This holiday season, support the Ms. Women in Prison and Domestic Violence Shelters program!

*Help send "Ms". magazine to women in prisons and domestic violence shelters. [ [link removed] ]*

Dear John,

*Out of sight should not mean out of mind – and heart. But the tragedy for women in prison is that it often does.* For the rest of us, this invisibility keeps us from realizing how much women in prison may resemble you and me:

80 percent are mothers, and this year alone, incarceration will separate 2.3 million mothers from their children.

Most women in prison are not a danger to society. About 82 percent have been convicted of non-violent crimes. Often, they are suffering unfairly harsh consequences even for nonviolent crimes; for example, possessing or selling illegal drugs. Even many of the women convicted of murder have actually killed a violent partner in self-defense, yet not been allowed to plead self-defense.

Yet women and girls are the fastest growing incarcerated population in the United States today. Over the course of the past four decades, women's state prison populations have grown more than 834 percent-more than doubling the rate of growth in men's prisons. And the incarceration rates for women of color outpace their white counterparts: black women are twice as likely as white women to be incarcerated.

*We at "Ms". magazine want women in prison to know they are seen and valued* [ [link removed] ]*. *Because domestic violence shelters can be almost as isolating as prisons – and often lack libraries or any reading material, just as many prisons do – we decided to include women in those shelters too.

*That's why we started the "Ms". magazine Prison and Domestic Violence Shelter Program. [ [link removed] ] *Now, we're reaching 8,242 federal, state and county prisoners and women in hundreds of shelters with "Ms". That's a fraction of the total, but it's a number we're proud of and hope to keep growing.

It is funded by charitable contributions earmarked for this purpose, and also by "Ms". community members who buy an extra membership for a friend they don't know.

*Please make a tax-deductible contribution to the "Ms". Prison and Domestic Violence Shelter Program. [ [link removed] ]* Let women on the inside know they are not alone. And let survivors of domestic violence who are now in shelters know it's unfair for them to be deprived of home while the criminal is free.

On the outside, the women's movement brings us support, facts, creativity, humor and a sense of community. Pass it on.

In friendship,
Gloria Steinem