New Report Captures Wave of Homegrown Feminism in Indonesia
These are not new issues for the women’s movement in Indonesia, which came of age in the 1980s. Women began claiming their rights and positions in politics, civil society, the media, and religious and academic circles. At the time, the debate on gender equality and Islam was underway across the Arab world, with Muslim feminists leading the way. According to van Lierde, their views on Islam and society began “to break open the patriarchal, established political and religious order and give rise to discussions across the world.” However, this advocacy gave rise to continued tensions and notions of a “clash of civilizations,” and in some circles, women’s rights are still viewed as in tension with Islam.
The development of a women’s movement in Indonesia from inside the pesantren circumvents the resistance to secular feminism common in devout communities. As Muslim women take on leadership roles in a traditional Islamic domain, they can challenge patriarchal norms while maintaining religious authenticity. Badriyah Fayumi, who heads a pesantren in addition to long serving as a member of the national Parliament, says that because she “speaks in the same religious terms and cites the same sources,” she can convey her message of equality, “…that Islam can and must go together with respect for diversity, for religious, cultural and ethnic pluralism, for human rights.”
Inayah Rohmaniyah, a female Imam profiled in the report, explains how she uses her religious authority to work against extremism. She describes how the Muslim Brotherhood and Indonesian extremist groups bind communities to them, using funding from Middle East sources to invest locally. “They combine propaganda with services. They establish schools, from nurseries to universities, where parents can place their children in a strictly religious environment for very little money.” To be an effective alternative voice, Rohmaniyah must utilize religious and practical arguments. “As an expert on Islam, as a woman who comes from a traditional and even a Wahabi pesantren, I have more than enough cards to play to share my message, my view of Islam, with the same audience. I will quote the same religious sources and appeal to people’s same desire to get ahead in life, and with women in particular, I will talk about the situation at home and on the street, the future prospects for their children.” Rohmaniyah, like the other five women leaders profiled, demonstrates the importance of local identity and religious authenticity in working for women’s rights and against extremism.
Bishkek Feminist Collective SQ: Activist community in Kyrgyzstan, Central Asia
Bishkek Skew Feminist Initiative is a group of feminist activists in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, based on the principles of collective emancipation, solidarity, mutual support, equitable decision-making and non-violence.Our mission - to promote feminist values to opposing all forms of oppression (sexism, homophobia, transphobia, nationalism, xenophobia, Islamophobia, class and socio-economic oppression) in Bishkek. Some of our goals - to create a feminist network of people, communities, organizations and initiatives in Bishkek for a significant interaction; make a contribution to the development of solidarity with the existing civic movements that share our values spravdlivosti and human rights provide a feminist space and practices, including educational resources and measures to counter oppression and violence, and to build an informed alliances and partnerships.
Our group, understanding the complexity and intersektsionalnost oppression, is committed to the needs, issues and voices of the most oppressed and malopredstavlennyh of our communities in Bishkek his activism.
We want to create an equal and friendly space for access to resources, gaining skills, self-fulfillment and social and political commitment.
We promote a culture of peaceful civil disobedience, alternative activism, feminist philanthropy and solidarity to achieve our goals, and in order to change stereotypes about the protests and civil society in Kyrgyzstan.
Our vision of the future - it is Kyrgyzstan, where people live, who know not only their rights but are willing and able to articulate their needs, dreams and your opportunities and create conditions for this right and, thus, gaining access to existing institutions and resources - and eventually realizing itself.
whatever happened to the Asian Women’s Blog Carnival?
it was a great idea and well needed. the remnants of the old carnival are locked down. they must have their reasons, but that sure doesn’t amplify the voices or asian women too much.
I searched for ‘asian women blog’ on google and found mostly sites for white western men looking to fetishize and fuck Asian women. including a blog called ‘asianwomenblog’. so, how fucked is that?
I mean, the population of Asia is roughly 4.14 billion, making the population of women in Asia at >2 billion. I can’t even figure how many Asian women live outside of Asia, plus all the identities of diaspora, bi-nationality and so forth.
sadly, right now - all I can find are:
- locked communities of asian women talking to each other
- sites for western white dudes looking for an Asian women to fuck
- individual Asian women blogging
are there collective voices of Asian women on the internet someplace? maybe they’re not in English.
I’m asking for links here (and no, I don’t want to know where to meet single Asian women in my area tonight)
Daily Kos: ILGA-Europe summary of the status of LGBTI people in Europe
ILGA-Europe is the European portion of the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans, and Intersex Association. The organization has recently released its 2013 comprehensive overview of LGBTI…
‘At the national level, we see that developments are at times taking completely opposite directions. Some countries are moving towards marriage equality, better protection mechanisms against discrimination and violence, ensuring easier and more humane procedures for legal gender recognition. However these advances are often accompanied by a social backlash, including increased violence. In other countries, the most worrying development is the introduction of more restrictive and discriminatory measures such as the laws banning ’homosexual propaganda’.
Escape From the Oppression Olympics
Like most people, I have my pet theories about why tumblr is such a clusterfuck of identities and petty politics, and why so many people on tumblr engage in bizarre and reactionary behavior well past their teenage years. Even taking into account the Greater Internet Fuckward Theory, tumblr culture is of a very specific vein; the vilification of skepticism, the rejection of human empathy, the furious masturbation to textbook psychology issues to the point where you lose touch with the real world. The hydra has many heads; otherkins, transethnics, sapiosexuals, transtrenders, white knights, and social justice assholes from all walks of life, but at the heart of it is that one word that makes this damn website so infamous: privilege.
Disillusioned by the mainstream media’s lack of in-depth knowledge and coverage of India’s marginalized communities or ‘Dalits’, members of the group are turning to citizen media to tell their stories. Dalit Camera aims to document and chronicle their lives, conditions and struggles.
Here Dalit Camera visits a Dalit colony in Kottayam Kerala, along with Prof. Yesudasan, English professor at Kottayam’s CMS College.
Wolfgang Borchert (1921-1947)
If you do one thing, read “The Dandelion” (“Die Hundeblume” 1947)- reviewed here.
(Source: borchertgesellschaft.de)
If a Trans* Person Asks You to Use Certain Pronouns
tchy:
Do it. Just fucking do it. It doesn’t matter what we look like, what our mannerisms are like, whether we’re out or not in separare spheres of our life, how long you’ve known us, whether you still think of us as our assigned sex, anything. If you respect us as people, you will use the pronouns we ask you for. If you don’t, we will be forced to conclude that you don’t respect us.
A lot of cis people seem fond of saying that pronouns are “just words” and that if they mess them up repeatedly it shouldn’t be a big deal because they still respect us and it’s just “hard for them to remember.” No. That won’t fly. It may be just a little word to you, but here’s what it means to a trans* person when someone who claims to care for them repeatedly messes up their pronouns with no sign of improvement:
- You don’t care about me enough to ensure my happiness and mental well-being by doing this relatively minor thing I’ve asked for; how can I count on you to do major things, like defend me from an attacker or fight for my medical rights, when I need them?
- You still think of me as my assigned sex and don’t believe what I have to say about my own identity; you don’t respect my ability to self-determine.
- Your freedom to avoid things that inconvenience you is more important to you than my right to be respected and feel safe.
Basically, someone repeatedly messing up our pronouns for months at a time and consistently brushing it off as a “mistake” that we shouldn’t be angry about because it wasn’t an aggressive act of deliberate misgendering—that’s the biggest, clearest sign we’ve got that someone who claims to be in our camp is actually not trustworthy.
Let me repeat that: if you keep making this “little mistake” and brushing it off when we get upset, we will be forced to conclude that deep down, you don’t actually care about our happiness, mental well-being, safety, or self-determination.
It might just be a word to you. But for us, this is a word with some serious weight. And if you truly care about us, you have to take that weight into account and respect it. Because if you don’t, what you’re telling us is that you don’t respect us. It may not sound like that to you, but that’s the subtext we read from it. This is why pronouns matter: it’s not just the literal word, it’s everything that word carries with it.
Pronouns are important. Respect trans* people’s safety. Respect our pronouns.
self-harm is not always self-harm
groups of people do not do things for the same reasons. neither do individuals. this is true for all things including acts and words any individual performs on one’s own body. cuts, burns and scars can - and will mean something to you or me or the person next to one of us on the bus. those different meanings may or may not be obvious, but they are there.
it is true that sometimes when people cut or scar or burn, it is something that we understand and it may even be a request for help. but then again, it may be neither - and not even meant for you or me or anyone else to comment on.
people may or may not grant permission to call images of their body as ‘triggering’. they may not want to know what I think or you think or anyone else. or, they may share knowledge of their body as a statement of who they are up to this point, or as an artistic expression or as an exploration in how it feels to be known simply for who they are - without any suggestion or label. just a request to be known.
sometimes, there is beauty in the skin that bleeds, heals and scars. beauty, tenderness and love are everywhere and I find that when some people are sharing images of their cut, burn, scarred bodies - they are sharing a beauty so unique and so personal that it could exist on no other body.
on cutting…
- not everyone who cuts, is self-harming
- whatever reason they have for cutting, that reason is (or those reasons are) determined by that person and not by someone viewing the cuts
- you may have strong opinions and reactions to cutting and they are exactly that - your strong opinions and reactions. nothing more and nothing less.
- there is just as likely to be beauty and love in cuts as there is to be any other feelings
- talking to someone about their body - whether the topic is cuts, or weight, or genitals or tattoos or identity is not your right and without given and continued consent, you are violating and assaulting someone by forcing them to talk to you about their body.
Testimony by YOU!
Video titled: “Uneasily Defined: Definition of Queer”
About:
For TESTIMONY’s 300th post, Coalition for Queer Youth wanted to start a conversation with our awesome tumblr community about something we spend a lot of time thinking about. Defining the word ‘queer’ and what being queer means to people who identify, has always been important for us personally and in our work and also ever changing and evolving!
We found this video of a few youth sharing their definitions of queer and WE WANT TO HEAR YOUR VOICES TOO! We know there can be as many different answers as there are people and that’s what makes this really, really cool.
REBLOG and tell us your definition of queer and/or what being queer means to YOU! After all, that’s what TESTIMONY is about :)
Disillusioned by the mainstream media’s lack of in-depth knowledge and coverage of India’s marginalized communities or ‘Dalits’, members of the group are turning to citizen media to tell their stories. Dalit Camera aims to document and chronicle their lives, conditions and struggles.
Here Dalit Camera visits a Dalit colony in Kottayam Kerala, along with Prof. Yesudasan, English professor at Kottayam’s CMS College.
vapidfemme asked: You are too kind. If you don't mind, could you give me your opinion on it?
I love that you’re creating these starting points in graphic form. I don’t see how any model of identity is going to define everyone. Each person knows their identity and how can any chart ever encompass or hold everyone? So, any chart that supports an inquiry of people knowing each other in our own terms, seems helpful.
My own personal experience of gender & sex identities is that they occur in more of a 3-D model than a 2-D. I think of the identities as being in a galaxy rather than a rainbow. It seems that way to me because identities can shift over time and not in linear relationships between two points, but rather in shifting proximity to various, multiple and changing expressions of identity. I also think of the role that motion plays in one’s life and in space as being more than just statements of current measurement of identity but that motion of identity is an element of identity. However, that’s my opinion. It’s not true, it’s not real. It’s just what I think and that opinion is good for really only me.
anyway, that’s my take. ~arvan
