Safer Scenes

Just delivered a session for Concordia Women's Studies students, talking about intimate partner violence & how to support survivors. I loved talking to this group. Very radical and anti-oppression minded. Reminder, my Canadian friends: I can still be hired in my home country too!

KiraLynnFerderber.com I just wrapped a very busy #DomesticViolenceAwarenessMonth in the US for October; now it's November, and DV month in Canada. So please, do something in your community to support survivors! And if you need education, hire me! I love Zooming in to Canada.

This girl is a hero. It's early, details emerging, but a lot of human suffering and death could have been avoided if event organizers empowered camera operators or any staff to abandon 1 job for dire safety issues. But that takes special policies. Mass events don't run that way.

This is a failure on so many levels. It's still very early, and I was not there, but from what I've seen and read this morning it seems that either no one was empowered to stop things, or the few people who were chose not to. It's a failure by the organizers to plan for safety.

Festival organizers, I'm begging you: empower your staff that's on the scene, in the crowd to make judgement calls around safety, regardless of job. Make a safe shut down/pause plan & teach every person how to enact it. For rape, death, trampling, or masses of people passing out.

This did not have to happen. The number of dead did not have to be this high. But staff who were being accosted&pleaded with obviously had not been hired and trained with an understanding that their role is safety first as eyes & ears, and how to quickly escalate a plea for help.

This is hard to read, but I'm begging festival organizers to read it. People were begging camera operators, lighting people, random event staff to do something. But often these people are temps from all different teams, with zero links to security. This has to stop.

It is possible to do very large scale festivals, and all concerts and events, in a different way. It takes planning, and training EVERY SINGLE PERSON WORKING, regardless of role, on how to reach security if they see or hear something dangerous. And telling them it's ok to do so!

Surviving crowd tramples traumatizes people. Similar to mass shootings: horrific sights, sounds, and panic. But also processing having been part of a mass that killed people, whom you saw die in front of you. Houston needs mental health care for the traumatized. Now & ongoing.

"Anti-trafficking" just efforts empower men to abuse women. If you are confused about that, read this thread. I'm a sexual violence prevention educator and I promise you that keeping cops far away from sex workers is MUCH SAFER and better violence prevention than these raids!

I know that fashion brands don't want our money because it ruins their brand's allure for thin people if fat people wear it, but certainly indie artists must just want the money?? But yet, they refuse to produce for us. Source your merch well and make T-shirts over XL, please!!

stop dunking on mormon teens & do something to advocate for comprehensive sex ed @ your local school board! make a donation to @Scarleteen! connect youth you know with @PPFA educators! laughing @ kids getting pregnant/STIs because their teachers LIE to them about health is uncool

Well, I've been sitting on this news and I can finally announce: I've been selected to present at the 2021 National Conference on Domestic Violence!🇺🇸 The workshop is one I've developed over the past several years, and a true passion project for me.💜 More info in the blog post:

This is obviously huge professional news for me, but on a personal note I also feel very validated. At 2.5 years since immigrating to America and getting my green card, I'm halfway to citizenship. I moved here wondering if I could "make it" in the US. Now I feel I already am?!