AIAC contributor Anni Lyngskaer just posted this short video showcasing the rhythm of daily life in Sierra Leone, and the dancing talents of the country’s women. It’s a really nicely shot and edited clip, plus the incorporation of sounds corresponding to the action makes for an interesting audio visual experience. Great job Anni!
By Dan Moshenberg
Tuesday, August 9, 2011, was the annual celebration, in South Africa, of National Women’s Day. This public holiday commemorates August 9, 1956, the women’s march on the Union Buildings in Pretoria, in protest of the infamous pass laws. That day 20,000 or so women famously, and heroically, chanted, shouted, screamed: “Wathint’Abafazi Wathint’imbokodo!”. Translation: “Now you have touched the women, you have struck a rock!”
That was 55 years ago.
On Tuesday morning in South Africa (I am visiting here this week), the morning news talk shows, such as Morning Live on SABC2, celebrated with song, dance, some discussion. Women, and men, challenged the nation to do more, to do better. It was both festive and moving.
At the same time, there was a silence at the center and heart of the celebrations.
The second instalment of Dan Moshenberg’s weekly posts (his first here) on that place where gender, Africa and media collide.–Sean Jacobs
By Dan Moshenberg
Let’s talk about Rwandan women.
Last Friday, June 24, Pauline Nyiramasuhuko and her son Arsene Ntahobali, were found guilty of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity, including multiple rapes of Tutsi women and girls. The two were tried at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, located in Arusha, Tanzania. The ICTR is a United Nations tribunal. Nyiramasuhuko was sentenced to life imprisonment.
Pauline Nyiramasuhuko was family affairs and women’s development minister in the administration of President Juvenal Habyarimana. By all accounts, Nyiramasuhuko, a Hutu, organized and led massacres, torture and mass rapes of Tutsi women and girls in the border town of Butare.
Nyiramasuhuko is the first woman to be found guilty of genocide by an international tribunal, and the Western news media had a field day: “Rwandan ex-minister becomes first woman convicted of genocide”: “Rwandan woman, a former govt minister, is first female convicted of genocide; son also guilty”. The BBC was particularly enchanted by the killer’s gender: “Rwanda genocide: Verdict due for female former minister”; “Profile: Female Rwandan killer Pauline Nyiramasuhu”. That’s one helluva glass ceiling.
When does being a Rwandan woman matter? When that woman is a killer, a rapist, a torturer, a `monster’. Not when she is an organizer and a healer.
HBO has selected the documentary, “Courting Justice”, by American filmmakers Ruth Cowan and Jane Thandi Lipman (Cowan created, and Lipman directed the film) as a competition finalist in the Martha’s Vineyard African-American film festival.
The film is about the experiences of female, especially black female judges, in South Africa’s highest courts (that’s Supreme Court of Appeal Judge Mandisa Maya in the picture above):
70% of Rwanda’s population are women.
Via A24media.com
Images from Miss Authentica, a beauty competition in Cote d’Ivoire that promotes “natural” beauty. Only women with “untreated skin” can enter. Skin bleachers which contain cancer are used by 75% of women in Cote d’Ivoire.
“Across sub-Saharan Africa, women have a one in 13 lifetime chance of dying in pregnancy and childbirth. In DR Congo’s North Kivu, where the basic kits and tools can be in egregiously short supply, the odds are often far worse.”
[The BBC]
HT: Dan Moshenberg
