FEMICIDE: Why Diana Russell Created This Word

by Diana Russell in The Women’s Media Center

As long ago as 1976, I chose the new term femicide to refer to the killing of females by males because they are female.  I cited numerous examples of these lethal forms of male violence against women and girls in my testimony on femicide at the first International Tribunal on Crimes Against Women that took place in Belgium that year.  I hoped that introducing this new concept would facilitate people’s recognition of the misogynistic motivation of such crimes.

Since then, I have engaged in many different strategies in the hope that one or other of them would inspire feminists… to adopt this term instead of the gender-neutral words murder or homicide.   Read the whole article here.

Wear A Green Scarf: Support The Women Of Afghanistan

by Kate Hughes on The WIP (The Women’s International Perspective)

Ten years ago, Afghan women were promised a bright future… When international forces first went into Afghanistan, women’s rights were much discussed. Wives of Western leaders came out publically in support of Afghan women. Notably, Cherie Blair and Laura Bush spoke about the importance of supporting Afghan women…Yet, as the conflict has continued and Western nations have become more weary of war, focus has shifted away from women’s rights and towards how and when to bring troops home…Read the full article here on The WIP (The Women’s International Perspective)

The Afghan Women’s Network is asking the international community to:

1. Use their influence to ensure women have an effective voice and role in all levels of the peace process: national, provincial and district level.
2. Work with the Afghan government to ensure that all the human rights in the constitution are upheld in any peace settlement. Including women’s right to an education and the right to participate in political life with a guaranteed 25% female quota in parliament.
3. Increase support to development programmes that promote women’s political, social and economic rights and wellbeing.

To Support The Women of Afghanistan this is what you can do:

1. Wear a green scarf.  Doesn’t matter if you are a male or female! And you don’t have to wrap it around your head.  Just wear a green scarf however you feel comfortable wearing it. Then take a picture of yourself wearing that scarf.
2. Go to this site that Oxfam and others have launched the “Green scarves for solidarity with Afghan women” campaign, sign the petition, and upload your photo with the green scarf.

Watch the WhistleBlower: What You Don’t Know About Sex-Trafficking?

Here is a film that will fill you with rage! It is based on the true story of Kathryn Bolkovac, a police officer from Lincoln, Nebraska (U.S.A.), who accepted an offer to join the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Bosnia. While there, she uncovered direct evidence that underage girls were being held captive and bought and sold in a profitable sex trafficking operation. When she presented her evidence to her superiors, it was ignored. When she persisted, she was fired.

There is more. The American private security firm, DynCorp International, whose operatives committed these crimes and tried to cover them up, is still employed by the U.S. government in Iraq and Afghanistan, and was used in Louisiana after Katrina. Although its activities were at the center of Bolkovac’s report, she found that local police and U.N. peacekeepers themselves were also deeply involved.   Read the full review here

A British labor tribunal investigated and verified Bolkovac’s claim against DynCorp.  Watch an interview that Kathyrn Bolkovac did on this with the   BBC (click here) .

An internal U.N. memo circulated to senior officials in the U.N. that got leaked out, indicates that the U.N. was strategizing on how to handle this film’s release—whether to tell the public about “improvements in U.N. policy,” or disregard it altogether.

SlutWalk and Femicide: Making The Connection

photo by Deepak Kattar

by Rita Banerji in The WIP (The Women’s International Perspective)

India wrote off the SlutWalk organized in Delhi as a terribly insignificant event….The actual number of participants was probably not more than a 100 – a ridiculously miniscule number in a country with a population of a billion plus. However, this was no big surprise. Even as the event was being planned, the organizers came under fire from all sides: from women’s groups, feminists, media people, liberals, and conservatives. They were unanimous in that this was a highly inappropriate event to be held on Indian soils. … In an attempt to ease tensions and woo more supporters, the SlutWalk Delhi organizers announced that they had decided to drop the term ‘slut’ and don regular clothes. Instead they would carry placards emphasizing the original message of the global SlutWalks, i.e. that all women have the right to safety, to not be harassed or sexually attacked regardless of how they are dressed. But the fact of the matter is that millions of women, as they go about their mundane tasks of living and working, face sexual persecution on the streets and public spaces in India, on a daily basis. And they do so fully clothed… [Another] point that critics in India have leveled at the SlutWalks. The contention is that there are more serious issues facing Indian women than the one about their freedom to dress how they wish in public – issues like female feticide, female infanticide, dowry violence, and honor-killings, to name a few. On the contrary, however, the issue at the crux of the SlutWalk is one and the same as for all the other above mentioned afflictions. .  Read the whole article here on The WIP.

The WIP (Women’s International Perspective) is an online media source that reports news, world opinion, and commentary through featured articles, byline portal, current headlines, and community blog. Their mission is to provide quality articles from the unique perspectives of women, accessible worldwide, and free to readers..

12 Myths About Egalitarian Marriages

by Kathleen Trigiani

“What is an egalitarian marriage? “asked Kate, an old school chum.  Never calling herself a feminist, she [still] was always the first in our crowd to get the benefits of every activist reform. She made a six-figure salary as a vice-president of a major financial services firm. As Kate’s salary started outpacing her husband’s, marital problems erupted and they got a divorce. She dated many men afterwards, but never got the relationship she desired.  Not wanting to be alone, she gave up and settled for [the] Mars&Venus [prototypes].

And yet, when she first heard about my web project, she asked with a pleading, almost childlike sincerity, “What is an egalitarian relationship?” This essay is dedicated to the Kates of the world, the women and men who want to know if there really is that proverbial needle in the relationship haystack.

[Egalitarian] or peer-leaning marriages are rooted in “you and me”, not just “he”.  [Studies show] they demonstrate a combination of equity (honoring fairness and respecting diversity) and equality (each person has equal status and is equally responsible for emotional, economic, and household duties).  They dump the male provider complex, transcend “missionary sexuality”, stop believing that separate spheres are equal spheres, and have a strong basis of friendship as well as sexual attraction. Ultimately, they prove [that the] Mars and Venus [type of marriages] could never have an egalitarian relationship, nor could they ever be friends.   [There however are 12 myths about egalitarian marriages .]  Read the essay here

Campbell Fellowship For Research on Women’s Empowerment in The Third World

A six-month fellowship is available from the Vera R. Campbell Foundation for a female postdoctoral social scientist from a developing nation whose work addresses women’s economic and social empowerment in that nation.

The goal of the program is twofold:

1. to advance the scholarly careers of women social scientists from the developing world, and
2. to support research that identifies causes of gender inequity in the developing world and that proposes practical solutions for promoting women’s economic and social empowerment.

In addition to a $4,500/month stipend and housing and office space on the SAR campus, the Campbell Fellow receives travel, shipping, and library resource funds; health insurance; and the support of a mentoring committee of established scholar-practitioners.

APPLICATION DEADLINE IS NOVEMBER 01, 2011.  FOR DETAILS AND MORE INFORMATION CLICK HERE.

Making Peace With The Taliban At The Cost of Women’s Rights

As the U.S. government under Obama, plans to pull out of Afghanistan, there is increasing fear that the status of women, which had been improving slowly over the last few years, will return to what it was during the Taliban rule, after the U.S. pulls out.

Maryam Hashimi, a 49-year-old office worker who had witnessed women being beaten for “crimes” that included allowing a glimpse of their ankle under their covering [said] that she feared things would return to the way they were before the Taliban were ousted in 2001. Maryam says: “They [the Taliban] don’t change… if the Taliban has power, things would be just as they were before, when we could not work, or leave our houses, or even imagine a place like this, where we can walk freely.”

Massouda Jalal who was minister for women’s affairs in the post-Taliban government in Afghanistan, speaks out against the 70-member “peace council” that the government has announced, which incorporates members of the Taliban.

 Massouda in an interview says: “The world knows what Afghan women had to undergo during the Taliban regime. They are still blowing up girls’ schools and throwing acid on their faces. Taliban will never guarantee women’s rights, hence as an Afghan woman I see the formation of this council and reconciliatory efforts towards the Taliban as trading off women’s rights for peace in Afghanistan. Secondly, the peace council does not have a single woman in it. The UN should keep on making statements whenever the rights of women in Afghanistan are violated. [It is only] with the help of the international community, [that] the ministry of women continues to exist in Afghanistan.  The international community can keep the pressure on and ensure that women’s rights are not traded off for the reintegration of the Taliban and their reconciliation with the government.” Read the full interview here

What Is Non-Sexist Childrearing And Does It Work?

An old advertisement by Kelloggs cereal. Would it run today? An indication of gender related social change in progress?

from the  Oregon Social Learning Center

Letty Cottin Pogrebin in her book Growing Up Free, looks at families, sexuality, toys, sports, the media, language, education, religion and other aspects of culture and society and asks the question: What is non-sexist childrearing and how does it work?

Do others hold this view? Is non-sexist childrearing really desirable? Or possible? Are there parents who are trying to rear their children in a non-sexist way?

According to psychologist Beverly Fagot of the University of Oregon “It’s amazing how difficult it is to change styles of rearing children. We learn styles of interacting and don’t think about what we’ve learned. It just doesn’t get into the intellectual process.”

Fagot sees sex role stereotyping as “very destructive,” with both females and males paying a price: girls are not given the opportunity to develop their motor skills; boys do not learn to control aggression. As adults, many women suffer depression and sense they don’t control their lives; many men feel a lack of control over their aggressive impulses.

The most important tips Pogrebin gives in her book on how to raise children in a non-sexist way:

An Interview with The 50 Million Missing Campaign’s Founder

Feminist artist, Soraya Nulliah,  did a three-part blog interview with The 50 Million Missing Campaign founder, Rita Banerji.  Below are questions Soraya asked Rita, along with links  where you can read Rita’s responses.  For other media interviews with Rita regarding the campaign, click here.

For part-I of the interview which includes the following questions click here.

• Can you share with us how you challenged the socialization process of being raised in such a culture. Have you personally experienced rejection and criticism from your family or community for speaking out against the misogyny in Indian society? If so, how have you dealt with it?

• What advice would you give young girls who are growing up in such families and

How Media Fixes the Mother Image

  by Susan Douglas and Meredith Michaels in Ms. Magazine

Motherhood has been one of the biggest media fixations of the past two decades. And this is what so many of us have been pulled between when we see accounts of motherhood in the media: celebrity moms who are perfect, most of them white, always rich, happy, and in control, the role models we should emulate, versus welfare mothers who are irresponsible, unmarried, usually black or Latina–as if there were no white single mothers on the dole–poor, miserable, and out of control, the bad examples we should scorn. Why does the media offer us this vision? Read the whole article here.