WMC News & Features
A Palestinian Midwife Who Defies the Odds
Feeza Shraim overcame violence and Israeli embargoes in the Gaza Strip to bring new life to her damaged homeland, as independent journalist Nida Khan recounts before Shraim receives her award from A...
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Bitches Get Stuff Done
Just do a search on Facebook with the name of Australia’s new Prime Minister Julia Gillard and you’ll get a page full of results that poke fun at her due to her gender. To pick the two most popular pa...
WMC News & Features
The UN Steps Up to Women's Rights Challenges
Upon the appointment of Michelle Bachelet to head the UN's promising new women's agency, Shazia Z. Rafi, secretary-general of Parliamentarians for Global Action, explains how an international coalition of women effectively negotiated the UN power process to get us to this point.
WMC News & Features
September 16, 2010 | Michelle Dicinoski |
International
Australian Woman Prosecuted for Medical Abortion
In the state of Queensland, a young woman may face seven years in prison for allegedly taking the abortifacient RU486. Michelle Dicinoski, PhD, looks into the pro-choice advocates rallying around her case.
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Half The Sky
Over the summer, I read Half the Sky. The entire book was incredible, but I was moved by the chapter on the sex trafficking industry. I wrote this story as a way to try to imagine what that experience...
WMC News & Features
Out of the Ash Cloud: An Al Jazeera Festival Premiere
An American filmmaker reflects on screening her documentary on Muslim women religious leaders at the Al Jazeera International Documentary Film Festival in Qatar.
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Do It Anyway
In my opinion, Courtney Martin is one of the coolest people ever. I appreciate nothing more than honesty - especially when backed up by intelligence and clear hard work - and nobody is more emblematic...
WMC News & Features
September 01, 2010 | Emily Wilson |
International
Ancient Texts of Everyday Secrets
Arts commentator Emily Wilson talked to singer and composer Jewlia Eisenberg about her latest installation in San Francisco, a project that brings to life the ancient, secret writings of women in what is now Iraq.
WMC News & Features
Military Moms, Still Fighting
The promise of a homecoming next week for all combat troops stationed in Iraq is not the end of the struggle for commentator Cynthia Benjamin and other such mothers, whose sons and daughters still suffer the trauma of engagement.
WMC News & Features
AIDS Breakthrough for Women
In this second WMC report on the XVIII International AIDS Conference in Vienna, Linda Villarosa explains why the development of a medicinal gel is both a lifesaving step forward for women and an affirmation of women and African Americans working to develop treatments.
WMC News & Features
HIV/AIDS: Raising a Clamor in Vienna
Already an award winning writer, our 14-year-old correspondent at the international HIV/AIDS conference, July 18 to 23, tells and shows us why it was important for her to be among the youth delegates struggling to have their voices heard.
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July 08, 2010 | Ashley P |
Feminism,
Gender-based violence,
International,
Media,
Politics,
Violence against women
Female Bodies and Female Genital Mutilation: There is No Room for Compromise
Apparently, parental request for altering their young daughters’ genitalia had reached the magnitude to which the American Academy of Pediatrics issued their policy statement in April condoning and in...
WMC News & Features
Women's Response to Chile Earthquake Immediate and Ongoing
Journalist and human rights specialist Maxine Lowy reports that women's advocates have expanded their focus to help women rebuild their communities in southern Chile after the devastating earthquake of 2010.
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July 07, 2010 | Julie Zeilinger |
Body image and body standards,
Feminism,
Health,
International,
Media,
Misogyny
Circle Contact Lenses: The Terrifying Future of Beauty as We Know It
As Joan Jacobs, in her great book The Body Project illuminated, the idea of teen girls working to improve their bodies in a detached way – as if it were a project with perfection as its goal, rather t...
WMC News & Features
Australia Prime Minister Julia Gillard—Poised to Hold Her Own
Australia's first woman PM is unusual in more ways than one, and feminists such as political scientist/author/poet Susan Hawthorne are cautiously optimistic.
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Julia Gillard and Why We Still Need Feminism
As of June 24th, Australia now has a female Prime Minister. I’m not sure how big the news is overseas, but here, there’s been a lot of commotion. Julia Gillard is the 27th Prime Minister of our countr...
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Is This A Problem of Education?
I know this is a common topic of feminist conversations, but the problem comes back very often in my daily life: jealous (I should say almost mad) boyfriends who alienate their naive girlfriends.
Gra...
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June 20, 2010 | Julie Zeilinger |
Feminism,
Gender-based violence,
Girls,
International,
Violence against women
An Interview with Zainab Salbi
When Zainab Salbi started Women for Women International, an organization that provides women survivors of war and other conflicts with tools and resources to move from crisis and poverty to stability ...
WMC News & Features
Honoring Helen Thomas
In the wake of veteran reporter Helen Thomas's resignation from the White House Press Corps after her controversial comments, photojournalist Jenny Warburg and urban educational leader Linda Belans honor Thomas's trailblazing career as a journalist.
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Indian Muslim Women: Excluded from Indian Feminism?
In India, the Dar-ul-Uloom's (an Islamic school propagating Sunni Islam in India) recently declared a new fatwa which states that it is un-Islamic for women to work with men and talk to them. The fatw...
WMC News & Features
The Ground We Stand On
In Zimbabwe, Kenya and other countries wrested from colonial powers, women must look to their own rich heritage for security and rights, argues the author, Kenyan feminist and scholar Achola O. Pala.
WMC News & Features
I’ve Seen First Hand What CEDAW Can Do
The author, chief of the Africa Division of UNIFEM, explains the power of the UN treaty to eliminate discrimination against women—a potent tool that will only gain in strength with ratification by the United States.
WMC News & Features
Global Moms Bill: An Opening for the Administration to Keep Its Promises?
President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton have voiced concern for women’s safety and health around the world. Legislation introduced this month in the House calls for specific steps to meet that commitment in regard to mothers dying in childbirth.
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Belgian Burqa Ban
I just read an article about the vote in Belgium that led to a nationwide ban of wearing burqas in public.
On one hand, I can see where people who are for the ban are coming from. The burqa does have...
WMC News & Features
Rhonda Copelon—An Architect of Feminist Human Rights Law
When Rhonda Copelon died this month of ovarian cancer, she was 65 and the influence of her ground-breaking legal career could be appreciated around the world. Here, adapted from a tribute at an awards ceremony last year, friend and colleague Charlotte Bunch describes her extraordinary personal and professional contributions.