How the Handmaid's Tale has dressed global protests

Author(s): Peter Beaumont, and Amanda Holpuch

In: Guardian Weekly, 2018, pp. 12-13

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.

What is Blackwom?nhood: An intersectional dialogue with the Young Wom?n’s Leadership Project

Author(s): Jan-Louise Lewin, Kamohelo Mabogwane, Ariana Smit, Andréa Alexander, Amanda Mokoena, and Chido Nyaruwata

In: Agenda, Vol 33, No 2, 2019, pp. 61-69

The authors draw on their own experiences and intersectional identities to consider: What is Blackwom?nhood? They explore a variety of topics, such as identity, feminist activism, the environment, and decoloniality and focus on the intersections of race, class, gender, sexuality, location, and language. This article is designed to provoke ideas about the representation and self-expression of Black women and their implication for critical feminist theorising of Black women’s role in activism, academia, and the workplace.

The South African Women's Movement: The Roles of Feminism and Multiracial Cooperation in the Struggle for Women's Rights

Author(s): Amber Lenser

Vol Master of Arts in History, University of Arkansas, Frayetteville, 2019, pp. 101

The author argues that the historical preoccupation with the anti-apartheid struggle, which has also focused on the role of men as agents of change, has obscured both the role of women from all races and classes who joined in the national struggle, and women’s campaigning for their own rights. She uses oral histories, South African newspaper reports and materials from organisations such as the Black Sash to show women’s influence on legislation passed under and immediately after apartheid. She also notes how women created their own political spaces and, at times, transcended race and class divides.

Shout Your Abortion

Editor(s): Amelia Bonow, and Emily Nokes

PM Press, Oakland, CA, 2018, pp. 256

This book collects stories related to experience of abortion in the US with the aim of de-stigmatising it. ‘Shout Your Abortion’ is also a media platform and a social movement that promotose pro-choice activism, which can be found at:

https://shoutyourabortion.com/

To read about the creator of #ShoutYourAbortion see https://www.reuters.com/article/us-abortion-usa-stigma/u-s-women-get-creative-in-fighting-abortion-stigma-idUSKCN0YH17E

To look at other pro-choice advocacy campaigns and their media platforms, see https://wetestify.org/ and http://www.1in3campaign.org/about

Here’s why the anti-abortion movement is escalating

Author(s): Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux

In: FiveThirtyEight, 2019

Reports on the legally aggressive strategy over abortion that Republican lawmakers have pursued since 2010 in at least five U.S. states. Provides detailed charts that show typologies of ‘abortion restriction’ state legislatures; examines how states have restricted abortion access, and makes prediction on how the Alabama Supreme Court’s conservative majority might legislate in light of the 2020 elections. 

Available online at:

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/we-categorized-hundreds-of-abortion-restrictions-heres-why-the-anti-abortion-movement-is-escalating/

Out of the Margins: The Right to Conscientious Objection to Military Service in Europe

Author(s): Amnesty International

Amnesty International, London, 1997, pp. 61

Surveys provisions for conscientious objection to military service, and expresses particular concerns in relation to treatment of COs in some countries. Recommends the release of all COs in prison, that all member states of EU and Council of Europe re-examine their legislation regarding conscientious objection, and that the EU include in the criteria for membership the recognition of conscientious objection and provisions for alternative service ‘of non-punitive length’.

Libya: Silenced Voices: Libyan women human rights defenders under attack

Author(s): Amnesty International

2018

Report by Amnesty International on recurrent gender-based violence in Libya, in particular abduction, beating, sexual violence and threats; violence against women on social media; and the discrimination suffered by women in law and practice.

See also: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2018/06/libya-women-human-rights-defenders-still-under-attack-four-years-after-activists-assassination/

Available online at:

https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/mde19/8657/2018/en/

Body Politics. The Criminalization Of Sexuality And Reproduction

Author(s): Amnesty International

2018, pp. 217

Amnesty International’s Body Politics: Criminalization of sexuality and reproduction series is comprised of a Primer (Index: POL 40/7763/2018), a Campaigning Toolkit (Index: POL 40/7764/2018) and a Training Manual (Index: POL 40/7771/2018) designed to help activists worldwide opposing criminalisation of contraception, abortion or LGBT’s rights.

Shutting Down the Streets

Author(s): Amory Starr, Luis A. Fernandez, and Christian Scholl

New York University Press, New York, 2011, pp. 224

The authors, who took part in protests at summits, from the 1999 WTO demonstrations in Seattle to the 2007 G.8. protests in Heiligendamm (Germany), analyze direct action at 20 summits and how government social control (including a Berlin-type wall at Heiligendamm) limits space for dissent.

Women’s Movements In The Global Era. The Power Of Local Feminism

Author(s): Amrita Basu

Routledge, New York, 2017, pp. 560

This book provides a study of the genesis, growth, gains, and dilemmas of women's movements in countries throughout the world. Its focus is on Brazil, China, India, Pakistan, Russia, South Africa, USA, as well as more generally covering Europe and Latina America. The authors argue that women's movements have engaged in complex negotiations with national and international forces, and challenge widely held assumptions about the Western origins and character of local feminisms. They locate women's movements within their context by exploring their relationships with the state, civil society, and other social movements.

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