Red Ajah's IWW: Candle March

[Mystica]

At the eve of our event I am starting this new thread. I was going to start it at the beginning but health issues prevented it. So I figured the other threads covered the issues fairly well and especially since they were quite active and drawing in quite a number of posters from first glance.

Then it seems that a big part of those posts seemed to be focussed on the wrong things. Why is there a Women's Week? These issues are no longer current in the US or Canada. The statistics are all wrong. This is not about women, it's an anti-male thing. Etc.

Needless to say, that's NOT what IWW is about. If you have seen our events in the past years you would know that. Yes, women claim 1 day in the year (and on DM we generously give them 1 week and sometimes even 2). The nerve of those feminists!

 

 

So, I've decided to do a Candle March thread after all. All be it a bit different from what it was originally going to be.

 

 

I invite everyone to share with us examples of situations that involve Violence against Women.

 

 

Light the awareness and blind the ignorance.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is a video I've posted in another thread too, but I thought it was a nice way to open this one as well. Feel free to post video's, stories, newspaper articles, etc. Anything that you think will help raise awareness and bring home the fact that this is not a 'past' issue or a 'foreign' country issue.

 

It concerns us all.

 

 

 

 

 

[WildTaltos]

Im not very political persin, but I have personl exmple I wuold liek to give. I would like to honour my mother, who was abusd by my fathrr for whiel befoer I ws born (Im not first siblin) and who, I am tld by my older sister, dealt wth escalatin of abues aftre I was born becuse problms my faher had with my apearance whch he took out on her, verbaly and with physcial attcks, eithre on her or by abusin her childrn in fornt of her. I cnt list evn a tenth of th things he did to her becuse its not pg-13, but ther was rape and thre was beatin and taht I can remmber, all their talks alwwys semed to be yellin and then usuly he uwold atack her if went on long enogh.

 

She put up wth all of this thogh for me and my siblngs - she used to say alot taht she ws scared to death of leving, not becuse she felt she wsnt strong enogh to survie on her own, but becuse she ws suer our fathre wuold get custordy insted of her and she wuldnt be there to protrct us from him. She had many emtional issues -she was an alcholc liek my father, she had lot of mood swing, and semtimes she cuold be as crul to me as my father - but for al taht she ws the only parent I hd who loved me an I owe my lieif to her, sinc Im suer wuoldnt be alive now if i had jus been in my fathr's care alone,becuse she did everting she gould to keep me aliev whn was infant despiet my medicl isues, which he woldnt have done. She kiled herself when i was 21, an it ws one of mos devestatin experisnces of my life, I cant tlk about it much moer than that.

 

Despit that she herslf cuod be abusiv, she showd me love, and she stod up to my fathre for me whn I hd no oen els but my sister to do so. Her deth is oen large reasin I can nver forgiev my father becuse I feel he droev her so crazy, and if i evre see somone absing thir wife, I step in an knok his lighs out. Violenc aginst woman took my mothre from me.

[The_Fnorrll_Reborn]

My mother divorced my father when I was very young. I was raised by an excellent man who I have always considered to be my "real" father. I visited my biological father until I was old enough to make it clear I no longer wanted to. Even at a young age I did not like the kind of man he was.

 

When I was old enough to understand, my mother told me some of the things my biological father had done. For those of you who may not know, my mother is physically disabled. You can imagine my reaction that anyone would pick on such an "easy" target.

 

I'm sure you can also imagine what I did when I saw my biological father again for the first time in years a couple of years after that.

 

Like Taltos, I too will always step in if a man is being abusive to a woman anywhere around me. Once when I intervened the police arrived and arrested him and discovered he had a knife in his car.

 

Violence against women is horrific because of its cowardice. I abhor people who feel they can somehow prove anything about themselves other an their utter lack of right to breathe on any earth co-inhabited by myself by in any way attacking anyone defenceless or weaker than themselves, regardless of who it may be.

[Ryrin]

My niece married her college sweetheart. It was at her daughter's two year old birthday party that my sister told me that my niece had been abused by her husband.

 

She finally took action after her husband slammed her head into an ATM machine. The police arrested him.

 

Here is the kicker. His mother bailed him out of jail and drove him to their apartment. She berated my niece for calling the police.

 

I am the mother of two sons, 23 next month and 16 in July. I can swear that if either of my sons did something like this, I would not be bailing him out of jail.

 

I would take him out myself. I brought him here, I can take him out. The end.

 

(figuratively speaking)

 

 

[Moon Sedai]

I mentioned this elsewhere, but i'll say it again. 

 

My kid sister was molested by my step-brother-in-law. 

And my Stepsister is still married to him.

 

 

 

My little sister is now a grown woman, but now she has little or nothing to do with our family because of it (She was adopted at age 3). 

[AesSedaiGuy]

 

This candle is for the women who won't speak, or can't speak. For the women who lie to protect themselves and their children. This candle is for every woman who has been made to feel its her fault she was raped. It's for every woman who felt it was her fault she was beaten. This candle shines to remind us that darkness can never overcome even the smallest flame.

[Moon Sedai]

 

 

A candle for the victim. 

No matter how drunk she was nor not, her life has been destroyed more than the football player's lives ever will be. 

 

Imagine being in high school and everyone knowing YOU are the reason the two star football players are going to jail. 

 

Awful. 

[BridMorgan]

This candle is for my mother, who was sexually abused by her father starting at the age of 5.  That she can be the loving woman she is after living through that kind of horror is amazing and inspiring. 

 

[Rhea]

This candle is for my best friend who was physically, sexually and mentally abused by her boyfriend over many years. It started only a few months after they got together. I tried many times to intervene, calling the police and even stepping in between them when I felt she was in danger. He even hit me at one point and sent me crashing into mirror. Years later and after they  had two children together she told me on several occasions that she was having black outs and couldn't remember certain periods of time. Come to find out later that he had been drugging her and letting his friends abuse her too. He was an alcoholic and a drug user and had been selling drugs out of their home. She supported him completely as I recall he never had a real job the entire time they were together (14 years). She finally left him and took the kids to live with her mother. After a year of death threats (he was going to kill them all including the kids) and police calls from her mothers home with him being homeless, he committed suicide. I said good riddance. 

 

[Mystica]

it's amazing how many candles we can burn on this topic isn't it?

 

 

Moon, when I saw that I couldn't believe it.

[Ryrin]

[Moon Sedai]

I'm still speechless.