The Silver Lining

Before I retire this blog, I wanted to remind myself and my readers of two things I am grateful to in this dark time:

1. Male Allies – I am blessed to have many men in my life who understand that violence against women is not just a women's issue. While the Republicans recently made men look like Neanderthals with their asinine comments about “legitimate rape” and a bunch of other crap, other men are standing up and calling their bullsh!t.

Like the guys at MaculinityU who wrote:
Kasandra Perkins’ Murder – Some Things Keeping Three Guys Up at Night 

Or the guys at The Factuary who made this great video about five things that women are still fighting for:

Or Filmmaker Byron Hurt who wrote this very relevant article:
Why I Am a Black Male Feminist

2. Women Working Together – While I do think we still have work to do when coming together across cultural lines, I have seen an increase in women working collectively to try to end violence against all women. An exciting example of this is the upcoming 15th anniversary of Eve Ensler's Vagina Monologues and the V-Day call inviting ONE BILLION women and those who love them to WALK OUT, DANCE, RISE UP, and DEMAND an end to this violence. ONE BILLION RISING will move the earth, activating women and men across every country.

One Billion Women Violated Is An Atrocity. One Billion Women Dancing Is A Revolution.

Why It Still Matters

I had been planning on writing a brief post to direct readers to my consolidated film blog. I will still be making “December 6” available online every year:

And I will keep the Facebook page up, but as I move forward with the extended cut of “When It Rains,” the next film in my sisters trilogy, I thought it was time to retire this blog.

Then Kasandra Perkins was murdered.

I needed to take a breath and figure out how to respond. Aside from the high profile of her killer, this wasn’t much different from the murders that happen to women in the United States EVERY DAY by their male partners or ex-partners. But the high profile of her killer suddenly has everybody talking about it and realizing that it is an epidemic of violence that is happening against women worldwide. The form of violence might vary from country to country, culture to culture, but every woman in the world is potentially at risk.

This is why I made this film and why I continue to post it year after year. This is why it still matters.