August 28, 2009
First of all, What is Gender-Based Violence (GBV)? Are you talking about Domestic Violence?
THE INTERNATIONAL DEFINITION of GBV
Gender Based Violence is any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or psychological harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivations of liberty, whether occurring in public or in private life.
Can You Name 16 Forms of Gender-Based Violence?
16 Types:
1) Sexual Violence as a Weapon of War
2) Pre-Natal Sex Selection
3) Female Genital Mutilation
4) Date Rape
5) Bride Burning or other forms of Dowry-Related Violence
6) Child Marriage
7) Trafficking in Girls and Women
8) Domestic Violence
9) Crimes Committed in the name of Passion or Honour
10) Abduction of Adolescent Girls During Combat
11) Bride Kidnapping
12) Sexual Harrassment at Work
13) Physical or Emotional Violence by an Intimate Partner
14) Exploitation of Domestic Workers
15) Femicide
16) Forced Sterilization or other Coercive Reproductive Practices
August 23, 2009
Friday, August 21, 2009 Fox News
By Joshua Rhett Miller
Rifqa Bary
A 17-year-old girl who fled to Florida after converting from Islam to Christianity will almost certainly be forced to return home to Ohio, experts say, despite her fears that she will become the victim of an honor killing for abandoning her parents’ faith.
Rifqa Bary, who hitchhiked to an Ohio bus station earlier this month and took a charter bus to Orlando, remains in protective custody with Florida’s Department of Children and Families. A judge is expected to rule Friday on the jurisdiction of the case, but several legal experts contacted by FOXNews.com say the girl is bound to be sent back to Ohio.
“She’ll be returned to the original jurisdiction,” said Katherine Hunt Federle, professor of law and director of the Justice for Children Project at Ohio State University’s Moritz College of Law. (more…)
August 19, 2009
The Lede - The NY Times News Blog
Afghan women at an election rally this month in support of Afghanistan’s President Hamid Karzai
Bowing to international pressure and unprecedented protests by hundreds of women on the streets of Kabul, the Afghan government promised in April to review a new law imposing severe restrictions on women in Shiite Muslim families.
Last week, though, Human Rights Watch discovered that a revised version of the Shiite Personal Status Law had been quietly put into effect at the end of July — meaning that Shiite men in Afghanistan now have the legal right to starve their wives if their sexual demands are not met and that Shiite women must obtain permission from their husbands to even leave their houses, “except in extreme circumstances.” (more…)
August 13, 2009
By Taylor Olson from Examiner.com
Sandra Bem defines gender polarization as the idea that there are only two mutually exclusive sexes that correspond with two opposite genders. After androcentrism, gender polarization is the second lens through which gender is often viewed. Gender polarization falsely assigns personal qualities, traits and behaviors to either the masculine or feminine gender resulting in the belief that there are only “manly men” and “girly girls” and nothing in between.
According to gender polarization, the sex of the body has to match the gender of the psyche. Men should be strong, brave, fearless, independent and should not show emotion. Women, on the other hand, are weak, emotional to the point of irrationality, consumeristic and dependent on men. Anyone who possess qualities attributed to the opposite sex/gender and therefore deviates from what is considered “normal” goes against the nature of their gender and sex. (more…)
