WMC Women Under Siege
Sick, injured, untreated: Syrians suffer fallout of assault on medical care
When I was at the Syrian border in Turkey in July, I went to a public park where I heard 4,000 refugees were living. I was told it was not a UN-supported camp, that these Syrians had come over the border because they’d heard there was going to be a camp nicer than the UN one in Kilis, where most people are stuck in tents, rather than the box-like structures known as “caravans.”
WMC Women Under Siege
Rape, murder, forced recruitment overwhelms Central African Republic
A tweet from the London-based online newsmagazine ThinkAfricaPress, posted on September 3, reads: “Central African Republic Moves to Disarm Rebel Fighters. Some of those will be children.”
WMC Women Under Siege
A competition of suffering: Male vs. female rape
One of the main components of our project at WMC’s Women Under Siege is to educate the public about how rape is used not only as a crime of war but also as a strategic tool. During our research on systemic sexualized violence in wartime, we have found that rape disproportionately affects women. But the key term here is disproportionately.
WMC Women Under Siege
As violence soars, a photographic look inside the Zaatari camp in Jordan
Recently, the Obama administration announced a decision to allow 2,000 Syrian refugees to settle permanently in the United States. The refugees would include the most vulnerable—women and children who had been “exposed to everything from torture to gender-based violence to serious medical conditions,” Foreign Policy reported.
WMC FBomb
August 18, 2013 | Sophia M |
Feminism,
Gender-based violence,
Science and tech,
Violence against women
How Feminism Brought Me Back
I used to dance and climb trees and sing loudly and run around like a wild child. I say “used to” and you probably think I mean when I was four or five, but I mean up until around a year ago, when I w...
WMC Women Under Siege
Tips for interviewing survivors of sexualized and gender-based violence
Recently, the U.S. media has been full of accounts of rampant sexualized violence and intimidation across all branches of the U.S. military. In Egypt, we hear how sexual violence is used against female activists during and around protests in the country. A major reason these systemic human rights violations are coming to light is because brave survivors of sexualized violence were willing to speak out and share their experiences.
WMC Women Under Siege
August 12, 2013 International,
Violence against women
How US policy denies life-saving care to women raped in war
Angelina Jolie doesn't mince words.
“Let us be clear what we are speaking about,” the award-winning actress and humanitarian said in June as she addressed the United Nations Security Council session on sexualized violence in conflict. “Young girls raped and impregnated before their bodies are able to carry a child, causing fistula; boys held at gunpoint and forced to sexually assault their mothers and sisters; women raped with bottles, wood branches, and knives to cause as much damage as possible; toddlers, even babies, dragged from their homes and violated.”
WMC Women Under Siege
‘He bonked them’: Making light of rape in the West African media
Yvonne Ntiamoah, a resident in the Ghanaian capital, Accra, was driving her two daughters home when she heard something on a local radio station that she could simply not endure.
WMC FBomb
August 08, 2013 | Christina O |
Feminism,
Gender-based violence,
International,
Misogyny,
Violence against women
On Violence Against Women
An astonishing number of women desperately fear for their lives every day due to the fatal fact that they were born female in a patriarchal society. Violent acts are committed against women all the ti...
WMC Women Under Siege
Can tracking rape in conflict prevent genocide?
Just as rape and other forms of sexualized violence have historically been viewed as a “natural” part of war, they have often been recognized as occurring in genocide but not necessarily as an act of genocide in itself.
WMC FBomb
I Hate These "Blurred Lines"
What do you do if you have a catchy song, a wanna-be-but-never-will-be-Justin Timberlake R&B singer and want to gather as many views on YouTube as possible? If you answered “by showing boobs” and ...
WMC FBomb
August 04, 2013 | Winnifred Bonjean-Alpart |
Arts and culture,
Feminism,
Gender-based violence,
Girls,
Media,
Violence against women
The New Scarlet Letter
For the past seven years, I’ve been a member of The Arts Effect All-Girl Theater Company – an ensemble of girls that meets weekly in downtown Manhattan to creatively explore girl-focused experiences t...
WMC Women Under Siege
Forgotten girls: How one child in Yemen is drawing attention to underage marriage
Eight million people and counting have watched a video featuring an 11-year-old Yemeni girl named Nada al-Ahdal. From what looks like the seat of a car, she talks about why she left home because, she says, her parents tried to marry her off. Al-Ahdal talks about the “innocence of children” and the consequences—including suicide—of being force-married to an older man at such a young age.
WMC Women Under Siege
Sexual assaults, victim-blaming continues in Peace Corps
On November 21, 2011, President Barack Obama signed into law the Kate Puzey Peace Corps Volunteer Protection Act. The act aims to reform Peace Corps’ policies and procedures for preventing and responding to sexual assault. Its passage was intended to end the epidemic of sexual assault against Peace Corps volunteers and endemic culture of victim-blaming in the agency. But the success of the Kate Puzey Act is threatened by the Peace Corps’ use of outdated, victim-blaming definitions of sexual assault.
WMC FBomb
Attention People With Body Parts
My name is Lexie and I am the Founder and Creative Director of Attention: People With Body Parts, an international body-positive initiative with an emphasis on book-making, letter-writing, and collabo...
WMC Women Under Siege
'Survival sex': How NGOs and peacekeepers exploit women in war
It’s easy to associate rape with the Democratic Republic of Congo, a region torn by conflict since 1996. Dubbed the “rape capital of the world,” the country sees four women raped every five minutes, according to a 2011 study published by the American Journal of Public Health.
WMC Live
July 27, 2013 | Carol Jenkins, Rinku Sen, Sayda Zelaya, Keneisha Deas |
Politics,
Robin Morgan,
Violence against women
WMC Live #49: Carol Jenkins, Rinku Sen, Sayda Zelaya, Keneisha Deas. (Original Airdate 7/27/2013)
Robin on Zimmerman’s “inadmissible” domestic violence and the show’s first season before an August hiatus. Guests Carol Jenkins, Rinku Sen, and Sayda Zelaya and Keneisha Deas on new activism in light of the MLK, Jr. March’s 50th anniversary.
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All I Want Is Equality
All I want is equality.
Because yes, that is what feminism is all about. Equality for women. No, we feminists are not asking for better treatment under the law for women. Anyone who does is not truly...
WMC Women Under Siege
Creating heaven 'in a place called hell’: DRC activist responds to US tabloid
Sometimes I read something that makes the movement of the world, the very air in the room, freeze to a stop. That’s what happened recently when I read a letter written by an activist in the Democratic Republic of Congo named Neema Namadamu. I read it once, then I read it again. Instead of describing why it had such a profound effect on me, I’m pasting it in full below.
WMC Women Under Siege
The topsy-turvy world of men who oppose anti-violence campaigns
At the start of this year, my friend and WMC’s Women Under Siege director, Lauren Wolfe, started a Twitter hashtag, #2013EndRape, to highlight the epidemic of sexualized violence against women. While the hashtag has seen success, one of the unintended consequences has been its trolling and attacks on it by various “Men’s Rights Activists.”
WMC FBomb
Why I Shared my Abortion Story With North Carolina Law Makers
My voice was trembling when I spoke the words “I decided to choose abortion.” I was telling my personal story and expressing my opposition of House Bill 695, a bill that would shut down all but one ab...
WMC Women Under Siege
Hope for a better life leads to torture for Ethiopians
When there’s not an acute famine in the Horn of Africa, the media tends to leave the misery in that part of the world unreported. I don’t know about you, but I haven’t heard much about Ethiopia specifically in awhile, minus a few international journalist friends mentioning that there is a migration problem for women who are seeking better lives in the Arab peninsula. As of this morning though, I can’t pretend to ignore what’s going on in the region any longer.
WMC FBomb
July 12, 2013 | Julie Zeilinger |
Feminism,
Free Speech,
Gender-based violence,
Media,
Science and tech,
Violence against women
Saturday Vids: Jaclyn Friedman On Hate Speech On Facebook
Last month, awesome feminist activists Jaclyn Friedman of Women, Action and the Media (WAM!), author/activist Soraya Chemaly and Laura Bates of the The Everyday Sexism Project launched a campaign to e...
WMC FBomb
Innocence Lost
Life never passed more slowly than it did when I cried behind the football stands. Like a movie, the crowds cheered while I bowed my head in defeat, the music roared while my smile was muted. Small to...
WMC FBomb
Moving On From The Past
The summer after my freshman year of high school, I was sexually abused, harassed and almost raped. I do not want to go into how -- it’s just not something I want to relive. I told my mom when I was a...
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