Her Blueprint: The Global Fund for Women Blog

Nicola Costantino was born in Rosario, Argentina, on November 17, 1964, into a family of Italian descent. As a child, she was a little unusual, with remarkably popping eyes and many scientific and technical leanings.

While she attended the course of Fine Arts at the National University in Rosario, her interest in new artistic materials and techniques led her to research and work in craft workshops and factories. At ICI Duperial, she experimented with silicone molds and matrices on polyester resin apt for flexible polyurethane foam injection. Her skill in this technique proved decisive for the development of her art work, and enabled her to achieve the real-object perception that would become characteristic of Nicola’s art.

Costantino achieves in her art what visual arts should do: her sculptures, installations, videos, and photographs catch the eye and alter perception. Because they are predominately rooted in sensation, and not just in concepts, her artworks trigger an immediate, physical reaction. Casts of animal fetuses, molds of human skin, and soaps made with the artist’s own fat build up a tension between ornamentation and revulsion. Her innovation revolves around ethical values and the alienation from nature. Even sexuality is turned into compulsion, flesh, and transmuted bodies, turning everything into an oppressive eroticism.

In 1995, she started to experiment with an almost exact copy of human skin made in silicone that she used for the production of her clothing. And it is for theses silicon sculptures and clothes resembling erogenous parts of the human body, that she achieved notoriety. Also, she made her first coat with navels and human hair, which she herself wore during her frequent trips to New York and Los Angeles. Fashion - a topic that had been present throughout her life along with consumption and the human body as a tool of seduction - has become a recurrent theme in her work.

Costantino frequently employs visually and conceptually shocking means to investigate corporeality, and the relationship between animals and humans. With a background in sculpture and having worked with her mother in a clothing factory as a child, Costantino constantly seeks to incorporate new materials and processes in her practice. She studied mechanical engineering to make her kinetic works, taxidermy for her casts of animal carcasses, and soap-making to create soap from her own body fat. In her later career, Costantino has turned to photography, exploring themes of doubling and manipulation.

In 2003, she started her project Savon de Corps, with soaps made with a part of her own fat obtained from a liposuction. She held a solo exhibit of her Boutique at Senda Gallery, in Barcelona’s Paseo de Gracia, a street where the world’s most glamorous clothing brands are based, and another exhibition with her whole work at Casal Solleric, Palma de Mallorca, both in Spain.
Cochon sur canapé (1992), her first solo show, was considered a forerunner of contemporary Latin American art.

In 1994, she was admitted into the Antorchas Foundation’s Barracas Workshop, coordinated by Suárez and Benedit and moved to Buenos Aires, where she settled down and started working. In 1998, she represented Argentina in the San Pablo biennial and then began to take part in several exhibits in museums around the world, such as those in Liverpool (1999), Tel Aviv (2002) and Zurich (2011). In 2000, she performed a solo show at Deitch Projects (New York); her Corset of Human Furriery became part of the MOMA collection. In 2004, she presented Animal Motion Planet, a series of orthopedic machines for stillborn animals, and Savon de Corps, a work that caused great impact in mass media.

Her reunion with Gabriel Valansi in 2006 lead her into photography, where she has more than 30 works in which she always takes the leading role embodying different characters of photography and other art forms. Her interest in video performance drives her creation of self-referential work Trailer (2010), her first cinematographic-like production, as well as her embodying of a historical and emblematic female character like Eva Perón in Rapsodia Inconclusa (55th Venice Biennial, 2013).

This week is the 100th anniversary of the German invasion of France –and the beginning of the military cataclysm that wrecked Europe and has affected us all since. All this the result of an assassination in Sarajevo in late June, and the month of failed diplomatic efforts that followed. (France had done nothing except to come to the support of its ally Russia, which was supporting the Serbs against the Austrians, who were allied with Germany). Clio’s previous blog was on this subject.

Clio has since discovered a novel by the best-selling French writer, Marcelle Tinayre (1870-1948), called (in its English translation) To Arms! Published in 1915, it explores the varied reactions of ordinary Parisians as seen through the eyes of one woman during two days (the 31st of July and 1st August 1914 – just 100 years ago) of the run-up to the German invasion of France– when Parisians had learned that the German army was mobilizing for a strike, but hadn’t yet launched it.

In Tinayre’s novel, one older woman who is the concierge in the building where the main character, Simone, lives, exclaims, weeping, on how hard war is on mothers of sons:

“If there were women in the government, war would be ended! It is the soldiers who make the battles, but it is the women who make the soldiers.

Between you and me, we always think about saving our children. I cannot think that a German mother has a different heart from mine! There are not two ways of bringing a child into the world, and not two ways for him to leave it, and not two ways of suffering when we lose him. Nature is everywhere the same . . . .”

And the author remarks:

“The cry of distracted maternity, of naked and savage instinct, resounded through Simone’s whole being. The old concierge with grey hair, in the rooms furnished with mahogany, seemed to her a symbolic figure of the Mater Dolorosa. No doubt, at this moment, despatches running on the telegraph wires, or sent on air waves, were carrying the same news to France, Germany, and Russia. Everywhere, the women who had not wished to believe in the catastrophe so incomprehensible to their simple minds, were brutally crushed before the reality. . . . Everywhere. And the women of the Russian huts, primitive souls who knew nothing of the universe, and the prolific German women who lived in subjection to men, and the French women passionately devoted to their sons, all, submitting to the law, faithful to their duty but equally tortured, uttered the same cry, the unavailing cry of the mothers which, from the time of Hecuba and Rachel, resounds eternally from age to age.”

And yet wars continue, and mothers continue to wail. Ten million men died in World War I and some twenty million were wounded. An entire generation was sacrificed in the course of four bloody years. Wars continue today in many parts of the world. How long will it be before women and men put a halt to such senseless slaughter?

Source: To Arms! (La Veillée des Armes): An Impression of the Spirit of France. Authorized translation from the French of Marcelle Tinayre by Lucy H. Humphrey, with a preface by John H. Finley (New York, 1918; originally published in France in 1915).

Between 2008 and 2009, award-winning photojournalist Jean Chung traveled through the Democratic Republic of Congo to document sexual violence. In the resulting series, Tears in the Congo: Sexual Violence in the DRC, she captured the strength and bravery of women who gave birth after being raped. In bold colors, Chung shared stories of women carrying their babies back home after treatment and fistula surgeries, reflecting the ravage of rape that has affected more than half a million women in the DRC.

Five years later, she returned to follow up on her earlier subjects. Chung's latest work Tears in the Congo: Unending War, Unending Tears documents the women and children who continue to fight for their safety and survival, even as rape as a weapon of war continues to proliferate their lives.

Yet now, in 2014, Chung's photos from Congo are in black-and-white. The photo at the top of this post caught my eye and mesmerized me. In the midst of life, zooming through the French countryside on TGV watching green earth pass by, sitting by the ocean looking at three swaths of blue, letting the sun warm my naked spine, I kept thinking, when Chung returned to Congo, all color was gone. Only black and white remained.

For months, I have been on a writing break since stumbling upon May San Alberto's Artemisias in a gallery in Rome. Sometimes the break comes from still not knowing the answer: how to create safety for women and children in the DRC because they deserve it. As much as I do. As much as you do. As we all do.

Over these months, one thought kept surfacing: Our work as activists, as human beings, has to bring effective change. We all must live in safety, at least.

How can this shift occur? More advocacy. More policy and law. More outreach?

In June 2014, the Global Summit to End Sexual Violence took place in London. It created concrete steps toward ending impunity for those who commit sexual violence within war and conflict.

But until impunity arrives and behavior change occurs, Chung has it right. The facts are stark and they remain in black-and-white: For more than ten years, the DRC has been a war zone with death tolls exceeding 5.5 million people. More than 500,000 women and children have been raped.

Chung's photos also remind: As time passes for women and children in Congo, this means their lives remain just as they are. Just as they have been for more than ten years. In need of basic safety. In need of a better chance. In need of change.

Jean Chung is a Korean photojournalist who has won awards such as the CARE Humanitarian Reporting Award in 2007 and the 6th and 7th Days Japan International Photojournalism Award in 2010 and 2011.

Photo credits: Jean Chung

[Editor's Note: This post was written by Tracy Brown Hamilton, a journalist based in Amsterdam. It originally appeared onRabble.ie.]

Photo credit: WOW Facebook page.

News broke over the weekend that a woman in Ireland was forced to bear her rapist’s child having been denied an abortion after going on hunger strike. Tracy Brown Hamilton chatted to Rebecca Gomperts of Woman On Waves about how Ireland’s laws are failing women.

The Protection of Life in Pregnancy Act of 2013 was ostensibly going to help secure a woman’s rights, and sparked outrage from Ireland’s pro-life community. But the policy is flawed, according to Dr. Rebecca Gomperts, 47.

“It’s ridiculous,” Gomperts says. “Women are dying and suffering health problems. Human rights are being violated. It was bad before, but now it’s worse. This policy won’t help women.”

Gomperts is the founder and director of Women on Waves, an organization that, among other things, sails a ship to countries where pregnancy termination is prohibited and offers non-surgical abortions beyond territorial waters.

Ireland Campaign

In 2001, Women on Waves launched their first ship campaign– to Ireland.

“There is a very dedicated pro-choice community there,” Gomperts says, “and they were very interested in the project.”

The number of women who sought Gomperts’ services exceeded anyone’s expectations. “The groups we worked with said, ‘no woman is going to come to a ship for an abortion’,” Gomperts recalls. “But we had 80 calls immediately, and realized we had not brought enough pills.”

Those who responded included women who had been raped, schoolgirls who could not find a feasible excuse to go to England for a couple of days, mothers who could not afford childcare while away in England, and political refugees who did not have the papers to travel.

In the end, because they did not have two necessary licenses from the Dutch and Irish authorities –one for operating medical facilities and the other for carrying passengers to sea – Women on Waves was unable to distribute the abortion pill.

Regardless, hundreds of Irish women continued to reach out to Gomperts for help.

Non-Surgical Abortion

According to Gomperts, the abortion pill – mifepristone and misoprostol – can be safely used to terminate pregnancies up to 12 weeks at home, without medical supervision.

“The World Health Organisation has published guidelines that say women can do this,” she says. “So there is no need for surgical abortion anymore. The only issue is getting women access to the pills.”

To that end, Gomperts has created an international network to help women around the world find a means of getting the abortion pill. “We are not selling drugs,” she clarifies. “We are a referral service; we help women get a medical abortion at home. But they risk prosecution if it’s illegal in their country.”

And under Ireland’s new abortion policy, punishment has become stricter. “The sentence for such an ‘illegal’ abortion in Ireland used to be three years,” Gomperts says, “and now they have made it twelve years.”

Dr. Gomperts smiles on the telephone during a recent action in Smir, Morocco. Photo credit: WOW Facebook page.

No Link to Depression

The new law also removes the possibility of suicide risk as a means of permitting legal abortions. “Of course it was already problematic if you are forcing someone to say they are suicidal just to obtain an abortion,” she says, “but now even that is not allowed.”

Gomperts strongly opposes claims that abortion can lead to mental distress or illness.

“There have been lots of scientific studies published in major journals,” she says, “that show there is no link between depression or suicide and abortion. None.”

Statistics of women who express regret after terminating a pregnancy can be misconstrued, Gomperts finds. “Our data shows that 1 percent of women regret it,” she says. “But a lot of women mean they regret being in the position to begin with. That’s different.”

A Selfless Decision

Gomperts has encountered many women who have been surprised to find themselves opting for termination. “They tell me, ‘I am against abortion, but my situation is different,’” she says. “It takes a certain degree of empathy to extend that reasoning to other people, or to realize that perhaps you are not against abortion after all.”

People are too judgmental about abortion, Gomperts says.

“For me, it’s obvious that it’s a selfless decision,” she says. “There are women who, if they had the right conditions, may make a different choice. But when women really find they don’t have what it takes to raise a child in a good situation, then abortion is a very moral decision.”

Social Justice Issue

Gomperts, who has two children, says she is a doctor first and an activist second. “As a doctor, I’m here to aid in the well being of people,” she says. “And if you want to make sure that the well being of women is being guaranteed, you have to legalize abortion. For me it’s completely about social justice. The problem with many health issues today, including abortion, is that it comes down to who has the means to access the care.”

For her, in Ireland and elsewhere, it is an issue that goes beyond questioning the morality of abortion.

“It has to do with the role of women in society,” she says. “What we see now in Turkey is the population has declined because women are getting more education and are having fewer children, so access to contraception is limited. So women are used for political purposes. Women are instruments.”

The Woman On Waves ship arrives in the Harbor of Smir, Morocco. Photo credit: WOW Facebook page.

But Gomperts does not dismiss the feelings of people who, because of their moral or religious convictions, disagree with abortion.

“I understand there are those who sincerely believe that life starts at conception and that the life without a voice needs to be protected,” she says. “I don’t think a fetus is an independent life form. And if you really sincerely believe that, then you are valuing the life of the fetus over the woman. But it’s a belief. It’s not a science. And in a society you can’t impose these kinds of beliefs on other people.”

She says with this issue, feelings override evidence, and it’s dangerous. “It’s not about facts; it’s about emotions,” Gomperts says. “And the consequences in Ireland are very apparent again when hundreds of babies’ corpses are found on the grounds of former homes for unwed mothers. That is the result of this kind of policy and restrictive law. And that people cannot make that connection is unbelievable.”

Read more about Woman on Waves on their website and follow them on Facebook for updates and comment.

There's something I want to go ahead and put out there: I am a nerd. Many of my female role models live in alternate universes, fight aliens in space, are spies or witches, and are, well, fictional. As this is my first official post as a contributor to Her Blueprint, I feel it is important to get that admission out of the way.

There's been a lot of social commentary written about calling oneself a nerd (or a geek) as nerd-culture has become increasingly popular with rise of Comic-Con International, shows like The Big Bang Theory and Game of Thrones, and Marvel Studio's super-secret plan for world domina... I mean, modestly successful franchises—it's become popular to be a nerd, and self-proclaimed "real nerds" don't like that people are jumping on their Battlestar Galactica or throwing on a Browncoat at this stage in the game.

Any discussion about who gets to call themselves a "real nerd" belongs on another blog (or better yet, on no blogs, as personally, I think it's a ridiculous conversation to have in the first place) — I bring it up as something of an introduction to myself (because I'll bring nerd things into a conversation whenever possible) and as a segue into the actual point of this post: the rising popularity of women in sci-fi.

It’s a broad topic, I know, as well-written female protagonists are hard to come by in any genre, and despite valiant attempts by comic book and fiction writers, female characters rarely translate into box-office dollars and second season pick-ups—until recently, that is. More and more, we're seeing films like Maleficent and Lucy, starring Angelina Jolie and Scarlet Johansson, respectively, put into production; both films are currently in the top 25 grossing films of 2014, with Jolie's Maleficent sitting in the #2 spot, with $747.6 million earned so far, 68% of which is from overseas markets.

Science fiction, and its sister genre fantasy, has always been the refuge of counter-culture; time travel, space exploration, dystopian futures wrought at the hands of despots and the revolutionaries that overthrow them—science fiction is where we look for change and hope. As the boom of nerd-culture sweeps Hollywood, the reach of the sci-fi genre is increasing as well. So far in 2014, seven of the top grossing films in South Africa are sci-fi, already tying 2013's numbers. In Argentina, eight of the top 20 grossing films are from the genre, up from six in 2013. Similar increases can be seen in Peru and Lebanon, with 11 and nine films so far in 2014, compared to nine and six in 2013, respectively.

And there's no lack of science fiction productions on the horizon, with films like The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies, Cinderella, and Marvel's Avengers: Age of Ultron, all coming out in the next year. And each of these films features at least one lead female character.

In 2013, the top ten grossing films earned an average of 64% of their total revenues from overseas markets; as Hollywood's sci-fi moves toward more equal gender representation, that representation can be seen reaching into international markets as well.

The landscape of television is seeing similar movements, as was evident at this year's International Comic-Con in San Diego. From events with the casts of BBC's Orphan Black and HBO's Game of Thrones, and Entertainment Weekly's Women Who Kick Ass panel, women took the lead with more than ten panels solely dedicated to female representation across mediums. Women also ruled the convention floor with gender-bent cosplay and a nerd-themed fashion show.

Katey Sagal, Sarah Paulson, Tatiana Maslany, Nicole Beharie, Maisie Williams and Natalie Dormer speaking at the 2014 San Diego Comic Con International, for "Entertainment Weekly: Women Who Kick Ass", at the San Diego Convention Center in San Diego, California. Photo by Gage Skidmore.

There was a time in my life when I wanted to work for the CIA—I wanted to be like Sydney Bristow, Jennifer Garner's character in Alias, traveling around the world in disguises, stealing computer chips and taking out the bad guys. That's a lie, actually, I still want to be like Sydney Bristow, despite every one of my fiercely liberal bones telling me otherwise. Young women—all women—need positive role models, and the amazing thing about the human imagination is that the person inspiring you doesn't need to be real. For better or worse, the reach of popular culture cannot be denied; it is imperative that we continue to move toward and support more female lead characters. And science fiction is a great place to start.

Doctor Who-a threat to the political and social order? [The Guardian]
Women Totally Dominated This Year's Comic-Con International [Nerdist.com]
Yearly Box Office [BoxOfficeMojo]

Drew Curtis - photo by Scott Beale / Laughing Squid

On August 18, Drew Curtis, founder of Fark.com, an online link-aggregation community that was a precursor to the more widely known and used Reddit, announced that the site would be "adding misogyny to Fark moderator guidelines." In his message to users, which has since received thousands of comments, Curtis said, "if the Internet was a dude, we'd all agree that dude has a serious problem with women." One glance at this post on the now defunked subreddit "hotrapestories," where users repost stories from subreddits that serve as support groups for survivors of sexual assault, provides a small snapshot of the sort of behavior Curtis alluded to in his comments. He then got more specific and listed out some of the content that Fark mods will now be deleting from the site. They include "rape jokes,""calling women as a group 'whores' or 'sluts' or similar demeaning terminology," and "jokes suggesting that a woman who suffered a crime was somehow asking for it."

While the majority of people reporting on the news have been incredibly supportive of the announcement, like Nina Bahadur of The Huffington Post and s.e. smith of xojane, there are those, such as Amanda Hess of Slate, who combine their support with a certain amount of skepticism, wondering whether policing misogyny, especially on a site like Fark, is even possible. As Hess points out in her piece,

"telling members of an anonymous Internet message board to stop hating women is, unfortunately, a monumental ask. But instructing posters to refrain from pushing the boundaries of acceptable human discourse...is an irresistible provocation. The gray area between vile offensiveness and dark humor is where Fark's commenter community thrives."

The community, it seems, is partially built upon a foundation of oftentimes offensive one-upmanship that has made the site feel unwelcome to some women. But in many ways, being female and safely moving around the Internet can resemble a particularly difficult level of Frogger. As Caitlin Dewey of The Washington Post points out, much of what makes this announcement so noteable "relates to a core ethos of Internet communities: the idea that moderation, particularly on divisive issues, is akin to censorship -- and that censorship is the bane of the transparent, social Web." The policy, she continues, is less a minor change in the rules of one relatively small website, and more a statement on Internet culture writ large.

The really interesting question here is less whether Fark can enforce these new guidelines and more whether it should. In 2011, Anil Dash wrote a post that makes the argument that, contrary to the seemingly ubiquitous statement on websites that "we are not responsible for the content of our comments," webmasters are in fact under a moral obligation to control the tenor of conversation on their sites. While it is true that the online world can be a hateful and horrible place, it does not have to be the web-based version of the Wild West. Ignoring persistently cruel behavior because, well, it's the Internet, is, in many ways, counter-productive. By turning a blind eye to abuse, many webmasters are creating a safe environment for cruelty while at the same time one where those seeking support, amusement, or an exchange of ideas feel stifled and threatened. Free speech for the mean-spirited does not necessarily translate into free speech for everyone. Take, for example, Zelda Williams' recent departure from Twitter as a result of the harassment she endured following the tragic death of her father. The comments and images she received were so cruel, that her use of a popular social networking site was made completely unbearable. Her freedoms of speech and of expression were hindered and nothing was done about it. She is by no means alone in her experience. In 2013, a well-known Canadian feminist blogger went into hiding after being doxxed and then sent dozens of death threats by the men's rights group Equality Canada. This is the extreme result of what an entirely open Internet culture can foster and shows that what happens on the Internet does not always stay on the Internet.

It will be interesting to see in the coming months what kind of effect, if any, these new commenting policies have on the bro-culture over at Fark. Given the comment thread that resulted from Amanda Hess' article, it seems as though Fark mods will be fighting an uphill battle, but a worthwhile one. And perhaps down the line, other sites like Reddit and Gawker, as well as social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook, will follow suit and curb the online abuse that so many people face. Because, honestly, while of course we have the right to say hateful things to strangers for no good reason other than our own amusement, why should that environment be fostered and protected while those who feel a moral obligation to kindness and respect are sent running offline?

Fark Bans Misogyny From its Forums, Proves It's Possible [Huffington Post]
Fark Bans Misogyny in Comments, Setting a New Precedent for Bro-Culture Websites [xojane]
Fark Wants to Ban Misogyny. Is That Even Possible? [Slate]
This is What Happens When You Try to 'Ban Misogyny' from a Major Website [The Washington Post]

[Editor's Note: This post is by guest contributor Momal Mushtaq. Momal is a women’s rights activist and an aspiring social entrepreneur from Pakistan. Her work in development and media communications, with focus on youth and gender equality, has been recognized by global awards, including a first place award from the United Nations for her work with women. She writes here about her relationship with freedom and equality, and how traveling is her means to self-growth.]

As I flipped through the recent issue of my favourite youth magazine, flashes of the past illuminated the dusty recesses of my mind, like studio strobes in a television studio. My mind was pulled back into another universe that revolved around a clingy but optimistic and determined 20-year-old who had not figured out her purpose in life. But, as fate had it, the winds of change swept my life in its path, and Life, with her capital letter and dignified simplicity was never the same anymore. It seems that by giving a girl a kaleidoscope, black-and-white Life was doing her bit to usher me into modernity and colour, a whole new world, a world so beautiful that there was no looking back for me afterwards.

Travelling changed my life; it is as simple as that. They say that you can learn about different cultures by travelling to places, but travelling taught me more about myself than anyone else. It widened my perspective; helped me become more accepting of other beliefs, ideologies, and lifestyles, and most importantly, it taught me to love myself and my body.

Here's how.

A New Perspective on Life

Back in university, like many other girls in my class, a private van would pick up and drop me off. If I had ever wanted to go anywhere else, like the shops or the hospital, my father or brother would accompany me to and from the venue. I thought that was maybe how life is supposed to be. It is only when I had experienced an alternative way of living that I started questioning my previous lifestyle. During my time in Canada, Germany and the US, nobody stared at me or passed nasty comments as I walked by alone. I could go wherever and whenever I wanted to!

However, when I returned to Pakistan, it began to hurt me more than ever to realise that the country is sinking below the waterline with a barrage of social problems hitting her from all directions. From the scourge of poverty, the stink of corruption, the madness of extremism to what-not! Almost half of Pakistan’s population -- her womenfolk -- sits back at home, not because they want to, but because they don’t have a choice. There’s no law restricting free mobility of women in Pakistan, but the harassment that they face on streets or while taking public transportation have limited their movement. Those who can, drive private vehicles, which is rather expensive. Or, they travel with a male chaperone.

Since I could not take it any longer, I decided to launch the Freedom Traveller (TFT), an online platform to connect and empower female travellers, especially from countries where freedom of movement for women is highly restricted. On TFT, women of all nationalities and beliefs could actively network, share knowledge and resources, and map their experiences during their travels. That is the least I could do, considering the resources that I had. I felt that if women read about other women who are courageous enough to travel alone in their communities or across borders, other females would be encouraged to follow suit.

Freedom is an abstract quality that mature minds acknowledge exists. It is something you can talk, write, or think about, but if you have not actually experienced it, you cannot feel her essence. I developed a strong desire to help women experience what it really means to be free because I have been freed from the grinding restriction of mobility that my life had suffered. Enabling women to be independent would also have an positive impact on the country’s economy, too.

I also knew that I could not go about preaching the message of freedom if I did not practice it myself. That could be the reason why I had learned to drive -- so I could move about more freely in Pakistan. Occasionally, I go for a jog and ride a bicycle around my neighborhood but, in my heart, I know that it is never as comfortable as it is abroad, because every time I venture out I sense creepy eyes boring into me. But, that is not an excuse to give up. To change, I have to be the change, the flag bearer of the coming revolution, the freedom rider of this century!

I have promised to challenge myself every summer for the next ten years. This year, for instance, I cycled all the way from Muenster to Aachen, Germany -- some 200km, to be precise! I did it to prove to every female around the world that there is no one stopping them from achieving their dreams. The unashamedly ecstatic waves of pleasure I had felt riding a bicycle, accompanied with a great sense of accomplishment, cannot be simply put into words. That is why I am not even going to describe it, because you should try it.

More Accepting of Others

In Pakistan, I lived in a small bubble of my own, a bubble which revolved around the few individuals to whom I owed my existence. That bubble has been burst with the injection of travelling. Travelling introduced me to people from various backgrounds and cultures. I now have friends from all over the world. It didn’t matter if we didn’t speak the same language, ate the same food, or wear the same clothes. Our differences gave big way to our similarities; our diversity connected and united us. I learned to be more respectful of others, to listen more, and to talk less.

One of the most beautiful encounters I had included a German woman named Carina Schmid. We met briefly at an international gathering in Austria. A year later, she invited me to Germany for an internship at her organisation. I remembered keeping at a distance from her because I was too scared to bare my heart to her. Little did I know that “Cari”, as I fondly call her, would turn out to be my biggest confidante, and my family outside Pakistan.

Self Love

Travelling holds for me other non-utilitarian benefits, of course -- it taught me to love myself. The more I travelled, the most I realised that circumstances change, people come and go, but one thing that remains unchanged is my relationship to myself. As the old saying goes, “the more things change, the more they stay the same”. I knew I could never be at peace with my soul if I lost the emotional tools with which to stabilise this volatile relationship.

My roommates in the United States, Chenxi and Cheyenne, fortuitously introduced me to exercise one day. Till then, all I had known about exercise was that it is a widely-known and practiced phenomenon for flexing your limbs and maintaining nippy heels. With time, however, it became an essential part of my life. It taught me to treat my body with the dignity and respect that it rightfully deserves. I also took up yoga, and felt closer to myself in ways I could not have imagined before.

Finally, I would like to admit that this journey of self-discovery has not been easy. The deviations from the regular life path of a 24-year-old girl of Pakistani heritage in the land of the pure have been remarkable by any standards of Pakistani society, but if I were to be given a letter informing me that I were to return to square one, I would burn the letter! Today, I may be burdened with a lifelong mission of promoting gender equality, but I am also blessed with a purpose. And as they say, a life without purpose is, well, pointless.

Originally published in Us Magazine on September 5, 2014.
Photos: Janek Bleker and Partha P Roy

Fatema Mernissi

Fatema (Fatima) Mernissi (b. 1940 in Fez, Morocco) is a persistent longtime advocate of women’s empowerment in the Arab world. A university-trained political scientist, a social investigator, and multi-disciplinary humanist and writer of considerable note, Mernissi has carefully studied the situation of women in Islam (historically and in the present), conducted interviews with Moroccan women on the street and in the marketplace, and has kept the world abreast of women’s issues – and advances – in the Maghrib. She is a fervent proponent of literacy and education at all levels, especially for women. Mernissi lectures at Mohammed V University in Rabat, and is also affiliated with the University Institute for Scientific Research. Her current projects concern the development of technological literacy for both women and men.

This eloquent excerpt from her writings, published in English in 1996, contains the seeds of the projects she continues to pursue today:

“The only Arab world worthy of being fought for and worth clashing over . . . is one in which the Arab brain can extend its capacities the way a free bird extends its wings to reach the heights. And that Arab world can only exist if – and on condition that – the chief educator of the brain also shares in this modern technological knowledge. And that chief educator is, I tell you, neither the army of educational experts (schoolteachers and university professors), nor the civil servants in the ministries of education and national culture. The chief educator is woman, who, as mother, nourishes the child, in the fateful first five years, with the knowledge she possesses.

“The lesson of the Gulf War, a lesson you, the leaders of the Arab countries, will read in no Western document, is that the mother of all battles (umm al-maa’rik) is not the one you fight against the Americans, but the one you fight against illiteracy – the illiteracy of men and women. But, up to now, the impression has been that the budgets of the national education ministries are only for men. Thirty years after independence, 90% of Moroccan women in rural areas are illiterate and 100% of them politically marginalized. You will never be powerful, Mr. Arab leader, in a modern world where democratized and democratizing knowledge is both arm and ammunition. You will never be anything but backward outsiders in the world of satellite-borne information, whilst your mothers, sisters, wives and, most importantly, your secretaries, maids and women workers are illiterate. I omitted your daughters from the list because we all know an Arab man is hugely committed to the education of his daughter. She is the only woman with whom he identifies and whose future causes him concern. But we shall all, men and women, leave behind the mutilating law of the tribe-family and take our first steps in the space and planetary age the moment we realize that our destiny is linked to the most deprived, the most excluded of all: the poor woman, ground down in field and factory, on whom any arbitrary power whatever may be visited. The subjugated, scorned and humiliated Arab will be transformed into an autonomous, self-governing person the day he is suckled by an autonomous mother. And the path to the autonomy of the individual is through access to worthwhile knowledge. The day the political leader understands that the most faithful mirror to his strength is the reflection which comes back to him from the female citizens living in the remotest villages, the planetary Arab will be born.

“An Arab at ease in the galaxies, interested in their movements and attuned to their secrets, can only be born of a woman who weaves her ideas around the satellite networks with the ease with which her ancestors wove a thousand geometrical flowers into their carpets.”

Source: “Rebuild Baghdad? But in What Galaxy?” from Fatima Mernissi, Women’s Rebellion & Islamic Memory (1996), pp. 9-10. Translated from the French.

Source: Flickr Creative Commons

“Money is never just about money” argues a leading financial services designer, James Moed, over a dinner attended by financial inclusion professionals hosted by Women Advancing Microfinance UK. "Instead," he explains, "it’s pretty much always about something else." In conversation with James, who has over 11 years of experience in helping innovation leaders and design teams understand people’s complex behaviours around money, we learnt how we can use Human Centered Design (HCD) to promote global financial inclusion -- an issue particularly pertinent to the world’s women. According to the UNDP, 6 out of 10 of the world’s poorest people are women; women may comprise more than 50% of the world’s population but only own 1% of the world’s wealth. Some 75% of the world’s women are without access to bank loans as they have unpaid or insecure jobs and are not entitled to property ownership.

This blog will share some of the insights from James’ experiences having advised companies, governments, startups, and social enterprises, most recently as the Director for Financial Service Design at the London office of IDEO, a global innovation consultancy.

First, what is human-centered design (HCD)?

HCD applies the design process to create innovative solutions based on observations on humans. The HCD process begins by examining the needs, dreams and behaviours of people relevant to a prospective solution. A solution can be a product, a service, an environment, an organization or a mode of interaction. HCD focuses on desirability (what do people desire?), feasibility (what is technically and organizationally feasible?) and viability (what is financially possible?). It is an iterative process -- borrowing from the designer who observes, prototypes, tests and then repeats until an appropriate solution is reached. James describes the approach as "building to learn," creating imperfect examples of solutions to be tested by user experience instead of aiming to launch the perfectly formed solution straightaway.

Original Invitation for the HCD event with WAM UK

How can HCD help promote women in financial inclusion?

HCD depends on human observation and often women and girls have been ignored in the design of financial products and services. Even if they haven’t been explicitly ignored, then perhaps not enough nuance to their culture could have supported their financial exclusion. Such as failing to pay attention to what women and girls feel like they can and cannot say in interviews and surveys. Moreover, there is a big difference between what people say they will do, and what they actually do -- especially when it comes to money. HCD promotes user insight, so adopting an approach to always consider gender in the target user group is vital and can be extremely telling. Designing solutions with women’s behaviours, aspirations and needs specifically in mind can lead to women-inclusive financial solutions.

What kind of HCD insights on women do we have?

Investing in women has a multiplier effect

One of the major observations in microfinance -- the provision of financial service to the under and unbanked -- is based on gender. Women’s World Banking found that, "when a woman generates her own income -- and this holds true no matter what the country -- she re-invests her profits in ways that can make long-term, inter-generational change: the education of her children, health care for her family and improving the quality of her family’s housing”. As James highlighted in our conversation, time and time again in his fieldwork, he saw that for women "finances are less about her own interests, but for others." Financial inclusion for women does not only empower the woman user, but often has positive impact on her wider community.

Source: Flickr Creative Commons

For some women illiquidity is attractive

Mind boggling at first, especially when we consider the gender discrimination that has led to three quarters of the world’s women unbanked, women may actually prefer access to financial services with features of illiquidity in some circumstances. Liquid cash could be dangerous to a woman’s wealth if socially she is obligated to financially help out family members and friends if they ask. It may be hard for a woman to not hand over her cash to her husband for example or her friend in financial difficulty -- it could bring stigma, perhaps attack if she says no. However a savings account with fixed non-withdrawal periods, or other features to lock funds away, could provide a socially acceptable excuse. In providing illiquidity in formal financial services, it could attract women who otherwise would prefer to store their wealth in more illiquid forms such as gold and livestock or hidden away in difficult to reach places. Illiquidity could not only protect wealth from the saver’s own impulses, and the demands of those around her.

Women experience high emotional return for good financial management

A recurring theme in James’ work saw that the rewards for good financial management were beyond financial for women -- this applies to women across the economic spectrum. Juntos Finazas, which was borne out of a class project from the Stanford Design School, helps Spanish speakers save via SMS. The founders saw that SMS was the right technology to help low-income Latinos as they tend to use mobile devices more than other groups and are substantial SMS users. Around 72% of successful Juntos Finazas savers said at sign up that they had never saved successfully before. Importantly, in feedback, users cite that using the tool to help them save has made them feel like better mothers, better daughters -- the return is more than extra money leftover in an account.

In consultation with IDEO, the successful Keep the Change savings program from Bank of America originated from the observation that women were more satisfied by the act of saving than the interest rates offered on savings itself. The program was therefore designed to emphasize the action of saving rather than focusing on the potential reward. Keep the Change automatically rounds up purchases on the Bank of America debit card and transfers the difference to a savings account, building up a savings balance subtly over time. Since its launch in 2005, the program has led to 12 million new customers building up an additional $3.1 billion of savings.

Financial planning can save lives

Having a financial plan in place affords protection for life’s shocks, and in some cases can make the difference between life and death. Although still imperfect, there are now maternity saving programs to help women save money over time to access skilled maternal care. In Kenya, where only 43% of births occur in health facilities and many Kenyans still lack access to basic maternity care and health insurance, medical payment can be a life-threatening barrier for mother and child. Changamka, established in 2008, developed a smartcard program which allows women to set saving goals and save via the mobile payments service, M-PESA. The program is a dedicated maternal savings program which locks the deposited funds for maternity expenses only. USAID has written up a case study on this project, which can be accessed here.

With financial technology advancing globally the practice of HCD, people are placed back in the center of experience to build lasting solutions. With 75% of women worldwide without access to financial services -- and importantly, the lack of understanding and emphasis upon their needs as cause and effect of their exclusion -- HCD can provide an attractive framework to unlock their considerable potential.

For more information on the topic connect with @jamesmoed, @WAM_UK, and @lisavwong on Twitter. Other interesting links on HCD and financial inclusion include:

A CGAP video on bringing savings products to market
The HCD toolkit by IDEO
Free online course on HCD by +Acumen and IDEO.

Much like Loren Lynch did in her first post here at Her Blueprint, I feel I ought to tell you a little bit about myself. I have, for most of my adult life, made my income tending bar. One of the great things about this particular line of work is the opportunity to meet an incredible array of people and learn about a diversity of topics including, of course, quite a bit about yourself. Through the almost 6 years I have spent working at a small local pub in Brooklyn, I picked up two valuable pieces of Rebekah-specific information: I do not particularly care about beer or mainstream sports.

As someone who considers herself something of an academic, I read far too much about the severity of head injuries in football and hockey to be able to see past the brutality inherent in those two sports and through to the games themselves. I find baseball boring and, though I was a big Knicks fan back in the 90's (I had a thing for John Starks), I am not terribly attached to basketball. The one sport that I watch religiously, that I can talk your ear off about (and yes, I know it is not mainstream although this is something I simply do not understand) is elite women's gymnastics.

http://flickr.com/photo/71035721@N00/2972933329

For most people here in the United States, women's gymnastics is a once-every-four-years sport. In an Olympic year, they watch all the team and individual events on NBC and fall in love that particular quad's American it-girl: Mary Lou Retton, Shawn Johnson, Nastia Liukin, Gabby Douglas. But for us all-the-time fans, there is so much behind those Olympic moments. These young women have, by age 16, already spent the previous 12 years in the gym. What their bodies and minds allow them to do is absolutely breath taking. Forget the athleticism which I could never dream to possess, these girls have more focus at 16 than I have at 31, a fact which is at the same time mind-blowing and enviable. It is interesting because for as much as I would love to see these girls get the attention and appreciation that all their hard work and talent deserves, I think the sport stays more pure, and the athletes more protected from the negative aspects of mainstream fandom, because of the lack of big money and the lack of exposure. Unless, of course, they are one of the lucky five to make it to the biggest stage in women's gymnastics: the Olympic Games. Once that happens all bets are off and no one knows this better than 2012 Olympic team champion and vault silver medalist McKayla Maroney.

Previously known only for her sky high vaulting, Maroney made an error in the Olympic vault finals that resulted in her being awarded the silver medal behind Romania's Sandra Izbasa and spawned the now famous not impressed face. It was that face, and her regular social media updates, that made Maroney something of a celebrity beyond the gymnastics world. Unfortunately, being in the public eye does come with certain drawbacks. This past August, McKayla Maroney found herself embroiled in a massive scandal when nude photos of her and roughly 40 other female celebrities were stolen from compromised Apple iCloud accounts and leaked via the imageboard 4chan and then widely disseminated using social media sites such as Imgur, Reddit and Tumblr. As is often the case, the victims were blamed for their own victimization, with people taking to Twitter and comment boards to tell female celebrities that if they don't want nude photographs of themselves on the internet, they shouldn't take them in the first place. In the case of McKayla Maroney, this issue took on another layer of complexity when it was discovered that the leaked photographs were taken when she was under 18, and therefore considered a minor under United States law. As a result, Reddit removed all of the photographs of her with the explanation that they are "considered CP (Child Pornography), and break reddit's site-wide rules (in addition to international law...)" At the same time, a group of concerned citizens put together a "We the People" petition to get the US Government to charge Maroney with "production and possession of sexual material containing a minor," stating that the government should not let her "get away with a crime that would get a normal teenage girl landed on the sex offenders list."

This petition is, of course, absolutely ridiculous and unlikely to gain any real traction. It is an example of victim-blaming at its finest. The absurdity of it becomes especially poignant when placed alongside the recent scandal involving the Ravens star running back, Ray Rice. When a few weeks ago TMZ released the February video of Rice knocking his then-fiancee unconscious in an Atlantic City elevator, it sparked a national conversation about domestic violence and the role of organizations such as the National Football League in combating it. Even among those who were understandably outraged, there was an undercurrent of victim-blaming as well as a noticeable presence of those who were opposed to Rice's indefinite suspension. Rice acted violently upon another person, Maroney was acted violently upon, and yet we, as a society, still don't seem to be clear on the true definition of "victim," especially where women are concerned. There should be no question as to who was in the wrong in each of these situations, and yet there is.

McKayla Maroney, in spite of it all, is at her Los Angeles gym day after day training for a chance at a second Olympics. The odds are against her, not because of this scandal but because no woman has made two consecutive US Olympic Gymnastics teams since Dominique Dawes and Amy Chow did it in 1996 and 2000. One thing I am certain of, though, is that she will be out there competing on the national and international stage in the years leading up to Rio 2016, if not at the Olympics themselves. She will be out there with the knowledge of all that has happened, and in a skin-tight leotard no less, and I have no doubt that she will show everyone exactly what she is made of. She, along with all the other gymnasts from the US and abroad, are fantastic, hard-working athletes who deserve our respect, just as all women do.

The Great 2014 Celebrity Nude Photos Leak is only the beginning [The Guardian]
Ricky Gervais and Fox News take the lead in victim blaming over celebrity nude photo leak [Salon]
The Leaked Photos of McKayla Maroney Were Taken When She was Underage, and Reddit is Freaking Out [Business Insider]

Wanjiku[1] has little formal schooling. She goes about her daily life with a baby on her back and several more at her dusty feet. She tends the crops, cooks the meals, collects the water, and tries to ensure that her children get more of an education than she did.

Depending on the wishes of her husband, Wanjiku may or may not go to the market, be involved in a women’s group, or handle cash. She may or may not participate in household decision making and rarely owns the land that is the main source of her family’s livelihood.

Women and girls in her remote village are seen but not heard — an all-too-common custom in traditionally patriarchal communities.

But not anymore in one community in Kenya.

A Justice trainee practices her public speaking skills,
guided by Justice Project staff. Photo: Landesa/Deborah Espinosa

You see, Wanjiku now knows that Kenya’s Constitution, which Kenyans adopted by national referendum in August 2010, guarantees her — and every person — the right to freely express him- or herself, a right that includes the freedom to seek, receive, or impart information or ideas and the freedom of artistic creativity (art. 33). (The right to self-expression is also within the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.) And along with learning about her rights, Wanjiku was trained in the art of public speaking — a simple curriculum grounded in the right to voice her opinion. The training included techniques and tips on how to speak in public as well as opportunities to practice speaking on a subject of importance to her.

Wanjiku learned and practiced during a USAID-supported project called, Enhancing Customary Justice Systems in the Mau Forest, Kenya(aka the Kenya Justice Project), designed and implemented by the international NGO Landesa. The Kenya Justice Project piloted a model for improving women’s access to "informal justice" related to land, meaning the all-male, village institutions that resolve disputes but have a reputation for holding entrenched biases against women. Much to our surprise, two months after the pilot’s end, the community elected — for the first time in its history — 14 women as elders, serving alongside male elders resolving disputes. One year later, 22 women were serving as elders alongside men.

A Justice trainee shares her knowledge of women's
rights in Kenya's Constitution. Wanjiku resides
in all of us. Photo: Landesa/Deborah Espinosa

The women had decided on their own to run for election. No doubt, there are many factors that contributed to this outcome.

This was the first time I’d included public speaking in the design of a women’s rights project, and so at the end of the first training session, I asked the women to share their thoughts about whether training on the right to self-expression and public speaking was worth including again in a project design. Every woman in the room eagerly raised her hand, offering to share her opinion. Up until that point in the project, we’d never had full participation in a single session.

As the women shared with us how they felt, I was struck by the fact that along with the women’s timidity and discomfort, a glimmer of pride shined through. They explained how growing up as girls they were not supposed to speak directly to an adult. And so they believed that their opinions were unimportant, and certainly never worth sharing. The room shook with potential.

Although the short-term impact evaluation did not try to measure a causal relationship between project outcomes and the public speaking activity, specifically, I am convinced that this activity was a critical component to the success of the pilot. Knowledge of their constitutional rights to express themselves, combined with practicing public speaking in a safe and supportive environment, gave the women Justice trainees the courage to dare step out of their comfort zones. And dare to reach for one of the most powerful positions within their community — an elder resolving disputes.

The community has made many other advances supporting women's rights and empowerment, including greater awareness among men and women of their constitutional rights to land; procedural improvements in elders' resolution of disputes; a requirement of spousal consent for land transactions; and, most recently, an increase in economic development, led by women in the community.

Wanjiku’s courage to find her own voice is the inspiration for this column on the relationship between the arts (in its many, many forms) and women’s rights and empowerment. This column is certainly a step out of my own comfort zone. Along the way, please share your voice — we have a lot to learn from each other!

[1] In Kenya, "Wanjiku" is an iconic representation of the "ordinary, Kenyan citizen," the common person. "Her power rests in her ordinariness."

By Suzanne Mahadeo

The Price of Honor is a documentary that shares the story of Amina and Sarah Said, two teenage sisters from Texas who were killed by their father. It's a film that starts off tragically and ends with the sound of your own heart snapping in your chest. Before the opening credits even begin, you hear the haunting 911 call that Sarah made to the Irving, Texas police department on the day she and her sister were murdered in their father's taxi cab. That recording will stay with you long after you finish the film.

American teenagers, Amina and Sarah Said

The Said sisters' story has touched thousands of people and the documentary will undoubtedly affect many more. It unravels the personalized story of two typical American teenagers. Footage used from old home videos shows them jumping on trampolines, taking up an after-school job as a cashier, and practicing Tae Kwon Do in a suburban strip mall dojo. Seemingly innocuous footage until you realize that the girls didn't know they were being filmed. The person lurking behind windows holding the camera was their father, Yaser Said, the man responsible for their deaths. He is still wanted by the FBI more than six years after he murdered his daughters in what has been deemed an honor killing.

Yaser Said murdered his two daughters near Dallas and is still wanted by the FBI.

I asked Amy Logan, the Consulting Producer of The Price of Honor, about the difference between domestic violence and honor killing.

"With 800+ million women and girls living under the honor code, honor violence is not only a global problem, it’s a pandemic that global leaders are failing miserably to address for the crisis that it is," she said in an email. "Domestic violence is usually defined as taking place between intimate partners, whereas honor violence mostly occurs between a female and her blood relatives. Both kinds of violence are motivated by control issues but honor violence occurs because the female is actually considered property of the male blood relative whose honor is at stake if she steps out of line. And with honor violence, the family and community often support the violence, even coercing it with threats of ostracism."

So how did Amina and Sarah "step out of line" in their father's ignoble eyes? They fell in love with boys their father did not approve of.

Joseph Moreno and Amina Said had young love that ended too soon.

Amina dared to exert her human spirit and fell in love with Joseph, a boy from her martial arts class. When Amina and Sarah were not being sexually abused by their father, they daydreamed of their future. Amina and Joseph would pass sweet notes to each other, chat on the phone, and even held hands for an entire day at Six Flags.

In the documentary, Joseph sorrowfully reminisces about a young love that ended with gunshots and wounds that would never heal. Filmmaker Neena Nejad said that one of the important reasons for making the film was because, "I felt like it gave people like Joseph and Ruth [his mother, who was also very close to Amina] some sense of closure.” (You can also read this touching article by Joseph called "My Teenage Sweetheart Was Killed To Preserve Her Family's 'Honor'" in Business Insider.)

Visiting Amina Said's tragic grave site.

Even as much as those involved with making this film wanted to bring Amina and Sarah's story to the public, there were terrifying implications that came along with seeking justice for the girls. Filmmaker Xoel Pamos said, "Something that really shocked me while trying to reach out to several friends of the girls was the fact that they wouldn't talk to us because they were scared. I think these people think, 'if Yaser was capable of killing his daughters, what would he do to us who are totally unrelated?' We had one very ugly episode involving threats coming directly from Yaser's family when we approached them to explain their side of the story. We decided to make those interactions public because that's the best way to protect all of us. Those who are featured in the film were offered to blackout their faces but nobody wanted to do so. They knew the risks by coming forward and talking, but telling Amina and Sarah's story was more important."

Amina Said

Neena said that "telling the story of Amina and Sarah outweighed the risks! I feel that people that make death threats are weak and scared because you are opposing their belief system and they react in this way to gain some sort of self worth—so I don't pay much mind to them."

Perhaps we should follow Neena's lead, because fear of speaking out against honor killings is implicit in why the practice has gone unchallenged to this day. "The very reason that honor violence has gone on unabated since 5000 BC," said Amy Logan, "is because of this conspiracy of silence around it. If somebody—or a lot of somebodies—doesn't speak up, it will only continue and probably grow. We decided to break the silence around this atrocity and start calling it exactly what it is: community-sanctioned terrorism against half a culture’s population (female) to reinforce the system of male power and privilege."

This documentary should serve as a start to a very important conversation. It's currently being screened at film festivals around the country before it can be distributed online or in theaters. Add The Price of Honor to your Facebook feed to keep up to date or go to the film's website to find out about future screenings.

Sarah Said

"We've been lucky, as we have encountered wonderful people along the way who always supported our work, including Muslim and non-Muslim individuals, and we are thankful to those people," said Xoel Pamos.

And what can you do? Amy Logan shares,

"We hope that after watching our film, people will feel tremendous empathy for women and girls living under the honor code—there are 800 million+ of them! We hope they will tell many others about the film (#CatchYaserNow), donate to the Catch Yaser Said Campaign Fund, and join our mailing list to stay updated on the case."

"It’s important for people to see The Price of Honor," Amy said, "so that they can really understand an atrocity that is happening right in our own back yards in the USA. If we bury our heads in the sand, we cannot prevent more of these crimes."

For girls everywhere menstruation is a rite of passage. Menstruation is a healthy, normal bodily function that affects half of our population -- the overwhelming majority of our women, at some point in time. But for too many girls worldwide this shared experience is a source of shame, restriction and if badly managed -- illness. Menstruation is an age-old phenomenon and across the developed world we’ve built awareness, products and systems to manage menstrual hygiene to enable women to live their lives seamlessly. Even with such support we can still argue that menstruation is something we’d rather not talk about in the developed world -- but in the developing world, the stigma around menstruation has led to an invisibility around it that can really hold our girls and women back.

According to the Geneva-based Water Supply & Sanitation Collaborative Council (WSSCC), even sectors such as water and sanitation which “routinely deal with unmentionables such as excreta, ignore girl’s and women’s need for safe spaces to manage menstrual hygiene and mechanisms for safe disposal of materials used to absorb menstrual blood.” As we all know, ignoring a problem -- or menstruation -- does not make it go away. NGO Plan International and A C Nielsen conducted a study and estimated that there are 355 million menstruating women in India -- but only 12% of them use sanitary napkins. The study even found that 23% of Indian girls drop out of school after reaching puberty, with irreversible effects on their health, well-being and participation in society. Millions of girls and women instead rely on old rags, dried leaves and grass, ash, sand or newspaper to manage their monthly menstrual flows -- shrouded by shame and disgust on a vital bodily function.

Columbia University, Millennium Promise and the social enterprise, Be Girl also hosted pilots for menstrual hygiene products and one of their participants, Patience, a 15-year-old girl from Ruhiira, Uganda told them “you suffer a lot; in case you stamp [stain] the boys can make fun of you which causes you to lose your self-esteem […] it’s embarrassing when you are washing your soiled clothes. It makes you not even want to go to school.” The washing of stained rags or clothing can also bring shame, especially in areas of water scarcity. Be Girl reports that in rural Africa, 40% of school girls miss up to 5 school days a month, or 30% of the school year. WaterAid found that 82% of their surveyed girls in Malawi did now know about menstruation before it started; girls across their surveyed countries were found to be excluded from water sources during menstruation, and even prohibited from washing and bathing in some communities making what is often a difficult week even more difficult to bear.

Source: WaterAid

Given the success of feminine hygiene and menstruation products, and the important role it has played in women's empowerment history, it would appear that the private sector could have significant market opportunity if they can break this taboo for women and girls -- who are expected to require the products for more tham 50 years. Sanitary products must be designed to be affordable; disposable tampons and sanitary towels are often priced out of reach of low- and even middle-income families if supply is scarce. Euromonitor International found that women in India, with average earnings of US $750 per annum earns below the $1,000 per annum deemed necessary to easily purchase disposable menstruation products. Moreover, systems to support menstrual hygiene are necessary, products alone aren’t the solution: appropriately designed and managed community spaces and importantly education on female reproductive health.

To make this happen, WSSCC believes that breaking the silence around the taboo of menstruation is a crucial first step. Girls should be informed and encouraged to talk and discuss menstruation in an informed and positive manner to prepare them emotionally and physically for the onset of menstruation and their monthly menstrual periods. Families need the education to support their girls and women. WaterAid has also compiled a phenomenal guide, Menstrual Hygiene Matters, with nine modules and tool kits -- an essential resource -- to improve menstrual hygienic for women and girls in lower and middle-income countries.

WaterAid found that well designed and appropriate water, sanitation and hygiene facilities that address menstrual hygiene can make a significant difference to the schooling experience of adolescent girls
(Photo: WaterAid/ASM Shafiqur Rahman)

As WSSCC spokesperson, Archana Patkar, powerfully argues: “Women are the progenitors of the human race […] Menstruation is therefore something of which they can and should be proud, so each and every one of us should work to improve the lives and life chances for women who do not have access to clean materials, water and safe disposal facilities; who cannot talk about their experiences; or are never asked if they can help define a solution.”

Women across the world rarely have an opportunity
to voice their opinion about an issue that
matters to them. Photo: Deborah Espinosa

For those of us who are women’s rights advocates and activists with ready access to advocacy platforms and tools, we have constant opportunities to learn about, launch, and participate in advocacy campaigns to voice our opinions about issues that matter to us.

In communities across Asia, Latin America, and Africa, however, women face a far different reality, where advocating for themselves and their community is unheard of or they lack the confidence, opportunities, and/or tools to engage. As a result, community members are often deprived of their voice, rights, and power; government remains unresponsive; and vital needs go unmet.

Thankfully, many development organizations are addressing this lack of civic engagement, and by extension, sense of powerlessness, by supporting community members' right to voice their opinions and realize their rights. These programs are intended to inspire and facilitate positive dialogue between communities and authorities to hold government accountable. Often these local programs feed into national, regional, and even global advocacy efforts.

One notable example is World Vision International's Citizen Voice and Action (CVA) approach, which World Vision has implemented so far in 43 countries through 411 programs. First piloted in 2005, CVA is an approach to improve the relationship between local government and communities and thereby improve delivery of basic public services such as healthcare and education.[1] A cornerstone of the approach is to educate about citizen and government rights and obligations. Check out the short video to the right to learn more.

A study of the impact of the CVA methodology in Ugandan communities, by Oxford University and Makerere University, found that in 100 primary schools in these CVA communities, there was an 8 to 10 percent increase in pupil attendance compared to control communities and a 13 percent reduction in teacher absenteeism.[2] CVA in Uganda also generated significant improvements in the delivery of health care services, as presented in this video.

Similarly, CARE International uses a "bottom up" approach to their advocacy programs, particularly by women, grounded in human rights. Tools include raising awareness about rights, budget monitoring, public hearings, social audits, and community score cards in sectors such as health, education, food security, and natural resource management.

For example, in Bangladesh, a CARE program resulted in groups of extremely poor people successfully advocating for access to public resources such as land and water bodies, enabling them to use those resources for collective livelihood opportunities.[3] And on the issue of gender-based violence (GBV), CARE and its partners implemented the Great Lakes Advocacy Initiative (GLAI) using an evidence-based advocacy model to increase protection for women and girls against GBV in Burundi, Rwanda, Uganda, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. At its core, the GLAI relies on linkages between grassroots and global efforts. Underlying the model is the premise that greater participation by women in decisionmaking strengthens civil society and promotes gender equality, helping to address the underlying causes of GBV. The initiative demonstrated the effectiveness of linking grassroots advocates to policy makers, resulting in increased political participation by women at the grassroots and district levels, an increase in the reporting of GBV cases and, in some areas, a decline in the incidence of GBV.[4]

Many other organizations implement local advocacy programming, including Family Care International, which works with indigenous women in Latin America and Partners for Democratic Change, which works with youth in Yemen. Many of these organizations share their advocacy tools online, including WaterAid, CARE, and World Vision. A list of Useful Advocacy Resources is also available online.

The collective voice. Andhra Pradesh, India. Photo: Deborah Espinosa

What all of these programs have in common is they create opportunities for individuals to contribute their unique voice and collectively advocate for a better world. As one CVA participant in India explained, "Earlier I used to remain behind my burqa. But I found my voice because of the [CVA] training."[5]

In my October post, The Power of Voice, I shared the story of Wanjiku and the courage and confidence that arose when Wanjiku learned of her human right to self-expression, combined with basic training on the art of public speaking. I had the privilege of witnessing not only her transformation, but that of her community, with positive impacts beyond all expectations. It is for this reason that I am so excited about these more comprehensive local advocacy programs. Opportunities to stand up together with our neighbors with a collective voice on an issue that matters to us not only benefits our community, but leaves a lasting impression on our sense of self.

“Finally I was able to see that if I had a contribution I wanted to make, I must do it, despite what others said. That I was OK the way I was. That it was all right to be strong.”
~Wangari Maathai

[1] World Vision. Citizen Voice and Action: World Vision's Approach to Social Accountability

[2] World Vision. Citizen Voice and Action: Civic Demand for Better Health and Education Services .
[3] Hinton, R. 2011. Inclusive Governance: Transforming Livelihood Experience from CARE Bangladesh.

[4] CARE. 2014. Strengthening Women's Voice: Evidence-Based Advocacy from the Grassroots to the Global.

[5] World Vision India. WV India CVA Video.

It is a strange thing, sharing the world with the Internet. Most of the time it makes life easier, better. It keeps us more connected, but it also exposes us. We could go to sleep one night, our lives seemingly normal, and wake up the next morning in another realm -- all because something we said or did got picked up and shared by someone and subsequently made its way, like the speed of light, onto the computers, cellphones and tablets of strangers around the world. As a feminist writer on the internet, this is a fact that excites and horrifies me all at once. The fact that something I write here at my kitchen table in Brooklyn could somehow touch a nerve and get shared countless times is at once empowering and paralyzing. Just ask Zoe Quinn.

By Zoe Quinn (@TheQuinnspiracy)

As a female videogame developer in a notoriously male-dominated industry, Quinn is no stranger to the dangers of being a woman online. She has been the target of sustained, anonymous online harassment since the release, in 2013, of her free interactive fiction game Depression Quest. Quinn, who has suffered from depression throughout her life, developed the game with two goals in mind: to show those who experience depression that they are not alone, and to educate non-sufferers about the depths of the illness. The backlash, according to Quinn, started "pretty much the same day" as the game's release. It escalated in severity and volume when an ex-boyfriend of Quinn's published a tirade on a blog, claiming that Quinn had a relationship with a journalist who wrote about the game. In reality, the journalist in question never actually wrote a review of the game, he simply mentioned that it existed. That was enough. The result was the birth of #gamergate and the doxxing of Zoe Quinn.

Over the past few months, #gamergate has spread like wildfire. The issue of women in gaming, which has historically been confined to industry and feminist websites, is now being covered by huge media outlets and countless personal blogs. This is, in many ways, great for women in the longterm both online and off. In the short term, however, the results are a little murkier. Brianna Wu, another female game developer, recently went into hiding after being doxxed and receiving threats such as "I've got a K-bar and I'm coming to your house so I can shove it up your ugly feminist c--t." Notable feminist and games critic Anita Sarkeesian also went into hiding and was forced to cancel a speech at the Utah State University after the school refused to check attendees for guns, despite the threats of violence made against Sarkeesian and speech-goers in advance of the event.

In general, being outspoken and female can be a dangerous proposition. When you are caught being outspoken while female online, the ramifications can be life-altering and, sadly, even life-threatening. The internet, it seems, hates women. It is as if allowing people to be online and anonymous only manages to magnify the misogynistic norms of our culture. And to think, one night when Zoe Quinn went to sleep things were more or less okay, but when she woke up in the morning she was, "the most hated person on the internet." And all she did was develop a game to try and educate people about the challenges of living with depression. And, she had the nerve to do this as a woman.

Let's compare this, briefly, to the recent appearance of Alex from Target, a kid from Texas who was photographed while bagging groceries at Target by a girl who thought he was cute. His photograph went viral. As of this writing, he has 727,000 followers on Twitter. He recently appeared on The Ellen Show. What Alex from Target and Zoe Quinn have in common is that their celebrity happened by no fault of their own. Both of them were doing their jobs and were catapulted into the limelight by outside forces. For Alex, a photograph taken and published online without his consent has made him some sort of b-list teenage sex symbol. This sexualization, and his presence on The Ellen Show as a result of that, is highly problematic. As far as I know, however, Alex from Target is not being sent death and rape threats nor is he being driven from his home in fear of his life. For Zoe Quinn, the fact that she dared create a game in a male-dominated industry put her in harms way. And due to the fact that she is female, her subsequent sexualization, carried out in written as opposed to photographic form, made her the target of sustained harassment.

For me, there is something inherently wrong happening in both of these situations. In both cases, there was a complete disregard for the right to privacy and the need for consent before sharing photographs or personal information, true or fabricated, with a potential audience in the billions. That aside, the completely opposite trajectories that these two individuals experienced speaks volumes about our society. Don't get me wrong, our need to sexualize people, whether male or female, is incredibly dehumanizing. But that depending on the gender of the individual the result is either empowering or disempowering, that the internet either celebrates or threatens, is just incredible. And sickening.

I imagine that Alex from Target will end up being just a flash in the pan. The plight of Zoe Quinn, however, has staying power. But that also means that for the foreseeable future she, and many other women who dare to be opinionated on this misogynistic platform, will be in danger. It is a sad reality. Those women who keep speaking our minds and hoping that people listen have to live with the gnawing fear that one day we might wake up in the middle of a nightmare. Welcome to being female on the internet.

5 Things I Learned as the Internet's Most Hated Person [Cracked.com]
'Alex From Target' and the Mess of Uncontrollable Fame [New York Magazine]
Anita Sarkeesian Cancels Speech After School Shooting Threat at Utah State [Forbes.com]
Brianna Wu and the Human Cost of Gamergate: 'Every Woman I Know in the Industry is Scared' [The Guardian]
Eron Gjoni - Proof that Being a White, Hetero-Cis Male Will Get You Everywhere [The Daily Koz]
Gamergate: The Community is Eating Itself but There Should be Room for All [The Guardian]
Zoe Quinn's Depression Quest [The New Yorker]
Zoe Quinn on Gamergate: 'We Need a Proper Discussion About Online Hate Mobs' [The Guardian]

The 16 Days of Activism is a worldwide campaign to end violence against women. Photo credit: UN Women.

Today is Thanksgiving in my country of origin. It is the holiday in which families and friends gather to share a long meal and be together. To talk. To laugh. To be thankful.

In France, where I live such long meals happen quite often, to the point I grow tired of dining. Sometimes at long dinners here, I remember myself as a small child at my grandmother's Thanksgiving table covered in pumpkin pies, growing more and more restless in the sunroom of their lovely home near Gettysburg, Pennsylvania because the plastic chair cover was sticking to my tights from sitting so long.

How far I have come from those days. In some ways. In fact, during the past two years, I have learned more about resiliency and growth because living in a foreign country is like shaking off any idea of cultural rules and trying to not judge myself or others for not understanding what is often perceived as cultural givens. Points of growth come from understanding that the phrase, "It's cultural," somehow gives credibility for why things are the way they are.

Upon some reflection, I have come to the conclusion that this Thanksgiving I am most thankful for my ability to summon resiliency. I imagine that by working nonstop most of my life for certain goals that I will attain them, that if I do not give up, eventually, I will look up and one day, the goal will arrive. This is not to say, any goal just arrives or all of them. It is to say that through effort, determination, and resiliency that keeping on, eventually, leads one to true change.

As an athlete, that happened for me. I ran two ultramarathons with a heart problem when most cardiologists said that I could not. Then opted due to more severe heart complications during graduate school to have a heart surgery that confirmed what I had always sort of known, that my heart issue was far more severe than thought for the seventeen years preceding. Yet, I remember laying on the surgery table wide awake, watching my heart beating on the screen completely outside of my own body's control, and the cardiologist actually asking me if I was sure I had supraventricular tachycardia (SVT) because he could not find it. I thought to myself, this man has my heart in his hands, literally, yet he knows nothing of my life story. Of what brought me here, to this moment. He has no idea how often during races, I had to ensure that I took care of myself better than everyone around me because my SVT was not just a quickened heart rate; that when my SVT launched, my chest rocked, my eyes rolled back in my head, my lips sucked in and the loss of oxygen usually rendered me unaware within minutes. He does not know the moment I decided to do this was watching my baby sister's distressed face in the streets of Paris as I tried to calm my SVT because I swore with only four days in Paris, she would not spend her last full day in a hospital. Instead, I just looked at him and said, "Yes, I am sure. I am positive, I have SVT."

A few minutes later, he found the problem in the core of my heart. He then called in another cardiologist for a second opinion because the risk had grown enormously.

I walk often by the Institute that performed the successful heart surgery as it is around the corner from my pink cottage. I stare inside and think back to how I willed myself on that table to keep going and now my heart problem is resolved. The same way I willed the 17-year-old girl from a violent home to believe in my own education and my dreams to live in Manhattan. The same way I willed the 25-year-old homeowner trying to protect my property before the global financial crisis on a publishing salary. The same way, I willed the 28-year-old to move to Paris to study French at Sorbonne. Just keep going, eventually I will get there. And, I have. I stood this May one year after my heart surgery and walked the stage earning my Master's degree, a goal that took more years than I dare count.

Yet, that moment the cardiologist questioned a reality so real to me reminded me starkly of the times in my life when I have shared incredible truths, risked intense vulnerability, only to have someone stare back at me with disbelief and question that truth. And, often those times had to do with me as a victim of violence. It reminded me of the British police detective who erred constantly as he investigated my sexual assault, which had happened in a very well-known London hotel. It reminded me of the ninth grade history professor who gave me a zero in his class even after I told him my final paper was late because I had been having heart problems that no one seemed to understand but kept telling me were from anxiety, although I remained completely silent of the swell of domestic violence occurring in my family's home at the same time because of my own personal shame and the culture that grew that.

On this Thanksgiving, my thoughts are focused on why culture is often used as a blanket reason for why things are the way they are. Not American culture. Or French culture. But the pervasive global culture that accepts women worldwide are harmed.

Two days ago, on November 25, international organizations and NGOs worldwide launched the 16 Days of Activism to end violence against women. The violent stories I replay in my mind from my own life trying to make sense of my own story. The stories I have listened to from young women in Congo, Mozambique, South Africa, France, the United States. The frequency of violence is astounding.

According to the World Health Organization, "Estimates suggest that one in three women globally have experienced either physical or sexual violence from a partner, or sexual violence by a non-partner at some point in their lives, and that levels of violence against women and girls remain extremely high."

And, that in some parts of the world, sexual violence is endemic – reports of non-partner sexual violence are as high as 21% in areas of sub-Saharan Africa.

Violence against women is a global pandemic, not confined to any one country or region. UN Women says, "around 120 million girls worldwide (slightly more than 1 in 10) have experienced forced intercourse or other forced sexual acts at some point in their lives." In the United States alone, the World Bank estimates that, "annual costs of intimate partner violence have been calculated at USD 5.8 billion."

That is outright and costly human suffering from every angle.

What does most research suggest as the way to end violence against women? UN Women suggests the current culture of shame and discrimination that surrounds violence against women has to shift.

Violence against women and girls is rooted in gender-based discrimination and social norms and gender stereotypes that perpetuate such violence. Given the devastating effect violence has on women, efforts have mainly focused on responses and services for survivors. However, the best way to end violence against women and girls is to prevent it from happening in the first place by addressing its root and structural causes.

Change has to happen. In response, from November 25 to December 10, the 16 Days of Activism calls on governments, organizations, advocates, and you to call for an end to gender-based violence as a basic human right. The United Nations urges participation in Orange your Neighbourhood, to wear orange to reflect your support in breaking the stigma that surrounds violence against women. To change the culture of acceptance to that of nonacceptance.

I think today of the many loved friends, family, and colleagues I have in my life, and visually if we all sat down at a Thanksgiving table how so many of us would be wearing orange. How so many of us have experienced violence in some way. And, how all of us have channeled that experience in our own way to heal and find resiliency.

Then, I think of all the incredible women I have met all over the world who have found or will need to find that kind of resiliency to move beyond the suffering that comes from gender-based violence, and I am thankful for the strength that can be forged in a collective culture that does not accept violence against women. It reminds me to stay resilient in my pursuit to ensure greater human rights for all of us everywhere. Because, if we just keep going, one day, through effort, determination, and resiliency, that keeping on will lead us to true change: women everywhere will be safer. And, that will be the worldwide culture, just the way things are.

The 16 Days of Activism ends on December 10, Human Rights Day.

“What does poiesis have to do with slavery?”

Shadow of Monique Villa, CEO of
Thomas Reuters Foundation. Photo: Deborah Espinosa

That is how internationally renowned artist Anish Kapoor began his 14-minute keynote address during the 2014 Trust Women’s conference recently held in London. The conference, which puts "the rule of law behind women’s rights," gathered advocates and activists focused on solutions to women’s economic empowerment, including women’s access to land and financial services, as well as on the global fight against modern slavery. A short video captured the breadth of issues covered. Notable speakers included two Nobel laureates, Muhammad Yunus and Kailash Satyarthi, CEOs of many major corporations and NGOS, and survivors of the slave trade.

The Trust Women two-day gathering was highly cerebral, sometimes academic, and always stimulating. It also was visually compelling. Each theme was introduced with a 2- to 3-minute multimedia piece, including Women and Finance, Access to Land, and Slavery and the Supply Chain. (All of Trust Women conference videos are available here.)

We learned that 35.8 million people are working in slave-like conditions around the world in violation of their human rights on a daily basis. We were challenged to consider whether the supply chains of goods we use everyday include forced labor or debt bondage, including considering the human rights abuses necessary to sustain "fast fashion."

We were also encouraged to consider how responsive cities are to women's needs, including safety, particularly given their typically greater reliance on public transport for going to work and taking care of child and household responsibilities.

And for me, a women's land rights practitioner, of utmost interest was the panel on the issue of women's access to land, which Trust Women aptly described as the "biggest challenge to women's empowerment."

So imagine my surprise when, amidst this dialogue, sculptor Anish Kapoor took the podium. “What does poiesis have to do with slavery?", he asks. I wasn't familiar with the term “poiesis,” but I imagined it referred to poetry. Later, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that poiesis is actually a much broader concept dating back to Ancient Greece — more like "a making” or the "making of art.”

No doubt Mr. Kapoor's words meant many things to many people. For me, his words caused my soul to soften. I had steeled myself for a day on the global slave trade, and there he was opening a part of me that I’d purposefully locked down.

The artist and advocate in me heard him liken the making of art to acts in pursuit of justice — and that the time is now.

“Does my making have truth? Or is it that belief and therefore beauty is something that lies in the future? Is it something that is always out of reach? . . . Freedom and beauty are the future — only possible because of what we do next."

Kapoor continued:

Mr. Anish Kapoor speaking at the Trust Women
Conference on November 19, 2014. Photo: Deborah Espinosa
The oppressed, as we all know, are asked again and again to wait for the right time to press for change. Right time? What is this right time?

Always in the future. The right time for respect and dignity is always in the future. . . .

Time and courage and beauty are now. I’m linking them together because I think they belong together. . . . Rights are dreamed of as if they belong in the future. But rights, as we all know, depend on what we do next."

Mr. Kapoor's full speech is available here.

Thank you Mr. Kapoor and Thomas Reuters Foundation for uniting our efforts to make the world replete with justice with the our making of art. They belong together for me, too.

[Editor's Note: After a few nomadic months, Priyanka has settled in New Delhi. Here she shares her feelings on the way art has inspired her own sense of being home. She will resume her regular column with Her Blueprint in mid-January.]

The first thing that I saw when we walked into the apartment was its mint green walls.

We had just arrived in New Delhi two days ago. Since June, we had moved from Pittsburgh, traveled across the United States, and divided time between Bombay, Bangalore, and Rajasthan before finally making up our mind to come to India’s capital city. I was both utterly exhausted of being a nomad for the past many months and apprehensive about calling Delhi home. Actually, more precisely, calling India home.

Apart from annual holidays to the homeland while growing up in Oman, I had never previously lived in India before. I was becoming increasingly disconnected to the idea of calling it home over the years. In fact, the label itself was becoming a complex abstraction for me. Was the home in homeland actually home? What was home anyway? I could worry about the semantics of home later though. Right now, I wanted a house: a nice, comfortable house, where I could anchor myself and start fleshing it into my space again.

I fell sick hours after landing in Delhi. On our first night, we went to a mall where there was an indie rock concert going on in a huge open-air court. I remember sitting on the edge of a white marble planter, simultaneously listening to the crowd sing along to the music and feeling a dreaded itchiness invade my throat. Every time I had previously visited Delhi, its notorious dust and pollution had not been my friend. The following morning, I woke up to find that the itch had snowballed into a cold: my eyes watered continuously, my nose was on fire, and I had little desire to do anything but remain under the covers for the next day.

I couldn’t, of course. I had a house to find.

Our apartment was the second one that the real-estate agent showed us in what would be a long succession of potential homes. Seeing the green walls after a day of battling a burgeoning cold, consuming cold, dessicated sandwiches, and dodging dusty, traffic-clogged roads was like stumbling head-first into an oasis. I wanted to camp out on the sofa itself, refusing to budge further. Afterwards, once we were done with visiting the other apartments (good, terrible, and ugly), the only one that remained with me was the green wall apartment. In the morning light, it would be mint-green, I thought, by dusk, it would assume the shade of pistachio ice-cream. I like the green wall apartment, I told my husband at dinner that night, as we listened to three college-age musicians sing Bob Dylan, let’s take that one.

We arrived in the apartment. My cold became a fever — and I spent the first week in our new house, ensconced in the bedroom, either staring at the ceiling or the windows bracketing me. On one side, the shadow of a massive peepal tree and its spreading, embrace-like branches and numerous leaves dutifully dappled the balcony while the other tree — whose name I still do not know — was framed within the window, like a minimal black and white photograph. During the day, their leaf shadows stenciled and overlapped one another upon the green walls, the walls fluid canvases. The leaf-shadow dance lulled me into sleep; the green soothed and calmed me.

The house swiftly became a welcome sanctuary after all those migratory, mobile months.

We are still in the process of turning our house into a home. In fact, we are still befriending the city, understanding its costume, its dialect, when it sleeps, when it wakes up, the art of razoring through its traffic jams. We potter about in the house, migrating from one room to another, wondering where the guest room should be, what color flowers will look good against the mint.

A river of traffic flows behind our house. We hear people’s conversations, dogs fighting, and ambulance and police sirens. I was accustomed to a soundtrack of silence in all the places that I had previously lived. This is the first time my ears are constantly negotiating the overwhelming barrage of sound, the sheer plurality of it; my mind is learning how to filter, distinguish one sound from another. However, I don’t miss the silence quite as much as I miss peering above into the nocturnal sky, glimpsing the dense population of stars studding its surface. Here, in the city, like any other city, they are just as invisible as they are during the day.

Our landlord’s art work meanwhile still dots the apartment walls. In the living room, you can see camouflage-hued tapestries of Paris, a bright bird water-color, an Ancient Egyptian god and goddess in dialogue, and a mountainscape sparely executed in oils. I have decided that these works will continue to hang there on the walls until we discover and introduce our own to them. In any case, they are strangers no more; our daily engagement with the works has made them familiar to us. There are three paintings though that that we have decided to never remove as long as we stay in the apartment.

These paintings are portraits of three distinguished women hanging upon one wall in the living room. I call them distinguished simply because that’s exactly the sort of air they exude. I have no idea who these women are. I don’t even know the names of the artists who painted them. What I do know is that these portraits define the house as much as the walls themselves. And like the tree window-photograph in my bedroom window, I am content to see their framed selves on the walls.

What is remarkable is that each of them wear an identical expression of contemplation in their portraits. They look as if they were mulling over a problem or a puzzle or a query — and were about to unpack their thoughts to the artist. The thoughts would quickly spill out, raw, unadulterated, like paint gushing upon a palette from a newly pierced open tube. Yet, the women would just as swiftly incorporate them into the bigger picture, the larger idea, connoisseurs of both the macro and micro. These women are constantly editing themselves, their thoughts, striving to be better, fuller, richer persons. But they wouldn’t bite back their words, that’s for sure. If they have something to say, they will say it.

When we say goodbye to the house with the mint colored walls, I already know that we will miss these three ladies. In the next few months, we will be constantly overlaying the house with our presence— paintings, photographs, furniture, objects, books, our conversations — and by the time we leave, the house will have become an alternate version of itself, a new draft, so to speak. Perhaps, by that time, I will have even figured out how to solve the mathematical-like conundrum of learning to call my homeland home. But what these walls and admirable ladies will remind us of will be those initial paint-strokes, those first words on the computer-screen, a freshly new time, when blankness was exciting, when anything could become everything.

This post originally appeared at the story-sharing platform, Medium over here.

As 2014 shuffles off its mortal coil, I want to amplify the many voices of 2014 that inspire me to live out loud in 2015. What these voices all have in common is that they are no longer living quietly, accepting the status quo. Instead, they expose their truth, expressing rage, conviction, joy, authenticity, and hope.

"I Can't Believe I Still Have to Protest This . . . "

Protester in Washington, DC. #blacklivesmatter
Photo: Ben James.

Yes, 2014 was the year Americans came out to protest police killings of black men. And to protest grand juries not indicting the white police officers. Even when it is filmed. And in Dublin, Ireland, people protested the fact that Irish women still have no access to abortion services.

Photo: Sharon Davis.

In New York City, protesters demanded the release of
200 Nigerian girls kidnapped from their school.
Photo: Michael Fleshman.

And people around the world took to the streets to demand the return of 200 Nigerian girls, who Boko Haram kidnapped from school.

Photo: Malik ML Williams

A Photograph.

In August of 2014, Lynsey Adarrio photographed 16-year old Yasmin Ritaj with her daughter in her arms in a refugee camp in Jordan. She had just left her abusive husband, while pregnant, to return to her family. The photograph was included in 2014 The Year in Pictures, a compilation of the best single images of the year.

Project 562.

A young patron of the Tacoma Art Museum
pauses to contemplate Project 562. Photo: Deborah Espinosa.

Project 562 is the brainchild of photographer Matika Wilbur. Thru Project 562, Wilbur is documenting all 562 federally recognized tribes in the United States (which are now numbered at 566). Wilbur, a Native American woman of the Swinomish and Tulalip Tribes in Washington State, explains, "My goal is to represent native people from every tribe. By exposing the astonishing variety of the Indian presence and reality at this juncture, we will build cultural bridges, abandon stereotypes, and renew and inspire our national legacy." She further explains her work in this video.

In 2014, I had the privilege of viewing Wilbur's work at the Tacoma Art Museum. The Project combines compelling portraits with oral narratives -- some in native languages -- about all aspects of their lives. Project 562 is a true contribution to our understanding of Native Americans.

Italian Boys and Violence against Girls.

When asked why he refuses to slap a girl, a young
Italian boy explains. Photo: Fanpage.it.

"Slap Her," a Fanpage.it video is making the rounds on Facebook and it blew me away. Italian boys between the ages of 7 and 11 are asked a series of questions, including "What do you want to be when you grow up? (In case you are interested: firefighter, soccer player, baker, pizza maker, and a police man.) And they are introduced to Martina, a girl. What follows is touching and makes you wonder what happens as Italian boys grow up.

A compilation of data on the prevalence of violence against women, as of March 2011 by UN Women, found that 31.9% of Italian women experience physical or sexual violence in their lifetime. That figure is just a few percentage points lower than the 35.4% of Indian women who experience the same.

In January 2014, an Italian court ruled that acts of brutal violence against one's wife and children are not considered family abuse if such acts do not happen on a regular basis.

The Comic Book Priya's Shakti.

Cover of comic book, Priya's Shakti.

The December 16, 2012 fatal gang rape of a 23-year old woman on a moving bus in New Delhi shocked the world. Two years later, a news article recounts the limited progress made in India to prevent more atrocities, including passage of an anti-rape law and a prohibition on the retail sale of acid to deter attacks on women. The article further notes a recent study published in the Hindustan Times that found that 91% of women between the ages of 13 and 55 said that New Delhi is no safer two years later, and 97% had continued to experience some form of sexual harassment.

And along comes the comic book, Priya's Shakti, created by Ram Devineni. Priya is a super hero/ gang rape survivor, who conquers her attackers on the back of a tiger with the help of Parvati, the goddess of love and devotion.

Need I say more? It's a must read (and available for free)! And there's an app for that!

May your 2015 be filled with peace and joy, love and light. Loudly.

Maria Vérone

Several days ago, Clio came across an intriguing text about the “modernization” of Islam, written by a French woman lawyer and published by the International Council of Women. The author, Maria Vérone, a dedicated feminist, was one of the first French women to be admitted to the French bar; she had worked as a teacher and a dancer before studying law. She presided over the Ligue Française pour le Droit des Femmes [French League for Women’s Rights] for many years. By the early 1930s she had been tapped to head the pathbreaking Women’s Consultative Committee on Nationality, appointed by the League of Nations, and she continued to be active in international legal circles, engaged with studying, comparing – and attempting to advance – the status of women in the law both in France and worldwide.

Here is what she wrote about the status of women in Islam.

“After long centuries of lethargy, Islam is awakening from its slumber. By a sort of return to primitive religion, Musulmen, as pious as they are broadminded, may now be found who declare, text in hand, that the Prophet never intended to place women in a state of servitude. The Veil, they say, is not obligatory; instruction should be given to girls as well as to boys; polygamy is permitted but not enforced; on the contrary, men are forbidden to abuse their rights. The Egyptian (Islamic) Civil Code has been framed in this spirit, recognising that woman, married or single, has full civil capacity; in this spirit, too, Musulman Tribunals have recently given certain judgments, suing a man for damages towards his ex-wife, whom he repudiated soon after the marriage, she having been compelled to leave the occupation which she followed as a single woman.

“In Iran, in Syria, in Irak, in Palestine, all the Musulmen inhabiting these parts of Asia have seen the rise of Feminist Associations; Congresses have been held in the more important cities, where the Delegates appeared unveiled before high authorities, where programmes of new demands have been drawn up, and certain reforms are already on the way to accomplishment. In Europe, the young King of Albania, believing that the emancipation of women is not a sign of revolution or of irreligion, has begun by forbidding the use of the Veil, as a start, greater changes may follow. In Northern Africa, pecuniary difficulties, stronger than the most ancient custom, are doing away with polygamy. Men, if not because of sentiment, at least in their own interest, marry only one woman, and this completely changes the moral position of the family; should an era of prosperity follow, it may be that a generation brought up in utterly different surroundings than those of its ancestors, may not desire to return to ancient customs. So, by good will or perforce, the world is changing."

Do you know, Clio asks, when these words were written and published? Can anybody guess?

Would any of you imagine that it dates from 1937 – well over 75 years ago?

Source: Maria Verone, “The Evolution of the Family throughout the World,” International Council of Women: Bulletin, 16:3 (November 1937),18-19.

Nicola Costantino: Art of Sensation

CLIO TALKS BACK: “It is the Women Who Make the Soldiers”

Tears in the Congo: Jean Chung Returns to DRC Five Years Later

Abortion Ship Doctor Slams Irish Policy

Ireland Campaign

Non-Surgical Abortion

No Link to Depression

A Selfless Decision

Social Justice Issue

I Embrace My Female Nerd (and So Can You)

Fark Bans Misogyny and Maybe, Just Maybe, We Can Now Read the Comments

The Freedom Traveller

CLIO TALKS BACK: Fatima Mernissi on the Future of the Arab World

What I Talk About When I Talk About Money

McKayla Maroney and the Celebrity Photo Leak of (August) 2014

The Power of Voice

Documentary Unravels Honor Killings of American Sisters

The Tampon Taboo

Programs with Potential: Collective Voice and Sense of Self

The Opposing Trajectories of Zoe Quinn and Alex from Target

On Gratitude Versus Suffering: Resiliency Can Rise

Belonging Together: The Making of Justice and Art

The House with the Mint-Green Walls

The Year of Living Out Loud

CLIO TALKS BACK: Maria Vérone on the “Modernization” of Islam