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Get Back to Your Grassroots, Part 2: Get Aware!
So, you're committed to the cause and fired up for feminist activism. What now? How do you get informed on issues and decide what direction to take?
Getting involved with your local NOW chapter is one great way of jumping straight into activism. To contact them, check out our chapter page. Contact information should be available for state and local chapters. Fill out the contact form and tell them you want to get involved. Easy as pie!
There are also many resources online to stay informed, starting with email. Sign up for NOW emails, and stay up to date with NOW's latest actions and press releases.
But you can also stay connected and informed right where you already are online. The National NOW Action Center and many local NOW chapters also have their own Facebook pages -- just visit facebook.com/NationalNOW. Click the "like" button and you'll stay up to date with what NOW is doing. You'll also be able to share issues you are passionate about with your friends quickly and easily. (Check out the "favorites" section of NationalNOW and you can find chapters from across the nation to follow, too!)
If you don't already have one, getting a Twitter account is also a good idea to keep up with the latest breaking news. It makes activism easy. Twitter is a constant stream of user-generated information in 140 characters or less, and its content includes to-the-minute updates on issues and calls for activist mobilization. Twitter allows word to spread fast, and you should use it to network on issues locally and nationally. Follow the National NOW Action Center's Twitter, pick out some choice activists to follow and you can spread and receive information about the latest feminist events and issues from your computer or cell phone. As with Facebook, you can also follow chapters from all around by checking out the NOW chapters list on Twitter.
There are also simpler solutions. Really simple. Following NOW's RSS feed (short for Really Simple Syndication) can be an easy way of keeping up with the latest updates from NOW without constantly revisiting the website to find new material. You can add different feeds to your reader and use it as a personal, online "newspaper," covering new material from all of your favorite websites.
Probably the most popular means of managing RSS feeds is using an application like Google Reader, but you can also treat an RSS feed just like a bookmark Just go to the feed of your choosing (for example, Say It, Sister!), click to subscribe, and your browser will walk you through the process.
Being up to date on the latest information-sharing and social networking methods will keep you on top of feminist issues and help make your activism relevant and successful, so try to get acquainted with as much of it as you can. It's technologies like these that allowed NOW to organize a rally against Stupak-Pitts only three days after it was introduced last year.
Check the headlines, follow legislation that affects women and talk with other feminists about the latest issues. Share personal stories, issues you're passionate about or emerging strategies for activism. Sharing this blog post with friends who are ready to take the next step technologically might also be a good start.
The world is getting smaller and smaller, and being informed on the issues is now easier than ever. Find at least one issue that gets you fired up, and use all of the tools at your disposal to address it. You will find that other people care too.
This is part two of a blog series on grassroots activism. Upcoming posts will cover local involvement, NOW chapter meetings and more!
This is my story.
A Family Court system in Delaware, Ohio gave custody of a 7 yr old girl to her father after he testified that he parental kidnapped his daughter from school. He testified he lied for 7 months when he told his wife, friends, & family that they were receiving death threats when his 17 year old step-daughter was in a coma following a car accident & had two detectives working on it. The father testified that he made the story up b/c he was drinking at the time.
A friend of the father testified that he stalked the mother by driving by her home, sitting outside her house, & sitting across the street from the police station during visitation exchanges.
The Magistrate had the attorney for the father submit the final pleading for which the husband's attorney wrote exactly what the father wanted. The mother could not object b/c her attorney required her to pay $11,000.00 for trial expenses before he would file objections. The mother didn't have $11,000.00 & thus custody was awarded to the father.
The mother was harassed, stalked, psychologically and econonically abused. Prior to her husband filing for divorce, he had her withdrawl her State retirement to pay off all their bills and to go towards the principle on the house. However, the mother discovered that her husband did not use the money for these purposes; he only paid his credit cards and a loan from his brother. He left his wife's debt unpaid.
A few days before Christmas she was baking cookies for the neighborhood Christmas party when she received a call from her father. Her father informed her that her mother was in the hospital and he was sick. The mother went to take care of her parents and took their 7 year old daughter with her.
While the mother was away; the husband filed for divorce, closed the bank account, changed the locks on the house. He also ported his cell phone number onto her cell phone account, made himself the account manager, and changed the password to the account.
When the mother returned and discovered she and her daughter had been locked out of the house, she took her daughter to school for her Christmas party. Approximately 35 minutes later the father picked up the child and told school officials that he was taking her Christmas shopping and did not return the child to the mother.
Eventually the child was returned through a court order. The father then harassed and had a friend stalk his wife for the next several months.
The husband spent $50,000.00 making false allegations of physical child abuse and neglect. Children's Services investigated and cleared the mother; however the guardian ad litem never followed up with Children's Services.
In addition, while being harassed and stalked; the mother gathered information on the Violence Against Women Act and phone numbers of people to contact. The father stole this information and included it in his trial book as though it was evidence to be used against her.
The latest event to occur was that the father came to the mother's home while she was gone and took every toy that belonged to the child. Literally, he took every single toy.
When the mother asked her ex-husband to return some of the toys, he advised her to contact his attorney. The mother emailed her ex-husband's attorney requesting the toys to be distributed appropriately. The attorney for the ex-husband will not respond to the email.
I know there is something that can be done to help me and my daughters.
We live in the greatest country in the world. We have a Constitution, the preamble states;
We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
When you and your children are being abused and no one will help … when no one will listen then justice is lost. To some people this may sound like a “unibomber manifesto”. I assure you it isn’t. It is the hope that these ideas written will bind us together as people.
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