joriballetgrl

#ReasontoRise : 

I think everyone needs to read this powerful article by Soraya Chemaly, "We are all Sonali", Sonali a woman who at 27 is receiving surgery to help reconstruct her face which melted 9 year ago when three young men poured acid on her face while she slept. Chemaly argues we are all Sonali. She states "How can I say "we are all Sonali" when what she and these other girls and women have experienced are extreme and terrifying injustices? I can say it because women all over the world are not in possession of themselves. And we have the right to be."

And another powerful quote from Chemaly's piece: "What women experience as victims of abuse, or when they're seized and forced to undergo surgery against their wills, or even when they hear a vice-presidential candidate say publicly, without widespread and uniform condemnation, that rape is just another "method of conception," is someone else (or the state) claiming ownership of their bodies and existences. Usually that someone else is a man they know. The abuse and rape of women is oblivious to social status, education, race, nationality, ethnicity, or anything else. What Sonali asked for when she resisted her harassers every day, and what was denied to her when they attacked her, was the right to be female and in control of her own body. Men wanted to control her and wanted access to her body. Indeed, they felt that this access and control were their birthright. Her culture, the men and women in it, supporting the notion that her body was somehow public property, allowed this to happen. When she did not comply, they punished her severely. They invaded her privacy. They violated her bodily integrity. They ignored her autonomy, and they damaged her body horrifically. They denied her her agency. Does this sound familiar yet?"

Here is the entire article.

Or visit the facebook page Friends of Sonali

Or watch the 2012 Academy Award Winning movie "Saving Face" which follows women who have also been victims of acid throwing.

Peace Love and Condoms!