How #Me Too changed this year's Running of the Bulls

Author(s): Meaghan Beatley

In: PRI Global Post, 2018

When the five men involved in the 2017 gang rape were released from prison in June 2018, weeks before the Pamplona festival, feminists around Spain protested and called for revision of the legal definition of rape, which required 'violence or intimidation', terms that allowed many rapists to escape conviction. The new Minister for Equality, Carmen Calvo, promised to redefine rape in terms of consent.  Many feminists planned to demonstrate in relation to the Pamplona festival, either by a boycott or by dressing in black during the festival (challenging the traditional wearing of white). But they called off this plan in response to pleas from women in Pamplona, who had long campaigned to take part in the ceremonial supporting events and eventually won that right 15 years earlier. 

Available online at:

https://www.pri.org/stories/2018-07-19/how-metoo-changed-years-running-bulls

Patriarchy, Abortion, and the Criminal System: Policing Female Bodies

Author(s): Meda Chesney-Lind, and Syeda Tonima Hadi

In: Women & Criminal Justice, Vol 27, No 1, 2017, pp. 73-88

This paper argues for a conceptualisng denial of abortion as the patriarchal policing of women’s bodies and their sexuality. The authors briefly review international trends regarding abortion politics, including many thousands of abortion related deaths, injuries and loss of fertility, and then analyze women’s access to abortion in two countries, the United States and Bangladesh, which represent two very different contexts: the developed and developing world. They argue that abortion services are being constrained by misogynistic politics that deny women control over their bodies. Finally, the paper reviews recent international efforts to establish abortion rights in the context of human rights. In particular, a recent United Nation’s report describes moves to recriminalise both contraception and abortion in the U.S. and Europe as the deliberate denial of medically available and necessary services and hence a form of “torture.”

Looking behind the Violent Break-up of Yugoslavia

Author(s): Meg Coulson

In: Feminist Review, No 45, 1993, pp. 86-101

Examines post-1945 history of Yugoslavia and causes of its breakdown. Notes emerging feminist peace and ecological movement in the 1980s and the role of women in ongoing opposition to the war, including Serbian women demonstrating against the war with Croatia and demanding return of their husbands and sons.

Feminism and the womens' movement in the Philippines

Author(s): Veronica Mylene, and Meggan Evangelista

Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, Pasig City, 2018, pp. 27

Explores the struggles of women during different historical events and political regimes in the Philippines, including during the Spanish colonization, Marcos dictatorship, and the current challenges under the administration of President Duterte. The study hopes to enhance conversations and possibilities for collaboration among new generation of feminists and experienced women activists at the national and global fronts.

See also: Gabriel, Arneil G. (2017) “Indigenous women and the law: The consciousness of marginalized women in the Philippines”, Asian Journal of Women's Studies, Vol. 23, no. 2, pp. 250-263 and https://www.cbsnews.com/news/international-womens-day-march-8-protests-amplify-feminism-in-asia/

One Child, One Child: The Story of China’s Most Radical Experiment

Author(s): Mei Fong

Oneworld Publications, London, 2016, pp. 272 pb

In this book the journalist Mei Fong explains the context of the one child policy introduced in 1978 to control China’s growing population,and enforced through sterilization, abortion and fines.   The policy was modified in January 2016, when couples were allowed to have two children.

See also: Fong, Mei, ‘Sterilization, abortion, fines: How China brutally enforced its 1-child policy’, New York Post, 3 January 2016.

https://nypost.com/2016/01/03/how-chinas-pregnancy-police-brutally-enfor...

Today is Chile's Chance to Bury Pinochet's Legacy

Author(s): Melany Cruz

In: Tribune, 2020

This article appeared on the day of the 2020 referendum on whether there should be a new constitution, and if so how it should be drawn up.  Cruz explains that voters can choose between two kinds of convention, one based solely on members elected by voters (the option generally favoured by the left), and the other composed half of elected members and half of parliamentarians (many of whom did not want a new constitution). an option seen as favouring the right wing government of Sebastian Pinera. The article then looks back at Chilean politics since the fall of Pinochet.

Available online at:

https://tribunemag.co.uk/2020/10/today-is-chiles-chance-to-bury-pinochets-legacy

Johnson, Nixon and the Doves

Author(s): Melvin Small

Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick NJ, 1988, pp. 319

Focus on the presidents and their relationship with the Vietnam Anti-War Movements between 1961 and 1975.

The Right to Refuse Military Orders

Editor(s): Merja Pentikainen

International Peace Bureau in collaboration with International Association of Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms, Peace Union of Finland and Finnish Lawyers for Peace and Survival, Geneva, 1994, pp. 110

Contributions on various forms of refusal – to do military service, to fire at one’s own people, to participate in torture, or to accept orders relating to nuclear weapons – together with summaries of relevant international law.

The End of Protest: A New Playbook for Revolution

Author(s): Micah White

2016, pp. 336

This is a book examining what strategy protesters should adopt and critical of some common leftist assumptions, but is based on the author's role in the Occupy movement. He discusses Occupy at length, outlining its origins and reflecting on the tactic of occupation, and the movement's failure to adopt additional approaches and develop a movement capable of  promoting wider social change.

Palestinians: New Directions

Author(s): Michael C. Hudson

Center for Contemporary Arab Studies, Georgetown University, Washington DC, 1990, pp. 268

Includes analysis of the role of the labour movement (chapter 3), of traders (chapter 2) and of women in the Intifada.

Palestinian Popular Struggle: Unarmed and Participatory

Author(s): Michael Carpenter

Routledge, London, 2020, pp. 212

Carpenter draws on participant observation and extensive interviews to examine protests in Jerusalem and the West Bank, and also the Great March of Return in Gaza, in 2017-18, and to gauge wider Palestinian views of the strategy.  He also considers the discourse of 'rights and global justice' which underpins Jewish Israeli and international support for Palestinian resistance.  Carpenter argues for unarmed struggle as an alternative to the apparent failure of both armed struggle and negotiations.   

See also: Rigby, Andrew, 'Reflections on Researching Palestinian Resistance', Journal of Resistance Studies, vol. 5 no. 2, pp.222-28.

Rigby reviews three books on Palestine, including Carpenter's, and raises critical questions about Carpenter's stress on ongoing popular Palestinian resistance, at a time when often Israeli citizens and international sympathizers were more prominent in demonstrations in the West Bank, and the willingness to take part among many Palestinians had waned.

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