Realizing Abortion Rights at the Margins of Legality in Mexico

Author(s): Elyse Singer

In: Medical Anthropology, Vol 38, No 2, 2019, pp. 167-181

This paper analyses conceptual and tactical approaches adopted by Las Fuertes, a feminist organization that campaign for abortion rights in the conservative Mexican state of Guanajuato. Since a series of United Nations agreements throughout the 1990s enshrined reproductive rights as universal human rights, Mexican feminists have adopted the human rights platform as the basis for lobbying the government to reform restrictive abortion laws. This strategy has been successful in Mexico City in 2007 when abortion was legalised. Rather than seeking to implement abortion laws through legalistic channels, Las Fuertes has effectively challenged Mexican reproductive governance in an adversarial political environment.

The evolution of feminism in China. Media and Chinese feminists

Author(s): Emilie Maine

In: Maine Ethics, 2017

It explores the development of feminism in different historical periods: during the New Socialist China (1949-1965); feminism in the Cultural Revolution (1966- 1999); and feminism in contemporary China (2000-2017).

See also https://www.theblueandgoldsmu.com/single-post/2017/10/26/Holding-up-half-the-sky-Feminism-in-China

Available online at:

https://maineethics.com/mainemusings/2017/10/5/the-evolution-of-feminism-in-china

From Disobedience to Obedient Consumerism: Influences of Market-based Activism and Eco-Certification on Forest Governance

Author(s): Emily Walter

In: Osgoode Hall Law Journal, Vol 14, No 2-3, 2003, pp. 531-536

Reports on anti-logging campaign in British Columbia, Canada, in 1980s and 1990s and discusses shift from pressurizing state to directly confronting lumber camps. Critiques approach leading to establishment of global regulatory body, the Forest Security Council, but supports offering ‘carrot’ of ‘certification’ in combination with ‘stick’ of campaigning for a boycott.

Available online at:

http://digitalcommons.osgoode.yorku.ca/ohlj/vol41/iss2/19

Sexual harassment of women politicians in Japan

Author(s): Emma Dalton

In: Journal of Gender-Based Violence, Vol 1, No 2, 2017, pp. 205-219

Three women were appointed to politically powerful and historically significant positions in Japan in 2016. Koike Yuriko became the first female governor of Tokyo, Renho Murata became the leader of the opposition party, the Democratic Party, and Inada Tomomi became the Minister of Defence. Despite these gains, Japanese politics can be a hostile place for women. Japan's national legislative assembly has the lowest representation of women among OECD countries, and harassment of women in politics is common. Situating Japan within the emerging ‘Violence Against Women in Politics’ (VAWP) literature, the author draws on a 2014 survey of women politicians about their experiences of sexual harassment as well as interviews with individual women politicians. Harassment is a 'hidden' problem due to ineffective legislation and a lack of awareness of what forms it takes. The author argues that the first step in combating sexual harassment of women in politics in Japan is to make it visible.

A feminist critical discourse analysis of sexual harassment in the Japanese political and media worlds

Author(s): Emma Dalton

In: Women's Studies International Forum, Vol 77, 2019, pp. 1-10

This article examines sexual harassment that has occurred worlds of media and politics in Japan, in the context of the global (mostly Western) #MeToo movement. It argues that harassment by male political leaders constitutes a pattern and should not be seen simply as isolated individual incidents. This pattern occurs within a cultural context that discourages women from speaking out about individual grievances. The naming of this pattern of sexual harassment is important to address ‘Violence Against Women in Politics’ (VAWP), a problem around the world. The public and media outrage directed at individual sexist statements by male politicians often dissipates, only to emerge again after the next sexist incident makes headlines. By establishing a pattern of sexual harassment, the author aims to show that there is a systemic problem facing all women working in politics or in close proximity to politicians in Japan.

'Her choice of course’: Negotiating legitimacy of ‘choice’ in abortion rights deliberations during the ‘Repeal the Eighth’ movement in Ireland’

Author(s): Rahul Sambaraju, Myles Sammon, Frank Harnett, and Emma Douglas

In: Journal of Health Psychology, Vol 23, No 2, 2017, pp. 263-276

The authors provide a ‘discursive psychological examination’ of how ‘choice’ was interpreted in online debates during the movement for abortion rights. The interpretation of ‘choice’ was linked to alternative views of women, either as independent agents or as child-bearing mothers, which affected the legitimacy of women’s rights to ‘choice’.

Bloody Defiance, The Big Story: Iraq Protests

Author(s): Ghaith Najaf, and Emma Graham Harrison

In: Guardian Weekly, 2019, pp. 10-12

This on the spot report provides an overview of the popular uprising up to mid-December 2019, and to the resignation of Prime Minister Mahdi. (Though he was to stay on in a caretaker government until parliament could agree a replacement.)  The authors note the scale of violence against the protesters and the role of Iran-backed militias in shooting at them, as well as increasing international concern.

The China Cables

Author(s): Emma Graham-Harrison, and Juliette Garside

In: Guardian Weekly, 2019

Articles based on a major leak of Chinese Communist Party documents from 2017 revealing the all-embracing surveillance system in the Xinjiang region and the mass incarceration of the Uighurs.  Publication in November 2019 was part of an internationally coordinated release of the leaked papers through the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ).

See also: https://www.icij.org/investigations/china-cables/china-cables-who-are-the-uighurs-and-why-mass-detention/ and  https://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/latestnews/2019/panorama-china-cables, which also reveals how  Australian citizens from Muslim minorities in Xinjiang were targeted for surveillance by the Chinese authorities as part of a policy involving  deportation or detention of foreign passport holders.

See also: Kuo, Lily, 'How Beijing is Quietly Razing the Mosques of Xinjiang', Guardian Weekly, 17 May, 2019, pp.26-27.

Reports on a Guardian and Bellingcat investigation that discovered the systematic destruction of mosques and shrines since 2016.

The Rise and Rise of the Fossil Fuel Divestment Movement

Author(s): Emma Howard

In: The Guardian, 2015

Reports that since US climate activist Bill McKibben and 350.org launched the divestment in fossil fuels campaign in 2012, over 220 institutions such as universities, local authorities and pension funds, have divested from some fossil fuels. So have foundations, notably the Rockefeller Brothers' Fund in 2014. The 'Fossil Free' campaign was launched in the UK in 2013, and grew more rapidly than earlier divestment campaigns against the tobacco industry and apartheid in South Africa. Howard also hails divestment by the World Council of Churches in 2014 and reports that the UN body coordinating agreement on climate change backed divestment in March 2015.

See also: Carlyle, Gabriel, 'Ducks, Direct Action and Investment', Peace News, June-July 2018, p.17.

Account of second Fossil Free UK national gathering, including examples of some campaigning and organizing experiences revealed there. The article also provides background on the rapidly growing global movement and the 880 institutions that had by then committed to some divestment from fossil fuels.

Why sexual assault survivors can’t say #MeToo at some Canadian universities

Author(s): Emma Jones

In: The Discourse, 2018

Exposes the widespread phenomenon of Canadian universities censoring students who want to denounce episodes of sexual harassment. The article includes the report by OurTurn – a national, student-led action plan that aims to implement strategies to end sexual violence on campus, and sets out the policies survivors have to follow while filing a complaint. The National Our Turn Action Plan provides guidelines for student unions and groups to: prevent sexual violence and eliminate rape culture on Canadian campuses; support survivors and create a culture of survivor-centrism at Canadian institutions; and campaign for policy and legislative reforms at the campus, provincial and national levels.

Available online at:

https://thediscourse.ca/gender/why-sexual-assault-survivors-cant-say-metoo-at-some-canadian-universities

Just Stop Killing Us. Young Nigerians Rise Up

Author(s): Emmanuel Akinwotu

In: Guardian Weekly, 2020, pp. 15-16

Provides an overview of the reasons for the protests and the initial government response.     

See also: Akinwotu, Emmanuel, 'Nigeria Tried to Ban Bitcoin. How Did It Work Out?', Guardian Weekly, 13 August 2021, pp.25-6.

Akinwotu explains the rising use of bitcoin by the tech-savvy young, and notes how the government clamp down after October 2020 on bank accounts of those supporting the anti-SARS protests fueled this trend.

Noviolencia. La transformacion creative del conflict social

Author(s): Equipo Plan Congruente de Paz y Nonviolencia

Gobernación de Antioquia, Medellín, 2004, pp. 168

This as an introductory book on nonviolence by various authors (Equipo Plan Congruente de Paz y Nonviolencia), centred on the classics: Thoreau, Gandhi and Luther King. It provides exercise sheets for students and develops the concept of ‘kingian’ nonviolence (following Martin Luther King’s approach).

Available online as PDF at:

http://www.prevenciondelaviolencia.org/system/files/recursos/51_no_violencia.pdf

Revolution in Rojava: Democratic Autonomy and Women's Liberation in Syrian Kurdistan

Author(s): Michael Knapp, and Ercan Ayboga

Pluto Press, London, 2016, pp. 320

A detailed history and sympathetic analysis of the development of a new kind of politics in the autonomous administration created rebel held territory in northern Kurdistan in Syria.  Rojava’s ideology (a reaction against the previous Marxist-Leninist beliefs of the Kurdish PKK) rejects centralized state control and emphases local communal organizing and promotion of ecological and feminist goals. Their armed groups, which include women's units, played a major role in opposing ISIS.   

See also:  Dirik, Dilar, 'Unbowed" New Internationalist, July/August 2020, pp.22-4.

The author notes the 'remarkable progress' made by the Autonomous Administration in Northern and Eastern Syria since July 2012 in promoting women's rights in all spheres. Turkish troops and their proxies occupied parts of Rojava -Afrin in the north in 2018 and the area bordering Turkey in 2019 - expelling hundreds of thousands of Kurds, shutting down all women's organizations and allowing armed groups to terrorize women. Nevertheless, women were continuing to organize more informally and were committed to resist the permanent extinction of their basic rights, and in northern Syria had held protests and rallies.

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