This year the celebration of the day against violence against women has a name: Malala, the 14-year-old Pakistani girl shot by the Taliban on her way home from school. They shot her because she openly campaigns online (she writes a blog) for education for girls in her country.The Taliban impose amazing rules on women (click here to read about it) and make their lives hell - what they did to Malala is just one more example.
Would you like to have a look at Malala´s blog? Click here and remember that she was born in 1997, so she is probably as old as some of you.
Malala had also been giving lectures in her country, click here to read more about this.
Would you like to have a look at Malala´s blog? Click here and remember that she was born in 1997, so she is probably as old as some of you.
Malala had also been giving lectures in her country, click here to read more about this.
In my view, being aware of the problems that many women suffer all over the world just because they are women is the only way to actually do something to change our world. If we talk about it, if we become conscious of how unfair the situation is and say so, then maybe others will consider changing their minds and doing something about it... But it is no easy task since the situation is really tough in some countries. Do you want to know the worst places to live in if you are a woman? Click here and have a look at the photographs; the following paragraph will let you know what I am talking about:
Targeted violence against females, dismal healthcare and desperate poverty make Afghanistan the world's most dangerous country in which to be born a woman, with Congo a close second due to horrific levels of rape. Pakistan, India and Somalia ranked third, fourth and fifth, respectively, in the global survey of perceptions of threats ranging from domestic abuse and economic discrimination to female foeticide (the destruction of a fetus in the uterus), genital mutilation and acid attack. A survey compiled by the Thomson Reuters Foundation to mark the launch of TrustLaw Woman*, puts Afghanistan at the top of the list of the most dangerous places in the world for women. TrustLaw asked 213 gender experts from five contents to rank countries by overall perceptions of danger as well as by six categories of risk. The risks consisted of health threats, sexual violence, non-sexual violence, cultural or religious factors, lack of access to resources and trafficking. The collection of images that follow were provided by Reuters to illustrate the dangers women face in those 5 countries. -- Paula Nelson (*TrustLaw Woman is a website aimed at providing free legal advice for women’s' groups around the world.)
Luckily for us (and I mean women who live in developed countries) the kind of violence mentioned in the paragraph above is not what we face in our everyday lives, but in our society women are very often the target of male violence as well.
The situation pictured in this song by Tracy Chapman, "Behind the Wall" makes your hair stand on end.
Targeted violence against females, dismal healthcare and desperate poverty make Afghanistan the world's most dangerous country in which to be born a woman, with Congo a close second due to horrific levels of rape. Pakistan, India and Somalia ranked third, fourth and fifth, respectively, in the global survey of perceptions of threats ranging from domestic abuse and economic discrimination to female foeticide (the destruction of a fetus in the uterus), genital mutilation and acid attack. A survey compiled by the Thomson Reuters Foundation to mark the launch of TrustLaw Woman*, puts Afghanistan at the top of the list of the most dangerous places in the world for women. TrustLaw asked 213 gender experts from five contents to rank countries by overall perceptions of danger as well as by six categories of risk. The risks consisted of health threats, sexual violence, non-sexual violence, cultural or religious factors, lack of access to resources and trafficking. The collection of images that follow were provided by Reuters to illustrate the dangers women face in those 5 countries. -- Paula Nelson (*TrustLaw Woman is a website aimed at providing free legal advice for women’s' groups around the world.)
Luckily for us (and I mean women who live in developed countries) the kind of violence mentioned in the paragraph above is not what we face in our everyday lives, but in our society women are very often the target of male violence as well.
The situation pictured in this song by Tracy Chapman, "Behind the Wall" makes your hair stand on end.
In fact, the situation Tracy Chapman describes in her song seems to be quite frequent all over the world: watch the first video inthis link or watch the experiment in the following video, which won a price in the Cannes Lions Festival in 2011.
IIn most cases, violence against women originates because some men have the wrong idea of what a relationship is and tend to think of women as something you can possess, that´s why they often use the expression "you belong to me" (have a look at the lyrics in the first song in this link).
We talked about all this in class last week, but I did most of the talking so now I would like to know what you think...
