tansheer:

to the women
who ran faster
than zamzam,
holy water, gushing
through rocks,
satiating pilgrims
in white

to the women,
whose legs
defied gravity,
floating above
decoflex
smooth like
riffs from the
rabab

to the women
who defeated
misogyny,
ignorance and
sexism with more
elegance, than the
petals on Eastern
woroud,
flowers

to the women,
who shot Islamophobia
straight in the eyes
by doing nothing
but shining their
nour, light,
for the world
to see

thank you; we owe our
revitalized image to you,
you proved to the world
that we are not all mute
and oppressed domestics.

lastchance4sanity:

Rape has become endemic in South Africa, so a medical technician named Sonette Ehlers developed a product that immediately gathered national attention there. Ehlers had never forgotten a rape victim telling her forlornly, “If only I had teeth down there.”

Some time afterward, a man came into the hospital where Ehlers works in excruciating pain because his penis was stuck in his pants zipper.

Ehlers merged those images and came up with a product she called Rapex. It resembles a tube, with barbs inside. The woman inserts it like a tampon, with an applicator, and any man who tries to rape the woman impales himself on the barbs and must go to an emergency room to have the Rapex removed.

When critics complained that it was a medieval punishment, Ehlers replied tersely, “A medieval device for a medieval deed.” 

- Half the Sky, Nicholas Kristof 

(via miss-pamela)