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Featured Organization

Isabel Lee

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There are many wonderful organizations doing good work in the world. Here we’ll honor and recognize some of them. Today we are featuring an org we worked with in India: Apne Aap, a grassroots NGO committed to ending sex trafficking in India, and their “Cool Men Don’t Buy Sex” campaign. Learn more.

Upcoming or Recent Events

Isabel Lee

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The U.S. Department of Defense’s Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) has invited us to conduct a Leading a Bold Life event for their staff. ONI’s Equal Employment Office (EEO) and Women’s Leadership Forum are hosting the event. Visit us later to watch video clips from the event.

Courage is contagious

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“I took a risk and became the first and only girl in my village to ride a bicycle. Later, because I could ride to the next village, I was able to attend school and further my education. Soon other girls from my village began doing the same thing, and now they can go to school, too.”

– That Takes Ovaries participant

Courage is contagious

Our That Takes Ovaries and Leading a Bold Life events  affirm participants’ already bold lives – or expand their imagination of what is possible, both for themselves and their society.

Our event participants are empowered by seeing and hearing what others have done. From childhood, many are trained to step lightly, carefully, even though taking risks and creating waves are often the skills that help a person most – whether advancing their career or ensuring their safety. So by celebrating courageous, risk-taking people, we encourage event participants to take more risks and lead more bold lives.

We believe that courage is contagious and risk-taking is infectious. This is true both between people and within a person. Between people, it is motivating to witness someone else’s courage. Within a person, an individual develops confidence and experience by taking risks and living through them; the more risks a person takes in one area of their life, the more they feel able to take them in others.

Once a person is initiated and passes the “I’m-a-risk-taker” threshold, and they know they can act regardless of fear, their life becomes fuller. With new found confidence, a person becomes willing to address unfair treatment they experience or witness. In fact, they are no longer able to tolerate the sight of injustice without trying to address it, because they no longer feel it is beyond their ability to succeed. If a person lives their life in a more daring mode all the time, then there will be no question about whether they will stand up for themselves and others when mistreated.

How does our belief that “courage is contagious” manifest at our events?

At our That Takes Ovaries and Leading a Bold Life events,  participants relay true tales of their past courageous deeds to supportive, cheering crowds. This simple but important act affirms the individual storyteller’s confidence and determination to keep taking risks in their life, both personally and politically.

Because courage is contagious, the story that an individual shares at our event will inspire other audience members to be bold, too, both in general in their lives and also at the actual event itself, where a person may be motivated to step through their fear of public speaking and spontaneously share their own sassy story. When a person steps through this small, manageable fear and sees that they can survive the experience, it encourages them to step through their fear again, later, after the event, perhaps in a bigger way for a bigger issue, such as standing up for their rights or the rights of others. In this respect, courage is contagious within an individual, too.

Real political change on a community or systemic level cannot happen without someone or some group of people willing to embark on that first step of walking through their fear, that first step of taking a risk. Our  That Takes Ovaries events and Leading a Bold Life events give people a place to practice this risk-taking and to celebrate it. They create ripples of courage that spread throughout the roomful of people. In the end, our events have a transformative effect on participants’ lives long after the event is over.

Women’s empowerment

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“Because I had been prostituted as a girl, I was living in the red-light area. One day I heard a knock at my door. I opened it. There stood ten policemen. They began to force themselves in and demand free sex. I grabbed a broom and swung it hard, hitting the first one. I kept swinging and swinging until they all fled. Ha! They never came back.”

– That Takes Ovaries participant

Why and how That Takes Ovaries is empowering to women: A Personal note from Rivka Solomon

Why am I dedicated to the work of empowering women and girls? The answer is simple:

• It is important to me how women and girls and all who identify with female gender are doing, all around the world.
• I care if girls can grow up safe, free of violence and sexual assault.
• I care if women can develop to their fullest potential without the burden of sexism.
• I have a passion for women and girls’ rights; a passion for the liberation of women and girls’ everywhere.
• However, a person must have courage to liberate herself, to live free of gender role stereotypes and free of oppression. This is why I am dedicated to women’s empowerment and this is why That Takes Ovaries holds women and girls’ empowerment events: to spread courage far and wide.

• • •

How does That Takes Ovaries empower women and girls?

We hold our events to create spaces where women, girls and all who identify with female gender can share with each other the times they have been bold and brave – the times they have had courage – because courage is contagious. By sharing our stories aloud we’ll inspire each other to live more bold lives.

We wrote the That Takes Ovaries book, we perform the That Takes Ovaries play and we started our highly participatory That Takes Ovaries events and our Leading a Bold Life events because of this belief that courage is contagious and risk-taking is infectious. After all, when we hear about the bold deeds of other women and girls, it inspires us to act boldly, too.

We wanted our audiences and readers to see how “ordinary” women and girls do gutsy things everyday, because we wanted audiences to think: “Hey, if that woman can do something so outrageous, so courageous, then maybe so can I.”

By celebrating bold, risk-taking women, I hope to encourage others to take risks, because struggle and risk are part of any attempt at personal or social change. The beauty of courage and risk-taking is that they are infectious both between people and within a person. Between people, it is motivating to witness someone else’s courage. Within a person, an individual develops confidence and experience by taking risks and living through them; the more risks she takes in one area of her life, the more she feels able to take them in others. She may start with a gutsy act for pleasure – such as instigating an erotic interlude with messy paints, tracking huge gorillas alone in West Africa,shaving hairy legs in playful stripes, tricking a pimp out of his money (all true stories from the That Takes Ovaries book)– and before long she won’t put up with any timidity, any pussyfooting around in any area of her life.

• • •

Passing the “I’m-a-risk-taker” threshold

Once a girl is initiated and passes the “I’m-a-risk-taker” threshold, and she knows she can act regardless of fear, her life becomes fuller. With newfound confidence, she is willing to address unfair treatment she experiences or witnesses. She is no longer able to tolerate the sight of injustice without trying to address it, because she no longer feels it is beyond her ability to succeed.

She’ll run her sister’s batterer out of town, bawl out a racist cop (even though she is only five years old!), spread her legs hundreds of times to teach doctors how to properly care for women’s gynecological health, mount a pee protest in demand of wheelchair-accessible bathrooms on campus, and save a girl she doesn’t know from being beaten on the side of the highway (again, these are all true stories found in the That Takes Ovaries book). If a woman lives her life in a more daring mode all the time, then there will be no question whether she will stand up for herself and others when mistreated, and no question she’ll fight back if attacked.

That Takes Ovaries events recognize girls and women who are not afraid to act contrary to how the predominant norms say they should; not afraid to break the rules, act improperly, get dirty. All that is part of leading a “no limits” life. So, what is the main message of our That Takes Ovaries work to empower women and girls? Enjoy being bold, and if that is scary at first, marvel at your ability to walk through fear. Not letting fear stop us in one area of our lives means we are less likely to let it stop us in others, from defending ourselves against a single incident of discrimination to changing the world for the better.

• • •

“According to a new law in my Muslim community, daughters are now to be included in the sharing of inheritance. But when my father died, my brothers planned to take all the money and property for themselves. I went to my sisters hoping we could, as a group,stop our brothers from stealing our share. My sisters did not want to. They feared it would cause conflict within the family. So by myself, without support from anyone in my family, I went to a lawyer. We were ready to bring my case to court with this new law on my side. It was difficult, as I knew no one who had taken these legal steps, and because I feared my family would shut me out if I did. But when my brothers heard about my action, they relented and gave me my share. I won!”

– That Takes Ovaries participant

• • •

“When Zimbabwe first gained its independence in 1980, I was offered a job as a Legal Adviser with the Ministry of Justice. At that time, the legal field was a man’s domain: There were only three women lawyers in the Ministry. My job was to advise on the laws that required change and to assist with the first draft of laws to be enacted. As I worked, I began to feel the proposed legal language was beyond the understanding of ordinary people. I brought this to the attention of the Head of the Department. He was not happy to hear this, especially from a woman. But in time, the legal language became more user-friendly. Still, this was not enough for me: After work I met women’s organisations and explained to them their legal rights and what rights they still had to lobby for. When my boss learned of this he told me to stop. “No,” I said, “After-office hours are mine.” He did not agree, so I resigned. I then fully engaged myself with the women’s organisations. I raised their awareness of their rights and guided them to demand protection of the laws that helped women. Later we formed a group to educate girls to become lawyers.”

– That Takes Ovaries participant

Ten Unique and Visually Rich Variations

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Ten Unique and Visually Rich Variations

Choose from a selection of ten preset styles, each with its own custom theme, such as Food or Sport. Each style has three background levels: low, medium & high; which dictates the level of detailing on the graphics.