Stories about Women & Gender from August, 2007
India: Working women and Housewives
Ultra Violet on a recent court judgment that rules that a working woman is a “housewife first”.
Slideshow of Iran's female athletes
Tunisiendoctor has a slideshow of Iranian female athletes (Fr).
Mauritania : Ignorance and Tradition
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Generously endowed women are favored in Mauritania. The fatter the woman, the more beautiful she is thought to be. Being big is also a sign of wealth and the search for beauty and signs of exterior wealth leads to some unorthodox methods...
Sudan: Sudanese Saint Josephine Bakhita
Remembering the Sudanese Saint Josephine Bakhita: “Reading St.Josephine Bakhita's story made me want 2 cry, at the time when most of us had a pretty decent childhood, she spent hers as a slave.”
India: On Feminism
Ultra Violet, a new blog discussing feminism and India kicks off things with a post discussing feminism in contemporary culture.
South Korea: Inter-racial Love
Robert Koehler from the Marmot's Hole summarized a report on inter-racial love relation in one sentence: Korean men want to date foreign women because foreign women don’t view men as simply money-making machines, while Korean women want to date foreign men because it’s a good chance to learn English and...
Egypt: Rape Apologists
Egyptian Eman loathes rape apologists and this is why.
Arabeyes: Just a Pretty Face
Miss South Carolina's response in the Miss USA Pageant to a question on why a fifth of US students couldn't locate their country on the map was the butt of jokes on Middle Eastern blogs today. Here's a quick review of what some bloggers had to say about her ramblings.
Uganda: Bloggers Respond to Controversial Daily Monitor Articles
Uganda’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) community has gotten a lot of press recently in the form of a number of articles written by Katherine Roubos, a 22-year-old Stanford student from the United States. Most recently, Roubos covered the first ever LGBTI press conference, a story that prompted an anti-gay rally in Kampala.
Soviet Union: Female Beauty and Feminism
Natalia Antonova writes about “the Soviet Syndrome” that some of today's feminists seem to be afflicted with.
Lebanon: Prostituting in France
Lebanese Rampurple links to a news article about a Lebanese pimp caught up in a prostitution racket in France.
Guyana: A Woman's Role
Stella Ramsaroop finds herself assuming the role of submissive woman…but only long enough for her to use it as an example of how women must not “mindlessly fall in line with patriarchal socialisations.”
China: Guidebook On Being A Mistress
Wang Xiaofeng is reading a book about “second wife” or mistress (zh). It discusses about the phenomena of “second wife” in China from an economic view point. The writer was once a Taiwanese reporter who collected stories from Taiwan business circle.
South East Asia: Abortion Policies
Bisean compares the abortions policies practiced by the countries in South East Asia and finds that Singapore and Vietnam have the most flexible policies.
Egypt: Cultureligious Curse
The Big Pharaoh from Egypt describes the outlawed practice of female circumcision as a ‘cultureligious curse.’
South Korea: A Girl's Suicide
Matt from Gust of popular feeling looked into the suicide of a 16-year-old girl, Lee Eun-ji. The cause was believed to be cyber bullying by superjunior fans. However, Matt pointed another factor: the T.V program's framing of her image in weight loss.
Russia: Intermarriages
Of the more than 60,000 marriages in Moscow in the first half of 2007, a quarter were between native Muscovites – “typically an ethnic Russian woman – and a citizen of a neighboring country – more often than not a man from Azerbaijan or Central Asia.” Window on Eurasia attempts...
Russia: Nashi, BBC, and the Upcoming Elections
Mark MacKinnon writes about the recent BBC ban and the Nashi movement's summer camps: “Both the Kremlin's bolstering of “patriotic” youth movements and its crackdown on non-state media outlets are moves directed at heading off any kind of Orange Revolution-inspired uprising in Russia around December's Duma elections and/or next year's...
Nepal: Madhesi Women
Kathmandu Speaks on the changing roles of Madhesi women. “Participants of the historic convention, the first of its kind for the Madhesi women, expressed their longing for peace and freedom in the 17-point charter which mainly called for an end to violence…”
Kyrgyzstan: Alaa-Chu
Tom Toomey tells the story of Chynara, a Kyrgyz teacher who freed her niece out of the hands of bride kidnappers.
Kenya: New Women's Bank
Bankelele writes about a new Women's bank in Kenya: “Women’s Bank: They may not have been able to get special seats in Parliament, but women can count on having their own bank when the Kenya Women's finance trust converts to a commercial bank, probably in 2008. Having a women’s only...
