Saudi women far outnumber their male counterparts on university campuses but are reduced to watching men far less qualified control every aspect of their lives.
Andaman Islanders 'forced to dance' for tourists - video
The Jarawa tribe have lived in peace in the Andaman Islands for thousands of years. Now tour companies run safaris through their jungle every day and wealthy tourists pay police to make the women - usually naked - dance for their amusement. This footage, filmed by a tourist, shows Jarawa women being told to dance by an off-camera police officer
Andaman Islands tour operator faces arrest over 'human safari'
India issues arrest warrant for guide after tribal people forced to dance for tourists on tropical island chain
- guardian.co.uk,
- Saturday 7 January 2012
Source: Observer
When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a (wo)man, I put away childish things.
–1 Corinthians 13:11
This woman’s brother having been arrested the day before, this November 17th photo from Occupy LA brought to mind the rite of passage so many young people have experienced over the past few months. If organizers are savvy, the movement will evolve. Even still, young people have grown.
PHOTOGRAPH by Jonathan Gibby/Zuma
Occupy Wall Street Hackathons Produce Digital Tools and New Activists
Groups of programmers gathered in three cities this weekend to build digital tools for the Occupy Wall Street movement. Several of those tools have already launched, and in many cases they’re being maintained by activists who’ve never held a sign in a park.
“I was waiting to see how I should be involved,” says Jake Levitas, who attended the San Francisco hackathon. “In the last week, I thought, ‘I know I’m going to dedicate a lot of time to this movement. I don’t know how, but I know I want to be involved.’”
When he found out about the hackathon through Facebook, he knew how he wanted to participate. Levitas, working with a small team at the event, started a design library called OccupyDesign. It’s a database of Occupy Wall Street protest placards, logistical signs and icons — with a strong focus on infographics. The idea, he says, is that it is harder to argue with facts presented visually than it is a talking point, and that a centralized visual library can help the protests make a strong impression. And he hopes this project will get more designers like him involved.
“Especially if they don’t think they can sleep on the street for a while,” he says, “they don’t know how they can plug in.”
I am the 99%
Let's start with this.
There are at least 27 million slaves worldwide. That’s roughly the combined population of Australia and New Zealand. Crikey!
The Soulaliyate Women's Movement was Rkia Bellot's idea. Now retired, she used to work at the finance ministry and is married to an outsider, a soldier. She too belongs to the Haddada tribe and has no chance of an inheritance. "I have eight brothers. I'm the only one not to have received anything when our father died and the discrimination got even worse when they started selling land as compensation or handing out plots for building," she explains, in tears.
She was particularly upset by the humiliation she suffered when she tried to stand up for her rights. "The male members of the tribe said: 'You're just a woman', and when I appealed to the officials, they told me I didn't have 'the requisite status', which is exactly the same thing, in more diplomatic terms," Bellot adds.
The first demonstration in 2007 was a surprise for many Moroccans, who knew nothing about the Soulaliyates and less still about their rules on inheritance. But the Soulaliyates have a growing audience. On 20 March demonstrations were held all over Morocco with thousands of people in the streets, despite a speech by the king announcing constitutional reform. But Bellot was not marching. She was typing out manifestos on her computer.
This article originally appeared in Le Monde
