
• Fukuda, standing at only 4’ 11” (150 cm) and weighing less than 100 lb. (45 kg), became a judo instructor in 1937. She also earned a degree in Japanese literature from Showa Women’s University.
• In 1953, she was promoted to the rank of 5th dan in judo. She traveled to the United States of America later that year, at the invitation of a judo club in Oakland, California, and stayed for almost two years before returning to Japan. Fukuda next traveled to the US in 1966, giving seminars in California. At that time, she was one of only four women in the world ranked at 5th dan in judo, and was one of only two female instructors at the Kodokan (the other being Masako Noritomi, also ranked 5th dan).
•  In 1966, she demonstrated her art at Mills College, and the institution immediately offered her a teaching position; she accepted, and taught there from 1967 to 1978.
• Around 1972, following a letter campaign against the rule prohibiting women from being promoted higher than 5th dan, Fukuda became the first woman promoted to 6th dan by the Kodokan. In 1973, she published Born for the Mat: A Kodokan kata textbook for women, an instructional book for women about the kata (patterns) of Kodokan judo.
• In 1974, she established the annual Joshi Judo Camp to give female judo practitioners the opportunity to train together. That year, she was one of only three women in the world ranked 6th dan in judo.
  
• In 1990, she was awarded Japan’s Order of the Sacred Treasure, 4th Class (Gold Rays with Rosette), and the United States Judo Incorporated (USJI) Henry Stone Lifetime Contribution to American Judo Award.
• She served as a technical adviser for US Women’s Judo and the USJI Kata Judges’ Certification Sub-committee, as a National Kata Judge, was a faculty member of the USJI National Teachers’ Institute, a member of the USJF Promotion Committee, a member of the USJF and USJI Women’s Sub-committee.
• In 2001, she was awarded a rare red belt (marking 9th dan rank) in judo by the USJF for her lifelong contribution to the art. On January 8, 2006, at its annual New Year’s Kagami Biraki celebration, the Kodokan promoted Fukuda to the rank of 9th dan—the first time it had awarded this rank to a woman. On July 28, 2011, the promotion board of USA Judo awarded Fukuda the rank of 10th dan.
• Fukuda continued to teach judo three times each week, host the annual Fukuda Invitational Kata Championships, and teach at the annual Joshi Judo Camp until her death, at the age of 99, in San Francisco, California.
• She established the Keiko Fukuda Judo Scholarship to encourage and enable women to continue their formal training in the art. Apart from teaching in the USA, she also taught in Australia, Canada, France, Norway and the Philippines.

Samantha Reed Smith: Why she kicks ass

• She was an American schoolgirl, peace activist and child actress from Manchester, Maine, who became famous in the Cold War era United States and Soviet Union.
• In 1982, she wrote a letter to the newly appointed CPSU General Secretary Yuri Andropov, and received a personal reply which included a personal invitation to visit the Soviet Union, which she accepted.
• Smith attracted extensive media attention in both countries as a “Goodwill Ambassador”, and became known as “America’s Youngest Ambassador” participating in peacemaking activities in Japan. 
• She wrote a book about her visit to the Soviet Union and co-starred in the television series Lime Street, before her death at the age of 13 in the Bar Harbor Airlines Flight 1808 plane crash.
• On July 7, 1983, she flew to Moscow with her parents, and spent two weeks as Andropov’s guest. During the trip she visited Moscow and Leningrad and spent time in Artek, the main Soviet pioneer camp, in the town of Gurzuf on the Crimean Peninsula. She wrote in her book that in Leningrad she and her parents were amazed by the friendliness of the people and by the presents many people made for them. Speaking at a Moscow press conference, she declared that the Russians were “just like us”.
•  In Artek, Smith chose to stay with the Soviet children rather than take the privileged accommodation offered to her. For ease of communication, teachers and children with fluent English were chosen to stay in the building where she was lodged. Smith shared a dormitory with nine other girls, and spent her time there swimming, talking and learning Russian songs and dances. 
• Smith also received a phone call from Russian cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman to orbit the Earth. However, not realizing with whom she was speaking, Samantha mistakenly hung up after only a brief conversation. 
  
• In December 1983, continuing in her role as “America’s Youngest Ambassador”, she was invited to Japan, where she met with the Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone and attended the Children’s International Symposium in Kobe.
• In her speech at the symposium, she suggested that Soviet and American leaders exchange granddaughters for two weeks every year, arguing that a president “wouldn’t want to send a bomb to a country his granddaughter would be visiting”. Her trip inspired other exchanges of child goodwill ambassadors, including a visit by the eleven-year-old Soviet child Katya Lycheva to the United States.
• In 2008, Samantha Smith posthumously received the Peace Abbey Courage of Conscience Award for helping to bring about better understanding between the peoples of the United States of America (USA) and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), and as a result, reduce the tension between the superpowers that were poised to engage in nuclear war.

Red Summer: Why she kicks ass

“I am not a loose woman…I’m a woman on the loose!” 

• She is a performance artist, activist, motivational speaker and published writer. She has a BA in Speech, Theatre and Communications Education from Grambling State University in Louisiana, an MA in Interdisciplinary Art from Columbia College in Chicago and is pursuing a second MA in Heritage Preservation from Georgia State University in Atlanta. Her work has taken her all over the country, where she has been able to speak on a variety of issues covering gender equality, race, sexual identity, relationships, religion, social history and education.
• In the Fall of 2008, Red Summer left a career as a High School and College educator to pursue her dream as a full-time performance artist, writer and filmmaker. At that time, she was traveling across the country promoting her first collection of poetry, First Person, and growing her international audience with performances in Cuba, Spain, France, England and various countries in Africa. This year Red Summer released her second book of poetry, Raw Sugar.
• As an independent artist, Red Summer worked on her first documentary film project entitled, Chasing Summer. It is a virtual shotgun ride on a personal journey that was as elaborate as Red Summer herself. Her love for poetry and music intertwined to make this experience an artistic journey, while her passion for history, travel and culture drove a spiritual mission to overcome the past and redefine the future. With each city she visited, Chicago Documentarian, Carlos Saqiid, captured the essence of the people and their perspectives on their city’s unique history revolving around music, education, politics, sports and culture. Through the director’s lens, a collaboration of artistic works are beautifully quilted together, to tell just a fraction of the story of the Red Summer Experience. Additionally, Chasing Summer features students who participated in an interactive outreach program, created by Red Summer, that engages high school and college students in writing, public speaking and performance art. She has partnered with Young Chicago Authors and Poets and Writers to promote “Verbal Remedies” through writing workshops for youth in urban areas. She also provides self-esteem workshops and programs around topics such as; college readiness, life-skills, entrepreneurship, social history/activism and career education.
• Her second documentary project, Al Nisa – Muslim Women in Atlanta’s Gay Mecca, will begin touring in the Spring of 2013.

Yasmin Ahmad: Why She Kicks Ass:

• She’s a Malay director whose work is known for being humorous, interracial and honestly depictive of racial dynamics in Malaysia for instance in her short film Chocolate or her feature length Sepet (meaning Slit Eyes, a racial slur in Malaysia, which is centred around a Malay-Chinese couple).
• Her best known films are the Orked trilogy, centered around a Malay girl’s various love interests which are portrayed in a sensitive, realistic way. The one time I was privileged enough to attend a screening of Mukhsin with Yasmin Ahmad there in person, she explained how she tried to reflect love in her film in the same way she once read about it in a poem where the most passionate gesture described was the lovers holding hands. 
• Throughout the films, Orked is an remarkably realistic female character going through different stages of adolescence in the three films. She’s shown to be tough, sometimes flirtatious and silly, as well as reclusive at times. Her family also play an important part in the films and they’re a great depiction of Malay culture.
• Her films have won multiple international awards, including Mukhsin which was shot in just twelve days.

Note: There is no real life picture of this kick ass woman, so I have drawn an illustration myself. 

A woman whose alias was ‘Comrade Raneeta’, aged 32, was a guerilla commander of the Naxalites, Maoist rebels who have been at war with the government of India for four decades, mostly defending the lands of adivasis(tribal villagers), whose lands in the rural interior of India are being invaded and seized by multinational mining corporations, often with the assistance of police and the companies hired thugs.

On August 20, 2011, at about 10 AM, a patrol of about 70 military police(a special anti-Naxalite squad called the Cobra commandoes) ran into a party of approximately 30 Naxalite fighters in a tiny village of Makadchuha, in the state of Maharashtra, central India. 

After a brief exchange of gunfire, 29 of the Naxalites quickly retreated for cover into the nearby forest. However, their commander, Raneeta, was stranded in a maize field behind a hut and surrounded by the police. Another 180 police quickly swarmed into the area, leaving Raneeta encircled by 250 police in total on all sides, with no hope of escape. Incredibly, she proceeded to hold them all off for over six hours-with an Enfield, a 19th century British rifle. 

In the course of the battle, Raneeta killed three police armed with automatic weapons and seriously injured two. She constantly ran to and fired from different positions, giving the illusion of there being a whole group of rebels when there was in fact only her. She continued fighting even after a grenade attack blew off her leg below the knee. Finally, at 4 PM the police stormed her position and shot her dead. 

Whatever one thinks of the Naxalites politics, this is an example of extraordinary courage against overwhelming odds.