Women's Views on News |
- Cuba’s Ladies in White arrested in government crackdown
- Israeli peace activists told: ignore harassment ‘for sake of struggle’
- The fight for women’s bodies and the race to the White House
- Zardari’s sister against forced conversion of Hindu girls in Sindh
- Men’s rights activists named as hate group
- Music and magic tricks: feminist playing cards
| Cuba’s Ladies in White arrested in government crackdown Posted: 19 Mar 2012 12:00 PM PDT
Up to 70 women who are part of Cuba's Ladies in White movement have been arrested as part of a crackdown ahead of the Pope's visit next week. Some of the women were arrested as they staged their weekly silent protest march wearing their customary white clothes in the capital, Havana, on Saturday. Police reportedly arrested 36 of the Damas de Blanco on Sunday morning , including the group's leader Bertha Soler as they made their way to attend Mass. Another 22 were arrested after attending the same service. They were taken away in an umarked bus and although some had been released by Sunday evening, it is not known where the other women are being held. Elizardo Sanchez, of the banned Cuban Human Rights Commission, condemned the arrests, which appear to be part of a wider crackdown of political dissidents ahead of Pope Benedict XVI’s visit that begins on 26 March. “This weekend has been another one full of political repression by the totalitarian government,” said Sanchez, who added that there had been arrests in the provinces. “The worst part of it is that the victims of the repression have been, basically, women.” The group, which had been led by Laura Pollan until her death in October last year, was founded by wives and mothers of 75 dissidents who were arrested in the 2003 Black Spring. All of them received lengthy sentences but have since been freed as part of a 2010 agreement brokered by the Roman Catholic Church that saw the release of 130 political prisoners. The Damas de Blanco have continued their silent vigils to continue to highlight the cause of political prisoners and in 2005 won the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought from the European Parliament. The arrests follow the occupation of a Havana Catholic Church by 13 dissidents who were demanding an audience with Pope Benedict to discuss their complaints against the government. Some of the government opponents have called for the Pope to stay away but others believe his visit is an opportunity for the church to push for more political freedoms.  |
| Israeli peace activists told: ignore harassment ‘for sake of struggle’ Posted: 19 Mar 2012 10:00 AM PDT Hannah Boast Israeli women peace activists in the West Bank have been speaking out online about sexual harassment, which they say, has been belittled by their fellow activists. The problem was exposed by an anonymous letter sent to the Israeli pro-Palestinian group Anarchists Against the Wall, by a woman harassed by Palestinian men at a February protest in the village of Kfar-a-Dik. This said: “there was some 'accidental' touching, and some incidents in which people called me a 'slut.' In the end of the day, it was a very unpleasant experience,” she writes. Over the past two years a number of incidents of sexual harassment, and one of attempted rape, have been reported in areas of the West Bank and East Jerusalem that are popular sites of pilgrimage for international and Israeli activists. Supporters of Palestinians visit West Bank towns including Sheikh Jarrah and Bil’in to participate in Friday protests against Israel's occupation. These protests have become common in recent years and show solidarity and cooperation at a time of heightening tensions in the region. However, women activists have now begun to discuss the events in a less positive light. One activist, who used to protest regularly in the West Bank but no longer participates, said that harassment was an almost universal experience for women activists and that their movement was restricted by fear of assault. "Two years ago we had a meeting of women who took part in the struggle against the occupation. Nearly all the women that attended told of cases of harassment or discrimination.” She describes one incident: “A female foreign activist of the international solidarity movement that was sleeping in one of the Palestinian villages, where protests against the fence [Israel's separation wall in the West Bank] take place, said that one night someone entered her room and tried to grab her.” “She began to shout and one of her friends rushed to help her. Since then I don't go to places I 'shouldn't' go to alone, as a women.” Israeli women activists say that men within their movement have responded dismissively to reports of harassment and assault. They believe that their experiences are belittled in the name of ‘opposition to the occupation’. The anger of leftist women was compounded by a poster published on the facebook page of the Palestinian campaign group Sheikh Jarrah Solidarity. The poster, protesting favourable treatment given by the Israeli government to the illegal West Bank settlement of Migron, featured an image of a jar of Vaseline and the phrase ‘Deep Migron’, a pun on the pornographic film ‘Deep Throat’ (‘garon’ is Hebrew for throat). It was taken down after strong criticism, but the poster left the impression that the Palestine solidarity movement sees sexual assault as an issue of secondary importance to Israel's occupation. Mahmoud Zohara, a member of the Palestinian group Popular Committee for Masra, said that his town refused to tolerate harassment of women and that those responsible were dealt with seriously. “It is unacceptable that Israeli or foreign women that come to protest in solidarity with us be harassed and their human rights be infringed upon,” he said. He added that harassment of women was not unique to the West Bank. “One must understand that harassment takes place everywhere – in Tel Aviv and in the United States as well. “In these protests there is a very open relationship between the Palestinians and Israeli and foreign activists. This creates friendships, love, and yes, incidents of sexual harassment.” Mr Zohara’s explanation for the phenomenon – as a form of misdirected flirtation – leaves much to be desired. Speaking of sexual harassment as similar to friendship or love suggests that the victim is in some way a participant in the crime. However, his point that harassment does not take place only in Palestine is important. Many defenders of Israel cite the country’s commitment to gender equality to claim moral superiority over surrounding Arab nations, and as the basis for arguing that Israel deserves greater Western support. These arguments recall earlier justifications for European colonial rule on the grounds of protecting white women from the perceived sexual threat of black men (Stoler 1997). Allegations of harassment of Israeli activists by Palestinian men is a dangerous reminder of racist stereotypes that have the power to inflame nationalist sentiment in Israel and it is easy to see why activists might want to smooth over these problems. At the same time, the leftist attempt to paint Palestinians as innocent victims is unhelpful for women activists who fear or have suffered harassment by Palestinian men. It would also be inaccurate to speak of Palestinian men as the only harassers when Israeli activists are also implicated. Two weeks ago, another anonymous activist described an incident of sexual assault on the website haokets.org [in Hebrew]: “I was sexually assaulted last summer by an Israeli leftist activist. The assailant met, and still meets, all the right criteria: post-colonialist, post-Zionist, anti-capitalist, etc. And most relevantly, he considers himself a feminist. Until he assaulted me, we were friends.” “After the assault it took me three long days to understand what had happened to me, and find a name for it. “I couldn't wrap my mind around it, because I couldn't understand how someone who spoke with me using the language of opposition to oppression could breach my walls.” Beit Halachmi, an Israeli feminist who keeps a blog called “The Private is Political”, claims that leftist organisations use women “in order to create an appearance of liberality”. She was critical of the response to sexual harassment in Kfar-a-Dik, saying that it was not taken seriously by some other activists. “It is true that at first some people said that we should stop going to demonstrations there. But shortly after, responses on the line of 'the occupation is more important' began to appear,” she said. Israel’s ultra-Orthodox Jews, known as haredim, were condemned around the world earlier this year after incidents of harassment and discrimination perpetrated by male members of the community emerged. These allegations within the Palestine solidarity movement, and the even more worrying responses, suggest that Israel’s left needs to remember that it is not just the ultra-religious that need to sort out their sexism problem. The stories of harassment coming out of the Israeli activist movement are shocking and it is important that women are now speaking out. At the same time, media reports have focused on the experiences of Israeli and international women and it is troubling that parallels are not being more widely made with the harassment of Palestinian women in Israeli administrative detention. Palestinian women in Israeli prisons, including the hunger-striker Hana Shalabi, spoke on International Women's Day of being subjected to humiliating strip searches and sexual harassment by security officials of Israel's Shin Bet. Harassment of Israeli activists needs to be talked about alongside condemnation of the abuse of Palestinian women within Israel’s prisons, to see that in these cases, gender, not nationality, is the greater boundary.  |
| The fight for women’s bodies and the race to the White House Posted: 19 Mar 2012 08:00 AM PDT
Although taxation was predicted as the issue that would dominate the 2012 US presidential election, abortion, birth control and gay marriage have so far been at the forefront of the Republican primaries. This year a record number of states, including Oklahoma, Virginia and Pennsylvania have enacted legislation restricting women’s access to abortion. The leading Republican candidates, Rick Santorum and Mitt Romney have both stated their opposition to gay marriage, abortion and contraception. Given that that Obama probably won the 2008 election because of support from female voters (and his popularity among women is apparently on the rise), the question is – why have the Republican candidates declared war on women’s bodies? True, social conservatism is a necessary staple of Republican political rhetoric with over 70 per cent of Republican voters describing themselves as "conservative" or "very conservative". The Irish Times reported that Romney repeated the words "conservative" and "conservatism" 20 times in an address to the Conservative Political Action Committee in early February. One way of proving your conservative pedigree is to pillory the so-called liberal excess of the democrats and the unashamedly pro-liberal approach of the Obama administration, epitomized by his recent push to extend insurance cover to female contraception. And there is nothing like the divisive issues of abortion, contraception and gay marriage to galvanise the republicans’ core supporters over the last two decades – the religious right and white middle-class voters. Witness the stunning success of Santorum, a candidate previously unknown outside his home-state of Pennsylvania six months ago. Santorum has attracted the support of the most conservative of Republican voters with his stance on the social issues that energize and mobilize voters from the religious right. Evangelical Christians and Christian fundamentalists have emerged as the “bedrock” of the Republican party. In the 2012 Republican primary elections, for example, they account for over 50 per cent of voter turnout, with Santorum the primary beneficiary. During the 1990s the Christian Coalition, a religious conservative lobby group formed by televangelist Pat Robertson, played a considerable hand in the 1994 mid-term landslide for the Republicans and George W. Bush‘s successful presidential campaigns in 2000 and 2004. The rise of the religious right, an amalgamation of religious conservative Christian denominations has its more immediate beginnings in the civil and cultural revolutions of the 1960s. This is clearly evident in the policies of organizations such as the Christian Coalition of America and Focus on the Family which promote the sanctity of human life, traditional marriage and religious freedom while condemning pre-marital sex, homosexuality and contraception. But Romney and Santorum’s conservative tug-of-war is, hopefully, pushing them further from the presidential office as the Republican party’s traditional demographic of religious and white voters begins to age. The problem is that while the Republican party in general, and Romney and Santorum in particular, try to distinguish themselves from the Democratic "left", the rights that women have enjoyed in most states since the 1960s continue to be eroded.  |
| Zardari’s sister against forced conversion of Hindu girls in Sindh Posted: 19 Mar 2012 06:00 AM PDT
Dr Azra Fazl, a member of the Pakistan national assembly and sister of the Pakistan president, spoke out last week about Hindu girls being kidnapped and held against their will in Sindh madrassas. Speaking to the Pakistan National Assembly, Fazl referred to the case of Faryal Shah – original name Rinkle Kumari – whose relatives believe she was forced to convert to Islam and marry a Muslim man earlier this month. Her alleged capture led to major protests from the Hindu community. Members of the All Sindh Mahshoori Jamaat, the Pakistan Hindu Council, and the Minority Leaders Alliance, all demanded that she be returned to her parents. Fazl told the Assembly that her brother, president Asif Ali Zardari, had received a letter from Californian Congressman Brad Sherman, urging him to take action. To add to the confusion however, Faryal has since insisted that she converted to Islam of her own accord before marrying Naveed Shah. Her public announcement has led to concerns over her safety and Sindh police have taken both her and another convert, Lata Kumari, into protective custody in Islamabad. It has emerged, however, that two other Hindu girls had been abducted a few months previous with no knowledge of their whereabouts. In the meantime, the Assembly's Standing Committee on Human Rights directed Sindh police to begin registering the cases of vulnerable Hindu girls and to prioritize their recovery. Dr Fazl, who is also a member of Pakistan's People Party (PPP), warned that the court needed to assess the mistreatment of minority communities and to protect their rights. She has received support from some parliamentarians including Nafeesa Shah, who called for new legislative measures to be taken to end forced conversions. However, fellow PPP member, Pir Abdul Haq Mian Mithu, said that if the party was seen as responsible for introducing the legislation, it would greatly damage their chances in the next general election. Pakistan was an 'Islamic Republic', he claimed, and since Faryal Shah had said she had converted of her own free will, a ban on conversion was redundant. Pakistan is already considered to be one of 10 world countries "failing to sufficiently protect religious rights". If this legislation does pass, minority communities in Sindh and the rest of Pakistan will no longer feel subject to oppression by the ruling majority.  |
| Men’s rights activists named as hate group Posted: 19 Mar 2012 04:00 AM PDT
The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), a US non-profit organisation dedicated to fighting hate and bigotry, has named men's rights activists (MRAs) as a hate group in its latest quarterly publication. In an issue entitled The Year in Hate and Extremism, the SPLC, based in Montgomery, Alabama, explores how MRAs spread false claims about women:
Shining the spotlight on the recent suicide of an MRA – seen as a call-to-arms for American MRAs – the SPLC outline how this man became disgruntled with the family law courts after he abused his four-year old daughter:
Some of the false claims include an insistence that men are victimized by sex crimes and abuse as much, if not more, than women but that the courts 'outrageously favour women'. And that as many women attack men as the other way round. Or that half or more of the sexual assaults reported by women never took place and that women routinely lie about rape. As feminist bloggers know only too well, these claims can be found in the comments section of any article that focuses on the harms done to women by male centric societies that consistently portray women primarily as sexual objects who are not capable of sitting in the rooms where the manly art of decision making takes place. Consequently, women are under-represented in any space where decisions affecting their lives are made, resulting in political, economic and reproductive discrimination. Any attempts to redress this balance, for example, women's studies courses that focus on the power structures that were originally developed by men for men, are dismissed as unscholarly in that 'using gender as a means of analysis is flawed', and that they indoctrinate students with one worldview. Take the recent case brought by student Tom Martin against the London School of Economics (LSE) as a good example. Citing the Gender, Media and Culture masters course as 'systematically anti-male' and therefore overlooking men's issues, Martin criticised the course (leaving it after only six weeks) as having an over simplistic view of men as perpetrators and women as victims. Martin lost his case earlier this year after the judge said it was too weak to proceed to trial. However, Martin has had wide coverage in the media since he brought his case, asking for donations to fund it and also setting up websites and twitter feeds such as The Missing Minister which includes comments such as:
He is also quoted as saying:
This level of anger against women is difficult to fathom – there are acres of statistics, studies and reports about how women suffer under a male centric society and yet MRAs dismiss these as false in the face of overwhelming evidence. Even concrete examples of sexual assault, reflected by the recent Mumsnet campaign We Believe You, are attacked, with Fathers4Justice stating that :
This led to Justine Roberts, CEO of Mumsnet, issuing a statement in which she comments:
In addition, misogyny is found in rape jokes on Facebook, and vile comments on sites such as Unilad. Meanwhile, there are many decent men out there who do believe that women are discriminated against, who would never dream of sexually assaulting women, who are good, consistent fathers to their children, but where are their voices? Why do they not speak up in support of the women in their lives? Why do they not shut down the rape jokes told in their presence? Or call out deadbeat dads who don't see or pay maintenance for their children? Report when they hear accounts of sexual assault in the pub? Why? If you are a man and wish to state your case against MRAs, please let us know.  |
| Music and magic tricks: feminist playing cards Posted: 19 Mar 2012 01:57 AM PDT Rosy Moorhead If you had to name your favourite feminist musician, who would it be? Beth Ditto? Joan Baez? Edith Piaf? It has to be an artist who has not only given the world great music, but who has also contributed to the advancement of women’s rights, for example by being the first woman to make it in their genre or because of their activism. Tori Amos, for instance, co-founded the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network (RAINN), a helpline in the US that connects callers with their local rape crisis centre. Homoground, a media company and platform for LGBTQ musicians, has decided to make a custom deck of playing cards featuring images of 52 feminist musicians, from a range of different genres and generations, by 14 artists. The project’s creative director, Lynn Casper, who describes herself as a queer Filipina/American nerd, explains where she got the idea. "I wanted to do a fun and creative project with Homoground [of which she is the founder, producer and host]. I had thought about doing T-shirts and things, but they all sounded boring to me. "I’d always liked the idea of doing trading cards or collectors cards, but playing cards seemed more practical and universal. "Since Homoground focuses specifically on music, I immediately thought of featuring different bands on the cards, and came up with a theme of feminist musicians." Casper, 28, approached a few of her artist friends to see what they though. They wanted to be involved right away and suggested other artists they knew, many of whose work Casper already admired. The artists were free to pick out the musicians they wanted to draw, the only criteria being that it be someone who really meant something to them, either in terms of respecting them for their work, experiencing a life epiphany at one of their shows or discovering their identity through the musician’s song lyrics. The women artists are Emily Henderson, Andrea Rae Georgas, Ramsey Beyer, Lauren Denitzio, Liz Prince, Marissa Paternoster, Clare Brown, Jacki Sullivan, Brandi Lee, Cristy Road, Ginny Maki, Citizen A, Martha Rich and Kay Kelley. Many of the artists’ work has been used to forward the feminist movement, and a number are actively involved in activism in their communities. Casper wants the deck of cards make a mark on history. "Cards have been around since the 8th century," she says, "and many decks reflect the society and cultures of the time. "It’s a chance to document amazing women who have made major accomplishments in music as well as a fun way to educate people and start conversations about these women. "It will also highlight the beautiful artwork that the artists involved make." To make the deck will take money – $12,000. They have until Wednesday, March 21 to reach that goal and are hoping that music lovers, people who believe in equality and people who identify as feminists will want to be involved. Casper hopes to be holding the beautiful, finished deck in her hands by May. Homoground is a resource for LGBTQ and allied musicians and music lovers. They put out weekly podcasts featuring music from independent bands and ‘mixtapes’ by a variety of Djs, activists, film-makers and DIY groups. Casper started the platform just over a year ago because she wanted to discover new music that aligned with her values, as well as to promote bands that "don’t get the attention they deserve". The site has grown from simply being a podcast featuring her friends’ bands into a fully-fledged media company that books and promotes events and artists, which aims to raise awareness of the issues facing the LGBTQ community. If you would like to make a contribution to help get these cards produced, visit the Feminist Playing Cards fundraising site before March 21. As Casper says: "It’s a perfect opportunity to educate people about amazing women in a really fun and aesthetically pleasing way. "I think the dialogues they would spark around a poker table would be pretty interesting!"  |
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