feminist blogs in english

From the New York Times (link via this ain’t livin’):

The upper house of India’s Parliament passed a bill Tuesday that would amend the Constitution to reserve one-third of the seats in India’s national and state legislatures for women, after the measure stirred two days of political chaos that could whittle the governing coalition’s majority to a dangerously thin margin.
[...]
Tuesday’s vote was the first of four hurdles the measure must clear. The lower house of Parliament, the Lok Sabha, must pass the bill, then the proposed amendment will need to win approval from at least half of India’s state legislatures. Then India’s president, a largely ceremonial post, must sign off.

Click through for some context and criticisms of the bill, for instance there’s concern ‘that it will favor wealthy upper-caste women at the expense of the lower castes and Muslims’.

The Indian Express provides some regional and international context. They also have an article on latest UNDP report, which suggests that ‘that quotas for women-held seats in political bodies can be “effective” and are “necessary” for overall growth.’ And here’s an article at the Hindistan Times that is well worth a read. cim from Refusing the default has an analysis of how quotas work and might work in various political systems, jumping off from the criticism mentioned above.

In response to male-dominated politics throughout the country’s history, India has just approved a bill that would reserve 1/3 of all legislative seats for women candidates. The news comes just in time for International Women’s Day, on March 8th.

The country faces specific problems relating to women that have not been appropriately addressed up to this point. The World Economic Forum has ranked India 114 out of 134 countries based on gender disparities. Female infanticide is responsible for an unequal number of men and women in the country. Proponents of the bill hope that a critical mass of female legislators will solve this problem.

“Issues like female infanticide will no longer be seen as a soft subject but will become the core of the nation’s political agenda,” said Brinda Karat, a member of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), during the debate in the upper house.

Many are very resistant to the idea of a quota, even though it’s been done with success in places like Norway. I am in support of such a measure. It’s not even a 50% quota; it is 33%. I believe this can encourage more women to get involved with politics and feel empowered to put in the time and effort into running for office.

But some of those who opposed the bill claim they didn’t oppose it for sexist reasons. Instead, Laloo Prasad Yadav, leader of the Rashtriya Janata Dal party, said that he is against the legislation because it does not contain certain provisions for women of lower castes or religious minorities. Therefore, he claims, the bill won’t do enough to counter inequalities in Indian politics. As he puts it:

“We are being unfairly defamed as anti-women. All we want is that the women from real India, like those toiling in the farms and villages, are brought forward.”

Women currently have about 11% of the seats in Parliament in India. The United States isn’t a huge improvement over this number, where about 17% of Congress is female.

This post is a part of the Blog for IWD BLOG For Blog for International Women’s Day, we’ve asked you to describe a person or event that has helped to fight for equal rights around the world. At GAB we decided to answer our own question, and each editor came up with her/his own Global Feminist [...]

As mentioned yesterday, we’re starting a global feminist book club here at Gender Across Borders. Every month, we will choose a new book to read and discuss. The book for April will be Kamila Shamsie’s Burnt Shadows. This sweeping book tells the story of the postmodern age, beginning with the atomic bombing of Nagasaki and [...]

Last week while flipping through Parade magazine, of all places (it’s that Sunday newspaper insert that reads like a Cliffs Notes version of Reader’s Digest), I came across the story of a nonprofit that has a unique model of aiding impoverished communities in developing countries. VisionSpring trains local individuals—many of them women—to perform basic vision exams [...]

Global Feminist Profiles highlights feminist leaders all over the world who are creating change and empowering their countrywomen to demand equality. GFPs run on the third Monday of each month. This month’s featured activist is Audacia Ray, a sexuality rights and new media activist based in New York City. Feminism and sex [...]

I recently read an article about the correspondence and meeting between two of the most independent thinkers of the 20^th Century, Margaret Sanger and Mahatma Gandhi. The two activists met in 1936 when Sanger traveled to India to speak with Gandhi about birth control. By that time Sanger was advocating internationally for artificial contraceptives and sought to make Gandhi an ally.

Despite the fact that the movement was gaining popularity in a society with a serious poverty crisis, Gandhi was an outspoken critic of artificial birth control. His general attitude was that

“Persons who use contraceptives will never learn the value of self-restraint. They will not need it. Self-indulgence with contraceptives may prevent the coming of children but will sap the vitality of both men and women, perhaps more of men than of women. It is unmanly to refuse battle with the devil.”

Sanger, on the other hand, once told her granddaughter that “for intercourse, I’d say three times a day was about right.” (Go girl!)

Gandhi believed that men needed to overcome desire for women and warned women that if they engaged in intercourse for pleasure that men would lose respect for them and begin to view them as mere sex objects.

Instead, women in Gandhi’s world had a special role. A lesser-discussed aspect of Gandhi’s radical lifestyle was that up until his death he regularly slept, fully nude, with young women. The purpose was to demonstrate brahmacharya, or complete control over body and organs, by this display of sexual restraint.

While Gandhi warned women against giving away their chastity to avoid being treated as sex objects, isn’t that precisely the way that Gandhi treated them by using them as submissive roles of his presentation of self-restraint?

This ritual demeaned women by portraying them as something impure, something for men to “overcome.” He reduced women by manipulating them to deny their own natural sexual urges, and insisting that the only expression of their sexuality be in lying naked with him in bed, a situation where he was in full control and which was void of healthy sexual activity.

While many today praise Gandhi’s progressive views on women’s rights, was he really as concerned about the dignity of Indian women as he claimed?

Sanger did not succeed in convincing Gandhi to support the birth control movement. Instead he maintained his position that his followers “transcend carnal lust.”  While Sanger did not make what could have been a powerful ally, I think the important fact is that the conversation took place.

Given all that has happened in India since Gandhi’s death in 1948, I wonder where he would stand on the issue of birth control today. Certainly few people would agree with his approach in a country where nearly half live below the poverty line.

In 1959 Sanger stood by the side of Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru when he declared that $10 million would go to family planning efforts. I wonder what Gandhi would have thought about the use of state resources to fund population control.

The meeting between Margaret Sanger and Gandhi demonstrates Sanger’s audacity and serves as a good lesson for activists to seek allies even in unlikely places. It is also great feminist food for thought.

The Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights Situation Report is a monthly column highlighting SRHR issues internationally.  In honor of World AIDS Day, December 1st, this month’s column will focus on Women and HIV/AIDS worldwide. Halting the spread of HIV/AIDS is part of Millennium Development Goal 6, linked with “malaria and other diseases.”  The major international [...]

Despite the UN Millennium Development Goal to reduce maternal deaths by 75% before 2015, India, among other countries, struggles with preventable maternal deaths every day. Unlike countries like Sierra Leone and the Democratic Republic of Congo, however, India is not a war torn country with an unstable health care system. In an op-ed for Women’s [...]

Every week I will post a short biography from The United Nations Who’s Who of Women and the Environment.  This week is featuring Parveen Abrar of Hyderabad, India:

Recycling is the only suitable way to stop the damage caused to sanitation systems by plastic bags. Youth Sciences Association for the Environment (YSAE) has developed a method by which polythene bags can be recycled and converted into decorative items like tea mats, caps, hats, mats, handbags, wall hangers, ladies’ purses, baskets, school bags, key rings and more.

This recycling method has gained great popularity amongst women. Ms.Parveen Abrar, a founding member of YSAE, has trained over 1000 girls in recycling plastic bags, presenting them also with the means to generate income, by marketing household items made of recycled bags. In 2000, 2001 and 2005, she organized training workshops in Karachi, Tando Allahyar, Tando Muhammad, KhanVillage, Abri Kather and Hali Road in Hyderabad.

Parvenne Abrar holds an MA in Economics and a Master’s in education. She is a Master trainer for the ESRA USAID Program in Sindh, Pakistan.