Category Archives: Feminism

Why Caster Semenya and Dutee Chand Deserve to Compete (and Win) at Rio 2016 – The Ladies Finger

But even if testosterone did confer an athletic advantage, this advantage would not be unfair. This is because setting a limit on hyperandrogenism and singling it out from other biological variations that may confer an advantage is – at best – an inconsistent policy. There are plenty of other variations – biological and genetic alike – that are not regulated by the IAAF and, even though advantageous for athletic performance, are not considered unfair for competition.More than 200 genetic variations have been identified that provide an advantage in elite sport. They affect a variety of functions including blood flow to muscles, muscle structure, oxygen transport, lactate turnover, and energy production. Endurance athletes in particular have been shown to have mitochondrial variations that increase aerobic capacity and endurance. An increasing number of performance-enhancing polymorphisms (genetic variations found at an increased frequency only in elite athletes and that make them who they are) are identified by sports geneticists.

Source: Why Caster Semenya and Dutee Chand Deserve to Compete (and Win) at Rio 2016 – The Ladies FingerThe Ladies Finger

In the Shadows of Men | nadiaharhash

No matter how the man’s role changes, he is totally convinced he is the only one, that he was born to be unique and special. He is the copy that will never be pasted. And what unites all men despite their differences is their absolute belief that they know you better than you know yourself. They are convinced that they possess the solution and the equation, and through them secrets are revealed and masks fall.I don’t blame men for this. And I cannot understand why women submit to this as well. Did the men give themselves this level of authority or did the women assign them this role? Even with the most specific details of their lives and emotions. You see the sheikh’s of men ruling in women issues. Books of law-shari’a are filled with rules that govern the inner lives of women, which, they claim, only men can specialize in.

Source: In the Shadows of Men | nadiaharhash

The accumulative effects of racism: it eats away at the essence of your being | Culture | The Guardian

“For every one of me there’s probably a thousand other kids who have anxiety issues or whose experiences have snowballed into a negative adulthood or depression,” she says. Bullying by no means “makes kids tougher and more wanting to succeed. I think often it just crushes people.”The resurgence of xenophobia in Australia troubles Clarke. She sees an “awful synchronicity” between past and present. Her parents left England in the 70s, soon after Enoch Powell’s infamous “Rivers of Blood” speech, which decried black immigrants and predicted that foreign children would overcrowd hospitals and schools. Two decades later, Clarke watched Pauline Hanson’s entrée into politics with a shockingly similar maiden speech, accompanied by a shift in public sentiment around race and immigration. Unsurprisingly, she is not optimistic about Hanson’s return, the rise of One Nation and Islamophobic rhetoric.“I feel as if there is really a global post-colonial situation at the moment,” which especially victimises children, Clarke says. “There are children’s bodies being brutalised or being washed up on beaches. We see brown children being locked up on Nauru and in Villawood Detention Centre. We see things like Don Dale and Indigenous communities having their funding cut.” But Clarke does see hope in Australia’s young people. “I look at my kids’ generation, and their outlook and the way they behave towards each other is different from anything I’ve seen in my lifetime,” she says. The cultural makeup of Australia has changed since Clarke’s childhood, and diversity in books, television, and online media have played a major role. Sharing stories breeds tolerance through understanding, Clarke believes. “It’s a wide big world and that there are lots of different kinds of people in it,” she says. “The best thing [a child] could possibly do is to learn to get along with everybody, because that’s just part of life.”The Hate Race is published by Hachette. Maxine Beneba Clarke will give the opening keynote address at the Melbourne Writers Festival on August 26.

Source: The accumulative effects of racism: it eats away at the essence of your being | Culture | The Guardian

Sick of TV News Channels and Shouty Newsreaders? Prepare to be Mesmerised by Real Telangana TV – The Ladies 

If, like me, the first Real Telangana TV video you watch is the one about the rising prices of groceries, you will fall in love. On screen is shot after shot of Prime Minister Narendra Modi eating at events abroad, while in the background, the anchor announces morosely, “Unho alag alag mulkon mein phirke alag alag dishon ke maze udate phire. Aate jaa rahein jaate jaa rahein [He has travelled to different places and enjoyed different dishes. He comes. He goes].”When you recover from this, you hear her saying, “Humich haule hai, jo unka matlab nahi samjhe [We were the foolish ones who didn’t understand what he meant],” referring to Modi’s promise of “acche din”, which she says applies only to him. “Pehleich ke dinaa aa gaye toh bhi achha hai [If the old days come only it will be better],” she says. If for some reason you haven’t noticed this so far, you will now realise she’s speaking in Deccani Urdu. Initially you pay attention to how she adds –ich and –aan at the end of certain words, as though this is as important as the news itself. Din becomes dinaa, dal becomes dalaa— it’s like standing in the middle of chudi bazaar in Hyderabad’s Charminar and hearing stray bits of conversation from everyone milling around.I first saw Real Telangana TV when a colleague showed it to me. None of my friends in Hyderabad seem to have heard of it either, even though it was started in 2011 by the Ruby Group of Companies, which also owns Ruby Channel.Real Telangana TV’s existence mocks other media organisations’ diversity policies. A lot of the people who work there are proudly “pakka” local Hyderabadi people with no background in journalism. “Many of them would run autos, or sell things locally, and now they help us write the script for the videos because they know the language and the accents well,” said Mohammed Manzoor, Real Telangana TV’s manager. Where else on Indian news do we see women in hijabs as anchors, or news shows created by working class writers?Manzoor gave me examples of what he meant by knowing the language well, speaking in rapid Deccani about a political leader. Real Telangana TV wants to make news engaging for people who don’t know Urdu, or who might not know the names of political leaders, but deserve to know the news. This means one wonderful thing: Real Telangana is able to reach the audience they want, simply because those who write the news belong to the same class as the audience.

Source: Sick of TV News Channels and Shouty Newsreaders? Prepare to be Mesmerised by Real Telangana TV – The Ladies FingerThe Ladies Finger

Meet Jess Rizkallah: The Lebanese-American Whose Poem On Being Torn Between Being Arab & American Will Blow You Away | A Separate State of Mind | A Blog by Elie Fares

 

I’ve been into slam poetry for more than two years now and Button Poetry is one of my favorite YouTube channels. I love it so much that it’s the only YouTube channel for which I’ve enabled notifications.Late last night, Lebanon-time, I get a notification that a new poem by Jess Rizkallah has been uploaded. Intrigued by the name, I open the YouTube video to find one of the most enriching, gut-wrenching poems I’ve listened to on that website in months.In three short minutes, Jess Rizkallah was able to convey the struggles that she, a Lebanese-Arab-American woman in the United States goes through trying to juggle her Arab side with her American side, in a culture that is increasingly putting both of her components at odds. I mean just look at a creature like Donald Trump existing and at people, many of whom are Lebanese unfortunately, applauding him.

Source: Meet Jess Rizkallah: The Lebanese-American Whose Poem On Being Torn Between Being Arab & American Will Blow You Away | A Separate State of Mind | A Blog by Elie Fares

Egypt Gets its First-Ever Woman Olympic Medal Winner — Egyptian Streets

Weightlifter Abeer Abdelrahman has made history by becoming the first-ever Egyptian woman athlete to win an Olympic medal, albeit belatedly, following the disqualification of three athletes from the 2012 London Olympics for doping offenses. The gold medal for the 75 kg event had originally been awarded to Svetlana Podobedova of Kazakhstan. Russia’s Natalya Zabolotnaya was the…

via Egypt Gets its First-Ever Woman Olympic Medal Winner — Egyptian Streets

With only one real choice, Caribbean Americans need to vote in November — Repeating Islands

An unsigned Op-Ed piece from Philadelphia’s Tribune. The news media is painting the current political climate in America as very somber as the citizens of our country try to figure out who the best candidate is to hold the highest office in our land. Back home in the islands, the leaders of the Caribbean region are […]

via With only one real choice, Caribbean Americans need to vote in November — Repeating Islands

incoherent reflection | nadiaharhash

The only way out for us, is to start reading the reality with a critical and observing eye that can bring us a step forward to peace. Not the political peace that is consumed as a notion, but peace for us people. Palestinians, who are so distracted, shattered, bleeding in so many obstructions and frustrations, we no longer realize what we are.

Source: incoherent reflection | nadiaharhash

Violence Against Indigenous Women and Girls: Commitments from the North American Leaders Summit | whitehouse.gov

In Canada, indigenous women and girls also face horrific acts of violence. According to a report by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, an estimated 1,181 indigenous women and girls are missing or murdered. As is the case in the United States, most homicides of indigenous women are committed by a non-Indigenous intimate partner. These murders—which the Canadian government believes are vastly underestimated—occur at a rate that is at least seven times higher than for non-Indigenous women. In recognition of this grave injustice, the Trudeau government is working with First Nations advocates to launch a National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls.Likewise, in Mexico, lethal violence against indigenous women and girls is also a serious problem. Across Latin America, including in Mexico, it is estimated that indigenous women and girls are disproportionately the victims of feminicidios (gender-motivated killings) according to a report prepared by the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. Given the widespread impact of this violence, each of our governments expressed a deep commitment to meaningfully responding to this regional problem through collective action.Recognizing the scale and complexity of this violence, representatives from all three countries have resolved to work together as part of the North American Working Group on Violence Against Indigenous Women and Girls, with the goals of:Exchanging knowledge of comprehensive policies, programs and best practices to prevent and respond to violence against indigenous women and girls through increased access to justice and health services, with a human rights and multicultural approach;Enhancing cooperation to address violent crimes against indigenous women and girls, including human trafficking, residing on or off their Tribal, First Nations, and indigenous lands and across our borders;Improving the response of our justice, health, education, and child welfare systems to violence against indigenous women and girls; and,Strengthening the capacity of our health systems to provide culturally-responsive victim services.

Source: Violence Against Indigenous Women and Girls: Commitments from the North American Leaders Summit | whitehouse.gov

Did this Swedish cop just make the arrest of the year? – The Local – “No shooting, just tackle him and pin him down!”

Mikaela Kellner and her friends were sunbathing in the Rålambshov park in Stockholm when a man walked up to them pretending to sell magazines for homeless people. When he refused to take no for an answer, but instead lingered around their blankets, she started suspecting that something was wrong.”I told my friends to keep an eye on their things. But as soon as he left one of my friends said ‘where did my mobile phone go?'” Kellner told The Local on Thursday.She explained that the man had used his magazines to cover the mobile phone, picking it up without anyone noticing when he left. Let’s just say this was a decision he would soon come to regret.”There was no time, so I ran after him, maybe 15 metres or so. One of my friends is also a police officer, so we got hold of him. He tried to get away so we held onto him harder,” she said.They called their colleagues on duty who were able to get there to arrest him.Kellner has been a police officer for 11 years, but it is the first time she has nabbed a suspect while wearing a bikini. She said a picture she posted on Instagram quickly went viral after Aftonbladet wrote about it.

Source: Did this Swedish cop just make the arrest of the year? – The Local