Meet Galle- The Happy Face Crater From Mars.

Defining "rape culture"

A rape culture is a complex of beliefs that encourages male sexual aggression and supports violence against women.

It is a society where violence is seen as sexy and sexuality as violent. In a rape culture, women perceive a continuum of threatened violence that ranges from sexual remarks to sexual touching to rape itself.

A rape culture condones physical and emotional terrorism against women as the norm.

~ Rape culture is encouraging male sexual aggression.

~ Rape culture is regarding violence as sexy and sexuality as violent.

~ Rape culture is treating rape as a compliment, as the unbridled passion stirred in a healthy man by a beautiful woman, making irresistible the urge to rip open her bodice or slam her against a wall, or a wrought-iron fence, or a car hood, or pull her by her hair, or shove her onto a bed, or any one of a million other images of fight-fucking in movies and television shows and on the covers of romance novels that convey violent urges are inextricably linked with (straight) sexuality.

~ Rape culture is encouraging men to use the language of rape to establish dominance over one another ("I'll make you my bitch").

~ Rape culture is making rape a ubiquitous part of male-exclusive bonding.

Life mission :)

Beautiful Modern Agate and Raw Crystal Jewellery By Gossamer and Violet

Gossamer and Violet, a jewellery store in Etsy selling one of a kind handmade vintage inspired agate jewellery uses unrefined precious stones and delicate silver-work to create unique accessories. Specializing in adjustable agate slice rings and bold statement jewellery including necklaces, bracelets and earrings, they have a wide range of pieces to cater to different tastes. The style of the jewellery is themed around modern lines and shapes with earthly colors, textures and materials.

Gossamer and Violet, named after being inspired by delicate gold filigree chain intertwined around the violet shade of unrefined earthly stones, sells hand-crafted jewellery that has exclusive designs made with hand-selected stones. The jewellery is based around the bright colored stone, raw and jagged shaped, with thin gold or silver highlighting the piece. The maker sources only the highest quality American materials and strenuously hand assembles each piece, making sure the product leaves the hands of the maker to the wearer at the highest standard. You can find their entire collection in her Etsy shop.

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Asexuality is an orientation in which a person does not experience sexual attraction to any sex and/or gender. They do not feel an intrinsic desire to make sex a part of their relationships with other people. However they may still be able to experience other types of attraction, and desire relationships with other people.

Check out the following websites to learn more about asexuality, join in on the community, and/or help increase asexual visibility and education.

Asexual Visibility and Education Network

International Asexuality Conference (Worldpride Toronto 2014 Affiliate Event) (June 28, 2014)

Asexual Things (asexual vis/ed tumblr blog)

Frequently Asked Questions

Asexuality Websites/Blogs/etc

What’s problematic with this caste-is-dead narrative is that not only is it incorrect and untrue but also that it benefits the savarna in ways that keep the social stratification intact. By denying the current impact of caste on the Dalit’s access to resources, the savarna uses his/her caste privilege to compete for the same set of resources while justifying his/her resentment for affirmative action policies. In so doing, the savarna leverages the widely popular anti-government stand to criticise reservation schemes but continues to reap the benefits his/her caste privilege offers him - social mobility; access to education, healthcare, and career opportunities; possession of ancestral land, property and wealth; trans-national networks and partnerships; and the ease of social acceptance for his/her lifestyle, choices, behaviour and relationships. The savarna, in effect, looks as if s/he is liberal and modern - liberal enough to criticize the state, and modern enough to not believe in the caste system. But if the savarna is indeed that modern, should we not expect him to remove the sacred thread, or not speak in a dialect that gives his/her caste away, or not be particular about marrying into the same caste, or say no to caste-based rituals and festivals? If indeed s/he is that liberal, isn’t it only logical that we expect him/her to shame the state for not addressing caste-based atrocities, or not display selective outrage for only terrorist attacks and animal torture, and show action-oriented solidarity with anti-caste movements? Shouldn’t the savarna demonstrate his/her newly discovered modern identity, which s/he claims is very different from his/her conservative parents, in ways that are more credible and believable? And more importantly, should we not expect the savarna, especially the one who wears the progressive and politicized label, to primarily question his/her privilege and his/her family’s on account of being dominant caste? Most often, the savarna, regardless of his/her social labels, does not feel the need to live up to any of the above expectations; s/he believes his caste privilege also offers him immunity from all kinds of criticism. S/He is at liberty to pick and choose aspects of his identity and lead a lifestyle that is under no compulsion to corroborate his cover story. His/Her privilege allows him to practice caste under the guise of ‘cultural roots’.

Christina Thomas Dhanaraj, “Caste, Friendship, and Solidarity” (via asianamericanfeminisms)

When you’re a 17 year-old Dalit girl, your teacher will rape you, the school warden will encourage it, and the admin will collude to hide your murdered body

Delta Meghwal was a 17 year old student at the Jain Adarsh Teacher Training Institute for Girls in Bikaner, a small district in Rajatsthan, India. She was an artist, a brilliant student and an ambitious young woman with big dreams. She also happened to be Dalit. Which is why, her school warden, Priya Shukla, had sent her to ‘clean’ the PT instructor Vijender Singh’s room. Her being Dalit makes it okay for the warden to use her as unpaid labor. It also makes it okay for the said instructor to rape her, in that same room. Her Dalit stauts stops the school from taking any action against the teacher who just raped a student. But it doesn’t not prevent them from forcing her to sign a letter saying the rape was in fact, mutual. That too, only after the terrified child called her father to inform him of the horror. Her ‘lower caste’ guarantees that her dead body will be found in an enclosed, reportedly shallow water tank the next day. And that it will be labeled as suicide. It will also give the ‘school’ permission to have her body be taken away in a GARBAGE TRUCK. Without any evidence or record. Her Dalit identity qualifies the mainstream media to look away, for us to not care, for the insttitution her parents entrusted her safety with to rape and murder her. 

Because it’s normal for Dalits to be treated like this. Because Dalit women’s bodies are never their own. They can be used, abused and killed by any upper caste man, at this will. His caste though, makes sure he gets away. That he is able to do it again. To some other Dalit 17-year-old girl, in another school. Because Dalits, we are used to it.

Delta’s award-winning painting 

Girls from around the world share their first periods

Photos: Plan International

As a child, I once touched an untouchable. For this infraction I was forced by my grandmother to swallow cow dung as a punishment. I was also made to drink cow urine and bathe in Ganga water to purify myself. This experience ingrained in me what untouchability was in the minds of my community. These women here with me once cleaned human excrement from toilets, and this made them untouchables. They had to wear bells around their necks to warn families of their approach. They were forbidden from going to the temple, doing puja, even bathing in the Ganga. Their children could only play with the pigs and not with children of higher castes.

Dr. Bindeshwar Pathak, founder of Sulabh International, an India-based social service organization (via brahmaanda)

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