Gender Across Borders

This post is a part of the THIS IS WHAT A YOUNG FEMINIST LOOKS LIKE blog carnival.

According to some (ahem, Newsweek and the New York Times), young feminists do not exist. Those same people also say that young people don’t care about reproductive rights and equal pay for women. As a young woman myself, and a self-proclaimed feminist, I find this hard to believe (hello! *waves* right here!). Those who are fighting for women’s rights, whether in the U.S. or outside of the U.S., they–and by “they”, I mean “we”–are the young feminists. We are the young feminists who travel to Washington, D.C. to protest for equal rights. We are the young feminists who volunteer for people running for political office. We are the young feminists who escort women into abortion clinics. We. Are. The. Young. Feminists.

But I don’t need to tell you this–because most likely, if you’re reading Gender Across Borders, you’re a young feminist, too. And that’s awesome. Read the rest of this entry →

You may think you have unlimited access to water, but just because it flows like the Nile River doesn’t mean it’s never-ending. If you live in a developed country, it is most likely in your culture that you should bathe everyday (which includes washing your body and hair). If you don’t bathe every day–don’t tell anyone!! People will think it’s “disgusting,” “gross,” or “stinky!”

I was a Peace Corps volunteer in Morocco for about six months a few years ago, and it was encouraged by everyone there (volunteers, Peace Corps staff, and Moroccans), not to wash yourself every day. In fact, I felt that it was impolite to take a bath at my host family’s house every day. The town I was living in just got running water–and it was not plentiful. Honestly, it was something that I had to get used to, because my fine, oily blonde hair turned to brown after a couple of days without washing, but I was proud of my conservation of water. Read the rest of this entry →

Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani photograph courtesy of AP

Sometimes the fight for gender equality must be fought at a macro level. Sometimes, the ideas for which we fight become overwhelming and seemingly unending. It is easy to forget that battles for equality are fought by people; people who eat, sleep, laugh, and cry just like the rest of us. Until a few days ago, I did not know Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani’s name. I had been following her story marginally, skimming the articles about the Iranian woman sentenced to death by stoning without paying much attention to the details. Sadly, the case seemed common enough that I could not even distinguish Sakineh from other women sentenced to death by brutal means. I never, EVER want to become blasé about a death sentence, as horrifyingly common as they may be, so this post is part explanation of her story, and part attempt to see the human side behind the sensational headlines.

Read the rest of this entry →

As of yesterday afternoon, when Federal Judge Walker overturned Proposition 8 in California, gay rights in the US have been looking up. Thousands celebrated in California and across the country last night, and rightfully so. And yet, true equality, especially when it comes to the military, still seems so far off.  Since Obama was elected in 2008, there has been a lot of talk around repealing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, however, the policy continues to be enforced, and in the last two years tens of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender men and women have been discharged from the military due to their sexual orientation. Just last week, Arabic linguist, West Point graduate and First Lieutenant Dan Choi, one of the most outspoken critics of the policy still in uniform, received his discharge papers. Since coming on the Rachel Maddow Show in March 2009, Choi has become a full-time advocate for gay and lesbian rights, working especially hard to organize a movement in support of a government repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. He has organized a group of gay West Point graduates called Knights Out, which advocates for ending the DADT policy based on the West Point principles of serving one’s country honestly and morally as well as lead and spoken at numerous gay rights protests and Pride parades. His coming out also marked the initialization of processes banning him from further service in the military. A drawn out process, Choi officially received his discharge papers sixteen months later while participating at the Netroots Nation conference in Las Vegas, joining both the nearly 14,000 Army servicemembers to have been discharged since the policy’s installment in 1994 and the disproportionate 45 percent of which who are people of color. Read the rest of this entry →

In early June, I interviewed Nora Shourd, the mother of Sarah Shourd, one of the three young Americans detained in Iran for allegedly crossing the Iraq/Iran border while on a vacation from working in Damascus last summer. Saturday, July 31st, marks the one-year anniversary of Sarah Shourd, Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal’s arrest. Since I spoke to Nora a month and a half ago, she has taken her campaign for Sarah’s release to Europe, bringing awareness to her daughter’s situation and building support networks in London and Paris as well as co-writing a letter with the other two mothers to H.E. Ayatollah Sadegh Larigani, the Head of the Iranian Judiciary, and making numerous attempts to speak to those with the power to make a change. And yet, nothing has come of it. The three mothers have yet to speak to their children since the one brief visit afforded them in May, Sarah is still kept in solitary confinement twenty-three hours a day and the group’s lawyer is routinely denied access to his clients, violating due process laws. As the one-year anniversary rapidly approaches, thousands are joining in the effort worldwide, taking the important date as an opportunity to speak out as a collective group on this injustice. The weekend of action, which includes protests, benefit concerts, vigils and walks, begins tonight and continues through Sunday. Below is a list of the events. Please take the time if you can to participate in the one closest to you. Read the rest of this entry →

Photo - SANGRAM

The Chinese Government has called for an end to the public shaming of prostitutes in China by police, the New York Times reports this week.  Those suspected or accused of prostitution are regularly shackled and paraded in public by law enforcement, exacting the ultimate price for their crime – public humiliation and identification.

Just because the government calls for an end doesn’t mean it will come – law enforcement officials all over the world regularly exploit and abuse sex workers whether they are authorized to do so or not.  But the move is a commendable one, since the institutionalized practice of prostitution parading, like a nationalized form of slut shaming, is gross, abusive, and absolutely no doubt hypocritical.

On the other hand… righteous groups of sex workers continue to organize and demonstrate worldwide in an empowered twist on the slut-shaming parade convention.  Sex workers demonstrate to call attention to themselves, that they exist as humans with rights and dreams, and to advocate for better services and policies globally.

Just last week, as Emily wrote about, sex workers from all over the world descended on Vienna for the International AIDS Conference to demonstrate, including against the anti-prostitution pledge in PEPFAR, which withheld services and information from sex workers if countries received funds through the program.

I think the demonstration of sex workers is one of the most powerful acts of social justice since one of reasons sex work remains so taboo and sex workers so often marginalized is the secrecy of it all.  Demonstrating sex workers are parading themselves, showing their identities and publicizing their professions as a way to call attention to the lower than low treatment most regularly receive. Read the rest of this entry →

Nadine Moawad alerted us to a call for applications from the Young Feminist Wire that our readers would be interested in:

AWID Young Women’s Dialogue on Resource Mobilization and Movement Building in the SEE/CEE/CIS Region on October 19^th – 20^th 2010 in Tbilisi, Georgia.

On October 19 and 20, 2010, AWID is convening a regional meeting for young women from the SEE/CEE/CIS region on the topic of resource mobilization and movement building for women’s rights organizations. The purpose of the dialogue is to provide participants with the opportunity to:

• Explore key challenges in relation to movement building faced by young women in the region;
• Consider the resource needs of young women working for women’s rights in the region, how these needs are currently being met, and how to fill any gaps;
• Gain new knowledge about resource mobilization;
• Build networks with young women’s rights activists; &
• Work collaboratively to design strategies for supporting regional young feminist activism.

Participant Criteria:

• Young women active on gender equality whether as organizational staff or volunteers or as independent activists in one or more of the following countries:

Armenia Azerbaijan Belarus Georgia Kazakhstan Kyrgyzstan Moldova Russia Tajikistan Turkmenistan Ukraine Uzbekistan Czech Republic Estonia Hungary Latvia Lithuania Poland Romania Slovakia Albania Bosnia and Herzegovina Bulgaria Croatia Kosovo Macedonia Montenegro Serbia Slovenia

• Applicants must be between 18 and 30 years old in October
• They must be available to arrive in Tbilisi, Georgia on October 18^th and leave on October 21^st

Please fill in the application at the Young Feminist Wire’s website here  before August 14, 2010. You will be notified of your acceptance by August 20^th. If you have trouble with the form or need to fill it out in Russian, please email gmalek@awid.org

In case we needed a sharp reminder of the legal battles our sisters are facing elsewhere in the world, the Latin American Herald Tribune reports that six women, all poor, have been convicted of homicide and sentenced to jail for having abortions.  One was a miscarriage, while the others terminated their pregnancies because of rape or other circumstances.

From femicide to abortion wars, another hugely disappointing blow to women’s reproductive rights.

Fuming on a Friday over here.

Way back in April, I had the opportunity to sit down with Aphra Behn of Guerrilla Girls on Tour!, a touring theatre company that develops activist plays or performance pieces which address a wide range of issues. Shortly after that interview, Frida Kahlo of Guerrilla Girls contacted me and we spoke about some of the culture jamming activities that they’ve been involved with. Alas, 2 out of 3 has never been quite enough for me so I issued the invitation to the third Guerrilla Girls group ‘Guerrilla Girls Broadband‘ in hopes that I could have a word with them too.

Now, the circle is complete. Gerda Taro, Jane Bowles, Minnette De Silva, and Ren Xia together answered the call and were gracious enough to take the time to answer some of my questions. For the uninitiated, Guerrilla Girls Broadband is one of the sister organizations to originate from the 1985 Guerrilla Girls group and, as their name suggests, they use the internet and multimedia to combat sexism, racism, and other forms of social injustices.

Read the rest of this entry →

This week the African Union Summit opens in Kampala, Uganda.

The Maputo Plan of Action, one of the most progressive international sexual and reproductive rights and health frameworks authored to date, and put in place by African leaders in 2006, is up for renewal.  The plan, penned in Maputo, Mozambique four years ago, expires in 2010.

Sign your name to this letter by Women Deliver, commending African leaders for their commitment to the health and rights of women in Africa and asking them to renew the Maputo Plan for another five years.