WMC Women Under Siege
Inching forward against military sexual assault
U.S. legislators voted Wednesday to help stanch the overwhelming problem of sexualized violence in the armed forces, Reuters reports. The idea is to make it easier for victims of sexualized violence to come forward while decreasing the threat of retaliation from superiors in the chain of command.
WMC FBomb
On Sexism in High School
I recently got out for summer break from my local high school, and I really only had one thing that bothered me this year. It wasn’t any sort of drama, nor was it an event. My main source of irritatio...
WMC Women Under Siege
Mali conflict is latest to employ forced marriage as tool of war
Saran Keïta Diakité painted a dismal reality for women in Mali in a speech she gave to the UN Security Council in April. “They carry out a form of ‘marriage’ so that, at night, you can be treated as a sexual slave,” Diakité said. “During the day, you are there to serve tea to the men and attend to their every need. This is why I always say that what’s happened in Mali is unprecedented."
WMC FBomb
I Will Not Be Scared Off The Streets
So, the other day, I was walking downtown on my own (or as I like to say, "independently"), and this guy in a truck hooted at me while I passed the Shell gas station. I shrunk a little, turned around,...
WMC FBomb
Support Women Artists Sunday: Lianne La Havas
La Havas was born in London, England to a Greek father and Jamaican mother. She was raised in Tooting and Streatham, spending the majority of her time with her grandparents following her parents' sepa...
WMC FBomb
May 31, 2013 | Julie Zeilinger |
Feminism,
Gender-based violence,
Media,
Misogyny,
Violence against women
Saturday Vids: Victims of Acid Attacks
[TRIGGER WARNING: VIOLENT IMAGES]
According to Stop Acid Attacks, acid attacks are "a prevalent way for a man to inflict revenge on a woman, who has either turned down his interest or insulted him so...
WMC FBomb
"Are You Sexually Active?" A Gay Girl Dealing With Heteronormative Doctors
Over the past few weeks, my schedule has been jammed with a clusterfuck of doctor’s appointments in an attempt to solve a stomach issue I’ve been dealing with for more than three years. I don’t typica...
WMC FBomb
Margaret Thatcher: How An Anti-Feminist Inadvertently Contributed to the Cause
With the passing of Margaret Thatcher in recent months, her achievements and contributions have been much analyzed. Thatcher has been described as “the most influential politician of her generation” a...
WMC Women Under Siege
Tracking a rumor: Is there a sugar factory in Syria being used as a rape house?
We were seated on a scratchy nylon mat with “UNHCR” written all over it. Children with the same beautiful, olive-complexioned face stared big-eyed at me from every corner of the furniture-less room, and their mother cried as she talked about the many massacres her family had fled in Homs five months previously.
WMC FBomb
On Ending Slut Shaming
About a week ago, I was talking with one of my co-workers and she told me that students at her teenage daughter’s high school made a Facebook page dedicated to the school “sluts.” She proceeded to tel...
WMC FBomb
Forced Prostitution During World War II
I recently read an article posted on Yahoo News about prostitution during World War II in Japan. Prostitution is a difficult and controversial subject for feminists, but what most can agree on is tha...
WMC Women Under Siege
The long struggle against systematic rape in conflict-ridden Kashmir
Just a few weeks ago, some 50 Kashmiri women came together to demand that police reinvestigate a well-known case of mass rape. The women—teachers, students, journalists, human rights workers, lawyers, and other professionals—filed a public interest litigation case before India’s Jammu and Kashmir high court. The alleged set of crimes, known as the Kunan Poshpora case, happened more than 20 years ago, on February 23, 1991, when armed forces allegedly raped at least 32 teenaged, adult, and elderly women.
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How the Pregnant and Parenting Student Access to Education Act Can Help Teen Moms
My senior year of college, two of my roommates and I watched Teen Mom CONSTANTLY. I liked to pretend I wasn’t watching it, but the conversation usually went something like this:
Becka (standing in ...
WMC News & Features
African Women Lead: A Pan African Dream
Africans cannot sacrifice democracy for economic gain for the few and pittance for the many. The author—a New Yorker born in Nairobi—says paternalistic male leadership must come to an end, and women lead instead.
WMC Women Under Siege
The legacy of silence: Why we ignore the rape of women from Guatemala to Syria
Just before 2 a.m. and nearly half a world away, I watched a guilty verdict from Guatemala scroll by tweet by tweet on my phone. Former President Efrain Rios Montt was convicted on May 10 of genocide and crimes against humanity and given 80 years in prison. As the news came through, I felt a satisfied chill—17 years after the murder of 200,000 Guatemalans and the rape of 100,000 women, mostly Mayans, justice has actually come in our lifetime.
WMC News & Features
The Power of Mothers: A History of Disappearance
In Juárez, mothers of disappeared and murdered daughters from the last two decades are following in a long tradition of Latin American mothers who have taken to the streets to protest the disappearance of their children.
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Rachel Simmons at the Omega Institute
I would jump at any opportunity to participate in another workshop with Rachel Simmons, who is someone I've admired since her first book, Odd Girl Out, came out back in 2002. I got the opportunity to ...
WMC Women Under Siege
Q&A: A fresh look at rape during the U.S. Civil War
Crystal N. Feimster is no stranger to uncomfortable narratives. A feminist scholar in the department of African-American studies at Yale University, Feimster has spent much of her academic career addressing and unpacking the often-controversial stories woven through racial and sexualized violence. She has found 450 court martial cases from the Civil War related to rape and other sexualized violence, but says that, as we still find today, the crime was “overwhelmingly underreported.”
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A Letter To My Future Son
A friend of mine has a young son. She recently asked me, and other men, to write a letter to our sons who exist or have yet to be born that she could show to her own child, someday. This is my letter....
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Bright Like a Diamond, White Like a Princess
In recent years, Disney has been toying around with their “Princess” brand, making their popular films and characters even more marketable to children–namely, to young girls. This isn’t really new: Di...
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Barbie
Let me ask you this:
What do we teach our daughters
When the bestselling doll on the market, Barbie,
Has a made-up face and mascara-ed eyes and lips as pink as grapefruit,
But not enough ambition or i...
WMC Women Under Siege
From Morocco to Denmark: Rape survivors around the world are forced to marry attackers
In March 2012, a 16-year-old girl named Amina Filali killed herself by drinking rat poison. She had been raped and forced—by Moroccan law—to marry the man who had raped her.
WMC FBomb
On Fat-Shaming
I thought I would stop being defined by my weight after middle school. When it kept happening, I thought, Okay, maybe after high school people will leave me alone. Again, I haven't been so lucky and s...
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Support Women Artists Sunday: Nadine Shah
Of Norwegian and Pakistani ancestry, British born Nadine Shah is an uncompromising vocalist/composer hailing from a small coastal village in the North East of England called Whitburn. Her dark tales o...
WMC Women Under Siege
Lack of clean water tied to rape in the Solomon Islands
On any given day, women around the world will find themselves in danger of rape while performing the most basic acts of survival. Acts borne of necessity, such as fetching clean water for cooking or washing, or gathering firewood, often leave women vulnerable to rape and gender-based violence as they are forced to venture to remote areas. In the Solomon Islands, the problem is severe.