Inspirational women

Alice Urusaro Karekezi, an activist and lecturer with a background in law, has a long history of defending women’s rights in post-conflict settings. Karekezi has done most of her work in Kigali, Rwanda. With 20 years of experience fighting for women’s rights and gender-based violence in post-conflict settings, and regional peace and security. Karekezi is a fierce advocate for change and respect for women’s human rights. She was born in the Democratic Republic of Congo and left in 1991 to study and work in Europe, namely in France and Belgium. She has completed her PhD at the School of Global Studies, University of Gothenburg, Sweden.

In 1994, after the Rwandan genocide, Alice Urusaro Karekezi fought to ensure sexual violence was punished as a war crime. As she affirmed in an interview for the National Geographic magazine, she and many others left well-paying jobs abroad to return to their homeland. “We came here to build (Kigali),” said Karekezi. In 1999 she became the co-founder of the Centre for Conflict Management.

read article

“”The women I highlight are making a difference with little or no help. Just imagine what they could do with international attention and support.”

― Roshini Thinakaran

read article

“The roots of sexism and homophobia are found in the same economic and political institutions that serve as the foundation of racism in this country and, more often than not, the same extremist circles that inflict violence on people of color are responsible for the eruptions of violence inspired by sexist and homophobic biases. Our political activism must clearly manifest our understanding of these connections.”
― Angela Y. Davis, Women, Culture & Politics

read article

«Je ne peux pas être la porte-parole de toutes les femmes, je peux juste être une des figures du féminisme, et d’ailleurs malgré moi» (“I cannot be the spokesperson for all women, I can just be one of the figures of feminism, and besides in spite of myself”)

read article

“Becoming a feminist didn’t mean I always knew the answer; becoming a feminist for me meant that I had very pointed questions to ask that I had spent years not asking. And, when you have better questions to ask, your thinking gets better.”

read article

“She was really a powerhouse (…) They called her a hurricane,” said Chris Bournea, journalist and film producer of Lady Wrestler: The Amazing, Untold Story of African-American Women in the Ring.

read article

Maria Lassnig (1919–2014) is a worldwide recognized artist from Austria, and moreover one of the most important women painters from the 20^th century. She was an original exponent of expressionism, with some influence of surrealism and cubism.

read article

“If there is something right in Beauvoir’s claim that one is born, but rather becomes a woman, it follows that woman itself is a term in process, a becoming, a constructing that cannot rightfully be said to originate or to end. As an ongoing discursive practice, it is open to intervention and resignification.”
― Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity

read article

“Dear, Yalitza. Thank you for giving us a voice in a world where they want to silence us and make us disappear. Wishing you all the luck.” Anonymous

read article