I first met Dr. Musimbi Kanyoro last September during that inspiring week each year when the UN General Assembly meets and global health leaders and advocates from governments, civil society and the private sector convene throughout New York City. When Musimbi and I were introduced, I was impressed by her wisdom and passion for her work as President and CEO of the Global Fund for Women. The organization's mission is to "advance the rights of women and girls worldwide by increasing the resources for and investing in women-led organizations and women's collective leadership for change."

Last week, Musimbi graciously agreed to an interview as part of the Global Mom Relay to help empower girls and women around the world.



Musimbi, is there a universal piece of advice you would give to a young mother today, regardless of where she lives in the world?

Yes, I would tell the young mother that children grow very quickly and I would encourage her take time to be with them. Time with children enhances joy to the mother and the child.

In this two-week segment of the Global Mom Relay, the beneficiary is the Mobile Alliance for Maternal Action (MAMA). Would you share other examples of how technology is helping address the most pressing global health issues?

Technology has always been part of the Global Fund for Women grantmaking but what we fund today is different. We fund skills, access to hardware, social media, computer trainings and use of technology for advocacy.

GFW's early grants were to resource centers, to radio shows, or to feminist newsletters, publications, and spaces where women could go to access information that they could not get in any other way. But accessing information is not about pamphlets and newsletters anymore. Information is power and women still need access to it, and more importantly they need to be creators of it. The digital divide is real. We will support women's access to technology and creation of information in its 21st century form. One of our current grantees, Rainbow Rights, based in Manila, creates podcasts about women's health and sexuality. To their surprise, they've discovered that some of the most frequent consumers of their podcasts are Filipino migrant workers in Qatar and Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern countries. These workers can only find information and support in their native Tagalog through the internet.

An organization that is a grantee of the Global Fund, called Feminist Approach to Technology (FAT) was created in New Delhi, India in 2007, to "create a movement, a change in the definition of the relationship between technology and women." FAT's programming ranges from basic, confidence and skills-building courses with young women aged 12-18. The group's multi-pronged strategy, reaching grassroots girls, corporate executives and other women's groups, seeks to address the needs of women at various stages of technological capacity and create a web of influence and support through and for technological savvy. Additionally, FAT's work offers both a gendered critique of the current structure of technology and imagines alternative structures that mobilize the emancipatory potential of technology for advocacy and action.

In my own country, Kenya, and many other parts of Africa, mobile device technology is changing the social and economic development landscape. Mobile phones are powering revolutions in banking, in education, in healthcare, in the very way families and communities relate to each other. Tablets and laptops will unleash their own disruptions as they propagate beyond the city center, following the mobile phone into everyone's lives.

On a recent sunny Sunday at the Hotel Indonesia traffic circle in Jakarta, five men in miniskirts displayed posters condemning violence against women.

One of the posters read, “Real Men Don’t Rape”, while another said, “Let’s unite to fight against rape”.

Syaldi Sahude, one of three national coordinators for The New Men’s Alliance (ALLB) said the alliance was created to raise awareness among men about the need to end violence against women.

“We also want men to be more concerned about gender equality, because discrimination leads to violence,” Syaldi said. ALLB was established in response to the increasing violence against women in Indonesia. The Commission on Violence against Women (Komnas Perempuan) recorded 4,335 rapes in Indonesia in 2011, of which 2,937 cases happened in public spaces.

Syaldi, who formerly worked for Jurnal Perempuan (Women’s Journal) often met victims of violence, like women who were raped during the May 1998 riots. She said that ALLB came into being on Oct. 8 during a meeting with activists from Women Rights nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), such as Jurnal Perempuan, Pulih Foundation, Cahaya Perempuan Women’s Crisis Center Bengkulu, Rifka Annisa of Yogyakarta, Rumah Perempuan (Women’s Home) Kupang, and Men’s Forum from Aceh. The meeting, facilitated by World Population Foundation Indonesia, decided that ALLB should base its activities in Yogyakarta because its activists were already working closely with Rifka Annisa there.

ALLB sees violence against women as just one of the negative results of a patriarchal system. The alliance believes it causes various kinds of trouble for women and for men too.

“When I was a teenager in Makassar, I bowed to peer pressure and bullied transvestites. I realized that was wrong. So when I moved to Jakarta, I decided to get a closer look at the impact of patriarchy on society by working with women’s organizations. I came to understand, for example, that men should not be afraid to cry; that this would not make them weak,” he said.

Dear Rape Apologists,
A girl in Delhi’s Gandhi Nagar was abducted and repeatedly sexually molested for a period of 48 hours by her neighbour. The neighbour had cut open her throat and mutilated her genitals. He also tried to strangle her. She is currently battling for her life at Swami Dayanad Hosiptal. Along with wounds on her lips, cheeks, chest, the doctors also found a candle and a bottle of oil inside her. Nobody knows if she will live.
She is five years old.
The nation is in shock, again. We are looking for solutions, again. But I see some of you have already started with your rants of “legalize prostitution to prevent rape”. You seem to hold the view that if men have more sex, they will commit less rape.
I don’t see how legalizing prostitution is going to help reduce cases of sexual assault because rape is NOT about sex. It is about power and dominance over another (smaller, weaker) human being.
Legalising prostitution to prevent rape is like saying that it is a women’s ‘duty’ to provide men with sex or men will try to get it by hook or by crook. In other news, we are currently in the year 2013.
Please change your calender.
The most common apology for sexual assault is that women provoke it. Pray tell how this little girl, provoked it. Oh, I’m sorry, was she wearing a frock that was a really small size? Well, maybe it is because she’s FIVE YEARS OLD! And no, I won’t ask what kind of a mentally sick person sexually abuses a five year old because I refuse to make excuses for him. He is not sick. He is sound of mind.
Abduction and rape do not occur in the heat of the moment. They are planned attacks; and this man obviously had the mental capabilities to turn his plan into action successfully.

Antifeminist crusader Erin Pizzey bravely tells Redditors that “never in the history of the world have men been so unprivileged, if you think about it.”



Longtime antifeminist crusader Erin Pizzey recently did an “Ask Me Anything” session on Reddit. Here are some highlights — by which I mean lowlights — from her answers.

Ms. Pizzey wants to ban feminism as a hate movement:

Personally, I would like to see the feminist movement described as a hate movement, so that we can then ban them from the government, from university faculties, from anywhere where they can destroy the minds of young women and men.

It’s just a teensy bit ironic, I would say, that she characterizes feminism as a hate movement at the very same time that A Voice for Men, a site she has very publicly aligned herself with, is leading a hate campaign against an individual feminist activist. (More on this to come tomorrow.) Indeed, Pizzey herself adds to the vilification of the activist here.

And speaking of A Voice for Men, she apparently agrees with AVFM’s Paul Elam that feminists are only interested in the issue of rape because they have rape fantasies and are angry that they’re not getting enough attention from men:

If you’re referring to Paul’s statement that many or most women fantasize about being taken, I’m sorry but that’s the truth. That doesn’t mean they want to be raped, but it’s a fantasy I think almost all women have. And I think he went on to say that feminists like Andrea Dworkin who were and are so obsessed with rape are really projecting their own unconscious sexual frustration because men don’t give them enough attention. Andrea was a very sad lonely woman like this–I didn’t know her but I knew of her, and I knew Susan Browmiller and you can just read her stuff to see it there.

Yeah, I’m thinking that Dworkin’s “obsession” with rape might have had less to do with her wanting “attention” from men than it did with the fact that she had been raped.
In response to a question about using Title IX to increase the number of women in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM), Pizzey argues that most women’s brains aren’t equipped to handle all that sciencey stuff, and that most women would rather be raising children:

During our Anti-Street Harassment chalk party last week, Anthonine and I spoke to guys, young and old about why it’s wrong to harass women in the streets. It was both entertaining and sobering to hear the many different ways they defended their right to engage in this behavior. More importantly however, it was enlightening. It made it clear that there is a huge disconnect on what is and isn’t appropriate language to use with strangers. Men seemed genuinely shocked and confused that the way they spoke to women in the streets was considered harassment. It made it clear that we have our work cut out for us and that ongoing inter-gender and intergenerational dialogue must be the cornerstone of our anti-street harassment work. This article is an attempt to address that confusion.

Almost every man we spoke to felt the remarks made to women in the streets were “harmless” and were an attempt at being neighborly. When we asked whether they were similarly neighborly to other men, their defense fell apart. They pointed out the absurdity of infringing on someone’s personal space in public in that way. Yet when we pointed out that these gender-based unsolicited remarks are street harassment by definition, they adamantly disagreed. While they were difficult, we realized that each one of these conversations was a step towards a harassment free neighborhood.

I was compelled to complain because I feel that the vast majority of black folks who are subjected daily to forms of racial harassment have accepted this as one of the social conditions of our life in white supremacist patriarchy that we cannot change. This acceptance is a form of complicity…. Racial hatred is real. And it is humanizing to be able to resist it with militant rage. –bell hooks

From the founding of the nation, the meaning of American citizenship has rested on the denial of citizenship to blacks living within its borders. –Dorothy Roberts


I write this essay so that I do not have to swallow the rage—or to borrow from bell hooks, “killing rage”…“militant rage”…“rage at injustice”…“constructive healing rage”—that currently consumes me regarding the state of black women in society. I write this essay after learning that none of my friends, family members, colleagues, or undoubtedly most of America have come across any news coverage or informal conversations discussing the events that transpired two months ago involving a doctor accused of illegally and nonconsensually videotaping and photographing possibly over one thousand patients—mostly women of color—during their medical procedures. I am not only angry at the black doctor who used his power, position, and race to gain illicit access to the bodies of these women, but also at the media and our white supremacist society for its insistent racism, sexism, and classism that allow such exploits to take place and then get downplayed or overlooked. While this is only one story tied to a multi-century-long narrative of devaluation, this racialized, gendered, and classed incident, as well as its lack of publicity, speaks to both the historical and contemporary devaluation of women of color, the ways in which we are denied normative expectations of privacy, and our lack of full citizenship in the United States. As Linda Gordon explains in Pitied But Not Entitled: Single Mothers and the History of Welfare, “Without some minimum level of security, well-being, and dignity, people cannot function as citizens.”

On February 4, 2013, the late Dr. Nikita Levy, a Jamaican-born obstetrician/ gynecologist who worked at Johns Hopkins’ East Baltimore Medical Center—a center that primarily serves low-income African-American women—was accused of secretly recording patients during exams. An employee reported the doctor to hospital officials after becoming suspicious of a pen that Levy would consistently wear around his neck while examining patients. Hospital security later interviewed Levy in his office, where they found additional devices, and according to an official statement released by Johns Hopkins Medicine, “determined that Dr. Levy had been illegally and without our knowledge, photographing his patients and possibly others with his personal photographic and video equipment and storing those images electronically.”

WE WENT TO A MEN'S RIGHTS LECTURE IN TORONTO
AND WE DISCOVERED THAT THEY'RE A BUNCH OF LOSERS
By Brad Casey


In November of last year the University of Toronto hosted a lecture by Dr. Warren Farrell, a divisive figure who has been described simultaneously as a sage of the men’s movement and a rape apologist. On the night of the lecture a group of students barred the doors of the lecture hall in protest while chanting, “No hate speech on campus.” Police were called, the situation was brought under control and the lecture went on as scheduled. Another lecture took place in March of this year, this time an overly critical look at feminist studies by Janice Fiamengo in which she described the discipline as “intellectually incoherent and dishonest.” Again, protesters were on hand waving placards and this time a fire alarm was pulled but, once more, the lecture went on as scheduled. These controversial lectures were organized by a student group called the Canadian Association for Equality or CAFE for short. CAFE has come under fire from student groups and media who not only disagree with their actions and ideology but have associated them with the extreme, vitriolic American men’s rights website A Voice For Men. Where AVFM is upfront and open about its hatred for feminism, calling them “rape farmers,” CAFE takes aim at feminism with misleading information and careful rhetoric, barely ever using the word “feminist” itself.

CAFE has sprung up in several campuses across central Canada in the past year. They have groups on university campuses in Guelph, Montreal, Ottawa and Peterborough as well as two Toronto groups and off campus groups in Ottawa and Vancouver. Most recently, Ryerson University caught a controversial mix of praise and indignation for banning the group from their campus. CAFE claim to be “committed to achieving equality for all Canadians” and identify as a human rights group who focus on men’s issues. However, despite their claims or how they identify, the events which CAFE have been planning have been covered to an unusually extensive degree by A Voice For Men.

But who are A Voice For Men and why do they care about Canada? AVFM is run by a man named Paul Elam and provides a forum for vitriolic hatred against women and feminists. The website was once labeled a hate site by virus software Norton Symantec, which may have been a mistake—but isn’t completely unjust. Their coverage of CAFE organized events includes extensive videos and articles about the Toronto lectures with a focus on painting event protesters as violent, loudmouth, radical feminists whose goal is to destroy the rights of men. They’ve even gone so far as to post an entire article on one of the protesters featuring her full name, a picture of her face with the word “bigot” below, as well as screen shots of her Facebook and Twitter posts. They also added this girl to register-her.com, a website AVFM own in which they name women they allege to be bigots (whatever that means) and “female rapists,” the majority of which are women accused of or found guilty of statutory rape. The website is less about men’s rights and more about anti-feminist ideas—and the imaginary monsters which those ideas create.

Teenager exposes India's 'one month wives' sex tourism

Campaigners for Muslim women's rights said while short term 'contract marriages' are illegal in India and forbidden in Islam, they are increasing in Hyderabad, in southern India, where wealthy foreigners, local agents and 'Qazis' – government-appointed Muslim priests – are exploiting poverty among the city's Muslim families.
The victim, Nausheen Tobassum, revealed the scale of the problem when she escaped from her home last month after her parents pressurised her to consummate a forced marriage to a middle aged Sudanese man who had paid around £1,200 for her to be his 'wife' for four weeks.
She told police she had been taken by her aunt to a hotel where she and three other teenage girls were introduced to a Sudanese oil company executive. The 'groom', Usama Ibrahim Mohammed, 44 and married with two children in Khartoum, later arrived at her home where a Qazi performed a wedding ceremony.
According to Inspector Vijay Kumar he had paid 100,000 Rupees (around £1,200) to the girl's aunt Mumtaz Begum, who in turn paid 70,000 Rupees to her parents, 5,000 Rupees to the Qazi, 5,000 Rupees to an Urdu translator and kept 20,000 Rupees herself. The wedding certificate came with a 'Talaknama' which fixed the terms of the divorce at the end of the groom's holiday.
"The next day he came to the house of the victim girl and asked her to participate in sex but she refused. She is a young girl and the groom is older than her father," Inspector Kumar told The Telegraph.

A Republican New Hampshire lawmaker referred to women as "vaginas" in an email to colleagues on the official legislative electronic mailing list earlier this month, drawing outrage from his own party.

State Rep. Peter Hansen (R) made the comment, first reported by New Hampshire political blogger Susan the Bruce, in an April 1 email debate with colleagues about a "stand your ground" gun bill. Hansen's colleague, Rep. Steve Vaillancourt (R) had delivered a lengthy floor speech about the benefits of retreating instead of using deadly force, to which Hansen replied in an email:

What could possibly be missing from those factual tales of successful retreat in VT, Germany, and the bowels of Amsterdam? Why children and vagina's of course. While the tales relate the actions of a solitary male the outcome cannot relate to similar situations where children and women and mothers are the potential victims.
State Rep. Rick Watrous (D) immediately criticized Hansen for his choice of words. "Are you really using 'vaginas' as a crude catch-all for women? Really?" he wrote. "Please think before you send out such offensive language on the legislative listserve [SIC]."

Yesterday, when attacks on the Boston Marathon injured scores of people, mostly spectators, every runner I know spent the day wandering around in a daze, then either going on an angry run or curling up in the fetal position at 9 pm. The spectators — people who show up and cheer with noisemakers and high fives and encouraging cheers and magic-markered tagboard signs that read "YOU ALL ARE CRAZY! KEEP RUNNING!"— are the people who matter most to runners. Without those people, a marathon would just be an exercise in self-abuse from a large group of crazies. But there is meaning in marathoning: the people who watch.

Running can be a lonely sport — hours on the road solo at times so early people can still be seen stumbling out of bars and hailing cabs home, declined invitations to evening activities, neglected significant others, and truly disgusting feet. In fact, unless a runner trains with a group that doesn't annoy the living daylights out of them, the months leading up to a long race can be profoundly antisocial. But on race day, all of that disappears when, as the marathon runner embarks along a path lined with people — all kinds of people, they're bathed in the encouragement of thousands of people who cheer for them without knowing their names.

In his excellent piece for The Nation yesterday, Dave Zirin invoked a famous quote from women's marathoning pioneer Kathrine Switzer: If you are losing faith in human nature, go out and watch a marathon. As a runner, I know this to be true, but not because of me or my fellow standard issue runners. It's the spectators — who yesterday after the blasts, jumped over barricades to run toward the injured, who helped the few remaining volunteers at the event throw tables out of the way to make room for ambulances. It's the people of Boston who offered their homes to families stranded by the blast — the last I heard, the Google doc of open doors contained 5,000 entries. For strangers. From the people who watch.

One of the many puzzling aspects of yesterday's attacks was the question of what, exactly, the perpetrators thought they'd accomplish by targeting what basically amounts to a celebration of human tenacity. If anything, the tragedy in Boston will further solidify the bond between runner and spectator. And when the Chicago marathon happens this October, I'll show up to run harder, and they'll show up to cheer louder. If anyone thought this attack would discourage the runners or the watchers, they've clearly never been to a marathon.