Biblio

Reports on the ban that Facebook and Google put on foreign ads from activists in the US, UK and other countries’ and from vloggers, which were directed at influencing an-anti abortion result in the 2018 Irish referendum.  See also https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/the-poisonous-online-campaign-to-defeat-the-abortion-referendum-1.3486236 and https://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/overseas-influence-in-abortion-referendum-will-be-hard-to-stop-1.3406610

Looks back at the 1975 Iceland women's strike at the start of the UN Decade for Women; the 8 March 2000 Global Women's Strike, the 2016 Polish women's strike to resist successfully anti-abortion legislation, the 2017 Argentina women's mass demonstration against the rape and murder of women, and the cooperation between women in Poland and Argentina in 2017 to coordinate the International Women's Strike.

The divisive nature of abortion within the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland meant that access to safe, legal abortion has been severely restricted. This paper focuses on how achieving legal reform requires changing public opinion, and contributes to a growing body of Health Care Informed (HCI) research that takes an activist approach to designing digital story-telling. The authors report findings from four design workshops with 31 pro-choice stakeholders across Ireland in which they used a digital storytelling platform – HerStoryTold - to promote critical conversations around sensitive abortion narratives. The findings show how digital storytelling can help reject false narratives and raise awareness of the realities of abortion laws. The authors also suggest the workshops provide design directions to curate narratives that ‘provoke empathy, foster a plurality of voices, and ultimately expand the engaged community.’

It examines the patriarchal structure of the football game that excludes women all across Latin America from the history of football.

This is the second volume of massive biography by the eminent contemporary Indian historian re-evaluating Gandhi's life, ideas and role.  It is published at a time when Prime Minister Narendra Modi is rehabilitating the far right Hindu nationalists in the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (an individual linked to the RSS assassinated Gandhi), and when Gandhi is often vilified. This volume is broadly sympathetic to Gandhi, though not uncritical, and gives weight to the influence of his secretary Mahadev Desai.  The first, widely praised, volume Gandhi Before India, which covers all of Gandhi’s life to the end of the South African campaign, was published by Penguin Random House in 2015. See also Guha, Ramachandra, 'Remembering Vaikom satyagraha in the light of Sabarimala', The News Minute, 6 Januray 2019. Available at https://www.thenewsminute.com/article/remembering-vaikom-satyagraha-light-sabarimala-94585#:~:text=In%20Sabarimala%20today%2C%20women%20are,in%20the%20eyes%20of%20god. Commentary by prominent Indian public intellectual, and author of books on Gandhi, at the time of  the 2019 mass protest by women in Kerala against a Hindu temple refusing to admit them.  Guha responds by recalling the 1924-25 campaign (in which Gandhi played a role) to persuade the Vaikom temple to admit dalits (untouchables).

This work examines the institutional and contextual causes and consequences of women's representation in Latin America. The authors argue that gender inequality in political representation in Latin America is rooted in institutions, but also affected by the democratic challenges and political crises facing Latin American countries. These challenges influence the number of women and men elected to office, what they do once there, how much power they gain access to, and how their presence and actions influence democracy and society more broadly.

The authors challenge the (dominant) one-sided representations of gender in the discourses on human rights, and also transitional justice (involving new approaches to redressing recent major suffering and oppression). They examine how transitional justice and human rights institutions, as well as political institutions, impact the lives and experiences of women with references to Argentina, Bosnia, Egypt, Kenya, Peru, Sierra Leone, and Sri Lanka. They focus especially, in a variety of contexts, on the relationships between local and global forces.

Discusses why MeToo was not taken up in Germany as it spread from the US to parts of Europe, until an actress went public in 2018 about a violent attempted rape by prominent film director Dieter Wedel in 1980.  Her accusation led other women to follow suit, and Die Zeit revealed that the TV network Wedel worked for had buried evidence of his sexual misconduct.  The article quotes a woman university professor on two main reasons for German reluctance to take up MeToo: 1) that despite Angela Merkel's long period as Chancellor women are not well represented in politics, or in top management; 2) German skepticism about cultural trends emanating from the USA.

This thesis examines how government responses affected femicide rates in five selected countries: Costa Rica, Chile, Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico. The study is a qualitative comparative multi-case study using social inclusion and exclusion theory to understand if policies are inclusive or exclusive, and if the nature of legislation has an impact on the femicide rates.

The author argues that the March was an opportunity for ordinary Palestinians in Gaza to take the political initiative and that the March organizers tried hard to maintain the momentum. The problems of organizing in a politically divided context, and lack of international support, as well as the ruthlessness of the Israeli response meant however that momentum was lost. The March also raised many questions about how nonviolent methods could work when faced with serious military force. 

Exlores femicide in Guatemala with particular reference to violence experienced by indigenous women. See also https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/5050/femicide-in-mexico-and-guatemala/

Drawing on her years of research in El Salvador, legal scholar Michelle Oberman explores the consequences of criminalizing abortion. She then turns her attention to the United States, where the battle over abortion takes place, in her opinion, almost exclusively in legislatures and courtrooms. Focusing on Oklahoma, she interviews current and former legislators and activists, and shows how Americans voice their moral opposition to abortion by supporting laws that would restrict it. She challenges this approach to the law by highlighting the real life impact of laws and policies on motherhood and abortion on women.

Provides detailed information about the abortion laws in Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, and Ohio.

In 1963 medical and dental professionals in the United States and the United Kingdom played an important role in highlighting the health threat posed by atmospheric nuclear tests. Analysis of the deciduous teeth of American children born during the testing years showed the widespread presence of Strontium-90, a radioactive fission product that accumulates in babies’ teeth. The outrage of parents made fallout a central issue, and so put pressure on the US and UK governments to agree to the Partial Test Ban Treaty.

This interactive long report explores the killing of Berta Cáceres, environmentalist and recipient of the Goldman Environmental Prize, and contextaulises it within the emergence of a cohesive feminist movement in Honduras. It also reports the statistics on violence against women in the country, and initiatives to tackle it.

Following the acquittal of three men who were accused of raping a 15 year-old girl, the activist movement, FATTA, and the other related demonstrations inspired by ‘MeToo’, led Sweden to the historic declaration, following Iceland, that sex without voluntary participation is illegal. See also: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2018/05/sweden-new-rape-law-is-historic-victory-for-metoo-campaigners/ and https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2018/04/eu-sex-without-consent-is-rape/.

Discusses the negative implication of the right of doctors and nurses to claim ‘objection of conscience’ over women’s right to have an abortion in Latin America.

Abortion is a hotly debated topic among Muslim communities. In this paper, the author examines how both anti-abortion and abortion rights groups deploy ideas about Islam. She analised the language used by these groups when describing Muslim communities and Muslim views and found that a majority of them did not include arguments from both sides. Almost all the Anti-Abortion Websites included generalizations about the Muslim community, and also used the conservative elements in Islamic Religion to persuade more Muslims to join their stance on abortion.

Discusses the women’s resistance movement that developed in the context of the incoming Trump’s presidency and the subsequent creation of the ‘Me Too’ movement, with particular regard to the restrictions on abortion and contraception put in place by the forty-fifth’ U.S. Administration.

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. 

The article covers movements in countries such as Iran, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, Guatemala, Chile, India and Egypt that have preceded the #MeToo movement and have in some way created the conditions through which the #MeToo movement acquired international resonance.

The televising of Margaret Attwood's dystopian feminist novel The Handmaid's Tale has inspired activists in Argentina, Northern Ireland, the USA and London to wear the distinctive scarlet cloaks and white bonnets to protest for abortion rights and contraceptive rights and against President Trump. The article discusses with Attwood and others how the costume signifies subjection of women and works for protests.

A comprehensive overview of how the campaign for ‘Yes’ – which led to the repeal of the Eight Amendment of the Irish Constitution and legalisation of abortion in May 2018 - was organised in Ireland. See also https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/27/world/europe/savita-halappanavar-ireland-abortion.html; https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/may/26/ireland-has-changed-utterly-the-cruel-eighth-amendment-is-history; https://www.ft.com/content/b60d313e-f826-11e8-af46-2022a0b02a6c and https://mobilisationlab.org/stories/how-powerful-conversations-yes-ireland/

The author, who has experience of organizing mass demonstrations (for example against the Iraq War in 2003) compares two major protests: the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom (when Martin Luther King gave his 'I have a dream' speech); and the Women's Marches in Washington and across the USA in January 2017. She focuses on the different styles of protest -the first highly organized and centrally controlled by Civil Rights leaders (who strictly monitored the slogans on banners and signs), the second decentralized and spontaneous in origin with a multiplicity of demands and slogans. There was also a major contrast in the public role played by women (not allowed to speak at the 1963 rally and prominent in 2017).   Kauffman argues that the mass protests also had contrasting aftermaths - with the 2017 protests leading directly to continuing grass roots mobilization, whereas the 1963 march did not. 

Lakey, a veteran of nonviolent action protests and prominent in developing training for nonviolent action, here recounts numerous campaign successes from different times and parts of the world, but its central example of innovative organizing is the Earth Quaker Action Team (EQAT) five-year campaign (initiated by Lakey in 2009), which forced the major US bank PNC to end its financing of mountaintop removal coal mining.