Canada: Indigenous Women and Violence (in English and French)

Posted on November 6, 2008 by ruxi

“Indigenous Women and Violence”. A report presented to Yakin Ertürk, UN Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women, its Causes and Consequences
Published in January 2008; View document
“Les femmes autochtones et la violence au Canada”, mémoire présenté à la Rapporteure spéciale des Nations unies contre la violence à l’égard des femmes, ses causes et ses conséquences.
Publié en janvier 2008; Consultez le document

Studies have shown that indigenous women have a greater risk than any other group in Canada of being victims of domestic violence. According to the available evidence, they are also significantly more likely than non Indigenous women to report the most severe and potentially life- threatening forms of violence, including being beaten or choked, having had a gun or knife used against them, or being sexually assaulted. This study examines some of the possible reasons behind these figures, as well as providing some historical background on indigenous populations within Quebec. It notes that contributing factors include: systemic discrimination against Indigenous peoples, creating insecurities and tensions; economic and social deprivation; high levels of alcohol and substance abuse; poor, overcrowded living conditions; and the breakdown of traditional systems that granted indigenous women positions of equality and authority within their communities as a result of colonisation. Despite the problems faced by indigenous women, they often have restricted access to services such as women’s refuges because they cannot travel the long distances to reach them, or leave behind their jobs and families to do so. They are also often afraid their children will be taken from them by provincial or white authorities or by Indigenous child welfare workers. The report concludes that there is a need for better funded shelters and other services that indigenous women can access easily.

Violence Against Indigenous Women resources @ International Indigenous Women’s Forum [en/es]

h/t crina

16 Days Broadcast Campaign to Denounce Gender Violence in the Media

Posted on November 6, 2008 by ruxi

Montreal, 1 November 2008. From November 25 to December 10th, the Women’s International Network of the World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters (AMARC-WIN) will highlight the 16 days of activism against gender violence with an Internet campaign to Denounce Gender violence in the media and transform media into a catalyst to end violence against women. The campaign will be broadcast at www.amarc.org/16jours [fr/en]

This years’ international theme of the campaign is « Media and Violence Against Women ». The campaign seeks to denounce gender violence in the media and will cover 3 dimensions: (a) Media as an instrument in combating violence against women. (b) Violence against women as projected in the media which “normalizes” violence; (c) violence committed against women media practitioners. The 16 days campaign starts on November 25th with the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women; it continues on November 29th with the International Women’s Human Rights Defenders Day; followed by December 1: World AIDS Day; December 6: Commemoration day of the Montreal (Canada) Massacre in 1989 and ends with the December 10th: International Human rights Day. The campaign will be broadcast at www.amarc.org/16jours

Community radio producers from Asia-Pacific, Middle East, Africa, Europe, North America and Latin America and the Caribbean will dedicate these 16 days to highlight the effort of women and men working to put an end to gender violence. The programs featured will include documentaries, interviews, debates, poetry, music and much more. This multilingual broadcast campaign mobilizes community radios around a global issue and encourages them to use new communication technologies such as the Internet to extend the reach of their voices. Radio stations around the globe are invited to download the audio files from the AMARC-WIN 16 days website and broadcast them in their radio stations.
Continue reading →

RebELLEs

Posted on November 4, 2008 by Administrator

www.rebelles2008.org [fr/en]

Manifeste du Rassemblement pancanadien des jeunes féministes [en below]

Nous sommes les jeunes RebELLEs qui ont répondu à un appel féministe et nous sommes fières de nous dire féministes. Nous reconnaissons qu’il existe de multiples interprétations du féminisme et nous célébrons et intégrons cette diversité. Nous sommes engagées à favoriser l’expansion continue de la pluralité de nos voix. Nous sommes engagées dans un processus constant de réflexion autocritique visant à alimenter et transformer notre mouvement. Nous reconnaissons qu’au cours de l’histoire, le mouvement féministe occidental majoritaire a exclu les femmes « altérisées » qui sont représentées comme « autres » ou extérieures à la norme blanche par l’idéologie colonialiste. Nous sommes déterminées à apprendre de notre passé, à honorer les luttes menées par nos prédécesseures et à nourrir nos rêves pour l’avenir. Nous apprécions le soutien de nos alliés qui appuient nos luttes féministes pour l’équité et la justice.

Nous sommes des femmes de diverses capacités, ethnicités, origines, sexualités, identités, classes, âges et « races ». Nous comptons parmi nous des femmes employées, sous-employées et sans-emploi, des mères, des étudiantes, des décrocheuses, des artistes, des musiciennes, et des femmes dans l’industrie du sexe. Nous pensons que les personnes trans, bispirituelles et intersexuées font partie intégrante de notre mouvement. Nous reconnaissons et respectons la fluidité des genres et appuyons le droit à l’auto-identification. Nos espaces non mixtes sont ouverts à toutes celles qui s’identifient et vivent socialement comme femmes.

On nous dit que le féminisme est dépassé. Si c’était vrai, nous n’aurions pas besoin de dénoncer le fait que :
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Human Rights for Women ‹—› Human Rights for All

Posted on November 1, 2008 by ruxi

At the end of the month, starting November 25th and until December 10th are the 16 days of activism against gender violence

16 DAYS CAMPAIGN >> 2008 Theme: “Human Rights for Women ‹—› Human Rights for All: UDHR60”

Download:
Claiming Rights, Claiming Justice: A Guidebook on Women Human Rights Defenders [PDF]
by Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law, and Development

Interactive site:
Progress of the World’s Women 2008 Report (UNIFEM)

si citeva informatii in lb. romana:

Campania celor 16 zile 2006, campanii pentru cele 16 zile 2007, situatia cu violenta domestica in romania

25 Octombrie 2008, evz.ro – despre raportul ONU, violenta de gen: “Cum reacţionezi când vezi o femeie agresată pe stradă?”

against violence: “How do “we” Keep a Social Movement Alive?”

Posted on October 29, 2008 by ruxi

women of color organizing in the u.s.:

Document the Silence

In October 2007 people all over the United States gathered physically and in spirit to speak out against violence against women of color. Some of us wore red all day and explained that we were reclaiming and reframing our bodies as a challenge to the widespread acceptance of violence against women of color. Some of us wrote powerful essays about why we were wearing red and posted them on the internet. Some of us gathered with bold and like-minded folks and took pictures, shared poetry and expressed solidarity.

This year, on the first anniversary of the Be Bold Be Red Campaign, we invite you to make your bold stance against the violence enacted on women and girls of color in our society visible. In D.C., Chicago, Durham, Atlanta and Detroit women of color will be gathering to renew our commitment to creating a world free from racialized and gendered violence, and this time, we’ll be using a new technology called CyberQuilting to connect all of these gatherings in real time. To learn more about CyberQuilting, which is a women of color led project to stitch movements together using new web technologies and old traditions of love and nurturing, visit

The Cyber-Quilting Experiment – stitching movement together

news and links from make/shift

Posted on October 29, 2008 by ruxi

The new issue of Utne Reader recognizes “50 Visionaries Who Are Changing Your World”—and three of them are regular contributors to make/shift! Coeditor/copublisher Jessica Hoffmann, writer brownfemipower, and columnist/reviews editor Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore all made the list.

EVENT: MAYRA SIRIAS: LEARNING FROM NICARAGUA, Saturday, November 1, 2008, 2 p.m, Southern California Library

Mayra Sirias of La Red de Mujeres Contra Violencia is in Southern California for just a few events. In her only L.A. event, she will speak about Nicaraguan women’s work to end violence, reproductive justice, grassroots feminisms, and more. This is a bilingual (Spanish/English) … FREE event … cosponsored by make/shift and INCITE! LA.

The latest issue of make/shift magazine features “Without You Who Understand: Letters from Radical Women of Color” (a special section guest-edited by Alexis Pauline Gumbs); a multi-article spread on feminist/cooperative economics; an excerpt from Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore’s new novel, So Many Ways to Sleep Badly; notes on solidarity among queers and feminists in the U.S. and Nicaragua; report-backs from the WOC Lockdown at the University of Michigan and the gender-justice convening in Oakland; and much, much more. Continue reading →

ARGENTINA: Non-Sexist Language for Reporters

Posted on October 28, 2008 by ruxi

BUENOS AIRES, Oct 21 (IPS) – An organisation of over 100 journalists in Argentina has drawn up ten “commandments” for news coverage of gender-based crimes, which include avoiding expressions like “crime of passion” and incorporating terms like “femicide.”

The document, by the Argentine Network of Journalists for Non-Sexist Communication (PAR), has already been debated in forums and delivered to social and cultural associations and editorial offices. It will be publicly launched on Nov. 25, International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women.

Its aim is to combat “invisible discrimination, which is often unintentional, but occurs because it has become natural in daily life,” Liliana Hendel, a psychologist and journalist for the subscription television news channel Todo Noticias, and one of the authors of the ten commandments, or decalogue, told IPS. …

1. The following terms are correct usage: violence against women, gender-based violence and sexist violence.

2. Gender-based violence is a crime insofar as it is illegal behaviour that must be prevented and punished, a social problem, an assault on the right to life, dignity, and physical and psychological integrity of women, and an issue that concerns the defence of human rights.

3. We will uproot from our work the term “crime of passion” to refer to murders of women who are victims of gender violence. Crimes of passion do not exist.

4. It is of the utmost importance to protect the identity of the victim, rather than that of the aggressor. Make it clear who is the aggressor and who is the victim, and indicate what attitudes and situations may put women in violent relationships at risk, to help raise their awareness about their situation.

5. Some information can harm the victims and their families. It is not always a good idea to identify the victim. It is offensive to refer to victims by diminutives, short forms of proper names, nicknames, and so on.

6. We will never look for justifications or “motives” (alcohol, drugs, arguments, jealousy, a couple’s separation, infidelity, and so on) that only distract attention from the central issue: violence. The cause of gender-based violence is the control and domination that certain men exercise over women.

7. It is essential to check the facts, especially from official sources.

8. Keep the subject on the agenda by denouncing violence in all its forms: psychological, economic, and emotional, without waiting for women to be killed. Tell the story taking into account the uniqueness of each event, but also the elements that each has in common with other cases. This will help us avoid the use of expressions like “once again” or “yet another case of,” and prevent a dulling of sensitivities.

9. Be particularly careful with the photographs and images illustrating the article. Respect the victims and their families, and avoid sexism, sensationalism and obscenity. Never steal images or audio material from a victim. When using a musical background, do not select motifs that inspire terror, or lyrics that talk about “love-sickness” or jealousy.

10. Our articles will always include a free telephone helpline number for victims, and any other information that may be useful for them.

via s., source

Anarchism 101: Anarchafeminism

Posted on October 28, 2008 by and.

by Andrew Louks (taken from Anarchist journal Linchpin #6)

As with anarchism, there are many ways to think of anarchafeminism. It can be thought of as a way to promote anarchist ideas within the feminist movement or vice versa – to promote feminist ideas within the anarchist movement. But anarchafeminism is not simply spun together by people involved in both. Anarchism and feminism share deep connections. —- Both combine values of
individual autonomy with collective good and collective action. An anarchafeminist women’s health clinic, for instance, would necessarily include abortion in its services or referrals because women should control their own bodies. It would value equitable service for all, which means it could never be a privatized, never charge fees or institute practices that would exclude lower-income, immigrant or marginalized women from its service. And it would be organized by women, for women in a non-hierarchical fashion.
Continue reading →

Conference “Post-socialism, neo-liberalism – old and new gendered societies and policies”

Posted on October 16, 2008 by Administrator

IGU Commission on gender and geography Conference
“Post-socialism, neo-liberalism – old and new gendered societies and policies”
*22^nd –24^th May 2009*
*Szeged–Timisoara*
*Hungary–Romania*

This conference will be held in the year marking the 20th anniversary of the East Central European political changes of 1989. In the past two decades the region has hosted international conferences on the post-socialist transition that were organised by and for feminist scholars of different disciplines. Reflecting the marginal position of gender studies within human geography in the post-socialist countries, Eastern and Central European feminist geographers had very low visibility in these discussions. For them (us) the most helpful supporters are feminist sociologists, anthropologists, political scientists etc. and feminist geographers living outside of post-socialist Europe. The former groups of social scientists are dealing already with the question whether post-socialism is still a relevant category for research, partly because of the strengthening process of neo-liberalisation that is also attracting the interest of geographers. Thus, it is time to put on the agenda comparing the similarities and differences in the systems of post-socialism and neo-liberalism through the prism of ‘gender’.

The primary *_aim_* of this interdisciplinary conference is

i) to provide a platform for critical evaluation of post-socialism and neo-liberalism from feminist perspectives;
ii) understanding women’s and men’s everyday experiences;
iii) revealing the particular geographies of the gender dimensions of these ‘models’.

Papers are invited on the following basic *_themes_*: Continue reading →

fwd: III International Congress on Islamic Feminism

Posted on October 13, 2008 by Administrator

Third International Congress on Islamic Feminism
Barcelona 24th-27th October 2008

The Third International Congress on Islamic Feminism has been announced by Junta Islàmica Catalana (Catalonian Islamic Board) and will take place in Barcelona, 24th-27th October 2008.

The conference will be focused on the problems of Muslim women in the Global era. Many Muslim women today are facing a double oppression: economic (neo-liberalism) and political (religious fundamentalism). The Congress will consider the responses given by Islamic feminists to this situation, and their contribution towards the construction of a new civil society worldwide, based on a culture of human rights and Qur’anic values such as democracy, social justice, freedom of conscience and gender equality.

Distinguished Muslim personalities will be attending, such as Bouthaina Shaaban, Syria’s Minister for Refugees and candidate for Nobel Peace Prize; and Baroness Uddin, the first Muslim woman becoming member of the House of Lords in Britain.

more

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