Watchdog citizen journalism against gender violence
Posted on November 27, 2009, by mercedes, under Gender Masala, culture, harmful practices, human rights, media, politics, stereotypes, violence, women, men and more.
The sisters can do it by themselves. By A. Vilanculos
The buzz in Mozambique during the recent elections was not the TV debate among presidential candidates debate (there is none) or their programs (all vague).
What had tongues wagging was citizen’s journalism, dispatches by ordinary folk about electoral irregularities from the Rovuma to the Maputo rivers.
Good stuff: government cars illegally used for campaigning, with cellphone pics of their registration plates (until officials wised up and started covering up plates and ministry logos with party posters). Reports of youth tearing downs other party’s posters, fistfights, intimidation, and police lack of impartiality. (more…)
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A spiritual gift
Posted on November 23, 2009, by mercedes, under Gender Masala, arts, children, culture, human rights, religion, stereotypes, violence, women, men and more.
Patriarchal in all senses. By M. Sayagues
What drives a 17-year-old girl to enter a monastery? Today she is 30, and still happy about her choice. Her eyes sparkle and her laughter comes easy. She exudes peace.
I will call her Gabra (gift, in Amharic), for our conversation was private. I met her at a monastery near Lalibela, the mystical city of rock-hewn churches in northern Ethiopia.
Monastic life has a long tradition and prestige in the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. The oldest monastery dates from the 6th century. A monastic renaissance between the 13th and 16th century brought great moral and political authority to clergy.
Custodians of tradition
Gabra’s rock-hewn monastery dates from the 12th century. Her room is excavated in the pink tufa rock. Two built-in-the-rock platforms, covered with a thin mattress, do as couch and bed. An old cupboard holds a few plates and cooking utensils, three of the long green robes worn by Ethiopian peasants, the white headscarves that nuns wear, and two pairs of sandals.
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Children’s health and the invisible Ethiopian men
Posted on November 17, 2009, by mercedes, under Gender Masala, children, culture, health, stereotypes, women, men and more.
Guest posting by Gifti Nadi. After ten years with the International Women in Media Foundation in Washington DC, she is back in her home country, Ethiopia.
By Gifti Nadi
This was not an ordinary polio vaccination day for the children of Babile and Kombolcha, small towns about 500 km East of Addis Ababa. Ferenjis (foreigners in Amharic) had arrived!
About 100 Rotarians from the USA and Canada paid their way to Harar and Dire Dawa in Eastern Ethiopia to join local health workers in a massive drive to vaccinate 11.5 million children under five nationwide.
In recent years, 24 cases of polio have been detected in Ethiopia, likely coming from Sudan, says the World Health Organisation.
We travelled in small groups to the towns nestled against the backdrop of stunning mountains. We went door to door and were warmly welcomed by the primarily Muslim, Oromo and Somali families. (more…)
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Being male was the cameraman’s bad luck
Posted on November 3, 2009, by mercedes, under Gender Masala, culture, human rights, media, stereotypes, women, men and more.
Guest blogger: Suad Hamada, IPS correspondent in Bahrain
Shall we talk about it?
A Saudi woman journalist escaped punishment last week but her cameraman wasn’t so lucky.
Rozana Al-Yami, 22, was pardoned by Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah after the court sentenced her to 60 lashes for her work at the talk show Red Line in LBC, a Lebanese satellite TV.
She made international news. He didn’t. No one mentioned that he has to serve a two-month jail term. His name remains anonymous in press reports.
Some would call this positive discrimination in favour of women but to me iit s a general bias. Women have been striving all over the world for equality, not favoritism. (more…)
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Beauty as an optical illusion
Posted on October 12, 2009, by mercedes, under Gender Masala, adolescents, arts, children, culture, media, stereotypes, women, men and more.
Fashion models in ads are optical illusions and the award-winning video Evolution of Beauty, from the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty proves the point eloquently. Watch it at:
http://www.campaignforrealbeauty.ca/bblank.asp?id=6895
Digital cosmetic surgery - nip-and-tuck, botox and liposuction, on the screen, with a click - render these models picture-perfect (excuse the pun) and thoroughly unreal.
There is no way a non-photoshopped woman can attain that perfection. Hey, we are human. We have flaws.
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Red light for Burqa-wearing drivers in Bahrain
Posted on October 5, 2009, by mercedes, under Gender Masala, culture, human rights, politics, religion, stereotypes, women, men and more.
Guest blogger: Suad Hamada, IPS correspondent in Bahrain
Dressed to drive? By S.Hamada
Burqa-wearing women may lose the right to drive in Bahrain over a conflict between government and conservative lawmakers.
The government wants to amend the traffic law and grant male traffic officers the right to ask women to lift the veil and show their faces.
On the other hand, some lawmakers are loath to approve the amendment or at least demand that female traffic officers be employed for this task.
Let’s hope that in either way it will be a win-win situation for women: that they will continue to drive, and enter a job sector that has been reserved for men since the 1970s. Bahrain doesn’t impose a dress code on women. Wearing a burqa (or Niqab, in Bahrain) is a personal choice.
OK, not all women here wear a burqa as personal choice; some do it to obey their male relatives or conservative families. (more…)
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Putting a value on our work
Posted on September 24, 2009, by mercedes, under Gender Masala, culture, media, women, men and more.
Guest blogger: Miren Gutierrez, IPS editor-in-chief
Seven PM at the supermarket. After a long day at the office, she is standing in line to pay for groceries to make dinner, stealing glances at her watch, grappling with two young kids who want her to buy some chewing gum…
Unequal sharing of the work pie. M. Sayagues
Does this picture ring a bell? Survey after survey across the world report that women put in between 20 and 30 hours a week of domestic and family work. Unseen, unsung and unpaid, yes, but not insignificant.
Unpaid work in the home, done mainly by women, is estimated at approximately 50 percent of all productive activity even in industrial countries, and as much as 60-70 percent in many developing countries,” says Hazel Henderson in an interview with IPS. (more…)
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HILARIOUS CONDOM ADS
Posted on September 21, 2009, by mercedes, under Gender Masala, adolescents, culture, media, religion, reproductive health, stereotypes, women, men and more.
Gender Masala has been dealing with serious topics seriously …it’s time for a fun break! Check out these hilarious condom ads from several continents. They make safe sex fun.
Make safe sex fun. By M. Sayagues
Ranging from sassy dialogue to black humour, these are one-minute comedies with a smart punchline. The Mother from Hell and the Spoiled Brat skits have a Borat-like humour. And who would have thought a condom ad from India would depict anal sex?
Click on the ad from Argentina even if you don’t speak Spanish. Everybody who has been a teenager will chuckle about these teens, their parents and their predicament. (Watch it here)
Laughing got me thinking about how seldom one sees humorous ads about condoms in English-speaking Southern Africa. I have seen some cool ads in Mozambique, though – I think there were Brazilian advisors involved. (more…)
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Breakthrough for Women at the UN
Posted on September 18, 2009, by mercedes, under Gender Masala, human rights, media, politics, women, men and more.
Guest blogger: Ann Ninan, IPS Gender Editor
A breakthrough for us as well? M. Sayagues
The UN has finally decided to stand up for women! A decision to create a new agency for women was taken by the General Assembly on September14.
Our colleague Thalif Deen, IPS bureau chief in New York, was the first and only journalist to report it for the first several hours.
But this blog is not to crow about our scoop.
I’m quite excited by the prospect of a new women’s agency with money and political power. No longer will the world’s feminists have to lobby from the outside to put their views on the table. They have now won admission to the high table.
Any one of those bright, articulate, activist women can emerge to lead the agency. The reality is likely to be less rosy. But chances are that, because it’s new, it will be less under the thumb of the old boy network.
You think I’m a romantic? What the hell, there is no harm in dreaming, is there? (more…)
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Italian Women – The Horror
Posted on September 10, 2009, by mercedes, under Gender Masala, adolescents, culture, human rights, media, stereotypes, violence, women, men and more.
Guest blogger: Miren Gutierrez, IPS editor-in-chief
Have you seen the Italian documentary Il corpo delle donne (available with English subtitles)?
It is horrifying, like a horror movie.
“Women –real women— are an endangered species on television, one that is being replaced by a grotesque, vulgar and humiliating representation,” says an introduction to the documentary by Lorella Zanardo.
This picture shows a woman hanged from the ceiling, like a ham, surrounded by legs of ham. This and other images, taken from real TV shows, speak for themselves.
Il corpo delle donne is a 25-minute terrifying documentary that undresses the degradation of women in Italian television. (more…)
