April 2007

Pattern: Easy Moss Stitch Shrug

As promised, I do actually have some knitting content this month! If you haven't had time to read any of the guest posts about Sexual Assault Awareness Month, I hope you will scroll down in the April 2007 archives and think about how you can help reduce the incidence of sexual assault in your community.

I designed this shrug because I thought it would be a good garment to donate to womens' shelters. It is one-size fits all, so it's great for donations when you don't know the size of the recipient. It also is flattering on any figure, and even fits well during pregnancy. You can also make different lengths for people with long or short arms. Women in shelters need any comfort they can get -- emotional, spiritual, mental, and physical. Just like a comfort shawl, a hand-knitted shrug can be endowed with love and support by the knitter, and makes a wonderful gift for someone who has been the victim of abuse or of unlucky circumstances.

I got the idea for this design when I went to the Denver Knitting Guild meeting last month. One of the disucssion topics was charity knitting, and the group was looking for patterns for shrugs that they could knit for women who were hospitalized. Those flimsy gowns never have long sleeves, and for some reasons Doctors like to keep places cold. (Because they have to wear long sleeves and ties under those lab coats? Maybe they should all swtich to scrubs!). Shrugs are great hospital keep-warm garments, because they can usually even be warn when you have an IV.

Materials

Approx 615 yards of bulky weight wool or wool-blend yarn

I used 5 balls of Plymouth's Galway Chunky (100% wool, 100 grams = 123 yards per ball) in color 722, oatmeal. For a machine washable gift, I suggest Plymouth's Encore Chunky.

Size 10U.S. needles

Crochet hook in a size close to the knitting needle size (optional)

Tapestry needle

Gauge

Approx 3.5 sts = 1" over Moss Stitch

Size

One size fits all. Approx 17" wide by 48" to 60" long.

Note that a person's arm span is approximately the same as their height. If you are making this as a gift for an unknown recipient, go for the longer length just to be safe.

Instructions

Cuff

Cast on 26 sts.

Work in K2, P2 ribbing as follows:

Row 1 (RS): K2, *P2, K2; rep from * across.

Row 2 (WS): P1, *K2, P2; rep from * across.

Continue in ribbing as est until cuff measures approx 3" or desired length. End after completing a WS row.

Next row (RS): Knit in the front and back of every stitch--52 sts.

Next row (WS): Knit.

Next row: Knit, increasing 8 sts spread out across the row--60 sts.

Next row: Knit.

Sleeves and Body

Work in Moss Stitch as follows:

Rows 1 and 2: *K1, P1; rep from * across.

Rows 3 and 4: *P1, K1; rep from * across.

Continue in Moss stitch until piece measures from 45" to 57" from CO edge. End after completing a RS row.

Cuff

Next row (WS): Knit.

Next row (RS): Knit, decreasing 8 sts spread out across the row--52 sts.

Next row: Knit.

Next row: K2tog across--26 sts.

Work in K2, P2 ribbing as for first cuff.

When 2nd cuff is the same length as the first cuff, BO loosely in pattern.

Finishing

Sew cuffs and 1" of arm closed, as shown in photo.

If desired, work one row of single crochet along open edges of shrug. This creates a smooth chain along the edge of the piece.

Wash and dry flat.

Lesson: Single Crochet Edging

Working a single crochet edging along a piece of knitting is quite easy -- if you already know how to crochet. If not, it could take some practice. Should you decide you don't like to crochet, an easy knitted substitute is as follows: With RS facing, pick up sts along the entire edge of the knitted piece. If desired, purl 1 WS row. Bind off loosely.

To work a single crochet edge:

1) Insert the crochet hook in the first stitch on the far right edge of the knitted piece. Pull up a loop of yarn. 1 loop is on the hook.

2) Wrap the yarn around the crochet hook (see figure below), and pull the yarn through the loop that is already on the hook. 1 loop remains on the hook. This attaches the yarn to the knitting.

Note: Wrapping the yarn around the hook is called "yarn over" in many crochet patterns. This is a different motion than a yarn over in knitting. Make sure the hook is pointing down toward the bottom of the work to make it easier to pull it through the stitch.

3) Insert the hook into the next stitch to the left (see figure below). Pull up a loop of yarn. 2 loops are now on the hook.

4) Wrap the yarn around the crochet hook (see figure below). Pull the yarn through both loops that are on the hook. 1 loop remains on the hook and 1 single crochet stitch has been completed.

Repeat steps 3 and 4 along the entire edge of the knitting. If you want to work around a corner, you can keep going. Just work 3 single crochet stitches in the corner stitch. Fasten off the last stitch and weave in the ends.

Just as when you are picking up stitches, you have to get the right number of sts crocheted for the edge to be flat and smooth. If the edge pulls in, you need to work more crochet stitches, closer together. If the edge ruffles and flares out, you need to work fewer crochet stitches, skipping some knit stitches if necessary. In addition, everyone has a different crochet gauge, so you may need to try going up or down a hook size to get the desired results.

How Dare They!

A guest post by Sarah Rickman

As a lifelong supporter of Choice and the belief that every woman has the right to be in control of her own body, mind and spirit, I am dismayed at the latest Supreme Court decision on partial birth abortions. Worse, I am appalled by the ongoing assault on what I consider a woman’s inalienable right.

From the time I found out where babies came from and how they were made, I became a staunch believer in the childbearer’s right to make any necessary decision about her child’s birth. This was made clear to me as a young teen reading a novel in which a young woman was raped and forced to bear the child that was the result. Even in my adolescent naïveté, I perceived the gross inequity at work here. How dare they! This young woman had to endure the mindless brutality of the act and then was forced to carry for nine months and then deliver in the pain of childbirth that which she had not asked for in the first place. This, I knew, was inherently wrong.

When the Roe vs. Wade decision was handed down in January 1973, I rejoiced in the wisdom of the Supreme Court and thought, in error it turns out, that all of America’s women would rejoice with me. A young mother myself, already I had been applauding the efforts put forth by our local congresswoman on behalf of a woman’s right to choose.

As the 1970s became the 1980s and a strident segment of the population railed and rallied against a woman’s right to choose — a woman’s right to end an unwanted pregnancy — I watched in utter disbelief. Now it is 2007, I am a grandmother, and I am witnessing the potential dismantling of Roe.

All this time, my belief in the right of a woman to choose has never wavered.

This is not really about pregnancy. It’s not about health or when “life begins.” It’s not about religion. The issue is about power and control — the shameful holding of power and control over someone else’s mind and body! Men, because they cannot conceive and bear children, have no understanding of what that can possibly mean to a pregnant woman.

Ideally, the hope is that all children will be wanted children. But what of the teenager who didn’t think she could get pregnant the “first time.” Is she to be punished the rest of her life for one mistake? Can’t we let her grow up? The college girl who needs time to realize that sex and love are two different things. Shouldn’t she be given time to mature before she becomes a mother — responsible for another human being? Or the rape victim — faultless, in the wrong place at the wrong time. Or consider the case of a friend of mine — a co-worker — in my younger days. Already the mother of four — her husband out of a job and trying to go to school— my friend was now the family wage earner. She found herself pregnant again. Desperate, she opted for an abortion.

I believe that we should teach birth control and family planning and safe, responsible sex — and yes, abstinence — to our young so that the need for abortion arises only on rare occasions. I served six years on the board of my local Planned Parenthood organization trying to promote exactly that. But we must keep the option of abortion open for those, like my friend, like the rape victim, like the hapless pregnant teenagers, who need that choice!

Instead of wrapping this issue in sentimentality, religious doctrine, and anger at each other, we must bring this down to the barest of essentials, which is a woman’s right to determine her own destiny — a right that men take for granted.

The issue is the right to control our own identity, our essence, our very self — and the right to MAKE THE CHOICE.

--Sarah Byrn Rickman is the author of THE ORIGINALS: The Women’s Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron of World War II — the story of the first 28 WASP (Women Airforce Service Pilots) — and of FLIGHT FROM FEAR, an award-winning novel based of the story of the WASP, the women who flew for the U.S. Army in World War II. Sarah, a former reporter/ columnist for The Detroit News and managing editor of the Centerville-Bellbrook Times (suburban Dayton, Ohio), earned her B.A. in English from Vanderbilt University and an M.A. in Creative Writing from Antioch University McGregor.

Take Back the Blog Day

Hi Everyone. Thanks for reading this month's guest posts about sexual assault awareness. I hope you have all been inspired to take at least one small action to help stop sexual assault. I know you're all wondering where the knitting content is, and it's coming. Tomorrow I'll be posting a pattern for a shrug and this month's knitting lesson.

In the meantime, here's one last guest post because today is Take Back the Blog Day. What is that all about? If you haven't heard, a well known technology blogger, Kathy Sierra, received death and rape threats on her blog comments. Kathy's removed the violent content from her blog because so many readers found it so distrubing, but she saved it as evidence here, if you have a strong stomach. One friend of mine has received rape threats in response to a video she posted on You Tube. So far, I have been fortunate not to have received any threats of violence in my blog comments, even though I blog about controversial topics from time to time. Is that because most of my readers are women? I don't know.

What I do know, is that it is absolutely unacceptable for anyone, male or female, to try to silence bloggers by threatening them with violence of any sort whatsoever. It is particularly disturbing to see that strong women are being targeted in this way, by weak men who obviously do not have the balls to live their own lives without threatening women who don't conform to their deformed standards. If you think feminism is no longer needed. Think again.

Here's what blogger and journalist Lindsay Beyerstein has to say on this topic ( excerpted from this entry on her blog):

It is important to remember that the sexualized threats directed against tech blogger Kathy Sierra were not just the result of the perp’s personal perversions.

Sexualized threats exploit the pervasive low-level fear that women in our society have about being raped. Yes, most of these death/rape threats are pure fantasies from total losers–but think about what it says about the level of fear and shame in our society that anonymous threats can pack such an emotional punch.

Men who haven’t given much thought to their own vulnerability are often too quick to dismiss the apprehension of women who have been trained from childhood that they’re potential targets and that it’s their own fault if they are victimized.

Well-meaning people may inadvertently shame their allies who go public about threats by focusing exclusively on debunking the threat–as opposed commiserating with the victim.

If our goal is to reduce sexual violence, we must not lose sight of the fundamental question: Are we supporting the victim and stigmatizing the perp?

The first step is to acknowledge that the threat itself is an act of violence and intimidation.

So, when someone tells you they’ve been threatened, don’t try to reassure them by asserting that nothing bad is going to happen. Something bad has already happened.

If you have a blog, please consider posting something on this topic before the month is over (or whenever you read this). Blogs give those of us who are ignored by the mainstream media a chance to speak out. "And that," to quote another blogger I admire, "is exactly why the assholes want to scare us back into silence."

A confession

From Post Secret:

 

A Crying Shame

A guest post by Sue Hartman

It’s been almost 30 years since I worked my last rape case as a crisis counselor in Salt Lake City. I moved to Colorado in 1979, leaving my childhood home and crisis career behind me. It wasn’t until I got across the Continental Divide that I realized how relieved I felt. I still hate the sound of a ringing phone, especially post-midnight. I avoid most phone calls even now, particularly if I don’t initiate them. It’s not until you land in a safe haven where you can finally exhale, that you realize how tightly you’re been wound. Or how wounded you’ve become, without evidence of dripping blood. Empathy is a necessity in service occupations, but it isn’t necessarily healthy. When I left Utah, my next career move was into Social Services: Child Welfare. Burn-out was destiny. Add guilt and shame for abandoning people and agencies who perpetually need help yet demand total devotion. To keep body and soul intact, I turned away from counseling, leaving the stresses of politics and direct services behind for good. No looking back. I became a writer; no one else’s survival depended on it. Besides, you can do it alone. No one judges a writer withdrawing from the outside world; it’s inherent in the job description.

Intentionally or not, I soon forgot names of sexual assault victims, and rightly so, given the absolute necessity for confidentiality. I let specifics float away. Perhaps indulging myself in magical thinking; I half-way believed that if I worked to remember, it would lock victims into their own histories (make that her-stories) maybe delaying healing. It’s easier to deny what’s happened and/or to forget trauma if no one is around who reminds you. Perhaps if I could forget, it would somehow facilitate them to do so, too. My best bet, when I’m feeling logical, is that it is nothing’s ever that easy. Names may be erased, but circumstances and some faces, I’ll never forget. I’ve dreamt about clients, but with less frequency over the intervening decades.

In my dreams, a group of ten girls in gauzy dresses huddle in a corner, shivering near a radiator, in a train station. Most are teenagers; a few appear college-aged. Two are small children. On closer look, one actually is a boy, about five, wearing a bathrobe. Some of the girls sport casts on their arms or wave bandaged hands. Their scars are covered. One slight woman, however, has an angry crimson scar which dashes from her lower right eyelid down over her cheekbone to her chin. Other than where she is scarred, she has the palest skin, almost transparent, and wispy ash-blond hair. She never looks up. Over time, as the frequency of the dreams diminishes, the angular structures of cheekbones and chins blur and hair colors fade. The actors in my dreams begin to blanch like ghosts.

I don’t remember encountering these women in my sleep in the past few years, but writing isn’t as safe as it sounds, either. Over time, I’ve accrued newer nightmares. Be careful about who and what you write.

During Thanksgiving week last November when I was visiting Utah, I went shopping with my 31-year-old niece and her son in the Gateway Center. I wanted to buy her a perfect birthday jacket to wear to her office Christmas party. Her boy’s birthday was also coming up; I bought him a computer game. We were in and out of that tech store in five minutes. By lunchtime, we’d explored nearly every women’s boutique. My ankles were swelling. My ten-year-old grand-nephew slumped to the floor and played games on his cell phone while his mom tried on a dozen outfits. I knew which jacket I wanted to buy for my niece; it was the first one we’d spotted, in Anthropologie, two hours earlier. It was a deep-cut, pale coral velvet jacket that would contrast perfectly with her sapphire-colored sweater. We could’ve bought it then, but she didn’t want me to spend that much on a jacket, and besides, we hadn’t seen everything everywhere yet, so on we trudged, looking for something lovely in her size, zero to two, (sigh).

At my prodding, we entered Chico’s, a store that displayed stacks of colorful merchandise. From the way my niece wrinkled her nose, I could tell that no matter how vibrant, the styles looked matronly to her. No matter they seemed almost juvenile to me (and nearly 60, I don’t want to wear granny-styles myself). I stepped back to see how the one almost-rust colored leather jacket—that she’d indulged me enough try on—looked on my sister’s youngest and pickiest child, when I collided with another shopper. Ouch.

“Please excuse me,” I muttered and tried to smile my most appeasing grin. It was my fault; I wasn’t looking.

“Not a problem.” The woman I’d run into was middle-aged, with a ragged haircut that looked trendy and youthful, but her hair was dyed unflattering taupe. Her stylist got that much wrong. Our eyes met, and we froze. I noticed a faint scar, mostly disguised by makeup, running vertically down the length of her face from beneath her left tear duct to her chin. My dreams had always got that wrong; the other cheek. It was a reflection, mirrored backwards, but the same bewildered eyes, with crows’ feet.

Judging by her obvious fear, I knew my former client recognized me, too. Yes, I was the woman who once took her to the ER in a ferocious blizzard, me holding a bath towel tightly to her face. She’d jammed another between her legs. My male back-up from the Rape Crisis Center was driving his own jeep with four-wheel drive; we slid sideways on the icy streets if we slowed down, or stopped at redlights.

I don’t know how she realized it was me. I’ve plumped out considerably since menopause, and my hair is significantly grayer. I used to wear contacts, now I wear graduated bifocals. In no physical way, do I resemble my former self. At least I don’t think I do. But still, she knew. In that moment when we met in the Chico’s store at the Gateway Center, more than thirty years fell away. She was again the terrorized woman who refused to speak to detectives. I was the exhausted Crisis Worker, who along with the exasperated female intern, urged the victim to report, not just to help herself, but to protect other women. The victim could prevent the rapist from striking again and hurting someone else. She refused to cooperate, yelling at the Salt Lake patrolman who had arrived and even at my male back-up to get the hell out of the exam area. Men! Sobbing, she told me she was too scared that her fiancé would discover what happened to her. It would always have to be her secret. Couldn’t we respect that? We could and we did. We had to.

The whole tragic pageant, the cold glare of the exam room, the echoing, cavernous halls of the University Medical Center outside the curtain, the warmth of the plastic surgeon’s voice as he pushed the curtain aside, all came back in a flash. He wore a green mask with turquoise scrubs. There were some small brown stains on his scrubs and you could see dark curly hairs at the base of his throat. He had reassuring long fingers, like a pianist. Him, she would trust, only to sew her cheek back together. Somebody had to do it.

In Chico’s last November, I couldn’t know if she recalled our former meeting exactly the way I did, or with such precision. I knew she had other details, more horrific, to recollect. I hoped she’d repress that much at least. I tried to resist checking the ring finger of her left hand, but I couldn’t help myself, and I hoped at least I was subtle about it. Her finger was bare. I knew it didn’t matter in what manner her life had played out, anymore than it did mine. She was a survivor. Period.

Trying to get out of her way, instead I stepped right into her path again, and fumbled another apology.

“No problem,” she repeated, turned on her heel, and strode out of the store. Gratefully, everyone else in Chico’s was oblivious to our claustrophobic microcosm—just another historic drama, a period piece. Nevermind.

In 1975, when I graduated from the first class of rape crisis center counselors in the newly founded Salt Lake City Rape Crisis Center, it was estimated that only one in seven victims of sexual assault reported the crime to authorities.

By 2005, the US Justice Department estimated that 26% or about one in four assaults were currently reported. That shows some improvement, but hardly the leap of awareness I hoped to discover thirty years later. NOW claims that there are 132,000 reported sexual assaults in the US. If that represents about one fourth, how many total assaults would be represented? 528,000. The entire population of a large city, approximately the size of Washington DC. (522,000 estimate, 2006) Would more be done, would the stigma of being a victim be erased if all American sexual assaults occurred simultaneously, in the same area, such as Washington? What if every Washingtonian was raped? Would society be outraged enough to demand change? Currently, twenty-nine percent of college girls report that they have been assaulted at least once since age 14. One in six American women has been raped, and it’s important to note that one tenth of all sexual assault victims are male.

That’s shameful.

-- Sue Hartman is a writer who currently lives in Boulder County, Colorado. A former social worker, she has worked as a newsprint journalist, free-lance magazine feature writer, essayist, short story author and poet. Her work has garnered mainstream fiction awards, and appeared in literary journals. Her essays and stories have been widely anthologized, including non-fiction appearing in Woven on the Wind and Crazy Woman Creek, collections which celebrate western women's contributions to the world. Her short story "La Loma, La Luna" first appeared in High Fantastic, a Colorado anthology, and was chosen for The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror, 9th Edition. She has two novels in the process of revision and is co-authoring a non-fiction work about Cold Case murders in Utah in the 1980's, working with a former Salt Lake City Police gang officer.

Bad Girl

A guest post by Leanne Dyck

"Hello, my name is Jenny McLean and I am a victim of incest. These words sound odd to me. For so long I hid the truth. My family was 'normal" I told myself: white picket fence, dog, parents who loved me.

Until one day my Mom discovered the truth.

You see my Dad had this drinking problem. He didn't beat anyone. He just helped himself.

It all started when I was a stupid little ten year old. He told me I was beautiful. He told me Daddy's little girl needed to learn how to be a woman. I was so dumb. I believed him. Before long his night time visits had become routine.

When Mom discovered the truth she wasn't angry. She was hurt. Dad was the breadwinner, I was just the kid. So she made it clear that I was the one to go.

So I became a street kid. I had to find a way to feed myself. So I left school to hook. Believe me it's not the life that a little girl dreams of. I turned to drugs to cope.

Then, one morning I woke up throwing up. Somehow I remembered in my constantly high state that I hadn't had my period for at least two months. I knew that wasn't normal. I prayed it wasn't this."

She points to her swollen belly.

"I needed to find out what was wrong. So I found a walk-in clinic. It was there in the walk-in clinic that I got a real education. You see I had to wait. As I waited I looked around. I saw a mother who had to be 40. She was a mess. Still worse were her kids. Her baby wouldn't stop crying. Her toddler looked like shit. Snot dripped down his face to his chin. His hair was in knots and tangles. He just couldn't sit still. They looked uncared for and unloved. You can't love a habit and a kid. It just doesn't work. You have to choose.

It was like someone gave me a hard slap across the face. I woke up. I realized that I could go on hating myself but I had to love my baby. She needs a fighting chance. She didn't do anything wrong.

So I talked to the receptionist. She directed me here. It hasn't been easy. In fact, it's been damn hard. I'm a user and it's hard to shake the instincts. But, hey, I'm here. I've been clean for five months. The day I walked through those clinic doors is the day my baby got a fighting chance. One thing this program has taught me is to come clean. Admit the truth to yourself and to everyone else. It's the only way out. Thanks for listening."

She sits down.

--Knitwear Designer ( www.oknitting.com) and author (Novelty Yarn) Leanne Dyck's career as an Early Childhood Educator spanned fourteen years. Her final position was in a young family day care centre. There Leanne befriended many teen-age mothers while she cared for their children. 'Bad Girl' was written as a tribute to these dedicated and courageous young women. This story is included in a collection entitled Maynely True.

My hair was raped when I was a sophomore at the University of Redlands.

A guest post by Gayle Brandeis

My hair was raped when I was a sophomore at the University of Redlands.

It was finals week, and I needed a study break, so I decided to go to a movie in San Bernardino, CA, about 5 miles away. I often went to movies alone—it was a welcome break from academia, from the exciting but sometimes confusing bustle of campus life. I chose a 10pm showing of Crazy Moon, a movie in which Kiefer Sutherland falls in love with an irrepressible deaf girl. The story appeared to be all about expanding our idea of who we are and what we're capable of. It seemed like a good choice during a time when I was feeling overwhelmed.

The theater was empty. I picked a seat right in the center, and settled in for what I thought would be a relaxing couple of hours. After the film started, someone sat down directly behind me. This seemed strange, given the fact that every seat in the place was available—why sit right behind someone who might obstruct your view of the screen? I pushed aside my concerns, though; the person was probably lonely, I told myself. He probably just wanted to feel close to another human being.

A couple of minutes later, I started to feel little tugs on my hair. The pulling was so subtle, I thought that some of my ponytail must have been caught between myself and the chair. I freed my ponytail so it could hang down along the back of the chair. Suddenly, my entire head snapped back—a sharp, violent, yank. I had no idea what had happened at first, but I could turn my neck enough to see that the man was standing behind me, his pants unzipped, his erection deep inside my ponytail. I couldn't see his face; I could only see him from his waist down. He jerked my hair, my head, up and down over himself. I could hear his breath quicken. My own breath seemed to have stopped.

Aside from the forced movement of my head, I was frozen. Finally, I got my wits back and was able to crank myself away and rip my hair out of his hand, away from his body. I ran out of the theater, my legs wobbly. I didn't think to say anything to the manager; I just wanted to get back to my dorm. I don't remember the drive at all; I'm sure I fell back on muscle memory as the streetlights streamed around me. I had to climb through the window into the lobby because I had forgotten my front door key.

It was not a graceful entrance; I was so shaky, I tumbled to the ground in a limp-limbed heap. A friend who witnessed the whole thing started to laugh until she saw how upset I was. After I told her what had happened, she led me up to my room and insisted I call the police while she called the movie theater on another phone.

I sat on the floor of my dorm room, still trembling, and dialed up the San Bernardino police station. They wouldn't take a report. "You don't want your name attached to a masturbation crime," the officer said. "A nice young girl like you." I tried to convince him that yes, I did want to file a report, but he wouldn't hear it. I eventually gave up. My friend came in the room and told me that she spoken to the manager. The guy had already left the theater, she said. The manager wouldn't do anything to find him. I felt a swell of shame and regret. Why hadn't I moved when the guy sat behind me? Why hadn't I told anyone at the theater right when it had happened? Why hadn't I pushed harder to file a report? I crouched, crying, in the shower for a long, long time and tried to shampoo every trace of the man's body away. I considered chopping off all my hair, but didn't want to give the creep that victory. I decided that even if I hadn't used my voice to catch him, I would keep my hair as a sign that he hadn't taken all of my power away.

I look back at my 19 year old self and feel proud of myself for not cutting my hair, but sad that I didn't feel I could fully speak up for myself, sad that I blamed myself. I feel sad that a few years earlier, I hadn't felt I could say no when my driving instructor asked me to lick his finger before he wiped something off my eye, hadn't felt as if I could tell my parents or the driving school about it because I was too embarrassed. As traumatic as those experiences were, though, I feel lucky that I haven't experienced a worse violation. A large portion of the women I know have. And a large portion of them never told anyone until years after the fact.

So much of my work as an adult has been to help others break their silences, to help women reclaim a sense of ownership of their bodies as well as their voices. I think that's partially why I chose to write about a woman forced into prostitution in my novel, The Book of Dead Birds, why I work for CODEPINK, a women's peace organization, now. I don't want women to be afraid to tell their darkest stories. I want to make the world a safer place for women everywhere. I want any woman to be able to go to a movie alone at 10 at night (or, in places like Afghanistan, to go out on the street alone during the day). And I want any woman to feel that if something awful does happen, she can share her story and people—including officers of the law—will listen respectfully and give her the support she deserves. Of course the world doesn't always work that way, but as more of us speak up and educate each other and demand justice, we'll create an even safer world for our daughters and their daughters.

--Gayle Brandeis is the author of Fruitflesh: Seeds of Inspiration for Women Who Write, and two novels--The Book of Dead Birds, which won Barbara Kingsolver's Bellwether Prize for Fiction in Support of a Literature of Social Change, and her latest, Self Storage. Gayle was named a Writer Who Makes a Difference by The Writer Magazine; she is a founding member of the Women Creating Peace Collective and writes the weekly national action alert for CODEPINK: Women for Peace.

April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month

April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month. Please do something this month to

help spread awareness and stop sexual violence against women in your community.

Did you know these statistics ?

The United States has the highest rape rate among countries which report such statistics. It is 4 times higher than that of Germany, 13 times higher than that of England and 20 times higher than that of Japan.

1 in 3 sexual assault victims are under the age of 12.

6 out of 10 sexual assaults occur in the home of the victim or the home of a friend, neighbor or relative.

Women are 10 times more likely than men to be victims of sexual assault.

22% of all women say that they have been forced to do sexual things against their will, where only 3% of men admit to ever forcing themselves on a woman.

Only 16% of rapes and sexual assaults are reported to the police.

Less than half of those arrested for rape are convicted, 54% of all rape prosecutions end in either dismissal or acquittal.

This month, I'll be featuring this topic on Knitting for Change throughout the month, instead of posting just once during the month. So check back for ideas on things you can do, knitting projects to promote awareness of this important problem, articles, and links to other sites with more information.