FEMINISM: THE OTHER F-WORD? fem·i·nism Pronunciation: \ˈfe-mə-ˌni-zəm\Function: nounDate: 1895 1: the theory of the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes 2: organized activity on behalf of women's rights and interests
11 Reasons why We Still Need The “F-Word” 1. More girls have been killed in the last 50 years, precisely because they were girls, than men were killed in all the battles of the twentieth century.
2. Female infanticide persists in many countries, and often it is mothers who kill their own daughters.
3. Approximately 730,000 American teenage girls will get pregnant this year.
4. When a group of girls were interviewed on 20/20, ABC’s primetime news magazine, and asked if they’d rather be fat or lose an arm, they unanimously answered that they’d rather lose an arm.
5. Far more women and girls are sold into brothels each year in the early twenty-first century than African slaves were sold into slave plantations each year in the eighteenth or nineteenth centuries.
6. Approximately one third of women worldwide face beatings in the home. Women aged fifteen through forty four are more likely to be maimed or die from male violence than from cancer, malaria, traffic accidents, and war combined.
7. Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdulaziz, a leading religious authority in Saudi Arabia, declared in 2004: “Allowing women to mix with men is the root of every evil and catastrophe.”
8. It is increasingly common for men in South Asia to hurl sulfuric acid into the faces of girls or women who have rejected them. The acid melts the skin and sometimes the bones underneath; when it strikes the eyes, the women are blinded.
9. In 2008 the United Nations formally declared rape a “weapon of war.” In one of its reports it claimed that in parts of Liberia during the civil war, 90% of girls and women over the age of three were sexually abused. Major General Patrick Cammaert, a former UN force commander, said: “It has probably become more dangerous to be a woman than a soldier in an armed conflict.”
10. The equivalent of five jumbo jets’ worth of women die in labor each day. The World Health Organization estimates that 536,000 women perished in pregnancy or childbirth in 2005, a toll that has hardly changed in 30 years.
11. It would take an estimated $9 billion a year to provide all effective interventionsfor maternal and newborn health to 95% of the world’s population. In contrast, the world spends $40 billion per year on dog food.
Information courtesy of:
Half The Sky. Turning oppression into opportunity for women worldwide by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn
I Am An Emotional Creature. The Secret Life Of Girls Around The World by Eve Ensler
Corporate Women Directors International 2010 Report: Women Board Directors of the 2009 Fortune Global 200.
Women in National Parliaments: World Classification
fem·i·nism Pronunciation: \ˈfe-mə-ˌni-zəm\Function: nounDate: 1895
1 : the theory of the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes
2 : organized activity on behalf of women's rights and interests
Links of interest:
Overview of the first, second and third waves of feminism
Feminism or Equalism?
Feminist.com
Media literacy
Body image
Global Feminism
Way Cool site from the UK!
Amazing Women Rock
GirlUp
11 Reasons why We Still Need The “F-Word”
1. More girls have been killed in the last 50 years, precisely because they were girls, than men were killed in all the battles of the twentieth century.
2. Female infanticide persists in many countries, and often it is mothers who kill their own daughters.
http://www.gendercide.org/case_infanticide.html
3. Approximately 730,000 American teenage girls will get pregnant this year.
4. When a group of girls were interviewed on 20/20, ABC’s primetime news magazine, and asked if they’d rather be fat or lose an arm, they unanimously answered that they’d rather lose an arm.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/29/isabelle-caro-dead-anorexic-model_n_802424.html
5. Far more women and girls are sold into brothels each year in the early twenty-first century than African slaves were sold into slave plantations each year in the eighteenth or nineteenth centuries.
6. Approximately one third of women worldwide face beatings in the home. Women aged fifteen through forty four are more likely to be maimed or die from male violence than from cancer, malaria, traffic accidents, and war combined.
7. Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdulaziz, a leading religious authority in Saudi Arabia, declared in 2004: “Allowing women to mix with men is the root of every evil and catastrophe.”
8. It is increasingly common for men in South Asia to hurl sulfuric acid into the faces of girls or women who have rejected them. The acid melts the skin and sometimes the bones underneath; when it strikes the eyes, the women are blinded.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8576279.stm
9. In 2008 the United Nations formally declared rape a “weapon of war.” In one of its reports it claimed that in parts of Liberia during the civil war, 90% of girls and women over the age of three were sexually abused. Major General Patrick Cammaert, a former UN force commander, said: “It has probably become more dangerous to be a woman than a soldier in an armed conflict.”
10. The equivalent of five jumbo jets’ worth of women die in labor each day. The World Health Organization estimates that 536,000 women perished in pregnancy or childbirth in 2005, a toll that has hardly changed in 30 years.
http://www.path.org/safe-birth.php
11. It would take an estimated $9 billion a year to provide all effective interventions for maternal and newborn health to 95% of the world’s population. In contrast, the world spends $40 billion per year on dog food.
Information courtesy of: