The South African Civil Society Information Service
A nonprofit news agency promoting social justice. Seeking answers to the question:
How do we make democracy work for the poor?
A nonprofit news agency promoting social justice. Seeking answers to the question:
How do we make democracy work for the poor?
The fact that the Indian government has banned India's Daughter, the BBC documentary that features the mass protests that erupted in India after the rape and tragic death of Jyoti Singh in 2012, has received much media attention. But, Professor of English at the University of Cambridge, Priya Gopal argues that the film has actually divided Indian feminists. There are those who believe that the film is important because it brings awareness to the issue of rape. But there is also a...
Chris Hedges -
BOSTON—“Fifty Shades of Grey,” the book and the movie, is a celebration of the sadism that dominates nearly every aspect of American culture and lies at the core of pornography and global capitalism. It glorifies our dehumanization of women. It champions a world devoid of compassion, empathy and love. It eroticizes hypermasculine power that carries out the abuse, degradation, humiliation and torture of women whose personalities have been removed, whose only desire is to...
Janet Allon -
India has a horrific rape and violence against women problem, which came to international attention after a medical student was raped, tortured and murdered on a bus in 2012. Just recently two girls were found hanging from a tree after being raped in Uttar Pradesh. Last week brought news of police officers themselves being accused of gang raping a woman who came to a police station in Uttar Pradesh to inquire about her husband's release.
Alas, in India as in (other countries), even some...
Gillian Schutte -
Sexual harassment on the streets is a pervasive phenomenon that women from a range of racial and cultural backgrounds as well as social circumstances experience in daily life. Most men, even educated men from so-called respectable backgrounds belittle women’s experiences of sexual harassment. Internationally, this has led to a spate of new films and campaigns where women are calling attention to casual and more aggressive forms of sexual harassment by turning the tables on men. Their...
Frank Meintjies -
Each year we greet the ‘16 days of Activism to end violence against women and children’ with the usual mixed feelings. This is the dilemma - without it, there would be less awareness-raising on the issue. Yet the campaign is woefully inadequate. It has become co-opted by the establishment; it has become so routinized that key organisations leave their planning till late; key activists openly question the effectiveness of the campaign and, for many institutions, the “16...
Charlotte Laws -
I felt like Will Smith in "Enemy of the State."
I was being hunted, harassed and stalked by criminals with technological expertise. I had been thrust into an unexpected war. I felt exposed, vulnerable and alone on the front line. I had awoken a hideous network of villains and saboteurs, who were in pursuit of me, hoping to ruin my life. I had received creepy emails, backlash on Twitter and three death threats. My computer had been bombarded with viruses, and a technician had...
