Knit Your Congressman a Vagina

Hey, a womb is just as good.<a href="http://www.knitty.com/ISSUEwinter04/PATTwomb.html">MK Carroli</a>

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America’s elected leaders, particularly those of the Republican male variety, have not done too well by women lately. In Congress, GOP legislators have sought to exempt religious orgs from having to offer health insurance that covers contraceptives. Mitt Romney replied lamely when confronted with Rush Limbaugh’s Slutgate, and GOP lawmakers didn’t exactly, ahem, rush to challenge their kingmaker. In Arizona and Kansas, Republican state legislators pushed bills allowing a doctor to lie about the health status of your fetus for fear you might opt to get an abortion. And should you make that harrowing choice, Virginia Republicans, following in the footsteps of their colleagues in a number of other states, passed a law requiring that you have an ultrasound first. They wanted it to be the kind where the doctor sticks a paddle into your vagina, but public outcry forced them to scale it back to the abdominal kind. Now, for good measure, GOP legislators are blocking the Violence Against Women Act.

We’ve already told you about these (pretty awesome) new laws proposed by Democratic legislators simply to mock their rivals’ misogyny.

But the women behind Government Free VJJ have a different approach:

“Follow these simple steps,” the website beckons…

1. Knit or crochet a vagina or uterus.
2.
Print a message to enclose.
3. Mail it to your male Senator or Congressional Representative [links provided]
4. We’re in the process of arranging hand delivery to congressional offices in Washington, until then, go ahead and mail yours in!
5. Record your items in this spreadsheet so we can track which representatives still need to receive a “gift”!
6. Don’t forget to thank your representative if he respects women and supports our rights.

The crochet patterns available so far include uterus and “happy uterus.” For knitters, there’s a vulva, a womb (pictured), felt cervixes, and (hey, why not?)—a “snatchel.”

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WE'LL BE BLUNT.

We have a considerable $390,000 gap in our online fundraising budget that we have to close by June 30. There is no wiggle room, we've already cut everything we can, and we urgently need more readers to pitch in—especially from this specific blurb you're reading right now.

We'll also be quite transparent and level-headed with you about this.

In "News Never Pays," our fearless CEO, Monika Bauerlein, connects the dots on several concerning media trends that, taken together, expose the fallacy behind the tragic state of journalism right now: That the marketplace will take care of providing the free and independent press citizens in a democracy need, and the Next New Thing to invest millions in will fix the problem. Bottom line: Journalism that serves the people needs the support of the people. That's the Next New Thing.

And it's what MoJo and our community of readers have been doing for 47 years now.

But staying afloat is harder than ever.

In "This Is Not a Crisis. It's The New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, why this moment is particularly urgent, and how we can best communicate that without screaming OMG PLEASE HELP over and over. We also touch on our history and how our nonprofit model makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there: Letting us go deep, focus on underreported beats, and bring unique perspectives to the day's news.

You're here for reporting like that, not fundraising, but one cannot exist without the other, and it's vitally important that we hit our intimidating $390,000 number in online donations by June 30.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. It's going to be a nail-biter, and we really need to see donations from this specific ask coming in strong if we're going to get there.

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