For the past few decades, the women’s movement in southern Africa has been under scrutiny for having lost its vigor. Back in the 1990s, the movement fought gender inequality in private and public spaces, and many governments listened.

International treaties like the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), also known as the “international bill of rights for women,” were ratified. Governments reformed laws that discriminated by gender, such as inheritance laws. Women’s ministries and gender policies were established.

But a decade later, the power of the women’s movement seemed to be waning. While major leaders and activists were brought in by governments to lead the new formations that had been put in place, overall governance structures remained largely patriarchal. The women’s movement, now largely driven by civil society and nongovernmental organizations, chose approaches that provided for women without addressing the reasons why women were lacking in the first place.

Tensions grew between old and young activists, with few young women occupying meaningful roles in the movement. Some young women viewed feminism as aggressive and uncomfortable, and did not like being called feminists even if they were involved in women’s rights work. Others reported that they were interested in being part of the movement, but there were few entry points to make a contribution. It became clear that the movement had not sufficiently invested in the young women’s involvement. Fresh perspectives were badly needed.

In response to these developments, the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa launched the Young Women’s Voices Campaign in 2009. The campaign raises the political consciousness of young women and promotes their voices in the women’s rights agenda at all levels. Components of the campaign include the Southern African Young Feminist Leadership Course, the Southern African Young Women’s Platform, capacity building for young women’s networks and formations, and publishing a special issue of BUWA! Journal.

I’m the one who blurred out the c-word; they left it intact. Other alleged feminist quotes include:

If a woman has drunk any amount of alcohol, she can’t consent to sex.

Nothing gives me more pleasure than the suffering of men.

Historically, women have been oppressed worse than black slaves.

That last one is a tad ironic. Not just because it’s a bit odd to contrast “women” and “black slaves” when half of all black slaves were women and girls. And not just because I never hear feminists making this claim. No, it’s a tad ironic because AVFM is constantly comparing men to slaves and suggesting that men are being “enslaved” by everything from child support payments to the women they date.

But I digress. You may wonder where exactly all these alleged quotes come from. In the comments to his AVFM post promoting the postering campaign, AVFM’s Dean Esmay blithely assures readers that “most or all” of the sources of the quotes can be found “right at the end of the video.”

This is not — how should I put it? — true. In fact, the percentage of quotations accurately sourced at the end of the video is a lot closer to “none” than to “most.” Bane666au, for his part, only claims that “all comments are based on actual comments I’ve seen or heard from self proclaimed feminists.”

Apparently he has an extremely loose definition of “based on” because only a couple of the actual quotes from Tumblr feminists he includes at the end of his video bear much resemblance to his, er, paraphrases.

Many of the alleged “hateful” quotes are obvious jokes, taken completely out of context, taking aim at popular perceptions of feminists. Here’s one screenshot from his video (with the name of the poster blurred out):




http://manboobz.com/2014/02/20/a-voice-for-men-takes-on-feminist-rhymes-with-bunts-with-new-poster-campaign/

Since Barbie first entered the workforce modeling her iconic black-and-white swimsuit in 1959, she’s gone on to pursue meaningful employment as a police officer, yoga instructor, dolphin trainer, football coach, paleontologist, paratrooper, surgeon, and Canadian Mountie. This week—after serving a brief tour of duty as a Sports Illustrated swimsuit model—Barbie set her unblinking eyes on a new career, using the misshapen discs that she calls hands to peck out an op-ed on the topic of modern feminism. “My bathing suit now hangs beside a Presidential power suit, Pastry Chef hat, and Astronaut gear in a wardrobe reflecting the more than 150 careers I’ve pursued to illustrate for girls that they can achieve anything for which they aim,” Barbie wrote in a piece that received prominent placement on the prestigious Barbie-related news outlet BarbieCollector.com. “And yet, I am still seen as just a pretty face. It’s simpler to keep me in a box—and since I am a doll—chances are that’s where I’ll stay.”

Time to update your resume, Barbie! You’ve just got a new job as a Barbie® I Can Be...™ Internet Troll, a sadistic garbage person posting to the Internet under the fictional persona of an emaciated teenage swimsuit model made out of molded plastic. You creep.


Last time we heard from Barbie, she said stuff like, “I love being a fashion model,” “Would you like to go shopping?” and “What shall I wear to the prom?” She’s since mastered the sophisticated vocabulary necessary to pontificate on why the real thing holding back women today is the women who think the Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition is holding women back. When did Barbie learn to talk like that? (Maybe when Mattel’s 90.9 percent white male leadership team recruited her to serve as a pawn in its Machiavellian corporate strategy to profit off of the ambitions and insecurities of young girls?)

In multiple places on Reddit, you’ll find a photo gallery of a random Sochi Olympics volunteer, including beach photos, glamour shots, and pictures taken with friends. It's gotten thousands of views over the past week.

But we're not linking to it. Here’s why.

Last Thursday an Associated Press photographer snapped a photo of a female Olympics volunteer. She’s leaning against a railing before a backdrop of fresh snow, casually sporting bright, loose cargo pants, colorful socks, and a midriff-revealing top. The photo appeared in Washington Post and Atlantic galleries about athletes and workers at Sochi enjoying unexpectedly warm weather.

Some people on the Internet saw something different. When they read that the volunteer was standing next to a sign that read “Sochi 2014—Hot. Cool. Yours,” they assumed more than just the banner was on display.

The photograph landed on the Reddit forums r/randomsexiness and r/Ohlympics, a forum for “Anything that makes you go ‘Oh’ or is sexually invigorating from the Olympic games.”

Can government spending lift poor children from poverty?

A new report from UNICEF suggests it's possible. The latest edition of UNICEF's report on child poverty in developed countries found that 30 million children in 35 of the world's richest countries live in poverty. Among those countries, the United States ranks second on the scale of what economists call "relative child poverty" -- above Latvia, Bulgaria, Spain, Greece, and 29 others. Only Romania ranks higher, with 25.5 percent of its children living in poverty, compared with 23.1 percent in the U.S.

The term "relative child poverty" refers to a child living in a household where the disposable income is less than half of the national median income. Many critics argue that relative poverty isn't the same as real hardship, or absolute poverty.

But the report brushes that away. Poverty is "essentially a relative concept," it says. For example, a little more than a century ago, the wealthiest people in the world didn't have cars. It concedes, however, that the measurement has some weaknesses. First, a child's well-being doesn't always correspond to the parents' income. Second, comparing the relative poverty rates of various countries doesn't make sense unless the countries have similar median incomes.

Because of these weaknesses the report considers "child deprivation." To measure this, researchers produced a list of 14 items found in most middle-class households and counted the number of children whose families couldn't afford them. The list included Internet connection, new clothes, three daily meals, two pairs of properly fitting shoes, and "the opportunity, from time to time, to invite friends home to play and eat."