Finding ways for girls to integrate interests in science and shopping doesn’t work if girls think this is the only way to engage with it.… Read the rest
All entries by this author
Pseudoscience and stereotyping won’t solve gender inequality in science
Feb 8th, 2013 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
9 women polio vaccinators shot dead in Kano, Nigeria
Feb 8th, 2013 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
On Thursday, a mullah bashed the polio vaccination campaign, saying that new cases of polio were caused by contaminated medicine.… Read the rest
No one ever rats out a fellow bro
Feb 8th, 2013 9:31 am | By Ophelia BensonMichael Kimmel wrote a great article on the Steubenville gang rape a couple of weeks ago.
… Read the restAs I found in my interviews with more than 400 young men for my book Guyland, in the aftermath of these sorts of events – when high-status high school athletes commit felonies, especially gang rape – they are surrounded and protected by their fathers, their school administrations and their communities. These out-of-control, rapacious thugs are our school’s heroes — “our guys,” as the gang rapists at Glen Ridge High School in New Jersey were called nearly two decades ago. The players themselves hold to a code of silence, the omerta of sexual assault: No one ever rats out a fellow bro. The parents,
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
One equal law for everyone
Feb 7th, 2013 5:51 pm | By Ophelia BensonNahla Mahmoud went on Channel 4′s 4thought.tv programme to talk about her opinions on ‘What does Sharia Law have to offer Britain’ and found herself the only person out of seven interviewed who was against sharia and for secularism.
My interview has triggered a debate in the Sudanese media, both at home and in the diaspora, from which campaigns have emerged inciting people against me calling me a ‘Kafira’ (infidel) and ‘Murtadda’ (left Islam) . I guess Sudanese government officials have time to watch Channel 4 because the Sudanese Armed Forces’ Facebook page posted my picture declaring me an infidel and apostate. Who knew that my private beliefs could denigrate a country’s government, religion, and armed forces?!
I can’t … Read the rest
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Anene was raped and mutilated because she was a girl
Feb 7th, 2013 1:16 pm | By Ophelia BensonGuest post by Gen, Uppity Ingrate.
It started with an article by Sisonke Msimang, which I will excerpt rather than quote in full.
… Read the restI read an article on Thursday morning. It said: “The victim had been sliced open from her stomach to her genitals and dumped.” The radio is full of this story. Full of politicians and posers, trying to outdo one another. Like funeral criers. But it will end, the show. And there will be marches and petitions. There will be statements and rage. But it will happen again. Until we are inured to shock. It will happen again. Until our bones are worn into dust and our teeth crushed into the sand. It will happen and happen.
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Sing it!
Feb 7th, 2013 12:35 pm | By Ophelia BensonThe radical feminists are in your streets!
There are lots. See them all.… Read the rest
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Target
Feb 7th, 2013 11:32 am | By Ophelia BensonYou know that video that “mykeru” did a couple of days ago? The one that prompted some stranger to tweet at me that I’m an immoral little twat who should get a fucking hobby? It’s now the featured video at A Voice for Men – with my face on it, looking like a nightmare-idiot, because it caught me in mid-blink.
Fabulous. I love being a target.
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
South Africa contemplates a “debate” on rape
Feb 7th, 2013 10:32 am | By Ophelia BensonSouth Africa has its own recent horrific rape-combined-with-mutilation-murder, and there are people who want that too to be a catalyst for outrage and change.
… Read the restThe gang-rape and murder of a 17-year-old girl in South Africa has triggered expressions of outrage from politicians and calls for Indian-style protests against a culture of sexual violence.
Anene Booysen was reportedly lured away from her friends and raped by a group of men. She was badly mutilated and left for dead on a building site in the town of Bredasdorp, 80 miles east of Cape Town, and found by a security guard on Saturday morning.
Hospital staff who fought to save her life were given counselling because of the horrific nature of her
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Edna Adan versus FGM
Feb 7th, 2013 9:55 am | By Ophelia BensonEdna Adan is one of the heroic women I learned about courtesy of the Half the Sky series. She built and runs a hospital in Somalia. A Safe World for Women gives us her statement on Female Genital Mutilation.
… Read the restAs a midwife, I have been delivering babies for 50 years, many of whom were being born to women who had undergone FGM. Witnessing the FGM-associated complications that many were suffering caused me to speak out against it in public in 1976 which at that time shocked my family and my people.
37 years later, and after so many resolutions have been passed to eradicate the practice, we sadly found that 97% of our women still suffered FGM as
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
South African girl gang-raped and mutilated to death
Feb 7th, 2013 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Before she died, Anene Booysen, 17, identified her former boyfriend as one of her attackers.… Read the rest
Edna Adan statement on zero tolerance of FGM
Feb 7th, 2013 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
“Witnessing the FGM-associated complications that many were suffering caused me to speak out against it in public in 1976 which at that time shocked my family and my people.”… Read the rest
Golden Dawn in Whitechapel
Feb 7th, 2013 5:17 am | By Ophelia BensonThe chair of the Quilliam Foundation, Maajid Nawaz, says the “Muslim patrol” problem will probably get worse.
He compared the Islamist vigilantes to extremists like the far-right Golden Dawn supporters in Greece and right-wing vigilantes in France who ran Roma families out of a Marseilles estate and burnt down their camp.
Countries such as Denmark and Spain have also seen Islamist extremists trying to enforce their own sharia law, he noted.
All were imitating Hitler’s Brownshirts by “enforcing with threats and violence their version of the law in neighbourhoods,” said Mr Nawaz, who spent years in his youth as a leadership member of a global Islamist group.
What a nightmare.… Read the rest
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Mate, hello mate
Feb 7th, 2013 5:08 am | By Ophelia BensonWell this is foul.
One of the self-styled “Muslim patrols” that have been wandering the streets of east London bullying anyone they don’t like posted this one that shows them bullying a man they take to be gay. All the more offensively, they keep mixing “mate” in with their abuse – “you’re a bloody fag mate, get out of it mate, what’s wrong wiv your face mate.”
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
AlJazeera on London’s “Muslim patrols”
Feb 7th, 2013 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
A group under the name of “Muslim Patrol” post YouTube videos showing them harassing people who they think are not conforming to sharia.… Read the rest
“Muslim patrols” in London could get worse
Feb 7th, 2013 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
A group calling itself the Muslim Patrol posted a video showing a gang hurling abuse at a gay man and described white women as “naked animals with no self–respect.”… Read the rest
A long history of involvement
Feb 6th, 2013 5:46 pm | By Ophelia BensonA post by Jadehawk pointed me to an article from 2011 in the Irish Times, posted by Paddy Doyle.
… Read the restTWO OF the religious congregations which ran Magdalene laundries in the State set up and continue to run the Dublin-based Ruhama agency, which is funded by the State and works “with women affected by prostitution and other forms of commercial sexual exploitation”.
According to its website, the agency receives funding from the Department of Health and the Department of Justice.
Ruhama, which means “renewed life” in Hebrew, is described as “a joint initiative of the Good Shepherd Sisters and the Sisters of Our Lady of Charity, both of which had a long history of involvement with marginalised women, including those
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Golden Palace
Feb 6th, 2013 5:18 pm | By Ophelia BensonOne cheerful little item on a horrible day. Larry Moran did a post at Sandwalk about Golden Palace egg rolls.
I’ve taken many friends to the restaurant and recommended it to visitors.
Recently the talk.origins moderator, Dave Greig, sampled the food and pronounced
it tolerable. More recently, I brought lots of food to the hotel at Eschaton
2012 and treated PZ Myers, Veronica Abbas, Chris DiCarlo, and Ophelia Benson.
They all liked the egg rolls. Everyone likes Golden Palace egg rolls.
He did, he did! And we did, and I did. They were goooood.
Thanks, Larry!… Read the rest
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Booty Slap Day
Feb 6th, 2013 4:14 pm | By Ophelia BensonJessica Valenti has a great article in The Nation, written as a letter to male relatives on Facebook who “like” things like haha-funny videos of men running up to women to grab their bums. Haha funny, right? Great joke?
Here’s the thing: those guys running up to women just to grab their ass? Stuff like that happens to women all the time. It’s happened to me. When I was your age, guys—from boys in school to men on the subway—used to grope and touch me against my will too. I don’t know if any of them videotaped it or if they did it as a “joke”—all I know was that it was really scary.
Well yes but that’s … Read the rest
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
When in doubt, lock up all the women
Feb 6th, 2013 3:41 pm | By Ophelia BensonThe headstrong survivors of the Magdalene laundries are threatening to go on a hunger strike if the Irish government doesn’t set up a redress board.
… Read the restSteven O’Riordain, a representative of the Magdalene Survivors Together, has warned some women will go on hunger strike if the government does not meet their demands.
“There is a possibility that this will happen. Some of the women have said if they do not get proper redress from a state which was responsible for being abandoned in these institutions. Many of them say they are at that age now where they have nothing to lose if the government fails to set up a scheme that will give some compensation for what happened to them,” he
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Too headstrong
Feb 6th, 2013 3:33 pm | By Ophelia BensonJohn Walsh on the Irish government and the Magdalene laundries.
These were places where “loose girls” or “fallen women” could be packed off to, girls impregnated by their fathers or uncles or the local priest, girls who were considered too flightly or flirtatious or headstrong to be biddable members of society. They could be put to work all day, washing sheets for the military, fed on bread and dripping, forbidden to speak and offered no way out, or any explanation about why they were imprisoned. Half of them were teenagers, doomed to spend their best years in a workhouse, being humiliated by nuns, told they’d offended God and that their parents didn’t want them.
Prisons. Slavery. For girls who … Read the rest
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
