In the newsletter I sent out this past week, I began with this quote from the late feminist poet, Muriel Rukeyser:

“What would happen if one woman told the truth about her life? The world would split open.”

This week’s Roundup links to a selection of articles, each of which represents a way that women are using their “power to” by simply telling the truth, which is so often the most difficult thing of all. And we are seeing the world split open as these women challenge millennia of gender-based oppression rooted in sexual abuse, assault, harassment, and even verbal disparagement of women.  Check them out and share your thoughts. I’m especially interested to know whether you feel as I do that despite the pain of seeing and knowing these horrific acts, the fact that they are coming out in the open–the truth-telling–is splitting the world open in ways that ultimately are positive.

Statement/petition from Change.org to unite people around the world in support of the alleged rape victim of Dominique Strauss-Kahn. Sign on!

French feminists could care less that Strauss-Kahn is a fellow countryman, and are protesting his actions, loud enough for the entire world to hear. Please check out the great protest pictures in this Gotham article.

Join the Nobel Women’s Initiative today by going to the UN Action Stop Rape Now website and download the sample letter asking your elected official for increased action against sexual violence in conflict.

For more information on rape as a weapon of war, please read this great article by NYC writer Anna Louie Sussman.

The response of the Women’s Media Center and many feminists around the country to Ed Shultz and his sexist remarks about Laura Ingraham is right on the money: men have no right to use sexist language to keep women in their place, regardless of their political affiliation.