· March, 2012

Stories about Women & Gender from March, 2012

Trinidad & Tobago: Protests & Parliament

  17 March 2012

The Eternal Pantomime suggests that the number of protests taking place is the country is indicative of “the population giving…their response to that Pappy Show of a Parliamentary sitting that happened on March 2nd”, adding: “You don’t insult the intelligence of tax payers and feel that because you have a...

Cuba: Aggression Against Women

  17 March 2012

Pedazos de la Isla blogs about the wives of two dissidents who maintain that they suffered miscarriages as a result of “violent operations carried out against them by the Cuban political police.”

Ethiopia/Lebanon: Online Outrage Over Death of Domestic Worker Turns into Activism

Alem Dechasa, the woman seen in a mobile phone video footage circulating online being beaten and dragged by force into a car outside the Ethiopian consulate in Beirut, has committed suicide. The video sparked anger amongst Ethiopians netizens. Following her death, netizens are organizing online to call for justice and draw attention to abuse of Ethiopian domestic workers in the Middle East.

Morocco: A Protest to End Forced Marriage After Rape

Moroccans are taking a stand tomorrow (March 17) in protest against the plight of 16-year-old Amina Filali, who committed suicide after being forced to marry the man who raped her. Amina's marriage to her rapist was approved by a judge. Her suicide has raised a storm of reactions both on social networks and on the ground.

Egypt: The Plight of Rural Women

Egyptian blogger Ahmed Awadalla writes about rural women in Egypt in this eye-opening post. Such women, he says, suffer the “highest rates of illiteracy; bear the heavy burden of utmost poverty; lack essential healthcare greatly jeopardizing their lives; and is not represented in our new parliament.”

India: Don't Work at Night and You Won't Be Raped

  14 March 2012

The police of Gurgaon has asked women working at commercial enterprises, malls and bars in Gurgaon to stop working after 8pm to prevent rape incidents. Netizens express their anger towards this unreasonable directive and question the negligence of the authorities.

Trinidad & Tobago: The Gender Card (and other political missteps)

  14 March 2012

The Eternal Pantomime is upset that the Prime Minister has played the gender card in her attempt to justify the state paying for travel expenses for her sister: “If you take what is fundamentally an issue of misuse of public funds and turn it into a plea for sympathy because...

Armenia: International Women's Day

  13 March 2012

Marking International Women's Day, Ianyan features guest posts on gender in Armenia. In the first, three writers take a glimpse into the lives of women in the post-Soviet country, while a second examines the issues of patriarchy and discrimination. The third post takes the form of an interview with a...

Cuba: Kept Away from Church

  12 March 2012

Pedazos de la Isla says that the closer the Pope's visit to Cuba gets, the more the authorities appear to be clamping down on citizens.

Africa: How Many African Women are Online?

  10 March 2012

Gamelmag would like to know how many African women are online: “Firstly, we need to be able to place a figure on the actual number of active female Internet users. Next, we should figure out the factors that inhibit women's use of the web and finally put in measures to...

Cuba: Women's Rights

  9 March 2012

“The clitoris is not the only thing we can lose, there is a long list of social, economic and political possibilities, which are also snatched from us”: Generation Y posts a list of “the violations that still persist against women” in Cuba.