Category: Blog

The Women’s History Network blog

Biography, Event, Politics, Women's History

A CONVENT SCHOOLING – SCHOOL DAYS, ADULT WAYS … Pt I

WHN / June 22, 2014

Some people (it was argued) are obviously not terrorists: newborn babies for example. And nuns. Nuns are mild, gentle people who wouldn’t say boo to a goose, let alone blow up a plane. They can be safely waved through after only the most cursory of searches. That was the view of one of the speakers.

But somebody else thought nuns should be regarded as prime suspects, because what could be more fundamentalist than a nun? Nuns believe so strongly in the truth of their religion that they dedicate their whole lives to it. They live in like-minded communities, and spend many hours in rituals of religious devotion, serving a god who, they believe, has a special mission for them – their vocation. A god who, if they follow their vocation obediently will reward them with eternal bliss, but who, if they don’t, may send them to hell.

Event, Politics, Source, Women's History

Communique – Getting Asia Pacific Women’s Voices Heard!

WHN / June 9, 2014

As result of a bottom-up and inclusive process, the creation of the RCEM has been initiated, designed and will therefore be owned by CSOs in Asia and Pacific. It will be an open, inclusive and flexible mechanism designed to reach the broadest number of CSOs, harness the voice of grassroots and peoples’ movements to advance a more just, equitable and sustainable model of development. Moreover, it will be a platform to share information and best practices and build capacities of CSOs for better and more effective engagement in the future

Politics, Source, Women's History

Building the Old Time Religion: Women Evangelists in the Progressive Era

WHN / May 11, 2014

In Hicks Hollow, an impoverished enclave in Kansas City, former slave, Emma Ray, turned a ramshackle, two-story wooden building into a rescue mission for African American children, while at a nondescript crossroad along the foothills of the Appalachians, Mattie Perry founded Elhanan Training School, even before the first public school opened in Marion, North Carolina. When institution building reached the craggy creek beds of western North Carolina through an ordinary woman like Perry, with no financial reserves, no church standing, and no higher education, the movement can be said to have thoroughly pervaded the entire nation.

General, Women's History

‘What does a woman want money for?

WHN / April 13, 2014

Almost all the research into the gender pay gap has looked at its causes, but I want to look at its consequences. The correlation between low pay and unequal pay is unclear – I believe deliberately so: policy makers quite simply don’t want to face up to the fact that poverty is a women’s issue; easier by far to blame the education system, or the way in which benefits are distributed, than to redress the imbalance of power that impoverishes women.

Politics

Human Rights & Development – An Essential Duo!

WHN / March 27, 2014

The current level of inequalities is insulting and, as global citizens, we do not agree with investing human and financial resources for governments at the UN to merely reaffirm what was agreed on 20 years ago, or in the Rio+20 outcome document. We demand that you go beyond these commitments and establish a well articulated and interlinked human rights and development agenda, with all stakeholders held responsible for coherent and transparent policies, programs and services. This means naming rights holders and duty bearers, identifying obligations of all parties, focusing on implementation and accountability through legal, policy and institutional measures to fully realize all human rights for everyone. It means preventing cultural, religious, ethnic, gender or other forms of bias, the possible non-recognition of the rights of certain categories of persons and categories of rights when shaping the future.

Politics

CSW 58 – Voices Call for Peace

WHN / March 26, 2014

WE CALL FOR the United Nations, to agree that all States will reform their domestic laws and judicial procedures so that they provide effective and meaningful protections for the rights of indigenous women within their jurisdictions, and to take steps, immediately, to ensure the elimination of the direct and indirect impacts that militarization and the development and utilization of nuclear processes/byproducts have on indigenous people, particularly indigenous women and girls*(using the transfer or capital money no longer being used to fund war) *note., who are the most severely impacted, as a result of various States intentionally identifying and locating industries related to militarization, nuclear facilities and related waste disposal on their legally protected homelands.

Biography, Blog

Politics & Women’s Voices – Anna Howard Shaw

WHN / March 23, 2014

Shaw embodied women’s expanding opportunities in the 19th and early 20th centuries for education, work and politics, as well as the challenges they faced. An immigrant raised in poverty on a Michigan farm, from an early age Shaw worked to financially support her family, teaching school in addition to her unpaid hard physical farm labor. When she was called to the ministry, her family didn’t approve. She went it alone. She worked her way through college and seminary in the 1870s, fought for ordination, headed two parishes, and earned a medical degree, before giving all of it up to become a freelance lecturer, activist and organizer.