Category Archives: Feminism

Women being examined by female doctors in free medical camp held in North Waziristan, one of the seven districts of FATA. Credit: Ashfaq Yusufzai/IPS

Women being examined by female doctors in free medical camp held in North Waziristan, one of the seven districts of FATA.  Credit: Ashfaq Yusufzai/IPS

IPS Inter Press Service posted a photo:Women being examined by female doctors in free medical camp held in North Waziristan, one of the seven districts of FATA. Credit: Ashfaq Yusufzai/IPSOriginal enclosures:

Afghan Women’s Writing Project | My Heart Hurts

My heart hurts

Because I am not

Treated like a human

My heart hurts

Because I have no voice

In who I marry

I am accused of being unworthy

Lies about me spread

I am stoned, beaten, burned

This is not just the story

Of Farkhunda in Kabul

Rukhshana in Ghor

This is the story of thousands

Of women in Afghanistan

Their government does not listen or help

But I am rising

My powerful voice is louder

I write the truth with my golden pen

My heart hurts and I am poo

rI stay in the dark corner

Of my house and cry

By Sharifa

Source: Afghan Women’s Writing Project | My Heart Hurts

Britain drops controversial plan to cut tax credits for the working poor | News | DW.COM | 25.11.2015 {But not tax on tampons!?!}

The chancellor also used his speech to address the controversial ‘tampon tax’ that is, taxing tampons with VAT (sometimes called sales tax) for what are considered luxury items. Some 300,000 people in Britain signed a petition against the tax, arguing that the products are hygiene necessities, not luxuries.The government had already said that it was charging the lowest tax rate allowed by European law, 5 percent, on womens’ sanitary products.Osborne said in his speech that there was nothing he could do about the tax at this time, but insisted the revenue from the tax would be diverted to womens’ charities.”The first £5 million will be distributed between the Eve Appeal, Safe Lives and Women’s Aid and The Haven – and I invite bids from other such good causes,” Osborne told the House of Commons. The first two are organizations for cancer patients and the latter two focus on domestic violence.

Source: Britain drops controversial plan to cut tax credits for the working poor | News | DW.COM | 25.11.2015

Video of the Day: Nicki Minaj recites Maya Angelou’s “Still I Rise”

When I discussed the role that Minaj plays in the Holy Trinity of contemporary Black girl artists, I noted: “From her wild costumes, to her alter egos, to her body that is consistently read as excessive, Nicki Minaj has always been willing to go against the grain (especially as a rapper in an industry that has been predefined by a specific masculinity) in order to demonstrate the power of Black Girl brilliance.” In October a reporter for the New York Times Magazine disrespected and belittled Minaj and her artistry in order to profile the artist for her affluent magazine. When the story broke that Minaj ended the interview early as a result of the interviewers tone and questions, media outlets framed the situation as one with Minaj as the aggressor; proving that Angelou’s take on how Black women are perceived was dead on.Needless to say I’m thankful that we live in the digital age so that I can relive this moment! Check out the video and read the verses below:“You may write me down in historyWith your bitter, twisted lies,You may trod me in the very dirtBut still, like dust, I’ll rise.Does my sassiness upset you?Why are you beset with gloom?‘Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wellsPumping in my living room.Just like moons and like suns,With the certainty of tides,Just like hopes springing high,Still I’ll rise.Did you want to see me broken?Bowed head and lowered eyes?Shoulders falling down like teardrops,Weakened by my soulful cries?Does my haughtiness offend you?Don’t you take it awful hard‘Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold minesDiggin’ in my own backyard.You may shoot me with your words,You may cut me with your eyes,You may kill me with your hatefulness,But still, like air, I’ll rise.Does my sexiness upset you?Does it come as a surpriseThat I dance like I’ve got diamondsAt the meeting of my thighs?Out of the huts of history’s shameI riseUp from a past that’s rooted in painI riseI’m a black ocean, leaping and wide,Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.Leaving behind nights of terror and fearI riseInto a daybreak that’s wondrously clearI riseBringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,I am the dream and the hope of the slave.I riseI riseI rise.”-Maya Angelou

Source: Video of the Day: Nicki Minaj recites Maya Angelou’s “Still I Rise”

Rise in Early Cervical Cancer Detection Is Linked to Affordable Care Act – The New York Times

Researchers say there has been a substantial increase in women under the age of 26 who have received a diagnosis of early-stage cervical cancer since the health law came into effect in 2010.

Source: Rise in Early Cervical Cancer Detection Is Linked to Affordable Care Act – The New York Times

Everyday slights are just as harmful to women as more blatant sexism | Jessica Valenti | Comment is free | The Guardian

Just because some kinds of sexism aren’t obvious, though, doesn’t mean that they aren’t horrible. Julia Cheiffetz, then a books editor at Amazon (she edited my last book), was diagnosed with cancer in 2013, just six weeks after giving birth to her daughter. After getting surgery for the disease, Cheiffetz got a form letter informing her that her health insurance was terminated. She was told it was a “glitch”. When she returned to work after maternity leave, Cheiffetz recounts, she was slowly sidelined.Being “mommy-tracked” – passive aggressively forced to leave your job once you have children – is not new or uncommon. But like other forms of more silent sexism, it’s hard to prove. Of course, even when women do have hard evidence of work discrimination, they’re dismissed: when Evans brought up pay disparity to a male superior at Gawker she wrote that she was told not to “dick-measure over salary”.

Source: Everyday slights are just as harmful to women as more blatant sexism | Jessica Valenti | Comment is free | The Guardian

Branded a traitor, Russian sports whistleblower hides abroad | Reuters

The sportswoman who blew the whistle on doping in Russian athletics is in hiding abroad, pursued by a barrage of criticism from former colleagues and officials at home who accuse her of betraying her country.Yulia Stepanova, an international runner who was herself suspended for doping offences, secretly recorded Russian coaches and athletes over almost two years describing how they used performance-enhancing drugs.The 29-year-old’s evidence formed a major part of an investigation that led to Russian athletes being suspended from international competition this month, triggering the deepest crisis in Russian sport since the boycott-hit 1980 Moscow Olympics.

Source: Branded a traitor, Russian sports whistleblower hides abroad | Reuters

My Feminism Is: Justice Everywhere | National Women’s Law Center

You see injustice everywhere. And one day, you’ll have a word for what you’re feeling, a word for what you’ve been all along but hesitate to call yourself – “feminist.”When you finally find feminism, you’ll find the incredible community of it. You’ll connect with so many people over the simple belief of equality. You’ll grow to recognize that there are systems in place that keep not only women down, but people of color, people with disabilities, and people of lower socioeconomic status down, too.You have always been driven by the desire to help others. You’ve always been driven by seeking to right the wrongs you see everywhere. You’ve always known the power of words. You’ve always known that words and ideas and that feeling deep in your gut that something’s not right here can change the world, or at least change a person. Soon you’ll discover a word and a community that will accept you just as much as you accept it.You’ve come from a long line of women who didn’t always have the word for feminism but always had the strength of a thousand men – no, not a thousand men. The strength of a woman. Your grandmothers, your mother, your aunt, and everyone before them. Their jobs may not have been glamorous or historic, but they worked hard without complaint. Whatever life throws at them, they bear with gritted teeth and the determination you have inherited.Your feminism began by seeing unfairness in your own life and in the lives around you. How is it fair that we have to decorate the whole school at 7am on Friday mornings and receive no recognition or thanks? How it fair that few spectators come to the girls’ basketball games, and even fewer at our cheerleading competitions?

Source: My Feminism Is: Justice Everywhere | National Women’s Law Center

Rights group urges justice for Nepali maids allegedly gang raped by Saudi diplomat | News | DW.COM | 19.11.2015

India and Saudi Arabia should bring justice to two Nepali maids allegedly gang raped and tortured by a Saudi diplomat, Amnesty International has said. The case is one of many reported abuses of domestic workers.

Source: Rights group urges justice for Nepali maids allegedly gang raped by Saudi diplomat | News | DW.COM | 19.11.2015

19 Officers Swarm Black Woman As She Tries To Get Into Her Own Apartment: LAist

Fay Wells, who is the vice president of strategy at a multinational corporation, penned a piece in The Washington Post today, detailing the harrowing ordeal that took place on Sept. 6 and how she is still shaken up. She writes, “I’m heartbroken that the place I called home no longer feels safe.”Wells had just gotten back from her weekly soccer game and found that she had locked herself out of her home, and hired a locksmith to open the door for her. But after she got inside her apartment, that’s when things escalated. A large dog was barking in her stairwell, and officers pointed guns at her. They entered her apartment, and an officer pulled Wells’ hands behind her back and took her outside. That’s when she saw an “ocean of officers.” Though Wells says that the officers at the time wouldn’t explain to her why they were there, she later found out that a total of 19 were dispatched and that her white neighbor had reported a burglary at her apartment.Wells writes:It didn’t matter that I told the cops I’d lived there for seven months, told them about the locksmith, offered to show a receipt for his services and my ID. It didn’t matter that I went to Duke, that I have an MBA from Dartmouth, that I’m a vice president of strategy at a multinational corporation. It didn’t matter that I’ve never had so much as a speeding ticket. It didn’t matter that I calmly, continually asked them what was happening. It also didn’t matter that I didn’t match the description of the person they were looking for — my neighbor described me as Hispanic when he called 911. What mattered was that I was a woman of color trying to get into her apartment — in an almost entirely white apartment complex in a mostly white city — and a white man who lived in another building called the cops because he’d never seen me before.It’s still been an uphill battle for Wells, who says she’s had to jump through hoops to get from the Santa Monica Police Department the names of the officers who showed up that night. Even then, the facts don’t match up. She only received 17 of the 19 names from authorities, and the Washington Post got 17 names that didn’t all match up with the list Wells received. She’s since filed an official complaint with internal affairs. The department told the Washington Post that it was within protocol based on this type of call to warrant “a very substantial police response.”

Source: 19 Officers Swarm Black Woman As She Tries To Get Into Her Own Apartment: LAist