“China’s Female Artists Quietly Emerge” July 30, 2008

 

If you find the title above (from the NY Times) ominous, you’re right.  First of all, though, it is puzzling.   Why?  Because this is their first anecdote:

On a February day in 1989, a young woman walked into a show at the National Gallery of Art here, whipped out a pellet gun and fired two shots into a mirrored sculpture in an exhibition called “China/Avant-Garde.” Police officers swarmed into the museum. The show, the country’s first government-sponsored exhibition of experimental art, was shut down for days.

The woman, Xiao Lu, is an artist. The sculpture she fired on was her own, or rather a collaborative piece she had made with another artist, Tang Song, her boyfriend at the time.
The international press saw a rebellion story. China’s political and cultural vanguard claimed a hero. The government reacted as if attacked. The renowned art critic Li Xianting has described the incident as a precursor to the Tiananmen Square crackdown four months later. Whatever the truth, Ms. Xiao made the history books. She was a star.

That’s not exactly quiet, is it?
In fact, the women artists are “emerging quietly” in so far as they are just not heard or seen:

She is the first and last Chinese female artist so far to achieve that status. Contemporary art in China is a man’s world. While the art market, all but nonexistent in 1989, has become a powerhouse industry and produced a pantheon of multimillionaire artist-celebrities, there are no women in that pantheon.

The new museums created to display contemporary art rarely give women solo shows. Among the hundreds of commercial galleries competing for attention in Beijing, Shanghai and elsewhere, art by women is hard to find.

Yet the art is there, and it is some of the most innovative work around, even as visibility remains a problem.

Rather like a long advertisement for the Olympics, the NY Times is discovering China these days.  Or perhaps it has become a primer for all those parties.  Still, many of its pieces are usefully interesting, and the one about artists is too, even if too much about their exclusion is dismally familiar.  The women are also all, it seems, ambivalent about feminism and what they see as a very Western slant to it.

And the print above, in a private collection in China, will cost you between $25,000-$35,000.

Abortion and the Web July 11, 2008

Women in countries where abortion is restricted are using the web to obtain abortifacient medications. There are some significant safety concerns, and it also looks like there’s considerable variation between various services. But Women on the Web sounds like a very responsible organisation. It looks like it is generally legal to use this service, even if abortion is illegal where one is located. A very interesting and important use of the web to help women who really need help. (Thanks, Mr J!)

Load-Shedding in Bangladesh June 23, 2008

We received the news of electricity shortages in Bangladesh from our friend, KW.  A visit to her blog is highly recommended! 

Here’s a picture of her students from the Nari Jibon project that we featured here.

As  you can see, the picture was taken during a load-shedding period..

Heads up: Refugee Week (UK) June 18, 2008

Quick heads up (a little late, I’m afraid): this week is Refugee Week in the UK! Lots of events going on around the country. Check out the details here to see what’s going on near you:

http://www.refugeeweek.org.uk/

Yesterday I went to see this film: http://www.almostadult.co.uk/almostadult/index.html

which I cannot recommend highly enough - it details the exploitation, loneliness and destitution that faces some asylum seekers who come to the UK, in the story of two young women seeking refugee status.

Food is a Feminist Issue* May 9, 2008

And there’s a world-wide famine. Go read Diary of an Anxious Black Woman. And Feminocracy. And Feministe. This is desperately important stuff. (*Title from DABW.)

Interesting developments in Europe, I April 17, 2008

Here’s Mr Zapatero, Spanish Prime Minister, and the majority of his cabinet:

JAVIER SORIANO/AFP/Getty ImagesThe Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero poses on the steps of the Moncloa palace in Madrid with his female cabinet ministers (left to right) Science and Innovation minister Cristina Garmendia, Transport and Development minister Magdalena Alvarez, Education, Social Affairs and Sports minister Mercedes Cabrera Calvo, Defence minister Carme Chacon, deputy prime minister Maria Teresa Fernandez de la Vega, Public Administration minister Elena Salgado, Equality minister Bibiana Aido, Housing minister Beatriz Corredor and Agriculture and Environment minister Elena Espinosa

Yes!! In the Spanish cabinet 9 out of 17 members are women. “I am not only an anti-machoist, I am a feminist,” Mr Zapatero [Prime Minister] once said. In the Independent, we hear that this has not been universally well-received:

‘the spectacle of the 37-year-old Chacon inspecting the troops on Monday morning dressed in black pants and a white tunic, and visibly pregnant, was altogether too much for the Conservative daily El Mundo, which raged against what it called “an exercise in political marketing” that offended the traditional values and culture of the Spanish army.’

Of course, depending on how one characterises these values (macho? sexist?) one might think this is a good thing. But in anycase, they’d better get used to it: the Spanish government has introduced a ‘40% rule’:

• ‘This prohibits men or women from making up more than 60 per cent of the candidates of any political party that contests national or local elections. It also demands, but does not require, that by 2010 any company negotiating for public contracts should appoint women to 40 per cent of the places on their boards of directors.’

Other interesting structures for promoting gender equality are discussed in the article, including:

• ‘the so-called “zipper” system [operative in Sweden], under which if there is a man at the top of the party list, the number two position must be occupied by a woman, the third by a man, and so on.’

In the UK, only 19.5% of Parliamentarians are women. Denis MacShane, Britain’s former Europe minister, commented:’ I hope Gordon Brown and his ministers can spend more time going to Spain and learning.” Indeed! 

Women in Kosovo March 15, 2008

Women in newly independent Kosovo face serious problems, despite having some excellent laws apparently on the books.

A United Nations study in 2000 estimated that one-fourth of the female population of Kosovo suffered physical or psychological abuse; Kosovo police last year recorded 1,077 cases of domestic violence…Like much of the surrounding, rugged Balkans, Kosovo has long served as a notorious transit point for the international trafficking of women, mostly from Eastern Europe, who are forced into prostitution or slavery.

After a brutal crackdown by Slobodan Milosevic in 1999, Kosovo came under the stewardship of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the United Nations. During the years since, Kosovo evolved from a transit point into both a source of and destination for trafficked women. Often, Kosovo officials and former guerrilla commanders were complicit in the lucrative trade — and the resident international community, including peacekeepers and civilian consultants, its market.

Problems have been exacerbated by the violence and dislocations of war:

Roughly half of Kosovo’s generally young population is out of work; the World Bank and other experts believe it could take a decade to dramatically reduce unemployment. Poverty strains Kosovo’s families, which tend to be large. Add to that the dislocations of war: Thousands of people were killed and entire villages razed, their residents forced to move to urban areas. There, many live in cramped conditions, disoriented, unsettled in an unfamiliar environment.

The article draws attention to an interesting contrast between pre-war and post-war conditions for women:

Women used to be relegated to restrictive lives at home, guarded behind the high-walled compounds that traditionally housed extended ethnic Albanian families, or clans. It wasn’t freedom, but it was out of the reach of outside exploitation. Traffickers brought women from elsewhere, such as Moldova and Romania, initially to be shuttled to Italy or other parts of Europe and, after the war, to remain in Kosovo to “service” a growing international population.

Eventually, more and more Kosovo women, ripped from their traditional home life, also fell prey to traffickers and found themselves lured by promises of work, marriage or their own cellphone, only to end up in seedy bars, strip joints and brothels.

This, taken on its own, may seem like the article is minimising the problems faced by women within their own households. But it isn’t– significant attention is devoted to domestic violence (rather than “outside exploitation”), and one victim in particularly is profiled with depressing vividness.

Still, at least some advocates are hopeful of change:

Igballe Rogova, head of the Kosova Women’s Network, an umbrella coalition of about 40 groups, said she was hopeful the government, with the independence issue more or less settled, could put into practice laws that exist on paper.

“Today we have really incredibly good mechanisms on gender equality,” she told a European Parliament committee on women’s issues in Brussels late last month. “We have a law on gender equality, we have an office on gender equality at the prime minister level and, in every ministry, gender equality officers. We are not happy with the implementation of these mechanisms, but we are very optimistic.”

Sherifa said laws grant women the rights to own and inherit property on the same terms as men. But it often does not happen that way.

For the full article, go here. If you’d like to learn more about the Kosova Women’s Network, go here. (Thanks, Shelley, for alerting us to this important story.)

UNESCO’s International Network of Women Philosophers March 11, 2008

This organization, you’ll see at the site  linked to below,  is concerned with some problems that are dear to the hearts of many readers here, such as the fact that women have little presence at philosophy meetings.

I’m not at all sure that it is at present a resource for our  readers, but it might represent an  exciting opportunity.  If  you have more knowledge of what is going on with the Network, please let us know.

(Many thanks to Calypso, who passed this on.)

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International Network of Women Philosophers sponsored by UNESCO

UNESCO has the pleasure to announce the creation of the Website of the International Network of Women Philosophers, an information portal available to women philosophers throughout the world and to other friends of philosophy.

Dear Women Philosophers,
Dear All,On the occasion of 8 March, International Women’s Day, it is our pleasure to welcome you to the website of the International Network of Women Philosophers sponsored by UNESCO is now available online at the following address: www.unesco.org/shs/philosophy/women_philosophers.This new information portal has been designed for the members of the Network, for women philosophers themselves, as well as for their friends, independent of gender or discipline.Its aim is to be useful and informative, but, above all, to create genuine links within the philosophical community at national, regional and international levels. It ails to provide you with full information regarding the Network, its founding members, its objectives, its structure. It also contains a directory of women philosophers working in different countries throughout the world and who now number more than 1200. We are very happy that they are the first users of this website.It is now then up to you to takes possession of this website, to enrich it, to share it, and to make it your own, with the constant objective of working in favour of the practice of philosophy by women.

The International Network of Women Philosophers sponsored by UNESCO is your own network. It belongs to you just as the future of philosophy belongs to youx.

We invite ou to use this new website to help make the primary mission that UNESCO’s Constitution exhorts us to engage in, that of intellectual and moral solidarity, into a tangible reality!

Have a nice visit!

Pierre Sané
Assistant Director-General for Social and Human Sciences

Moufida Goucha
Chief of the Human Security, Democracy and Philosophy Section

Take Back the Tech March 9, 2008

This site is about reclaiming ICT (information and communication technologies) to end violence against women.    TBTT has  an international audience, and on March 8,  International Women’s Day, the site invited its visitors to tell their stories.  The result adds to the rich amount of information already on the site.

You can see some of the narratives collected here.

 (Despite the efforts  of Kathy,** our notice about International Women’s Day is coming to you a day late.  “Philosophers don’t do efficiency,” I say probably too frequently; I’m going to add “or dates.”  Apologies and thanks to you, Kathy, for the wonderful link.)

From TBTT you can go to genderIT.org, which promotes the use of ICT  to “contribute to the economic, political and social empowerment of women, and the promotion of gender equality.”  This is another important site that rewards visits.

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**To see Kathy’s blog, go to our blogroll and click “bideshi blue”.  The link “Bangladesh from our view” takes you to an important project Kathy is administering.

A Valentine’s gift February 14, 2008

Received today from the remarkable artist, Susan Plum.  Don’t miss the links below the image:

Susan Plum’s website has unforgettable images from an exhibition for the women of Juarez:

This exhibition honors the families, particularly the mothers of the 430 young women and children who have been murdered and the 600 who have disappeared in Juarez during the past 13 years. The practice continues. www.mujeresdejuarez.org

The families have found little justice in these tragedies.

Afghan Women - passive in burkas? February 1, 2008

Not exactly.  Jender’s report reminds us of how dire the oppression still is in Afghanistan.   But today I also discovered this story:

Approximately 500 Afghan women gathered in Kandahar to protest the kidnapping of an American aid worker, Cyd Mizell, and her driver, Abdul Hadi, the NY Times reports. 

In a strong show of support for Ms. Mizell, who has lived in Kandahar for six years, working on educational projects and women’s development, Afghan women’s associations called in speeches for officials, elders, ordinary citizens and young people to work for her release.

“This is against Islam, this is against Afghan culture, particularly against Kandahari custom, a woman’s abduction,” said the director of women’s affairs in Kandahar, Runa Tareen.

…

Soraya Barna, a member of the provincial council of Kandahar, said: “We are so sad and we want her to be released as soon as possible. We want officials and others to multiply their struggle to find her soon and hope she will be back safely.”

A welcome departure from the usual portrayal of Afghan women in the media!

Look at the freedom we’ve brought! January 31, 2008

An Afghan journalism student has been sentenced to death for downloading a report on women’s rights. What a fabulous democracy we’ve brought the Afghan people.

The fate of Sayed Pervez Kambaksh has led to domestic and international protests, and deepening concern about erosion of civil liberties in Afghanistan. He was accused of blasphemy after he downloaded a report from a Farsi website which stated that Muslim fundamentalists who claimed the Koran justified the oppression of women had misrepresented the views of the prophet Mohamed.

Mr Kambaksh, 23, distributed the tract to fellow students and teachers at Balkh University with the aim, he said, of provoking a debate on the matter. But a complaint was made against him and he was arrested, tried by religious judges without – say his friends and family – being allowed legal representation and sentenced to death.

The Independent has a petition you can sign here. It’s a petition to the UK foreign office, but anyone can sign it, and non-UK pressure can make a difference.

Women in the boardroom January 11, 2008

This story from the BBC is interesting. A few years ago, Norway, which already had a reasonably high number of women holding top executive jobs, introduced a law which said listed companies would be closed if they didn’t have women making up 40% of their executive boards. They were given until January 1st 2008 to comply. Well, that deadline has passed and it seems very nearly all have managed to comply. Of course, 40% is still not enough, but I’m impressed.As the article shows, there are complaints about this from the companies - “we should be able to choose on c.v.s not gender”, ” executive teams must be very carefully balanced, and worrying about gender just makes teams unbalanced and puts business at risk” - but there are counters made to these complaints in the article too. Looking at the c.v.s of the women recruited suggests that the government may have done these businesses a serious favour.There are still worries though. For instance, there has been a brain drain to the private sector meaning there are now fewer women at the executive level in the public sector. I guess the obvious solution is to introduce legislation giving the public sector five years to recruit women to its top level posts.Any thoughts on this? Some problems aside, legislation seems to have been effective for Norway. What do people think of it as a solution?

Pink Vigilantes December 27, 2007

A group of poor women in India have mobilised to fight, violently where necessary, for better treatment of women and the poor, while wearing pink saris.  The article is interesting, though problematically written:

The pink sorority is not exactly a group of male-bashing feminists - they claim they have returned 11 girls who were thrown out of their homes to their spouses because “women need men to live with”.

Aside from the fact that It’s hard to be impressed by anything that uses the phrase ‘male-bashing feminists’, there isn’t enough explanation in the article to tell one what is meant by “need”– is this meant to be a fact about women’s nature, or about the way that their society is set up? These sorts of distinctions are important, and the article really isn’t very helpful for those seeking real understanding. Still, it’s interesting to know even a little bit about this. (Thanks, Jender-parents!)

World March of Women December 22, 2007

In “Globalization and Political Change in the Women’s Movement: The Politics of Scale and Political Empowerment in the World March of Women” (my stress) by Dufour and Giraud in the Social Science Quarterly for Dec2007, we are told

The WMW is a transnational collective action that integrates women from grassroots organizations, labor unions, and leftist political parties in over 150 countries (approximately 6,000 groups) into a process of transnationalization of solidarities.

The article is about the European presence and tactics of the WMW.

Going on my own lack of knowledge, I could be worried that a very great deal of news about women’s important political actions world-wide are left unmentioned in the US and English press. In this particular case, the web presence of the WMW is also not much, a fairly quick look on google indicates. Still less is there much recent.

The WMW movement appears to have originated in  Quebec and there is a big Canadian site.   I did find a WMW blog from Pakistan, which also mentioned WMW protests in India over the action in Pakistan; a blog from Ecuador has a letter from the International Secretariat of the WMW, and so on. 

What I am wondering is whether it is right to suspect a general lack of knowledge among some groups of feminists about such international movements.  If so, are these  largely English-speaking feminists?  Is the language or the press creating an insularity?  Is there a kind of passive censorship, with international feminists movements being of so little interest to the media that we never read about them?

Another possibility, I suppose, given the seeming lack of web presence, is that the movement lacks some of the resources to create a more formal media presence.

 If the insularity is largely mine alone, I’m be happier about the situation!

Replacing ‘women’ with ‘family’ December 4, 2007

Many of us are now familiar with the way that discussing exclusively families or heads of households has (at least sometimes inadvertantly) served to obscure issues of justice for women in political philosophy. It seems the idea has occured to the ruling regime in Iran, too. They’ve apparently banned the use of the word ‘women’ on state TV, ordering it replaced with constructions involving ‘family’. Via The F-Word.

How can we treat people like this? November 26, 2007

Janipher Maseko was raped by armed rebels in Uganda and fled to the UK at 13.  At 18, she was in Yarl’s Wood detention centre, separated from her two children (one newborn), in agony from her swollen breasts, being told to take drugs to shut down her milk– and being told she was about to be sent back to Uganda, alone.  Fortunately, some good and powerful people intervened.  But her case is not yet over, and it’s not the only one.  Read more here.

16 Days November 25, 2007

Today, 25 November, is the first day of 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence.

The 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence is an international campaign originating from the first Women’s Global Leadership Institute sponsored by the Center for Women’s Global Leadership in 1991. Participants chose the dates, November 25, International Day Against Violence Against Women and December 10, International Human Rights Day, in order to symbolically link violence against women and human rights and to emphasize that such violence is a violation of human rights. This 16-day period also highlights other significant dates including November 29, International Women Human Rights Defenders Day, December 1, World AIDS Day, and December 6, which marks the Anniversary of the Montreal Massacre. 

The International Red Cross is one of many groups to be a part of this campaign. One of their initiatives is to give a voice to women who are suffering from violence.

The IRC is in war zones around the world, helping many thousandsof women and girls every day. We know they have much to say andwe know how easily their voices are lost, so we’re working withwriter, photographer and long-time women’s advocate Ann Jones togive them an opportunity to speak, loudly and clearly.With digital cameras, women who have survived conflict,displacement, discrimination, sexual and domestic violencevividly document their own lives. Through these personalphotographs, stirring portraits are revealed and women cometogether to tell stories of strength, reclaim their rights andmake their voices heard.Be a part of this powerful exchange, which begins tomorrow,November 25th to kick off “16 Days of Action against GenderViolence.” Over the course of the 16 Days, you’ll be inspired bythe extraordinary changes these brave women make with the boldclicks of their cameras.Just sign up for our 16 Days e-mail list, and on each of thosedays you’ll get a special e-mail with one woman’s photo, anamazing story and a chance to add your own voice. Afterward,you’ll get occasional updates from Ann and the IRC about newstories, IRC programs empowering women, and the many ways YOUcan help.

To sign up for the IRC 16 Days list go here.   Thanks, Jender-Parents!

Bangladesh: Hurricane and Blogging November 17, 2007

Back when we hosted the Carnival of Feminists, JJ found the wonderful blog Bangladesh From Our View, written by women and girls in Bangladesh.  Kathy Ward, who helped set it up, has now written to us (and on her blog, Bideshi Blue) to tell us about the huge hurricane they have suffered and the lack of attention to their plight.

I am both shocked and dismayed at the lack of knowledge about the Category 5 hurricane that just plowed into Bangladesh on Thursday–a South Asian country with 140 million people and geographic size of the state of Wisconsin–but little international attention except for its cheap garment production-factories, remitting migrant workers in the Middle East and elsewhere, Army-Peacekeepers for the UN…According to many sources, the death toil from Cyclone Sidr has risen to 1000+ and many more thousands are injured and/or lost their dwellings-livestock-livelihoods amidst the coming Bangladesh cold, collapse of Bangladesh’s power grid, and resultant loss of mobile, internet, and phone networks and safe potable water.

Amazingly, the women and girls over at Bangladesh From Our View are still coming to classes, and writing material for their blog, to be posted when they get electricity– a real tribute to their strength, and also to the importance of the project of giving these people a voice and getting it heard.

Punishing the victim, then punishing her more for protesting this November 16, 2007

Just in case you were in too good a mood today, this should fix it for you:

A lawyer for a gang-rape victim in Saudi Arabia who was sentenced to 200 lashes and six-months in jail says the punishment contravenes Islamic law.The woman was initially punished for violating laws on segregation of the sexes - she was in an unrelated man’s car at the time of the attack.When she appealed, judges doubled her sentence, saying she had been trying to use the media to influence them.

Despite this, the woman and her lawyer are continuing to fight:

Her lawyer has been suspended from the case and faces a disciplinary session.Abdel Rahman al-Lahem told the BBC Arabic Service that the sentence was in violation of Islamic law:”My client is the victim of this abhorrent crime. I believe her sentence contravenes the Islamic Sharia law and violates the pertinent international conventions,” he said. “The judicial bodies should have dealt with this girl as the victim rather than the culprit.” The lawyer also said that his client his will appeal against the decision to increase her punishment.

Who knows what may happen to them as they continue their fight. (Thanks, Jender-Parents.)