Archive for 'General'
Gender Matters! Can the UN bring change?
Posted on March 9, 2010, by Kudzai, under General.
Guest Blogger Wendy Harcourt on Beijing +15 -– Commission on the Status of Women March 1 to 12
Getting in here can be a real hassle. Credit S.Zacarro/IPS
Well, two predictions of mine are bearing out. First, the chaos of organising such a large meeting led to some people queuing for five to eight hours to register for the official CSW meeting. On the bright side, such long waiting times did mean unplanned networking and a sense of solidarity among the thousands of participants despite the indignity of it all. It also led to the absurdity of one of the key speakers of an official opening panel failing to get in to speak because she was stuck in a queue.
Once people managed to get their badges, the next hassle was getting into the sessions. There are passes for official meetings — which of course ran out — and in the NGO parallel space the large numbers and fire restrictions meant even those willing to stand or sit on the floors were being turned out.
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The search for change
Posted on February 28, 2010, by Kudzai, under General.
Dr Wendy Harcourt
Guest Blogger Wendy Harcourt on Beijing +15 -– Commission on the Status of Women March 1 to 12
When told about the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) some might think, so what? Surely this is just yet another big U.N. affair with little impact in the real world? So why, then, are thousands of women from around the world coming to New York during the first two weeks of March? So many indeed that registration closed early and those who managed to register on time are being warned that there will be restricted entry both in the official U.N. event and in the NGO sessions that are held parallel to the main events. Undeterred, more events are being scheduled in New York and emails are whizzing around with invitations to impromptu sessions set up as the parallel of the parallel.
(more…)
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Is it ever okay for a woman to exercise her sexuality to gain political power?
Posted on February 15, 2010, by Kudzai, under General, arts, human rights, politics, stereotypes, women, men and more.
Kudzai Makombe
Queen Elizabeth I kept a reign on power by becoming "The Virgin Queen" Credit www.PDImages.com
This question has been puzzling me since a late-night, noisy get together with friends where we got talking (some might say gossiping) about the alleged cross-party sexual politics taking place in our government. The men, it was said, were using sex as a strategy to silence the women from the opposite camps. The woman targeted loses her standing once she’s been seduced as it quickly becomes general knowledge among other politicians.
“Once you see that so and so who used to be so vocal has gone quite then you know they’ve been had,” said one friend. Much like the boarding school strategy employed by male students to remove the top performing girl student’s ranking as number one in class I’m told. But, never having been to boarding school, much less a co-educational school, I am not aware.
As much as this dirty trick is an age-old male strategy to silence female opponents, women throughout history have used their sexuality, that is — whom one has sex with (or not), in what ways, why, under what circumstances, and with what outcomes — as a strategy to gain power. (more…)
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Sherezade y el sultán, en el siglo XXI
Posted on February 12, 2010, by Kudzai, under General, arts, culture, media, stereotypes.
Diana Cariboni
Espero entre indignada y divertida el próximo 8 de marzo, Día Internacional de la Mujer… El anterior me deparó una pasmosa sorpresa. Sobre mi escritorio había una enorme rosa de pétalos amarillos y bordes rojos y una tarjeta dirigida a las mujeres del siglo XXI, en su día. (more…)
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When migrant labour hurts families
Posted on February 8, 2010, by Kudzai, under General, children, human rights, women, men and more.
Tess Bacalla
How does one tell a child that it is for his own future that his mother has to go offshore in search of the proverbial ‘greener pastures’, leaving behind a family that has never known the meaning of separation?
Just what does that assurance mean to a child anyway whose notion of a secure tomorrow could simply be waking up each morning with his mother by his side.
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Feminizing resistance to mainstream politics
Posted on February 1, 2010, by Kudzai, under General.
Paula Fray, IPS Africa Director
Guest Blogger: Paula Fray, IPS Africa Director
Early in January, I joined project managers from around the world at UNIFEM’s “Women Deepening Democracy: Transforming Politics for Gender Equality” workshop in India. Its apt that the workshop was held there. With over 714 million voters, India is arguable the world’s largest democracy with a long record of women in all levels of politics.
One such woman, Brinda Karat, Raj Sabha Member for the Communist Party of India, touched a nerve when she wondered whether we really want women to be part of the mainstream politics or whether women should reclaim the subversive role they have played in history.
Surely women do not want to be part of the mainstream – they want to change it?
(more…)
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Women’s bodies: A quick way to ascendancy?
Posted on January 18, 2010, by Kudzai, under General.
I’ve been dreading this point at which I have to post my first blog for the Gender Masala. It’s a tough job trying to fill the shoes of Mercedes Sayagues who started the blog and, together with a band of other contributors, kept it an inspired, lively and engaging space for readers to return to again and again and also make their contributions. But the fact is that sooner or later I would have to jump right in and this is it. I’m excited about this blog and I hope that we will be able to keep it engaging. By we, I mean myself, Kudzai Makombe in Harare, Tess Bacalla in Manila, Estrella Gutierrez in Caracas and Diana Cariboni in Montevideo. Mercedes is not completely off the hook. She will still be contributing from her new home in Maputo. There will also be posts from other contributors. (more…)
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A New Year for Gender Masala
Posted on January 2, 2010, by mercedes, under General, culture, media, stereotypes, women, men and more.
This is truly a New Year in many ways: Gender Masala and I are in transition in 2010.
I am moving to Maputo, Mozambique, to work in health reporting. Gender Masala will remain in the IPS Gender Portal with a more collective identity, infused by several IPS writers.
Passenger in transit: "The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes." Marcel Proust. Pic by Claudio Corallo.
I like the word transitions: it evokes change, birth, adaptation, growth.
This has been an exciting journey of discovery of a new medium. As the philosopher George Santayana wrote: “There is wisdom in turning as often as possible from the familiar to the unfamiliar; it keeps the mind nimble; it kills prejudice, and it fosters humor.”
Over seven months, , the pictures got bigger, the voices varied, my style freer. It was intellectually rewarding to look every week at the rich variety of IPS stories on gender and be inspired by them to write a new blog.
I will miss the weekly postings on gender, although I will continue blogging on health issues in Mozambique here:
http://knight.icfj.org/OurFellows/FromtheFieldFellowBlogs/
I want to thank my fellow bloggers, you, the readers, and, most importantly, IPS, for this opportunity to add a spicy mix to the MDG3 Gender Portal. I enjoyed it immensely and I hope you did too.
Peace in 2010.
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A Babel of Jargon
Posted on December 31, 2009, by mercedes, under General, culture, media, stereotypes.
A collective indigestion of jargon. Photo by Beralpo, Wikimedia Commons
My friend is looking for a job. He finds an ad of the US-based Mercy Corps and calls me for a translation. The ad is in English - sort of - but he can’t figure out what it is about:
“Invitation for a consultancy in conducting a training on enhancing facilitation skills of development practitioners of livelihood enhancement programs.”
What does this text mean exactly, except that we have a collective indigestion of development jargon from NGOs and the UN, from academics and politicians, and that the media is complicit in this masquerading of long words as substance? (more…)
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Out of darkness: facing breast cancer
Posted on December 28, 2009, by mercedes, under General, culture, health, media, women, men and more.
Guest blogger: Paola Rolletta, IPS stringer in Mozambique.
I feel neither more “good” nor more “patient”. I am a hard-headed woman, as always. Attached to life, as ever!
Paola Rolletta by Luis Abelard
The day when my friend Pigi, my oncologist, told me that I had breast cancer, I cried desperately. The first thing I did was to phone my partner to tell him this piece of news, of which I had had some premonition. And I understood that premonition really exists.
Curiously, I did not wonder “Why me?” My reaction was: “This cursed disease has hit me too!” (more…)
