Category Archives: Feminism

New York Artist Molly Crabapple Sketches Her Way From Guantanamo Bay to Bangalore – The Ladies FingerThe Ladies Finger

Gaza was bombed and wrecked during the 2014 war, Molly remembers seeing construction workers taking the rebar from a building that has been bombed. “If you’ve ever seen rebar from a building that has been bombed, it is an evil-looking material. It’s like coiled snakes; like nettles.” She saw two men taking the rebar and straightening it with rocks and tools. And in it she saw an image of resilience, taking the rebar and turning it into construction material, but “goddammit, you’re going to rebuild anyway!”

Source: New York Artist Molly Crabapple Sketches Her Way From Guantanamo Bay to Bangalore – The Ladies FingerThe Ladies Finger

Pakistan honour killings continue despite tough new laws – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Who encourages these brainless disempowered and cowardly “Un-men?”

Children discovered his crime

It was Khan’s young neighbours who discovered his crime.The children were playing cricket barefoot in the dirt street of their Karachi slum when they heard screams and shouting from one of the houses and rushed over.”We peeped inside and we saw our neighbour, Hayat Khan, was carrying a long knife and was beating his sister,” says 11-year-old Nawaz.”He was abusing her in their Pashto language.”Khan was stabbing 16-year-old Sumaira in a frenzied attack, and deliberately cut her throat.”There was blood all around and she was twitching,” recalls Nawaz.Watched by neighbours who alerted police, Khan dragged his seriously injured sister outside the house, then sat beside her body and checked her mobile phone.

Source: Pakistan honour killings continue despite tough new laws – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Men Decide that Apps are not Working to Keep Women Safe. Now it’s Knives – The Ladies FingerThe Ladies Finger

Have you taken a long hard look at today’s papers? Just this morning the recent Nagawara case, where a 23-year-old woman was molested on a main road in Bangalore, was revealed to be an elaborate plot by her brother-in-law, who wanted to portray her as a victim of assault so that no one would marry her. And a man in Shahjahanpur bit off his wife’s nose during an argument. The surreal frequency of these cases, where assault begins in the family or is pre-planned by male family members, just go to underscore the tired fact that conversations about women’s assault need to be much broader, and start with men’s attitudes.

Source: Men Decide that Apps are not Working to Keep Women Safe. Now it’s Knives – The Ladies FingerThe Ladies Finger

It’s Against My Religion to Accommodate Nazis. | Rebelle Society

 

The backlash so far is mostly vindictive, verbally violent, and devoid of insight that tables have turned on the flamethrowers. This lack of self-awareness is stunning, if not surprising. The same constituency who applauded business owners who exercised their freedom of religion by denying service to LGBTQ patrons are now howling at the injustice of being unwelcome beyond certain doors or, in this case, a door.While it’s amusing to observe the confused flailing of bullies receiving a taste of their own medicine, there’s a larger kernel of wisdom to pluck from this story. Even as they are placed firmly in the shoes of their victims, the new GOP are incapable of making the leap to empathy.They see no connection between harm they’ve done and their own outrage at being excluded from places to which they’ve denied others entrance. This is the hubris of white males who believe the myth of their superiority, but it’s also something more troubling.The GOP’s devolution escalated with the election of Barack Obama. At a secret dinner, the night of Obama’s inauguration, 15 Republicans schemed to block the new president and do everything in their power to bring down his presidency. They put party ahead of country, caring little if the downward-spiraling economy bullet-trained to the abyss.

Source: It’s Against My Religion to Accommodate Nazis. | Rebelle Society

South Korean monk self-immolates over ′comfort women′ deal | News | DW.COM | 08.01.2017

A South Korean monk set himself on fire to protest the government’s deal with Japan on compensation for wartime sex slaves. Japan’s PM Abe has also called on Seoul to remove a “comfort woman” statue as part of the deal.

Source: South Korean monk self-immolates over ′comfort women′ deal | News | DW.COM | 08.01.2017

Martin Shkreli suspended from Twitter for alleged ‘harassment’ of Lauren Duca | US news | The Guardian “Trump-dog panderer – he is”

Brianna Wu, a video game developer and software engineer who intends to run for the US House of Representatives in 2018, tweeted that she was glad to see Twitter suspended Shkreli.“His bizarre obsession with respected journalist @laurenduca is creepy and wildly inappropriate. We need to move past this cultural idea that any woman with a successful career has to endure sexist abuse from strangers.”Duca has been under fire from Trump supporters since early December, when an opinion piece she wrote for Teen Vogue that was critical of the president-elect went viral.In the piece, titled “Donald Trump is gaslighting America”, Duca said the incoming president was attempting to “weaken and blind the American electorate” with his interchanging of facts and opinions, his self-contradictions, and his undermining of the press.“As a candidate, Trump’s gas lighting was manipulative, as President-elect it is a deliberate attempt to destabilize journalism as a check on the power of government.”Duca made a number of television appearances in the wake of the piece’s publication, including a combative exchange with Fox News’ Tucker Carlson, in which he suggested she “stick to [covering] the thigh-high boots”.Both the piece and the interview with Carlson made Duca a target online, she said.

Source: Martin Shkreli suspended from Twitter for alleged ‘harassment’ of Lauren Duca | US news | The Guardian

Coachella owner denies donating to anti-LGBT groups amid outrage | Music | The Guardian “Talking from both sides of mouth – he uses funds from Coachilla to fund Trump supporters!”

A major Republican donor, Anschutz gave more than $1m to conservative candidates and political fundraising groups in 2016, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan watchdog. Employees of the Anschutz Corporation also leaned heavily toward Republican candidates. The businessman has attended political events hosted by the Koch brothers, the billionaire scions of an oil fortune and also Republican donors, and Anschutz has donated to their political group Americans for Prosperity, which opposes climate change research and regulations. Anschutz’s natural gas company has also sued small towns in pursuit of fracking rights, and the businessman has invested heavily in a gigantic Wyoming wind farm.

Source: Coachella owner denies donating to anti-LGBT groups amid outrage | Music | The Guardian

WATCH: Palestinian women prevent West Bank home demolition | +972 Magazine

The women of Budrus, a Palestinian village in the West Bank, sent a powerful message on Wednesday when they physically blocked Israeli forces from carrying out a home demolition. Video of the incident, shot by photojournalist Issam Rimawi, shows dozens of Palestinian women standing on the porch and roof of the home, as Israeli army jeeps and Border Police officers idle out front. To the side stands a group of men from the village, observing the proceedings.

Source: WATCH: Palestinian women prevent West Bank home demolition | +972 Magazine

‘I’m an American and I was racially profiled in Berlin 23 times’ – The Local

Nine months later and she had been stopped and checked by police a total of 23 times – while going to a museum, going to the U-Bahn station, or while out to socialize, being picked out of a group of white friends.“It really makes you feel like an outsider. I have never felt so much like an outsider as I have in Germany,” Kambhampati says.“I don’t feel welcome and that bothers me the most because I think about especially the large number of refugees that are coming in and being welcomed into the country… I’ve heard from some that have said they were racially profiled and don’t feel at home. They should feel at home.”But since she’s a journalist who came to Berlin to work for investigative news initiative Correctiv, Kambhampati didn’t let her feelings of frustration stop there.She met with Berlin police department’s press spokesman, who apologized and said the checks could be seen as illegal. But he also noted that officers wouldn’t search a “blond, German-looking person,” before later saying this wasn’t what he meant.Kambhampati first wrote about her experiences in an in-depth article for Vox last month, which can be read here. And now she’s working on an investigation with her colleagues at Correctiv, looking to find others who have had similar experiences.Different histories, different discussionsGrowing up in New Jersey and studying in Ohio, Kambhampati said she had encountered discrimination in the US as well, and similar issues of racism exist in both places. But the different immigration histories of the two countries also seems to have affected how people act today.“In Germany, many people assume I’m from India based on my skin colour rather than considering that I could be from somewhere like the US,” she explained.“I’ve gotten that before in the US, but not as much. Maybe it has to do with the way that different people have come to the US for generations now.“Some people that I’ve spoken to who have experienced racial profiling have been living in Germany their whole lives… and they still don’t feel like they are welcomed into the German society. And that’s largely in part because they’re stopped and asked questions like this.”

Source: ‘I’m an American and I was racially profiled in Berlin 23 times’ – The Local

Italy’s populist leader: Public should decide whether news is fake – The Local – Italy is not rid of Fascist beliefs and wannabe IL Duces

‘Fascism’ The opposition Five Stars was running neck-and-neck with the ruling centre-left Democratic Party (PD) before Matteo Renzi’s downfall last month and is campaigning hard for the next general election, which could be held in coming months.What Grillo is proposing “is called Fascism, and those who play it down are accomplices,” PD senator Stefano Esposito said.The centre-right Forza Italia (FI) party, founded by ex-prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, said Grillo wanted a “minculpop 2.0”, a reference to the propaganda and censorship ministry under dictator Benito Mussolini.Grillo has had a difficult relationship with the media since launching the Five Stars (M5S) in 2009, banning members from appearing on talk shows and giving international media priority over their Italian counterparts at his rallies.

Source: Italy’s populist leader: Public should decide whether news is fake – The Local