WMC News & Features
Afghan Women to Obama: We Must Be at the Table!
The author, a global affairs professor who has worked extensively in Afghanistan, talks to Dr. Masooda Jalal, a political leader and the subject of a new documentary. Her message: women must be involved in peace making; the Taliban and warlords are “only powerful because we allow them to be.”
WMC News & Features
New U.S. Policy in AfPak: Looking for Mr. Moderate Taliban
To those who advocate making peace with certain elements of the Taliban, the author, who has worked to secure human rights with Pakistani legislators across the ideological spectrum, argues against any prospective deal that sacrifices women’s empowerment.
WMC News & Features
Why We Must Still Remember
Beginning in 2006, the Women’s Media Center began a series of articles to alert the public about violence against women involving U.S. soldiers in Iraq. Helen Zia, a WMC board member, explains why we must continue to demand justice.
WMC News & Features
Of Slumdog and Loveleen
The author, a filmmaker herself, considers what the woman with the title of “co-director” contributed to the remarkable success of a leading contender for both best director and best picture at this year’s Oscars—and what the controversy means for women filmmakers.
WMC News & Features
Turning the Tide against the Taliban: What Works
The Obama Administration must empower the Pakistani people, who have already shown that they’re ready and able to stand up against the forces oppressing women and girls in the valley of Swat and elsewhere. Here, the secretary-general of Parliamentarians for Global Action, tells us how.
WMC News & Features
February 02, 2009 | Marianne Schnall |
Arts and culture,
Feminism,
Health,
International,
Politics,
Violence against women
Turning Pain to Power
Women and girls in eastern Congo suffer sexual atrocities that are tactics of war in the region. Playwright Eve Ensler has joined with Dr. Denis Mukwege to ask us to imagine the unimaginable, to empathize and join together to end the terror.
WMC News & Features
A War on Pakistan's Schoolgirls
In a remarkably beautiful area of Pakistan, the Taliban is making a nightmare of girls’ lives. The author, a Pakistani lawyer and staff member of Equality Now, tells us how the Obama Administration can avoid the mistakes of its predecessor.
WMC News & Features
Mothers Linked World Wide
They met in Toronto and cemented a movement of mothers that now promises a global network, with a website and a wide-ranging set of objectives. The author helped film a documentary tracing their progress.
WMC News & Features
A Quiet Revolution in the Developing World
The Gates Foundation has found an experienced adviser who knows as much as anyone about the importance of focusing on women to increase agricultural production in those countries where hungry people need it most. And her gender-sensitive policy does not end with the farmers.
WMC News & Features
November 24, 2008 | Hamedah Hasan, Melissa Mummert |
Arts and culture,
International,
Media,
Politics
Concrete Bed
As a result of Draconian federal sentencing laws imposed since the 1980s, the author, caught on the edges of her cousin’s cocaine-selling operation, remains locked up despite what her trial judge called her “extraordinary rehabilitation.” While we seek out family during this holiday season, she longs for her three daughters and hopes that a documentary about her case will influence judicial policy makers.
WMC News & Features
Voices Carry: The Fight for Women’s Rights in the Catholic Church
Roman Catholic supporters of Barack Obama undergo intimidation by church leaders because of their candidate’s pro-choice views. Father Roy Bourgeois faces excommunication for co-presiding over the ordination of a woman as priest. Author Angela Bonavoglia connects the dots within a deeply misogynistic tendency of the church hierarchy that members are resisting—from the pews and from the pulpit.
WMC News & Features
National Security: Women Must Define the Priorities Debate
The ‘guns versus butter’ debate is on the way out. Even the U.S. military has realized the importance of providing the latter. For this election and beyond, women leaders are learning how to recast ...
WMC News & Features
September 11, 2008 International
Russian Women Look Outward to Create Change
The Russian conflict with Georgia may as some predict risk a return to Cold War-style relations. But from what I saw in Chuvashia, an autonomous republic in the Russian Federation, 600 kilometers east of Moscow—from the vantage point of an innovative summer camp that was nearing season’s end—changes in the two decades since the fall of the Soviet Union have taken root.
WMC News & Features
Making Women Farmers "Visible" As They Feed Nations
Meena Bilgi always knows where to start. A half hour after her request the village leader of Boripitha, an underdeveloped community of 1,300 in the Indian state of Gujarat, had summoned 15 to 18 men and boys.
WMC News & Features
Finally! The UN Gets One Right
Last week, the United Nations General Assembly unanimously confirmed Secretary General BanKi-Moon’s appointment for\the post of UN high commissioner for human rights: the distinguished South African jurist Navanethem (“Navi”) Pillay. Women’s rights activists around the world can celebrate.
WMC News & Features
Delving Further into Foreign Policy in Afghanistan
After a grueling 18-month primary campaign, the race for the president of the United States has begun. True to form the candidates have come out sparring.
WMC News & Features
July 09, 2008 Environment,
International
When the Bush Becomes a "Desert Shrub"
“It doesn’t rain here the way it used to.” That was a Senegalese woman’s observation, included in a new report on climate change released by the Women’s Environment and Development Organization (WEDO).
WMC News & Features
June 13, 2008 | Regina Cornwell |
International
Farm Women, an Unsung World Treasure
In the midst of a global food crisis, advocates are trying to convince the world that women farmers are an essential part of the solution. Women are responsible for over half of the world’s food pro...
WMC News & Features
June 09, 2008 | Maria Toro |
International
Nicaraguan Activist Embarks on Democracy Hunger Strike
A legendary Sandinista leader and political activist launched a hunger strike of indefinite duration on June 4, 2008 against the current president of Nicaragua, Daniel Ortega to protest his authorit...
WMC News & Features
Pakistani Filmmaker Captures the Lives of Iraqi Refugee Children
Award-winning journalist Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy is touring the United States with her latest film, “The Lost Generation,” a documentary on Iraq’s refugee children produced for Great Britain’s prestig...
WMC News & Features
March 20, 2008 | Regina Cornwell |
International
Deborah Kanafani: Invisibility Unveiled
Women in the Middle East working for women’s rights and peace are subjects all but invisible in the U.S. media. In her book, Unveiled: How an American Woman Found Her Way Through Politics, Love and ...
WMC News & Features
March 08, 2008 | Zainab Salbi |
International
Please Listen to the Women of Iraq
I hadn’t been to my homeland, Iraq, since so many professional Iraqi women started to be assassinated, including one of my good female friends in fall of 2004. In February I traveled the country to ...
WMC News & Features
Premiere Dame Worries Sarkozy Constituents
She’s a former model turned pop star and her list of exes includes Mick Jagger, Eric Clapton and Donald Trump. No, she’s not the star of a new reality TV show—although you could be forgiven for thin...
WMC News & Features
February 15, 2008 | Laura DeLuca |
International
Lost Girls of Sudan
At a Colorado natural foods store, Rose Lokwang briskly arranges the salad bar. “Can you imagine that there are twenty-two organic items and forty-four conventional items in the salad bar alone?” sh...
WMC News & Features
Camelot Revisited—What’s Lost in Pakistan
In the midst of the U.S. presidential election, with leaders focused on bringing change to Washington, the brutal murder of Benazir Bhutto halfway around the world is a powerful reminder that change...