“Silenced Resistance is a ground-breaking study of the gendered dynamics of resistance to colonial and post-colonial authoritarian regimes in North and West Africa. Drawing on extensive archival and field-based research in Western Sahara and Equitorial Guinea, Allan forcefully analyses the complex relationship between women, feminist resistance to patriarchy, and political resistance to authoritarianism.”
—Alice Wilson, University of Sussex

Spain’s former African colonies—Equatorial Guinea and Western Sahara—share similar histories. Both are under the thumbs of heavy-handed, postcolonial regimes, and are known by human rights organizations as being among the worst places in the world with regard to oppression and lack of civil liberties. Yet the resistance movement in one is dominated by women, the other by men.

In this innovative work, Joanna Allan demonstrates why we should foreground gender as key for understanding both authoritarian power projection and resistance. She brings an ethnographic component to a subject that has often been looked at through the lens of literary studies to examine how concerns for equality and women’s rights can be co-opted for authoritarian projects.

She reveals how Moroccan and Equatoguinean regimes, in partnership with Western states and corporations, conjure a mirage of promoting equality while simultaneously undermining women’s rights in a bid to cash in on oil, minerals, and other natural resources. This genderwashing, along with historical local, indigenous, and colonially imposed gender norms mixed with Western misconceptions about African and Arab gender roles, plays an integral role in determining the shape and composition of public resistance to authoritarian regimes.

LEARN MORE.

The post Silenced Resistance: Women, Dictatorships, and Genderwashing in Western Sahara and Equatorial Guinea first appeared on Lesbian.com.

Republicans in the United States Senate continue to rush Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination to a vote despite credible allegations of sexual assault against him that were revealed last week.

We believe Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, who made public her traumatic experience with Kavanaugh despite knowing that her privacy would be shattered and her personal life inalterably changed by this revelation. Her home address and photos of her house have been circulating on extremist websites and discussion boards since last week, and she and her family have had to go into hiding because of death threats generated by this vicious campaign against her.

This is why survivors of sexual assault hesitate to come forward. But we’re here to lend our support to this fearless woman, and I urge you to watch this video with Andrea Pino, NCLR’s Digital Strategy and Communications Manager, along with other survivors of sexual assault. They speak for all of us here at NCLR with a simple message: #WeBelieveYou.

Also, please contact your Senators to demand that these charges against Kavanaugh be investigated thoroughly before any vote is taken on his nomination. We’ve made it easy to voice your objections using our online activism form – fill in your contact info, modify the message or just send it with the suggested text, and we’ll make sure it’s emailed to your two Senators immediately.

We refuse to back down from this fight, and I hope you stand with us as we take on the powerful forces of hatred, misogyny, and white male privilege driving this shady nomination process. Thank you.

In solidarity,
Kate Kendall
NCLR, Executive Director

The post Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, your sisters have your back first appeared on Lesbian.com.

In an exclusive clip from the Nine for IX film “Let Them Wear Towels,” female journalists deal with being turned away from entering male locker rooms while trying to do their jobs. The film premiered July 16 on ESPN.

The post Exclusive clip: ESPN’s ‘Let Them Wear Towels’ first appeared on Lesbian.com.

On Tuesday, after an onslaught of tweets and emails and facing a growing advertising boycott, Facebook agreed to do more to combat gender-based hate speech.

In a statement, Facebook admitted that its system for identifying and removing hate speech has been less than effective, and it has pledged to take some concrete steps.

• We will complete our review and update the guidelines that our User Operations team uses to evaluate reports of violations of our Community Standards around hate speech. To ensure that these guidelines reflect best practices, we will solicit feedback from legal experts and others, including representatives of the women’s coalition and other groups that have historically faced discrimination.

Read more at Care2.com

Care2 is the largest online community of people passionate about making a difference.

The post Facebook announces effort to combat anti-women hate speech first appeared on Lesbian.com.

Do we have to say it this way? (Via UterusFlagProject)

BY MINDY TOWNSEND
Care2

Do you remember studying human anatomy in high school and your teacher referred to vagina as a hoo-ha? No? Me neither. That’s because that is one of the dumbest things I’ve ever heard. However, if you’re a certain Idaho high school teacher, you might get in trouble for using the proper term. Tim McDaniel has taught science for 18 years and never received a complaint. Until this year, when parents complained that he taught their children about *gasp* vaginas and *double gasp* the female orgasm

It’s not just men who get in trouble for talking about lady bits. That happened last year to Lisa Brown, a Michigan State representative. During a debate on a restrictive abortion bill (as if there are any other kind nowadays), Brown made reference to how obtrusive the bill was by saying, ““Finally Mr. Speaker, I’m flattered that you’re all so interested in my vagina, but ‘no’ means ‘no.’” The day after she made the statement she was notified that she was banned from speaking on the house floor.

Read more at Care2.com

Care2 is the largest online community of people passionate about making a difference

The post When discussing female anatomy gets you in trouble first appeared on Lesbian.com.

Activists demand an inclusive, and immediate, Violence Against Women Act.

BY AVIVA SHEN
ThinkProgress

The Violence Against Women Act expired at the end of 2012 after House Republicans refused to accept the Senate bill’s protections for LGBT, Native American, and undocumented victims. Though the Senate passed another bipartisan VAWA reauthorization over a week ago, House Republicans may derail passage once again. On Friday, House GOP leaders released their own VAWA bill, stripping protections for LGBT individuals and adding a loophole for Native American victims.

Where the Senate bill granted access to federal grants for LGBT victims, the House bill is silent, removing all mention of “sexual orientation” or “gender identity.” As a result of this omission, LGBT-inclusive crisis centers could be shut out from essential grant programs.

Read more at ThinkProgress.org

The post House GOP leaders may strip LGBT protections from Violence Against Women Act first appeared on Lesbian.com.

Students from an all-girls’ school in Manila, Philippines, demonstrating for One Billing Rising. (Photo: AP)

BY MATTHEW RODGERS
dot429

Philippines LGBT rights group GANDA Filipinas joined women across the world for the One Billion Rising (OBR) in the largest gathering of mass action to stop violence against women and girls in history last week. Among the women present in the Southeast Asian country were a large number of transgender women.

GANDA Filipinas founder Naoimi Fontana told 429 Magazine that they joined OBR “in solidarity with women including transgender women the world over who continue to experience gender-based violence and abuse.” She continued to say, “We recognize human rights work as highly intersectional.”

Read more at dot429.com

The post LGBT Women of One Billion Rising in the Philippines first appeared on Lesbian.com.

Our teacher, Lety, is a sturdy butch with a ready smile. She stands beside a whiteboard and covers it with words and pictures that illustrate Mexico’s derogatory but colorful gay and lesbian slang. Mariposa is the word for butterfly and for a gay man. Lesbians are thought to wear only blue jeans, so their nickname is Levi’s in Spanish, Livais — and, more specifically, quinientos uno, for the original 501 style.

I never thought I’d learn these things in a classroom, but this is no ordinary Spanish class. Cetlalic, or the Tlahuica Centre for Language and Cultural Exchange, takes its name from the city’s original inhabitants, whose own language is seriously endangered. The center was founded in 1987 as an alternative to the mainstream schools that were drawing thousands of tourists to Cuernavaca.

Read more at Curve

Curve, the nation’s best-selling lesbian magazine, spotlights all that is fresh, funny, exciting, controversial and cutting-edge in our community.

The post Mexican Spanish class offers more than the basics first appeared on Lesbian.com.

Women in the United States have more rights and equality than women in most other countries, right? Doesn’t that sound like a reasonable statement? Then how is it that the U.S. ranks 79th “in the world for women’s political representation”? And that is after last week’s elections, which brought the number of female Senators up from 17 to a whopping 20.

The underrepresentation of women in government matters. In the Huffington Post, Soraya Chemaly quotes Alexander Hamilton’s gem in the Federalist Papers that “all classes of citizens should be involved so that their feelings and interests be better understood.” If you’re not on the legislative floor, neither are your interests.

Read more at Care2.com

Care2 is the largest online community of people passionate about making a difference.

The post The impact of the gender gap in Congress first appeared on Lesbian.com.

Imagine yourself as a woman in the military today? What would your job be like?

In South Korea a senior officer says to you, “It’s Friday afternoon, why don’t you take off your blouse and get comfortable?”

On another night at a party in your base commander’s house, you are grabbed and bound with duct tape to another pilot despite resisting.

In Germany you escape sexual assault from an intoxicated master sergeant only after some of your co-workers intervene.

Read more at Care2.com

Care2 is the largest online community of people passionate about making a difference.

The post Women in the military: 1 in 3 suffer sexual assault first appeared on Lesbian.com.