#WomanCrushWednesday AND #WildWednesday AND #UnityDay2016 AND #HappyHumpDay

Happy Wednesday!!

Today is a big day everyone! To make it more digestable, I'll break it down into a few sections.

#WomanCrushWednesday

Rose McGowan!

She's an awesome actor/producer/director/singer and she recently posted an "Open Letter to Hollywood" following her report of being raped by an unnamed Hollywood Executive. She did so under the hashtag #WhyWomenDontReport which has seen a huge increase in activity since 13 October (probably having something to do with the recent allegations against one of our presidential candidates *coughTRUMPcough* and his response that they must be lying otherwise they would have reported it when it happened)

You can read the letter here. (TW: sexual assault)

The letter basically encourages people in Hollywood NOT to work with known offenders, because by working with them, you become complicit in their getting away with doing horrible things. She similarly encourages everyone else to not support the work of offenders for the same reasons.

By writing this article, McGowan is helping to fight against the double standard regarding sexual assault cases, in which the offender often gets to continue living their life free of serious consequences while the victim is highly scrutinized because of their claims. 

Yes, our legal system is supposed to be based on the concept of "innocent until proven guilty," but that doesn't mean victims and survivors should be treated as liars until they are proven to be telling the truth.

I first learned of this story via email from THINX underwear, in their weekly pop culture periodical. Read their post about this story here.

#WildWednesday

Did you know you can donate fur items to animal rescues to help orphaned and injured animals recover?

Neither did I. Until today.

A lot of people have inherited old fur coats and other items from the past when fur was a thing that people wanted to wear, and they don't want to wear them, or really even keep them, but they also don't want to throw them away because of ~sentimental value~ if they come from lost loved ones.

So, Born Free USA, a nonprofit dedicated to allowing wild animals to stay wild or get back to the wild after being injured, started collecting these furs to donate to animal rescues through their Fur for the Animals drive, which is happening now. It starts in September and goes through 31 December, so if you happen to have any old furs laying around that you don't know what to do with, consider donating them to this great cause, where they will go to helping animals that are injured or orphaned to recover and live happy lives again.

I learned about this through a post on Upworthy, which is available here. (You wanna read this because it comes with SUPER ADORABLE pictures of animals benefiting from the program)

#UnityDay2016

A part of National Bullying Prevention Month

Today is Unity Day 2016, a day to come together against bullying. The campaign for Unity Day centers around wearing the color orange to show support for and solidarity with victims of bullying. If you didn't already know about this, I encourage you to go to the website and learn more about it and participate in any way that you can. 

They even have a specific poster for the campaign:

(If you can't see the image, try clicking here)

Also here's a great instagram pic posted by Sara Ramirez for Unity Day!

Last, but not least (okay, maybe kind of least)

Happy Hump Day!

Since it's afternoon now, you're probably halfway through your work week (if you work a standard M-F 9-5 work week--if not, then I hope you're having a great Wednesday anyway) so that's something to celebrate!

xx,

Sienna

The Fierce Feminist

#womancrushwednesday 1: Amy Schumer

#WomanCrushWednesday

To get this started, I've decided to post at least three times a week, on #mancrushmonday, #womancrushwednesday, and #foodforthoughtfriday (if that's not already a thing, I'm making it a thing).

Since today is Wednesday, that means I get to post about my current #womancrushwednesday, Amy Schumer.

Ms. Schumer is this week's #wcw because I am currently listening to her book, The Girl with the Lower Back Tattoo on Audible and absolutely loving it. Schumer starts the book with a preface about how it's not a memoir because she's still got a lot of life left to live (a good thing, because she's excellent) and how it has a lot of stuff in it that will make you laugh and stuff that will make you not laugh. The whole book is a wonderful rollercoaster of her first 35 years of life, punctuated by annotated journal entries from her past, and including important stories about how she got to where she is today.

Amy Schumer's book, The Girl with the Lower Back Tattoo

Her honesty throughout the book is wonderfully refreshing and I cannot express how glad I am to hear such a visible woman unapologetically discussing things such as 

• being a grown-up (read: being her own boss and living her life how she wants)
• sexual encounters (read: yes, women can and do enjoy sex)
• her own anatomy (read: her vagina)

all things that are generally avoided in day-to-day conversation despite the fact that they're all completely normal things. And this open and honest discussion of taboo topics places her on my list of feminist heroes.

Really, I cannot express enough how important it is to hear someone as popular and well-liked as Amy Schumer talking about things that people try to pretend don't exist. I already like her, but now I like her even more. And the best part is: she probably wouldn't care if I had the exact opposite opinion because she's a strong, secure, confident woman who doesn't really care what people think of her. 

Rock on, Amy Schumer. Rock. On.

xx,

Sienna

The Fierce Feminist