WUNRN
Open Democracy Series on Violence Against Women
https://www.opendemocracy.net/5050/16-days-activism-against-gender-based-violence-2014
From peace in the home to peace in the world:
challenging militarism and ending violence against women. OpenDemocracy 50.50 brings you critical
perspectives from academics, lawyers, activists, grassroots workers and policy
makers around the world exploring the continuum of violence.
Women in prison: the cycle of violence
Dawn Foster 3
December 2014
Most women in prison in Britain have experienced sexual
or domestic violence, yet the system fails to address their needs and further
victimises them. For some, it is the end of the road.
Sexualized violence in Iraq: how to understand and fight
it
Nadje al-Ali
3 December 2014
Sexualised and gender-based violence in Iraq, highlighted
in recent weeks in relation to ISIS atrocities, has been at the heart of
sectarian and authoritarian politics and developments since 2003. How can we
talk about it and mobilise against it?
"It takes broken bones": authoritarianism and
violence against women in Hungary
Heather McRobie
2 December 2014
Right-wing discourse in Hungarian politics is matched by
the government’s regressive handling of gender issues, as structural violence
against the socially marginalised interplays with violence against women.
Changing the behaviour of male perpetrators of domestic
violence
Angela
Neustatter 28 November 2014
Domestic violence shows no sign of abating. There is
growing recognition that working with male perpetrators - alongside
intervention and protection for women - is essential to reducing the violence
that kills two women every week.
Masculine violence: call of duty, or call for change?
Cynthia Cockburn
27 November 2014
The much-hyped launch of a new gun-shooting video game
this month reveals the thread of gender linking socially-endorsed militarism to
criminal sexual assault. Where are the social programmes that would address the
reshaping of masculinity?
The Handmaid's Tale of El Salvador
Alda Facio and Cristina Hardaga
27 November 2014
Poverty, misogyny, and Christian fundamentalism in El
Salvador lie behind the prison sentences of up to forty years handed down to
seventeen women who were arrested for the crime of abortion, but sentenced for
murder.
The right to walk alone without fear
Finn Mackay 26
November 2014
The Reclaim the Night marches through night-time city
centres tap into a righteous and rising anger, and are a way to highlight that
women have a human right to live free from the threat or reality of male
violence.
Ché Ramsden
26 November 2014
At the core of a global pandemic of violence against
women rage two defining features of patriarchy: male privilege and male
violence. Ché Ramsden argues that we must dig deeper to dismantle the
culture(s) which make it acceptable to hate women.
Preventing violence against women: a sluggish cascade?
Anne Marie Goetz
25 November 2014
There has been a global 'cascade' in commitments to end
violence against women. But the violence keeps happening. What is
needed is more support - nationally and internationally - for feminist
organizations.
Iran: a 'bloody stain' on the nation
Yakin Erturk
25 November 2014
The war on women continues to manifest itself in
different forms and intensity globally; tarnishing all societies with a ‘bloody
stain’. In Iran, hard-liner interpretations of Islamic principles dictate
gender norms, violation of which can be fatal.
A choir of lost voices: the murder of Loretta Saunders and
Canada's missing women
Elizabeth Grant
25 November 2014
The murder of Loretta Saunders, a young scholar who
researched missing and murdered Aboriginal women in Canada, reveals the
structural violence that compounds violence against women, and the stinging
injustice of Canada’s 825 lost Aboriginal women.
Abortion: Ireland's reckoning with Amendment 8
Beatrix Campbell
25 November 2014
Calling for an end to a constitution that bans abortion -
and kills women, a deep and broad based movement has sprung up in Ireland to
change the constitution, and finally release women's bodies from church and
state.
Oscar Pistorius: the South African story
Ché Ramsden
24 November 2014
The two versions of Oscar Pistorius presented by the
state and the defence fit into a wider narrative of South African patriarchy,
and not the other way around; solutions must therefore come from beyond the
Pistorius trial.
Women's voices in northern Nigeria: hearing the broader
narratives
Fatimah Kelleher
2 June 2014
As the world's attention focuses on northern Nigeria with
the abduction of schoolgirls from Chibok, Fatimah Kelleher explores the
importance of understanding the voices and agency of northern Nigerian women's
own activism for change.
Gender violence in the media: elusive reality
Heather McRobie
6 March 2014
The death of Reeva Steenkamp has highlighted the
problematic way in which the media treat the issue of domestic violence.
We need a better way to transmit and therefore tackle the reality – how
violence is built into our lives and how space is gendered, says Heather
McRobie.