WMC News & Features
Bactria Revisited: Does Alexander Have Lessons for Obama in Afghanistan?
The Pakhtuns of Afghanistan and across the border in Pakistan haven’t always rejected influences from the West. The author suggests that Alexander the Great’s success in the 4th Century B.C. may hold a key to integrating Afghanistan into the international community—in a way that would help protect and empower women in the region.
WMC News & Features
Remembering Abeer: Anatomy of a War Crime
In 2006, WMC began a media campaign to ensure that the girl who fell victim to a heinous U.S. war crime in Iraq would not be forgotten. Here, the writer of previous WMC Exclusives about the case describes new information from a recent book by Time magazine’s Jim Frederick.
WMC News & Features
“The Heretics”: Women of the Heresies Collective
The author interviews the maker of a documentary that captures a prolific period of feminist art, focusing on the collective as, according to the film web site, “a microcosm of the larger international women’s movement, in which thousands of small, private groups of women met together in forms unique to their own settings.”
WMC News & Features
That Notorious Good Friday Homily
In his controversial sermon at St. Peter’s last week, Reverend Raniero Cantalamessa expressed no concern for Catholic Church policies that endanger women, writes Angela Bonavoglia, author of “Good Catholic Girls: How Women Are Leading the Fight to Change the Church.”
WMC News & Features
A Vibrant Encounter Space Online: The International Museum of Women
The International Museum of Women is an innovative “new media” approach that utilizes women’s creative powers as a bridge for activism.
WMC News & Features
New Hope for Progress Among U.S. Delegates to UN Meeting
Women have been stymied for years in efforts to achieve U.S. ratification of CEDAW, the UN treaty to eliminate discrimination against women. Now, meeting at the UN, U.S. women hope to regain influence in establishing rights for women around the world.
WMC News & Features
In Chile, Bachelet Steps Down
Michelle Bachelet’s presidency comes to a tumultuous end less than two weeks after her country withstood an 8.8 magnitude earthquake. Here, the author assesses what her term in office has meant for women in Chile and what lies ahead.
WMC News & Features
“Elders” Fight Misuse of Religion to Oppress Women and Girls
Former Presidents Jimmy Carter and Mary Robinson say women and girls are the victims of dangerous practices too often justified in the name of religion and tradition. They are members of a prestigious international group that is spotlighting the issue.
WMC News & Features
Benazir Bhutto: Uncensored and Unfettered
As a Pakistani American, the author has come to understand Benazir Bhutto over the years in different contexts. So she was surprised to discover fresh insights in a new documentary about the slain charismatic leader.
WMC News & Features
Haiti: The Land of the Unknowns
An ER doc from Atlanta describes her mind-numbing experience in Haiti and explains what the island nation needs from us now.
WMC News & Features
Sirleaf to Seek Second Term
First elected after a powerful women’s peace movement forced the end of years of brutal civil war in Liberia, President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf is asking for a second term to continue with the enormou...
WMC News & Features
February 05, 2010 | Ninotchka Rosca |
International
Super Bowl Sunday: What You Won't See
On Super Bowl Sunday nearly a billion viewers will see the story of one woman during an anti-choice ad. Here, Filipina author and activist Ninotchka Rosca exposes the reality of all the rest.
WMC News & Features
January 20, 2010 | Amanda L. Furness |
International
Haiti: Absent in Life, Death and On the Evening News
The author, who has worked in Cite Soleil, a poor district hit hard by the earthquake, asks us to see her partner and friends in Port-au-Prince through her eyes, not as they are customarily portrayed in the media.
WMC News & Features
Depend on Women to Keep the Momentum Rolling on Global Warming
Women are bringing the word to negotiators at the climate change conference in Copenhagen that those closest to the damaging effects of global warming point the way toward lessening the risks to the most vulnerable among us.
WMC News & Features
Morituri te Salutant: On a “Surge” in Afghanistan
The author, an expert on parliamentary diplomacy, says we must focus today on a strengthened political process to successfully end international military engagement in Afghanistan—and that process must respect the rights of women.
WMC News & Features
December 03, 2009 | Sharmeen Akbani Gangat |
International,
Politics,
Religion,
Violence against women
Fort Hood Tragedy: What Muslim Women Really Think
With the murders at Fort Hood, New York’s Muslim community, however unjustly, was on the defensive. The author explains how Muslim women are reacting.
WMC News & Features
A Few Acres and a Cow (or Two): Up from Poverty in East Africa
Backed by Gates Foundation funding, women dairy farmers in Uganda are working collectively to care for their families, their livestock, their crops and the earth.
WMC News & Features
Global Gender Gap Report: Some Gains in Africa
In its country-by-country index comparing the status of men and women, the World Economic Forum finds that Nordic countries remain highest on the equity scale. Here, the co-founder of the Council of Women World Leaders explains the study and its importance to women and girls.
WMC News & Features
November 10, 2009 | Colette N. Tamko |
International
Finally, a UN Women’s Agency with Muscle
Recently the UN announced approval of a new agency for women—an event that followed years of complex organizing by individuals and advocacy groups around the world. Here, one of the principle coordinators of that ongoing effort explains what it means for women, and the work that still remains to ensure its success.
WMC News & Features
At the UN, Criminalizing Rape as a Weapon
In the last week of October, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made headlines and sparked anger in travels to Israel and Pakistan. Her role some weeks earlier was less controversial yet critically important, as she led UN diplomats forward in an action that could ease the suffering of countless women and girls living in conflict zones around the world.
WMC News & Features
The Inflection Point for the World's Girls and Women
The author is attending a global seminar this week in Salzburg, “Smart Change: Investing in Women and Girls, Leveraging Philanthropy for Global Impact,” to produce an international agenda for action. She argues that, in terms of gender, the world has reached an “inflection point,” when old patterns collapse and new ones emerge.
WMC News & Features
Gender Discrimination in Filmmaking—Bollywood Style
Moviemaking styles may vary between Hollywood and Bollywood, but women working in the Indian commercial film industry have as difficult a time as their counterparts in the United States getting good roles and investment in their films. Director Zoya Akhtar takes a satiric look in Luck by Chance.
WMC News & Features
Afghanistan: Will Obama Listen to the Women?
Eight years ago on October 7, the United States sent troops into Afghanistan. Having just returned from there, the author, co-founder with Medea Benjamin of CODEPINK, brings an open letter to President Obama from prominent Afghan women and their supporters from Pakistan, India and the United States—asking that he send no more troops and work quickly toward a political solution.
WMC News & Features
October 02, 2009 | Marcella Chester |
Arts and culture,
International,
Media,
Violence against women
What Consequences Should Roman Polanski Face After 32 Years?
The author, a rape survivor, takes a clear-eyed view of the Polanski case, sorting out both the needs of his victim and those of a society that cannot afford to tolerate sexual violence.
WMC News & Features
September 12th—The Long Day After
The author, a Pakistan-born New Yorker, connects our collective sorrow on 9/11 to what terrorism and its aftermath continue to take away.