Update on Egyptian Virginity Test Case

Following on from this June post on Egypt: Virginity Test On Female Protestors, comes this update from VOA:

Perhaps more surprising than an Egyptian military tribunal finding one of its own not guilty of forcing a "virginity test" on a detainee, is that the case went ahead at all. There are social, economic and political restrictions faced by Egyptian women, and proposals to advance their rights.

Samira Ibrahim, the woman who lost her case of sexual assault against a military doctor Sunday, not only took on Egypt's leadership but also the nation's deeply conservative attitudes toward women.

Human Rights Watch researcher Heba Morayef said the military rulers took full advantage of those views.

“Samira has had many different battles to fight and also has to deal with the kind of reputational smearing that went on in the media, and in particular, as a result of statements by military generals who, as early as April, went on saying the women who spent the night in Tahrir [Square, protesting], or the women who went to Tahrir, were women of bad morals and ill repute,” said Morayef.

Women took a large part in the 18-day uprising last year that brought down long-time president Hosni Mubarak. But according to political analyst Rania el-Malki, “on Day 19, everything changed.”

Girl Scouts Turn 100

From WJLA:

Known for their dangerously delicious cookies, the Girl Scouts are turning 100. The anniversary comes on the same month as Women’s History Month. To commemorate both, D.C.’s Madame Tussauds has announced the creation of a wax figure of Girl Scout’s founder Juliette Gordon Low.

The figure of Low will debut this May. Monday’s announcement comes ahead of a series of initiatives celebrating the Girl Scouts' anniversary—leading up to the Girls Scouts Rock the Mall event in June. The event, which is a sing along, will host over 200,000 girls and adults on the National Mall.

"Juliette Gordon Low is a national icon whose legacy lives on through the Girl Scouts and the millions of girls and women who have benefited from what she started so many years ago," said Dan Rogoski, General Manager of The Presidents Gallery by Madame Tussauds.

Canonisation of Hildegard von Bingen

From Huffington Post:

The Catholic Church seems ready to codify what music lovers have known for nearly a millennium: Hildegard von Bingen is a saint. Vatican Insider reports that Pope Benedict XVI will canonize the visionary Medieval composer this coming October.

Whether you're a confirmed Catholic, an apocalyptic atheist or a devout druid, if you haven't tuned in to Hildegard's work, you could be in for a revelation.

Women of Note

From Limelight Magazine:

Australia may be known as the lucky country, but it must not have seemed that way to many of the homegrown female composers of the past century as they struggled to be taken seriously in their field. Margaret Sutherland's psychiatrist husband discouraged her from composing by diagnosing her as mentally insane; Miriam Hyde was advised by a publisher to adopt “M. Hydekovsky” as her nom de plume; Peggy Glanville-Hicks declared that a woman must be not as good as men but better in order to succeed – and she wasn’t just talking about composing.

It is these attitudes to women creating music and making their voices heard that prompt journalist Rosalind Appleby to describe classical composition as a “battleground”. It’s the subject of her new book Women of Note, which has its Sydney launch at the Australian Music Centre on March 8 for International Women’s Day.

Afghan Women Trapped In Tribal Law System

From CBS News World Watch:

In Afghanistan, there are essentially two legal systems that exist in parallel. One is the Kabul central government's justice system which, despite years of funding from the US and the international coalition, is rife with corruption, widely discredited and virtually disregarded by the populace. The other track is built around traditional legal practices, including ba'ad, and the cases are heard by local, tribal courts.

"In the tribal courts, the first sacrifice is women," Sirran said. "Always. If there is a fight for land, for water, if there is violence, a girl can be given in ba'ad to settle these things."

Despite a decade of hard work and significant investment by the international community to improve the lives of women after the fall of the Taliban government, the problem of violence continues to grow.


Read more of Sakina's story here.

Chained Women

From the Jewish Daily Forward:

Purim is a holiday that is about women’s power, in its different forms. Thinking about the roles of Queen Vashti and her successor Queen Esther in the Purim story highlights some of the dilemmas that women have faced throughout history. I therefore think it’s particularly apt that Ta’anit Esther is International Agunah Day, the day the marks the harrowing struggle of “chained women,” or women denied divorce.

Vashti and Esther were both married to a man, the same man, for whom women were objects to be adorned and used. This was arguably the prevailing culture at the time, but there are also gradations in the exploitation of women.

Women face the insider/outsider dilemma all the time. Should we work hard and sacrifice our integrity (and money) to meet social expectations of female beauty in order to reap the significant social rewards of beauty and sexuality, or should we challenge the system, refuse to turn ourselves into seductresses, and force the world to deal with “real women,” as we are?

In Judaism the insider/outsider dilemma is faced in the most harrowing way by agunot, women who cannot get a Jewish divorce because the system relies on male volition. To stay in the Jewish legal system, agunot give up right to live independently, or to give birth to a Jew, or to be free. They can be free at any moment, but that would entail giving up their status within the Jewish legal system.

Apache Chronicle

From Indian Country Today Media Network:

When documentary filmmaker Nanna Dalunde contacted Douglas Miles (San Carlos Apache/Akimel O’odham) of Apache Skateboards, he was skeptical. Dalunde wanted to make a film about the female skateboarders associated with Miles’s skate crew — to investigate why they skate and why they create. The problem? Dalunde is from Sweden. Like many Natives who’ve seen skewed visions of their people on screen, Miles was wary of yet another non-Native filmmaker (even a well-intentioned one) who might depict American Indians from an outsider’s perspective. He wanted to ensure that the skaters would retain rights to how they were represented, and that they would hold partial rights to the documentary as well.

The solution was both unconventional and simple: Miles stepped up to assist and facilitate the project as a co-director.

The result is Apache Chronicle, a 41-minute look at the lives and artwork of five young Native American female artists and skateboarders. It’s a remarkable perspective that we rarely see in documentary film: the young Native female perspective.

Women With Male Titles

From The Mary Sue comes a series of articles on ten women who took upon the titles of their male counterparts.

While women taking titles normally reserved for men shows up in fiction every once in a while, what’s more impressive is that it’s not a product of fiction — this happens in real life, more often than you’d think, and in pretty high places.

For Women’s History Month, we’ve taken a break from fictional female characters to put the spotlight on a few women who became significant rulers, even kings. Yes, kings. Not queens, not empresses, but kings. Usually reserved for men, these women thought there was no need to separate themselves as an equally effective ruler by taking a gender-specific title. These are real-life examples from history, but a handful of these women are currently running their respective shows.

Helen Castor: She Wolves

From The Arts Desk:

“Throughout our history, women and power have made an uneasy combination”. Dr Helen Castor made it clear the path to power depended on more than the right alliances, lineage, and marriage partner. Even if all those were spot on, being female was enough to halt any rise. The series began with the medieval Queens Matilda and her daughter-in-law Eleanor of Aquitaine. Both wanted to rule, not reign like Queen Elizabeth II.

She Wolves brings Dr Castor’s book She-Wolves: The Women Who Ruled England Before Elizabeth to television. The programme’s sensational title was a given. With an audience beyond the niches of either a history readership or gender studies, the book is a natural for television with clearly told, linear stories that resonate despite being from at least 600 years ago. But with only one contemporary image apiece for Matilda and Eleanor (both seen here), televisual material was lacking.

See also this article from the Radio Times.