Intimacy Issues in Popular Culture and Art

Cover of Amy Winehouse

Last weekend, a good friend called me and shared the unfortunate news that one of the more troubled entertainers in recent pop history, British singer Amy Winehouse, had passed away. While we considered the more obvious causes for her death, there were more deeply rooted issues that we drew out of such sad circumstances. Issues such as eating disorders, beauty image, and public image were matters that provoked a very compassionate discussion that reminded us to be thankful for each others' support.

It isn't easy for women, in the UK, the United States, or other countries, to balance their personal expression with the barrage of public standards that seem to fog up our concepts of artists, women, and culture altogether. Ann Powers addressed the unforgiving nature of pop celebritydom in this compassionate article via NPR. This particular passage reminded me of the creative tensions that can overwhelm people in their lives, and in shaping their creativity:

She seemed locked in a battle with the media — her observers both fretted over her and demonized her, and she responded with self-damaging defiance...Women's suffering has often inspired admiration from audiences whose embrace of their tragic heroine can seem like equal parts sympathy and sadism.

Just a few weeks ago, I encountered an artist that I had not been aware of before. American artist Laurel Nakadate's work sort of bothered me at first glance. When I read more about her in this Economist article, I realized that she was grappling with the same (very public) issues that follow many people home--just as she does in her performances. The summation of Nakadate's early works illustrates her tendency to examine the intense voyeurism that many direct at women in general while framing it in her less seductive perspective. J.S. explained her technique as follows:

For several years she made videos featuring lonely older men who started conversations with her in grocery stores and parking lots; she would agree to go home with them as long as they allowed her to film what happened, which would usually turn out to be a scenario of her choosing. In some cases this meant a pretend birthday party (we see the man eating a slice of cake and then singing to her) or a pretend music video (we watch her dance to “Oops, I Did It Again”, Britney Spears’s paean to inadvertent seduction).

Why Britney Spears? Why not? Her work is the epitome of public meets private image, and the damage that it can evoke over time. Was this Nakadate's attempt to weave a sense of morality to the fantasy-breaking videos and comment on the mirage of celebritydom? Perhaps, and it's worth contemplating.

Girls Lead at Google Science Fair

Editor's Note: This post is authored by Virginia Williams who is the Content Producer of the Global Motherhood Exhibition at the International Museum of Women. You can follow her personal blog here.

Last week, three girls won top honors in Google's Science Fair. According to the New York Times, the first place winner, Shree Bose, started dabbling in science in the second grade, when she theorized and then put into trial the idea that kids would eat spinach, if it were only blue.

What was her winning entry several years later at the ripe age of 17? Oh, just a potential remedy for treatment-resistant ovarian cancer. Think this is an anomaly? Hardly, the other two winners tackled equally challenging public health concerns. Why are we surprised that girls are capable of greatness, even in science, just like boys?

This event reminded of the main reason I moved to San Francisco, to the heart of US technology and social enterprise, in 2008. The prior year, as a fellow with the Bay Area Video Coalition's premiere Producer's Institute for New Media Technologies, me and my team created the prototype for a girls' social network for social good -- a place where girls could create projects for social and environmental change via the support of other females. I was inspired in part by my then 8-year-old niece, Raina, whose Internet aptitude was comparable to a mini- Sun Microsystems engineer but was at the mercy of content limited to Barbie gossip “auto-chat” and Club Penguin. At 9, her frustration and boredom with the available options led her, like many other girls, to drift to Facebook, a site that technically limits memberships to kids over 14 but nonetheless is rife with young victims and perpetrators of bullying and harassment. Tween-age girls (9-13) were, and still are to a large extent, left behind when it comes to quality, monitored Internet content, with the exception of some recent launches like New Moon Girls.

Instead of being afraid of what social media “might do to our kids,” specifically girls, we need to be more proactiv -- accepting, finally, that social media is a part of our kids’ lives, and that they need more information, not less, to learn how to use it responsibly. We need to encourage our schools to develop media literacy programs, and at home, use resources available to parents like Common Sense Media or the Media Awareness Network.

Within the international development context, says Linda Raftree from Plan International on Alternet, social media has been virtually untapped for its potential to empower girls and women. The Canadian government recently launched a 5-year plan to measure the impact of social media on girls, as reported by the Huffington Post’s Stephanie Marcus. But a closer look at the plan, crafted by the Atlantic Status of Women Ministers reveals that strategy does not include media literacy training, just public awareness and education. Do we really need another longitudinal study to tell us the effect of social media on girls?

Since I’ve been working with the International Museum of Women, I have witnessed the power of creative expression to promote gender equality and human rights first hand, and it has reinforced my desire to create a parallel outlet for young girls. Although my start-up idea stalled for various reasons, including the economic downturn and the fact that I wasn’t meeting the right people on the business development end who could help make it happen, the tide may be turning. I recently joined a Bay Area collaborative workspace called the HUB, where social entrepreneurs and social change consultants can collaborate and cultivate projects that will have measurable social impact but will also be sound businesses.

So, I think I’m on the brink of “restarting my start-up.” I guess you could say I’ve been inspired by blue spinach, and as I am frequently, by the power of girls.

Valzhyna Mort: How Can This Exist on Earth?

Valzhyna Mort from Laura Hope-Gill on Vimeo.

In this month’s issue of Poetry Magazine, I stumbled across a name I couldn’t even attempt to pronounce. While this may not seem like a notable occasion, in a magazine known as “the oldest monthly devoted to verse in the English-speaking world,” running across a name so unabashedly un-Anglicized is reason to take note. Besides an annual translation issue, the magazine doesn’t deal much outside of the English language. When it does, it indicates that the artist in question is someone who has truly transcended country borders in order to garner international attention.

The poet--Valzhyna Mort--was born and raised in Belarus but is currently living in D.C., according to her Poetry Foundation biography. Her biography also confirmed my suspicions of Mort being an international sensation, though it at the same time suggested her unwavering nationalism. Though Mort has released acclaimed works in many individual countries, she continues to compose all of her poems in her native Belarusian in an attempt to revive and preserve the language.

A little bit more digging revealed that Mort is truly an electrifying poet, in almost every way that the word can be used. Her infamous readings are rivaled only by her equally enthralling subject matter. Though Mort, unlike Anjuman, doesn’t seem too worried about preserving the beauty of her language, what her work in translation does betray is a palpable effort to maintain a certain rawness, a plain-style sincerity that ensures her troubling and often disturbing imagery is maintained:

“even our mothers have no idea how we were born
how we parted their legs and crawled out into the world
the way you crawl from the ruins after a bombing
we couldn’t tell which of us was a girl or a boy
we gorged on dirt thinking it was bread
and our future
a gymnast on a thin thread of the horizon
was performing there
at the highest pitch
bitch”

--From Belarusian

In just a few words, Mort communicates the poverty, helplessness, and abject hopelessness that pervaded her generation and her country. Her intricate and bizarre imagery reinforces the other-worldliness of their situation, asking always: how is it possible that these conditions could exist on earth? With all her travel and success and ascension into high-brow literary circles, it is remarkable that she has not stopped asking this question. It makes our inability--or perhaps refusal--to answer that much more palpable.

Watch Mort read part of Belarusian in the video above.

[Valzhyna Mort at the Poetry Foundation]

[Valzhyna Mort]

African Women Fall Victim to a New Form of Slavery

Slavery is very much a part of today’s global economy. It rivals and in some regions eclipses the international drug trade. There are nearly twenty-seven million slaves worldwide, generating $1.3 billionin annual profits. Some estimates show a world slave population as high as two hundred million.

During previous eras where slavery was common, the new owner was given a deed or title to its newly acquired property similar to the receipt a cashier hands over to the customer whose recently purchased goods.

The kafeel system could be likened to that deed or title in that the labour sending countries agree to the relinquishing of their workers passports upon arrival in the destination country. The kafeel or kafala system is a sponsorship system that only allows expatriate workers to enter, work in, and leave certain countries with the permission of their sponsor or employers, who are locals to that country. It's common in countries such as Qatar and Saudi Arabia, where migrant domestic workers are common.

According to the International Labour Organization (ILO), there are an estimated six million women working as maids in the Middle East. African countries like Ethiopia, Madagascar, Sudan as well as other various East and West African countries provide the bulk of household and cleaning services.

Languishing in Injustice

The main women’s prison in Lebanon’s northern city of Tripoli maintains a stagnant pool of migrant women many, who have spent more than a year awaiting the possibility of having their cases being brought before a judge. Few have access to institutional support from their embassies or consulates.

Waiting outside were two female Lebanese prison guards who were not exactly thrilled to see visitors.

“They have a gang ranking system in here and the Blacks are on the lowest level and the Filipinos are on the higher level,” says one Ethiopian detainee in her native language of Amharic. “The guards tell us to call our families so that they will send us money, which would make our time in jails easier.”

With tears in their eyes, the women press their hands against the glass barrier: physical contact with visitors is forbidden for inmates but this simple gesture signals their gratitude at the simple gifts of food, clothes, shampoo and feminine products brought to them by Yurda - a self-proclaimed social worker, community leader and domestic worker who has been in Lebanon for over eleven years – who has dedicated her free time to organizing donations.

Mixed in with criminals and murderers, many of these women were caught on the streets without papers after running away from their employers because of abuse, rape, starvation, forced confinement or accused of stealing.

“Female migrant workers are losing years off their lives by sitting in detention and one way of preventing this is by allowing the worker to keep their aqama (working papers) and original passport and let the employer retain the photocopy,” says Kenyan activist Naimeh Pelot.

Modern Day Slavery

Lacking legal protections, domestic workers are among the most exploited and abused workers in the world.

Rights advocates have long argued that exclusion from labour laws and recruitment-related abuses has left domestic workers in the Middle East vulnerable to exploitation, sexual abuse, forced labour, debt bondage, trafficking and conditions akin to slavery.

However, a new ILO Convention on Domestic Workers adopted in June aims to ensure that these women are treated as human beings.

“When male migrant workers come to work in construction or other service and industry sectors in Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states, they are protected under the labour law. Even if they don’t have full rights their work is recognized as work under the law, which is not the case for domestic workers,” said Simel Esim, Gender Specialist in the ILO's Regional Office for the Arab States in an interview.

“Jordan and Lebanon are the only countries where Ministries of Labour are in charge of a significant number of the institutional responsibilities regarding migrant domestic workers,” adds Esim.

“In the case of the GCC countries the oversight of domestic workers is under the jurisdiction of the Ministries of Interior instead of the Ministries of Labour, which leaves domestic workers outside the purview of the labour law. The emphasis on domestic workers is, therefore about their recognition as workers, with equal rights to workers in other sectors.”

The new convention requires governments to regulate private employment agencies that impose heavy debt burdens or misinform migrant domestic workers about their jobs, prohibit the practice of deducting domestic workers’ salaries to pay recruitment fees, investigate complaints and labour inspection in private homes.

Today recruitment agencies eager to cash in on this lucrative labour market lure these vulnerable women into debt bondage. Rights groups report that agency fees ranging from $200 to $400, must be paid before departure. However, for most women their first few salaries go toward repaying the debt.

“Policies relating to trafficking need to fall more in line with the reality of forced migration globally because most migrant workers are not the stereotypical sex worker chained to a bed,” Pardis Mahdavi, author of "Gridlock: Labour, Migration and Human Trafficking" said. “In fact they are men and women that are tied to metaphorical chains like debt and poverty that forces these workers to migrate and remain in poor working conditions.”

Young Women Speaking the Economy: Dialogue in Denmark

[Editor's Note: IMOW's newest online exhibition Young Women Speaking the Economy brings 44 young women from four countries together to discuss their thoughts and ideas about entering the workforce at a time of economic uncertainty.

As part of the exhibition, four events were held in each of the participating countries--the U.S., Denmark, Sudan and the Philippines--with some of the exhibition creators traveling all over the world to meet and discuss their ideas in person. For the next few months, we'll be publishing some of the reflections from student participants who traveled to foreign countries as part of this project. This post was written by Jessica Glennon-Zukoff, a student at Mills College in Oakland, California, who traveled to Aarhus, Denmark for the exhibition. Check out Jessica's project here, and explore the entire Young Women Speaking the Economy exhibition.]

The Young Women Speaking the Economy participants in Denmark

After a ten-hour flight from San Francisco to Amsterdam in which I watched two ill-advised (American-made) movies and three episodes of 30 Rock, consumed absolutely everything the flight attendants offered, journaled sporadically, and slept not at all, I boarded on a flight from Amsterdam to Billund, seriously lagging but so excited by the simple fact of being in a European nation.

Nina Koefoed (professor of History at Aarhus University and advisor to the Danish chapter of the Young Women Speaking the Economy project), Bayan El-Bashier (the traveling student representative from the Sudanese chapter of YWSE), Leonora Lottrup (a student participant from Aarhus University and host to Bayan), and my host for the week, Anne-Mette Bak (a student participant from Aarhus University and best friends with Leonora, incidentally), met me at the Billund airport. Nina drove us two hours northeast to the city of Aarhus, the second-largest city in Denmark. (Chantal Claravall from the Philippines arrived the next day.) The five of us talked college, politics, and the politics of college before host-visitor sets were dropped off at apartments when we reached the city.

Alsarah: Sudani Soul Singer

Alsarah. Photo by Carlos Ramirez

When one mentions Sudan, many things come to mind: a decades long civil war, the genocide in Darfur, and most recently, the South becoming independent from the North to form its own nation. But amongst all the trial and triumph the region has seen, Sudan has always been a place that brings forth incredible music. From the traditional sounds unique to various regions to more contemporary popular songs, Sudan's musical legacy is one of diversity and depth. And from that rich tradition comes Alsarah, a contemporary soul singer whose music is steeped in the traditional sounds of Sudan and influenced by music from various regions of Africa, the Middle East, and the United States.



Born in Sudan's capital city of Khartoum, Alsarah and her family left Sudan when she was 8 years old, and then spent 4 years in Yemen before coming to the United States in 1994. Alsarah began her musical training at age 12, and attended the Pioneer Valley Performing Arts Charter High School in Massachusetts before going on to earn a degree in Music from Wesleyan University with a concentration in Ethnomusicology.

Alsarah and the Nubatones. Photo by Carlos Ramirez

Now based in Brooklyn, New York, Alsarah is a rising star on the world music scene. She sings with Sounds of Taraab, a band playing the traditional music of the Swahili people from Africa's eastern coastline. Taraab is a blend of African, Indian, and Arabic musical styles.

Then there's Alsarah and the Nubatones, a band that blends "a selection of Nubian 'songs of return' from the 1970s through today with original material and traditional music of central Sudan."

Alsarah has also been involved in Sudan's struggle for free and fair elections, lending her creative talents to the cause with the single "Vote" featuring Sudanese hip hop artist Oddisee. The single was released as the Sudanese people took to the polls to vote for Southern Sudan's independence from Northern Sudan.



Recently, I asked Alsarah about the secession and what she hoped it would mean for Sudan, and about how her music and message is received there.


July 9th 2011 is the historic day when South Sudan gains independence from the North. What do you hope this event will mean for the Sudanese people? What changes would you like to see occur in both the North and South?

I'm so happy for South Sudan, this marks a really momentous occasion for them. I wish them nothing but prosperity and hope we can all work towards a Pan African vision of subsaharan Africa especially. I hope
this also marks a radical change for the North with a democratic and fair election in the not too distant future. The current regime is nothing but an oppressive machine perpetuating hate in its wake, depleting the already drained resources of the country and pouring it into their private bank accounts in Switzerland. Talk about babylon...

You are considered a somewhat controversial artist in Sudan. Why is that? How do you feel about it?

Am I controversial? I have to confess that I don't actually consider myself to be radical in any way shape or form. I'm just stating the obvious as far as i'm concerned and echoing what many other Sudanese activists and citizens are saying too. Many of my songs are about love and about being open to it regardless of ethnic or religious difference. In Sudan these days even that is controversial if i don't present it with a hijab over my head and a sense of coyful shyness for being born a woman that apparently should be an inherent part of my
gender role. I think the reason most people in Sudan think I'm controversial is because I won't present myself in the mainstream way, and that is confusing in any society I suppose. But in Sudan when you do that people are quick to try and say you can't possibly be sudani....you would be amazed how many people from Sudan try to pretend i'm from somewhere else (Ethiopia is a popular choice, Uganda I've heard too)

Photo by Carlos Ramirez

What's next for you creatively? What projects are you currently working on?

Creatively this is a very exciting year for me. I'm sowing the seeds for a lot of new things I hope to come out early next year. I'm working towards creating an English language recording project with an amazing singer/songwriter and producer, Toshi Reagon. I think this will be a really exciting step for me artistically, allowing me to show a new depth of my work that I don't get to share very often. It will mark a new beginning for me. I'm also setting the ground work for a recording project with my current band The Nubatones with whom I'm having so much fun on stage these days.

Alsarah's live performances are electric, so if you have the chance to catch this woman on stage, don't miss it. Alsarah will be performing at the 7th Annual Arab American Heritage Park Festival at Prospect Park in Brooklyn on July 17th, and Alsarah and the Nubatones will perform at the 17th Annual Arab Cultural Festival in San Francisco's Union Square on October 1st. For more on Alsarah, please visit her website.

Not Lost in Translation: The Honesty of Afghanistan's Nadia Anjuman

Perhaps a product of the human rights spotlight that was placed on the Middle East post 9/11, there are undoubtedly a slew of adjectives that come to mind when one hears the identifier “Afghan woman.” I’m willing to bet that “poet” is not one of them.

Yet poetry--preserved and passed on mainly through an equally rich oral tradition--has a deep and rich history in Afghanistan, particularly among women. The tradition was spearheaded by the ancient Queen Gowhar Shad, a woman who is largely credited with prompting the country’s fifteenth century cultural renaissance.

During the rule of the Taliban, the title of “poet” was one that women were forced to bear secretly, and even this was a very brave move. In the early 2000’s, a young woman by the name of Nadia Anjuman risked public execution in order to continue her writing. She was widely regarded as the foremost up and coming poet in the country and one look at her work explains why. Though a poet’s mastery of his or her native language is often lost in translation, Anjuman’s poems retain a beauty that is
striking in its ease:

The sound of green footsteps is the rain.
They’re coming in from the road, now,
Thirsty souls and dusty skirts brought from the desert,
Their breath burning, mirage-mingled,
Mouths dry and caked with dust.
They’re coming in from the road, now,
Tormented, girls brought up on pain,
Joy departed from their faces,
Hearts old and lined with cracks.
- From “Voiceless Cries,” July/August 2002

Yet even more striking than her language is her subject matter. Anjuman wrote with a level of honesty and directness that was unheard of among her ancient predecessors--with a level of youthful fearlessness that is breathtaking, and perhaps could only come from a generation that had experienced globalization and rapid technological progress. With what can only be imagined as an extremely slight taste of freedom, Anjuman’s voice emerged as a strong indictment of her society’s oppression. With all of this in mind, her strength of conviction is truly awe-inspiring. Her first collection, “Dark Flower,” was reprinted three times and sold over 3,000 copies.

Many would argue that this conviction is what led to her death. In 2005, Anjuman died of injuries sustained to the head after a late-night fight with her husband.

Though there are many things to admire about Nadia’s work, what I find most compelling and promising is its bravery and its honesty. She was not afraid to speak about the injustices that the women of her country faced. Even more compelling than this was the pure and unedited emotional response these injustices provoked in her. This is where I think the potential of Nadia’s work to create change ultimately lies.

There are many, many things that become lost during times of war; it was only during a relative time of peace that Nadia felt safe enough to release her work into the outside world. I wonder: how many other voices, as clear and beautiful and promising as this one, are being stifled every day?

To learn more about Nadia and the poetry tradition in Afghanistan, pick up a copy of Land of the Unconquerable: The Lives of Contemporary Afghan Women and see the essay by Zuzanna Olszewska entitled “A Hidden Discourse.” Or better yet, attend IMOW’s event on July 27th that is centered around this collection of essays and which will feature editor Ashraf Zahedi and contributor Amina Kator. More information about that event can be found here.

Land of the Unconquerable: The Lives of Contemporary Afghan Women Ed. Ashraf Zahedi and Jennifer Heath [UC Press]
The Defiant Poet's Society [The Sunday Times Online]

The Lives of Contemporary Afghan Women

[Editor's Note: The following post was written by Ashraf Zahedi, co-editor of Land of the Unconquerable: The Contemporary Lives of Afghan Women. Zahedi, along with contributor Amina Kator and moderator Kavita Ramdas, former CEO of the Global Fund for Women, will appear in conversation for an IMOW event next week, July 27. More information about the event can be found here.]

Photo by Sheryl Shapiro from Land of the Unconquerable: The Contemporary Lives of Afghan Women

The news from Afghanistan is not always promising. Yet despite hardships and horrors, life in Afghanistan continues. How are women faring against the odds? Sadly, gradually, it seems that many people in the West, so enthusiastic about liberating (and unveiling) Afghan women, have lost interest. The vast numbers of NGOs, so ubiquitous in the beginning, have decreased rapidly, especially in the neediest rural areas, which have become more and more dangerous for foreign aid workers. The Afghan government has little or no power outside the capital city. The Western media has reduced its presence and unless the news is sensational, reports of reconstruction and of how Afghans are coping are progressively more sporadic.

What explains this shift in the West’s socio-political and economic commitments? The short answer lies in limited understanding of Afghanistan and its complexity. Outsiders’ slanted and ahistorical views of Afghanistan and their dichotomous constructs of Afghan men as oppressors and Afghan women as oppressed have portrayed an unrealistic view of Afghan society and its gender relations. In many ways the hyped political promises and idealistic social policies have not served Afghan women well.

In Land of the Unconquerable: The Lives of Contemporary Afghan Women, Jennifer Heath and Ashraf Zahedi examine the reality of life for women today in Afghanistan. They explore what has been done for Afghan women through the efforts of governmental and non-governmental organization, and, most importantly, they consider how Afghan women themselves are rising to the immense challenges, how they envision and plan to meet the future.

Heath and Zahedi examine the complexities of Afghan women’s lives and approach the situation holistically, understanding that Afghanistan is made up of women and men whose suffering and triumphs are interwoven. Land of the Unconquerable draws on the diverse expertise of accomplished scholars, as well as humanitarian workers. These writers contextualize the structural and cultural impediments to Afghan women’s advancement -- as determined by Afghan women themselves. The book offers a large and full picture: historical background leading to insights, observations, and narratives of women’s lives in the present, and comprehensive solutions and social policy recommendations in chapters about the constitution, law, leadership and gender policy, mental and physical health, education, economics, family life and more. These writers propose potential short- and long-term solutions, requiring national and international commitments and resource allocation.

What needs to be done after ten years of engagement with Afghanistan is not withdrawal of support but its further expansion. But this time the aim should be to improve Afghan people’s lives through social measures that are driven by the Afghans themselves and not by the national or international donors. Long-term solutions should take precedence over short-term measures with no lasting impact. Today, more than ever before, Afghan women need non-Afghan support to secure their gains over the past decade and further build on them.

Why Mac McClelland's Piece About PTSD, Violent Sex, and Haiti Shouldn't Offend You

[Editor's Note: This post was written by Cindy Kok, IMOW's summer programs and exhibitions volunteer.]

Last week, reporter Mac McClelland wrote a piece for GOOD magazine about how violent sex helped her recover from post-traumatic stress disorder. McClelland describes how seeing the panic of a recovering rape victim in Haiti, compounded with years of witnessing other people’s trauma, triggered her own mental breakdown (after she found her usual coping methods unhelpful). When she returned to San Francisco, she was diagnosed with PTSD and recounts spending months “sobbing and heaving” at the slightest provocation.

Mac McClelland via Good Magazine

While still in Haiti, McClelland remembers constantly having “rape nightmares” and “daymares” and, when she returned to the states, “wincing when [she] thought about sex.” McClelland says that violent sex “wasn't a matter of recreation” for her but rather a way to recover and deal with “violence [she] controlled [rather] than the abominable nonconsensual things” she witnessed. With her “counterphobic approach,” as her therapist calls it, she eventually did begin to get well.

McClelland’s article has elicited a gamut of reactions from encouragement to empathy to revulsion. However, some took issue not with her self-prescribed method of recovery but rather with her portrayal of Haiti. In particular, a group of female journalists wrote an open letter on Jezebel condemning McClelland’s “sensationalist and irresponsible” use of Haiti as a backdrop. They accuse her of contributing to the “continual marginalization” of women in Haiti, where the threat of rape for them is “tragically high.”

Given the highly personal nature of McClelland’s story, it hardly seems fair for the letter writers to pit their own experiences of a safe and peaceful Haiti to the “ugly chaos” she experienced. As writer Roxane Gay, whose family is from Haiti, confirms with her mother, the guns and the disorder McClelland writes about are accurate. McClelland’s story may be accused of being one-sided, but as an example of a personal piece and not objective reporting, showing only one side—her side—is entirely reasonable.

McClelland breaks from the unspoken norm of silence for female journalists. Her unapologetic piece highlights the complexity of issues in Haiti and of sexuality in general. The reactions to her writing, however, may just encourage reporters, and all women, to maintain their silence on personal experiences of sexual violence.


I’m Gonna Need You to Fight Me on This: How Violent Sex Helped Ease My PTSD: Good Magazine
Female Journalists and Researchers Respond to Haiti PTSD Article: Jezebel
On Journalistic Malpractice, Mac McClelland and Haiti: Ansel Herz
Still With the Scarlet Letters: Roxane Gay

On Achieving Social Justice

Head of UN Women Michelle Bachelet discusses social justice.

At the conclusion of a listening exercise that lasted months, the newly created UN Women released their strategic plan in June. Last week came the release of their flagship report, Progress of the World’s Women: In Pursuit of Justice, which lends even more validity as to why the formation of UN Women is a vital step forward, even if the organization remains underfunded.


Creating Macro Level Change
Months ago, on Columbia University’s campus where, former Chilean President Michele Bachelet was first being introduced to the world as the head of UN Women during the UN’s high plenary sessions, I marveled at how small the audience was compared to an event that previous Sunday where Bachelet spoke at a conference focused on women’s rights at the New School. The students of Columbia's School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) were brimming over with desire to hear Bachelet speak, but they had to prove their credentials before being allowed entry (as if every up-and-coming humanitarian already knew her or his role in women’s rights).

Bachelet’s point that evening was the best way to manage expectation is to share the truth. Recently, the Guardian reported that Bachelet said the UN Women flagship report, “reminds us of the remarkable advances that have been made over the past century in the quest for gender equality and women's empowerment. However it also underscores the fact that despite widespread guarantees of equality, the reality for many millions of women is that justice remains out of reach…. For millions of women in both rich and poor countries, the search for justice is fraught with difficulty and is often expensive; laws and legal systems frequently discriminate against them."

The report confirms the high-level agency is on task and confronting statistics through a worldwide lens on how to forge the most effective legal outcomes and make them inherent for all women. However, Women’s eNews reported when queried how UN Women is pushing for country accountability, Bachelet did not offer any specifics. "It's not only about meeting with countries," she responded. It's about "encouraging decision-making authority for women. . . We have to work with the judicial system."

This does not create a second of rest for any of us, no matter our place in the world. Not only does the report break down the number of poverty stricken, health challenged, or abused female populations by country, it also reminds how important it is to highlight massive achievements within our most prestigious human rights-focused organizations, but also the every day actions that pave the way for women to forge better, more equitable lives.

The Thing About the 30% Quota for Women in Sierra Leone

Photo via Chad Finer

It might surprise you to learn that the average middle class educated Sierra Leonean woman does not think about women's rights. More likely than not she also sees little wrong with the sexual innuendos and unsolicited sexual advances she might face at work or elsewhere. If she's a civil servant, she will not think that the reason why her promotion is delayed while young men new to the service move up quick is an indication of inequality. Or that her male peers with equal years of service seem to rise faster in ranks than she does as a marker of discrimination. This same middle class educated Sierra Leonean woman is neither angry nor infuriated by statistics that say that Sierra Leone is a death trap for expecting mothers and children under 5. When she is pregnant she will give birth without much alarm in a suitable hospital in Sierra Leone, or she will travel to the UK to deliver her unborn child taking advantage of their universal access to health care.

When some other middle class women form women's organizations to mobilize and lobby for women's issues, more likely than not she will not join them nor will she care about the plight of women less fortunate than her. She is neither concerned nor moved when injustice befalls other women of her social standing. In fact she might even look down on the women in these organizations, or class them as opportunists barely seeking individual gains or political power. The average middle class educated Sierra Leonean woman is more concerned about herself, getting or keeping her man, her immediate family, what to wear, and most importantly who to call for the next bit of juicy gossip. This woman is too busy and involved in her own personal growth and development than to worry about women's issues.

So, the plight of women in Sierra Leone remains unchanged because women in positions to empower other women or challenge the status quo are not doing so. We do not see ourselves reflected in statistics and reports that say Sierra Leone is one of the worst countries to be born a girl. We middle class educated Sierra Leonean women prefer to fight and compete with other women who are just like us than fighting for change.

Sudan Tensions Highlight Difficulties Faced by Women in Conflict

Photo property of: Rita Willaert

Kamila, a resident of South Kordofan, fled the state’s capital of Kadugli after heavy fighting erupted in the afternoon of Sunday, June 5, in Um Dorain--a former stronghold of the Sudanese People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) that lies some 35 kilometres southeast of Kadugli. Kamila and other residents became concerned after a large number of soldiers from the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) arrived in the capital, and rumours began to spread that members of the SPLA had requested more soldiers be dispatched to the area.

“The security situation is very bad. Residents of Kadugli town fled their homes with nowhere to run, there’s no movement of people on the streets, the market has become a battleground and basic necessities like food, water and fuel for transporting civilians has run out,” explains Kamila in an interview with Her Blueprint.