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redqueen

(115,096 posts)
Mon Aug 6, 2012, 02:22 PM Aug 2012

Half the Sky

This was shared by the Pigtail Pals and Ball Cap Buddies page on facebook. Didn't find it on their blog site or I'd link it. It was too good not to share despite the lack of a link.


One of the reasons I abhor sexualization is that I take issue with teaching girls to be sex objects. A girl is more than the sum of her parts. We know the emotional and psychological harms this can have on individual girls. But what does the societal acceptance of systemic sexualization say about the value our culture holds for its girls and women? When girls and women are openly sexualized for profit in the world's most advanced countries, what does that say to people in countries where girls have little value beyond the price they can fetch at a brothel (sometimes 50 cents a day) or the service they can provide a husband? All of this is interconnected. The girls from different countries may face different challenges, but we are all connected by the way we treat our girls. On October 1 & 2, I hope you will join me in viewing "Half The Sky" on Independent Lens on PBS for a macro view of sexualization in places in the world where the stakes are higher.

All girls are born with the right to be seen as a full human being. They are half the sky. Half the Sky by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn http://www.halftheskymovement.org/
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Half the Sky (Original Post) redqueen Aug 2012 OP
Fantastic. MadrasT Aug 2012 #1
My pleasure. redqueen Aug 2012 #2
Thank you. It's on my calendar. CrispyQ Aug 2012 #3

MadrasT

(7,237 posts)
1. Fantastic.
Mon Aug 6, 2012, 02:28 PM
Aug 2012

Thanks, redqueen.

The gravest threat to a woman’s life is violence inflicted upon her simply because she is a woman.

Women between the ages of 15 and 45 are more likely to be maimed or die from male violence than from cancer, malaria, traffic accidents and war combined. Often times, violent acts such as rape, female genital cutting, or extreme physical abuse are used to intimidate, humiliate and discredit women, denying them political weight in society and forcing them into silent, second-class citizenship. Beyond personal injury, gender-based violence also results in unwanted pregnancies, severe psychological trauma and an increase in maternal mortality.

Half the Sky is helping reverse this devastating trend by shining a light on these horrific acts of violence and inspiring victims to champion gender equality and safety.


I'm going to look into this more later... can't really watch video at work. And mark Oct 1/2 on the calendar.

CrispyQ

(36,226 posts)
3. Thank you. It's on my calendar.
Sun Aug 12, 2012, 02:20 PM
Aug 2012

From the website:


The IRC* says that 26 percent of the rape victims it treats in its center in Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone, are 11 years old or younger, journalist Nicholas Kristof wrote in an October 8, 2011, column in The New York Times that detailed his encounter with a three year-old rape victim.

“As I stood in the rape center corridor, reeling from the encounter … a four-year-old girl was brought in for treatment. She, too, turned out to have been infected with a sexually transmitted disease in the course of a rape. Also in the center that day were a 10 year-old and a 12 year-old, along with older girls,” Kristof wrote.

A study by the World Health Organization, based on interviews with 24,000 women in 10 mainly developing countries, found that among women aged 15 to 49 years:

> Between 15 percent of women in Japan and 70 percent of women in Ethiopia and Peru reported physical and/or sexual violence by an intimate partner.

> Between 0.3 percent and 11.5 percent of women reported experiencing sexual violence by a non-partner.

> The first sexual experience for many women was reported as forced – 24 percent in rural Peru, 28 percent in Tanzania, 30 percent in rural Bangladesh, and 40 percent in South Africa.

This is not a third world, first world issue,” says Zainab Salbi, co-founder and president of Women for Women International, which supports female survivors of civil strife.

* International Rescue Committee (IRC) in Sierra Leone



I have no words.
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