I love feminist blogging collaborations! It’s why I participate in so many blog carnivals and feminist tweetchats — to hang out with other feminists! Well, not so much hang out, as type with them. But, you know what I mean.

For Sexual Assault Awareness Month (SAAM), I’m partnering with the feminist blog Make Me A Sammich to launch the #AlwaysAware campaign. In truth, they had a good idea and I’m just happy to tag along!

As Rosie explains in this post, the point of the #AlwaysAware campaign is to highlight the need for awareness and education. But it’s not about making another campaign that puts the onus on victims. It’s about exposing the ever-present-threat-experience of rape culture. We live in a society that sets up a misogynistic, false-binary system of oppression of “people to-be-raped” and “people who are rapists.”

Here, I’ll let her explain:

The point is that (most) women are always aware of potential of violence. We are taught to be afraid and trained to be vigilant. Sexual Assault Awareness Month is not for us–it’s for people who don’t spend every day of their lives alert and aware and looking for ways to keep something like this from happening to them. It’s for people who don’t understand how often women experience assault. It’s for those who believe that women, not men, should be responsible for preventing male-on-female rape. Until we’re all #AlwaysAware of the problem of rape culture, women will continue to bear the weight of that awareness all 365 days of the year.

You may have also noticed the teal badge in the right-hand column —-> You should feel free to steal it and share it widely!

And you know I had to get in on the fun, too! Here’s an ecard I made that you can share with all your networks. Think of it as a way to start the conversation about sexual assault and rape culture that we need to be having all year long!