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“A dream you dream alone is only a dream; a dream you dream together is reality.” — Yoko Ono
Jul
13
Blogathon 2009
Filed Under blog news, blogging, rape and sexual assault, violence against women and girls | Posted by Cara |
Last year, I participated in a little something called the Day of Blogs — a 24 hour blogathon, with a post going up every half hour. As a result of the effort, RAINN received a $454 donation!
This year, it’s called the Blogathon, and it takes place on July 25 from 9am EST to 9 am EST. I will be participating again this year, but this time, I’m doing it for SAFER.
Regular readers of the blog will have seen me mention them often. That’s because they run one of my favorite blogs. But while those of us in the feminist blogosphere may tend to know them primarily as an awesome anti-rape blog, offline they’re an utterly amazing organization that works to implement real strategies for reducing the rate of sexual violence. There are two things that I absolutely adore about SAFER, and which make them my favorite charity:
- They promote and help to implement real response strategies to sexual violence, that include not only comprehensive victims services but also real accountability proceedings for perpetrators.
- They promote and help to implement real prevention strategies that focus on (potential) perpetrators — and bystander behavior — rather than (potential) victim behavior.
And while their work is directly applicable only to college campus life, their strategies for community response and dialogue surrounding rape are useful with regards to organizing in many other venues.
Click here to sponsor. (If you want to see the running total of sponsorships, check out the Blog List page.) You can choose to either sponsor a flat amount, or an amount per hour (which would of course be 24 total, assuming I make it the whole way through). When the Blogathon is over, you’ll be sent an email asking you to send in your donation. Unlike last year (to my great relief), I’ll never personally see any of the money. But please do put in your pledge amount through the site, so that we can keep track of how much we’ve raised! I’d absolutely love to beat last year’s total and get to $500.
Here, dear readers, is what I need from you. I’m getting into the game relatively late — less than two weeks out — but seeing as how I spontaneously decided to participate last year with only five days notice, I’ve got myself a ton of time, right? Right. But I still need help! Here’s four things you can do to pitch in — and even doing one would be very much appreciated.
- Sponsorship! I know that money’s tight right now, but fun though 24 grueling hours of blogging may be, there is no point in doing this without the charity aspect! So again, here’s where you go to sponsor my efforts for SAFER. Whether it’s $5 or $50, every bit helps!
- Promotion! Help get more sponsors on board by spreading the word to your circle through Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook, whatever it is you use, or if you’re feeling extraordinarily generous, with a blog post of your own.
- Ideas! Last year, I learned very, very quickly that there is little time to think, and absolutely no time for in depth posts. Which means that while I can’t write my posts in advance, I do need to research and get ideas in advance. My plan is to, for the first 12 hours, blog about sexual violence related topics. The second 12 hours, when I will be much too tired to blog about anything serious and have far fewer readers, I’ll be blogging about my other favorite topic — The Beatles, of course! But I want to make sure that this year, unlike last, I have a good representation of topics. That means I don’t want to just blog about male sexual violence against cis women, but a whole range of issues — rape of men by men, rape of men by women, rape of women by women, rape in prisons, rape against people with disabilities, rape of sex workers, rape in abusive relationships, rape against trans women and men both necessarily included as an aspect of all of the above and discussed separately, prevention strategies . . . and probably more that I’m forgetting at the moment. So if you’ve got resources for me that will help out with that, I need to see them. Please leave them here in the comments or email me at cara.kulwicki AT gmail DOT com. The same goes for just any sexual violence news story or general topic you’d like me to blog on. And it even goes for Beatles topics! While that will be requiring minimal research and I surely have plenty of ideas (a song each half hour, for example), and while there will sadly be no time for Top 5 lists, I’m willing to take requests! If there’s a song, or Beatles event, aspect of a band member, etc. that you’d like to see me comment on, I’m likely happy to oblige.
- Support! On the day, stop by and leave comments as much as you’re able. Comments at night, of course, will be particularly appreciated. I will almost certainly be setting up a sub-blog like I did last year, so as to not have every uninterested party unsubscribe from their feeds, but will let you know that address both in advance and on the day of the Blogathon.
Questions? Suggestions? Leave them in the comments!
Comments
10 Comments so far
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“Men, their rights, and nothing more; women, their rights, and nothing less.” — Susan B. Anthony
How exciting! I had no idea this existed until you tweet last week (or whenever that was). This seems fun though! Should I do it? I kind of want to but I’m also unbelievably worried that I’ll run out of things to say after 5 posts. On the other hand, I have dozens of ideas for posts that I’ve never written… Hmmm, what to do…
I’m particularly excited about the Beatles posts, but I’m sure you figured that out already. =)
I THINK YOU SHOULD TOTALLY DO IT . . . TO KEEP ME COMPANY!!! Hehe :)
Um, it’s really tough. I didn’t make it all the way through last year . . . gave up at like 4:30am, I think. It’s my goal to make it all 24 hours this year, but we’ll see. I do recommend figuring out a bunch of stuff to write in advance, and inevitably you’ll fall behind and have a few “so this is tough! where does all the time go! I’m eating some pizza!” posts. But it’s a really great feeling to help raise money for a charity you love! I also imagine that it’s more fun if people you know are doing it, rather than doing it all on your lonesome like I was last year.
Wow. Cara, this is completely amazing and generous of you. I’ve been reading your blog since long before I became a part of SAFER and this really just makes me feel all sorts of warm and fuzzy inside. I’m actually headed to a Board meeting in 20 minutes and I can’t wait to tell everyone how fabulous you are (as if we all didn’t know already!). Seriously, a million thanks for all your support. I hope one day I get to say thank you in person. –Sarah
Aw, thanks Sarah :) I was going to email you folks, too . . . I was thinking that it’d probably be cool if someone put a post up over at the SAFER blog! I’m sure that some of your readers who don’t regularly read me would love to chip in :)
that is so awesome!
im participating in Blogathon too.
Maybe we can keep each other company and talk about the Beatles ;)
This is awesome! I remember you doing it last year and I really enjoyed reading your posts for the day and am so glad that you’re doing it again. I’ll definitely stop by and leave some comments for you! I’m usually up during the night (backward schedule and all) so I should definitely be around for those middle-of-the-night hours.
A friend of mine gave me the link to Blogathon a week or so ago and I of course bookmarked it under things to check out and then never did… because I suck like that. I was really interested in doing it, but now feel like there isn’t enough time to pull it off successfully. Either way, I’m really glad that you’re doing it again. Good luck with everything and I’ll do what I can to help spread the word for you; I love SAFER’s blog and the work that they do, so this is amazing.
Here is a story of an Athens, Greece woman who defended herself by burning a London rapist’s penis:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/greece/5985733/Greek-woman-sets-fire-to-Britons-genitals.html
http://aikenareaprogressive.blogspot.com/2009/08/athens-greece-woman-burns-london.html
[...] This is so lovely. One of our favorite bloggers—Cara, who both runs The Curvature and posts at Feministe—is participating in this year’s Blogathon on SAFER’s behalf. Blogathon participants agree to blog every 30 minutes for 24 hours (this year on July 25th) and—just like a charity walkathon—they collect sponsorships for this blogging marathon. The pledges Cara receives this year will go to SAFER. Please go check out why Cara has chosen SAFER and sponsor her if you can—even a small amount really helps. Thanks so much to Cara for choosing us. [...]
[...] more, see this post at The Curvature. See you at 9! Category: BlogathonTags: [...]
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