Feminism

Rojava’s Democratic, Feminist Revolution A Source Of Hope

November 23, 2015 Tony Iltis and Stuart Munckton, www.telesurtv.net Create! Feminism, Revolution, Syria

By Tony Iltis and Stuart Munckton for Tele SUR - Syria can seem an endless black hole of misery, but in the northern, largely Kurdish region of Rojava, it is also the scene of a profoundly democratic and humanist revolution, which places the rights of ethnic minorities and women's liberation at its centre. Ironically, given the horror that surrounds it, Rojava is the site of the most profound experiments on grassroots, participatory democracy outside of the revolutionary projects in Latin America. Like in Venezuela, the ideal of "the commune" is at the heart of Rojava's burgeoning democracy.

Sentence Extended After Jailed Female Cartoonist Shakes Lawyer’s Hand

September 12, 2015 Kieron Curtis, www.unilad.co.uk Resist! Feminism, Iran

By Kieron Curtis in Unilad - An Iranian artist and cartoonist, who is already serving a 12 year prison sentence, faces having her jail time extending for shaking the hand of the man who defended her. Atena Farghadani received her original sentence after she published a cartoon online criticising the nations government, a practice officials in the likes of Britain, Europe, and the USA face on a daily basis. In the cartoon Farghadani depicted members of the nation’s leadership as goats and monkeys. Naturally she was then charged with “colluding against national security”, “spreading propaganda against the system” and “insulting members of the parliament”. And that is just not on. A goat wouldn’t even know how to quash the rights of an entire country’s citizenship.

Year Of The Woman

July 31, 2015 Rebecca Traister, www.highline.huffingtonpost.com Educate! Feminism, Film, History, Media

By Rebecca Traister in Huffington Post - For only five nights in the fall of 1973, a documentary called “Year of the Woman” played at the Fifth Avenue Cinema in Greenwich Village. Crowds lined up around the block. Arthur Schlesinger Jr., described it as “the greatest combination of sex and politics ever seen in a film.” And then “Year of the Woman” all but vanished for 42 years, robbing us of a movie that captures–in its raucous, weird, unmistakably ’70s style–one of the most pivotal moments in feminist history. The setting is the Democratic convention in Miami Beach. The time is July 1972. New York Rep. Shirley Chisholm has just completed a groundbreaking campaign for the presidency (“I ran because someone had to do it first,” she would later write), and the National Women’s Political Caucus, founded by icons including Betty Friedan, Dorothy Height and Gloria Steinem, is trying to leverage women’s power at a political convention for the first time.

Argentina: Columbus Statue Replaced By Female Freedom Fighter

July 24, 2015 TeleSurTV, www.telesurtv.net Create! Argentina, Colonialism, Feminism, Latin America, Social Change

By TeleSurTV - Juana Azurduy was a South America guerrilla military leader and critical figure in the South American struggle for independence. Bolivian President Evo Morales' visit to his Argentina counterpart Cristina Fernandez Wednesday will focus not only on bilateral agreements between the two nations, but also South America's independence history, Cuban news agency Prensa Latina reported. The two South American leaders will inaugurate a monument to independence heroine and South American guerrilla military leader Juana Azurduy. The 15-meter high (52 feet) bronze statue has been erected outside the presidential palace in Buenos Aires in the place that a monument to Christopher Columbus once stood. “Bye Columbus, see you never. Hello Juana Azurduy, UNTIL VICTORY, ALWAYS… Long live Patria Grande.”

Act Out! [19] – 5 Reasons To End Death Penalty; Yes We Need Feminism

July 10, 2015 Eleanor Goldfield, www.occupy.com Resistance Report Death Penalty, Feminism, Media

By Eleanor Goldfield in Occupy - Hey guys, lose the catcalls, it’s O.K. to just say hi. Activists celebrate the good, the bad and the ugly for America’s 239th. We will take a good look at how activists relate to this day while keeping up the good fight. The episode features art, images, and messages for this past 'independence day'. SCOTUS doesn’t mind burning people alive, but here are five reasons why the death penalty should be abolished. Supporters of the death penalty blame activists of why the current torture of inmates on death row occurs due to limited options on how to kill people and make them suffer. The death penalty is a symptom of the culture of violence. Get an update on the #ShellNo actions and what’s next for the brave kayaktivists. Femicide is a hate crime and Dr. Heidi Lewis explains what feminism really is and how the personal is political.

Scenes From Domestic Worker Organizing

June 30, 2015 Rucha Chitnis, www.reimaginerpe.org Resist! California, Feminism, Women of Color, Women's Rights, Worker Rights and Jobs

By Rucha Chitnis in ReImagine - “There is an entrenched devaluation of immigrant women workers. Domestic workers are breadwinners of their families throughout Latin America and Asia. In so many ways they are uplifting the economies of their countries through remittances,” said Katie Joaquin, campaign director of the California Domestic Workers Coalition. “We see this as an international struggle that is critical to the leadership of women,” she said. There are nearly two million domestic workers in the United States, more than 90 percent of them women, mostly low-income immigrant women from diverse ethnicities. Over the past 25 years, MUA has built a worker-center model of sharing power and harnessing workers’ collective bargaining rights.

Why I Let My Son Wear A Dress

June 29, 2015 Frida Berrigan, www.wagingnonviolence.org Educate! Feminism, LGBTQ, Patriarchy

Research shows that a strict gender education for girls and boys starts at birth. Terrence Real, a family therapist and author of “I Don’t Want to Talk About It: Overcoming the Secret Legacy of Male Depression,” cites a study in which 204 parents watch a video of an infant crying and are asked to react. When told the baby is a girl, mothers and fathers both say that the child is frightened. When told they are watching a boy infant cry, they label the emotion as anger. The researchers, John and Sandra Cundry, concluded by writing, “It would seem reasonable to assume that a child who is thought to be afraid is held and cuddled more than a child who is thought to be angry.” Little boys who cry are told to “man up.” Aggressive and even violent little boy behavior is not corrected or redirected.

Thousands March Against Femicide In Argentina

June 13, 2015 Ashoka Jegroo, www.wagingnonviolence.org Resist! Argentina, Femicide, Feminism

Thousands of protesters marched on June 3 in Buenos Aires and dozens of other cities across Argentina against violence towards women. Shortly before 5 p.m. on Wednesday, massive crowds of protesters gathered in the Dos Congresos square outside of the National Congress in Buenos Aires. Almost 200,000 people, according to Argentine news agency Telam, participated in the march. The protesters demanded an end to gender violence in the country, and the organizers asked politicians in attendance to sign a five-point promise to put an end to femicide. “Femicide is the most extreme form of violence that crosses every social class, beliefs or ideas,” organizers read from a statement on stage outside of Argentina’s Congressaccording to the Buenos Aires Herald.

A Review Of Hilary Klein’s Compañeras: Zapatista Women’s Stories

May 30, 2015 Charlotte Maria Sáenz, www.otherworldsarepossible.org Create! Chiapas, Feminism, Patriarchy, Zapatistas

Volumes have been written about the Mayan indigenous Zapatista social movement of Chiapas, Mexico since they made their first public appearance on January 1, 1994. There have been detailed histories, political analysis, academic theorization, movement studies, activist ethnographies, non-fiction novels, attempts at cultural and symbolic translation, etc. The movement’s primary spokesman, the prolific Subcomandante Marcos, has also contributed numerous communiqués, satires, children’s stories, erotica, pop culture commentary, political and philosophical ruminations. However, until now, we were missing the direct voices of women from the communities themselves. Hilary Klein’s Compañeras: Zapatista Women’s Stories(Seven Stories Press) reveals their perspectives as contemporary indigenous women who are active subjects together with men in shared processes of change and liberation.

Ugandan Peasant Grandmother Terrifies Her President

May 22, 2015 Phil Wilmot, www.wagingnonviolence.org Educate! Dictatorship, Feminism, Patriarchy, Solidarity, Uganda

Keromela Anek tossed her naked body back and forth in the roadway, blocking a government convoy in the remote village of Apaa, Uganda. Lands Minister Daudi Migereko and Minister of Internal Affairs General Nyakairima Aronda had just traveled to the village that day, April 16, with the plan of redistricting it. That would place Apaa in a new region and help facilitate the sale of the peoples’ land to South African investor Bruce Martin, who hoped to use the heavily forested, currently-populated area for sports game hunting. Upon reaching a roadblock and witnessing Anek and some other women naked and in tears, chanting insults toward the ministerial delegation, Migereko began crying, while Aronda tried his best to avoid looking at the women. Local witnesses claim that Aronda then called Ugandan President Yoweri K. Museveni — a dictator who has been in power for three decades — and received instructions to have his security personnel open fire on the women.

The Women’s Court: A Feminist Approach To Justice

May 22, 2015 Peace Is Loud, www.peaceisloud.org Create! Bosnia, Feminism, Justice, Law, Patriarchy

Karima Bennoune: What is critical about the Women’s Court in Sarajevo was the way it was constructed for and with the full participation of women victims themselves. Women designed the court. Women testified. Women were the experts and judges. The process employed feminist pedagogy, with the organizers consulting extensively on the ground over a period of years, and providing support to victims before, during and after the court met. The Women’s Court was the first of its kind in the Europe region. This symbolic tribunal was jointly organized by women’s groups from every part of the Former Yugoslavia. As the Algerian sociologist Marieme Helie-Lucas, Founder of Secularism Is a Women’s Issue (SIAWI), who attended the hearings wrote, “This, in and by itself, is a huge achievement, at a time when Europe is plagued with the rise of nationalisms, of extreme right forces that divide peoples along ethnic and religious lines…”

‘Black Women & Girls Matter’ Wave Of Protests To Sweep Country

May 21, 2015 Sarah Lazare, www.commondreams.org Resist! #BlackLivesMatter, Black Lives Matter (BLM), Feminism, Liberation, Patriarchy, police brutality, Racial Justice, Reparations

Mya Hall. Aiyana Jones. Rekia Boyd. These are a few of the names that will be held up in Thursday's national day of action, slated to sweep at least 17 cities across the United States, demanding an end to "state violence against All Black Women and Girls," including those who are transgender. Organized by Black Youth Project 100 (BYP100), Black Lives Matter, Ferguson Action, and numerous community organizations, the wave of protests come amid a growing nation-wide movement for racial justice that many are calling Black Spring. Organizers say now is a critical time to highlight the black women who are heavily impacted by police and vigilante violence—and who are at the forefront of organized resistance.

The Revolution In Rojava

May 1, 2015 Meredith Tax, www.dissentmagazine.org Create! Arab Spring, Feminism, Leftist, Syria

You’d think it would be big news that there’s a liberated area in the Middle East led by kickass socialist-feminists, where people make decisions through local councils and women hold 40 percent of leadership positions at all levels. You’d think it would be even bigger news that their militias are tough enough to beat ISIS. You’d think analyses of what made this victory possible would be all over the left-wing press. According to Janet Biehl, who was part of an academic delegation to the Cizîre canton in December 2014, the district commune is the building block of the whole structure. Each commune has 300 members and two elected co-presidents, one male, one female. Eighteen communes make up a district, and the co-presidents of all of them are on the district people’s council, which also has directly elected members. The district people’s councils decide on matters of administration and economics like garbage collection, heating-oil distribution, land ownership, and cooperative enterprises.

Rural Women In Latin America Define Their Own Kind Of Feminism

April 17, 2015 Fabiana Frayssinet, www.ipsnews.net Create! Argentina, Feminism, Latin America, Rural

Rural organisations in Latin America are working on defining their own concept of feminism, one that takes into account alternative economic models as well as their own concerns and viewpoints, which are not always in line with those of women in urban areas. Gregoria Chávez, an older farmer from the northwest Argentine province of Santiago del Estero, said feminism must include “the struggles and support of our fellow farmers in defending the land.” Until recently, feminism was an alien concept for her. But like so many other women farmers around Latin America, she is now a leader in the battles in her province against the spread of monoculture soy production and the displacement of small farmers. “I think women are important in the countryside because they are braver than men,” she told IPS. “I’m not afraid of anything. I always tell my compañeras that without courage we won’t gain a thing.”

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