This is the second annual Loose Garments Images Speak month! Last year We asked for original artwork submissions of what you envision when you think “Woman,” and many responded!  All images on our Images Speak Page been created by Loose Garments fans, who are women (and men) just like you. Images are only accepted during January each year and can include photography, painting, drawing, sculpture, or anything really.

Please submit your artwork to LooseGarments@gmail.com

Here’s an excerpt:

About 55,000 tourists visit Liechtenstein every year. This blog was viewed about 170,000 times in 2012. If it were Liechtenstein, it would take about 3 years for that many people to see it. Your blog had more visits than a small country in Europe!

Click here to see the complete report.

Are you serious?! Did Governor Romney just say what I thought he said during the 2nd Presidential Debate?

When covering how he would help women find equality in the workplace Romney said “I went to a number of women’s groups and said, ‘Can you help us find folks,’ and they brought us whole binders full of women.”

Yes, it’s clearly not a problem that we are severely underrepresented when it comes to positions of power, and underpaid. The solution is clear, all employers can just pick us out of a catalogue, pay us 70% as much, and problem solved!

Women and men, this is not what a future President of the United States of America would say in the 21st century.

In Tuesday’s speech, Ann Romney passionately exclaimed:

“It’s the mom’s of this nation, single, married, widowed, who really hold the country together.  We’re the mothers.  We’re the wives.  We’re the grandmothers.  We’re the big sisters.  We’re the little sisters and we are the daughters.”

And sure we are mothers, wives, grandmothers and sisters but we are also so much more. What I didn’t hear was that women are one of the most valuable untapped natural resources, and women of this nation will be tomorrow’s leaders. We are the business entrepreneurs. We’re the doctors. We’re the big scientists and politicians.

And that is the problem.

Women need economic and social equality. As we continue to break glass ceilings, we will need to work toward equal pay for equal work. For true economic equality we not only require equal pay, but we require equal professional opportunities by way of reproductive planning. Yes we are mothers, wives, grandmothers and sisters but we are also so much more. The GOP doesn’t appear to consider women to be individuals outside of their traditional role as wife and mother.

This is evidenced by the backwards anti-women legislation that has been introduced across the nation, and enforced by Ann Romney’s words at the GOP convention.

Photograph: Amel Pain/EPA

Several news sources are reporting that women who were gathered in Cairo’s Tahrir Square to protest sexual harassment were attacked and molested by a mob of hundreds of men. The mob appeared to be coordinated and planned.

House Democrats are proposing to increase minimum wage to $10 an hour! This makes sense, considering minimum wage should be around $10 just to catch up with inflation, as Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-IL) points out.

Legislation to increase minimum wage to $10 was introduced on Wednesday June 6th by House Democrats.

Jackson argues that his bill called the Catching Up to 1968 Act provides low income Americans with a more fair chance by catching up to inflation. In addition, by boosting purchasing power of the working class we can also provide a boost to the economy, as the increase in income by low-income workers will mostly be spent right away on basic life necessities. In the US, women are disproportionately affected by income inequality and poverty, thus would benefit most from such a minimum wage increase.

Read more at Alternet.com

The women and men were reported to be condemned when video footage showed them singing and dancing at a wedding. 

Pakistan’s Supreme Court has become involved in a case of 4 missing women, believed to have been killed for clapping and singing at a wedding while men were dancing nearby. One person caught the scene on video using his mobile phone and on Wednesday the Supreme Court ordered an investigation of whether the four women were killed for clapping and singing near men at a wedding.

The investigation follows a statement made to journalists by a brother of one of the dancing men in the video, that a tribal council had ordered the killing of these 4 women because they violated tribal honor.

The 4 women from the northern village of Gizar Alitray  have not yet been located, yet the deaths have also not been confirmed. The brother told the Supreme Court:

“I say this under oath, I swear it, the girls have been killed under orders from a tribal court. They were killed on May 30. I fear for my life, for my brothers,” 

This case highlights the issue of the disproportionate number of honor killings committed against women in Muslim countries. Reuters reports:

“Families or tribes often take justice into their own hands. Gatherings of elders hand down punishments that include the rape or killing of women for crimes including falling in love with a man deemed inappropriate, or besmirching family honor. Fraternizing and dancing between men and women is frowned upon. Almost 1,000 women were killed in the name of honor in the South Asian nation last year, according to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan. Activists say the actual number is much higher as a majority of cases go unreported.”

Photo credit: S. Olson/Getty Images

The Los Angeles Times reported today that two female soldiers are suing the US Army and Department of Defense to end the ban on women participating in combat.

The complaint they filed on Wednesday May 23rd asserts that the rights of servicewomen are being violated by excluding them from specific military positions and combat roles, solely based on their gender.

We are so proud of these two military women, who are standing up for equal rights!

“We know we are better off when women are treated fairly and equally in every aspect of American life, whether it’s the salary you earn or the health decisions you make”

“My first piece of advice is this: Don’t just get involved. Fight for your seat at the table. Better yet, fight for a seat at the head of the table.”

“Which brings me to my second piece of advice: Never underestimate the power of your example. The very fact that you are graduating, let alone that more women now graduate from college than men, is only possible because earlier generations of women — your mothers, your grandmothers, your aunts — shattered the myth that you couldn’t or shouldn’t be where you are.”

“My last piece of advice — this is simple, but perhaps most important: Persevere. Persevere. Nothing worthwhile is easy. No one of achievement has avoided failure — sometimes catastrophic failures. But they keep at it. They learn from mistakes. They don’t quit.”

Naturally, another anti-abortion bill was recently introduced in Kansas and will be considered next week. The bill would add sales taxes to any type of abortion-related procedures and expenses. The law would bring in millions to the state.

Read more here