Somali Women’s Rights Activist Wins Roger Baldwin Award

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May 192008
 

From Human Rights First:

New York, NY – Hawa Aden Mohamed received the 2008 Roger N. Baldwin Medal of Liberty Award presented by Human Rights First in honor of her work to improve the quality of life for Somali women and girls. The award ceremony took place at a private reception on Tuesday, May 13th in New York City.

“Hawa Aden Mohamed has helped thousands of women and girls get access to education in what many would consider a failed state,” said Maureen Byrnes, executive director of Human Rights First. “But she has also helped challenge pervasive problems of violence against women in a setting where they are most vulnerable – one of conflict.”

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 Posted by on May 19, 2008

Pres. Bush Defends Women’s Rights (Or At Least He Says He Does)

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May 182008
 

I could easily spew on for hours, no– make that days, about Pres. Bush’s comments regarding women’s rights during his Middle East tour, but I’ll spare you. Is he fricking kidding? Does he understand the concept of irony?? To say that this is insulting after the unendurable damage his administration has done to women’s rights would be, to put it mildly, an understatement. Quoth fearless leader:

“He urged an expansion of women’s rights as “a matter of morality and of basic math. No nation that cuts off half its population from opportunities will be as productive or prosperous as it could be. Women are a formidable force, as I have seen in my own family and my own administration.”"

I do believe it is time for that formidable force to rise up…

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 Posted by on May 18, 2008

Taser International Uses Playboy Bunnies To Sell Its Products

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May 162008
 

And who says there isn’t an intimate connection between sex and violence…

“Vancouver businessman Randy Puder was drawn to the booth operated by Taser International at the Consumer Trade Show in Las Vegas last January.

Playboy bunnies were signing photographs while salesmen pitched a new personal Taser that’s small enough to fit into a woman’s purse, he recalled.

“It was excellent marketing,” Puder told a public inquiry Thursday probing the use of Tasers in B.C.

He got a signed photo from a Playboy bunny, which he showed to The Vancouver Sun. It has the Taser company logo on it. He was asked who he wanted it signed to and he said, half-joking, “The Vancouver police board.””

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 Posted by on May 16, 2008

From Iran–Police Crack Down On “Mal-Veiling”, “Immodest Buys” And All Manner Of Other Women’s Human Rights

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May 162008
 

From the Women’s Forum Against Fundamentalism in Iran:

NCRI Website – April 17 2008 Hossein Tayeb, deputy commander of the paramilitary Bassij Force, a domestic subordinate of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) announced the formation of new “Security Patrols,” reported the official news agency IRNA on Wednesday.”The major goal for running the new Bassij patrols is to guarantee the safety and security of citizens in urban areas as well as combating ‘hooligans and thugs.’…In addition, the [occasional] checkpoints run by the Bassij [in the neighborhoods] will be available, as before, at the time of possible crisis,” said Tayeb. Separately, Ahmadreza Radan, chief of the State Security Force (SSF) — mullahs’ suppressive police — in Greater Tehran announced what he called the new “phase” of the so-called “boosting public security plan,” reported the state-run news agency Mehr on Wednesday.  “In enforcing the “public security” boost, Tehran’s metropolitan police will get tough on “mal-veiling” in private companies and small businesses such as coffee shops, internet cafes, clubs and restaurants. The goal is to combat the lawbreakers and criminals,” added Radan. Running new security patrols by the Bassij force in the streets of the cities across the country, under the pretext of increasing public security, is aimed at combating the volatile state of the society. Fighting the so-called “mal-veiling” is designed to suppress the growing public uprisings by workers, students, women and youths in Iran.

NCRI Website – April 17, 2008 In a rear move, even by Iranian regime’s standards, female members of the State Security Forces (SSF) — mullahs’ suppressive police – searched women shoppers’ purchased items for what they called “immodest buys.” This was the sense outside a major department store on the busy Seven Tir Square (Rezaiiha) last Sunday. SSF agents, besides checking young women for what they had on carefully examined hand bags and shopped items of every woman leaving the store. What followed was even stranger; the police women would questioned the shopper with items deemed immoral outerwear about their reasons for buying such goods. The new move was enforced last April with the so- called “boosting public security” by the SSF in particular aimed at what was described as “mal- veiling.” The length and severity of the crackdown has been unprecedented in the under the clerical rule in recent years. Vans of the moral police are still a common sight in Tehran’s main squares as officials monitor passing women. Women deemed inappropriately dressed are usually hauled to a moral detention centre to sign a written statement not to repeat the offence and await family members to bring them more modest clothing.
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 Posted by on May 16, 2008

Washington University Tells Its Female Grads They Are Second Class Citizens

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May 162008
 

I’m embarrassed. Not for anything that I did, but for the institute of higher learning from which I earned my undergraduate degree, Washington University, which has apparently lost all sight of common sense or decency in deciding to award an honorary degree to Phyllis Schlafly. Yes the same Phyllis Schlafly that got all bent out of shape at Feminist Peace Network because, wait for it, we support International Women’s Day.

WU is giving her the award because she is “a national leader of the conservative movement.” Okay, just go ahead and get the barf bag out now because as Feministing points out,

“What they fail to mention however, is that she is also an anti-feminist leader who believes married women can’t be raped (“By getting married, the woman has consented to sex, and I don’t think you can call it rape.”), that there should be bans on women working in nontraditional fields (like construction work or firefighting), and – oh yeah – that the ERA is dangerous.”
Feministing also helpfully provides these emails to lodge your protests:

Chancellor Wrighton and

Jane Stone, coordinator of the Board of Trustees

It should also be pointed out that the commencement address is being given by everyone’s favorite on-air misogynist, Chris Matthews and that only 2 of the 6 honorary degrees being given out are being given to women. I’d like to think that things have changed since I got my degree, and that was a VERY long time ago, but clearly they have not.

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 Posted by on May 16, 2008
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