Millions of girls around the world continue to be denied access to the most basic education. The oppression of this basic human right has become a prominent part of First Lady Michelle Obama’s personal activism. This was on prominent display a forum that took place late in 2015 at the Apollo Theater in Harlem, NYC. We all have a stake in building a world in which every girl has an equal chance to elevatee herself through education.

Our money is on the LGBTQ community. They’ve got the moral high ground. The horror in Orlando – 49 people murdered with an assault weapon – was a hate crime perpetrated against gay people. Conservative efforts to shift blame and label the massacre an act of political terrorism have been discredited. Right-wing religious bigotry combined with easy access to rapid fire weapons designed for war drove the deadly Orlando rampage.

“We need to change the attitude that punishes women for their sexuality, but gives men a pat on the back for theirs.” President Barack Obama said at the White House Summit on the United State of Women, this past week.

Earlier this year, British sex worker/activist Toni Mac gave a TED talk in which she looked at sex work and offered important perspective on what sex workers would choose if they were able to shape the world they live in.

A very worthwhile internet outreach project recently emerged called Project Consent. It’s focus is sexual intimacy and the teaching of consent as a mandatory part of the etiquette that goes with adult relationships.  (more…)

In Colorado, the Mesa Valley School District sent out emails to parents encouraging them to send their daughters to see a media presentation called, ‘Wake up Sleeping Beauty: Worship at his Feet’.  The idea behind this is that young girls should strive to be ‘pure’ in mind and spirit in order to be worthy of becoming a good wife.  The clear implication: the only proper role for females in society is to be subjugated in the home, subordinate to patriarchal rule. (more…)

Filmmaker Jessica Newsom has made an important documentary titled, The Mask You Live in.  It’s a powerful examination about the troubling straight  jacket of expectations young sboys as staddled with as they grow into men.   When we say, ‘Be a man’  Exactly what does that mean,  and has society put expectations on young  that perpetuate the ugly, male dominant paradigm that has prevailed in human society since the beginnings of agriculture and permanent settlements, more than 10,000 years ago.

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November has been designated by Congress as Native American Heritage Month. The sad thing is it comes every year in the wake  of Columbus Day,  a federal holiday that honors the Italian mariner, who arrived in the Americas in 1492, and claimed it for the Spanish Court. (more…)

A movement has emerged in America to make breasts and nipples equal in the eyes of the law. It’s a fact, the bare chest of a man is publicly legal, while a female baring her breasts and nipples is subject to shame at the least and arrest at the worst. (more…)

Jeanine Mabunda Lioko is the Personal Representative of the President in Charge of the Fight Against Sexual Violence and Child Recruitment for the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The conflict has caused huge problems all over the country but particularly in the eastern region.

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