Tag: Women War and Peace

Women in Politics Week: The Roundup

A Lady Lonely at the Top: High School Politics Take an Ugly Turn in ‘Election’ by Carleen Tibbets

Election, the 1999 film directed by Alexander Payne and based on the novel by Tom Perotta, chronicles type A personality Tracy Flick’s (Reese Witherspoon) quest to become student body president and the unraveling of her social sciences teacher, Mr. McAllister (Matthew Broderick) as he attempts to thwart her campaign. Released on the heels of the Clinton-Lewinsky sex-scandal, Election explores power, corruption, and moral gray area in the “wholesome” Midwest — seemingly representative of all that is safe, suburban, and pure.

“The Women of Qumar” originally aired on November 28th, 2001, approximately two months after the first American airstrikes in Afghanistan. That timing is crucial to consider when looking at how this episode presents an imagined Middle East. Though The West Wing is often billed as optimistic counter-history and as an antidote for the policies and politics of the Bush administration, the show’s Qumari plot line is much more of a fictional transcription of current events than it is a progressive alternative. Most importantly, in creating Qumar as a fictional country meant to evoke the worst American fears and prejudices about life in the Middle East, Aaron Sorkin effectively packages and sells many of the motivations behind the current war in Afghanistan in the guise of progressive entertainment.

Why We Need Leslie Knope and What Her Election on ‘Parks and Rec’ Means for Women and Girls by Megan Kearns

When I grow up, I want to be Leslie Knope. It’s no secret I love Parks and Rec. A female-fronted series with a hilarious ensemble cast that’s the most feminist show on TV? C’mon, how could I not? It’s easy to write off Parks and Rec as a quirky and brilliant comedy. Yet it’s so much more than that. It broke ground revealing the highs and lows of political office and showing an intelligent, upbeat, passionate woman can not only run for office but win.
Inspired by The Wire’s portrayal of politics (another reason to love it even more!), it depicts local government in the small town Pawnee, revolving around the indomitable Leslie Knope. Amy Poehler (who happens to be one of my fave feminist celebs) anchors the show with her fantastic portrayal of the waffles-loving leader.
In addition to my hobbies of watching films and cartoons, I like reading comics. Sometimes I read the highbrow stuff like Maus or Persepolis, and sometimes I read trash. Complete and utter bullshit. One of the longstanding traditions of the Something Awful Forums is its Political Cartoon Thread, which is an ongoing discussion of how the mainstream media interprets political debate through metaphor and imagery. And by that, I mean they find the worst cartoonists possible and make fun of them. Somehow all the really bad cartoonists are conservative! I couldn’t imagine why that could be, could you?
And if there’s one thing conservatives have made themselves known for lately, it’s just how well they understand the issues of women. It’s like there’s a War on Women or something. And if there’s one thing I’ve noticed, it’s that white dudes seem to have a particularly nuanced understanding of what it is to be a modern woman facing such issues as birth control, abortion, and sexual harassment.

Quote of the Day: Rebecca Traister by Amber Leab

Rebecca Traister’s Big Girls Don’t Cry looks at the 2008 election through a feminist lens and, (no surprise), focuses most on primary candidate Hillary Clinton, and later Sarah Palin. The book is, however, much more than just an analysis of the sexism these two women endured. Big Girls Don’t Cry looks at the ways in which the media itself was forced to adapt, particularly to Clinton’s historic run at the presidency. This book is an excellent, smartly written look back at gender politics in 2008. For me, it reopened wounds and ignited anger I felt during the election cycle, when I heard, time and again, painful misogynist commentary coming from our so-called liberal media. However, the book provides a kind of catharsis: if we can look back through Traister’s clear eye, maybe we — individuals and the collective — will change.

Seeing My Reflection In Film: ‘Night Catches Us’ Struck a Chord With Me by Arielle Loren

Based in Philadelphia, Night Catches Us tells the story of two former black panthers trying to re-establish life after leaving The Party and the death of a fellow panther years ago. While the central plot revolves around these two characters’ lives, Hamilton integrates into the film historic footage of the Black Panther Party. As this era of black history often is pigeonholed to radicalism, Hamilton truly humanizes The Party through several scenes of police brutality, corruption, and community gatherings. For instance, Washington’s character, Patricia, would raise money to pay the legal fees for her less fortunate clients and feed every child on the block even when she couldn’t pay her light bill.
Foul-mouthed and frazzled, Julia Louis-Dreyfus (eternally known as Elaine from Seinfeld), stars as United States Vice-President, Selina Meyer, in the Emmy Award-winning HBO political satire, VEEP. The show focuses on Dreyfus’ character, a woman who wants power, but resides in a fairly weak place, politically, having to hide in the shadows of the President and worry about her approval ratings.
There are two Hollywood versions of Washington, D.C.; the one where the president is Morgan Freeman and he’s strong, but compassionate and you feel good about being an American. The other version is something out of a John Grisham novel in which the city is one giant ‘60 Minutes’ expose of cynicism and conspiracy (the latter version just makes you sad to be alive). VEEP is the second, minus the conspiracy and snipers and with the addition of obsessive blackberry use.
While a few men duke it out to take control at the White House later this year, let’s take a look at two films that followed the life of female politicians. On our right we have The Iron Lady (previously reviewed here), the Oscar-winning biopic on U.K. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher (played by Meryl Streep), and on our left is The Lady, a film on the life of Burmese politician Aung San Suu Kyi (played by Michelle Yeoh, of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon fame).
Both films offer an account of women both lauded and defamed in their own countries, and who defied gender stereotypes to become relatively successful leaders. But only one did it successfully — The Lady.

‘The Young Victoria’: Family Values as Land Grab by Erin Blackwell

I wanted to watch The Young Victoria (2009) because Miranda Richardson’s in it and I’m going through a watch-everything-she’s-in phase. Richardson talked up the film in an interview with the Daily Mail online. And I quote:

“I spent my time cross stitching,” she revealed. “But I made it fun by stitching naughty words into handkerchiefs.” Miranda, 51 [in 2009], wouldn’t be drawn on the exact words, but added, “There were long gaps between filming and I was bored, so it kept me occupied.”

If you have any plans to watch this film, you can’t do better than to follow her lead.

‘Persepolis’ by Amber Leab

In Persepolis, we meet Marjane, a young girl living in Iran at the time of the Islamic revolution of 1979. The society changed drastically under Islamic law, as evidenced by Marjane’s teacher’s evolving lessons. After the revolution, in 1982, she tells the young girls, who are now required by law to cover their heads, “The veil stands for freedom. A decent woman shelters herself from men’s eyes. A woman who shows herself will burn in hell.” In typical fashion, the students escape her ideological droning through imported pop culture: the music of ABBA, The Bee Gees, Michael Jackson, and Iron Maiden.

If I were to ask you to name a famous feminist, who would you say? I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that most of you would probably say Gloria Steinem. And with good reason. A pioneering feminist icon, she’s been the face of feminism for nearly 50 years. Many people have admired and judged her, putting their own perceptions on who she is. In the documentary Gloria: In Her Own Words, Steinem tells her own story.
Directed by Peter Kunhardt and produced by Kunhardt and Sheila Nevins, the HBO documentary which also aired at this year’s Athena Film Fest, “recounts her transformation from reporter to feminist icon.” It explores Steinem’s life through intimate interviews and impressive historical footage, focusing on the tumultuous 60s and 70s, the core of the Women’s Liberation Movement. It’s an intriguing and thought-provoking introduction to feminism and insight of a feminist activist.
Politics in films made in the ’40s and ’50s was strictly a man’s world, with the men taking charge as both the heroes and the villains, the bosses of the corrupt political machines and the up-and-comers either succumbing to them or fighting back against them. But these films were not devoid of women, but those women had their own roles to play.
Female characters in these political films found a niche into which they could be fit, a trope on which sufficient variations could be introduced that it ended up showing up multiple times over the decades. When considering this type of character the phrase “Behind every great man is a great woman” comes to mind. That is where the women in these movies stood: behind the man, attempting to push him toward greatness, sometimes successfully, sometimes not. These Great Women did not achieve anything on their own, or draw attention to themselves, but were behind-the-scenes players using the power they had over the protagonist in pursuit of their goals.
The 1999 film Election features Tracy Flick (Reese Witherspoon), a power-hungry young woman who will stop at nothing to get what she wants and Jim McAllister (Matthew Broderick), an emasculated male high school teacher who loses everything trying to keep Flick out of power.
She wins. He loses. But he doesn’t realize it.
Election–which was nominated for an Academy Award and a Golden Globe and won the Independent Spirit Award for Best Film–is a film that has been immortalized for its depiction of Tracy Flick, a high school junior who, after building a flourishing “career” in academics and extra-curricular activities, is running for Student Government President of George Washington Carver High School.
Margaret Thatcher became the first (and so far, only) female Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. One of the most controversial politicians of the twentieth century, she was loathed by much of the country when she was eventually ousted from her position by her own party. She is now 86 years old and suffers from Alzheimer’s.
Marilyn Monroe remains the greatest female film icon 50 years since her death at the age of 36. During her career she walked out on her contract with the most powerful studio in Hollywood to form her own production company in a bid to be taken seriously as an actress in an unprecedented move that foreshadowed the downfall of the studio system.

What’s so interesting (and fucking sad) is that Scandal is the only prime-time TV show on right now centering around an African American woman. And it’s the first network show with a black female lead in 30 years (that is horrifying). I’ve often heard Washington is a fantastic actor and she was great in the heartbreaking For Colored Girls. Here she commands the screen with confidence and poise. Olivia is an intelligent, successful and empowered woman. Others look up to her, revere her and even fear her shrewd insights and relentlessness to finish a job. She’s demanding, requiring her staff to pull all-nighters and enforcing rules like no crying in the office and not answering “I don’t know” to a question she asks. Powerful politicians turn to her for advice. She negotiates deals on her terms. While new employee Quinn (Katie Lowes) idolizes her, Olivia is far from a paragon of perfection. She’s vulnerable with a messy and complicated love life. She’s flawed, not always likeable (although I personally love her!) and uses Machiavellian tactics to complete a job. But this mélange makes her all the more interesting.

“I Don’t Take Orders from You:” Female Military Authority as Represented by Admiral Helena Cain in ‘Battlestar Galactica‘ by Amanda Rodriguez

First off, the TV series Battlestar Galactica just plain rules. It’s exciting, dramatic, beautifully shot, has a racially diverse cast, and places many women in positions of power. Let’s take a minute to consider the fact that the benevolent commander of the military protecting the human race from extinction is portrayed by a Mexican American (Commander William Adama/Edward James Olmos), and the President of the Colonies is a woman (Laura Roslin). Bravo! My favorite aspect of the show, though, is the way it tackles complex ethical dilemmas. Issues of race (the Cylons as stand-ins for racial Others), women’s issues (rape, abortion, breast cancer), philosophical/scientific issues (religious extremism, mysticism, whether or not some species “deserve to survive,” what makes one “human,” evolution), and post-colonial issues (the Cylons as stand-ins for an oppressed race that genocidally revolts against its oppressors).
The film’s “heroine,” Diana Christensen, played by Faye Dunaway, is very much a product of the 70s. She has directly benefitted from the second wave feminism movement, breaking the glass ceiling and becoming the sole female television executive at UBS, the fictional network depicted in this film. But…she is not a feminist character. Yes, she is strongly written, sexually confident, and an obvious success in her field, but she is also obsessive, emotionless, cynical and dangerous. In short, a ball-breaking career woman. She has achieved much based on the sheer power of her ambitions, but it is clear that her single-minded ambitions are meant to contrast negatively to the more idealistic and grounded outlooks of the male “heroes,” Howard Beale (Peter Finch) and Max Schumacher (William Holden).
Diana is the Vice President of UBS’s programming division, but eventually worms her way into taking Max Schumacher’s job, which was to be in charge of the news division. The news division gets lousy ratings and haemorrhages money, so they make the decision to fire their news anchor, Howard Beale. This instead causes Beale’s mind to snap, and he begins ranting about planning to commit suicide on air (which was based on a real-life event) and how he has “run out of bullshit.” The ratings spike, prompting the obsessive Diana to seize on the newscast and turn it into a combination variety show and talk show. The integrity of the news and the political system that it influences mean nothing to Diana – she is singularly obsessed with getting ratings and making money for UBS.

‘The Lady’ Makes the Personal Political by Jarrah Hodge

That’s where I thought the focus did the subject an injustice. Interestingly, The Lady could be said to suffer from some of the same issues as The Iron Lady, which was also a movie about a woman politician that was criticized for being more concerned with sentimentality than political substance.
In some ways, though, The Lady has less excuse for this. Thatcher is elderly and ailing now but Suu Kyi is still fighting a crucial fight. It’s clear from the rallying cry at the end of the movie that one of the film’s goals is to get Westerners more involved in aiding the continuing fight for true democracy in Burma (Aung San Suu Kyi will finally take the oath of office to sit in the parliament this year, though the current structure still ensures the military maintains majority control and human rights violations continue). However, this could have been further advanced by giving voices to the Burmese non-military characters other than Suu Kyi: the students being massacred in the streets, the villagers in rural areas, and the monks who joined the protest.

Over the course of the past two months, Megan Kearns of The Opinioness of the World reviewed all five parts of the PBS series Women, War & Peace. We’ve rounded them up here, with excerpts from each review. Be sure to check them out if you missed any! (You can also watch the full episodes online here.)

 

In the pilot episode of Homeland, Carrie Mathison (Claire Danes), hurries back to her Washington D.C. apartment after a night out, and the audience sees a photo of jazz musicians and pieces of artwork emblazoned with the word “Jazz.” Jazz–the nebulous, wholly American musical genre–is improvisation. It is individualism and collaboration. It is color-outside-the-lines, boundary-pushing rhythm. It is Carrie, a CIA analyst who must push and navigate her way around the patriarchal CIA and her brilliant and bipolar mind.

The Depiction of Women in Films About Irish Politics by  Alisande Fitzsimons

For as long as there have been film-makers, they’ve seemingly been attempting to depict the Irish struggle for independence. Apart from the fact that a country in the midst of political strife always makes interesting viewing (see also: Israel, Palestine, the rest of the Middle East and the plethora of films produced each year about life in communist East Berlin), this may be down to timing.
The Easter Rising, when Ireland declared its intention of ending British rule over the country, took place in April 1916. The first commercial films, including DW Griffith’s seminal and hugely racist The Birth of a Nation (1914), were made in the same decade, meaning that the medium of film as a way to depict and interpret historical events through fictitious re-renderings of them, was created just in time to record the political strife that characterised Ireland in the twentieth century.

Many assume Hollywood is a liberal nirvana (or I guess a hellhole if you’re a Republican). But that’s not exactly true. Not only do films lack gender equality, they often purport sexist tropes. While many participate in fundraisers or ads for natural disasters or childhood illnesses or breast cancer, most celebrities remain silent when it comes to supposedly controversial human rights issues like abortion and contraception. But not this year! Because of the GOP’s rampant attacks on reproductive rights (gee thanks, GOP!), more celebs are adding their voices to the pro-choice symphony dissenting against these oppressive laws.

Carrie Mathison burst onto our television screens in October of 2011 as the central narrator to Showtime’s superbly riveting political thriller, Homeland. Based on Israel’s Prisoners of War and driven by the question what homecoming means to the lives of those formerly held captive, Homeland centers on Carrie Mathison, Nicholas Brody, and the cell of people who weave throughout their personal and political spheres. In “Homeland’s Roots,” a short extra via Showtime’s On Demand, series creator Gideon Raff says, “We had really interesting conversations about the differences between American and Israeli societies in terms of their approach to prisoners of war.” Series developer and producer Alex Gansa adds, “We had to find another avenue to tell the story and what we really found was this idea that Brody may have been turned in captivity.”

Many chastised Sofia Coppola’s re-imagining of Marie Antoinette. Some critics complained about the addition of modern music while others thought it looked too slick, like an MTV music video (remember those??). But I think most people missed the point. Beyond the confectionery colors, gorgeous shots of lavish costumes and a teen queen munching on decadent treats and sipping champagne is a compelling and heartbreaking film that transcends eye candy. Underneath the exquisite atmosphere exists a very powerful and feminist commentary on gender and women.

Women in Politics Week: Women, War & Peace: The Roundup

The Women, War & Peace Documentary Series on PBS
This post by Megan Kearns originally appeared at Bitch Flicks on January 9, 2012.
Over the course of the past two months, Megan Kearns of The Opinioness of the World reviewed all five parts of the PBS series Women, War & Peace. We’ve rounded them up here, with excerpts from each review. Be sure to check them out if you missed any! (You can also watch the full episodes online here.)

While rape had been charged as a crime before, it usually falls under the umbrella of hate crimes. With this groundbreaking tribunal, for the first time rape was charged as “a crime against humanity.” The case wouldn’t prevent all rapes. But Kuo said that even though they couldn’t prosecute every rape, it was a significant statement to acknowledge what happens to women during war. The case “transformed the definition of wartime slavery,” laying the “foundation of trials involving violence against women in international courts.”

War leaves devastation in its wake. Yet historically, when we talk about war, we talk about it in terms of soldiers and casualties; too often from a male perspective, forgetting that it equally destroys women’s lives.

In the 2nd installment of the Women, War & Peace series, director Gini Reticker and producer Abigail E. Disney, and WWP series executive producers and co-creators, create a Tribeca Film Festival-winning documentary. Pray the Devil Back to Hell tells the powerful and uplifting story of the Liberian women, including activist and social worker Leymah Gbowee, who joined together and peacefully protested, helping end the civil war ravaging their country.

For almost 15 years, beginning on Christmas Eve in 1989, two civil wars plagued Liberia. Warlord and former president Charles Taylor resided at the center of both. He overthrew the regime during the first civil war and committed war crimes and human rights atrocities while president during the second civil war. Taylor recruited soldiers as young as 9-15 years old. With his private army, the dictator controlled the finances and terrorized the country.

Hasina Safi, one of the 3,000 members of the Afghan Women’s Network (AWN), a non-partisan NGO working to empower women, visits villages to monitor the programs she coordinates for illiterate women. Classes for women could not be held openly with the Taliban in power. Almost 90% of Afghan women cannot read or write. Through classes, many women are just learning Islam encourages women’s education.
But working women like Safi risk their lives. They receive death threats via horrific letters in the night, telling them they must stop working or else their children will be killed and their homes burned.

Over the course of the last two decades, at least 16 million acres of land have been violently taken from Colombians. In the last 8 years, over 2 million have been displaced. Colombia has the second largest number of internally displaced people in the world after Sudan. With no jobs and contaminated water, displacement traumatizes civilians and rips families apart. Under international law,internally displaced citizens don’t receive the same protections that refugees do. Their government is supposed to address their rights. But in this case, how are Colombians supposed to obtain justice when their own government condemns them?

Afro-Colombians make up one quarter of Colombia’s population. In May 2010, coinciding with Afro-Colombian Day, which commemorates the end of slavery in Colombia, Sarria’s eviction was set to commence. People took to the streets, barricading the road to halt the eviction.

‘War Redefined’ Challenges War as a Male Domain and Examines How Violent Conflict Impacts Women:

When we think of war, we often think of soldiers, tanks, weapons and battlefields. But most wars breach boundaries, affecting civilians, mostly women and children. Soldiers, guerillas and paramilitaries use tactics such as rape, fear, murder and pushing people off their land. We need to shift our paradigm of war and look at how it affects women’s lives.
War Redefined, the 5th and final installment in Women, War & Peace (WWP), is the capstone of the groundbreaking series featuring politicians, military personnel, scholars and activists discussing how women play a vital role in war and peace-keeping. Narrated by actor Geena Davis, a phenomenal women’s media activist, written and produced by Peter Bull, co-produced by Nina Chaudry, this powerful film threads stories told in the other parts of the series: Bosnian women surviving rape camps, Liberian women protesting for peace, Afghan women demanding their rights in negotiations and Afro-Colombian women contending with internal displacement. War Redefined, and the entire WWP series, challenges the assumption that war and peace belong to men’s domain.

Women, War & Peace: The Roundup

Women, War & Peace
Over the course of the past two months, Megan Kearns of The Opinioness of the World reviewed all five parts of the PBS series Women, War & Peace. We’ve rounded them up here, with excerpts from each review. Be sure to check them out if you missed any! (You can also watch the full episodes online here.)

While rape had been charged as a crime before, it usually falls under the umbrella of hate crimes. With this groundbreaking tribunal, for the first time rape was charged as “a crime against humanity.” The case wouldn’t prevent all rapes. But Kuo said that even though they couldn’t prosecute every rape, it was a significant statement to acknowledge what happens to women during war. The case “transformed the definition of wartime slavery,” laying the “foundation of trials involving violence against women in international courts.”

War leaves devastation in its wake. Yet historically, when we talk about war, we talk about it in terms of soldiers and casualties; too often from a male perspective, forgetting that it equally destroys women’s lives.

In the 2nd installment of the Women, War & Peace series, director Gini Reticker and producer Abigail E. Disney, and WWP series executive producers and co-creators, create a Tribeca Film Festival-winning documentary. Pray the Devil Back to Hell tells the powerful and uplifting story of the Liberian women, including activist and social worker Leymah Gbowee, who joined together and peacefully protested, helping end the civil war ravaging their country.

For almost 15 years, beginning on Christmas Eve in 1989, two civil wars plagued Liberia. Warlord and former president Charles Taylor resided at the center of both. He overthrew the regime during the first civil war and committed war crimes and human rights atrocities while president during the second civil war. Taylor recruited soldiers as young as 9-15 years old. With his private army, the dictator controlled the finances and terrorized the country.

Hasina Safi, one of the 3,000 members of the Afghan Women’s Network (AWN), a non-partisan NGO working to empower women, visits villages to monitor the programs she coordinates for illiterate women. Classes for women could not be held openly with the Taliban in power. Almost 90% of Afghan women cannot read or write. Through classes, many women are just learning Islam encourages women’s education.

But working women like Safi risk their lives. They receive death threats via horrific letters in the night, telling them they must stop working or else their children will be killed and their homes burned.

Over the course of the last two decades, at least 16 million acres of land have been violently taken from Colombians. In the last 8 years, over 2 million have been displaced. Colombia has the second largest number of internally displaced people in the world after Sudan. With no jobs and contaminated water, displacement traumatizes civilians and rips families apart. Under international law, internally displaced citizens don’t receive the same protections that refugees do. Their government is supposed to address their rights. But in this case, how are Colombians supposed to obtain justice when their own government condemns them?

Afro-Colombians make up one quarter of Colombia’s population. In May 2010, coinciding with Afro-Colombian Day, which commemorates the end of slavery in Colombia, Sarria’s eviction was set to commence. People took to the streets, barricading the road to halt the eviction.

‘War Redefined’ Challenges War as a Male Domain and Examines How Violent Conflict Impacts Women:

When we think of war, we often think of soldiers, tanks, weapons and battlefields. But most wars breach boundaries, affecting civilians, mostly women and children. Soldiers, guerillas and paramilitaries use tactics such as rape, fear, murder and pushing people off their land. We need to shift our paradigm of war and look at how it affects women’s lives.

War Redefined, the 5th and final installment in Women, War & Peace (WWP), is the capstone of the groundbreaking series featuring politicians, military personnel, scholars and activists discussing how women play a vital role in war and peace-keeping. Narrated by actor Geena Davis, a phenomenal women’s media activist, written and produced by Peter Bull, co-produced by Nina Chaudry, this powerful film threads stories told in the other parts of the series: Bosnian women surviving rape camps, Liberian women protesting for peace, Afghan women demanding their rights in negotiations and Afro-Colombian women contending with internal displacement. War Redefined, and the entire WWP series, challenges the assumption that war and peace belong to men’s domain.

 

Top 10 in 2011: Why Should Men Care? An Interview with Matt Damon

Readers, you really really love Matt Damon. That’s the only reason we can figure for this little post, featuring a video of Damon explaining his involvement in the PBS Women, War and Peace series, being #2 in 2011. Perhaps, though, it’s not just Damon’s presence, but how succinctly he explains the importance of men’s involvement in so-called women’s issues. (But we really really like him, too.)
_________
Matt Damon narrating Women, War, and Peace

At Bitch Flicks, we’re featuring reviews of the five-part PBS documentary Women, War & Peace—all by the fabulous Megan Kearns—the first of which we published on October 19th. (Megan’s review of Part Two will appear later today.) Matt Damon narrates the series, and he was interviewed about his participation, explaining why he wanted to be a part of the event and why men should care about how war impacts women, especially when rape is used as a weapon of war. I’m posting the video of the 4-minute interview, but it’s also linked to above (just in case).

‘War Redefined’ Challenges War as a Male Domain and Examines How Violent Conflict Impacts Women

When we think of war, we often think of soldiers, tanks, weapons and battlefields. But most wars breach boundaries, affecting civilians, mostly women and children. Soldiers, guerillas and paramilitaries use tactics such as rape, fear, murder and pushing people off their land. We need to shift our paradigm of war and look at how it affects women’s lives.
War Redefined, the 5th and final installment in Women, War & Peace (WWP), is the capstone of the groundbreaking series featuring politicians, military personnel, scholars and activists discussing how women play a vital role in war and peace-keeping. Narrated by actor Geena Davis, a phenomenal women’s media activist, written and produced by Peter Bull, co-produced by Nina Chaudry, this powerful film threads stories told in the other parts of the series: Bosnian women surviving rape camps, Liberian women protesting for peace, Afghan women demanding their rights in negotiations and Afro-Colombian women contending with internal displacement. War Redefined, and the entire WWP series, challenges the assumption that war and peace belong to men’s domain.
Zainab Salbi, Founder of Women for Women International, said: 

“If you look at the front line discussion of wars, and this is what newspapers report on – the fighting tactics, the troops, the politics, the borders, the weapons, the armies, all of these things – that is a men’s story. The back line discussion of the story is how you actually exist and live and continue on living in war. That’s a women’s story. And that story has never been told.”

Well, I think we’re long overdue for women’s stories to be told.
PROLIFERATION OF SMALL ARMS AND LIGHT WEAPONS
More than 30 armed conflicts, insurgencies and wars are fought each year. Each year?! In past wars, strategic bombing from high altitudes killed thousands. Now, except for the U.S. invasion of Iraq, “wars are smaller in scale and more intimate.” Civilians are no longer separate from battle. Often they’re targeted. In discussing war, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton asserted:

“I think it’s way past time that we redefine what we mean by war because there are no front lines in the wars in today’s world…The primary victims in today’s wars are women and children.”

With “no international treaty regulating the global transfer of small weapons,” war has become simpler and more cost-efficient. Arms dealers supply warlords and guerillas with cheap weapons. It’s extremely difficult to control the distribution of small arms. Rachel Stohl discussed the staggering number of weapons produced:

“875 million small arms and light weapons in circulation today. About 650 million are in the hands of civilians. About 8 million weapons are produced newly every single year. About 10-14 million rounds of ammunition are produced every year. That’s enough weapons to arm 1 in every 8 people and enough ammunition to shoot everyone in the world twice. 

Wait, enough ammo to shoot everyone twice?! That’s mindboggling. 
Women are attacked in refugee camps and their homes. They face rape and sexual assault. Even when women aren’t the combatants, Stohl says “they’re often the victims of these weapons,” left to contend with the aftermath.
HUMAN SECURITY
Security intertwines with war, taking into account personal safety. Human security, as Professor Kaldor explains, is an alternative to national security. It puts the focus on protecting individuals and communities, not states and borders. 
In Afghanistan, women’s rights activist Shahida Hussein said she felt safer during the oppressive regime of the Taliban. Safer DURING the Taliban?! Women were able to go to the market and restaurants. But after the U.S. invaded, along with the proliferation of weapons and “atmosphere of potential violence,” it’s no longer safe, imprisoning women in their homes.
One way to protect women’s security is to engage them. Sgt. Abby Blaisdell leads a Female Engagement Team (FET) in Afghanistan. In many areas, unless they’re related, “women are forbidden from interacting with men.” The soldiers talk with women about their needs, including healthcare and education, “to improve their quality of life.”
Security goes beyond weapons. It includes many basic amenities we take for granted. Professor (and feminist!) Cynthia Enloe questioned:

“When you start thinking about women and war, you really change your idea about what security is. Security becomes, is there water out of the tap? Or, is the well polluted? You begin thinking about electricity or what happens to women’s security when electricity fails. How do they make a living in the middle of war?”

INTERNAL DISPLACEMENT
But how can you begin to think about human security when people are uprooted from their homes? Reaching “epidemic proportions,” the number of people internally displaced by violence conflicts “has increased more than 65% since the Cold War ended.”
In Colombia, guerillas and paramilitaries terrorize Afro-Colombian citizens, trying to drive them from their homes to control the gold-rich land. In 2002, guerillas launched a gas attack against paramilitaries near the village of Bojidar. A bomb landed in a church, killing 119 villagers, mostly women and children. After fleeing the massacre, the survivors joined the other 4 million internally displaced in Colombia, “one of the worst and least reported humanitarian crises in the world.”
Displacement isn’t temporary, usually lasting 5 years or more. Nobel Peace Prize-winning activist Leymah Gbowee was a refugee during Liberia’s civil war:

“Refugee life, displaced life, is one of the most undignified ways of life. It’s horrible. You don’t have a comfortable bed. You don’t have a comfortable place to sleep. Sometimes medical aid is non-existent. You rarely find food to eat. You become frozen in that moment when you left. So wherever you find yourself, your whole mind about your community is about when you left.”

When people are refugees in their own country, when should other nations respect a nation’s sovereignty and when should they intervene?
RAPE AS A WEAPON OF WAR
One of the most horrifying aspects of war is the pervasiveness of rape.
Major General Patrick Cammaert “shocked the U.N with his first-hand testimony” on the rise of rape as a weapon of war:

“It has probably become more dangerous to be a woman than a soldier in an armed conflict.”

Wait, WHAT?! It’s shocking that one’s gender alone could endanger them more than a soldier.
When faced with rape and sexual assault against women and girls, Major General Cammaert said he wasn’t “prepared for that kind of violence.” Used to uproot and humiliate women, he discussed rape’s ramifications on society:

“Any armed group that is using rape as a weapon and a tactic of war is destroying the community. The women are booted out of the community. Husbands are divorcing their wives. They are mentally broken and therefore it is such an effective weapon. You demoralize, you humiliate those people and destroy the fabric of society.”

It took the international community awhile to realize rape during war had become systematic, rather than isolated incidents. But rape as a weapon of war has been used for decades. 
Russian soldiers raped 900,000 German women in WWII. When Bangladesh split from Pakistan in 1971, Pakistani soldiers tortured and raped 200,000-400,000 Banglasdeshi women. Ethnic cleansing by Serbs caused an estimated 20,000 Bosnian Muslims to flee their homes. War crimes investigator Fadila Memisevic recorded first-hand accounts of their brutal attacks, compiling a list of over 1300 suspected rapists. Soldiers rounded women up in rape camps and raped 20,000-50,000 Bosnian women. During the 1994 Genocide in Rwanda, Hutu forces murdered 1 million ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus. It emerged later that “atrocities included the rape of as many as half a million Tutsi women and girls.”
In groundbreaking war crimes tribunals established for Bosnia and Rwanda, for the first time, rape was charged and convicted as “a crime against humanity.” Memisevic’s files were crucial evidence in getting rape recognized as a war crime. “Female prosecutors and justices were instrumental in pushing for and handing down convictions.” 
But the passage of laws doesn’t automatically alter behavior. In the eastern Congo, rebel groups battle to control diamond and gold mines. With “nearly 2 million women and children raped…at a rate of nearly 1 every minute,” the DRC has been called “the rape capital” of the world.
WOMEN IN NEGOTIATIONS
Despite atrocities affecting women, they are often shut out of the peace process. Around the world, women’s organizations challenge the notion that “that only those who are the key actors in war should be the key actors in peace.” 
In 2000, pressured by female activists, the U.N. Security Council adopted resolution 1325, which mandates women’s inclusion in all post-conflict negotiations and reconstructions. Despite this historic step, women still comprise less than 10% of those involved in “formal peace negotiations.” Secretary Clinton is helping to change that. In Afghanistan, she valiantly advocates women must be included in the peace process.
Sometimes women take matters into their own hands. The women of Liberia, led by Leymah Gbowee, joined together and peacefully protested, helping end the civil war ravaging their country. Their protests led to the ousting of warlord Charles Taylor. In 2005, Liberia elected Africa’s first female president, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. Under her leadership, Liberia has experienced the longest period of peace and prosperity. 
Earlier this year in Cote d’Ivoire, women in the city of Abidjan protested peacefully against President Gbagbo, who refused to relinquish power. Soldiers loyal to him opened fire, killing 7 women. Gbowee organized a 1,000 Women March in solidarity with the women of Cote d’Ivoire. They came together in unity. Gbowee said:

“You can’t sit and say this is one country’s issue when you are a woman and all of the wars in our region now our fought on the bodies of women. These are things that have really made it important for us as West African women to rise up and speak.”

Madeline Albright discussed the need for reconciliation and respect, of women and each other’s differences. Secretary Clinton mentioned the rise of social media in bringing visibility to social issues and fueling activism:
“Women themselves have to empower themselves, it has to come from within. And it has in so many different settings. It’s not only because it’s the right thing to have women’s voices, minority voices, etc., in the room. It’s no longer going to be possible to keep them out of the process.”
While it can certainly be watched alone, War Redefined provides an arc connecting all of the individual stories in the WWP series. A testament to compelling storytelling, I kept yearning for more, particularly coverage of women’s role in the Arab Spring. This powerful film provides an eye-opening global overview of the atrocities and obstacles women must overcome in war. 
The film left me with so many questions. How can people commit such atrocities to women? How can I stop rape or end displacement or help raise women’s voices in negotiations? How can we each make a difference?
Women are often forgotten in war. Their voices must be heard. It’s vital we include a gender lens when discussing conflict. In the film, a West African woman protesting said: 

“One African woman cries, we cry all over…We are all speaking with one voice.” 

I think it’s time we women united globally and started speaking with one voice.
Watch the full episode of War Redefined online or on PBS.

Megan Kearns is a feminist vegan blogger, freelance writer and activist. She blogs at The Opinioness of the World, where she shares her opinions on gender equality, living cruelty-free, Ellen Ripley and delish vegan cupcakes. Her work has also appeared at Arts & Opinion, Fem2pt0, Italianieuropei, Open Letters Monthly, and A Safe World for Women. She earned a B.A. in Anthropology and Sociology and a Graduate Certificate in Women and Politics and Public Policy. Megan lives in Boston with more books than she will probably ever read in her lifetime. She is a Monthly Guest Contributor to Bitch Flicks.

Afro-Colombian Female Leaders Defy Death Threats to Hold Onto Their Land in ‘Women, War & Peace’s ‘The War We Are Living’

This review by Megan Kearns previously appeared at her blog The Opinioness of the World.

Imagine you walk into your home. An eviction notice awaits you. The government demands you relocate in order to dig up your land. If you choose not to leave, you receive death threats. This is the reality many Colombian civilians face. While a notorious drug war has been waged, another war ravages the South American country’s land and its people. I had never known about this struggle.

In The War We Are Living, Part 4 of Women, War and Peace (WWP), Colombian women grapple with displacement as their country is torn apart. Co-written by Oriana Zill de Granados and Pamela Hogan, WWP co-founder and executive producer, the chilling yet inspiring documentary is narrated by actor Alfre Woodard. Fueled by greed and a gold rush, guerillas and paramilitaries destroy homes and ravage bio-diverse lands. The government remains silent, failing to protect its citizens. Amidst this chaos, two female community leaders and activists, Clemencia Carabali and Francia Marquez Minas, admirably fight to hold onto their homes and save their land.

Beginning as a class struggle between the rich and poor, civil war erupted in Colombia. 40 years ago, armed guerillas fought for the poor, seizing land and attacking the government. Wealthy landowners created private militias, or paramilitaries, to protect them. Both the guerillas and paramilitaries funded their war through cocaine trafficking. “By the 90s, the guerillas and paramilitaries had turned Colombia into the most violent country in the Americas. Civilians were caught in the crossfire.”

After Alvaro Uribe was elected president, he “doubled the military,” “cracked down” on guerillas and forced “30,000 paramilitaries to turn in their guns.” Colombia pushed tourism to change the country’s notoriously dangerous image and garner income. “But today, there are two Colombias.” Claiming the paramilitaries demobilized, President Uribe declared the war over. And for wealthy urban residents, it was. But for the Afro-Colombian and Indigenous communities living in the rural Cauca Department, or municipality, the war rages on.
One of the most bio-diverse regions on the planet, Cauca’s land yields vast deposits of gold. Multinationals and paramilitaries force civilians off the land to excavate natural resources. Cauca is also home to over a quarter of a million Afro-Colombians. The land’s lucrative diversity has endangered the Afro-Colombian population. Civilians have faced massacres, kidnapping and continually receive death threats.
Human rights activist Clemencia Carabali has been forced to move 5 times due to displacement by armed paramilitaries. She belongs to the Municipal Association of Women (ASOM), a network of women’s groups. Carabali, who “wonders how she’s not dead,” found that “in war time, women could organize more freely than men:”

“In my zone there is a network of African women…When the paramilitaries take control of the territory, men are killed, accused of being guerillas so women develop a key role because they’re able to move around.”

Activist and community leader Francia Marquez Minas, also works closely with ASOM. She lives in La Toma, a mountain community of Afro-Colombians in Cauca who rely on mining to survive. But investors want to open large-scale industrial operations to extract the gold from La Toma, destroying the residents’ subsistence.

Marquez serves as Vice-President of La Toma’s community council, spearheading the fight to protect their land. Raising two sons, Marquez works in the mines part-time to put herself through college, not only to educate herself but to empower her community:

“So I told myself I have to study law because that gives you the tools to teach your community how to demand their rights.”

Carabali, Marquez and other community leaders organize to protest eviction. Colombian law states that permits to mine gold on Afro-Colombians’ land “requires consultation with their community councils.” But with a government plagued by corruption, numerous illegal permits exist. Hector Sarria, who received a license from the Institute of Geology and Mining (Ingeominas) 10 years ago to excavate La Toma’s gold, never met with La Toma’s council. But he claims his license states no Afro-Colombians live in La Toma. In March 2010, the court granted Sarria’s eviction request. Eviction would “uproot” 1300 families.
How can the government pretend no Afro-Colombians live in La Toma? How can they erase an entire ethnic community?? Carabali said:

“Colombia is one of the countries with the best laws to protect Afro-Colombians. Nevertheless those rights exist only on paper.”

Over the course of the last two decades, at least 16 million acres of land have been violently taken from Colombians. In the last 8 years, over 2 million have been displaced. Colombia has the second largest number of internally displaced people in the world after Sudan. With no jobs and contaminated water, displacement traumatizes civilians and rips families apart. Under international law, internally displaced citizens don’t receive the same protections that refugees do. Their government is supposed to address their rights. But in this case, how are Colombians supposed to obtain justice when their own government condemns them?

Afro-Colombians make up one quarter of Colombia’s population. In May 2010, coinciding with Afro-Colombian Day, which commemorates the end of slavery in Colombia, Sarria’s eviction was set to commence. People took to the streets, barricading the road to halt the eviction. Marquez said:

“The 21st is when we celebrate Afro-Colombianism in this country. The gift the government was giving us was a threat of eviction for our community. The message that is being relayed is that in this country the black communities don’t matter.”

In a meeting between community leaders and the Ministry of Mines, who issued Sarria his license, Marquez boldly declared:

“You cannot ignore us just because the government thinks more about the riches that can be extracted from this country, than it thinks about the lives of the people in this country…The community of La Toma will have to be dragged out dead. Otherwise we are not going to leave!”

In June 2010, the eviction was put on hold for political elections. Corruption plagues Colombia’s government. Former paramilitaries revealed ties to President Uribe and the Alto Naya Massacre (a 2001 killing spree in Cauca where paramilitaries dismembered and decapitated civilians with chainsaws and 4,000 survivors fled in terror). “1/3 of Congress was either in jail or under investigation for their links to the death squads.” Carabali insists that paramilitaries forced people to vote for Uribe, threatening them with death. Worried the rest of the world doesn’t know the truth, Carabali said:

“I get chills hearing all the positive things that are said about President Uribe. And I get chills because people don’t know all the damage he did especially to indigenous communities and black communities.”

The U.S. has given over $7 billion of assistance to Colombia. In order to continue receiving aid, Colombia must meet certain requirements, including military protection of the Afro-Colombian population. If human rights violations occur, foreign aid is supposed to stop. But the U.S. continues to provide funding, despite Colombia’s numerous human rights atrocities.

In September 2010, for the first time ever, the State Department, in its human rights report to Congress, highlighted La Toma’s land dispute in order to monitor the situation. It’s a step but the battle is far from over. Talking about the war she faces, Marquez said:

“The never-ending conflict in this community helps us remember what is important in life. My grandparents always say a soul without land is navigating without destination…I start thinking – and I believe the whole world needs to start thinking – what do we want for the future? Because if we continue this way, humanity will come to an end. “

Most documentaries tell stories in the past. But events in The War We Are Living continue to unfold. The story isn’t over. Sadly, the La Toma case isn’t isolated. Other communities face eviction and death threats from paramilitaries. While President Santos recently signed a bill into law that would “return 5 million acres to landless peasants,” he believes paramilitaries don’t pose a real threat. But Carabali and Marquez still fear for their lives.

Echoing concerns of Occupy Wall Street protests about the elite 1% controlling resources, Colombia contends with massive class inequality and a war fueled by greed. Afro-Colombians and Indigenous Colombians confront discrimination and concentric layers of oppression including racism and classism. Facing death threats to themselves and their families, female leaders like Clemencia and Francia bravely negotiate for peace and demand justice. They refuse to be intimidated. They refuse to leave their land. They refuse to be silenced.

Watch the full episode of The War We Are Living online or on PBS.

—–
Megan Kearns is a blogger, freelance writer and activist. She blogs at The Opinioness of the World, a feminist vegan site. Her work has also appeared at Arts & Opinion, Fem2pt0, Italianieuropei, Open Letters Monthly, and A Safe World for Women. She earned her B.A. in Anthropology and Sociology and a Graduate Certificate in Women and Politics and Public Policy. Megan lives in Boston with more books than she will probably ever read in her lifetime.

Megan contributed reviews of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest, Something Borrowed, !Women Art Revolution, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, The Kids Are All Right (for our 2011 Best Picture Nominee Review Series), The Reader (for our 2009 Best Picture Nominee Review Series), Man Men (for our Mad Men Week), Game of Thrones and The Killing (for our Emmy Week 2011), Alien/Aliens (for our Women in Horror Week 2011), and I Came to Testify, Pray the Devil Back to Hell and Peace Unveiled in the Women, War & Peace series. She was the first writer featured as a Monthly Guest Contributor.

Sunday Recap

Afghan Women Fight to Not Have Their Rights Bargained Away in ‘Peace Unveiled’ in ‘Women, War & Peace’ Series: In the documentary Peace Unveiled, the third installment of Women, War & Peace, written by Abigail E. Disney and directed by Gini Reticker (and WWP series co-creators), we witness 3 tenacious female activists, Parliamentarian Shinkai Karokhail, Hasina Safi and Shahida Hussein, struggling for their voices to be heard in Afghanistan’s treacherous peace negotiations. Following the 2010 surge of U.S. troops, the Afghan government arranged peace negotiations with the toppled Taliban. The women valiantly fight to protect their gains and not have their rights bargained away.
On Entertainment Weekly’s “42 Unforgettable Nude Scenes”: This speaks to the cultural desirability (and also the perceived comedic potential*) of bodies belonging to people of color. Although people of color are often objectified and exoticized for consumption, none–or very few–of these incidents have been deemed “unforgettable” by the fine folks at EW. On one level, it’s good that we don’t see the vulgar objectification of people of color here, in a piece that is essentially based on objectification (or, EW might argue, celebrating memorable nude scenes), but it also peculiar and disturbing that the list is so damn white.
Profiling Gender: Punishing the Professional for the Personal on ‘Criminal Minds’: Employing embedded feminism and enlightened sexism, Criminal Minds uses familiar tropes to reinforce the idea that women can either be professionals or mothers, but never both. As a prime-time drama based almost entirely in the workplace, how women are treated on the show becomes an important representation, and subtle reinforcement, of the double binds still faced by working women. Criminal Minds, and prime-time shows like it, reinforce double binds because they reach a wide audience, and are typically employed in conjunction with what Susan J. Douglas termed embedded feminism, which is “the way in which women’s achievements, or their desire for achievement, are simply a part of the cultural landscape.” The cultural landscape of the Criminal Minds universe is that women FBI agents are valued, trusted, and competent members of the team. Their abilities and equality within the institution are uncontested; therefore, the workplace goals of the women’s movement have been accomplished, and no longer require representation.
Preview: The Iron Lady: It’s also interesting to think about the film in the context of women in politics–again, I’m thinking primarily of the US–and what it takes for a woman to be successful. At the beginning of the trailer we see an emphasis on her appearance and her voice (which reminds me of The King’s Speech, last year’s Best Picture Oscar winner–the similarity is likely no accident), and the importance of maintaining an image of leadership and power. Our culture is obsessed with image, and we see how closely scrutinized female politicians are–from Hillary Clinton’s pantsuits and alleged cleavage when she was running for president in 2008, to Michele Bachmann’s french manicure and shoe choices this year, the media tears down Women who Want to Lead.
Guest Writer Wednesday: Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan: Viewers’ and Critics’ Miss-steps in a Dance with a Female Protagonist: Many feminist film reviewers also lambasted the misogyny of the ballet’s artistic director, Thomas (played by Vincent Cassel), even though his character’s inherent sexism (referring to his principle dancer as his “Little Princess,” for example) is essential to the themes of repression and being able to break free from said repression. Jill Dolan, at The Feminist Spectator, says that “As her [Nina’s] relationship with Thomas gets more and more entwined, she begins to suffer from a kind of Stockholm Syndrome, idealizing and even identifying with Thomas and his mercurial cruelty.” This is begging the question that Nina is the victim–would we ever assume a grown man in a similar role was the victim? Perhaps we’d glance at the notion, but never give him the simple, passive role of “victim.” Relegating Nina to the role of the victim belittles and negates the larger focus of the film.
Movie Review: Martha Marcy May Marlene: And still, in both of these environments, bonds between women flourish. Martha and Lucy have their differences, but it is clear that they both want to have a relationship again, and they are determined to do whatever they can to make that possible, even while Ted makes Martha feel threatened and unwelcome. Meanwhile, Zoe takes Marcy May under her wing and eases her into the community; this relationship is mirrored later in the film, when Sarah joins the cult and Marcy May transitions from initiated to initiator. Despite the traumas witnessed and experienced by these women, their relationships stay strong. They share support, laughter and strength in the face of abuse, time and time again. Complex relationships between women aren’t commonplace in film these days, so Martha Marcy May Marlene is a refreshing change of pace in this regard.

Afghan Women Fight to Not Have Their Rights Bargained Away in ‘Peace Unveiled’ in ‘Women, War & Peace’ Series

This is a guest post by Megan Kearns. She also contributed reviews of Part 1 and Part 2 of Women, War & Peace.

For the past year, revolutions swept across North Africa and the Middle East. Despite their vocal presence, the media didn’t initially display women’s involvement in the protests. The same could be said in Afghanistan. It appeared the strides women made might be lost as women were shut out of the peace process. But just as they did in the Arab Spring, women strive to play a vital role in the reconstruction of Afghanistan.
In the documentary Peace Unveiled, the third installment of Women, War & Peace, written by Abigail E. Disney and directed by Gini Reticker (and WWP series co-creators), we witness 3 tenacious female activists, Parliamentarian Shinkai Karokhail, Hasina Safi and Shahida Hussein, struggling for their voices to be heard in Afghanistan’s treacherous peace negotiations. Following the 2010 surge of U.S. troops, the Afghan government arranged peace negotiations with the toppled Taliban. The women valiantly fight to protect their gains and not have their rights bargained away.
Hasina Safi, one of the 3,000 members of the Afghan Women’s Network (AWN), a non-partisan NGO working to empower women, visits villages to monitor the programs she coordinates for illiterate women. Classes for women could not be held openly with the Taliban in power. Almost 90% of Afghan women cannot read or write. Through classes, many women are just learning Islam encourages women’s education.
But working women like Safi risk their lives. They receive death threats via horrific letters in the night, telling them they must stop working or else their children will be killed and their homes burned. Safi admits:

When I go out of the house in the morning, I say goodbye to my children and my family because I say that I never know if I’m coming alive back home or not.

 

While women have made massive strides in Afghanistan, a peace deal between the Afghan government and the Taliban, supported by President Karzai, “threatens to trade away their hard-earned freedoms.”
Shinkai Karokhail, a founding member of the Afghan Women Educational Center (AWEC), a non-profit seeking gender equality and ending violence against women and children, was elected to parliament in 2005. Karokhail doesn’t want to see women’s rights erode. She warns:

I am hopeful that my sisters understand the importance of this process…I hope that the Afghan government and, especially, the president, whom women helped elect, do not make a deal that leads Afghan women into miserable lives again.

Women’s lives have drastically improved since the toppling of the Taliban in 2001. In 2004, Afghanistan’s new constitution guaranteed greater equity for women, including the right to vote and 25% of parliamentary seats. Now, women work, girls attend school, have increased healthcare access and can choose not to wear the burqa. Sadly, that doesn’t mean women are empowered everywhere throughout the country.

 

In heavily-populated Kandahar, “the birthplace of the Taliban,” the city is plagued with administrative corruption and armed men terrorizing citizens. “Prominent working women are being assassinated. No one knows who’s doing the killing.” Women must wear the burqa to go into the streets. It’s amazing to think that a new constitution protects women’s rights, yet means nothing here.
Shahida Hussein, a women’s rights activist in Kandahar, stands as a beacon of hope amongst the tumult. Women turn to her with their legal and property problems. Hussein serves as a mediator between them and the courts. Yet she worries:

Women go out with great fear & trepidation. Will there be a suicide attack? Will American tanks or NATO forces fire on people?

Despite the supposed protection of U.S. troops, women aren’t safe here. In fact, Afghanistan remains one of the most dangerous countries in the world for women. An anonymous woman wearing a burqa tells Hussein:

When I go out I’m terrified. We are powerless. What kind of government is this? Neither the Americans nor the government rule here. The Americans are on one street and the Taliban on another. They can see each other!

After the end of the Soviet occupation in 1988, civil war erupted in Afghanistan. The U.S. supplied arms to the Mujahideen (guerilla fighters), fueling the turmoil that ripped the country apart. Homes were destroyed, people raped, burned and massacred. The Taliban emerged from this chaos, coming to power in 1996. Karokhail said:

During the time of the Taliban, women endured the worst era. They were imprisoned in their homes, every form of activity in their lives was taken away.

For 5 years, the Taliban ruthlessly oppressed women. They were forced to wear the burqa; if women showed even a hand, they were beaten. “Banned from public life,” they weren’t allowed to work and couldn’t go to a doctor without a male relative, even if in mortal danger. Those years “haunt women who are trying to modernize their country.”
Women strive to be heard; worried the Taliban’s demands will undermine their rights. Yet President Karzai and the government continually shut them out of peace negotiations. No Afghan women were invited to the London Conference for the Afghan peace talks. Male politicians tell the women they must now “surrender their rights” in order to achieve peace with the Taliban. Instead, the women don’t listen, choosing to mobilize so they can be included in Karzai’s peace jirga, or council.
President Karzai promised women only 50 out of 1600 seats at the jirga. But Secretary of State Hillary Clinton pressures Karzai to secure women 20% of the delegate seats. Safi, Hussein and Karokhail all attend to advocate for women’s rights.
On June 2, 2010, the day of the peace jirga, the women take part in the first public debate amongst Afghan citizens to help end the war. Despite attacks from the Taliban, the jirga continues. Karokhail knows the symbolical significance of women’s attendance in negotiations. She asserts:

It was the first time that Afghan women came together with Afghan men and discuss peace. Maybe it was even very symbolical but it was like breaking something, like break the culture and impose the presence of women.

 

Amidst peace negotiations, a Parliamentary election looms. Karokhail was the only woman running for Parliament in Kabul. Unsure she should even enter politics, thinking she couldn’t accomplish much, Karokhail’s friends convinced her that this “is the most important time” to run. Facing campaign fraud and candidates assassinated, Karokhail bravely persists in her re-election campaign. She knows that in order to win, she needs the respect of the men. Karokhail declares:

Most of these men also make decisions for their wives to whom they should vote. You have to convince them to support women.

But as research in India has shown, once you get women into political office, both men and women are more likely to support more women serving in office. It’s vital to have more elected officials like Karokhail, staunch advocates for women’s rights.
When another peace conference is held in Kabul with over 70 nations in attendance, Safi and AWN representatives meet with Ambassador Karl Eikenberry to garner women a seat. As a result of their meeting, a women’s representative will have 3 minutes to address the conference with their concerns.
Secretary Clinton addresses the Kabul Conference, insisting on the importance of including women in Afghanistan’s peace process. She asserts:

The women in Afghanistan are rightly worried that in the very legitimate search for peace, their rights will be sacrificed…None of us can allow that to happen. No peace that sacrifices women’s rights is a peace we can afford to support.

Palwasha Hassan, an AWN Representative and Karokhail’s sister, spoke as a representative for the women. She insists that “for peace to take hold, everyone in society must be protected.” Hassan became “the first woman ever to address the world from an Afghan stage.” She passionately declares:

Critically, women’s rights & achievements must not be compromised in any peace negotiations or accords…Women’s experiences of both war and peace-building must be recognized in the peace process.

But her words go unheard. When the conference concludes, no one “stipulates that women must take part in reshaping the nation.” Disappointed and disheartened at the lack of support for women, Hussein laments:

Girls in Kandahar have had acid thrown in their faces. Girls have been assassinated. They have been kept at home by their fathers. Schools are being burned. In the rural districts, there are no schools at all.

…What astonishes me, what my final issue is that the world community came, saying, “We will work for the people of Afghanistan, especially for the women.” It’s worse than being a dead person in Kandahar. We don’t have a life anymore.

Following the Kabul Conference, President Karzai forms a Peace Council to reconcile with the Taliban. Secretary Clinton sends U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women’s Issues Melanne Verveer to ensure women participate in negotiations. Ambassador Verveer worries Karzai doesn’t want to include women in negotiations. But she hopes to secure women at least one-third of the seats on the peace council.
When President Karzai finally announces the Peace Council representatives, the government shuts women out again. Equality remains elusive.
Despite barriers and set-backs, Safi remains resilient. She asserts:

I don’t want to go back. I want to make it easy for my daughters. We will struggle; we will struggle till our last breath. We cannot do anything alone. We are a part of the world. We have to be identified to the world. The world has to support us in this.

Women provide a unique perspective when included in the decision-making process. Yet across the globe, with gender parity in politics a rarity, women are continually relegated to the sidelines of most peace negotiations. Until women and men can participate equally, their rights protected, no peace can exist. Governments must learn that if they ever hope to attain lasting peace, they need to start listening to the voices of their entire population.
Afghan women face an uncertain future as they fight to hold onto their rights. After 9/11, I remember the rallying cries of U.S. politicians claiming we liberated the women of Afghanistan from the Taliban’s totalitarian regime. But all of the women’s freedoms they’ve garnered for themselves threaten to be taken away. The international community must ensure that never happens.
Watch the full episode of Peace Unveiled online or on PBS.
—–

Megan Kearns is a blogger, freelance writer and activist. She blogs at The Opinioness of the World, a feminist vegan site. Her work has also appeared at Arts & Opinion, Fem2pt0, Italianieuropei, Open Letters Monthly, and A Safe World for Women. She earned her B.A. in Anthropology and Sociology and a Graduate Certificate in Women and Politics and Public Policy. Megan lives in Boston with more books than she will probably ever read in her lifetime.

Megan contributed reviews of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest, Something Borrowed, !Women Art Revolution, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, The Kids Are All Right (for 2011 Best Picture Nominee Review Series), The Reader (for 2009 Best Picture Nominee Review Series), Man Men (for Mad Men Week), Game of Thrones and The Killing (for Emmy Week 2011), Alien/Aliens (for Women in Horror Week 2011), and I Came to Testify in the  Women, War & Peace series. She was the first writer featured as a Monthly Guest Contributor. 

 

Sunday Recap

Bitch Flicks’ Weekly Picks: pieces from Racialicious, The Crunk Feminist Collective, About-Face, Pandagon, etc.

‘Pray the Devil Back to Hell’ Portrays How the Women of Liberia, United in Peace, Changed a Nation: As the war progressed, the women wanted to take more drastic measures. Inspired by their faith, the women donned white garb to declare to people they stood for peace. Thousands of women protested at the fish market each and every day, a strategic location visible to Taylor. Carrying a huge banner stating, “The women of Liberia want peace now.” It was the first time in Liberia’s history where Christian & Muslim women came together.

Why Should Men Care? An Interview with Matt Damon: “Why I wanted to do Women, War & Peace was because I thought it said something really important about the nature of war and the nature of the experience of women. And—as a guy who’s raising four girls—that matters to me. It matters to me anyway, but that makes it matter to me more.” — Matt Damon

Guest Writer Wednesday: A Review in Conversation of Twin Peaks: We have both admitted to fondness for the more fringe female characters like the Log Lady, Nadine, and Lucy, but they, and all the other women, really only exist according to their relationships with men.

Guest Writer Wednesday: Why Watch Romantic Comedies?: The romantic comedy genre gets a lot of flak. It’s considered a genre that’s more “shallow” than drama, but not funny enough to be a “real” comedy. Is it any coincidence that the romantic comedy is one of the few film genres, and possibly the only film genre, that regularly features women?

Why Facebook’s “Occupy a Vagina” Event Is Not Okay [TW for discussions of rape and sexual assault]: It’s important to note that even the language–occupy a vagina–divorces women from their own bodies. It’s a form of dismemberment, and I’ll say it again: we live in a rape culture, a culture that reduces women to body parts, whether it’s to sell a product, to promote a film, or for nothing more than reinforcing (and getting off on) patriarchal power. When we use language that prevents us from seeing a person as a whole human being, language that encourages us to view women in particular as a collection of body parts designed for male pleasure (e.g. occupy a vagina), then she exists as nothing more than an object, a fuck-toy, sexually available by default. It might not have been the intent of the event creator to participate in women’s subjugation, but it’s certainly the fucking reality.

Swiffer Reminds Us That Women Are Dirt: It’s remarkable how different the portrayals of the dirt people are: the men-as-dirt ads show a Crocodile Dundee-esque character (also stereotypical) and two buddies lamenting the state of their romantic lives, while the women-as-dirt ads always show a lonely, solitary woman desperate for the kind of attention provided by this wonder mop.

Some Scattered Thoughts on Detective Shows and Geniuses: I’m at a bit of a disadvantage in discussing Medium because I’m only familiar with the first season. Perhaps things get better for Allison in later seasons. Perhaps the men in her life stop expressing so much condescension and distrust toward her and endow her with some Lightman- and/or Monk-esque respect. Perhaps she no longer feels compelled to apologize for her own idiosyncratic crime-solving abilities and develops Lightman’s uber-masculine arrogance about it. (But don’t take that confidence too far, Allison—no one wants to work with a bitch.) At the very least, in the first season of Medium, I sort of love her husband. I mean when is a male rocket scientist ever the sidekick, hmmm?

‘Pray the Devil Back to Hell’ Portrays How the Women of Liberia, United in Peace, Changed a Nation

 

Written by Megan Kearns.

Men often dominate the debate of war, negotiation and even peace. Only one woman had ever won the Nobel Peace Prize. Until now. Last month, three women won the prize, including Leymah Gbowee and President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf (along with Tawakkul Karman in Yemen) who fought for women’s rights and helped achieve peace in war-torn Liberia.

We often think we can’t make a difference in the world. We’re just one person. How can anything we do matter? But the activism of the women of Liberia should inspire us all to realize that we can impact change.

In the 2nd installment of the Women, War & Peace series, director Gini Reticker and producer Abigail E. Disney, and WWP series executive producers and co-creators, create a Tribeca Film Festival-winning documentary. Pray the Devil Back to Hell tells the powerful and uplifting story of the Liberian women, including activist and social worker Leymah Gbowee, who joined together and peacefully protested, helping end the civil war ravaging their country.

For almost 15 years, beginning on Christmas Eve in 1989, two civil wars plagued Liberia. Warlord and former president Charles Taylor resided at the center of both. He overthrew the regime during the first civil war and committed war crimes and human rights atrocities while president during the second civil war. Taylor recruited soldiers as young as 9-15 years old. With his private army, the dictator controlled the finances and terrorized the country.

“Life was bad. People…couldn’t even afford a cup of rice.”

Everyone in Liberia lived in a perpetual state of fear. Gbowee told how she trekked to her parents’ house, walking for 7 hours, while 5 months pregnant with her two young children. Her 3-year-old lamenting that he just wanted a piece of donut to eat. She said:

“Liberia had been at war so long that my children had been hungry and afraid their entire lives.”

Many pundits and journalists claimed ethnic conflicts spurred the civil war. But Gbowee elaborates:

“Some say war was about the gap between rich and poor. Some also say it was about the hatred between the different ethnic groups. Others say the war was to control natural resources. Power, money, ethnicity, greed…but there is nothing in my mind that should make people do what they did to the children of Liberia.”

Gbowee shares the inception for her radically simple idea for peace:

“I had a dream and it was like a crazy dream. Like someone was actually telling me to get the women of the church together and pray for peace.”

She rallied women from the surrounding Christian churches. Comprised of “ordinary mothers, grandmothers, aunts, sisters,” Gbowee and other women started the Christian Women’s Peace Initiative.

Asatu Bah Kenneth, Assistant Director of the Liberian National Police, attended a meeting of the Initiative, the only Muslim woman in the church. Inspired by their work, she reached out to other Muslim women, encouraging them to get involved. Kenneth formed the Liberian Muslim Women’s Organization to work towards peace. Kenneth said:

“When I sold the idea to them, they were more than excited.”

Initially divided by faith, the Christian and Muslim women soon came together. The two peace groups united to form the Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace. Vaiba Flomo shared:

“But the message we took on was: Can a bullet pick and choose? Does the bullet know Christian from Muslim?”

While the women were organizing, Taylor’s opponents prepared to go to war. The warlords wreaked havoc on the country, giving boys guns and intimidating civilians. Just as in Bosnia (and often happens in war), rape remained a constant threat for the women of Liberia. Journalist Janet Bryant-Johnson said:

“They can rape you in front of your children, they could rape you in front of your husband…And they just do anything because they had guns.”

People were forced to enter displacement camps. Not only did they live in “abject poverty,” people, especially children, died each day. The Liberian women went to the camps to see how people were faring. Their hope amidst tragedy inspired Gbowee:

“These women had seen the worst of the wars something that I had not seen but they still had that vibrancy for life. And just being able to help them, to sit and hold their hands, and to hug their kids and looking at people who had lost everything and still having hope, I think that was where I got baptized into the women’s movement.”

As the war progressed, the women wanted to take more drastic measures. Inspired by their faith, the women donned white garb to declare to people they stood for peace. Thousands of women protested at the fish market each and every day, a strategic location visible to Taylor. Carrying a huge banner stating, “The women of Liberia want peace now.” It was the first time in Liberia’s history where Christian & Muslim women came together.

While all of the women worked together, Gbowee’s indomitable will buoyed the women’s spirits. “Desperate for peace,” the women decided to engage in a sex strike from their husbands. As they protested, the women knew they had to be brave. Flomo declared:

“We were not afraid. My mother was like, “They will beat you people, and they will kill you.” And we said, “Well if I should get killed, just remember me, that I was fighting for peace.”

Kenneth became the women’s “spy,” keeping them abreast of developments. An international call for peace talks “emboldened the women.” Taylor initially refused to negotiate. But the women created a decree “demanding…not appealing” the Liberian government participate in the peace talks. Taylor finally decided to stop ignoring the women and meet with them, “the moment Gbowee had lived for.” The women marched to Taylor’s mansion to present their document. As they walked onward and chanted, groups of women joined them. When they reached Taylor’s mansion, Gbowee read their statement aloud:

“With this message that the women of Liberia…We are tired of war. We are tired of running. We are tired of begging for bulgur wheat. We are tired of our children being raped. We are now taking this stand to secure the future. Because we believe as custodians of society tomorrow our children will ask us, “Mama, what was your role during the crisis?”

Taylor succumbed to the women’s demands and attended the peace talks in Ghana. Some women traveled to Ghana to protest. Gbowee said:

“We are their conscience, sitting out here. We are calling to their conscience to do the right thing. And the right thing now is to give the Liberian women and their children the peace that they so desperately need.”

As violence erupted in Monrovia, Liberia, some of the women remained in Ghana at the peace talks. Despite missiles and stray bullets, the other Liberian women risked their lives, continuing to protest each day at the fish market, singing and praying.

After 6 weeks, peace talks went nowhere. For the warlords, sleeping in lush accommodations and removed from the fighting, it was “like they were on vacation.” Frustrated, the women sat in the hall where the peace talks were held. “Seizing the hall,” the women locked arms and wouldn’t leave until a peace agreement was signed. Gbowee, accused of obstructing justice, passionately declared to the media at the conference:

“What we’ve done here today is to send up a signal to the world that we the Liberian women in Ghana, we are fed up with the war. We are tired of fighting, the killing of our people. We can do it again if we want to. And next time, we’ll be more than a thousand…We can do it and we’ll do it again.”

Two weeks later, they finally reach an agreement, including Taylor’s exile to Nigeria and the implementation of a transitional government until democratic elections held. As the women returned home, they were met with hugs and children chanting, “We want peace, no more war.” They knew their work wasn’t over as “peace is a process; it’s not an event.”

The women believed they couldn’t achieve peace until they attained democracy. So they campaigned for presidential candidate Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. With the “Iron Lady’s” election, President Johnson Sirleaf (who has helped erase the national debt, built schools, improved roads and increased access to healthcare) became the first elected female president in Africa. She acknowledged the Liberian women’s brave accomplishment:

“It is the women who labored and advocated for peace throughout our region.”

Despite the horrific subject matter of war, the uplifting documentary exudes optimism. The women achieved something “unimaginable.” The beauty of the documentary lies in director Reticker showcasing the Liberian women. With no narrator, she lets their voices speak for themselves.

The Liberian women’s unity brought about peace. Community activist Etweda “Sugars” Cooper admits:

“If we had not had different women from different walks of life, banding together, we may not have been able to solve the problem.”

Gbowee believes the film Pray the Devil Back to Hell has lasting impact and can inspire women to realize their power and mobilize:

” … This documentary is like a landmark or something that tells other women, ‘People did it before we came, we’ve done it, and they can also do it,'” she said. “So it’s not a fluke. It can happen. People just need to rise up and rise above the politics that so deeply divide us as women.”

The women’s tenacity, resilience and unity will amaze and inspire you. Social injustices plague the world; the staggering number of problems can overwhelm. But one person can make a difference; a powerful reminder that we each matter. We need to put aside our differences to combat injustice and reclaim peace. One voice can inspire others, triggering disparate voices to harmoniously come together; a symphony of voices can change the world.

Watch the full episode of Pray the Devil Back to Hell online or on PBS.

Megan Kearns is a blogger, freelance writer and activist. She blogs at The Opinioness of the World, a feminist vegan site. Her work has also appeared at Arts & Opinion, Fem2pt0, Italianieuropei, Open Letters Monthly, and A Safe World for Women. She earned her B.A. in Anthropology and Sociology and a Graduate Certificate in Women and Politics and Public Policy. Megan lives in Boston with more books than she will probably ever read in her lifetime.

Megan contributed reviews of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest, Something Borrowed, !Women Art Revolution, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, The Kids Are All Right (for 2011 Best Picture Nominee Review Series), The Reader (for 2009 Best Picture Nominee Review Series), Man Men (for Mad Men Week), Game of Thrones and The Killing (for Emmy Week 2011), Alien/Aliens (for Women in Horror Week 2011), and I Came to Testify in the  Women, War & Peace series. She was the first writer featured as a Monthly Guest Contributor.

Why Should Men Care? An Interview With Matt Damon

Matt Damon narrating Women, War & Peace
At Bitch Flicks, we’re featuring reviews of the five-part PBS documentary Women, War & Peace—all by the fabulous Megan Kearns—the first of which we published on October 19th. (Megan’s review of Part Two will appear later today.) Matt Damon narrates the series, and he was interviewed about his participation, explaining why he wanted to be a part of the event and why men should care about how war impacts women, especially when rape is used as a weapon of war. I’m posting the video of the 4-minute interview, but it’s also linked to above (just in case).

 

“Why I wanted to do Women, War & Peace was because I thought it said something really important about the nature of war and the nature of the experience of women. And—as a guy who’s raising four girls—that matters to me. It matters to me anyway, but that makes it matter to me more.” — Matt Damon

In ‘Women, War & Peace’s ‘I Came to Testify’ Brave Bosnian Women Speak Out About Surviving Rape as a Weapon of War

 

This is a guest post from Megan Kearns. It originally appeared at The Opinioness of the World.

 

When we discuss war and security, we don’t often explore its ramifications on women. Rape and sexual assault are common threats women face globally. But of all the artillery and tactics soldiers use, we rarely think of rape as a weapon of war. And yet too often, it is.

 

On Tuesday night, I watched I Came to Testify, the first in the 5-part documentary series, Women, War and Peace, on PBS showcasing women’s role in war and its impact on women. Produced and written by Pamela Hogan, one of the series’ executive producers, I Came to Testify highlights the courageous women who testified about the rape camps during the Bosnian genocide.

 

The powerful film examines women’s horrific experiences in the town of Foca in Bosnia (formerly Yugoslavia), a site of one of the rape camps. Before the Bosnian War, journalist Refic Hodzic said that brotherhood and unity was the “ideology” in Yugoslavia; “no one cared who was Croat, who was Serb, who was Muslim.” But overnight, things changed. Many Serbs pulled their children out of school and fled town. The Bosnian Muslims were eventually dehumanized by Serbian soldiers, pitting neighbor against neighbor.

 

In Foca, soldiers rounded up the Bosnian men, women and children. Men “were beaten, starved and executed in concentration camps” while the women “were locked in hotels, schools, private homes & makeshift prisons around the city.” After they were gathered, the rapes began. Soldiers threatened women; to cut off their breasts, slit their throats and kill their daughters. Hundreds of women and girls were held captive in rape camps.

 

Established by the United Nations Security Council in 1993, the Yugoslav War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands was the first tribunal established in Europe since Nuremberg and the first ever convened during a war. 16 women agreed to travel to The Hague to share their nightmarish ordeal. As narrator Matt Damon (who wanted to be a part of the documentary because of his 4 daughters) said:

“Their testimonies would embody the experience of hundreds of women held captive in Foca.”

One of the witnesses, called Witness 99 to protect her anonymity, recounted how on the day they were rounded up, she was raped in front of her in-laws and then they were murdered in front of her. Witness 99 escaped to a refugee camp where the horror of rape continued. Another witness said she “cried and pleaded” for the soldiers to let her go “but they just laughed.” Another witness testified that one of the soldiers told another, “You have to learn how to rape Muslim women like we are doing.” The women said fear “paralyzed” them.

 

In Foca, half the residents, 20,000 Muslims were just gone. All 14 mosques were destroyed. Evidence in Foca showed that a campaign could be built to prove that a systematic, organized campaign of rape had been “used as an instrument of terror.” While the UN estimated 20,000 women raped in Bosnia, others say it was more like 50,000.

 

Peggy Kuo served as a trial attorney with the tribunal. She declared that “rape has always been an undercurrent of war.” When talking about war, the term “rape and pillage” frequently arises. But we don’t really think about what the words mean. Kuo said the soldiers raped the women, objectifying them and attempting “to strip them of their identity.” Journalist Hodzic explained:

“Rape was used not only for the immediate impact on women but for the long-term destruction on the soul of the community.”

Witness 99 asserted:

“Rape is the worst form of humiliation for any woman. But that was the goal: to kill a woman’s dignity.”

The women heroically faced their fears to share their stories. They were astutely deemed heroes by those interviewed in the film. As Kuo articulated:

“…The people who came and testified were able to maintain their dignity and they didn’t let the perpetrators take their humanity away from them. So yes in one sense they were victims. But in another sense, they were the strong ones. They survived.”

While rape had been charged as a crime before, it usually falls under the umbrella of hate crimes. With this groundbreaking tribunal, for the first time rape was charged as “a crime against humanity.” The case wouldn’t prevent all rapes. But Kuo said that even though they couldn’t prosecute every rape, it was a significant statement to acknowledge what happens to women during war. The case “transformed the definition of wartime slavery,” laying the “foundation of trials involving violence against women in international courts.”

 

War leaves devastation in its wake. Yet historically, when we talk about war, we talk about it in terms of soldiers and casualties; too often from a male perspective, forgetting that it equally destroys women’s lives. Kuo explained:

“Looking at pictures of Nuremberg, it’s mostly men…women aren’t given a place at the table, even as a witness…”

And that still holds true today. We need to reframe security issues from a gendered lens.

 

Genocide frighteningly still occurs; people systematically killed because of their ethnicity, religion or the color of their skin. As tragically seen in Sierra Leone and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, soldiers utilize rape as a weapon of war again and again. Rape and sexual assault occur beyond conflicts and don’t only threaten women as men face rape in wartime too. It’s an epidemic we must combat.

 

Bravery bolstered the 16 Bosnian women to come forward, speaking out against the unspeakable atrocities they survived. As Witness 99 so eloquently said:

“War criminals wouldn’t be known & there would be no justice if witnesses didn’t testify…I was glad to be able to say what happened to me and to say who had done this to me & my people. I felt like I had fulfilled my duty. I came to look him in the face. I came to testify.”

We live in a rape culture that continually silences women’s narratives. The survivors’ horrific experiences shock and haunt. If we ever hope to change things and obtain justice and peace, I Came to Testify reminds us that women’s voices must be heard.

 

Watch the full episode of I Came to Testify online or on PBS.

 

Megan Kearns is a blogger, freelance writer and activist. She blogs at The Opinioness of the World, a feminist vegan site. Her work has also appeared at Arts & Opinion, Fem2pt0, Italianieuropei, Open Letters Monthly, and A Safe World for Women. She earned her B.A. in Anthropology and Sociology and a Graduate Certificate in Women and Politics and Public Policy. Megan lives in Boston with more books than she will probably ever read in her lifetime.

Megan contributed reviews of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest, Something Borrowed, !Women Art Revolution, The Kids Are All Right (for our 2011 Best Picture Nominee Review Series), The Reader (for our 2009 Best Picture Nominee Review Series), Game of Thrones and The Killing (for our Emmy Week 2011), as well as a piece for Mad Men Week called, “Is Mad Men the Most Feminist Show on TV?” She was the first writer featured as a Monthly Guest Contributor.