Tag Archives: gender equality

Rwandan genocide, 30 years on: Omitting women’s memories encourages incomplete understanding of violence

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A father is searching for his missing child using ICRC assistance during the 1994 Rwandan Genocide. Photo: British Red Cross/flickr/CC

By Anneliese M. Schenk-Day, Ohio State University. Published 4-5-2024 by The Conversation

The eruption of violence that Rwanda experienced beginning on the evening of April 6, 1994, continues to haunt the central African nation 30 years on – it has also changed the country’s gender dynamics.

The genocide resulted in hundreds of thousands of men being killed, with many more fleeing the country or being incarcerated. It left a previously male-centered society with hundreds of thousands of female-headed households. Of course, women were also subjected to the violence itself, with many killed and between 250,000 and 500,000 raped in the three months of genocide.

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‘Tidal Wave of Rage’: 100,000+ Australian Women March Against Sexual Violence

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“Evil thrives in silence,” said survivor and Australian of the Year Grace Tame. “But… it gives me hope because the start of the solution is also quite simple—making noise!”

By Brett Wilkins, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 3-15-2021

Women and allies rally in Melbourne, Victoria on March 15, 2021 during Australia’s mutli-day March 4 Justice against sexual violence and gender discrimination. (Photo: Matt Hrkac/Flickr/cc)

Declaring “enough is enough,” over 100,000 Australian women and their allies took to the nation’s streets Sunday and Monday during a nationwide #March4Justice to denounce sexual violence and gender discrimination.

Over 110,000 people in at least 40 cities and towns took part in the demonstrations, according to event organizers. Janine Hendry, the main organizer, told the New York Times that “there are huge numbers of women around the country that have had enough, quite frankly, of their appalling response to sexual assault and harassment.” Continue reading →

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‘Insulting, Inhumane, and Unacceptable’: LGBTQ Rights Advocates Blast Trump’s Latest ‘Reckless Attack’ on Trans Americans

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“The cruelty and bigotry of this administration truly has no limit.”

By Jessica Corbett, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 10-21-2018

LGBTQ Americans and allies rally outside the White House to protest President Donald Trump’s effort to ban trans people from military service. (Photo: Ted Eytan/Flickr/cc)

Sparking immediate outrage among LGBTQ Americans and allies on Sunday, the New York Times reported on a memo revealing that “the Trump administration is considering narrowly defining gender as a biological, immutable condition determined by genitalia at birth, the most drastic move yet in a governmentwide effort to roll back recognition and protections of transgender people under federal civil rights law.”

In a move that “would essentially eradicate federal recognition of the estimated 1.4 million Americans who have opted to recognize themselves—surgically or otherwise—as a gender other than the one they were born into,” the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), is currently considering a legal definition that “would define sex as either male or female, unchangeable, and determined by the genitals that a person is born with,” according to the Times. Continue reading →

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Men, We Can Do Better

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Survivors of sexual assault like Christine Blasey Ford deserve our support, not our opposition.

By Chris Winters. Published 9-28-2018 by YES! Magazine

Rally against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh outside the Supreme Court, Washington DC. Photo: Avery Jensen {CC-BY-SA-4.0} via Wikimedia Commons

Like millions of Americans, I sat riveted before the television on Thursday watching the quiet, calm, and dignified testimony of a woman, Professor Christine Blasey Ford, who was scarred for life by sexual assault. She sat in a room full of powerful men and described her ordeal at the hands of another powerful man.

Then I watched that accused man, Judge Brett Kavanaugh, yell and scream about how it was all just unfair and a political hit job and a conspiracy by Democrats to get revenge for the 2016 election. His unbridled rage was shared by several other powerful men in the room, especially Senator Lindsay Graham, whose rant seemed to be an audition for a senior appointment in the Trump administration. Continue reading →

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