WMC News & Features
One More Taboo
In 1984, when my brother came down with the mysterious disease that came to be called AIDS, the diagnosis was a death sentence; today it is a disconcerting and traumatic, but not fatal, surprise. Th...
WMC News & Features
March 26, 2007 | Gemma Puglisi |
Media
Is Three the Charm? Running the Network Nightly News
When NBC nightly news execs got the ratings for February and could sense ABC nosing ahead, they decided to do something drastic. They hired a woman.
“Nightly News with Brian Williams” had maintain...
WMC News & Features
Stepping It Up, Against Global Warming
Because of her love of large white artic animals and fear for their future, a woman will host a rally April 15 at the Polar Bear Exhibit at the Indianapolis Zoo. In Tucson, three young women have pl...
WMC News & Features
Right Candidates, Wrong Question
Even before Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton threw their exploratory committees into the ring, every reporter seemed to be asking which candidate are Americans more ready for, a white woman or a bla...
WMC News & Features
Journalists, Recruited from Provinces, Train in Bangladesh
When Pushpita Alam began interviewing candidates for a fellowship program in Bangladesh teaching working-class women to be journalists, she looked for personal strength and the determination to exce...
WMC News & Features
What a War Crime Looks Like
The account below is compiled from testimony given at the courts martial of Paul Cortez and James Barker, from accounts of the Article 32 Hearing and other court proceedings in the cases, and from previous WMC and newspaper reports. Former Pfc. Steven Green, Pfc. Jesse Spielman and Pfc. Bryan Howard are still awaiting trial. References to them are to alleged actions on their part according to the above sources.
WMC News & Features
The Casualties of War Crimes—Who Weeps for Abeer?
Sandwiched between International Women’s Day on March 8 and the fourth anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq on March 19 is another date that marks a tragic nexus of the two: the day one year ago when 14-year-old Abeer Qassim Al-Janabi was stalked, gang-raped, shot in the head and her corpse burned in her own home in Mahmoudiya, Iraq. Four U.S. soldiers and one former soldier are charged with the crimes committed March 12, 2006.
WMC News & Features
My Subversive Barbie
A friend of mine is turning 50 today.
Our friendship was brief but intense. I didn’t get invited to her glitzy celebrity and fashion-hype parties. We don’t run in the same circles any longer.
Al...
WMC News & Features
March 08, 2007 | Kristal Brent Zook |
Politics
Black Enough? Obama’s Dilemma and Mine
Is he black enough? Is he black enough? Is he black enough? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
As a biracial person, I too, like Senator Barack Obama, have known the pain of rejection by th...
WMC News & Features
March 06, 2007 | Susan Dworkin |
Arts and culture
The Thinking Woman’s Theatre
“A woman’s perspective is exactly what’s needed when tackling plays about aggression, warfare and political upheaval,” says director Eleanor Holdridge. “In Shakespeare, there’s an intrinsic sense of...
WMC News & Features
March 05, 2007 | Sarah Olson |
International
Family Backs Army Medic Facing Desertion Charges This Week
Update: Augustine Aguayo was convicted of missing movement and of desertion and sentenced to eight months in prison. Because he has already served nearly six, he is likely to be released in less tha...
WMC News & Features
Feminist Bloggergate—a Cautionary Tale
The first feminist political uproar of 2007 was not about Hillary Clinton but about two, relatively unknown-to-the-mainstream stars of the feminist blogosphere. Amanda Marcotte of Pandagon and Melis...
WMC News & Features
February 27, 2007 | Kristal Brent Zook |
Arts and culture
Murphy’s “Norbit”—Just a Good Laugh?
You may have heard the film “Norbit” was number one at the box office on its opening weekend earlier this month. You’ve probably also seen the ads at bus stop benches and on billboards: the image of...
WMC News & Features
“I’m Down With That”
“I’m down with that.” According to prosecutors, this was Pfc. Jesse V. Spielman’s response when hearing of a plan to rape 14 year-old Abeer Qassim Hamza al-Janabi. Spielman is undergoing court martial on various charges involving her rape and murder and the murder of her mother Fikhriya, father Qassim, and little sister Hadeel.
WMC News & Features
100-Year Sentence for Second Soldier Convicted of Rape and Murder
Sgt. Paul Cortez, the second soldier to plead guilty to the rape and murder of Abeer Qassim Hamza al-Janabi, as well as the murder of her parents and sister, was sentenced on Thursday, February 22, to 100 years in prison and a dishonorable discharge. Under the terms of a plea agreement made before the court martial took place, Cortez avoided life imprisonment without possibility of parole in sentencing handed down by the judge, Colonel Stephen Henley.
WMC News & Features
Notes from the Court Martial of Sgt. Paul Cortez
“She screamed and cried and tried to keep her legs together.” That is how Sgt. Paul Cortez described the reason he was fully aware that his premeditated rape of 14-year-old Abeer Qassim Rasheed Al-Janabi was not consensual but criminal.
WMC News & Features
February 21, 2007 | Sallie Bingham |
Arts and culture
What Happened to Women’s Theatre?
It existed, in the 1980s and early 1990s: plays written and directed by women were being produced—off-Broadway, at theatres dedicated to the work, such as the Women’s Project and Productions, and ev...
WMC News & Features
February 21, 2007 | Sallie Bingham |
What Happened to Women’s Theater?
It existed, in the 1980s and early 1990s: plays written and directed by women were being produced—off-Broadway, at theatres dedicated to the work, such as the Women’s Project and Productions, and ev...
WMC News & Features
Second Court Martial in the Rape and Murder of Abeer Qassim Rashid Al-Janabi Begins
The first day of the court martial of Sgt. Paul Cortez began in the small courthouse near the Burger King on Ft. Campbell, at the border of Kentucky and Tennessee. Only a few onlookers, mostly reporters and military escorts, were on hand to watch as the military judge quizzed the tall, thin Cortez about the multiple charges to which he pled guilty.
WMC News & Features
February 16, 2007 | Lisa Maza |
Murder Charges vs. Philippines Rep.
“It’s plain and simple harassment . . . an old ploy to intimidate and sidetrack us,” said Philippines Representative Liza Maza.
The Gabriela Women’s Party member received a subpoena Wednesday afte...
WMC News & Features
February 14, 2007 | Krista Jacob |
From One Night’s Silence, a Larger Debate?
Prairie Lights Bookstore, a beloved, iconoclastic, independent bookstore in Iowa City, Iowa, closed its doors early on January 30. They had received letters, e-mails, and phone calls indicating ther...
WMC News & Features
February 12, 2007 | Marcia G. Yerman |
Politics
The Activism and Art Connection
With Nancy Pelosi the new House speaker and Hillary Clinton throwing her hat into the presidential ring, feminist art also looks to the future in 2007, while still debating its past. A group of fema...
WMC News & Features
Promising Signs at the UN
While he was still secretary-general designate, in his first address to the General Assembly, Ban Ki-Moon promised he would “lead by example” and announced that one of his goals was to appoint more ...
WMC News & Features
Women's Voices Missing from the Theatre—Does Anyone Care?
In recent weeks, if you scanned the Broadway theatre listings in New York you would see the names of some of the most prominent actresses of our time, such stars as Angela Lansbury, Vanessa Redgrave...
WMC News & Features
February 05, 2007 | Tamara Kreinin |
Environment
Una’s Story
The home is a way to move a trapped segment of the population out of poverty. The home is a way to move ahead post-Katrina. —Una Anderson
Days after Una Anderson and her husband evacuated safely t...