“We, the indigenous people, say we don’t agree with this system—to be exploited, to have them continue to destroy our communities… It should be the people who give the orders and the government that obeys.” (Marichuy)
Technology and social media: yet more tools to threaten, control and coerce women
For many women the abuse, harassment and stalking they experience online is just another disturbing example of the violence they receive from their partner or ex-partner. Far from being the one-off incident of online abuse that is perceived by the police – this behaviour by perpetrators is just another way to control, threaten and coerce women. Online stalking and harassment is part of a pattern of behaviour which encompasses online abuse and street harassment as well as domestic violence and murder.
Inspiring Thursday: Ninotchka Roska
Referring to herself as a “transnational Filipina”, Ninotchka Roska is a prolific writer, author of eleven books, journalist, as well as a fervent advocate for women´s rights and liberation. She has won several awards, including the American Book Award for Excellence in Literature for her famous book Twice Blessed.
Inspiring Thursday: Lizzie Velasquez
“I am human… of course those things are going to hurt… (but) I’m not going to let those things define me.”
Why we (still) need feminism
I often find myself in conversations about why feminism is still needed today, especially why it is needed in our so-called Western world. I get … read article
Inspiring Thursday: Nawal El Saadawi
“For me feminism includes everything. It is social justice, political justice, sexual justice… It is the link between medicine, literature, politics, economics, psychology and history. Feminism is all that. You cannot understand the oppression of women without this.”
Inspiring Thursday: Kumari Jayawardena
Leading feminist figure, activist and academic, Kumari Jayawardena was born in 1931 and raised in Sri Lanka. She decided to continue her higher education in the London School of Economics, in the UK, where she graduated from political science and finished her Ph.D. on the labour movement in Ceylon in 1964.
Inspiring Thursday: Martha Gellhorn
Martha Gellhorn was a journalist, novelist and one of the greatest war correspondents of her time. During her long career she covered dozens of wars, including the Spanish Civil War, World War II, the Arab-Israeli War and the Vietnam War. Gellhorn was a fearless woman, whose writing and travels were driven by the desire to see “more of the world and what´s in it”.
Shelters for undocumented migrant women in the Netherlands
Migrant women are powerful women. It requires determination and perseverance to make the journey from your home country to a new and unknown country. Certainly, if it is not clear how the future will look like − asylum seekers and other migrants cannot count on a warm welcome.
Migration legislation is cruel − not everyone who needs it gets a residence permit. The connection between migration legislation and social legislation denies irregular migrant women access to social security, including women’s shelters.
Inspiring Thursday: Wangari Maathai
“The future of the planet concerns all of us, and we should do what we can to protect it. As I told the foresters, and the women, you don’t need a diploma to plant a tree.”
