· October, 2007

Stories about Women & Gender from October, 2007

Armenia: Homophobic Advert

  30 October 2007

Blogian posts a photograph of an advertisement for a rap party in Yerevan named after a historical Armenian site in the Azerbaijani exclave of Nakhichevan. Hrag Vartanian says that the advert depicting an American girl in a Stars & Stripes bikini with the words “Homosexuals and Animals Not Welcome” would...

Armenia: Gender Politics

  29 October 2007

With several examples in mind elsewhere around the world, Unzipped: Gay Armenia wonders if Armenia shouldn't have a woman president. Despite the patriarchal nature of Armenia and the Caucasus itself, the blog says that a female head of state might succeed in easing “tensions in our society and act as...

Turkey: An Armenian in Istanbul

  29 October 2007

Despite warnings from fellow Armenians, Lara Aha at Life in Armenia visited Istanbul in Turkey last week to attend a seminar on women in conflict zones. The Diasporan blogger now resident in Armenia says not only did she feel more at home in Istanbul than Yerevan, but that she also...

Brazil: Reforming Abortion Laws

  28 October 2007

Cecilia Sardenberg, in “The right to abortion: briefing from Brazil” at OpenDemocracy.net, tells about the heated debate over reforms to Brazil's outdated abortion laws that has intensified across the country in 2007.

Bangladesh: Bloggers mobilise against domestic violence

  25 October 2007

(Logo credit: Amnesty International) October is Domestic Violence Awareness month in the USA, devoted to connecting battered women’s advocates across the nation to work together to end violence against women and children. The issue, however, is not country specific. Domestic violence is a menace that is found all over the...

Lebanon: On how to become a political leader

  24 October 2007

Cold Desert dissects some political prototypes. In this post, he explains how to become a political leader: “there is a single prerequisite; you need to be the son of a political leader. This political leader should have a very strong public base who would follow him blindly.”

India: Heroines and Cinema

  23 October 2007

Doing Jalsa and Showing Jilpa has a hilarious but telling post on the various stereotypes that heroines in films are slotted into.

Russia: Beautiful Women

  22 October 2007

Natalia Antonova writes: “One of the most popular posts in the Russian blogosphere […] as of late was a simple “post pictures of women you consider beautiful” on some dude’s LiveJournal. The author later revealed that he was betting on a bottle of Hennessy – in order to determine whether...

Morocco: Seven Women Ministers

  20 October 2007

“Morocco got a new government on Monday after nearly a month of tough negotiations, with seven women among the 34 ministers – and none from the Islamic party that placed second in parliamentary elections last month,” announced Moroccan blog The View From Fez.