RogueBelle

wearwhite4womensrights:

Pictures from the Staunton, VA meet-up.

wearwhite4womensrights:

Going to be wearing white in the Big Apple on April 2nd? Reesa and Jasmine are organizing a meet-up so that you can show off your women’s rights wardrobe and take a stand together!

• Meet up at Grand Central Station, in the Main Hall (where the ceiling is pretty).
• This meet-up will have two sessions, to accommodate as many schedules as possible: Join us from 3-3:30, or 5-5:30. Or both, if you have the time free!
• From there, proceed to walk around Grand Central Station en masse, to make a striking visual impact.
• After the initial meet-up, feel free to split off into smaller groups for food and shopping. It’s a big place with a lot of ground to cover, so this may be a good way to reach more people.

Whether you can make it to Grand Central or not, thank you so much for participating, wherever you are. New York has always played a proud role in the women’s rights movement (as many of those suffragist pictures we’ve posted to the blog have shown), and we’re thrilled you’ll be standing with us on April 2nd.

Questions? PM the blog or ask us on FB.

Big news for the NYC crowd! Cathleen Greenberg London has arranged for a Fox camera crew to be at the NYC Grand Central Station gathering at 5:00 this evening. PLEASE, please please come to the gathering! Lets make as big an impact as we can here!

wearwhite4womensrights:

Tomorrow’s the big day! And the Facebook Event now has over 1850 registered participants! We’re so proud to have so many people standing with us, and we can’t wait to hear how the event goes for everyone.

So here, once again, is the the event information round-up:

• What this is
• Why we’re doing a visibility protest
• Why we’re wearing all white clothing
• Alternatives if you can’t go head-to-toe in white
• The event on FB
• The community on FB
• The event on Twitter

And here’s the round-up of meet-up information we have so far:

• General Meet-Up information
• New York City, NY
• Washington, DC
• Richmond, VA
• Staunton, VA
• Houston, TX
• Austin, TX

We can’t wait to see pictures — you can submit them here on Tumblr or on the Facebook community.

Thanks again, everyone!

wearwhite4womensrights:

The Facebook Event now has over 1750 registered participants! This is fantastic — let’s keep it going! Reblog, repost, reTweet, make sure all of your friends are invited, get it out to your community. Let’s see if we can get it to a round 2000 by Monday.

With all of that in mind, I’m reposting the event information round-up:

• What this is
• Why we’re doing a visibility protest
• Why we’re wearing all white clothing
• Alternatives if you can’t go head-to-toe in white
• The event on FB
• The community on FB
• The event on Twitter

And here’s the round-up of meet-up information we have so far:

• General Meet-Up information
• New York City, NY
• Washington, DC
• Richmond, VA
• Staunton, VA
• Houston, TX
• Austin, TX

Organizing a meet-up in another city? Let us know about it!

We’re so pleased and proud to have so many people standing with us on Monday. Thanks to each of you for being willing to take a stand.

wearwhite4womensrights:

Welcome, new followers!

The Facebook Event now has 1500 registered participants!!! Whoo-hoo! We are so, so happy to have so many people who will be standing with us 5 days from now. Thank you, each and every one of you.

So — with that in mind, I’m reposting the round-up of what we’ve been…

wearwhite4womensrights:

Welcome, new followers!

Just a quick round-up of what we’ve been doing so far, for anyone who missed anything:

• What this is
• Why we’re doing a visibility protest
• Why we’re wearing all white clothing
• Alternatives if you can’t go head-to-toe in white
• The event on FB
• The community on FB
• The event on Twitter

Cheers, everyone! As of this posting, the FB event has 822 committed participants and counting — let’s keep it going! Thanks for standing with us!

wearwhite4womensrights:

Alternatives to Wearing All White

Okay. So you want to participate, but for one reason or another, you can’t wear all white on April 2nd. Maybe you work outside. Maybe you work somewhere with a dress code. Maybe you simply don’t own a stitch of white clothing.

Worry not! We have some fantastic suggestions for how you can still take a stand.

• Wear a white ribbon. Pinned to your jacket, your shirt, your bag, or tied in your hair, a ribbon is a great way to make a statement. Ribbons are a conventional way to show support for a cause, and since people will recognize that, they’re sure to ask you what you’re wearing one for.
• Wear a white armband. A little bolder, and definitely in the protest vein. Take any scrap of white fabric — a bandana, a scarf, — and tie it around your upper arm. It will definitely get attention and help you start conversations.
• Wear a white T-Shirt, and, if possible, get our logo or a pro-woman quote on it. Our facebook community page has some great downloadable iron-on decals, if you’d like a DIY. Several of those are even multi-purpose, with fantastic feminist quotes on them, so it could be your go-to protest shirt!
• This one came from Facebook: Paint your fingernails, or a single fingernail, white. White is a highly unusual color for fingernails — we generally only see it on French tips. For that reason, it’s a good but subtler way to get noticed and to show your support.
• This also came from Facebook: Wear a yellow rose. Like the color white, yellow roses were also a symbol of the original suffragist movement. Connect yourself to your past and honor the ladies (and their male allies) who got us this far. (Personally, I will probably be doing this in addition to wearing all white — but then, I love roses!).

Those are just a few suggestions — We would love to see more! Let us know if you have any fantastic ideas for how to take a stand on April 2nd.

Will you stand with me?

wearwhite4womensrights:

Why Wear All White?

We know. It’s not the most flattering color on many people, not everyone owns a whole lot of it, and it tempts red wine, spaghetti sauce, and chocolate to fall right into your lap. Unless you’re a bride or a professional tennis player, you’re not often likely to wear an outfit entirely of white. (And yes; we know we’re asking you to wear white before Easter/Memorial Day — but c’mon, now, we know you’ve been rocking winter whites, and who really adheres to that old rule anymore, anyway?)

So why are we asking you to wear all white? Here are a few reasons, from the organization team as well as from some of our supporters on Facebook.

• The original inspiration for this event came from Leymah Gbowee’s peace protests in Liberia; the women involved in those events adopted all white clothing as their emblem.
  
• Since white isn’t a color most of us wear on a regular basis, it will stand out. Hopefully, this will encourage people to ask you, “Why are you dressed like that?” — thus opening the doors for conversation. Because all white is used so rarely, it is pretty striking when it is used — so, it draws the eye because of its rarity in modern fashion sense.
• From Reesa: “ I also like the connection to ghosts. What I mean by that is that, for me, part of this movement is about the taking away of women’s rights while women do not have the ability to stop them. That makes us ghosts. We can be seen but cannot shut the door, so to speak. And until the lawmakers know that we are not ghosts, until they remember that they are there because we set them there, until we activate ourselves to prevent our rights being stripped away, then I fear it will just continue.”
• From Sasha: “At Bryn Mawr we wear all white on May Day, where we symbolically break the chains of the patriarchy and celebrate women (and it is a day that has historical political associations) so it seemed appropriate to me in that way as well.”
• From Robin: “To me, this says, we are all pure of heart, we are all beautiful. It’s not up to men to judge us. We are not just a Madonna or a whore, we are multi-faceted individual human beings who can think for ourselves and experience love and hardship and loss just like men.”
• Additionally, white was the color embraced by the original suffragist movement in the UK and the US. Over the next few days, I’ll try to find some great pictures from the ladies (and their gentleman allies) who helped break through that first barrier nearly 100 years ago.
  

An upcoming post will feature some ideas on how to join the movement even if you can’t wear all white — if you don’t own a single stitch of it or have a job with a dress code — but if you can, in the words of the world’s great fashion guru, “make it work”, we would love to see that happen.

So — What will wearing all white on April 2nd mean to you?

wearwhite4womensrights:

Why a Visibility Protest?

Some of you may be asking — Why bother? What good is this really going to do? Aren’t there more important things we could be doing? Well, here are some of our answers:

• First off: Yes. Do other things. Contact your representatives at the local, state, and federal level to let them know how you feel about women’s rights issues. Thank those representatives who you feel support you, and let those who don’t know how disappointed you are in them. Write letters. Make phone calls. Stay informed. Reblog and reTweet important stories. Attend other protests and legislative events. Talk to your friends and family about these issues. And, above all, vote. A lot of the people making dangerous decisions right now got into office because of low turnout at the polls in 2009, 2010, and 2011. Don’t let that happen again in 2012!
• Visibility protests are effective. The simple act of standing up and showing what you believe in can make a difference. In my home state of Virginia, we’ve had candlelight vigils, street-lining protests, legislative events, sit-ins, and picnic-ins for the past few months. We haven’t let up, and it has made a difference. Our pressure defeated 3 of the 4 dangerous bills proposed to the General Assembly — and the one we lost, we lost by a slim margin, and we’re making sure its supporters and the governor know that we won’t forget it in November. Women across the country have made their voices heard and their opinions known, and that’s part of the reason these issues have started getting attention from the mainstream media at the national level. Along that line…
• Keep these issues in the public eye. Just because some state legislative sessions are ending doesn’t mean it’s time to ease up — especially with the presidential campaign going at full tilt. Keep the pressure on your representatives, and keep these issues in the sphere of public awareness. These laws aren’t going to go away if we stop talking about them — exactly the opposite. Their supporters are really hoping they can pass more and more of them if the storm blows over and public attention gets diverted elsewhere. We don’t want that to happen, and visibility protests like this are just one of the many ways to raise public awareness.
• Start conversations. If you show up to work, to school, or to your local hangout dressed noticeably differently than usual, people are going to ask you why. This gives you the opportunity to discuss why this issue is important to you, personally. Not everyone may agree with you, but that’s an opportunity to start a discussion. Who knows? You may change a mind. You may get someone to think about an issue in a different way. You may convince someone to hit the polls who otherwise would’ve stayed home on Election Day. You may give someone else, who had been scared to display their support of women’s rights for fear of public disapproval or reprisals, the courage to take a stand.
• Make new friends and allies. On April 2nd, maybe you’ll notice that the barista at your favorite coffee shop is dressed all in white, too. Or your bank teller, or the server at your restaurant, or that person walking a dog in front of your house. Strike up a conversation! What got her or him involved in the movement? What else is that person doing to keep the pressure on? You may find a new avenue for yourself, and you might make a new friend.
• Embrace peaceful protest. The recent weeks and months have seen protest movements on many issues, not only women’s rights — and not all of those have ended well. The government is cracking down on active public protest. Personally, I couldn’t be prouder of the 17 women and 14 men who stood their ground at the Richmond State Capitol a few weeks ago and got arrested for their troubles. But we know that many people can’t engage in that way — can’t take time off work to attend protests (especially multiple protests which may involve travel), can’t risk being arrested, can’t risk their jobs or their well-being. This kind of protest is an alternative. You can still do something. You can still make a difference. You can still keep the conversation going.
• You will feel good. Taking a stand feels good. Expressing yourself feels good. Demonstrating the courage of your convictions feels good. Showing pride in who you are and in what you believe feels good. And in these troubled times, couldn’t we all use that endorphin boost?

The main point is this: It does matter. It will matter. Someone will notice. And that’s how change begins.

These are just a few of the reasons we’ve discussed over at the event page. What are yours?

—Cass

Y’all!

I’ve joined the organization team for this event — as the social media coordinator. So — I would like to request three things from you, my loyal and lovable followers:

1) Follow the blog!

2) Tell me your favourite feminist/pro-choice/women’s rights/left-wing political blogs/Twitters/etc. I want to contact as many as possible and see if they’ll help boost the signal.

3) Reblog the event!

Thanks, everyone!