Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/09/09
“New research suggests Canadian oil is among the world’s most carbon-heavy, but Canada’s industry also has rules that could make a big dent in global greenhouse gas emissions if they were adopted worldwide.
Joule Bergerson of the University of Calgary said if oil-producing countries adopted regulations similar to Canada’s that limit the amount of gas flared or vented into the air, it could cut greenhouse gas emissions from oil production by almost a quarter.
“It could make quite a bit of difference,” said Bergerson, a co-author of a paper published in the journal Science which was funded by Canada’s Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council.”
Source: https://globalnews.ca/news/4427014/oil-industry-greenhouse-gas-emissions-canada-science/.
““It (cannabis) is not really a big part of my life outside of the science,” says Caplan, who earned his doctoral degree from the University of Guelph in late August.
“There is a need for the science and there is a market and there are people that are growing it and they are going to have to grow it safely and make money … and they can’t just make it all up themselves.”
As the country prepares to open up a multibillion dollar cannabis market Oct. 17, the newly minted pot doctor knows he’s taking his degree into the business at the perfect time.”
Source: https://www.thestar.com/news/cannabis/2018/09/05/cannabis-phd-takes-higher-education-to-a-new-level.html.
“Smart technology and artificial intelligence could be used to improve detection of sepsis in children in Canada, write authors of a commentary in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal) http://www.cmaj.ca/lookup/doi/10.1503/cmaj.180434.
Canadian physicians do not often encounter children with sepsis, because pediatric sepsis in Canada is uncommon, unlike in developing countries. However, several recent deaths highlight the need for reliable, fast identification of early sepsis, as the condition can be lethal if not treated quickly.
“The optimal sepsis trigger tool needs to be rapid, objective, accurate and low cost; must easily integrate into the current workflow of a busy clinical setting; should require minimal training and require minimal additional effort; and offer a clear clinical benefit, particularly in community settings where the prevalence and clinical experience with sepsis is likely to be low,” writes Mark Ansermino, University of British Columbia and BC Children’s Hospital, Vancouver, BC, with coauthors.”
Source: https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2018-09/cmaj-stt090418.php.
“Science Literacy Week highlights Canada’s outstanding scientists and science communicators from coast-to-coast. From September 16-23, libraries, universities and other partners across the country will showcase the excellence and diversity of Canadian science.
There will be family fun activities and events happening across Newfoundland and Labrador, including a meet and greet with the province’s first astronaut candidate Bethany Downer. For a full calendar of events and activities in your community, please visit the Science Literacy Week website.”
Source: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/events/science-literacy-week-2018-1.4816848.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/09/09
“In early August, Saudi Arabia called for the withdrawal of all Saudi students from Canadian postsecondary institutions, including the University of Toronto, by the end of the month, amidst a series of sanctions against Canada. This was in response to criticism tweeted by Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland regarding the crackdown on dissidents in Saudi Arabia. Riyadh viewed Freeland’s human rights advocacy as “interference” in its domestic affairs.
Currently, many Saudi students are scrambling for asylum in Canada in order to continue their education. Some asylum seekers fear harassment, as the deadline to return has already passed; others fear imprisonment due to their links to Saudi dissident activists.”
Source: https://thevarsity.ca/2018/09/09/reflecting-on-saudi-canada-crossroads/.
“After spending the last few days touring Western Canada, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is back in the capital today, where the only event listed on the daily itinerary provided by his office is an afternoon meeting with the Canadian Rabbinical Caucus in advance of Rosh Hashanah, which marks the beginning of the Jewish New Year and is set to get underway on Sunday.
According to its online profile, the Canadian Rabbinical Caucus is “open to rabbis from any Jewish denomination” and “meets regularly to discuss emerging issues and serves as spokesperson on public policy matters affecting Jewish religious life and freedom of religion in Canada,” as well as offer “guidance and input” to the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs.”
“There’s a saying in Alcoholics Anonymous: “It works if you work it.” But it did not work for Byron Wood.
Wood is an atheist, and found it impossible to put his life into the hands of a higher power, as the 12 steps require. He’s also trained as a nurse, and knew the scientific evidence in support of AA is far from conclusive.
“I didn’t get any benefit from it; I didn’t find anything therapeutic about it,” Wood told CBC. “Everybody would tell me that this was not a religious program, you can believe in any higher power you want. But as somebody who doesn’t believe in a god and doesn’t subscribe to a religion, it was quite ridiculous.””
Source: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/12-step-nurse-addictions-1.4805538.
“After working all day as a biomedical field-service representative, repairing hospital equipment like ultrasound and MRI machines, Shane Whittleton returns to his rural home in southeastern British Columbia.
The 26-year-old steps away from his day job into a life much closer to his roots growing up in Uteshenie, a Doukhobor village near Castlegar in B.C.’s West Kootenays.
“I go plant the grass, weed the garden, make sure my tomatoes are alive, check my trees, make sure all the fruit has no weeds in it and then as soon as that’s all done, I start doing landscaping and make my home better,” Mr. Whittleton said.”
“Suggesting a constitutionally protected freedom be outlawed in Canada is tricky; we take our human rights very seriously. But over time, many rights and freedoms have evolved and changed, often following touchy talks and ethical debates. And just as current conversations regarding freedom of expression and hate speech can get muddy, so too can the topic of ritual animal slaughter. Both raise the question: Where do personal rights end and causing harm begin?
A recent video on social media has brought these issues to the surface. The video appears to show a cow hoisted up by a leg, being skinned while possibly still alive, outside a temporary mosque in Milton, Ont. In the video, one man is reportedly heard saying: “Take a look, a cow is being butchered the halal way on Eid-al-Adha as a sacrifice,” in Urdu, the official language of Pakistan. The cow appears to move his head, though Halton Regional Police have said they do not believe the animal was alive at the moment, and are not pressing cruelty charges. The video is graphic and hard to watch.
Eid-al-Adha is a major Islamic holiday celebrated worldwide in part by sacrificing an animal using the halal method of slaughter. The animal is typically still conscious when its throat is cut. (Regardless of whether the cow in the video was alive during the skinning, it was likely conscious when it started to bleed out.)”
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/09/09
“New Brunswick is Canada’s only officially bilingual province, with the closest balance in the nation of residents who speak our two official languages.
Politically, though, language has long been a ticking time bomb.
“I don’t think New Brunswick has ever resolved its cultural and linguistic divide,” says Herb Emery, a professor at the University of New Brunswick in Fredericton.”
“Canada’s weak financial laws and regulations have made the country a prime destination for money launderers and others who want to hide the proceeds of crime, says a report being released today by the C.D. Howe Institute.
“Organized crime, tax evaders and money launderers don’t stand still. Their dirty money flows on a path of least resistance to the safest harbour,” author Denis Meunier writes.
“Canada is widely seen as a destination choice for funnelling the proceeds of crime.””
Source: https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/money-laundering-howe-meunier-1.4811911.
“Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is defending NAFTA’s dispute resolution mechanism as necessary in a world where the president of the United States “doesn’t always follow the rules.”
Chapter 19 is a known sticking point between Canada and the United States in the renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement; the two negotiating teams returned to the table Wednesday. The chapter allows companies that feel their products have been unfairly hit by anti-dumping or countervailing duties to request arbitration.
“One of the things that is clear is that we have red lines that Canadians simply will not accept. We need to keep the Chapter 19 dispute resolution because that ensures that the rules are actually followed and we know we have a president who doesn’t always follow the rules as they’re laid out,” Trudeau said in a radio interview with CHED in Edmonton Wednesday morning.”
Source: https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/chapter-19-trudeau-trump-rules-1.4811539.
“A Canadian defence contractor will be selling fewer armoured vehicles to Saudi Arabia than originally planned, according to new documents obtained by CBC News.
That could be a mixed blessing in light of the ongoing diplomatic dispute between the two countries, say human rights groups and a defence analyst.
The scaled-back order — implemented before the Riyadh government erupted in fury over Canada’s public criticism of Saudi Arabia’s arrest of activists and froze new trade with Canada this summer — could make it politically less defensible for the Liberal government, which has argued it’s in the country’s business and economic interests to uphold the deal.”
Source: https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/saudi-arabia-arms-canada-1.4815571.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/09/09
“Vernon city council has voted to quash a proposed shopping cart ban after receiving criticism from homeless advocates who suggested the ban would violate Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
The mayor and councillors voted in favour of a staff recommendation to not proceed with a bylaw that would have banned shopping carts on public property in the city.
“The original solution was knee-jerk, heavy-handed,” Coun. Brian Quiring said Tuesday at a council meeting.””
“We’re a tossed salad, not a melting pot
Blend in to this great nation (Aug. 31)
I was never told we were to blend in to Canadian society. In school, we were taught Canada was a tossed salad and not a melting-pot. We are not the United States. Our Charter of Rights and Freedoms protects individualism and identity. No one needs to be blended in.
Bilingualism, resettling, adopting customs and social norms, does not come easy. Let’s not blame the courage of those who chose to leave their homes for a better life in Canada and who struggle to “blend in.” In Canada, uniqueness is celebrated.”
“Members of the Acadian community voiced unanimous support for a proposal to reinstate three Acadian ridings at a public meeting in Tusket, N.S., this weekend.
About 20 people gathered Saturday at the community centre for an Electoral Boundaries Commission consultation on changes that include restoring the ridings of Clare, Argyle, Preston and Richmond, which were abolished in 2012.
Marie-Claude Rioux, executive director of the Acadian Federation of Nova Scotia, told the commission she hopes the new plan goes ahead.”
“Ontario Superior Court Justice Edward Belobaba is expected to make a critical decision for the future of democracy in Toronto by Monday.
The ruling will decide whether Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s government had the authority to enforce sweeping changes to the size and structure of city council, only a few weeks before Toronto residents go to the polls in an Oct. 22 election.
Ford’s Tories rushed to adopt Bill 5 — also known as the Better Local Government Act — at Queen’s Park, right before the Ontario legislature adjourned for the summer on Aug. 14. They changed the normal rules of the legislature, to limit debate and allow them to adopt it only a few weeks after it was introduced.”
“A ruling on Toronto’s legal challenge of the province’s decision to cut the size of city council from 47 to 25 members is expected on Monday.
City of Toronto spokeswoman Beth Waldman says the city has been notified that Ontario Superior Court Justice Edward Belobaba will send his decision to legal counsel on Monday morning.
The legislation, which passed last month, aligns the city’s ward map with federal ridings in time for the Oct. 22 municipal election, a move Premier Doug Ford has argued will improve decision-making and save $25-million.”
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/09/08
Claire has a background in law and psychology, and is currently working on her degree in Religious Studies. She has been involved in the skeptic movement since 2013 as co-organizer of the Czech Paranormal Challenge. Since then, she has consulted on various projects, where woo & belief meets science. Claire has spoken at multiple science&skepticism conferences and events. She also organized the European Skeptics Congress 2017, and both years of the Czech March for Science.
Her current activities include chairing the European Council of Skeptical Organisations, running the “Don’t Be Fooled” project (which provides free critical thinking seminars to interested high schools), contributing to the Czech Religious Studies journal Dingir, as well as to their online news in religion website. In her free time, Claire visits various religious movements to understand better what draws people to certain beliefs.
Claire lives in Prague, Czech Republic, with her partner, and dog. First interview with us, here.
Jacobsen: When it comes to the skeptical and atheist communities in Europe, what are the main issues? In other words, the items that come to the fore. That Americans may not know about.
Klingenberg: That is first greatly depending on the European country that we’re talking about. In Ireland, the church has a huge influence over the legislature. The atheist group there, it is fighting heavily for secular legislation, for a secular government.
You can see this distinction in European countries in general. Usually, when there are a lot of influences of the church over the government, you do not have skeptic groups. You have mainly atheist groups.
If the country is secular, it is more likely to have large skeptic groups rather than atheist groups. In Poland, there are mainly atheist groups because that is mainly their issue. It hinges on that.
In Europe, the bigger issues are the popularity of alternative medicine and different forms of alternative medicine. These are often based on different spiritual and religious practices. That is the main overlapping point between the atheist and the skeptic groups.
Jacobsen: What are some of the consequences socially of being an atheist and skeptic in Europe that do not occur in America, and vice versa?
Klingenberg: It is individual. Skeptic has a negative connotation in some European countries. In Romania, they use “rationalist.” Other countries use “free thought.” In Germany, their group name is something like, if translated, “promotion of science.” 7
Being a skeptic, as in following the skeptical method and philosophy, it doesn’t have any social connotations.
But it can have some in certain countries if the word skeptic in the country that you’re using it has a negative view of the word.
Jacobsen: How far back is this difference in terminology, e.g., skeptic, rationalist, atheist, humanist, and so on?
Klingenberg: At least the 90s. Europe is historically divided into before and after communism. After 1989, these groups popped up. Not only skeptic and humanist groups, different religious groups too.
The thing with the word atheist is that it is connected to the communist regime because it was communist. In no way does this mean modern atheism is communist, that would be a wrong assumption.
There has to be a distinction made between what is seen in the word atheist and what it implies. In my country, in the Czech Republic, when you say “Atheist,” it means you’re against the Catholic Church. It doesn’t mean that you do not believe in some higher power.
It means that you’re anti-institutionalist and anti-clerical. The atheists in Poland, it means you are anti-Catholic Church and is a statement, a big one, that you do not believe in God. These atheist and rationalist groups arose in the 90s.
That was already given by the context of the words in that particular area or country. I think that this differentiation was there from the beginning. That was the reason those words were chosen.
Jacobsen: Other than the concerns fro many European skeptics and atheists, and the differences in terminology. How much more powerful are the religious institutions in the United States than in the European Union?
Klingenberg: In the US, there are so many different types of religious institutions. Of course, there is this overall belief in God. There is this big pressure of the Christian believers, even if they belong to various branches of the Evangelical movement.
From what I can see, it has more pressure than the church has here. Because here, it is an institution like the Catholic Church, which does carry historical power and influence and is very rich. But the now the influence comes from the institution, not from its followers. But again, it depends on country-to-country.
However, they generally, it doesn’t have a direct effect on the legislature. Unless, for example, it is Spain, Ireland, or Poland.
Jacobsen: What other organizations represent the European Union as a whole or mostly? That people can look to support in the skeptic and other domains.
Klingenberg: The European Council of Skeptic Organizations is the only umbrella organization, which binds together skeptically and rationally oriented groups, regardless of name. But there is also the wonderful group called Centre for Science. It is in Brussels. It does skeptical science work. They are an organization, non-profit. They are not a movement or a group.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Claire.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/09/07
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Did you start questioning religion early on?
Vahyala Kwaga: Well, I have been a skeptic for quite some time and this may have been due to a level of intellectual honesty I noticed growing up as a child, in my home. I had the usual questions, as a child, like ‘who created god?’ But none of them were answered from an honest standpoint and I later just abandoned questioning. Much later in my early twenties, I began to think about how a lot of the ‘threats’ issued by the religious seemed not to affect a good number of others that did not subscribe to Christianity. I thought that was weird and began to carry out ‘Thought Experiments’ that addressed those inconsistencies. Those experiments in my late twenties were the beginning of my journey!
Jacobsen: You come from a highly educated household. Did this influence critical thinking and science education early on for you?
Kwaga: Yes, it did. Though I didn’t study any pure or applied science course (I have two degrees in Law), but my parents did take the time to engage us intellectually on current affairs, theology and rudimentary logic. Looking back, they were quite intellectually honest for religious Nigerian parents!
Jacobsen: How are religion and politics mixed in Nigeria? Is it more negative or more positive in general? Please explain.
Kwaga: The average Nigerian is ‘religious’ (by religious, I mean shows ‘piety’ more than kindness and compassion, etc). So, in a country of 190-200 million, the common denominator would be a sense of religion and its vocalisation in public discourse. The mix between religion and politics, I can say, is negative, to a large extent. For example, it is on record that the rejection of the Gender and Equal Opportunities Bill by the 8th National Assembly was in part due to religious reasons. Again, the Federal Government still subsidizes religious pilgrimage. And a few State governors have blamed disease outbreak on “Sin” and not research or any empirical study. But this may also be in part due to our anti-intellectual public life.
Jacobsen: In terms of the demographics of Nigeria, how many atheists?
Kwaga: I assume you mean ‘openly Atheist’? If yes, I don’t have the data but going by the number of registered members of the ASN, I would say that Atheists could be about 100. But there are likely far more, yet the numbers would likely not be more than 500-600 nationwide.
Jacobsen: If a young person in Nigeria wanted to leave religion, how would you recommend that they do it? What are the potential consequences and personal, family, and community life for them?
Kwaga: If the person was still dependent on her family for shelter and food, I would advise them to just ‘lay low’ till they get their own source of income. It is not uncommon for parents in Nigeria to deny their children of care upon hearing they are no longer religious. This is not to talk of the emotional abuse and anguish that would follow.
Their families would likely ostracise them and their communities, too. Though I have not heard of any case of recorded violence against the irreligious, but resources are usually denied to them.
Jacobsen: What tends to be the main reason people report for leaving religion in Nigeria?
Kwaga: From my very casual observation, it seems like the argument for the existence of deities does not “add up”. A lot of Atheists on average, read a lot, so they begin to see the loopholes in arguments pandered by their religions. Most come to the realisation that there is no evidence or basis for religious claims.
Jacobsen: Who are some inspiring non-religious figures in Nigeria?
Kwaga: Mr. Tai Solarin was a famous Nigerian irreligious public intellectual. Also, it was “rumoured” that late former President Umar Yar’adua was irreligious, but this information came long after his death. He was a President that a number of Nigerians remember fondly.
Jacobsen: Can you recommend any books on atheism by a Nigerian?
Kwaga: I don’t know of any!
Jacobsen: What seems to be the general trend in the religious demographics of Nigeria? Are there more atheists? Are there are the same number of religious people, but the levels of religiosity are declining?
Kwaga: I think that the number of Atheists is on the rise, if the debates and interactions on Social Media are anything to go by. A lot of people are now unashamed to discuss how exploitative the religious institutions are, and a lot of people are more comfortable confronting the logical inconsistencies in religious ‘arguments’. I suppose again, that this may be an indication of declining religiosity, but I don’t know if the interactions I see on Social Media are an accurate representation.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Vahyala.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/09/06
His self-description: I am Ebenezer Odubule. I will turn 50 years of age on 14th September 2018. I am a legal practitioner engaging in private legal practice in Lagos Nigeria. I was born into Christianity and was indoctrinated along Christian dogma until 2007. So, I have been an atheist since 2007.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Was religion a part of real life? If so, how did religion influence personal early life?
Ebenezer Odubule: In Nigeria, unfortunately, religion is a major part of daily life. We breathe religion; we exhale religion, when you wake up in the morning you are treated to the loud public address system from the mosques calling out on adherents in the daily call to prayers.
Same goes for the churches, undertaking weekly prayer meetings, night vigils and playing loud worship songs to the public space with no consideration given to nonmembers of their faith in the society. You are made to bear with noises associated with religious worship day and night and sometimes throughout the week
The story is not so different in the various levels of the educational institution both public and private, the religious faith of those at the helms of affairs is usually imposed on staffs and students with impunity.
In the workplace also, the impact of religion is everywhere, it is a well-known fact that Nigeria is the most religious country in the world but we are yet to see any significant gains from this religiousity.
On certain days of the week, public many employees of government institutions and agencies will abandon their work from 1.00pm in the name of going for prayers and many will not return back for duty on that day as it marks the beginning of the weekend – so much talk about productivity.
In some private businesses and professional organizations, the religious practice of the head is imposed on the rest of the workforce. Religion is part of work, school, family life, social and political life – it is exasperating.
In the political space also, religion is a key factor. Leadership is not sourced on the basis of an individual’s level of competence and fidelity to humanism.
This allows for manipulation and patronage of religious leaders and polarization along religious lines. Corrupt settlement of political cronies via pilgrimage programmes at the pleasure of the President, the governors and local government chairmen across the country
So, it is visible to all, that religion is a substitute for good governance in Nigeria. The people do not have any faith in the political leadership and since god is dogmatically assumed and regarded as a problem solving all-powerful spiritual entity, the majority will cast their burden unto God rather than seeking practical or rational ways to solve problems.
This is not surprising though as strict religious indoctrination encourages segregation. Muslims do business purely with fellow Muslims whilst Christians do business mainly with Christians in many instances.
So from these premises being religious have its obvious social advantages in providing the social and economic pool for followers to leverage for business or even professional advantages and Nigerians knew this and that is why they are jumping on that very bandwagon as survival strategy rather than as an expression of religious faith per se.
Consequently, early personal lives are enmeshed in these dynamics be it social, educational, economic, or political – you are willy-nilly coerced into one form of acceptance of religion one way or another. It is a huge challenge to sound personal development and one that has placed Nigeria in the state of stagnation and misery as it is today.
Jacobsen: What were some early moments of questioning faith for you?
Odubule: started my elementary education at age 6, but I can recall before then, that I often as a child question the veracity of the existence of God as the foundation of the human faith. But religion is crafted in ways which did not allow for disagreement with its dogma.
So you either shape in or you wash out. But then again, we are told that if we rebel, we will burn in hellfire and if we obey God we would go and enjoy in heaven. So for me, the real essence of serving God was borne out of fear and not love. The primordial fear factor – to save our own necks from the scorching flames of hell – very funny.
So, the early moments of questioning faith for me started in primary school. I was seeking answers to the legitimacy of god but not openly because the majority frowns at such inquiries and I had to endure life going to churches because when your parents get ready for churches they compel their children to come along for lots of reasons unconnected with religion too.
I never saw an overwhelming righteousness or fidelity from my fellow Christians when I was religious except for a few devoted individuals.
In my adult life I came to the conclusion that there is a different almighty god for the Chinese people that Nigerians do not yet know, given the firm commitment and socio-economic results witnessed in China, and the gods worshipped in the U.S or Canada is certainly not the same god worshipped massively in Nigeria because the world knew we aren’t making the landmark progress that we are potentially poised to achieve in the first place.
When you look around the country you will see overwhelming misery and poverty facilitated by advocates of religion in public life.
Jacobsen: Who are some prominent Nigerians that people should know more about, who are atheist in Nigeria?
Odubule: Apart from my colleagues in organized irreligious communities such as Leo Igwe, it is hard to say one prominent Nigerian is an atheist or not. I have heard people saying that the Nigerian Nobel Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, is an atheist but I am not able to confirm this neither have I seen the professor associating with any organized atheist groups in Nigeria. I can only say someone is an atheist by association for now.
Jacobsen: What are the professional and family consequences of coming out as an atheist in Nigeria?
Odubule: There is still a good measure of culture shock in Nigeria when people get to hear you say you are an atheist. They exhibit shock and surprise. Hence, with the daily influence of religion earlier portrayed.
Some family members will keep their distance, they believe that you are a bad influence on the religious development of other family members. Professionally you are at a disadvantage too, especially when you are in a profession where advertisement if precluded and you would rely on references from a wide variety of sources.
But this is okay by me because the sanity of my conscience weighs more importantly than any professional accomplishment – all my life, I have never enjoyed the degree of inner peace I now enjoyed when I was religious. No more nightmares and surely no more praying, casting, binding and battling any unseen and perpetual enemies.
Jacobsen: What were some of the pivotal moments of becoming an atheist for you?
Odubule: That was during the Atheist Society of Nigeria national convention in 2017 at the University of Lagos. I was impressed at the large turnout and the fact that the crowd are mostly young Nigerians men and women from major parts of Nigeria including the north.
There is a future for secularism in Nigeria. Before my membership of ASN, I had initially thought I was alone in my atheism but now I know better.
Jacobsen: Do the religious have any formal arguments, rather than social reprimands against atheism? What are they?
Odubule: I am not aware of the existence of any rational formal arguments deployed by religious bodies in defense of their faith.
Jacobsen: For a young person who wants to leave religion in Nigeria, how can they do it? What are their risks?
Odubule: This will depend on the family or social background of the young person. We have had challenges with some young adults declaring openly to his Jehovah’s Witness parent on the practice of atheism and the result led to ex-communication by friends and expulsion from the family home.
I have also experienced another young male adult who’s atheism activities on social media has led his family to declare him insane and he was promptly taken to a mental hospital as a measure to persecute and he was effectively coerced to abandon his conscience and went back into the closet.
My advice to any young person is to wait until they are independent of all parental influences before coming out with their atheism but I am also aware that some families may be liberal in their reaction to such issues hence, a balancing approach is required otherwise the risk of social reprimand is always hovering around such declaration of atheism at early stages and family members often applied punitive measures withdrawing financial and emotional support to the subject.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Mr. Odubule.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/09/05
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: What was growing up like for you? Was religion a big part of it? How was religion or faith incorporated into family and community life? What were the social consequences of taking part in non-religious activities as you grow up or later in life?
Mr. Dominic Omenai: I was a Catholic when I was growing up, I was manservant for some time before leaving that to try other religions. Yes, religion was a directing force in my life. Back then when I was growing up, immediately after returning from school the next place to spend time was at the church attending one program or the other, we prayed as a family.
Jacobsen: What were the social consequences of taking part in non-religious activities as you grow up or later in life?
Omenai: The individual that has inspired me in Nigeria who is a humanist is a man named Wole Soyinka a Nobel laureate. Religion is the worst thing that has happened to mankind that prevents a man from using reason.
Jacobsen: Who are some individuals that inspire you in Nigeria? What are some organizations people can look into to organize, strategize, and have a base of operations for activism for the atheist community? Does religion seem net negative or net positive to you?
Omenai: The individual that has inspired me in Nigeria who is a humanist is a man named Wole Soyinka a Nobel laureate. Religion is the worst thing that has happened to mankind that prevents a man from using reason.
Jacobsen: Are there any prominent books or authors as well worth mentioning?
Omenai: A prominent author worth mentioning is Dan Barker, I have read nearly all his books. I have almost all of Dan Barker’s books, except Losing Faith in Faith. David Silverman’s book Fighting God, What on Earth is an Atheist by Madalyn Murray O’Hair, Jesus is Dead by Robert Price, Natural Atheism by David Eller, A Case Against God by George H. Smith to mention a few.
Jacobsen: What ones have had the most impact on you?
Omenai: Natural Atheism by David Eller has had an impact on me and fighting.
Jacobsen: Are there some atheist books that tend to influence the Nigerian atheist population more than others?
Omenai: I just started the library, the response is encouraging.
Jacobsen: What do outsiders, such as Canadians like myself, simply not get about the atheist and non-religious community in Nigeria?
Omenai: Atheists in Nigeria, struggle with the backlash for being an atheist, if you tell someone that you are an atheist in Nigeria you will be treated cruelly.
Jacobsen: How can people donate time, professional networks, skills, educations, and people power to advance the interests of the non-religious communities in Nigeria?
Jacobsen: Any final notes? You had something to say about a Canadian friend who deserves kudos.
Omenai: Her name is Elizabeth Mathes, I have known her for some years now. She is married and lives in Canada. She was recently appointed an affiliate director of Atheist Alliance International. She has been my support and helps in the book gathering for my library.
I wish to use these opportunities to thank her and recommend her to the Canadian Atheist community as someone trustworthy with a desire to help the Atheist struggle over religion.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Mr. Omenai.
Omenai: Thank you for interviewing me.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/09/05
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: How did religion influence early life?
Mr. Ben Osondu Uduka: I grew up in a strong Methodist family. So, I was indoctrinated at a very tender age.
My childhood was more like someone being groomed to become a clergyman. So. it’s all about religion. I saw life from the religious angle. I believed everything revolves around God, Jesus, Satan and the Bible. I never knew they were other religions, though I was aware of just 2 other denominations – Catholic and Apostolic, but believed them to be infidels.
Aside from school activities, church activities formed major weekly tasks. I was very active in the Sunday school, was among the prayer warriors and took part in bible recitation competitions.
There were times I wished not to grow because I wouldn’t want to be stained with the sins of adulthood. And the Bible had tipped children to be the ideal group to inherit the kingdom of God.
I developed this feeling of unconscious discrimination against those who belong to other denominations. And was meant to hate the Traditionalists – we were not even allowed to enter their compounds or play with their children.
At 11, I started living with my elder brother (in another village) who doubled as a Pastor and Prophet. That’s when I became more spiritual. I was promoted from the Sunday school to the Adult service, not because I was grown up yet, but by virtue of living with a man of God.
Living with him made me understand that my former church has not been as spiritual as supposed. They were not even close. My brother saw visions and cast out marine spirits from the congregants, mostly women. We fasted on every Sunday and every other festive day, praying for the world.
From then onward, I started judging people based on how spiritual they are… If you’re unable to hear from God or get directives from God, I wouldn’t see you as a true Christian.
So, I doubled my struggle to become holy, to be able to hear from God.
Jacobsen: What were some ways in which religion was positive in early life? What were some ways it was definitely negative in early life?
Uduka: On the positive side, I started memorizing the Bible, even before I started school, so it helped me academically.
It helped my socialization with people in the church. But this was mostly with members of our church. Sunday was usually the best day of the week for me, as I’m free to play around and dance to the musicals.
I also enjoyed the choir and their lyrics. The Bible became a moral compass for me. And I had to live according to its dictates.
On the negative, I automatically became a perfectionist due to the stories and commandments learned in the bible. My brother made it worse, as I became too critical of my actions. And I struggled all through childhood to keep all the rules.
I didn’t like the discrimination, because I had mates who used to play football together, but because their parents were pagan, I was warned not to play with them.
My life was filled with fears. Fears of darkness, fears of demonic spirits, fear of hellfire, fear of death, fear of God’s punishment, I was deprived of childhood luxuries. I never had time to celebrate festive days as we spent those days fasting and praying.
I hated the fact that my sisters fall under the influence of the Holy Spirit. I hate the pastors touching and pushing them until they fall. I also didn’t like the fact that I must spend a coin on every Sunday.
Jacobsen: What was the moment or series of moments for becoming an atheist for you?
Uduka: It began when my brother started flogging me mercilessly.
Any little mistake I made would earn me 10s of strokes. I expected the man of God to forgive, and because most of the mistakes were things I never knew or were unavoidable. He condemned almost every other pastor and claimed he’s the only one that hears from God.
When I left for college, I had the opportunity of attending a Catholic mass service and realized they were not as evil as I was made to believe. They were just worshipping God in a different way.
Then, I fell in love with their masses which were not as time-consuming as in the Methodist. But I still had at the back of my mind that they don’t hear from God, so they are not genuine.
I started avoiding churches gradually. It became a burden, a kind of work to attend any of the church services. I only attend if I visited my brother. Then, I went to study at a tertiary institution. It was a different type of Christianity. The kind I had not seen.
Nobody bothers about righteousness or hearing from God. The church was like a social gathering. They may have had great sex before proceeding to church. It didn’t matter to them. The most important thing was to be there. This was against my upbringing.
I attended for a few days and vowed never to attend. I started listening to Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Grail message. When I got a job, it was obvious that my brother or parents won’t compel me to go to church again and I had left home, so I formally stopped.
Jacobsen: Is corruption common with the religious leaders in Nigeria?
Uduka: Yes, but not all of them.
Jacobsen: What are some prominent cases? How did the public receive the corruption?
Uduka: Cases where the money generated from the church is used to live a flamboyant lifestyle abound in Nigeria. Most of the top Men of God in Nigeria do not have any other business, aside from in the vineyard.
Jacobsen: Who are some inspiring atheist figures in Nigeria?
Uduka: I was not inspired by anyone. But Leo Igwe, Mubarak Bala are prominent figures. And they’ve inspired many. I never had the guts to talk about Atheism, nor did I know the term until I started reading Rudolph Ogoo Okonkwo’s column on Sahara Reporters.
He wrote things. I thought God could have killed him, so I became encouraged to talk about being a freethinker in selected publics. When I found out that I’m an Agnostic Atheist, I went online to look for Nigerians who share similar ideas, and I got Mubarak Bala, who linked me to others.
Jacobsen: Can you recommend any books on or around atheism from a Nigerian author?
Uduka: There is one written by IMO David, I cannot remember the title. I only read part of it, and it was talking about almost everything I know or have thought about in the past on atheism.
Jacobsen: What are the social and professional consequences of being an atheist in Nigeria?
Uduka: Socially, loss of primary support system, e.g., family, then friends. Restricted social life – attending church services forms a major part of our social life.
Unable to get a marriage partner. Most Nigerians wouldn’t want to be in a relationship with an Atheist. Unemployment – the criteria for some jobs are linked to religious status. People laugh at our misfortune and see it as God’s punishment.
Extremists in Nigeria could lynch an atheist. At work, I’ve been forced to lead in an opening prayer. People got discriminated on the basis of their lack of belief, and there are limited opportunities for training and career. Clients may keep on shoving their beliefs on atheists.
Jacobsen: For a young person who wants to leave religion in Nigeria, what are the risks? How should they do it?
Uduka: The risks are those outlined above. The best way is to start as closeted until one becomes financially independent. They could also choose not to work in institutions with strong religious attachments. They should stop abusing God or other people’s religion in public.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Mr. Uduka.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/09/05
So many people live in difficult, terrible environments and then are thrust into even further utter uncertainty through extremist groups. This happens everywhere to different degrees. One of the nations in which this is a problem is Nigeria, which is with the terrorist group known as Boko Haram.
They have produced many refugees based on the chaos left in their wake. It is a serious issue not only for the nation and communities but also for the future livelihoods of those who are displaced and without homes.
What is it to lose a home? The placeholders of one’s personal story based on the things held in personal storage. The family members in the home, possibly, and the interpersonal connections built through the community. All gone, along with the quality of life of so many people.
In Nigeria, this happened, as it has happened to millions of people around the world due to the steady and erratic work of the extremist groups – often coordinated chaos in a way. Some of the survivors are refugees.
One camp is the Al-amin Dagash IDP Camp, in Maiduguri, Nigeria. It functions with a thatched roof housing construct set. However, when it comes time to rain, which does happen, these refugees are left with leaky roofs.
A proposed solution is tarpaulin to prevent this, for the huts and the refugees who use them. One solution, potentially, is tarpaulin. It is better than thatched roofs. There is a fundraiser, brought to my attention through the Brighter Brains Institute if you have some time and finances. Your help would be appreciated:
https://brighterbrains.institute/clinics/tarpaulins-for-al-amin-dagash-refugee-camp
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/09/04
James A. Haught is longtime editor of West Virginia’s largest newspaper, The Charleston Gazette-Mail, where he has won two dozen national newswriting awards. He is also a prolific and important voice in the nontheist movement. having won 21 national newswriting awards. He is author of 11 books, 120 magazine essays, and 50 columns syndicated nationally. Thirty of his columns were distributed by national syndicates. He also is a senior editor of Free Inquiry magazine.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: You are a long-time atheist. You are an editor and writer, and have been for a significant period of time. Indeed, you are in the final stage of life. Let’s focus on reflections here: What are the main regrets in life looking back?
Haught: Actually, I have no regrets about my life. I’m not Hemingway, but I did my best to write clear indictments against supernatural gibberish. I tried to convince readers that scientific honesty and beneficial secular humanism are noble – the only honorable path for intelligent, educated people.
At age 86, I’m still glad to be part of the freethought movement that is triumphing in western civilization. Magical religion is collapsing, year after year. Young people increasingly reject claims of gods, devils, heavens, hells, miracles and other church stuff. Soon, such beliefs will be laughable in sophisticated circles.
Looking back, I feel deep satisfaction in seeing how we skeptics have gradually won the war of ideas. I hope the trend keeps snowballing after I’m gone. That’s why I have no regrets.
Jacobsen: When you observe the religious, and then the atheists, what seems to best demarcate their experience at the end of life?
Haught: One of my longtime newspaper buddies was a Methodist. In his final months, he talked constantly of wanting to see his late wife again in heaven. I was touched – but I didn’t tell him that his hope was a fantasy. I think each human personality is created by the brain (the most complex object in the universe), and when the brain dies, so does the individual existence.
Which is better – to comfort oneself with a wishful hope of rejoining loved ones, or to accept that oblivion is coming? I think my approach is more truthful.
Jacobsen: What would you prefer to be remembered for in the end?
Haught: I’ve written eleven books and 140 magazine essays, atop a lifetime of newspaper writing and syndicated columning. My essays still appear weekly in the Daylight Atheist blog. If any of this is remembered and reaches future readers, it will be the only type of immortality that actually exists. If it doesn’t, I will be just like billions of other folks, gone into the haze of the past, eventually forgotten.
Jacobsen: When it comes to the faithful, what seems to be the main fallacy in their thinking about ethics? They claim that God is good, and is the source of all goodness.
Haught: Frequently on television news, I hear people gush about how God saved them in tragedies, while others perished. My reaction: Well, why didn’t God rescue the others? Did God hate them?
In philosophy, the “problem of evil” proves clearly that the all-loving, all-powerful God of religion cannot exist. First articulated by Epicurus, the inquiry goes like this: If God created everything, why did he create breast cancer to kill women and leukemia to kill children and Alzheimer’s to destroy aging minds? Why did he create earthquakes, hurricanes, tsunamis and other natural tragedies that kill multitudes? Why did he design pythons to crush pigs and cobras to poison Indian children? If God can’t prevent these horrors, he isn’t omnipotent. If he doesn’t want to prevent them, he is cruel – a monster. Therefore, logic doesn’t disprove a vicious God, but it disproves a loving one.
Jacobsen: Why do so many believe in supernatural and non-scientific explanations for phenomena in the world?
Haught: I think the human mind has two contrary capacities – an ability to reason intelligently and scientifically, and also an ability to imagine demons and spirits, pure fantasies.
Sigmund Freud had a clear explanation for the widespread belief in a father-god: Little tots, maybe age two, see a huge, mighty, human father looming over them, loving them, rewarding them, punishing them. As they mature, this baby image of their biological fathers fades, but it remains buried in the subconscious. When the church says, “A huge, mighty father-god looms over you, loving you, rewarding you, punishing you” – bingo, the old toddler image resurfaces, causing the person to say, “Yes, yes, it’s true.” They actually worship a long-buried subconscious memory.
Jacobsen: What should the young focus on for living a better life and leaving a better world?
Haught: All the values of The Enlightenment – scientific thinking, democratic equality, human rights, better living conditions – are now locked into modern western culture. They keep growing more firmly entrenched. Old evils such as slavery, dictatorship, subjugation of women, victimization of workers, racial apartheid, imprisonment of gays, have faded through the centuries. But reactionary forces still try to drag humanity backward.
If today’s young can learn Enlightenment values – and ignore supernatural hokum – the future will be in good hands.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/09/02
Last year, I wrote an article entitled Payette: It’s a Joke, Folks (2017). The commentary emerged from the ashes of the fire burned by some of the most prominent journalists and social commentators in the country, who reflect the nature of the Computer Age with the proliferation of social media: find a refined sugar story, burn the high-octane fuel, and then move onto the next intellectually diabetes-inducing story.
These seemingly deliberately inflammatory reportages openly disregard the public good and distract from real issues. It seems like a disservice to the public and a dereliction of journalistic duty to me.
Governor General of Canada, the Hon. Julie Payette, commented on factual-theoretic issues outside, but not within, the scientific community but inside “learned society,” (of course, some overlap between the communities) e.g., the realities of climate change or global warming and its mostly human inducement – through industrial activity – based on measurements of the warming rate relative to historical epochs, unguided evolution by natural selection, ineffectual alternative medicine in contrast to modern mainstream medicine, and horoscopes (Ibid.; CBC News, 2018).[1]
I respect the freedom to (and from) religion. However, if the claims amount to statements of consensus within the relevant scientific communities on fundamental science by Payette, and if no mention of religion by her, and if a select set of groups or individuals within Canadian society view this as an attack on religion, then this seems to direct attention to the truth.
The particular denominations, sects, or traditions of religion stand at odds with modern science: reiterations about the facts or major empirically supported scientific theories become affronts to the beliefs within these particular faith communities. Because the mere mention contradicts the implicit tenets or factual assertions of the sect of faith.
These branches of faith become anti-science or non-scientific, not a religion or religion as a whole, while the scientific theories remain empirically substantiated and accepted by the experts in the mainstream of the relevant disciplines.
Even in the recent CBC News article, the title states “religion,” Gov. Gen. Julie Payette on what she learned from her controversial comments on science, religion and climate (2018). Not true – false assumption or premise, Payette spoke on science and climate in the tone of a joke.
Look at the video, zero mention of religion. These repetitions continue to poison the news reportage one year down the road, as shown in the title of the August 30 CBC News publication.
That is, the “disservice to the public and… dereliction of journalistic duty” comes in the potential, and this case actual, long-term damage to the accuracy of the public discourse from a fabricated or manufactured controversy.
These faux controversies obfuscate real science education to the public, distract from important and substantive concerns of the public, and mischaracterize the statement of a former astronaut and the Governor General of Canada for defamation.
Thus, the problem lies not in the science, the public at large, or religion in general, but, rather, the brand of religion in some of the society and held by some individuals within it – and then appeased to through some journalists and social commentators and a conservative leader utilizing mendacious hyperbole, and unwitting or deliberate lies.
As a former astronaut, the direct, assertive, and knowledgeable statements about science remain non-controversial to the community there. It is the culture. They have great science educations and scientific theories do not create controversy when stated in an assertive tone.
To, unfortunately, some of a less educated general public on the matters of science with adherence to a particular branch of religion or spirituality, these can seem as if controversial statements, at least based on some of the journalists’ publications and statements from some leaders.
In various slices of the pie of blame, it lies with the individual citizens, the media – including journalists such as myself, and the education system and, apparently, some sub-sectors of the religious and spiritualist communities, unfortunately.
To make the point further explicit – if you will indulge, please, let’s take a hypothetical example through a claim – apart from climate change, evolution, alternative medicine, and horoscopes: “the Earth orbits the Sun.” For most, a non-controversial statement and an empirical claim.
Imagine, a conservative leader, major journalists and social commentators, the founder of a media platform, and others claim the fundamental concern with the statement is an attack on religion, in part or whole, without regard as to whether the claim includes critiques of religion or not, or if the term “religion” is used or not.
Then this makes national news with near-universal repetition of the false claim about the messenger (Payette). This happened last year, exactly that; then the misrepresentation continues one year onward, too, as per the CBC News title – probably not even a conscious mistake.
In the final note of the article, after almost one year, Payette explained a lesson. However, the educational experience seems to come from whipped hysteria around a video clip.
She opined, “I learned that you have to be careful about how you say things, but not what you say… I’m still convinced that — I’m sorry to say — the body of evidence shows that the planet is warming up. And it’s warming up at a certain rate that has never been seen before in the history of the planet. We have to take that seriously” (Ibid.).
—
Footnotes
[1] Payette: It’s a Joke, Folks (2017), in part, states:
Payette targeted evolution, climate change, horoscopes, and alternative medicine in the speech. Some quotes, on climate change from human activity:
Can you believe that still today in learned society, in houses of government, unfortunately, we’re still debating and still questioning whether humans have a role in the Earth warming up or whether even the Earth is warming up, period? (Persian Mirror, 2017)
On evolution by natural selection, unguided:
And we are still debating and still questioning whether life was a divine intervention or whether it was coming out of a natural process let alone, oh my goodness, a random process. (Ibid.)
On alternative medicines:
And so many people — I’m sure you know many of them — still believe, want to believe, that maybe taking a sugar pill will cure cancer, if you will it! (Ibid.)
On horoscopes:
And every single one of the people here’s personalities can be determined by looking at planets coming in front of invented constellations. (Ibid.)
Jacobsen, S.D. (November 5, 2017). Payette: It’s a Joke, Folks. Retrieved from https://www.canadianatheist.com/2017/11/payette/.
—
References
CBC News. (2018, August 30). Gov. Gen. Julie Payette on what she learned from her controversial comments on science, religion and climate. Retrieved from https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/governor-general-julie-payette-climate-speech-lessons-1.4805004.
Jacobsen, S.D. (November 5, 2017). Payette: It’s a Joke, Folks. Retrieved from https://www.canadianatheist.com/2017/11/payette/.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/09/02
“QIKIQTARJUAQ, NU, Aug. 31, 2018 /CNW/ – Bridging the gap between Indigenous knowledge and Arctic research will help the government better understand the unique challenges faced by the people who live in the Canadian Arctic. Climate change is one of many such challenges. Combining research results with the generations of knowledge gathered by local communities will help to protect the northern environment and the culture of the people who call it home.
The Honourable Kirsty Duncan, Minister of Science and Sport, accompanied Her Excellency the Right Honourable Julie Payette, Governor General of Canada, on a three-day visit to Canada’s Arctic that focused on Arctic research and Indigenous knowledge.
This visit was an opportunity for the Minister to highlight the importance of science and long-term data collection to understanding environmental challenges, particularly climate change, and the importance of working with Inuit and northerners to address these issues. Indigenous knowledge enhances our understanding of the Arctic and helps the government provide solutions to make northern communities more resilient to the effects of climate change.”
“OTTAWA, Aug. 29, 2018 /CNW/ – Her Excellency the Right Honourable Julie Payette, Governor General of Canada, will be in Canada’s Arctic from August 30 to September 1, 2018, where she will visit the Hamlet of Pangnirtung, in Nunavut, before boarding the Canadian research icebreaker CCGS Amundsen,in Qikiqtarjuaq, for a 36-hour scientific program to explore the Arctic Ocean. This will be the first visit by a governor general to the community of Qikiqtarjuaq.
Canada’s Arctic and northern communities are facing complex environmental, health and social challenges. The Governor General’s visit will underscore the importance of scientific study and data collection in understanding Arctic issues and trends. These activities allow for evidence-based decision-making and the development of practical solutions. This visit will also highlight collaboration by recognizing the knowledge of Inuit and northerners who are at the forefront of the changes taking place in the Arctic.
In Pangnirtung, located on Baffin Island, the Governor General will meet with the mayor and councillors and attend a community feast. On the occasion of the 15th anniversary of the Amundsen Science program, the Governor General, accompanied by Dr. Mona Nemer, Canada’s Chief Science Advisor, and the Honourable Kirsty Duncan, Minister of Science and Sport, will join the vessel’s crew on the final leg of its latest expedition to exchange with scientists and to witness first-hand marine-based research conducted in the vicinity of Qikiqtarjuaq.”
“Miasya Bulger and Raphael Hotter have been named McGill’s recipients of the prestigious Schulich Leaders Scholarship.
This year, out of a pool of 350,000 potential candidates across Canada, 1,400 students were nominated, of which 50 received this celebrated award.
Miasya Bulger, 18, is a recipient of the $100,000 Schulich Leader Scholarship. A graduate of Lisgar Collegiate Institute in Ottawa, Bulger will be entering the Department of Bioengineering in McGill’s Faculty of Engineering this fall. Bulger was selected for her outstanding academic record combined with her community leadership in mentoring STEM students, working with youth through the Royal Canadian Army Cadet program, and implementing programs for youth at the Ottawa Public Library. In addition, Bulger has focused her efforts on initiatives to alleviate child poverty in Ottawa by organizing awareness workshops for students and fundraising drives for food banks and local charities.”
“Science is about knowledge. It involves the gathering of facts to help create predictions and provide explanations.
But for women who have made science their career, there is seemingly no scientific explanation to explain the work challenges they face solely because of their gender.
It’s an issue that Edmonton documentary filmmaker Brandy Yanchyk explores in her new film Ms. Scientist. Thefilm goes to Alberta, Ontario, Quebec, Greenland and Nunavut, talking to female scientists who are passionate about the work they do but frustrated by the challenges they face.”
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/09/02
“A landmark report, 30 Years of Giving in Canada, has examined the charitable donations and giving patterns of Canadians from 1985 to 2014.
What makes this report landmark is that it offers an in-depth look at the giving behaviour of Canadians — who gives, how and why — and examines how these trends are reshaping the future of philanthropy in Canada.
The report reveals a philanthropic environment filled with demographic challenges and high-potential opportunities, including: giving patterns of “new” Canadians compared to “native-born” Canadians, the rising voice of women in philanthropy, and the need to bridge the widening (and increasingly concerning) generational gap in giving.”
Source: https://www.thespec.com/opinion-story/8870975-canadian-philanthropy-who-gives-how-and-why-/.
“A video showing a group of men in an unknown location in Milton skinning a cow around the Muslim festival of Eid-al-Adha is garnering a lot of attention online.
“Take a look, a cow is being butchered the halal way on Eid-al-Adha as a sacrifice,” says a man in the video in Urdu.
The video has been viewed more than 100,000 times after it was retweeted by Toronto Sun columnist Tarek Fatah.”
Source: https://toronto.citynews.ca/2018/08/28/halton-police-investigating-cow-skinning-video-in-milton/.
“US President Donald Trump has warned that his policies will be “violently” overturned if the Democrats win November’s mid-term elections.
He told Evangelical leaders that the vote was a “referendum” on freedom of speech and religion, and that these were threatened by “violent people”.
He appealed to conservative Christian groups for help, saying they were one vote away from “losing everything”.”
Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-45340275.
“As the Aug. 31 deadline for Saudi students to leave Canada passes, at least 20 students are filing asylum claims in an attempt to stay in the country.
Omar Abdulaziz, a prominent Montreal-based activist from Saudi Arabia, said he’s working with the students, whose lives were disrupted in August after a diplomatic feud erupted between Saudi Arabia and Canada.
Saudi Arabia asked all its students to leave Canada, after Canada expressed concern over arrests of civil society and women’s rights activists in Saudi Arabia, including Samar Badawi.”
“This lecture will explore in what ways religious belief in Canada was strengthened, challenged, and changed as a result of the Second World War and the early days of the Cold War. 6:30 pm. Free (RSVP on eventbrite.ca).”
Source: https://nowtoronto.com/events/Religion-and-Canada-1940-1950/.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/09/02
“WINNIPEG, Manitoba (Reuters) – With one surprise court ruling, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau faces the risk of contesting next year’s election with key pieces of his economic and environmental plans in ruins.
The Federal Court of Appeal overturned on Thursday the Liberal government’s 2016 approval to expand Trans Mountain, a critical pipeline to link Canadian crude with foreign markets, followed hours later by Alberta’s tit-for-tat withdrawal from Trudeau’s climate plan.
The day’s events amplified criticism that Trudeau has failed to produce a regulatory system in which oil pipelines stand a chance of approval and undermined the PM’s ambitions to reduce emissions.”
“Last year, when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau abandoned his plan to bring a European-style electoral system to Canada, he justified it by citing a need to keep dissident opinions out of parliament.
“Do you think that Kellie Leitch should have her own party?” he asked a voter upset with his about-face. Leitch, who was running for the federal Tory leadership at the time, had become the bête noire of the Ottawa establishment for proposing a “values test” for new immigrants. Electoral systems that distribute parliamentary seats strictly on the basis of their share of the popular vote grant political representation to “the periphery of our perspectives,” scolded the prime minister. He would later brag that killing electoral reform was a means of ensuring that “we do not have an anti-immigration party in Canada.”
An agenda of immigration restriction is hardly on the periphery of Canadian thought, however. A recent Angus Reid poll reminded that the number of Canadians who favor a capped or lowered immigrant intake has sat in the 80 percent range for more than four decades. Yet neither of Canada’s mainstream parties gesture even vaguely in this direction.”
“If you were ever curious as to how cheese gets made in Canada, delegates of the Conservative Part of Canada convention in Halifax got a rare seat for the whole messy process over the weekend.
As per usual, several delegates had the gall to show up to a Conservative Party convention hoping to debate a motion to abolish Supply Management—the top-down Soviet-lite regime that sets quotas on how much milk, eggs and cheese farmers in this country can produce.
As this long-standing policy has made a small number of increasingly consolidated corporate farmers mostly located in vote-rich regions like Ontario and Quebec comparatively wealthy, supply management has proven itself a difficult political knot to pull.”
“It is often said that, here in Canada, we do not elect a government, but, rather, eject the previous government. We suffer a government until we find their policies becoming too egregious, until we begin to see overly self-serving interests coming to the forefront, and then we vote in “the other guys.”
There is, obviously, a little more to Canadian politics than this, but, if one simplifies it, distills it down, the stumbling block has always been that Canada is a divided country. And this has never been more apparent than today when one looks at a coloured map of how Canada is segmented by political parties: the western provinces are blue (Conservative), the Maritimes are red (Liberal), and Central Canada is the battleground in which the parties seek to win their fortune of seats, which is mostly red at the moment.
Each party has always sought to find a populist thread to help them win an election, but this is also what has helped to keep them united, too. The Conservatives, Canada’s oldest political party, have always struggled to find that leader that can bring all of its factions together. Stephen Harper was the last Conservative leader capable of doing so, but he did so through tempering his party’s positions on many contentious issues. Andrew Scheer does not look like he has the mettle to accomplish this, which led to Maxime Bernier departing the party, as he had his goals set on the Quebec brand of Conservatism.”
Source: https://www.stalbertgazette.com/article/shift-in-focus-needed-in-politics-20180901.
“WASHINGTON — U.S. President Donald Trump warned Congress on Saturday not to interfere with his plans for a new North American Free Trade Agreement, lest he cancel the deal entirely.
On Twitter, the president threatened to “terminate NAFTA entirely” if Congress balks at ratifying a revamped NAFTA that could go forward without Canada’s involvement if ongoing negotiations fail.
Trump notified Congress on Friday of his intent to sign a revamped deal in 90 days with Mexico — and Canada too, if Ottawa chooses to join in.”
Source: https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/trump-says-no-political-necessity-to-keep-canada-in-nafta-1.4076877.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/09/02
“A new report by Vernon city administration is recommending city council does not move forward with a controversial plan to ban shopping carts on public property.
City council will be considering the controversial proposal and reviewing the staff report at their meeting on Tuesday.
The staff recommendation comes after the city received letters from both the Pivot Legal Society and the B.C. Civil Liberties Association that were deeply critical of the proposal, arguing that it would contravene the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.”
Source: https://globalnews.ca/news/4423596/city-against-vernon-shopping-cart-ban/.
“The fate of Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s move to pare Toronto’s city council to just 25 members in the middle of an election campaign is now before a Superior Court judge.
At the close of a daylong hearing Friday, Justice Edward Belobaba said he would not have a ruling until Sept. 10 or 11 – just days before the extended Sept. 14 deadline for nominations ahead of Toronto’s looming Oct. 22 vote. He acknowledged that whatever he decides will likely be appealed.
And he told his courtroom he still had no idea how he would rule: “I am not sure yet which way this is going to come out.””
“The ongoing conversations on diversity make me think: What does it mean to be a Canadian citizen, particularly for a first generation immigrant like myself?
I came to Canada some 18 years ago as a student, with a dream, but not much money or resources. I completed my studies at the University of Ottawa and in due course decided to build my life in this country.
I have done a fair bit of travelling and come across different people and cultures. And each time I catch my flight to Ottawa, after a travel or a conference, I am always reminded how lucky I am to live in a country so peaceful, prosperous, and welcoming.”
Source: https://ottawacitizen.com/opinion/columnists/shukla-in-appreciation-of-canadian-values.
“An indigenous lawyer hopes to bring some diversity to New Westminster city council.
Troy Hunter, who operates his law firm on Columbia Street, is the latest candidate to announce he’s running for city council.
“Issues of importance to me include seeing diverse representation on city council, as New Westminster has one of the highest proportions of diversity but that isn’t yet reflected on city council,” he said in a press release. “Equality is more than just a goal, it is embedded in our Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and I absolutely love that, so it’s time to smash those glass ceilings and let’s get on with the 21st century.””
“TORONTO – People accused of sexual assault in Ontario are once again allowed to use excessive intoxication as a defence against criminal charges, a judge has ruled, finding that a federal law preventing such an argument is unconstitutional.
Superior Court Justice Nancy Spies’ ruling relates to a Supreme Court decision established in the early 90s that drew so much ire that Ottawa introduced a law to limit its perceived impact.
That law — section 33.1 of the Criminal Code — has had several detractors over the years but proponents said it was essential to protect women and children from violence perpetrated by those under the influence.”
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/08/31
Waleed Al-Husseini founded the Council of Ex-Muslims of France. He escaped from the Palestinian Authority to Jordan and then to France, after torture and imprisonment in Palestine. He is an ex-Muslim and an atheist. Here is an update on the Council of Ex-Muslims in France and ex-Muslims, in brief.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: What happened in the summer 2018 season for the non-religious?
Waleed Al-Husseini: This summer was calm a bit.
We have some of the summer meetings here in France to welcome the new members and introduce them for the others, and following some issues of ex-Muslims who had some of the justice issues like Sharif Gaber in Egypt and then there were some problems in Jordan.
The greatest sadness: we lost one great fighter and writer. His name is Walid Al-Qubisi.
He is organizing from Iraq, but lives in Norway and in the 1980s got shot by Islamists in Oslo. He spent months in the hospital, then he left it.
This summer, we lost him. It was really sad even for me because he was one of the 1st fighters of political Islam in Europe.
Jacobsen: How were things for the ex-Muslim community in France – safer, more people?
Al-Husseini: We have some new members that’s why we made summer meetings, and they joined us and we talked about the dangers for us and described to them how things are and our activities.
For the security things, we got many threats through the internet after big discussions about hijab and child marriage, and some of our Twitter accounts got removed!
Jacobsen: As an internationalist independent journalist, when I get a story of an ex-religious person or a sexual minority individual, I cannot solve the problem, but I can bring light to their plight – simply hear and feel their horrible narrative as they tell it.
What does telling the stories, simply being heard by someone else, do for the ex-Muslims or the LGBTQ+ community in solidarity if anything?
Al-Husseini: For the stories and testimony, it’s really important to show for some who think about Islam that he or she is not alone, there are others who had questions. One, through this, he left Islam. These types of testimony also say that we are the voices of the many.
It helps to show for others that ex-Muslims exist. They have to fight one of the hardest fights in the world as the globe becomes more and more fundamentalist in orientation.
Ex-Muslims are the solution for making Islam less fundamentalist, and because of all these stories and the critiques and debates on Islam now in the open.
Because of these things, we have some people now talking about modern Islam or trying to moderate Islam. All these things because of ex-Muslims!
Jacobsen: Have there been some new ex-Muslim voices people should keep an eye on for their poignant analysis of the realities of the ex-Muslim community (global community)?
Al-Husseini: Yes, sure, Sharif Gaber, the YouTuber Egyptian, who faces justice now. Hamed Abdel-Samad with his show Box of Islam – and also his books, and the other ex-Muslims like Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Ibn Waraq, in the Arabic world like Said Alqumi, for other groups like Atheist Arab Magazine. It’s really a good one.
Also, some Arabic sites exist on the internet and blogs too.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Waleed.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/08/29
This is an anonymous – safety remains a concern and a fresh issue for this individual – interview with an Egyptian author, atheist, freethinker, and translator. Here we talk about Egypt, atheism, freethinking, and their story and views.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: As an Egyptian, what was early life like for you?
Anonymous Egyptian Author, Freethinker, and Translator: I’m happy to make this conversation with you, first. Every Arabian and Egyptian family differs from each other. In my personal experiment, I had a violent abusive fundamental father, semi-extremist and traditional.
I lived some of my early years within the Egyptian ingathering in Qatar in the area of Persian/Arabian Gulf, the extreme violence was the usual and standard thing in the school and homes, so in my experience, to live your childhood with Islamic traditional fundamentalists isn’t a good thing, it’s the real hell, you can say.
Jacobsen: When did you become a freethinker or an atheist?
Anonymous Egyptian Author, Freethinker, and Translator: It happened when I was 21-years-old, in 2006, it’s a lovely sweet memory, even though what I suffered for that.
Jacobsen: What were the reasons for leaving the faith and becoming an atheist as opposed to, for example, switching to another faith?
Atheism (materialism, rationalism) differs from all religions, by its refusing to believe unproved unseen unscientific things, so while it may be considered a belief, it’s not a religion.
When I studied the religions in free reading and studying, I found faults in all of them, they have bad horrible unjust and un-rational laws, scientific errors in their texts, discrimination against women and other religions followers, Islam, Judaism, and Hinduism are the worst religions in the world in my opinion, the Christian gospels (without the Tanach or the Old Testament) and the teaching of Buddha and his monks are not that bad, but they have contradictions, historical errors, scientific errors in their texts, and some totalism in their legendary unhumanistic values and morals.
When I study Quran, Hadiths, and the books of Muhammed’s biography, I found that the laws of Islam are unjust barbaric brute primitive thing, with many legal faults, and that life of Muhammed and deeds are a bad terrorist example, most of Islam ideas and teachings are corrupted, they distort the minds and morality, and Old Testament and some parts of Talmud are as bad as the Islamic holy texts.
On the other hand, sciences have real answers nowadays about our questions about the existence of the universe and living organisms. One of the many problems in Islam world that in most of it they prevent some kind of real science books like books on evolution fact and other things, the lay public average people in the middle east hate the sciences by nature, they consider them an evil infidel thing!
I believe also in secular liberal (maybe we can say: Western) ethics, actually I don’t consider many of those who call themselves Arabian atheists as real atheists, because they keep the Islamic fundamental backward eastern values.
Jacobsen: Have you received death threats?
Anonymous Egyptian Author, Freethinker, and Translator: Yes, in the past I work on a bookshop in the street, the mate or co-worker with me tried to push me on a fast car because I said to him that to be praying or not is not is business. I got in the first year of my choosing of atheism many threats and harassment from all my family and relatives.
Jacobsen: How have the Egyptian authorities treated you?
I didn’t, fortunately, deal with them, I avoided that, I don’t like to deal with fundamental tyrant stupid people, but I must refer that I tried in the age of Hosni Mubarak to call the secular minister of culture “Farouk Hosni” by his own number, which I got from a famous journalist, the secretary was the one who answers.
I made the call from the public phone, in the next time when I used another public phone to arrange a meeting with high educated Egyptian genetic who was a professor in the college of agriculture and an activist in human rights field.
They tried to arrest us by gathering tens of security men in the metro station which we were intending to meet in it and the go out, I just by luck reached one hour earlier and saw them, one of them describe to another what I was dressing and the bag color which I was carrying! Fortunately, they didn’t suspect me because they were waiting for me after an hour later to come!
So you must be careful in a country like Egypt, and keep your head little down with the public, because you could end in prison like tens or hundreds of people, like Islam Al-Buhairy, Shareef Gaber, ala’a hamed author of ” distance in a man’s mind” novel, and all the others.
Jacobsen: Does your atheism impact family and professional life? If so, how?
Anonymous Egyptian Author, Freethinker, and Translator: Yeah, since 2011, when I chose to be a freethinker (an atheist) I got many troubles and persecutions, First I lost all relations with my family and relatives as an openly atheist and as an atheist writer and activist, I received threats by killing and by reporting the state security which is a fundamentally religious institution in Egypt.
I got homeless for days and searched for some mean job without getting my degree in those days (which I complete later) until now I have dead relations with all of my relatives, Egypt has one of the most fundamental extremist religious ignorant people.
I got fired from some jobs occasionally If I have not been careful enough to keep my ideas in discrete, for example, I got fired in 2009 from al-malky creamery and sweets and got insults and threats and they didn’t give me my due salary for expressing some of my lightest ideas with another worker out the hours and place of the shop!
In 2018 I got troubles and fired from Al-Teegy sons tannery as a warehouseman for the same reason: expressing my ideas with a friend out of the hours of work!
Between the two jobs I got troubles and fired from other jobs, a strange example when I was in a place to secure it, and the house of the security men, which is far, far away from the place of work, was stolen, the employer tried with stupidity to accuse although of the absence proof, just because he thought atheist means a person without morals and honor!
Actually I was learned very well not to talk in public to lay people, people without real culture, I should say I’m half-hiding and I don’t make any videos for the simple lay people to avoid danger like going to jail, stealing my money and things like my laptop by religious corrupted policemen, getting hit or even killed in the jail.
Jacobsen: What happened to your books? Did they get prevented from being published?
Anonymous Egyptian Author, Freethinker, and Translator: Some of my books, actually the majority of them, I wouldn’t dream to publish them openly in Egypt and the Arabian area! I called about my own books in criticism of Islam, (Also of Christianity, and Judaism).
The same applies to my translations of freethought Atheist books, I just tried to publish my translation of some scientific books about evolution and history of life, all the Arabian publishers I contacted with them refuse them because they are very clear and would get attention of the fundamentalists, some of the publishing houses owners refuse them because they are themselves fundamentalists, these books any peoples who want to get rid of primitive legends and terrorism would support their publishing.
Jacobsen: What were the books? What did you write on?
Anonymous Egyptian Author, Freethinker, and Translator: A Grave assigned for Islam, an encyclopedia of criticism.
Some of my books (which I added to the encyclopedia but were older than it) like “Origins of Islam Beliefs & Legends from New Testament Apocrypha and Heresies in Jesus, Anti Christ, Ascension of Mohammad, and Some Eschatology: Day of Judgment, Hell, and Paradise” and ” Origins of Islam legends and beliefs from Jewish Haggadah and Old Testament Apocrypha” were used by professor Dr. Sami Awad Aldeeb Abu-Sahlieh in his critical edition of Quran
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sami_Aldeeb
I still have my tragedies as a freethinker and writer. My books are prevented from publishing, they reached to 57 books by me or translated by me! That sounds like the legendary Quranic Noah! 45 of them form an encyclopedia in criticism of Islam. I must say people and government do not care very much of academic writers, because most of the people do not read any books from principle.
So, I put them on some blog for educated people, But I have my human right to publish my books openly to get some good readers, make videos for lay ignorant people without going to prison or get killed. I need support by publishing or traveling to complete my other projects to translate many books on evolution and on Atheism and Secularism, and another project in criticism of 12 shia criticism, which I can’t do without a supporting press or foundation.
Jacobsen: What are some of the books that you have been translating?
I translated these books into our classic Arabic formal language:
Why Evolution is True, Jerry A. Coyne
History of Life, Richard Cowen (1991)
The Greatest Show on Earth – The Evidence for Evolution, Richard Dawkins
Ancestors in Our Genome- The New Science of Human Evolution, Eugene E. Harris
Atheism, A Philosophical Justification, Michael Martin
Value and Virtue in a Godless Universe, Erik J. Wielenberg
What Are You Without God?: How to Discredit Religious Thought and Rebuild Your Identity, Christopher Krzeminski
Sana’a palimpsest has differences (variants) with current Othmanic Quran (translation from English books)
I still want to translate many other books on topics of atheism, history of atheism or freethought, and on secular ethics, also other sex modern new books on the evolution of human and on his behavior and its origins in Apes family.
Jacobsen: Why did you select these books for translation?
Anonymous Egyptian Author, Freethinker, and Translator: I choose the books that the Egyptian and Arabian people of profitable culture wouldn’t translate them, so they don’t exist in the book markets.
I choose to adopt a project to enlighten some of the ignorant Arabian humans, whom the Islam and other religions clergymen with the governments from centuries cloud them with a dark cloud of ignorance and backward primitivism. This is a noble mission I picked up, not only me adopt it.
Jacobsen: How can external individuals with influence or organizations help dissenters and non-believers in Egypt?
Anonymous Egyptian Author, Freethinker, and Translator: Unfortunately, you would hear about 2 cases got famous in 300 cases, let’s say or guess.
The role of the western world, with it civil organizations and governments are to support every prisoner or persecuted person in this plagued area, by pressing on the governments to free the oppressed peoples, they may need also to offer refuge and support to some of them in their countries.
They are not that much in number, especially supporting and helping the real atheist freethinkers. With some time passing, they may make all the difference for the Middle East, as their counterparts mad before for the Western world.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, and stay safe.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/08/29
Some accomplishments in life deserve applause, approval, and accolades. However, accomplishment can seem ambiguous in the evaluation of the relative success of a purported achievement.
Indeed, the updates – or, maybe, ‘down-dates’ or ‘back-dates’ – for the sexual education curriculum for Ontario students are underway. It brings the notion of a good education and a bad education into the forefront of the public discourse, where it can show in the words and the actions of the general population and, most importantly, the educators.
International and national documents speak to the right of children to have their best interests in mind, where the parents, the educational system, the community, and the governments bear the responsibility to enact the best interests of the children by implication. Rights exist for everyone, not some – or in part for some and all for others.[1]
The Canadian Civil Liberties Association decided to sue the Government of Ontario based on discriminatory changes to the sexual education curriculum – or ‘sex ed’ curriculum – in Ontario (Gollom, 2018).
This suggests human rights, the best interests of the child, and the right to education for children. One core document in international children’s rights remains the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (OHCHR, 1989).
Article 3(1) of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child states the best interests of the child should be – so a moral stipulation – the primary consideration in all actions (OHCHR, 1989).[2]
Article 28 of the Convention remarks, in part, on the fundamental recognition of the right to education for children (Ibid.). Furthermore, Article 29 of the Convention speaks to the goals of education with the inclusion of respect for others, human rights, and their own and others’ culture (Ibid.).[3]
One may reflect on the human rights of, and intrinsic respect for, the sexual orientation and gender identity minorities within the province of Ontario educational curriculum through potential non-inclusion or minimization of existence.
If an advanced industrial economy, constitutional monarchy, and democracy retains the ability to provide a fuller education or give better educational provisions via the sexual education curriculum, and if the same nation does not, does this, in part, deny the full implementation of the right to education for children as per Article 28 of the Convention? Also, does this violate the best interests of the child as per Article 3(1)?
Elected in 2018, Premier Doug Ford (Progressive Conservative government for Ontario) announced the retraction of the newer sexual education curriculum constructed and implemented by the previous government in Ontario led by Kathleen Wynne.
Teachers may risk punishment through non-compliance with the implementation of the old sexual education curriculum from almost two decades ago, in Ontario. This old curriculum will be an “interim curriculum” (Gollom, 2018).
Now, the Ontario government is creating a website for parents to complain or express concerns over what kids may hear in class. Does the reportage of parents, possibly en masse, in Ontario public schools work to build the needed bonds of trust and solidarity between teachers, parents, and government for the best interests of the child or not?
Does the potential public humiliation and intimidation of conscientious objector status teachers improve the morale of educators in Ontario or not? What might be the long-term impact on teacher-government relations into the future because of it?
Michael Bryant, the Canadian Civil Liberties Association Executive Director, opined, “[The government’s actions are a] ham-fisted dog-whistle of bigotry, of homophobia, dressed up as a consultation fix… We are calling it out and taking it to court” (Ibid.).
Some judge the decisions of Premier Doug Ford as discrimination against the LGBTQ+ community and a “lesson in homophobia” (Bigham, 2018). Others see this as the placement of parents’ rights first (Salutin, 2018).
Others, with proper authority, including Education Minister Lisa Thompson has or, have been unavailable for comment for prominent news organizations such as the CBC (CBC, 2018a). Still others, they opine on the level of knowledge children have about sex, i.e., a lot (Thomas, 2018).
Some may direct attention to the recent furor over the right to free speech – with international movements, dialogues, debates and lecture circuit attendees riding the wind of it, and making good money off it – in some of the culture, which, of course, remains a misnomer – ‘free speech’ – when they mean the right to freedom of expression (Government of Canada, 1982; UN, 1948).[4] As an aside, in actuality, a minor phenomenon worth little attention.
However, the argument from Vice News is the hypocrisy in the argument for free speech while also the prevention of educators to teach kids about consent by the government (Csanady, 2018). Take, for example, the inclusion of the term “transgender” only with a single appearance now, too (Ibid.). These limit the ability of educators to properly and fully teach the young.
Does this transgender or trans example relate to the minimization of the marginal – often suicidal due to more bullying, misunderstanding, and prejudice – in this country through the educational system regression mentioned earlier and in-progress now (PREVnet, 2018)?[5] Bullying remains a human rights violation as well (Ibid.; PREVnet, n.d.).[6]
The updated sex education curriculum emerged in 2015, as a revision and expansion of the 1998 sexual education curriculum in Ontario schools for children. In the electronic era, this included the information about gender identity, online bullying, and sexting. Something not foreseeable by most in the 1990s.
Social conservatives remain the main opponents to the 2015 educational curriculum coverage on gender identity, masturbation, and same-sex relationships.
With the call to appeal to the social conservative base of Premier Ford, several teachers’ unions and “thousands of parents and the Official Opposition have criticized the government’s decision to scrap the modernized sex ed curriculum” (Gollom, 2018).
One daughter could be marginalized in the light of the sexual education curriculum reversion to 1998 from 2015. Bryant uses the lawsuit from the family of the daughter who may face marginalization from within the school if the complete regression to the 1990s happens in the sexual education of Ontario youth.
The daughter is 10-years-old with a protected identity. The mother, Becky McFarlane, is queer. Bryant argues the interim curriculum leaves important information out of the sexual education information needed by students now.
Bryant stated, “They’ve taken out content in a way that discriminates against this family on the basis of their sexual orientation and gender identity” (Gollom, 2018). A Chernos Flaherty Svonkin LLP lawyer, Stuart Svonkin, is working with the Canadian Civil Liberties Association from three main targeted arguments:
- The government’s decision is not consistent with Ontario’s Education Act, which requires the province to provide inclusive school environments.
- The decision is inconsistent with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms — specifically, the equality of rights and security of the person.
- The decision violates the Ontario Human Rights Code. (Ibid.)
Many human rights lawyers are working on challenges to the decision of the government of Premier Ford, on behalf of six other families. The Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario (ETFO) asked teachers to ignore the call by the Government of Ontario (Newport, 2018a). This created the foundation upon which the government based the “snitch-line” for parents about dissenting teachers (Newport, 2018b).
Windsor, Ontario LGBTQ+ leaders remain unhappy with the decision of the provincial government (Georgieva, 2018). The head of the largest school board in Ontario attempted to console and cajole the teachers about several important topics remaining within the interim sexual education curriculum (The Canadian Press, 2018). While at the same time, John Malloy, stated the interim curriculum still leaves things out now (Ibid.).
However, this has been frustrating several teachers on-the-ground (CBC, 2018b). Important to note, and as far as I can tell, Premier Ford and Minister Thompson have not taken questions – not simply for the CBC but any media outlet.
The Toronto District School Board chair, Robin Pilkey, described how the interim curriculum does not address the permissions and restrictions on educators of what can and cannot be taught to the youth.
As reported by The Canadian Press (2018), “She says board staff are currently combing through the new document and the now-repealed modernized version to figure out how they differ — but notes the province had months to provide that information.”
Does this disrespect the time and profession of teachers in Ontario? By implication, through insufficient time to prepare educational materials for students, does this harm students with improper and incomplete education?
The Government of Ontario declared a consultation process for the sexual education curriculum without an explicit statement as to the costs of it (Gollom, 2018). Throughout the consultation, high school students will learn the modernized, 2015, curriculum while Grades 1-8 will learn the interim curriculum in Ontario.
“My understanding is it’s not going to include concepts like consent, that it’s not going to address issues like cyberbullying and that leaves our kids at risk,” Andrea Horwath, the NDP leader, stated, “For the purposes of satisfying backroom deals that Mr. Ford made when he was running for the leadership with the radical social conservatives in his party, he’s continuing to put our children at risk.”
As asked throughout, does this violate the best interests of the children in Ontario?
Does this, in part, deny the right to education of the children in Ontario?
Does the calling out of teachers humiliate them and not empower them?
Does this ‘snitch’ program degrade government-parent-teacher relations over the long-term?
Does the insufficient time given to teachers disrespect the time and profession of the educators?
By implication, through not enough time to prepare the curriculum for students, does this harm students with improper and incomplete, and hastily put together, educational resources?
If an affirmative response to some, most, or all of these, then those – as per statements at the outset – are accomplishments, of a sort, Premier Ford can count on the record with little in the way of “applause, approval, and accolades,” but, rather, the opposite on a number of fronts.
—
References
Bigham, B. (2018, August 28). Ontario’s dated sex-ed plan is a lesson in homophobia. Retrieved from https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-ontarios-dated-sex-ed-plan-is-a-lesson-in-homophobia/.
CBC. (2018a, August 28). GTA school boards still parsing Ontario PC sex ed changes. Retrieved from https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/school-boards-grapple-with-sex-ed-changes-1.4801773.
CBC. (2018b, August 24). Sex-ed edict frustrates local educators. Retrieved from https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/london/sex-ed-curriculum-1.4797055.
Csanady, A. (2018, August 28). The Worst Part Of Doug Ford’s Sex Ed Snitch Line Is His Glaring Hypocrisy. Retrieved from https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/paw5qk/the-worst-part-of-doug-fords-sex-ed-snitch-line-is-his-glaring-hypocrisy.
Georgieva, K. (2018, August 27). Windsor LGBTQ leaders rip into interim sex-ed curriculum. Retrieved from https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/windsor/lgbt-leaders-sex-education-curriculum-1.4799872.
Gollom, M. (2018, August 16). Sex-ed curricula can’t satisfy everyone, and they shouldn’t try, say some experts. Retrieved from https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/sex-education-ontario-canada-curriculum-1.4786045.
Government of Canada. (1982). Constitution Act, 1982: Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Retrieved from http://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/Const/page-15.html.
Newport, A. (2018a, August 28). Here’s How Mississauga Schools Will Address the Sex-Ed Controversy. Retrieved from https://www.insauga.com/heres-how-mississauga-schools-will-address-the-sex-ed-controversy.
Newport, A. (2018b, August 23). Ontario Government Asking Parents to Tattle on Teachers Who Ignore Sex-Ed Mandate. Retrieved from https://www.insauga.com/ontario-government-asking-parents-to-tattle-on-teachers-who-ignore-sex-ed-mandate.
OHCHR. (1989). Convention on the Rights of the Child. Retrieved from https://www.ohchr.org/en/professionalinterest/pages/crc.aspx.
PREVnet. (n.d.). Bullying: A Human Rights Issue. Retrieved from https://www.prevnet.ca/sites/prevnet.ca/files/fact-sheet/PREVNet-SAMHSA-Factsheet-Bullying-A-Human-Rights-Issue.pdf.
PREVnet. (2018). LGBTQ Youth. Retrieved from https://www.prevnet.ca/bullying/parents/parents-of-lgbtq-youth.
Salutin, R. (2018, August 28). Doug Ford will put parents’ rights first. Who will do that for kids?. Retrieved from https://www.thestar.com/opinion/star-columnists/2018/08/28/doug-ford-will-put-parents-rights-first-who-will-do-that-for-kids.html.
The Canadian Press. (2018). Head of Toronto school board reassures teachers on sex-ed curriculum. Retrieved from https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/head-of-toronto-school-board-reassures-teachers-on-sex-ed-curriculum-1.4068075.
Thomas, W. (2018, August 28). Ontario’s new sex-ed: horny birds and honey bees. Retrieved from https://www.niagarathisweek.com/opinion-story/8865152-ontario-s-new-sex-ed-horny-birds-and-honey-bees/.
UN. (1948, December 10). The Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Retrieved from http://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/.
—
Footnote
[1] If one argues for one right for oneself, e.g. freedom of religion, and against one right for another, e.g., reproductive health rights, then one denies the universality of human rights in principle and, in turn, the basic premise of human rights as something for all people through implementation of all rights – never perfect but in the fundamental ethical precept implied through the universality of human rights. Important to note, when one speaks of human rights and the international community, the purpose of the reiteration of the stipulations not only amounts to personal or group opinion in the moment about the particulars of an issue impinging on the human rights concerns of members of a society but also on the fundamental basis of stating the international rights agreed upon and signed through international rights documents, including the Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989). Not simply a single person or group touting an opinion, rather, the consensus and agreements, and stipulations, of the international community, of which the single person or group agrees on – the rights of persons.
[2] Article 3 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child states in full:
1. In all actions concerning children, whether undertaken by public or private social welfare institutions, courts of law, administrative authorities or legislative bodies, the best interests of the child shall be a primary consideration.
2. States Parties undertake to ensure the child such protection and care as is necessary for his or her well-being, taking into account the rights and duties of his or her parents, legal guardians, or other individuals legally responsible for him or her, and, to this end, shall take all appropriate legislative and administrative measures.
3. States Parties shall ensure that the institutions, services and facilities responsible for the care or protection of children shall conform with the standards established by competent authorities, particularly in the areas of safety, health, in the number and suitability of their staff, as well as competent supervision.
OHCHR. (1989). Convention on the Rights of the Child. Retrieved from https://www.ohchr.org/en/professionalinterest/pages/crc.aspx.
[3] Article 29 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child states in full:
1. States Parties agree that the education of the child shall be directed to:
(a) The development of the child’s personality, talents and mental and physical abilities to their fullest potential;
(b) The development of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, and for the principles enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations;
(c) The development of respect for the child’s parents, his or her own cultural identity, language and values, for the national values of the country in which the child is living, the country from which he or she may originate, and for civilizations different from his or her own;
(d) The preparation of the child for responsible life in a free society, in the spirit of understanding, peace, tolerance, equality of sexes, and friendship among all peoples, ethnic, national and religious groups and persons of indigenous origin;
(e) The development of respect for the natural environment.
2. No part of the present article or article 28 shall be construed so as to interfere with the liberty of individuals and bodies to establish and direct educational institutions, subject always to the observance of the principle set forth in paragraph 1 of the present article and to the requirements that the education given in such institutions shall conform to such minimum standards as may be laid down by the State.
OHCHR. (1989). Convention on the Rights of the Child. Retrieved from https://www.ohchr.org/en/professionalinterest/pages/crc.aspx.
[4] Part I(2) in subsection b of the Constitution Act, 1982: Charter of Rights and Freedoms states:
…freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication;
Government of Canada. (1982). Constitution Act, 1982: Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Retrieved from http://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/Const/page-15.html.
Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states in full:
Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.
UN. (1948, December 10). The Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Retrieved from http://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/.
[5] PREVnet (2018) LGBTQ Youth states:
All Youth Deserve To Feel Safe. Bullying Is A Human Rights Violation.
Questioning or accepting one’s sexual orientation can be a difficult process for teens, especially when coupled with the other stresses of adolescence. Approximately 4% of teens identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or questioning (LGBTQ). These kids are more likely to be victims of bullying, sexual harassment and physical abuse and face a greater risk of social isolation.
The bullying experienced by LGBTQ youth is similar to other types of bullying in adolescence, but it is particularly hurtful because these kids are keenly aware of society’s heterosexual bias.
PREVnet. (2018). LGBTQ Youth. Retrieved from https://www.prevnet.ca/bullying/parents/parents-of-lgbtq-youth.
[6] Bullying: A Human Rights Issue (n.d.) states:
When children are victimized, whether the perpetrator is an adult or a peer, their rights are being violated. Every human deserves and is entitled to respect and protection from discrimination and harassment. As a vulnerable population within society, children are at an increased risk for victimization and depend on adults to protect them and advocate for their human rights.
PREVnet. (n.d.). Bullying: A Human Rights Issue. Retrieved from https://www.prevnet.ca/sites/prevnet.ca/files/fact-sheet/PREVNet-SAMHSA-Factsheet-Bullying-A-Human-Rights-Issue.pdf.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/08/27
Some license plates in Canada remain more offensive than others, in Alberta in particular. In 1985, personalized license plates were introduced for public creation and consumption. 80,000 have been issued.
The license plates are not permitted to reference or ridicule on a number of identifiable groupings within the province. The reportage states, “any race, religion, gender or sexual orientation, employ foul or derogatory language, have sexual connotations or use political slurs.”
Some are entitled WTF LOL, BYT3ME, B00GRR, TRUMP45, MR OCD, CHRDNAY, BEY0TCH, MUHFUGG, GR84PLA, PINAS, and the last image from the article: GRABHER. Each of various levels of offence depending on the Albertan.
These are forms of license plates are entitled Vanity Plates – self-explanatory. Service Alberta set about 7 categories of offense for the license plates. Some of the others included CARRY22, SATIVA, INDICA, KRAK, SN0RTER and LSDINGO.
One business support specialist for the Alberta Motor Association, Brian Salter, described clever word tricks and plays on words can help pass a license plate. However, they must comply within the boundaries and borders set by the 7 categories of “technical and moral standards.”
Any professional titles or indications including MLA or MD are strictly forbidden, even if a qualified general practitioner or orthopedic surgeon. Also, apparently, manners and a smile can help in the registration of a questionable automobile vanity plate.
Salter continued, “Registry agents are the first line of defence… Our responsibility is to screen anything that comes in for a request, but every personalized plate request is reviewed by a motor vehicle specialist at Service Alberta.”
Now, noting the final plate listed as GRABHER, this looks as if a deliberate political message in light of comments about personal behaviour around and to women by the President of the United States.
However, the man who wanted the personalized plate was Troy Grabher. He wanted to have the family name on the car as a license plate. Troy is in the middle of a court battle over it, now.
His father, Lorne Grabher, had the same license plate title revoked, in Nova Scotia, in 2016 based on a complaint: a “socially unacceptable slogan” rather than the last name of a family with Austrian-German heritage.
Apparently, the license plate has been the subject of international news with the exhausting associated exhausting court battle.
Troy Grabher opined, “It was all over the news, and we were just flabbergasted. Like, how could this even happen? I think it’s pathetic that’s it come to this… I’m always worried about it. I mean, I have a sticker on the back of my car saying that it’s my last name so people are aware of it.”
—
References
Snowdon, W. & Keeler, N. (2018, August 27). Retrieved from https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/edmonton-alberta-rejected-licence-plates-1.4797754.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/08/26
“TORONTO, Aug. 22, 2018 /CNW/ – We are pleased to announce the seventh cohort of Schulich Leaders, recipients of Canada’s most prestigious STEM scholarship.
Out of a pool of 350,000 potential candidates across Canada, 1,400 students were nominated, of which 50 received this celebrated award.
Of the 50 recipients, 25 receive $100,000 to pursue an engineering degree and 25 receive $80,000 to pursue a science, technology or mathematics degree at our 20 Canadian partner universities.”
“Gwyneth Paltrow-backed lifestyles brand Goop is making a push into Canada, but critics in the medical community say they’re ready to push back.
Goop chief content officer Elise Loehnen announced Wednesday that the online wellness empire is bringing its series of In Goop Health conferences to Canada for the first time this fall. Its e-commerce site will also expand the selection of products available to Canadians.
Loehnen, who will host the wellness summit in Vancouver on Oct. 27, said the day-long symposium will be more intimate and less “intense” than previous gatherings in the U.S..”
Source: https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/medical-experts-criticize-goop-expansion-to-canada-1.4796115.
“VICTORIA, Aug. 21, 2018 /CNW/ – When the research community is as diverse as the communities we live in, we all benefit from better science that is informed by more diverse ideas and perspectives.
That was the message the Honourable Kirsty Duncan, Minister of Science and Sport, shared today while meeting a diverse group of researchers at the University of Victoria to discuss their views on how to adapt the Athena SWAN(Scientific Women’s Academic Network) initiative for a “made-in-Canada” approach that will support greater equity, diversity and inclusion in research. This meeting was one of a series of similar discussions Minister Duncan has hosted at university campuses across the country this summer.
In addition, Minister Duncan toured the Willerth Laboratory, which focuses on 3D printing and engineering neural tissue from stem cells. There, she met Dr. Stephanie Willerth, Canada Research Chair in Biomedical Engineering, and Dr. Leigh Anne Swayne, whose lab received funding from the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) in April 2018 for new research tools and equipment that will allow her to advance her research.”
“For the first time, physicists at CERN have observed a benchmark atomic energy transition in antihydrogen, a major step toward cooling and manipulating the basic form of antimatter.
“The Lyman-alpha transition is the most basic, important transition in regular hydrogen atoms, and to capture the same phenomenon in antihydrogen opens up a new era in antimatter science,” said Takamasa Momose, the University of British Columbia chemist and physicist who led the development of the laser system used to manipulate the antihydrogen.
“This approach is a gateway to cooling down antihydrogen, which will greatly improve the precision of our measurements and allow us test how antimatter and gravity interact, which is still a mystery.””
Source: https://science.ubc.ca/news/canadian-laser-breakthrough-has-physicists-close-cooling-down-antimatter.
“Shortly after my book Firestorm, How Wildfire Will Shape Our Future was published in late 2017, I received a flurry of invitations to speak about the challenges of dealing with fires that are burning bigger, hotter, more often — and in increasingly unpredictable ways.
The invitations came from all over, from Los Angeles to Whitehorse in the Yukon and from Campbell River on Vancouver Island, to Portland, Me.
I had serious doubts that anyone in Whitehorse would come out to hear me speak on a Saturday night in the dead of winter when it was close to minus 30.
It turned out to be standing room only.”
Source: https://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2018/08/22/Were-Losing-Fight-Wildfires-BC-Fire-Prevention/.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/08/26
“Maxime Bernier, the 2017 Conservative Party of Canada (CPC) leadership runner-up, has announced he’s leaving the party to form a truly conservative alternative to Andrew Scheer’s CPC, which Bernier categorized as “intellectually and morally corrupt.”
While it’s been clear since the May leadership contest that conflicts between Bernier and Scheer persisted — with Bernier removed from the CPC shadow cabinet for publicly challenging the party on supply management in Canada’s dairy sector — this move came as a surprise given that it coincided with the start of the party’s policy convention.
Bernier made his move to maximize both media coverage and pressure on his former party, one he’s accused of “abandoning” Canadian conservatives. The question now is just how effective Bernier’s new party will be, and, if it can find success in time for the 2019 election, how will it affect the CPC and wider federal politics?”
“Canadian politicians are expressing their sympathies to the family of Arizona Sen. John McCain, who has died of brain cancer at the age of 81.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau wrote on Twitter that McCain was an American patriot and hero whose sacrifices for his country, and lifetime of public service, were an inspiration to millions.
Conservative party Leader Andrew Scheer praised McCain on Twitter, writing his decades of service in defence of freedom crossed party lines and touched freedom-loving people across borders.”
Source: https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/john-mccain-death-canada-prime-ministers-reaction-1.4799398.
“AS NEWS articles go from one ridiculous subject to another concerning politics, don’t be fooled into believing this is normal. Regardless of a very sick culture to the south, Canada is embarking on a very similar path with exactly the same results in mind. This can be referred to as the great division of Canadians and is accomplished on purpose, for political reasons.
Canada was a very safe, wonderful country at one time and although political leaders seemed to be fatherly, that all changed with the first Trudeau. With a jet-set attitude, Canada started down the path of party time and thus, national debt was born. Before that, we owed, as a nation, nothing to no one.
Now, as we watch and are silenced by the media and government, we suffer the humiliation of having to be politically correct, or be accused of being racist, homophobic, Islamaphobic or an array of other insults meant merely to silence us. Even some laws threaten our freedom of expression, unless you are with a minority group.”
“$37,542. That’s how much a family of four would have needed to earn in 2015 to stay above Canada’s new poverty line.
The federal government has established a new way to measure poverty as part of a national strategy, released yesterday, that pledges to cut poverty in half by 2030. The strategy, which aims to bring more than two million Canadians out of poverty, doesn’t include any new programs or funding to achieve that goal, but it does set out a very specific definition to track the government’s progress.
The new poverty line looks at the cost of a basket of goods and services – essentially, what a person or family would need to cover the necessities of life and achieve a modest standard of living in a list of 50 communities. The basket includes obvious items such as clothing, transportation, healthy food and shelter, as well as additional expenses including recreation, entertainment and school supplies.”
Source: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-politics-briefing-defining-poverty-in-canada/.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/08/26
“New Brunswick’s Court of Appeal has set aside the sexual assault convictions of former Esgenoôpetitj First Nation chief Wilbur Dedam and ordered a new trial.
Dedam, 66, was sentenced in 2016 to nine years in prison after a jury found him guilty of six sex crimes against three girls in the community dating back to the 1970s.
In February 2018, Dedam appealed his conviction on the grounds he was excluded from the courtroom during his trial in Miramichi. The Criminal Code of Canada states “an accused … shall be present in court during the whole of his or her trial.””
“The Canadian Civil Liberties Association has launched a legal challenge to stop the province’s “discriminatory” sex-education rollback.
The application seeking an injunction was filed Thursday at the Ontario Superior Court of Justice by the rights group and Becky McFarlane, the queer parent of a 10-year-old girl going into Grade 6.
“(We) are doing everything legally possible to keep our classrooms free of censorship, discrimination, stigma, degradation,” said Michael Bryant, executive director and general counsel for the association.”
“Protesters and the Saskatchewan government presented arguments in court Thursday that could determine the fate of the teepees set up on a lawn in front of the provincial legislature.
Justice Ysanne Wilkinson opted to reserve her decision, but not before saying she has some “heavy conceptual lifting to do” after listening to six hours of legal arguments, which hinged on questions around the limits to freedom of expression and the merits of park bylaws.
Protesters with the Justice For Our Stolen Children Camp have been set up on green space in Regina’s Wascana Centre since February. They are pushing for changes to the province’s justice and child welfare system, both of which have high numbers of Indigenous young people.”
“As a criminal lawyer one issue that has been raised repeatedly is the fact of how or why I am defending the accused in criminal cases especially where the cases are serious and distasteful; and I have had to proffer the same recitation numerous times to different people both calm and hostile.
As citizens or persons living in the country, we are protected by our Constitution which guarantees all persons fundamental rights and freedoms. In April of 1982 Canada severed some of its colonial past and brought into effect the Charter of Rights and Freedoms also known as the Constitution Act 1982. Sections 7-15 of the Charter are, in my opinion, the most important sections of this sacred document as they are guarantees to protect the individual from State intervention. One of those rights is the right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty by an fair and impartial tribunal. In section 11(d) of the Charter it is started that:
Any person charged with an offence has the right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty according to law in a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal.”
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/08/14
Shanaaz Gokool is the CEO of Dying With Dignity Canada. Here we talk about her work, role, and views.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: To begin, so some of the readership knows where you’re coming from and how you came to be a leader in the Dying With Dignity Canada movement, what was upbringing like with family background? Was religion in it? Were human rights activists in it? And so on.
Shanaaz Gokool: It is interesting that you ask that. So, my background is in human rights activism. I like to tell people that I started my career in Nova Scotia while I was a high school student working on issues around race and inclusion and diversity.
I was part of an organization called The Cultural Awareness Youth Group. It was primarily for black high school students. It started off in Halifax, Dartmouth and went across the province. What is really interesting about that program, is that we did debates, events, conferences.
I was part of the program in the 80s, mid-80s. Most of the students who were part of the program of the time have done some interesting things with their lives. That is when I became aware of issues arounds human rights.
Partly because my parents are from the Caribbean, I was born in Trinidad. My mother is Indian-South Asian descent and Muslim. My father is a mix of South Asian, Black, and Christian. When you grow up in a household like that, there is always a balancing of rights.
Being bi-racial and bi-religious, has shaped how I view the world. What I find helpful now is that my mother is still Muslim, my father passed many years ago, and I am an atheist. But I have a real respect for people who are religious because of my parents.
A lot of the messaging we do at DWDC on around assisted dying, relates to access issues. I am very conscious of people who have a deep faith. I am very conscious that my mother is a Muslim in support of assisted dying.
That you don’t have to choose in many instances between faith and assisted dying; quite often, it is the leaders of the groups who are far more vocal and opposed. But when you start looking at who their flock is, generally, you find that they are like the rest of Canada, so they have the same belief systems as the rest of us and the same support or close to the same support levels for assisted dying.
I feel that has been helpful for me in balancing. I know a number of atheists. I know some angry atheists, for good reason [Laughing], right? People have their own stances and experiences and it really shapes how they view the world.
I am not an angry atheist. I respect religion for those who believe because I feel often a little bit of jealousy because I wish I had that comfort [Laughing]. I don’t have that. If you are an atheist and don’t have children, the future is grim.
There is no afterlife for you to go to. You don’t have children who will carry on your hopes. For me, that just means you do the best you can with what you’ve got because this is what you’ve got. I don’t know if that is more information than what you needed to know [Laughing].
Jacobsen: It reminds of when I talked to Lawrence Hill who authored The Book of Negroes. He noted in his own upbringing. His own father and mother were in an interracial marriage, but they were both atheists.
When I reflect on your own personal narrative, your own parents – father being Christian and mother being Muslim, but then being biracial too. It is an added dynamic because it is not a political belief.
It is a comprehensive worldview belief with a host of suggested practices that take, for the most part, up an entire person’s life. So, it is an interesting dynamic for someone growing up.
Gokool: Even my parents getting married in the Caribbean, when it was a thing, I tease my mother about it. My dad was Anglican. It was decided by both parents at some point when I was a little girl with three other siblings that we have to have some form of religious education.
They thought this was an important thing. They decided on a mosque. There was only one in Halifax, but they found it was too political. My father found a Pentecostal Church. The only reason we went to that every Sunday and Sunday school was because they sent a bus and then he didn’t have to drive [Laughing].
Jacobsen: [Laughing].
Gokool: There were enough reasons with the understanding of the bases of Western democracy and Christian that he wasn’t too choosy about which branch of Christianity. It was just really funny. I went to church, but the church had a bus and so I went because of the bus.
If you go to a Baptist Church in Nova Scotia, a black Baptist Church; those are fun. It is a different kind of experience. I don’t go to church here, but I did not some research projects in the black community as a teenager. One Summer, I went to church at North Preston almost every Sunday. It was fun. It was very lively.
Jacobsen: This continued into your undergraduate education. You did political science, human rights, and equity studies.
Gokool: Yes, at York University, I went back to school as a mature student. I went back twice in the 90s and then 2009/10 to do the degree in human rights and equity studies. By then, I had left the private sector in 2006 and wanted to transition to the not-for-profit sector.
When I came to Toronto, a lot of the activism that I did fell to the wayside as I tried to find my way and struggled. So, in 2006, I left the private sector and discovered through a series of informational interviews a bunch of health-related and disease-related organizations, specifically, and social justice interviews.
I used to know about Amnesty International because my dad would take me to these conferences when I was a little girl. There was always someone there signing these petitions. It was kind of funny in a way when I started working for Amnesty for a few years, about 5 in total while I was still in school.
I think that in that work in particular- I have also worked for Lead Now for a while- shaped my human rights lens. It is the most obvious sort of pieces that I have brought to Dying With Dignity Canada.
We updated our objects of incorporation to reflect human rights work. That the work that we do on assisted dying, whether we’re talking about the eligibility criteria or the access issues that affect people all across the country.
That we look at that through a human rights lens. I feel that that experience with Amnesty prepared for my current work and to discuss this issue as a human rights issues. That feel that that is a contribution that we have made over the past few years.
Every now and then, I will see an article. In Australia, they just passed legislation. I read an article that said ‘finally a human right that I can get behind’ in reference to assisted dying. I was like “Where did they get that language from?”
In other jurisdictions where they have assisted dying, they tend not to frame it that way. But I cannot imagine framing it any other way. I think that is the role of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms has played in the legalization of assisted dying in this country.
The Charter of Rights and Freedoms is a document about balancing the fundament rights of Canadians and those rights are human rights. It all fit naturally for the organization. We transitioned quite easily into a human rights organization.
It is nice to see other jurisdictions to use the language that we use here in Canada. I think, “That is exactly how we should look at this.” It is about the autonomy of the body and the ability to make choices for yourself, as your own person – in your own personal medical circumstances.
That is something that I think has been interesting and fascinating and is great to see so many other Canadians identifying with this issue that way as well.
Jacobsen: At the start of the interview, we mentioned the early work as a human rights activist. You recently mentioned the “human rights lens.” I note two points of contact or more properly conflict with human rights lens of a secular international human rights lens on the one side and the transcendental moral law lens on the other.
From the outside, as a non-expert, view, I note those as two points of conflict inside the country and outside of it when it comes to physician-assisted suicide or the dying with dignity movement.
Gokool: Yes, there is a natural conflict. I think that it is really problematic when we look at certain contexts, whether religious or political or otherwise, and don’t apply them to the context of the day.
I don’t actually see a conflict. Maybe, it is because I think there is a conflict with certain people, with certain backgrounds and views. Sometimes, opposition to assisted dying: is it always religious? For some, it is moral. Maybe, the sense of morality has religious roots. It can be a little bit more nuanced than that.
When I look at my own other and I look at people of faith that I know who still support assisted dying, and who still support of people in the queer community to have access to healthcare that they need, and the rights of women around reproductive rights, I think that there is enough evidence.
When I say “evidence,” 85% of Canadians support assisted dying. Many of those people self-identify as having some sort of faith. I don’t know the overall numbers in Canada of people who support that identify with a particular faith.
But I think for most people that there isn’t a conflict, but for the leaders of those organizations; they’ve created a conflict. It is an unnecessary one. It is one that can result in very coercive behaviours when it comes to people who suffering.
I don’t know why. I don’t know if it is that there are just a few areas of authority that some religious groups want to cling to. But I will tell you why the support is so high in Canada and in other places.
We have done some polling, where I think it is 78% of people who identify as Roman Catholic support assisted dying. It is the one human right with so much support. It is a rare human right in this way. I worked on the death penalty and polling on abortion. I worked on other campaigns against the Guantanamo Bay prison detention facilities. When you see public polling on these issues, you do not see 85% against the death penalty for instance. You don’t see it that high. In Canada, though, you do see high support for assisted dying.
My response to that many people don’t know people in prison or on death row in another part of the world. You may not know or have a mother, sister, or friend, you yourself may not have had any example of asserting your human rights.
You may not know someone who is transitioning. Yet, the one thing we know that comes for everyone [Laughing] is death. I think that’s why you have this disconnect between the majority supporting assisted dying and the small minority who doesn’t.
Death is like the great equalizer in some ways. It is going to come for us all. We haven’t found a clever way to outsmart it. Technology and medicine have done that in some ways. But at the end of the day, everyone dies.
At the end of the day, everyone experiences it. If you have been alive, you will die.
Jacobsen: [Laughing].
Gokool: I think that when you look at your own personal circumstances. Some people think, “It isn’t going to happen.” But you don’t until you’re in those circumstances or a loved one is in those circumstances.
You really don’t know. I tell people all of the time, “I don’t want to have an assisted death. Are you nuts?! I don’t want to be in the position of intolerable suffering where that is my option out.” However, I am relieved that it is there as a choice for me.
In that position, I am relieved for everyone since I am able to access an assisted death. But personally, I don’t want to have intolerable suffering. Thank you very much [Laughing]. Often, I don’t find that funny.
But I work and campaign on this and am passionate, but I don’t want to be in that position. I think that’s how most people feel. Who wants the suffering in their life? That is where the comfort comes in.
You know that if you are in that position or have a loved one in that position, then there is a better option. That is why assisted dying is so meaningful.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Shanaaz.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/08/13
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: What is your family background in religion?
Arya Parispur: I grew up in a house where my father mocked religion and my mother practiced it in her own way, but neither of them forced their children to go either way and we had much liberty to make our own decisions. In school, however, we were obliged to practice Islam that is to fast during Ramadan, say Islamic prayers and be a hijabi, which I pretended to do to avoid the harsh consequences. It was this balance in my parents’ views and also the different lives I lived at school and home that kept my mind open to different aspects of religion. When I left Iran (in my early twenties) and was introduced to secular societies, the concept of God and the matter of his existence became less relevant in my life.
Jacobsen: How did this influence the personal relationship with religion?
Arya Parispur: My mother was a God believer and always talked about how God (Khoda in Persian) has loved and helped her in life and that she loved him back for that. Therefore, as a child, although I chose not to pray to him, I believed in the God my mother believed in, which I was told was never vengeful or mean, unlike the God they described in school. So having that ingrained in me, I separate the concept of God from religion and while I believe religion does to mind what poison does to the body, my opinion about God’s existence varies based on how one describes God. If God is an entity that’s the source of life and we feel peaceful when we- in our own personal way- connect to that source, then I would say “yes maybe that’s God”. But if he is like a nosy neighbour who is constantly spying on us with his binoculars and is keeping a tally chart of our deeds that please or upset him, and we have to behave accordingly or else he’ll have his nasty revenge, then I say “that’s what religion wants you to do and believe, stay away from that poison.”
Jacobsen: In correspondence, you noted the secret lives of Iranians who are atheists. Many come out as atheists and, therefore, others will not but still be atheist. What are some English translations from Persian of their protestations and statements as atheists in a theocratic regime?
Arya Parispur: During my college years in Tehran I was introduced to these underground group gatherings where people discussed their willingness to leave Islam and convert to Zoroastrianism (ancient Persian religion) or Christianity, while some pointed out atheism and complete freedom from any religion. That was where I first heard about atheism. Having lost my direct connection to the young people who currently live in Iran, I can still observe on social media, mostly Twitter, that atheism has developed a lot among the young generation of atheists and ex-Muslims who express their opinions (anonymously). They criticise religion –mainly Islam- and share their journey of how they became atheists. These discussions become of more importance especially now that Iran is in a critical situation- politically, socially and economically- under the rule of religion. The argument is that Iranians are trapped in this situation because Mullahs take advantage of their religious beliefs and rule over them; therefore the only solution to break free from this chain is to turn away from Mullah, mosque, and Islam altogether. This could come as the hardest blow for a regime whose whole existence is based on religion and Islamic Sharia law.
Over the last 8 months, there have been several street protests in different cities of Iran. The regime’s or even Western media have portrayed these unrests as results of economic strain, sanctions, and poverty, whereas people have chanted much more radical slogans during their demonstrations. “Death to dictator” is one of them which is directly referred to Khamenei, the current leader of the regime who is also the highest religious figure in the country. People go the mosques in their towns and turn their backs to the Imam and shout “turning our backs to the enemy, turning our face to the country” and “our enemy is right here, they lie to us that it’s America” right after Khamenei gives a speech and blames the enemy (the United States and Israel) for the troubles in the country. A recent “Mullahs must get lost” slogan has also sparked among the protesters. But the most common and recurring slogan that’s been heard from several public places in different cities of Iran has been “Reza Shah, bless your soul”. Reza Shah was king of Iran from 1926 to 1941 and is known to have resented the Mullahs and have confined them and their political activities during his reign. Reza Shah is also known for his patriotism and hard work towards the systematic development of the country’s economic and societal structure. Reza Shah’s grandson, Prince Reza Pahlavi, currently lives in the States and is the strongest and most popular opposition that Iran’s regime is facing, therefore chanting Reza Shah’s name while Iran is on the verge of overthrowing a theocratic regime, carries a heavy political weight.
Jacobsen: What have been the historic upheavals within Iran regarding atheists speaking out?
Arya Parispur: We grew up under a regime (the Islamic Republic of Iran since 1979) that intertwined politics with religion –Shiism- and caused great suffering for many of us. The spread of atheism in Iran could be a counterattack against that, hence a political move rather than a stand-alone dispute for atheists’ civil rights. Apart from that, a certain hatred for Mullahs and representatives of Shiism has grown that reflects in the protesters’ slogans (mentioned earlier), and although all of the protesters might not necessarily be atheists, they firmly disapprove of Mullahs and their contribution in running the country. What they’re after is a secular democratic system where followers of any religion and atheists can all have their rights.
Jacobsen: What have been the more recent protests and movements, public and underground?
Arya Parispur: Underground movements in modern terms could be anonymous activities on social media which have extensively increased inside Iran. Anti-regime secular and atheist Iranians have no platform or media outlet to openly express themselves, and major social media networks such as Facebook, Twitter and Telegram are also banned inside the country. Using VPN apps and different proxies are the only way they can manage to join and speak against the regime and Islam, organize street protests, and share the news of recent uprisings among themselves. There have also been several peaceful strikes by truck drivers and shopkeepers who have planned such activities through word of mouth. What is quite interesting is that none of such uprisings have been ignited or guided by a particular person as the leader. Such movements are merely the manifestation of people’s unity in one demand which is the collapse of this malfunctioning theocratic regime.
Jacobsen: You wrote Limu Shirin, The Bitter Story of Life After the Iranian Revolution. What was the inspiration for the title? What are the main premises in the book? What are the core questions raised and answers given by the end of the text?
Arya Parispur: “Limu Shirin” means sweet lemon in Persian, which is a type of lemon that grows in Iran and has a particular bitter sweet taste. I have used that as an analogy of how life was for us who grew up in Iran after the 1979 Revolution that brought the current regime to power. The book tells the memories of a childhood filled with bitter moments of an eight-year long war (in the 80’s between Iran and Iraq) and the grim school days of imposed Islamic ideology. But that childhood also came with a kind of sweetness that children always manage to create in their life. This book speaks for the kids of that generation who had to suffer the consequences of the mistake-the Revolution- that their parents made, but now they’ve risen up against it and are determined on changing this regime and their destiny.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Arya.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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“Brock University is distancing itself from a retired professor after he unleashed a racist tirade in a series of tweets linked to the removal of a statue of John A. Macdonald from the front steps of city hall in Victoria, B.C.
In a series of tweets posted Thursday, retired political science professor Garth Stevenson said Victoria is removing the statue of Canada’s first prime minister to “appease some sniveling aboriginals.”
Tweets from Stevenson’s account made several other disparaging remarks about Indigenous people, and attacked other Twitter users, in one instance telling another person to “go directly to hell.””
Source: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/hamilton/garth-stevenson-tweets-1.4781236.
“Government of Canada invests more than $78 million to create jobs and training for Canada’s scientists and engineers
OAKVILLE, ON, Aug. 10, 2018 /CNW/ – With bright people and collaboration, bold ideas can be realized. When researchers, companies and other partners work together, they create jobs, support hands-on training and develop technologies and services to benefit all Canadians.
Today, the Honourable Kirsty Duncan, Minister of Science and Sport, announced funding of more than $78 million to recipients of the Strategic Partnership Grants (SPG) for Networks and Projects, supported by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC). Funding will go to six networks and 80 projects from across the country.
This investment will bring together and support some of Canada’s brightest researchers to address challenges in areas including environment and agriculture, information and communications technologies, natural resources and energy, and advanced manufacturing.”
“The Canada Science and Technology Museum has a tiny piece of history tied to one of humanity’s deadliest plagues, and for over a decade curators didn’t even know it was there.
Deep inside the museum’s archives is a small vial of the vaccine used to combat Spanish flu, the devastating illness that killed at least 40 million people worldwide in 1918-19, including as many as 50,000 Canadians.
The vaccine in the museum’s archives was a medical breakthrough at the time, and is the last known sample.”
Source: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/hidden-treasure-science-museum-spanish-flu-1.4776733.
“The Canadian government has introduced a new model scientific integrity policy to protect its public sector scientists from political interference, and the country’s research community, including high-profile chemists, applaud the development.
‘The government is committed to science and evidence-based decision-making,’ said Canada’s science minister, Kirsty Duncan. ‘We want to return science to its rightful place in government.’
Canada’s chief scientific adviser, Mona Nemer, developed the model policy together with the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada (PIPSC), a union that represents more than 15,000 federal scientists, engineers and researchers. Issued on 30 July, the document aims to encourage federal scientists to speak freely about their work with the public and media, foster a culture that promotes and supports scientific integrity, and increase public trust in government science and research.”
“Cutting up fish, collecting mud samples and crunching data might sound like a messy, nerdy summer job to some high school students.
For 16-year-old Chaslyn McKay, it’s changed the way she sees the lake that sustains her community.
McKay is a summer student working with the Deninu Kue First Nation in Fort Resolution, N.W.T., this year.
Last month, she started helping with a fish research project that’s gathering baseline data on the quantity of fish in Great Slave Lake and the quality of their ecosystem, while monitoring changes over time.”
Source: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/fish-project-great-slave-lake-fort-resolution-nwt-1.4782255.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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“TORONTO — Shahzad Mustafa remembers thinking of his own childhood when a worker from the Children’s Aid Society visited his mosque to talk about the importance of Muslim families fostering children of the same faith.
His mother had taken in three Muslim foster children for a few months when he was young — an experience he said had a profound impact on his life.
As the CAS worker told the congregation in Markham, Ont., last year about the scarcity of Muslim foster families in the region, Mustafa says he was struck by a need to act — a feeling that eventually motivated him to launch an organization dedicated to encouraging Muslims in the Greater Toronto Area to become foster caregivers.”
“A group of Saudi students graduating from the University of Toronto’s teachers’ college on Friday are doing so with mixed emotions as a diplomatic dispute between Canada and Saudi Arabia forces them to return home — some earlier than expected.
“They were sad,” said Catherine McKernan, an educator at the university’s Ontario Institute for Studies in Education. “They love Canada — some of them would love to be able to stay.”
McKernan says her 24 students will join more than 100 other Saudis at a graduation ceremony at U of T’s Isabel Bader Theatre on Friday. They are among thousands of Saudi students studying at Canadian universities and colleges who have been ordered to leave the country as Saudi Arabia retaliates against the Canadian government for criticising its human rights record.”
Source: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/saudi-students-uoft-graduation-1.4780246.
“Is Canada a democracy? The question may seem silly, if not insulting, to Canadians, who take it for granted that their celebrated form of government, inherited from Britain, places Canada among the world leaders in promoting the rule of the people.
Yet, to the few Americans who pay attention, there are several significant curiosities in your country’s legal principles and policies that make us a little uneasy. It may be instructive to Canadians to point out how your laws and government appear to an outsider.
The majority rule parliamentary system certainly ensures that those fortunate enough to reside in Canada have far greater rights than the billions who have the ill luck to live under the jackboot of one of the world’s myriad strutting tyrants.”
“Sometimes at the Vista Heights Public School in Mississauga, when the teacher gathers students around for a community circle, Khadija Abduleziz talks about her relatives in China, the dozens of people who have disappeared.
“I told them about the concentration camps and the thing that my grandma died,” said Khadija, who is 10. The camps are political re-education centres, internment facilities where Chinese authorities have placed large numbers of Muslims as part of a campaign to counter what Beijing deems religious radicalism in the country’s far-western Xinjiang region.
It is weighty material for an Ontario primary school. But Khadija talks about it in hopes that “Canadians will understand us, and they might help us.” She talks, too, because what’s happening 10,000 kilometres away in China has cast a pall over her home in Canada, where she and her family, once prosperous textile traders in China, have been unable to escape what is happening in Xinjiang, even as they have sought safety for themselves as refugees.”
“Prison can be a lonely, isolating place. But in some cases, it transforms prisoners completely.
For example, an inmate who was a self-declared white supremacist used to walk around the prison with a chip on his shoulder, rattling off racist remarks at the non-white inmates, recalls prison chaplain Habeeb Ali. But after observing Muslim inmates fasting during Ramadan, the inmate had some questions, Ali said. The questions eventually led him to the Qur’an, and from there, to an embrace of Islam.
“And now he himself is seen as a leader, helping the inmate population, being an inspiration to the Muslim community, and finding himself on better terms with his family,” said Ali, who is an Ontario-based prison chaplain.”
Source: https://globalnews.ca/news/4317151/muslim-prison-chaplains/.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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“OTTAWA — Canada’s ambassador to Washington, D.C. says he hopes trilateral talks will resume next week if the U.S. and Mexico can resolve its current dispute over automobiles, and says a framework agreement is still possible by the end of the month.
Though, Canadian Ambassador to the U.S. David MacNaughton’s optimism came ahead of a Friday evening tweet from U.S. President Donald Trump, who said “Canada must wait,” because the deal with Mexico is “coming along nicely,” and Canadian tariffs and trade barriers are “far too high.”
Trump also restated his ongoing threat to impose tariffs on autos if a deal cannot be reached.”
“The federal government has yet to make public any instances of Finance Minister Bill Morneau relieving a business of the burden of paying the retaliatory tariffs Canada levied against American products on July 1.
Meanwhile, Americans are exempting some businesses from paying their original steel and aluminum tariffs — through a process a U.S. Senate committee now wants to investigate due to claims that it is insufficiently transparent.
On May 31, the U.S. hit certain imports of Canadian steel and aluminum products with tariffs of 25 and 10 per cent, respectively, following an investigation by the U.S. Commerce Department conducted under the guise of a “national security” probe.”
Source: https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/tariff-exemptions-canada-comparison-1.4780726.
“As Canada’s diplomatic dispute with Saudi Arabia heats up, Jagmeet Singh has an idea that could pour more fuel on the fire: forget the Arab kingdom and buy our oil from other countries.
“There are other nations we can look at in terms of access to oil,” the federal NDP leader told Vassy Kapelos on CBC News Network’s Power and Politics today.
“I think we should look at that as an alternative to dealing with a nation that has a serious track record of human rights violations, oppression of women, oppression of those who have voiced criticism of the government,” he said.”
Source: https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/jagmeet-singh-ndp-oil-saudi-arabia-canada-1.4779792.
“When it comes to the spat between Canada and Saudi Arabia, the United States wants to play Switzerland.
Canada stepped up its criticism of the Saudi monarchy last week for its brutal crackdown on human-rights activists, with Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland calling for the immediate release of two siblings – Raif and Samar Badawi – from jail. In turn, Saudi Arabia severed diplomatic ties and is seeking to recall thousands of students home – a move that will prove particularly devastating to Canadian medical schools.
But while a number of Middle Eastern countries are lining up behind Saudi Arabia, few other nations are standing up for Canada. When asked about it Tuesday, a U.S. State Department spokesperson said the United States will not come to the aid of its neighbour and longtime ally. “I am not going to get into this,” Heather Nauert told reporters.”
“From pop culture to patios to controversial government policies, alcohol — beer, especially — is a big part of Canada’s identity. But what sort of influence does it have on our politics?
Ontario’s experiment with controlling beer prices may be raising eyebrows across the country right now, but alcoholic beverages have always played an outsized role in Canadian public life.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s buck-a-beer push — to lower the minimum price of a bottle or can of beer to $1 from $1.25 by Labour Day weekend — is just the sort of populist measure many expected from the province’s newly-elected Progressive Conservative government. Ford’s government is offering incentives — such as prime shelf space at LCBO outlets and free advertising — to brewing companies that manage to reach that target.”
Source: https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/booze-beer-politics-canada-history-1.4781340.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/08/12
(Ed. note: I apologize to the community for my delays in previous weeks. I should be back on track with publications now. Also, this week in bad jokes: “Ed who?” Finally, if you would like another variation on news for the week, please send an email to scott.d.jacobsen@gmail.com – happy to get to work on another form of content for the community.)
“Attorney General David Eby’s changes to ICBC rates are receiving a great deal of media attention.
But one aspect has slipped below the radar screen of most journalists.
And that’s the role that ICBC chair Joy MacPhail has twice played in financially penalizing newcomers to the province.
Yesterday, ICBC announced that new residents “represent a higher risk for the first few years of driving in a new jurisdiction due to changes in landscape and environmental factors”.”
“The chief of the Assembly of First Nations says he will be putting up a teepee at the Justice for Our Stolen Children camp in Regina to show his solidarity with the protesters.
Perry Bellegarde visited the camp on Sunday to “hear directly from them on the systemic discrimination within the legal system and the failures of the child welfare system.”
The camp was set up in Wascana Park across from the Legislative Assembly 163 days ago. Between 20 and 30 people have been camping there, demanding that the government make changes to the justice system and address what the protesters call an overrepresentation of Indigenous children in foster care.”
“It was in the early hours of a bitterly cold winter morning two years ago when city police received a call about a pickup truck in the parking lot of the Sault Ste. Marie Armoury.
When officers arrived at the Pine Street location at 2:39 a.m. on Jan. 14, 2016 they found Aron Byers asleep behind the wheel of his running vehicle, which was up against a snowbank.
The passenger side door was open, and the pickup was still in drive, Ontario Court Justice Romuald Kwolek heard during a hearing that took place in December 2017 and July of this year.”
“In the five weeks since the Ontario PCs’ cabinet was sworn in, it has become increasingly apparent that when Premier Doug Ford was sloganeering about his government being the first “For the People”, he didn’t mean LGBTQ2 people or anyone who cares about child safety or building a more inclusive Ontario.
The PCs have moved hastily to scrap the 2015 heath and sexual education curriculum put in place by their predecessors. In doing so, they are rewinding Ontario classrooms to the 1998 version of that curriculum until they “consult with parents” to reformulate a replacement.
The 1998 curriculum was outdated for at least the last decade it was taught. It is deeply heteronormative, having been developed before same-sex marriage was legalized in 2005 or any of the many LGBTQ2 rights advancements that followed. It is mum on topics of sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression, and it does not cover critical issues for our modern age, such as online safety. Perhaps most ironically – given the #MeToo movement which triggered Ford’s successful leadership bid — it is silent on issues such as consent.”
Source: https://www.thesudburystar.com/opinion/columnists/sudbury-column-give-pcs-an-f-on-sex-ed.
“CALGARY — American short-seller Marc Cohodes is firing back at the Alberta Securities Commission after it announced it wants to stop him from trading in securities of Calgary-based Badger Daylighting Ltd.
Law firm Boersch Shapiro, which says it represents Cohodes in the United States, says in a statement the investor will challenge the ASC’s “ill-advised application” and looks forward to “public revelations” about Badger.
The provincial regulator said Thursday it will also seek to have the California short-seller prohibited from making “misleading” public declarations regarding Badger, citing a social media posting that used a picture of a Badger truck as support for his allegation of illegal toxic dumping.”
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/08/09
The number of nuns continues its precipitous decline in overall numbers. Also, they have begun to come out, calling out sexual abuse within the church.
Looking at the overall numbers of the numbers of nuns in the province of Quebec, we can monitor decline in the numbers of the faithful women in the monasteries decline over decades from its height.
The history, apparently, runs back about 400 years ago in the history of Quebec. But now, the most devout women in the Roman Catholic world are beginning to decline in numbers and age – as a reflection of religion in general in North America – and wither into the dark.
The height of the Roman Catholic nuns in Quebec, in total or raw numbers, was 47,000 in 1961. Now, the number decreased to fewer than 6,000 with the mean age above 80. This portends poorly for the Christian faith’s largest sect or tradition in Quebec.
It amounts to an augury for the future of the country with respect to much religious faith. Something akin to a hollowing out of the faiths; if not in raw numbers, then in the seriousness with which individual believers take their religious faith.
I feel for the sisters in the loss of long-term culture. Not fun for anyone to lose a sense of place and purpose. However, other issues may dwarf this as the sexual misconduct claims continue to pour out of the religious institutions and organizations throughout the country and the world. By implication, many more remain unreported.
The continued decline of the faithful has not been helped by the continual deluge of sexual abuse case settlements. One, recently, amounted to tens of millions of dollars. One nun stopped attendance at a regular confession because of a priest forcing himself on her.
The rape happened when she was “recounting her sins to him in a university classroom nearly 20 years ago.” Apparently, this sister was silenced due to the vows of obedience to the hierarchs of the Roman Catholic Church and its attendant orthodoxy in addition to the shame and guilt coming from the rape.
By the reportage, she appeared to remain stuck in one of the first stages of trauma: denial. Ignore it, it did not happen, then everything will be better. It will go away. Now, more have begun to come forward to tell their own narratives of abuse and secrecy from within the Roman Catholic Church, where the abusers are bishops and priests.
The cases continue to emerge not in isolated incidents, countries, or even regions; they exist in Africa, Asia, Europe, and South America. The queries may emerge, as they do for me, about the hierarchical structure itself.
The unquestioned power of men who hold the levers, whether in traditional-conservative structures seen in much of the Roman Catholic Church or in liberal-progressive institutions observed in much of the culture of Hollywood.
In terms of sexual violence, the core perpetrators tend to be men in both institutions; women tend to be the main victims. Within the increasing prominence of the anti-sexual violence and justice movements in social media and elsewhere, the church is having a moment and nuns account for a portion of it.
The sexual violence perpetrated, for example, by the Vatican in the 1990s in Africa was not dealt with or handled – euphemisms in both cases – sufficiently or at all. One of the most prominent individuals who has been charged with sexual misconduct is the sexual abuse and harassment of seminarians by the American Cardinal Theodore McCarrick.
A leading expert of the church sexual abuse and abuse of power history, Karlijn Demasure, stated, “I am so sad that it took so long for this to come into the open, because there were reports long ago… I hope that now actions will be taken to take care of the victims and put an end to this kind of abuse.”
Demasure continued, “They (the priests) can always say ‘she wanted it’… It is also difficult to get rid of the opinion that it is always the woman who seduces the man, and not vice versa.”
The references provide rather extensive coverage on the issues of both a decline in the number of Quebecois nuns, so provincial, and then the sexual abuse #MeToo moment, so international.
—
References
Peritz, I. (2018, July 25). Quebec’s dwindling number of Catholic nuns spells end of era in province. Retrieved from https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-quebecs-dwindling-number-of-catholic-nuns-spells-end-of-era-in/.
Winfield, N. & Muhumuza, R. (2018, July 28). As nuns come forward with sexual abuse allegations, Catholic Church faces its own #MeToo moment. Retrieved from https://globalnews.ca/news/4359088/catholic-nuns-sexual-abuse-vatican-metoo/.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/08/06
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: When did you find out about your atheism?
Anonymous LGBTQ+ Atheist: I do not know when I found out that I was an atheist, but I think this started when I was a child. The subject started to gradually grow, especially since I was the only child of my mother. My father had abandoned me when I was a baby, but I was exposed by my mother to domestic violence and punishment with imprisonment at home, and humiliation.
You know how life in Egypt is especially difficult for children. So, I started over time to ask myself why God does not help me get rid of this torment. I was praying to him over and over. I was a lonely, lonely girl with no friends. I was thinking a lot.
So when I became 16-years-old, I started looking for “Why God does not stand beside the weak people like me?” I started looking into the religions. Until I discovered after more than 4 years of research that God is just an illusion. From here, I accepted the idea and felt scared of my mother and my family, who are very religious.
Jacobsen: How did the family and the community react to it?
Anonymous LGBTQ+ Atheist: Society did not accept the idea of atheism easily, especially (you know) that it is crazy to stand in a street yelling and say, “I’m atheist.” That is impossible in an Islamic country like Egypt. So, I did not do that.
On the contrary, I hid it very strongly, but I was a child when I started to discover the subject
I discovered that it was not easy to say about your beliefs. I was 18-years-old when I was associated with a Muslim. He knew that I’m was an atheist.
Then he was chasing me. After we broke up, I was afraid (he was studying in law school). He says that if he does not have a sexual relationship with me; he would tell the police that I’m atheist. The Egyptian government imprisons those who despise religions, even for the ‘crime’ of sarcasm.
I tried to escape a lot. I removed my old Facebook account and created a new account under a different name, but I met Facebook atheists from the Arab world. I spoke with them freely until I found out that I fell into the trap.
There was a friend on Facebook who claims to be an atheist and loves me and wants to marry me. I felt I finally found myself and told him about my beliefs. But I was naive. He took a screenshot from my posts, knew that I was an atheist and bisexual and sent it to my family.
He was a neighbor and tricked me into a fake account. From here, my mother began to suspect me. She even criticized me for fear that I would become a girl who had no religion and burned me over and over again and insisted that I wear the hijab. (By the way, my mother was a hardline religious and Salafist woman. She made me wear the hijab when I was 6-years-old. When I was 18-years-old, I took off my hijab.)
So, the neighbors began to bully me and threatened me. They accused me of being a prostitute. I tried to deny that I was an atheist, but they believed the man who cheated me. He put me in a trap and accused me of wanting to have sex with him.
I have closed my other account on Facebook and opened another new account, but he finds me every time I do not know when this misery will end. He is crazy. I have tried to commit suicide hundreds of times because people talk about my reputation and my honor.
I left my family’s home for fear of the threat and now live with my friend in Cairo. Every time, I go to Alexandria. I visit my mother. I feel threatened.
Jacobsen: What is the general treatment of members of the LGBTQ community in the Middle East? Why is this the case?
Anonymous LGBTQ+ Atheist: Not yet. Religious authority has now tightened its grip on society. I have been suffering and still suffer. My society thinks that women are less than human. They know that I love women more than men, so my mom hates me because of that.
The situation is not capable of being reformed at the moment. Rather, the reform in their view is to put us in mental hospitals or imprison us. It can reach the point of murder. When my government knows anyone from the LGBT community, the State incarcerates them on charges of spreading moral decay, and distorting customs and traditions.
Jacobsen: How are those LGBTQ members of the community perceived by the communities in which they live?
Anonymous LGBTQ+ Atheist: My country looks at us (LGBT) as a faggot. Our government really try to help us. Do you know how? My government wants to help the LGBTQ community by putting us in a jail. My mom tried to help me through by putting me in a mental hospital. She tried to do a circumcision operation on me.
Jacobsen: Does religion play a role in this discrimination against members of the LGBTQ community?
Anonymous LGBTQ+ Atheist: Yes, a big role, Egypt is an Islamic country and the Islamic government hates us and can’t accept sexual minorities or “Tranny” (trans).
Jacobsen: What are the communities and resources available for the atheist and LGBTQ members of communities in the Middle East?
Anonymous LGBTQ+ Atheist: The Internet was the only outlet for us to express our ideas and some of the associations that we intended to open. But the new law of organizations and associations closed the ports in our face. Now, in the Middle East, it is difficult to speak freely, even on the Internet because the government is watching you all the time.
If the government does not watch you, it is enough to be under the control of Muslims who report any different or abnormal people.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/08/05
“OTTAWA, Aug. 1, 2018 /CNW/ – International Institute for Sustainable Development – Experimental Lakes Area (IISD-ELA) is a unique research facility where scientists can undertake real-world experiments on small lakes to improve our understanding of human impacts on the environment.
Today in Kenora, the Honourable Robert D. Nault, Member of Parliament for Kenora, on behalf of the Honourable Jonathan Wilkinson, Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard, announced $4 million in funding over four years for IISD-ELA to support data collection, analysis, and efforts to make this data available to the public. Accompanying Member of Parliament Nault, was David Lametti, Member of Parliament for LaSalle—Émard—Verdun, and Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development.”
“Countries worldwide struggle to manage the societal impacts of illicit drug consumption, and limited research is available to inform policy because scientists encounter difficulties acquiring drugs and conducting experiments (1). With the passage of the Cannabis Act (2), Canada becomes the first major economy to legalize marijuana for recreational use.
Canada seeks to prevent marijuana access to youth, promote public health and safety, and reduce strain on the criminal justice system by reversing the prohibitionist system currently in effect worldwide (2). Marijuana advocates have long argued that legalization of recreational use could lessen black market sales, decrease the power of criminal organizations, reduce incarcerations, save on enforcement costs for drugs, improve product safety, and provide jobs and revenue (3, 4). It has been difficult to find evidence to confirm or refute these claims, because for decades, marijuana research and access to materials representative of those on the underground market have been thwarted by governmental regulations (1).”
Source: http://science.sciencemag.org/content/361/6401/460.full.
“Illegal, underground and said to be brimming with health benefits — the practice of microdosing psychedelic drugs is growing increasingly popular, yet it remains relatively unstudied and its reported benefits unproven.
A group of Canadian researchers is hoping to change that with new data that begins to shed light on how and why people microdose, and what they say are its effects and drawbacks.
Microdosing is the practice of taking minute doses of hallucinogens like LSD or psilocybin (the active compound in so-called magic mushrooms) for therapeutic purposes. The amounts are too small to produce a high but large enough to quell anxiety or improve mood, according to users.”
Source: https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/microdosing-pschedelics-study-1.4771647.
“Six Canadian innovators will lead roundtable discussions with Canadians on digital and data innovation
OTTAWA, Aug. 3, 2018 /CNW/ – New technology has transformed the way we access information, shop, live, socialize and work. On June 19, the Government of Canada launched a national consultation on digital and data transformation. The Canada-wide consultation will help the government understand how Canadians want to drive innovation in a data economy, prepare for the future of work and ensure that citizens have trust and confidence in how their data is used.
The Honourable Navdeep Bains, Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development, today announced that six innovation experts have been selected to host these roundtable discussions with Canadians across the country. Many of these leaders were part of the Innovation Agenda consultations in 2016 that supported the development of the Government’s Innovation and Skills Plan, announced in Budget 2017.”
“Canada has introduced new rules to shield its federal scientists and researchers from political interference and enshrine evidence-based decision-making in government.
The policy on scientific integrity, which was published online the morning of July 30 by the office of Canada’s chief science advisor, Mona Nemer, is meant to boost public trust in the credibility of public research.
It has directives against falsifying data, destroying records, and plagiarizing and ignoring conflicts of interest, and includes a process to deal with infractions. Once adopted, the policy would apply to all government workers involved in scientific undertakings, such as employees who communicate research to the public — not just the scientists themselves.”
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/08/05
“The first female leader of the Islamic Society of North America – Canada, a major Canadian Islamic non-profit group, is a University of Toronto lecturer in political science who has extensively studied the political aspects of the faith.
Katherine Bullock is the chair of ISNA-Canada, an organization that works to promote the religion and advance the prospects of Muslim communities across the country. A political Islam expert at the University of Toronto Mississauga who has written multiple books on the role of women in Islam, Bullock is focused on ensuring the organization helps present and protect the best aspects of the Muslim faith.
“We’ll have a strong emphasis on spreading the good word about Islam and its positive contributions to Canada,” says Bullock, the author of books such as Muslim Women Activists in North America: Speaking for Ourselves and Rethinking Muslim Women and the Veil: Challenging Historical and Modern Stereotypes.”
“Recent news that bus services will be cancelled in rural communities in Northern Ontario and the Western provinces is a reminder of the differences between urban and rural Canada.
The loss of bus services may seem trivial to urban residents, but for some rural and remote communities it may cause isolation and a further disconnect from the rest of the country. A local official from Brooks, Alta., said it will make members of the community “feel cut off” from urban amenities and services.
An Indigenous chief in Northern Manitoba warned of “hardship” due to the end of this transportation “lifeline.” The mayor of Oyen, a town of 1,000 people near the Saskatchewan-Alberta border, called it “devastating.” And my parents’s MP in Thunder Bay described how her “heart sunk” when she learned of the news because it’s such a “big blow” to the region.”
“Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson and American neuroscientist Sam Harris recently met to hash out one of the longest-running debates known to homo sapiens: whether religious claims are based in reality.
The “New Atheists” argued about this throughout the 2000s, often facing off against traditional Christian philosophers and theologians. But now that Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett and the late Christopher Hitchens no longer conduct group discussions, Harris is left in peculiar circumstances: His new assortment of allies in the Intellectual Dark Web, a curiously named group of public thinkers generally concerned about political tribalism and free speech, tend to be non-confrontational when it comes to the question of religion.
Jordan Peterson, for his part, believes that the notion of logos, or true speech, formulated in ancient Egyptian myths and Greek treatises, then refined through Christianity, is at the core of Enlightenment traditions such as freedom of speech and the dignity of the individual.”
“VANCOUVER –A recent poll has confirmed what most youth ministry workers are already losing sleep over: young people across the globe tend to be less religious than their elders.What they may not know that nowhere is that more true than in Canada.
The Pew Research Centre in June found in 46 out of 106 countries surveyed, adults aged 18-39 were less likely than those aged 40 or older to say religion is important to them, particularly so in Canada.
“It’s alarming,” said Erwin Fung, a youth ministry co-ordinator for the Archdiocese of Vancouver.”
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/08/05
“After question period on Thursday, Ontario’s health minister was asked about the review her ministry is conducting into supervised injection sites.
“We want to speak with the experts — those in favour — and there are some people who are against them,” Christine Elliott told CBC News.
Elliott says she’s heard concerns about supervised injection sites from people living in the areas where they operate, but she wants to look at the evidence on their effectiveness.”
Source: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/supervised-injection-sites-waiting-1.4771143.
“Recent news that bus services will be cancelled in rural communities in Northern Ontario and the Western provinces is a reminder of the differences between urban and rural Canada.
The loss of bus services may seem trivial to urban residents, but for some rural and remote communities it may cause isolation and a further disconnect from the rest of the country. A local official from Brooks, Alta., said it will make members of the community “feel cut off” from urban amenities and services.
An Indigenous chief in Northern Manitoba warned of “hardship” due to the end of this transportation “lifeline.” The mayor of Oyen, a town of 1,000 people near the Saskatchewan-Alberta border, called it “devastating.” And my parents’s MP in Thunder Bay described how her “heart sunk” when she learned of the news because it’s such a “big blow” to the region.”
“Saudi Arabia said on Sunday that it is ordering Canada’s ambassador to leave the country and freezing all new trade and investment transactions with Canada in a spat over human rights.
“We consider the Canadian ambassador to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia persona non grata and order him to leave within the next 24 hours,” Saudi Arabia’s foreign ministry said on Twitter.
The ministry added that Saudi Arabia is recalling its ambassador to Canada in a dispute that appears to be over a tweet on Friday from Global Affairs Canada.”
Source: https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/saudi-arabia-suspends-trade-canada-ambassador-1.4775133.
“The organization that represents public opinion pollsters and market researchers in Canada is disbanding, leaving the Canadian polling industry without a self-governing oversight body.
In a short email to members sent Tuesday morning, Amy Charles, the chair of the Market Research and Intelligence Association’s board, announced that the MRIA would cease day-to-day operations effective today, with the organization winding down its operations by the end of August.
“The organization’s current financial situation leaves no other possible alternative,” says the statement. “With a steady erosion of membership revenues and subsequent to the recent Annual Conference that left us with a significant shortfall, we are compelled to undertake this action.””
Source: https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/mria-cease-operations-1.4768286.
“Nine hundred days make a difference! It’s 2018, not 2015 – neither the best nor worst of times. Sunny ways and the middle class still matter. But federal Liberal politics and economic and trade policies need a huge reboot.
Everything for everyone now depends on the United States, but it’s a tale of two Americas: the isolationist America of a century and a half after the War of Independence, and the global-leader America that emerged between 1932 (FDR) and 2016 (Obama). Was the latter an aberration or one more step forward for an increasingly great America able to make its next big forward pivot? Is Donald Trump’s America a temporary setback or a revived American isolationism? Canada must now assume the mostly safe – for Canada – United States of the past 85 years may be gone for many years.
Canada must move quickly – before the U.S. midterm elections in the fall – on trade, debt and competitiveness. For 18 months, Canada has tried to negotiate with an intractable Mr. Trump, for whom facts do not matter. NAFTA is still alive and may, or may not, largely survive. Tariffs on steel and aluminum are not a response to any unfair Canadian imbalance.”
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/08/05
“There’s been a lot of public anxiety about crossing borders lately, particularly ones shared with the United States. Here in Canada, we tend to think that our basic rights and freedoms go with us wherever we travel between our two countries, but as a new guide by the BC Civil Liberties Association points out, that’s just not the case. The Electronic Devices Privacy Handbook breaks down your rights at the border, when you can be searched, how in-depth the searches can be and how you can protect yourself and your data. You might be surprised by how invasive these searches can get while being totally legal.
This guide is meant to cover only crossing the border from the U.S. into Canada or vice versa since other countries have different rules when it comes to their borders. The guide itself is almost 70 pages long, but pretty readable if you have an interest in knowing all the finer details of electronics searches at the border.”
Source: https://www.theloop.ca/heres-what-border-security-is-actually-allowed-to-do-with-your-stuff/.
“Canada’s upcoming $10 bank note, which depicts social justice defender Viola Desmond, tells a story of human rights.
The new note, which will be issued in late 2018, is the first in Canada to have a vertical design, and features images and symbols that represent the country’s ongoing pursuit of rights and freedoms.
At the heart of the note is portrait subject Viola Desmond, the first Canadian woman to be featured on a regularly circulating bank note. Desmond, a successful Black businesswoman, was jailed, convicted, and fined for defiantly refusing to leave a whites-only area of a movie theatre in 1946.”
Source: https://www.ashcroftcachecreekjournal.com/news/new-bank-note-celebrates-human-rights/.
“Taquisha McKitty was supposed to be taken off life support this weekend.
A judge has ruled that the Brampton woman, who has been on life support since last September, was to be to be disconnected on July 26.
But at the eleventh hour, the 27-year-old woman’s family filed an appeal, claiming McKitty is still alive and saying that removing her from life support would be an infringement of her rights under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.”
“In today’s political climate, it’s understandable why travellers might be more anxious than usual about crossing into Canada from the U.S.
That’s why the B.C. Civil Liberties Association offered tips Wednesday by publishing a free online guide called the Electronic Devices Privacy Handbook: A Guide to Your Rights at the Border. The guide aims to help travellers understand their data privacy rights at international crossings, best practices on how to protect their data, how to interact with Canadian border officers and what to know about your data privacy at the border.”
“After promising to use “every tool at our disposal” to fight the federal carbon tax, Ontario attorney general Caroline Mulroney was asked by a reporter whether this would include an invocation of the notwithstanding clause.
“We are looking at all legal tools at our disposal,” Mulroney replied.
The notwithstanding clause can do many things — and it’s not clear that Ontario is actually even considering such a manoeuvre — but it almost certainly cannot be used to halt payment of a federal tax, say legal experts contacted by the National Post on Thursday.”
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/08/01
Claire has a background in law and psychology, and is currently working on her degree in Religious Studies. She has been involved in the skeptic movement since 2013 as co-organizer of the Czech Paranormal Challenge. Since then, she has consulted on various projects, where woo & belief meets science. Claire has spoken at multiple science&skepticism conferences and events. She also organized the European Skeptics Congress 2017, and both years of the Czech March for Science.
Her current activities include chairing the European Council of Skeptical Organisations, running the “Don’t Be Fooled” project (which provides free critical thinking seminars to interested high schools), contributing to the Czech Religious Studies journal Dingir, as well as to their online news in religion website. In her free time, Claire visits various religious movements to understand better what draws people to certain beliefs.
Claire lives in Prague, Czech Republic, with her partner, and dog.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: If I look at Western Europe, it is more secular, non-religious, and gender equal than other parts of the world. Places in other parts of the world tend to be more religious, tend to have the religion in the government – explicitly or implicitly, and tend to be more gender unequal.
What are some basic facts that you can deliver to the Canadian Atheist and non-religious community? That they might not know.
Claire Klingenberg: I suspect part of it started during the Enlightenment era, in the 17th and 18th century. Later, the Church lost a lot of its power in the communist times. Of course, the times were horrible. But it weakened the Church, and its influence, as a whole. In the nineties, after the fall of the Soviet regime, people were fed up with any kind of “moral” institutionalism. That is one of the reasons why many countries in Europe are more secular.
At the same time, a division must be made between parts of Europe. The more east you go, the more religious Europe becomes. The center is the most secular part. The reason why, [sighing], has to do with the quality of education. Many central and northern European countries have good, secular, educational systems.
Usually, quality education is related to rationalism and atheism. That would be the answer As for gender equality – it also relates to secularism and democracy. When laws aren’t based on a doctrine saying that women are inferior, there is room to start balancing gender equality.
Jacobsen: Do you think these variables connect to one another? The gender equality, the religiosity, the amount of influence of religion on politics, and so on.
Klingenberg: I think it boils down to education. As soon as you start giving women the same education and opportunities as men, the more educated the population as a whole becomes, which in turn leads to secular, even atheist thinking. So, absolutely, I think that they are related.
Jacobsen: When you look at many other metrics, which you do not need to go into here in full detail, the health of the country is much higher. I think that is also associated with the higher education, the lessening of religiosity, the increase of gender equality, and so on.
Klingenberg: Absolutely, as soon as you start caring about women’s health, the less you will have women dying, especially for purely feminine medical reasons, e.g. childbirth, ovarian cancer, and various other illnesses and complications.
So, yes, many large religions – traditional religions – are seeing women in a subservient role and somewhat less of a man. These countries or societies are the ones which care less about women’s health, and center around controlling women’s reproductive systems. There is great contrast in the healthiness of societies as a whole between those with unequal and attempting equal healthcare.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Claire.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
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Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/07/31
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: When it comes to your own background, how was religion or irreligion a part of it, especially in early life?
Melanie Wilderman: I’m born and raised in Oklahoma–have lived here my whole life. I was raised in a home where we went to church off and on, with some periods of steady church going, but the churches were pretty mild by Oklahoma standards. Two of the churches that stand out to me the most were a Lutheran church and a non denominational Christian church. I enjoyed Sunday school as a little kid, and I enjoyed being part of church choir and theatrical performances as a teenager, and going to some Christian summer camps. However, after I went to college and grew up a little, I questioned Christianity, and probably around age 22, I was able to say, I’m not a Christian, but it took a few more years for me to tell people truthfully that I didn’t believe in any of it anymore. And there’s a lot of people who probably still didn’t know–that is unless they watched the play or read any of the press. Then they have likely figured it out.
Jacobsen: There was a real story as the inspiration for “Faithiest.” Who was the basis of it? Jacobsen: What was her story?
Wilderman: There was a clip on TV a few years back that gave me a moment of inspiration. It was after a tornado in Oklahoma and reporter Wolf Blitzer is talking to a young mother with her baby and he kind of pushes the point of if she is thanking God for being safe, and she finally says she’s an atheist. Here’s the clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LP3Zs_V_BQ I remember thinking, oh that poor woman. She’s going to take some shit living in Oklahoma. But I was also proud that she would say that on television in our very, very religious and conservative state. I always wondered if she regretted it or not.
However, the story is not about this particular woman. I don’t know her other than things I have read about her on Facebook groups or Reddit or in news articles after that tornado. We haven’t ever met, and the protagonist is not based on her life or personality or anything. There is only a similar moment to this clip in my play.
Jacobsen: How did you build this into the “Faithiest” narrative?
Wilderman: The Faithiest narrative is built more on the real-life friendship between me and my best friend of about 25 years. We are very different people, especially when it comes to religion. Her Christianity is very important to her, and I don’t affiliate myself with any religion, nor would I say I believe in God. However, we have made our friendship work, and she is as important to me as a spouse or my parents. But this is a work of fiction, and while the inspiration comes from that one moment on television and my best friend, it’s also inspired by my time living and working in a very small town in Oklahoma for eight years, from 2005-2013, and bits and pieces of stories other non believers have shared with me. And of course, some of it is just flat out made up.
Jacobsen: Where will this play be presented in its early play days?
Wilderman: It just finished a run in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma at a place called The Venue OKC. It ran July 20-29 with four showings. I hope to have it run again in Oklahoma City next year, and after that I will look to some bigger cities to pitch to. I’m linking you to a review from the show: https://newsok.com/article/5602404/review-comedy-and-drama-balanced-well-in-faithiest
And also, here is a preview article before the show began: https://newsok.com/article/5601660/oklahoma-writer-goes-solo-to-produce-new-play-discussing-religion-and-friendship
Jacobsen: What have been the reactions to the play?
Wilderman: The crowds who came out for it seemed to like it. A lot of people would stay afterward and talk to me, and I heard a lot of things like, “thank you for writing this,” and people telling me I balanced many viewpoints well in the show. It’s also fairly comedic at times, so a lot of people seemed to like the comedy element to perhaps temper the serious topic. But, I think people who wouldn’t like it just wouldn’t come to the show. A few of my family members who came are pretty religious, and I think they were uncomfortable, but I think they still love me! I did have at least two people come up to me who were quite emotional, tears in their eyes, saying this show was important to them. I think this reaction comes from people in conservative states in the U.S. feeling like they can’t talk openly about being atheist, agnostic, humanist, non religious, etc.
Jacobsen: What other projects are coming down the pike?
Wilderman: I am considering teaming up with another writer to work on a show that would be a series of monologues about anxiety and depression (but again, this would be tempered with a comedic tone). And the director from this show, Rodney Brazil, and I are thinking of putting together an evening of short 1-act plays from Oklahoma writers. And, my husband and I co-wrote a stage play in 2013 called Alcoholidays that has run three times in Oklahoma City since then. We are currently talking with theaters around the country to get that one on stage in a larger venue. Here’s info about that show:
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Melanie.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/07/30
A conversation with a theology and Christian theological history student prompted this one.
According to Pew Research, as many of you well know but many or most Canadians may not accept or know, the vast majority of experts in the biological sciences adhere to an evolutionary account of the adaptation, development, and speciation of species.
It amounts to an unguided evolution by natural selection (and kin selection, sexual selection, and so on) accepted by most of the scientists linked to the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
This number differs starkly with the general perspective of the general population. It becomes less of a problem in some parts of the world survey data including the United Kingdom. However, Canadian society comes in between America and the UK in adherence, by the general population, to evolution by natural selection.
As reported, “While 98% of scientists connected to the American Association for the Advancement of Science say they believe humans evolved over time,only two-thirds (66%) of Americans overall perceive that scientists generally agree about evolution, according to 2014 data from a recent Pew Research Center survey on science and society.”
That is to say, in the English-speaking Christian and secular world, the numbers of the public or layperson adherence to evolutionary theory or the bedrock of all biological sciences – and so medical sciences as well – seems false or only partial to them.
Much of this comes from the historical inertia of a new theory of the adaptation, development, and speciation of species. Some bulwarks of non-modern science come in the form of religious fundamentalism, the non-accommodationists.
This amounts to a small reminder, for myself and, I trust, you too, on the degree of separation between the world of the practicing experts in the world of science and then the beliefs about the beliefs scientists hold.
Dennett talks about belief in belief. Taking the turn of phrase in a different context, this amounts to the beliefs about others’ beliefs. The public remains wrong about the beliefs of the people active in the field. This creates a chasm in knowledge in each grouping.
How might this change the theory of mind the public and the scientists have about one another?
As noted, “Those in the general public who reject evolution are divided on whether there is a scientific consensus on the topic, with 47% saying scientists agree on evolution and 46% saying they do not.”
So it goes.
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© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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“Curator Cindy Stelmackowich gestured to the photographs of trailblazing women surrounding her, each profiling a story of remarkable scientific endeavour found in a new exhibit at the Canadian Museum of Nature.
“When I first started the research, I didn’t know about the marriage ban,” Stelmackowich said.
“She was single, she was single, she was single.”
The Carleton University professor was referencing a Privy Council Office policy instituted in 1920 and maintained until 1955. It prohibited married women from holding full-time federal government jobs, unless their husbands were unable to work.
During her preparations for the exhibition, titled Courage and Passion: Canadian Women in Natural Sciences, Stelmackowich visited Library and Archives Canada to research historical gendered labour policies. There, she discovered a letter from then-Clerk of the Privy Council Rodolphe Boudreau, laying out the “marriage ban.””
“People with HIV are being unjustly prosecuted around the world, in large part because courts do not have a good grasp of medical research, say some of the world’s leading scientists.
“The application of up‐to‐date scientific evidence in criminal cases has the potential to limit unjust prosecutions and convictions,” said a group of top medical researchers led by Françoise Barré‐Sinoussi, a co-discoverer of HIV, in a consensus statement issued at the International AIDS Conference in Amsterdam.
According to the statement, 68 countries worldwide have laws that make non-disclosure, exposure or transmission of the virus a crime, and 33 other countries use different criminal provisions in similar cases.
Most cases involve sex between consenting partners or instances of kissing, biting or spitting in which there is no transmission of HIV.”
“More than 20 female scientists are the focus of a new exhibition at the Canadian Museum of Nature that showcases their groundbreaking work and contributions.
These women had so much passion and so much curiosity. – Nicole Dupuis , Canadian Museum of Nature content developer
The exhibition, titled Courage and Passion: Canadian Women in Natural Sciences, profiles the women who broke barriers to pursue their love of science and their resulting discoveries.
It opened in Ottawa Saturday.
“Most people don’t know the women scientists that have changed the face of science in Canada,” said Nicole Dupuis, a content developer for the museum.
“[The exhibition] gives the historical context of the courage and determination that it took for them to do that work,” she added. “These women had so much passion and so much curiosity. They went against all of the social norms.””
Source: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/nature-museum-kicks-off-female-scientists-exhibit-1.4765290.
“Some researchers spend years working to conduct an experiment in space, but for a group of young Toronto scientists, all it took was a school project.
The four students were in grades 8 through 12 when they first proposed shooting a tube of microscopic worms into orbit so they could study the effects of low gravity on muscle deterioration.
Now, the young women are all published scientists – half before earning a high-school diploma – after their experiment’s unexpected findings were featured in the peer-reviewed academic journal “Gravitational Space Research” last week.
“I never would have thought in Grade 8 that I would be doing something so meaningful with science,” Annabel Gravely, 16, said in a recent interview.
“The nature of science, it’s all about the obstacles. What’s really cool about the process is learning different ways to get around those obstacles.””
“As Canadians, we rightly pride ourselves on being a nation of innovation and scientific inquiry, and have benefited from the national prosperity and well-being that these attributes have traditionally afforded us.
At a time when scientific efforts are being underfunded, maligned and even discredited across the globe, investment in the sciences is always welcome. As Finance Minister Bill Morneau’s budget revealed a few months ago, there are some serious dollars being slated for the development of Canadian scientists, with Budget 2018 pledging $3.8 billion over the next five years for a range of science programs.
While all good news, the most recent Canada’s Fundamental Science Review final report noted that our expenditure on research and development from all sources (relative to GDP) has been declining slowly over the last 15 years, as contrasted with our G7 peers and certain Asian nations. Moreover, relatively little of our investiture in higher education research and development — 23 per cent, in fact — comes from the federal government, way below the international average.”
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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“Historian J.L. Granatstein is the author of Yankee Go Home? Canadians and Anti-Americanism
Robert Thompson was not a great politician. But in the early 1960s, the Social Credit leader made a comment in the House of Commons that expressed a fundamental Canadian truth very succinctly. “The Americans,” he said, “are our best friends, whether we like it or not.” That was likely not what Thompson, a man with a rare gift for malapropism, meant to say, but his words were exactly right.
Correct or not, Canadians may not like this very much. We admired Barack Obama even if his willingness or ability to foster Canadian interests was much less than perfect. Anti-Americanism has been the Canadian secular religion for decades, imbibed with our mother’s milk, but with Obama in power, it was muted. Now with Donald Trump sitting in the White House and railing in malevolent ignorance at his allies and enemies, anti-Americanism and talk of boycotting American goods and winter holidays in the south are rife. Conrad Black aside, there is near unanimity in Canada that President Trump is a disaster for us and our friends. The anti-American sentiment is stronger today than it was when Ronald Reagan or George W. Bush were in office.
All this is understandable. Mr. Trump’s trade policies are based on flawed, illogical economics and will certainly punish American workers and corporations just as much as they will hurt foreign – including Canadian – workers. His attacks on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and on the North American free-trade agreement, the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization are vicious, as puzzling as his praise for dictators and strongmen such as Vladimir Putin, Rodrigo Duterte, Xi Jinping and Ki Jong-un. There has never before been an American leader like Mr. Trump, who is seemingly determined to tear apart the world order created after 1945 by his presidential predecessors.”
“When Maureen Dymond looks ahead, she sees a dark future.
“I think that it won’t be very long before people of faith are going to find out that a lot of their beliefs are considered hate crimes,” she said.
Dymond was among a crowd of about 50 people who came to a St. John’s hotel conference room to hear Conservative MP Brad Trost discuss integrating faith and politics — one of three public events he hosted in Newfoundland this week.
For the last year, Trost, who represents Saskatoon-University, has done about a dozen “Faith and Politics” talks across the country, paid for out of his budget as a member of Parliament.”
“Years of research have shown that religious involvement is associated with many dimensions of good health. Among patients with cancer, for example, religion is associated with fewer physical symptoms and better functioning. Additional research has found significant correlations between religion and better mental health.
Do people who are involved in religion also sleep longer and better? A recent study addressed this question by reviewing seven relevant studies. Here’s what they found:
- People who were religiously involved were more likely to get at least 7 hours of sleep per night. Interestingly this association was found only for those from what were described as “liberal-to-moderate” religions (e.g., Presbyterian) and not among those from “conservative” religions (e.g., Baptist).”
Source: https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/blog/think-act-be/201807/do-religious-people-really-sleep-better.
“In the past, it had been difficult for scientists to understand altruistic acts such as large philanthropic gifts, heroic self-sacrificial behavior, or handouts to beggars that could never be reciprocated. From an evolutionary point of view, these things appeared at first glance to be somewhat counterproductive.
However, a perspective known as Costly Signaling Theory makes sense of these extreme forms of altruism.
The term Handicap Principle has often been used as a synonym for “Costly Signaling Theory.” This reflects the origins of the theory in research on animal communication. Some animals “handicap” themselves with extremely costly biological features that only individuals in excellent condition can afford to maintain. The brilliant plumage of the peacock’s tail and the impressive antlers of elk are classic (if a bit timeworn) examples of such handicaps.”
“As an evolutionary psychologist who has only fairly recently started really focusing on religion, I’ve been impressed by what a difficult topic religion actually is. Religious systems are complex, cross-culturally diverse, and hard to define. Religions vary in whether or not they explicitly evoke a concept of god(s), for instance, and religious social systems often swallow up other kinds of social systems that are not themselves inherently religious. For example, systems of morality, ritual, philosophy, and community can get tangled up with religion in some societies, but exist independently of religion in others. So it can be challenging to identify the essence of religion cross-culturally: what’s unique about the kind of worldview we consider ‘religious’, that sets it apart from ‘non-religious’ worldviews? Adding to the confusion are concepts like ‘spirituality’, which can seem very similar to religiosity in some but not all respects.
Despite the complexity of religion, I think there’s one way of conceptualizing it that does a particularly good job of capturing its essence. To describe this concept, I’ll use the term ‘existential theory of mind’. This specific term was coined by psychologist Jesse Bering [1], but as a general concept, existential theory of mind has been researched by many evolutionary and cognitive psychologists of religion.”
Source: https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/blog/darwin-eternity/201807/what-religion-is-really-all-about.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
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Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/07/29
“July 24, 2018 – What started as a civil war in Mali, is now a simmering conflict with deadly eruptions of violence, alliance switching and political manipulation. And while the strife in West Africa has evaded Canadian attention thus far, a year-long military engagement for Canadian troops may capture more attention.
A new Angus Reid Institute study finds majority support for Canada’s recent announcement of involvement in Mali, though political leanings drive views on this issue.
Six-in-ten (59%) Canadians say the Trudeau government’s decision to deploy approximately 250 troops to Mali is the right move. Four-in-ten (41%) however, led heavily by past Conservative (CPC) voters (59%), say that the mission is too risky and Canada should avoid participation.
Much public opinion divide on this issue however, rests on prioritization. While most Canadians (70%) say national peacekeeping efforts are a “source of pride”, they also say the country’s top international priority is not military presence on the global stage (10%), or humanitarian aid (25%), but focusing on trade ties with foreign partners (65%).”
Source: http://angusreid.org/mali-mission-peacekeeping/.
“Canada, as Conservative MPs recite by rote these days, has a porous border with its southern neighbour. This is a particular concern to said Conservatives these days as they foist the following narrative onto the voting public: the myriad migrants streaming across from America is the new normal, a permanent calamity largely prompted by Justin Trudeau’s virtue signaling. The barbarians at the gate have no gate to contend with.
It’s an absurd notion undermined by recent precedent. Europe, where migration rates are down by as much as 97 per cent from 2015 levels, is a clear demonstration of how desperate people cease fleeing when they cease being desperate. In Canada, migration levels have risen thanks in large part to the nativist musings of the 45th American President. They will fall if and when he does.
Yet the Conservatives are correct in another respect. The porosity of Canada with the United States enables an enduring scourge that travels from the south and mostly wreaks havoc on our cities. It is insidious, deathly and virtually impossible to stop in the current political climate. But it’s not human beings, but handguns.”
Source: https://ipolitics.ca/2018/07/27/bumper-sticker-politics-wont-solve-canadas-handgun-problem/.
“Do you live in a riding that leans more toward one party than the others?
In theory, every party’s seat count is reset to zero when Parliament is dissolved and a new election is called. In practice, there are regions of the country where one party has an intrinsic advantage over its rivals. Some ridings are just more Liberal, or Conservative, or New Democratic than others — regardless of which candidates are running for office.
In the run-up to the midterm elections in the United States this fall, you might often hear districts described as having a ‘partisan lean’. It’s a measure of how much a constituency tilts toward the Democrats or Republicans as compared to the rest of the country.
But what about Canada?”
Source: https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/grenier-riding-partisan-lean-1.4762557.
“The federal government’s plan to purchase Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain pipeline and related infrastructure still faces a potential spoiler in the form of a U.S. national security review — setting up the possibility that U.S. President Donald Trump could veto the deal.
According to the purchase agreement, obtained by CBC News, the completion of the deal is contingent in part on getting clearance from the Committee on Foreign Investments in the United States, a U.S. inter-agency committee chaired by Trump’s treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin.
The purpose of the committee, also known as the CFIUS, is to review transactions that could have an effect on the national security of the United States.’
Source: https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/trump-trans-mountain-security-review-1.4761521.
“Even by the mind-boggling standard set by the past year in trade politics, it’s been a confusing week.
Keep calm and carry on, Canada. Here’s a quick guide to what really happened:
What’s new for NAFTA?
Nothing, really. It’s been a week of happy talk about speeding things up on all three sides, without any evidence of anyone removing the known barriers to a deal.
Of the 30 NAFTA chapters, negotiators have closed nine and ten others are almost finished, Mexican Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo said Thursday.
But that was all progress on the technical, nuts-and-bolts stuff. There was no agreement on the key sector in these talks: the three-way automotive trade making up roughly a quarter of all the business North Americans do with each other.”
Source: https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/week-trade-wrap-saturday-1.4763008.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/07/29
“John McCain is a United States senator who has run for president twice and lost twice. When he started his first presidential quest in September of 1999, he said something that has always stuck with me. He said, “America doesn’t owe me anything.”
It was his way of saying that he was dedicated to the idea of serving his country without expecting anything in return.
I’m thinking about those words again these days. Not as an American, of course, but as a Canadian. Is it true that, “Canada doesn’t owe me anything?””
“Montreal’s public transit system is reporting plummeting ridership on buses. And while métro ridership is up, the system is not easy for many people.
Lots of good ideas have been offered for making the public transit system more attractive and user-friendly.
Here’s one more: Why not make our system accessible?
According Statistics Canada, long-term disability affects about 10 per cent of Quebecers. Many face severe obstacles in accessing our public transit system. Add to the mix people who are suffering temporary injuries, carrying young children in strollers, or even those carrying heavy bags, and you have a whole lot of potential clients who are seriously underserved by our public transit system.
Basic accessibility has become an arduous fight against an obdurate system.
Since 1976, Quebec has had quasi-constitutional guarantees of non-discrimination, among other rights. Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms has protected equality since 1985. In 2010, Canada ratified an international agreement obliging it to provide equal access to transportation. Quebec, too, is bound by these international obligations.”
“The case of Mediatube Corp v. Bell Canadabegan as a high stakes patent case, with a claim for more than $350 million in damages for infringement of Mediatube’s Internet Protocol Television technology patent. However, five years into the litigation, with Mediatube’s loss at trial headed to the Federal Court of Appeal, the case has turned out to be more about litigation process than complex issues of patent law.
In the latest of a series of unexpected twists (including a mid-trial concession by Mediatube that Bell had not infringed its patent), the appeal has now veered into entirely new territory — raising the question of when “ineffective assistance of counsel” is a valid ground of appeal in civil matters.
Ineffective assistance of counsel has a long history as a ground of appeal in criminal cases. In that context, it is based on an accused’s right to effective counsel — a right that is set out in the Criminal Code and recognized as a principle of fundamental justice under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
However, even in the criminal context, the bar is high.”
“On July 15, Premier Doug Ford’s government tabled back-to-work legislation to end a strike by roughly 2,000 precarious academic workers at York University — the longest post-secondary strike in Canadian history. As part of the so-called Urgent Priorities Act, the “Back to Class” provisions for York University ends the strike, bans any lockouts, and sends all outstanding issues to a third-party arbitrator.
While the strike itself may be over by September, the issues surrounding it — and the costs that the provincial government will likely face as a result of the legislation — are likely only beginning. Relative to all other provinces, Ontario universities receive the lowest per student government funding. There is no reason to think that this will changed under the new Progressive Conservative government, and in fact, it may even get worse. This funding shortfall leads to larger class sizes, fewer tenure-track jobs, and an increased use of precariously employed sessional faculty who teach term-to-term. It also leads to less money being available for scholarships, especially for graduate students, and an increased reliance on tuition and other ancillary fees by universities to cover a shortfall in government funding. A lack of government funding also reduces on-campus employment opportunities, such as research assistants, for graduate students. This is especially true in summer months. All of these issues led, in part, to the strike at York University, and the introduction of back-to-work legislation fails to address of these issues in a meaningful and systematic way.
The other and perhaps more notable shortfall is that it legislates away rights protected by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, notably the right to bargain collectively and the right to strike. The right to bargain collectively was secured as a constitutionally protected right by the Supreme Court of Canada in 2007, and the right to strike was similarly found to be a constitutionally protected right by the Supreme Court of Canada in 2015. As constitutionally protected rights they cannot, or at least should not, simply be legislated away by governments when it seems politically expedient to do so.”
Source: https://www.thespec.com/opinion-story/8764668-the-perils-of-back-to-work-legislation/.
“In measuring how well our federal government is doing in fostering appropriate relations with Indigenous Peoples, it is appropriate and legitimate to use as the yardstick the standards that have been self-imposed.
The fact that this relationship continues to be a roller-coaster ride for First Nations was clearly demonstrated on May 28, at the Columbia River Symposium, a special day-long event of the Canadian Water Resources Association held at the University of Victoria. The symposium was held on the day before meetings were initiated, in New York, regarding renegotiation of the Columbia River Treaty with the U.S.”
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/07/27
According to Dr. Phil Zuckerman in Psychology Today, there were two surveys published examining the beliefs and attitudes of the religious and the secular.
Both examined the level of suspicion and unwelcome behavior of the religious towards those who are different from them. That is, anyone non-religious and the perception and behavior with them.
As it turns out – though only two – with these studies, the secular people were more open and accepting of those from different countries, ethnicities, races, and religions. Tribalism and ethnocentrism were correlated with religiosity.
The universalist and cosmopolitan attitudes and behaviors were more related to the secular people.
Zuckerman states, “In this study, Americans were asked how they feel about census predictions indicating that by the year 2043, Latinos, Asian Americans, and other peoples of color will constitute a combined majority of the population, with whites being in the minority.”
Half of the Evangelicals stated that this would be a negative development. 4/10 mainline Protestants viewed this as a negative. Then only 3/10 of the Roman Catholics said the same.
The people without a religious affiliation were the ones to see this as pretty much not a negative development at all. They viewed this as more or less acceptable. It was only about 2 out of 10 to 1 out of 4. Not many compared to the others, especially the Evangelicals.
“The second new survey comes from Europe. In this 2018 Pew study, it was found that religious Europeans are considerably more ethnocentric, more nationalistic, more anti-immigrant, and more suspicious of Jews and Muslims than secular Europeans,” Zuckerman explained.
Indeed, more than half of the Christians who attend church consider their culture superior to others while just shy of half those who do not attend say the same thing. Only 25% of secular people consider their culture superior – intriguing as there is a decrease in the trend in each category but significant double-digit numbers in each at the same time.
In terms of other prominent world religions, 30% of the Christians who attend church were unwilling to accept Muslims into their families. It was only 11% of the secular individuals who were unwilling.
Most European nations’ Christians want the number of immigrants to be lower. That differs significantly from the secular counterparts in those same countries. Although, with the different cultures and religious demographic trends, there may be different interpretations of that data. Not sure.
Apparently, to one potential implicit concern about only two studies referenced here, those replicate or mimic the responses in surveys or social psychological studies over several decades.
That is, the tribalism increases with the greater levels of religiosity. Religion promotes tribalism, in short. It can be good for group solidarity and bad for the latent potential of bigotry and prejudice – covert and overt.
Bob Altemeyer observes – according to Zuckerman – that the amount someone goes to church indicates an increased probability of prejudice against “a variety of others.” American psychologist of religion Ralph Wood echoes this sentiment or observation.
Zuckerman continues, “… a massive meta-analysis conducted in 2009 by Duke University professor Deborah Hall—who analyzed 55 separate studies teasing out at the relationship between religion and racism—found, strongly religious Americans exhibit the highest levels of racism, while atheist and agnostics exhibit the lowest levels.”
Zuckerman provides some cautionary notes about surveys. The surveys are statistical devices about populations. That is to say, one cannot make statements about all in a group based on a survey but only the statistical level of a particular attitudinal and behavioral set.
“…they simply illustrate percentages, averages, tendencies, and predilections. There are many religious people who are not ethnocentric, racist, prejudice, or xenophobic, and there are plenty of secular people who are,” Zuckerman said.
Many positive outcomes emerge from the church attendance. One is the greater likelihood of being charitable with both time and money compared to their secular counterparts. They report more happiness and greater well-being. Then the last is that they even live longer.
There is also the social and psychological benefits of the community for many of the religious compared to the non-religious. However, for welcoming refugees, being open to others, and viewing a oneness of humanity, religion does not help in those domains.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/07/26
I wanted to explore some of the world of different Christian leaders, small and big. However, I wanted to report less on those and more in their own words. These will be published, slowly, over time. This, I trust, may open dialogue and understanding between various communities. Of course, an interview does not amount to an endorsement, but to the creation of conversation, comprehension, and compassion. Pastor Andy Steiger is the Pastor of Northview Community Church and the Director of Apologetics Canada. Here we talk about his life and views.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: With respect to personal and family background, what was it?
Pastor Andy Steiger: I am from the United States. I was born in Redding, California. My parents separated when I was around 4 years of age. My mom moved to Portland, Oregon with me, my three sisters and our dog named Fluffy. I lived in Portland, Oregon until I was 19. Then I moved to Canada to go to college.
With regards to religious background, my mom became a Christian later in her life. I committed my life to Christ at age 17.
Jacobsen: Can you relate your personal experience of becoming a Christian? I know there are different backgrounds and experiences for how those people develop their faith. For some, it can be a one-time experience. For others, it is over the long-term. They grapple with issues of daily life or theology and then convert.
Steiger: When we moved to Oregon, my mom started to take us to church. I, as a child and into adulthood, believed that God existed and that there is more to the universe. The question for me was who God was and if I cared to know God.
Even though I went to church it didn’t mean a whole lot at first. That changed when I was around 17-years-old. That was when I really wanted to know who this God was. I began to look into it. For me, the question about becoming a Christian was more of an intellectual question.
Ultimately, this journey led me to Jesus. One of the important things to me becoming a Christian and going into ministry was this: if I really believe God existed, I should act on that belief. Ultimately, this propelled me to become a Christian and to go into ministry.
Jacobsen: Your favourite scriptures is John 17:3. Why?
Steiger: It’s a prayer from Jesus. Specifically, it reminds us that eternal life is found in relationship with God. This is a re-occurring theme throughout Scripture from the Old Testament to the New Testament, that the meaning of life and the purpose of all this is to be in relationship. You can see that with the shema found in Deuteronomy chapter 6.
Throughout the Gospels, when Jesus is asked what is the greatest commandment – the Jewish equivalent to the meaning of life – his answer is consistently to quote Deuteronomy 6 and Leviticus 19, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and love your neighbor as yourself.”
Jesus’ answer is relational the whole way through. In the prayer, Jesus is reiterating the truth of eternal life. I think it is significant that eternal life is connected to relationship. People often have this misunderstanding of heaven. I often hear heaven spoken of as some kind of monochromatic nightmare, where you are floating around on clouds, playing harps and singing the halleluiah chorus forever and ever.
Jacobsen: [Laughing].
Steiger: That sounds more like hell than paradise to me.
Jacobsen: [Laughing].
Steiger: But that’s a wrong understanding of heaven. Jesus describes heaven in relational terms. On that note, a person can experience, at some level, both heaven or hell here on Earth with regards to your relational status. We’ve all experienced the bliss of friendship and darkness of loneliness.
Jacobsen: How does the relational aspect of that connect with the relational aspect of having a spouse and having children?
Steiger: From what we see, the idea that people are made in the image of God, which you find in Genesis chapter 1 verses 26 and 27, is a significant idea in Christianity.
These verses raise a significant question, “What does God look like?” In Christianity, that answer is unique, in that God looks like a family: Father, Son and Holy Spirit – the trinity. The point being, God is relational.
God lives in right relationship within Himself. God’s nature becomes the standard of right relationship, which ultimately is the foundation of morality, as morality is a relational term. What you see then, especially in a triune or relational God, is that there is this understanding of sacrificial love as found in a family.
You get this also from St. Richard of Victor. He argues that God must be three persons to be a perfect being. God is a being than which nothing greater can be conceived. Richard argues that a Triune God is a greater God. If God is only one person, God would need to have created people in order to know what love is. That becomes problematic in that God would be incomplete without us. However, if God is Triune: three persons in one essence, or soul, then God embodies love within His nature.
Richard argues that God must be more than one and even two persons to account for the fullness of love. For example, with two persons you have love but it’s an infatuated love that has no need for anyone else.
The family understanding comes in here. There is a third understanding of love, according to which a relationship is concerned with more than just each other, such as in a family when a husband and a wife’s love sacrificially include children.
In one sense, children have a pragmatic place in the society. On the other hand, having children is sacrificial. It requires your time. It requires your money. It is a challenge. It is interesting that two people who would be in love with one another would live sacrificially together and create life.
From a Christian understanding of the Trinity, there is this understanding that it is love that welcomes others and brings forth life. It is relational in nature. That love is outward- and not inward-focused.
Jacobsen: With respect to the pastoral position as well as the young adult ministries at Northview Community Church as well as being the director of Apologetics Canada, what are some of the responsibilities that come with this? How do you build a community at a church and also within a larger association including Apologetics Canada?
Steiger: It is a unique combination of ministries with the young adult pastoral work and the work with Apologetics Canada. They work well together because, with Apologetics Canada, our goal, first and foremost, is to help Christians strengthen their relationship with God.
I see apologetics more as discipleship than as evangelistic, which may come as a surprise for some readers. My desire is to help people through answering their questions and doubts that everyone wrestles with. I deal a lot with university students.
The questions university students deal with are everything from philosophical, scientific arguments and everything in between. My desire is to help young adults grow in their relationship with God and in their relationship with one another.
Everything we do is done through that matrix. You can see that this all follows from this understanding of what it means to be a human being and what is a human being made for, and what is life all about. We, as Christians, understand human beings are created for the purpose of relationship and our desire is to see that purpose fulfilled through Christ.
In fact, this is the Christian understanding of church. When we come to church it is an opportunity to be in relationship with God and also with each other.
Jacobsen: Final question, and as a director of Apologetics Canada, you have a broader view on this, probably. That is, it is a question a little bit peripheral, but I see this in commentary and writings from people who not only are part of the global Christian church but also the Western European and North American church.
The issues, within the church, of more women and less men with congregation numbers, taking part in activities of worship (e.g., coming to Sunday sermons, Bible study groups, college theological classes, and so on), and so on. Does this reflect your own experience, of a decline of men in the church?
Steiger: Yes, however I see a much broader issue. I would argue we are seeing a decline of men being involved in social gatherings in general. Men tend to be quite busy, quite insular. I think it is easy for men to get caught up in work or whatever else. We tend not to spend time with other men.
I think it is a challenge, whether you are a Christian or not, and I believe it is partly to do with our culture. Men tend to like to do things that are more individualistic, such as playing video games to working on their car.
It is a real challenge for men, where they need to make a concerted effort to participate in the things that are community-driven. Also, you read books like Bowling Alone and Alone Together. They demonstrate that this is something happening in our society.
We see this in women as well. But it is not nearly to the same degree as men. Yes, it is true in church as well. It is a challenge we men need to face. It is a Challenge to get people to value community and participate in that community. Yet, when they do they are glad they did.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Pastor Steiger.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/07/25
Karen Garst is the Founder of Faithless Feminist. Here we talk about some of her views. If you are interested in contributing, please contact her here.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: How did you come into the secular activist and non-religious world?
Karen Garst: In June 2014, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a 5-4 decision in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby. They ruled that Hobby Lobby, a closely held for-profit corporation, did not have to provide certain forms of birth control to its female employees because of its religious views.
This opinion was based upon the provisions of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act that allowed alternative means to further a law’s interest, in this case the provisions of the Affordable Care Act.
I became livid. I came of age before Roe v. Wade, the U.S. Supreme Court decision that made abortion legal. I couldn’t believe we were still fighting for women’s reproductive rights.
I decided to write my first book, which was entitled Women Beyond Belief: Discovering Life without Religion. This anthology contains essays of 22 women who tell their personal stories of leaving religion.
I also became involved in the secular world: I was on secular podcasts to promote the book, attended local meetings and national conventions, and did several book tours. My husband and I left a pretty liberal “church” community in 2004 when it committed securities fraud and closed.
For me, reading the books of Marcus Borg, John Dominic Crossan, and Bishop John Shelby Spong of the Jesus Seminar convinced me, I should not believe in the Bible in the 1990s.
Jacobsen: Regarding your own writings, you have been active in the inclusion of women’s voices in the discussions on Christian theology, Islamic theology, evolution and intelligent design, and sex and gender in the non-religious community.
How do you go about gathering those voices not seen as often in the public non-religious community?
Garst: For my second book, Women v. Religion: The Case Against Faith… and for Freedom, I wanted to do as wide a variety of topics on how religion oppresses women as possible.
I had met several of the authors at the Women in Secularism Conference in 2014. Because I had been on secular podcasts for the first book, I heard of other women atheists.
I had also read several books written by my essayists. Sometimes, I would contact one person. Then they would recommend someone else. It took time to connect with all 13 authors. However, I am honored to have them in the book. None of this would have been feasible without the internet.
Jacobsen: Also, you have written about the indoctrination of children into religion. In particular, the ways in which this may lead to fewer children entering into the atheist community as adults who become women. How is Accelerated Christian Education (ACE) part of the problem, potentially a major one?
Garst: Alexis Record had written a review for my first book unbeknownst to me. When I reached out to her, I realized she would be a perfect writer for my next book. She spent 12 years suffering under ACE.
ACE is not education. It is not accelerated. Students sit in front of a computer all day and read things like “Mama’s roles: helper, cook, cleans house, washed and irons clothes.” Of course, they quote Colossians 3:18, which says, “Wives, submit yourselves to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord.”
It is about as sexist as a textbook could be. ACE is Christian indoctrination on steroids. Absolutely, it is a major problem. Leaving religion for people who have received such a heavy dose of dogma such as ACE is a tough row to hoe, it is much harder than what I went through; although, I, too, was indoctrinated by many of the same ideas.
Jacobsen: What is taught in these ACEs?
Garst: In addition to the examples above, students learn to obey regardless of the command. One of the cartoons shows a young girl saying, “I am glad. I obeyed,” with her mother responding, “Yes, obedience always makes us happy.”[1]
For girls who grow up learning this, it becomes hard to say, “No,” to something a man demands of them. Women can get in abusive relationships. They do not know the way out of it. As Alexis, in a post she wrote for my blog, said, “Indoctrination tells a child what to think not how to think.”[2]
History is taught with a biblical lens. They teach that language, for example, started with Adam and Eve and was a gift from God. I can only imagine how biased the science curriculum is or if they even have that.
Jacobsen: In the women’s side of the aisle of the non-religious and atheist movements, what tend to be their views, even anecdotally from personal experience, of the New Atheist movement and, what may best be termed, the New Mythologist movement – emergent in the 2000s in the former and 2010s in the latter?
By which I mean, there is a growing movement comprised of the same demographics as the New Atheists without a title. Their demographic is mostly 18-to-35-year-old Caucasian males from North America and Western Europe who want to reconcile the modern world with their familial and cultural Christian heritage – so there are figures using the mythologies around these old Abrahamic faiths, with a sprinkling of others – to do it.
Since these amount to secular perspectives for a religious life, and with religious emphasis on myths as insights into human nature, I call them the New Mythologists.
Shorthand: New Atheists are to the 2000s as the New Mythologists are to the 2010s. Both have young white guys as their major demographic. There is a curious convergence of political emphasis ongoing there.
Garst: I got involved with the atheist movement not long after the controversy called “Elevatorgate.”[3] There was an attempt to include feminism and other social issues along with atheism in a movement called “Atheism Plus” that developed after this event.
However, it was short-lived. Personally, I have met both men and women in the movement who are very well known. To a person, they have been helpful to me in all of my endeavors.
Peter Boghossian, who wrote The Manual for Creating Atheists, teaches at Portland State University and has been a great mentor for me. I am now 68, so don’t need to worry about getting propositioned at a conference!
Jacobsen: Why do these movements, fundamentally, attract more Caucasian men aged-18-to-35 from North America and Western Europe?
Garst: I think, initially, the New Atheism movement started with scientists and philosophers – Richards Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, and Christopher Hitchens. However, there is a long history of women and atheism.
Annie Laurie Gaylor, co-president of the Freedom from Religion Foundation, wrote a fabulous book on early women atheists: Women without Superstition: No Gods – No Masters.
One of my heroes is Elizabath Cady Stanton from the 19th century. But as in all other cases, women need to get active, write books, author blogs, and host podcasts, and so on, to get their voice out there.
When I attended MythCon sponsored by Mythicist Milwaukee last fall, the audience was composed of exactly those men you have enumerated. However, there were speakers such as Sargon of Akkad and others whose base is mostly male. I’m not sure their conferences prior to that were so male-centered.
I am speaking at their conference this fall in a debate with Karen Straughan who is a Men’s Rights Activist (MRA). The topic is “Have women achieved gender equality in the U.S.?” In my research, I have gone down the rabbit hole and studied 4chan and MGTOW.
To say that I have been stunned by what I have read is an understatement. I have a 27-year-old son who would NEVER spend his time on these sites. He is a young entrepreneur who is a well-adjusted millennial.
Jacobsen: What have been the reported abuses of power by male atheists as a community, so an unhealthy trend, and among the most prominent voices?
Garst: I understand that for some accusations. There is evidence that this has occurred. But New Atheism or any other movement is going to have all types of people in it. Thus, it is not surprising that some would be called on the carpet for issues in this time of the “#MeToo” movement.
I have had a long career and have been lucky to never have been sexually harassed. But it is way too prevalent in our society today. To me, it is amazing this #MeToo movement didn’t occur in the 60’s to the extent that is happening now.
Of course, there were no social media then and if the mainstream press didn’t pick up on it; no one knew about it.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Karen.
Footnotes
[1] Record, A. (2017). Exposing Accelerated Christian Education. Retrieved from https://faithlessfeminist.com/blog-posts/exposing-accelerated-christian-education/.
[2] Ibid.
[3] RationalWiki. (2018, March 29). Elevatorgate. Retrieved from https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Elevatorgate.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/07/22
“From October 17, Canadians will be able to light a cannabis cigarette with complete impunity. The North American nation will become only the second country, after Uruguay, to fully legalise marijuana use for recreational purposes.
The move will make good on a campaign promise from Justin Trudeau, who swept into the prime minister’s office in 2015 guaranteeing a new liberalised, socialised Canada. That means Canadians will be able to purchase, grow and smoke to their heart’s content, and the national medical community will have free rein to study the plant’s potential health benefits.
Currently, cannabis is only legal for medicinal purposes, and citizens need a prescription to buy it from a handful of licensed sellers; however, the reality is far from that. Walk down any commercial street in Vancouver or Toronto, and you’ll be hard pressed not to pass the storefront of a cannabis dispensary that will sell you various types of weed with no questions asked.”
“The next generation of Canadian scientists and engineers can rely on their mentors in research and industry to help them gain the knowledge, experience and skills they need to land the jobs of the future.
This week, Kirsty Duncan, minister of science and minister of sport and persons with disabilities, announced $29.7 million in Collaborative Research and Training Experience (CREATE) grants to 18 Canadian research teams across the country who are working to further discovery and innovation.
Two of the 18 research teams include those being led by Dr. Reed Ferber, PhD, and Dr. Lina Kattan, PhD, of the University of Calgary. Each project is getting $1.6 million over six years as part of a national funding announcement.”
“The federal government is investing $3 million to study populations of endangered whales off Canada’s Atlantic and Pacific coasts, officials announced Wednesday.
The joint initiative between the federal department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) will provide funding to Canadian universities for research into Southern Resident Killer Whales, North Atlantic Right Whales, and St. Lawrence Estuary Belugas and the challenges they face.
“In order to better protect these iconic species, we need to understand the threats they are facing and determine the best solutions possible,” outgoing Minister of Fisheries and Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard Dominic LeBlanc said in a statement.”
Source: http://www.rcinet.ca/en/2018/07/18/canada-funding-endangered-whale-research/.
“OTTAWA, July 17, 2018 /CNW/ – Protecting Canada’s endangered whales from further harm is a shared responsibility between the government and its partners. New research and solutions are needed to better understand the threats facing these iconic species.
Today, the Honourable Dominic LeBlanc, Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard, and the Honourable Kirsty Duncan, Minister of Science and Minister of Sports and Persons with Disabilities, announced a new $3 million-initiative that will encourage new research in Canada to help advance our understanding of Southern Resident Killer Whales, North Atlantic Right Whales, and St. Lawrence Estuary Belugas and the challenges they face.
The joint initiative between Fisheries and Oceans Canada and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) will provide funding to Canadian universities for research on these endangered whales, including research on their health and condition. Supported projects will also focus on the effectiveness of measures to mitigate threats and on innovative whale assessment methodologies.”
“Prairie farmers received good news Friday as Japan, this country’s second-largest buyer of wheat, announced it would resume commercial wheat shipments from Canada one month after the discovery of a handful of genetically modified wheat plants in Alberta.
Japan suspended imports on June 15 after less than 10 GMO wheat plants were found growing in a ditch along an oil well access road in southern Alberta. Genetically modified wheat is not authorized to be grown commercially in any country.
Follow-up testing by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) concluded the rogue wheat was isolated to one location, and found no evidence that any unapproved product has entered export cargos.
“Today’s news proves that Canada’s science-based regulatory system works,” said Tom Steve, general manager of the Alberta Wheat Commission. “Japan is a highly valued customer of Canada and we are pleased to see that they have reaffirmed their confidence in our system and have resumed normal trade.”’
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/07/22
“A Muslim father remains in intensive care in a Toronto hospital after a horrific beating that police confirmed Wednesday is being investigated as a anti-Muslim hate crime.
Mohammed Abu Marzouk, 39, and his family – wife and four- and six-year-old daughters – were in their vehicle and about to return home from a picnic near a community center in Mississauga, just outside of Toronto, when two men walking by shouted an obscenity along with “terrorists.“
The pair began kicking the car. Marzouk got out and was attacked.
His wife Diana Attar begged for them to stop, then spotted a police car and ran to it for help.”
Source: https://www.aa.com.tr/en/americas/attack-on-canadian-muslim-being-probed-as-hate-crime/1207862.
“In a recent New York Times column, Stephen T. Asma claims that religion can help people to deal with grief much better than science can. His case for religion over science has four flaws. It depends on a view of how emotion works in the brain that has been rendered obsolete by advances in neuroscience. It underestimates how much science can help to understand the nature of grief and to point to ways of overcoming it. It overestimates the consoling power of religion. Finally, it neglects how science can collaborate with philosophy to suggest ways of dealing with grief.
Asma tells the heartbreaking story of the murder of a teenager and its devastating effect on his mother, brother, and sister. I know how overwhelming grief can be, having lost two parents and a beloved wife who died young of cancer. But Asma’s reasons for looking to religion as consolation are not convincing. “
“A New Brunswick man said he believes organized religion is moving in a new and better direction with the advent of so-called house churches — groups of people who worship in living rooms and kitchens instead of parishes and pews.
Dan Lirette and his wife left their Baptist church and founded Revival House Fellowship in 2011, and their small group of members meets in homes in the Moncton, N.B., and Riverview, N.B., areas on Sundays and Wednesdays.
In an interview, Lirette said the traditional Christian church system — with “Sunday best” dress codes and stringent customs — can make some people feel unwelcome, adding that many people in New Brunswick struggle with poverty, homelessness or drug addiction, while others engage in sex work.”
“A Christian teacher who objected to his union fighting a Chilliwack, B.C., school trustee over comments on transgender children has lost his bid for a religious exemption from union dues.
Robert Alan Bogunovic told the B.C. Labour Relations Board his religious and political views had become irreconcilable with his membership in the B.C. Teachers Federation after the union laid a complaint against trustee Barry Neufeld for criticizing the province’s transgender policies.
But last month, the board dismissed the high school teacher’s application to pay his fees to a charity instead of the union — finding his objections grounded more in politics than in faith.”
Source: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/religious-exemption-union-neufeld-1.4744757.
“At one side of the building kids emulate their favourite World Cup stars, chasing a soccer ball around a gym. It could be any summer camp taking place across the city.
On the other side, a small group of boys sit in a circle and quietly recite passages from the Qur’an, guided by a young camp worker who talks with them about what they’re reading.
The camp — run by the Muslim Association of Canada — is split between mainstream summer camp activities and more religious and cultural programming at Calgary’s Al-Salam Centre.
There are themed weeks like All About Canada, where kids learn about Canadian culture and history, along with trips to Heritage Park and the Calgary Corn Maze, and guest speakers covering topics like the environment and Indigenous issues.”
Source: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/calgary-summer-camp-muslim-canadian-1.4749152.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/07/22
“VANCOUVER—A spokesperson for the anti-pipeline encampment near Trans Mountain’s Burnaby facility says her charter rights to religion could be violated if Camp Cloud is evicted on Saturday.
A ceremonial “sacred fire,” Coast Salish prayers performed “24/7” at the controversial site, and a carving house represent spiritual practices related to “protecting the lands and waters” from a pipeline or tanker spill, said Sto:lo nation member Kwitsel Tatel.”
“Manitoba’s public-sector unions lost a bid Friday for a temporary court injunction against a provincial government bill that would freeze wages for 110,000 workers.
Court of Queen’s Bench Justice James Edmond rejected a request from more than a dozen unions — representing teachers, nurses, civil servants and others — to delay the wage freeze until a full court hearing on its constitutional validity can be held.
“Courts will rarely order that laws that Parliament or the legislature have duly enacted for the public good will not operate or be enforceable in advance of a full constitutional review,” Edmond wrote in his 50-page ruling.
“I am not satisfied that this is one of those clear cases of a charter violation (where) an interlocutory injunction or stay should be granted pending a trial on the constitutionality of the (bill).””
Source: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/court-denies-union-injunction-1.4755980.
“An in-depth look at this and other subjects are covered in the current issue of the Morneau Shepell News & Views
TORONTO, July 19, 2018 /CNW/ – Morneau Shepell released the July 2018 issue of its monthly newsletter, News & Views, in which the Company looked at a number of topics including: an Ontario human rights tribunal’s ruling that finds exclusion of post-65 employee benefits discriminatory, British Columbia’s recommendation for insured long-term disability (LTD) plans, Quebec’s adoption of Bill 176 prohibiting “orphan” clauses and the impact of recent family and estate law cases on pension plan administration.
- Ontario rules exclusion of post-65 employees benefits as discriminatory – A ruling by the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal stated that exemptions in the Ontario Human Rights Code that permit employers to exclude post-65 employees from employment benefits were contrary to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and the usual prohibitions on age discrimination should be applied. If upheld by the courts, employers could be required to add employees to their benefits plan or demonstrate that the termination of benefits for those over 65 is reasonable. Employers failing to do so will face potential human rights complaints.
- British Columbia recommends insurance for long-term disability plans – In March 2018, the British Columbia Ministry of Finance released a “Preliminary Recommendations” document following review of the province’s Financial Institutions Act and Credit Union Incorporation Act. The document included a recommendation to require employee long-term disability (LTD) plans to be insured, with exemptions for employers with low risk of insolvency. The proposal will potentially affect all employers with provincially regulated employees in British Columbia who currently offer self-funded LTD arrangements.”
“An Ontario judge has pulled the rug out from the Canada Revenue Agency’s political-activity audits of Canadian charities, ruling the Income Tax Act infringes on the constitutional right to free expression.
Monday’s ruling immediately quashes a longstanding rule limiting to 10 per cent the resources any Canadian charity is permitted to devote to political activities.
The decision by Justice Edward Morgan of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice is a reprieve for the tiny Ottawa group that launched the challenge — Canada Without Poverty — which has been under formal notice of losing its charitable status since 2016.”
“A Federal Court judge has set aside a decision to refer the case of Abdoul Abdi to a deportation hearing, saying Ottawa “blatantly” ignored the Somali child refugee’s Charter rights and did not consider international law.
In a written decision dated July 13, Justice Ann Marie McDonald said a delegate of the Public Safety Minister failed to consider the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and international law in arriving at her decision, despite being statutorily mandated to render a decision consistent with the charter.
“Most blatantly, the [delegate’s] decision discloses no indication that the [delegate] even considered the charter values,” said Justice McDonald, who does not name the delegate in her decision.”
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/07/22
“Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has dismissed Stephen Harper’s claim that the Liberal government doesn’t want a NAFTA deal and is trying to score political points at home against unpopular U.S. President Donald Trump.
A leaked audio tape reveals that Mr. Harper told a business audience in Montreal that neither Canada nor the United States wants a renegotiated North American free-trade agreement, and that Mr. Trudeau’s government believes it is “winning” in a fight with Mr. Trump. The tape was first reported by CTV News and later obtained by The Globe and Mail.
“The problem right now is that we have two governments that do not want an agreement,” the former prime minister is heard telling a private luncheon hosted by the Australia-Canada Economic Leadership Forum in Montreal on July 11.”
“New Brunswick Premier Brian Gallant has invited the rest of Canada’s premiers to join him on his home turf in Bouctouche, N.B., on Wednesday morning, as three days of interprovincial talks get underway.
The first gathering of the Council of the Federation will take place at Pays de la Sagouine, a replica Acadian village where most — but not all — of the premiers will meet with the national chief of the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples and the president of the Native Women’s Association of Canada, two organizations representing Indigenous people living off-reserve.
Three other Indigenous leaders declined the premiers’ invitation for the second year in a row.”
Source: https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/premiers-advancer-nb-wednesday-1.4750686.
“Canada’s Ambassador to the United States says he expects North American Free Trade Agreement negotiations to resume in the next few weeks and that securing an agreement on the auto sector will be key to unlocking talks around the remaining sticking points.
NAFTA negotiations have been on hold since late May, ahead of the Mexican presidential election on July 1.
“I expect that sometime perhaps the end of the month or early in August we will be back at the table. I certainly hope so,” Ambassador David MacNaughton said in an interview with guest host Katie Simpson on CBC News Network’s Power & Politics on Friday.”
Source: https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/powerandpolitics/david-macnaughton-nafta-talks-1.4755794.
“Not everything that happens in Ottawa is about the next federal election. But a lot of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s moves in Wednesday’s cabinet shuffle sure look like they were tailor-made with the 2019 vote in mind.
But will the changes pay off for the Liberals?
In all, 11 ministers either changed jobs or were added to cabinet, increasing the size of the ministry from 30 to 35, including the prime minister — the largest it has been under Trudeau.
That still makes it smaller than the cabinet of 39 ministers Stephen Harper took into the 2015 federal election. But the scale of the shuffle suggests the Liberals felt some significant changes were needed ahead of next year’s date with voters.”
Source: https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/grenier-shuffle-election-1.4750085.
“When Canada’s premiers gather in New Brunswick for their annual summer meetings this week, the main event undoubtedly will be the debut of Ontario Premier Doug Ford.
Officials from multiple provinces expect the country’s newest provincial leader to dominate the two days of meetings in scenic St. Andrews. “There’s no doubt people are waiting to see how Ford will act,” one official said. Another bluntly added: “I’m betting it’s going to be Fordapalooza.”
Ford already showed himself to be a disruptive force in federal-provincial relations by scrapping Ontario’s participation in a cap-and-trade market and slamming Ottawa for its handling of asylum seekers, many of whom have made their way to Ontario after crossing the Canada-U.S. border.
The testy relationship between Ontario and the federal government was on full display at a federal-provincial immigration ministers meeting in Winnipeg on Friday, when Ontario’s Lisa MacLeod refused to join her counterparts at the podium for a closing news conference.”
Source: https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/premiers-meeting-provinces-ford-trudeau-1.4746748.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/07/21
Obaid Omer was born in India. He grew up in Canada. He left Islam in his teenage years. Now, he fights for free speech and secularism. He is the co-host of the Heretics Corner, which highlights issues dealing with apostasy. Here we learn about his life and views.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: As you were born in India and grew up in Canada, how did religion enter personal life from within that familial and dual-national cultural context?
Obaid Omer: My family moved to Canada at the end of 1975 when I was 6. My father specifically moved us to a neighborhood that hadn’t started to be ghettoized as a South Asian neighborhood, he wanted us to assimilate. May parents, while devout, were not fundamentalist about their faith. They made sure we learned to read the Quran, how to do our prayers and learn about the faith. One of my clearest memories from when we first moved to Canada is; one night we were visited by men from the mosque. I let them in, my dad invited them to sit and offered them food and drink. Within a short amount of time, maybe 15 minutes, my father was throwing them out the door, my brother and I were shocked. My father then sat my brother and me down and said “What those men did was wrong. They came here to tell me how to be a good Muslim and that is between me and my God. It is up to your mother and me to teach you and your sister about the faith and once you are an adult it is up to you how you practice it, no one else has a right to tell you how to do it.” This showed me to question authority.
Growing up we were not made to pray 5 times a day but it was small things that we would continuously have to be aware of. A big thing was eating halal, to a point. We wouldn’t eat pork and even as young as 8 when buying snacks we had to look to make sure it had no pork in it or that it wasn’t cooked in lard. In second grade my teacher announced that on Friday she would bring in hotdogs and cook us hot dogs. I went to speak to her to let her know I couldn’t eat pork, she sent a letter home to my parents to let them know she was cooking all beef hot dogs. My parents allowed it even though it wasn’t halal. It was this tightrope that made it hard to navigate, we were told to assimilate but there were things that we were denied to allow us to fully do so. Being 11 years old and ensuring that the bread you brought home that had no lard in it. I was in a liberal Muslim family but even then there were parts of childhood that we had to forego to ensure we practiced these rules.
Jacobsen: What were the inconsistencies in the sciences and the explanations provided by the religion that eventually lead to your leaving Islam?
Omer: I was always curious and would question just about everything. At 11 the Carl Sagan series Cosmos aired, watching that opened my mind to a new way of questioning. The way Sagan talked about the scientific method and his embracing of curiosity awoke something in me. It was later that year when I learned about our sun burning out in 5 billion years and couldn’t reconcile it with what I had been told about the day of judgment. I asked my parents about this discrepancy and got back a platitude about how they were one and the same, I couldn’t accept that. From then on the more, I learned the more I came to realize that Islam was wrong. Learning about evolution destroyed the creation myth, Hearing the story from my grandmother about the sun setting a puddle of mud was another nail in the coffin. It was all these flaws and errors in what was supposed to be perfect that lead me to see the falsehood in it. By 16 I stopped believing.
Science and reason are the best tools to demonstrate the false claims made by revelation, but I think we need to be careful, science and reason cannot be the replacement for religion, they were never designed to be a philosophy by which you live your life. You need science to remove the veil but you need to offer that which faith offers as well. The only way I can really explain this is by looking at the account of Genesis and the fall. The knowledge that was denied Adam and Eve was not the knowledge of science. They were told specifically to not eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. God had no problem talking about “science” he boasted about his creation and demanded adulation, adoration, and obedience as his due for his work.
What we were denied was how to think and not what to think but also a sense of purpose and identity.
I respect and admire science immensely I am not trying to undermine the contributions science has made to human flourishing, I’m just saying that it needs to be a balanced approach and with science explaining how the heavens go and something else, I’m not sure what, explaining how to go to heaven, metaphorically speaking.
Jacobsen: How do free speech and secularism provide protections from religious fundamentalism and literalism?
Omer: Free speech and secularism are the two most important values if you want to build a free society, with free speech being a first among equals. Without the ability to speak out you cannot let people know if you are being oppressed and you can never know the mind of those who you are in opposition to. You cannot say a society has true free expression without it being secular if you are not free to practice no religion or to practice any religion.
Conversely, you cannot create a secular society without free expression.
My hope is not to have a world that sees religion destroyed and banished from the public sphere never to be spoken of again. I would be ecstatic if everyone around the world decides that belief in a deity was not necessary and that there is more under Heaven and Earth than are dreamt of by that philosophy. Without trying to sound condescending, I would much rather people were able to come to the realization that faith was how we discovered the world in our infancy and now it is time put away childish things.
I try not to make it about me being opposed to faith or to a specific faith, even though I can go on rants about it, I would rather support free expression and secularism. This might seem like the same thing but there is a difference in the approaches. If I support free speech and secularism I am pushing forward the ideas that I believe are needed to build a stable and cohesive society. If I spend all my time fighting religion I could end up losing myself in that fight and end up creating a society that treats the faithful the way they have treated non-believers and those that believed differently and still do in the case of Islam. I see some trends of this and it gets me worried.
I saw the comments that people had made when China announced the forced re-education of the Uyghurs. There was a lot of people spouting vitriol about that is how Muslims should be treated and that is the only way to deal with them. I would much rather deal with a religious person who is willing to practice their faith and allow others to follow theirs or none at all and allowing a free and open exchange of ideas than I would an atheist who wants to forcibly ban religion or send people off for re-education.
The problem lately has been that even the most seemingly benign comment, “What a nice sunny day”, for example, can now become highly politically charged. Someone somewhere will be offended on behalf of those who have a rare and unfortunate condition that causes them pain when exposed to sunlight.
5 years ago I would have said that states and religious fundamentalists were the greatest threat to free speech but lately, we seem to want to police ourselves and even those who are against censorship are scared to speak their mind and be shunned by their tribe. We spent a long time fighting for the right to live according to our conscience and we should willingly give it away. I hope that we will be able to come back to a path where we are able to have a rational and open dialogue without relying on vitriol spewed back and forth all the time.
If we aren’t willing t fight for the values that brought us all our other most cherished values than who will be left to fight for liberty and freedom.
Jacobsen: As the co-host of Heretics Corner, what are some of the main issues for apostates? What countries tend to be the worse violators of freedom of religion and belief for those who leave the faith?
Omer: Two other ex-Muslims and I started Heretics Corner to be an outlet for apostates from any faith to discuss their struggles and what they have had to cope with and how they overcame all that. We are hoping that by sharing these stories it will give some help to others who are struggling with the same issues. While all their stories are different, there is one thread that ties them together, and that is the initial fear of being cut off from family and friends and support system. For most people, even those living in liberal Western democracies, you can find yourself completely cut off from those that were closest to you. We spoke to one Saudi ex-Muslim who left in the middle of the night and came to the US and had to start over in a new country with no one and has now rebuilt her life an dis doing well but she has paid a heavy price for living free.
Right now it is Muslim majority countries that are the biggest threat to freedom from and of religion. This was the focus of our first episode with guests. We had on Yasmine Mohammed and Jimmy Bagnash on to discuss the work they are doing with Free Hearts Free Minds, an organization that Yasmine started to help atheists in Muslim majority countries. Jimmy offers atheist living there life coaching and gives them some skills they can use to not be so overwhelmed by having to live your life secretly and hiding who you are. The testimonials on their website from the people they have helped shows how much this is needed.
This goes to back to free speech and secularism, countries such as Saudia Arabia, Egypt, and Pakistan have to stop making atheism a terrorist offense or a crime against the society. The voices in those countries, that are being silenced for asking for the same freedoms we enjoy should be the ones that are the most protected and the most supported.
I hope Heretics Corner can help bring a lot of stories of people leaving their faith behind and becoming complete again, and maybe we can be a light at the end of the tunnel for some people.
I do see some semi-hopefull trends though, ex-Muslims are starting to be talked about within mosques and Muslim communities, not always with calls for our deaths but as a problem to be addressed. Religious and community leaders from the Muslim populations, especially in the West are afraid that more and more people leave Islam and are trying to have some sort of discourse. I think this is also starting to happen in the Middle East, Maryam Namazie famously said that there is a tsunami of ex-Muslims coming and I think she is right. There had been aWin Gallup poll a few years back that showed Saudi Arabia had 19% of its population who described themselves as atheist or questioning with 5% living openly an atheist.
Jacobsen: What tends to be the more touching stories of leaving fundamentalist religion and restarting a personal life that you have come across?
Omer: The stories that I find the most heartbreaking are when people talk about how they are cut off from their family. The Saudi ex-Muslim I had mentioned earlier, when she talked about how her only contact with her mother was to get horrible insults and death threats from her was incredibly sad to hear, and you could feel the regret she had that she was cut off from one of the people who is supposed to be the most protective and accepting of you. I have heard so many stories of people being cut off from family and the way these stories are told so matter of factly but with so much emotion behind the words I can’t help but want to reach out and provide some comfort but it just seems like something that is impossible to heal.
I had heard Megan Phelps-Roper talk about how she was cut off from her family and how she would love to be able to talk to them, and when she talked about not being able to go to her grandfather’s funeral, and how she knew him not as some hate-spewing religious zealot but as kind living person she thought of as gramps, it made me well-up.
I hope that we can reach a point where some of the faithful do not hold their love for their faith more important than the love for their family.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Mr. Omer.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/07/20
Professor Mir Faizal is an Adjunct Professor in Physics and Astronomy at the University of Lethbridge. I wrote an article for Science, Technology & Philosophy, which gained the attention of one of the people related to the work in the article. It happened to be professor Faizal. He reached out in appreciation for the publication and the accuracy of the reportage on the research. I then returned with a request for an interview because… physics and astronomy. I love the field. Previous interview in Canadian Atheist. Here we talk about some of the work continuing an educational and exploratory series.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: What is the difference between classical and quantum logic?
Professor Mir Faizal: There is a fundamental difference between quantum and classical logic, or classical and quantum ways of thinking. In classical logic, two contradictory possibilities cannot be simultaneously actualized, but in quantum logic, this is exactly what happens. A cat can be both dead and alive, and a single particle can be present at two different places at the same time. Similarly, light is both a particle and wave in quantum mechanics. This is not a mere philosophy, but this way of thinking is essential to the correct understanding of nature. I would argue that this fuzzy way of thinking can also help resolve real-life problems, and the Israeli–Palestinian being one of them. In doing so, it would be not only possible to reconcile Zionism with democracy, but it would also be possible to reconcile Zionism with Palestinian Nationalism.
Jacobsen: How can quantum logic be applied to such a political problem?
Faizal: Just like we have to accept that the cat is dead and the cat is alive, at the same time, in the quantum world, we have to accept that all the land belongs to Jews and all the land belongs to the Palestinians, at the same time in the political world. So, this is where we need to think quantum mechanically. Just as wave nature of light and particle nature of light are both needed to get a complete picture, and relying on only one of these will create problems in understanding natural phenomena, we need to accept both the claims of Jews and Palestinians to all the land as being simultaneously true, to understand this social phenomenon. Accepting this quantum logic will help both the Jewish and Palestinians population to see the others point of view, without having to compromise their own point of view. They can even empathize with the other point of view, as both these communities have been historically displaced from their homeland, and have similar aspirations and the similar basis for their National moments.
Jacobsen: What is the basis on which you have stated that claims of both the Jews and the Palestinian simultaneously true?
Faizal: To do so, let us first understand what gives a certain part of human population preferentially more rights to live in a certain region of the earth (country), than the rest of humanity. When a group of humans lives in a certain region, they develop an emotional attachment to that region, and this gives them a preferential right to live in that region. This is the basis on which the concept of nationality is formed, and holds true for almost all nation on earth. Furthermore, when a new group lives in that region and develops a similar emotional attachment to that region, then that group also acquires a similar preferential right to live in that region of the earth. This is the reason why in most countries, citizenship can be acquired by staying in that country for a sufficiently long time.
Jacobsen: Does a group of people not lose this preferential right to live in a land, after living away from it for long? After all, humans evolved from Africa, but not all humans can claim citizenship of African countries.
Faizal: Now, there is also a question of people losing this preferential right. All the humanity has evolved from Africa, but most of the humanity does not have this emotional attachment with Africa. So if a group loses this emotional attachment to a region, it also loses this preferential right to live in that region. This usually occurs in a century for most groups, but the important question is what happens if a group does not lose this emotional attachment to a region. It is only logical to suppose that if a group of humans does not lose this emotional attachment to a region, they should also not lose the preferential rights to live in that region.
Jacobsen: Who according to this logic has the claim to the land?
Faizal: I would say that all the land belongs to Jews, and all the land belongs to Palestinians, and both these claims are simultaneously true. The only and strongest basis on which Zionism is justified is that the Jews have historically lived in Israel, and even though they have been removed from that region, they have not lost the emotional attachment with the land of Israel. A Jew has as much right to be in Israel as a German has to be in Germany, or a British has to be in Britain. But for the same reason, a Palestinian has as much right to be in Palestinian as a Jew has to be in Israel. Just like the Jews, Palestinians have also historically lived in that land, and have an emotional attachment to that land. What makes this situation interesting is that both these claims are equally true, and for the same reasons. Both these groups of people (Jews and Palestinians) have lived in that region, and have an emotional attachment to that land.
Jacobsen: What would be the practical implications of this for Israeli–Palestinian conflict?
Faizal: Now having established that all the land belongs to Jews, and all the land belongs to Palestinians as simultaneously true claims, we can think of real practical solutions for the issue. First of all, it would really help Zionism, if it accepts the claim of Palestinian Nationalism, and then used the same argument to argue for Zionism, as it would then win the support of moderate Palestinians, and greatly reduce the violence against Jewish people in Israel. Similarly, it would help Palestinians, if they accepted Zionism’s, and then argued for their cases using the same argument. As this would win them the support of moderate Jews, and that would, in turn, improve the rights of Palestinians. So, such an acceptance of Zionism and Palestinian Nationalism as simultaneously true would directly reduce the violence against Jews, and improve the lives of Palestinians.
Jacobsen: Is it practically possible for Jews to accept Palestinian Nationalism, given the high levels of anti-Semitism in Palestinians?
Faizal: It is important to point out that certain ideas have now mixed with both Zionism and Palestinian Nationalism, with is neither beneficial for these moments nor essential to them. The problem with Palestinian Nationalism is that is has been mixed with anti-Semitism, and a desire to remove the Jewish population from Israel. It does the most harm to the Palestinian cause, as it promotes right-wing political parties in Israel. Realistically, if the Palestinians leadership took a bold step and encouraged Jewish immigration and integration into Palestine, then Israel would be forced to be more restrained militarily, and more generous economically towards Palestinians territories. Also, the settlers would lose all motivations to live in settlements, if they could legally live in Palestinian territories along with Palestinians as Palestinian citizens. This would also cause a decline in right winged political parties in Israel, and this would be beneficial for the Palestinian cause. This new form of Palestinian Nationalism would be acceptable to most moderate Jews.
Jacobsen: Is it possible for Palestinians to accept Zionism as Zionism made them lose their homeland?
Faizal: The problem with Zionism is that a justified desire for the Jewish population to live in Israel has been mixed with an unjustified desire for the Palestinian population not to live in that region. In fact, if Zionism accepts the rights of Palestinians to live there, and uses this argument for the Jews to live there too, it will be viewed as great liberation moment and this way Israel can emerge as a real democracy. This will also cause a decline in support for groups which support violence, and increase the support for Israel in moderate Palestinians. This will cause a real decline in the violence against Jews in Israel. Furthermore, this would be the only way in which Israel can emerge as a real Jewish democracy. This new form of Zionism would be acceptable to most moderate Palestinians.
Jacobsen: A real concern for Jews to accept all Palestinians would be that they can easily vote Zionism out of existence, so how can Jews accept all the Palestinians to live in Israel/Palestine?
Faizal: It is logical for most Jews to be afraid of doing this because by allowing all Palestinians to return and give them equal rights, then they can vote the Zionism out of existence.
So, sadly at present, there seems to be only one solution. To allow Palestinians to return and give them equal rights, but freeze their vote to its present vote share. They can have a weighted vote. Apart from this all the Jews of the world should be given a vote in Israel, even if they are not legal citizens or residents of Israel. This political discrimination will end all social discriminations against Palestinians. Hopefully in future, when anti-Semitismends in Palestinians and most Jews are living nicely in Israel, then this discrimination can end too. But at present, the only way to end social and economic discrimination against Palestinians is for Israel to allow all the Palestinians the right to live in Israel, and equality in all aspects of life, but discriminate against them politically.
This is also important for the survival of Israel as a place for Jews to return, as both the Palestinian population with Israeli citizenship, and anti-Semitism in this population, can grow and vote Zionism out of existence in the future. However, such a discrimination need only be a temporary measure, it can end when a greater sense of nationhood develops in both these populations, and all the Jews have Israeli citizenship.
Jacobsen: As there is a religious dimension to this problem, what can be done about that?
Faizal: There is definitely a religious dimension to this problem. The central problem is that the Temple Mount/Majid Al Aqsa is holy to both the religions. However, in the Jewish tradition, it is allowed for non-Jewish monotheists (Beni Nao) to pray in Temple Mount, and they used to do that in early times. Furthermore, most Jews consider Muslims to be from Bnei Noa, and hence according to Jewish religious tradition they can pray at the Temple Mount.
According to Muslim traditions, a group of Christians was allowed by Muhammad to pray in his Mosque. Based on this, it is religiously possible for both these religions to share the Temple Mount/Majid Al Aqsa. There are also problematic traditions of Hadith, and verses in the Old Testament, which are used by certain religious groups to promote violence. However, the many interpretations have nicely justified the violence of such traditions away, and such interpretations should be promoted, and this would be beneficial for both Zionism and Palestinian Nationalism.
Jacobsen: What is your reaction to those who claim the land should only belong to the Jews or Palestinians?
Faizal: It should be realized that even if Israeli Jews wanted they cannot leave Israel, and even if Palestinians wanted they cannot leave Palestinian. No country will accept so many new immigrants. So there seems to be no other way than living together. In summary, the only practical solution to the Israeli-Palestinian issue can come if both the contradictory claims are accepted as simultaneously true, and then real rational solutions are worked out to resolve this issue.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/07/17
Faisal Saeed Al Mutar founded the Global Secular Humanist Movement and Ideas Beyond Borders. He is an Iraqi refugee, satirist, and human rights activist. He is also a columnist for Free Inquiry. Here, we continue a series together.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: When it comes to social media, many people are being banned from across the spectrum. These can be people we agree with. These can be people we disagree with.
However, I note people tend to be in support of the banning of people they do not agree with, but not in support of banning of people they agree with. This seems inconsistent with freedom of expression or what is more narrowly termed free speech.
What are your thoughts on this? What are your observations about this?
Faisal Saeed Al Mutar: What is happening, there is a distinction, which is important for people to know, between the First Amendment and freedom of expression. The First Amendment is about protecting individuals from government censorship, while freedom of expression is more of a culture that tolerates different opinions.
and also there are hate speech laws in some countries in Europe who doesn’t follow the American tradition of the first amendment and they arrest people for what they refer to as hate speech.
Hate speech laws happen in multiple countries in the world including countries in the free world. In Germany, for example, Holocaust denial is viewed as hate speech. Therefore, people who propagate these ideas get prosecuted.
In the UK, there was a case where a comedian got his girlfriend to do a Nazi salute. it is going to the court. There is government persecution and what is referred to free speech or freedom of expression.
In the US, “hate speech” in many cases is legal if it doesn’t call for direct incitement of violence.
For platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ – not many people use it, and YouTube, which are the major ones, they are private companies, but at the same time, they became platforms for many people around the world to spread their ideas and discuss them with other people.
These platforms have been constrained by very, in my opinion, vague terms and conditions. Up until today, many people do not know the specifics of the terms and conditions. There has been, in my opinion, different standards applied to different people about what can be considered hateful speech.
Somebody can make the argument that Ayatollah Khamenei, who is the Ayatollah for Iran at the moment, is involved in hate speech because he spreads many conspiracy theories against the Jews and other bad ideas, but he is available on Twitter.
Even though in his country, he does not allow people to access Twitter, but he and others in the regime can access it. Same with other extremist groups. What is happening is that some of the people who can be considered within the spectrum of the Far Right in Europe or the United States, they are having their accounts shut down.
There is a relevant double standard ongoing. Many critics of Islam who are not alt-Right, but who liberal Muslims or ex-Muslims. Their work is also being censored due to not supporting it or some people being offended.
Some people do not understand that free speech is in some ways a one-way street. What some people find offensive cannot be offensive to other people, many of these social media companies who were invented by IT and software people.
There are so many ethical questions that they are dealing with, which I do not think they are dealing with in a reasonable manner. Freedom of expression is not about the people that we agree with.
If we agree on something, we do not need any sort of laws or policies, or a culture, to protect us. It is exactly what I am talking about with opinion. If you do not support unpopular opinions, no matter how offensive they may be, you are naturally not supporting free speech.
Unless, there is a direct incitement to violence, where you can say, “These people in this group, certain ethnic group, need to killed right now at this venue or at this place.” That is different as it is incitement to violence. But in my opinion, what can and cannot be offensive can be very subjective.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Faisal.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/07/10
Professor Mir Faizal is an Adjunct Professor in Physics and Astronomy at the University of Lethbridge. I wrote an article for Science, Technology & Philosophy, which gained the attention of one of the people related to the work in the article. It happened to be professor Faizal. He reached out in appreciation for the publication and the accuracy of the reportage on the research. I then returned with a request for an interview because… physics and astronomy. I love the field. Here we talk about some of the work.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: What is the relation between the structure of spacetime and gravity?
Professor Mir Faizal: A geometry can be flat like the geometry of a piece of paper, or a curved geometry, like the geometry of a ball. According to general relativity, the geometry of our spacetime is a curved geometry. In fact, gravity is caused by this curvature of spacetime. This is the main difference between gravity and other forces in nature. Other forces (like electromagnetism, weak or strong nuclear forces) act in spacetime, and gravity is the spacetime.
Jacobsen: What is a singularity?
Faizal: It is possible for the gravitational field to become infinite at a point. As gravity is the structure of spacetime, these points cannot be analyzed as points in spacetime, and laws of physics cannot be applied to such points. The occurrence of singularities is predicted from the equations describing the general theory of relativity. They occur at the center of black holes, and at the start of the universe. So, it seems problematic that our universe is described by elegant laws of physics, which cannot be applied to the beginning of our universe.
Jacobsen: Are these singularities physical or just mathematical artifacts?
Faizal: There are theorems by Penrose and Hawking called the Penrose-Hawking singularity theorems, which state that classically the singularities are an intrinsic feature of general relativity, and not just mathematical artifacts. By classical, I mean if we do not consider quantum effects into consideration.
Jacobsen: What happens if quantum effects are taken into consideration?
Faizal: It has been argued that we need a full theory of quantum gravity to understand how quantum effects will change the structure of spacetime, and the physics of singularities. However, we still do not have a full quantum theory of gravity, but only various proposals for quantum gravity. All the past work on removal of singularities has been done using these different proposals for quantum gravity (such as the string theory and loop quantum gravity), so all of the past work depends on the specifics of a particular proposal. However, we approached the problem from a different point of view.
Jacobsen: What was new in your approach?
Faizal: We looked at the mathematical ingredients used to derive the Penrose-Hawking singularity theorems, and tried to obtain a quantum version of such theorems. These theorems were derived using an equation the Raychaudhuri equation, and we derived a quantum version of this equation. Then we used it to obtain quantum versions of the Penrose-Hawking singularity theorems. Thus, we could demonstrate from our quantum no-singularity theorems that the quantum effects would prevent the occurrence of singularities, just like Penrose and Hawking demonstrated that classical effects would lead to the occurrence of singularities using classical singularity theorems. Our results did not depend on the specifics of a particular model, like the past work done in this field.
Jacobsen: What is the significance of this work?
Faizal: The universe (and even the multiverse), should be described by consistent laws of physics. There should be no inconsistency in nature, and it is this belief in consistency, which is at the heart of a scientific worldview. Every time, we observe that some experimental data is not being explained by a certain physical law describing a physical system, we propose there to be a better more elegant law behind that system (of which the existing law is an approximation). Thus, if the motion of mercury was being described by Newton’s laws, it was not because there was an inconsistency in nature, but because gravity was described by Einstein’s equation, of which Newton’s laws were an approximation. However, if the beginning of the universe could not be described by consistent physical laws, then the whole philosophy of science would view would break down. So, the absence of singularities, means the presence of consistency, at all points in the universe (including its beginning), which in turn means that scientific worldview is a consistent worldview.
Jacobsen: Does this work have implications for the existence of God?
Faizal: It depends on how you define God, as the word ‘God’ has been defined in various ways (many of those definitions are contradict each other). So, if you define God as the as a supernatural being, who keeps breaking the laws of physics by performing miracles, and use the occurrence of singularity to argue for the existence of such a being (by performing a miracle at the point of the big bang), then such an argument is broken. This, in fact, is still a god of gaps, with the big bang being a big gap. On the other hand, if you define God as the most fundamental aspect of existence from which all existence (including elegant laws of mathematics describing nature) emerges, then such a God exists by definition. What we could say about the nature of such a fundamental form of existence, in rather a poetic way, is that there is no inconsistency in the creation of God. However, the definition of God as a supernatural being who performs miracles by breaking laws of physics is inconsistent with this statement about the absence of inconsistency in nature, as miracles are by definition inconsistent with the laws of physics.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Professor Faizal.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/07/08
“In small groups looking for funding for summer programs, some people had a problem with an attestation the Canadian government required signed in order for people to apply for the Canada Summer Jobs Program.
The government had a valid purpose behind the attestation; according to the application guide, the attestation is to ensure “both the job and the organization’s core mandate respect individual human rights in Canada, including the values underlying the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms as well as other rights.” These include “reproductive rights and the right to be free from discrimination on the basis of sex, religion, race, national or ethnic origin, colour, mental or physical disability, sexual orientation, or gender identity or expression.””
Source: http://www.humboldtjournal.ca/opinion/editorial/unfair-focus-put-on-reproductive-rights-1.23357530.
“An uphill battle likely lies ahead for an Ontario concrete company hauling Canada’s government to court over having to attest to women’s abortion rights before taking part in a summer jobs program.
This is the view of at least one legal mind following an application filed to the Federal Court by Sarnia Concrete Products Ltd., alleging its Charter rights were violated when its application was turned down for Canada Summer Jobs (CSJ) — a federal program giving employers wage subsidies to hire secondary and post-secondary students.
At the heart of the issue is Sarnia Concrete’s CSJ application — or, more specifically, what it was missing.
A part of the CSJ application is a new requirement that organizations check a box attesting to provisions under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, including women’s “sexual and reproductive rights … and the right to access safe and legal abortions.””
“The province of Nova Scotia has fine-tuned a law to protect against cyberbullying and the unwanted sharing of intimate images, and it is offering victims several ways to deal with the problem aside from filing criminal charges.Nova Scotia was the first Canadian province to adopt broad legislation addressing this issue after the death of teenager Rehtaeh Parsons in 2013. Photos of an alleged sexual assault on her were circulated online. She was so distressed that she attempted suicide and was later taken off life support.
Law infringed on constitutional rights
The original law was challenged in court and was found to infringe on the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. A new law was passed in late 2017 but the government has been working on the wording.
Now, there is a provision for restorative approaches to resolve disputes. Victims and parents will be able to get protection orders to make alleged offenders stop the activity. They can ask that further contact be prohibited and that online content be removed. They can also seek compensation.
Special unit helps victims
The government has created a unit within its department of justice to deal with complaints of cyberbullying or the sharing of intimate images. CyberScan has a director and five employees who can help victims understand their options and navigate the justice system.”
Source: http://www.rcinet.ca/en/2018/07/05/online-bullying-intimate-photos-redress/.
“In the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, there exist the fundamental provisions for equality throughout the nation-state.
Many statements with easy interpretation for the furtherance of a more fair, just, and equal society. In the sentences, or in the manner of a few statements, millions of girls and women within the country earn and deserve fundamental equality and consideration with boys and men in the society.
Of course, the distributions of inequality imply sufficiently distinct but partially overlapping distributions of equality depending on the area of the country and the personal narratives taken into account. Nonetheless, the overwhelming emphasis and ethical arc of Canada remains the integration of equality for all peoples and persons in the nation.
With Section 28 of the Charter, we discover the fundamental notion for a super-operation or meta-process for the means by which to apply the document within Canadian society unto itself through the equal application for men and women for all parts and portions and sections of the Charter. As stated, the 28th section:
Section 28 guarantees that all rights covered in the Charter apply equally to men and women.”
Source: https://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/canadian-charter-sjbn/
“Sending asylum seekers back to the U.S. violates the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and Canada’s international obligations, argues a current legal challenge. The Canadian Council for Refugees, Amnesty International and the Canadian Council of Churches have filed what they call “extensive evidence” proving Canada should not return refugee claimants to the United States.
At issue is the Safe Third Country Agreement between Canada and the U.S. It is based on the premise that the U.S. is a safe country for asylum-seekers. So, if they come to Canada from there at an official border crossing, officials are obliged to turn them back.
Right to liberty is violated, say advocates
The litigants argue that the U.S. system fails in many ways to protect refugees. They say their right to liberty as guaranteed by the Canadian charter is violated because the U.S. arbitrarily detains them in immigration centres or country jails, “often in atrocious conditions and in clear contravention of international standards.”
They add that women are disproportionately harmed by being sent back to the U.S. and that violates their Charter right to equal treatment under the law. In addition, people who are turned back from Canada are at risk of being sent by the U.S. to their home countries where they may face persecution, torture and even death.
Source: http://www.rcinet.ca/en/2018/07/04/canada-asylum-seekers-rights-violated-litigation/.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/07/08
“Premier Doug Ford has fired Ontario’s chief scientist — an award-winning researcher appointed by the former Liberal government.
Molly Shoichet was named the province’s first-ever chief scientist last November, with the goal of advancing science and innovation in Ontario.
Shoichet, a biomedical engineer, told CBC Radio’s Metro Morning that her work was going well, but on Tuesday she was informed that she was being let go.
A few months ago we spoke with Molly Shoichet, an award-winning scientist and researcher at the U of T. She’d just been appointed as the Province’s first Chief Scientist by then Premier Kathleen Wynne. Now a new government with a new mandate and a new broom has sent her packing. We have her reaction and hear what she was able to do in the six months she was on the job. 8:12
She said she was “surprised and not surprised,” by the news, and believes she was let go so Ford’s new PC government could put its own stamp on the role, even though she says she’s not a member of any political party.
“Science is not political,” she said.
“It’s really about trying to make the best decisions for government.””
Source: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/doug-ford-fires-chief-scientist-1.4735085.
“Premier Doug Ford has quietly appointed an ally to an advisory post with an annual salary of $348,000.
The Ford cabinet named Dr. Rueben Devlin, a former president of the Ontario PC Party and the longtime CEO of Humber River Hospital, to chair a new body called the Premier’s Council on Improving Healthcare and Ending Hallway Medicine.
The appointment was not officially announced by the Ford government, although the decision was made a week ago during the first meeting of the new cabinet.
Devlin’s hiring was revealed Friday when the orders-in-council from that meeting were posted online. The cabinet order declares Devlin’s salary as $348,000 per year, plus expenses.
“He is going to be worth every penny and we are going to see that in the results,” said Lisa MacLeod, Ontario’s new minister of children, community and social services, during a news conference Friday.”
Source: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/premier-doug-ford-rueben-devlin-health-care-adviser-1.4736696.
“On October 20, marijuana will no longer be an illegal drug in Canada—a move that could make it much easier to study how cannabis affects the body and the brain.
“Cannabis has risks and maybe benefits,” says M-J Milloy, an infectious disease epidemiologist at the British Columbia Centre on Substance Use and the University of British Columbia who studies HIV patients’ illicit drug use. Under prohibition, however, “what we, as scientists, have not been able to do is try to figure out what those risks and benefits are in an open way,” he says. “The hope is that legalization of cannabis will take the shackles off scientific inquiry and will allow us to ask and answer the sort of questions we should have been asking twenty, thirty, forty years ago.”
Currently in Canada, to study the physiological effects of cannabis in humans, researchers have to apply for an exemption from the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, which has been difficult to get regardless of the political affiliation of government leaders, Milloy says. Funding hasn’t been easy to come by either, making cannabis research the “poor second cousin of alcohol studies,” notes sociologist Andrew Hathaway of the University of Guelph.”
Source: https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/canada-could-come-to-the-fore-in-cannabis-research-64455.
“From the normally mild summer climes of Ireland, Scotland and Canada to the scorching Middle East, numerous locations in the Northern Hemisphere have witnessed their hottest weather ever recorded over the past week.
Large areas of heat pressure or heat domes scattered around the hemisphere led to the sweltering temperatures.
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation reports the heat is to blame for at least 33 deaths in southern Quebec, mostly in and near Montreal, which endured record high temperatures.
In Northern Siberia, along the coast of the Arctic Ocean – where weather observations are scarce – model analyses showed temperatures soaring 40 degrees Fahrenheit (22 Celsius) above normal on July 5, to over 90 degrees Fahrenheit (32 Celsius).
“It is absolutely incredible and really one of the most intense heat events I’ve ever seen for so far north,” wrote meteorologist Nick Humphrey, who offers more detail on this extraordinary high-latitude hot spell on his blog.”
“SIDNEY, BC, July 5, 2018 /CNW/ – Seamounts are underwater mountains that are home to an abundance of marine species, from cold-water corals and sponges to Bocaccio and killer whales. These ecosystems are important to maintaining biodiversity in the ocean and contribute greatly to its health. Fisheries and Oceans Canada, the Haida Nation, Oceana Canada and Ocean Networks Canada are working together to further ocean research and help protect seamounts in the Pacific Ocean.
The Northeast Pacific Seamounts Expedition, taking place from July 5 to 21, 2018, will explore three seamounts in the Northeast Pacific Ocean: SGaan Kinghlas-Bowie, Dellwood and Explorer.
During the 16-day expedition aboard Ocean Exploration Trust’s vessel, E/V Nautilus, partners will survey and collect data on the physical features and ecosystems of the seamounts. They will establish long-term monitoring sites on SGaan Kinghlas-Bowie Seamount, and for the first time, will use multibeam sonar to map Dellwood and Explorer Seamounts.”
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/07/08
“The Canadian government is defending itself against accusations from U.S. President Donald Trump that Canada is falling short on defence spending, saying there are big military expenditure increases planned in future years and that this country always contributes to NATO deployments.
This rejoinder from Canada comes as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau heads to the Baltic country of Latvia to showcase a Canadian military deployment aimed at deterring Russian aggression.
One military analyst, however, says Canada is dodging, rather than answering, justified criticism by changing the subject to deployments from funding levels.
The Prime Minister will visit Latvia for two days, starting on July 9, before proceeding to a NATO meeting of heads of state and government in Belgium on July 11 and 12 – a gathering that promises to be fraught with tension over Russia.”
“U.S. President Donald Trump’s envoy to Canada told guests at her cosier-than-usual Fourth of July party in Ottawa on Wednesday night that the countries’ strained relationship will overcome the tough times.
Ambassador Kelly Craft delivered the message with the U.S. and Canada locked in an unprecedented trade dispute.
She made the acknowledgment to hundreds of partygoers, who listened as they sipped cocktails and ate shrimp on the sweeping front lawn of her official residence.
“Canada and the United States have an enduring partnership that I am confident will stand the test of time — and believe me, these are testing times,” Craft told the crowd, which experienced attendees of the annual gathering described as far smaller than past years.”
Source: https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/july-4th-ottawa-craft-1.4732984.
“Let me be clear — I’m not against any particular government, I’m just not in favour of dumb. This week, newly elected Ontario Premier Doug Ford began to deliver on some of his campaign promises to reduce “big government,” as he likes to put it.
Ford is right inasmuch as government is big, probably much too big. But that’s not really the issue.
The issue, simply put, is what does Ford intend to eliminate or reduce in his battle against big government? And, more importantly, does he understand the implications of his cuts?
The answers to both of these questions, it seems, is “we shall see.” Or, as I would put it, perhaps more honestly: “I haven’t got a clue, but that didn’t stop me during the election and it won’t stop me now.””
“Apparently there’s no such thing as a ceasefire in a trade war, even on Canada Day.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made sure to weave in a mention of Canada’s steel and aluminum industries along with the usual Canada Day pleasantries during his annual statement to Canadians.
Beyond marking our country’s 151st birthday, Sunday is the day that Canada’s $16.6 billion worth of retaliatory tariffs on U.S. products came into effect.
A number of U.S. steel products now face a tariff of 25 per cent, while a vast array of aluminum products will now cost Canadian importers 10 per cent more.
Canada’s measures come a month after the Trump administration imposed its own tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum, citing national security concerns.”
Source: https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/trudeau-tariffs-canada-day-1.4730323.
“OTTAWA (Reuters) – Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, a supporter of feminist causes, on Thursday conceded for the first time that he had apologized in 2000 to a woman who accused him of groping her but insisted he did not feel he had done anything wrong.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks during a fundraiser in Brampton, Ontario, Canada, July 5, 2018. REUTERS/Carlo Allegri
Trudeau, whose government is working on new legislation against workplace harassment, has faced Canadian media scrutiny in recent weeks about what happened at a charity fundraiser in Creston, British Columbia nearly 20 years ago.
In his first direct comments on the incident on Canada Day last Sunday, the prime minister said he “didn’t remember any negative interactions that day at all”, but on Thursday he said “I apologized in the moment” without giving details.
According to an unsigned editorial in 2000 in the local newspaper, the Creston Valley Advance, Trudeau apologized to a local female reporter for inappropriately “handling” her.”
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2022/02/12
Strategic objective F.1.
Promote women’s economic rights and independence, including access to employment, appropriate working conditions and control over economic resources
Actions to be taken
165. By Governments:
f. Review and amend laws governing the operation of financial institutions to ensure that they provide services to women and men on an equal basis;
Beijing Declaration (1995)
In the review and amendment of the laws, the focus is simply financial institutions available to the, presumably, public and private institutions. In this, we have to examine the legitimacy of egalitarian efforts there.
In some instances, women have been systematically disadvantaged in many countries in the world, financially. This began with financial institutions and can end with financial institutions.
It’s akin to Saudi Arabia disallowing women to drive cars and women protesting through driving and posting videos, of them driving, on the internet for all to see. It changes an unfair and unjust law based on an inherent sense of illegitimate gender inequality. One imposed rather than seen as a truism.
Even in my native Canada, women were not allowed to have a credit card as an unmarried woman at one time. Not a long time ago, either, and to the point of the 1995 Beijing Declaration, banks, financial institutions in other words, could refuse a credit card to a woman if unmarried.
The husband was required to co-sign with the woman. It changed with the passing of the Equal Credit Opportunity Act of 1974. In other words, women only recently acquired the ability to have credit on equal terms with men.
That’s why statements, such as the above, are important for egalitarian efforts. In the efforts to make services through financial institutions being equal, there, in many cases, can’t simply be a wish or vague hope for a better tomorrow.
There needs to be a direct activism on the ground in a social world, political change through the amassing of social support, and then the creation of policy and law proposals at the different levels of society.
Those incremental changes can lead to national change, which means an entire change in the lives of women unforeseen in previous generations. These are the kinds of financial institutional changes described in even this small part of the Beijing Declaration.
Which leads to easy questions, what financial institutions need reform in your country?
—
(Updated 2020-09-27, only use the updated listing, please) Not all nations, organizations, societies, or individuals accept the proposals of the United Nations; one can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights, and the important days and campaigns devoted to the rights of women and girls too:
Documents
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- The Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (1967).
- Some general declarations (not individual Declaration or set of them but announcement) included the UN Decade for Women (1976-1985).
- The Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979) and the Optional Protocol (1999).
- The African (Banjul) Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (1981) in Article 2 and Article 18 from the Organization of African Unity.
- The Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the optional protocol (1993).
- The Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action (1993).
- The International Conference on Population and Development (1994).
- The Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), the Five-year review of progress (2000), the 10-year review in 2005, the 15-year review in 2010, and the 20-year review in 2015.
- The United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), and the UN Security Council additional resolutions on women, peace and security: 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013), 2242 (2015), and 2467 (2019).
- The Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- The Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
- The UN Women’s strategic plan, 2018–2021
Strategic Aims
- The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, emphasis on the entirety of the goals with a strong focus on Goal 5
- The 2015 agenda with 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (169 targets for the end to poverty, combatting inequalities, and so on, by 2030). The SDGs were preceded by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in Goal 3 and Goal 5 from 2000 to 2015.
- The Spotlight Initiative as another important piece of work, as a joint venture between the European Union and the United Nations.
Celebratory Days
- February 6, International Day of Zero Tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation is observed.
- February 11, International Day of Women and Girls in Science is observed.
- June 19, Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict is observed.
- June 23, is International Widows’ Day is observed.
- August 26, International Women’s Equality Day is observed.
- October 11, International Day of the Girl Child is observed.
- October 15, International Day of Rural Women is observed.
- November 25, International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women is observed.
Guidelines and Campaigns
- Gender Inclusive Guidelines, Toolbox, & United Nations System-wide Strategy on Gender Parity.
- Say No, UNiTE, UNiTE to End Violence against Women, Orange the World: #HearMeToo (2018), and the 16 days of activism.
Women and Men Women’s Rights Campaigners (Thanks to Sikivu Hutchinson for help with the list)
- Abby Kelley Foster
- Angela Davis
- Anna Julia Cooper
- Audre Lorde
- Barbara Smith
- Bell Hooks
- Claudette Colvin
- Combahee River Collective
- Ella Baker
- Fannie Lou Hamer
- Harriet Tubman
- Ida B. Wells
- Lucy Stone
- Maria Stewart
- Matilda Joslyn Gage
- Rosa Parks
- Shirley Chisholm
- Sojourner Truth
- Susan B. Anthony
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
Share this:
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2022/01/19
Christian is a Philosopher that comes from Belgium. What identifies him the most and above all is simplicity, for everything is better with “vanilla ice cream.” Perhaps, for this reason, his intellectual passion is criticism and irony, in the sense of trying to reveal what “hides behind the mask,” and give birth to the true. For him, ignorance and knowledge never “cross paths.” What he likes the most in his leisure time, is to go for a walk with his wife.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: There’s an old Roman Catholic Christian fundamentalist phrase, “God wills it,” which is said Deus Vult in the original Latin. In 1096, it was the chant for the First Crusade. Many modern Roman Catholics harbour a wish to attain a crusaders mindset in combatting everything un-Christian/non-Christian/not them. They name groups after it, publications under it, and, in this sense, harken back to a time when Roman Catholics waged holy war. They want holy war in a time of global secularization and the rise of women. The extraordinary psychological and ideological insecurity is telling. In fact, studies have been produced, wherein psychopaths are known to want to become CEOs and the like; they’re drawn to these professions. However, lesser known, a highly ranked profession on the list of careers preferred by psychopaths: Clergy. It’s all highly informative. I take this long winding path due to our prior writing on this subject matter of the Roman Catholic Church and an apparent trembling upper lip based on our words from lots of disgruntled readers. You were trained within the Vatican, as a non-Catholic, under the auspices of Opus Dei in an expensive Opus Dei schooling, working on a Ph.D. in metaphysics in Rome, while meeting the hierarchy and, thus, knowing the structural dynamics of the Roman Catholic Church from the inside for an extended amount of time. In short, you can be, by some minds’ qualitative metrics, seen as a sincere threat. Gnoseology deals with metaphysics, epistemology, ontology, logics, empirics, consciousness, and being, as a start. This means, as well, the foundations of the Roman Catholic Christian faith or religion, not simply a new basis on knowing. In some sense, your freemasonic personal history, Opus Dei familial story, Jewish origin, academic training within Rome, and the like, created one of the most potent brews for critical commentary. As an aside, for those reading, if within a Roman Catholic relationship, community, or family happening to feel oppressive or coercive or restrictive to personal boundaries and freedoms, or an individual distant and questioning the theology and their faith, there are options to transition out of the Roman Catholic Church, including various atheist, agnostic, freethinker, and humanist organization, even theist and atheist Satanic organizations with some political activism. You can find atheist resources at https://www.atheistsites.net. Your local freemasonic hall would happily invite a tour or a new membership. Humanists International has a directory of humanist organizations at https://humanists.international/about/our-members/. The Satanic Temple has plenty of local chapters listed at https://thesatanictemple.com/pages/join-us. You can learn a bit about the public knowledge basics of freemasonry at https://beafreemason.org/. There is a revivalist movement around Paganism. You can find those online, whether neo-Pagan, humanistic Paganism, and the like. Secular and humanistic versions of religious organizations exist all over the world. Of course, wonderful feminist organizations are everywhere, too – simpleyGoogle “Feminism” or “feminist organizations,” etc.” You’ll find your way. So, know, you’re not alone, have options, already have the internal strength within you, and can find a fit based on personal temperament and psychological profile – find what works for you, not what’s forced on you. You can always email me at Scott.D.Jacobsen@Gmail.Com. Back to Gnoseology, how is “supreme wisdom” defined here, as in “The Devil’s Chaplain: God Cannot Create the Nothing”?
Dr. Christian Sorensen: In my opinion, the supreme wisdom is certainly something not explicitly verbalizable or writable through any type of content ; and much less has a sacred, universal and immutable character. The reason for the aforementioned, has to do with a purely logical order, since intelligence always seeks to find answers in confrontation with the unknown. Therefore, if the supreme wisdom was represented by some kind of knowledge, in terms of anything identifiable with the truth, it would necessarily have resolved to some extent the process of intellectual search ; at least with partially cognitively constructed responses, capable of actually appeasing the sensation of existential emptiness. If the above, would have been in such manner, then supreme wisdow, could have summoned towards an intersubjective noetic consensus, and should have redounded in favor of commonwealth; all of which could not be more anachronistic and further from reality. In consequence, I consider that rather it’s related to a hypothetical place, than with an inductive or deductible knowledge, which instead I would denominate : as somewhat found in another place ; in the sense of being vinculated to a hollow space, and that will make possible a synthetic spiral chain of antithetical premises. Furthermore, what is going to be recognized empirical and commonly as this species of wisdom, especially from a fundamentalist religious perspective, as occurs with the Roman Catholic Church, would regard more with a formula to perversely legitimize physical and psychological abuse of conscience, by emphasizing notably the sexual connotation of these ; and through sickly focusing on gender discrimination of them, since what most obsesses the power structure of catholicism, is the repression and subjugation of the screams of silence deployed from their corrupt control networks, which is not at all surprising for their limited intelligence, but that nevertheless stuns for their stupidity without limits; because not even the pontiff emeritus, manages to hide its puerile attempt at seduction with the most helpless victims.
Jacobsen: What are the limits of the experimental-empirical method? What are the limitations of the hypothetico-deductive method? Those defined within the sphere of “individual scientific disciplines.”
Sorensen: I consider that both methods have limitations that are equivalent, since they operate circularly and tend to reverberate tautologically on similar points. Said circularity, would hardly admit a cyclical dynamics, due to the fact that it does not incorporates a tertiary and integral term : capable of representing a higher synthesis around its hypothetical approaches on behalf of the particular terms induced, and of the generalities deduced from the discursive conclusions. Regarding the experimental empirical method, which is a reduction of the deductive hypothetical method, applied in the field of individual sciences, the bias is even greater ; since the hypothetical statements are not going to be able of being empirically refutable. Likewise even if they were, only their character of falsehood and of provisional validity, could be affirmed with certainty.
Jacobsen: How is this individual reason “becoming consciousness along time”?
Sorensen: The individual reason, will become consciousness along time, in what I am going to denominate conscious reason; and as such would be recognized in the inverse process of « zeitgeist », regarding which, there is a greater gradient in favor of unquestionable answers as counterpose to what would be unanswerable questions. In consequence, consciousness is going to installed, at the moment in which a discontinuity or cut occurs at the level of discursive synthesis ; and as an outcome, of what I consider integral or comprehensive antithetical terms. According to the last, opposites would return and convert again in thesis, in order to constitute questions of problematic nature.
Jacobsen: The “macro or universal reason” as a “permanent consciousness.” How is this functioning in relation to the “consciousness along time”? Why the asymptotic revelation in time? Does this mean accessibility for all beings with reason to this unfolding?
Sorensen: The macro or universal reason unfolds, because from my point of view, this is only relative to consciousness along time, but is never vinculated with respect to permanent consciousness ; since in the dimension of the latter, time would only be absolute: that is to say, identical to what is understood as an omnipresent temporality. Its revelation, for his part, seen from a dimension of temporality, is asymptotic , because this reason from its ontological evolution; would be in a permanent process of retractive compression and extensive decompression, without having a determinable origin or end. The being with reason, on the other side, would be completely interdicted during this revelation or unfolding; since the being with reason and the last, would flow as two parallel lines, and only phenomenologically, that is to say hypothetically, would converge at some supposed vanishing point.
Jacobsen: Why is there this logical break between the theological mythologies and the theology? How does this play out in a critical analysis of the creation story of Roman Catholicism with a dying and resurrected God-man, a virginal birth, and a variety of miraculous occurrences within the narratives?
Sorensen: In my opinion theology, is essentially mythological and therefore antithetical to reason, since the means to approach it, always concerns faith, which represents necessarily a supernatural gift from God ; and in consequence, absolutely denies what the will to power could be. Indeed then, it’s a present, that God confers as a theological virtue ; in order to accept unwaveringly, religious beliefs, as dogmas. The logical break is twofold, because in its origin, it is imperatively based on faith and not on reason; and due to the fact, that commutes the myth for ideas with the pretense of being clear and distinct, when actually they are just allegorical and fabulous speculations, devoid of all logical consistency and of any coherent meaning. Actually, not only transgresses logical principles of identity, non-contradiction and exclusive third party ; but also brutally distorts and subverts reality. Through this sort of magic mechanism, this violates all sense and judgement of reality ; even going to the point of considering the person of Jesus as a demigod, and his apostles as saints, when historically deep down, they were just a sectarian group of phonies, who did nothing but to sodomize each other. Or even, to venerate a woman as a virgin, when in reality what she did was to hide in the crowd, so as not to be publicly stoned to death ; for being a fornicating adolescent, who felt overwhelmed by her low passions. And as if the above were not enough, in order to put a finishing touch , the immaculate, gets married with an elderly man, who today would have been accused of pederast ; but to whom the Roman Catholic Church scandalous and aberrantly, venerates to this day, as a holy and chaste male.
Jacobsen: How is the light peering into the Roman Catholic, and even Islamic, theological worlds now?
Sorensen: In the Roman Catholic theological world, par excellence, the light is a sort of halo, that penetrates through the hole of a cavern, in order to project inside it, not only monstrous images and deceptive shadows ; but also to circulate the figures of people tied to each other and queuing, to be dragged and thrown into an abyss unseen, by a hierophant who dupes them with the surrounding darkness.
Jacobsen: What is the idea behind a single universal subject that’s there and an eternal becoming of what will arrive? Are there any forerunners to this idea?
Sorensen: The background of said idea, unlike what some precursors such as Spinoza proposed, is that what exists, and which represents representatively the single universal subject ; has a pulsatile expanding and retracting cyclicity, whatsoever in no case, would be equivalent to a periodic circularity. Therefore the above, could never be understood, as a subjective process of ontological repetition. Quite the contrary, it should be comprehended, as a process of spiral movements, where it would only be possible to discern, the folding points at every turn with respect to which, it could only be affirmed that they are coincident with the moments repeated in each of the turns. The deductible therefore, would be a subjectivity that remains asymptotically unfinished, in the twilight of time and in the becoming of eternity.
Jacobsen: What is the basic formulation of this “trinitarian logic”?
Sorensen: Trinitarian logic, fundamentally expels from the symbolic universe of the subject, understood as individual reason ; the concepts and the idea of antithesis and opposition, respectively, regarding being and not-being. The above means, that both : concepts and idea, would act operationally in unison. In consequence, negation as such, would not exist ; and only the potentially becoming of something, in terms of somewhat that interrupts its being for beginning anything else, might occur. Therefore then, what I will name the tertiary term, will not be more than the generalization of a continuous sum of infinite deductions, in the discursive process of reasoning ; that would enable to admit, a conclusive synthesis as hypothetically valid, but not necessarily as an empirically formal truth.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Dr. Sorensen.
Sorensen: I expect that not only the angel snuggles up: but also the nun.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
Share this:
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2022/01/08
Christian is a Philosopher that comes from Belgium. What identifies him the most and above all is simplicity, for everything is better with “vanilla ice cream.” Perhaps, for this reason, his intellectual passion is criticism and irony, in the sense of trying to reveal what “hides behind the mask,” and give birth to the true. For him, ignorance and knowledge never “cross paths.” What he likes the most in his leisure time, is to go for a walk with his wife.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: What is gnosis, not simply the Greek origin of the word, but the meaning in context today?
Dr. Christian Sorensen: I think that the concept of gnosis, both from the point of view of Greek origin and in the current context, is related to what would be the science par excellence, at the same time that in the first meaning would be identified with the domain of supreme wisdom and therefore with philosophy in its most metaphysical sense; while in the second conception, it would refer to the sphere of individual scientific disciplines, that is to say: those that are subjected to the experimental-empirical method.
Jacobsen: What is Gnoseology? What is the origin, nature, and limit of knowledge?
Sorensen: In my opinion, Epistemology consists of a critical analysis from formal logic of both : the principles or foundations and the extension of knowledge. The aforementioned, would be in order to establish the validity, but not necessarily their veracity. Regarding the origin, nature and limit of knowledge, from my point of view, these will be given by the dynamic interrelation between an individual reason that goes on becoming consciousness along time, and a macro or universal reason that’s permanent consciousness ; which in the « zeitgeist » of its essence or nature, will respectively perceive and reveal, with the finality of getting hidden afterwards regarding the last, through what I consider a process of revelation always unfinished.
Jacobsen: What is the container of the knowledge? What is this subjectivity with a capacity to know in the first place?
Sorensen: There doesn’t exists any container or content, because there is nothing that delimits knowledge as such. Likewise, there is no subjectivity with the capacity to know, because the individual subject in itself is a knowing entity; which is completely different from conceiving it regarding the dimension « of with », which refers to the sphere of having, and therefore specifically alludes to a supposed capacity, that would also partitionate the subject of whom participates.
Jacobsen: How does this subjectivity differentiate from the objectivity with which it interacts and embeds as an integral part?
Sorensen: Actually there is no differentiation between subjectivity and objectivity, since the only thing there is, is a kind of role-playing where within the interaction between the individual and the whole, these alternate their passive and active roles without ever ceasing to constitute a single universal subject.
Jacobsen: Why do the vast majority of the world posit a world beyond these two – subjectivities and the objective – into the transcendental, supernatural in the form of a god or a singular “God”? What is wrong about this, especially in the dominant versions of Islam and Roman Catholicism? We have caused a decent stir in some of the Roman Catholic community in some previous articles, as we can recall.
Sorensen: I think that the error on the part of the majority of the world, is to posit instead of positivizing what they propose. Probably it’s correct to refer about a reality as something related to the trascendental, or perhaps even going so far as to put the name of God on it. The problem rises in my opinion, when the logical break occurs due to theological mythologies that begin to adquire a character of apodiptic certainty, and pretend to disrespect intelligence, by introducing with forceps the dimension of the religious; which generally is accompanied by threats, since they consider sacrilegious those cosmological explanations that demystify their tautological inconsistencies. What happens in relation to the Islam and the Roman Catholic Church, is that both cannot not be fundamentalist and reactionary, since the opposite would imply denying themselves to exist. In other words, they are what they are, due to the fact they fear luminosity, but paradoxically represent darkness and obscurantism in every sense ; even though the two of them, justify their origin and prevalence in our days, because deep down they tremble in the face of darkness, and wish to save themselves from it.
Jacobsen: These gods come with holy books, the Golden Rule, holy figures, myths, mores, norms, and the like. Whole communities form in rejection of them in a simple sense, in atheism. This is the dominant landscape: God or not-God (God∨¬God).What is wrongheaded about this dichotomy, too?
Sorensen: The issue of this dichotomy between God or not-God, is that it is a closed and circular approximation which has a reververing effect, since does not incorporates novel elements in order to make possible the divergent creation of distinctive ideas. In my opinion, it would be necessary to introduce a third structuring element, for forcing to carry out a synthetic outcome between both dichotomies. The aforementioned, would eventually possibilite through the conflict that produces the opposition of terms, the opening of a dialectical and dynamic process, that could transform in a continuum, the antithesis between being and not being, in which there would be a being that’s there; at the same time that the last, enters into an eternal becoming towards what will arrive to be.
Jacobsen: What should happen to metaphysics and ontology in this view?
Sorensen: Perhaps both would have to die and be born again, since it would be necessary to bury formal logic as we know it, and more than to develop a novel one, I would say to find out another logical conception. Regarding the last, I am developing indeed its operational terms. Despite the above, however, I am convinced that for discovering such logic, that in parentheses, I’m going to denominate it trinitarian logic, it’s enough with not doing anything.
Jacobsen: What should happen to epistemology in this view?
Sorensen: I think that epistemology should become independent from philosophy, and therefore it should move on to integrate each science, in order to fulfill in the particular scope of them; a critical function in relation to their construction of knowledge.
Jacobsen: What is the importance of consciousness and being in Gnoseology?
Sorensen: In my opinion, being in relation to consciousness and gnoseology, would simultaneously manifest itself ontologically as something that exists, and existentially as somewhat that is existing. Without the last, the subject wouldn’t be able to have consciousness, in order to recognize him not only as someone who knows and could have been knowing, but also as whom in turns, might be capable of critically judging himself, in what would be an awareness of the awareness ; and in terms of what I will denominate : second intention, regarding the procedural state of knowledge in experience.
Jacobsen: Intuition is important. What is an intuitive spirit in Gnoseology?
Sorensen: It would be the indubitable capacity of instantaneous and non-discursive apprehension in its simplest expression.
Jacobsen: If Gnoseology was embodied, what would be its motto or catchphrase?
Sorensen: You don’t fool me.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Dr. Sorensen.
Sorensen: I hope that helps.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
Share this:
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2021/11/28
Strategic objective F.1.
Promote women’s economic rights and independence, including access to employment, appropriate working conditions and control over economic resources
Actions to be taken
165. By Governments:
g. Seek to develop a more comprehensive knowledge of work and employment through, inter alia, efforts to measure and better understand the type, extent and distribution of unremunerated work, particularly work in caring for dependants and unremunerated work done for family farms or businesses, and encourage the sharing and dissemination of information on studies and experience in this field, including the development of methods for assessing its value in quantitative terms, for possible reflection in accounts that may be produced separately from, but consistent with, core national accounts;
Beijing Declaration (1995)
Paragraph 165(g) of the Beijing Declaration is an interesting one for the focus on knowledge of work and employment. These are the core ways in which women can become self-empowered for a life.
—
(Updated 2020-09-27, only use the updated listing, please) Not all nations, organizations, societies, or individuals accept the proposals of the United Nations; one can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights, and the important days and campaigns devoted to the rights of women and girls too:
Documents
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- The Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (1967).
- Some general declarations (not individual Declaration or set of them but announcement) included the UN Decade for Women (1976-1985).
- The Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979) and the Optional Protocol (1999).
- The African (Banjul) Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (1981) in Article 2 and Article 18 from the Organization of African Unity.
- The Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the optional protocol (1993).
- The Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action (1993).
- The International Conference on Population and Development (1994).
- The Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), the Five-year review of progress (2000), the 10-year review in 2005, the 15-year review in 2010, and the 20-year review in 2015.
- The United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), and the UN Security Council additional resolutions on women, peace and security: 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013), 2242 (2015), and 2467 (2019).
- The Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- The Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
- The UN Women’s strategic plan, 2018–2021
Strategic Aims
- The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, emphasis on the entirety of the goals with a strong focus on Goal 5
- The 2015 agenda with 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (169 targets for the end to poverty, combatting inequalities, and so on, by 2030). The SDGs were preceded by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in Goal 3 and Goal 5 from 2000 to 2015.
- The Spotlight Initiative as another important piece of work, as a joint venture between the European Union and the United Nations.
Celebratory Days
- February 6, International Day of Zero Tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation is observed.
- February 11, International Day of Women and Girls in Science is observed.
- June 19, Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict is observed.
- June 23, is International Widows’ Day is observed.
- August 26, International Women’s Equality Day is observed.
- October 11, International Day of the Girl Child is observed.
- October 15, International Day of Rural Women is observed.
- November 25, International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women is observed.
Guidelines and Campaigns
- Gender Inclusive Guidelines, Toolbox, & United Nations System-wide Strategy on Gender Parity.
- Say No, UNiTE, UNiTE to End Violence against Women, Orange the World: #HearMeToo (2018), and the 16 days of activism.
Women and Men Women’s Rights Campaigners
- Abby Kelley Foster
- Angela Davis
- Anna Julia Cooper
- Audre Lorde
- Barbara Smith
- Bell Hooks
- Claudette Colvin
- Combahee River Collective
- Ella Baker
- Fannie Lou Hamer
- Harriet Tubman
- Ida B. Wells
- Lucy Stone
- Maria Stewart
- Matilda Joslyn Gage
- Rosa Parks
- Shirley Chisholm
- Sojourner Truth
- Susan B. Anthony
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
Share this:
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2021/09/11
Strategic objective F.1.
Promote women’s economic rights and independence, including access to employment, appropriate working conditions and control over economic resources
Actions to be taken
165. By Governments:
g. Seek to develop a more comprehensive knowledge of work and employment through, inter alia, efforts to measure and better understand the type, extent and distribution of unremunerated work, particularly work in caring for dependants and unremunerated work done for family farms or businesses, and encourage the sharing and dissemination of information on studies and experience in this field, including the development of methods for assessing its value in quantitative terms, for possible reflection in accounts that may be produced separately from, but consistent with, core national accounts;
Beijing Declaration (1995)
Paragraph 165(g) of the Beijing Declaration is an interesting one for the focus on knowledge of work and employment. These are the core ways in which women can become self-empowered for a life. It’s not merely a matter of making inroads in the work force. It is about the systematic alteration of norms and processes to enable to become commonplace. That’s not an easy task; it’s monumental.
Similarly, it’s impacts will be enormous, too. When it speaks of “inter alia,” it means “among other things.” It is a manner of speaking about the foci of the subject and then the periphery too. The purpose of this paragraph is to look at the types of work women may engage in without proper pay.
Lots of women, and some men, engage in unpaid or unremunerated work around the world. Think of childcare, homecare, care for the elderly, and the like, these can be considered work, as it is labour. This labour is, by and large, unpaid and subsidized by the cultural inputs of women.
The idea is to quantize and gather proper information about these gaps in proper pay or equity in sharing the unremunerated work to make nations consistent and accountable about the unremunerated work of women compared to men in many context, again around the world.
—
(Updated 2020-09-27, only use the updated listing, please) Not all nations, organizations, societies, or individuals accept the proposals of the United Nations; one can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights, and the important days and campaigns devoted to the rights of women and girls too:
Documents
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- The Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (1967).
- Some general declarations (not individual Declaration or set of them but announcement) included the UN Decade for Women (1976-1985).
- The Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979) and the Optional Protocol (1999).
- The African (Banjul) Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (1981) in Article 2 and Article 18 from the Organization of African Unity.
- The Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the optional protocol (1993).
- The Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action (1993).
- The International Conference on Population and Development (1994).
- The Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), the Five-year review of progress (2000), the 10-year review in 2005, the 15-year review in 2010, and the 20-year review in 2015.
- The United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), and the UN Security Council additional resolutions on women, peace and security: 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013), 2242 (2015), and 2467 (2019).
- The Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- The Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
- The UN Women’s strategic plan, 2018–2021
Strategic Aims
- The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, emphasis on the entirety of the goals with a strong focus on Goal 5
- The 2015 agenda with 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (169 targets for the end to poverty, combatting inequalities, and so on, by 2030). The SDGs were preceded by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in Goal 3 and Goal 5 from 2000 to 2015.
- The Spotlight Initiative as another important piece of work, as a joint venture between the European Union and the United Nations.
Celebratory Days
- February 6, International Day of Zero Tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation is observed.
- February 11, International Day of Women and Girls in Science is observed.
- June 19, Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict is observed.
- June 23, is International Widows’ Day is observed.
- August 26, International Women’s Equality Day is observed.
- October 11, International Day of the Girl Child is observed.
- October 15, International Day of Rural Women is observed.
- November 25, International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women is observed.
Guidelines and Campaigns
- Gender Inclusive Guidelines, Toolbox, & United Nations System-wide Strategy on Gender Parity.
- Say No, UNiTE, UNiTE to End Violence against Women, Orange the World: #HearMeToo (2018), and the 16 days of activism.
Women and Men Women’s Rights Campaigners
- Abby Kelley Foster
- Angela Davis
- Anna Julia Cooper
- Audre Lorde
- Barbara Smith
- Bell Hooks
- Claudette Colvin
- Combahee River Collective
- Ella Baker
- Fannie Lou Hamer
- Harriet Tubman
- Ida B. Wells
- Lucy Stone
- Maria Stewart
- Matilda Joslyn Gage
- Rosa Parks
- Shirley Chisholm
- Sojourner Truth
- Susan B. Anthony
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2021/08/29
I believe in the institution of marriage, and I intend to keep trying till I get it right. — Richard Pryor
The One seems like both a myth and a reality. I cannot take seriously, on their individual merit, the claims of a singular “One,” as in the titular name “The One,” divinely breathed into the world directly intended for you. It seems solipsistic, immature.
Some personal evidence for all of us. We’ve, typically, dated more than one person and felt deeply about them. Every similar claim of a soulmate, a kindred-soul, one’s promised, the one-and-only, twin flames, and the like, fall into the bin of The One, to me.
The reasoning is, in fact, rather simple, unsophisticated, so straightforward. The world is big. Lots of people live – and have lived – in the world. You are an individual among those many people in that large world. The odds of finding The One looks about as plausible as the journey to Mount Doom for Frodo Baggins and Samwise Gamgee in The Lord of the Rings.
The reality of the matter seems to come from those simple observations. Statistically speaking, lots of people existing in a big, wider world means lots of people would be sufficiently compatible with one another. Lots of ones looking for The One, whether by need or cultural push.
Yet, we’re all the product of successful reproducers of one kind or another. We didn’t pop into existence as a rabbit out of a hat. This leads to the idea of the trait of ever-hopefulness as ingrained in most of us, in this life domain.
It’s a bias in perception, not a bad thing, in fact. It facilitates love, marriage, mating, and family. The stuff of a persistent culture and society, not to mention the personal health and longevity benefits of those things.
In a big, wide world with lots of people, it shows the fact of the case: We matter, individually, little in a realistic, healthy view, but we each have deep feelings that matter much, personally – and interpersonally.
The positive side of this realism emerges in the more open landscape of possibilities. When taking personality, financial stability, income, kindness, maturity, emotional stability, social status, honesty, trustworthiness, physique, and so on, into account with oneself, many ones exist suitable to you.
Your own unique self and qualities, achievements, sensibilities, ethics, and so forth, make for something idealized by another person out there. Someone as a one who, in fact, could become The One. The mythology about The One sits with the stunted view of the world and oneself in it.
The reality of The One can be expressed in the number of marriages lasting for decades every year in this region of America, or the country as a whole. One estimate is 38,690 weddings happened in Ohio in 2020 at an average cost of $17,899. That’s a lot of ones spending a lot of money.
Someone who they deem The One to become hitched for a possible lifetime. The loss of the idea of The One shouldn’t take away from the realization of finding and falling in love, or the reality of love when one forms the identity of The One with someone. Because, as you look at The One for you, they’re looking back at a one, who they deem to be The One, too.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2021/08/27
The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance. — Alan Watts
Marcus Aurelius spoke to life more as more akin to wrestling than dancing. If that’s so, and he may very well have been right, then love is more akin to dancing than to wrestling. Quite reasonably, I feel, love is more about flow, change, and movement – internally and externally, than rejiggering of rigged, uncomfortable positions while stuck inside a circle.
The dance of love in that wrestling of life is the one arena of constant motion, alteration, and change in you. Your personality changes while in love. Being open to change and adaptation by the man from the woman, etc., is profoundly important in the work of building a love for a lifetime, there comes a sense of giving (up) of oneself.
Changing to honour the other, so as with them, this represents a sense of trust. As in, a mutuality of the benefits of one for the other, or both. You have one another’s best interests at heart. The Gottman Institute speaks to trust, commitment, and calm as crucial to long-term intimate relational stability, marriages and so forth.
The trust of another person can be difficult in times of rapid, sharp change, but the bond between two people – a dyad – can be an important anchor when the rapids flow. Commitment reflects the actions behind trust.
Trust, in this sense, seems about an attitude, or better a feeling or even an instinct. Some internal process of security in the other person having your back, being mindful of you, gentle – kind, never harsh.
Commitment becomes a living out of this internal mode of being. You trust your partner to know about the busy day and that coming home and setting things in order later won’t be manageable with the chores on the dreaded To-Do list.
So, they set aside time and complete the tasks on the To-Do list and let the time home become easier, relaxed, stressless, and, maybe, leaving some room for intimate bonding with one another – as simple as a snuggle.
The commitment shown in such acts is a choice. Weddings represent a sacralization of individual lives coming together, akin to coming of age parties, sweet 16s, funerals, and the like. Psychologists might call this meaning making. An act of conscious recognition of a moment as important.
We build stories about our lives and our fortunes in them, as we make sense – so meaning – of our lives’ trajectories. “Meaning” here used in the sense of significance or some things have greater value than others to us, individually. Life is complex. Our experience and memory is a flawed patchwork. Stories give order to the unpleasant ordinary chaos of it.
A continual renewal of the narratives of a couple becomes a sense of meaning making, but a fundamental basis for this is commitment. Acts of commitment from the mundane, including coffee in bed, to the sacred, including weddings, represent making a conscious choice to exist interdependently. Your benefit is theirs, and vice versa. A living out of this trust is commitment.
You dance to the tune of one another, occasionally wrestling too. The Gottman Institute points to one final piece to this puzzle for a triplet: physiological calm. The couples with the worst outcomes – Disasters as opposed to Masters – live in a state of consistent physiological arousal. It’s hell rather than heaven.
A feeling of hypervigilance, the body is flooded in the presence of The Other, also known as the husband or the wife. The Masters or the couples with healthy relations and longevity live in this triplet of trust of one another, commitment to one another, and calm around one another. Life and love become a masterful artwork of beauty and romance as they dance the nights and days away.
This is why wrestling does not seem apt to describe love in life. Dancing is a joy. Life is joy and misery alike. The Masters know the path forward to a healthy plunge and know how to dance while in the rapids; Disasters don’t. They sink.
With calm, commitment, and trust, there is a stability, but it requires mindfulness, the right attitude, renewed commitment-based behaviours, and a sense of calm in the presence of your partner. And as with any dance, it requires practice to reach the point of finesse and grace.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2021/08/27
It can’t last forever. Others have thought such things, in bad times before this, and they were always right, they did get out one way or another, and it didn’t last forever. Although for them it may have lasted all the forever they had. — Margaret Atwood
I’m not a fan of platitudes or sentimentalism… but I am a sentimental person, at times, with occasional sprinklings of platitudinal thought. Never make life dull by doing the same things frequently.
Two platitudes, sentimentalisms, have been “here and now” and “nothing lasts forever.” The first, I heard from a Richard Pryor comedy special, Here and Now. The other, I’ve heard lots, but in passing. It’s not registered, consciously – much.
When I am sentimental, I’m tired from manual labour, at home, sore, recovering, gathering thoughts from the day to begin writing, once more. Simply, I will listen to something by Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Mozart, Corelli, Holst, Sweelinck, Sibelius, or Vivaldi, maybe some contemporary music.
Right now, for example, I’m listening to Beethoven’s 6th Symphony by the late Herbert von Karajan. Karajan conducted marvelous pieces of classical music. Symphonies open, become a journey, and then close, then mundane life continues again. There is transience in them, as with individual human lives, particularly, and human life, generally.
My writing syncs with this. I put some sentences down, order them, edit them, and, somehow, the article or essay pops up. Some touch-ups as necessary. Which is to say, writing becomes symphonic. There’s a beginning, a middle, and an end.
Harmonies hint at themes. Structure bursts forth. Tones tumble over timbres. Baselines plummet from the heavens. Resonances rise as higher harmonics trot a unified theme. Letters from words to sentences to paragraphs to a singular idea, point. Both arts make the same mark. Neither lasts forever. Transience is permanent. It is the rule, not the exception.
Partnerships follow this theme. They seem best lived with renewal. There is a tale between two people.
Moments do not live in the future. They live here-and-now, do not last forever. A sensibility of the eternal alteration. Living for the story here and now, it honours the records written and the trajectory intended. There is a beginning, a middle, and an end.
In the final act, one protagonist dissipates, as a flame, then another, as the same. They don’t travel to another moment. When a flame snuffs, it simply stops the act of “to be,” of being. An end of a person is the end of the duet.
They don’t go anywhere or anytime, anymore; they lived in some places, for some times. Which is to say, that’s the end of the person. The conclusory note to the symphony, word to the essay. The specialness of the moments comes from the ephemerality.
They’re integrated with the lived past and the projected future. There’s a beginning, a middle, and an end. Flickers of love, courtship, bonds, marriage, births, deaths, funerals, all make a story, the same duo’s mythos.
Their own individual meaning in an ocean of heres-and-nows, where nothing lasts forever. These platitudes seem profound. They speak to a depth about an intimate couple’s relations if reinterpreted. The “forever” is really forevers.
Before their lives, sat eternity, and after their partnership, another eternity or a forever-nothing, an erect monument to their now-eternal non-being. They performed their parts in their play, played their denouement in their symphony, punctuated their novel with a final period, period, period…
Their only real forever is here-and-now. When enacting their “to be,” their only known sits between two eminent marble tablets marked “BEFORE” and “AFTER.” The unique quality of this forever is the love bonded between two to form a one. A continual transforming in their forever, which lasts as long as it needs to – with a beginning, a middle, and an end.
That’s a forever – a heaven – worth existing, for a time.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2020/12/07
Strategic objective F.1.
Promote women’s economic rights and independence, including access to employment, appropriate working conditions and control over economic resources
Actions to be taken
165. By Governments:
e. Undertake legislation and administrative reforms to give women equal rights with men to economic resources, including access to ownership and control over land and other forms of property, credit, inheritance, natural resources and appropriate new technology;
Beijing Declaration (1995)
Paragraph 165(e), of the Beijing Declaration, deals precisely with the nature of legislation and administration via-a-vis women’s rights. That which should be a truism, which is neither a truism or a reality to most.
In that, the nature of women’s rights brings into questions about human nature, as in that which one views as fundamentally human and, thus, the rights inherent in such a being, a human. Most advanced notions of a human being incorporate an equivalence in women’s and men’s rights.
Wherein, egalitarianism isn’t simply in mind, but it is reified in the body politic. Insofar as this becomes a reality, we come to the contexts of economics. It’s not the only item to consider as a big picture, but it is an important part of the big pictures.
With the economic resources, and in terms of this particular paragraph, we have to deal with the access to ownership, not simply ownership alone. In turn, this “access” would imply a form of breaking down the barriers to the ownership as a first and foremost point.
Following this, there may be some consideration of the ownership qua ownership, as in a hallmark of the control over forms of property, including “land… credit, inheritance, natural resources and appropriate new technology.”
Land is as simple as the house one owns or the house of one’s parents. It is that which tends to gather value outside of a Madoff catastrophic psychopathic criminal incursion on the decency and livelihoods of homeowners.
The control over credit has been a point of some feminist dystopian literature in which women are denied credit, as in ancient days, so as to prevent them from acquiring any finances and some modicum of equality.
In turn, there is a need for a provision of access to some credit and also as reflected in the inheritance. When the living depart, they have the full right to choose who gets what when they die, while, at the same time; there is an importance in considering women’s status regarding inheritance percentages.
Women may not acquire as much as would be deemed helpful. While, similarly, the improvement in women’s status in some areas will produce more equitable consideration of women in domains of inheritance.
While, on the issue of natural resources, think of an older woman who owns a mine, dies, and passes this off to her daughter, this can be an intersection of both inheritance and natural resources. Simply, though, the access to any formulation of natural resources, whether metals, food, or construction materials, important for an independent life or financial investment, or food on the table, are important.
The idea of women’s inherent dependence on men or on community stem from the lack of inheritance for them and the void of ownership, even, in the most extreme example, of themselves. It is this sense of ownership that, once more, ties into the other question on “appropriate new technology.”
Access to a phone, a computer, a washing machine, a dryer, a vacuum, etc., all amount to new technologies for each generation. As such, these represent the kinds of things mentioned in the paragraph, as in any new technology, given sufficient independence of funds, should permit women to go out and own one, of their own, acquired of their own accord.
That’s the heart of this paragraph. The purpose simply and solely to maintain independence of ownership for women, thus instilling the grounds for an economically viable life with or without attachment to another.
—
(Updated 2020-09-27, only use the updated listing, please) Not all nations, organizations, societies, or individuals accept the proposals of the United Nations; one can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights, and the important days and campaigns devoted to the rights of women and girls too:
Documents
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- The Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (1967).
- Some general declarations (not individual Declaration or set of them but announcement) included the UN Decade for Women (1976-1985).
- The Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979) and the Optional Protocol (1999).
- The African (Banjul) Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (1981) in Article 2 and Article 18 from the Organization of African Unity.
- The Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the optional protocol (1993).
- The Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action (1993).
- The International Conference on Population and Development (1994).
- The Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), the Five-year review of progress (2000), the 10-year review in 2005, the 15-year review in 2010, and the 20-year review in 2015.
- The United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), and the UN Security Council additional resolutions on women, peace and security: 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013), 2242 (2015), and 2467 (2019).
- The Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- The Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
- The UN Women’s strategic plan, 2018–2021
Strategic Aims
- The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, emphasis on the entirety of the goals with a strong focus on Goal 5
- The 2015 agenda with 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (169 targets for the end to poverty, combatting inequalities, and so on, by 2030). The SDGs were preceded by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in Goal 3 and Goal 5 from 2000 to 2015.
- The Spotlight Initiative as another important piece of work, as a joint venture between the European Union and the United Nations.
Celebratory Days
- February 6, International Day of Zero Tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation is observed.
- February 11, International Day of Women and Girls in Science is observed.
- June 19, Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict is observed.
- June 23, is International Widows’ Day is observed.
- August 26, International Women’s Equality Day is observed.
- October 11, International Day of the Girl Child is observed.
- October 15, International Day of Rural Women is observed.
- November 25, International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women is observed.
Guidelines and Campaigns
- Gender Inclusive Guidelines, Toolbox, & United Nations System-wide Strategy on Gender Parity.
- Say No, UNiTE, UNiTE to End Violence against Women, Orange the World: #HearMeToo (2018), and the 16 days of activism.
Women and Men Women’s Rights Campaigners
- Abby Kelley Foster
- Angela Davis
- Anna Julia Cooper
- Audre Lorde
- Barbara Smith
- Bell Hooks
- Claudette Colvin
- Combahee River Collective
- Ella Baker
- Fannie Lou Hamer
- Harriet Tubman
- Ida B. Wells
- Lucy Stone
- Maria Stewart
- Matilda Joslyn Gage
- Rosa Parks
- Shirley Chisholm
- Sojourner Truth
- Susan B. Anthony
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2021/08/19
“Love” is a four-letter word. Love as a subjective experience, also, makes life meaningful. Love makes most – well, hopeless romantics, including myself, where hope springs eternal, in any season, in the strangest of places, between the unlikeliest of people. Even so, love is not a magical-mystical providential happening; the process of falling in love – and so love itself through time – is a natural happenstance of human nature.
It’s who we are, organically: Dogs bark; cats meow; cows moo; bees buzz; birds, generally, fly; rivers flow; people – human beings – love. In a manner of speaking, it’s the ultimate bargain with life. Your parents produced you.
You didn’t have a choice in them. In turn, by the nature of your nature, your existence, you’re stuck with the structure for love. We’re – for the most part – built to love. You didn’t have a choice in the capacity to love. The only question becomes the form in which love will individually manifest in life for you. That’s a personal choice, and depends on temperament, sensibility, and timing (serendipity, luck).
In this sense, love, as a natural occurrence of the world – of our nature, becomes a natural phenomenon bestowed upon us, generously, by the natural world through the process of evolution. The fundamental basis for all life sciences, e.g., medical sciences and biological sciences: evolution via natural selection or evolutionary theory.
Some may posit the explanation of love as a natural phenomenon detracts or takes away from the subjective quality or experience of love. I disagree. We don’t hear bakers complain about chocolate cake after knowing the contents and recipe of it.
Love becomes intellectually enriched with a scientific framework to understand it. You can affirm the feeling of love more fully with proper knowledge. A comprehension of love as a natural process makes love something more easily understandable, accessible, and subject to individual intervention.
We can choose or vet potential/actual partners more accurately, authentically, conscientiously, and responsibly, and so respectfully to them and ourselves. Why waste their time and ours in a poor choice? Most people, in surveys on attitudes and opinions, want marriage and children, which means everyone wants someone who can do life with them.
People tell demographers and attitudinal researchers these things. That’s the baseline. People want a lifelong partner and children, generally. If someone doesn’t want it, then this article isn’t intended for you, not disrespectfully, but, intentionally, as a matter of focus – simple as that. Unless, of course, it simply seems like an academic interest.
Similar to the demographic research and the acknowledgement of love as a profound facet of human nature, love has been studied in the context of marriage and relationships. Drs. Julie and John Gottman founded The Gottman Institute to study love decades ago.
The Gottmans studied love for more than four decades. Both remain world-renowned researchers and clinical pychologists, who, not-so incoincidentally, are married to one another. They wrote a book with Douglas Abrams and Rachel Abrams, M.D., entitled The Man’s Guide to Women: Scientifically Proven Secrets from the Love Lab About What Women. It covers extensively the material covered in this article.
To a scientific approach of the ineffable quality of love in individual life, the book covers some key components, boiled to key points from decades of research, of love for men about women. Two points come to the fore in the empirical study of love.
The quality most or all women want most in a man: trustworthiness. Can I trust you? Can I rely on you? Are you accountable? Do you show up as authentic? Are you safe? Are you dependable? Are you trustworthy? Fundamentally, are you who you say you are, mister? Do you do what you say you are going to do, sir?
The Gottmans put this down to the evolutionary history of the species with women, in mating and reproduction, as acutely far more vulnerable in human pre-history (and current history, in fact) compared to men. Indeed, the qualities of the father remain incredibly important to the health and wellbeing of the family and the offspring of the parents.
Our colloquial negative modern notions about chivalry and knowledge about behaviours labelled as such seem skewed based on the science. These micro-cultural manifestations of ‘chivalrous’ behaviours mark concern and protectiveness, not necessary chivalry. The Middle Ages faded away a long time ago. Same with chain mail as a form of personal protective equipment.
The root of these behaviours reflects the subjective feeling of hotness of firefighters to lots of women. They symbolize, in our cultures, actions of concern and protectiveness, according to the Gottmans.
Similarly, chivalrous acts reflect socio-culturally ingrained behaviours rooted in this deeper orientation to represent trustworthiness. A trust grounded in a vulnerability in historical and current contexts for women (and girls).
“Can I trust you?”, acts of concern and protectiveness, done while respecting boundaries, represent efforts at winning the trust of the woman for whom the ‘chivalrous’ behaviours are intended each time. In a sense, these amount to bids for a positive feedback from the woman in response to the man, “I trust you, a little bit more… a little bit more, a little bit… Okay, fine, a lot.”
Which would, in an intuitive sense (for me), mimic the healthy trajectory of a romance: slow, steady, earning trust, respecting boundaries, built in the smallest of steps, and with the intentions clearly meant for earning the trust of the woman. Yet, what undergirds – sits behind – this idea of trustworthiness?
As it turns out, based on the same scientific account and grounded in evolutionary history, the sense of fear. John Gottman speaks to trustworthiness as a trait women want most in men, which means a character or virtue men must embody for the woman of desire to them.
Men should understand the desire for trustworthiness in them comes from the special relationship most or all women have – all their lives – with the emotion of fear, to the second point of the Gottmans. Men do not share this that much with women, in general. Women remain more acutely dialled into the emotion of fear. The idea of trust of the man may, at base, come from the desire to feel safe – physically, emotionally, relationally.
“Are you trustworthy?” may mean “Am I safe in your physical presence?”, “Can I trust you with my emotions?”, and “Can I trust being in social spaces with you?” Her body, her emotions, her extended life, a sense of comprehensive safety in life from the men – and, in particular, the actual or prospective husband – in it.
Trustworthiness means safe. If she trusts you, then she feels safe with you. You are tuned into her, and meet her where she’s at, which the Gottmans call “attunement.” You tune into one another, feel safe with one another, so trust one another and develop a dyadic space for a journey of intimacy – for a lifetime.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2021/08/14
Barbara Stitzer is a boss of mine, so openly stating the Conflict of Interest there. She is the Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Northeast Ohio Weddings Magazine, the Owner of Watercolor Woodworks, and the Owner of Barb Stitzer Photography, and Actors Conservatory. A dynamic and interesting person involved in publishing, photography, acting, and entrepreneurship. I reached out to ask a few short questions. Here we talk about weddings.Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Why found Northeast Ohio Weddings Magazine (NOWM) and continue to produce content on weddings and ceremonies?Barbara Stitzer: Northeast Ohio Weddings Magazine was founded as a passion project… I have met so many people who haven’t been treated well by vendors, and we are a safe place for EVERYONE to be able to come to and be able to be celebrated like they deserve.
Jacobsen: What is the nature of a wedding or weddings in modern America, particularly Ohio?
Stitzer: I think that brides are starting to understand that the wedding is the smallest part of marriage…they are choosing love over pomp and circumstance, which is awesome.
Jacobsen: Most people, in surveys, want marriage and family. Most, colloquially, seem gun-shy about it, too. What have been your observations about weddings and marriage in Northeast Ohio since starting work on weddings there?
Stitzer: I think that the mighty Snapchat/Instagram/Twitter/Facebook have captured young people’s attention so much that they are more invested with “over there” than “right here.” I met my husband on an airplane, but if I were fascinated with my feed instead of just sitting there with everyone else, there is no way that I would be celebrating 25 years of marriage this year.
Jacobsen: How is the landscape of weddings changing with popular inclusion, rather than closeted exclusion, of more types of relationships?
Stitzer: I think that people are becoming much more accepting of all types of people. My husband and I are of different religions, and 25 years ago, clergy people wouldn’t touch that with a ten-foot pole. Now, anyone can perform a wedding, and people in formerly excluded segments of the population are starting to have healthier feelings of acceptance for themselves, and healthier abilities to let go of people who don’t agree with their values, especially when Covid forced their hands. I see it as an unexpected benefit of social distancing that you do not have to invite your great aunt Helen’s best friend’s sister if you don’t want to or, more importantly, if she is going to be a negative force on your day,
Jacobsen: What can be expected with the Fall issue of NOWM?
Stitzer: We talk about everything wedding, and the biggest thing that is emerging right now is nostalgia… Of course, everyone wants things to be the way they used to be…they all just lost a year are the picnic, the charcuterie board, and the old-time trikes with ice cream treats are huge for weddings right now.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Barb.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2021/08/09
Strategic objective F.1.
Promote women’s economic rights and independence, including access to employment, appropriate working conditions and control over economic resources
Actions to be taken
165. By Governments:
f. Conduct reviews of national income and inheritance tax and social security systems to eliminate any existing bias against women;
Beijing Declaration (1995)
Beijing Declaration Paragraph 165(f) deals with the concrete without specifics in the lives of women in areas of their lives in which they have been particularly limited in rights, which always boils down to finances. Thinking about some of the contexts for women in these domains, it seems obvious the implications here.
Women lack access to basic finances and even financial institutions without some authority figure over them in their lives. The access to equity of income – same pay for the same skills and the same experience – is essential in a modern dynamic world. All of the parts of the modern world require adaptability on the part of all actors, even more so for those with some advanced form of knowledge or skills.
There isn’t truly a way out of this wave without some mass revolution, which seems unlikely. The Beijing Declaration provides a framework for rectifying past misdeeds against women and inculcating a framework of accountability, institutionally. Whether through reviews of the national income and the inheritance tax, or the provisions in the social security systems, these provide a basis for accountability.
A review of the national income could be broken down by gender or sex. These can used to infer the level of equality or inequality between men and women on incomes. If there is a lot of data, or if comprehensive data collection happens, then this can be broken down by discipline, education level, amount of experience, and the number of hours worked per week.
These can be done. These decisions for a national income review could be implemented within reasonable bounds. The only limitations would be the quality of the information gathered for it. Inheritance tax is another. Inheritance tax is a levy on assets garnered upon the death of a person. All of the stuff someone who recently died passes onto loved ones gets taxed to X degree.
Some straightforward equality queries could focus on the degree to which women and men, wives and husbands, granddaughters and grandsons, and so on, are provided equitably and the ways in which men and women are taxed differentially, potentially. It’s about equality across the board in the area of taxation and inheritance, whether grandpa dies first or grandma dies first.
Social security systems are crucial too. Here, the support networks probably support women more than men because single parents can require support structures more than intact families. It’s rowing with one row rather than two. Whether food stamps or educational subsidies for the kids from K-12, all of this helps with the advancement to a reasonable, stable life. Many times, the main recipients of these benefits will be women.
It is, in this sense, a women’s rights issue when considering the social security systems if integrated with educational access and health and wellbeing rights. All of these can be crucial for women in general. Insofar as I can tell, the core facets emphasized here remain important with national income reviews, inheritance tax reviews, and social security system reviews, to eliminate the inequalities of women compared to men.
—
(Updated 2020-09-27, only use the updated listing, please) Not all nations, organizations, societies, or individuals accept the proposals of the United Nations; one can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights, and the important days and campaigns devoted to the rights of women and girls too:
Documents
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- The Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (1967).
- Some general declarations (not individual Declaration or set of them but announcement) included the UN Decade for Women (1976-1985).
- The Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979) and the Optional Protocol (1999).
- The African (Banjul) Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (1981) in Article 2 and Article 18 from the Organization of African Unity.
- The Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the optional protocol (1993).
- The Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action (1993).
- The International Conference on Population and Development (1994).
- The Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), the Five-year review of progress (2000), the 10-year review in 2005, the 15-year review in 2010, and the 20-year review in 2015.
- The United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), and the UN Security Council additional resolutions on women, peace and security: 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013), 2242 (2015), and 2467 (2019).
- The Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- The Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
- The UN Women’s strategic plan, 2018–2021
Strategic Aims
- The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, emphasis on the entirety of the goals with a strong focus on Goal 5
- The 2015 agenda with 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (169 targets for the end to poverty, combatting inequalities, and so on, by 2030). The SDGs were preceded by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in Goal 3 and Goal 5 from 2000 to 2015.
- The Spotlight Initiative as another important piece of work, as a joint venture between the European Union and the United Nations.
Celebratory Days
- February 6, International Day of Zero Tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation is observed.
- February 11, International Day of Women and Girls in Science is observed.
- June 19, Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict is observed.
- June 23, is International Widows’ Day is observed.
- August 26, International Women’s Equality Day is observed.
- October 11, International Day of the Girl Child is observed.
- October 15, International Day of Rural Women is observed.
- November 25, International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women is observed.
Guidelines and Campaigns
- Gender Inclusive Guidelines, Toolbox, & United Nations System-wide Strategy on Gender Parity.
- Say No, UNiTE, UNiTE to End Violence against Women, Orange the World: #HearMeToo (2018), and the 16 days of activism.
Women and Men Women’s Rights Campaigners
- Abby Kelley Foster
- Angela Davis
- Anna Julia Cooper
- Audre Lorde
- Barbara Smith
- Bell Hooks
- Claudette Colvin
- Combahee River Collective
- Ella Baker
- Fannie Lou Hamer
- Harriet Tubman
- Ida B. Wells
- Lucy Stone
- Maria Stewart
- Matilda Joslyn Gage
- Rosa Parks
- Shirley Chisholm
- Sojourner Truth
- Susan B. Anthony
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
Share this:
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2020/11/27
Christian is a Philosopher that comes from Belgium. What identifies him the most and above all is simplicity, for everything is better with “vanilla ice cream.” Perhaps, for this reason, his intellectual passion is criticism and irony, in the sense of trying to reveal what “hides behind the mask,” and give birth to the true. For him, ignorance and knowledge never “cross paths.” What he likes the most in his leisure time, is to go for a walk with his wife.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Now, Eitan, if we’re covering some of the aspects of gender via a siloing of genetics into it, we come to the other areas of analysis of this (over-)simplification. Then we’ve another facet of this diamond in the environmental influences upon the ways in which gender, as a construct of the mind, and the reality of the representation of the self of and in the world, has many factors building into it. What are the primary environmental factors influencing this psychological construct regarding the self?
Dr. Christian Sorensen: I think, that the primary environmental factors that determine the construct of gender, are unspecific, since they have more to do with autonomic psychodynamics, due to certain universal patterns, than with circumstantial variables, in consequence, from my point of view, there are two primary influencing factors, that I will name gender ideal and ideal of the gender, that as such, always are going to be unconsciously motivated, and would arise instantly, when the individual, enters into language, and therefore, begins to communicate with its environment. Respectively, they would refer to idealized images of gender identity, that also are of unconscious origin, and are exogenously imposed, by emotional ties of significant and primary nature, within individual history, which means a customization, through fixative mandates of imaginary destiny, since forces the individual, to go out and dive into the world, in order to search others, although it’s unable, to make any introspective analysis for wondering its ultimate sense, and therefore for being aware, because when particular ideals of gender are found, something that belongs to the other, as a piece, must be usurped, introjected and objectified for identification, which implies to fit a partiality, within each space of the gender ideal, in order to utopianly complete, its figure throughout life. The aforementioned means, that individuals, feel almost always, a correspondence, no matter what kind of entity is being interposed, therefore, regarding their gender ideal, and the ideal of gender, with the fact of thinking to find a sort of something in others, independently of the coincidences, between both forms of genders, which also is a process that causes a double psychic tension, since on the one hand, it’s impossible to generate any type of awareness, that as such, is a sufficient reason, for the presence of intrapsychic conflicts, and from the other side, simultaneously there is a intersubjective tension, that has to do, with the introjective process of gender. The last, needs to be mediated by feelings of idealization, that in turn, because they seek to be rewarded, by loving feelings of others, and through demonstrable gestures of availability, which lastly what they demand, it’s a cut, regarding the other, in order to reaffirm the gender identity, within the gender ideal, is in this manner, the need to appropriate a particular ideal of gender, along a cascade of frustrations, where aggressiveness, accompanies regressive childhood feelings.
Jacobsen: What are the secondary environmental factors influencing this psychological construct regarding the self?
Sorensen: The environmental factors, that influence the construct of gender, are generally secondary, since they’re conscious and they refer directly, to identifiable circumstantial variables, which are cognitively recognizable, and are optionally eligible, once the individual values them, and depending, on the feelings of emotional closeness, and of what I will name as ring of proximal influences, when they’re determined by significant emotional figures of different spheres, as ring of intermediate influences, when they correspond to non-significant social ties, and as distal ring of influences, when they regard interpersonal relationships of instrumental nature, since they lack of any substantial and emotional bindings. These three types of secondary influences, have the shape of rings, because they rotate circularly throughout the life, which means that they revolve around, of what I will name, as stages of psychological development of gender, each of which, is going to have to overcome its own crisis, since they consist, in having to choose between two opposing options, therefore one of them, would lead the individual, to remain attached to the crisis, while the other, would allow the overcome of it, by advancing towards the next evolutionary stage. By following a chronological sense from childhood, I will name the first one as trust versus mistrust, because it’s related with the subjectively attributed gender, the second, as the gender self-harmony versus gender self-disharmony, due to guilt, and the third one, as gender productivity versus gender inferiority. Then during adolescence, a fourth stage will be present, as that of gender identity versus the confusion of roles, throughout young adulthood, it’s found the fifth one, of intimacy versus isolation, due to gender, and in middle adulthood as well, that of generativity versus stagnation, due to gender. And ultimately along late adulthood, appears the sixth stage, that is going to regard serenity versus the despair, due to gender. The psychological development of gender, will suppose in turn, what I consider to be the existence of a critical period, which is an amount of time during a specific moment, that necessarily must be respected, since otherwise, it wouldn’t be possible to overcome each of the stages, in consequence, it’s possible to sustain that the development of gender, is always critical, from a positive perspective, because is associated with an evolutionary opportunity, through which the freedom of choice is exercised, at the same time, that also has a negative connotation, because the stages are successive, and then each one is going to carry within itself, an specific task, represented by a predetermined conflict, that should be successfully solved, because otherwise, leaves the individual, in a state of maturational fixation, which leads the end of its life, due to the integration of gender that’s lost, to a nightmare of darkness for the soul.
Jacobsen: Regarding gender, and the environment, we can consider eco-sociality, the social environment. Other selves with their own self-concepts, their own genders, and their own concepts of other people’s gender, including our own. Obviously, a lot of this is recursive. However, the self seems as such, by its nature. Some of its higher existence seems to come out of such processes. The social environs have more influence on mentally normal people compared to mentally abnormal people (as in abnormal psychology), sometimes, e.g., individuals on the autism spectrum will miss social cues. What are some other ways in which the social realities can influence gender in the short-term?
Sorensen: I think that social realities, from the point of view of immediacy, are the ones that first define the constructs of the self and gender, therefore it could be deduced, that these are not the result of an individual analytical introspection, and that they probably have nothing to do with real attributes, in consequence, it is possible to conclude, that they are imaginary, as opposition to the real, and consequently they are specular, since they do not arise from the interior of consciousness, but from sociability, that as such, is external, and is assimilated, once the individual feels a connection with the exterior world, as something that makes sense, and because the self, has the certitude that corresponds to a reflection, where two glances meet. At the same time, is why contemplates the intersection, between social entities, and what the self-concept dictates about gender, in order to finally appropriate the encounter, for integrating it within itself, according to what I will name as the construct of the self-concept, which would be, the intersection space between two sets, that are respectively, the identity of the self and the gender. Within abnormal psychology, as is the case of autism, which in my opinion is childhood schizophrenia, the aforementioned intersection does not exist, therefore, due to the fact, that gender and social reality, do not touch at any point, they stop behaving as sets, and they turn into sort of planets, in consequence, they become in full entities, because they lack of any need, and instead of turning around the world, they revolve around themselves, as if they were following only their own orbits.
Jacobsen: What are some other ways in which the social realities can influence gender in the long-term?
Sorensen: I think that social realities, evolve over time, and in doing so, the codes that regulate them, are modified, which implies in turn, a mutation of language, either because the signifiers which conform to its linguistic pool, are redefined in their significations, or since novel signifiers, that previously would have been just meaningless neologisms, nevertheless now on are not, and consequently are significant signifiers. Therefore, they have acquired a communicational sense, that enables to create symbolic realities, which are beyond the limits of the current consciousness. The above, would suppose, what I will denominate as epigenetic evolution of gender, since if social realities change over time, then these, may reconceptualize the construct of gender by making it heritable, and in consequence, turning it in something evolutionary, above any form of genetic correlation between generations.
Jacobsen: How does the self as embodied in gender co-relate and simultaneously change the nature of other people’s genders, either in reinforcement or diminishment, over time if in intimate reactions with one another as friends, lovers, and colleagues?
Sorensen: The self as such, in my opinion, is a function, that would be inserted in what for me, is the system of consciousness, and in itself has two functions, one of which would be minor, because regards the identity of the self, that is at the same level, of what I consider to be the function of gender, and of the interaction of both, which is where arises an outcome, that in a second momentum, will be integrated, into what I considerer as a major function, that’s the self-concept. In this sense, I think that gender, is more than a mere construct, because as occurs with the identity of the self, its function is autonomous, therefore, allows an interaction of mutual influence. In this way, functionally speaking, both are inseparable, due to the fact, that what actually makes possible, the action on other’s gender, in order that these may change, is what I am going to name, the degree of binding intimacy, which is in turn, the parameter that defines, regarding various environments, the different categories of relationships. In consequence, the latter, would require necessarily, the presence of the ego function, since is what determines the degree of intersubjective involvement, and consequently also determines, the level of depth, through which the other, beyond the individual’s willing, can redefine someone else’s gender, in other words, the third excluded, always affects individual’s degree of awareness and its freedom of choice.
Jacobsen: Of those primary environmental influences, what ones seem to provide the greatest amount of singular effects on individual gender?
Sorensen: There is a critical period, within the first two years of life, that I will name as the sexual stage of the mirror, and that’s going to be fundamental, in the development of the individual’s gender function, since the child would confront against castration, who plays, as happened in the history of Romulus and Remo, the role of its mother figure. In this manner, at some point, when he sees her naked, becomes aware that there is nothing covering its body, and that the physical differentiating part of it, even though is something discovered in a merely realness plane, is until that instance, what indicates him, why sexes are diverse. As if it was a logical sequence, that actually is not, a first reaction, with an overcharged sensation of shame and a feeling of guilty, appears in this scene of awareness, just due to the fact of having seen it, and for not having listened to the voice of its conscience, that was telling him not to do it, since apparently, was something that came from evil, and from some prohibition, regarding which, until that moment, nothing was said. The above, immediately, drives its will, in order to cover that discovery, with what I will denominate as the transitional gender object, since respect to it, the child is going to develop a strong attachment, especially when the maternal figure is not present, because through this mechanism, manages to calm its anguish of separation, as well as the trauma of having visually verified, in a forbidden body, the differential factor of castration. Once the child enters the world of language, begins the process of detachment from said object, which lasts, until the full symbolic incorporation into it, is achieved. Therefore, when the last occurs, the object is replaced with a name, that has to do directly with its individual gender. From then on, what primarily was just an enunciation, in the sense of being a transitory way, to relate itself with a punctual position, in the constellation of sexuation, becomes a function, that continues to evolve throughout life.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Dr. Ben Yosef.
Sorensen: You are Welcome, Mr. Douglas.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
Share this:
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2020/11/19
Strategic objective F.1.
Promote women’s economic rights and independence, including access to employment, appropriate working conditions and control over economic resources
Actions to be taken
165. By Governments:
d. Devise mechanisms and take positive action to enable women to gain access to full and equal participation in the formulation of policies and definition of structures through such bodies as ministries of finance and trade, national economic commissions, economic research institutes and other key agencies, as well as through their participation in appropriate international bodies;
Beijing Declaration (1995)
Paragraph 165(d) of the Beijing Declaration deals more with “mechanisms” than anything else. In that, the main focus of the paragraph is having women in the workforce rather than out of it.
So, the paragraph’s authors looked more to mechanisms in the national systems by which to improve a lot of women and, in turn, the increased economic participation of women. Those women who acquire more opportunities.
Those opportunities oriented towards “full and equal participation” in the financial and dynamic sectors of both the economy and the society. With the formulation of policy, the greater equality of women can be better assured.
As the policies set not only the economic directionality of the productive economy, they set the tone for the government and, in consequence, the culture. It is a sense of the culture moving forward from one generation to the next.
A sense of progression in the social and governmental structures towards some idealized aim. In the international system, as seen throughout the Beijing Declaration, this becomes the basis for the provision of a vision of egalitarianism.
It’s not an absolute or an absolutely precise system. It’s not amorphous either. It’s somewhere in between with lines drawn on the areas of operation, e.g., governmental, and domains of discourse, e.g., economics.
Without the aim, there wouldn’t be some final aim and, therefore, the changes would amount to the aimless. If you want to make progress, then there should be a progression towards something. What is progress without a regress? What is a regress without progress?
It’s stagnation, even stagnatory change. Change from one state to the other without a direction in which to progress or regress relative towards. All three without a particular direction in mind do not make sense.
The targeted objectives give the direction required for the compass. These “formulation of policies and definition of structures” provide a baseline. A baseline in considering how best to move the dial of equality further forward.
All three only become relevant in the context of a targeted set of objectives for one to move towards, or not. The emphasis on the policies sets such a framework. The structures would provide a basis to begin to pursue those.
In addition, there are distinct, rather nuanced, areas of emphasis including “ministries of finance and trade, national economic commissions, economic research institutes and other key agencies.” Those parts of the government and private industry.
Whether ministries of finance, those devoted to formulation and projection, and management, of the national economies or the national economic commissions devoted to specific initiatives. Those latter are temporary; whereas, the former runs from one election to another if a democratic state.
The economic research institutes and key agencies regarding economics are important too. Here, we find the generation of ideas by thinktanks and the like. Think of the conservative and libertarian-oriented in the Cato Institute or the American Enterprise Institute, each devoted to thinking of particular solutions and then promulgating these to the public.
In turn, other directions for the spreading of their ideas will be to government officials and others. The only point at which this particular paragraph orients outside of the governmental level stipulated at the outset is the final note on “appropriate international bodies.”
Any governmental action then, and now, will require some international coordination. The communications and informational networks make this an inevitability from the trivial and mundane to the existential and geopolitical.
We remain stuck in the moment of the world of technology built by science. Our rights are filtered through these channels. All policies, infrastructure, legal apparatuses, and the like, will become subject to international law and international human rights law.
The world is global and remains ineluctably so.
—
(Updated 2020-09-27, only use the updated listing, please) Not all nations, organizations, societies, or individuals accept the proposals of the United Nations; one can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights, and the important days and campaigns devoted to the rights of women and girls too:
Documents
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- The Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (1967).
- Some general declarations (not individual Declaration or set of them but announcement) included the UN Decade for Women (1976-1985).
- The Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979) and the Optional Protocol (1999).
- The African (Banjul) Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (1981) in Article 2 and Article 18 from the Organization of African Unity.
- The Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the optional protocol (1993).
- The Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action (1993).
- The International Conference on Population and Development (1994).
- The Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), the Five-year review of progress (2000), the 10-year review in 2005, the 15-year review in 2010, and the 20-year review in 2015.
- The United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), and the UN Security Council additional resolutions on women, peace and security: 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013), 2242 (2015), and 2467 (2019).
- The Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- The Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
- The UN Women’s strategic plan, 2018–2021
Strategic Aims
- The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, emphasis on the entirety of the goals with a strong focus on Goal 5
- The 2015 agenda with 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (169 targets for the end to poverty, combatting inequalities, and so on, by 2030). The SDGs were preceded by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in Goal 3 and Goal 5 from 2000 to 2015.
- The Spotlight Initiative as another important piece of work, as a joint venture between the European Union and the United Nations.
Celebratory Days
- February 6, International Day of Zero Tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation is observed.
- February 11, International Day of Women and Girls in Science is observed.
- June 19, Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict is observed.
- June 23, is International Widows’ Day is observed.
- August 26, International Women’s Equality Day is observed.
- October 11, International Day of the Girl Child is observed.
- October 15, International Day of Rural Women is observed.
- November 25, International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women is observed.
Guidelines and Campaigns
- Gender Inclusive Guidelines, Toolbox, & United Nations System-wide Strategy on Gender Parity.
- Say No, UNiTE, UNiTE to End Violence against Women, Orange the World: #HearMeToo (2018), and the 16 days of activism.
Women and Men Women’s Rights Campaigners
- Abby Kelley Foster
- Angela Davis
- Anna Julia Cooper
- Audre Lorde
- Barbara Smith
- Bell Hooks
- Claudette Colvin
- Combahee River Collective
- Ella Baker
- Fannie Lou Hamer
- Harriet Tubman
- Ida B. Wells
- Lucy Stone
- Maria Stewart
- Matilda Joslyn Gage
- Rosa Parks
- Shirley Chisholm
- Sojourner Truth
- Susan B. Anthony
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
Share this:
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2020/11/18
Strategic objective F.1.
Promote women’s economic rights and independence, including access to employment, appropriate working conditions and control over economic resources
Actions to be taken
165. By Governments:
c. Eliminate discriminatory practices by employers and take appropriate measures in consideration of women’s reproductive role and functions, such as the denial of employment and dismissal due to pregnancy or breast-feeding, or requiring proof of contraceptive use, and take effective measures to ensure that pregnant women, women on maternity leave or women re-entering the labour market after childbearing are not discriminated against;
Beijing Declaration (1995)
Paragraph 165(c) of the Beijing Declaration deals primarily with the subject matter of worker’s economic rights, or women’s, and the specific areas of conditions of work and control over finances.
A woman can work for a living. A woman can have the finances as much as she wishes. However, if the woman does not have equal access to the opportunities leading to financial success, and if lacking control over monies earned, then the woman will be poorer.
In that, the control over one’s financial life is, in some direct sense, control over one’s life. Because the point of access to choices in all other domains of life emerge in the economic arena. Those areas of life dealing with the express utility in societies.
Money means the utility or the use of parts of the society, whether outings for food, clothing, heating, education, and the like. All of these imply, more or less, the same foundation. Where, economic resources become resources of freedom.
The focus here is on the level of governments and then the emphasis on the elimination of the discrimination in work. Those are stipulated, at the outset, as “eliminate discriminatory practices by employers and take appropriate measures in consideration of women’s reproductive role and functions.”
Here, they speak to the fact of woman as mothers more often than not. In fact, those facets of being of which males cannot be, except in more exceptional or extreme circumstances requiring some form of deep medical interventions of the male’s body.
The appropriate measures taken into account here meaning the doing something. Not simply making a dilly-dallying or skirting, or circumlocution, around the issues, it’s making a concerted effort over a significant amount of time to improve the legal lot of women for their economic wellbeing.
Similarly, these will be oriented around “reproductive role and functions,” as noted before. There has been an explicit issue with the provisions in work and compensation when off work due to reproductive facts for women.
In fact, the most outstanding example, known to me, is Iceland in which paternal and maternal leave is available in equal amounts. This permits women and men to take part in the home life while having the careers when they return to professional life.
It is a sense of humanity or the humane in the legislative and work policy world through governmental infrastructure. The Beijing Declaration is a massively important document due to its scope and near global contributor set.
Thus, this can’t be simply a one-off. In fact, it wasn’t, as the Beijing Declaration has had a number of updates every five years. Something like a progress report. The more direct and obvious cases of discrimination have been firings.
This is a thing. It’s an act of removing women from the job due to pregnancy – as simple a form of discrimination as that, as in “dismissal due to pregnancy.” Others based on breast-feeding or the need to provide proof of contraceptive use seem as ridiculous and ridicule worthy as testing the contents of people’s bladders.
It makes little sense to violate the innards of an employee in any of these cases. Indeed, there’s a serious of violation of that which should be the inviolable in these kinds of cases. Nonetheless, it happens.
The core argument is to make arguments, presumably to properly pressure people’s governments, to begin to work on drafting policy and making bills for laws intended to benefit the entirety of the population who may be subject to these violations.
In this, we could create a more equitable or egalitarian world. What I see here, the utilization of the policies at the governmental level to influence the culture and the work environments. These, no doubt, will impact the domestic front because more economically able women are women able to work without the stress of potential dismissal or impediments to their selves.
—
(Updated 2020-09-27, only use the updated listing, please) Not all nations, organizations, societies, or individuals accept the proposals of the United Nations; one can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights, and the important days and campaigns devoted to the rights of women and girls too:
Documents
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- The Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (1967).
- Some general declarations (not individual Declaration or set of them but announcement) included the UN Decade for Women (1976-1985).
- The Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979) and the Optional Protocol (1999).
- The African (Banjul) Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (1981) in Article 2 and Article 18 from the Organization of African Unity.
- The Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the optional protocol (1993).
- The Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action (1993).
- The International Conference on Population and Development (1994).
- The Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), the Five-year review of progress (2000), the 10-year review in 2005, the 15-year review in 2010, and the 20-year review in 2015.
- The United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), and the UN Security Council additional resolutions on women, peace and security: 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013), 2242 (2015), and 2467 (2019).
- The Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- The Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
- The UN Women’s strategic plan, 2018–2021
Strategic Aims
- The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, emphasis on the entirety of the goals with a strong focus on Goal 5
- The 2015 agenda with 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (169 targets for the end to poverty, combatting inequalities, and so on, by 2030). The SDGs were preceded by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in Goal 3 and Goal 5 from 2000 to 2015.
- The Spotlight Initiative as another important piece of work, as a joint venture between the European Union and the United Nations.
Celebratory Days
- February 6, International Day of Zero Tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation is observed.
- February 11, International Day of Women and Girls in Science is observed.
- June 19, Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict is observed.
- June 23, is International Widows’ Day is observed.
- August 26, International Women’s Equality Day is observed.
- October 11, International Day of the Girl Child is observed.
- October 15, International Day of Rural Women is observed.
- November 25, International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women is observed.
Guidelines and Campaigns
- Gender Inclusive Guidelines, Toolbox, & United Nations System-wide Strategy on Gender Parity.
- Say No, UNiTE, UNiTE to End Violence against Women, Orange the World: #HearMeToo (2018), and the 16 days of activism.
Women and Men Women’s Rights Campaigners
- Abby Kelley Foster
- Angela Davis
- Anna Julia Cooper
- Audre Lorde
- Barbara Smith
- Bell Hooks
- Claudette Colvin
- Combahee River Collective
- Ella Baker
- Fannie Lou Hamer
- Harriet Tubman
- Ida B. Wells
- Lucy Stone
- Maria Stewart
- Matilda Joslyn Gage
- Rosa Parks
- Shirley Chisholm
- Sojourner Truth
- Susan B. Anthony
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
Share this:
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2020/11/16
Christian is a Philosopher that comes from Belgium. What identifies him the most and above all is simplicity, for everything is better with “vanilla ice cream.” Perhaps, for this reason, his intellectual passion is criticism and irony, in the sense of trying to reveal what “hides behind the mask,” and give birth to the true. For him, ignorance and knowledge never “cross paths.” What he likes the most in his leisure time, is to go for a walk with his wife.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: We talk about religion a lot. Yet, it’s less amenable to a claim of an obsession to us, I think, because it’s responsive and proactive rather than dogmatic and committal, and reactive, as seen in much of the doctrinal faith systems available. The forms of egregious power plays, abuse of women and girls, restriction of the emotional lives of boys and men, siloing of human potentialities into roles fit for the hierarchs as the laity. Some, an increasing number, of us see this as abhorrent and worth pushing back against it, frankly, without many qualms and placation to the huffing and puffing of anonymous interlocutors. Why does much of global religion need an update or a sect-by-sect consideration of deletion from the minds of men?
Dr. Christian Sorensen: I think that religions, are mediating forms, that arise and develop, from the need that man has, to relate to the transcendent, which in my opinion, is something that differs diametrically from sects, since although, the latter are directed to the same object as transcendence, on the other hand, with respect to their objectives, sects aren’t over the same line, because while the former has its origin in intrinsic needs, that I will denominate legitimate needs, the second instead, would be based on what for me are needs of instrumentalization. The aforementioned means, that supposedly, when spiritual emotions appear, what actually is found empirically, are basic needs of primitive nature, that are utilitarianly served by original ones, and therefore act subsidiarily, in order to achieve secondary gains. Due to the fact that these last have the appearance of need, and even though they may have a better aesthetic image, futilely, they ultimately aren’t in no sense real vectors of nothing. In this context, in turn, it could be said, that if religions play a facilitating role, because they allow that man, feels the chance of approaching and accessing transcendence, then it would be deducible to think, that this kind of sacred myths, should be contingents and disposables, when they become obsoletes, therefore, depending on the existential vicissitudes of every historical moment, if they don’t reach to adapt to reality, then they must be discharged as useless and harmful for the spirit of humanity. The opposite, would be to imagine, that these archaic crutches, constitute, monolithic and theosophical belief systems, with the consequent lackness, in the capacity of problematization, and then, to be unable to respond to anything else, than to their own staleness ritualisms, since if they can’t read the timing of time, in other words, they aren’t capable to comprehend, that a constant and homeostatic rearrangement of things, is needed, especially regarding in what ails human existence, because of its creator, then much less, they would reach to calm, what for me, is the anguish of noneness, or by default, they will be able to confront, fundamental and universal uncertainties, such as could be, the problem of where we come from, why we are here, or the issue of towards where we are going to. Sects, for their part, sometimes can have the pretense to become religions, nevertheless on occasions, and without wishing to recognize it, they will also be inserted within them, as occurs for example, with the sect of the Opus Dei, which is embedded inside the Roman Catholic Church. In the case of this nature of sects, the original instrumental needs of religions, that act as reference, will remain even more hidden, since only in that way, they are going to be capable to achieve more sophisticated and attractive secondary gains, in terms of what I will name, as cognitive intentional distortion. In consequence, from my point of view, what the good sense suggests, as common sense, is not the need of a requirable updating, but rather, the need for applying a final solution, whose modus operandi would imply, the public exposure of their fallacies and of their rhetorical language, in order to discursively, tear them down in pieces, in that manner, the resources on which such sects, sustain and nourish artificially themselves, along with their mood to continue violating and corrupting, what for me, is the innermost part of the being as good will, are going to succumb, by the effect of butterflies, as if they were castles in the air.
Jacobsen: Religions like the Roman Catholic Church are about control. Why?
Sorensen: Because if the Roman Catholic Church, was not based on control, then it would not be possible for them to exist. The above, is sustained in turn, on a first premise that refers to the dominance of knowledge, and therefore alludes to the original sin, where the desire to eat the forbidden fruit, represented in man, its desire to be as god, which is equivalent to access the knowledge of everything that exists, and is what ultimately leads the church, to submit the reason by all possible means, since science and its light, age going to be associated with evil, while at the same time, they will employ, the strategy of a second presumption, according to which, they intend to force their followers, to buy the indulgences for their eternal salvation, because is the only way, organically speaking, for staying alive, therefore, if the last misses, there’s no manner that the church may not disappear. The latest, is deep down the reason, why they hide behind apostolic and evangelizing facades, in consequence, this is the smoke screen used over centuries, in order to create scrupulous consciences, laden with guilt, to whom, heavy crosses have been hung for expiating through the cures, all real and imaginary sins. Indeed, the aforementioned, has occurred, after having cultivated first, the need to escape from the eternal punishment, and to bend their knees, in front of the wife of Jesus Christ for obtaining some kind of forgiveness. From this turning point onwards, they have restricted all kind of direct communication between man and God, and they have self-affirmed, with the power for retaining or releasing men from their sins, thus keeping in their hands, the keys to the kingdom. The above, I’m going to name it, as the perverse contract for the salvation of souls, which in practice, consists of a macabre equation, between the threat of being thrown into the darkness of the avernus, and the paralysis for feeling terrified, which lastly leads, to accept with complete resignation, what I consider to be, the soul auction for the game of salvation.
Jacobsen: Different Jewish variations on Judaism exist. What would you change about each of them? And why?
Sorensen: In order to understand the different variations that exist within Judaism, it is necessary in my opinion, to bear in mind, that perhaps this, is the only religion that tries to approach the problem of God and of its creation, from a rational and empirical perspective, which means in general, the rejection of any form of dogmatism, since the exercise of reflecting in a climate of discursive discussion, is not only well accepted, but is also actively promoted, because it is understood, as a fundamental source of enrichment and progress, although they don’t lose the awareness of knowledge limits, in the sense of believing that there are truths, with respect to which, it is only possible to make a sort of close up by groping, but in no case, a direct access to them. I think that Jewish religion, is a musical score, that allows different interpretations, therefore due to this reason, it will be possible to find plenty of different variants in their forms, nevertheless, in their background, neither of them is going to be less Jewish than the other. The aforementioned, makes factible, to find spiritual currents so dissimilar, as orthodox and liberal reformers can be. Although I do not feel identified with the former, it is difficult for me, to make an objective critical judgement regarding them, maybe, because I am grateful, after having been well received with my family, when we lived in Bnei Brak, which is an ultra-orthodox city, or since I feel sorry, for how much they have suffered, due to the historical persecutions of which they have been victims, especially, during the catholic inquisition, the pogroms in Russia, and the Shoa of Nazi Germany. My mood, perhaps leans me to both, or to the fact, of feeling indirectly, an emotional closeness to orthodoxy, because of my wife, who descends by direct line, from Judah Loew ben Bezalel, the Maharal of Prague, and comes across generations, from a family with religious roots. From a more analytical perspective, I consider that although they may have, in my opinion, the typical defect that has any form of hermetic extremism, for the simple issue of being in that way, on the other hand, they have the virtue of having lived for centuries, congruently and in accordance with their beliefs and traditions, at the same time, that they have always projected happiness and pride, for being what they are. In this sense, and unlike other religions, as is the case of roman Catholicism, they have never used proselytizing zeal, as a justification to trample on freedom and dignity of others. For their part, the reformists, who constitute the other extreme and the vast majority of Jews, form in turn, a wide range of variants with other movements, which are more or less conservatives, and although it could be said that these last, have the advantage of not having remained stopped in time, as has happened with the orthodox, and to contribute besides, with an important grain of sand to Judaism, because of their vision of tolerance, and their open-mindedness to changes, there is a counterpart, that regards their excess of relativism and pragmatism, which from my point of view, sometimes has lead them, to approaches loaded with superficiality and inconsistencies, that occasionally besides, gives the impression of a dummy infantilism, that due to their naivety and lack of intellectual neatness, advances through stumbles, and at times they seem to lack of fear of God, that risks to place the essence of Judaism, in danger of extinction.
Jacobsen: Islam and local cultures have a mixture of female genital mutilation practices incorporated into them too. It’s always astounding that large-scale political structures – religions – assert freedom of the will via a belief in the soul to do the willing. Yet, they invent preposterously invasive systems of coercion and brutality on its adherents who have been cowed into submission or silence, or silent worship of the fantastical, mythological, and the incredible. Why need the systems if people should freely choose? What do you think are the means by which religions, traditional, crush followers and doubters into suppressing their own authentic selves and true enlightened self-interests?
Sorensen: On many occasions, it is not people, who choose the systems at the expense of their individual freedoms, rather they are these who insert them within their hunting nets, before they can even arrive to choose anything. The last, would trigger in both cases, what I will denominate as phenomena of systematic submission, due to the dependence, codependency and counterdependence, which means respectively, and regarding the rules of any system, the passive self-submission of individuals, the construction of self-esteem through complacency for pleasing others, and the search for its contrary, in terms of the desire for independence, nevertheless simultaneously expresses here and now, the fear of this need and the active rejection of it. The latest, paradoxically, does not causes more than the struggle for independence, that’s ultimately another form of dependency. In relation to the above, and since I consider, that no individual, is able to be completely self-sufficient, in the sense, of getting to absolutely dispense with a system, because if not, nobody could survive under such conditions, and therefore, would be condemned to disappear, is from my point of view, something that necessarily is going to be imposed by the law of life, independently of whether somebody desires it or not. In consequence, anyone who decides to rebels against this sort of slavery, with a dominator master that’s above, will be in front of something, that unleashes a degree of self-alienation and spoils its existence. In other terms, freedom, is always going to be within the intimate sphere, as simple will, and secondarily, depending on the level of control that systems exercise, it will be just the act of choice, therefore one thing is for sure regarding it, and is that freedom, will never be translatable to the expression, of what for me is the autonomy of destiny, since constantly there would be a determinant, as pre existential antecedent, and state of preconsciousness, that no matter if it’s given out systematically or not, it will remain invariably fixed, because destiny, lastly is always a manifesto of an a prioristical fact. Those religions, that are detached from an axis, that’s more Christian than Judaic, have in common, the exercise of control over their faithful, by which, they even reach limits, that turn them into a sort of vacuum sheeps and of living dead, that act desperately in order to gain eternal lives, regarding which, no one even knows if they actually exist as such or not. Therefore, they lead their lives, by carrying their tails between legs, and by moving themselves with inertia, as if they were decerebrates, since ultimately, what they unconsciously search, is to satisfy above everything, the basic instincts of their pastors. The aforementioned, is not something of conditional order, it is rather, a real sine qua non, which in practical terms means, that if the locus of control is not founded within these religions, then neither of them, will be able to transform itself, since in their most intimate essence, there’s the imperative impulse to create the need of spiritual salvation, that additionally, must be a form of subjugation, towards the approval of their hierophants and minions in command. In other words, the ecclesiastical hierarchs, can only dominate through morals, which for me and seen from a reversed mode, is equivalent to affirm, that Christian morality, is the morality of the self-resignation.
Jacobsen: Some consequences of religion on women have been catastrophically idiotic. Idiotic because of the lack of sense and decency. Also, idiotic because the justifications and the practices are barbaric. Male genital mutilation and female genital mutilation come to mind. Some minority arguments are made for positive health effects for either, but, in either case, these arguments tend to fall apart – let alone violate ideas of adult, mature, fully-informed and prior consent on something as drastic as the cutting of flesh from the body’s ‘private’ parts. In a modern world, with widespread practices of hygiene and knowledge of germs and bodily healthy, why is the violation of bodily integrity illegitimate?
Sorensen: I think that such practices, generally not only are idiots and barbarians, but also are macabre, since from a religious perspective, these are mutilations, that seek to repress carnal pleasure, as something, that is always associated with evil. However, I consider that it is necessary to make a distinction, between male and female mutilations, due to the fact, that they have different connotations. The male one, refers to the people of Israel and the descendants of Ishmael, which respectively alludes, to the halachic law, that says regarding circumcision, that it is the way by which God, makes man participate in its creation, meanwhile Islamists, through this custom, believe in the myth that by doing so, men will be able to acquire greater sexual potency. The last, is within a cultural context, that has to do with the patriarchs, where polygamy was legitimized as a mean for increasing their numbers. If the male circumcision, is now analyzed from a scientific perspective, then it could be stated, that constitutes an objective hygienic resource, in the sense to benefit women more than men, by preventing the incidence of cervical cancer, human papilloma and other diseases, as well as by preventing sexual disorders, such as premature ejaculation. All of the above, has nothing to do with women genital mutilations, since regardless of their circumstances, what is always actually sought, as a fixed idea, has to do with the intention to eliminate within them, any vestige of possibility for experiencing sexual pleasure, because in that way, they handle the strongest and surest mechanism for controlling female’s superiority, which enables them, if they wish so, to enjoy lustfully with several at once. Simultaneously, and strictly speaking from a macho point of view, the aforementioned, is seen and interpreted as risky, because calls into question and exposes openly, what has to do with masculine inferiority, therefore, probably places man virility, as a mere spectator of the sexual scene, that is not even allowed to participate. If the aforementioned, could be synthesized just in a sentence, then it would be possible to affirm, that what illegitimates the most these kind of practices, is the fact that almost all of them, have lack of consent, since it’s not surprising for nobody, that these are carried out with children, who evidently, do not have any capacity to decide nor to discern, as use to happens with Catholics, when they immerse these innocents, in their baptismal fonts, for sealing the fate of their souls.
Jacobsen: Following from the previous question, if a positivist ethics implies the outcomes, what is the import of the choice to bodily integrity in this view?
Sorensen: According to a positivist ethics, the possibility of what I will denominate a choice of will, is fundamental, since it would be what differentiates a morally reprehensible act, from one that is not. In this sense, it wouldn’t be enough, from an ethical perspective, the only presence of a freedom of choice, because this last, must rather arise, spontaneously, from the internal conviction of somebody, who is the object of said practice, which consequently implies, that there should be, what I’m going to name as technically verifiable conscious discernment, that according to a chronological point of view, presumably is what precedes, any decision free of all type of coercions. In this sense, I also think, that male and female mutilations, in a different frame of reference, can become extraordinary practices, when by means of a medical intervention, it is possible to modify the wrong body of a soul, and therefore, offer to a person, the opportunity to change its gender, and in this way, allow to achieve the lost harmony and fulfillment with itself, that can transforms its life for the better.
Jacobsen: in my opinion, practices of non-consenting, fully-informed mutilation of the body by another should be considered harmful, even illegal and criminally liable. What do you think?
Sorensen: I agree, and perhaps in some cases, where the capacity of comprehension may be too short, for understanding, the extent of the seriousness of such atrocities, it may be useful to apply, the principle that says, that an image worth a thousand words, and then if necessary, regarding those who are repeat offenders of such practices, to apply for educational purposes, the logic of what for me is the quid pro quo.
Jacobsen: Why do you think that?
Sorensen: I think, that just as no one can feel like the owner of someone, anyone has the right either, to take the life of another person, because regardless of the reason, who steals it, also becomes a criminal. Therefore, no one has the authority, to decide on someone else’s body, since if no body, has any aseity for existing, then this one needs to be absolutely rooted, and in consequence, it must be belonged with exclusivity, which means, that must be held up by just one person, because if not, what is lastly usurped, is the heart of one’s self.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the inside insight in sight on this site, Dr. Sorensen.
Sorensen: My pleasure Mr. Jacobsen.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
Share this:
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2020/10/18
Christian is a Philosopher that comes from Belgium. What identifies him the most and above all is simplicity, for everything is better with “vanilla ice cream.” Perhaps, for this reason, his intellectual passion is criticism and irony, in the sense of trying to reveal what “hides behind the mask,” and give birth to the true. For him, ignorance and knowledge never “cross paths.” What he likes the most in his leisure time, is to go for a walk with his wife.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: The particular conversation will cover Roman Catholicism or the Roman Catholic Church. Encyclopædia Britannica describes “Roman Catholicism”[1] as follows:
Roman Catholicism, Christian church that has been the decisive spiritual force in the history of Western civilization. Along with Eastern Orthodoxy and Protestantism, it is one of the three major branches of Christianity.
The Roman Catholic Church traces its history to Jesus Christ and the Apostles. (Oakley et al., 2020)
Georgetown University: Berkley Center for Religion, Peace & World Affairs in “Roman Catholic Church” (n.d.) states:
The Roman Catholic Church is the world’s largest Christian denomination, representing around half of all Christians with 1.1 billion followers. The Church traditionally believes that Jesus of Nazareth entrusted the authority of his young church to his apostle Simon Peter (ca. 1 BC – 67 CE), who would become the first Bishop of Rome, an office now known as the papacy. The spiritual primacy of the Bishop of Rome as pope over all other bishops is the central issue that distinguishes Catholicism from other Christian belief systems.
The late Rev. Dr. George V. Coyne, S.J. added:
By many the Catholic Church is seen as primarily hierarchical, an organizational structure: Pope, Vatican Congregations, Diocesan bishops, national conferences of bishops. The Church is clearly that but not primarily that. The Church is God’s people on pilgrimage. The popular phrase is: “We are the Church.” The hierarchical structure is at the service of God’s people, as Pope Francis continues to emphasize and as, based on a solid Scriptural tradition, was so declared in very clear terms by Vatican Council II. One is judged as a “good” Catholic by one’s adherence to doctrinal and moral statements of the hierarchy and putting them into practice. Again, that is quite important but not primary. Primary is accepting God’s love for us, received in a community, and spreading that love as far as we can, beginning here and now. (Jacobsen, 2014)
These definitions give the advertised standard position and the more nuanced Jesuit position on Roman Catholicism in its vision, size, history, and aims on the face. If we peer behind the skull, then we may find some different things. We will, in due time, and if persistence on the part of the reader, cover the 3-pound mass of the man behind the curtain some more. Since we have the standard definitions from reasonable and consistent sources on Roman Catholicism, some may know the history for you. Others may not know for you. If they wish for more details, then there exist plenty of resources and productions online by the two of us via conversation in text. What stands out about the descriptions of Roman Catholicism to you?
Dr. Christian Sorensen: It draws the attention of the definitions that describe Roman Catholicism, and of what can be inferred directly and indirectly from them, that Catholicism, is the only religion within not only the Christian’s ones, but also regarding all, that attributes a character of divinity, and therefore of sanctity and infallibility, to the supreme pontiff or pope, as the maximum hierarchical authority, when the weight of empirical evidence, historically speaking, not only distances them almost completely from what could be holy and divine realities, but also contradicts these. Even though if the mere human imperfections are left aside, the vices and corruptions, by which they have embodied Western civilization, with the debauchery of their licentious lives, are of such magnitude and density, that it is impossible to ignore or pass them through, without stopping and examine what’s going on. As a result of this confrontation between reality and an inverted divinity, the fact of realizing that who’s the head of the Vatican state, is simultaneously also considered as god’s representative on earth, and as the guardian of wisdom, due to the reason, that in his power, it is found all the authority to doctrinally interpret the oral and written word of god, without having the possibility of committing any error, when most of the time, cognitive weaknesses can be easily perceived, it is something that frankly puts rationality within limits, and subjects it to the most basic and primitive boundaries of superstition and idiocy. Ultimately the last, leads to an even more bizarre consequence, since regarding those pronouncements, Catholics are obliged, under threat of committing grave sin, to believe blindly on them, as if they were absolute truths that come directly from god, nevertheless on the other hand and paradoxically, the church auto denominates itself with the appellative of catholicity, in relation to which and because of its most primordial meaning, should posess an intrinsic universalism, and therefore presume the presence of a common space that aims to everyone, in order to build within each one, its own inner temple, in terms of the church that’s desired, however this last, has never been possible to carry out. Likewise, if a spiritual hierarchy with an illuminated knowledge, and a supernatural origin is supposed to be believed as something real, then I think, that a moral imperative as a commandment of the communion with god’s visible head, must be followed a priori, because it is of little or no use, that said spiritual communion, it is only relegated for being a decorative part of preaching, in the sense of just remaining as a mere ideal utopia, since it does not correlate with anything of tangible and earthly order. The aforementioned, besides demonstrating that said communion, is not of the hierarchy with its people, puts in evidence, that the hierarchy isn’t precisely at the service of what it’s supposed to be the people of God, on pilgrimage to the kingdom of heaven. Rather it’s an example, of how they serve their own mean interests and their miserable ambitions, and those of their benefactors. Continuing within the same context, it stands out, that it is the only religion that uses the term church, not in its proper meaning, in the sense of being a place or temple for worship, but instead they utilize it for representing a structured organization, that does not revolve precisely around the power of prayer, but on the contrary, prefers to do so, by absorbing themselves into political empowerments, and through the accumulation of wealth, which lastly ends, in the satisfaction of their comforts and excesses, meanwhile Christ appears as a counterpart, when apparently intends to express his option for the poor. In this manner, I also think, that a kind of religious cacophony, occurs between what historical reality says, and what Roman Catholicism manifests, since in my opinion and strictly speaking, this religion should not be considered as what I will denominate revealed religion, due to the fact that in this case, there isn’t a truth transmitted directly by God to men, but on the contrary, there is a man called Jesus Christ, who not just proclaims himself as the Messiah, but that besides appropriates of a Jewish figure of which he distorts its fundamental meaning to the extreme, since he believes and wants to make others believe, that being a god he became a man. I think in practical terms, that actually instead of bringing peace and happiness to the people of Israel, what he did brought with his thought and with what he founded, from the crusades and the inquisition, until the aberrant sexual abuses and perversions of our days, was an ordeal of much more suffering and chaos that the one that existed before him. The latest from my point of view, is far away of the theoretical good new, which Christ pretended to transmit with its evangelizing message of love for the neighbor, and its revolutionary harangue in favor of the poorest and most abandoned. At the same time the aforementioned, nothing has to do with what they proclaim and believe in regards Catholicism would be the unique and true religion, indeed, if the main reasoning is followed further, then it’s possible to constate that even though Jesus was born in the bosom of another religion, afterwards he rebelled and denied it, in order to create what he believed was a more open and less demanding sectarian religion, nevertheless always did utilized Judaism as a partial reference, which was in some way or another puerilely imitated. For this motif, more than being a continuity of something, it is a caricatured reproduction of the original version, where it doesn’t exists any system of beliefs or novel system of precepts as such, but on the contrary, what it’s verified, is that there are a set of ideas and rites, which are accommodated and taken out of context, or invented as pseudo historical events that they load with magical realism. In some situations, the unusual even reaches that simple human beings, are converted into pagan plaster images, which are worshiped as if they were a golden calf…
Jacobsen: What differentiates the internal description of Coyne versus the external descriptions on Roman Catholicism to you?
Sorensen: I think that what Coyne primary establishes as love, and as something that should begins here and now, is a statement, that fails to make what I will name as the closure of the gestalt, therefore as such is a phrase that lacks all sense. I think both definitions of Catholicism, mean basically the same, nevertheless neither of both, is capable to achieve any form of unity as a whole, or as something that would coherently be able to relate both terms, of unity and form, or of the form with its background and their individual parts in relation to each other, so as to close them, with a harmonical construct, as a unique and whole form, cathectized lastly with a significant meaning. In this way, I think that the must-be of these definitions, are evidently and clearly not conditioned to any referential reality in terms of positum. In other words, Coyne’s definition doesn’t means nothing else, beyond its aesthetics, than a simple and mere linguistic resource.
Jacobsen: What should readers expect in this extended interview from you? How can this prepare some for the unrestrained ‘feedback’ or criticism of the Roman Catholic Church? Why emphasize “Italian” as a point of sensitivity to some of the intelligent readers here?
Sorensen: Although I do not like the word expect, perhaps because it makes me think about pregnancies, I think the audience could foresee a descriptive critical analysis, that though it flies widely over Catholicism and the Roman Church, at times stick’s the stinger deeply, in order to try to unveil the foundations of their beliefs and precepts, and the causes of their doctrinal and spiritual inconsistencies. In my opinion, this way of approaching Catholicism as a problem, allows in a second moment, to initiate a discussion around more concrete and contingent questions. I tend to think of two antitheses, when I associate Italy with the Roman Catholic Church, and maybe for that reason, I found the idea of presenting this article with some focus on Italians, is something that can open minds, and therefore something that’s somehow motivating.
Jacobsen: Of the basic premises or claims about the Roman Catholic Church above, what seems most crucial on the outside of the community of the global faithful?
Sorensen: I think that the main premise about the Roman Catholic Church, although it may be something implicit, is the defining of it as the only true religion, at the same time that the gospel says that the truth will set you free. In this regard, I think it is possible to conclude, that Catholicism would not be truth, since I consider that if the idea of the existence of God is accepted, then he could not deceive himself or deceive us, because otherwise God would not be authentic, and consequently due to having an imperfection, he could not be trustworthy or be God. Therefore in turn, if the Catholic Church is not authentic, since its origin refers historically to beliefs and precepts that belong to Judaism, and on the other hand, its doctrine has almost never been seconded by its hierarchical structure, which I’m going to denominate as a sense of unity of life, since I think, that when religious beliefs are preached by an authority that claims to be god on earth, then these must be translated, as a sense of ethics, into virtues and norms of life, if its leadership actually pretends to be morally respected. Nevertheless at this level, neither one or the other, that is to say nor the Catholic belief system, nor its church in terms of hierarchical organization, and much less their jester of god, the pope, actually are going to be authentics as a whole. Therefore, the Roman Catholic Church, not only won’t be the only true religion, but also will not even have a divine origin in which to hold. The above, allows to deduce then, that what the Catholic Church rejects the most, is the truth, and in consequence, what it loves the least, is freedom.
Jacobsen: As a preliminary angle as to gauge the orientation from you, what philosophical or personal historical facts seem important for emphasis here?
Sorensen: The facts are to have been in the wrong place and at the wrong time, because of my mother’s love affairs within her marriage, in other words, to be of Jewish origin, and redundantly, having being raised within an Opus Dei family, having done part of the schooling in a wealthy Opus Dei school, and having completed a doctorate in philosophy with a specialization in metaphysics in Rome, which allowed me from the inside, to know personally and intellectually the Vatican hierarchy.
Jacobsen: We should distinguish between hierarchs and laity in this particular conversation too. Any statements to bring this to the front of mind? For example, oftentimes, the differences between the declarations and stances of the hierarchs in contrast the laity on a wide variety of topics.
Sorensen: The discrepancy between the statements of both, has been a constant throughout history, as well as the themes and the causes of them. In this sense, I think, that the reasons have been an invariable constant, due to the blindness and deafness, that has always accompanied Catholic’s hierarchy, which reflects besides, their insensitivity and lack of humanity, since they prefer to hide their hypocrisy and cynicism, with the mask of forgiveness and oblivion, rather than assume all the damage that they have caused. Seen with perspective, it gives the impression that they mocked, and sadistically enjoy with the misfortune of others. If God actually existed, it is difficult from a logical point of view, even to imagine or believe, that God would tolerate such immense effrontery, or that something so dark and sordid, could come from its being. Concretely, I think that even though certain impasses and scandalous situations are well known, it can be illustrative to mention respectively, some of them, such as have been the irreflexibility in front of priestly celibacy and the rejection of the priestly ordination of women, the interruption of pregnancy and contraception, the sexual aberrations, due to pedophilia, sodomy, abuses and rapes against women, and the financial embezzlement of the Vatican bank. The latest in my opinion, is linked with the indifference, or what I will denominate, as the nothingness attitude, towards the existence of hunger and poverty all over the world. In relation to the aforementioned, something that stands out, is the fact that Jesus have said things such as, that it was easier for a camel to enter through the buttonhole of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. When making this counterposition, it’s possible to observe and verify, practically since the Catholic church became church, which is something indeed shocking for anyone who is sane, the fact that its hierarchy has always lived submerged within pomp and inordinate luxury. Nevertheless the most absurd and surrealist thing, is that despite what was said above, the church considers and perceives itself, as a large and poor family, whose mission is exclusively to provide assistance and spiritual aid to its parishioners, when on the other hand, demands and requires from its people, the scrupulous compliance, not precisely of their prayers for the holy mother church, but instead of their tithes and donations, which if they are not delivered voluntarily, then the church through their priests, chases and harasses them even on the deathbed agony, and if necessary, they trade them in exchange for indulgences that absolve all the sins committed on earth, and guarantee the prize of eternal life.
Jacobsen: What seem like the prime crimes of the Roman Catholic Church?
Sorensen: I think that the Catholic church has always placed in the name of god and faith, regardless of the different forms that they have adopted throughout history, a sword between its divine authority and the ungodly. Therefore in practice, has completely relegated in the oblivion or in the wishes of good intentions, the new commandment that Christ said to bring for men, regarding which, men should love one another, just as he loved them. The cruelty and lack of charity towards the neighbor, from Catholic church, not only meant bloodshed and persecutions, since in some cases, although they have tried to discharged their faults, believing that because they did not participate directly in the execution of said atrocities, then they can be released from all responsibility and forget everything, actually what does, is to cover up with indolence and silence all that. Therefore even if they don’t assume it, they have become accomplices due to their cowardice, which ultimately transforms them into passive executioners. The aforementioned, has also implied over time, a severe spiritual suffering for many, and respect of which, the Catholic hierarchy, not only has not been able to rationally substantiate their accusations and stigmatizations, but also has been unable to publicly address with humility, any sign of redress, after committing the worst errors, horrors, and crimes mankind could ever have recorded.
Jacobsen: What seem like the prime merits of Roman Catholicism?
Sorensen: Actually it’s difficult to find merits, since in my opinion there is no empirical evidence, in a biblical or historical sense, that could support that term. Therefore, taking into consideration this premise, I think that the Catholic Church, in its beginnings, when it was formed by small religious communities, that constituted local churches, which were not centralized neither politically nor religiously, in the hierarchical power of the Vatican state, they had the intention of becoming a universal religion, and in this sense by doing so, they tried to open their boundaries towards people of other latitudes, at the same time that they seemed to integrate into their communities, women and minorities that normally were rejected at the time.
Reference
Georgetown University: Berkley Center for Religion, Peace & World Affairs. (n.d.). Roman Catholic Church. Retrieved from https://berkleycenter.georgetown.edu/essays/roman-catholic-church.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2014, August 22). Dr. & Fr. George V. Coyne, S.J.: McDevitt Chair of Religious Philosophy, Le Moyne College. Retrieved from https://in-sightjournal.com/2014/08/22/dr-fr-george-v-coyne-s-j-mcdevitt-chair-of-religious-philosophy-le-moyne-college/.
Oakley, F.C., Cunningham, L., Knowles, M.D., Marty, M.E., Frassetto, M., Pelikan, Jaroslav, J.P., and McKenzie, J.L. (2020, May 15). Roman Catholicism. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/topic/Roman-Catholicism.
[1] The fuller introduction to the article “Roman Catholicism” states:
Roman Catholicism, Christian church that has been the decisive spiritual force in the history of Western civilization. Along with Eastern Orthodoxy and Protestantism, it is one of the three major branches of Christianity.
The Roman Catholic Church traces its history to Jesus Christ and the Apostles. Over the course of centuries it developed a highly sophisticated theology and an elaborate organizational structure headed by the papacy, the oldest continuing absolute monarchy in the world.
The number of Roman Catholics in the world (nearly 1.1 billion) is greater than that of nearly all other religious traditions. There are more Roman Catholics than all other Christians combined and more Roman Catholics than all Buddhists or Hindus. Although there are more Muslims than Roman Catholics, the number of Roman Catholics is greater than that of the individual traditions of Shiʿi and Sunni Islam.
These incontestable statistical and historical facts suggest that some understanding of Roman Catholicism—its history, its institutional structure, its beliefs and practices, and its place in the world—is an indispensable component of cultural literacy, regardless of how one may individually answer the ultimate questions of life and death and faith.
See Oakley et al. (2020).
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2020/11/16
Strategic objective F.1.
Promote women’s economic rights and independence, including access to employment, appropriate working conditions and control over economic resources
Actions to be taken
165. By Governments:
a. Enact and enforce legislation to guarantee the rights of women and men to equal pay for equal work or work of equal value;
b. Adopt and implement laws against discrimination based on sex in the labour market, especially considering older women workers, hiring and promotion, the extension of employment benefits and social security, and working conditions;
Beijing Declaration (1995)
Paragraph 165 (a) and (b) focus solely on the national level within the strategic objective. The purpose is to “promote women’s economic rights and independence.” Economics is the name of the modern game.
Without a modicum of equality in the department of rights and opportunities relevant to economics, women simply don’t have much. Many of their struggles stemmed from and stem from economics.
They can lack labour standards. They can be denied the right to vote. However, for the ubiquitous choices available in each day and night, finances are ever present. Consider: A life without the ability to control your own money.
Not only a day or a night, or a month, even a year, but a lifetime, an inability to control financial choices, thus, in large part, your fate. Money gives choices. When you do not have the same or fair opportunities to make choices in concretized financial decisions, you’ll have a much more limited life than others.
It is like this throughout the world for countless women. The question isn’t if this is happening; thus, the question is, “How can this be remediated in some manner?” There are plenty of organizations and proposals on the table now.
It can be in the areas of access to particular employment. When we look at the modern economy, some of the higher paying jobs now: STEM. Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, are the cornerstones of the modern societies.
Military, popular hardware, gaming equipment, software of all forms, discoveries in medicine, construction projects, and the like, all of these are informed and guided by the principles of existence discovered by the sciences and applied by technology.
In this sense, the idea of access to employment should be a targeted objective. Where, women looking for employment in every industry at all times may be a waste of time and resources of the organizations and efforts to work to increase the global participation of women in these domains.
STEM, however, is an excellent place to start on many of these inequality issues. As well, in jobs with terrible working conditions, the dirty, dangerous, low education requirement, jobs go to men and women. Often, men are killed on the job far more than women. This has to be worked on now.
Also, the areas of small, painful injuries, whether housecleaning, maids, or other such jobs without much of a death rate while having a minor injury rate is something to consider important; women get hurt in the job due to poor working conditions.
Similarly, a refocusing of energy on control over economic resources can play an important role in producing better outcomes for women in circumstances less favourable to them now (and less favourable to general society).
There is a sense in which the control over economic resources has so many undertones, creating a basis for both equality and inequality. There, probably, exist some paradoxical circumstances in which control over the finances protect some women from abuse and discrimination.
However, by and large, or in broad strokes, the lack of financial independence, once the finances are earned, is a crucial facet of restrictions of women’s livelihood and choices. Fashionable consumption as a distraction can be a barrier socio-culturally because the money is spent frivolously.
On the level of governments, of those governments working in line with the Beijing Declaration, they work to focus on both the enactment and the enforcement (with the implied creation of the legislation) of legislation for equal rights for women with men.
The economics is the core part here. They focus on both the equal pay for work of equal value, which is the egalitarian thing to stipulate. If the work was worth less, though the man or woman was paid more, then this would be unequal and sexist in either direction.
Because one sex is being benefitted over the other. A commensurate pay should come with the consider of a commensurate educational status. Individuals who do not have the same educational attainments or equivalent experience should not garner the same wage.
It would seem both a waste of resources, the individual’s time, and the society’s pool of talent. Talent unused is as good as talent unrealized. Skills and education unused is as good as skills as education never attained. In fact, worse in the latter because of the time and cost in acquiring, learning, the skills and the education.
The second part of the paragraph focuses on the legal system. The ‘adoption and implementation of laws for the prevention and protection against discrimination based on sex in work.’ Those emphasizing legal changes for adoption helping “older women workers.”
It is interesting to note the work-cycle focus here. They look at hiring and promotion, benefits, and better working conditions. The improvement of these conditions for older workers is important as a consideration. Because older women workers will have an increased risk of physical injury.
These could include the aforementioned working conditions. Also, they include a form of employment benefits for them to enjoy more time for rest and relaxation based on the deterioration of time on the body, or further social security.
The fact of knowing that when you return to work the next week; you’re not going to lose the job. Another aspect important to women workers in the older cohorts are hiring and promotion. With the stipulations above about equality in pay based commensurate benefits for commensurate work value, the same applies to hiring and promotion.
However, in some other paragraphs of the Beijing Declaration, there have been interesting tips of the hat in the favour of women with a focus less on the raw promotion and hiring, as such, while more based on temporary preferential hiring in order to reach some desired level of equality.
This is where the forms of egalitarianism do not mix together. This is where the arguments are had between feminists and non-feminists alike. What do you do in terms of equality of work and value of the work in regards to the remuneration?
That’s a question for societies to answer for themselves where the answers are plurally correct depending on the framing of it. There’s no one right answer.
—
(Updated 2020-09-27, only use the updated listing, please) Not all nations, organizations, societies, or individuals accept the proposals of the United Nations; one can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights, and the important days and campaigns devoted to the rights of women and girls too:
Documents
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- The Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (1967).
- Some general declarations (not individual Declaration or set of them but announcement) included the UN Decade for Women (1976-1985).
- The Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979) and the Optional Protocol (1999).
- The African (Banjul) Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (1981) in Article 2 and Article 18 from the Organization of African Unity.
- The Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the optional protocol (1993).
- The Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action (1993).
- The International Conference on Population and Development (1994).
- The Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), the Five-year review of progress (2000), the 10-year review in 2005, the 15-year review in 2010, and the 20-year review in 2015.
- The United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), and the UN Security Council additional resolutions on women, peace and security: 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013), 2242 (2015), and 2467 (2019).
- The Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- The Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
- The UN Women’s strategic plan, 2018–2021
Strategic Aims
- The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, emphasis on the entirety of the goals with a strong focus on Goal 5
- The 2015 agenda with 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (169 targets for the end to poverty, combatting inequalities, and so on, by 2030). The SDGs were preceded by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in Goal 3 and Goal 5 from 2000 to 2015.
- The Spotlight Initiative as another important piece of work, as a joint venture between the European Union and the United Nations.
Celebratory Days
- February 6, International Day of Zero Tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation is observed.
- February 11, International Day of Women and Girls in Science is observed.
- June 19, Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict is observed.
- June 23, is International Widows’ Day is observed.
- August 26, International Women’s Equality Day is observed.
- October 11, International Day of the Girl Child is observed.
- October 15, International Day of Rural Women is observed.
- November 25, International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women is observed.
Guidelines and Campaigns
- Gender Inclusive Guidelines, Toolbox, & United Nations System-wide Strategy on Gender Parity.
- Say No, UNiTE, UNiTE to End Violence against Women, Orange the World: #HearMeToo (2018), and the 16 days of activism.
Women and Men Women’s Rights Campaigners
- Abby Kelley Foster
- Angela Davis
- Anna Julia Cooper
- Audre Lorde
- Barbara Smith
- Bell Hooks
- Claudette Colvin
- Combahee River Collective
- Ella Baker
- Fannie Lou Hamer
- Harriet Tubman
- Ida B. Wells
- Lucy Stone
- Maria Stewart
- Matilda Joslyn Gage
- Rosa Parks
- Shirley Chisholm
- Sojourner Truth
- Susan B. Anthony
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
Share this:
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/10/06
164. In addressing the economic potential and independence of women, Governments and other actors should promote an active and visible policy of mainstreaming a gender perspective in all policies and programmes so that before decisions are taken, an analysis is made of the effects on women and men, respectively.
Beijing Declaration (1995)
Paragraph 164 of the Beijing Declaration is more concern about potential and independence than anything else. Its emphases focus on the ways in which national actors can move this forward. T the policy level, this is something within a realm of feasibility because people can vote.
Or, even if an autocratic or theocratic state under immense public pressure, they can make policy to avoid too much from a troublesome inheritance – their public. “Governments and other actors” can be an integral junction.
They represent the people. They harbour power endowed by popular vote if done in a majoritarian system, as in democracy. The hinge phrase in this paragraph is “gender perspective” because gender is the core contextualization for this.
In that, the “policies and programmes” endorsed would include some aspect of this “gendered perspective.” Along the lines of paragraph 163, more of an emphasis on general items of independence and economic potential rather than particular economic considerations.
It’s stopping, examining policies and programmes, and making decisions based on analysis of the areas in which women’s and men’s economic potentials are unfulfilled, where women’s independence hasn’t been reached, and then working to eliminate the barriers.
Some of the economic potential may be looking at the levels of education between men and women. Others will incorporate a consideration of the job opportunities for men and women. Still others, they will pursue a course of analysis looking at quality and stability of jobs.
In the international era, it’s a precarious market in jobs for most people. It’s unfair, inequitably distributed, and a fact of life now. There’s not much to stipulate outside of these because this paragraph sets a general policy vision grounded in governments and a gendered perspective as the emphasis.
Its refreshing statements deal with the “the effects on women and men,” particularly as relates to economic potential, while mainly focusing on the core issues of “independence of women” here too.
—
(Updated 2020-09-27, only use the updated listing, please) Not all nations, organizations, societies, or individuals accept the proposals of the United Nations; one can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights, and the important days and campaigns devoted to the rights of women and girls too:
Documents
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- The Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (1967).
- Some general declarations (not individual Declaration or set of them but announcement) included the UN Decade for Women (1976-1985).
- The Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979) and the Optional Protocol (1999).
- The African (Banjul) Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (1981) in Article 2 and Article 18 from the Organization of African Unity.
- The Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the optional protocol (1993).
- The Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action (1993).
- The International Conference on Population and Development (1994).
- The Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), the Five-year review of progress (2000), the 10-year review in 2005, the 15-year review in 2010, and the 20-year review in 2015.
- The United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), and the UN Security Council additional resolutions on women, peace and security: 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013), 2242 (2015), and 2467 (2019).
- The Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- The Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
- The UN Women’s strategic plan, 2018–2021
Strategic Aims
- The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, emphasis on the entirety of the goals with a strong focus on Goal 5
- The 2015 agenda with 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (169 targets for the end to poverty, combatting inequalities, and so on, by 2030). The SDGs were preceded by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in Goal 3 and Goal 5 from 2000 to 2015.
- The Spotlight Initiative as another important piece of work, as a joint venture between the European Union and the United Nations.
Celebratory Days
- February 6, International Day of Zero Tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation is observed.
- February 11, International Day of Women and Girls in Science is observed.
- June 19, Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict is observed.
- June 23, is International Widows’ Day is observed.
- August 26, International Women’s Equality Day is observed.
- October 11, International Day of the Girl Child is observed.
- October 15, International Day of Rural Women is observed.
- November 25, International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women is observed.
Guidelines and Campaigns
- Gender Inclusive Guidelines, Toolbox, & United Nations System-wide Strategy on Gender Parity.
- Say No, UNiTE, UNiTE to End Violence against Women, Orange the World: #HearMeToo (2018), and the 16 days of activism.
Women and Men Women’s Rights Campaigners
- Abby Kelley Foster
- Angela Davis
- Anna Julia Cooper
- Audre Lorde
- Barbara Smith
- Bell Hooks
- Claudette Colvin
- Combahee River Collective
- Ella Baker
- Fannie Lou Hamer
- Harriet Tubman
- Ida B. Wells
- Lucy Stone
- Maria Stewart
- Matilda Joslyn Gage
- Rosa Parks
- Shirley Chisholm
- Sojourner Truth
- Susan B. Anthony
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
Share this:
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/10/05
163. Taking into account the fact that continuing inequalities and noticeable progress coexist, rethinking employment policies is necessary in order to integrate the gender perspective and to draw attention to a wider range of opportunities as well as to address any negative gender implications of current patterns of work and employment. To realize fully equality between women and men in their contribution to the economy, active efforts are required for equal recognition and appreciation of the influence that the work, experience, knowledge and values of both women and men have in society.
Beijing Declaration (1995)
Paragraph 163 of the Beijing Declaration examines some of the ongoing inequalities of the time. There’s a great deal in the world now. There was a lot at that time. Inequality isn’t in, and of, itself a bad thing. However, egregious levels can be disheartening.
They create unnecessary suffering and leave individuals without recourse for consideration of a better life. In the context of the Beijing Declaration, this means for women. The Beijing Declaration was probably an unprecedented document of the time.
In that, it functioned on generic operational terms and sat on apparent paradoxes with ease. It stipulates both the inequalities and the apparent progress. Here, we see the importance of the document. It is a similar phenomenon as talking about 1/3 women suffering abuse, while also emphasizing ¼ men do too.
It’s about human suffering. With the emphases here, it’s about the rounded image of the issues facing these demographics of the world. How does a gendered perspective improve understanding? What is the important of bringing attention to these issues?
The focus on “employment policies” is not an accident. The core of inequality for many women is the fact of economic inequality. Without an appropriate provision of decent jobs and stable incomes, many women will languish in poverty.
Sometimes, this can happen for the entirety of their lives. A gendered perspective of employment gives some indices to mark progress or not, inequality or not, in different domains. Many of the access points for lessened inequality will emerge from “a wider range of opportunities.”
In that, if you don’t provide opportunities in particular access points of the culture, where will equality happen there? What is the point of change, the area of opportunities? You wouldn’t have them. Thusly, any policy change will need to incorporate a gendered perspective to make the progress stipulated a reality.
In many Member States, this is happening. In many others, it is not. Every population, if democratic, makes their choices. Either in line with international rules-based order, or not, many have begun to increasingly choose, “Not.” That’s their prerogative.
With this wider range of opportunities, the “implications of current patterns of work and employment” include a number of issues, some of those cross-sect, inter-sect, with the issues og gender, by their nature, due to the historical contingencies, the issues of stifled possibilities in work and truncated opportunities regarding advancement.
“…Full equality between women and men in their contribution to the economy” has been more realized now on one side of the ledger, on women’s, believe it or not. The men in many advanced industrial economies are languishing, in the younger generations, due to lack of life goals, fewer completed degrees, lesser effort, more cultural issues rather than institutional, while women have more life goals, more degrees (better grades too), and institutional and cultural issues.
Economies have begun to focus on men some more in 2020 compared to 1995 because the increasing number of women entering into the workforce was making up for the lost labour force participation of men.
However, now, it’s is quite startling to note. In many countries, in fact, the image of the educated person, certainly, is the educated woman. The image of the working person is the working woman. In that, the full equality articulated will require dual-based and individuated solutions-making now.
Plans not predicted, probably, by many in these movements making some of these arguments. Don’t like it? Tough, we need more male teachers and more male nurses; we need more women in STEM and computer science. Does it jar you? Also, tough, these are the parts of the curve of “noticeable progress,” the era, requiring pluralistic multi-path networked problem-solving methodologies.
We’re at a confluence. It will only get harder, more complicated, because the issues became plural rather than singular without the ability to ignore them this time. The full realization of the equality of men and women in the economy will require a gendered perspective.
It will have to be a drop in the sarcasm and disdain sub-culture on these issues and making substantive efforts at change to “recognition and appreciation.” Don’t have those, you don’t have the change. People are people. Non-financial motivations must be taken into account.
The full participation of our labour forces will require a closer look at real work, actual experience, true knowledge, and substantial values for men and women in societies for progress, the desired progress on top of the “noticeable progress” for an elimination of gross “continuing inequalities.”
—
(Updated 2020-09-27, only use the updated listing, please) Not all nations, organizations, societies, or individuals accept the proposals of the United Nations; one can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights, and the important days and campaigns devoted to the rights of women and girls too:
Documents
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- The Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (1967).
- Some general declarations (not individual Declaration or set of them but announcement) included the UN Decade for Women (1976-1985).
- The Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979) and the Optional Protocol (1999).
- The African (Banjul) Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (1981) in Article 2 and Article 18 from the Organization of African Unity.
- The Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the optional protocol (1993).
- The Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action (1993).
- The International Conference on Population and Development (1994).
- The Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), the Five-year review of progress (2000), the 10-year review in 2005, the 15-year review in 2010, and the 20-year review in 2015.
- The United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), and the UN Security Council additional resolutions on women, peace and security: 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013), 2242 (2015), and 2467 (2019).
- The Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- The Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
- The UN Women’s strategic plan, 2018–2021
Strategic Aims
- The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, emphasis on the entirety of the goals with a strong focus on Goal 5
- The 2015 agenda with 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (169 targets for the end to poverty, combatting inequalities, and so on, by 2030). The SDGs were preceded by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in Goal 3 and Goal 5 from 2000 to 2015.
- The Spotlight Initiative as another important piece of work, as a joint venture between the European Union and the United Nations.
Celebratory Days
- February 6, International Day of Zero Tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation is observed.
- February 11, International Day of Women and Girls in Science is observed.
- June 19, Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict is observed.
- June 23, is International Widows’ Day is observed.
- August 26, International Women’s Equality Day is observed.
- October 11, International Day of the Girl Child is observed.
- October 15, International Day of Rural Women is observed.
- November 25, International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women is observed.
Guidelines and Campaigns
- Gender Inclusive Guidelines, Toolbox, & United Nations System-wide Strategy on Gender Parity.
- Say No, UNiTE, UNiTE to End Violence against Women, Orange the World: #HearMeToo (2018), and the 16 days of activism.
Women and Men Women’s Rights Campaigners
- Abby Kelley Foster
- Angela Davis
- Anna Julia Cooper
- Audre Lorde
- Barbara Smith
- Bell Hooks
- Claudette Colvin
- Combahee River Collective
- Ella Baker
- Fannie Lou Hamer
- Harriet Tubman
- Ida B. Wells
- Lucy Stone
- Maria Stewart
- Matilda Joslyn Gage
- Rosa Parks
- Shirley Chisholm
- Sojourner Truth
- Susan B. Anthony
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
Share this:
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/10/05
162. In the private sector, including transnational and national enterprises, women are largely absent from management and policy levels, denoting discriminatory hiring and promotion policies and practices. The unfavourable work environment as well as the limited number of employment opportunities available have led many women to seek alternatives. Women have increasingly become self-employed and owners and managers of micro, small and medium-scale enterprises. The expansion of the informal sector, in many countries, and of self-organized and independent enterprises is in large part due to women, whose collaborative, self-help and traditional practices and initiatives in production and trade represent a vital economic resource. When they gain access to and control over capital, credit and other resources, technology and training, women can increase production, marketing and income for sustainable development.
Beijing Declaration (1995)
Paragraph 162 factors in the private sector. As Paragraph 161 dealt with paid work or the more concretized empirics measuring pay rather than self-reports on hours work in the home with children, in cleaning, or out caring for the elderly, for the sick, or assisting in some community activity.
The range of the discourse is, in fact, quite large with “transnational and national enterprises.” However, let’s roll with it, the domains in which transnational corporations and national ones span, in terms of assets and wealth, can be enormous. Some rival and far surpass many economies of the world, even bypassing regulatory networks and laws for hoarding or offshoring or some wealth.
At the levels of “management and policy” for these national and transnational enterprises, women are seen as absent from both. They look at the contours of the denotation of discrimination implied, therefore, in the “hiring and promotion policies and practices.” Now, this becomes and international and women’s rights orientation or set of assumptions; these seems true, though could be wrong.
On a first pass analysis, this, indeed, may be the case on this issue. In which, the lack of women is because of the fact discrimination in policies and practices in place, regarding women, which, as has been found in other stipulations from the Beijing Declaration, occurs in both negligence in in some instances – indifference to the concerns of women – and in active policies against women’s participation in societies in others. Other factors come into play here too.
An “unfavourable work environment” is referenced as important because of the limitations in the available work opportunities in all sectors with important to the structure and running of a society, as well as the financial centers and capital generators of countries. With said limitations, women will, quite naturally, and as stipulated look and eventually move for greener pastures.
With some of the early trends demarcated at the time, though far more noticeable 25 years later, self-employment and managers of small enterprises and businesses have become a strong possibility for many women. This is important for several reasons.
One of which is the manner of description of women, as such; these set examples and change the archetypal ideological notions held in collective minds. Our global informational networks report on women differently because women’s lives, experiences, and concerns are more honestly reported, more adequately and comprehensively described, as well as new avenues for the fulfillment of women’s potential open up.
They expand this into the domains of “micro, small and medium-scale enterprises.” With respect to the enterprises, and the types, this is not specified. This is part of the global emphasis of the Beijing Declaration and the provision for wide flexibility in accomplishing the guidelines or outlines of it. This seems reasonable with 193 Member States in the world identified within the United Nations.
With the other sentence, “The expansion of the informal sector, in many countries, and of self-organized and independent enterprises is in large part due to women, whose collaborative, self-help and traditional practices and initiatives in production and trade represent a vital economic resource,” some positive findings way back in 1995 seems to presage more of the current moment.
While working for Trusted Clothes, I interviewed dozens and dozens of fashion designers and fashionistas, far fewer fashionistos. In these empirical findings, the vast majority of those small and medium business owners were women, not men, though some men were a part of it. It seems to replicate throughout many of the micro, small, and medium sized businesses or enterprises.
This is not only in the formal sector in 1995, apparently, globally speaking, but also in the informal sector of work with the “self-organized and independent enterprises” coming out of the entrepreneurial efforts of women, by and large. These are vital economic contributors and, thus, indispensable in a globalized world and economy.
With more ability to have financial or economic independence, women become major contributors to the production of capital, investment, credit, technology, especially one can see these play out in education and training in 2020, these become part of dynamic, pluralistic, sustainable economies as a basis for sustainable development.
—
(Updated 2020-09-27, only use the updated listing, please) Not all nations, organizations, societies, or individuals accept the proposals of the United Nations; one can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights, and the important days and campaigns devoted to the rights of women and girls too:
Documents
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- The Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (1967).
- Some general declarations (not individual Declaration or set of them but announcement) included the UN Decade for Women (1976-1985).
- The Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979) and the Optional Protocol (1999).
- The African (Banjul) Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (1981) in Article 2 and Article 18 from the Organization of African Unity.
- The Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the optional protocol (1993).
- The Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action (1993).
- The International Conference on Population and Development (1994).
- The Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), the Five-year review of progress (2000), the 10-year review in 2005, the 15-year review in 2010, and the 20-year review in 2015.
- The United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), and the UN Security Council additional resolutions on women, peace and security: 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013), 2242 (2015), and 2467 (2019).
- The Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- The Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
- The UN Women’s strategic plan, 2018–2021
Strategic Aims
- The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, emphasis on the entirety of the goals with a strong focus on Goal 5
- The 2015 agenda with 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (169 targets for the end to poverty, combatting inequalities, and so on, by 2030). The SDGs were preceded by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in Goal 3 and Goal 5 from 2000 to 2015.
- The Spotlight Initiative as another important piece of work, as a joint venture between the European Union and the United Nations.
Celebratory Days
- February 6, International Day of Zero Tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation is observed.
- February 11, International Day of Women and Girls in Science is observed.
- June 19, Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict is observed.
- June 23, is International Widows’ Day is observed.
- August 26, International Women’s Equality Day is observed.
- October 11, International Day of the Girl Child is observed.
- October 15, International Day of Rural Women is observed.
- November 25, International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women is observed.
Guidelines and Campaigns
- Gender Inclusive Guidelines, Toolbox, & United Nations System-wide Strategy on Gender Parity.
- Say No, UNiTE, UNiTE to End Violence against Women, Orange the World: #HearMeToo (2018), and the 16 days of activism.
Women and Men Women’s Rights Campaigners
- Abby Kelley Foster
- Angela Davis
- Anna Julia Cooper
- Audre Lorde
- Barbara Smith
- Bell Hooks
- Claudette Colvin
- Combahee River Collective
- Ella Baker
- Fannie Lou Hamer
- Harriet Tubman
- Ida B. Wells
- Lucy Stone
- Maria Stewart
- Matilda Joslyn Gage
- Rosa Parks
- Shirley Chisholm
- Sojourner Truth
- Susan B. Anthony
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
Share this:
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/10/04
161. For those women in paid work, many experience obstacles that prevent them from achieving their potential. While some are increasingly found in lower levels of management, attitudinal discrimination often prevents them from being promoted further. The experience of sexual harassment is an affront to a worker’s dignity and prevents women from making a contribution commensurate with their abilities. The lack of a family-friendly work environment, including a lack of appropriate and affordable child care, and inflexible working hours further prevent women from achieving their full potential.
Beijing Declaration (1995)
Paragraph 161 of the Beijing Declaration seems to shift to the more empirical arenas of paid work compared to the more speculative areas, self-analysis collected in large quantities, of unpaid work. It is more difficult to quantify who is doing what work, how much, so how much more and in what ways and in what areas between men and women.
This kind of question has been asked for several decades now. This was way back in the Stone Age of 1995, mind you. These empirical arenas are emphasizing “obstacles that prevent them from achieving their potential.” The definition of “potential” is an amorphous term, akin to wellbeing, flourishing, or eudaimonia. Every woman’s life and experience, talents, personalities, and proclivities, are different.
It is, in this sense, a note on the complexity of each and every person, as with every woman, and the ways in which a pluck on one string can create effects in different parts of the weave. It’s more an individuation statement generically, as in whatever a person’s upper limits of flourishing becomes their fulfilled potential, or not.
Lower levels of management in 1995 for women, as in hirings and promotions into, were lower. This may still be the case, but, in fact, the educational trends promote the idea of women dominating the lower managerial levels of businesses and corporations.
In addition, a perennial barrier is the attitudes about women within the workplace. Some by men; others by women. Some women in higher positions may not see women’s full place in the lower managerial or higher ranks of societal administrative control. Men could see the same. Some could be misogynistic in their orientation and questioning women in the hiring process about their plans, livelihoods, and like, in which particularized aspects of women’s lives become barriers to their advancement affected by the prevailing attitudes, i.e., the aforementioned “attitudinal discrimination.”
These can ‘prevent them from promotions further in the organizational hierarchies.” Other negative experiences without a formal movement at the time included sexual harassment. Women’s experience of dignity is noteworthy. Many societies have not enshrined women’s dignity as something inhered in women, but as in relation to the husband, the family, or the community.
The protection from decimating experiences by and for women is newer. The prior generations, even before 1995, did not have Me Too, Times Up, or other movements to combat sexual assault, sexual harassment, and rape in professional circumstances in which their naivete or power-differentials were taken advantage of, in life-destroying experiences.
These violations of the personal boundaries and intrusions on the bodies of women in sexual harassment are properly seen as “an affront,” not only to a “worker’s dignity,” but also to a woman’s life story. It’s an enforced indignity from which she cannot escape. It’s life; it’s pain. It makes life pain, in other words.
To quote the World Health Organization on the consequences to women’s health from violence:
Intimate partner (physical, sexual and emotional) and sexual violence cause serious short- and long-term physical, mental, sexual and reproductive health problems for women. They also affect their children, and lead to high social and economic costs for women, their families and societies. Such violence can…
- …These forms of violence can lead to depression, post-traumatic stress and other anxiety disorders, sleep difficulties, eating disorders, and suicide attempts. The 2013 analysis found that women who have experienced intimate partner violence were almost twice as likely to experience depression and problem drinking.
- Health effects can also include headaches, back pain, abdominal pain, gastrointestinal disorders, limited mobility and poor overall health.
- Sexual violence, particularly during childhood, can lead to increased smoking, drug and alcohol misuse, and risky sexual behaviours in later life. It is also associated with perpetration of violence (for males) and being a victim of violence (for females).
These can be translated into the work place. When violence, including sexual harassment, is carried out on the job against women, they will experience many of these effects, which, in turn, make the resultant work place toxic, the home life affected. If a woman has children, these can incur costs in the ability of the woman to parent effectively – let alone attend to self-care.
These economic costs on the job become further degradation. The gap in pay has been estimated from 5 cents away on every dollar (0.95 for women versus 1.00 for men) to somewhere in the 70 cent or 80 cent range for every dollar. The answer depends on the economic institute, the economist, the political orientation referenced, or the gender theorist considered. The answers do vary widely, but, as a fundamental finding, a gap exists; the real disagreements exist on precise reasons and, in particular, the accumulative contributory gap for all of them together. Is it 5%, 20%, 30%? We don’t know. It’s above 60% and below parity. That’s what seems better known than not known.
Some of the other issues creating some problems for the inclusion of women in the workplaces, at the time, impacting women’s economic livelihood’s and financial independence included a “family-friendly work environment” in which women’s, often, disproportionate caretaking responsibilities without workplace supports prevents, stops, or slows career progression or the ease of entry into particular jobs for women compared to men.
The specifics of the commentary about “appropriate and affordable child care” seem important for consideration here. In that, many of the stipulations within the Beijing Declaration leave the general and moderately concrete statements as parts of the paragraphs, while, in general, these provide guidelines and then more precise stipulations left to the Member States to enact who have chosen to take part in the global action plan following from the Beijing Declaration.
The child care aspect cannot be ignored, because future generations will come one way or another. However, as we can note, the caretaking responsibilities fall far more on the women than on the men, which impacts women’s “achieving their full potential” and limiting their fulfillment possibilities via “inflexible working hours” as the norm in business culture.
—
(Updated 2020-09-27, only use the updated listing, please) Not all nations, organizations, societies, or individuals accept the proposals of the United Nations; one can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights, and the important days and campaigns devoted to the rights of women and girls too:
Documents
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- The Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (1967).
- Some general declarations (not individual Declaration or set of them but announcement) included the UN Decade for Women (1976-1985).
- The Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979) and the Optional Protocol (1999).
- The African (Banjul) Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (1981) in Article 2 and Article 18 from the Organization of African Unity.
- The Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the optional protocol (1993).
- The Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action (1993).
- The International Conference on Population and Development (1994).
- The Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), the Five-year review of progress (2000), the 10-year review in 2005, the 15-year review in 2010, and the 20-year review in 2015.
- The United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), and the UN Security Council additional resolutions on women, peace and security: 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013), 2242 (2015), and 2467 (2019).
- The Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- The Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
- The UN Women’s strategic plan, 2018–2021
Strategic Aims
- The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, emphasis on the entirety of the goals with a strong focus on Goal 5
- The 2015 agenda with 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (169 targets for the end to poverty, combatting inequalities, and so on, by 2030). The SDGs were preceded by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in Goal 3 and Goal 5 from 2000 to 2015.
- The Spotlight Initiative as another important piece of work, as a joint venture between the European Union and the United Nations.
Celebratory Days
- February 6, International Day of Zero Tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation is observed.
- February 11, International Day of Women and Girls in Science is observed.
- June 19, Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict is observed.
- June 23, is International Widows’ Day is observed.
- August 26, International Women’s Equality Day is observed.
- October 11, International Day of the Girl Child is observed.
- October 15, International Day of Rural Women is observed.
- November 25, International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women is observed.
Guidelines and Campaigns
- Gender Inclusive Guidelines, Toolbox, & United Nations System-wide Strategy on Gender Parity.
- Say No, UNiTE, UNiTE to End Violence against Women, Orange the World: #HearMeToo (2018), and the 16 days of activism.
Women and Men Women’s Rights Campaigners
- Abby Kelley Foster
- Angela Davis
- Anna Julia Cooper
- Audre Lorde
- Barbara Smith
- Bell Hooks
- Claudette Colvin
- Combahee River Collective
- Ella Baker
- Fannie Lou Hamer
- Harriet Tubman
- Ida B. Wells
- Lucy Stone
- Maria Stewart
- Matilda Joslyn Gage
- Rosa Parks
- Shirley Chisholm
- Sojourner Truth
- Susan B. Anthony
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
Share this:
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/09/30
160. Lack of employment in the private sector and reductions in public services and public service jobs have affected women disproportionately. In some countries, women take on more unpaid work, such as the care of children and those who are ill or elderly, compensating for lost household income, particularly when public services are not available. In many cases, employment creation strategies have not paid sufficient attention to occupations and sectors where women predominate; nor have they adequately promoted the access of women to those occupations and sectors that are traditionally male.
Beijing Declaration (1995)
Paragraph 160 of the Beijing Declaration provides an emphasis on minimal employment opportunities available circa 1995 in the private sector for women in addition to the “reductions in public services and public service jobs.”
Within these contexts, we come to the issues in which the lower opportunities for women yield lower outcomes in employment, whether “in the private sector… [or] in… public service jobs.” In other words, women aren’t being given a fair shake, circa 1995. If we look further at the educational statistics in the current moment, women dominate the market of higher education; the guys are as much there.
In this, the generic statement is the guys are flaming. Dr. Leonard Sax has spoken on some of this; Professor Philip Zimbardo alongside Nikita Coulombe/Nikita Duncan spoke on some of this. Neither Sax nor Coulombe/Zimbardo spoke comprehensively on these issues – how ever appropriately in identification of some of the inter-related issues.
These lacks create a basis for even the more educated classes of women garnering equal opportunities in work and, therefore, in economic outcomes. Those economic outcomes intimately twinned with the impacts on the ways in women can gain economic independence in their lives.
Those ‘lacks’ maintain a problem for women being able to take on more expansive visions for their lives and their families; and, this impacts “women disproportionately.” Within some of the unspecified Member States, women “take on more unpaid work.”
This echoes many of the prior paragraphs about lack of equality in work and pay. Pay for work in general because women are doing more of the caring of infants and children, caretaking of the elderly, and their familial and community pieces of service work.
This unpaid work does have consequences in a number of ways, by logical implication. If an individual woman is required by sociocultural or religious traditions to partake of more unpaid work in the home and with the children, in the community, and for the elderly, then this can take a psychological toll on the ways in which the woman’s life outcomes unfold; furthermore, if a woman is required by the same to take on unpaid work, then this takes away potential time for paid work.
All this is an aside to real substantive change to the infrastructure of the society, the definitions of a successful life, or the idea of how meaning is instantiated into an individual life from reality, or simple base pay for work counted, at present, as unpaid work. Women, nonetheless, are left, in general, to simply dal with “lost household income” as a result of having to take on more unpaid work.
I left out care of the ill, too.
Without the appropriate “public services,” these are necessities to be carried out over time, which, in turn, diminishes available energy, time and general resources for paid employment for women. Apparently, of the extant employment creation strategies available in 1995, there was insufficient provision for the women-dominated sectors or occupations.
This lack of recognition or acknowledgement, as has been described elsewhere in the Beijing Declaration, leads to reduced functionality in regards to covering the needs of women in these different domains.
In addition, not only the recognition and acknowledgement, there is an inadequate promotion – again, circa 1995 and probably now, but less so an issue – of the “occupations and sectors” for women where there are “traditionally male[s]” more often than not.
All these compound and coalesce into the bundle of discriminatory representation of women in work, where that which happens outside of the restaurant, the lumber mill, the nurses office, the school, the C suite, and the like, impacts what happens in them in regards to paid work.
—
(Updated 2020-09-27, only use the updated listing, please) Not all nations, organizations, societies, or individuals accept the proposals of the United Nations; one can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights, and the important days and campaigns devoted to the rights of women and girls too:
Documents
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- The Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (1967).
- Some general declarations (not individual Declaration or set of them but announcement) included the UN Decade for Women (1976-1985).
- The Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979) and the Optional Protocol (1999).
- The African (Banjul) Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (1981) in Article 2 and Article 18 from the Organization of African Unity.
- The Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the optional protocol (1993).
- The Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action (1993).
- The International Conference on Population and Development (1994).
- The Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), the Five-year review of progress (2000), the 10-year review in 2005, the 15-year review in 2010, and the 20-year review in 2015.
- The United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), and the UN Security Council additional resolutions on women, peace and security: 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013), 2242 (2015), and 2467 (2019).
- The Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- The Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
- The UN Women’s strategic plan, 2018–2021
Strategic Aims
- The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, emphasis on the entirety of the goals with a strong focus on Goal 5
- The 2015 agenda with 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (169 targets for the end to poverty, combatting inequalities, and so on, by 2030). The SDGs were preceded by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in Goal 3 and Goal 5 from 2000 to 2015.
- The Spotlight Initiative as another important piece of work, as a joint venture between the European Union and the United Nations.
Celebratory Days
- February 6, International Day of Zero Tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation is observed.
- February 11, International Day of Women and Girls in Science is observed.
- June 19, Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict is observed.
- June 23, is International Widows’ Day is observed.
- August 26, International Women’s Equality Day is observed.
- October 11, International Day of the Girl Child is observed.
- October 15, International Day of Rural Women is observed.
- November 25, International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women is observed.
Guidelines and Campaigns
- Gender Inclusive Guidelines, Toolbox, & United Nations System-wide Strategy on Gender Parity.
- Say No, UNiTE, UNiTE to End Violence against Women, Orange the World: #HearMeToo (2018), and the 16 days of activism.
Women and Men Women’s Rights Campaigners
- Abby Kelley Foster
- Angela Davis
- Anna Julia Cooper
- Audre Lorde
- Barbara Smith
- Bell Hooks
- Claudette Colvin
- Combahee River Collective
- Ella Baker
- Fannie Lou Hamer
- Harriet Tubman
- Ida B. Wells
- Lucy Stone
- Maria Stewart
- Matilda Joslyn Gage
- Rosa Parks
- Shirley Chisholm
- Sojourner Truth
- Susan B. Anthony
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/09/30
159. In countries that are undergoing fundamental political, economic and social transformation, the skills of women, if better utilized, could constitute a major contribution to the economic life of their respective countries. Their input should continue to be developed and supported and their potential further realized.
Beijing Declaration (1995)
When looking at the Member States generally in reference in this paragraph, they’re looking simply and solely at the ‘fundamentals.’ Those arenas of the society of direct transformation. The areas, respectively, of politics, economics, and social life; these are parts of society transformed due to the contributions of women.
They aim for women’s skills to be “better utilized.” The use of the conditional is a bit odd. However, it’s a long document, declaration, with an acknowledge of the difficulties facing women in the various professional realms.
One of which includes an acknowledgement of the lack of using women’s “skills” better. Nonetheless, a greater attribution of concern to the economic lives of women “could constitute a major contribution to the economic life of their respective countries.”
One thing I do not like in some of these documents connected to the international community are the uses of the terms “nation,” “country,” “nations,” “countries,” “nation-state,” “nation-states,” and so on, because of a lack of connection with some of the important work done in the international community by, and through, the United States’s system.
Within this system, the standard terminology is States, Member States, Member State, and the like, rather than “nation,” “country,” “nations,” “countries,” “nation-state,” “nation-states,” and so on. Even so, the “input” from women on the areas of income and skills-utilization in each Member State has been, and can continue to be, a driver of economic growth through using more of the total skills-power of the States of the world.
In addition, on a question of wellbeing and fulfillment in life, this kind of work can be a major boon to the economic livelihood and sustainability of a Member State when women’s talents are put to fuller use.
—
(Updated 2020-09-27, only use the updated listing, please) Not all nations, organizations, societies, or individuals accept the proposals of the United Nations; one can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights, and the important days and campaigns devoted to the rights of women and girls too:
Documents
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- The Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (1967).
- Some general declarations (not individual Declaration or set of them but announcement) included the UN Decade for Women (1976-1985).
- The Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979) and the Optional Protocol (1999).
- The African (Banjul) Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (1981) in Article 2 and Article 18 from the Organization of African Unity.
- The Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the optional protocol (1993).
- The Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action (1993).
- The International Conference on Population and Development (1994).
- The Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), the Five-year review of progress (2000), the 10-year review in 2005, the 15-year review in 2010, and the 20-year review in 2015.
- The United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), and the UN Security Council additional resolutions on women, peace and security: 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013), 2242 (2015), and 2467 (2019).
- The Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- The Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
- The UN Women’s strategic plan, 2018–2021
Strategic Aims
- The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, emphasis on the entirety of the goals with a strong focus on Goal 5
- The 2015 agenda with 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (169 targets for the end to poverty, combatting inequalities, and so on, by 2030). The SDGs were preceded by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in Goal 3 and Goal 5 from 2000 to 2015.
- The Spotlight Initiative as another important piece of work, as a joint venture between the European Union and the United Nations.
Celebratory Days
- February 6, International Day of Zero Tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation is observed.
- February 11, International Day of Women and Girls in Science is observed.
- June 19, Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict is observed.
- June 23, is International Widows’ Day is observed.
- August 26, International Women’s Equality Day is observed.
- October 11, International Day of the Girl Child is observed.
- October 15, International Day of Rural Women is observed.
- November 25, International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women is observed.
Guidelines and Campaigns
- Gender Inclusive Guidelines, Toolbox, & United Nations System-wide Strategy on Gender Parity.
- Say No, UNiTE, UNiTE to End Violence against Women, Orange the World: #HearMeToo (2018), and the 16 days of activism.
Women and Men Women’s Rights Campaigners
- Abby Kelley Foster
- Angela Davis
- Anna Julia Cooper
- Audre Lorde
- Barbara Smith
- Bell Hooks
- Claudette Colvin
- Combahee River Collective
- Ella Baker
- Fannie Lou Hamer
- Harriet Tubman
- Ida B. Wells
- Lucy Stone
- Maria Stewart
- Matilda Joslyn Gage
- Rosa Parks
- Shirley Chisholm
- Sojourner Truth
- Susan B. Anthony
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
Share this:
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/09/29
158. These trends have been characterized by low wages, little or no labour standards protection, poor working conditions, particularly with regard to women’s occupational health and safety, low skill levels, and a lack of job security and social security, in both the formal and informal sectors. Women’s unemployment is a serious and increasing problem in many countries and sectors. Young workers in the informal and rural sectors and migrant female workers remain the least protected by labour and immigration laws. Women, particularly those who are heads of households with young children, are limited in their employment opportunities for reasons that include inflexible working conditions and inadequate sharing, by men and by society, of family responsibilities.
Beijing Declaration (1995)
The trends described around globalization consist of a number of side consequences, inclusive of women’s rights, as noted in Paragraph 158. Here, we find the low wages for globalized workers a core issue because of the competition enforced on lower wage workers with one another around the world.
In these cases, it leads to situations in which the lack of protections in one country become the bane for another country’s workers. For example, if a nation, A, is well-off and treats workers decently, and if another nation, B, is not well-off and treats workers poorly with low wages and lack of labour standards and/or rights, and if in a globalized network system, then A may be competing with B on a direct service leading to the driving down of the wages and labour standards and/or rights of the workers in A to compete with B.
Happens all the time in 1995 and in the present, there are a number of issues around poor working conditions as well. Similarly, to raise the standards of the working conditions for the worker, this cost finances, time, mental energy; all counting as resources for workers and managers. When these cost finances that others would not be using, we come to the issue of violation of labour rights and standards as more economically feasible for nations who have minimal or zero internal quibbles about said violations.
In an environment of globalization and international rights standards for ordinary workers, some may wish to get around the problems of the ordinary worker or concern for their rights simply and solely through a violation of their inherent capacities for better economic viability and, thus, equality. Women are often the first to be impacted by this. In this, “with regard to women’s occupational health and safety,” they are left out.
According to the Beijing Declaration, this includes “low skill levels, and a lack of job security and social security, in both the formal and informal sectors.” I should note that these generalized templates and statements coming from the Beijing Declaration and the ways in which the organizational principles follow one from the other, and the points of presented argument make a sort of intuitive sense do not come from nowhere.
We have covered a lot of material here. However, we should keep an eye on some of the interesting aspects of the Beijing Declaration, as a commentary on it. A decent source, Wikipedia, states, “The Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action is widely known as the most progressive blueprint for advancing women’s rights.” United Nations Women stated:
An unprecedented 17,000 participants and 30,000 activists streamed into Beijing for the opening of the Fourth World Conference on Women in September 1995. They were remarkably diverse, coming from around the globe, but they had a single purpose in mind: gender equality and the empowerment of all women, everywhere.
Two weeks of political debate followed, heated at times, as representatives of 189 governments hammered out commitments that were historic in scope. Thirty thousand non-governmental activists attended a parallel Forum and kept the pressure on, networking, lobbying and training a global media spotlight. By the time the conference closed, it had produced the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, the most progressive blueprint ever for advancing women’s rights.
As a defining framework for change, the Platform for Action made comprehensive commitments under 12 critical areas of concern. Even 20 years later, it remains a powerful source of guidance and inspiration.
These are some of the reasons for spending an inordinate amount of time on these activities, principles, and arguments for the equality of women. If there is a powerful document for the rights of women, then this is the one, certainly. Many count on a number of different levels or in particularized areas of concern, but these ones, specifically, mentioned throughout the Beijing Declaration are truly core.
In a focus of the more economically advanced countries, take the Scandinavian or Nordic countries, they tend to have more rights for workers, better labour standards, more respect for labour rights, include more gender equality in the home and in the working world (“formal and informal sectors”) bringing about a greater capacity for women to flourish and, in turn, and not surprisingly when taking full account and advantage of the other half of the population, leading to more flourishing societies. A sign of a healthy society can be seen in the work of the rights advancement of women.
If women’s rights are advanced, or, as per the general agenda of the Beijing Declaration, if women are more empowered in a society, then the society, typically, will look healthier on almost all metrics, whether healthcare, educational access and opportunities, work opportunities, gender equality, division of home and formal labour between men and women, and the like. Iceland and the Nordic countries, in particular, are the ones to watch on these fronts.
In addition to the general category of “women,” another area of problematic rights implementation in the work sphere are “young workers” and “migrant female workers” as was noted in a few recent commentaries, in which rural workers who are women, young, and/or migrants are left in worse conditions on the rights and equality front compared to the others.
Simply as a fact of life for most women in most cultures, the women who are mothers, and have young children in particular, lack opportunities in education and work compared to the men or other women without said young children. The fact of inflexibility on the front of working conditions leaves women in worse conditions than the men because of the more flexible hours or the lack of a need, based on cultural expectations and entrenched gender roles grounded in gender norms, leaves women having to bear this brunt of inflexibility compared to the men in which young children and the mother are left with the inflexible working conditions as more prescient because the mother is the primary caretaker.
If the father was the primary childrearer, then the case would be flipped, in which the need for greater working flexibility would left for the men. However, the reality is the reverse; therefore, the more precarious conditions sit with the women, grounded in “inflexible working conditions and inadequate sharing, by the men and by society, of family responsibilities.
—
(Updated 2020-07-07, only use the updated listing, please) Not all nations, organizations, societies, or individuals accept the proposals of the United Nations; one can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights, and the important days and campaigns devoted to the rights of women and girls too:
Documents
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Some general declarations (not individual Declaration or set of them but announcement) included the UN Decade for Women (1976-1985).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979) and the Optional Protocol (1999).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the optional protocol (1993).
- Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), Five-year review of progress (2000), 10-year review in 2005, the 15-year review in 2010, and the 20-year review in 2015.
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), and the UN Security Council additional resolutions on women, peace and security: 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013), 2242 (2015), and 2467 (2019).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
- UN Women’s strategic plan, 2018–2021
Strategic Aims
- 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, emphasis on the entirety of the goals with a strong focus on Goal 5
- 2015 agenda with 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (169 targets for the end to poverty, combatting inequalities, and so on, by 2030). The SDGs were preceded by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) from 2000 to 2015.
- The Spotlight Initiative as another important piece of work, as a joint venture between the European Union and the United Nations.
Celebratory Days
- February 6, International Day of Zero Tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation is observed.
- February 11, International Day of Women and Girls in Science is observed.
- June 19, Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict is observed.
- June 23, is International Widows’ Day is observed.
- August 26, International Women’s Equality Day is observed.
- October 11, International Day of the Girl Child is observed.
- October 15, International Day of Rural Women is observed.
- November 25, International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women is observed.
Guidelines and Campaigns
- Gender Inclusive Guidelines, Toolbox, & United Nations System-wide Strategy on Gender Parity.
- Say No, UNiTE, UNiTE to End Violence against Women, Orange the World: #HearMeToo (2018), and the 16 days of activism.
Women and Men Women’s Rights Campaigners
- Abby Kelley Foster
- Angela Davis
- Anna Julia Cooper
- Audre Lorde
- Barbara Smith
- Bell Hooks
- Claudette Colvin
- Combahee River Collective
- Ella Baker
- Fannie Lou Hamer
- Harriet Tubman
- Ida B. Wells
- Lucy Stone
- Maria Stewart
- Matilda Joslyn Gage
- Rosa Parks
- Shirley Chisholm
- Sojourner Truth
- Susan B. Anthony
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
Share this:
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/09/29
157. Although some new employment opportunities have been created for women as a result of the globalization of the economy, there are also trends that have exacerbated inequalities between women and men. At the same time, globalization, including economic integration, can create pressures on the employment situation of women to adjust to new circumstances and to find new sources of employment as patterns of trade change. More analysis needs to be done of the impact of globalization on women’s economic status.
Beijing Declaration (1995)
Paragraph 157: With an emergent and new environment for the working world of women in 1995, there was a general sense of “new employment opportunities” in regards to the work opportunities available for women. We’re seeing not only seeing the opportunities emerge into full flourish for women here now, but also witnessing the outgrowth of this within the subsequent generation.
Women dominate both much of particular aspects of the working world and most of the postsecondary contexts too, whether undergraduate schooling or graduate level schooling. Women are the singular force in the world of work and education seen in prior generations with the men. This is, in part, due to the greater educational attainments of women as well as the “globalization of the economy” belying a particular proaction to the barriers placed in front of their mothers. Something to be overcome in the following group of young women, today’s women.
These trends, as well, “exacerbated inequalities” between men and women in some regards, particularly in the world of partial and precarious work, i.e., part-time, poor working conditions, and labour rights lacking, work. All of these efforts for women tied to globalization also imply a simultaneous creation of inequalities for women with men due to having to compete around the world; where women have to compete with other women who do not have labour rights, this in turn creates the immediate capacity for exploitation of the ordinary worker all over the world, which is a process still ongoing now.
The economic integration creates both stronger international systems in some contexts as well as more fragile systems in different ways. All depending on the analysis, similar to how some of these benefits accrue to women in positive ways, in addition to negative ways; it’s the nature of these globalization efforts. These “pressures” and “employment situation[s]” are simply a euphemistic way of referencing some of the aforementioned.
In terms of the further analysis, we’re seeing this now. Women won in a number of regards, while losing insofar as there have been efforts to truncate these progressive efforts at the advancement of women: socially, legally, politically, religiously, and the like.
—
(Updated 2020-07-07, only use the updated listing, please) Not all nations, organizations, societies, or individuals accept the proposals of the United Nations; one can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights, and the important days and campaigns devoted to the rights of women and girls too:
Documents
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Some general declarations (not individual Declaration or set of them but announcement) included the UN Decade for Women (1976-1985).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979) and the Optional Protocol (1999).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the optional protocol (1993).
- Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), Five-year review of progress (2000), 10-year review in 2005, the 15-year review in 2010, and the 20-year review in 2015.
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), and the UN Security Council additional resolutions on women, peace and security: 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013), 2242 (2015), and 2467 (2019).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
- UN Women’s strategic plan, 2018–2021
Strategic Aims
- 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, emphasis on the entirety of the goals with a strong focus on Goal 5
- 2015 agenda with 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (169 targets for the end to poverty, combatting inequalities, and so on, by 2030). The SDGs were preceded by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) from 2000 to 2015.
- The Spotlight Initiative as another important piece of work, as a joint venture between the European Union and the United Nations.
Celebratory Days
- February 6, International Day of Zero Tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation is observed.
- February 11, International Day of Women and Girls in Science is observed.
- June 19, Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict is observed.
- June 23, is International Widows’ Day is observed.
- August 26, International Women’s Equality Day is observed.
- October 11, International Day of the Girl Child is observed.
- October 15, International Day of Rural Women is observed.
- November 25, International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women is observed.
Guidelines and Campaigns
- Gender Inclusive Guidelines, Toolbox, & United Nations System-wide Strategy on Gender Parity.
- Say No, UNiTE, UNiTE to End Violence against Women, Orange the World: #HearMeToo (2018), and the 16 days of activism.
Women and Men Women’s Rights Campaigners
- Abby Kelley Foster
- Angela Davis
- Anna Julia Cooper
- Audre Lorde
- Barbara Smith
- Bell Hooks
- Claudette Colvin
- Combahee River Collective
- Ella Baker
- Fannie Lou Hamer
- Harriet Tubman
- Ida B. Wells
- Lucy Stone
- Maria Stewart
- Matilda Joslyn Gage
- Rosa Parks
- Shirley Chisholm
- Sojourner Truth
- Susan B. Anthony
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
Share this:
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/09/26
156. Although many women have advanced in economic structures, for the majority of women, particularly those who face additional barriers, continuing obstacles have hindered their ability to achieve economic autonomy and to ensure sustainable livelihoods for themselves and their dependants. Women are active in a variety of economic areas, which they often combine, ranging from wage labour and subsistence farming and fishing to the informal sector. However, legal and customary barriers to ownership of or access to land, natural resources, capital, credit, technology and other means of production, as well as wage differentials, contribute to impeding the economic progress of women. Women contribute to development not only through remunerated work but also through a great deal of unremunerated work. On the one hand, women participate in the production of goods and services for the market and household consumption, in agriculture, food production or family enterprises. Though included in the United Nations System of National Accounts and therefore in international standards for labour statistics, this unremunerated work – particularly that related to agriculture – is often undervalued and under-recorded. On the other hand, women still also perform the great majority of unremunerated domestic work and community work, such as caring for children and older persons, preparing food for the family, protecting the environment and providing voluntary assistance to vulnerable and disadvantaged individuals and groups. This work is often not measured in quantitative terms and is not valued in national accounts. Women’s contribution to development is seriously underestimated, and thus its social recognition is limited. The full visibility of the type, extent and distribution of this unremunerated work will also contribute to a better sharing of responsibilities.
Beijing Declaration (1995)
Though remarkably long in its presentation, Paragraph 156 is important in its length for several reasons, which we will cover. Perhaps, I can add some more sophistication to the entire affair as separate documents are referenced within its remit. Now, and in 1995, women have advanced in the economies of their relevant host countries. There are barriers; there have been barriers. Circa 1995, the barriers stipulated were seen as “obstacles” preventing the full capacity of women to reach “economic autonomy.”
An “economic autonomy” meaning an ability for individual women to become independent in financial stability from, presumably, the men, more often, in their lives. It is autonomous to live with autonymity in one’s own life in regards to money. This will incorporate a wide range of important factors including work and kinds of work tied to the number of hours. The types of working conditions and labour protections for the women. The pipeline of work with educational attainment and then the possible occupations available from that point forward.
Any form of economic autonymity will come to create a strong base for the economic sustainability of livelihood. In this, it’s not simply a one-off for financial gain for the woman. It’s the better work and working conditions that would more probably incorporate a form of sustainability of life and livelihood for an individual woman in some of the more advanced economies. It would be the same for women with dependants. An ability to earn sufficient money for sustainable livelihood becomes the basis for psychological and physical wellbeing in most contexts, where finances or monetary currency also permit a range of freedoms too.
With this increased activity of women in “economic areas,” there will be individuals who aim to prevent proper provisions for women from labour rights being respected to full-time employment, to steady schedules, decent wages, and so on. Women work “from wage labour and subsistence farming and fishing to the informal sector,” and everything else in between. Herein, we see the ideas of concept of the working woman has taken shape and place at 1995 and since 1995 into 2020.
Even in spite of this change in the popular image of the working woman, we can see some other issues dealing with the “legal and customary barriers” in front of women. As to the legal barriers, let’s take even a highly progressive country such as my own, Canada, it’s own frameworks prevented women from entering into particular jobs. Women were limited to a small number of jobs including nurse, elementary school teacher, and then some of the informal jobs, e.g., stay-at-home mother. There were very few areas for women to enter into the workforce.
Even on the state of the law, many countries prevent women from entering into some areas of or domains of paid work. Their role, as per the perception of the State, is one of caring for the home and rearing the next generations: Period. We can see this imposed in some subtle ways in theocratic states with the enforcement by law of wearing the headscarf rather than having the choice to wear the headscarf or not without the thread of legal force.
These legal barriers can build into the ideas of the customary barriers or customs of the culture acting as barriers too. These become barriers for women in terms of “ownership of or access to land, natural resources, capital, credit, technology and other means of production” leading to wage differences. Quite naturally, all of these impact the possibility for economic viability, sustainability, and equality of women with men. The ongoing unremunerated work of women in a variety of domains have been some of the main areas of time sinks for women compared to men.
We can see this not only in the caring of the children and the management of the minutiae of the home, but also in the forms of other unpaid work on behalf of others, e.g., making meals, driving children to and from soccer practice, managing parent-teacher time and schedules, medical visits, and the like. This extends into the social domains too with much of the formulations of the types of things that women can accomplish kept to the imaginable.
Another nuance in this particular paragraph is the emphasis on the participation of women in the “production of goods and services for the market and household consumption, in agriculture, food production or family enterprises.” One can imagine the scenarios here; it will depend on the society or the culture. However, we can make some reasonable estimations as to the lives of the individual women in contexts constricting them here.
A “great deal of unremunerated work” is done by women; work off the books. The questions about the ethics of this come to the culture and the idea of volunteerism. If this is merely an aspect of contributing to the world of volunteering and expanding on some of the important values expressed here, then this is great; however, if this is something in which women are coerced by social pressure and man-made institutions and norms into performing as a matter of gender role course, perhaps, then we can consider these rather unfair and biased, to some extent, activities against the mutual favour of men and women, and more in the favour of the men at the expense of the women. It is this exploitation of the goodwill and labour of women is that the heart and the core issue of the inequality around unremunerated work.
These are intriguingly incorporated into the United Nations System of National Accounts. Thusly, the unremunerated work in agriculture is counted, which, in some sense, makes these inequalities all the more baffling. If the inequalities are known, and if there is not enough being done about it, then this simply and purely, especially at the international level, represents a gross violation of egalitarian principles and exposes a large degree of negligence because the presumption for so many was that this wasn’t catalogued or known as much more than two decades ago. With the inclusion in the United Nations System of National Accounts, it is counted. If curious, the UNSNA states:
The System of National Accounts (SNA) is the internationally agreed standard set of recommendations on how to compile measures of economic activity. The SNA describes a coherent, consistent and integrated set of macroeconomic accounts in the context of a set of internationally agreed concepts, definitions, classifications and accounting rules.
In addition, the SNA provides an overview of economic processes, recording how production is distributed among consumers, businesses, government and foreign nations. It shows how income originating in production, modified by taxes and transfers, flows to these groups and how they allocate these flows to consumption, saving and investment. Consequently, the national accounts are one of the building blocks of macroeconomic statistics forming a basis for economic analysis and policy formulation.
The SNA is intended for use by all countries, having been designed to accommodate the needs of countries at different stages of economic development. It also provides an overarching framework for standards in other domains of economic statistics, facilitating the integration of these statistical systems to achieve consistency with the national accounts. (United Nations System of National Accounts, 2020)
This is a comprehensive “internationally agreed standard set of recommendations on how to compile measures of economic activity” ‘describing a coherent and consistent set of integrated macroeconomic accounts.’ All this becomes an academic formulation of stipulating the forms and manners in which women’s work, remunerated and unremunerated, can be counted. If counted, then it can be acted upon, as such, because it removes the degree of mystery rather than not. This is good. It is not good in the level of negligence on the part of societies to not encourage a culture and an ethical sensibility of a shared set of responsibilities in and out of the home in regards to the larger society.
Our societies are worse off because of this known negligence. We can do so much better, and aren’t. These areas of work done by women is the work associated with being “undervalued and under-recorded.” In these respects, there is a clear sense of there being a discriminatory treatment towards women – evidenced, Q.E.D. – requiring more conscientiousness to acknowledge and act.
As stated, “On the other hand, women still also perform the great majority of unremunerated domestic work and community work, such as caring for children and older persons, preparing food for the family, protecting the environment and providing voluntary assistance to vulnerable and disadvantaged individuals and groups.”
That’s a lot. In essence, it is pointing to some of the factors and facts delineated before about lack of remuneration regarding domestic work and community work. All these become part and parcel of the work of the expected social role for women. Community work and domestic work, e.g., childrearing and homecare, are often not only expected but demanded in these environments for the women.
Shockingly, “This work is often not measured in quantitative terms and is not valued in national accounts.” There is only a qualitative valuation given to this form of work, and the work becomes devalued because it is seen, by implication and not by title, as “women’s work.” The social recognition following from this is devastatingly terrible. All forms of remuneration – “type, extent and distribution of this” – are ill-considered or not considered.
A “better sharing of responsibilities” is the only way forward here.
—
(Updated 2020-07-07, only use the updated listing, please) Not all nations, organizations, societies, or individuals accept the proposals of the United Nations; one can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights, and the important days and campaigns devoted to the rights of women and girls too:
Documents
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Some general declarations (not individual Declaration or set of them but announcement) included the UN Decade for Women (1976-1985).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979) and the Optional Protocol (1999).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the optional protocol (1993).
- Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), Five-year review of progress (2000), 10-year review in 2005, the 15-year review in 2010, and the 20-year review in 2015.
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), and the UN Security Council additional resolutions on women, peace and security: 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013), 2242 (2015), and 2467 (2019).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
- UN Women’s strategic plan, 2018–2021
Strategic Aims
- 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, emphasis on the entirety of the goals with a strong focus on Goal 5
- 2015 agenda with 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (169 targets for the end to poverty, combatting inequalities, and so on, by 2030). The SDGs were preceded by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) from 2000 to 2015.
- The Spotlight Initiative as another important piece of work, as a joint venture between the European Union and the United Nations.
Celebratory Days
- February 6, International Day of Zero Tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation is observed.
- February 11, International Day of Women and Girls in Science is observed.
- June 19, Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict is observed.
- June 23, is International Widows’ Day is observed.
- August 26, International Women’s Equality Day is observed.
- October 11, International Day of the Girl Child is observed.
- October 15, International Day of Rural Women is observed.
- November 25, International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women is observed.
Guidelines and Campaigns
- Gender Inclusive Guidelines, Toolbox, & United Nations System-wide Strategy on Gender Parity.
- Say No, UNiTE, UNiTE to End Violence against Women, Orange the World: #HearMeToo (2018), and the 16 days of activism.
Women and Men Women’s Rights Campaigners
- Abby Kelley Foster
- Angela Davis
- Anna Julia Cooper
- Audre Lorde
- Barbara Smith
- Bell Hooks
- Claudette Colvin
- Combahee River Collective
- Ella Baker
- Fannie Lou Hamer
- Harriet Tubman
- Ida B. Wells
- Lucy Stone
- Maria Stewart
- Matilda Joslyn Gage
- Rosa Parks
- Shirley Chisholm
- Sojourner Truth
- Susan B. Anthony
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
Share this:
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/09/25
154. Women migrant workers, including domestic workers, contribute to the economy of the sending country through their remittances and also to the economy of the receiving country through their participation in the labour force. However, in many receiving countries, migrant women experience higher levels of unemployment compared with both non-migrant workers and male migrant workers.
Beijing Declaration (1995)
Paragraph 154 focuses on the domains of specified workers in the world. Its domain or universe of discourses migrant women workers and domestic women workers. Those who “contribute… to the economy of the sending country through their remittances.” Then they benefit the receiving country because of the participation in the labour force as well.In this, the simplified image can be seen. Women work in the country or outside of the country and contribute to the home country finances or the foreign country due to the remittances or participation in the workforce. In fact, this trend has probably greatly expanded in the era of the rise of women, especially in the professional domains of women attaining more education, calling out bad men, and looking for the more nuanced forms of equality and justice.The problem, as has been the case, and as stipulated, is “migrant women” undergoing disproportionate biases in the form of unemployment compared to the “non-migrant workers and male migrant workers.” These differences eschew principles of gender equality and undergird issues of some systematic biases between the gender-egalitarian strivings of the international systems and the trend in so many societies of the time, and less so now, to keep gender roles fixed in stature within the domains of work as well.As should be noted, migrant women workers are in a vulnerable place too. Their precarious status in another country and in employment rights may leave them in worse conditions than mere considerations of lesser income on the job and in equal access to jobs in another country. All these are serious considerations for women migrant workers.–(Updated 2020-07-07, only use the updated listing, please) Not all nations, organizations, societies, or individuals accept the proposals of the United Nations; one can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights, and the important days and campaigns devoted to the rights of women and girls too:Documents
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).Some general declarations (not individual Declaration or set of them but announcement) included the UN Decade for Women (1976-1985).Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979) and the Optional Protocol (1999).Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the optional protocol (1993).Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), Five-year review of progress (2000), 10-year review in 2005, the 15-year review in 2010, and the 20-year review in 2015.United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), and the UN Security Council additional resolutions on women, peace and security: 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013), 2242 (2015), and 2467 (2019).Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.UN Women’s strategic plan, 2018–2021
Strategic Aims
- 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, emphasis on the entirety of the goals with a strong focus on Goal 52015 agenda with 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (169 targets for the end to poverty, combatting inequalities, and so on, by 2030). The SDGs were preceded by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) from 2000 to 2015.The Spotlight Initiative as another important piece of work, as a joint venture between the European Union and the United Nations.
Celebratory Days
- February 6, International Day of Zero Tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation is observed.February 11, International Day of Women and Girls in Science is observed.June 19, Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict is observed.June 23, is International Widows’ Day is observed.August 26, International Women’s Equality Day is observed.October 11, International Day of the Girl Child is observed.October 15, International Day of Rural Women is observed.November 25, International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women is observed.
Guidelines and Campaigns
- Gender Inclusive Guidelines, Toolbox, & United Nations System-wide Strategy on Gender Parity.Say No, UNiTE, UNiTE to End Violence against Women, Orange the World: #HearMeToo (2018), and the 16 days of activism.
Women and Men Women’s Rights Campaigners
- Abby Kelley FosterAngela DavisAnna Julia CooperAudre LordeBarbara SmithBell HooksClaudette ColvinCombahee River CollectiveElla BakerFannie Lou HamerHarriet TubmanIda B. WellsLucy StoneMaria StewartMatilda Joslyn GageRosa ParksShirley ChisholmSojourner TruthSusan B. Anthony
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
Share this:
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/09/24
155. Insufficient attention to gender analysis has meant that women’s contributions and concerns remain too often ignored in economic structures, such as financial markets and institutions, labour markets, economics as an academic discipline, economic and social infrastructure, taxation and social security systems, as well as in families and households. As a result, many policies and programmes may continue to contribute to inequalities between women and men. Where progress has been made in integrating gender perspectives, programme and policy effectiveness has also been enhanced.
Beijing Declaration (1995)
Paragraph 155 of the Beijing Declaration provides an indication as to the consequences of the void of a gendered analysis or having, as such, a gendered lens in the perspective-taking on issues of economics and women’s rights becomes an absolute catastrophe simply and solely because men and women face different issues where women face a set of constructs blockading their progress in different areas than men. “Women’s contributions and concerns” become part of this inclusive analysis, in which there can be due consideration to said contributions and concerns.
Without them, the economic structural analysis can become one-sided leaving out some of the core facets of what makes an economy work and how the rise of women everywhere, more and more, has had colossal effects on economies around the world, where even women are the dominant economic force in some countries. That is to say, women comprise the majority of workers in the economy. Nonetheless, they may be stuck at the end of the low wage, part-time, precarious, poor working conditions, labour rights-violating, jobs seen around the world in various economies.
In spite of these barriers to entry or to the desirable jobs, women continue to persevere and overcome in these spheres. The suggested areas for an inclusive analysis of the “economic structures” with a “gender analysis” are “financial markets and institutions, labour markets, economics as an academic discipline, economic and social infrastructure, taxation and social security systems, as well as in families and households.”
The financial markets and institutions become a huge key player for a gendered analysis. And, as an aside, this is not to state that all of this simply means taking gender as the core analysis, but contextualizing other forms of economic and structural analyses within a gendered lens more often as this is appropriate in different environs. Labour market gender analysis may be the most pragmatic, especially in many countries in which women will be taking a hefty sum of the better jobs requiring more education. As has been noted, women dominate the educational world and have been acquiring the certifications necessary to pursue their dreams in these disparate domains. Labour is clearly showing a rise in the working woman and the ‘demise’ or mild decline of the working man.
In terms of economics as a discipline, orbiting disciplines of economics, including Heterodox Economics, can perform an important dual-function here as a means by which to critique some of the dominant structural assumptions in economics – “utility-maximization” – while also providing a unique critical lens on the areas lacking a gendered analysis. A gendered lens can be part of Heterodox Economics, in fact may be.
Policy and political structures can be adapted to meet the demands of the modern landscape of the economic needs of a fully-working population of men and women where about the same numbers of both continue to enter into the workplace. With this, naturally, the political demands and policy proposals will come to meet the demands, as such, and thus create a basis for structural changes. This can, as well, incorporate “taxation and social security systems.”
As stipulated, “As a result, many policies and programmes may continue to contribute to inequalities between women and men. Where progress has been made in integrating gender perspectives, programme and policy effectiveness has also been enhanced.” Where there is an inclusive orientation of a gendered analysis in economics, and on the proposals in programmes and in policies, there can be greater efficacy of gender-egalitarian efforts for those countries striving towards such aims – not all are.
—
(Updated 2020-07-07, only use the updated listing, please) Not all nations, organizations, societies, or individuals accept the proposals of the United Nations; one can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights, and the important days and campaigns devoted to the rights of women and girls too:
Documents
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Some general declarations (not individual Declaration or set of them but announcement) included the UN Decade for Women (1976-1985).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979) and the Optional Protocol (1999).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the optional protocol (1993).
- Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), Five-year review of progress (2000), 10-year review in 2005, the 15-year review in 2010, and the 20-year review in 2015.
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), and the UN Security Council additional resolutions on women, peace and security: 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013), 2242 (2015), and 2467 (2019).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
- UN Women’s strategic plan, 2018–2021
Strategic Aims
- 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, emphasis on the entirety of the goals with a strong focus on Goal 5
- 2015 agenda with 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (169 targets for the end to poverty, combatting inequalities, and so on, by 2030). The SDGs were preceded by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) from 2000 to 2015.
- The Spotlight Initiative as another important piece of work, as a joint venture between the European Union and the United Nations.
Celebratory Days
- February 6, International Day of Zero Tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation is observed.
- February 11, International Day of Women and Girls in Science is observed.
- June 19, Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict is observed.
- June 23, is International Widows’ Day is observed.
- August 26, International Women’s Equality Day is observed.
- October 11, International Day of the Girl Child is observed.
- October 15, International Day of Rural Women is observed.
- November 25, International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women is observed.
Guidelines and Campaigns
- Gender Inclusive Guidelines, Toolbox, & United Nations System-wide Strategy on Gender Parity.
- Say No, UNiTE, UNiTE to End Violence against Women, Orange the World: #HearMeToo (2018), and the 16 days of activism.
Women and Men Women’s Rights Campaigners
- Abby Kelley Foster
- Angela Davis
- Anna Julia Cooper
- Audre Lorde
- Barbara Smith
- Bell Hooks
- Claudette Colvin
- Combahee River Collective
- Ella Baker
- Fannie Lou Hamer
- Harriet Tubman
- Ida B. Wells
- Lucy Stone
- Maria Stewart
- Matilda Joslyn Gage
- Rosa Parks
- Shirley Chisholm
- Sojourner Truth
- Susan B. Anthony
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
Share this:
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/09/23
153. Women’s share in the labour force continues to rise and almost everywhere women are working more outside the household, although there has not been a parallel lightening of responsibility for unremunerated work in the household and community. Women’s income is becoming increasingly necessary to households of all types. In some regions, there has been a growth in women’s entrepreneurship and other self-reliant activities, particularly in the informal sector. In many countries, women are the majority of workers in non-standard work, such as temporary, casual, multiple part-time, contract and home-based employment.
Beijing Declaration (1995)
In the terms of Paragraph 153 of the Beijing Declaration, the obvious idea here is the raw numbers of women in the labour force out of the total labour force. Women have been left out of the count of the labour force for a long time. In this count, one thing can be recognized in the literal lack of recognition in the past of women’s unpaid work, e.g., housework, childcare, elder care, and the like.
The standards by which work has been defined, and is continuing to be redefined, will impact some of the notions within this paragraph. For example, and as “labour,” work can be referencing both paid and unpaid work. It’s not as if women never worked before. What we tend to find is a context in which men and women have been working while women’s contribution to the workforce have been ignored, now, this world of paid work “outside the household” is the important referent in regards to this.
This focus on the paid working world, arguably, is still the core focus for much of these areas in the world of labour rights activism, where the unpaid or “unremunerated” work is another emphasis here. The reference to the “household” can include childcare, childrearing, homeschooling, feeding and clothing, running errands to and fro, etc. The list seems both large contingent on the roles bound within societies.
Work in community can be managing events and communal activities in which the families mostly maintained by the women are held together. In that, the interpersonal bonds in home extend outward into community in festivals, schools, community watch, care for the marginalized, and the like. No doubt, these are the contexts of women working without pay in community. It would be interesting to see if this work could remunerated in some manner.
As the net work of paid labour is taken over by women in the advanced industrial societies, the income built by women is a necessity in regards to not any particular home but “households of all types.” With this increase in women’s economic empowerment by and for themselves, this leaves the places previously held by men in different contexts. The men are less needed in these domains and, in fact, have been, since 1995 (and much farther back), evacuating the world of paid work and not logging those same hours into unpaid work.
“Women’s entrepreneurship and other self-reliant activities” “particularly in the informal sector” continue to become larger and larger hunks of the economic sector. Women have moved farther into the traditional domain of male-centric work- so-called. As it states, “In many countries, women are the majority of workers in non-standard work, such as temporary, casual, multiple part-time, contract and home-based employment.”
These forms of non-full-time work have been the paycheque of women for decades, even more so now, while, at the same time, and 25 years after the first Beijing Declaration; we’re seeing the development of whole generations of economically liberated women due to their own efforts built on the barriers and glass ceilings broken by women before them. To the spirit of this paragraph, there’s no explicit reason to think women will halt the progressive efforts for themselves, nor, as a personal note, should they.
—
(Updated 2020-07-07, only use the updated listing, please) Not all nations, organizations, societies, or individuals accept the proposals of the United Nations; one can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights, and the important days and campaigns devoted to the rights of women and girls too:
Documents
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Some general declarations (not individual Declaration or set of them but announcement) included the UN Decade for Women (1976-1985).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979) and the Optional Protocol (1999).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the optional protocol (1993).
- Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), Five-year review of progress (2000), 10-year review in 2005, the 15-year review in 2010, and the 20-year review in 2015.
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), and the UN Security Council additional resolutions on women, peace and security: 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013), 2242 (2015), and 2467 (2019).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
- UN Women’s strategic plan, 2018–2021
Strategic Aims
- 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, emphasis on the entirety of the goals with a strong focus on Goal 5
- 2015 agenda with 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (169 targets for the end to poverty, combatting inequalities, and so on, by 2030). The SDGs were preceded by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) from 2000 to 2015.
- The Spotlight Initiative as another important piece of work, as a joint venture between the European Union and the United Nations.
Celebratory Days
- February 6, International Day of Zero Tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation is observed.
- February 11, International Day of Women and Girls in Science is observed.
- June 19, Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict is observed.
- June 23, is International Widows’ Day is observed.
- August 26, International Women’s Equality Day is observed.
- October 11, International Day of the Girl Child is observed.
- October 15, International Day of Rural Women is observed.
- November 25, International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women is observed.
Guidelines and Campaigns
- Gender Inclusive Guidelines, Toolbox, & United Nations System-wide Strategy on Gender Parity.
- Say No, UNiTE, UNiTE to End Violence against Women, Orange the World: #HearMeToo (2018), and the 16 days of activism.
Women and Men Women’s Rights Campaigners
- Abby Kelley Foster
- Angela Davis
- Anna Julia Cooper
- Audre Lorde
- Barbara Smith
- Bell Hooks
- Claudette Colvin
- Combahee River Collective
- Ella Baker
- Fannie Lou Hamer
- Harriet Tubman
- Ida B. Wells
- Lucy Stone
- Maria Stewart
- Matilda Joslyn Gage
- Rosa Parks
- Shirley Chisholm
- Sojourner Truth
- Susan B. Anthony
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/09/21
152. Discrimination in education and training, hiring and remuneration, promotion and horizontal mobility practices, as well as inflexible working conditions, lack of access to productive resources and inadequate sharing of family responsibilities, combined with a lack of or insufficient services such as child care, continue to restrict employment, economic, professional and other opportunities and mobility for women and make their involvement stressful. Moreover, attitudinal obstacles inhibit women’s participation in developing economic policy and in some regions restrict the access of women and girls to education and training for economic management.
Beijing Declaration (1995)
Now, with Paragraph 152, its focus is squarely on the forms of inequality for women, in which the counter can be policy, politics, education, and training. A lot of this will come about through mass education of the public on the rights of women and the political will following from this. Often, ignorance stems in policy stems from an enforced ignorance on the public due to a denial of proper education.
In many countries around the world, including more economically viable countries with more education provided by the state to their workforce, there is an explicit discrepancy between men and women on a number of levels within the demarcations of the aforementioned. On the other hand, in some countries, we have seen a partial reverse in the genders in regards to education and training.
The barriers to the men were not truly as much present, though were much more prominent for the women of the prior generations. In regards to hiring and remuneration, there have been, after 1995 into 2020, conscious efforts to improve the hiring and remuneration of women at par with the men in education and training with the most explicit example of this seen in Iceland.
Iceland has been listed as the most gender equal country, not entirely so – though the most for more than one decade straight, of all nations measured in a ranking provided by the World Economic Forum. In this, the core facet of the examples or success stories is important. In the informal work world, we can see the statements about “inadequate sharing of family responsibilities,” wherein women and men show one another equality in the raising of the next generation in a family unit if they have children. This has’t, historically speaking, been much of the case within the last several thousand years.
I like the nuanced note about the “attitudinal obstacles” for women being able to participate in economic policy without reference to what end of it; institutional, individual men, individual women, etc. The barriers in ‘attitude’ come from the perception of women and the perception of women themselves, which can become expectations – high and low – in traditional domains. We do not have a complete systematic knowledge of human nature and, thus, lack the requisite information as to make absolute statements about the limits or the borders between attitudes and nativist endowments on capacities of biological males and biological females who identify as women.
Nonetheless, those sociological expectations of women undoubtedly would have psychological effects over a longer period of time about what can and cannot be possible. These can inhibit the economic participation of women in a variety of contexts. Something noted as important to be sensitive in a paragraph stipulation then, and arguably now, too – simply less so in some countries, like Iceland.
—
(Updated 2020-07-07, only use the updated listing, please) Not all nations, organizations, societies, or individuals accept the proposals of the United Nations; one can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights, and the important days and campaigns devoted to the rights of women and girls too:
Documents
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Some general declarations (not individual Declaration or set of them but announcement) included the UN Decade for Women (1976-1985).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979) and the Optional Protocol (1999).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the optional protocol (1993).
- Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), Five-year review of progress (2000), 10-year review in 2005, the 15-year review in 2010, and the 20-year review in 2015.
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), and the UN Security Council additional resolutions on women, peace and security: 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013), 2242 (2015), and 2467 (2019).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
- UN Women’s strategic plan, 2018–2021
Strategic Aims
- 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, emphasis on the entirety of the goals with a strong focus on Goal 5
- 2015 agenda with 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (169 targets for the end to poverty, combatting inequalities, and so on, by 2030). The SDGs were preceded by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) from 2000 to 2015.
- The Spotlight Initiative as another important piece of work, as a joint venture between the European Union and the United Nations.
Celebratory Days
- February 6, International Day of Zero Tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation is observed.
- February 11, International Day of Women and Girls in Science is observed.
- June 19, Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict is observed.
- June 23, is International Widows’ Day is observed.
- August 26, International Women’s Equality Day is observed.
- October 11, International Day of the Girl Child is observed.
- October 15, International Day of Rural Women is observed.
- November 25, International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women is observed.
Guidelines and Campaigns
- Gender Inclusive Guidelines, Toolbox, & United Nations System-wide Strategy on Gender Parity.
- Say No, UNiTE, UNiTE to End Violence against Women, Orange the World: #HearMeToo (2018), and the 16 days of activism.
Women and Men Women’s Rights Campaigners
- Abby Kelley Foster
- Angela Davis
- Anna Julia Cooper
- Audre Lorde
- Barbara Smith
- Bell Hooks
- Claudette Colvin
- Combahee River Collective
- Ella Baker
- Fannie Lou Hamer
- Harriet Tubman
- Ida B. Wells
- Lucy Stone
- Maria Stewart
- Matilda Joslyn Gage
- Rosa Parks
- Shirley Chisholm
- Sojourner Truth
- Susan B. Anthony
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
Share this:
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/09/20
151. In many regions, women’s participation in remunerated work in the formal and non-formal labour market has increased significantly and has changed during the past decade. While women continue to work in agriculture and fisheries, they have also become increasingly involved in micro, small and medium-sized enterprises and, in some cases, have become more dominant in the expanding informal sector. Due to, inter alia, difficult economic situations and a lack of bargaining power resulting from gender inequality, many women have been forced to accept low pay and poor working conditions and thus have often become preferred workers. On the other hand, women have entered the workforce increasingly by choice when they have become aware of and demanded their rights. Some have succeeded in entering and advancing in the workplace and improving their pay and working conditions. However, women have been particularly affected by the economic situation and restructuring processes, which have changed the nature of employment and, in some cases, have led to a loss of jobs, even for professional and skilled women. In addition, many women have entered the informal sector owing to the lack of other opportunities. Women’s participation and gender concerns are still largely absent from and should be integrated in the policy formulation process of the multilateral institutions that define the terms and, in cooperation with Governments, set the goals of structural adjustment programmes, loans and grants.
Beijing Declaration (1995)
Now, Paragraph 151 is a rather lengthy statement on the rights of women. It focuses on the “remunerated work” in both the “formal” and the “non-formal” labour markets in which there was, circa 1995, rapid change in their structuring and continues to be much in this direction. We’re talking about economic changes tied to some of the informal changes in society via culture. As such, we come to the idea of the “past decade” relative to 1995 and the ways in which the gender roles were beginning to take more of an alternation and switch over at the time, which became more full-swing in the 2010s continuing into 2020.
As it notes, women are working in “agriculture and fisheries” with “micro, small and medium-sized enterprises.” All of which have previously been male-dominated sectors of the economy with women spending more time in the home than anywhere else. Within this contextualization of a historical view of the remunerated work for women, there is a tacit implication on the other side of the partition. That being the ways in which women have previously been still working in sectors of the societies deemed non-remunerable. We can think of examples of childrearing and homecare.
However, as noted, the ‘significant’ changes come from significant changes in the ways in which men and women have related to one another before and now. These changes bring about reduced “gender inequality” while having more of a “bargaining power” with this improved equality of relations between men and women in “economic situations” to, in part, reduce the “difficult” financial contexts for women.
What happens when women lack such “bargaining power” for more gender equality? In turn, and as has been the historical cases, women have had to “accept lower pay and poor working conditions” because of these biases against them. These make them, in rather cold terms, “preferred workers.” These contexts not only seem but are coercive to the disproportionately women entering into them. Women should become more aware of their rights, and demand more of them, too. With knowledge of rights, and a proper fight, the advancement within the workplace can occur, especially in regards to ‘improved pay and working conditions.’
The Beijing Declaration here is arguing for labour rights with a gendered lens. Even at the time, there was a time of some job loss for women, well before the time of COVID-19. Apparently, this didn’t matter as to the profession. This happened whether “professional or skilled women.” And even if acquiring a job of some sort, women enter the “informal sector” due to lack of access or “opportunities” for other forms of employment.
Without a focus on women’s participation in the economy or in the areas of labour rights fights without gendered lens, women’s concerns regarding better pay and better working conditions can be ignored. There should be a focus on women’s capacities of potentialities for positive contributions to the formal and informal economies in the multilateral institutions, the policy formulation, the governments, and the “structural adjustment programmes, loans and grants,” as these provide a basis from which to markedly improve the accessibility of good work and opportunities for implementation of women’s rights and the advancement of gender equality.
—
(Updated 2020-07-07, only use the updated listing, please) Not all nations, organizations, societies, or individuals accept the proposals of the United Nations; one can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights, and the important days and campaigns devoted to the rights of women and girls too:
Documents
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Some general declarations (not individual Declaration or set of them but announcement) included the UN Decade for Women (1976-1985).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979) and the Optional Protocol (1999).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the optional protocol (1993).
- Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), Five-year review of progress (2000), 10-year review in 2005, the 15-year review in 2010, and the 20-year review in 2015.
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), and the UN Security Council additional resolutions on women, peace and security: 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013), 2242 (2015), and 2467 (2019).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
- UN Women’s strategic plan, 2018–2021
Strategic Aims
- 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, emphasis on the entirety of the goals with a strong focus on Goal 5
- 2015 agenda with 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (169 targets for the end to poverty, combatting inequalities, and so on, by 2030). The SDGs were preceded by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) from 2000 to 2015.
- The Spotlight Initiative as another important piece of work, as a joint venture between the European Union and the United Nations.
Celebratory Days
- February 6, International Day of Zero Tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation is observed.
- February 11, International Day of Women and Girls in Science is observed.
- June 19, Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict is observed.
- June 23, is International Widows’ Day is observed.
- August 26, International Women’s Equality Day is observed.
- October 11, International Day of the Girl Child is observed.
- October 15, International Day of Rural Women is observed.
- November 25, International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women is observed.
Guidelines and Campaigns
- Gender Inclusive Guidelines, Toolbox, & United Nations System-wide Strategy on Gender Parity.
- Say No, UNiTE, UNiTE to End Violence against Women, Orange the World: #HearMeToo (2018), and the 16 days of activism.
Women and Men Women’s Rights Campaigners
- Abby Kelley Foster
- Angela Davis
- Anna Julia Cooper
- Audre Lorde
- Barbara Smith
- Bell Hooks
- Claudette Colvin
- Combahee River Collective
- Ella Baker
- Fannie Lou Hamer
- Harriet Tubman
- Ida B. Wells
- Lucy Stone
- Maria Stewart
- Matilda Joslyn Gage
- Rosa Parks
- Shirley Chisholm
- Sojourner Truth
- Susan B. Anthony
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
Share this:
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/09/17
Christian is a Philosopher that comes from Belgium. What identifies him the most and above all is simplicity, for everything is better with “vanilla ice cream.” Perhaps, for this reason, his intellectual passion is criticism and irony, in the sense of trying to reveal what “hides behind the mask,” and give birth to the true. For him, ignorance and knowledge never “cross paths.” What he likes the most in his leisure time, is to go for a walk with his wife.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: I want to split this particular series of questions into two parts to segment the ideas between the genetic and the environmental. The middle grounds or other grounds exist with the epigenetic and the biological as a combination of the three aforementioned. While not focusing on the normal areas of emphasis for the categorizations, as I note the conversations in formal and informal resources focus on sex more than or rather than gender, the emphasis here is gender, as in “multifactorial vectors.” Taking genetic first, gender is a plural entity with wide boundaries, at present, and potentially much wider boundaries in the future, especially with some obvious observations as to the orientations and views of the newer media, younger generations, and rejection of much traditionalism now. Genetics impacts both neurological – thus, mental and behavioural – and anatomical realities. The structures in each moment comprising a human being influences its trajectory of development, its next point. I understand segmenting is messy because of the mixed nature of everything into one organism. However, I think this angle of analysis, as a thought experiment, can be fruitful too. Why would the expression of gender be written into the possibility space of our genetic lineage in the first place? By which I mean, why would this be ‘designed,’ by the pressures of ancestral environments, or selected by various natural selective mechanisms as a survival advantage rather than not? It seems imaginable that such a case could exist, in which genetics do not leave open the room for higher-order psychological phenomena inherent in the idea of gender as opposed to sexes and intersexes, and eunuchs.
Dr. Christian Sorensen: I think that for understanding the relationship, and the order of determinations between genetics and gender, it is necessary to carry out a longitudinal analysis in an onto-phylogenetic sense by means of three cuts of analysis, that I will name as the psycho-phenotypic determination on the genetic, the genetic determination on the psychophenotypic, and the latency. That is to say respectively, there would be a first period in which certain somatic and psychological characteristics, that would have been developed selectively and adaptively from environmental evolutionary forces, could have gave rise to genetic mutations, which in the second phase, are transmitted to the following genetic affiliations and manifested as somatic and psychological fixed characteristics, since by doing so, they pass to a third latency period, through which they stabilize and generalize themselves even more. The third stage, remains as such, until new evolutionary forces obligates to enter into a new period of natural selection, where psychological and physical more adaptives characteristics, are capable to induce generationally transmissible genetic modifications, which ultimately are shareables within a common population gene pool.
Jacobsen: Evolution is a hodgepodge. It’s a mess, but it makes cool stuff. How do you think the genetic blueprint, template, or twisty base sets up the ground rules for gender?
Sorensen: I think that evolutionarily speaking, there is a circularity between genetics and gender, where what occurs, is a mutual interrelation or interaction, in which there is a determinism that also comes from both sides, but in an alternate and uniderectional sense. In other words, at the moment that one of them exercises determinism over the other, the last cannot exert almost any influence regarding the former, and in turn, since it does not have enough degrees of freedom or the autonomy in order to open up to another manifestations other than the predetermined ones, it is closed in relation to its possibilities of expression.
Jacobsen: How much of a leash do genetics seem to place on the dog of gender?
Sorensen: I think that the order of factors do matter in this equation, since it depends on which part of the deterministic cycle, one with respect to the other is actually situated. Therefore when the genetic is the one that determines, I think that the leash is something real-real because it is so short, that it reaches the limit of the dog’s collar, nevertheless when it is the gender in terms of new adaptive psycho-phenotypic characteristics, who exerts mutation pressure on genetics, then these are the ones who determine the last. In consequence, the leash would convert into something that’s real-imaginary, which despite has not modified its lengh, and it is fastened to the collar, at the other end there is nothing to hold it, therefore its length is only a sort of phantom limb for the dog.
Jacobsen: How much should considerations of genetic influences on neurological structure be on gender, as it’s a psychological construct recursively oriented towards the self, the self in relation to the world, and the self in relation to other perceived selves as an “I”?
Sorensen: I think that gender, is an imaginary construct, that is formed through a specular relationship with the world and with others that are perceived as and I, therefore when it comes to gender, it is possible to affirm, that this, is the outcome of what I will denominate as the stage of the mirror. In this sense, I think that the genetic influences on neurobiological structures, in stricter terms and in relation to gender, what they determine is rather a predisposition more than something else, in consequence, it is the relationship with the mirror, in interdependence with their predisposed bio-structures what lastly crystallizes the gender as a psychological constellation.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Christian.
Sorensen: See you… Scott.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/07/27
Christian is a Philosopher that comes from Belgium. What identifies him the most and above all is simplicity, for everything is better with “vanilla ice cream.” Perhaps, for this reason, his intellectual passion is criticism and irony, in the sense of trying to reveal what “hides behind the mask,” and give birth to the true. For him, ignorance and knowledge never “cross paths.” What he likes the most in his leisure time, is to go for a walk with his wife.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Intersex is an interesting phenomenon, biologically in human beings and, thus, psychologically. What is it?
Dr. Christian Sorensen: The intersex, I consider that represents a paradigmatically change of the concept of sexual gender, since passes from the plurality of these to only one single inclusive and integrative category, which in turn would cease being discreet and would become continuous, in other words according to it, all the existing sexual genders until now, must be located between two extremes that I will denominate male and female poles. Therefore, each of them, will simultaneously share on the biological and psychological planes, bipolar characteristics in different proportions, which besides means, that both will inclusively make possible the coexistence of differences and similarities with each other. In consequence it could be said, that by the aforementioned, a space for the new sexual genres in the future could be opened, in order that they can factually emerge.
Jacobsen: Sex seems binary as a first glance. With intersex, we have a bi-polar distribution mostly with male or female primary sex characteristics. While, with intersex, we have the forms of intersex, not simply one, but the ratios per the three general sex primary characteristics categories are different one from the other in the total human species population. It becomes neither bi-nary nor bi-polar, nor bi-modal, but, rather, tri-modal in general terms. That is to say, male primary sex characteristics, female primary sex characteristics, and intersex primary sex characteristics as the superset of primary possible sex characteristics for human beings with a possibility for a quadri-modal with an entirely different length of a range for the different modes with a-sexual primary sex characteristics, natural eunuchs. So, the religions were wrong; the old school sex anatomists were wrong; and even, the modern feminists and progressivists were wrong. It’s not a naïve spectrum. It is bumpy. It is not binary. It is hills and valleys with strong tendencies. Is this a natural product of evolution with variation in a species? In that, one should expect general trends in the species, but a wide range of outcomes, especially in a species having over 100,000,000,000 people born and died in the history of the species.
Sorensen: I think that the evolution in particular of the human species, should not be viewed from a biological determinism, or from a genetic ultradeterminism, but rather through what I will denominate as the different degrees of inter-influence of multifactorial vectors, since I believe from a Lamarckian point of view, that there are other vectors that exert evolutionary forces, by what I am going to name as force of needs. In that sense, as occurs with the psychological dimension, they are able to go, and in some manner, through modulating it, to make up individuals biology. Therefore I consider that’s possible in the case of genders, that vector forces such as happens with the psychological ones, can induce, taking advantage of their elasticity, the physical biological changes that are needed, and that could eventually be transmitted by means of genetic mutations through generations, which in turn would consequently make possible the appearance of new intersex primary sexual characteristics in the future.
Jacobsen: What might happen in a hypothetical future with biological and psychological surgeries as more precise with more benefits to those who want it and fewer downsides?
Sorensen: I think that a creatively divergent range of intersex possibilities in the future can be opened, for that reason I consider that always in the context of gender sexuality, they should be the psychological factors the ones who determine the physical and biological characteristics, and not the other way around, as has happened until now. Therefore, the latests must adapt to the formers, and assume themselves as dependence variables, since strictly speaking, if it is analyzed what ultimately compromises in a deeper and more comprehensive way, through means of cognitions, emotions and spirituality, the being and soul of a person, it could be concluded, that the aforementioned is what actually determines the true nature of gender sexuality,
Jacobsen: Why did the human species have this particular kind of distribution of sex primary characteristics?
Sorensen: I think that this has occurred, due to belief systems in general, and to religious beliefs in particular, since they have not only slowed down scientific development in relation to the subject, but have also limited, through repression, fear and punishment, the boundaries of individuals psychological consciousness, since by this path, the exploration of other worlds around sexuality, and the search of other possibilities of genders differences, are definitely prevented.
Jacobsen: How linked are primary sex characteristics with the secondary sex characteristics?
Sorensen: I think that the correct question, is rather how coherently linked or not are the primary and secondary sexual characteristics between each other, since both are not directly linked, but are mediated by the psychology of each individual, which is in my opinion what lastly determines both of them. Therefore it will depend on individuals psychology, if actually sexual characteristics could be developed in some direction, and whether they are able to do so by following a harmonious path or not.
Jacobsen: Angels in Christian mythology are asexual, cannot procreate. Even the prime evil, the Devil, as a fallen angel, by implication, is asexual, what does this mean for the ordinary believers in how they see the world?
Sorensen: The question is not how do believers see the world, in function of their conceptions of angels and devil, but rather it should be, that because they see the world in a certain way, they need to visualize angels and the devil in such a manner, since if not, they would go into cognitive dissonance with their own religious beliefs, due to the fact that sex, exists indeed in the middle of the world, which in turn is associated with the capital sin of lust. Therefore in this context, sexuality is necessarily a manifestation of the body’s needs, which are linked to lower animal instincts. In consequence, angels and the devil, though they’re represented through human images with wings, they should be assumed as purely spiritual beings, due to the reason that by lacking a body and parts of it, such as occurs with sex, then they are not subject to the impulses that come from the flesh, nor they run the risk to skewer something or be skewered on whatever, when they fly between God and man.
Jacobsen: What might happen to fraternities and sororities into the future with the changing gender norms?
Sorensen: With this, probably in the future in some way or another, they would cross each other and will appear the hermaphrodirities or societies of hermaphrodites.
Jacobsen: Hey! Bye, thanks, Dr. Sorensen/son.
Sorensen: You are welcome.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/08/02
150. There are considerable differences in women’s and men’s access to and opportunities to exert power over economic structures in their societies. In most parts of the world, women are virtually absent from or are poorly represented in economic decision-making, including the formulation of financial, monetary, commercial and other economic policies, as well as tax systems and rules governing pay. Since it is often within the framework of such policies that individual men and women make their decisions, inter alia, on how to divide their time between remunerated and unremunerated work, the actual development of these economic structures and policies has a direct impact on women’s and men’s access to economic resources, their economic power and consequently the extent of equality between them at the individual and family levels as well as in society as a whole.
Beijing Declaration (1995)
Now, with Paragraph 150, we move into the area of women and the economy. Something less downtrodden-inducing than murder, rape, death, and mayhem. Sometimes, I stay up very late at night after work or extremely early in the morning simply thinking about the number who have died each day. It’s a staggering number set if you look into them, whether by the hour, the day, the week, the month, or the year.
It’s time like these that soothe the mind as the heart softens. It’s a realization of the transience of life. Looking and reading on the level of extent of suffering in the light of human rights violations seems no different, these become hints at the triviality in the number of human beings and the preciousness in each one.
As we move into economics, it is important, I feel, to reflect on the previous sections of documents like this in order to proportion concern and balance the overall perspective on the sets of issues. In due course, an integrated perspective becomes part of looking at the issues of human rights for women and girls.
Paragraph 150 of the Beijing Declaration does not waste space with a special focus on the “considerable differences” between men and women in the “access to and opportunities to exert power over economic structures in their societies.’ We can break this down into the level of difference and the economic structures themselves.
Regarding the level of the difference, a significant difference here focuses on the levels of the differences between both the finances available to women and men as well as the institutions acting as pathways. Some of these might be various commercial industries, government policies, even tax systems. With these, too, the difference leads to “considerable” economic differences.
Those economic structures as the pathways to economic success or failure as probabilities leads to the differentials. The questions arise as to what are the economic structures in more precise terms. The claims of Paragraph 150 are quite large in fact, as in “most parts of the world” for women being “virtually absent from or… poorly represented in economic decision-making…” These claims to individuals who may know more about the issues facing women may not seem as controversial.
When individuals are raised by the old or the older, especially women, in a community, there are some interesting realizations for others that can seem as if truisms for you. In that, one can see the issues more clearly as if the eyes of another have connected with one’s own. The “economic structures” identified within Paragraph 150 are “financial, monetary, commercial and other economic policies.” These policies as contact-points of pathways towards “considerable differences” between men and women in economic outcomes.
If a policy deals with finances as a municipal or federal level, or with monetary concerns, even commercial interests in regards to decision-making, these will inevitably have an impact on women. However, if the same policies set about a disjunction for men and women, whether directly or indirectly, then the policies will have sex-discriminatory effects in some manner as those “economic structures” leading to “considerable differences.” In this sense, they are the differences in the kinds of economic policies, i.e., governance and legal structures as “economic structures,” within “most parts of the world” leading to “women… virtually absent from or… poorly represented in economic decision-making.”
The other facet identified is “tax systems and… pay” policies. Those “governing” the pay and the built for the tax systems in a society. My suspicion is the issues for women in these economic contexts becomes not what the policies explicitly state, but, rather, that which they do not state or leave out as gendered considerations.
If we take the armed forces example, then there are some clear issues dealing with the ways in which the lack of a gendered frame or lens on conflicts can lead to some clear blind spots about the plight of women and women’s rights, e.g., the majority of civilian or non-combatant casualties being women.
While having these “economic structures” and “considerable differences” become issues in and of themselves, another context is the ways in which the policies influence the decisions men and women make within a society. If some economic governance and policies structures provide a basis impacting on family formation, on childrearing, on childcare availability, on educational access, on small business loan status, and the like, then, inevitably, this will come to impact the lives of women in a large number of ways, including, but not limited to, the economic outcomes in life.
Women’s time may be divided or expended in ways different than men’s as a result, as naturally can be seen and is known in the cases of childrearing, caring for the old, the sick, and the infirm in the families, und so weiter. These are the lives and livelihoods of women at stake more often, while impacting men and women, but harming the lives of women more than others. When it states, “[It’s about] how to divide their time between remunerated and unremunerated work, the actual development of these economic structures and policies has a direct impact on women’s and men’s access to economic resources, their economic power and consequently the extent of equality between them at the individual and family levels as well as in society as a whole.”
The kinds and forms of work do not have to be those for pay. Indeed, unpaid work is a form of labour without recompense with largely dealing with them. Men deal with their own unremunerated work and this deserves focus in an appropriate venue. However, this series focuses on women’s issues from the perspective and rights and contextualizations. The ratios are different and the formulations of the differentials are – ahem – different in terms of the unremunerated work too. Men tend to do the dirtier and deadlier jobs, while women take on more of the lifelong, ongoing, and caretaking tasks throughout familial and personal networks.
These are important considerations in the use of one’s time, the pay for one’s time, and the policies implicitly supporting or not the recompense for one’s time or the influence of policies on how one can live a fulfilling life with economic equality.
In this, if one wants to comprehend the importance of voting in a democratic society, then one can simply look at the effects of voting on a) who gets elected, b) how those elected formulate policies, and c) how those policies create “economic structures” leading to “considerable differences” between “men and women in “most parts of the world.”
—
(Updated 2020-07-07, only use the updated listing, please) Not all nations, organizations, societies, or individuals accept the proposals of the United Nations; one can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights, and the important days and campaigns devoted to the rights of women and girls too:
Documents
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Some general declarations (not individual Declaration or set of them but announcement) included the UN Decade for Women (1976-1985).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979) and the Optional Protocol (1999).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the optional protocol (1993).
- Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), Five-year review of progress (2000), 10-year review in 2005, the 15-year review in 2010, and the 20-year review in 2015.
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), and the UN Security Council additional resolutions on women, peace and security: 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013), 2242 (2015), and 2467 (2019).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
- UN Women’s strategic plan, 2018–2021
Strategic Aims
- 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, emphasis on the entirety of the goals with a strong focus on Goal 5
- 2015 agenda with 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (169 targets for the end to poverty, combatting inequalities, and so on, by 2030). The SDGs were preceded by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) from 2000 to 2015.
- The Spotlight Initiative as another important piece of work, as a joint venture between the European Union and the United Nations.
Celebratory Days
- February 6, International Day of Zero Tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation is observed.
- February 11, International Day of Women and Girls in Science is observed.
- June 19, Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict is observed.
- June 23, is International Widows’ Day is observed.
- August 26, International Women’s Equality Day is observed.
- October 11, International Day of the Girl Child is observed.
- October 15, International Day of Rural Women is observed.
- November 25, International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women is observed.
Guidelines and Campaigns
- Gender Inclusive Guidelines, Toolbox, & United Nations System-wide Strategy on Gender Parity.
- Say No, UNiTE, UNiTE to End Violence against Women, Orange the World: #HearMeToo (2018), and the 16 days of activism.
Women and Men Women’s Rights Campaigners
- Abby Kelley Foster
- Angela Davis
- Anna Julia Cooper
- Audre Lorde
- Barbara Smith
- Bell Hooks
- Claudette Colvin
- Combahee River Collective
- Ella Baker
- Fannie Lou Hamer
- Harriet Tubman
- Ida B. Wells
- Lucy Stone
- Maria Stewart
- Matilda Joslyn Gage
- Rosa Parks
- Shirley Chisholm
- Sojourner Truth
- Susan B. Anthony
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
Share this:
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/08/01
Strategic objective E.6.
Provide assistance to the women of the colonies and non-self-governing territories
Actions to be taken
149. By Governments and intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations:
b. Raise public awareness, as appropriate, through the mass media, education at all levels and special programmes to create a better understanding of the situation of women of the colonies and non-self-governing territories.
Beijing Declaration (1995)
As we have seen throughout the paragraphs in the Beijing Declaration dealing with the issues for women’s rights around the world, we can note a few trends within the contexts of armed conflict. One of the most prominent is the idea of disproportionate effects of the innocent, even in proposed “just wars.” In this sense, we come to the idea of the ways in which men being conscripted remains a crime against men for centuries. Men’s bodies as disposable. No doubt about that. The other side of this context is even in the case of voluntary signing on to become hired killers, many of the individuals, probably most, killed in the midst of combat are non-combatants.
We’re talking about more or less innocents; unless, the women somehow instigated some form of armed violence against the armed forces in some manner. However, this seems highly unlikely in general. Another trend is the obvious implications of ignorance – something implied as widespread within the document – of human rights, including women’s rights, in general. One of the means by which to work on this is awareness-raising.
It becomes, as noted several times before, a move from awareness to education, or both, into programs of actions with the metrics provided for the programs of action to find areas of necessary or requisite improvement over time. In this, we come to the functional improvement of the contexts of women’s rights around the world in a systematic manner and, in fact or by implication, an improvement in the lives of women around the world.
The final paragraph section for the women and armed conflict deals with the fundamental raising of consciousness about the issues of human rights around the world. When we see the focus is “raise public awareness, as appropriate,” the obvious implication is the first step in the improvement of the status of the knowledge of women’s rights around the world.
Without this first step, human rights around the world will go nowhere and, in fact, have only gotten anywhere with more legitimacy provided to the movement with presentation of the moral values, the laws, and the argumentation and reasoning for the legitimate status of them. Over time, the awareness has been tied to education, implementation, and strategies for optimization of effect. However, these haven’t provided an environment for the full flourishing of women’s rights or human rights generally, e.g., the ongoing and longstanding Israeli-Palestinian issue and others.
The focus on “mass media” is an interesting point of contact, because the “public,” as in the ‘general public,’ is the unique and central focus for some of this here with the emphasis on the education at all levels utilizing the mass media for information delivery or informing of the minds of the ‘general public’ or the “public.”
As this series is impressionistic, so to are these documents, because these represent signposts, landmarks, and guidelines as to what the international community can do so as to accomplish their larger and more noble aims in the world for equality of the sexes and the genders, these “special programmes” become another means by which to look at the contexts on a, presumably, case-by-case basis and then use these for further improvement of the understanding of the situations for women around the world.
Those environments where women’s rights are not fully implemented or respected in addition to layering of the problems with the emphasis on “colonies and non-self-governing territories”; as you may recall, there were previous stipulations about the right to self-determination. This is one of those contexts for special emphasis. An environment where women do not have full-self-governance or the ability to determine their lives and trajectory in it.
And this all begins with more awareness for substantiation of the rights themselves and the decades-long movements behind them.
—
(Updated 2020-07-07, only use the updated listing, please) Not all nations, organizations, societies, or individuals accept the proposals of the United Nations; one can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights, and the important days and campaigns devoted to the rights of women and girls too:
Documents
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Some general declarations (not individual Declaration or set of them but announcement) included the UN Decade for Women (1976-1985).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979) and the Optional Protocol (1999).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the optional protocol (1993).
- Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), Five-year review of progress (2000), 10-year review in 2005, the 15-year review in 2010, and the 20-year review in 2015.
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), and the UN Security Council additional resolutions on women, peace and security: 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013), 2242 (2015), and 2467 (2019).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
- UN Women’s strategic plan, 2018–2021
Strategic Aims
- 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, emphasis on the entirety of the goals with a strong focus on Goal 5
- 2015 agenda with 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (169 targets for the end to poverty, combatting inequalities, and so on, by 2030). The SDGs were preceded by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) from 2000 to 2015.
- The Spotlight Initiative as another important piece of work, as a joint venture between the European Union and the United Nations.
Celebratory Days
- February 6, International Day of Zero Tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation is observed.
- February 11, International Day of Women and Girls in Science is observed.
- June 19, Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict is observed.
- June 23, is International Widows’ Day is observed.
- August 26, International Women’s Equality Day is observed.
- October 11, International Day of the Girl Child is observed.
- October 15, International Day of Rural Women is observed.
- November 25, International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women is observed.
Guidelines and Campaigns
- Gender Inclusive Guidelines, Toolbox, & United Nations System-wide Strategy on Gender Parity.
- Say No, UNiTE, UNiTE to End Violence against Women, Orange the World: #HearMeToo (2018), and the 16 days of activism.
Women and Men Women’s Rights Campaigners
- Abby Kelley Foster
- Angela Davis
- Anna Julia Cooper
- Audre Lorde
- Barbara Smith
- Bell Hooks
- Claudette Colvin
- Combahee River Collective
- Ella Baker
- Fannie Lou Hamer
- Harriet Tubman
- Ida B. Wells
- Lucy Stone
- Maria Stewart
- Matilda Joslyn Gage
- Rosa Parks
- Shirley Chisholm
- Sojourner Truth
- Susan B. Anthony
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
Share this:
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/07/23
Christian is a Philosopher that comes from Belgium. What identifies him the most and above all is simplicity, for everything is better with “vanilla ice cream.” Perhaps, for this reason, his intellectual passion is criticism and irony, in the sense of trying to reveal what “hides behind the mask,” and give birth to the true. For him, ignorance and knowledge never “cross paths.” What he likes the most in his leisure time, is to go for a walk with his wife.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: A man is man is a man, as the custom goes. In that, most men are pretty average. When a profoundly gifted man comes into a community of 120,000 people, what happens to those men? Do they lead? Do they get crushed? Do they find their way in sole other manner, or simply becomes recluses, etc.?
Christian Sorensen: Actually, almost always nothing occurs, since the profoundly gifted easily go unnoticed, and if something happens, then almost always nothing positive occurs, because all the variables that the community associates with success, and expects that should be fulfilled, aren’t reciprocated by profoundly gifted. In other words, they may be recognized, but their giftedness is usually seen as useless and even threatening, because respectively it tends not to be accompanied by adequate social adaptation, which is desirable, and it may introduce iatrogenic changes, that damages the stability and correct functioning of the system.
Consequently, this last tries to keep them as secluded as possible, at the same time that they are forced by various means, to get caught up in systemic dynamics, in order to prevent the generation of resistance, and the possibility of operating in parallel through contiguous systems.
Jacobsen: What happens to women in such circumstances?
Sorensen: In the case of women, a vicious circle occurs, since due to socio-cultural reasons, that can be summed up in just one word, misogyny, and regardless of the point of view of how these may be analyzed and justified, they are suffocated and repressed to the limit of the imaginable, in order to prevent them from developing all their intellectual potentials. In this way, it is possible to make them remain concentrated, mainly in a very average intelligence range. Therefore, if something unexpected happens, in the sense that the aforementioned is not fulfilled, then women are victimized in the same way as men, but with the aggravating circumstance of mistreatment, which ultimately is the key to preserve invariably this cycle, and perpetuate it indefinitely over time.
Jacobsen: What women really impress you?
Sorensen: Women who assume their femininity and symbolic castration, to the extent that they are capable to realize that the phallus actually does not exist anywhere. When they are self-conscious, that their full potential as women, lies precisely in the fact of valuing the difference, more than anything else, and therefore in the awareness that any form of penis envy, expressed through a struggle of self-affirmation and for gender empowerment, does nothing but denigrate their dignity as people, and highlight what they constitutively lack.
Jacobsen: What traits in women seem the most outstanding if not singular to you – speaking of the profoundly gifted women, indeed some genius women?
Sorensen: Their creativity, the ability to have deferred attention by focusing on multiple stimuli at the same time, the rigour to stick to a research methodology, and the capacity to perceive the imperceptible.
Jacobsen: Do men and women exhibit more mixed sexual psychological and gender characteristics that more gifted that they become?
Sorensen: I do not think that it is a question of mixtures and androgyny, but rather of brain plasticity, since in fact the more gifted have greater flexibility to observe under a major number of points of view certain problems, which not necessarily are only limited to the gender perspective. Therefore what the aforementioned means, is that the more gifted are capable to analyze issues, as if they were a unique and integrated whole.
Jacobsen: How does one explain Newton’s strange other beliefs aside from math and optics?
Sorensen: Because he was a deeply religious man with a freethinking heart and soul.
Jacobsen: Why is Goethe so revered?
Sorensen: I think this occurs, since he has a fundamental influence on romanticism, and is the last true universal man who walked the earth.
Jacobsen: Are many profoundly gifted people lonely or alone in life?
Sorensen: It depends, because some are alone without being, since they are like planets. Others, despite are not alone, they actually are, and a few of them, are not in no sense, but just for now.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
Share this:
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/07/23
Rebekah Woods is a Canadian writer, settled on the coast with her spouse and beautiful toddler who fills the hours with challenges unequaled by the healing his life brings. Originally from Ontario, her father moved his family near a large Message Believer’s church when she was ten months old. Her siblings include five brothers and one sister. The struggle to sort memories on paper began in early 2012, but addiction held her back. Clean living away from illicit drugs started November 16, 2016, and continues this present day. She completed a memoir in February 2020. Now her goals are to publish her work, uplift others, publicly speak and build the role of Human Rights Activist. Woods is spiritual/agnostic. You can follow her blog www.rebekahcwoods.ca. Here we talk about men and women in The Message cult.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: What is the origin story of men and women, of human beings, according to The Message of the late William Marion Branham?
Rebekah Woods: The first woman, Eve, seduced a Serpent and coaxed man to sin by her predisposed evil nature. God punishes her with painful childbirth. But life is a test, and the focus is not personal fulfillment or pleasure. Life revolves around the Voice of God on a tape recorder, reading the Bible and Message books, and attending Church three times a week. This is man’s opened gateway to Heaven. Life here is fleeting and his goal, Eternal life at the end of his devotion; the woman, too, if she is obedient and lucky.
Jacobsen: What are gender role expectations of women in The Message? Woods: Branham scores women drivers, although this rule has slipped and women drive. He emphasizes her place is in the kitchen. It’s expected, demanded. She must raise children and submit.
Jacobsen: What are gender role expectations of men in The Message?
Woods: That they work, provide, discipline, and direct.
Jacobsen: How much choice do women in The Message communities have in choice leading up to marriage?
Woods: She can’t marry if her devoted father disapproves. Should her father be an unbeliever, the Pastor decides. As in my mother’s case, the father’s influence on who to marry overrides their interest in someone else. And for her, thirty-one years of unthinkable violence ensued. She persevered until the very end.
Jacobsen: In marriage, what happens to the women? What are the kinds and levels of authority given to the men, the husbands, in marriage?
Woods: In some Message strains, the husband beats his wife the same as he would his own children. I lived with a family who followed such rules, and my mother attended a church in her earlier years where this was preached. Everything she does needs her husband’s approval.
Jacobsen: How are gay or lesbian marriages viewed in The Message communities?
Woods: They are met with disgust and ex-communication. My heart goes out to any LGBT crowd who lay silent in the Message. It’s not shocking when some leave and express their preference, as gossip amongst Message Believers calls out these individuals. On the surface, perhaps they’re subtly avoided. I guess it depends on how well they can hide that preference.
Jacobsen: When critiqued by modern women’s rights standards, how do the various churches bound by the common theology deflect criticism about the abuse or the reduction, or the ignoring of, the rights of women?
Woods: Women’s Lib ties in with the Devil’s urge for power. Women in the Message submit because in it they find security. Freedom is too frightening. Even with all the freedom, what can you do with limited confidence and education? How could they deal with a man tempted by the surrounding ‘naked’ female bodies? The Message is safe for women, from adultery and financial responsibility. This is not spoken in so many words, but it’s a general feeling.
Jacobsen: Who takes care of homecare, childcare, and childrearing in the marriage? Why? What are the impacts on the psyche of the husband and the wife? What are the impacts on the views of their future selves for boys and girls observing these kinds of marriages?
Woods: All domestic work relies on the woman. I can only say what I’ve experienced. If my mom was too exhausted to discipline or if my father was, she instructed my brothers to beat each other. Blood painted the walls. It was total chaos. Other times, my father beat my mother. There was no peace.
Jacobsen: What points of logic, science, and women’s rights repudiate Branham and The Message theology?
Woods: The fact that all human life is equal, simply said. Yes, we have a right to religion, but exclusively sexism, racism and abuse.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Rebekah.
Woods: Once again, thank you, Scott.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
Share this:
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/07/20
Strategic objective E.5.
Provide protection, assistance and training to refugee women, other displaced women in need of international protection and internally displaced women
Actions to be taken
148. By Governments:
b. Protect women and children who migrate as family members from abuse or denial of their human rights by sponsors and consider extending their stay, should the family relationship dissolve, within the limits of national legislation.
Beijing Declaration (1995)
Paragraph 148(b) sticks to the national levels with the emphasis on governments and responsibility to the people. Emphases placed here include women and children, women and children are often tied together in stipulations; this may relate to longstanding cultural trends and/or historical precedents in terms of the primary caretaking responsibilities and vulnerable sectors in societies. Men run most societies, i.e., exist as de facto patriarchies to various degrees with different manifestations.
Regarding women and children in refugee contexts, the importance here is a recollection of the ill-treatment of refugees in general via rights abuse or denial of rights, and then the life outcomes based on this. Bearing in mind, we’re talking about 21 million. That’s a lot of people. Many of these people have families alive and extended families. The protection is for those who are travelling as refugee family members escaping abuse or the rights-denial.
In some contexts, there can be a sponsor for individuals who are living in risky situations and need support – support that they could not have or would not garner through some extended mechanism. With a sponsor or with an extended stay, there could be good reason for this. One could easily be the dissolution of a relationship with the family based on the “limits of national legislation.”
Refugees face many harrowing and hard choices because of the precarious status with respect to the individual to the nation-state and as an individual living without the same actualized rights – and, therefore, protections and privileges – of others who living in many of these societies and have the stability of place and culture, and relations, to rely upon for a sense of self and community.
The protection of women, as primary caregivers in most contexts, becomes a protection of children and, thus, a means by which to implement rights for women and for children in the same clip. Paragraph 148(b) exemplifies this to some degree.
—
(Updated 2020-07-07, only use the updated listing, please) Not all nations, organizations, societies, or individuals accept the proposals of the United Nations; one can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights, and the important days and campaigns devoted to the rights of women and girls too:
Documents
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Some general declarations (not individual Declaration or set of them but announcement) included the UN Decade for Women (1976-1985).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979) and the Optional Protocol (1999).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the optional protocol (1993).
- Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), Five-year review of progress (2000), 10-year review in 2005, the 15-year review in 2010, and the 20-year review in 2015.
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), and the UN Security Council additional resolutions on women, peace and security: 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013), 2242 (2015), and 2467 (2019).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
- UN Women’s strategic plan, 2018–2021
Strategic Aims
- 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, emphasis on the entirety of the goals with a strong focus on Goal 5
- 2015 agenda with 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (169 targets for the end to poverty, combatting inequalities, and so on, by 2030). The SDGs were preceded by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) from 2000 to 2015.
- The Spotlight Initiative as another important piece of work, as a joint venture between the European Union and the United Nations.
Celebratory Days
- February 6, International Day of Zero Tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation is observed.
- February 11, International Day of Women and Girls in Science is observed.
- June 19, Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict is observed.
- June 23, is International Widows’ Day is observed.
- August 26, International Women’s Equality Day is observed.
- October 11, International Day of the Girl Child is observed.
- October 15, International Day of Rural Women is observed.
- November 25, International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women is observed.
Guidelines and Campaigns
- Gender Inclusive Guidelines, Toolbox, & United Nations System-wide Strategy on Gender Parity.
- Say No, UNiTE, UNiTE to End Violence against Women, Orange the World: #HearMeToo (2018), and the 16 days of activism.
Women and Men Women’s Rights Campaigners
- Abby Kelley Foster
- Angela Davis
- Anna Julia Cooper
- Audre Lorde
- Barbara Smith
- Bell Hooks
- Claudette Colvin
- Combahee River Collective
- Ella Baker
- Fannie Lou Hamer
- Harriet Tubman
- Ida B. Wells
- Lucy Stone
- Maria Stewart
- Matilda Joslyn Gage
- Rosa Parks
- Shirley Chisholm
- Sojourner Truth
- Susan B. Anthony
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
Share this:
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/07/20
Strategic objective E.6.
Provide assistance to the women of the colonies and non-self-governing territories
Actions to be taken
149. By Governments and intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations:
a. Support and promote the implementation of the right of self-determination of all peoples as enunciated, inter alia, in the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action by providing special programmes in leadership and in training for decision-making;
Beijing Declaration (1995)
Paragraph 149(a) of the Beijing Declaration is dealing with the levels of “governments and intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations,” which become states and associated non-state entities in a manner of speaking. When looking at the main stipulations in (a) in 149, the core is support and promotion without direct involvement, for some reason.
Nonetheless, this is an important part of the entire process. The statement of “all peoples” becomes interesting here. Also, it’s not about mere stipulation or repetition of the important parts of the text in regards to human rights. For the promotion and support of the implementation of the right to self-determination, the hinge for “all peoples” is the ability to ‘self-determine’ or create a basis by which to give people governance by and for themselves.
How this may look and be played out by different peoples may different, but the world does not necessarily come in neat packages, this is the way of the world. It is partial and improving, not inevitably, and groping towards some of these stipulated ‘universals’ with some more based on supporting and promoting than anything else. Via the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action, the Beijing Declaration in Paragraph 149(a) focuses on those special programmes.
Those areas of building the base of leadership. The leadership and training necessary for executive decision-making, ideally democratically, for the implementation of this right to self-determination. Nonetheless, the manner or the form in which these self-governance structures for self-determination arise may replicate kinds seen elsewhere, or not; the point is the import of supporting and promoting the implementation of the right to self-determination of all peoples.
—
(Updated 2020-07-07, only use the updated listing, please) Not all nations, organizations, societies, or individuals accept the proposals of the United Nations; one can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights, and the important days and campaigns devoted to the rights of women and girls too:
Documents
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Some general declarations (not individual Declaration or set of them but announcement) included the UN Decade for Women (1976-1985).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979) and the Optional Protocol (1999).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the optional protocol (1993).
- Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), Five-year review of progress (2000), 10-year review in 2005, the 15-year review in 2010, and the 20-year review in 2015.
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), and the UN Security Council additional resolutions on women, peace and security: 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013), 2242 (2015), and 2467 (2019).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
- UN Women’s strategic plan, 2018–2021
Strategic Aims
- 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, emphasis on the entirety of the goals with a strong focus on Goal 5
- 2015 agenda with 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (169 targets for the end to poverty, combatting inequalities, and so on, by 2030). The SDGs were preceded by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) from 2000 to 2015.
- The Spotlight Initiative as another important piece of work, as a joint venture between the European Union and the United Nations.
Celebratory Days
- February 6, International Day of Zero Tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation is observed.
- February 11, International Day of Women and Girls in Science is observed.
- June 19, Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict is observed.
- June 23, is International Widows’ Day is observed.
- August 26, International Women’s Equality Day is observed.
- October 11, International Day of the Girl Child is observed.
- October 15, International Day of Rural Women is observed.
- November 25, International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women is observed.
Guidelines and Campaigns
- Gender Inclusive Guidelines, Toolbox, & United Nations System-wide Strategy on Gender Parity.
- Say No, UNiTE, UNiTE to End Violence against Women, Orange the World: #HearMeToo (2018), and the 16 days of activism.
Women and Men Women’s Rights Campaigners
- Abby Kelley Foster
- Angela Davis
- Anna Julia Cooper
- Audre Lorde
- Barbara Smith
- Bell Hooks
- Claudette Colvin
- Combahee River Collective
- Ella Baker
- Fannie Lou Hamer
- Harriet Tubman
- Ida B. Wells
- Lucy Stone
- Maria Stewart
- Matilda Joslyn Gage
- Rosa Parks
- Shirley Chisholm
- Sojourner Truth
- Susan B. Anthony
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
Share this:
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/07/19
Strategic objective E.5.
Provide protection, assistance and training to refugee women, other displaced women in need of international protection and internally displaced women
Actions to be taken
148. By Governments:
a. Disseminate and implement the UNHCR Guidelines on the Protection of Refugee Women and the UNHCR Guidelines on Evaluation and Care of Victims of Trauma and Violence, or provide similar guidance, in close cooperation with refugee women and in all sectors of refugee programmes;
Beijing Declaration (1995)
Paragraph 148 (a) of the Beijing Declaration focuses on the guidelines for those who are suffering from various forms of trauma. Its scope is unusually focused on one domain of discourse: “Governments.” Not intergovernmental organizations, nongovernmental organizations, civil society organizations, or some regional collective, the focus is the work of individual governments vis-a-vis the rights of women who are refugees or displaced persons.
The relevant documents of the UNHCR Guidelines on the protection of Refugee Women and the UNHCR Guidelines on Evaluation and Care of Victims of Trauma and Violence for the care, concern, and treatment of individuals who may be suffering under duress in refugee status. The documents emphasize areas in which the governments with refugees in their midst, whether internal refugees or individuals who have fallen under the plight of invasion and had to flee, or had to escape some natural disaster.
Now, the idea is passive forms of education via the ‘dissemination and implementation’ of the two documents devoted to the rights of women. Rather than general statements as to the rights of women, these particular documents deal with the more precise set of stipulations, the how-tos, and what-to-dos in the cases of refugee women.
Many of the contexts for these women are some of the most precarious that women can experience. Indeed, when we look at the forms of rhetoric about immigrants – let alone refugees – in the current global sociocultural environment, we come to a serious issue. That is, even if we have the well-established documents deliberated by the international community to deal with the issues of vulnerable members of the global community, what if the rhetoric bypasses, based on ignorance or cynicism, the rights won and established in the international documents above and here?
We’re watching this happen in real-time.
—
(Updated 2020-07-07, only use the updated listing, please) Not all nations, organizations, societies, or individuals accept the proposals of the United Nations; one can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights, and the important days and campaigns devoted to the rights of women and girls too:
Documents
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Some general declarations (not individual Declaration or set of them but announcement) included the UN Decade for Women (1976-1985).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979) and the Optional Protocol (1999).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the optional protocol (1993).
- Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), Five-year review of progress (2000), 10-year review in 2005, the 15-year review in 2010, and the 20-year review in 2015.
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), and the UN Security Council additional resolutions on women, peace and security: 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013), 2242 (2015), and 2467 (2019).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
- UN Women’s strategic plan, 2018–2021
Strategic Aims
- 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, emphasis on the entirety of the goals with a strong focus on Goal 5
- 2015 agenda with 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (169 targets for the end to poverty, combatting inequalities, and so on, by 2030). The SDGs were preceded by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) from 2000 to 2015.
- The Spotlight Initiative as another important piece of work, as a joint venture between the European Union and the United Nations.
Celebratory Days
- February 6, International Day of Zero Tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation is observed.
- February 11, International Day of Women and Girls in Science is observed.
- June 19, Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict is observed.
- June 23, is International Widows’ Day is observed.
- August 26, International Women’s Equality Day is observed.
- October 11, International Day of the Girl Child is observed.
- October 15, International Day of Rural Women is observed.
- November 25, International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women is observed.
Guidelines and Campaigns
- Gender Inclusive Guidelines, Toolbox, & United Nations System-wide Strategy on Gender Parity.
- Say No, UNiTE, UNiTE to End Violence against Women, Orange the World: #HearMeToo (2018), and the 16 days of activism.
Women and Men Women’s Rights Campaigners
- Abby Kelley Foster
- Angela Davis
- Anna Julia Cooper
- Audre Lorde
- Barbara Smith
- Bell Hooks
- Claudette Colvin
- Combahee River Collective
- Ella Baker
- Fannie Lou Hamer
- Harriet Tubman
- Ida B. Wells
- Lucy Stone
- Maria Stewart
- Matilda Joslyn Gage
- Rosa Parks
- Shirley Chisholm
- Sojourner Truth
- Susan B. Anthony
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
Share this:
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/07/18
Strategic objective E.5.
Provide protection, assistance and training to refugee women, other displaced women in need of international protection and internally displaced women
Actions to be taken
147. By Governments, intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations and other institutions involved in providing protection, assistance and training to refugee women, other displaced women in need of international protection and internally displaced women, including the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the World Food Programme, as appropriate:
o. Develop awareness of the human rights of women and provide, as appropriate, human rights education and training to military and police personnel operating in areas of armed conflict and areas where there are refugees.
Beijing Declaration (1995)
Paragraph 147 has been dealing with the levels of governments, and intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations for good reason. It is an important level for more ubiquitous protection of refugee women, as many refugee women will have been one place and then moved out into another context. Approximately 21 million refugee women are extant around the world, this is a subset of the total refugee and displaced persons numbers around the world. In short, it’s a staggering number of people who are refugees right now.
In terms of the rights of the overall view of the Beijing Declaration, as this is coming to mind now, this should be covered somewhere in this colloquial series on the rights of women here. To give an idea, when I am looking at the Beijing Declaration, I try to keep in mind the framework of the overall document:
- Mission Statement
- Global Framework
- Critical Areas of Concern
- Strategic Objectives and Actions
- Institutional Arrangements
- Financial Arrangements
This is the full framework of the Beijing Declaration, where this series moves chronologically along its template with the current section: “Women and armed conflict.” According to The Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) in “Trend in Armed Conflict, 1946-2017,” there are some clear statements as to the levels of war into recent years. It stated, “The Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP), the leading provider of statistics on political violence, has identified 285 distinct armed conflicts since 1946.”
In 2017, there were 49 armed conflicts. 49 armed conflicts in which women and children would be more bound to become refugees or displaced persons. That’s 22 years after the original instantiation of the Beijing Declaration. This means a generalize recognition of the importance of landmark documents and then persistent and perseverant efforts at the working towards the targeted statements within the documents.
When these come at the international level, these provide a context in which the international community through governments, INGOs, NGOs, CSOs, and regional collectives can come together on common problems. Coming to women’s rights, this is one such area. These should always be kept in mind for the Beijing Declaration, which has been consistently important and was an integral part of the advancements of women’s rights since 1995, as there have been updated outputs with the “five-year review of progress (2000), 10-year review in 2005, the 15-year review in 2010, and the 20-year review in 2015.” (See below under “Documents.”)
Section (o) of Paragraph 147 deals with more awareness-raising of the light of women in these precarious circumstances. Alongside awareness, the Beijing Declaration wavers between two parts of awareness and education, which makes sense. However, sometimes, it speaks of awareness only; and, other times, it talks about education alone. In some cases, such as this, awareness and education become a unified package with one another.
In that, the ‘development of awareness of human rights of women’ comes connected to “human rights education and training to military and police personnel operating in areas of armed conflict and areas where there are refugees.” To personal sensibilities, I like the contextualized and triplet formation of use for a purpose, by design, in which some cases or subject matter require more emphasis on awareness; others need more delineation along the lines the degree, type, and extent of educations; and still more, these might necessitate something like a hybrid consideration with awareness as synonymous with education, and vice versa.
The armed conflicts referenced earlier here become integral because of the targeted populations for the education, intended groupings. These are the military and police personnel. Those individuals who are sworn to protect the civilian population and fight the enemies of a Member State in wartime. With the human rights education and training, I would not expect a perfect state of things; however, I would posit or hypothesize an increased chance of knowledge of the human rights status (humanity) of refugees in armed conflict, which can be, and is, a serious concern. Because large numbers of civilians – mostly women and children – are killed during armed conflicts.
Those who had little to do with the conflict are murdered. To the question implicit in this reasoning about the prevention of this happening to the level and the degree at which it is happening, it comes down to awareness-raising, better human rights-oriented education targeted to the appropriate populations, e.g., military and police personnel, or both as one.
—
(Updated 2020-07-07, only use the updated listing, please) Not all nations, organizations, societies, or individuals accept the proposals of the United Nations; one can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights, and the important days and campaigns devoted to the rights of women and girls too:
Documents
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Some general declarations (not individual Declaration or set of them but announcement) included the UN Decade for Women (1976-1985).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979) and the Optional Protocol (1999).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the optional protocol (1993).
- Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), Five-year review of progress (2000), 10-year review in 2005, the 15-year review in 2010, and the 20-year review in 2015.
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), and the UN Security Council additional resolutions on women, peace and security: 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013), 2242 (2015), and 2467 (2019).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
- UN Women’s strategic plan, 2018–2021
Strategic Aims
- 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, emphasis on the entirety of the goals with a strong focus on Goal 5
- 2015 agenda with 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (169 targets for the end to poverty, combatting inequalities, and so on, by 2030). The SDGs were preceded by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) from 2000 to 2015.
- The Spotlight Initiative as another important piece of work, as a joint venture between the European Union and the United Nations.
Celebratory Days
- February 6, International Day of Zero Tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation is observed.
- February 11, International Day of Women and Girls in Science is observed.
- June 19, Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict is observed.
- June 23, is International Widows’ Day is observed.
- August 26, International Women’s Equality Day is observed.
- October 11, International Day of the Girl Child is observed.
- October 15, International Day of Rural Women is observed.
- November 25, International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women is observed.
Guidelines and Campaigns
- Gender Inclusive Guidelines, Toolbox, & United Nations System-wide Strategy on Gender Parity.
- Say No, UNiTE, UNiTE to End Violence against Women, Orange the World: #HearMeToo (2018), and the 16 days of activism.
Women and Men Women’s Rights Campaigners
- Abby Kelley Foster
- Angela Davis
- Anna Julia Cooper
- Audre Lorde
- Barbara Smith
- Bell Hooks
- Claudette Colvin
- Combahee River Collective
- Ella Baker
- Fannie Lou Hamer
- Harriet Tubman
- Ida B. Wells
- Lucy Stone
- Maria Stewart
- Matilda Joslyn Gage
- Rosa Parks
- Shirley Chisholm
- Sojourner Truth
- Susan B. Anthony
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
Share this:
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/07/17
Strategic objective E.5.
Provide protection, assistance and training to refugee women, other displaced women in need of international protection and internally displaced women
Actions to be taken
147. By Governments, intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations and other institutions involved in providing protection, assistance and training to refugee women, other displaced women in need of international protection and internally displaced women, including the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the World Food Programme, as appropriate:
m. Raise public awareness of the contribution made by refugee women to their countries of resettlement, promote understanding of their human rights and of their needs and abilities and encourage mutual understanding and acceptance through educational programmes promoting cross-cultural and interracial harmony;
Beijing Declaration (1995)
Paragraph 147 of the Beijing Declaration deals with the levels of the Member States of the United Nations and the various INGOs, NGOs, and other relevant organizations protecting women in vulnerable contexts as refugees or displaced persons. As has been noted throughout the Beijing Declaration with rather convincing and straightforward reasoning, the ability of the displaced women and refugee women of the world to garner supports requires a significant level of collaboration on the part of international partners.
However, the first recognition within this comes from a knowledge and acknowledgment of the issues facing displaced and refugee women. In section (m), the foci are precisely this form of awareness raising of the women who are caught in this context of the apparently permanent precarity. As has been noted by ReliefWeb, 21 million women and girls are displaced persons.
Two-thirds of those 21 million are from Africa and the Middle East. In other words, the areas of the world least equipped in terms of resources and infrastructure are dealing with the worst forms of displacement for women and girls. UNHCR reported that the coronavirus leaves the women and girls who are refugees or displaced persons more at risk for domestic violence.
The Assistant High Commissioner for Protection at UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, Gillian Triggs, said, “We need to pay urgent attention to the protection of refugee, displaced and stateless women and girls at the time of this pandemic. They are among those most at-risk. Doors should not be left open for abusers and no help spared for women surviving abuse and violence.”
With limitations in movement, decreased income for individuals already at limitations in financial freedom, and confinement, potentially, these women and girls can be left in a dire situation with abuse as a consequence. These are some of the serious aspects of the rights issues in the world today. On the one hand, the lack of dealing with it; on the other hand, the root of the “lack of dealing with it” found in the minimal awareness of a displaced population the size of about 60% of Canada.
Triggs stated, “To preserve lives and secure rights, Governments, together with humanitarian actors, must ensure that rising risks of violence for displaced and stateless women are taken into account in the design of national COVID-19 prevention, response and recovery plans.”
If we look at the paragraph above, 147, we can note the common sentiment and conceptual referent points of the “Governments,” in both the Triggs statement, recently, and the Beijing Declaration from 1995. In either case, we have common ideational references. Those ideas as points of contact for the furtherance of a discussion on a variety of important subject matter.
When it comes to some of the foundational documents, listed below, and covered in this series, these represent the more concise and comprehensive statements on the points of reference, the points of contact, on women’s rights around the world. In this case, not only “Governments,” but the intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations.
As we deal with these specific points of reference, you can see the points of statistical facts and other areas of common contact to make the human rights points. In the fundamentals here, it is the raising of public awareness about refugee women and displaced women. One means by which to raise the public and positive profile of the individuals within the countries of resettlement is to highlight the positive contributions of the refugee women.
Another is to universalize the idea of the human rights of the individuals within the populations, as knowledge of and respect for human rights are not universally considered a set item. Many prefer religious law. Others prefer no law. Still others, they may prefer something more akin to laws in favour of only the powered and privileged. It’s all statistical.
With this sort of awareness, there can be an “understanding [too]… of their needs and abilities” to improve the harmony of the relations between the already settled majority and the resettling refugee women and displaced women.
—
(Updated 2020-07-07, only use the updated listing, please) Not all nations, organizations, societies, or individuals accept the proposals of the United Nations; one can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights, and the important days and campaigns devoted to the rights of women and girls too:
Documents
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Some general declarations (not individual Declaration or set of them but announcement) included the UN Decade for Women (1976-1985).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979) and the Optional Protocol (1999).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the optional protocol (1993).
- Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), Five-year review of progress (2000), 10-year review in 2005, the 15-year review in 2010, and the 20-year review in 2015.
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), and the UN Security Council additional resolutions on women, peace and security: 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013), 2242 (2015), and 2467 (2019).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
- UN Women’s strategic plan, 2018–2021
Strategic Aims
- 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, emphasis on the entirety of the goals with a strong focus on Goal 5
- 2015 agenda with 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (169 targets for the end to poverty, combatting inequalities, and so on, by 2030). The SDGs were preceded by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) from 2000 to 2015.
- The Spotlight Initiative as another important piece of work, as a joint venture between the European Union and the United Nations.
Celebratory Days
- February 6, International Day of Zero Tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation is observed.
- February 11, International Day of Women and Girls in Science is observed.
- June 19, Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict is observed.
- June 23, is International Widows’ Day is observed.
- August 26, International Women’s Equality Day is observed.
- October 11, International Day of the Girl Child is observed.
- October 15, International Day of Rural Women is observed.
- November 25, International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women is observed.
Guidelines and Campaigns
- Gender Inclusive Guidelines, Toolbox, & United Nations System-wide Strategy on Gender Parity.
- Say No, UNiTE, UNiTE to End Violence against Women, Orange the World: #HearMeToo (2018), and the 16 days of activism.
Women and Men Women’s Rights Campaigners
- Abby Kelley Foster
- Angela Davis
- Anna Julia Cooper
- Audre Lorde
- Barbara Smith
- Bell Hooks
- Claudette Colvin
- Combahee River Collective
- Ella Baker
- Fannie Lou Hamer
- Harriet Tubman
- Ida B. Wells
- Lucy Stone
- Maria Stewart
- Matilda Joslyn Gage
- Rosa Parks
- Shirley Chisholm
- Sojourner Truth
- Susan B. Anthony
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
Share this:
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/07/17
Strategic objective E.5.
Provide protection, assistance and training to refugee women, other displaced women in need of international protection and internally displaced women
Actions to be taken
147. By Governments, intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations and other institutions involved in providing protection, assistance and training to refugee women, other displaced women in need of international protection and internally displaced women, including the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the World Food Programme, as appropriate:
n. Provide basic and support services to women who are displaced from their place of origin as a result of terrorism, violence, drug trafficking or other reasons linked to violence situations;
Beijing Declaration (1995)
Paragraph 147 of the Beijing Declaration deals primarily with the national context and the relations between governments. In this context, the 21 million displaced women and girls around the world provide an insight into the severity of the problem by sex and gender, and the necessity to provide even the basics for the women in these contexts.
In my own country, there are a number of organizations dealing with the foundational women’s rights work: Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada, CARE Canada, REAL Women of Canada, Canadian Women’s Foundation, Manitoba Political Equality League, Vancouver Rape Relief & Women’s Shelter, Canadian Women’s Press Club, Vancouver Women’s Caucus, Local Council of Women of Halifax, Fédération des femmes du Québec, National Council of Women of Canada, Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies, Canadian Women’s Suffrage Association, Equal Voice, LEAF, Department for Women and Gender Equality, Royal Commission on the Status of Women, Oxfam Canada, The MATCH International Women’s Fund, Nobel Women’s Initiative, National Action Committee on the Status of Women, and Pauktuutit.
Some of the basic services for refugees and internally displaced peoples are fundamentally important because the displacement did not happen as an accident and probably took place because of “terrorism, violence, drug trafficking or other reasons linked to violence situations.” So, the real focus here is the aspects after awareness one would inquire about, in regards to actionables.
Those things one can do to provide basic and support services for internally displaced and refugee women who have lost both their homeland and remain on the run or newly attempting to reintegrate into a new country, a new culture, a new community. Many will come with trauma based on the nature of the circumstances of leaving their homeland, and so the “basic and support services” could amount to various forms of therapy to help them deal with the psychological and physiological issues following from dramatic, and traumatic, circumstances in these abrupt transition points in life for them.
—
(Updated 2020-07-07, only use the updated listing, please) Not all nations, organizations, societies, or individuals accept the proposals of the United Nations; one can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights, and the important days and campaigns devoted to the rights of women and girls too:
Documents
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Some general declarations (not individual Declaration or set of them but announcement) included the UN Decade for Women (1976-1985).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979) and the Optional Protocol (1999).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the optional protocol (1993).
- Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), Five-year review of progress (2000), 10-year review in 2005, the 15-year review in 2010, and the 20-year review in 2015.
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), and the UN Security Council additional resolutions on women, peace and security: 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013), 2242 (2015), and 2467 (2019).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
- UN Women’s strategic plan, 2018–2021
Strategic Aims
- 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, emphasis on the entirety of the goals with a strong focus on Goal 5
- 2015 agenda with 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (169 targets for the end to poverty, combatting inequalities, and so on, by 2030). The SDGs were preceded by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) from 2000 to 2015.
- The Spotlight Initiative as another important piece of work, as a joint venture between the European Union and the United Nations.
Celebratory Days
- February 6, International Day of Zero Tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation is observed.
- February 11, International Day of Women and Girls in Science is observed.
- June 19, Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict is observed.
- June 23, is International Widows’ Day is observed.
- August 26, International Women’s Equality Day is observed.
- October 11, International Day of the Girl Child is observed.
- October 15, International Day of Rural Women is observed.
- November 25, International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women is observed.
Guidelines and Campaigns
- Gender Inclusive Guidelines, Toolbox, & United Nations System-wide Strategy on Gender Parity.
- Say No, UNiTE, UNiTE to End Violence against Women, Orange the World: #HearMeToo (2018), and the 16 days of activism.
Women and Men Women’s Rights Campaigners
- Abby Kelley Foster
- Angela Davis
- Anna Julia Cooper
- Audre Lorde
- Barbara Smith
- Bell Hooks
- Claudette Colvin
- Combahee River Collective
- Ella Baker
- Fannie Lou Hamer
- Harriet Tubman
- Ida B. Wells
- Lucy Stone
- Maria Stewart
- Matilda Joslyn Gage
- Rosa Parks
- Shirley Chisholm
- Sojourner Truth
- Susan B. Anthony
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/06/26
Christian is a Philosopher that comes from Belgium. What identifies him the most and above all is simplicity, for everything is better with “vanilla flavour.” Perhaps, for this reason, his intellectual passion is criticism and irony, in the sense of trying to reveal what “hides behind the mask,” and give birth to the true. For him, ignorance and knowledge never “cross paths.” What he likes the most in his leisure time, is to go for a walk with his wife.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: So, we’ve covered some of the sex and gender stuff in a first-level analysis with some further commentary in News Intervention. Another facet is the fundamental reason for every single human being coming into existence and may be the basis for civilizations depending on how the drive gets directed, channelled, and manifested in large groups of people, whether of a common ethnic grouping or of a diverse community. Is sex a desire, a drive, an instinct, or an emotion, or some admixture?
Christian Sorenson: “Sex is not a drive,” rather it should be said that “the drive is sexual,” and therefore “human sexuality,” is not equivalent “to sex,” since the latter is consequence of a “humanized sexuality,” that in turn has “an origin and meaning,” given by a “symbolic register” in which it is inserted as “desire.”
Jacobsen: Why did sex evolve?
Sorenson: Because human beings “learned to count to three.”
Jacobsen: What psychological analysis best makes sense of sex and sexuality?
Sorenson: One who does not forget the “constitutive bisexuality” of human being’s “psychological structure.”
Jacobsen: What are the best representations of sex in an honest way in the world’s religions?
Sorenson: The “temptation” of Lilith to adan in paradise, the “pornographic story” of Sodom and Gomorrah, the “incestuous event” between Lot and its daughters, and the “pathetic adultery and pregnancy” of Abraham with his slave Jade.
Jacobsen: How do the various faiths of the world see sex, sexuality, the sex act, and morality? Why is this the case?
Sorenson: In relation to “monotheistic religions,” since with respect to the others it is very difficult “to discern,” due to the fact that in my opinion they are even “more irrationals” than the former ones, they generally incorporate implicit concepts of “repression,” as a form of exercising “control mechanisms,” and others explicit such as “sin and punishment.” In this way, according to them “sexuality” never should represent “an end in itself,” but rather something that must be ordered towards “unitive and procreative ends” respectively, that in turn they always need to be “inseparably present.”
Jacobsen: If we take the full psychological and physiological facets of sex, what is the better and modern, scientific term for it – even a neologism?
Sorenson: The “panpsychophysiosexuality.”
Jacobsen: How do we construct neither a sex repressive society nor a sex positive society, but a sex realistic society?
Sorenson: By “getting acquainted” with “sexuality,” from an early age, at the same time that we assume it with “valourative naturalness,” and “respect sense,” bearing in mind that “our sexuality reaches where another’s sexuality begins.”
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Christian.
Sorenson: You are welcome, it was a pleasure.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/06/13
Christian is a Philosopher that comes from Belgium. What identifies him the most and above all is simplicity, for everything is better with “vanilla flavour.” Perhaps, for this reason, his intellectual passion is criticism and irony, in the sense of trying to reveal what “hides behind the mask,” and give birth to the true. For him, ignorance and knowledge never “cross paths.” What he likes the most in his leisure time, is to go for a walk with his wife.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: What is biological sex?
Christian Sorenson: Is the sex determined by a “particular genotype,” and to which they “generally” correspond “primary and secondary” sexual characteristics.
Jacobsen: What is gender?
Sorenson: In my opinion, is a concept that “simultaneously” integrates “psychological sexual orientation” with “primary and secondary sexual” characteristics.
Jacobsen: What are the types of sexes?
Sorenson: I believe that these respectively are those of: man, woman, “pseudo-man,” “pseudo-woman,” “super-woman,” “super-man” and hermaphrodite.
Jacobsen: What are the kinds of genders?
Sorenson: Are those of man, woman, and transgender. Nevertheless from my point of view, “transsexuals” which currently are wrongly categorized as “masculine gender,” should be respected and therefore considered instead as a “gender in itself,” either by assuming it as an “independent fourth” one or as being “part of transgenders.”
Jacobsen: What relates the biological sexes and the genders?
Sorenson: In my opinion, what relates both of them is “psychological sexuality,” in relation concretely to “sexual orientation” and to “sexual object election.”
Jacobsen: How does biological sex and gender relate to the colloquial or common notions of men and women as general categories?
Sorenson: I feel they are related, through a “men-woman stereotyping,” which is based on “conditioning factors” of psychological, social and cultural nature.
Jacobsen: Sex and gender is a sociopolitical controversy too. How does the sociopolitical Left get sex and gender wrong, typically?
Sorenson: In my opinion, their “main error” regards the fact that they are not able to visualize “sex and gender” as “dynamically evolving constructs,” and therefore they “do not integrate” these sufficiently to transform them into a “complex unit,” capable to admit “different flexible interpretations,” as a function of “variable approach angles,” and depending on “the prism” through which they are analyzed.
Jacobsen: How does the sociopolitical Right get sex and gender wrong, typically?
Sorenson: Sociopolitical Right, usually believes in a “fixed unidirectional relationship” between “sex and gender,” since they conceive both concepts in a “univocal and prejudiced” way, due to “psycho-social and cultural perspectives,” which in turn are a consequence of “rigid conservatory moral belief structures,” associated at its base with “extremist religious systems” that generally are of “Christian and Islamic” origin.
Jacobsen: What are sex differences between men and women?
Sorenson: Visualizing it from “a current perspective,” and leaving aside what are “genotypes and primary sexual characteristics,” it seems to me that from “a phenotypic” point of view, and specifically regarding “secondary sexual characteristics,” the differences between men and woman “are increasingly relative and minimal,” and therefore at this point, it “is not possible” to establish any “categorization” in relation to them.
Jacobsen: What are the gender differences between men and women?
Sorenson: If from a sexual point of view, differences between men and women “are insignificant,” then in relation “to gender” these are expectable to be “almost nil.” In this sense, I believe that increasingly, we are heading towards “the abolition” of “dichotomous gender concepts,” and instead “we evolve,” in direction of a “unique and integrated” one, that I would denominate as “androgynous unisex gender,” and through which ultimately it would be possible to reach greater “consistency-coherence,” in relation to what I consider as our “constitutive biological bisexuality.”
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/05/06
VANCOUVER, British Columbia – May 5, 2020 – PRLog — Canadian Humanists are supporting calls from Humanists International to have Mubarak Bala released from a Nigerian jail. Bala, who is president of the Humanist Association of Nigeria, was arrested by Nigerian police April 28 following a complaint the had insulted the prophet Mohammed in a social media post. Bala, who is a former Muslim, has been arrested without formal charges. Bala’s lawyer has not been allowed access to his client.
“The right to be charged within 24 hours of arrest and the right to legal counsel are enshrined in Nigerian law. In addition, we would request: if Mr. Bala is charged with a crime, then the charge is, or those charges are, heard in a secular as opposed to a Islamic court, as he is a humanist, atheist, and former Muslim,” said Scott Jacobsen, international rights spokesman for Humanist Canada. Humanist Canada Vice-President, Lloyd Robertson, said Canadians can support Mr Bala’s defence campaign organized by Humanists International by visiting:
https://www.gofundme.com/f/free-mubarak-bala
He added that international support is important for the protection of minorities.
For more information contact:
Scott Jacobsen (778) 988-8070
Lloyd Robertson (306) 425-9872
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/03/18
Strategic objective E.5.
Provide protection, assistance and training to refugee women, other displaced women in need of international protection and internally displaced women
Actions to be taken
147. By Governments, intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations and other institutions involved in providing protection, assistance and training to refugee women, other displaced women in need of international protection and internally displaced women, including the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the World Food Programme, as appropriate:
l. Provide, as appropriate, women who have been determined refugees with access to vocational/professional training programmes, including language training, small-scale enterprise development training and planning and counselling on all forms of violence against women, which should include rehabilitation programmes for victims of torture and trauma; Governments and other donors should contribute adequately to assistance programmes for refugee women, other displaced women in need of international protection and internally displaced women, taking into account in particular the effects on the host countries of the increasing requirements of large refugee populations and the need to widen the donor base and to achieve greater burden-sharing;
Beijing Declaration (1995)
The 147th paragraph of the Beijing Declaration focuses on the forms of education available for women who happen to exist in some of these contexts of terror and precarity. When it comes to the transitioning of individuals and societies out of desperate circumstances, some of the more straightforward points of contact on the journey come in acknowledgement, in education, in planning programs, in providing metrics to measure the degrees to which these are continual issues for the affected populations, and so the communities can adjust the programs to better provide for the relevant needs of the affected women, whether refugees or generally displaced persons.
In section (l), the emphasis, appropriately, is on the vocational and the professional training programmes with an emphasis on language training. This one seems straightforward with the idea of the advancement of the language abilities of women to be able to access various relevant services in the area and to take part in the wider culture, including work and educational contexts.
Other important areas include the small-scale enterprise development training and planning in this ability to found a business or some small enterprise to, as per previous articles, become independent in some capacity. It is working towards financial independence. In this economic autonomy, a refugee woman can find a sense of self-efficacy and autonomous movement throughout the world.
Another important provision is counselling on all forms of violence against women. Where violence against women is a significant issue around the world, no doubt about it; however, an additional focus would be the emphasis on the knowledge about it, for the women – to notice this happening to them or happening to others around them.
As well, there are issues of rehabilitation for victims of these forms of violence. Violence is one issue. Recovery from the trauma of abuse is another one. All of the fallout from abuse, trauma, and the requisite need for a formal recovery procedure through rehabilitation is part and parcel of a civilized global society based on mutual sympathy and solidarity.
In the context of war, many women refugees and displaced persons can be subjected to various forms of formal torture in addition to various traumas. It becomes difficult to overcome. Imagine having everything stripped from you, being raped, being forcibly impregnated, reduced to an object, and then forced to leave one’s homeland and internal infrastructure of the state to support oneself, we come to an obvious acknowledgement of trauma within the society. It’s everything; all of it, everything is gone forever, then being demonized while trying to train, educate, and recover and rehabilitate while being traumatized in a number of wars.
The focus of (l) is the governmental and donor assistance in the efforts for dealing with the issues facing refugee women and displaced women, who would be “in need of international protection.” Some of the host countries who may demonize and neglect the refugee populations and displaced person; in fact, they would be neglecting the foundations of common humanity, the universality of human rights, and not taking up their share of the global or international problem of sharing the burden of women in terrible, awful, and desperate circumstances.
It incumbent upon international and national actors to – well – get their act together. It was a problem in 1995; it continues to be a problem now.
–(Updated 2020-03-07, only use the updated listing, please) Not all nations, organizations, societies, or individuals accept the proposals of the United Nations; one can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights, and the important days and campaigns devoted to the rights of women and girls too:Documents
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Some general declarations (not individual Declaration or set of them but announcement) included the UN Decade for Women (1976-1985).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979) and the Optional Protocol (1999).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the optional protocol (1993).
- Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), Five-year review of progress (2000), 10-year review in 2005, the 15-year review in 2010, and the 20-year review in 2015.
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), and the UN Security Council additional resolutions on women, peace and security: 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013), 2242 (2015), and 2467 (2019).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
- UN Women’s strategic plan, 2018–2021
Strategic Aims
- 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, emphasis on the entirety of the goals with a strong focus on Goal 5
- 2015 agenda with 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (169 targets for the end to poverty, combatting inequalities, and so on, by 2030). The SDGs were preceded by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) from 2000 to 2015.
- The Spotlight Initiative as another important piece of work, as a joint venture between the European Union and the United Nations.
Celebratory Days
- February 6, International Day of Zero Tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation is observed.
- February 11, International Day of Women and Girls in Science is observed.
- June 19, Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict is observed.
- June 23, is International Widows’ Day is observed.
- October 11, International Day of the Girl Child is observed.
- October 15, International Day of Rural Women is observed.
- November 25, International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women is observed.
Guidelines and Campaigns
- Gender Inclusive Guidelines, Toolbox, & United Nations System-wide Strategy on Gender Parity.
- Say No, UNiTE, UNiTE to End Violence against Women, Orange the World: #HearMeToo (2018), and the 16 days of activism.
Women and Men Women’s Rights Campaigners
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/03/04
Strategic objective E.5.
Provide protection, assistance and training to refugee women, other displaced women in need of international protection and internally displaced women
Actions to be taken
147. By Governments, intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations and other institutions involved in providing protection, assistance and training to refugee women, other displaced women in need of international protection and internally displaced women, including the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the World Food Programme, as appropriate:
- Take steps to ensure that women are fully involved in the planning, design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of all short-term and long-term projects and programmes providing assistance to refugee women, other displaced women in need of international protection and internally displaced women, including the management of refugee camps and resources; ensure that refugee and displaced women and girls have direct access to the services provided;
Beijing Declaration (1995)
The Beijing Declaration contains some of the core values important for the development of the international rights community. Those who work in these areas and can do things about them. Indeed, as we come into the 2020s, and as I have more time after some different work in a variety of interesting communities, I can begin some of the casual commentaries on the sections of this important document on its 25th anniversary (1995-2020).
The focus of Paragraph 147 in section (a) is the assistance from governmental and non-governmental organizations in looking at the full involvement of women in the projects. The timelines are completely incorporative of women, as in short-term and long-term projects. The stages are completely stipulated as incorporative of women as well with the “planning, design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation.”
If we look at any project including women in a core facet of this, then we can see this in the need for planning stage involvement of women. As we can see with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), it, in “Women’s participation in decision-making,” states:
UNDP supports national partners to develop and implement legal and policy reforms to ensure women’s participation in decision-making and implements initiatives to develop women’s capacities to participate and lead, including promoting women’s participation as voters and candidates in electoral processes, supporting women’s representation in governance institutions and other measures to build a conducive environment for women’s political participation. UNDP also works closely with partners, especially UN Women, the United Nations Department of Political Affairs, Inter-Parliamentary Union and regional normative bodies, to advance global norms and national practices to further women’s leadership in politics and public institutions. In addition, UNDP works closely with women’s organizations to support women’s leadership and supports gender equality and women’s leadership in the workplace, including through implementation of the Gender Equality Seal.
Any development and implementation of the legal and policy reforms with the explicit inclusion of women in “planning” in the terminology of the Beijing Declaration or in the “decision-making” in the wording of the UNDP. Some of the crucial considerations, and as an example, come with political or governance structures involving an electoral process supporting the representation of women for the increase of the political representation of women here.
The UNDP and the Beijing Declaration continue in the same expansive vision of the possibilities for the inclusion of women with some general structural layouts for the individuals here. In this section of the Beijing Declaration, the true focus is the ways in which the least able based on the lack of external resources demographics of women. One’s religious or not, political, etc., demographics do not come into serious scrutiny here, as everyone with sufficient capabilities can help with the general vision here.
We see this in nationalists; we see this in globalists or internationalists. A desire for more fair and equal opportunities and, thus, more equal representation of women for societies and the global community. Indeed, even some of the most socially and politically conservative elements of societies, there have been incorporations of more women in decision-making and representation. This goes to the general point of similar aims with different areas of emphasis and strength of emphasis.
Although, with some global ongoing issues, there is some fraying at the regional level impacting some international efforts. Nothing too destructive, though, simply political extreme rhetoric here and there. Truly, we seem to see calcification and solidifying of some national issues in different countries, but not the collapse of republics or Member States at this time. Some of the concrete manifestations of this inclusion are noted by the UNDP:
Examples of other initiatives include iKNOW Politics, a joint project with International IDEA, the Inter-parliamentary Union and UN Women to increase the participation and effectiveness of women in political life, the Gender Equality in Public Administration (GEPA) programme through which UNDP aims to increase women’s participation and leadership in public institutions in line with SDG5 and SDG16, and Atenea, another joint initiative to accelerate women’s progress in political participation.
Out of these plannings come the designs and the implementations of the short-term and the long-term projects, all of the planning, in this sense, starts the processes for the furtherance of women in “design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation.” Those projects, in my own country, including the National Council of Women in Canada, the Native Women’s Association of Canada, Women’s Legal Education Fund, Pauktuutit, Oxfam Canada, and so on.
Others, I have worked with them previously connected to the United Nations and its central women’s rights body, UN Women, at one point – what was UN Women Canada and transitioned into a foundation, where I worked on the Board for three years. The displaced women as a category is a crucial one. OCHA Services (Relief Web) notes:
New estimates published for the first time today reveal that at least 21 million women and girls were uprooted within their countries by conflict and violence by the end of 2018. Two-thirds of these internally displaced women and girls were in Africa and the Middle East. Nine countries worldwide hosted over one million women and girls each: Syria, Colombia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Somalia, Afghanistan, Yemen, Nigeria, Ethiopia and Sudan.
In fact, the Beijing Declaration is mentioned directly in the reportage on internally displaced women. Alexandra Bilak, Director of the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC), stated, “Twenty-five years after the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, one of the most comprehensive global policy frameworks for gender equality, women and girls are still suffering disproportionately from displacement.”
The discrimination faced by women and children in displacement – and, to be clear, “internally” can be stated explicitly as meaning “internal to the nation” where the individual within the country can be set loose from the girders of the nation. Imagine being a woman or a child in this circumstance, in most societies, the implication of a life of penurity, insecurity, and little time to reflect to gain any probity into the causes and sources of the misery, of one’s miserly life.
If their child is in this circumstance, is it their fault? Should they pick themselves up by their own bootstraps? Or is something in the system and the systemic treatment wrong, morally and functionally? These are the pragmatic questions for the lives of the displaced or internally displaced women and children in these contexts. All planning and designing and implementing have intersects here. They link up.
For the monitoring and evaluation at the long-term and the short-term levels, the subsequent stipulations are important for the maintenance of the developments. It can happen with UN Women or with any other institution or with organizational and community efforts on the ground for the displaced women. The examples given in 1995 Beijing Declaration echo, no less, the needs mentioned on March 5, 2020 of Alexandra Bilak of the need for the “management of refugee camps and resources” with the displaced women and girls having access to basic services.
One can see 21 million, in Canada, as about 60% of the total population of the country as a comparison metric. Some of the basic services can be readily surmised based on sex differences with the need for sexual education, sanitary pads, contraceptives, and others including general healthcare, food, housing, and proper education. As displaced women and children, they can simply lack access to some of these basic services.
The Beijing Declaration remains integral to efforts to work at some of these initiatives into the future. And we can all do our parts.
—
(Updated 2019-08-21, only use the updated listing, please) Not all nations, organizations, societies, or individuals accept the proposals of the United Nations; one can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights, and the important days and campaigns devoted to the rights of women and girls too:
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Some general declarations (not individual Declaration or set of them but announcement) included the UN Decade for Women (1976-1985).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979) and the Optional Protocol (1999).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the optional protocol (1993).
- Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), Five-year review of progress (2000), 10-year review in 2005, the 15-year review in 2010, and the 20-year review in 2015.
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), and the UN Security Council additional resolutions on women, peace and security: 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013), 2242 (2015), and 2467 (2019).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
- UN Women’s strategic plan, 2018–2021
- 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, emphasis on the entirety of the goals with a strong focus on Goal 5
- 2015 agenda with 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (169 targets for the end to poverty, combatting inequalities, and so on, by 2030). The SDGs were preceded by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) from 2000 to 2015.
- The Spotlight Initiative as another important piece of work, as a joint venture between the European Union and the United Nations.
- February 6, International Day of Zero Tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation is observed.
- February 11, International Day of Women and Girls in Science is observed.
- June 19, Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict is observed.
- June 23, is International Widows’ Day is observed.
- October 11, International Day of the Girl Child is observed.
- October 15, International Day of Rural Women is observed.
- November 25, International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women is observed.
- Gender Inclusive Guidelines, Toolbox, & United Nations System-wide Strategy on Gender Parity.
- Say No, UNiTE, UNiTE to End Violence against Women, Orange the World: #HearMeToo (2018), and the 16 days of activism.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
Share this:
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/03/17
Strategic objective E.5.
Provide protection, assistance and training to refugee women, other displaced women in need of international protection and internally displaced women
Actions to be taken
147. By Governments, intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations and other institutions involved in providing protection, assistance and training to refugee women, other displaced women in need of international protection and internally displaced women, including the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the World Food Programme, as appropriate:
k. Ensure that the human rights of refugee and displaced women are protected and that refugee and displaced women are made aware of these rights; ensure that the vital importance of family reunification is recognized;
Beijing Declaration (1995)
Some of my favourite people in the world are individuals who, whether religious or non-religious, fight for the rights and dignity of others now, not in some abstract sense, not in the creation of some obscure and typically useless theoretical framework, not in the provision of some new scientific insight, nor in some clever slogan shareable in the public domain; no, some of my favourite people are ordinary people who put their bodies, livelihoods, careers, sometimes lives, on the line for something, which, as Mencken in spite of his tremendous flaws noted, is unquestionably noble. All the nobler when based on some true or, at a minimum, real axiom to some extent. It is an ignoring of the plights of others – their pains, losses, and desired best lives lost forever – that constitutes a prime evil, as it deals with things capable of feeling, sensing, emoting, and thinking.
Human rights, I hope, will some day in the future for some generation reach a point of realization for the population who comprise a range of consciousnesses. Something capturing the heart of constructed entities – human rights – and generalized for better applicability, more generality than religious law and human rights. Something like a Kohlbergian 8th stage developing off the 6th and 7th stages of the theoretical foundations of an ethical vision and horizon.
As we have been dealing with human rights as the internationalist foundational ethic for seven or so decades, documents like the Beijing Declaration provide a vision into a possible future for human beings more just and equitable than the one seen now. In this vision, we can see the same focus as in the other recent articles on governments, INGOs, and NGOs, which is something between national, regional, and international, with the “regional, and international,” depending on the context for the particular application of them.
The human rights universality of application, in principle, is important because most people will not meet most people, but most people will meet many people; and, many people have most of the same issues. This commonality of issues in the species makes for the idea of the universality of such principles. In that, something must be common to all for universality to apply in some reasonable sense. In these contexts of a species view implied by the “human” title in “human rights,” and the consideration of everyone as more the same than different, this is the basis for human rights as a more universal ethic than not.
Fundamentally, I believe this kind of vision of the world is the basis for tenderness and love. Simply put, it expands this vision from intimate limited interpersonal circles into the widest range available within the general or common considerations of experiences. Certainly, this can be, and has been, expanded into areas beyond the species to ideas of animal rights. Nonetheless, the awareness of said rights can be an issue.
Since Descartes, there has been this notion of only human beings having a soul. In this consideration of only human beings having souls, untold suffering has been applied to human beings considered not part of the common human species to non-human animals too. All in all, it becomes a situation of pain and suffering thrust upon individuals within the societies and the animals slaughtered for the survival and pleasure-consumption of humans.
Education limits about the rights of others and oneself can be one reason for the misapplication or lack of applied work for the fundamental human rights of others. As we have seen with so many others, there is, certainly, a sense in which refugees and displaced persons are off in the distance, in some other place, and, somehow as if by magical thinking, not one of us, not even like you; some sort of ephemeral, mystical creature beyond the breach.
Human rights are violated every day. It does not mean that the universalism of the rights or the commonality of the people are in some manner breached. Human rights are still rights, ethical ideas – invented by people. People are still members of the human species. I would only merely hope to extend this consideration into the future to non-human animals and artificial consciousnesses or technically constructed consciousnesses rather than simply evolved human consciousnesses or non-human animal consciousnesses.
With evolution via natural selection, the general idea seems clear. Human beings appear natural, mathematical objects with non-human animals coming about through the same bottom-up, environmentally guided, and non-conscious selection process in both the geosphere and the biosphere. As this implies a technical construction of consciousness or “awareness,” as the astute Paul Cooijmans points out, the same words for the same idea, just “consciousness” sounds more pompous – arrogant. When saying, “Awareness,” it becomes more clear, less magical-seeming. It is about something capable of some recursive self-consideration, which, in modern information theory and communication theory, simply means an information processor feeding back into itself for further information processing about itself. No need for pomposity or neologisms – ta-da! Then the special forms creates a formulation for some basis consciousness.
If these can evolve, then these can be constructed – because evolution amounts to a mass plural-pathway technique of engineering and selection-construction set-up at the same time – brilliant! A+ nature, nothing profound there. The focus here in the Beijing Declaration is important because of the ensuring of some of the most vulnerable populations of women seen in refugee and displaced women having access to some of the most basic rights. In that, the compounding of being so far away while also having foreign populations not know about the rights of vulnerable women creates an extremely difficult situation for those refugee and displaced women.
This is a common theme within the discussions on the rights for displaced and refugee women. In that, the basic levels of knowledge of rights is the first-order issue. After this is covered, there can be some focus on the importance of family reunification. However, as with 1995, we still require extensive efforts on the front of education for refugee women. It can be done, but it has to be accomplished within the larger ethical frameworks of the Beijing Declaration and the concept of human rights, and the equality and dignity of the best off and the worst off.
–(Updated 2020-03-07, only use the updated listing, please) Not all nations, organizations, societies, or individuals accept the proposals of the United Nations; one can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights, and the important days and campaigns devoted to the rights of women and girls too:Documents
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Some general declarations (not individual Declaration or set of them but announcement) included the UN Decade for Women (1976-1985).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979) and the Optional Protocol (1999).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the optional protocol (1993).
- Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), Five-year review of progress (2000), 10-year review in 2005, the 15-year review in 2010, and the 20-year review in 2015.
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), and the UN Security Council additional resolutions on women, peace and security: 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013), 2242 (2015), and 2467 (2019).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
- UN Women’s strategic plan, 2018–2021
Strategic Aims
- 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, emphasis on the entirety of the goals with a strong focus on Goal 5
- 2015 agenda with 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (169 targets for the end to poverty, combatting inequalities, and so on, by 2030). The SDGs were preceded by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) from 2000 to 2015.
- The Spotlight Initiative as another important piece of work, as a joint venture between the European Union and the United Nations.
Celebratory Days
- February 6, International Day of Zero Tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation is observed.
- February 11, International Day of Women and Girls in Science is observed.
- June 19, Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict is observed.
- June 23, is International Widows’ Day is observed.
- October 11, International Day of the Girl Child is observed.
- October 15, International Day of Rural Women is observed.
- November 25, International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women is observed.
Guidelines and Campaigns
- Gender Inclusive Guidelines, Toolbox, & United Nations System-wide Strategy on Gender Parity.
- Say No, UNiTE, UNiTE to End Violence against Women, Orange the World: #HearMeToo (2018), and the 16 days of activism.
Women and Men Women’s Rights Campaigners
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
Share this:
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/03/16
Strategic objective E.5.
Provide protection, assistance and training to refugee women, other displaced women in need of international protection and internally displaced women
Actions to be taken
147. By Governments, intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations and other institutions involved in providing protection, assistance and training to refugee women, other displaced women in need of international protection and internally displaced women, including the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the World Food Programme, as appropriate:
j. Promote the self-reliant capacities of refugee women, other displaced women in need of international protection and internally displaced women and provide programmes for women, particularly young women, in leadership and decision-making within refugee and returnee communities;
Beijing Declaration (1995)
Okie dokie, Beijing Declaration casual, colloquial commentary on Paragraph 147(j), the same scope as some of the ones coming before. The emphasis should be on the issues of reduction in the necessity of external systems for the women refugees and displaced persons. In that, self-reliant, autonomous women are more empowered women, by implication, in terms of taking charge of their destinies and not having to rely on some external national or international supports.
However, as in any time of crisis, or terror, a displaced or refugee woman can be in deep need to some degree. With some ongoing issues around displacement, the infrastructure supports from the international community continue to be crucial to the lives of so many women suffering from the ill-effects of displacement. Also, this can be intergenerational at this point with the impacts on young women.
One of the ways to reduce the levels of the intergenerational negative effects faced by refugee and displaced women is the improvement of the conditions of leadership capacity and spaces for women. Women have unique concerns; refugee and displaced women will have specific concerns and experiences to call on when working to making the appropriate changes.
When we look at the forms of recommended leadership, wisely, they pointed to the refugee and returnee communities. And why not? These women would have the relevant expertise and personal experience for dealing with some of these longstanding, though improving issues. In fact, this is part of a larger and longer fight for the improved status of women in a number of contexts, including in the domain of leadership and decision-making.
A better representation of the normal population can better cover the concerns of the general public’s point of view. In so doing, we bring forth more precisely defined and comprehensive solutions. Why would this be any different, when it comes to the contexts for refugee women and displaced women and then the placement of them in appointments of leadership?
–(Updated 2020-03-07, only use the updated listing, please) Not all nations, organizations, societies, or individuals accept the proposals of the United Nations; one can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights, and the important days and campaigns devoted to the rights of women and girls too:Documents
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Some general declarations (not individual Declaration or set of them but announcement) included the UN Decade for Women (1976-1985).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979) and the Optional Protocol (1999).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the optional protocol (1993).
- Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), Five-year review of progress (2000), 10-year review in 2005, the 15-year review in 2010, and the 20-year review in 2015.
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), and the UN Security Council additional resolutions on women, peace and security: 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013), 2242 (2015), and 2467 (2019).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
- UN Women’s strategic plan, 2018–2021
Strategic Aims
- 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, emphasis on the entirety of the goals with a strong focus on Goal 5
- 2015 agenda with 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (169 targets for the end to poverty, combatting inequalities, and so on, by 2030). The SDGs were preceded by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) from 2000 to 2015.
- The Spotlight Initiative as another important piece of work, as a joint venture between the European Union and the United Nations.
Celebratory Days
- February 6, International Day of Zero Tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation is observed.
- February 11, International Day of Women and Girls in Science is observed.
- June 19, Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict is observed.
- June 23, is International Widows’ Day is observed.
- October 11, International Day of the Girl Child is observed.
- October 15, International Day of Rural Women is observed.
- November 25, International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women is observed.
Guidelines and Campaigns
- Gender Inclusive Guidelines, Toolbox, & United Nations System-wide Strategy on Gender Parity.
- Say No, UNiTE, UNiTE to End Violence against Women, Orange the World: #HearMeToo (2018), and the 16 days of activism.
Women and Men Women’s Rights Campaigners
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
Share this:
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/03/15
Strategic objective E.5.
Provide protection, assistance and training to refugee women, other displaced women in need of international protection and internally displaced women
Actions to be taken
147. By Governments, intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations and other institutions involved in providing protection, assistance and training to refugee women, other displaced women in need of international protection and internally displaced women, including the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the World Food Programme, as appropriate:
h. Apply international norms to ensure equal access and equal treatment of women and men in refugee determination procedures and the granting of asylum, including full respect and strict observation of the principle of non-refoulement through, inter alia, bringing national immigration regulations into conformity with relevant international instruments, and consider recognizing as refugees those women whose claim to refugee status is based upon the well-founded fear of persecution for reasons enumerated in the 1951 Convention/28 and the 1967 Protocol /29 relating to the Status of Refugees, including persecution through sexual violence or other gender-related persecution, and provide access to specially trained officers, including female officers, to interview women regarding sensitive or painful experiences, such as sexual assault;
Beijing Declaration (1995)
Some of the core aspects of the international rights institutions in the world deal with some of the most basic facets of a modern life for most citizens, especially in terms of the training of the mind and the jobs available. Now, 1995 can seem like an eternity ago, which is true. With the advent of Internet and some of the developments of the communications technologies, we have seen a rapid change in both the external infrastructure of the world and the internal architecture of the mind in response to the technologies.
We’re a surface-only multinationalistic structure in transition into a truly internationalist civilization integrated beneath the Earth, beyond the atmosphere, and connected between shorter distances due to the communications technologies and various other efficiencies in the transmission of information and goods. Even in spite of the 25-year gap, ethics continues to still emerge amongst the world’s peoples.
The United Nations is a strongly positive contribution in this regard. Ethics is, in fact, the tough question now. It isn’t a question about the power of technology. The power of technical and technological advancement is undeniable. It is the difference between light and night, between the mere physical from the physiological. It is not only a different order of technology, but another type that went through a phase change.
Most of the subpopulations within the global community have been neglected to an extensive extent, for a long, long time. With the advent of an era of abundance based on the advancement of science and technology, and somewhat adequately skilled application of it, in principle, every person can have the basic needs met – “needs,” not wants.
In this new era of techno-advancement, the tacit inadequacy of an ethic can be seen with the malapportioned provisions of the basics of life for tens of millions of people. Even with the obvious and inevitable positive distribution of the benefits, the implied ethic would appear incomplete and inadequate to the current task. I’m sure something will develop as the dial moves more and more for the better integration of international systems with more equitable distribution of the necessities of life, often connected to the human rights contexts.
There’s a lot of futurologist this, futurism that, and so on, linked up with associations, alliances organizations, and the like. But if we take a serious sober look at them, what do we have? A lot of the same people mutually plugging one another as if the vanguard of humanity. Says who? Why them, of course, the changes should be decided by the people, from the bottom up, as in democratic mass activism as we see over the murder of George Floyd and others. This creates real, sustainable change. Also, it creates a more well-rounded future, not simply the well-off, well-educated, and blinded by privilege. What do you mean, privilege? I mean certain things are given while others never have them. Some basic access points for opportunities are available while others aren’t. Some “privilege” discourse is carping, fine. But that’s small peas to the larger philosophical points and sociological imports. Anyhow…
Now, Paragraph 147 (h) looks to the international norms to create a basis for “equal access and equal treatment” of women and men who are looking for identification as refugees to acquire asylum. As has been noted in earlier articles, the focus on the principle of non-refoulement is an important contribution to the refugee and displaced persons categories. It states: “guarantees that no one should be returned to a country where they would face torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment and other irreparable harm.” This is from the OHCHR or the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner.
It’s a fairly straightforward stipulation of a right to maintain one’s status and placement with the national immigration policies of a country. If a Member State’s national immigration policy does not align with the principle of non-refoulement, then it is in violation of a standard principle in the international community and failing in upholding the aspirational standards of the global community of nations, Member States.
Many of the refugees of the world without a place in a society can be persecuted in a number of ways, where the Beijing Declaration lists the relevant documents to substantiate this claim here. But these echo many of the sentiments and the issues over the last while, including sexual violence and gender-related persecution – again as a global consideration with differentials depending on the region.
Some of the proposed solutions for this include “specially trained officers, including female officers, to interview women regarding sensitive or painful experiences, such as sexual assault.” This seems like wise advice. In that, definitely, many women may not subject themselves to treatment by men across from them who could be seen as “the enemy” if substantiated claims of sexual assault, rape, or other forms of gender-based violence.
–(Updated 2020-03-07, only use the updated listing, please) Not all nations, organizations, societies, or individuals accept the proposals of the United Nations; one can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights, and the important days and campaigns devoted to the rights of women and girls too:Documents
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Some general declarations (not individual Declaration or set of them but announcement) included the UN Decade for Women (1976-1985).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979) and the Optional Protocol (1999).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the optional protocol (1993).
- Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), Five-year review of progress (2000), 10-year review in 2005, the 15-year review in 2010, and the 20-year review in 2015.
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), and the UN Security Council additional resolutions on women, peace and security: 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013), 2242 (2015), and 2467 (2019).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
- UN Women’s strategic plan, 2018–2021
Strategic Aims
- 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, emphasis on the entirety of the goals with a strong focus on Goal 5
- 2015 agenda with 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (169 targets for the end to poverty, combatting inequalities, and so on, by 2030). The SDGs were preceded by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) from 2000 to 2015.
- The Spotlight Initiative as another important piece of work, as a joint venture between the European Union and the United Nations.
Celebratory Days
- February 6, International Day of Zero Tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation is observed.
- February 11, International Day of Women and Girls in Science is observed.
- June 19, Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict is observed.
- June 23, is International Widows’ Day is observed.
- October 11, International Day of the Girl Child is observed.
- October 15, International Day of Rural Women is observed.
- November 25, International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women is observed.
Guidelines and Campaigns
- Gender Inclusive Guidelines, Toolbox, & United Nations System-wide Strategy on Gender Parity.
- Say No, UNiTE, UNiTE to End Violence against Women, Orange the World: #HearMeToo (2018), and the 16 days of activism.
Women and Men Women’s Rights Campaigners
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
Share this:
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/03/14
Strategic objective E.5.
Provide protection, assistance and training to refugee women, other displaced women in need of international protection and internally displaced women
Actions to be taken
147. By Governments, intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations and other institutions involved in providing protection, assistance and training to refugee women, other displaced women in need of international protection and internally displaced women, including the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the World Food Programme, as appropriate:
i. Support and promote efforts by States towards the development of criteria and guidelines on responses to persecution specifically aimed at women, by sharing information on States’ initiatives to develop such criteria and guidelines and by monitoring to ensure their fair and consistent application;
Beijing Declaration (1995)
When we can see the levels of emphasis on general frameworks for understanding the contexts for women while also keeping in mind the forms of the limits in the presentations in the documents, some of the more interesting and useful presentations are the scales of the consideration for some of the most vulnerable members of the society.
For example, when we take a sincere look at the women who have been negatively impacted by wars, they are mostly civilians; civilians tend to be the most affected by wars, or about half if we take a closer and more detailed look at the studies available to us. Nonetheless, the focus on internally displaced peoples, including internally displaced women; we come to a more comprehensive presentation of individuals affected by war and a central focus of the documents devoted to women’s rights.
As this particular section devotes itself to the global scale of examination, with some national emphasis through governments and non-governmental organizations, the issue should be a larger focus on non-combatants if in an ideal context, but this is too broad and not the focus of this particular series.
As we can see here, the training of refugee women and displaced women, in general, are framed in the discourse of “international protection.” This seems precisely right. In this sense, if in a context of the world with far more precarious circumstance, while having fewer resources and more probability to be a victim in the case of armed conflict, any form of training or knowledge for the protection of oneself and others like oneself can not only become a necessity but an important mark of the improvement in the civilizing effects upon the society.
The kinds of supports emphasized here, as is important but often the case, is the development of “criteria and guidelines on responses to persecution” with a focus on the aforementioned protection. As has been stipulated in prior articles on this form of development of ethical frames to guide the moving forward of the documentation of women’s rights, these can provide metrics to see how this progress over time, to examine the “fair and consistent application” of things.
–(Updated 2020-03-07, only use the updated listing, please) Not all nations, organizations, societies, or individuals accept the proposals of the United Nations; one can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights, and the important days and campaigns devoted to the rights of women and girls too:Documents
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Some general declarations (not individual Declaration or set of them but announcement) included the UN Decade for Women (1976-1985).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979) and the Optional Protocol (1999).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the optional protocol (1993).
- Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), Five-year review of progress (2000), 10-year review in 2005, the 15-year review in 2010, and the 20-year review in 2015.
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), and the UN Security Council additional resolutions on women, peace and security: 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013), 2242 (2015), and 2467 (2019).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
- UN Women’s strategic plan, 2018–2021
Strategic Aims
- 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, emphasis on the entirety of the goals with a strong focus on Goal 5
- 2015 agenda with 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (169 targets for the end to poverty, combatting inequalities, and so on, by 2030). The SDGs were preceded by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) from 2000 to 2015.
- The Spotlight Initiative as another important piece of work, as a joint venture between the European Union and the United Nations.
Celebratory Days
- February 6, International Day of Zero Tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation is observed.
- February 11, International Day of Women and Girls in Science is observed.
- June 19, Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict is observed.
- June 23, is International Widows’ Day is observed.
- October 11, International Day of the Girl Child is observed.
- October 15, International Day of Rural Women is observed.
- November 25, International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women is observed.
Guidelines and Campaigns
- Gender Inclusive Guidelines, Toolbox, & United Nations System-wide Strategy on Gender Parity.
- Say No, UNiTE, UNiTE to End Violence against Women, Orange the World: #HearMeToo (2018), and the 16 days of activism.
Women and Men Women’s Rights Campaigners
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
Share this:
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/03/13
Strategic objective E.5.
Provide protection, assistance and training to refugee women, other displaced women in need of international protection and internally displaced women
Actions to be taken
147. By Governments, intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations and other institutions involved in providing protection, assistance and training to refugee women, other displaced women in need of international protection and internally displaced women, including the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the World Food Programme, as appropriate:
g. Facilitate the availability of educational materials in the appropriate language – in emergency situations also – in order to minimize disruption of schooling among refugee and displaced children;
Beijing Declaration (1995)
In this section of the Beijing Declaration, we can note the requirements within education, for Paragraph 147 section (g). Among those women and children who have been displaced, internally or externally (refugees), the main issue is the lack of educational resources in war zones or in fleeing from them. The expulsion from the internal society or to beyond the boundaries of the Member State creates some obvious issues for the refugees and the internally displaced persons.
One of which is the lack of access to standard services of the society. These can be medical and other institutional supports. Insofar as the education of the young and the old, education is crucial at young ages. Many children who are displaced for reasons of war or rejection by society can lose out on core educational time. This time can be hard to catch up.
In the cases of months, even years, of lost educational time, based on being a refugee or an internally displaced person, or having no particular formal educational resources, some children may never catch the lost time of education. They will be bereft of education based on a lack of resources and instability in their local environment.
When (g) states the facilitation of access to the educational materials, the focus is production and delivery, probably, to those most affected. Children may not have the appropriate language background based on speaking the tongue of the parents, but now living in another country as a persona non grata. The United Nations isn’t always the most spectacular at the implementation of its programs.
One of those being educational provisions for the Rohingya. If we look at the reportage by Human Rights Watch, it, in “Are We Not Human?” Denial of Education for Rohingya Refugee Children in Bangladesh,” states:
The Bangladesh government’s insistence that the refugees will return to Myanmar has led it to prohibit humanitarian groups from constructing permanent, brick-and-mortar school buildings in the refugee camps. Barred from opening schools, NGOs have since 2017 constructed about 3,000 “learning centers”: small, temporary bamboo structures that can accommodate up to 40 children at a time. Many learning centers “have rotted already and need to be replaced, since the little worms have been doing their work on the bamboo,” as a humanitarian official noted.
Because the lack of space in the crowded camps limits the number of learning centers that can be built, most learning centers operate three daily “shifts,” of just two hours each, in order to reach a larger number of children. Designs for sturdier, two-story bamboo structures, which could accommodate more students using the same amount of land, had not yet been piloted when the 2019 monsoon season began. As of August 2019, only about 1,600 out of 3,000 learning centers had bathrooms or potable water nearby; none that Human Rights Watch visited had electricity, desks or chairs.
The majority of the children in the ‘learning centers’ are 11 years old or under with barely 4 % above the age of 14. Here, we come to the dilemma of the entirely innocent treated as non-persons. In “UN, NGOs accused of bungling effort to educate Rohingya children,” Clare Hammond & Victoria Milko argue on the bungling of the effort to educate the Rohingya children.
This is catastrophic for thousands and thousands of children. I merely ask, “Do we have a responsibility to children?” Those who are brought into the world when their world is completely turned upside down. Who are we to turn them away, for one? Also, for two, who are we to deny them the basic rights afforded to others seen in the neighbouring countries or, at a minimum, connected the infrastructure, the system supports, of the wider society?
Hammond and Milko reported:
Under UN guidelines, refugee children are supposed to be taught either the curriculum of their host country or that of their homeland.
In the Rohingya’s case, the Myanmar government refused to allow its curriculum to be used and in October 2017, two months after a brutal military crackdown had driven hundreds of thousands of majority-Muslim Rohingya from Myanmar into Bangladesh, officials in Dhaka banned the use of its curriculum for the newly-arrived refugee children.
A bespoke curriculum, which has only been partly approved by Bangladesh, was supposed to provide a temporary solution while the UN and its partners worked to convince either the Bangladesh or Myanmar governments to allow their curricula to be used by schools in the camps.
But interviews by Al Jazeera, suggest that for 18 months until May this year, there was limited effort to convince the Myanmar government to allow the use of its curriculum to educate the refugee children, now thought to number about 461,000.
It is a failing situation for hundreds of thousands of children who may enter in an informal categorization mentioned in statements before. Something like lost youth without a place in society and without hope for one because of the inability to regain so much lost educational time. Many will not have a future. They won’t; and, they can’t, through no fault of their own.
In emergency situations such as these, the assistance to children becomes integral for the movement of the dials of justice forward and to provide fundamental human rights to those who deserve them most, children.
–(Updated 2020-03-07, only use the updated listing, please) Not all nations, organizations, societies, or individuals accept the proposals of the United Nations; one can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights, and the important days and campaigns devoted to the rights of women and girls too:Documents
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Some general declarations (not individual Declaration or set of them but announcement) included the UN Decade for Women (1976-1985).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979) and the Optional Protocol (1999).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the optional protocol (1993).
- Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), Five-year review of progress (2000), 10-year review in 2005, the 15-year review in 2010, and the 20-year review in 2015.
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), and the UN Security Council additional resolutions on women, peace and security: 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013), 2242 (2015), and 2467 (2019).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
- UN Women’s strategic plan, 2018–2021
Strategic Aims
- 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, emphasis on the entirety of the goals with a strong focus on Goal 5
- 2015 agenda with 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (169 targets for the end to poverty, combatting inequalities, and so on, by 2030). The SDGs were preceded by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) from 2000 to 2015.
- The Spotlight Initiative as another important piece of work, as a joint venture between the European Union and the United Nations.
Celebratory Days
- February 6, International Day of Zero Tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation is observed.
- February 11, International Day of Women and Girls in Science is observed.
- June 19, Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict is observed.
- June 23, is International Widows’ Day is observed.
- October 11, International Day of the Girl Child is observed.
- October 15, International Day of Rural Women is observed.
- November 25, International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women is observed.
Guidelines and Campaigns
- Gender Inclusive Guidelines, Toolbox, & United Nations System-wide Strategy on Gender Parity.
- Say No, UNiTE, UNiTE to End Violence against Women, Orange the World: #HearMeToo (2018), and the 16 days of activism.
Women and Men Women’s Rights Campaigners
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
Share this:
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/03/11
Strategic objective E.5.
Provide protection, assistance and training to refugee women, other displaced women in need of international protection and internally displaced women
Actions to be taken
147. By Governments, intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations and other institutions involved in providing protection, assistance and training to refugee women, other displaced women in need of international protection and internally displaced women, including the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the World Food Programme, as appropriate:
f. Ensure that the international community and its international organizations provide financial and other resources for emergency relief and other longer-term assistance that takes into account the specific needs, resources and potentials of refugee women, other displaced women in need of international protection and internally displaced women; in the provision of protection and assistance, take all appropriate measures to eliminate discrimination against women and girls in order to ensure equal access to appropriate and adequate food, water and shelter, education, and social and health services, including reproductive health care and maternity care and services to combat tropical diseases;
Beijing Declaration (1995)
Paragraph (f) of the Beijing Declaration works on the resources for relief. Important to have, probably, in the back of the mind when going through some of these documents and some of the commentaries, in general terms, the enterprise of the Beijing Declaration is international in geographical scope and long-term in time. It is intended as a serious and comprehensive document for fulsome conversations at the national, regional, and international levels while convened and planned with an international emphasis.
When examining some of the aspects of the document around the support structures, often, as you already surmised, these projects can be extraordinarily expensive and onerous. If we take the largest economy in the world under President Trump, then we can see the global humanitarian aid upwards of $50 billion (USD) or a little over 1% of the federal budget of the United States.
The focus is short-term, in the cases of “emergency relief,” to long-term, in the case of “longer-term assistance” for this section (f). Refugee women and other displaced women will require more resources than others because of being caught in various systems of precarity. While the focus may be on the international scale, and much of the focus sticks to the general idea of the rights of women under the rubric of human rights, where attempts to differentiate or dichotomize human rights and women’s rights would lead the standard historical and dangerous situation in which women’s rights are seen as secondary and simply move the dial towards women as a non-human category insofar as rights are concerned, this global focus on women’s rights within the bloc of human rights sets a standard.
The standard of women as human being deserving of rights and then utilizing this framework to consider specialized issues and concerns in the international scene relevant to the rights of women. When section (f) of Paragraph 147 states:
Ensure that the international community and its international organizations provide financial and other resources for emergency relief and other longer-term assistance that takes into account the specific needs, resources and potentials of refugee women, other displaced women in need of international protection and internally displaced women;
It speaks to this emphasis on the rights of women. How can the international community come together to support women? How can international organizations help with the support of women’s rights in a similar manner? One is simply an ethic and a principled effort of global cooperation in the manner described in earlier pieces. What the “specific needs,” or “resources,” or “potentials” amount to, these will depend on the contexts for the refugee women.
The aim is equality of treatment and provisions. However, as a pragmatist in a number of ways, this seems more like an impossibility than a possibility, but the relative equality, certainly, seems reasonable for the provisions of generic “specific needs” or “resources,” for the “potentials” of refugee women. Nonetheless, all of this comes at the consideration of the international protection of internally displaced and refugee women.
Finally, section (f) closes with some more specific considerations after the semicolon:
in the provision of protection and assistance, take all appropriate measures to eliminate discrimination against women and girls in order to ensure equal access to appropriate and adequate food, water and shelter, education, and social and health services, including reproductive health care and maternity care and services to combat tropical diseases;
Therein, we can find some of the issues of discrimination against women and girls in these contexts. One need merely look at the environments for the homeless men, the single mothers, the intellectually incapable students or the highly gifted-and-talented students without special provisions, and others, to see how stigma extended into discrimination can have lifelong impacts for the negative in a variety of contexts. Some even comprehensive.
These issues for internally displaced or refugee women amount to some of the most lethal issues facing people. Take, for example, the 21 million women and girls without places to live at this time, who fit into these refugee categories. One vulnerability of being a human being is violence from other human beings. Men subject to more psychological violence against them by women; women more subject to physical violence and sexual violence against them by men.
According to the World Health Organisation (W.H.O.), in “Violence against women,” the Key Facts include:
-Global estimates published by WHO indicate that about 1 in 3 (35%) of women worldwide have experienced either physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence or non-partner sexual violence in their lifetime.
-Most of this violence is intimate partner violence. Worldwide, almost one third (30%) of women who have been in a relationship report that they have experienced some form of physical and/or sexual violence by their intimate partner in their lifetime.
-Globally, as many as 38% of murders of women are committed by a male intimate partner.
-Violence can negatively affect women’s physical, mental, sexual, and reproductive health, and may increase the risk of acquiring HIV in some settings.
-…Women are more likely to experience intimate partner violence if they have low education, exposure to mothers being abused by a partner, abuse during childhood, -and attitudes accepting violence, male privilege, and women’s subordinate status.
-There is evidence that advocacy and empowerment counselling interventions, as well as home visitation are promising in preventing or reducing intimate partner violence against women.
-Situations of conflict, post conflict and displacement may exacerbate existing violence, such as by intimate partners, as well as and non-partner sexual violence, and may also lead to new forms of violence against women.
The situations of conflict should be the main focus here with the cases of refugee and internally displaced women and girls. When they speak in these general terms within the document, a focus is the heuristics and general mechanisms of support. Here, only modest research provides more detailed information as to what that will look like in more concrete terms.
The protection of the women from the issues of the displacement and the ensuing violence is one part of solving the problems. Another is a mitigation of the consequences, as per the W.H.O. statements, about the provision of “advocacy and empowerment counselling interventions,” and dealing with some of the “post conflict” issues of displacement and vulnerability to violence by intimate partners.
Other provisions include “food, water and shelter, education [Ed. mentioned in earlier materials], and social and health services, including reproductive health care and maternity care and services to combat tropical diseases.” Different regions of the world will have differing needs for women in these contexts. In that, there are some who are facing issues of tropical diseases, while others face water shortages, or others, as the Rohingya children in the hundreds of thousands, miss out of crucial education time and lack educational materials and, thus, many will not have a future in the light of the ongoing catastrophe that is their life.
One of the more consequential choices for women in the modern world with the invention of the concept of women’s right and the universalization of rights beyond the ‘divine’ and the kings, or the priest class and the royal bloodlines, is dealing with reproductive healthcare measures, including abortion, contraceptives, comprehensive sexual education, and the freedom, via rights and social custom changes, to make independent choices in reproduction.
Once a child is decided to be brought into the world, however, the free choice extends into a free choice to put the needs of the child over the mothers; otherwise, this would appear as a distinct case of child abuse extrapolated, let alone a poor choice to have a child – simply to have one without sufficient cause. As Star Trek: Picard makes Star Trek much more popular, once more, as a franchise, one may be reminded of the issues between the android, Data, played by Brent Spiner, Jean-Luc Picard, former captain of the starship USS Enterprise, played by Patrick Stewart. The difficult considerations in the creation of a new life and the exasperation of Jean-Luc at Commander Data. At the collective end, infrastructural systems in societies should support women much more than the present too.
No children, no later adults for society, and, thus, women’s free choices, ideally, to have children should be supported as much as possible with the systems in place supporting everyone else in the society; it’s part of a synergistic, packaged deal in rationally enlightened societies. Something like the Informational Golden Rule mentioned earlier. It’s taking the facts of life as the facts of life, and the ideals inherent in many systems of thought, and sussing out the pragmatic cross-sections of workability for them.
Once mothers, maternity care formulates a part of the same issue here. Free choices, independent choices to have children with proper supports should be part of the bargain with providing the next generations of the society, while taking on the risks of pregnancy and giving birth, and the responsibility of putting the expected child’s needs before one’s own.
One can hope for community, partner, family, etc., support for everyone bringing the joy of new life into the world in spite of the difficulties; unfortunately, as you, dear reader, and everyone else, knows, this isn’t quite the case. Now, imagine case for the refugee and internally displaced women in similar cases of need, they will be vulnerable, potentially desperate, while striving for some semblance of a civilized and comfortable life for themselves, their child or children, and potentially expected one.
These are the contexts intended as extensions of the general statements of the Beijing Declaration.
–(Updated 2020-03-07, only use the updated listing, please) Not all nations, organizations, societies, or individuals accept the proposals of the United Nations; one can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights, and the important days and campaigns devoted to the rights of women and girls too:Documents
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Some general declarations (not individual Declaration or set of them but announcement) included the UN Decade for Women (1976-1985).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979) and the Optional Protocol (1999).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the optional protocol (1993).
- Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), Five-year review of progress (2000), 10-year review in 2005, the 15-year review in 2010, and the 20-year review in 2015.
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), and the UN Security Council additional resolutions on women, peace and security: 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013), 2242 (2015), and 2467 (2019).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
- UN Women’s strategic plan, 2018–2021
Strategic Aims
- 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, emphasis on the entirety of the goals with a strong focus on Goal 5
- 2015 agenda with 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (169 targets for the end to poverty, combatting inequalities, and so on, by 2030). The SDGs were preceded by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) from 2000 to 2015.
- The Spotlight Initiative as another important piece of work, as a joint venture between the European Union and the United Nations.
Celebratory Days
- February 6, International Day of Zero Tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation is observed.
- February 11, International Day of Women and Girls in Science is observed.
- June 19, Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict is observed.
- June 23, is International Widows’ Day is observed.
- October 11, International Day of the Girl Child is observed.
- October 15, International Day of Rural Women is observed.
- November 25, International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women is observed.
Guidelines and Campaigns
- Gender Inclusive Guidelines, Toolbox, & United Nations System-wide Strategy on Gender Parity.
- Say No, UNiTE, UNiTE to End Violence against Women, Orange the World: #HearMeToo (2018), and the 16 days of activism.
Women and Men Women’s Rights Campaigners
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
Share this:
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/03/09
Strategic objective E.5.
Provide protection, assistance and training to refugee women, other displaced women in need of international protection and internally displaced women
Actions to be taken
147. By Governments, intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations and other institutions involved in providing protection, assistance and training to refugee women, other displaced women in need of international protection and internally displaced women, including the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the World Food Programme, as appropriate:
e. Take measures, at the national level with international cooperation, as appropriate, in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations, to find lasting solutions to questions related to internally displaced women, including their right to voluntary and safe return to their home of origin;
Beijing Declaration (1995)
Beijing Declaration’s Paragraph 147 section (e) works on some measures at the national level. All in alignment with the Charter of the United Nations. The UN Charter deals with 111 articles for four basic functions set for the United Nations. It deals with the maintenance of world peace and security – think UN Security Council, the developing of relations between and amongst nations – think globalization and internationalism/globalism, the fostering of cooperation between nations for solving international problems – think ECOSOC and the General Assembly.
In every case, we come to the issues of the humanitarian emphasis, the Golden Rule – or probably something like an Informational Golden Rule into the future with more artificial awarenesses or consciousnesses coming online, and the development of the newer systems of global integration, especially with so many democracies extant in the world now.
The ancient Greek system of governance won out; we live in the world built by their dead legacy, even the modern Greeks do too, obviously. So, the democratic systems of governance exist in most nations to one degree or another, meaning women’s rights supporters can work on common initiatives through selection of candidates who statistically lean more in favour of women’s rights than not, and with the most consequential day, each election cycle, being the day of vote.
This particular section, (e), works on the basis of some common considerations laid out before on safety, voluntary return, and the focus on those who are refugees or internally displaced women. There are approximately 21 million women who are identified as internally displaced people (women and girls). Those are vulnerable for a wide variety of reasons, and to a wide variety of calamities.
The safe and voluntary return home means a choice in whether one stays or goes – as with that famous song line – and, if it happens, in a safe manner. There may be other contingencies preventing this from happening in the first place. However, you never know. The ideals are there, and even as idealistic people and groups fail, then the effort, at least, is present.
–(Updated 2020-03-07, only use the updated listing, please) Not all nations, organizations, societies, or individuals accept the proposals of the United Nations; one can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights, and the important days and campaigns devoted to the rights of women and girls too:Documents
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Some general declarations (not individual Declaration or set of them but announcement) included the UN Decade for Women (1976-1985).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979) and the Optional Protocol (1999).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the optional protocol (1993).
- Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), Five-year review of progress (2000), 10-year review in 2005, the 15-year review in 2010, and the 20-year review in 2015.
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), and the UN Security Council additional resolutions on women, peace and security: 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013), 2242 (2015), and 2467 (2019).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
- UN Women’s strategic plan, 2018–2021
Strategic Aims
- 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, emphasis on the entirety of the goals with a strong focus on Goal 5
- 2015 agenda with 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (169 targets for the end to poverty, combatting inequalities, and so on, by 2030). The SDGs were preceded by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) from 2000 to 2015.
- The Spotlight Initiative as another important piece of work, as a joint venture between the European Union and the United Nations.
Celebratory Days
- February 6, International Day of Zero Tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation is observed.
- February 11, International Day of Women and Girls in Science is observed.
- June 19, Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict is observed.
- June 23, is International Widows’ Day is observed.
- October 11, International Day of the Girl Child is observed.
- October 15, International Day of Rural Women is observed.
- November 25, International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women is observed.
Guidelines and Campaigns
- Gender Inclusive Guidelines, Toolbox, & United Nations System-wide Strategy on Gender Parity.
- Say No, UNiTE, UNiTE to End Violence against Women, Orange the World: #HearMeToo (2018), and the 16 days of activism.
Women and Men Women’s Rights Campaigners
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
Share this:
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/03/08
Strategic objective E.5.
Provide protection, assistance and training to refugee women, other displaced women in need of international protection and internally displaced women
Actions to be taken
147. By Governments, intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations and other institutions involved in providing protection, assistance and training to refugee women, other displaced women in need of international protection and internally displaced women, including the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the World Food Programme, as appropriate:
c. Take steps to protect the safety and physical integrity of refugee women, other displaced women in need of international protection and internally displaced women during their displacement and upon their return to their communities of origin, including programmes of rehabilitation; take effective measures to protect from violence women who are refugees or displaced; hold an impartial and thorough investigation of any such violations and bring those responsible to justice;
d. While fully respecting and strictly observing the principle of non-refoulement of refugees, take all the necessary steps to ensure the right of refugee and displaced women to return voluntarily to their place of origin in safety and with dignity, and their right to protection after their return;
Beijing Declaration (1995)
In paragraph 147 sections (c) and (d) of the Beijing Declaration, we’re dealing with core issues of wellbeing, physical wellbeing. Here, it talks about the “safety and physical integrity of refugee women, other displaced women.” In that, safety simply means a place away from harm and in some reasonable comfort, where danger does not necessarily lurk, immediately, around the corner. The physical integrity, for women, can take, as described in some parts a while back, three main forms: sexual violence, physical violence, and less obviously psychological (including emotional) violence.
In these forms of violence, we come to the ways in which violence imposed disproportionately on innocent actors in physical ways comes towards women. Those women without the proper protections of ordinary citizens can explain the contexts for many women around the world coming to us as refugees or displaced women. Reminding, the women who are refugees are displaced outside of the country; women who are displaced are simply outside of the boundaries of the society while within the bounded geography of the society.
These are the contexts for millions of people and millions of women. This is life; this is part of the frays in the global culture developed by and for us. We can turn inward and reject these people, deny them rights and luck afforded to us, or do something, how ever small, in support and for them, as fellow human beings. Are we connected or not? Do the bees in the hive work together or shun one another for the hive to function?
Interdependency is what makes life work, whether nationalist or internationalist. When some may refer to globalist or nationalist visions of the world, we should define some terms here. The term globalist stems from the idea of globalization, wherein the interaction and integration of a vast swath of the world become the basis for the consideration of a unified idea of life.
In democratic parts of the world, the systems of governance get decided by elected officials given power by the population. The population who, in theory, are the most active at the most crucial times in a democracy, voting period, in the federal vote. National democracies and international democratic movements have been moving the trend line in the history of the world to more positive ends. This seems reasonably clear, as with Pew Research working on this particular research:
As of the end of 2017, 96 out of 167 countries with populations of at least 500,000 (57%) were democracies of some kind, and only 21 (13%) were autocracies. Nearly four dozen other countries – 46, or 28% – exhibited elements of both democracy and autocracy. Broadly speaking, the share of democracies among the world’s governments has been on an upward trend since the mid-1970s, and now sits just shy of its post-World War II record (58% in 2016).
Democracy is functioning better than many other systems of governance seen today, in spite of the changes in some of the international political, economic, and social scene, and the discontents and flaws in the system of democracy in a technocratic era. When we think of nationalists in North America, we think of negatives, as in ethnic nationalist visions of a ‘White America’ or White Nationalism.
If you look at one of the main websites for white nationalists, Stormfront, they state, “We are a community of racial realists and idealists. Black, Hispanic, Asian and Jewish Nationalists openly support their racial interests, with American taxpayers even required to support the Jewish ethnostate of Israel. We are White Nationalists who support true diversity and a homeland for all peoples, including ours. We are the voice of the new, embattled White minority!”
The previous eras of America were more fraught in many ways, especially for black Americans in general and African Americans in particular. Lenny Bruce and others became extremely infamous for their work to talk about the undiscussable. Paul Mooney recalls, “When I was 16 or 17, I saw Lenny Bruce being taken to jail. They took him off stage because he talked about race.”
Certainly, the ‘browning’ of America continues apace based on demographics of the nation. Vox reported on this way back in 2018. A nation built from annexed land of the Mexican peoples, the murders even genocide of the Native Americans, and enslavement of different tribes of Africans forced to come to the Americas (North America) to work for nothing and by the pain of the whip held by a white hand.
With the mass immigration or influx of Europeans into the formation of a mostly European North America, this represents a historical perspective, where the change of the melanin coloration, statistical distribution, of the country marks something akin to further change. Nothing has been very permanent in the last few centuries in North America. Then we come to some more recent enflamed political and social rhetoric around the browning of America, White Nationalism, and a ‘White America.’
These are some of the contexts for a North American mind, in part, on nationalism and globalism. Many white communities in America were nearly economically destroyed by some of the systems proposed to protect and assist them. Of course, they’d be pissed off and distrustful of such a system. They have a right to be, as many Americans do there. An admission of American and pre-American history does not amount to criminal charges against a people, or a sociocultural category; it’s an admission of history.
Globalism, or more clearly inter-nationalism, happens when one country begins to link with another one deeply, as in trade, travel, tourism, ideas, finance, resources, and the like. When this is not present, this can represent one form of strong nationalism because, by definition, internationalism amounts to dealing with others at an international level. A pragmatic form of nationalism may take the form of everyone within the state working together while pragmatic internationalism/globalism means everyone in the world should work together.
One can stratify this in a consistent manner, simply make the individual, the family, the nation, and the international community part of the same general ethic of working together when of, ideally, proportional and even benefit to one another. The international economic situation may be more stable. National economies can infer their national interests in the manner of the international systems and the families – and communities – and individuals can make choices guided by relevant interdependent choices.
Here, Paragraph 147 section (c) deals more with general steps rather than particulars of refugee women and displaced women, stating:
c. Take steps to protect the safety and physical integrity of refugee women, other displaced women in need of international protection and internally displaced women during their displacement and upon their return to their communities of origin, including programmes of rehabilitation;
Trauma occurs with displacement and with the returning to one’s country, as a refugee, or to one’s support structures within the societal systems, as an internally displaced person. The White Swan Foundation describes some of the mental health issues:
The mental health challenges faced by women refugees change over time depending on a few factors – their lived experience, current living conditions, future possibility of relocation or return to their homeland, emotional coping mechanisms and available social support systems.
Acute symptoms in women refugees after they have arrived at a camp can manifest in various forms.
Describing issues including:
-Sleeplessness
-Acute anxiety
-Loss of appetite
-Low mood
-Flashbacks
-Nightmares
-Lack of affect (absence of emotional expression in varying degrees to situations)
-Mutism
These reflect trauma in a psychological sense rather than the physical integrity described at the outset. However, “physical integrity” can mean one’s self-determination as well. When we take a look at the means by which many women who are displaced internally or externally (refugee women), their ability to self-determine. The three forms of violence can be more probable in the case histories of women who are displaced or who are refugees.
At the same time, the ability to begin to have some control and self-determination over their lives becomes another aspect of physical integrity for these women, as they should have, as anyone. The “programmes of rehabilitation” will need to include some of these facets of consideration because of the trauma, the building of a sense of self and direction, and the recovery from the desperation of isolation, i.e., or in short, the reintegration into human societies.
Paragraph or section (c) of Paragraph 147 continues to state:
take effective measures to protect from violence women who are refugees or displaced; hold an impartial and thorough investigation of any such violations and bring those responsible to justice;
How do you acquire justice for women affected by physical, sexual, or psychological violence coming out of the uncertain and dangerous contexts of displacement? One is an impartial and thorough investigation. Okay, but then, how do you do that? It seems like a tall order in a context of precarity open to lying with little ease of tracing because of the basis of refugee or internally displaced status. One may be best to leave this to lawyers, jurors, and judges, or perhaps for exploration, in brief, as this series continues to develop.
In the cases of any “violations,” as in, for instance, the violation of the physical integrity of a woman while an internally displaced person or a refugee. The ability to lay claim to justice, in a formal and recognized and above-board manner, would be a formal investigation and then the bringing to justice the violators of the particular woman or women.
Even with the United Nations, it can commit crimes. As Azad Essa in Al-Jazeera reported:
According to a recent investigation by the Associated Press, between 2004 and 2016, the United Nations received almost 2,000 allegations of sexual exploitation and abuse against its peacekeepers.
The UN says it has a zero tolerance policy on sexual exploitation and abuse, but survivors, activists, lawyers and human rights organisations say such crimes have been allowed to continue with impunity.
Through conversations with UN peacekeepers and officials, gender experts, academics, researchers and activists, as well as through an investigation of UN data, we try to navigate these competing accounts to answer the question: How did some peacekeepers become predators?
Isn’t the United Nations immune to this? Aren’t those claiming the highest ideals and the organizations proclaiming the best of intents supposed to be better? Yes and no, or it depends; in some contexts, they perform far better than so many, and then in other contexts, not so much. When I worked for that aforementioned foundation, they mentioned some of the UN Women stuff simply being in shambles, i.e., in spite of the highest goals and intentions, which include three years of work by me with this particular foundation, and a good person and a decent organization. C’est la vie… or even further: C’est la vie. Et les personnes et les organisations dans la vie peuvent commettre des crimes graves, malgré les idéaux proclamés.
We move forth and work for the betterment, nonetheless, seeking justice in the meantime. The final section of Paragraph 147 section (d) deals more explicitly with the principle of non-refoulement of refugees.” The UNHCR defines the principle of non-refoulement as follows:
Under international human rights law, the principle of non-refoulement guarantees that no one should be returned to a country where they would face torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment and other irreparable harm. This principle applies to all migrants at all times, irrespective of migration status.
Thusly, the refugee women and the displaced women shall not be put in a situation of precarity once more if the principle of non-refoulement is recognized and implemented. It would be countered with a non-existent ‘principle of refoulement,’ which may exist in practice but does not have a formal complement or logical formal complement in a title in the same manner of the principle of non-refoulement.
Indeed, this principle of non-refoulement shall apply “at all times.” We’re all in this boat together folks, best make sure to keep this thing afloat. (d) speaks to the right of choice of women in return based on “voluntarily to their place of origin” stipulated within the Beijing Declaration and in a ‘dignified manner’ or with ‘dignity.’ One can, with some sense, assume with proper procedure, clothes on, and soon, rather than in some degrading and inhumane manner.
–(Updated 2019-08-21, only use the updated listing, please) Not all nations, organizations, societies, or individuals accept the proposals of the United Nations; one can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights, and the important days and campaigns devoted to the rights of women and girls too:
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Some general declarations (not individual Declaration or set of them but announcement) included the UN Decade for Women (1976-1985).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979) and the Optional Protocol (1999).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the optional protocol (1993).
- Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), Five-year review of progress (2000), 10-year review in 2005, the 15-year review in 2010, and the 20-year review in 2015.
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), and the UN Security Council additional resolutions on women, peace and security: 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013), 2242 (2015), and 2467 (2019).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
- UN Women’s strategic plan, 2018–2021
- 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, emphasis on the entirety of the goals with a strong focus on Goal 5
- 2015 agenda with 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (169 targets for the end to poverty, combatting inequalities, and so on, by 2030). The SDGs were preceded by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) from 2000 to 2015.
- The Spotlight Initiative as another important piece of work, as a joint venture between the European Union and the United Nations.
- February 6, International Day of Zero Tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation is observed.
- February 11, International Day of Women and Girls in Science is observed.
- June 19, Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict is observed.
- June 23, is International Widows’ Day is observed.
- October 11, International Day of the Girl Child is observed.
- October 15, International Day of Rural Women is observed.
- November 25, International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women is observed.
- Gender Inclusive Guidelines, Toolbox, & United Nations System-wide Strategy on Gender Parity.
- Say No, UNiTE, UNiTE to End Violence against Women, Orange the World: #HearMeToo (2018), and the 16 days of activism.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/03/05
Strategic objective E.5.
Provide protection, assistance and training to refugee women, other displaced women in need of international protection and internally displaced women
Actions to be taken
147. By Governments, intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations and other institutions involved in providing protection, assistance and training to refugee women, other displaced women in need of international protection and internally displaced women, including the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the World Food Programme, as appropriate:
b. Offer adequate protection and assistance to women and children displaced within their country and find solutions to the root causes of their displacement with a view to preventing it and, when appropriate, facilitate their return or resettlement;
Beijing Declaration (1995)
Paragraph 147 section (b) is an integral one, as many are, for the inclusion of women and children in the support systems and networks of the world. We can see the issues of vulnerability for displaced women. Noted in the last session, the 21 million or more women and girls displaced within the contexts here. OCHA Services (Relief Web) stated, “New estimates published for the first time today reveal that at least 21 million women and girls were uprooted within their countries by conflict and violence by the end of 2018.”
The Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement, according to the UNHCR, described the internationally displaced people as “persons or groups of persons who have been forced or obliged to flee or to leave their homes or places of habitual residence, in particular as a result of or in order to avoid the effects of armed conflict, situations of generalized violence, violations of human rights or natural or human-made disasters, and who have not crossed an internationally recognized border.” Imagine being in this circumstance, life would be precarious, uncertain, desperate, and ill-fated – poor luck of the draw based on the Law of Averages and the consequences of human decisions and human actions writ large, when excluding natural disasters.
The Beijing Declaration, as Alexandra Bijak, described as a document setting a tone for the rights work here. When we look at the internally displaced women and the refugee women, who are cut off from their own Member State’s infrastructural networks for a variety of reasons, the consequences for their lives and livelihoods, and the next generations affected, are devastating. “Adequate protection and assistance” seems vague and a copout to me, but let’s work it.
However, the positive intent assumption is an affirmation of the ways in which women and children in displaced circumstances can acquire some help with the needs of their lives. When displaced in your country, the infrastructure may not support you in full, or at all. And as such, the lack of proper support will disproportionately affect the more vulnerable – the more in need – sectors of societies when cut off.
Those more in need tend to be the women and the children of most societies. As stated by the World Health Organization, “Vulnerability is the degree to which a population, individual or organization is unable to anticipate, cope with, resist and recover from the impacts of disasters. Environmental health in emergencies and disasters: a practical guide” (W.H.O., 2002).
One might question, “But who? Who are these so-called ‘vulnerable people’ found in the world?” Further, “Isn’t this just globalist, internationalist, propaganda to undermine the strong and righteous nation-state?” Good questions, it comes from some standard considerations of vulnerability. One complaint from the Left is mockery and dismissal of the issue; one complaint from the Right is the oversensitivity and polysyllabic academicism of the issue. Both seem right.
The W.H.O. takes the vulnerable, in general terms, to mean children, “pregnant women, elderly people, malnourished people, and people who are ill or immunocompromised.” The idea of the vulnerable in this sense comes in the form of the consideration of those vulnerable to more or greater negative health outcomes based on particular eventualities.
For example, if we look into the cases of natural or human-made disasters, then we can look at the level of disease-burden on this population. The young and the old and the immunocompromised amount to populations less able in times of immune system proper response needs or physical, even mental, demands. Those who are poor will be impacted by poverty, homelessness, poor housing if any housing, and the like, which impacts those with already compromised physical, immune, and mental states even further.
Any “adequate protection and assistance” in this setting for the vulnerable would include these populations of women: young girls, elderly women, and immunocompromised women. If we take the stated number from before, then there are 21 million. It is a large number and of those; a significant number will be disproportionately left from the internal support mechanisms of the society.
Internally displaced people or IDPs are like but not the same as refugees in the sense of being from the country, being in the nation, while not having left the Member State in any sense while being completely disconnected from the support networks and mechanisms, and personnel, found in societies:
IDPs stay within their own country and remain under the protection of its government, even if that government is the reason for their displacement. They often move to areas where it is difficult for us to deliver humanitarian assistance and as a result, these people are among the most vulnerable in the world.
In short, they are in society, but, now, not of it. Even in the cases of assistance or help, they cannot acquire this because of the displacement; humanitarian assistance becomes difficult to get to them, as they can be left in some of the more remote and least desirable parts of society. Not necessarily Chernobyl Ground Zero, but, still, some difficult areas to live and to be part of the regular national areas of support.
When we look at the UNHCR descriptions of the numbers of internally displaced people around the world, the numbers are 41.6 million based on reportage from IDMC or the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre.
At the end of 2018, some 41.3 million people were internally displaced due to armed conflict, generalized violence or human rights violations, according to the rnal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC). The UNHCR, further, states:
UNHCR exists to protect and assist everyone who has been affected by forced displacement, including IDPs. We assume a coordination and operational delivery role in IDP situations to ensure protection is central to our work in order to prevent further displacement. We also provide life-saving assistance and work to identify solutions for displaced communities.
In these IDP contexts, both the Beijing Declaration and the UNHCR consist of different manifestations of a unified vision working on protection, assistance, or both, for the purposes of protecting the IDPs and the Beijing Declaration as a self-limiting form of this, having an emphasis on women more often. Men can be vulnerable, but, more often, in several of these contexts may not be comparable to women and children here. We can consider different environments, for example, with the homelessness problems in North America with the majority of the victims being men in the society, probably much to do with untreated mental illness and callous indifference.
Similarly with IDP contexts in many countries, these large-scale – think “41.3 million” – issues of displacement are going to have many highly vulnerable women and girls – think “21 million.” Paragraph 147 (b) focuses on the prevention of displacement in the first place while also having some consideration for the return of the individuals to the structures and networks of the society, including “resettlement.”
How this may happen can differ from context to context, however, the fact that this is an emphasis and is taking place is what’s important, and necessary, for the protection of the international rights of women.
–(Updated 2019-08-21, only use the updated listing, please) Not all nations, organizations, societies, or individuals accept the proposals of the United Nations; one can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights, and the important days and campaigns devoted to the rights of women and girls too:
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Some general declarations (not individual Declaration or set of them but announcement) included the UN Decade for Women (1976-1985).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979) and the Optional Protocol (1999).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the optional protocol (1993).
- Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), Five-year review of progress (2000), 10-year review in 2005, the 15-year review in 2010, and the 20-year review in 2015.
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), and the UN Security Council additional resolutions on women, peace and security: 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013), 2242 (2015), and 2467 (2019).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
- UN Women’s strategic plan, 2018–2021
- 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, emphasis on the entirety of the goals with a strong focus on Goal 5
- 2015 agenda with 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (169 targets for the end to poverty, combatting inequalities, and so on, by 2030). The SDGs were preceded by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) from 2000 to 2015.
- The Spotlight Initiative as another important piece of work, as a joint venture between the European Union and the United Nations.
- February 6, International Day of Zero Tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation is observed.
- February 11, International Day of Women and Girls in Science is observed.
- June 19, Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict is observed.
- June 23, is International Widows’ Day is observed.
- October 11, International Day of the Girl Child is observed.
- October 15, International Day of Rural Women is observed.
- November 25, International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women is observed.
- Gender Inclusive Guidelines, Toolbox, & United Nations System-wide Strategy on Gender Parity.
- Say No, UNiTE, UNiTE to End Violence against Women, Orange the World: #HearMeToo (2018), and the 16 days of activism.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
Share this:
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/12/02
Strategic objective E.4.
Promote women’s contribution to fostering a culture of peace
Actions to be taken
146. By Governments, international and regional intergovernmental institutions and non-governmental organizations:
c. Develop and disseminate research on the physical, psychological, economic and social effects of armed conflicts on women, particularly young women and girls, with a view to developing policies and programmes to address the consequences of conflicts;
d. Consider establishing educational programmes for girls and boys to foster a culture of peace, focusing on conflict resolution by non-violent means and the promotion of tolerance.
Beijing Declaration (1995)
The Beijing Declaration, in line with the thrust of the United Nations, works towards the complete installation of the principles of the international community orientation towards peace and security around the world with an emphasis on the contexts for women. Here we look at the largest scope for the international community, we have a focus on the spreading of appropriate information on the full gamut of effects on women in the darkness of war.
They remain the majority of the victims in the contexts of war. They are the majority of the civilian casualties, too. Researchers Murthy and Lakshminarayana stated, “Sixty-two percent of respondents reported experiencing at least four trauma events during the previous ten years. Symptoms of depression were found in 67.7% of respondents, symptoms of anxiety in 72.2%, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in 42%. The disabled and women had a poorer mental health status, and there was a significant relationship between mental health status and traumatic events. Coping strategies included religious and spiritual practices.”
War kills. Even though, the ‘killed’ may still be alive and breathing – alive and unwell. War is brutal and gruesome. No heroism necessarily in the acts of puncturing, gouging, blunting, and bludgeoning an enemy with melee and distance weaponry. The physical effects could be death or incapacitation for women. The psychological effects of war on women and men could be the aforementioned.
The social and economic effects could be more traumatic. In that, even after leaving war, they may never reach a state of self-actualization and could lead lives of precarity, of precarious employment and social connects. How does one gain the skills and find the work in the aftermath of war, after the death of loved ones, and so on and so forth?
Here, the facts of war can provide a window into that which is beyond the shadow, past the facade of bravery and adventure with an AK-47 or a combat humvee. The proposed educational programs could be helpful in this. In that, the educational programs could be geared towards a particular population, which would be the girls and boys with an emphasis on peace, cooperation, conflict avoidance or resolution, and the like.
Non-violence and tolerant become the basis for the development of a community sensibility and a sense of a wider world beyond oneself. This is the hope; this is a possibility for lasting peace and an increase in international security. And why not try for it?
—
(Updated 2019-08-21, only use the updated listing, please) Not all nations, organizations, societies, or individuals accept the proposals of the United Nations; one can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights, and the important days and campaigns devoted to the rights of women and girls too:
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Some general declarations (not individual Declaration or set of them but announcement) included the UN Decade for Women (1976-1985).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979) and the Optional Protocol (1999).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the optional protocol (1993).
- Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), Five-year review of progress (2000), 10-year review in 2005, the 15-year review in 2010, and the 20-year review in 2015.
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), and the UN Security Council additional resolutions on women, peace and security: 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013), 2242 (2015), and 2467 (2019).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
- UN Women’s strategic plan, 2018–2021
- 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, emphasis on the entirety of the goals with a strong focus on Goal 5
- 2015 agenda with 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (169 targets for the end to poverty, combatting inequalities, and so on, by 2030). The SDGs were preceded by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) from 2000 to 2015.
- The Spotlight Initiative as another important piece of work, as a joint venture between the European Union and the United Nations.
- February 6, International Day of Zero Tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation is observed.
- February 11, International Day of Women and Girls in Science is observed.
- June 19, Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict is observed.
- June 23, is International Widows’ Day is observed.
- October 11, International Day of the Girl Child is observed.
- October 15, International Day of Rural Women is observed.
- November 25, International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women is observed.
- Gender Inclusive Guidelines, Toolbox, & United Nations System-wide Strategy on Gender Parity.
- Say No, UNiTE, UNiTE to End Violence against Women, Orange the World: #HearMeToo (2018), and the 16 days of activism.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
Share this:
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/12/01
Strategic objective E.4.
Promote women’s contribution to fostering a culture of peace
Actions to be taken
146. By Governments, international and regional intergovernmental institutions and non-governmental organizations:
- Promote peaceful conflict resolution and peace, reconciliation and tolerance through education, training, community actions and youth exchange programmes, in particular for young women;
- Encourage the further development of peace research, involving the participation of women, to examine the impact of armed conflict on women and children and the nature and contribution of women’s participation in national, regional and international peace movements; engage in research and identify innovative mechanisms for containing violence and for conflict resolution for public dissemination and for use by women and men;
Beijing Declaration (1995)
I like this paragraph set. The focus is on the largest possible scopes of the international, regional, and national communities and organizations to work on, mainly, peace. Looking at the core issue here, and as reflected in some depth in one of the more recent articles on the Beijing Declaration, the United Nations was found with the Charter of the United Nations effective on October 24, 1945 with a focus on the need for international peace and security.
This makes sense. No need for the details once more, simply a point of recollection. Thinking about the promotion of resolution and peace, these, obviously, are hand in hand with one another. All training and education and community action geared towards peace with one practical consequence of resolution. It seems a tad like the Montagues versus the Capulets in which two warring factions make peace through finding common ground for a peaceful agreement; a resolution of the conflict.
There could be youth exchange programmes, too, which could form the basis for the next generations learning more about other places in the world and developing a tolerance for one another. The emphasis here, within the paradigm of a focus on women’s issues, is the sending of young women abroad to undergo this, often, lifechanging experience.
The majority of the victims of armed conflict as civilians are women and children, where the proportion of the civilian casualties has been increasing over time. Indeed, some of our base facts about war are the two-fold issue of forcing many men into war or coercing them into it, and then having the majority of the unarmed murdered as women and children.
The “nature and contribution of women’s participation” in the peace movements becomes integral. Long-term activists such as Ralph Nader or Noam Chomsky, or Margaret Atwood or Arundhati Roy, know this. The integral part of women in the peace movements and their longevity. The call here is, in fact, one big research project on the mechanism and gears that make for the resolution of conflict and violence with one key answer found in the representation of women and the public dissemination of this knowledge for popular action for “governments, international and regional intergovernmental institutions and non-governmental organizations.”
—
(Updated 2019-08-21, only use the updated listing, please) Not all nations, organizations, societies, or individuals accept the proposals of the United Nations; one can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights, and the important days and campaigns devoted to the rights of women and girls too:
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Some general declarations (not individual Declaration or set of them but announcement) included the UN Decade for Women (1976-1985).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979) and the Optional Protocol (1999).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the optional protocol (1993).
- Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), Five-year review of progress (2000), 10-year review in 2005, the 15-year review in 2010, and the 20-year review in 2015.
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), and the UN Security Council additional resolutions on women, peace and security: 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013), 2242 (2015), and 2467 (2019).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
- UN Women’s strategic plan, 2018–2021
- 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, emphasis on the entirety of the goals with a strong focus on Goal 5
- 2015 agenda with 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (169 targets for the end to poverty, combatting inequalities, and so on, by 2030). The SDGs were preceded by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) from 2000 to 2015.
- The Spotlight Initiative as another important piece of work, as a joint venture between the European Union and the United Nations.
- February 6, International Day of Zero Tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation is observed.
- February 11, International Day of Women and Girls in Science is observed.
- June 19, Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict is observed.
- June 23, is International Widows’ Day is observed.
- October 11, International Day of the Girl Child is observed.
- October 15, International Day of Rural Women is observed.
- November 25, International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women is observed.
- Gender Inclusive Guidelines, Toolbox, & United Nations System-wide Strategy on Gender Parity.
- Say No, UNiTE, UNiTE to End Violence against Women, Orange the World: #HearMeToo (2018), and the 16 days of activism.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
Share this:
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/11/19
Strategic objective E.2.
Reduce excessive military expenditures and control the availability of armaments
Actions to be taken
145. By Governments and international and regional organizations:
g. Take into account gender-sensitive concerns in developing training programmes for all relevant personnel on international humanitarian law and human rights awareness and recommend such training for those involved in United Nations peace-keeping and humanitarian aid, with a view to preventing violence against women, in particular;
Beijing Declaration (1995)
This particular paragraph deals in short manner with the issues of a gendered perspective on the nature of the problem. The problem of war and its costs on civilian populations who happen to be, more or less, women with the perpetrators of the violence found in the soldiers, who happen to be mostly men. Few armies near gender equality.
In the U.S., women amount to less than a quarter of the Armed Forces. Women comprise only about 15% of the active personnel in the Canadian army. Less developed nations or less rich nations with fewer resources and poorer infrastructure, and worse off liberal cultural institutions, will simply lack these similar numbers. Indeed, the draft in many countries will be for men only.
It is a form of anti-egalitarianism. In the areas of concern stipulated here, the personnel involved in international law and human rights awareness deserve recognition for a number of reasons. The base one is of equal respect for the rights of men and women. Another is the prevention of the severity of violence against women through the reduction in military expenditures.
An increase in awareness about their rights as human beings permits women the ability to say, “No,” to violations of them. A war-time context is one such arena in which this could be the case. Other cases include the ways in which the efforts to maintain and respect peace derive back to the Charter of the United Nations in Article I about the construction for international peace and security.
While also bearing in mind, the core problems faced by women in these contexts come in the form of civilian casualties. As the majority of the armies are men, of poor and minority men – which is a problem itself, and the majority of the civilian casualties are women (and children), it becomes the enduring reality of battle and combat.
The resources for peace-keeping and humanitarian aid can provide a context of greater liveability too. The idea of preventing violence against women requires a consideration of the ways in which women’s rights are violated in the first place. One of those happens to be via the acts of war and the disproportionate impacts of women and children as civilians in the context of war.
Peace-keeping efforts and humanitarian aid to women in the environments around war can be an amelioration created by a military expenditure environment in which near $2 trillion is spent per annum. The central core, as always, and emphasized in the final paragraph, enters into the Beijing Declaration in its entirety with violence against women.
—
(Updated 2019-08-21, only use the updated listing, please) Not all nations, organizations, societies, or individuals accept the proposals of the United Nations; one can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights, and the important days and campaigns devoted to the rights of women and girls too:
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Some general declarations (not individual Declaration or set of them but announcement) included the UN Decade for Women (1976-1985).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979) and the Optional Protocol (1999).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the optional protocol (1993).
- Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), Five-year review of progress (2000), 10-year review in 2005, the 15-year review in 2010, and the 20-year review in 2015.
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), and the UN Security Council additional resolutions on women, peace and security: 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013), 2242 (2015), and 2467 (2019).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
- UN Women’s strategic plan, 2018–2021
- 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, emphasis on the entirety of the goals with a strong focus on Goal 5
- 2015 agenda with 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (169 targets for the end to poverty, combatting inequalities, and so on, by 2030). The SDGs were preceded by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) from 2000 to 2015.
- The Spotlight Initiative as another important piece of work, as a joint venture between the European Union and the United Nations.
- February 6, International Day of Zero Tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation is observed.
- February 11, International Day of Women and Girls in Science is observed.
- June 19, Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict is observed.
- June 23, is International Widows’ Day is observed.
- October 11, International Day of the Girl Child is observed.
- October 15, International Day of Rural Women is observed.
- November 25, International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women is observed.
- Gender Inclusive Guidelines, Toolbox, & United Nations System-wide Strategy on Gender Parity.
- Say No, UNiTE, UNiTE to End Violence against Women, Orange the World: #HearMeToo (2018), and the 16 days of activism.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
Share this:
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/11/18
Strategic objective E.2.
Reduce excessive military expenditures and control the availability of armaments
Actions to be taken
145. By Governments and international and regional organizations:
h. Discourage the adoption of and refrain from any unilateral measure not in accordance with international law and the Charter of the United Nations, that impedes the full achievement of economic and social development by the population of the affected countries, in particular women and children, that hinders their well-being and that creates obstacles to the full enjoyment of their human rights, including the right of everyone to a standard of living adequate for their health and well-being and their right to food, medical care and the necessary social services. This Conference reaffirms that food and medicine must not be used as a tool for political pressure;
i. Take measures in accordance with international law with a view to alleviating the negative impact of economic sanctions on women and children.
Beijing Declaration (1995)
Onward our story continues in this neverending one, and not always on still serious but light by comparison topics of work equity, the narrative of explicit violence against women bound within the context of international arms exports and imports & excessive military expenditures upwards of nearly $2 trillion around the world.
This seems like a staggering achievement of the multi-polar and globalized world seen now. We have a world in which knowledge of the pain and suffering inflicted via war comes in through electronic print and audio-visuals on digital displays. All the while, we sit comfy at the pain and brutality of human beings upon one another. As should be noted, the emphasis at the top of the paragraphs provides a context of the paragraphs below.
Thus, and as a reiteration of points made prior, the focus here remains governments, and regional and international organizations. The Charter of the United Nations became effective October 24, 1945. This document set forth the foundation of the United Nations as an international organization through the Charter as a treaty. This happened in San Francisco, California. United Nations Day is celebrated on October 24 every year henceforth.
Article I of the Charter defines the purposes, and, in some base meanings, defines the targeted objectives and vision of the United Nations:
The Purposes of the United Nations are:
- To maintain international peace and security, and to that end: to take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace, and for the suppression of acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace, and to bring about by peaceful means, and in conformity with the principles of justice and international law, adjustment or settlement of international disputes or situations which might lead to a breach of the peace;
- To develop friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples, and to take other appropriate measures to strengthen universal peace;
- To achieve international co-operation in solving international problems of an economic, social, cultural, or humanitarian character, and in promoting and encouraging respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion; and
- To be a centre for harmonizing the actions of nations in the attainment of these common ends.
The first intentions of the United Nations come in the form of peace and security. Noting, of course, the title or, more properly, term “United Nations” came from the mind of Franklin D. Roosevelt on January 1, 1942. This came forward from 26 nations who wanted to fight against the Axis powers in the Second World War. “Internationa peace and security,” “fight against Axis powers in the Second World War,” “effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats t the peace,” “excessive military expenditures,” and “control the availability of armaments” come in clasped hands.
Nations coming together in the midst of a global conflict tearing apart the rich nations. By 1945, 50 nations came together for the United Nations. The Charter was ratified by “China, France, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, the United States and by a majority of other signatories,” which became the basis of the organization built for international peace and security, friendly relations, international co-operation, and the harmonization of the actions of the Member States of the United Nations. 193 Member States exist under the global democratic aegis of the United Nations now.
Now, the United Nations comes with six main organs entitled the General Assembly, Security Council, Economic and Social Council, Trusteeship Council, International Court of Justice, and the UN Secretariat. The General Assembly remains the core deliberative-representative organ of the United Nations. A unique universal representation of the Member States (nations or countries) within the United Nations.
The Security Council deals with the first Article stipulations about the maintenance and perseverance of international peace and security. It contains 15 members with 5 permanent and 10 non-permanent. As this retains democratic representation, the United Nations Security Council permits one vote per Security Council member (a Member State of the United Nations).
The Economic and Social Council or ECOSOC is the main organ of the United Nations devoted to the coordination, and review and dialogue and recommendation-giving on policies relevant to the economic and social concerns of the international community, whether of the individual Member States, regional geographies, or global issues including anthropogenic climate change.
The Trusteeship Council came with the Charter in Chapter XIII. That which emphasized an 11 Trust Territories under the auspices of seven Member States of the United Nations with insurance for the steps provided for the independence and self-governance of the territories. 1994 was the year in which complete self-government and independence were attained by the Trust Territories:
- Western Samoa
- Tanganyika
- Rwanda-Urundi
- Cameroons under British administration
- Cameroons under French administration
- Togoland under British administration
- Togoland under French administration
- New Guinea
- Nauru
- Strategic Trust Territory/ Trust territory of the Pacific Islands
- Italian Somaliland
Even with this as one of the six core organs of the United Nations, the Trusteeship Council ceased operating on November 1, 1994 in the light of the complete self-governance attained of the Trust Territories, listed above.
The International Court of Justice exists as the main judicial organ of the United Nations. It settles legal disputes of the United Nations in accordance with international law submitted by the Member States and can provide advisory opinions on a variety of legal questions to other United Nations organizations or specialized agencies. These opinions, in theory, hold high sway on the opinions of the international community regarding human rights violations and concerns of the day.
The Secretariat is the Secretary-General and 10s of thousands of international United Nations members of staff who manage and maintain the work and operations of the United Nations. The Secretary-General remains the “chief administrative officer” of the United Nations with the appointment by the General Assembly based on the recommendation of the Security Council in a five-year and, potentially, renewable term. No barriers to the international community should necessarily exist for the appointment of a qualified person into the office of the Secretary-General.
All this formal structure. Every facet of this, probably, the most bureaucratic organization on the face of the planet. Within this, the work, based on the Charter emphasis on international peace and security, of the United Nations since October 24, 1945, as the effective date of the Charter of the United Nations, and December 10, 1945 as the effective date of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights for the principles and ethics of the United Nations right into the present.
1945 has been an integral year for the development of formal international structures for the maintenance of peace and an increase in international security. As the United Nations works, the Beijing Declaration simply reflects the work on the more extreme and particular angle of extreme forms of violence against women, specifically, and with an emphasis on the arms and military expenditures around the world.
If curious about the context in Canadian society, a significant number of organizations exist to provide for the needs of women and for the concerns/issues of women. For example, we can note a listing:
- 60 million girls
- A Celebration of Women™ Foundation Inc.
- A Commitment to Training and Employment for Women (ACTEW)
- Adelaide Hunter Hoodless Homestead Historic Site
- Adsum for Women and Children
- African Women Acting
- After Breast Cancer
- Almas Jiwani Foundation
- Alice Housing
- Amethyst Women’s Addiction Centre
- Anduhyaun Inc.
- ANNISAA Organization of Canada
- Annual Gift Basket Drive
- Antigonish Women’s Resource Centre (AWRC)
- Assaulted Women’s Helpline
- Association for Women’s Rights in Development
- Atira Women’s Resource Society (Local: Vancouver, BC
- Barbra Schlifer Commemorative Clinic
- Battered Women’s Support Services (Vancouver BC)
- BC Centre of Excellence for Women’s Health
- BC Women’s Hospital and Health Centre Foundation
- Beginnings Counselling and Adoption Services of Ontario
- Behavioural Health Foundation
- Blue Mountain Rehabilitation
- Bravestone Centre Inc.
- The Brock Student Sexual Violence Support Centre (A Safer Brock)
- Bryony House
- Calgary Immigrant Women’s Association (CIWA)
- Calgary Women’s Emergency Shelter
- Campbell River Women’s Sexaul Assault Centre
- Camfed Canada
- Canadian Abortion Rights Action League (CARAL)
- Canadian Association for the Advancement of Women and Sport and Physical Activity (CAAWS)
- Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies
- Canadian Association of Sexual Assault Centres
- Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation
- Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation – Prairies and Northwest Territories Chapter
- Canadian Council of Muslim Women
- Canadian Federation of Junior Leagues
- Canadian Federation of University Women
- Canadian Research Institute for the Advancement of Women (CRIAW)
- Canadian Women for Women in Afghanistan
- Canadian Women’s Foundation (CWF)
- Canadian Women’s Health Network
- Canadian Women Voters Congress
- Carleton Place Women’s Business Group
- Cause We Care Foundation
- Centre Victoria pour femmes
- Charlford House Society for Women
- CHOICES Adoption and Counselling Services
- Community MicroSkills Development Centre
- Co-ordinated Access for Child Care
- Creative Alternatives of Montreal
- Dancing Damsels Inc.
- Dawn House
- DigitalEve
- DisAbled Women’s Network of Canada
- DisAbled Women’s Network (DAWN) Ontario
- Discovery House
- Domestic Abuse Services
- Dr. Roz’s Healing Place
- Dress for Success Halifax
- Dress for Success Orillia and Barrie
- Dress for Success Regina
- Dress for Success Toronto
- Dress for Success Vancouver
- Feminist Association for Collaborative Education (FACE)
- Eating Disorders Action Group
- Eating Disorders Awareness Coalition of Waterloo Region
- Elizabeth Bagshaw Women’s Clinic
- Elizabeth Fry Society of Manitoba
- Equal Voice
- Ernestine’s Women’s Shelter
- Family Law Education for Women
- Federated Women’s Institutes of Ontario (FWIO)
- Fem’aide
- FEM International
- FitSpirit
- Fort Garry Women’s Resource Centre
- Forum for Women Entrepreneurs BC
- Gillian’s Place
- Girls Incorporated of Upper Canada (GIUC)
- Girls Rock Camp Mississauga
- Girls Rock Camp Vancouver
- Haven Society
- HOPE International Development Agency
- Hope NOW Family Concepts, Inc.
- House of Sophrosyne Recovery Programs for Women
- Huronia Transition Homes
- Ikwe Safe Rides (Women Helping Women)
- Immigrants Working Centre
- INFACT Canada
- Inspirations Studio
- Interim Place
- Institute for the Advancement of Aboriginal Women
- iSisters Technology Mentoring
- Jean Tweed Centre
- Jewish Women International of Canada (JWIC)
- Julliette’s Place
- Junior League of Edmonton
- Junior League of Toronto
- Kinette Club of Edmonton
- Kingston Crisis Pregnancy Centre
- Lady Cove Women’s Choir
- LEAF – Women’s Legal Education and Action Fund
- West Coast LEAF
- Lean In Canada
- Libra House
- L.I.F.E. Recovery
- Maison d’amitié
- Manitoba Association of Women’s Shelters (Selkirk MB)
- Margaret Frazer House
- The Marguerite Centre
- Marguerite Dixon Transition Society
- Marillac Place
- MATCH International Centre
- METRAC
- Mom God and Me
- Mountain Rose Women’s Shelter Association (MRWSA)
- Na’amat Canada
- National Association of Women and the Law (NAWL)
- Nellie’s
- Newcomer Women’s Services Toronto
- NextLEVEL Leadership
- North York Women’s Shelter
- North York Women’s Centre
- North York Women’s Shelter
- Nukoko
- Oasis Centre des femmes
- Oil City Derby Girls
- Older Women’s Network
- The Olive Branch of Hope
- On-Track Career & Employment Services
- Ontario Women’s Justice Network
- Opportunity for Advancement
- Organization of Women in International Trade (OWIT)
- PARO: A Northwestern Ontario Women’s Community Loan Fund
- Pauktuutit Inuit Women of Canada
- Peace River Regional Women’s Shelter
- Peer Support Services For Abused Women
- Perinatal Mood Disorders Awareness Ltd.
- Petites-Mains
- Promotion Plus
- Prostitution Alternatives Counselling Education (PACE)
- Provincial Association of Transition Houses and Services of Saskatchewan (PATHS)
- Ramoth Life Centre
- Regina Women’s Community Centre
- Réseau des femmes du Sud de l’Ontario
- Rescuing our African Daughters/Secours aux jeunes Africaines (ROAD/SAJA)
- Richmond Women’s Resource Centre
- RoseNet
- Rotholme Women’s and Family Shelter
- Save the Mothers
- Scarborough Women’s Centre
- Servants Anonymous Society of Calgary
- Shelternet for Abused Women
- Sidelines Canada Prenatal Support Network
- Single Mothers in Progress
- Single Women in Motherhood
- Soroptimist International of Grand Erie
- Soroptimist International of Western Canada
- South Fraser Women’s Services Society
- Southwest Crisis Services
- Spectra Community Support Services
- St. Clare Inn
- St. John’s International Women’s Film Festival
- St. John’s Status of Women Council
- Street Haven
- SWAN
- Terra Centre
- Terrace Women’s Resource Centre Society
- That’s Women’s Work Arts Network
- Times Change Women’s Employment Service
- United Nations Platform for Action Committee Manitoba (UNPAC)
- Up With Women
- Vancouver Island Women’s Business Network
- Vancouver Status of Women
- Vancouver Rape Relief & Women’s Shelter
- Verdun Women’s Centre
- Victoria Sexual Assault Centre
- Vermilion/YWCA Skills Training Centre
- Villa Rosa Inc.
- Westminster House Recovery Centre for Women
- Weyburn Oilwomen Association Inc.
- Windsor Life Centre
- Wings of Providence Society
- Wired Woman in Communications and Technology
- WISH Drop-In Centre Society
- Women Against Violence Against Women Rape Crisis Centre (WAVAW)
- Women & Children’s Shelter
- Women and Rural Economic Development
- Women in Leadership Foundation
- Women’s Centre of Calgary
- Women’s House Serving Bruce & Grey
- Women of Excellence Support and Relief Organization (WESRO)
- Women’s Health Clinic (Winnipeg MB)
- Women in Film and Television – Toronto
- Women in Global Science and Technology
- Women of Success
- Women’s Economic Council
- Women’s Habitat
- Women’s Shelter, Saakaate House
- Working Women Community Centre
- Yellow Brick House
- York Region Violence Against Women Coordinating Committee (YRVAWCC)
- Yorktown Family Services
- Young Women in Business Network (YWiB)
- YWCA Canada
All these organizations focused in some direct or indirect manner on women’s rights and women’s issues. The Beijing Declaration joins this noble tradition. Some may be more effective than others; some may be ways for an easy life for the leadership; some may, potentially, skim off the top and take fancy flights for personal comfort, as in any human endeavour in spite of the loftiest ideals; however, for the most part, the effort and intent for the vast majority remains positive and for the improved status of women. I’ve seen the same corruption behind closed doors in student unions; nothing new. It remains about the overall work at some level. Whistleblowers will be, and are, punished, sometimes severely. If a veneer or fundamentalist religion, then, of course, this can add another tribal bigotry to compound the issue altogether.
In this, we come to the improvement in the development of the health and wellness of women in society. This amounts to a concrete manifestation of the rights of women in real life. The impediments to the full economic and social development of countries can be affected by wars because war is costly. Women and children can have hindered well-being, which can shorten lives and reduce the quality of their lives.
The full enjoyment of the rights of women, as women, remains the core of this series with excessive military expenditures and arms availabilities as one of the core issues affecting us, now. The status of women inevitably means the improved material conditions of women in the more destitute circumstances in the world. For example, as the World Economic Forum indicates, Canada and Finland mark the top of the list in terms of the quality of life of the individual citizens:
2. Canada — 89.49.
For such a huge nation, Canada only has 35 million citizens, and they are some of the best looked after in the world. Canada’s healthcare is what stands it above the rest. Education and opportunity in the country are also impressively strong.
1. Finland — 90.09.
Everyone says Scandinavian nations have the highest standard of living, and now Finland has made it official. It scores highly on almost every index on the report, from basic needs, foundations of wellbeing and personal freedoms. If you move there just make sure to bring warm coat — temperatures can reach minus 50 celsius in the winter!
Comparatively, according to The Economist, the bottom of the ranks indicate Haiti, Tanzania, Nigeria, and Zimbabwe as some of the lowest quality of life places to live. The general phrase “Quality of Life” provides a basis for the look at the access and quality of food, education, healthcare, and social services for women in relevant contexts.
At the level of governments, and regional and international organizations, the work is dealing at the level of tens and hundreds of millions of women with different kinds and levels of needs for the improvement in the quality of life. The brutal fact of human cruelty can come from simple negation or withholding from other populations the food and medicine necessary for decent living conditions.
It, akin to sexual violence in rape as a weapon of war, can be a “tool for political pressure.” International law is important here. But in line with the rest of the paragraph, this is preventative and within a larger context of excessive military expenditures and arms availabilities, in 1995 and now.
The deal with the weapons of mass destruction can be associated with this. But we see more immediate and long-term, and ongoing, issues dealing with the privation of women and children from necessary resources for health and wellness. Money used, also, for the arms stockpiles and military R&D of the world could be used for more productive and humanitarian purposes, but aren’t.
That’s on us.
—
(Updated 2019-08-21, only use the updated listing, please) Not all nations, organizations, societies, or individuals accept the proposals of the United Nations; one can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights, and the important days and campaigns devoted to the rights of women and girls too:
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Some general declarations (not individual Declaration or set of them but announcement) included the UN Decade for Women (1976-1985).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979) and the Optional Protocol (1999).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the optional protocol (1993).
- Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), Five-year review of progress (2000), 10-year review in 2005, the 15-year review in 2010, and the 20-year review in 2015.
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), and the UN Security Council additional resolutions on women, peace and security: 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013), 2242 (2015), and 2467 (2019).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
- UN Women’s strategic plan, 2018–2021
- 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, emphasis on the entirety of the goals with a strong focus on Goal 5
- 2015 agenda with 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (169 targets for the end to poverty, combatting inequalities, and so on, by 2030). The SDGs were preceded by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) from 2000 to 2015.
- The Spotlight Initiative as another important piece of work, as a joint venture between the European Union and the United Nations.
- February 6, International Day of Zero Tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation is observed.
- February 11, International Day of Women and Girls in Science is observed.
- June 19, Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict is observed.
- June 23, is International Widows’ Day is observed.
- October 11, International Day of the Girl Child is observed.
- October 15, International Day of Rural Women is observed.
- November 25, International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women is observed.
- Gender Inclusive Guidelines, Toolbox, & United Nations System-wide Strategy on Gender Parity.
- Say No, UNiTE, UNiTE to End Violence against Women, Orange the World: #HearMeToo (2018), and the 16 days of activism.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
Share this:
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/11/17
Strategic objective E.2.
Reduce excessive military expenditures and control the availability of armaments
Actions to be taken
145. By Governments and international and regional organizations:
e. Uphold and reinforce standards set out in international humanitarian law and international human rights instruments to prevent all acts of violence against women in situations of armed and other conflicts; undertake a full investigation of all acts of violence against women committed during war, including rape, in particular systematic rape, forced prostitution and other forms of indecent assault and sexual slavery; prosecute all criminals responsible for war crimes against women and provide full redress to women victims;
f. Call upon the international community to condemn and act against all forms and manifestations of terrorism;
Beijing Declaration (1995)
This is an important part of the paragraph working within the context, once more, of excesses in the expenditures of arms. Those arms needing control through the management of their availability. The excesses of the military. The excesses of the availability reflect two sides of the same coin. With the military expenditures by Member States as a problem inherent in human relations from the origin of the species, probably, and the availability of the armaments, i.e., the modern technological advancement perforce creating the foundational possibilities for mass modern slaughter, these two reflect the willingness to purchase arms for offence and, therefore, necessitating the requisite defence military expenditure at the same time.
If one purchases arms, then other national entities may ‘feel’ the necessity to, and out of pure national and citizen self-interest, fund some of their defence regimes. This is the basis of the entire context for defence and ‘defence’ (offence) budgets. It seems heuristically true; which is to state, that which seems statistically a truism to me, and probably most others. Nations want to bulldoze over others, sometimes, and others want to prevent this.
International humanitarian law and international human rights instruments become the tools of the trade here. The trade of the initiative of the reduction of “excessive military expenditures” and the control of the availability of armaments. As SIPRI or Stockholm International Peace Research Institute notes, the financial or monetary costs of the global arms industry were approximately $1.8 trillion in 2018.
SIPRI further reported:
The five biggest spenders in 2018 were the United States, China, Saudi Arabia, India and France, which together accounted for 60 per cent of global military spending. Military spending by the USA increased for the first time since 2010, while spending by China grew for the 24th consecutive year…
Total global military spending rose for the second consecutive year in 2018, to the highest level since 1988—the first year for which consistent global data is available. World spending is now 76 per cent higher than the post-cold war low in 1998.* World military spending in 2018 represented 2.1 per cent of global gross domestic product (GDP) or $239 per person. ‘In 2018 the USA and China accounted for half of the world’s military spending,’ says Dr Nan Tian, a researcher with the SIPRI Arms and Military Expenditure (AMEX) programme. ‘The higher level of world military expenditure in 2018 is mainly the result of significant increases in spending by these two countries.’
Interestingly, the years of the Obama Administration demonstrated an apparent stoppage or flattening of the exorbitant (read: excessive) military expenditures of the United States followed by a continuation of former policies of military expenditure increases over time. Nonetheless, even in spite of other ‘competitors’ in the field of military expenditures, it seems apparent that the vast expenses into the world’s total military budget comes from the United States as “by far the largest spender in the world” and China.
The United States spent upwards of $649 billion in 2018; whereas, China, even, spent only $250 billion in 2018. With the increases in the per annum budgetary expenses associated with the military, one merely needs to reflect on the continuance of the growth trajectory for the expenses sent towards the militaries of the world. This is the “excessive” the Beijing Declaration talked about way back in 1995 and the world simply did not listen, especially in the cases of the two most prominent military machines.
SIPRI stated, “This was the 24th consecutive year of increase in Chinese military expenditure. Its spending in 2018 was almost 10 times higher than in 1994, and accounted for 14 per cent of world military spending. ‘Growth in Chinese military spending tracks the country’s overall economic growth,’ says Tian. ‘China has allocated 1.9 per cent of its GDP to the military every year since 2013.'”
All this money. All this buildup. All this war. A never-ending continuation of the construction of weapons of murder. For the upholding of international humanitarian law and international human rights instruments, as the mechanisms to bring human rights into the real world contexts of war, this is, often, difficult in war times and simply becomes more difficult with more and more finances funnelled into the coffers of the military – mostly men.
To take part in this increase is to make the work of the INGOs and NGOs, and CSOs, harder. The acts of violence against women in armed and other conflicts presents a serious issue in regards to the full realization of the equal status of women. Women will bear the majority burden of civilian casualties in wars. The calls here are concrete and specifics, which helps.
The Beijing Declaration here calls for full investigations on “all acts of violence against women committed during war, including rape” with further emphasis on “systematic rape, forced prostitution and other forms of indecent assault and sexual slavery.” All forms of brutal and extreme violence perpetuated mostly against women. Male and men victims deserve as much consideration and care as the women.
But as a statistical phenomenon, there’s no question as to the majority of the concern needing to be placed towards women. Even with a reduction in military expenditures, the crimes’ victims can live with these impacts for the rest of their lives, which leaves open the question about the next steps for them. The final calls in these particular points are to the prosecution of the criminals who instigated the war atrocities – probably individually and collectively – against the women. This should come with a “full redress to women victims,” and – I would add – the male or men victims inasmuch as they exist alongside the women in similar circumstances.
With this, the preventative steps come forth with calls for the condemnation of such crimes against civilians in war times and then takes these are gross and blatant forms of terrorism manifested in the form of extreme sexual violence. Is that worth nearly $2 trillion?
—
(Updated 2019-08-21, only use the updated listing, please) Not all nations, organizations, societies, or individuals accept the proposals of the United Nations; one can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights, and the important days and campaigns devoted to the rights of women and girls too:
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Some general declarations (not individual Declaration or set of them but announcement) included the UN Decade for Women (1976-1985).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979) and the Optional Protocol (1999).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the optional protocol (1993).
- Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), Five-year review of progress (2000), 10-year review in 2005, the 15-year review in 2010, and the 20-year review in 2015.
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), and the UN Security Council additional resolutions on women, peace and security: 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013), 2242 (2015), and 2467 (2019).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
- UN Women’s strategic plan, 2018–2021
- 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, emphasis on the entirety of the goals with a strong focus on Goal 5
- 2015 agenda with 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (169 targets for the end to poverty, combatting inequalities, and so on, by 2030). The SDGs were preceded by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) from 2000 to 2015.
- The Spotlight Initiative as another important piece of work, as a joint venture between the European Union and the United Nations.
- February 6, International Day of Zero Tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation is observed.
- February 11, International Day of Women and Girls in Science is observed.
- June 19, Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict is observed.
- June 23, is International Widows’ Day is observed.
- October 11, International Day of the Girl Child is observed.
- October 15, International Day of Rural Women is observed.
- November 25, International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women is observed.
- Gender Inclusive Guidelines, Toolbox, & United Nations System-wide Strategy on Gender Parity.
- Say No, UNiTE, UNiTE to End Violence against Women, Orange the World: #HearMeToo (2018), and the 16 days of activism.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
Share this:
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/11/16
Strategic objective E.2.
Reduce excessive military expenditures and control the availability of armaments
Actions to be taken
145. By Governments and international and regional organizations:
d. Reaffirm that rape in the conduct of armed conflict constitutes a war crime and under certain circumstances it constitutes a crime against humanity and an act of genocide as defined in the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide;/27 take all measures required for the protection of women and children from such acts and strengthen mechanisms to investigate and punish all those responsible and bring the perpetrators to justice;
Beijing Declaration (1995)
When we look at the conditions of the world’s women in a number of contexts, one of the main impediments to equality sources itself in the contexts of the violence. In particular, the forms of extreme physical and sexual violence, e.g., rape. Rape as a weapon of war against women, mostly, for the purposes of combat and, probably, destruction of the morale of the enemy.
An entire suite of problems emerge from this including the violation of the rights of women and girls, consequent births and even forced pregnancies, group or gender-based violence as an implication, base violation of human rights, and further breaches of international law. As former Secretary-General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-Moon, stated, “…the United Nations and I personally are profoundly committed to a zero-tolerance policy against sexual exploitation or abuse by our own personnel. That means zero complacency. When we receive credible allegations, we ensure that they are looked into fully.”
The OHCHR defines rape in the contexts of war as a “weapon of war.” Rape, an extreme form of sexual violence – amongst the most violent – is an extreme weapon of war not leading to the murder of the body, but the destruction of the psyche. How does one lead a dignified and upstanding life with this experience behind oneself? I see no reason to acquiesce, be complacent, or appease in an obsequious manner either individuals with a sole focus on women or on men, or other genders.
Men and women suffer sexual violence in war. Women remain the majority recipients of this form of violence outside and inside of war. The OHCHR stated, “In the resolution, passed 19 June, the Security Council noted that ‘women and girls are particularly targeted by the use of sexual violence, including as a tactic of war to humiliate, dominate, instil fear in, disperse and/or forcibly relocate civilian members of a community or ethnic group.’ The resolution demanded the ‘immediate and complete cessation by all parties to armed conflict of all acts of sexual violence against civilians.'”
The violence perpetrated against women and girls continues – well past 1995 – as a focus on the forms of sexual violence committed in combat as acts of a larger war with women and girls becoming tools for means of battle. The focus here is the generalization of the crime into a “crime against humanity” with, obviously, women as a categorization qualifying in the class of humans, of persons, endowed with inalienable rights.
The next point is an interesting emphasis on genocide. In that, women become the recipients of extreme sexual violence and then the crime against humanity becomes an act of genocide alongside a crime against humanity, and a human rights violations. The implied point being made here, probably, to do with the emphasis on the collective action against women rather than petty criminals and individual rapists who rape individual women and men. Individual crimes rather than crimes of state against collectives or classes of individuals recognized by international law.
The protection of women and children with these definitions could make differences in, statistically speaking, collective actions of violence against women and men in war times through rape. The idea is to “strengthen mechanisms to investigate and punish all those responsible and bring the perpetrators to justice.” Those improved mechanisms could be one of the means by which to reduce the problems inherent in the crimes and the levels of the crimes perpetrated.
For those upon whom threats of criminal justice systems or international law do not hold weight, this, of course, becomes a separate issue in the continuance of the extreme forms of sexual violence seen in cases of rape and sexual assault against women in times of war. And as before, the reduction in the number of arms through the reduction in the military expenditures around the world would provide some contexts in which women may be provided with some protection from the ravages of war as, more often than not, non-combatants.
Also, even if we take the Canadian Armed Forces, we may pretend gender equity or gender equality as the righteous ideal; however, we see both ill-treatment in the forces and poor motivation to enter into them – thus, a dual-issue on the gender equality on the part of institutions and men, and then, also, on the part of women – with the current statistics telling the story.
The $21-billion-dollar national investment of the Canadian Armed Forces brags, “Women have been involved in Canada’s military service and contributed to Canada’s rich military history and heritage for more than 100 years. They have been fully integrated in all occupations and roles for over 20 years, with the exception of serving on submarines which was eventually lifted by the Royal Canadian Navy on March 8, 2000.”
NATO echoes this sentiment of no restrictions:
There are no restrictions on the incorporation of women in the Canadian Armed Forces. There is a military entity that deals with the integration of gender perspectives in the armed forces. The Directorate of Human Rights and Diversity (DHRD) is responsible for ensuring that CAF policies and programmes are implemented in accordance with the Employment Equity Act to achieve the Canadian Armed Forces’ representation goals for women, and to provide a better work environment for all of their members.
No restrictions, a proud heritage, a lifting of barriers, and yet, we see the entirety of the statistics with 15.1% of “all active duty military personnel.” Once more, the rhetoric, as the emperor in this play, has no clothes; it mouthes the words of the ideals of the day. Approbation, approval, and applause follow from this. The increased murder of civilians or non-combatants, by implication, represents the murder or killing of women and children, mostly, and the combatants or hired killers will be, mostly, males as men.
Reductions in military expenditure may reduce the number of men hired or with jobs to maim, disarm, or kill in the case of defence or aggression for the stature and standing of the nation, but the reductions, as well, would result in fewer women and children killed. The international conversations around violence against women will inevitably need to include a gender-based perspective as a consequence.
In a manner of speaking, as we continue high levels of investment in the army, in some perverse interpretations of the data, and the presentation of the rhetoric on official lines, nation-states care more about jobs for men than lives for women.
—
(Updated 2019-08-21, only use the updated listing, please) Not all nations, organizations, societies, or individuals accept the proposals of the United Nations; one can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights, and the important days and campaigns devoted to the rights of women and girls too:
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Some general declarations (not individual Declaration or set of them but announcement) included the UN Decade for Women (1976-1985).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979) and the Optional Protocol (1999).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the optional protocol (1993).
- Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), Five-year review of progress (2000), 10-year review in 2005, the 15-year review in 2010, and the 20-year review in 2015.
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), and the UN Security Council additional resolutions on women, peace and security: 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013), 2242 (2015), and 2467 (2019).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
- UN Women’s strategic plan, 2018–2021
- 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, emphasis on the entirety of the goals with a strong focus on Goal 5
- 2015 agenda with 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (169 targets for the end to poverty, combatting inequalities, and so on, by 2030). The SDGs were preceded by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) from 2000 to 2015.
- The Spotlight Initiative as another important piece of work, as a joint venture between the European Union and the United Nations.
- February 6, International Day of Zero Tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation is observed.
- February 11, International Day of Women and Girls in Science is observed.
- June 19, Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict is observed.
- June 23, is International Widows’ Day is observed.
- October 11, International Day of the Girl Child is observed.
- October 15, International Day of Rural Women is observed.
- November 25, International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women is observed.
- Gender Inclusive Guidelines, Toolbox, & United Nations System-wide Strategy on Gender Parity.
- Say No, UNiTE, UNiTE to End Violence against Women, Orange the World: #HearMeToo (2018), and the 16 days of activism.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
Share this:
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/11/03
Strategic objective E.2.
Reduce excessive military expenditures and control the availability of armaments
Actions to be taken
145. By Governments and international and regional organizations:
- Reaffirm the right of self-determination of all peoples, in particular of peoples under colonial or other forms of alien domination or foreign occupation, and the importance of the effective realization of this right, as enunciated, inter alia, in the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action,/2 adopted by the World Conference on Human Rights;
- Encourage diplomacy, negotiation and peaceful settlement of disputes in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations, in particular Article 2, paragraphs 3 and 4 thereof;
- Urge the identification and condemnation of the systematic practice of rape and other forms of inhuman and degrading treatment of women as a deliberate instrument of war and ethnic cleansing and take steps to ensure that full assistance is provided to the victims of such abuse for their physical and mental rehabilitation;
Beijing Declaration (1995)
Paragraph 145 (a) through (c) focuses on rights and decision-making. Within the previous contexts of the equality of the genders and the reduction in military expenditures around the world, we come to the straightforward notions covered in some of the previous coverage with the need to increase the number of women in the international and national structures of influence, immediately and for the long-term.
This improved representation of women may be unequal in terms of qualifications at the outset, as this has been centuries of a lack pathways for women and, in turn, representation of women (because of the lack of pathways and possibilities permitted for women at large). This is a complicated paragraph in a number of ways, too. The self-determination of peoples is a complex set of entailments from a simple idea.
This idea emerging from the notions of under colonial rule or a form of alien domination. The forms seen in some of the vast expanses of human history with the domination and forced erasure of peoples and cultures in the midst of colonial projects. Initiatives of the empires of history. Some of the more recent found the Europeans with one, at present, seen in the Americans and an emergent secular totalitarianism seen in the People’s Republic of China.
A form of secular fundamentalism and totalitarianism in a number of ways, and a empire to boot. The World Conference on Human Rights was first human rights conference held after the collapse of the Soviet Union leading to the end of the Cold War. The “effective realization” of the human right to self-determination amounts to a secularized universalization of the rights available to us.
In this manner, we can come to some of the more important aspects of the rights movements since the creation of the United Nations, or, even further back, the collapse of the notion of the Divine Rights of Kings. We can see the emphasis within the framework of the reduction of the military expenditures and, thus, the decrease in the number of arms on offer.
This follows directly into the paragraph on the encouragement of diplomacy and for the negotiation for the peaceful settlement of disputes for the improved status of the world peace. Women, as iterated in previous paragraphs of the Beijing Declaration, reflect this deeper well, more precise plumbing, of the source of some conflict or the inability for more robust decision-making trees to be established; those that consider the wider gamut of impact on citizens in a wartime scenario.
That being, the reduced inclusion of women, as the greater recipient of murder and maim as civilians, as non-combatants, as opposed to combatants. This comes with a direct or command based directive in the next paragraph focused on the identification and condemnation of various weapons of war, including, but limited to, rape and sexual assault even forced pregnancy.
Women become both recipients of abuse through war, and via sexual violence, but also through humiliation and degradation of the local population in defense against an aggressor state or actor. The women become a basis upon which to ethnically cleanse the peoples of the society. These victims – women, and sometimes girls – will require short-term, at a minimum, and likely long-term mental health treatment to deal with the consequent issues of being used as tools in war.
A reduction in the arms and military capacity, via a decrease in the military expenditure of a nation-state or actor, may reduce the incentive to act in murderous ways through acts of war and to, also, prevent the possible severity through attenuation of the size or scale of a conflict. A not-so well financed army is a poorer army; a poorer army is one left bereft of significant means to optimize potential harm against civilians, including the majority of them, i.e., women and children.
–(Updated 2019-08-21, only use the updated listing, please) Not all nations, organizations, societies, or individuals accept the proposals of the United Nations; one can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights, and the important days and campaigns devoted to the rights of women and girls too:
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Some general declarations (not individual Declaration or set of them but announcement) included the UN Decade for Women (1976-1985).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979) and the Optional Protocol (1999).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the optional protocol (1993).
- Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), Five-year review of progress (2000), 10-year review in 2005, the 15-year review in 2010, and the 20-year review in 2015.
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), and the UN Security Council additional resolutions on women, peace and security: 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013), 2242 (2015), and 2467 (2019).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
- UN Women’s strategic plan, 2018–2021
- 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, emphasis on the entirety of the goals with a strong focus on Goal 5
- 2015 agenda with 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (169 targets for the end to poverty, combatting inequalities, and so on, by 2030). The SDGs were preceded by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) from 2000 to 2015.
- The Spotlight Initiative as another important piece of work, as a joint venture between the European Union and the United Nations.
- February 6, International Day of Zero Tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation is observed.
- February 11, International Day of Women and Girls in Science is observed.
- June 19, Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict is observed.
- June 23, is International Widows’ Day is observed.
- October 11, International Day of the Girl Child is observed.
- October 15, International Day of Rural Women is observed.
- November 25, International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women is observed.
- Gender Inclusive Guidelines, Toolbox, & United Nations System-wide Strategy on Gender Parity.
- Say No, UNiTE, UNiTE to End Violence against Women, Orange the World: #HearMeToo (2018), and the 16 days of activism.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
Share this:
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/11/02
Strategic objective E.2.
Reduce excessive military expenditures and control the availability of armaments
Actions to be taken
144. By Governments:
- Consider the ratification of or accession to international instruments containing provisions relative to the protection of women and children in armed conflicts, including the Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, of 1949, the Protocols Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 1949 relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts (Protocol I) and to the Protection of Victims of Non-International Armed Conflicts (Protocol II);/24
- Respect fully the norms of international humanitarian law in armed conflicts and take all measures required for the protection of women and children, in particular against rape, forced prostitution and any other form of indecent assault;
- Strengthen the role of women and ensure equal representation of women at all decision-making levels in national and international institutions which may make or influence policy with regard to matters related to peace-keeping, preventive diplomacy and related activities and in all stages of peace mediation and negotiations, taking note of the specific recommendations of the Secretary-General in his strategic plan of action for the improvement of the status of women in the Secretariat (1995-2000) (A/49/587, sect. IV).
Beijing Declaration (1995)
Looking at Paragraph 144 of the Beijing Declaration, one picture remains perfectly consistent with the prior sections, which is the focus on the armaments and the war-time mentality as a problem – and women’s inclusion in the decision-making structures, as some of the prime civilian casualties, as integral to the protection of innocent life.
The first section of the paragraph, (a), focuses on various documents – conventions – of the United Nations with a focus on the protection of civilians during times of war and the Geneva Conventions with the focus on the protection of victims during the international armed conflicts. Same with non-international conflicts. That is to say, in short, the protection of civilian lives during local or global times of warfare, as they’re non-combatants and, therefore, not directly implicated in the war.
For example, if we look at the norms of humanitarian law represented here in regards to the armed conflicts, the protection of women and children is emphasized. In fact, this is important, as increasingly civilians have been killed in armed conflicts. Not only this, the major sufferers on the civilian side are women and children. Thus, the murders or killings happen from mostly combatant men to combatant men to non-combatant women and children in armed conflicts, whether locally or globally.
In addition, there are weapons of war against civilians, including the use of forced prostitution and rape and other forms of “indecent assault.” With the murders of the civilians, obviously, it ends lives. Also, it leads to the traumatization of the leftover civilians who survived, or barely lived through, war times. One may speculate, also, on the manner of change to the mentality of the men who commit atrocities and crimes and violations of international norms.
What becomes of these individuals who may have murdered and maimed and gotten away with it? Only to have the aggressor government permit this for imperial or annexationistic ends, these are some of the issues to keep in mind when considering the issues of combatants and civilians in regards to the Beijing Declaration. It deals with the brutal, the gritty, and the murderous instincts of human beings, trying to figure out what is right and just in the midst of these issues.
Another means by which to ensure the reduction in the problems coming from excess military expenditures and the crimes individual combatants is the improved role as has been oft-repeated – of women in the forces of influence and decision-making, including the better or more equal representation of women in decision-making processes.
Perhaps, this is too idealized. Then another step forward would be the consideration of women as no fewer than 40% of the decision-making processes and men no more than 60%, and vice versa, for thinking several steps ahead in terms of the ideals of gender equality and the realities of any given situation. This setup may provide a context in which the reality and ideality come together in more concrete terms.
A stipulation of equality for men and women in the forces at work here while, in addition, bearing in mind the limitations before, during, and after wartime and then the ways in which this can provide a rule of thumb, a heuristic if you will, for the preservation of the ideality within the context of murder rampages of combatants as aggressors (and defenders).
These contexts of improved relations between genders and the increased equality on grounds of realism can provide a context for a wider range of perspectives for more democratic decision-making trees and, in turn, more perspectives important for peacemaking, as understanding and wide-ranging perspective-taking begets more peace and, thus, more stability for a reduction in war.
–(Updated 2019-08-21, only use the updated listing, please) Not all nations, organizations, societies, or individuals accept the proposals of the United Nations; one can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights, and the important days and campaigns devoted to the rights of women and girls too:
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Some general declarations (not individual Declaration or set of them but announcement) included the UN Decade for Women (1976-1985).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979) and the Optional Protocol (1999).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the optional protocol (1993).
- Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), Five-year review of progress (2000), 10-year review in 2005, the 15-year review in 2010, and the 20-year review in 2015.
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), and the UN Security Council additional resolutions on women, peace and security: 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013), 2242 (2015), and 2467 (2019).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
- UN Women’s strategic plan, 2018–2021
- 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, emphasis on the entirety of the goals with a strong focus on Goal 5
- 2015 agenda with 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (169 targets for the end to poverty, combatting inequalities, and so on, by 2030). The SDGs were preceded by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) from 2000 to 2015.
- The Spotlight Initiative as another important piece of work, as a joint venture between the European Union and the United Nations.
- February 6, International Day of Zero Tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation is observed.
- February 11, International Day of Women and Girls in Science is observed.
- June 19, Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict is observed.
- June 23, is International Widows’ Day is observed.
- October 11, International Day of the Girl Child is observed.
- October 15, International Day of Rural Women is observed.
- November 25, International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women is observed.
- Gender Inclusive Guidelines, Toolbox, & United Nations System-wide Strategy on Gender Parity.
- Say No, UNiTE, UNiTE to End Violence against Women, Orange the World: #HearMeToo (2018), and the 16 days of activism.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
Share this:
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/11/01
Strategic objective E.2.
Reduce excessive military expenditures and control the availability of armaments
Actions to be taken
143. By Governments:
f. Recognizing the leading role that women have played in the peace movement
iii. Pending the entry into force of a comprehensive nuclear-test-ban treaty, exercise the utmost restraint in respect of nuclear testing.
Beijing Declaration (1995)
Now, paragraph 143, obviously, focuses on the importance of women in the peace process and the creation of the documents salient to, if not necessary for, the reduction of nuclear testing throughout the world. In fact, when we see the availability of the armaments with more than 14,000 active nuclear warheads, or, approximately, $2 trillion in military expenditures throughout the world can lead to some thoughts about the issues.
How did we get here? Why so many? Are there more than the estimated amounts in the world? Will these poly-opolies, internationally speaking, provide a basis for the prevention of nuclear catastrophe due to a multinational governance desire to not be vaporized and, literally, cease to exist in any decent form? This seems reasonable, but this may be an unreasonable idea in some other ways.
Sometimes, societies and governments, even semi-democratic, can be suicidal, as with the United States, and others, with a complete lack of understanding of the climate problems facing us or the outright denial of the facts of anthropogenic climate change or human-induced global warming. We don’t truly know at the end of the day because of the issues of human choices behind all of this.
The number of unknowns, probably, leaves us in a global system in which statistical heuristics become the most important basis for decision-making rather than gut, chance, God, or the gun. It becomes a scientific, an empirical question, in other words, where it is an international ethic with the necessity of being informed by science and, thus, ethics as necessarily incorporating science.
As I explored through the Humanist Association of Toronto in Humanism as an Empirical Moral Philosophy, the fundamental ideas of the humanistic ethic comes from an inclusion of science in the full decision-making tree, whether explicit or not, about the proper means by which one should act and think in the world – how one should relate to others, as per the fundamental notion of morality – with the adaptation to the facts of the world to put boundaries on the possible decisions one can make and the depth of precision with which one can make them.
Humanism presents an internationalist perspective on morality. This globalist vision of how human beings integrate with one another sincerely impacts the world of human rights considerations with the equality of women and the improvement of the inclusion of women in the varieties of peacemaking processes. The reduction of the nuclear armaments and the prevention of excess or any nuclear testing is a necessity in 1995 and now.
–(Updated 2019-08-21, only use the updated listing, please) Not all nations, organizations, societies, or individuals accept the proposals of the United Nations; one can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights, and the important days and campaigns devoted to the rights of women and girls too:
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Some general declarations (not individual Declaration or set of them but announcement) included the UN Decade for Women (1976-1985).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979) and the Optional Protocol (1999).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the optional protocol (1993).
- Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), Five-year review of progress (2000), 10-year review in 2005, the 15-year review in 2010, and the 20-year review in 2015.
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), and the UN Security Council additional resolutions on women, peace and security: 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013), 2242 (2015), and 2467 (2019).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
- UN Women’s strategic plan, 2018–2021
- 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, emphasis on the entirety of the goals with a strong focus on Goal 5
- 2015 agenda with 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (169 targets for the end to poverty, combatting inequalities, and so on, by 2030). The SDGs were preceded by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) from 2000 to 2015.
- The Spotlight Initiative as another important piece of work, as a joint venture between the European Union and the United Nations.
- February 6, International Day of Zero Tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation is observed.
- February 11, International Day of Women and Girls in Science is observed.
- June 19, Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict is observed.
- June 23, is International Widows’ Day is observed.
- October 11, International Day of the Girl Child is observed.
- October 15, International Day of Rural Women is observed.
- November 25, International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women is observed.
- Gender Inclusive Guidelines, Toolbox, & United Nations System-wide Strategy on Gender Parity.
- Say No, UNiTE, UNiTE to End Violence against Women, Orange the World: #HearMeToo (2018), and the 16 days of activism.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
Share this:
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/10/30
Strategic objective E.2.
Reduce excessive military expenditures and control the availability of armaments
Actions to be taken
143. By Governments:
f. Recognizing the leading role that women have played in the peace movement
ii. Support negotiations on the conclusion, without delay, of a universal and multilaterally and effectively verifiable comprehensive nuclear-test-ban treaty that contributes to nuclear disarmament and the prevention of the proliferation of nuclear weapons in all its aspects;
Beijing Declaration (1995)
If we take the paragraph 143(f)(i), the format continues in similar trends as before with the focus on the importance of women in the advancement of peace. The reduction of military expenditures and the international and national control of the number of armaments within the world. This, alone, would prevent a large number of costly and unnecessary wars for us.
The main emphasis standing out is the timeline to me. In which, the general work is for the development of a situation in which the inclusion of women leads to a more immediate development of a comprehensive nuclear-test-ban-treat than not. The specifications are not too deep here. However, we can note the ways of this becoming a reality to some degree.
The reduction in military spending in 1995 was an issue. Same with as recent as 2010 with PeaceWomen stipulating the world military expenditures as “$1,630 billion (SIPRI).” [Ed. Probably based on the numbers from Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.] These almost 2 trillion dollars worth of expenditures create misery and havoc and then the further need for arms to prevent the mitigate the harms of the aggressors on the defenders, and vice versa.
It seems hard to characterize any side in a war as necessarily winning in the war because of the massive and catastrophic damage to that which seems difficult to place a dollar value: human life. As has been noted in some of the other casual commentaries in previous sessions, the general orientation of the Beijing Declaration becomes the requirement of the international community for the inclusion of women into the conversation of equality and on some of the – still – most pressing issues of the modern period.
Some consider mythology the most fundamental issues of the day. However, those days continue to retain a certain passe ignorance of the world and of history. It reminds me of the remarks of H.L. Mencken on the “bombast and make-believe” of some men, which may, in fact, come at moments of marginal religious revival. Those in their denouement now.
Some Canadians harbour sentiments to this effect, often leading 18-35-year-old males who happen to have left some sectors of the atheist movement or questioned it. Women’s equality will continue to shake some of the foundational aspects of society, where equality for women will strike some sectors as unfair. Where the ability of women to make choices for themselves will come with predictable backlashes, the danger, in the era of a rise of nuclear proliferation potentials, comes from the reactions in the reduction or efforts to reduce the number of women in leadership.
This is troublesome. Women are some of the most effective moral actors in the world because of the realism placed on them via dashed dreams far earlier than the Big Disappointment experienced by most men much later. With nearly $2 trillion spent on arms around the world in 2010, and probably closer to this approximation now, the necessity of comprehensive treaties for the stoppage of nuclear testing is as high as ever.
With the attempts to prevent women into the public arena, at any stage, we will suffer the consequences at some point.
–(Updated 2019-08-21, only use the updated listing, please) Not all nations, organizations, societies, or individuals accept the proposals of the United Nations; one can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights, and the important days and campaigns devoted to the rights of women and girls too:
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Some general declarations (not individual Declaration or set of them but announcement) included the UN Decade for Women (1976-1985).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979) and the Optional Protocol (1999).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the optional protocol (1993).
- Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), Five-year review of progress (2000), 10-year review in 2005, the 15-year review in 2010, and the 20-year review in 2015.
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), and the UN Security Council additional resolutions on women, peace and security: 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013), 2242 (2015), and 2467 (2019).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
- UN Women’s strategic plan, 2018–2021
- 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, emphasis on the entirety of the goals with a strong focus on Goal 5
- 2015 agenda with 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (169 targets for the end to poverty, combatting inequalities, and so on, by 2030). The SDGs were preceded by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) from 2000 to 2015.
- The Spotlight Initiative as another important piece of work, as a joint venture between the European Union and the United Nations.
- February 6, International Day of Zero Tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation is observed.
- February 11, International Day of Women and Girls in Science is observed.
- June 19, Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict is observed.
- June 23, is International Widows’ Day is observed.
- October 11, International Day of the Girl Child is observed.
- October 15, International Day of Rural Women is observed.
- November 25, International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women is observed.
- Gender Inclusive Guidelines, Toolbox, & United Nations System-wide Strategy on Gender Parity.
- Say No, UNiTE, UNiTE to End Violence against Women, Orange the World: #HearMeToo (2018), and the 16 days of activism.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
Share this:
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/10/17
Strategic objective E.2.
Reduce excessive military expenditures and control the availability of armaments
Actions to be taken
143. By Governments:
f. Recognizing the leading role that women have played in the peace movement
i. Work actively towards general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control;
Beijing Declaration (1995)
Women in the peace efforts and disarmament efforts around the world remain some of the most salient and impactful means by which, or actors to, advance reductions in arms and decreases in war. Women simply become more burdened with children and the impacts of war. It means a behavioural and psychological motivation for the reduction in the levels of war around the world.
The question becomes the way to do this. The better – on net – actors in the reduction of war or the increase of peace are women. This emphasis of the Beijing Declaration becomes extremely important. The emphasis within the declaration is one of the highest ideals regarding the levels of arms packed away in stockpiles, known and unknown.
It is the lofty targeted objective of the ultimate complete disarmament of weaponry. However, as we can see, there are over 14,000 nuclear warheads stockpiled now. These are some of the consequences of war and, in particular, a history of a warlike mentality and attempts to dominate particular regions or countries for the purposes of stealing or co-opting the resources, or annexing the land, that is not part of the aggressor state.
We can see this throughout the ore powerful empires, including the American or even with some of the smaller and modern cases seen in Russia and the annexation on ukraine. The argument may be made around the impacts of women leadership on such situations, which, in theory or based on ideological commitments of equality, the results may not be the same.
However, if one looks at the data at the lower ends of the scale, and if one extrapolates to the greater centralizations of power, influence, and money, then I suspect that we can propose women are greater peacemakers on average and, thus, more probable to commit to a reduction in peace over time. This would include the ideological prism behind the notion of women in charge for a furtherance of the peace movement and then the “general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.”
–(Updated 2019-08-21, only use the updated listing, please) Not all nations, organizations, societies, or individuals accept the proposals of the United Nations; one can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights, and the important days and campaigns devoted to the rights of women and girls too:
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Some general declarations (not individual Declaration or set of them but announcement) included the UN Decade for Women (1976-1985).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979) and the Optional Protocol (1999).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the optional protocol (1993).
- Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), Five-year review of progress (2000), 10-year review in 2005, the 15-year review in 2010, and the 20-year review in 2015.
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), and the UN Security Council additional resolutions on women, peace and security: 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013), 2242 (2015), and 2467 (2019).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
- UN Women’s strategic plan, 2018–2021
- 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, emphasis on the entirety of the goals with a strong focus on Goal 5
- 2015 agenda with 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (169 targets for the end to poverty, combatting inequalities, and so on, by 2030). The SDGs were preceded by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) from 2000 to 2015.
- The Spotlight Initiative as another important piece of work, as a joint venture between the European Union and the United Nations.
- February 6, International Day of Zero Tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation is observed.
- February 11, International Day of Women and Girls in Science is observed.
- June 19, Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict is observed.
- June 23, is International Widows’ Day is observed.
- October 11, International Day of the Girl Child is observed.
- October 15, International Day of Rural Women is observed.
- November 25, International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women is observed.
- Gender Inclusive Guidelines, Toolbox, & United Nations System-wide Strategy on Gender Parity.
- Say No, UNiTE, UNiTE to End Violence against Women, Orange the World: #HearMeToo (2018), and the 16 days of activism.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
Share this:
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/10/16
Strategic objective E.2.
Reduce excessive military expenditures and control the availability of armaments
Actions to be taken
143. By Governments:
e. Recognizing that women and children are particularly affected by the indiscriminate use of anti-personnel land-mines:
vi. Undertake to encourage further international efforts to seek solutions to the problems caused by antipersonnel land-mines, with a view to their eventual elimination, recognizing that States can move most effectively towards this goal as viable and humane alternatives are developed;
Beijing Declaration (1995)
In the context of this casual commentary series on the Beijing Declaration, the continual points bear repeating throughout the paragraphs of the need to demarcate different facets of the issues facing women and children disproportionately in regards to war. Not to deny the problems faced by boys and men, but to notify the leger, and to note the ways in which the United Nations and some of the international community focus on the needs of women in war time.
The indiscriminate use of anti-personnel mines remains a large problem because of the influence on the civilian population during the war and the impacts on individuals who may not yet be born after the war, because there continue to be deaths – large death tolls, in fact – in which the mines stick in the ground, are not dug up, and even children can be maimed or killed in the midst of living their early lives.
Some of the questions around the Beijing Declaration emphasis on the use of mines within the context of the livelihoods of women and children now are simply taking into account the realities of war and the impacts on the civilian population. It will take an international effort to reduce the damaging effects on the civilian populations in former war zones for some time.
The central aggressors in the war acts of burying large numbers of mines should hold the largest responsibility in their cleanup, whether the war was ‘won’ or ‘lost.’ In personal opinion, almost all wars amount to mutual massive losses based on civilian casualties alone. Indeed, the numbers of the deceased civilian population continue to increase because of the effective lethality of the international war machine.
The state aggressors know better too. The effects of war are too well-documented and the protests against wars happen, sometimes, well before the war begins; thus, this creates the basis for the mass popular activism standing against the wars and the documentation point to the negative effects of war on civilian populations.
Yet, the wars continue for, probably mostly, unjust and unfair, and illegitimate, ends. The emphasis here is the work for further international efforts in order to “seek solutions” for the problems of anti-personnel land-mines. The idea is to, eventually, eliminate them over the longer term with the initial goal for their reduction, if not simply to reduce the number of deaths due to leftovers from war.
The point being “viable and humane alternatives” for this problem of post-war killing.
–(Updated 2019-08-21, only use the updated listing, please) Not all nations, organizations, societies, or individuals accept the proposals of the United Nations; one can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights, and the important days and campaigns devoted to the rights of women and girls too:
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Some general declarations (not individual Declaration or set of them but announcement) included the UN Decade for Women (1976-1985).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979) and the Optional Protocol (1999).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the optional protocol (1993).
- Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), Five-year review of progress (2000), 10-year review in 2005, the 15-year review in 2010, and the 20-year review in 2015.
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), and the UN Security Council additional resolutions on women, peace and security: 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013), 2242 (2015), and 2467 (2019).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
- UN Women’s strategic plan, 2018–2021
- 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, emphasis on the entirety of the goals with a strong focus on Goal 5
- 2015 agenda with 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (169 targets for the end to poverty, combatting inequalities, and so on, by 2030). The SDGs were preceded by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) from 2000 to 2015.
- The Spotlight Initiative as another important piece of work, as a joint venture between the European Union and the United Nations.
- February 6, International Day of Zero Tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation is observed.
- February 11, International Day of Women and Girls in Science is observed.
- June 19, Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict is observed.
- June 23, is International Widows’ Day is observed.
- October 11, International Day of the Girl Child is observed.
- October 15, International Day of Rural Women is observed.
- November 25, International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women is observed.
- Gender Inclusive Guidelines, Toolbox, & United Nations System-wide Strategy on Gender Parity.
- Say No, UNiTE, UNiTE to End Violence against Women, Orange the World: #HearMeToo (2018), and the 16 days of activism.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
Share this:
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/08/26
Strategic objective E.2.
Reduce excessive military expenditures and control the availability of armaments
Actions to be taken
143. By Governments:
e. Recognizing that women and children are particularly affected by the indiscriminate use of anti-personnel land-mines:
v. Adopt at the earliest possible date, if they have not already done so, a moratorium on the export of anti-personnel land-mines, including to non-governmental entities, noting with satisfaction that many States have already declared moratoriums on the export, transfer or sale of such mines;
Beijing Declaration (1995)
Of those grotesque urgencies felt by those who know the atrocities and inhumanities of humanity to humanity from war, leftovers killing and maiming seem like a solid point of reflection. This particular section of paragraph 143 of the Beijing Declaration deals with the problems of armaments and excessive military expenditures with a focus on anti-personnel land-mines.
Those are some of the leftovers from war. These kill. These mutilate. These disfigure. These kill, mutilate, and disfigure mostly women and children who tend to be the majority of the civilians during wartime and after combat moments. One issue is the conscription or the drafting of men into wars for the creation of killers or murderers for-hire of the state for sometimes noble and often ignoble purposes. That’s one concern. Another is those who are not involved in any way with the war being affected in general.
The main statements in this section of the Beijing Declaration emphasize that which happened in 1997 with the moratorium or the call for the moratorium of land-mines and other widely used weapons that continue to kill innocents. There should be a moratorium, as noted, on the everyone including NGOs with several Member States, circa 1995, already declaring moratoriums on them in terms of “export, transfer or sale.”
Into the present moment, this has simply been amplified as an effort to reduce the impacts of widespread murderous possibilities of weapons lodged in the ground at 9 figure numbers with estimates as high as 110,000,000.
–(Updated 2019-08-21, only use the updated listing, please) Not all nations, organizations, societies, or individuals accept the proposals of the United Nations; one can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights, and the important days and campaigns devoted to the rights of women and girls too:
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Some general declarations (not individual Declaration or set of them but announcement) included the UN Decade for Women (1976-1985).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979) and the Optional Protocol (1999).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the optional protocol (1993).
- Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), Five-year review of progress (2000), 10-year review in 2005, the 15-year review in 2010, and the 20-year review in 2015.
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), and the UN Security Council additional resolutions on women, peace and security: 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013), 2242 (2015), and 2467 (2019).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
- UN Women’s strategic plan, 2018–2021
- 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, emphasis on the entirety of the goals with a strong focus on Goal 5
- 2015 agenda with 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (169 targets for the end to poverty, combatting inequalities, and so on, by 2030). The SDGs were preceded by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) from 2000 to 2015.
- The Spotlight Initiative as another important piece of work, as a joint venture between the European Union and the United Nations.
- February 6, International Day of Zero Tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation is observed.
- February 11, International Day of Women and Girls in Science is observed.
- June 19, Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict is observed.
- June 23, is International Widows’ Day is observed.
- October 11, International Day of the Girl Child is observed.
- October 15, International Day of Rural Women is observed.
- November 25, International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women is observed.
- Gender Inclusive Guidelines, Toolbox, & United Nations System-wide Strategy on Gender Parity.
- Say No, UNiTE, UNiTE to End Violence against Women, Orange the World: #HearMeToo (2018), and the 16 days of activism.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
Share this:
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/08/25
Strategic objective E.2.
Reduce excessive military expenditures and control the availability of armaments
Actions to be taken
143. By Governments:
e. Recognizing that women and children are particularly affected by the indiscriminate use of anti-personnel land-mines:
iv. Within the United Nations context, undertake to support efforts to coordinate a common response programme of assistance in de-mining without unnecessary discrimination;
Beijing Declaration (1995)
If we’re looking at the continued context of the need to improve the lot of humanity, then the best bet, if speaking in a global context, will, on average, be the emphasis on the rights and privileges, responsibilities and burdens, of women and girls alongside ones held by men and boys with some inevitable differences between the two leading to different responsibilities and burdens.
Equality before the law and in human rights, except for a couple specified around, for example, motherhood (as a violation of this generally true principle), and then with a further focus on the ways in which the application of women’s rights ties to specific actions in the world by governments and the ways in which governmental actions create the basis for more integrated human rights within a society. It seems like a dual-step process for more rights for more people.
One of the issues with the anti-personnel land-mines is the ubiquitous use of them in some wars and then the national amnesia about their use. This is not forgotten by those who happen to live with them. UNICED estimates as many as 110,000,000 mines are lodged in the ground around the world. Not much the international order or the local communities can do alone; unless, they begin to worm together more, as they have been, to have an integrated response strategy to dislodge these anti-personnel land-mines.
As UNODA stated, “Anti-personnel landmines are prohibited under the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on Their Destruction (or MineBan Convention), adopted in 1997.”
Human Rights Watch reports, “Antipersonnel landmines are weapons that cannot discriminate between a civilian or a soldier, and wind up killing and maiming civilians that step on them or pick them up long after a conflict. The 1997 Mine Ban Treaty comprehensively bans the use, production, stockpiling, and transfer of antipersonnel mines, and requires states to destroy their stockpiles and clear all mined areas as well as assist landmine survivors. A total of 164 states have joined the Mine Ban Treaty and are making progress in achieving a mine-free world.” This is a serious issue.
It requires serious responses and amounts to crimes of prior generations burdening those self-same generations and their descendants. This is one of the horrors of war. It makes one think, “When will it stop?” One of the moves towards this is the ban on this with enforceable treaties followed by the act of dislodging them. Problem, they’re lodged in the ground. A terribly difficult situation creating horrific post-war murders and maimings of children and women mostly.
The programme assistance for de-mining with an emphasis on “without unnecessary discrimination” is an important part of this. This part of the paragraph emphasizes support by the United Nations and then the work oriented around the state actors or governments.
–(Updated 2019-08-21, only use the updated listing, please) Not all nations, organizations, societies, or individuals accepts the proposals of the United Nations; one can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights, and the important days and campaigns devoted to the rights of women and girls too:
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Some general declarations (not individual Declaration or set of them but announcement) included the UN Decade for Women (1976-1985).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979) and the Optional Protocol (1999).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the optional protocol (1993).
- Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), Five-year review of progress (2000), 10-year review in 2005, the 15-year review in 2010, and the 20-year review in 2015.
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), and the UN Security Council additional resolutions on women, peace and security: 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013), 2242 (2015), and 2467 (2019).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
- UN Women’s strategic plan, 2018–2021
- 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, emphasis on the entirety of the goals with a strong focus on Goal 5
- 2015 agenda with 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (169 targets for the end to poverty, combatting inequalities, and so on, by 2030). The SDGs were preceded by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) from 2000 to 2015.
- The Spotlight Initiative as another important piece of work, as a joint venture between the European Union and the United Nations.
- February 6, International Day of Zero Tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation is observed.
- February 11, International Day of Women and Girls in Science is observed.
- June 19, Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict is observed.
- June 23, is International Widows’ Day is observed.
- October 11, International Day of the Girl Child is observed.
- October 15, International Day of Rural Women is observed.
- November 25, International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women is observed.
- Gender Inclusive Guidelines, Toolbox, & United Nations System-wide Strategy on Gender Parity.
- Say No, UNiTE, UNiTE to End Violence against Women, Orange the World: #HearMeToo (2018), and the 16 days of activism.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
Share this:
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/08/18
Strategic objective E.2.
Reduce excessive military expenditures and control the availability of armaments
Actions to be taken
143. By Governments:
e. Recognizing that women and children are particularly affected by the indiscriminate use of anti-personnel land-mines:
iii. Undertake to promote assistance in mine clearance, notably by facilitating, in respect of the means of mine-clearing, the exchange of information, the transfer of technology and the promotion of scientific research;
Beijing Declaration (1995)
Paragraph 143 in these parts focuses on the clearance of mines. In some indirect way, this becomes, on face value, plausible while, at the time, with more analysis and consideration becomes even more plausible. In wars, the left over armaments, especially those intended to be left in the ground to maim and kill, create specific issues for the women and children innocently travelling within their own borders.
Innocent, even next generation, women and children maimed and killed in the midst of living their lives and travelling within their own borders. How much responsibility do these individual nations who invaded have for these recurrent and ongoing atrocities of wars and battles long dead and, sometimes, even denied if not forgotten?
For the efforts to deal with these, the focus is placed on the governments regional and, probably, international with the expertise, the tools, and the knowhow in terms of identification and removal of land-mines to protect innocents from being maimed or killed. Whether “the exchange of information, the transfer of technology and the promotion of scientific research,” there should be intergovernmental work and cooperation to deal with this serious issue for civilians of a country, including women who make this a women’s rights issue.
–(Updated 2018-11-10, only use the updated listing, please) One can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights:
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the optional protocol (1993).
- Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), Five-year review of progress (2000), 10-year review in 2005, the 15-year review in 2010, and the 20-year review in 2015.
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), and the UN Security Council additional resolutions on women, peace and security: 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013), and 2242 (2015).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
- UN Women’s strategic plan, 2018–2021
- 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
- 2015 agenda with 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (169 targets for the end to poverty, combatting inequalities, and so on, by 2030). The SDGs were preceded by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) from 2000 to 2015.
–Human Rights
Wednesdays 7 pm EST / 4 pm PST
Call-In Details: (701) 801-1220
Meeting ID: 934-317-242
Lead Page: https://goodmenproject.lpages.co/conscious-intersectionality/
Led by: Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Amanda Vining
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
Share this:
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/08/17
Strategic objective E.2.
Reduce excessive military expenditures and control the availability of armaments
Actions to be taken
143. By Governments:
e. Recognizing that women and children are particularly affected by the indiscriminate use of anti-personnel land-mines:
ii. Undertake to strongly consider strengthening the Convention to promote a reduction in the casualties and intense suffering caused to the civilian population by the indiscriminate use of land-mines;
Beijing Declaration (1995)
Anti-personnel land-mines are intended for use against military personnel. People hired to defend and attack, to injure and kill, on behalf of the citizens of a country wearing the colours and coats of arms of the nation-state represented by them.
Sometimes, land-mines become indiscriminately used and, thus, create hazards for those without the basic knowledge and protections of military personnel involved in war. The personal armour fro protection from and military expertise for knowledge of anti-personnel land-mines. One thinks most viscerally of innocent women and children destroyed due to indiscriminate use of anti-personnel mines.
These can be hard to detect with the real numbers in a particular area estimated but, in reality, probably quite unknown in the real extent of their proliferation. The main emphasis in this section is the need to promote the Convention and strengthen it. If this is done, then this can be a framework upon which to put pressure on state actors – “governments” – to work on the removal of the anti-personnel land-mines.
Those reductions in the land-mines, in turn, lowering the theoretical number of casualties – the dead – and the amount of suffering inflicted on civilian populations in the midst of living their lives and happening to be affected by these weapons.
–(Updated 2018-11-10, only use the updated listing, please) One can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights:
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the optional protocol (1993).
- Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), Five-year review of progress (2000), 10-year review in 2005, the 15-year review in 2010, and the 20-year review in 2015.
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), and the UN Security Council additional resolutions on women, peace and security: 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013), and 2242 (2015).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
- UN Women’s strategic plan, 2018–2021
- 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
- 2015 agenda with 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (169 targets for the end to poverty, combatting inequalities, and so on, by 2030). The SDGs were preceded by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) from 2000 to 2015.
–Human Rights
Wednesdays 7 pm EST / 4 pm PST
Call-In Details: (701) 801-1220
Meeting ID: 934-317-242
Lead Page: https://goodmenproject.lpages.co/conscious-intersectionality/
Led by: Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Amanda Vining
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
Share this:
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/08/15
Strategic objective E.2.
Reduce excessive military expenditures and control the availability of armaments
Actions to be taken
143. By Governments:
e. Recognizing that women and children are particularly affected by the indiscriminate use of anti-personnel land-mines:
i. Undertake to work actively towards ratification, if they have not already done so, of the 1981 Convention on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Certain Conventional Weapons Which May Be Deemed to Be Excessively Injurious or to Have Indiscriminate Effects, particularly the Protocol on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Mines, Booby Traps and Other Devices (Protocol II),/26 with a view to universal ratification by the year 2000;
Beijing Declaration (1995)
Paragraph 143, in focusing on the necessity of moral action by states (comprised of human beings), makes explicit the points of contact for changing the current condition of the world’s population. If we look into the ways in which military expenditure exceeds simple national defense and peacekeeping missions abroad, we can see the ways in which the consequences of war can continue onwards for a long time.
Let’s take some of this into the environment of the armaments of the world, indeed, there is a distinct effort to try and work towards the reduction of problems associated with war, with arms, and with the leftover arms. One of the issues is the explosion of mines around the world leftover from the war. These continue to destroy the lives of children and parents of countries ravaged by war decades ago.
The anti-personnel land minds even have a specific call here. 15,000-20,000 people per year are killed due to the land mines left over from the war. These wars can largely be done, but the inability to find them creates long-term issues well after the wartime and the battle. The former combat zones become long-term hazards after the official end of the war.
A convention is mentioned and a protocol is referenced here. Both in response to the need to deal with the mines exploding and maiming, and mutilating, and killing, innocents. Women and children as those “particularly affected” become necessary foci here too.
–(Updated 2018-11-10, only use the updated listing, please) One can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights:
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the optional protocol (1993).
- Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), Five-year review of progress (2000), 10-year review in 2005, the 15-year review in 2010, and the 20-year review in 2015.
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), and the UN Security Council additional resolutions on women, peace and security: 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013), and 2242 (2015).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
- UN Women’s strategic plan, 2018–2021
- 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
- 2015 agenda with 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (169 targets for the end to poverty, combatting inequalities, and so on, by 2030). The SDGs were preceded by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) from 2000 to 2015.
–Human Rights
Wednesdays 7 pm EST / 4 pm PST
Call-In Details: (701) 801-1220
Meeting ID: 934-317-242
Lead Page: https://goodmenproject.lpages.co/conscious-intersectionality/
Led by: Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Amanda Vining
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
Share this:
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/08/14
Strategic objective E.2.
Reduce excessive military expenditures and control the availability of armaments
Actions to be taken
143. By Governments:
d. While acknowledging legitimate national defence needs, recognize and address the dangers to society of armed conflict and the negative effect of excessive military expenditures, trade in arms, especially those arms that are particularly injurious or have indiscriminate effects, and excessive investment for arms production and acquisition; similarly, recognize the need to combat illicit arms trafficking, violence, crime, the production and use of and trafficking in illicit drugs, and trafficking in women and children;
Beijing Declaration (1995)
Paragraph 143 deals with military expenditures and the actions of government entities, of governments and associated institutions. The call for the reduction in the military expenditures of the world can be problematic because governments have placed a specific portion or an apportionment of the military expenditure on the “things we want” list.
This can raise questions about “legitimate national defense needs” within the context of military expenditures, because many of the Member States may find their current expenditures fine, as is, so a problem for the possible reduction in the military expenditures; it can depend on point of view. Nonetheless, putting this concern to the side for the moment, there is a call, circa 1995 and probably earlier, for a recognition and a need to address the dangers with armed conflict and then the negative effects of excess military expenditure.
It makes a logical sense. If wars, progress or development become difficult. If lots of arms, and if war, then this prevents a proper development of the flourishing of communities and nations with spillover effects that can damage neighbouring societies who may, by necessity, become embroiled in national and even regional wars. All these create conditions for the creation of refugee women and girls, and the various forms of extreme violence against women that be seen in war contexts.
Those who deal or war or trade in armaments become complicit in negative effects, including the downstream effects of violence against women. These become “particularly injurious or… indiscriminate” in negative impacts. One of the main recognitions listed is illicit arms and then the associated issues of “trafficking, violence, crime” and drugs. These become tied up with the trafficking of women and girls.
–(Updated 2018-11-10, only use the updated listing, please) One can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights:
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the optional protocol (1993).
- Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), Five-year review of progress (2000), 10-year review in 2005, the 15-year review in 2010, and the 20-year review in 2015.
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), and the UN Security Council additional resolutions on women, peace and security: 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013), and 2242 (2015).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
- UN Women’s strategic plan, 2018–2021
- 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
- 2015 agenda with 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (169 targets for the end to poverty, combatting inequalities, and so on, by 2030). The SDGs were preceded by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) from 2000 to 2015.
–Human Rights
Wednesdays 7 pm EST / 4 pm PST
Call-In Details: (701) 801-1220
Meeting ID: 934-317-242
Lead Page: https://goodmenproject.lpages.co/conscious-intersectionality/
Led by: Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Amanda Vining
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
Share this:
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/08/08
Strategic objective E.2.
Reduce excessive military expenditures and control the availability of armaments
Actions to be taken
143. By Governments:
c. Take action to investigate and punish members of the police, security and armed forces and others who perpetrate acts of violence against women, violations of international humanitarian law and violations of the human rights of women in situations of armed conflict;
Beijing Declaration (1995)
Paragraph 143 deals with military expenditures and the actions of government entities, of governments and associated institutions. The call for the reduction in the military expenditures of the world can be problematic because governments have placed a specific portion or an apportionment of the military expenditure on the “things we want” list.
It takes consistent and firm demands on the part of the international community to make commitments themselves and to pressure other governments, from the international level, for the reduction of the military expenditures around the world. One of the big problems is the ways in which this can be ignored if a country is obstinate or powerful enough.
However, for the improvement in the livelihoods of women, there will need to be examinations of the crimes of police, security, and armed forces, even the United Nations has been called out in some recent incidences of sexual assaults and rapes by personnel set with peaceful tasks. Other acts or perpetrations of violence against women should be dealt with, but through the rule of law and actions of the governments – as per this call. A relatively straightforward paragraph for this one.
–(Updated 2018-11-10, only use the updated listing, please) One can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights:
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the optional protocol (1993).
- Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), Five-year review of progress (2000), 10-year review in 2005, the 15-year review in 2010, and the 20-year review in 2015.
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), and the UN Security Council additional resolutions on women, peace and security: 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013), and 2242 (2015).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
- UN Women’s strategic plan, 2018–2021
- 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
- 2015 agenda with 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (169 targets for the end to poverty, combatting inequalities, and so on, by 2030). The SDGs were preceded by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) from 2000 to 2015.
–Human Rights
Wednesdays 7 pm EST / 4 pm PST
Call-In Details: (701) 801-1220
Meeting ID: 934-317-242
Lead Page: https://goodmenproject.lpages.co/conscious-intersectionality/
Led by: Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Amanda Vining
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Strategic objective E.2.
Reduce excessive military expenditures and control the availability of armaments
Actions to be taken
143. By Governments:
a. Increase and hasten, as appropriate, subject to national security considerations, the conversion of military resources and related industries to development and peaceful purposes;
b. Undertake to explore new ways of generating new public and private financial resources, inter alia, through the appropriate reduction of excessive military expenditures, including global military expenditures, trade in arms and investment for arms production and acquisition, taking into consideration national security requirements, so as to permit the possible allocation of additional funds for social and economic development, in particular for the advancement of women;
Beijing Declaration (1995)
Paragraph 143 deals with the oft-mentioned issue in the modern period for the need, absolute necessity, of the reduction in the number of armaments found in the world in the current moment with the ongoing and continuous murder of innocents, destruction of national infrastructure, and subsequent scattering of individual citizens around the world as refugees and displaced persons, which, as has also been mentioned, are majoritively women and girls.
Another issue dealt here is the problem of the violation of women and girls & their rights. The rights of women, and by some implication girls, have been and will remain the central focus of this extensive, casual, and often tiresome and tedious series – woe be to the one who happens to read through the complete set of the materials. But onwards!
The focus on military is non-trivial, not for the focus on the med who defend and assault countries but on the majority of the resultant refugees as women and children. In other words, those who are most often not implicated – granted, due to the draft and cultural and economic coercion – in the wars become some of the largest recipients of the negative impacts of them. Non-combatants get killed and become refugees, or can be subject to rape as a weapon of war.
The focus or the charge here is the emphasis on the governments of the world to “increase and hasten” efforts for the work to prevent damage to the security of Member States of the United Nations while also working to make the military-industrial complexes into ones of development of peace, i.e., to turn swords into ploughshares. To discard old wisdom can be foolhardy, and for fools, sometimes, it is wrong; other times, it is bang on, here it is substantially correct.
The second paragraph here, or (b), stipulates the undertaking of exploratory measures in order gender both private and public capital – “inter alia” is simply arrogant academic-speak for “among other things,” obviously formally and institutionally educated classes wrote this (and other) document(s), i.e., the simply finding out how to make more money through the private industry or the public institutions – just make money.
The issue is not military expenditures, exactly, but more oriented around the excessive amounts, of whom the most egregious at this time is the United States – bloated. However, and correctly according to the framers of this document, the global military budget, not simply the United States, is a rather buffoonish affair well beyond reasonable nuclear capacity, for one.
There should be less trade in arms, in militarized investment, and simply work towards non-acquisition beyond peace-keeping limits. However, of course, the Mafia Principle of much of world affairs can make this difficult, as the most powerful can tend to flout the international law and breach norms, rather regularly in fact – to an almost comical degree.
The nature of a military expenditure for the enduring peace desired by non-warmongers, lunatics, or psychopaths, is for national security and the assistance in the case of outbreak of war and then the instantiation and maintenance of peace with the resultant leftover finances reinvested into long-term development and peace projects.
Next!
–(Updated 2018-11-10, only use the updated listing, please) One can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights:
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the optional protocol (1993).
- Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), Five-year review of progress (2000), 10-year review in 2005, the 15-year review in 2010, and the 20-year review in 2015.
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), and the UN Security Council additional resolutions on women, peace and security: 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013), and 2242 (2015).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
- UN Women’s strategic plan, 2018–2021
- 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
- 2015 agenda with 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (169 targets for the end to poverty, combatting inequalities, and so on, by 2030). The SDGs were preceded by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) from 2000 to 2015.
–Human Rights
Wednesdays 7 pm EST / 4 pm PST
Call-In Details: (701) 801-1220
Meeting ID: 934-317-242
Lead Page: https://goodmenproject.lpages.co/conscious-intersectionality/
Led by: Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Amanda Vining
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/07/22
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: When considering the restrictions on Muslim men and Muslim women in Egypt, what are the similarities and differences?
Anonymous Egyptian Author, Freethinker, and Translator: Surely, there are some difference, in childhood there are more restrictions on playing of girls, most of the families don’t allow the girls to go outside of the home. In the adulthood there are many restrictions on women in their dressing, their manner of speak, and their moves outside home and everything. Cities got little civilization and modernity in the clothes of women by the standard of backward fundamentalism, but beneath the external appearances most of the people have religious fundamental middle-aged minds and values.
Lives of men are no that good also, society does not give them also a real freedom in most of their choices in life, their ways of life, values and morals. It’s a country which you cannot easily live in it with a different manner than traditional backward way.
Jacobsen: Are they better or worse, within the religious system, for men or women regarding restrictions and moral injunctions?
Anonymous Egyptian Author, Freethinker, and Translator: It’s worse for women. Judges still adopt some sharia laws informally, so if a man kills his wife with claiming bad morals like cheating him, he will go with light sentence, on the other hand if a woman makes the same for the same claim, she would be executed. This is from Muhammad laws in hadiths. Also, if a father kills his son meanwhile he was hitting him, in the most cases he would get some years in jail, because Islam says there no punishment on a father kills his son!
The modern Egyptian laws consider the violence of husband against wife a cause for verdict of divorcing her from him. But the written law is one thing, and what happens in reality is another thing. Islam considers it as a right of men to hit their wives, sisters, and daughters. Although of that many modern civilized families would make trouble and real hell to a husband who hit their daughter.
In the principle, they consider woman follower and inferior to men.
If you are a man you can dress shorts in street, if you are a woman you would get harassments, violence (if the situation takes a very religious tendency), or even rape in some areas.
Jacobsen: How do women play an important role in the liberation of the atheist community in Egypt?
Anonymous Egyptian Author, Freethinker, and Translator: Atheist community? In Egypt we are individuals here and there, but thy don’t form a society, that would be a great comfortable thing. Most of atheist or skeptic half or primitive atheist women adopt or pretend the eastern religious values, manners, and ways of dressing. This is the case for 99% of the I think. So, these women need to free themselves first. The economic matter has a role, rarely when I saw a real liberal secular woman in Egypt. Because many on women here depend on religious traditional men, father, uncle, brother, or husband.
Jacobsen: You may have seen the news article about the Saudi women’s rights activists creating an online radio platform. What can Egyptians do to foster this form of non-violence dissent utilizing the right to freedom of expression?
Anonymous Egyptian Author, Freethinker, and Translator: Yeah, that becomes a real thing in Saudia, because they faced extremism for long time and the education in Saudia get some improvement.
Here in Egypt I don’t see any real feminist movements that cares of the public and can won their attention, may be there are some movements for the elites. But what they need to reach to the people of Egypt, our poor ignorant fundamental real people. There is no value of freedom or good education and culture, no good jobs and salaries for most people, so they adopt the legends and dark ages values and ideas.
Jacobsen: Are there Egyptian ones in existence now? If so, what are they?
Anonymous Egyptian Author, Freethinker, and Translator: As I said above, these organizations have very little or no influence on the Egyptian society.
Jacobsen: The nature of religion builds into the political system in Egypt. What is the relationship between politics and religion in Egypt?
Anonymous Egyptian Author, Freethinker, and Translator: The government uses religious and national claims to hide its failures in economic. The political leaders care to appear as a religious people who attend prays and religious feasts, and give prizes for people and young person who memorize Quran verses.
Jacobsen: How does this relationship between politics and religion in Egypt change the political and legal system?
Anonymous Egyptian Author, Freethinker, and Translator: Sure, it has bad influences. If we have a civil law, there would be freedom of expression against Islam, martial government, the traditions and legends. We would have equal right for men and women, including the inheritance laws. The men wouldn’t enslave women by the ideas and values of Islam and Christendom.
Jacobsen: In turn, how does this impact the laws and political restrictions on the civic and public lives of atheists?
Anonymous Egyptian Author, Freethinker, and Translator: In Egypt, you wouldn’t get executed for being a freethinker of an apostate, but If you declare that or express your self in public, there is a real good chance to be hit badly by public lay people, or going to jail in the silly accusation of insulting and offending of religions, it’s the same accusation of blasphemy of the middle ages. In one case Mrs. Sara Harqan get here embryo killed by violence, when she went with her husband to police station, the policemen arrest the victims!
So, atheists aren’t allowed to share in public life, culture, media and teaching.
Jacobsen: What is the social and legal punishment for blasphemy and apostasy in Egypt, if any?
Anonymous Egyptian Author, Freethinker, and Translator: Being an openly atheist in the most cases would mean losing your relations with almost all your relatives, because of the religiousness and fundamentalism of this ignorant society.
If you express your beliefs and opinions as an atheist in public, if someone report you, you would 3 to 5 or more years in jail, just for expressing ideas that doesn’t kill! And they may inflict forfeit on you to complete destroying your life. They do that to prevent anyone from thinking, talking or writing,
Jacobsen: How does this compare to other Middle East nations?
As I know this resembles the situation in countries like Morocco, Algeria, Civil Syria, and Tunisia, and less violent than the execution sentence in Saudia and Jordon.
Jacobsen: Also, how can the international non-religious community work together to foster the translation of freethinker books through financing organizations or individuals, or contributing personal translation expertise?
Anonymous Egyptian Author, Freethinker, and Translator: They can adopt secretly the real translators and thinkers, after making sure that they are making great important big efforts. They must have committee or committees to avoid the crook deceitful frauds, and monitor on weekly and monthly basics the products of the translators to stop finance any unserious ones. The translator must have previous important works with good translation valuing to his motherland language.
Jacobsen: In terms of the Egyptian atheist community, how does one’s family tend to treat them?
Anonymous Egyptian Author, Freethinker, and Translator: They tend to threat or hit them, and if you have the strong character of body or the strong will enough, they will just consider you non-existent person, and their relations with you, this has its ups and downs actually. In a country like this you need all your relations with relatives to get decent job, or you need the to go to marry in this traditional country, for example
Jacobsen: How does the public treat them?
Anonymous Egyptian Author, Freethinker, and Translator: The public think atheist infidel heathens is a good piety for Allah, no problem in doing it, but the civil laws would prevent them, so at least when they get a chance they would think at least destroy and steal their property, hitting them badly, or harass or rape liberal women, etc. this is surly the manner of the rubble lay people. The more civilized educated of them would just treat you as a Zionist in a mosque who tried to gather money for Israel from Moslem prayers (Just kidding), I mean they would deal with you in tough cold manner.
Jacobsen: How does the media marginalize and defame them?
Anonymous Egyptian Author, Freethinker, and Translator: Egyptian Atheists appear rarely in Egyptian and Arabian media, in most cases the rubble interviewer dealt badly with them, one of them “Shaima’a sae’d expel an atheist lady, so I don’t understand why she had invited her from first, this is not the good Arabian manners of hospitality. Others mad good shows and try to be more neutral and in the same spirit to appear in the side of Islamic clergy, in view of their fearing for their jobs, publicity, and lives. Some of those more decent interviewers might be skeptics, atheists, or secular moderate Muslims.
How do the government and legal system deal with the atheist and freethinker population in Egypt?
Anonymous Egyptian Author, Freethinker, and Translator: They fight to prevent them from writing, publishing, or talking in public and media. Many went to jail. If the education and economic systems still its ways in Egypt, with the politics and horrible idiot media (most of it), there is no hope for advancement and liberalism for this country. So, the no real threat form freethought to ignorance and terrorism middle-aged thoughts in such conditions. Imagine you try to make middle-aged people in Europe to be the nowadays European people! It doesn’t work, they need good economics, good ruling systems, good improved education, culture…etc.
What can other non-religious groups, including humanists – though most humanists are atheists, do to help support and bolster the efforts of the atheist and freethinker community in Egypt, or of its diaspora?
Anonymous Egyptian Author, Freethinker, and Translator: They should care first for the real original thinkers who hold secular liberal (western) values.
and for the atheists of lay public average persons. I think they must contain them carefully, and try to influence them with the more enlightened real liberal values, because some of them may still with many fundamental ignorant middle-aged values or religions to deal with women and other nationalities for example.
They would find many ignorant silly fraud persons who search for living or money, so they must have committees to choose the persons who want and can make good scientific, atheist or criticism videos, write, translate, or paint in some cases. They should focus in thinkers who make criticism of Islam, or write or translate books on secularism, atheism, evolution science and cosmology.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/07/19
Strategic objective E.1.
Increase the participation of women in conflict resolution at decision-making levels and protect women living in situations of armed and other conflicts or under foreign occupation
Actions to be taken
142. By Governments and international and regional intergovernmental institutions:
a. Take action to promote equal participation of women and equal opportunities for women to participate in all forums and peace activities at all levels, particularly at the decision-making level, including in the United Nations Secretariat with due regard to equitable geographical distribution in accordance with Article 101 of the Charter of the United Nations;
Beijing Declaration (1995)
Paragraph 142 of the Beijing Declaration provides an interesting insight into the issues of international dialogue and peacemaking. It is emphasizing levels of governments and international and regional intergovernmental institutions. The core purpose is the protection of women to participate in the forums of peacemaking and associated activities “at all levels.”
The focus is peacemaking. As you may have gathered through skimming through this casual series covering the rights documents for women’s rights, the focus throughout the human rights documents on the rights of women focus on the need to provide an opportunity for women to be at the table.
Without such an opportunity, we can simply not expect an appropriate level of stability, likely, for the maintenance and continued development of peace and societies in the modern period with the international or “globalist” infrastructure developed since the end of WWII and the recognized necessity of women in the peace process and the necessity of the reduction of war in the world for the betterment of national life and citizen wellbeing and the frameworks of the world system to work while respecting national sovereignty at the same time.
In some sense, a balance between nationalism and globalism, which remain buzz words in the current media cycle, for a properly integrated internationalism – respect for national and international law, and respect for national sovereignty in the work of the nation-state in alignment with international norms and procedures.
An interesting concluding note, the commentary continues to note the equitable distribution in accordance with Article 101 of the Charter of the United Nations:
Article 101
1. The staff shall be appointed by the Secretary-General under regulations established by the General Assembly.
2. Appropriate staffs shall be permanently assigned to the Economic and Social Council, the Trusteeship Council, and, as required, to other organs of the United Nations. These staffs shall form a part of the Secretariat.
3. The paramount consideration in the employment of the staff and in the determination of the conditions of service shall be the necessity of securing the highest standards of efficiency, competence, and integrity. Due regard shall be paid to the importance of recruiting the staff on as wide a geographical basis as possible.
That is to imply, the equitable distribution via geography means the equal consideration and application of the United Nations Secretariat by geography, unstated if by country population, regional population, region, or what have you. This remains part of the messy nature of the international governing systems, while maintaining the principles of “efficiency, competence, and integrity.”
–(Updated 2018-11-10, only use the updated listing, please) One can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights:
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the optional protocol (1993).
- Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), Five-year review of progress (2000), 10-year review in 2005, the 15-year review in 2010, and the 20-year review in 2015.
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), and the UN Security Council additional resolutions on women, peace and security: 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013), and 2242 (2015).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
- UN Women’s strategic plan, 2018–2021
- 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
- 2015 agenda with 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (169 targets for the end to poverty, combatting inequalities, and so on, by 2030). The SDGs were preceded by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) from 2000 to 2015.
–Human Rights
Wednesdays 7 pm EST / 4 pm PST
Call-In Details: (701) 801-1220
Meeting ID: 934-317-242
Lead Page: https://goodmenproject.lpages.co/conscious-intersectionality/
Led by: Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Amanda Vining
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
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Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/07/18
Strategic objective D.3.
Eliminate trafficking in women and assist victims of violence due to prostitution and trafficking
Actions to be taken
141. In addressing armed or other conflicts, an active and visible policy of mainstreaming a gender perspective into all policies and programmes should be promoted so that before decisions are taken an analysis is made of the effects on women and men, respectively.
Beijing Declaration (1995)
Paragraph 141 of the Beijing Declaration comes from a framework of the importance of dealing with prostitution and trafficking based violence through the areas of the armed conflicts, and “other,” which looks at a tad like the listing of elements distributed in the universe and the elements in human beings ranked by proportion contained in each followed by the most common element in either – apparently: “Other.” It might be somewhere on the more obscure titles as names that should be given more attention for lucidity and leadership. “Other” contains a lot, in other words.
Indeed, names in the “other” category of culture, at times, contain a lot. The names like Chris Hedges (ethical authority), Rebecca Traister (moral force), Norman Finkelstein (careful scholarship), Margaret Atwood (balanced empirical narrative), Pankaj Mishra (prescient commentary), Marilyn vos Savant (objectivity), Scott Atran (truly doing the hard research), Kristen Monroe (showing the heart of altruism), Sikivu Hutchinson (courage to speak unspoken truths while connected to community), or Nathan J. Robinson (astute political commentary with style and humor). All setting good examples. (Of course, there are others.)
A gendered perspective of the problems of armed conflict, as with the other stipulations within the Beijing Declaration, provide lucid accounts of the distinct problems facing women and girls, and some men and boys, in the conflict zones and their aftermaths. When we take some time to pause, the main issue for the men comes from men of colour and poor men wrangled into the armies or the military, in general, to become hired murderers of, mostly, other men.
The issues for women and girls come in the civilian populations being the main victims of war, for one, and the individuals who are subject to the consequences of war. Most victims of rape and sexual assault in war are women and girls. Those who do not die in the inadvertent combat of the soldiers who become refugees, displaced persons, and others (there it is) are women and girls majoritively. If we look at the victims of trafficking and prostitution, too, once more, we come to the cases of women and girls.
The men may die more instantaneously, but the women face more multifarious, multiplicitous, and multifaceted problems in and after armed conflicts compared to the men. Within these gendered analyses, we can come to some items, some heuristics of thought, helpful to the comprehension of the dynamics involved in the consideration of human rights. The “active and visible” policy involved with a gendered perspective becomes crucial to the work of policies and programmes for the improvement in the livelihoods of women.
As this is a casual series, and as has been covered in some previous work, we can see the developments in the reasoning around the inclusion of women in decision-making bodies for the improved levels, increased amounts, of peace in the world and the reduction in the instances and consequences of war. This stands apart from, but linked to, the idea of taking on a gendered lens, as the issues facing the various genders will differ.
The issues facing men and women will be different because the history and nature of war have been different for men and women.
–(Updated 2018-11-10, only use the updated listing, please) One can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights:
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the optional protocol (1993).
- Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), Five-year review of progress (2000), 10-year review in 2005, the 15-year review in 2010, and the 20-year review in 2015.
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), and the UN Security Council additional resolutions on women, peace and security: 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013), and 2242 (2015).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
- UN Women’s strategic plan, 2018–2021
- 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
- 2015 agenda with 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (169 targets for the end to poverty, combatting inequalities, and so on, by 2030). The SDGs were preceded by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) from 2000 to 2015.
–Human Rights
Wednesdays 7 pm EST / 4 pm PST
Call-In Details: (701) 801-1220
Meeting ID: 934-317-242
Lead Page: https://goodmenproject.lpages.co/conscious-intersectionality/
Led by: Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Amanda Vining
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
Share this:
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/07/17
Strategic objective D.3.
Eliminate trafficking in women and assist victims of violence due to prostitution and trafficking
Actions to be taken
140. Education to foster a culture of peace that upholds justice and tolerance for all nations and peoples is essential to attaining lasting peace and should be begun at an early age. It should include elements of conflict resolution, mediation, reduction of prejudice and respect for diversity.
Beijing Declaration (1995)
Paragraph 140 provides a look into the victims of prostitution and trafficking through the lens of education as, in part (as almost always), a solution to the problems for the women and girls, mostly, caught in these circumstances, as education can be an access point to greater economic independence. Much of the world’s women and girls remain stuck in contexts of economic dependence, not independence.
Within this context, a precarious life will become the norm and stature for most women and girls. Their lives from adulthood to death will be subservient, lesser than, and often worse off. The contexts in which the men live shorter tend to relate to their own poor choices, whether in war, in diet, or in work, alongside societal coercion into poor decisions with various forms of social bribes.
Of the women, they remain kept in the domicile. An education, though, can provide a basis to escape from this, from something that may be called a trap in many ways, imposed from tradition, from religion, from misogyny, and, sometimes, cultural and governmental mandate, e.g., Decree 770 in Romania, as stated by Encyclopedia Britannica:
While following an independent policy in foreign relations, Ceaușescu adhered ever more closely to the communist orthodoxy of centralized administration at home. His secret police maintained rigid controls over free speech and the media and tolerated no internal dissent or opposition. Hoping to boost Romania’s population, in 1966 Ceaușescu issued Decree 770, a measure that effectively outlawed contraception and abortion. Doctors monitored women of childbearing age to ensure that they were not taking steps to curtail their fertility, but maternal mortality rates skyrocketed as women sought unsafe and outlawed means to terminate their pregnancies. In an effort to pay off the large foreign debt that his government had accumulated through its mismanaged industrial ventures in the 1970s, Ceaușescu in 1982 ordered the export of much of the country’s agricultural and industrial production. The resulting extreme shortages of food, fuel, energy, medicines, and other basic necessities drastically lowered living standards and intensified unrest.
There is statement as to the personality cult surrounding him, too. We see this in modern fascist mystics and others. The move to create a community following oneself as if a demigod, a saint, a projected fantasy of assumed privileges and rights in a society not instantly handed to oneself. Cathartic to those disserved by the institutional framework and system purportedly serving them, but never truly doing so.
When the bubble pops, the populations of the privileged and those promised privilege can become furious in a number of ways. One can be to escape to not quite philosophies and into following not quite coherent leaders. When we look into the ways in which the statements look at education as an important part of peace, and peace as a basis for upholding justice and tolerance, we can note something akin to the virtues espoused by dominant philosophies, sometimes, utilized for more nefarious ends (see above).
Furthemore, if we examine the internal dynamics of the documentation of the rights enumerated here, or the relations of the points of contact, education produces a culture of peace for the maintenance or, at least, the establishment of justice and tolerance of “all nations and peoples” in order to attain “lasting peace.” I like the last note about the parts of the education to be incorporated, “…conflict resolution, mediation, reduction of prejudice and respect for diversity.”
We see more of this since 1995 now.
–(Updated 2018-11-10, only use the updated listing, please) One can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights:
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the optional protocol (1993).
- Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), Five-year review of progress (2000), 10-year review in 2005, the 15-year review in 2010, and the 20-year review in 2015.
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), and the UN Security Council additional resolutions on women, peace and security: 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013), and 2242 (2015).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
- UN Women’s strategic plan, 2018–2021
- 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
- 2015 agenda with 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (169 targets for the end to poverty, combatting inequalities, and so on, by 2030). The SDGs were preceded by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) from 2000 to 2015.
–Human Rights
Wednesdays 7 pm EST / 4 pm PST
Call-In Details: (701) 801-1220
Meeting ID: 934-317-242
Lead Page: https://goodmenproject.lpages.co/conscious-intersectionality/
Led by: Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Amanda Vining
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/07/16
Strategic objective D.3.
Eliminate trafficking in women and assist victims of violence due to prostitution and trafficking
Actions to be taken
139. During times of armed conflict and the collapse of communities, the role of women is crucial. They often work to preserve social order in the midst of armed and other conflicts. Women make an important but often unrecognized contribution as peace educators both in their families and in their societies.
Beijing Declaration (1995)
When we look at the levels of the devastation wrought and brought by war, the tragedy comes a shock to some, as a casual fact of the world to others, and even, in fact, comes down to the level of the individual and the family. For example, when we think of a home, as Dr. Norman Finkelstein notes about the Palestinians, the destruction, the indiscriminate and deliberate bulldozing, of a home is the loss of space, personal emotive space – a vacancy for oneself that, by that nature of personal attachment, is not, in fact, vacant.
War produces a collapse of individuals and families. It can collapse communities too. The role of women in these contexts is as important as in the preventative processes of including women in the work of increasing peace and reducing war, e.g., arguing for reduced military expenditures of societies. Women, by the reckoning of the writers of the Beijing Declaration “often work to preserve social order,” even in “the midst of armed and other conflicts.”
This is a highly salient fact of the matter. Women tend to make more peace; men tend to make more war. However, as the narratives around war blur the historical facts, women can have an “often” – there’s that word again – “unrecognized contribution as peace educators” for the families and the communities. Without the women as mediators or intermediaries, we can come to experience more war, not less, and so more death and destruction – and “collapse of communities” – not less.
Indeed, those conditions, as have been noted, wherein women can be subject to prostitution and trafficking can be rife in these areas. We’re left with the issues of men and women dying, and with poorer livelihoods, without the contributions of women as preventatives of the “collapse of communities” reflective of individual, familial, and, by implication, partial societal collapse.
–(Updated 2018-11-10, only use the updated listing, please) One can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights:
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the optional protocol (1993).
- Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), Five-year review of progress (2000), 10-year review in 2005, the 15-year review in 2010, and the 20-year review in 2015.
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), and the UN Security Council additional resolutions on women, peace and security: 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013), and 2242 (2015).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
- UN Women’s strategic plan, 2018–2021
- 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
- 2015 agenda with 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (169 targets for the end to poverty, combatting inequalities, and so on, by 2030). The SDGs were preceded by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) from 2000 to 2015.
–Human Rights
Wednesdays 7 pm EST / 4 pm PST
Call-In Details: (701) 801-1220
Meeting ID: 934-317-242
Lead Page: https://goodmenproject.lpages.co/conscious-intersectionality/
Led by: Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Amanda Vining
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
Share this:
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/07/12
Strategic objective D.3.
Eliminate trafficking in women and assist victims of violence due to prostitution and trafficking
Actions to be taken
138. Many women’s non-governmental organizations have called for reductions in military expenditures world wide, as well as in international trade and trafficking in and the proliferation of weapons. Those affected most negatively by conflict and excessive military spending are people living in poverty, who are deprived because of the lack of investment in basic services. Women living in poverty, particularly rural women, also suffer because of the use of arms that are particularly injurious or have indiscriminate effects. There are more than 100 million anti-personnel land-mines scattered in 64 countries globally. The negative impact on development of excessive military expenditures, the arms trade, and investment for arms production and acquisition must be addressed. At the same time, maintenance of national security and peace is an important factor for economic growth and development and the empowerment of women.
Beijing Declaration (1995)
Paragraph 138 intrigues me for a few reasons. The level of military expenditure in the ongoing Computer Age following the open nuclear era can feel terrifying, ominous, and almost illuminating as to the priorities of power societies run by powerful, mostly, men.
The issues, as have been explored in some casual depth in this series, remain inevitably tied to the issues of sexism and the problems faced by civilians and refugees, and other displaced persons, and the state of women around the world. In fact, if we look at some of the statistics provided at the time, and now, the world’s worst-off tend to be women if we’re counting refugees. However, and as an important rejoinder, we can see the throwaway mentality of poor and working-class men during drafts into the military.
They do the killing and the raping. However, they also do the saving and dirty military work. Even further, with women in more important decision-making frameworks, the number of the wars or the severity thereof, or the levels of international peace increase, too, which comes to paragraph 138. NGOs for and by women have been calling for reductions in military spending for some time.
A reduction in the scale and scope of military expenditures around the world would be a tremendous boon to the levels of peace in the world, probably proportionally. For example, if we’re looking at the co-war and post-war contexts, the international trade of arms and trafficking of weapons can likely correlate to the levels of trafficking of women and girls and their forced prostitution. With increases in conflict and excessive military expenditure, and with the disproportionate impact on the poor – more often women and rural women, these can produce deleterious individual, familial, and social effects in societies.
Those cultures and governments with the largest stamp on the world geopolitical scene due to military expenditure and output in wars and combat will have, and do have, a disproportionate share of the responsibility for the situations in which much of the war-torn world finds itself in now. Circa 1995, there are “more than 100 million anti-personnel land-mines scattered in 64 countries globally.”
That’s staggering and only one military item. Arms trade and production used indiscriminately lead to excess war times, in the current period almost perpetual, and with concomitant effects on women and girls around the world. For the maintenance of national security and peace, the importance of peace and security for sustainable economic growth cannot be ignored; indeed, many of the deleterious, costly, and even idiotic, wars have been of benefit to the merchants of war and the ultra-wealthy living in what has been termed Richistan (Robert Frank), not to the poor, the rural, people of color, or war, especially to the men who have been, by societal coercion, circumstantial desperation, or a draft, inducted into the lines of the warriors caste of societies.
–(Updated 2018-11-10, only use the updated listing, please) One can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights:
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the optional protocol (1993).
- Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), Five-year review of progress (2000), 10-year review in 2005, the 15-year review in 2010, and the 20-year review in 2015.
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), and the UN Security Council additional resolutions on women, peace and security: 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013), and 2242 (2015).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
- UN Women’s strategic plan, 2018–2021
- 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
- 2015 agenda with 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (169 targets for the end to poverty, combatting inequalities, and so on, by 2030). The SDGs were preceded by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) from 2000 to 2015.
–Human Rights
Wednesdays 7 pm EST / 4 pm PST
Call-In Details: (701) 801-1220
Meeting ID: 934-317-242
Lead Page: https://goodmenproject.lpages.co/conscious-intersectionality/
Led by: Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Amanda Vining
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
Share this:
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/07/11
Strategic objective D.3.
Eliminate trafficking in women and assist victims of violence due to prostitution and trafficking
Actions to be taken
137. Refugee, displaced and migrant women in most cases display strength, endurance and resourcefulness and can contribute positively to countries of resettlement or to their country of origin on their return. They need to be appropriately involved in decisions that affect them.
Beijing Declaration (1995)
When we’re looking at much of the documentation of the Beijing Declaration, the stipulations can tend towards an emphasis on a few things including governmental support, INGO and NGO initiatives and funding and programs, and the world of greater gender equality in decision-making bodies. Each important for a multifaceted solution set for the problem, of prostitution and trafficking.
Now, when we’re looking at the ways in which the external support is helpful, ultimately, simply by the roll of the cosmic dice, probably, these refugee, displaced, and migrant women are left alone, battered, assaulted, rape, even disfigured. External organizations can help in most circumstances, and do help in some circumstances, but the natural questions arise about the gap between the reality and then the idealization of the provisions for women in these contexts.
Looking further, there exists a variety of needs only women, themselves, can provide individually and collectively for themselves. If we’re looking at the helping of oneself in war-torn regions and physical displacement contexts, especially post-war, we can see the general ways in which women are, generally, disproportionately negatively impacted by these. The rape as a weapon of war or forced marriage, or the lack of support for the majority of civilians impacted by war, i.e., women and girls.
These aren’t intended as commentaries on mistakes in oversight while on the job and needing some positive correction, needing to fall in order to rise to better performance. Rather, this amounts to the need for women, based on the reality, of at-times complete lack of support. Women need, as a matter of course, and do, display “strength, endurance and resourcefulness” in the resettlement processes within a country, or, indeed, if they return to the country of origin.
Take, for example, the country in which the women come from, but those nation-states that have been destroyed. All of this self-empowerment conversation comes with context. In this case, we see the obvious context of the need for women to be able to self-empower in a real way, not with so-called self-help books. In these instances, any temporary or proto-permanent decision-making apparatus or structure should include women, as the outcomes from these decisions will impact women disproportionately (positively or negatively, and most often negatively because they are not included in them).
–(Updated 2018-11-10, only use the updated listing, please) One can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights:
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the optional protocol (1993).
- Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), Five-year review of progress (2000), 10-year review in 2005, the 15-year review in 2010, and the 20-year review in 2015.
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), and the UN Security Council additional resolutions on women, peace and security: 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013), and 2242 (2015).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
- UN Women’s strategic plan, 2018–2021
- 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
- 2015 agenda with 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (169 targets for the end to poverty, combatting inequalities, and so on, by 2030). The SDGs were preceded by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) from 2000 to 2015.
–Human Rights
Wednesdays 7 pm EST / 4 pm PST
Call-In Details: (701) 801-1220
Meeting ID: 934-317-242
Lead Page: https://goodmenproject.lpages.co/conscious-intersectionality/
Led by: Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Amanda Vining
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
Share this:
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/07/06
Strategic objective D.3.
Eliminate trafficking in women and assist victims of violence due to prostitution and trafficking
Actions to be taken
136. Women and children constitute some 80 per cent of the world’s millions of refugees and other displaced persons, including internally displaced persons. They are threatened by deprivation of property, goods and services and deprivation of their right to return to their homes of origin as well as by violence and insecurity. Particular attention should be paid to sexual violence against uprooted women and girls employed as a method of persecution in systematic campaigns of terror and intimidation and forcing members of a particular ethnic, cultural or religious group to flee their homes. Women may also be forced to flee as a result of a well-founded fear of persecution for reasons enumerated in the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and the 1967 Protocol, including persecution through sexual violence or other gender-related persecution, and they continue to be vulnerable to violence and exploitation while in flight, in countries of asylum and resettlement and during and after repatriation. Women often experience difficulty in some countries of asylum in being recognized as refugees when the claim is based on such persecution.
Beijing Declaration (1995)
Continuing forward with the Beijing Declaration, the emphasis in this particular section is on the refugees and displaced persons. The startling fact, as noted in some of the prior publications, is the fact of the majority of the cases of the deprived in these international contexts being women.
It is a way in which the world tends to place lesser value on the lives of women in conflicts and, in other frames, puts men in a rather disposable status as warriors to go into the slaughter for national pride, territorial defence or aggression, and the like. Even in many of the advanced industrial economies with the wealth and the privileges to afford divorces at mass rates and the problematic circumstances emanating from them, often, the ability of women to own property is newer.
Of those countries in which women were able to gain some property, or some security of place, they can be stripped overnight or in a few hours in pummelled by rocket fire, or ransacked by foreign armed forces. It is the nature of war and the impacts on civilian populations. Bearing in mind, of course, those individuals whose lives are destroyed retain the same problems of increased risk of trafficking and forced prostitution.
With those women and girls who are uprooted in these circumstances, there should be due concern and work to prevent the wars in the first place. But the consideration for the inclusion of the lives of women and girls remain important in the cases of war and in the prevention of war: for two reasons, 1) women involved in the decision-making processes tend to reduce the probability of war and 2) the disproportionately negative recipients of war are civilians who tend to be women and girls.
Even in the cases of being able to return to their homeland or country of origin even, they can be “threatened by deprivation” in violence and insecurity too. The naive view is all violence is equal or the distribution is the same, which, of course, is not true. The central point of the violence against women is the disproportionate civilian and domestic violence in the more brutal, gruesome, and harmful ones with the possibility to end a life in the immediate. The statistics differ by sex. The statistics of the most violent differ by sex too.
Violence is a gender issue. War is an issue of throwing men’s lives away in war and in keeping women in terror, and as tools of the state as vessels of reproduction, which can be, obviously, seen in the use of rape as a weapon of war. Those women and girls who have been “uprooted” are left to “systematic campaigns of terror and intimidation.” Those campaigns can come in a variety of forms for many reasons.
Some of the jarring to consider sympathetically and seriously in some of the secular community in the religious groups being persecuted by secular state action. Religion does not amount to the problem; fundamentalism equates to the problem. Ethnic and cultural issues expand on some of these, too. In that, there exist a set of reasonable fears of persecution of women in the past and into the present on these specific items.
One Convention, in particular, is mentioned for it – tied to a protocol. Furthermore, even with the gender-based violence linked to the war environment, those who live and seek asylum; they will be, as hinted in prior articles, vulnerable to the issues of violence and exploitation in the process of fleeing or looking for asylum in other nation or place. Women are often, potentially with children, seeking asylum in these circumstances for safety and refuge. The questions as to what happens to individual women will differ, but the statistical cases will be relatively clear on disproportionately negative impacts on women and girls during and after war times.
–(Updated 2018-11-10, only use the updated listing, please) One can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights:
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the optional protocol (1993).
- Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), Five-year review of progress (2000), 10-year review in 2005, the 15-year review in 2010, and the 20-year review in 2015.
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), and the UN Security Council additional resolutions on women, peace and security: 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013), and 2242 (2015).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
- UN Women’s strategic plan, 2018–2021
- 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
- 2015 agenda with 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (169 targets for the end to poverty, combatting inequalities, and so on, by 2030). The SDGs were preceded by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) from 2000 to 2015.
–Human Rights
Wednesdays 7 pm EST / 4 pm PST
Call-In Details: (701) 801-1220
Meeting ID: 934-317-242
Lead Page: https://goodmenproject.lpages.co/conscious-intersectionality/
Led by: Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Amanda Vining
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
Share this:
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/07/05
Strategic objective D.3.
Eliminate trafficking in women and assist victims of violence due to prostitution and trafficking
Actions to be taken
135. While entire communities suffer the consequences of armed conflict and terrorism, women and girls are particularly affected because of their status in society and their sex. Parties to conflict often rape women with impunity, sometimes using systematic rape as a tactic of war and terrorism. The impact of violence against women and violation of the human rights of women in such situations is experienced by women of all ages, who suffer displacement, loss of home and property, loss or involuntary disappearance of close relatives, poverty and family separation and disintegration, and who are victims of acts of murder, terrorism, torture, involuntary disappearance, sexual slavery, rape, sexual abuse and forced pregnancy in situations of armed conflict, especially as a result of policies of ethnic cleansing and other new and emerging forms of violence. This is compounded by the life-long social, economic and psychologically traumatic consequences of armed conflict and foreign occupation and alien domination.
Beijing Declaration (1995)
The conversations around prostitution and sex trafficking remain extraordinarily important in the environment of 1995 and still in the period of 2019. Our issues dealing with the issues of violence against women and violence against men remain important to many individuals.
However, if we take a context in which there is a sense of aggression within the context of war creates the greater probability of sexual trafficking and prostitution, wherein the majority of the victim remain women and girls (also known as the majority of civilians in these instances), these victims are “particularly affected because of their status in society and their sex.” The rape is by men of women, not of men by women, in these zones of conflict.
It becomes and remains a tactic of war and terrorism. In an interesting legal framing, if rape is an act of war and terrorism, apart from already known as a heinous act and human rights violation, could instances of mass rape, or even individual rape, in war environments be placed under the categorization or the charge of a terrorist act?
A look at the violence against women and the violation of human rights of women does not discriminate much by age, as “such situations” are “experienced by women of all ages.” There are surrounding issues aside from the horrors of rape and sexual assault seen in forced prostitution and sex trafficking. War destroys everything. There is displacement, hope and property destruction, deaths and losses of close loved ones, and the tearing of intimate fabrics of family and the looser threads of communities.
Victims can be subject to “murder, terrorism, torture, involuntary disappearance, sexual slavery, rape, sexual abuse and forced pregnancy.” The last note on forced pregnancy can be a particularly poignant note with the sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood coming out in September with The Testaments in which a Canadian, and perhaps a North American, audience will harbour a greater sense of the idea of authoritarian regimes oriented purely around reproduction of women, as public utilities.
At the same time, these aren’t entirely the portrayal of the weave seen in societies. These are particular pieces of events re-weaved into stories or narratives reflective of the natural weaves of authoritarian regimes, which makes authoritarian societies extremely and keenly interested in the reproductive capacities of women. In the cases of attempts at, even successes at, genocide of peoples or ethnic cleansing, the rape of the women of the dominated group becomes a basis for replacement of the population with the makeup of the dominators, the “aggressors” in the previous Geneva Convention terminology.
Let alone the protracted impacts on one’s life from war and conflict, the loss of a sense of self and community prevents an easy re-establishment of a family, a community, or even the psychological wherewithal to it. These circumstances are not abstract, and make one want to weep. These are tragedies perpetuated throughout human history. The solution is not women. One of the solutions is the inclusion of women in important decision-making processes to prevent these wars continuing, for the improvement of peace, and to provide a rounded rather than one-sided perspective often seen in those given by men in charge, which is most of the individuals with the authority in our societies.
–(Updated 2018-11-10, only use the updated listing, please) One can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights:
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the optional protocol (1993).
- Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), Five-year review of progress (2000), 10-year review in 2005, the 15-year review in 2010, and the 20-year review in 2015.
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), and the UN Security Council additional resolutions on women, peace and security: 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013), and 2242 (2015).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
- UN Women’s strategic plan, 2018–2021
- 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
- 2015 agenda with 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (169 targets for the end to poverty, combatting inequalities, and so on, by 2030). The SDGs were preceded by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) from 2000 to 2015.
–Human Rights
Wednesdays 7 pm EST / 4 pm PST
Call-In Details: (701) 801-1220
Meeting ID: 934-317-242
Lead Page: https://goodmenproject.lpages.co/conscious-intersectionality/
Led by: Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Amanda Vining
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
Share this:
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/06/27
Strategic objective D.3.
Eliminate trafficking in women and assist victims of violence due to prostitution and trafficking
Actions to be taken
134. In a world of continuing instability and violence, the implementation of cooperative approaches to peace and security is urgently needed. The equal access and full participation of women in power structures and their full involvement in all efforts for the prevention and resolution of conflicts are essential for the maintenance and promotion of peace and security. Although women have begun to play an important role in conflict resolution, peace-keeping and defence and foreign affairs mechanisms, they are still underrepresented in decision-making positions. If women are to play an equal part in securing and maintaining peace, they must be empowered politically and economically and represented adequately at all levels of decision-making.
Beijing Declaration (1995)
Continuing on from the previous session, we can note the ways in which the world of sexual trafficking and prostitution, or paid sexual exploitation and slavery without consent, leave women and girls with brutal, harsh, and miserable lives. The prior context was conflict or territorial aggression, and also the annexation or taking over of land in an illegitimate way.
As noted in the outset of these particular paragraphs, we look at the instability and violence in specific circumstances, which can lead to the conditions in which women can be subjected to the issues of prostitution and sexual trafficking. Typically, with a reduction in the level of peace and security in a region, or a country, the lesser access to equality in the society for the women.
These, in the terminology of the Beijing Declaration (1995), amount to the power structures of the society. Indicatively, this amounts to some feminist, or specifically power-oriented feminisms, analysis of the context of peace and security and gender equality. When we look at the full participation of the women in the efforts for the prevention and resolution of conflicts, as per United Nations stipulations and news reports, they have become integral to the full equality of women within the society.
Thusly, women become important to the maintenance and promotion of peace and security. As we reflect on some of the earlier, and more recent stipulations, we can develop insight into the self-preservation and self-interest of women in the encouragement of peace and security in general, as more men commit atrocities in the world and more women & girls remain the civilian casualties of conflict.
However, this self-interest and self-preservation of women become the benefit of societies in the reduction of the numbers dead or murdered, or killed in combat, in war and the associated atrocities, where fewer rape victims exist and then the intergenerational contexts with the children of rape and the obliteration of families/family links.
But looking at the ways in which we can find the urgency stipulated on the cooperative approaches to peace and security, and in the necessity on the inclusion of women in these power structures or decision-making apparatus, another – and something I didn’t think about enough – was the defence and foreign affairs mechanism of the societies or the governments, hopefully, representative of the best collective will of the citizenry in the societies.
If we take the Canadian context, we can note the ways in which the Hon. Chrystia Freeland works in this domain for human rights cases. At the same time, we can, also, see this in a general context, whether with the current Prime Minister Justin Trudeau or in the instance of the Official Opposition party leader in the Conservative Party of Canada with Andrew Scheer. Both will have stances informed by ideological orientations on the funding and aims of the defence and foreign affairs apportionments and outreach portions from Canadian society, respectively.
One of the important notes almost a quarter of a century ago is the importance of women in the important decision-making aspects of peace and security (and defence and foreign affairs) mechanisms within a society, which would mean the inclusion, deliberate policy oriented as such and moving the dial towards this, of women in important junctures and positions for the improved status of the world’s girls and women – as the majority of the victims of war, i.e., civilian victims of violent aggression, in immediate effects and derivatives – and, therefore, the status of the world’s populations most vulnerable to war. This may require a metaphorical breaking of the back on the knee of the intolerable, to most women, innate trait and prime weak spot of males: vanity and pride – intolerable as they tend to have more sense.
All levels of decision making for political and economic empowerment – and this form of empowerment for better representation politically and economically, presumably. What comes of this? The improved status of women and girls, reduction of war, increase in peace and security, and the different approach, apparently, to the defence and foreign affairs orientations of nation-states. Fewer wars means fewer civilians in sex trafficking, full stop.
–(Updated 2018-11-10, only use the updated listing, please) One can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights:
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the optional protocol (1993).
- Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), Five-year review of progress (2000), 10-year review in 2005, the 15-year review in 2010, and the 20-year review in 2015.
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), and the UN Security Council additional resolutions on women, peace and security: 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013), and 2242 (2015).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
- UN Women’s strategic plan, 2018–2021
- 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
- 2015 agenda with 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (169 targets for the end to poverty, combatting inequalities, and so on, by 2030). The SDGs were preceded by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) from 2000 to 2015.
–Human Rights
Wednesdays 7 pm EST / 4 pm PST
Call-In Details: (701) 801-1220
Meeting ID: 934-317-242
Lead Page: https://goodmenproject.lpages.co/conscious-intersectionality/
Led by: Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Amanda Vining
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
Share this:
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/06/26
Strategic objective D.3.
Eliminate trafficking in women and assist victims of violence due to prostitution and trafficking
Actions to be taken
133. Violations of human rights in situations of armed conflict and military occupation are violations of the fundamental principles of international human rights and humanitarian law as embodied in international human rights instruments and in the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and the Additional Protocols thereto. Gross human rights violations and policies of ethnic cleansing in war-torn and occupied areas continue to be carried out. These practices have created, inter alia, a mass flow of refugees and other displaced persons in need of international protection and internally displaced persons, the majority of whom are women, adolescent girls and children. Civilian victims, mostly women and children, often outnumber casualties among combatants. In addition, women often become caregivers for injured combatants and find themselves, as a result of conflict, unexpectedly cast as sole manager of household, sole parent, and caretaker of elderly relatives.
Beijing Declaration (1995)
The Beijing Declaration, as noted in the prior casual commentary, is an extensive declaration to the rights and privileges of women and girls, and the responsibilities of the international community, national governments, organizations, and individual global citizens to them, and vice versa. None of this negates issues faced by the old, by majorities and minorities, by boys and men, and members of the LGBTI+ community, and so on.
With this 1995 emphasis on the sexual trafficking and prostitution in the world, we can see the problems not in the Super ZIPs or the modern bourgs, but in the more poor areas, rural areas, and so on. Of those poorer areas of the world, or those individuals in areas of the world in more desperate circumstances, the obvious ones can be seen in the areas of armed conflict and military occupation.
The places in which nation-states violate, often, international law and human rights norms. The bigger and more powerful the nation-state then, probably, the greater the propensity for the violation of human rights and the breach of international law. We can see this in the maxim of Thucydides of the strong do what they will and the weak suffer what they must, to some great degree true.
If we’re looking at the context of prostitution and the trafficking of women, then the general context becomes the base violation of one’s own bodily autonomy and general wellbeing. We are not talking here of the consented selling one’s body, which remains a separate issue. Here, we speak of the ways in which the armed conflicts and military occupations around the world have been utilized in such a way as to render women’s bodies utilities in the acts of war – before, during, and even after.
This can even come in the cases of rape following or during war and then the women being left with a pregnancy and, thus, a child – assuming no miscarriage or abortifacient used – resulting from it. These become children of both rape and of war. Human rights have been created in a concrete sense and then abstracted. These abstractions relate to the real experiences of those who are dead and gone, and to the livelihoods and justice of those alive now
Looking at some of the documentation here, we can see the ways in which the “fundamental principles of international human rights and humanitarian law” are violated in – extremely important – documents like the Geneva Conventions from 1949, in addition to the “Additional Protocols,” all of these provide a framework for the rights, laws, and situations in which sanctions can be placed on an aggressor nation. The one being violent as a state entity.
Some of the “gross human rights violations” stipulated here include ethnic cleansing in the areas that have been torn apart and ripped to shreds by war, or continue to be occupied by an aggressor nation-state. Gross because of the size of the violations. If we look at the ways in which women have been used in war, one of the main tools has been as pawns and producers, i.e., as tools for torture to get things or to be raped as such, or to produce children for the aggressor nation-state – in a historical sense.
What comes with this aggression in violation of the Geneva Conventions, for instance? We can see those whose homes have been demolished, lives have been disintegrated, and worlds ripped apart, even family members murdered in cold blood – lead to the PTSD stricken masses of refugees and displaced persons in the world today.
Those “in need of international protection and internally displaced persons, the majority of whom are women, adolescent girls and children.” These are the issues that many in the world – and mostly women and girls – are having to deal with on an ongoing basis. This is the sense of “pawns.” Their lives become cheaper in these contexts, where life already can have almost no value.
Often, those dead civilians will exceed the levels of the dead soldiers or combatants. Stated another way, those who in all likelihood had nothing to do with the crimes of aggression in violation of the Geneva Conventions in many places around the world have been the majority victims. That’s the true tragedy here, based levels of callous indifferent murder and exploitation of lives for, probably, national gain.
In those contexts, of those who may be surviving, those women and girls can then be subject to the true tragedy here tht comes from the fact that majority of the victims in these mass crimes is the civilian victim trafficking and then sexual exploitation in a variety of ways. Many times, we can see the exploitation in the forms of selling their bodies, basically, as meat and parts for the use of pleasure of another person – a complete stranger, likely – and rape of them.
Those who we could consider lucky, by the roll of the dice in a situation of war and post-conflict, would be those who become the only parent and caretaker of the young and the old left alive in the family.
Such is life, such is war, and are the contexts for those devasted by wars; which can lead to some disturbing reflections, what nation-states commit these violations as the aggressor nation?
–(Updated 2018-11-10, only use the updated listing, please) One can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights:
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the optional protocol (1993).
- Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), Five-year review of progress (2000), 10-year review in 2005, the 15-year review in 2010, and the 20-year review in 2015.
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), and the UN Security Council additional resolutions on women, peace and security: 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013), and 2242 (2015).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
- UN Women’s strategic plan, 2018–2021
- 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
- 2015 agenda with 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (169 targets for the end to poverty, combatting inequalities, and so on, by 2030). The SDGs were preceded by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) from 2000 to 2015.
–Human Rights
Wednesdays 7 pm EST / 4 pm PST
Call-In Details: (701) 801-1220
Meeting ID: 934-317-242
Lead Page: https://goodmenproject.lpages.co/conscious-intersectionality/
Led by: Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Amanda Vining
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
Share this:
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/05/19
Strategic objective D.3.
Eliminate trafficking in women and assist victims of violence due to prostitution and trafficking
Actions to be taken
132. The Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, of 1949, and the Additional Protocols of 1977/24 provide that women shall especially be protected against any attack on their honour, in particular against humiliating and degrading treatment, rape, enforced prostitution or any form of indecent assault. The Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action, adopted by the World Conference on Human Rights, states that “violations of the human rights of women in situations of armed conflict are violations of the fundamental principles of international human rights and humanitarian law”./25 All violations of this kind, including in particular murder, rape, including systematic rape, sexual slavery and forced pregnancy require a particularly effective response. Gross and systematic violations and situations that constitute serious obstacles to the full enjoyment of human rights continue to occur in different parts of the world. Such violations and obstacles include, as well as torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or summary and arbitrary detention, all forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia, denial of economic, social and cultural rights and religious intolerance.
Beijing Declaration (1995)
The reduction in the trafficking of women and the victims of violence due to prostitution and trafficking is incredibly important, as these represent grave violations of human rights and international law.
The conventions and declarations within the international community remain important for the upholding of the apparently universal values set forth in the global organizations such as the United Nations for the implementation and maintenance of the rights standards seen as desirable to actuate within the real world rather than simply on paper.
The protocol stipulates protections for the honour of women – sounds almost like the Middle Ages but is not. It deals with serious and perennial issues around the degradation, humiliation, and mistreatment of women around the world and right into the present, especially as regards human rights and their violations.
This does not relate in a direct manner to the chivalric code or something like this. As noted in the paragraph, the protection of women in armed struggle becomes extremely important, as one of the most important considerations of the combatants throughout most or probably all the armies in the world is that they are men.
In this sense, the protection of women from sexual assault, trafficking, and prostitution becomes important in the consideration of women as full human beings and, often, civilians within the contexts of wars and other tragedies. Not only human rights violations, but the paragraph also cites precedence decades into the past about violations of international in these contexts.
As stated, these are the rape of women, the murder of women, sexual slavery of women, forced pregnancy of women, and so on, in “gross and systematic violations” of international law and of the human rights of women.
The full rights of humanity cannot be enjoyed without the recognition of the full rights of women in general. Women can be subjected to all forms of discrimination mentioned above based on a number of identifiable factors, whether on innate appearance or on the statuses found in governmental/official documentation.
Trafficking and prostitution are not to be taken lightly or to glossed over. In an international and a national context, women remain amongst the most vulnerable in the areas in the midst of war, and, even in the times of no war, can be seen as, in essence, public utilities for use and abuse by state authorities, whether the armies invading other countries or the patriarchal structures within a society (those in which we see direct attempts to silence critical analysis in the current moment, in those nation-states with some modicum of infrastructure and honest intelligentsia willing to direct attention to those structures and to enlighten, critique, and mobilize individuals within the populations, especially women, rather than see them kept willfully naive and open to the aforementioned perennial abuses.)
–(Updated 2018-11-10, only use the updated listing, please) One can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights:
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the optional protocol (1993).
- Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), Five-year review of progress (2000), 10-year review in 2005, the 15-year review in 2010, and the 20-year review in 2015.
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), and the UN Security Council additional resolutions on women, peace and security: 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013), and 2242 (2015).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
- UN Women’s strategic plan, 2018–2021
- 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
- 2015 agenda with 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (169 targets for the end to poverty, combatting inequalities, and so on, by 2030). The SDGs were preceded by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) from 2000 to 2015.
–Human Rights
Wednesdays 7 pm EST / 4 pm PST
Call-In Details: (701) 801-1220
Meeting ID: 934-317-242
Lead Page: https://goodmenproject.lpages.co/conscious-intersectionality/
Led by: Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Amanda Vining
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
Share this:
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/05/18
Strategic objective D.3.
Eliminate trafficking in women and assist victims of violence due to prostitution and trafficking
Actions to be taken
131. An environment that maintains world peace and promotes and protects human rights, democracy and the peaceful settlement of disputes, in accordance with the principles of non-threat or use of force against territorial integrity or political independence and of respect for sovereignty as set forth in the Charter of the United Nations, is an important factor for the advancement of women. Peace is inextricably linked with equality between women and men and development. Armed and other types of conflicts and terrorism and hostage-taking still persist in many parts of the world. Aggression, foreign occupation, ethnic and other types of conflicts are an ongoing reality affecting women and men in nearly every region. Gross and systematic violations and situations that constitute serious obstacles to the full enjoyment of human rights continue to occur in different parts of the world. Such violations and obstacles include, as well as torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment, summary and arbitrary executions, disappearances, arbitrary detentions, all forms of racism and racial discrimination, foreign occupation and alien domination, xenophobia, poverty, hunger and other denials of economic, social and cultural rights, religious intolerance, terrorism, discrimination against women and lack of the rule of law. International humanitarian law, prohibiting attacks on civilian populations, as such, is at times systematically ignored and human rights are often violated in connection with situations of armed conflict, affecting the civilian population, especially women, children, the elderly and the disabled. Violations of the human rights of women in situations of armed conflict are violations of the fundamental principles of international human rights and humanitarian law. Massive violations of human rights, especially in the form of genocide, ethnic cleansing as a strategy of war and its consequences, and rape, including systematic rape of women in war situations, creating a mass exodus of refugees and displaced persons, are abhorrent practices that are strongly condemned and must be stopped immediately, while perpetrators of such crimes must be punished. Some of these situations of armed conflict have their origin in the conquest or colonialization of a country by another State and the perpetuation of that colonization through state and military repression.
Beijing Declaration (1995)
Paragraph 131 of the Beijing Declaration represents a significantly large and almost self-descriptive paragraph in it. If we’re looking at the main issues involving the reduction to elimination of the trafficking of women, the establishment of safe and functioning institutions within the society become important parts of it.
This covers a lot of ground and, therefore, will need much time to cover. But I will work to keep this more compact in proportion to the paragraph. Its emphasis on the protection and respect for human rights are integral to the peace desired by most, but its not within a naive context. There is an indication of the necessity of the “peaceful settlement of disputes” and keeping things within the framework of three principles focused on the advancement of women.
The first principle is the idea of non-threat. There should not be threats made in order to maintain the aforementioned peace desired by most. In addition, we can see the second principle in the “use of force against territorial integrity.” The annexation of land, the attempt to take land or step onto the territory militarily without permission, becomes part of the principle here.
Nobody likes to have tanks arbitrarily step onto their sovereign territory; they’re generally touchy about it. The third principle is the political independence of a territory or, typically in the modern period, the state and then the respect (implying a prior acknowledgment and acceptance) of the sovereignty of the state.
All important for the advancement (and empowerment) of women (and girls). Sex and gender equality becomes an impediment to peace and development. Indeed, for the most developed states or nations, in general, the highest ranking economically and in terms of social development come from the most gender equal.
There is an acknowledgement of some of the poor circumstances throughout the work around conflict, terrorism, hostages, aggression, foreign occupation, ethnic and other conflicts, and so on, affecting men and women around the world.
All part of the continuous violation of rights and privileges given by the international community and, ideally, implemented – more or less – equally. The violations of human rights sit at the core of the problem of human trafficking and the problems following from them.
The human rights documents are intended to provide a framework in which individual human beings can lead decent and reasonable lives in accordance within a global and interdependent community.
As stated, “Such violations and obstacles include, as well as torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment, summary and arbitrary executions, disappearances, arbitrary detentions, all forms of racism and racial discrimination, foreign occupation and alien domination, xenophobia, poverty, hunger and other denials of economic, social and cultural rights, religious intolerance, terrorism, discrimination against women and lack of the rule of law.”
In general, each of these categories will be worse for women than for others. Some of our central questions come in the form of the protection of civilians and ordinary citizens from the impacts of war and conflict, and the problems of human trafficking.
International humanitarian law is violated in the use of attacks on civilian populations and in the trafficking of civilians, whether in wartime or not. If individual states see themselves as above the law, then these individuals violate the law if they act in such a manner reflecting this attitude in violation of standards and norms in the legal contexts.
It is nearly identical with larger entities entitled states, nation-states, Member States, nations, or countries. Individual countries, or sets of them in regions or around the world, can violate international law. The governing set of legal norms important for the functioning of the international community.
This does not, in any way, imply the non-violation at regular rates by the international community of these internationalk8y legal frameworks. In fact, as with individual citizens in the Member States of the United Nations violating national law, we can find the general violation of the rights and international law by states.
The can be an ugly place, where there can be human rights violations and international law breaches “systematically ignored” in the cases of “attacks on civilian populations.” Those who can be affected by injury or death by the violations of international law in the attacks on civilian targets cases.
Any attacks on civilians in the conditions of armed conflict are “are violations of the fundamental principles of international human rights and humanitarian law.” Prostitution and trafficking become issues laden with the areas of international law and human rights.
In the context of those wanting greater freedom of movement and autonomy for their lives, the economic dependence or the lack of economic independence creates an issue for the women who become entrapped, deliberately by the purveyors, in the contexts of trafficking and prostitution. There can be arguments for legal prostitution.
However, these can be mixed with the contexts of the consent to a job as a sex-worker, which differs from the context of a prostitute in this legal framework and rights structure with the emphasis on human rights and international law. It is a violation of human rights and a breach of international law to enforce women in situations of prostitution and trafficking. (Let alone violating what seem like simply basic notions of human decency.)
The paragraph goes on to bring in the “massive violations of human rights” found in cases including “genocide, ethnic cleansing” and “systematic rape of women.” These create a variety of issues, e.g., refugees and displaced persons, pregnancies from the rapes, and the deaths of those of civilians caught in the conflicts – targeted or unintentional killings.
Even in the cases of conquest or colonization of a sovereign state by another one, we come to the problems of refugees and displaced persons created as a result of these. In addition, we can see the outcomes for women in regards to vulnerability to further rights and international law violations, whether in trafficking or in prostitution.
–(Updated 2018-11-10, only use the updated listing, please) One can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights:
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the optional protocol (1993).
- Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), Five-year review of progress (2000), 10-year review in 2005, the 15-year review in 2010, and the 20-year review in 2015.
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), and the UN Security Council additional resolutions on women, peace and security: 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013), and 2242 (2015).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
- UN Women’s strategic plan, 2018–2021
- 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
- 2015 agenda with 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (169 targets for the end to poverty, combatting inequalities, and so on, by 2030). The SDGs were preceded by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) from 2000 to 2015.
–Human Rights
Wednesdays 7 pm EST / 4 pm PST
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Meeting ID: 934-317-242
Lead Page: https://goodmenproject.lpages.co/conscious-intersectionality/
Led by: Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Amanda Vining
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Md. Sazzadul Hoque is an exiled Bangladeshi secularist blogger, human rights activist, and atheist activist. His writing covers a wide range of issues, including religious superstition, critical thinking, feminism, gender equality, homosexuality, and female empowerment. He’s protested against blogger killings and past/present atrocities against Bangladeshi minorities by the dominant Muslim political establishment. He’s also written about government-sponsored abductions and the squashing of free speech; the systematic corruption in everyday life of Bangladeshis; and the denial of the pursuit of happiness.
In 2017, after receiving numerous threats, he was forced to leave Bangladesh out of safety concerns.
Looking at the general perspectives of women throughout the history of the world, one general item comes to the fore: typically, a lower status compared to the others. Unfortunately, this does not have to occur, but it does – and so should be discussed. It should be talked about within a particular discourse about a specific set of interpretations and the times in which these behaviours impact the lives of women.
Those behaviours and attitudes are unhealthy to a better self-identity as a man leading to better treatment to women and, potentially, better treatment of women by men in the cases of the abuse of women.
Hoque, on some Bangladeshi versions of Islam and the treatment of women, stated, “Definitely, they are treated just as the holy hateful book Quran suggest them to do. Very selective few women were wearing hijab 20 years ago now it is widespread…Injustice to women to certain degree less than the other parts of the Muslim world but it is there. Oppression, brutality, rape, is an omnipresent fear in the women population.”
The Council of Ex-Muslims of Bangladesh founded by Hoque will provide a counternarrative, according to him, of proper information, where some of the inappropriate contents of the holy texts can be used to harm women. Some may disagree with the approach of Hoque. However, it provides one means by which to empower individuals.
“They know how to recite but do not know the meaning. Council intent is to get this information accessible to this demography and show them an example how women are treated differently in other parts of the world or other country where Islam is not prevalent,” Hoque stated.
On some of the unfortunate cases of bigotry from some Islamically-based thinkers, Hoque talked about the prime minister and the political party. Indeed, one party leader entitled the Bangaldesh national party is seen as one by Hoque.
With several women leaders within Bangladesh, the leadership comes from heredity rather than qualification. The most prominent bigot according to Hoque is Ahmed Sharif.
Hoque concluded, “International attention and criticism of the government and its policies regardless who is in power. Bangladesh receives a lot of foreign remittance from Middle East and a lot of these vile trickles down from there to Bangladesh. Because of their influence lot of people and prominent Bangladeshi actor and actress are turning to hijab and religious extremism.”
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Strategic objective D.3.
Eliminate trafficking in women and assist victims of violence due to prostitution and trafficking
Actions to be taken
130. By Governments of countries of origin, transit and destination, regional and international organizations, as appropriate:
e. Develop educational and training programmes and policies and consider enacting legislation aimed at preventing sex tourism and trafficking, giving special emphasis to the protection of young women and children.
Beijing Declaration (1995)
Among the more pervasive and historically prevalent forms of violence against women is in the act of trafficking, the ways in which can be objectified in ultra-conservative or ultra-permissible societies reflect other facets of our societies.
The ways in which women can live, essentially, slave lives while trafficked. It comes from a larger qualitative analysis of the complete covering of women based on the demands of the patriarchal structures and culture, or become in many ways coerced into the opposite based on other cultures.
In either case, the pressures on women to perform and behave, and dress, in specific ways becomes immense, far more than the men. Regardless, the elimination of trafficking in women and the assistance of the victims of victims due to prostitution and trafficking is of utmost importance.
When we look into the actions rather than simply the talk around the international issue and human rights violation of trafficking and prostitution, the development of “educational and training programmes” becomes a central piece of the arsenal in combatting trafficking of girls and women.
The world of politics and policymaking cannot be ignored, as the governments require enforcement of the policies and the legislation if passed.
When targeted at sex tourism and trafficking, in particular, there should be protections, as mentioned in the previous articles around the ways women and girls can undergo trauma and will require protection, e.g., the aforementioned privacy in healthcare can be one means by which to do it.
At the same time, we come into the situation requiring the top-down and bottom-up problem-solving methodology known as activism. If we look at the grassroots movements, there needs to be a sacrifice, a willingness to work across ideological lines, and form coalitions targeting specific and concrete aspects of the problem: of sexual trafficking and prostitution.
This, among many international issues, is not a complicated issue. The facts remain in front of us; the right violations should remain apparent to most with a conscience, and the next question becomes the best means to reach the solutions.
In the grassroots activism, this can be the basis, and has been, for the influence on the public for pressuring those in power, or those with the political and policymaking power to implement change on the books with further pressure for enacting said changes.
From the top-down, of course, it can come from the government itself; probably, the more reliable alternative is the international and regional institutions and organizations, including the UN, to pressure the governments of a region or the world to recognize and acknowledge a problem and then begin to act on it.
Within this, there can be work for the rights of women and girls, and some boys and men, in these arenas. Even in my own country, trafficking and sex trafficking can be an issue. Something that creates horrible sub-cultures of abuse and slavery for the women and the girls who happen to be caught in them.
The cultural shrug, in some regards, may reflect the larger international need to recognize this massive problem inflicted on millions.
–(Updated 2018-11-10, only use the updated listing, please) One can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights:
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the optional protocol (1993).
- Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), Five-year review of progress (2000), 10-year review in 2005, the 15-year review in 2010, and the 20-year review in 2015.
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), and the UN Security Council additional resolutions on women, peace and security: 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013), and 2242 (2015).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
- UN Women’s strategic plan, 2018–2021
- 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
- 2015 agenda with 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (169 targets for the end to poverty, combatting inequalities, and so on, by 2030). The SDGs were preceded by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) from 2000 to 2015.
–Human Rights
Wednesdays 7 pm EST / 4 pm PST
Call-In Details: (701) 801-1220
Meeting ID: 934-317-242
Lead Page: https://goodmenproject.lpages.co/conscious-intersectionality/
Led by: Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Amanda Vining
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
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Strategic objective D.3.
Eliminate trafficking in women and assist victims of violence due to prostitution and trafficking
Actions to be taken
130. By Governments of countries of origin, transit and destination, regional and international organizations, as appropriate:
d. Allocate resources to provide comprehensive programmes designed to heal and rehabilitate into society victims of trafficking, including through job training, legal assistance and confidential health care, and take measures to cooperate with non-governmental organizations to provide for the social, medical and psychological care of the victims of trafficking;
Beijing Declaration (1995)
For the Beijing Declaration and the work for the advancement of human rights of women, sex trafficking remains a particularly egregious case as a crime against women. Sexual trafficking is one of the most rapidly growing crimes in the world. Bustle provided a decent rundown of some basic statistics.
That is to say, enslavement and rape, and sexual assault, are continuing to rise as a collective set of human rights violations. It becomes an international form of entrapment. When looking at those who are trapped in this form of sexual slavery, we see 24.9 million are in it, are trapped in it, based on 2017 data from the International Labor Organization.
71% of the victims of this massive human rights violation are women and girls. Over half are sexually exploited, because this is the nature of the violation of the rights here. Of those trafficked, by implication, or placed into this forced ‘labour,’ the vast majority are women and girls
By implication, the traffickers in the non-vast majority, or the super-minority, are women who traffick other girls and women, and some boys and men. In accordance with stipulation (d), the ways in which to help the women and girls is to allocate “comprehensive programmes” in order to “heal and rehabilitate” those who have been subject to these crimes.
And the recommendations are specific and concrete action items. They reference job training, legal assistance, and confidential health care. In job training, a girl or a woman took out of the job market for a long time because of being forced into sex trafficking can become a serious issue.
Reintegration and development of job skills become a significant hurdle or barrier for these women who may have not too long ago been girls. Another recommendation is legal assistance. This is a common recommendation. For those women who do not have the experience or legal expertise, or know-how, this assistance can be indispensable for the entry into a new life.
Confidential health care is important too. As with the fight for the abortion rights of women and girls, a level of confidentiality can be important, as a qualitative analysis, for the dignity respect of women and girls.
For women coming out of sexual trafficking, for example, this level of dignity and respect can be part of the healing process as they may not have been given much for the period in which their fundamental human rights and dignity were trampled upon as sex slaves.
The cooperation at the levels of analysis provided before become increasingly relevant, too. For example, if we look at the measures for cooperation between the non-governmental organizations and the aforementioned “regional and international organizations,” then the medical, psychological, and social care can be given in a more robust manner to those most in need of it.
These are serious human rights violations and, therefore, deserve the seriousness and due action that they deserve, internationally.
–(Updated 2018-11-10, only use the updated listing, please) One can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights:
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the optional protocol (1993).
- Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), Five-year review of progress (2000), 10-year review in 2005, the 15-year review in 2010, and the 20-year review in 2015.
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), and the UN Security Council additional resolutions on women, peace and security: 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013), and 2242 (2015).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
- UN Women’s strategic plan, 2018–2021
- 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
- 2015 agenda with 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (169 targets for the end to poverty, combatting inequalities, and so on, by 2030). The SDGs were preceded by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) from 2000 to 2015.
–Human Rights
Wednesdays 7 pm EST / 4 pm PST
Call-In Details: (701) 801-1220
Meeting ID: 934-317-242
Lead Page: https://goodmenproject.lpages.co/conscious-intersectionality/
Led by: Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Amanda Vining
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Strategic objective D.3.
Eliminate trafficking in women and assist victims of violence due to prostitution and trafficking
Actions to be taken
130. By Governments of countries of origin, transit and destination, regional and international organizations, as appropriate:
b. Take appropriate measures to address the root factors, including external factors, that encourage trafficking in women and girls for prostitution and other forms of commercialized sex, forced marriages and forced labour in order to eliminate trafficking in women, including by strengthening existing legislation with a view to providing better protection of the rights of women and girls and to punishing the perpetrators, through both criminal and civil measures;
c. Step up cooperation and concerted action by all relevant law enforcement authorities and institutions with a view to dismantling national, regional and international networks in trafficking;
Beijing Declaration (1995)
When we examine the ways in which discrimination expands into the world of sex and sexuality, the differences between the treatment of the sexes and the genders become more stark and clear. In fact, when we examine the ways that the dynamics seem to work in the world of sex trafficking, sex work, prostitution, and the like, women tend to become an exaggerated form as before.
Women not only as objects of pleasure, but also objectified in a number of ways – probably for the most part. The questions arise around the actions that can be taken by governments. In a modern context, one of the things that can be done is the work to provide some institutional support for women subject to prostitution and sex trafficking, or trafficking in general.
Noting, of course, some nuances exist around the margins of the discussion with legal and consented-to sex work with safety protocols in place. However, if we take a moment to reflect, we may note the general context of the violation of women’s rights as the central issue of concern for now.
When actionables are brought forward, the main points of contact here are the governments relative to the victims’ status, the transit and ultimate destination, and then the regional and international organizations capable of providing some support.
To take those adequate measures for dealing with the root factors as well as the external correlates of the problem of trafficking of girls and women, one is dealing, at once, with future derivatives and the current issues of the problem of trafficking when dealing with the root issues.
The emphases in the second paragraph are sex for pay and forced marriages. In dealing with the elimination of the trafficking of women, we are dealing with these concerns, internationally as well.
The rights of girls and women are violated globally when these trafficking issues are not dealt with. Part of this requires proportional punishment of perpetrators of the trafficking of girls and women. The scales emphasized are criminal/legal and civil measures.
In order to do this, there will need to be an international effort based on mutual trust and cooperation between the parties of the world, including the aforementioned governments & and the regional and international organizations focused on dealing with these issues.
–(Updated 2018-11-10, only use the updated listing, please) One can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights:
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the optional protocol (1993).
- Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), Five-year review of progress (2000), 10-year review in 2005, the 15-year review in 2010, and the 20-year review in 2015.
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), and the UN Security Council additional resolutions on women, peace and security: 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013), and 2242 (2015).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
- UN Women’s strategic plan, 2018–2021
- 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
- 2015 agenda with 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (169 targets for the end to poverty, combatting inequalities, and so on, by 2030). The SDGs were preceded by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) from 2000 to 2015.
–Human Rights
Wednesdays 7 pm EST / 4 pm PST
Call-In Details: (701) 801-1220
Meeting ID: 934-317-242
Lead Page: https://goodmenproject.lpages.co/conscious-intersectionality/
Led by: Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Amanda Vining
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
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Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/04/07
By Way of Digression: Tip-Offs and Tips of the Hat
I stumbled across a discussion between Susan Jacoby and Rebecca Newberger Goldstein (Center for Inquiry, 2016; Jacoby, 2018; Goldstein, 2018; Jacobsen, 2016a; Center for Inquiry, 2012; Center for Inquiry, 2013).
Jacoby has spoken articulately on Robert Ingersoll; indeed, she has spoken in an articulate and informed manner on the need for women to change their image of themselves, the dumbing down of the public within the education system, the further dumbing down of the general populace through language simplification, on the importance of the clear meaning of facts, and the need for more political clout amongst secular people including non-religious women (Jacoby, 2012; Jacoby, 2018; FORA TV, 2015; JamesRandiFoundation, 2014; FFRF, 2017; BSGSpeakers, 2015; cunytv75, 2017; LibertyPen, 2012).
If you would kindly please indulge some time today, I would like to take a winding journey from within the context of the dialogue between Jacoby and Goldstein, where this sparked a modest international conversation with some women in the secular community to be explored in the second part of this article.
After one commentary and presentation on the insightful dialogue between the two of them, this article will present qualitative and limited, though international and in-depth, commentary from interviews with secular women. The interviews from several regions of the world, where the complete interviews will be in the first footnoted reference to each individual interviewee.
“Secular” in this context means “non-religious” in some traditional meanings. That is, it means the rejection of the traditional religions here, though colloquial in interpretation, which is a weakness in a metric of precision of the qualitative research.
As many inside and outside of the non-religious community remarked about some modern atheists, it is mostly comprised of young white men in the following and older white men in the leadership.
“White” here meaning “Caucasian with a European heritage.” “Young” here meaning 18-to-35-year-olds. Not good or bad but a factual observation, a larger grouping of young Caucasian men looking for easy answers in an increasingly complicated, uncertain, diversifying, technologically advanced, and changing world.
The branch of atheism known for an impolite tone, tenor, even vernacular, and a peculiar, obvious, and understandable lack of awareness about the ways in which this appears to others within the secular communities and the communities of the religious. It remains palpable and a marker of some of the newer brand of atheism, or some of, in short, the New Atheism.
New Atheism experienced ascendance in the 2000s with a denouement, in most regards, in the 2010s. Similar arguments to the older atheism, but more assertive, sometimes aggressive, and certainly impolite argumentation and presentation at times, for example, alcohol increases aggression and disinhibits drinkers. One revered New Atheist, Christopher Hitchens, may have been an alcoholic.
Other movements grounded in mythology and centred on Christian narratives and implicit apologetics, and the imagery and life of Christ as penultimate, leech off the membership and the talking points, at this point, of New Atheism.
Its implicit or tacit endorsement within the movement remains Western flavours of Christianity linked to right-wing libertarianism from the social and economic values to the messaging to the language to the imagery to the literature considered central.
It is mostly in Western Europe and North America while gathering mutual followings from some of the New Atheist movement membership or has been throughout the latter 2010s.
Something akin to some ideological components of the New Atheist movement with the emergence in the second decade of the 21st century. It may be properly titled the New Mythologist movement with a secular emphasis on myths and a centrality, in sum, of what they deem or see as the essence of Western civilization. Not so strangely, all with implicit Christian narratives, imagery, apologetics, and so on.
For the most part, it is comprised of white men aged 18-to-35-years-old in Western Europe and North America. Those with what seems like a Christian family and cultural heritage, who, without doubt, find interest in, and to no surprise, affirm the absolute orientation of the movement in the notion of Western traditions with Christianity alone as supreme.
Again, not as a judgment but an observation, older white men from the same advanced industrial economies appear to comprise most of the leadership of the New Mythologist movement if the descriptor seems accurate or may be permitted at this time.
Some can be observed. The individuals decrying the insistence of marginal individuals and peoples in society for their human rights to be implemented while also lambasting the violation of their own free speech rights as an individual. The former seen as collectivists; the latter seen as individualists. Both, whether knowingly or not, arguing for human rights and equality.
Human rights exist as individual rights by their nature with the inclusion of various forms of collective rights at an emergent level, e.g., individual rights of a Palestinian child to clean water and the collective right to self-determination of the Palestinians.
The apparent or tacitly asserted separation between individualism, collectivism, and fundamental human rights, freedoms, and responsibilities remain illusory.
This misapprehension or misunderstanding becomes the basis of some modern movements focusing either on rights solely, responsibilities solely, or one or the other mostly, und so weiter.
For one example, an implicit assumption as “pro-free speech rights, for us, and anti-human rights, for others,” where, of course, freedom of expression remains a human right. Not often used in this language; however, this remains the implication of the points.
In fact, the movements across the spectrum take the public platforms to speak on the right to “free speech” when outside of an American context, which seems factually and, even tactically, wrong. As a technicality, the human right remains right to freedom of expression with speech as part of it.
Whereas, the focus of the individuals travelling the lecture, debate, and panel circuit is “free speech” within a “free speech crisis” framework, which exists as a misnomer in a way. This means a misnomer within an entire social justice movement narrowly focused on free speech rights alone.
“Social justice” defined as “human rights and equality,” where freedom of expression remains a human right in numerous national contexts and, certainly, in an international one. They should mean freedom of expression in most countries and in an international context; only freedom of speech within an American context.
As with the ill-conceived and oxymoronic “Postmodern Neo-Marxist” epithet or descriptor, there will need to be backtracking to clear their names and terminology, such is the nature of ideologues unable to see their ideology, e.g., “I knew the meaning all along of Postmodern Neo-Marxist. Here’s what I meant after formal criticism,” and having been shown to be flatly wrong and ignorant. If one knew, as a safe assumption, one would not use the term; one would use a different word or set of them.
Anyhow, Jacoby and Goldstein brought forward some internal dialogue for me. The discussion between two of the most prominent and respected secular women within the Western world centred on the polite conduct of some women around the subject of religion and in the company of the religious in contrast to some men.
Some in observation of the religious institutions raise legitimate and valid questions about the place of women within the faiths. Where are the women in the positions of influence?
Where are the leaders and prominent figures in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, or in the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church, in the Islamic communities around the world – Shia, Sunni, Ahmadiyya, and otherwise, the Freemasons (leaving aside the issue of their “no atheists” policy too – no specification as to the flavour of atheism), and so on?
We can see the emphasized imagery in the Virgin Mary and Mother Mary, as one example. This simply provides an example of the two attributes most valued in the women within the faith, which, in turn, determines, and has determined, their value within the community of the faithful with the virginity, or chastity, of the woman and the motherhood of the woman as their most important capacities.
Many secularists adhere to the Utilitarian ethic expounded and propounded on by John Stuart Mill, in chapter 2 of Utilitarianism, where he explained:
I must again repeat, what the assailants of utilitarianism seldom have the justice to acknowledge… In the golden rule of Jesus of Nazareth, we read the complete spirit of the ethics of utility. To do as you would be done by, and to love your neighbour as yourself, constitute the ideal perfection of utilitarian morality.[1](Mill, 1863)
Insofar as I can discern, if we want to employ an “ideal perfection” of the Utilitarian ethic or the Golden Rule in its fullest or truest sense, then the questions about the women leadership and representation within the churches, the mosques, the synagogues, the temples, and other places of worship, and in the general organizational structures of the religious institutions should extend to home turf of the secular.
Is this desired? Or, more properly, what would be a preferable expression of this ideal perfection in secular communities around the world on this specific question? Indeed, the answers will differ, and have differed.
In fact, the answers may reflect different emphases on the tacit question for communities within the framework of leadership, governance, the Golden Rule, high ranking of some secular and humanistic values, low ranking of other of the self-same values, removal of other values, or addition of novel ones, and so on.
Of course, individuals harbour the right to freedom of belief and freedom of religion. If they deem fit for their lives, then they can worship as they wish without qualms, as a human right.
Which implies, the same for the secular in nations killing them for existing or punishing them for questioning tenets of the faith, or, in the utilization of freedom of expression, punished with the fundamentalist religious crime of blasphemy.
Thus, the emphasis on the equality of women becomes social and legal equality or a sociological question about the equitable structuring or ordering of secular society for the benefit of the non-religious and the religious, especially as the benefits for women in a variety of contexts will benefit the men.
Women’s rights, as human rights and inseparable from one another, become beneficial on, at minimum, three levels: women, men, and societies.
Back to the dialogue enquiry formed by Goldstein and Jacoby, in one framing of the questions, where are the equal proportion of women leaders in the non-religious or secular in general communities and movements, especially the modern ones given the disproportionate representation of men in the membership and the leadership?
Sincerely, I ask this in an inquiring tone and in the most inviting terms possible, as I observed this as a sensitive and charged topic within the community of the secular (and the religious): the subject matter of equality. A legitimate and valid question as to why this is the case. Many women exist in or out of the non-religious movement working to instantiate equality in a variety of ways or working with the non-religious movements on topics of import to the irreligious community.
Aside from the few known dead, some of the living, from personal archives, who fight for secularism, women’s rights, medical assistance in dying and dying with dignity, sex positivity, evidence-based sexual education curricula, secular evidence-based recovery programs, and the equality of the formal non-religious exist around the world – and who may adhere to a faith but remain tolerant, accepting, and progressive regarding the non-religious.[2]
One of the early points from Jacoby came from the women without religion, reluctant to describe themselves as such to their children, family, and community out of terror. Fearful their children might get bullied because parents and even a single parent, not both, and potentially the kids, do not harbor the preferred faith of the neighborhood and the community possibly finding out about their disbelief.
As many have experienced in work and school, whether someone who is known to you or, indeed, yourself, this happens to be the case from kindergarten through postsecondary school right into the workplace, whether positions of menial labor or public influence. The non-religious women’s politeness, in this domain, emerges in the form of protection.
The care and concern by women for the well-being of their children in educational institutions and within community social networks because of the simple potential for bias, bullying, and generalized prejudice against children with non-religious parents or, potentially, kids who identify as the formal non-religious, too.
Goldstein remarked on the next subject: women being more religious. Why do some women identify as more religious than men, especially in religious activities including attendance at places of worship (Powell, 2017)? Indeed, even in the university system, women, to the detriment of professional progress, work in service to others more (Flaherty, 2017).
In the United States, Christian women are more religious (Fahmy, 2018; Carter, 2018). Nature and nurture explanations exist for attempts to explain the gender gap in religiosity (Pew Research Center, 2016a). The World Economic Forum reported on the higher religiosity of women in contrast to men around the entire globe, not simply a single nation (2016).
Some researchers claim the gap remains “clear and consistent” (Zuckerman, 2014). Indeed, the global phenomena into the present reflect the total population of the religious and the religious leaders and supposed holy figures (Pew Research Center, 2016b).
In Canadian society, even, women of all ages do more chores, e.g., housework and childcare (Hawkins, 2017; Tejada, 2017). Women head most single-parent families (OECD, 2016). In Canadian society, about ¼ of citizens totally agree or somewhat agree “men have a certain natural superiority over women, and nothing can change this” (CROP – PANORAMA, n.d.).
According to Ipsos MORI, in a survey of 24 countries, the research discovered 9 out of 10 men and women believe in equal opportunities, ¾ women believe inequality existed within their nation, ¼ men and women fear to speak of equal rights, and 1/5 men and women believe in the inherent inferiority of women with the number rising to ½ in Russia and India (Ipsos MORI, 2017).
Some women may, or may not, cling to this hope that there could be a better world as dictated by religion, administered by males, and in their acceptance that their personal actions have the power to bring about this nirvana, they take far more punishment and harsh treatment for the better good of all.
Some women come to these areas of life with different epistemologies in a way. Although, Jacoby considers the phrase “spiritual but not religious” (SBNR) vomit-worthy. The comment earned applause. She clarified on the probable meaning of SBNR: someone without religious practice/belief but wanting to be a good person. Of course, other less often mentioned religions exist in the rubric of SBNR.
Of course, even on issues seen as unanimous such as pro-choice concerns in the secular community, the landscape remains complex; secular women hold pro-life positions too (Fetters, 2019). There is more discussion, too. Jacques Berlinerblau, Director of Jewish Civilization at Georgetown University, talked about the representation of women in secular communities, decently (Berlinerblau, 2017).
Some positive trends exist. Some secular women are rising in Pakistan (Su, 2018). There is Secularism is a Women’s Issue (Secularism is a Women’s Issue, 2019). Women remain more tolerant of homosexuality (Pew Research Center, 2019).
These manifest, potentially, as aspects of feminism in the modern period; however, Elsa Roberts, Co-President of Secular Women, notes feminism in the current period does not differ substantially from feminism 100 years ago (United Coalition of Reason, n.d.).
Some ongoing negatives include impacts on the internal decision-tree of dating (Saxton, 2017). Some find the notion of secular white women as partners beyond the pale or within the dark (Judge, 2015). Secular Jewish women may retain senses of modesty, thus their covering hair (Pockrass, n.d.).
Why? It can be a personal choice. Also, it could be based on public and social reproval seen easily in public opinions, from the frame of many women, with the public expression of denigration based on religious authority (TOI Staff, 2017).
Jacoby continued to note the – with Goldstein affirming non-verbally – ways in which SBNR statements and declarations amounted to some women placating – read: some women being polite – about what they believe, think, and feel about some sensitive topics including religion, and spiritual beliefs and practices.
She continued to add nuance to the argument with the admixture – rather intellectually sloppy of people – of the concept “soul” and the idea “consciousness” with one another. When they say, “Soul,” they mean, “Consciousness,” and vice versa. A consistent flippancy with the meaning of terms or asserted interpretations of words.
Regarding the politeness of women in religious communities, women, according to Jacoby, with these terms and others remain polite and in good social favor, some women, in a way, say, “I am more than this body and brain. I have something eternal. I am spiritual but not religious. I am a good person.” My translation and words, not hers.
Goldstein extended the thought. Maybe, there exist belief structures behind them. In other words, a social acceptance argument from Jacoby plus an epistemology and ontology about the world, and the woman’s relation to the universe, behind them – from Goldstein, too.
Goldstein noted the belief in existing as more than an animal. Jacoby clarified; something beyond the genes and environment to produce the brain and its neural patterns and electrochemical activity.[3]
In Biblical terminology, this becomes something higher than, on another plane from, the “birds of the air and beasts of the field.”
Although, Goldstein noted the outlier men who think in dualistic ways, including Rene Descartes – as seen in one long rationalistic argument in Meditations on First Philosophy, in Which Is Proved the Existence of God and the Immortality of the Soul (Skirry, n.d.; Watson, 2018).
Goldstein makes an intuitive leap in the middle of the conversation with the connotation of the term “spiritual” used by some women meaning something more than the physical brain. Then this may explain the lower levels of women entering the “hard sciences” compared to the soft sciences (Center for Inquiry, 2016).
The hard sciences defined by astronomy, geosciences, functional biology, and cellular biology, chemistry, physics, mathematics, and logic, and so on. The soft science shown in social sciences including psychology and sociology, and associated fields. It seems instructive to note the surpassing of boys and young men at most educational levels now. Something short in the historical record. Now, we seem to harbour boys and young men with a motivational ceiling, as girls and women existed with a deliberate and derivative glass ceiling.
That is, a connection exists between the lack of belief in the complete scientific picture and the fields some women feel more drawn towards in professional life. Jacoby, intriguingly, spoke to the fewer numbers of women in surgery, but more in family medicine, obstetrics, gynecology, and so on.
This led to the next interesting question around sex as a factor. Jacoby thinks, women, whether old or young, “think, feel, and expect” sex to be more than the physical alone (Ibid.). She argues this relates to religiosity.
Jacoby talked about the roles imposed on them, to be women as females, where this creates strain and difficulty in leaving the faith. Goldstein cited the work of Jonathan Haidt on the want for purity and immortality, where the body represents impurity and mortality.
To have a body, to be having sex, we begin to identify intimately with ourselves as bodies, which makes the want to control this extended into the desire to, socially and communally – and religiously, control women – women’s bodies.
Thinking of control as a non-conscious aspect of modern theology and religious outreach is not necessarily the case, it can be extremely cynical and dangerous, in terms of reaching out to the men in order to control the families and the children with the religious institutions controlling the fathers in these families as, for example, heads of the household.
Let’s take the example of Pastor Mark Driscoll from the collapsed Mars’ Hill Church praised by Pastor Rick Warren, before, in Seattle, Washington who, after the implosion of the Mars’ Hill Church moved to Arizona to re-constitute the Driscoll ministry with the Trinity Church, if you get the men, you get everything.
As stated by Pastor Driscoll:
…You got around Paul when he was a young guy. You got around John the Baptist or Elijah, these dudes seemed pretty rough to me. They do not look like church-boys wearing sweater vests singing love songs to Jesus. I mean, guys like David are well-known for their ability to slaughter other men. I kind of think these guys were dudes, heterosexual, win a fight, punch you in the nose, dudes. The problem in the church today is it is just a bunch of nice, soft, chick-i-fied church boys. 60% of Christians are chicks. The 40% who are dudes are still sort of chicks. It is just sad. When you walk in, it is seafoam green, and fuschia, and lemon yellow. And the whole architecture and the whole aesthetic is feminine. The preacher is kind of feminine. The music is kind of emotional and feminine. We look around and [are] going, “How come we aren’t innovative?” Because all of the innovative dudes are home watching football, or out making money, or climbing a mountain, or shooting a gun, or working on their truck. They are going to get married, make money, and make babies, build companies, buy real estate. They are going to make the culture of the future. If you get the young men, you win the war. You get everything. The families, the women, the children, money, the business, everything. If you do not get the men, you get nothing. (Brody Harper, 2007)
Again, it can be extremely cynical and a conscious tactic among the more hyper-masculine religious movements with an emphasis on hyper-masculine male authority, magical thinking, and mystery. The male as the head of the household with reflection in the church leadership as male-only or male-dominated and God as the Father, where this becomes the hierarchical metaphysics of the movements.
The magical thinking in the purported efficacy and reality of sin and healings, and prayer, and immaculate conception, and the divine inspiration of writers of supposedly holy books, where these form a particular psychological torture chamber for many followers through, as the late Christopher Hitchens astutely noted, being created man from dust, and woman from Adam’s rib, unfixably or “incurably” sick and then commanded to be well (NIV, 2018a; NIV, 2018b).[4],[5]
The mystery about the workings of the world – usually insinuated – rather than the best-known and widely accepted by relevant experts’ considerations on the operations of the world, instead focus on these narratives and mythological authority figures purported to have existed in the past.
Modern movements reflect this, potentially as a similar conscious and cynical tactic seen in the hyper-masculine religious movements – of which Pastor Driscoll amounts to a derivative form in the Evangelical Christian sect or tradition of Christianity.
It affects the level of belief in evolution, too. Although, we can see the positive trends in the evidence for belief in evolution, in its proper definition within the modern framework of evolutionary theory with the unguided national selection (Archer, 2018; Masci, 2019; Pew Research Center, 2016c; Miller et al, 2006; Pew Research Center, 2019; Evolution News, 2018; IFLScience, n.d.; Erasmus, 2019).
Even on morals, where this amounts to a large focus for the Evangelical community, religion does not provide protection against pornography viewing. It merely adds to moral incongruence (Dolan, 2017).
As well, a belief in hell motivates leaders and, therefore, followers. As noted by Pastor Rick Warren in conversation with Pastor John Piper, “love compels us” or love compels them to prevent individuals from entrance into the fiery doom pit of torture and terror found through hell (pastorsdotcom, 2011).
Francis Chan states, “We’re talking about real people here. We can’t just have these theological discussions about a doctrine, when we’re talking about people’s eternal destinies here” (David C Cook, 2011). Hell is real, to Chan and Warren.
The manly man culture continues: Francis Chan argues against more modern standards for men (Keith Thompson, 2017; venetable, 2011). It comes in the form of crying, which gets the pejorative “sissy.” The men are told to “man up.”
Chan explicitly mentions what others insinuate or indicate; that he represents God. This provides a basis for excusing much behavior in history and right into the present. Pastor Brian Tome remains part of the “man up” culture in American Christianity as well (Northview Church, 2014).
As one of the most prominent pastors now, Chris Hodges, notes, Christians live in a world rejecting everything they believe (Christianbook.com, 2017). However, as with others, he makes a call to action rather than a live-and-let-live stance.
This is a common story and stance. Religious people seeing others not living to their lifestyle and then working to impose on them but not vice versa. And they talk with one another; they issue public warnings about the culture, from their point of view, but in the language of “the Enemy” (BRMinistries, 2018).
That is, this amounts to a battle between good and evil, the enemy around the corner working to thwart God’s Divine Plan (always 1.0, unchanged). His concerns are worship songs are not about God. Also, the belief in one thing not being possible in the Bible extending to others in the Biblical narratives.
As he further explains how Christians are not interested in their own culture as far as they are interested in the control of the whole culture, especially as the culture “shifts”: Hodges calls this the “Daniel Dilemma” (Crank Ministries, 2017).
Even if prominent pastors, such as Andy Stanley, come out in new interpretations around homosexuality, some Christian talk and radio will call him out, often speaking about the “Homosexual Agenda” (TM) (AFRTALK, 2014).
Others work within the context of a perspective of a “homosexual lifestyle” rather than homosexuals, which amounts to the denial of an individual’s self and replacement, based on theological and not scientific views, with the affirmation of an individual’s behaviour without the linkage with gay or lesbian person’s self as a homosexual (Brandon Branson, 2015).
There is a reason to never hear of a straight lifestyle, as this remains assumed as part of some Christian fundamentalist unscientific and mistaken belief.
Homosexuality, and gay marriage, become core social issues considered of the highest import within the community (Premier On Demand, 2013; Christ Community Chapel, 2015; Matt Robinson, 2014; DrOakley1689, 2013; Steve Yamaguchi, 2009; Seedbed, 2012; The Veritas Forum, 2011; Seedbed, 2017; Reveal, 2013; Desiring God, 2015; GlobalVisionBC, 2015).
Tony Campolo remains a marginal improvement, but noteworthy (Premier Christianity, 2016). Others see intellectual – or “intellect” – predators on campus coming to de-convert the faithful on university campuses (Clint Loveness, 2013). Pastor Robert Morris is bold and blunt in the assertion no atheists exist; or if they do, they hold a foolish position (Taylor Eckstrom, 2015).
Dr. Andy Bannister and others posit how best to share their faith with atheist friends on postsecondary institution campuses (RZIM Canada, 2012). Some argue for “witchcraft” as a problem and claim the Holy Spirit speaks to them, “Tell the Church, so far, Trump has been telling with Ahab, but Jezebel is fixin’ to step out from the shadows” (LocalRadioFrance, 2018).
A man who claims to be a prophet, in fact, who then went on to speak in tongues, to the perspective of the believers, or enacted glossolalia, to the view of the skeptics (Ibid.).
So it goes, these provide the basis of the issues talked about within some of the Christian community, which, in the end analysis, have real social, legal, and other impacts on the lives of the secular and others; same for secular women and the dialogues had within community exported to the general culture, explicitly or implicitly.
Continuing from the dialogue between Jacoby and Goldstein, Goldstein spoke to the tradition in family heritage with the Jewish tradition, where the men read Talmud and the women were modestly dressed and in the home. Jacoby spoke to many cultures where modesty is the only means by which women can protect their livelihoods.
Some cases involve honor cultures. In that, if the woman is raped, it is the woman’s fault; many times, it becomes a family dishonoring, extending Jacoby’s thoughts. Although, Jacoby knows religious feminists. She feels sorry for them.
As many have heard, and Jacoby relates, “That is not the real Islam.” An argument for some Platonic abstract notion of a perfect version of the religion applicable to any extant religion (RationalWiki, 2018).
Then Jacoby makes a central discovery or point within the dialogue with Goldstein. The degree to which moderated forms of religious faiths – e.g., Reformed Judaism, Unitarianism, Liberal Catholicism, and so on – are not dangerous to women is the degree to which they have been altered and reformed through the secular ideas coming from the outside into them, and not vice versa.
Goldstein continued the line of reasoning with the argument of this coming from the Enlightenment and continuing right into the present with, for example, few or no people truly wanting to stone others, based on purportedly holy scripture, or to keep slaves.
She continued to argue the secular values and secular reasons coming forward and then forcing religion to modernize, liberalize, and become progressive in orientation – to adapt to the modern industrialized world’s perspectives on the nature of the universe and human beings in relation to it. Our genomes remain, for the most part, the same.
Our environment changed drastically since the Industrial Revolution right into the present with the Fourth Industrial Revolution, as observed in anthropogenic climate change or human-induced global warming.
As you know, our views come with deep time to the Earth and the universe, gradual development of human beings from prior species, and a decentering of both the Earth in the Solar System and the Solar System in the Milky Way Galaxy, and the Milky Way Galaxy in the cosmos, and then, even in the modern period of asserted enlightenment, things become even weirder and, in many respects, uncertain.
The reforms happen, apparently often, outside and then innervate the operations of the faiths for updates and changes. Secularism buffers fundamentalism. Jacoby notes the reforms took place in 19th century Protestantism within the United States and happened in dialogues, discussions, and debates, mostly, with men.
It amounted to a wide-ranging debate of men based on the advances of Charles Darwin with the Theory of Natural Selection posited in the 1859 text titled On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life (Desmond, 2018).
By the way, if you get the chance, the strong form of the Watchmaker Argument/Analogy in the 19th century emerged from William Paley’s 1802 text entitled Natural Theology, or Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity collected from the Appearances of Nature (The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2018a).
It provides one of the older sources to see the robust effort taken for the construction of a text and reason to believe in God. In particular, the text exists within a reasonable span of time, and had some influence, relative to the publication of Darwin’s most know publication, On the Origin of Species.
Also, not a trivial anchor point in the history of Western thought and dialogue, in an interview with Professor Francisco Ayala several years ago, he mentioned the 1802 book as one source of analogy-based-argument for God (Jacobsen, 2014).[6]
Jacoby seems correct. The 19th century remains a vigorous era of debate and subsequent reform. “Appearances of Nature” seems like the giveaway: something seems one way by observation and, therefore, implies not only a singular Deity but also the aspects or traits of its character.
The argument for centuries comes from peculiar perspectives on the nature of the world inculcated over generations and formed within the framework of the Abrahamic religion and theology.
Goldstein makes another plausible point about the 19th-century debates. Women were there. However, their voices were ignored. They may not have been recorded at all. Jacoby retorted with Elizabeth Cady Stanton (The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2018b).
Jacoby explained how Stanton was published while writing nothing about evolution. Same with Matilda Joslyn Gage (The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2018c). Gage wrote, was published, and said nothing about evolution.
Goldstein stated some women wrote about evolution in the 19th century without a specific statement as to the individuals who wrote and were published as women in this regard. Nonetheless, she fell back on the original position: women of the 19th century had more trouble getting published than the men.
This phenomenon may explain why women of the period had to publish under pseudonymous identities – male personas. In short, women published less, had more trouble publishing, published under pseudonyms often if published, and almost never on evolution.
To Jacoby, in the freethought literature of the time who got published, their attitudes and interests can be inferred through their written work. She also remarked on the greater interest in contraception, in an outspoken way, of Robert Ingersoll compared to Stanton.
Goldstein brought Margaret Fuller into the discussion. Fuller was a progressive-minded woman. However, when women come out, they undergo mockery and ridicule and dismissal, far more often compared to men. This may amount to another form of social control to make the women feel less secure in their thinking, in their actions, in their right to make statements of thought.
Jacoby then argued more atheist women exist today than indicated by the current statistics. Interjecting some personal research here, the statistics – some old and some new – on the belief in supernatural and non-scientific phenomena differ by nation.
For example, the belief in haunted houses, witches, astrology, purported communication with the dead, extraterrestrial visitations, and so on, are different depending on the nation in question (Lyons, 2005).
Furthermore, this differs via sex or gender. Someone’s identified sex associates with a disparity in the number of believers and disbelievers in supernatural and paranormal phenomena. (If interested, please see the second image in the Lyon article.)
Back to the dialogue, Goldstein remarked on being in conversation with a believer who “laid it all out on the line,” where she felt protective and thought, “Your poor person. I want to protect you” (Center for Inquiry, 2016).
Jacoby quipped, while laughing, nothing could be said to smash their beliefs anyway. She relayed a professional experience of a debate about the existence of God, where the debate is ridiculous and would not change anyone’s belief about the existence of a Theity or even a Deity.
Goldstein disagreed and considered debates useful, especially in potentially turning the marginal people – the fence-sitters. She raised the question about seeing polls taken before and after. The views when attendees entered and then when they left the debate.
This would most likely depend on the charisma of the speakers, the influence of their delivery of message and how they played the audience. How lasting would it be? Do people really keep the same intention of thought going or is it fluid and subject to constant revision?
As some or many of you know, the Intelligence Squared debates do this. It does function as an indicator of the willingness of a decent-sized audience to change its mind in real-time based on the back-and-forth of a debate format.
Jacoby recalled a personal story in 2004 after Freethinkers was published at the time. She was giving a lecture at a “historically Lutheran college,” Augustana College. It is a half-Catholic student population now. Parents send the kids there to protect them from secular education. However, they receive a secular education with a wide range of exposure to a variety of academic subject matter.
Jacoby encountered a student and began a conversation. The topic was a separation of church and state. The young man, a first-year student, wanted to be a minister and then switched into wanting to be a teacher.
He said, “I understand what you’re saying. That this is necessary in a democratic society. But how can I believe that that should be allowed when I know I have the truth?” (Ibid.) This amounted to someone with a firm upbringing in faith and not an “idiot,” according to Jacoby (Ibid.).
Jacoby recommended a few books to him. A young man only recently in life, at the time, being exposed to a series of latest ideas. The next query from the audience was about the subject of room for emotionalism in religion and secularism.
She interpreted the implicit idea in the question was that some women are more emotional. Emotional intelligence – or, more properly, emotional sensitivity – to a degree, is only now being recognized as a valued commodity.
Goldstein remarked on the possible veracity in interpreted implicit assumption about women’s more expressive and varied emotional states. However, she firmly disagreed with the premise of the question about religion providing a basis for more emotionalism than secularism or more expression of emotion compared to secularism.
Goldstein noted secular art, dance, music, and poetry in the world. Truly, if you miss the areas of culture – most – with non-religious expressions of the self and the community, and the ‘human spirit,’ then one may be aesthetically impaired, blind and unable to see the beauty of the world.
These forms of expressing emotion and more. Jacoby agreed with Goldstein. However, she affirmed the perception of secularists among many of the religious. The emotionless nature of the secularists. Jacoby even remarked on receiving many letters with the opinion, after writing a piece about Newtown, of the president only being able to comfort people via religion (Jacoby, 2013).
Jacoby argued another way as well. The non-religious parent who had a child die. The idea that parents could have comfort in human empathy only through Jesus Christ seems absurd to Jacoby, who thinks no one since Ingersoll in modern society among the prominent atheists conveyed the warmth and human passion seen in Ingersoll.
It is normal human sentiments, which means freethought as a positive ideal. Because women are not slaves to the home but free, as having “intellectual freedom and reason,” is the basis for relationships of “equality and sharing” rather than a master and slave dynamic (Center for Inquiry, 2016).
Goldstein took this as a reflection point, and pivot, into the feeling as if one matters. She recalled coming out as an atheist for the first time. She received letters asking about the motivation for getting out of the bed in the morning.
She explained how the idea never occurred to her because she had too much on the day’s plate. Goldstein felt taken aback by the query. Jacoby loved the similar comment, stated on American radio stations often as a trite trope and convenient negative insinuation, on not believing in God leading to committing murder.
That is, the assertion of religion as a bulwark against murderous tendencies and motivations and eventual actions. Of course, many with Christian upbringings or theological training may recount images in the Bible of horrific bloodletting, rapacious murdering and raping, and even the genocide of most animals and people on the planet at once.
Goldstein joked with a hypothetical witty repartee or raillery in response to needing God to prevent murder. Goldstein said, “Or at least, they could ask, ‘Why aren’t you spending all of your time in an orgy?’ That, at least, I can imagine.” Her comedy received an instant big laugh from the Center for Inquiry audience. An image of the Greco-Roman bacchanalia come to mind for me.
She continued the motivation behind the questioning about mattering in the world. People feel as if they do not matter in the world. They live lonely and meaningless lives, but they matter to the God of the Bible, of the universe, or otherwise. Goldstein considers this a possibility for the fundamental basis for the motivations of the questions about meaning in life without God.
Goldstein explained:
Obviously, I am going to pursue my life. I am going to pursue it with everything I have. But that, I get, and you get, and many of us who have the courage of living secular lives, get, a lot of reassurance that we matter, that we are doing work that matters. That we have relationships that matter. This is why I do feel the secular movement demands that we also address issues of social justice. That when there is this inequity among us. You know, some of us feeling, not giving it a moment thought; of course, we live lives that matter, and so many people not and turning to religion to fill that vacuum. I think that is a lot of the force for of the emotional support for religion. It demands social justice. (Center for Inquiry, 2016)
Jacoby posed the question from the audience about part of the problem for some women in atheist and humanist communities is the men relying on the religious involvement of women for a prominent social benefit. She continued the insight of the question. The reliance of some women to pass on the religion.
She relayed her personal experience with her brother. Jacoby’s brother sent his children to Catholic instruction, baptism, and so on. Jacoby could not be godparent as a non-Catholic. She asked about the inclusion of the kids in religious instruction and communal activities despite his (Jacoby’s brother) being an atheist.
He responded, “I didn’t feel that they should grow up without religion” (Ibid.). Jacoby remarked how her brother relied on his wife – “who I don’t think is any more religious than he is” – to decide for this (Ibid.). She then linked this to the earlier statements from some men in correspondence, “Women are stupider than men” (Ibid.).
Jacoby asked about what could be more stupid than thinking to bring kids up in something not believed by you. Then Jacoby’s brother caused surprise when his last wishes, after death, were for having no priest and to be cremated. The children did not know what their father thought about these religious issues.
The next question posed about women being potentially more masochistic and self-sacrificing. Both Jacoby and Goldstein did not like the question. However, Goldstein remarked on the possible truth of the claim.
Goldstein then posed other questions, “Why do women seem cross-culturally to be more religious than men, even though religion is often not good for them? Why are they politer when they are no longer believers? The other question is, ‘Why are they less likely to join freethinking, atheist, secular organizations?’”
Jacoby then followed with another question leaving the previous one open. The query posited the privilege to who becomes an atheist, especially in public, where the expectation imposed on women creates some dependency; whereas, for the men, there exists the good reason to assume, culturally speaking, for independence of them, simply for being males.
Jacoby commented on the “Village Atheist” in the folk, frontier stories (Ibid.). Goldstein noted the real lawlessness of the men “carousing, having a hell-of-a-good-time” (Ibid.).
The women, as they travelled from the East to the West, carried the religion and civilization with them. Jacoby remarked on the reason for social control by men because the men wanted access to these women. Goldstein concurred.
Jacoby concluded, “I want to say one thing. I was itching to say this morning when everyone was commenting on Male Genital Mutilation (MGM), which I call circumcision. I hate to disagree with Katha Pollitt, who, I admire enormously, but I don’t think women get a vote here” (Ibid.).
Evaluative Stories: Narratives and Valuations
Secular women retain the same rights and responsibilities as others, including freedom of speech or freedom of expression dependent on the bounded geography for, at least, one of the terms there.
Here, in Canadian society, we have Article 2(b) of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms with the phrase “freedom of expression.” In Article 10 of the United Kingdom Human Rights Act, we have “freedom of expression.”
In Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, it is “freedom of expression.” In the European Convention on Human Rights as well, it becomes Article 10 for “freedom of expression,” und so weiter.
Individuals may best direct efforts internal to the nation-state in which they inhabit to optimize efforts for human rights and equality, whether from a conservation of culture or a progression of civilization perspective. One should work within the culture, simply as a pragmatic or practical matter.
To gripe about crimes millennia ago or in another country without the clear purpose of the empowerment of the national populace, it can seem intrusive and not effective – even nothing other than grandstanding.
No value appears absolute by necessity, especially with the existence of numerous values competing with others in some instances. At the same time, a value in truth and logical consistency may remain two absolutes necessary for a foundational conversation of solutions and in conversation.
Freedom of expression with qualifications in Canada. Free speech via the First Amendment in the United States. Article 2(b) seems clear in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms for Canada. The First Amendment seems clear in the United States Constitution. Article 19 in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights represents the international framework. In America, more freedom of speech has been won.
No place is at an obligation to host someone. I heard an analogy of a radio, probably attributable to George Carlin. If a station is on, and if you do not like the music, and if it is in this sense non-coercive, then turn the dial to another station or turn the radio off.
It is like the UN in a way. Member States live and let live but with the freedoms for nontheists and the freedom of theists to believe and such, in theory.
For violations of those rights, the courts can help. But it will never be perfect. It can be approximated, the ideals. But the ideals are set, each vying for priority but each balancing one with the other past rhetoric.
It may be boiling down to values differences. One likes free speech more. Another likes social justice more. Although, if social justice gets defined as human rights and equality, and if the argument for freedom of expression is a human right and the equal protection of it for every Canadian citizen, then this would imply different streams of social justice at work in societies now. A simple emphasizing of different rights more. We may be witnessing a widespread misunderstanding.
Perhaps, a reasonable preliminary middle position with belief in the same right in this country – freedom of expression, or freedom of speech if American – and then the balance with other rights.
Something kin to religious, belief, and conscience objections to reproductive rights for women and the abortion rights for women – non-absolute, contingent upon one another, where this means not being left apart from the consequences of one’s expression or speech, not being automatically deserving of a platform or having a platform kept, and if something is not particularly interesting as a topic simply don’t go to the talk.
Freedom of expression and freedom of speech become important for these women in secular communities considerations. Within the overarching framework or structure provided within the dialogue between Jacoby and Goldstein, I reflected on the commentary and began to embark on the collection of some preliminary perspectives of women in secular communities in a position to make overview comments on the experiences and observations within the aforementioned community set.
What follows amounts to a representation of some of the narratives of secular women from different regions of the world working within different domains of the secular communities, if one looks at some of the narration on the religious communities around the world, then the stereotyping of a complete set of members self-identifying as a participant and believer of the faith due to bad leadership or immoral acts of individuals seems unfair to some extent.
Similarly, this analysis, by logical implication, should apply to the world of the secular. Some of these experiences expressed in the written word through interviews, commentary on figures and readings, and narratives of difficulties in lack of representation can be shared within religious communities by women, where this raises, as noted, the questions about secular women not only in a historical context of the intelligentsia of the West or the prominent American intellectuals, including Rebecca Newberger Goldstein and Susan Jacoby.
The interviews were conducted through email, mostly, with a relatively standardized question set. The weaknesses of the research are the email basis for the interviews, the wordiness of the questions, the qualitative nature of the research, the limitations in the sample size, the asymmetry in places of the world represented, and the self-selection of participants to take part in the research.
Nonetheless, this can give glimpses into the community. The strengths will depend on the reader interpretation of the honest reports provided on a serious subject matter.
In a rational analysis, and without the intrusion of pejoratives or epithets in place of rational thought, the reportage here provides some modicum of windows into the experience of some women in secular communities from multiple regions and nations of the world.
The interviews, henceforth, will continue in a linear order with a description of experiences. One interviewee was the American Marissa Alexa Lennex-McCool, who is a Podcast Host of “The Inciting Incident Podcast” and “The Cis Are Getting Out of Hand” and the Co-Founder of The Trans Podcaster Visibility Initiative.[7]
When I asked about the expression of economic, political, and social concerns of women, McCool spoke to how many women feel tired of being talked over, not represented, being told they’re too emotional or to enter the kitchen and raise the children alone, or to serve the husband, even simple condescension.
McCool stated, “While many women may not agree with each other, a good percentage of them are sick of having things decided for them without a say, especially when men make decisions about women’s bodies without the faintest idea of what it’s like.”
Another set of questions asked about economic, political, and social domains in the secular communities. The first response from McCool centred on the increased awareness of a social pathology seen in sexual harassment and sexual assault in the workplace in addition to the mechanisms for reportage on sexual violence.
“Even with people being temporarily inconvenienced by allegations, they’re often free to come back whenever they want with few, if any, repercussions for their actions,” McCool said, “The political conditions see evangelicals returning to power and asserting their theocratic views over others under the guise of religious liberty, among many others. Making sure women’s healthcare is dictated by their specific religious beliefs and everything else puts an undue burden on them, not to mention the queer, trans, and women of color who are disproportionately affected by the religious right’s influence on the government.”
The #MeToo hashtag and Me Too movement is diverse, expands women and men, not women alone with a rejection of victimized men, and present a unique opportunity to express openly about the problem of sexual violence as a widespread social pathology needing opening discussion, dialogue, and ears on it.
As you will see in the presentation of the interviews in this second section of the article, the presentation represents the #ChurchToo, #MeccaToo, and so on, sub-movements within the general work of Me Too started humbly by Tarana Burke.
On the main concerns of North American non-religious or secular women, McCool stated, “That this behavior has consequences, that it’s not just a temporary hiatus or vacation from the spotlight before they try to return like nothing happened. But, and more importantly, that it isn’t just celebrities who face any consequences for these allegations.”
McCool expressed the opinion that the individuals who may be worse are the “perpetual defenders” of the men credibly claimed to have sexually assaulted, who stand in defiance of the presented evidence and the allegations – “no matter how much evidence or credible allegations.” She notes how this can create a sense in many women or non-men within the secular community to remain silent or to leave it.
One of the reasons for leaving religion is to remove this mindset from their lives, according to McCool; however, within the community of the secular, many non-men or women continue to find this behaviour played out, which remains reflective of the mindset.
In the presentation of the overall conversation of secular values on the international scene, McCool remarked on how she, at the time, recently, spoke at a convention with eight women speakers, or a line-up comprised completely of women. The reason for the panel of women arose from the previous year being all men.
“Other voices in the community are often attacked, harassed, silenced, or bullied out of the movement, and when platforms are often given preferential treatment to white men, it can make it discouraging,” McCool said, “Marginalized communities need to be given the opportunity to speak, and given the chance to speak on more than just the experience of being marginalized.”
She continued to state women of color will have more authority to speak on race issues. In that, someone from a relevant and appropriate background can speak more properly and accurately from experience on the backdrop while, also, acknowledging the ways in which members of a specific demographic does not represent some homogeneous blob known as the demographic, the abstract.
McCool continued to mention queer and trans on queer and trans issues. The frustration in the inability to speak or the pigeonholing within an identity by the wider community or set of communities. She remarked on three degrees from Ivy League schools earned by here: “None of those three are degrees in Being Trans, Being Queer, Being a Woman, etc.”
Within this framework of issues or concerns for women in the non-religious or the secular communities, there may become a personal adaptation to the rejection by the wider community, whether inclusion in speaking engagements or the ability to speak more openly about experience within specific communities: the adaptation of secular women speaking to secular women more frankly about experiences and not to secular men.
McCool described, “I belong to a women’s-only Facebook group, because often the regular ones are intolerable. Women are harassed and spoken down to, queer and trans women are bullied, mocked, doxxed, and virtually treated like the religious communities treat them, but science and logic are the words of defense rather than God and Jesus. Often, we discuss things in those places because we are sick of being ignored, spoken over, or having to stop every six seconds and educate someone who might just be JAQing off (Just Asking Questions.) Often that comes from someone not actually interested in learning, but just disrupting, and it is hard to tell the difference. We don’t owe anyone an education.”
The final question within the interviews tended to focus on the actionables. Once the opinions and recollections and summarizations of experiences and observations have been presented, one next possible logical line of questioning revolves around recommendations or suggestions to the secular communities: for equality, things to be done.
This can range from women, people of color, individuals from a wider range of nations within the global non-religious or secular community, and in a variety of domains including community, literature, media, and the like. McCool opened with simply allowing others than whites and men the chance to have a platform, provide personal experience, relay personal views, and so on.
“People who aren’t given a certain level of privilege have perspectives, experience, and opinions that weren’t formed in a place that men, especially white men, can understand and empathize with. The experience is not the same for everyone, and we need to stop pretending the perspective of a white man is universal or speaks for everyone. Men can turn down opportunities to speak if others aren’t being represented, and some have made it a practice to do so,” McCool stated.
In that, with the most power within the community, the men may have more power to influence the trajectory of the community or to alter the conversations within the secular community for the betterment of secular women of color, queer and trans people, and others desiring individuals who reflect them and their backgrounds to represent them, who look like them, have their background, and so on, too.
“The white men of the movement have the power to change that by advocating for others, and not just checking off a list (see: have the person of color talk about being a person of color, a trans person talk about being trans, etc.) The secular movement is as diverse and complicated as the population itself; the experience of being an atheist goes beyond just white men speaking about it,” McCool concluded.
Another interviewee was the Founder and President of Black Nonbelievers, Inc., Mandisa Thomas, who is American.[8] Black Nonbelievers, Inc. which may be the large African-American atheist and nonbeliever organization in the United States. Mandisa remarked on women being more assertive through the creation of organizations relevant to specific issues. For example, the organizing and work done around protests, marches, online media campaigns perhaps, and so on.
Mandisa remarked on how women have begun to get “more involved in the political process by voting and running for office. This is important because while being a woman doesn’t necessarily equal effective change, it does show that women are more likely to consider factors that will benefit the masses as opposed to special interests, especially when working together.”
To Thomas, the main concerns for women in America are subjection to harassment, complete objectification by men, lack of equal consideration in the creation of policies impacting their lives or in the workplace, and the access to contraceptives or birth control. When these related to the Me Too movement, Thomas had more to explain about it.
“The main concern IMO is the entitlement that men feel to say and do whatever they want without consequences, which has been the case for many years. Such entitlement and power have kept women silent and enduring harsh treatment, and now that more are speaking up, there’s a concern that there will be more backlash by men AND other women,” Thomas stated.
Thomas reflected on the domination of the conversations around the world by secular men, noting the historical production of this domination. The fact of men owning conversations with men assumed as the ultimate authority on secular matters.
Where this should be changed, according to Thomas, is looking at the record of what has worked and what has not, this historical perspective could gift a basis for change or reform.
On the question about things secular or non-religious women discuss with one another and men, Thomas explained, “Nonreligious women are definitely discussing their concerns with the men. Discussing and debating. The responses range from many men being supportive and changing their actions, to many others becoming combative and remaining obstinate. But they are hearing our concerns for sure.”
The inclusion of secular women in the conversations came with a singular answer from Thomas: “first and foremost – LISTEN.” The point of open ears plus an attentive to meaning mind. An act of listening to understand without dismissiveness, reactionary acts, connected with actions including more secular women in the discussions, in the events policymaking, and so on.
Thomas concluded, “…and it should be consistent. Not one-time initiatives, or when issues fade from the spotlight. Support the organizations that are working on these efforts, financially and with resources. And work with them too. That is where the difference is made, and where it counts.”
A further interviewee was Yasmine Mohammed, a Canadian author and the Founder of Free Hearts, Free Minds.[9] Mohammed spoke on the higher assertiveness of women in the present moment. Secular women pushing for their rights and further equality in more domains of life.
“It is important because there seems to be this prevailing fallacy that the work of feminism is done-that we have achieved equality. Unfortunately, this is an untrue statement. To varying degrees, there is still a lot more work to be done,” Mohammed, “In the West, women have fought and succeeded in achieving equality in many ways, but social changes do not occur at the flip of a switch. Just like in the fight against racism, winning civil rights battles did not ensure that there is no longer racism. Of course, there is.”
Mohammed observes the fights as having been fought and won, and admirably so, in fact; furthermore, she sees large strides made in Western societies on the advancement of rights and equality. She views some other societies in the Middle East and North Africa as never having made the strides seen in some Western societies.
“Women in Saudi Arabia have recently won limited permission to drive cars (they still need their male guardians’ permission to obtain the license, purchase a car, or even leave the house). It is important for people to understand that not only is the battle not over, in some places the battle has not even begun,” Mohammed stated.
For the economic, political, and social conditions of women, Mohammed spoke about Canadian women and North American women in general with the fight for equality with mal counterparts. In that, as a female or as a woman, she observes the attacks as “far more and far more” vicious.
Mohammed said, “A specific example would be when I was a co-host on Secular Jihadists podcast. In that podcast, one of my male peers made a controversial statement ‘Islam is worse than Nazism.’ My other male peered agreed and added ‘I think all religions are worse than Nazism.’ Although I was present, and agreed with my co-hosts, I said nothing. However, even though I never said a word, the resounding backlash on social media was entirely in my direction. It is easier for men and women to attack a woman for her views than it is to attack a man. We are still perceived as weaker – even by our non-religious community which purports to know better.”
She – Mohammed – began to comment on the economic aspect of the question. She noted the lack of an economic offering in terms of speaking engagements. Other times, no financial incentive or reward existed for speeches by Mohammed. She relayed a delayed set of talks by two other female speakers and herself. She felt summarily ignored and disrespected – in addition to the other two females – that this would not happen to a male, in the opinion of Mohammed.
On the Me Too movement, Mohammed stated, “I think all women, religious or not, have the same concerns. We just want to be regarded as equal human beings. We would love for people to treat men and women with equal respect.”
When the subject or topic matter of men dominating the global secular communities’ conversation, Mohammed started with an affirmation of the fact. By the historical record, too, men could become and remain atheists more easily than women, as atheism exists with the reputation of confrontation and controversy as its mode of being.
“Women are generally expected to be the caregivers and the social/community support of a religious group aids in family cohesion. There are many reasons why men far outnumber women in our community. And that is exactly why more women need to be given the opportunity to speak publicly. ‘You cannot be what you cannot see.’ If all our atheist talks are all male speakers, how will that encourage more women to see themselves as having the courage to be open about their atheism?” Mohammed asked.
The women in the secular communities, according to Mohammed, should see examples of women and mothers making the successful transition to inspire others. It becomes an aspect of liberation through observation; it becomes an act of freedom incarnating through the example of others. They need to see examples of women, of mothers, successfully making that transition. Then they will be inspired and will then they will know that it is possible.
On only speaking about some issues with women and not with the men, Mohammed spoke about religious patriarchy, in her terms, and the ways in which women police other women through religious environments. It becomes women oppressing other women. In her view, men made religions for men. Women have different experiences under religion compared to the men, by implication.
Mohammed stated, “It is not just an intellectual epiphany for us. As a woman, you have been bred to see yourself as lesser-than. The modesty and shame culture thrust upon you from an early age – all those poisons need to be cleansed from our bodies. Our experiences are more like that of LGBT people who have left their faiths. We were raised to think that we are dirty sinners and that our existence provokes more sin.”
On the actionables or the things-to-do, Mohammed relayed the difficulties and the failures as the same as in any other industry. In that, the solutions remain the same, where a vicious cycle can begin with male writers and speakers preferring to read and hear males. In this, women will fight an uphill battle for the right to be heard and read.
“Women need to fight for our seat at that table. Make ourselves heard. Make ourselves known. It is a battle we are accustomed to. We just should not be lulled into thinking that, as atheists, we are immune to the same social ills as all other human beings,” Mohammed stated, “Of course our issues are nowhere near to the same extent, and I am very grateful for that, but if we are unaware of the fact that women are fighting tooth and nail in our community, then we won’t be sensitive to reaching out a hand. Knowledge is key. I think if more men understood that it is a problem, then they would be more than willing to do what they can to change the landscape.”
An American director, feminist, novelist, and playwright is Sikivu Hutchinson.[10] Bear in mind, the prominent women involved in these investigative and coda statement serious interviews remain highly respected within their domain of expertise and nation. Sikivu remained crunched with other projects at the time of correspondence.
In this, she answered two of the main question sets: one on men dominating the global conversation for the secular; another on modes and limits in the conversations representation of secular women, secular people of color, and so on, in the leadership of the non-religious organizations.
On the ways in which men dominate the international conversations of secular, Hutchinson specified, directly, the demographic in question within men: white men. Those who continue to hold most of the cards in the international conversations around the secular communities in structure, and so function, to determine the course or trajectory of the communities around the world.
The simple reason for this comes from the marginalization of women in the atheist communities, in the humanist communities, and in the secular communities. Overall, the general trend for the history of the secular and freethought communities remains the ways in which men harbour the power and influence, and positions associated with said “power and influence,” for the guidance of community life.
Hutchinson stated, “Non-religious contexts share the same sexist, misogynist conventions, ideologies and hierarchies as religious contexts. Although recent sexual abuse ‘scandals’ involving high-powered white male secular leaders are the most egregious examples of this, these hierarchies have always existed in the non-religious sphere. Simply removing god-belief from the equation does not eliminate hierarchies based on the sexual objectification, commodification and occupation of women’s bodies and the devaluation of women’s work.”
Whether in fundamentalist religious contexts stewing in supernaturalistic assumptions and tribal conflict or in the white supremacist colonial notions held in the secular liberated West, the constants of men holding the deck comes back into the central observation, as a factual matter, where men have the most prominent positions, and more often work – even live and speak from – the more dominant decision-making stations.
“Moreover, women of color have traditionally been under-represented in non-religious discourse and leadership due to the ways Black and Latinx female morality/respectability is tethered to religiosity and god. In addition, women of color are more likely to be connected to religious institutions because of the social, economic and political resources that they provide in capitalist nations with minimal social safety nets,” Hutchinson explained.
The next arena of questions becomes the aspects of representation and some of the interrelated notions problems, and so solutions, for the secular communities. Hutchinson first spoke on the international success of the New Atheism with the “best-selling white atheist rock star authors” and the “cult of personality like the Four Horsemen.”
“Unfortunately, this kind of idolatry has eclipsed recognition of and attention to the ground work being laid by grassroots humanist organizations in their local communities. Progressive atheists organize around issues that go far beyond the usual church/state separation and ‘science and reason’ agenda,” Hutchinson stated, “You can’t fight for economic justice in communities of color without advocating for reproductive justice, unrestricted abortion rights and access to universal health care. You can’t preach ‘equality’ of genders without redressing the heterosexist lack of representation of queer and trans people of color in K-12 curricula.”
For the LGBTQQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and questioning) enfranchisement, there, similarly, needs a confronting of the mechanisms criminalizing aspects of queer and trans youth of color, which places them at a greater range of risks in terms of health and wellness, incarceration, placement in foster care, and even becoming homeless.
“Coalitions that form around these intersectional issues should be actively promoted—especially those that cultivate ties with progressive believers and non-atheist secular community-based organizations. Further, non-believers who write about and organize around these issues should be tapped for leadership positions in humanist and atheist organizations,” Hutchinson said.
In that, few people of color exist in the executive-level managerial stations in the central atheist, humanist, and secular organizations, including AHA, AA, CFI, and so on. The lack of cultural responsiveness by humanist and associated secular institutions producing a lack of comfort in non-believer people of color; an inability to exist openly secular.
Hutchinson stated, “Where are the humanist institutions that support the realities of our lived experiences in a “Christian nation” based on capitalist, racist, sexist, heterosexist class power? When atheism is primarily associated with academic elites patronizingly condemning believers as primitive and backward—while systematically profiting from racial segregation and straight white male privilege—then many people of color will see no compelling reason to ally with atheist causes and organizations by coughing up hundreds of dollars to attend navel-gazing conferences.”
An American Founder of Minority Atheists of Michigan, the Detroit Affiliate of Black Nonbelievers (2013), and Operation Water For Flint (2016), Bridgett “Bree Crutchfield, spoke to me, too.[11]Her commentary focused, at first, on the increased assertiveness of women in three important domains: economics, social life, and the political world.
The initial commentary focused on oppression and the intolerance of the oppression over time. In that, eventually, and in any case, a voice or set of them will rise for women, where, in Crutchfield’s opinion, the greatest advocates for women have been and continue to be women.
Crutchfield stated, “Men have subjugated, oppressed, judged, demeaned, humiliated women since the dawn of time. Why would we as women expect men to have a long awaited, well overdue, epiphany and do right by women? Women have ALWAYS been vocal. We gain strength by watching others share similar truths as ourselves. We’re no longer ‘alone.’”
On North American women in general and American women, as the interview was conducted in 2018, Crutchfield remarked on women continuing to wait for a “Mr. Maybe Right.” A sense of incompleteness without a child or a man in their lives, or to share their lives. In addition, the right to have a vote in personal reproductive rights – that is to say, a fundamental, unquestioned, and autonomous decision regarding reproduction – can be limited or restricted, if not denied.
She also noted the fight for equal pay and non-religious women being fed up with their identity as women – their “womanhood” – questioned or judged if they do not attend church. This becomes particularly true for women of color in general, and African-American women in, in
On the concerns of secular women, “The concerns are the same as religious women. Misogyny, sexual predators and rape apologists have been the subjects of many a think piece. Initially, I was embarrassed as I assumed secular men were…different. I have learned since then, it could not be further from the truth,” Crutchfield stated, “We want to survive romantic relationships. We want to NOT be victims of domestic violence. We want to NOT fear for our lives when we turn down the advances of men. We want to not fear for our daughters and not force them to live a life in hopes of not getting raped. We WANT LAWS that protect women and PUNISH MEN and their brutality REGARDLESS of their socioeconomic status. Is that too much to ask?”
On the male domination of the international conversation, Crutchfield passed on the question, as her focus remains on the women’s conversations. As well, she described how the conversations of the secular women correspond or parallel the dialogues of the religious women. Wherein, the oppression of some subpopulations, on average, lead to the requirements of some areas, or safe spaces proper, to discuss interactions with men without the second-guessing or explained by men rather than women.
In terms of the solutions, Crutchfield posed the first premise of the slow development of secular culture. In that, some progressive organizations exist within the secular community; however, not all secular groups or organizations adhere to a progressive philosophical standpoint, where the mistreatment of secular women is well-documented.
Crutchfield concluded, “Suggestions, ideas and proposals have been presented in doses and the disenfranchised are STILL disenfranchised. The secular community is not as open and freethinking as it purports to be to the religious. The community is disproportionately white male, conservative and I don’t see that changing anytime soon especially in the roles of major leadership.”
Marquita Tucker, M.B.A., is a Senior IT Business Analyst and the Co-Founder of Black Nonbelievers of Detroit, spoke on the increasing political, social, and economic activism of women in the current moment.[12] Her first remark stated the basic fact of women being half of the world’s population.
“We have been hushed and dismissed for so long and look how things have turned out. It is important and it is time for us to be more assertive and vocal about our ideas on social, political and economic concerns. Our input should be valued and taken seriously. You can’t run a nation let alone any part of the world with just one half of the population’s view and say on everything,” Tucker said.
On the main concerns of American women and North American women, Tucker spoke about one idea brought forward through two words. Reproductive rights as the central issue as a combination of economic, political, and social conditions. On the political side, the conservative political class work to restrict women’s rights. In social life, the right-leaning religious work to prevent women the right to bodily autonomy.
Tucker stated, “Economically, if a woman does need an abortion, that woman has several barriers in place from transportation to paying for the procedure. A woman’s right to choose sometimes makes the difference between her and her child(ren) living a life of poverty and poor education with little upward mobility or her being able to make moves that will improve her life and thus the life of her future children.”
Then this leads rather smoothly into the Me Too movement connected to the hashtags. Tucker sees the issue across ethnicities, political stripes, social classes, and so on. Another consistent problem coming in the form of men thinking that they know everything best, not as a fact of nature but as nurturance of poor behaviour.
On the domination of men in the global or international conversation on secularism on a variety or most issues. Tucker sees one main reason for the dominance of the men coming through the acceptability of men speaking as they wish. Men are the philosophers and the sexes. There have been plenty of female philosophers, scientists, writers, and the like.
“I know in the black community, when you go to a black church, you will see the church filled with mostly women. When you think about it, there are a lot more rules and conditions when it comes to being a woman in religion than there are for men,” Tucker stated, “So I guess rules are socialized into women from birth and not so much into men, giving men more of a chance to freely think outside of the box and express their disagreements with sects or religion as a whole and act upon those disagreements than women. I mean, how many female religious sect founders or cult leaders can you think of?”
When women speak only to other women, Tucker exclaimed that, of course, women speak to one another about things without men present; items of dialogue, trialogue, or what have you, never or rarely discussed with the men. She notes the ways in which the family treats her. She receives differential treatment compared to others in the family.
One reason is not believing in Jesus. In the black community in America, one cannot wash their hands without thanking God Almighty. For a black woman to not rely on a blond-haired and blue-eyed white male for all things, she can be an “outcast” in several ways. Tucker finds this a common experience for the non-believing black women.
In contrast, Tucker remarks, “I’ve come across many black male non-believers who state that they simply just never believed. That they were never really forced to go to church or required to pray or anything like that. So, when I bring it up, black male non-believers kinda say things like, “well, I just wouldn’t have done it. I just wouldn’t have gone.” Like, you do not get it. Girls are not given the level of autonomy that boys are most of the time. I’ve yet to meet an American black woman who wasn’t conditioned to have to believe in god.”
On solutions, though, and arguably the most important section of each interview, Tucker recalled the ways in which openness to learn from others different than oneself, to be vulnerable, becomes an important part of life. This can mean a basis for listening to understand the other person on a variety of topics.
Tucker mused, “It’s funny how the non-religious proclaim to be the opposite of those ‘closed minded religious people’ when there are parts of the non-religious community who are just as closed minded in different areas. Non-religious men can start by having a seat sometimes and not always having something to say about everything. Sometimes you learn more by listening to others.”
The different perspectives and ranges of knowledge were not heard in the light of the historical trend of a dominant group not hearing others out. Tucker believes the era of not listening to women in the secular community should end, and the sooner the better.
Another American was Samantha A. Christian.[13] As an individual woman speaking for herself, as she makes clear in the interview, Christian believes more women feel empowered to speak in an honest, confident, and unapologetic manner. Within this culture or set of cultures in which gender roles or sex-defined roles become restricting in some manner, Christian finds this form of freer expression of women, now, as much more liberating, as if a cool glass of water on a hot summer day or an open window in a stuffy apartment.
Christian stated, “It takes even greater courage to do that! This also means that more women are finally realizing they deserve to be treated better and with respect for a change. So, when I see someone not allowing themselves to be ‘mansplained away,’ bullied and taken advantage of, it gives me hope for humanity.”
Speaking for herself on the concerns of American women and North American women, Christian does not participate in the formal secular or non-religious community or communities as a rule while sharing the concern for the attempts to normalize rape in America, North America, and other parts of the world.
Another grave concern based on the observations of Christian was the attempts to make individual citizens as ignorant and fearful as possible. Where there exist distinct and perpetual attempts to make the general populace hate the truth, despise facts, retreat in repulsion from knowledge, and fear education, she finds this highly scary.
“The psychological community is doing nothing about this while simultaneously enabling toxic majorities (religious people, god gullibles, bigots of all kinds) and ignoring the toxic influences that make them that way in the first place,” Christian stated, “There is this idea that if a lot of people say or believe something it must be true or even respected. I do not want a democracy I want a meritocracy. In the last question it was mentioned that women are becoming more empowered all over the world. I have noticed that there is one group of women that seem to feel less empowered as time goes on: white women.”
Christian described how this demographic – white women – voted for “abusive husbands and candidates” in the recent election. She thinks something needs to be done about this. A place where white women can fee empowered, safe, and supported. As far as Christian analyzes the situation in the United States of America, most of the domestic terrorism in the USA comes from the white men while those self-same individuals via the demographic retain positions of power.
On Me Too as a movement, Christian admitted, “I wasn’t aware that these other movements existed. Again, I can only speak for myself but sexism towards women and men is a fundamental problem. I think the sexism against men can be more suffocating which leads so many guys to fear being honest or being themselves. This means that, whether it is in cult communities or non-religious ones, you will have the same toxic behaviors.”
A concern for Christian comes from the non-religious communities with “many men” developing a certain hatred and distrust of women. It shows in the ways in which rape and abuse claims become not believing the women and then blaming the victim. She gets responses equivocating with not believing in gods blindly and, therefore, not believing women in rape claims blindly.
“This is absolutely ridiculous. People are supposed to recognize gods are fictional. If you do not believe, then the consequences a minor. You can easily pretend that you do as a survival tactic if you must,” Christian stated, “In terms of rape and abuse it is so important to believe the victim. If you do not, then horrid acts of humanity go unpunished. There is no justice. So, many people’s lives are literally destroyed while it enables the rapist/abuser to keep raping/abusing other people, because they were not properly punished and held accountable. People do not really lie about rape/abuse. Maybe 4% tops. So, they should be taken seriously.”
In other words, when someone makes a claim of abuse towards them, the overarching probability is the individual telling the truth than not; this does not imply a disrespect for due process or a naïve believe the victim, but a strong probability as the basis for the outreach phrase of “believe the victim.” The consequences of not believing in a god tend to be mild. However, the consequences of simply being rejected offhand for claims of rape become “far worse,” in the opinion of Christian.
Next came the subject matter of the en dominating the international conversation of the non-religious or the secular, Christian said, “I do not think it is a problem, but it depends on the guys speaking. Have they internalized sexism on such a deep level? Do they feel they can be themselves 100%? Or do they feel they must act a certain role to survive in society? That is the problem. Whether the community is religious or not, we need to do something about this.”
Christian believes a positive general contribution would be the rejection of the false notion of the opposite sex, as men and women have far more in common than not. Here, most of the differences between the 2 common sexes – male and female – “are minor at best.” The genitalia remain homologous too.
“If we have a lot of men abused by sexism in society representing the atheist community, that is not good. If we have men who have overcome it and feel empowered enough to be their authentic selves, then it would not matter if there are a lot of men talking or a lot of women talking. People like Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris make the non-religious community look bad while people like Daniel Dennett, Neil Carter and Darrel Ray do so much to help the non-religious and anti-religious communities,” Christian said.
Christian went back to the ways in which white women apart from other women, in general, tend to feel less empowered; whereas, other secular women, and women generally, feel empowered more than before. She notes this in the secular communities, too, where white men dominate the discussion.
She feels more diverse faces for atheism would be a plus. In that, in an interconnected and globalized world, there are black men atheists, Latin men atheists, white women atheists, black women atheists, Asian women atheists, and so on, where no singular demographic best represents atheism as atheism inhabits all cultures to various degrees.
Speaking for herself once more, on the issue of isolated conversational groups via sex or gender, Christian does not have this experience because, as an individual, she remains upfront and direct.
“I am upfront with everyone no matter their sex or if they are a cult addict (religious) or not. I cannot think of anytime when I was not upfront or honest about a subject, especially online. I am really the only non-religious, anti-religious, atheist person in my family, friends and daily life. My mom and BGF (boy-girlfriend, my lover was born intersexed. We use this nickname to protect her identity online.) are not into religion but have not called themselves ‘non-religious’ or ‘atheist’ officially. My point being, I really do not have many in person conversations about religion,” Christian stated.
In the internet-based or online conversations, Christian remains frank and upfront with them. Sex or gender does not restrict the expression and the conversation for her. She mused on the fact of more men reaching out than women to her. They reach out to Christian about the sexist expectations placed on men including around sexual orientation, desires, and identity.
Christian said, “Religion usually comes up because that is what is pushing those sexist ideas and destroying their lives to begin with. As mentioned earlier, at lot of women (except white women) feel empowered but the sexism against men is still very strong (at least in the USA). It is still on the same level. It is so important to help people realize that women are men are the same (with only minor differences). Thus, we should be treated the same way.”
Christian proposed a change in the expectations of the culture from gender expectations or roles to age expectations or roles. If someone, including oneself, is at a specific age, then there should be some role expectations of the age. When someone is less comfortable in honesty with someone because of their sex, she wonders why this becomes the case in the first place.
“I get the same thing from the guys I have spoken too saying they feel they cannot be honest or open with the women in their lives. Why the disconnect when we (women and men) have so much in common? Feel free to read about the gender similarities hypothesis and the persistent disconnect with the high level of sexism in society,” Christian said.
On the solutions to the problems, Christian sees this as the easy part of it. It would be the divisive labels as the problem. That is, one can label oneself in one way or another; however, it becomes important to become educated about demographics to comprehend the statistical trends in various populations of a society.
Christian described how research over time shows the vast number of commonalities compared to differences, where the differences between people remain “minor and insignificant.” It becomes akin to the commentary, by Christian, on the issues of the biological sex categorizations of male and female – at least 2.
“…homosexuality and heterosexuality (monosexuality) are both the same thing. Gay men = straight women. They are both androsexual, the proper term to describe those attracted to men. Lesbians = straight guys. They are both gynesexual, those attracted to women. Same thing,” Christian stated, “Another thing people obsess about and cause trouble over when the reality is, they are the same. Even more research shows that monosexuality is a myth and that humans are either part of the bisexual spectrum or asexual spectrum. What is my point? The quick spread of misinformation about race, sex, human sexuality and humanity in general is what is preventing a more inclusive system or community. Not just for non-religious groups but ALL groups.”
The focus should not be on more people of color or women. The emphasis should be more agnostics, atheists, humanists, and secular people together for a natural unity. That is one problem. A larger problem comes in the form of the misinformation abounding around secular people. The lies about God and religion; the lies about race; the lies about sex. There should be more educational opportunities to combat this.
In addition, there should be a stoppage to the shaming because of a demographic, where there should be an allowance – open permission – for individuals to feel comfortable as themselves. One of the biggest dangers, according to Christian is the deep need among human beings to feel needed, to fit in, and desired in some social way.
“That is why people join religions, create toxic group, do not stand up to bullies, bigots, etc. Therefore, we get the bystander effect, why so many men (especially white men) are just brutal to women and each other. To fit in, to be accepted. If humanity evolved past the need for such things, we would be more moral, happier, healthier and better friends to each other,” Christian concluded.
Judy Saint is the Founder and President of the Sacramento Chapter of the Freedom From Religion Foundation.[14] She remarked on the general nature of women becoming more involved and assertive with one another. For example, the fight for universal suffrage in place of suffrage to make women legal persons in a democratic society; as in, women harbour the right to vote.
Following this, things died down. Women began to focus on resembling the men in “clothing, competition and executive function.” The women began to stop talking to one another. Until sexual harassment took a crucial point among the numerous foci of concern for women, “women again found each other as mutual combatants.” She sees this work of women asserting themselves as fundamentally important because women’s rights are fundamentally important, simple as that.
To American women, Saint stated, “American women are not all concerned with their rights in any of these domains. We only see a portion of women out there advocating in these spheres. The concerns of those not fighting for rights seems to be to ‘fit in’ and fulfil society’s mandate of being a quiet servant to men. As for those who are out there fighting for women’s rights, their concerns are that women have all the advantages men are routinely given, and the ability to change society to a more cooperative world, away from the testosterone-laden competitive world men created for us.”
Saint provided the example of a survey of women. Women voted against women’s rights by voting for the presidential candidate – at the time – Trump, who is now President Trump. In Saint’s analysis of the situation, the women voted in the favour of the husbands, the “husbands’ needs.”
She also directed attention to the sponsoring of local businesses by Bill and Melinda Gates with the differences between the men and the women. It creates a statistically stark difference in the investment patterns, conducive to the health, or not, of the community. On the side of investing in the men who start local businesses, they tend to “take all the money with them away to larger cities so they can make more”; for the women, when they succeed, they invest in the local communities and one another.
Saint had thoughts on the Me Too movement, too, stating, “Secular women want responsibility to be placed on perpetrators of aggression toward women, rather than abusing women’s rights as a cover for poor behavior. Responsibility and early training of little boys are the main concerns.”
On the domination of the international conversation by the men, Saint described how atheism remains trivial as an issue, until the communities of the religious pose a threat. In these circumstances, men rise to become protective and combative – reflecting the out and vocal atheists, where she sees this type more common in the men than in the women.
Secular women may become subliminally influenced through a man asking the questions of the secular women. As Saint stated, “I could say the obvious: we can’t tell you because you are a man. Seriously, being a male asking this question could subliminally influence the answers you get from women. But, let me try, anyway. Mainly it would be about cooperative and supportive efforts that men don’t want to help with.”
The notion of “women’s work,” including the provision of food for a meeting, garments in post-disaster, or assistance in leaving an abusive partner. Saint views this in the difference with women as cooperative and men as competitive. In this, men are not included in some of the conversations for women, because, for the women, it is, fundamentally speaking, not about the competition or the winner-take-all mentality. like providing food for a meeting or gathering clothing for disaster survivors or helping other women leave abusive husbands who are religious. Women are cooperative; men are competitive. That has why men are not included in women’s discussions – it is not about competing or winning, and therefore of little interest.
On the actionables, Saint said, “We have in Sacramento a Black Humanist Group. They want their own secular organization because their discussions and concerns are not addressed in groups where they are in the minority. So, supporting more smaller groups that address unique subgroups of interests could give more people a home where they feel understood and listened to. Publicity of their unique problems could keep them energized and supportive of those groups.”
In the African region, one member of the Atheist Society of Nigeria – and recalling the preliminary data points in the commentary here – was Jummai Mohammed, who had some time to provide some basic comments or statements, or observations and experiences, with a different question set, though.[15]
In the description of the family background for her, Mohammed said, “I am a Hausa lady from the northern part of Nigeria. I was born into a muslim home but in a predominantly Christian society. I was born and bread in the southern part of Nigeria which is mostly dominated by Christians.”
This upbringing and background had some interesting impacts on her. She was born in a Muslims home within a Christian majority nation. In Mohammed’s view, this has impacted person views of atheism right into the present day. In addition, she was able tot, potentially, some of the starker distinctions and contradictions in the different religions on offer. Nigeria is a diverse and interesting nation – dynamic.
“I never love Islam schools since the ustaz in those schools always look and act mean. The way in which children are beaten up, young boys tied into poles while being flogged mercilessly in the name of punishment made me hate going to Islamic schools; on the other hand,” Mohammed stated, “whenever I have the opportunity of following my Christian friends to church, I tend to enjoy the less tensed environment, the songs, the dance and everyone smiling faces and that paved my way into converting to Christianity in the later years. So, I have practised and experienced the two most popular Abrahamic religion.”
Yet, for the earliest moments of life or the early school times, Mohammed enjoyed the private nursery and the primary school. Religion, naturally given the prior facts, was part of the educational system. Then, into high school, there was more religion, as the high school was privately owned and religious. She, understandably, converted to Christianity in secondary school or high school. Not as an open Christianity, she was a “closet one.”
In questioning religion, Mohammed said, “I have always question religion right from primary school, I always question bible/Quran stories right from time, because the stories don’t add up. I ask questions like why God created us, why placing an apple tree in the garden when he doesn’t want humans eating from it.”
She found some solace in going into the online world. It is entitled nairaland, which influenced the decision to become an atheist. Now, as many with the privilege of an earlier life access to the internet, one of the common statements by atheists, agnostics, and such, about the formation of the non-religious beliefs came from the internet. On one level, it was the access to new perspective, added information. On another level, the ability to interact with others as per Mohammed’s interactions with others in the Nigerian online forums of nairaland. Both become important to relinquishing fundamentalist strains of faith.
On women in religion, Mohammed stated, “Yes, it is a glaring fact that religion preaches subjugation of women and it is very evident in the Nigeria society. Women are being treated more like a semi human or should I say slaves in Nigeria, most especially in the northern part of the country which I come from.”
She experiences this in personal and professional life. Religious fanatics will not make friends or do business with her or get close to her. She lives in a bit of a haven, in Lago. However, as she reports, if she were to live in the north, Mohammed would face death threats. When asked about some prominent female atheists, she listed Jummai Pearl, Neshama, Dorris, and others; on prominent atheist Nigeria men, she noted Mubarak Balah, Azaya, Calistus, Juwon, Dr. Leo Igwe, and so on. In other words, there are some, but few prominent male or female atheists in Nigeria.
On further treatment, “Discriminations varies, depending on the atheist environment. In the southern and eastern parts, the discriminations are; family and friends rejecting one, people not wanting to make friends or involve in any sort of business with one, relationship/marriage breakups…” Mohammed said, “In the northern part which is predominant by Muslims, atheist faces death threats, lynching and co, together with what I listed up there faces by southern atheist.”
Over in the Philippines, Marissa Torres Langseth, the Founder of the Humanist Alliance Philippines International, took the time to speak, too.[16] (Please note links exist in the footnote for Langseth with further information through the responses or interspersed in the responses of the straight question-and-answer interview.)
On the opening salvo about the equality of women as a more assertive push than before, Langseth commented on the importance of women seen as equals and partners, not only in an intimate setting but in a societal perspective. Within this perspective, we can come to the economic, political, and social enfranchisement of women in general.
Langseth said, “Misogyny is common in the Philippines because of patriarchal orientation, and upbringing. We were brought up thinking that a male is more dominant in any household and women should just stay home and take care of the children. Women are treated like baby factories in the Phils with the RH or Planned Parenthood on hold due to the religious nature of the Philippines, these women succumb to high morbidity and mortality rates.”
According to Langseth, who is a professionally trained Post-Master’s Adult Nurse Practitioner, South East Asian or SEA women, such as Indonesia, have a large Islamic population and place women “lowest in the totem pole” of the society. She notes the ways in which Islamic nations subject women to arranged marriages, gender discrimination of various forms, honor killings, and mutilation of sex organs.
Equality in the contexts described by Langseth become a distant goal, especially with the death penalty for apostasy. SEA women, Langseth reports, who travel to another country become subject to rape or abuse if working as maids or other service personnel based on “the belief of others that women n the third world countries will do anything to put food on their table including prostitution.”
Langseth lamented the women who do not acquire an education, or have the privilege of the opportunity, will become prostitutes and then get used and abused in this manner, even the most careful women can be raped or killed, or both. She recollected reading many stories about it.
On Me Too, it is an international story. It is a global movement. Interestingly, Langseth noted the lack of this movement for equality in social and professional life in SEA, “quite frankly.” In fact, she notes, directly, the SEA secular or non-religious women will not resist the men due to early indoctrination and fear. She stopped commentary on Me Too in SEA at that point.
For the comments or remarks on the domination of the non-religious conversation by the men, Langseth stated, “More and more women nowadays are empowered and unafraid of coming out as nonreligious. The stigma is waning and fading away. My take is that, if they can see us women as successful without gods, we can be notable examples of how to live decently and practice clean living with high ethical values. Documentation and the advent of social media are just examples of how we can show to the religious world that we are equal to those who profess ‘good moral compass.’”
Akin, also, to some of the speaking on the issues of the isolation of some secular women in dialogue with some secular women apart from some secular men, the secular women who tend to feel able to speak more openly simply adhere to a principle of open discussion and saying what’s on their mind, regardless of the individual in the conversation with them.
“I am not afraid to divulge to anyone that I am nonreligious. I even said that to the church members where my husband and I go to occasionally. I have even said that to my husband’s male friends who are Italian, and Jewish. I did not care what their opinions are,” Langseth said, “and who cares anyway about their opinions. I know who I am. If my husband values me and sees me as an equal. That is enough for me. My husband is even ready to leave his church, if the church members will ostracize me, truth be told. He is a White Anglo-Saxon Protestant (WASP).”
On the greater inclusion, or the solutions for the disparate representation or lack of representation of secular women in a variety of ways, and others, within the secular communities, Langseth pointed to more awareness and education about equality. Perhaps, with an assumption of goodwill, education can solve part of the issue observed by many secular women and some secular men.
Langseth proposed more social media coverage, more coverage from young women and old women, fewer men in the spotlight – “maybe,” and an emphasis on women leaders holding “higher and better positions in nonreligious societies.” Some of the problems come in the interpersonal and sociopolitical dynamics of the secular communities with the backstabbing, infighting, and attempts to outsmart others “due to immaturity and vanity and self-aggrandizement.”
In conclusion, Langseth described how some men backstab due to insecurities and low self-esteem. Another Filipina was Alexus Jean Black[17] Given some limitations, she provided some short commentary, which can supplement some of the more extensive and authoritative remarks and observations of Langseth.
Black, on the more outspoken times for women, stated, “I think that women especially now a days have been very vocal about those subjects it’s because we have more freedom than what we used to have. Although, in some parts of Asia, the Middle East, for example, have still some kind of discrimination towards the women. It is important for women to be included… as we also are a part of the nation. I don’t really know a lot of people who are non religious in my country as Philippines is one of the most religious countries in the world.”
She – Black – noted how the Christian subjects remained mandatory within the elementary schools, how some laws take their cue from religion, and the ways in which, for example, divorce in the Philippines remains illegal, which becomes something anathema to some new generations in other nations.
On the dominance of secular men in the international secular conversations, Black described, in her opinion, that the dominance of men in the non-religious or secular conversations does not come from more secular men, but, instead, from the ways in which women are more conservative in their thoughts.
Black noted not talking too much about the subject of religion, as the surrounding culture remains highly religious. The note about a highly religious culture does not come from a place of denigration; she does not mean to “disrespect” members of the Philippines citizenry with the descriptor. Nonetheless, she identifies as an atheist – no mention of the flavor of atheism there. When asked about being an atheist, most of them are men asking the questions.
On some brief thoughts about the ways in which to bring more women into the secular fold, she simply suggested or recommended engaging women more, allowing them to become engaged more, as she does not feel oppression is helpful in discussion on topics sensitive to people.
Another America, Alisha Ann, from Pennsylvania.[18] On the reasons for the increasing prominence of women’s voices in the public sphere, Ann stated the level of safety women feel now; women felt too unsafe, before, to speak out. With an increased level of safety, women feel more confident to speak on negative experiences and observations in terms of the treatment of secular women and, in turn, to articulate their thoughts in the public sphere with lesser physical, social, professional, and intimate-setting reprisals.
Ann stated, “We’re no where near as safe as we should be. We have fought long and hard for the right to vote, earn a living outside the home and control our own reproduction. Those rights are not secure and are constantly threatened. As usual, we stand on the shoulders of the giants before us. We have the bravery of the feminist activists in generations prior and feminist voices today to build on. We are stronger together. And when one stands up, we tend to stand with them. Their fight is our fight.”
She noted how this was only in the United States and North America. Other countries in the world keep women highly repressed and oppressed in many ways, whether by law, by custom, by family, or other forms of force. Ann has noted the progress, though. The more progressive countries can serve as a “contrast to regressive ones.”
On Me Too and other aspects of social life, Ann said, “I’m concerned about male violence against non-males. From clergy raping children, to intimate partner violence, to attacks against the transgender community. Men have a problem. And only men can fix it. So, far, we have stuck band-aids on a mortal wound by asking women and children to take steps to not get raped and killed. Which is to say, ‘Make sure he rapes them instead of you.’”
This becomes a men’s issue, as they are the majority perpetrators. The responsibility of the abuser is to stop abusing, not on the abused to appease them, and on us to prevent the continued abuse and garner justice for the abused. As stated by UN Women, around the world, 35% of women endured “either physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence or sexual violence by a non-partner at some point in their lives. However, some national studies show that up to 70 per cent of women have experienced physical and/or sexual violence from an intimate partner in their lifetime” (UN Women, 2018).
650 million women and girls, currently alive, have been married prior to their 18th birthday, which is stating the 9-figure numbers of women undergoing child marriage – partnership prior to the age of consent (UNICEF, 2018). About 200 million women have been subject to female genital mutilation (UNICEF, 2016). For ages 15 to 19, 15 million girls around the world have endured either forced intercourse or forced sexual acts (UNICEF, 2017). Women and girls are 71% of the human trafficking victims (UNODC, 2016). 82% of women parliamentarians “who participated in a study conducted by the Inter-parliamentary Union in 39 countries across 5 regions reported having experienced some form of psychological violence while serving their terms” (Inter-Parliamentary Union, 2016).
Ann continued to explain the main issue in the social domain is rooted in male violence. Furthermore, on the political angle, Ann explained how “patriarchy lives on in the old white men” who run the country. In her opinion, they fear being treat the way women and minorities have been treated in the past. Therefore, they will resist progress in various forms.
Even worse, according to Ann, the blindness to injustices and inequalities, where simple equality can feel as if oppression from a privileged placement in society. This becomes the basis for resistance to the equal treatment for women, minorities, and themselves, e.g., the denial of reproductive freedom, voter suppression, poverty wages, and so on.
“Economic – poverty. We have consolidated power to a few, which disenfranchises us all. The economic system we have in place will fail. And the people who will suffer the most are not the 1%, they will just be the loudest,” Ann explained, “That they will not be better in my lifetime. That the standard bearer of meaningful change will not be retired with my generation and will require passage to my children to complete. If we cannot convince men to be better, we not only pass the responsibilities of progress to them, but the dangers of our failings.”
In terms of the domination of the men within the international conversations and discourses of the secular, Ann was firm on the position of the need for a change in the diversification of the landscape of opening, where the more diverse pinion set in a community becomes better rather than worse. The ability to relay one’s own experience in a community of others provides a democratic basis for allegiances and a form of genuine community-building the secular movements desperately need in a modern period shaken by the infusions of communications technology.
“Unless we only care about improving the experiences of white men, then we must include women and minorities. The way we do that is by checking ourselves and our privilege. We actively overlook an ethnic sounding name when hiring. We do not assume a woman cannot speak on a topic. We seek out and value the opinions of those not like us. We listen to each other and validate,” Ann said.
For those things that the secular women will speak about with one another, or not, Ann spoke about things existing not as whisper networks in a precise manner, but, rather, a certain comfort in common sub-community experiences. Women can feel more comfortable speaking with women on subject matter of common experience.
These can include abuse, inequality, sexual assault, sexual harassment, and violence. Many do not believe the level of the mistreatment within the secular community, as with other communities. There exists a denialism, where soft ball concerns of skepticism can be homeopathy; the hard ball questions become internal issues within the community.
There is a tendency to blame the victims for what happened to them rather than place responsibility on perpetrators, or highly likely perpetrators, where this, in a sense, necessitates whisper networks for secular women – and, potentially, women in general – to protect themselves from the problems associated to some extent with the in-community secular men. It becomes a whisper warning network, in a manner of speaking, about “repeat or egregious offenders” for secular women to protect themselves.
On the questions about inclusion, Ann described the social failures as indicative of larger social failures of inclusion. Some come from the mostly male appointment to leadership with overlooking of women and minorities while also assuming women are less knowledgeable on topics, where this can become seen the lack of speaking gigs and resources for women.
“Assuming a man is better able and tasking him with more high-profile gigs – like public speaking or media events. Assuming women and minorities just do not want to be in certain fields, like science or philosophy, and therefore not seeking out those candidates,” Ann stated, “However, the secular community suffers from a lack of diversity for a unique reason in my opinion. It is been an older white man’s club because older white has historically retained their social, political, economic, and religious privileges regardless of their allegiances. Their survival does not depend on their adherences to certain groups.”
A Ugandan woman, and the Managing Director and Programmes Coordinator of Malcolm Children’s Initiative, Susan Nambejja, explained how the increased assertiveness of women comes from the continued struggle for women to act independently in the world with or without men.[19] She noted the efforts of single mothers determined to raise their children alone.
Nambejja stated, “Politically women have engaged into leadership positions, at various levels, they are now community leaders, presidents, ministers and so on, for example our Kampala capital city authority Director is a woman. (Jennifer Musisi) Economically: women are now entrepreneurs nationally and internationally; they now operate big businesses worldwide. Importance of this is that: the time when women were considered as domestic slaves is now over, women are now enjoying liberty than in accent days hence boosting their esteem and lack of respect.”
On the concerns of Ugandan and African women, Nambejja relayed how many challenges still confront women in general. As a non-religious person, in Uganda, this becomes the basis of being “evil, immoral, inhuman.” This can create real-life impacts damaging to both personal and professional spheres of life for the woman.
For example, the knowledge of a woman as a non-religious or secular person can limit the ability of a woman to become a minister – secular minister exists in numerous religious traditions at this point – or a community leader, too. Individuals may vote for someone; however, religion becomes a large basis upon which to vote for this person.
“Socially marriage may not be a success for a non religious woman, and, but economically if a non religious woman sets up for example a business, most strict religions may find it hard to support such a business for example the Muslims have a tendency of supporting fellow Moslems on a belief that any thing from a non Moslem is considered unclean (haraam),” Nambejja stated, “This makes it difficult for operate well businesses. All this means there is a lot of segregation in Uganda between the religious and non religious, this is because Uganda is a highly religious populated country. Non religious are still very few.”
The Me Too movement, as noted earlier, about being one global phenomenon, but not necessarily hitting every region as much or equally – as per the insightful commentary of Langseth about SEA. Nambejja described how the men in Africa cherish the African cultural practices, where some put women as inferior. Even among the more educated classes of men, many still consider themselves as something akin to kings.
Nambejja said, “Most cultures men are still dominating, leadership is still for men in most cultures in African traditions. Women are still lacking self esteem due to the fear of how the society will interpret their actions, few women have come up to speak for others in our countries.”
Then there was the near-unanimous factual observation and agreement of men dominating the secular conversation. Secular men, according to Nambejja, remain more open to different issues. The secular men do not have to fear speaking out about who they are, what their values are, and the women tend to remain hidden to a certain extent in which self-protection becomes more paramount for the secular women because of the potential negative impacts on them.
“For example, speaking about being non religious in Uganda is not safe unless if you have enough ways to protect your self. Men have no fear for segregation, women mind about it a lot. This should be changed, by giving more chance to women more than men, by supporting their causes, invite women as speakers at conferences, those who get a chance to speak will end up becoming more confident of their non religious beliefs. And hence others will get inspired, and do the same way,” Nambejja stated.
On the isolation or siloing of some conversations more than others, Nambejja described how, in a social setting, a woman married to a religious man may speak about some of the problems with the non-religious woman friend rather than a man. The main reason is fear of judgment from the men.
“If it is an initiative, like projects on girl child, menstrual education, a non religious woman will feel more speak to fellow non religious woman more comfortably than woman to man. We have a tendency of thinking that this should be told to fellow woman. Yet, in a non religious way, I think this should stop. That is according to my thinking please it is just according to my assumption,” Nambejja stated.
On the all-important question of actionables or action items as a global community, Nambejja, spoke about giving women more of an audience, e.g., work to provide an equal representation in the panels, in the speakers, in the hosts, in the topics of interest to community, and so on. The empowerment of women through causes of more interest to them, too.
Nambejja stated women can feel inferior without an inclusive initiative. Without this balance, women can lose hope. The spirit of togetherness, of communal solidarity, does not exist in a global context for the secular; Nambejja nailed this concern. Part of the problem there lies in the fact of women simply not incorporated into the discussions and the groups.
“…if we can’t support ourselves, invite women by showing them the benefits of public talks, include them in media discussions, if a mistake is made by a woman, correct her silently, don’t criticize, educate women in different areas,” Nambejja said, “for example NGO management, business, leadership among others. In our non religious communities encourage women to get involved and aspire for or stand for leadership positions.”
Non-religious or secular communities “have failed” in giving this sense of brotherhood and sisterhood and community. There should be gatherings bringing everyone together in a single umbrella. These could “transform us into more useful citizens,” where can help those most in danger in a true spirit of humanism.
Nambejja concluded the interview by saying, “Our non religious communities have failed to initiate universities for non religious, have failed to have institutions which support the non religious in different areas for example banks for non religious where people can acquire loans and so on, scholarships for non religious, among others just to mention but a few.”
In the discourses provided, and the analyses – albeit qualitative in many regards, the secular community appears to present a unique opportunity with a singular problem of full inclusion and equality of approximately half of its constituency.
—
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Jacobsen, S.D. (2018bg, March 14). An Interview with Nabina Maharjan — Secretary/Youth Advisor, Society for Humanism Nepal. Retrieved from https://www.canadianatheist.com/2018/03/nabina-maharjan/.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2016j, October 8). An Interview with Nicola Young Jackson – Past President, International Humanist and Ethical Youth Organisation. Retrieved from https://conatusnews.com/interview-nicola-young-jackson-past-president-international-humanist-ethical-youth-organisation/.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2017ah, December 28). An Interview with Patricia Flanagan — President, Secular Student Fellowship. Retrieved from https://www.canadianatheist.com/2017/12/patricia-flanagan%e2%80%8a/.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2018q, January 5). An Interview with Shari Allwood — Executive Director of SMART Recovery. Retrieved from https://www.canadianatheist.com/2018/01/shari-allwood%e2%80%8a/.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2017z, November 27). An Interview with Valérie Dubé — Board Member, Humanist Association of Ottawa. Retrieved from https://medium.com/humanist-voices/an-interview-with-valérie-dubé-board-member-humanist-association-of-ottawa-3183241174ee.
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Jacobsen, S.D. (2019e, April 6). Ask Autumn 1 – Abortion Doula: A Canadian Option. Retrieved from https://www.canadianatheist.com/2019/04/ask-autumn-1-jacobsen/.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2018ax, November 1). Ask Catherine 1 — Culture Sensitivity and the Unseen. Retrieved from https://medium.com/question-time/ask-catherine-1-culture-sensitivity-and-the-unseen-9ae5a0ab2d8.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2018bc, October 4). Ask Emily 1 — Entrance Into Civic and Political Life. Retrieved from https://medium.com/question-time/ask-emily-1-entrance-into-civic-and-political-life-467a7ecf2521.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2018ay, October 25). Ask Gayleen 1 — South African Progressivism. Retrieved from https://medium.com/question-time/ask-gayleen-1-south-african-progressivism-40b6bc655442.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2019d, March 31). Ask Gretta (and Denise) 6 – Atheists and Humanists at the Pulpit: A Tale of Two Freethinkers. Retrieved from https://www.canadianatheist.com/2019/03/ask-gretta-and-denise-7-jacobsen/.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2018av, December 2). Ask Kavin 1 — The Demarcation Problem in Food. Retrieved from https://medium.com/question-time/ask-kavin-1-the-demarcation-problem-in-food-c40d9edd46f5.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2019al, January 6). Ask Sally 1 — Drawing the Lines for Progressivism in 2019. Retrieved from https://medium.com/question-time/ask-sally-1-drawing-the-lines-for-progressivism-in-2019-3985c7842b44.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2018bb, October 12). Ask Sarah 1 — The New Media. Retrieved from https://medium.com/question-time/ask-sarah-1-the-new-media-bcad12c82eab.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2018aw, November 10). Ask Shireen 1 — Reformers. Retrieved from https://medium.com/question-time/ask-shireen-1-reformers-b6ef85ccfd55.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2018ba, October 17). Ask Tara 1 — The Crossroads of Thailand, Iran, America, Journalism, and Women’s Rights. Retrieved from https://medium.com/question-time/ask-tara-1-the-crossroads-of-thailand-iran-america-journalism-and-womens-rights-2328f674dc15.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2018bo, January 28). Charlotte Frances Littlewood on Radicalization, Extremism, and Counter-Extremism. Retrieved from https://www.canadianatheist.com/2018/01/littlewood/.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2018ai, May 5). Chat with Angelique Anne Villa — Member, Humanist Alliance Philippines, International. Retrieved from https://medium.com/humanist-voices/chat-with-angelique-anne-villa-member-humanist-alliance-philippines-international-bd81f59c81df.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2017al, September 30). Chat with British Christian Suzie Mason, Ph.D. Candidate, on Christianity and Atheism. Retrieved from https://www.canadianatheist.com/2017/09/suzie-mason/.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2018d, August 1). Claire Klingenberg on Education and Atheism – President, European Council of Skeptic Organizations. Retrieved from https://www.canadianatheist.com/2018/08/klingenberg-jacobsen/.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2017h, October 2). Conversation with Cheri Frazer – Winnipeg Chapter Co-Coordinator, Dying With Dignity. Retrieved from https://www.canadianatheist.com/2017/10/cheri-frazer/.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2018y, October 5). Conversation with Felicia Cravens – Founder, Unfakery. Retrieved from https://www.canadianatheist.com/2018/10/cravens-jacobsen/.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2017f, September 24). Conversation with Professor Tina Block on the Secular Northwest. Retrieved from https://www.canadianatheist.com/2017/09/tina-block/.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2017aj, November 20). Conversation with Reva Landau – Co-Founder, Open Public Education Now. Retrieved from https://www.canadianatheist.com/2017/11/landau/.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2017k, November 15). Conversation with Sophie Shulman, M.D., Ph.D., D.Sci. – Director, CFI-Victoria. Retrieved from https://www.canadianatheist.com/2017/11/shulman/.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2017e, September 18). Conversation with Terry Murray on Sexual Minorities, Religion, and the UK. Retrieved from https://www.canadianatheist.com/2017/09/conversation-with-terry-murray-on-sexual-minorities-religion-and-the-uk/.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2017ag, December 22). Critical Thinking About New Age Spiritualism With Jessica Schab. Retrieved from https://www.canadianatheist.com/2017/12/schab/.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2017w, August 22). Danielle Blau, Process, Poetry, Aloneness and Fear, Weeping, and Philosophy. Retrieved from https://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/danielle-blau-2-sjbn/.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2018bj, March 14). Diana Bucur on Leaving the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Retrieved from https://www.canadianatheist.com/2018/03/diana-bucur/.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2018ag, January 8). Dr. Azra Raza, M.D.: Professor and Director of MDS Center, at Columbia University. Retrieved from https://medium.com/humanist-voices/dr-azra-raza-m-d-professor-and-director-of-mds-center-at-columbia-university-c190e564d047.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2017ad, September 15). Dr. Barbara Forrest: Philosophy Professor, Southeastern Louisiana University & Member, NCSE Board of Directors. Retrieved from https://medium.com/humanist-voices/dr-barbara-forrest-philosophy-professor-southeastern-louisiana-university-member-ncse-board-99218108a9ae.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2018ah, January 20). Dr. Carol Tavris: Social Psychologist, Writer, Lecturer; Fellow, Center for Inquiry. Retrieved from https://medium.com/humanist-voices/dr-carol-tavris-social-psychologist-writer-lecturer-fellow-center-for-inquiry-30d0a7f4315e.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2017v, August 20). Dr. Elizabeth Loftus, Expert Witness, Unlimited Funding and Research, and the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal. Retrieved from https://goodmenproject.com/uncategorized/loftus-2-sjbn/.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2014, June 15). Dr. Francisco Ayala: Donald Bren Professor, Biological Sciences; Professor of Philosophy; and Professor of Logic and the Philosophy of Science, University of California, Irvine (Part One). Retrieved from https://in-sightjournal.com/2014/06/15/dr-francisco-ayala-donald-bren-professor-biological-sciences-professor-of-philosophy-and-professor-of-logic-and-the-philosophy-of-science-university-of-california-irvine/.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2018ag, January 15). Dr. Maryanne Garry: Psychology Professor, Victoria University of Wellington; Fellow, Center for Inquiry. Retrieved from https://medium.com/humanist-voices/dr-maryanne-garry-psychology-professor-victoria-university-of-wellington-fellow-center-for-209cdb9b414d.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2018ak, February 1). Dr. Susan Blackmore: Visiting Professor, University of Plymouth; Fellow, Center for Inquiry. Retrieved from https://medium.com/humanist-voices/dr-susan-blackmore-visiting-professor-university-of-plymouth-fellow-center-for-inquiry-4aec8d2c17d5.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2017f, September 22). Exclusive Interview with Stephanie Guttormson - Operations Director for the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science. Retrieved from https://www.canadianatheist.com/2017/09/stephanie-guttormson/.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2018k, January 26). Exclusive Interview with Writer and Producer Leslea Mair. Retrieved from https://www.canadianatheist.com/2018/01/mair/.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2016h, October 24). Extended Interview with Maryam Namazie. Retrieved from https://conatusnews.com/extended-interview-maryam-namazie-2/.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2018s, July 13). Ghada Ibrahim: Sharia is a Threat to Human Rights and Democracy.. Retrieved from https://conatusnews.com/ghada-ibrahim-sharia-threat-human-rights-democracy/.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2017u, August 14). Helen Pluckrose, Windows and Mirrors – Views from the Outside In. Retrieved from https://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/helen-pluckrose-sjbn/.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2018m, January 28). In Conversation with Angie Johnson – Executive Director, Salt Lake City Oasis. Retrieved from https://www.canadianatheist.com/2018/01/johnson/.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2018a, January 12). In Conversation with Atheist Minister Gretta Vosper – Current Context. Retrieved from https://www.canadianatheist.com/2018/01/vosper/.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2018x, September 9). In Conversation with Diane Burkholder – Co-Founder, One Struggle KC. Retrieved from https://www.canadianatheist.com/2018/09/burkholder-jacobsen/.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2018m, January 31). In Conversation with Dr. Ellen Wiebe – Physicians Advisory Council, Dying With Dignity Canada. Retrieved from https://www.canadianatheist.com/2018/01/wiebe/.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2018l, January 26). In Conversation with Helen Austen – Executive Director, Kansas City Oasis. Retrieved from https://www.canadianatheist.com/2018/01/austen/.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2018e, February 16). In Conversation with Joyce Arthur – Founder and Executive Director, Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada. Retrieved from https://www.canadianatheist.com/2018/02/arthur/.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2018bn, January 24). In Conversation with Lita Bablitz on a Two-Tier Education System. Retrieved from https://www.canadianatheist.com/2018/01/bablitz/.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2018h, March 10). In Conversation with Melissa Krawczyk – Atheist, Secular Humanist, and Skeptic. Retrieved from https://www.canadianatheist.com/2018/03/krawczyk/.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2018f, February 23). In Conversation with Professor Colleen MacQuarrie, Ph.D. on Abortion Rights Activism. Retrieved from https://www.canadianatheist.com/2018/02/macquarrie/.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2018i, March 27). In Conversation with Professor Sarah Wilkins-LaFlamme on Secularism, Religion, and Atheism. Retrieved from https://www.canadianatheist.com/2018/03/in-conversation-with-professor-sarah-wilkins-laflamme-on-secularism-religion-and-atheism/.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2018r, February 6). In Conversation with Tammy Pham – Founder and Former Co-President, Dying With Dignity Canada (U of Ottawa). Retrieved from https://www.canadianatheist.com/2018/02/pham/.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2018bd, May 18). In Conversation with Vidita Priyadarshini – MA in Political Science Student, Central European University. Retrieved from https://www.canadianatheist.com/2018/05/priyadarshini/.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2017ak, October 24). In the Heart of the Catholic Education Trans Controversy – Anonymous Interview with Trans Child Mother. Retrieved from https://www.canadianatheist.com/2017/10/trans/.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2018ao, September 11). Interview with Agnes Vishnevkin, MBA — Co-Founder & Vice President of Intentional Insights and Pro-Truth Pledge. Retrieved from https://medium.com/humanist-voices/interview-with-agnes-vishnevkin-mba-co-founder-vice-president-of-intentional-insights-and-730db8e1d244.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2019ak, January 9). Interview with Ann Reid – Executive Director, National Center for Science Education. Retrieved from https://www.canadianatheist.com/2019/01/interview-with-ann-reid-executive-director-national-center-for-science-education/.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2018ab, October 22). Interview with Aradhiya Khan — Pakistani Transgender Activist. Retrieved from https://medium.com/humanist-voices/interview-with-aradhiya-khan-pakistani-transgender-activist-48e3e9afb082.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2018z, August 13). Interview with Arya Parsipur – Author, Limu Shirin, The Bitter Story of Life After the Iranian Revolution. Retrieved from https://www.canadianatheist.com/2018/08/limu-shirin-jacobsen/.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2019ae, February 18). Interview with Asuncion Alvarez del Río – Advisory Council Member, DMD Mexico. Retrieved from https://www.canadianatheist.com/2019/02/alvarez-jacobsen/.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2019o, March 15). Interview with August Berkshire – State Director, Minnesota American Atheists. Retrieved from https://www.canadianatheist.com/2019/03/berkshire-jacobsen/.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2018aj, February 23). Interview with Brenda Germain — President, MASH Ft. Bragg. Retrieved from https://medium.com/humanist-voices/interview-with-brenda-germain-president-mash-ft-bragg-f3c3936dc224.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2019x, January 31). Interview with Carly Gardner – State Director, American Atheists Nevada. Retrieved from https://www.canadianatheist.com/2019/01/gardner-jacobsen/.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2019t, January 27). Interview with Carmenza Ochoa Uribe – Executive Director, Fundación Pro Derecho a Morir Dignamente. Retrieved from https://www.canadianatheist.com/2019/01/uribe-jacobsen/.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2018g, February 24). Interview with Catherine Dunphy – Author & Former Executive Director, The Clergy Project. Retrieved from https://www.canadianatheist.com/2018/02/dunphy/.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2019ah, February 21). Interview with Claudette St. Pierre – President, Freedom From Religion Foundation, Metro Denver Chapter. Retrieved from https://www.canadianatheist.com/2019/02/pierre-jacobsen/.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2017af, September 3). Interview with Cleopatra Yvonne S. Nyahe — Co-Cordinator, Humanist Services Corps. Retrieved from https://medium.com/humanist-voices/interview-with-cleopatra-yvonne-s-nyahe-co-cordinator-humanist-services-corps-bf7773f1f817.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2017s, September 17). Interview with Cynthia Todd Quam – President of ‘End of the Line Humanists’. Retrieved from https://conatusnews.com/interview-cynthia-todd-quam/.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2019i, March 14). Interview with Dorothy Hays – President, Atheists, Skeptics, Humanists Association (ASHA). Retrieved from https://www.canadianatheist.com/2019/03/hays-jacobsen/.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2019ad, February 8). Interview with Dr. Meredith Doig, OAM – President, Rationalist Society of Australia. Retrieved from https://www.canadianatheist.com/2019/02/doig-jacobsen/.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2019w, February 1). Interview with Faye Girsh – An Activist for the Right to a Peaceful Death. Retrieved from https://www.canadianatheist.com/2019/02/girsh-jacobsen/.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2019p, January 19). Interview with Frances Coombe – President, South Australian Voluntary Euthanasia Society. Retrieved from https://www.canadianatheist.com/2019/01/coombe-jacobsen/.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2018bk, March 4). Interview with Frances Garner – Member, Central Ontario Humanists. Retrieved from https://www.canadianatheist.com/2018/03/frances-garner/.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2018bl, March 2). Interview with Gauri Hopkins on Cult Upbringing and Contemporary Feminism. Retrieved from https://www.canadianatheist.com/2018/03/hopkins/.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2019ai, January 6). Interview with Gayle Jordan – Executive Director, Recovering from Religion. Retrieved from https://www.canadianatheist.com/2019/01/jordan-jacobsen/.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2018al, November 3). Interview with Gissou Nia on Becoming Involved in Human Rights Work. Retrieved from https://medium.com/humanist-voices/interview-with-gissou-nia-on-becoming-involved-in-human-rights-work-3e568bdd96bd.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2019n, March 19). Interview with Haafizah Bhamjee – Executive-Administrator, “Ex-Muslims of South Africa”. Retrieved from https://www.canadianatheist.com/2019/03/bhamjee-jacobsen/.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2019aj, January 5). Interview with Heather Pentler – Committee Member, Edinburgh Skeptics. Retrieved from https://www.canadianatheist.com/2019/01/pentler-jacobsen/.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2019m, March 22). Interview with Hope Knutsson – Former President, Founding Member, and Board Member, Siðmennt (Félag Siðrænna Húmanista). Retrieved from https://www.canadianatheist.com/2019/03/knutsson-jacobsen/.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2018as, May 12). Interview with Jean Karla M. Tapao — Member, Humanist Alliance Philippines, International. Retrieved from https://medium.com/humanist-voices/interview-with-jean-karla-m-tapao-member-humanist-alliance-philippines-international-816bdb95564e.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2019k, March 10). Interview with Jeanne Arthur – President, Dying with Dignity ACT. Retrieved from https://www.canadianatheist.com/2019/03/arthur-jacobsen/.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2016b, February 16). Interview with Jennifer C. Gutierrez Baltazar – Executive Director of Humanist Alliance Philippines, International (HAPI)-. Retrieved from https://conatusnews.com/interview-%E2%80%8Bjennifer-c-gutierrez-baltazar-executive-director-humanist-alliance-philippines-international-hapi/.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2019y, February 7). Interview with Judith Daley – Board Member, Dying with Dignity NSW. Retrieved from https://www.canadianatheist.com/2019/02/daley-jacobsen/.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2018c, July 25). Interview with Karen Garst – Founder, Faithless Feminist. Retrieved from https://www.canadianatheist.com/2018/07/karen-garst-jacobsen/.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2019v, February 2). Interview with Karis Burkowski – President, Society of Ontario Freethinkers. Retrieved from https://www.canadianatheist.com/2019/02/burkowski-jacobsen/.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2016g, October 25). Interview with Kate Smurthwaite. Retrieved from https://conatusnews.com/interview-%E2%80%8Bkate-smurthwaite/.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2019f, April 7). Interview with Kelly – Brights Community Clusters (BCCs) Coordinator, The Brights’ Net. Retrieved from https://www.canadianatheist.com/2019/04/brights-jacobsen/.
Jacobsen, 2019u, January 30). Interview for Kim Newton, M.Litt. – Executive Director, Camp Quest, Inc. (National Support Center). Retrieved from https://www.canadianatheist.com/2019/01/newton-jacobsen/.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2019q, January 14). Interview with Kristine Klopp – Assistant State Director, American Atheists Alabama. Retrieved from https://www.canadianatheist.com/2019/01/klopp-jacobsen/.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2018af, January 11). Interview with Lee Sakura — Administrator, Atheist Republic Manila Consulate. Retrieved from https://medium.com/humanist-voices/interview-with-lee-sakura-administrator-atheist-republic-manila-consulate-d2953395bedb.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2016c, December 5). Interview with Linda LaScola – Editor of Rational Doubt, Clinical Social Worker, Psychotherapist, & Qualitative Researcher. Retrieved from https://conatusnews.com/interview-linda-lascola-editor-rational-doubt-clinical-social-worker-psychotherapist-qualitative-researcher/.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2019g, February 24). Interview with Lucie Jobin – President, Mouvement Laïque Québécois. Retrieved from https://www.canadianatheist.com/2019/02/jobin-jacobsen/.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2017y, December 16). Interview with Lucille V. Hoersten. Retrieved from https://medium.com/humanist-voices/interview-with-lucille-v-hoersten-9b07bef9d96d.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2018j, April 22). Interview with Mandisa Thomas – Founder, Black Nonbelievers, Inc.. Retrieved from https://www.canadianatheist.com/2018/04/thomas/.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2019ab, February 11). Interview with Margaret Downey – Founder & President, Freethought Society. Retrieved from https://www.canadianatheist.com/2019/02/interview-with-margaret-downey-founder-president-freethought-society/.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2018ap, August 28). Interview with Marianne De Guzman Tucay — Member, Humanist Alliance Philippines International. Retrieved from https://medium.com/humanist-voices/interview-with-marianne-de-guzman-tucay-member-humanist-alliance-philippines-international-a892482525bd.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2018ar, May 14). Marieme Helie Lucas on Noura Hussein Hammad. Retrieved from https://medium.com/humanist-voices/marieme-helie-lucas-on-noura-hussein-hammad-61510cf2b115.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2019s, January 25). Interview with Marquita Tucker, M.B.A. – Co-Organizer, Black Nonbelievers of Detroit. Retrieved from https://www.canadianatheist.com/2019/01/tucker-jacobsen/.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2019r, January 23). Interview with Megan Denman – Assistant State Director, American Atheists Ohio. Retrieved from https://www.canadianatheist.com/2019/01/denman-jacobsen/.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2018aq, July 31). Interview with Melanie Wilderman — Author, Faithiest. Retrieved from https://medium.com/humanist-voices/interview-with-melanie-wilderman-author-faithiest-571e3f410750.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2019ag, February 13). Interview with Merja Soisaari-Turriago – Secretary, EXITUS ry. Retrieved from https://www.canadianatheist.com/2019/02/turriago-jacobsen/.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2019a, April 6). Interview with Miriam de Bontridder – Board Member, Foundation The Einder. Retrieved from https://www.canadianatheist.com/2019/04/bontridder-jacobsen/.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2018be, May 10). Interview with Molly Hanson – Editorial Assistant, Freedom From Religion Foundation. Retrieved from https://www.canadianatheist.com/2018/05/hanson/.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2017l, November 26). Interview with Monica Miller – Senior Counsel, AHA Appignani Humanist Legal Center. Retrieved from https://www.canadianatheist.com/2017/11/miller/.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2018am, October 24). Interview with Muriel McGregor — Former President, SSA (Utah State University). Retrieved from https://medium.com/humanist-voices/interview-with-muriel-mcgregor-former-president-ssa-utah-state-university-1f2d142c57af.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2019c, April 1). Interview with Ngaire McCarthy – Past President and Trustee, New Zealand Association of Rationalists & Humanists (Inc.). Retrieved from https://www.canadianatheist.com/2019/04/mccarthy-jacobsen/.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2019b, April 3). Interview with Nicole Infinity – Camp Coordinator, Camp Quest North. Retrieved from https://www.canadianatheist.com/2019/04/infinity-jacobsen/.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2017r, February 16). Interview with Nicole Orr - Branch Manager at CFI-Portland. Retrieved from https://conatusnews.com/interview-%E2%80%8Bnicole-orr-%E2%80%8Bbranch-manager-cfi-portland/.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2016, November 2). Interview with Professor Rebecca Goldstein — Novelist, Philosopher, and Public Intellectual. Retrieved from https://conatusnews.com/interview-professor-%E2%80%8Brebecca-goldstein%E2%80%8A-%E2%80%8Anovelist-philosopher-public-intellectual/.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2018an, October 21). Interview with Raghen Lucy — President, Minnesota State University, Mankato SSA & Council Member, National Leadership Council (SSA). Retrieved from https://medium.com/humanist-voices/interview-with-raghen-lucy-president-minnesota-state-university-mankato-ssa-council-member-b79e3e3ff7db.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2016i, October 21). Interview with Reba Boyd Wooden -Executive Director of the Center for Inquiry-Indiana. Retrieved from https://conatusnews.com/interview-reba-boyd-wooden-%E2%80%8B-executive-director-center-inquiry-indiana/.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2016d, November 11). Interview with Rebecca Hale – President of The American Humanist Association. Retrieved from https://conatusnews.com/interview-rebecca-hale-president-american-humanist-association/.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2018aa, July 30). Interview with Rizalina Guilatco Carr on Humanism. Retrieved from https://medium.com/humanist-voices/interview-with-rizalina-guilatco-carr-on-humanism-2f85343f4f5c.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2019aa, February 4). Interview with Robyn E. Blumner, J.D. – President & CEO, Center for Inquiry & Executive Director, Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason & Science. Retrieved from https://www.canadianatheist.com/2019/02/blumner-jacobsen/.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2016e, November 2). Interview with Roslyn Mould - President of the Humanist Association of Ghana; Chair of the African working group (IHEYO). Retrieved from https://conatusnews.com/interview-roslyn-mould-%E2%80%8B-president-humanist-association-ghana-chair-african-working-group-iheyo/.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2019ac, February 10). Interview with Ruth von Fuchs – President, Right to Die Society of Canada. Retrieved from https://www.canadianatheist.com/2019/02/interview-with-ruth-von-fuchs-president-right-to-die-society-of-canada/.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2019af, February 17). Interview with Sandra Z. Zellick – Secretary, Humanists of Sarasota Bay. Retrieved from https://www.canadianatheist.com/2019/02/zellick-jacobsen/.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2018b, August 14). Interview with Shanaaz Gokool – CEO, Dying With Dignity Canada. Retrieved from https://www.canadianatheist.com/2018/08/gokool-jacobsen/.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2018at, June 3). Interview with Shif Gadamsetti – Former President, SAMRU; Support Staff, Calgary Communities Against Sexual Abuse. Retrieved from https://www.canadianatheist.com/2018/06/gadamsetti-jacobsen/.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2018i, March 28). Interview with Sikivu Hutchinson-Feminist, Humanist, Novelist, Author. Retrieved from https://www.canadianatheist.com/2018/03/sikivu-hutchinson/.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2019z, February 5). Interview with Silvia Park – State Director, American Atheists Virginia. Retrieved from https://www.canadianatheist.com/2019/02/park-jacobsen/.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2018bf, May 9). Sodfa Daaji on the Urgent Case of Noura Hussein Hammad. Retrieved from https://www.canadianatheist.com/2018/05/hammad/.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2019j, March 13). Interview with Susan Nambejja on Malcolm Childrens’ Foundation. Retrieved from https://www.canadianatheist.com/2019/03/nambejja-jacobsen/.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2016f, October 26). Interview with Tara Abhasakun on the Baha’i Faith. Retrieved from https://conatusnews.com/interview-tara-abhasakun-bahai-faith/.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2017x, March 21). Interview with Tehmina Kazi. Retrieved from https://medium.com/humanist-voices/interview-with-tehmina-kazi-de839b823d62.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2019l, March 4). Interview with Zenaido Quintana – Chair & Acting Executive Director, Secular Coalition for Arizona & Secular Communities for Arizona. Retrieved from https://www.canadianatheist.com/2019/03/quintana-jacobsen/.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2017ai, November 24). Janet French on the Catholic Education System. Retrieved from https://www.canadianatheist.com/2017/11/french/.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2018ae, January 18). Kathy Dawson — Board Member, Alberta Pro-Choice Coalition and Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada. Retrieved from https://medium.com/humanist-voices/kathy-dawson-board-member-alberta-pro-choice-coalition-and-abortion-rights-coalition-of-canada-e9d9a8bf60d1.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2018w, July 3). LGBTQ2IA+ and the Undergraduate Postsecondary Learning Environment with Aria Burrell. Retrieved from https://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/aria-burrell-sjbn/.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2018r, April 13). Liberal Islam and Migrant Integration with Seyran Ateş. Retrieved from https://conatusnews.com/seyran-ates-faith-feminism-law/.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2018au, June 18). Loss is Love Suffered: An Ode to Marie Alena Castle. Retrieved from https://www.canadianatheist.com/2018/06/castle-jacobsen/.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2018ac, November 9). Maryam Namazie on activism and ex-Muslims. Retrieved from https://medium.com/@scott.d.jacobsen/maryam-namazie-on-activism-and-ex-muslims-c5298c89fb28.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2018q, March 11). Mina Ahadi: Abuse of Women’s Rights in Iran Calls for a New Revolution. Retrieved from https://conatusnews.com/mina-ahadi-womens-rights-revolution/.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2017a, August 28). Q&A on International Youth Humanism with Marieke Prien — Session 1. Retrieved from https://www.canadianatheist.com/2017/08/international-humanism/.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2017m, April 29). Q&A on Life in London with Pamela Machado. Retrieved from https://conatusnews.com/qa-life-london-pamela-machado/.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2017aa, October 19). Question with Patricia Grell, B.Sc., M.Div.: Trustee, Edmonton Catholic School Board (Ward 71). Retrieved from https://medium.com/humanist-voices/question-with-patricia-grell-b-sc-m-div-trustee-edmonton-catholic-school-board-ward-71-76ffb4700d1b.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2018az, October 17). Sara Al Iraqiya on Bad and Good Writing. Retrieved from https://medium.com/question-time/sara-al-iraqiya-on-bad-and-good-writing-f469adada5d7.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2017am, September 25). Short Chat with Pirate Jen Takahashi – Administrative Coordinator, Lethbridge Public Interest Research Group (LPIRG). Retrieved from https://www.canadianatheist.com/2017/09/pirate-jen-takahashi/.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2017b, January 5). Short Chat with Violine Namyalo – HALEA and UHASSO. Retrieved from https://www.canadianatheist.com/2017/09/violin-namyalo/.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2017d, September 18). Talk With Sarah Mills – Assistant Editor and Contributor, Conatus News. Retrieved from https://www.canadianatheist.com/2017/09/sarah-mills/.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2017g, September 30). The Calgary Pride Parade with Christine M. Shellska. Retrieved from https://www.canadianatheist.com/2017/09/the-calgary-pride-parade-with-christine-m-shellska/.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2018u, July 15). Three Administrations of Humanist Student Leaders Dialogue About Humanism: Hari Parekh, Hannah Lucy Timson, and Angelos Sofocleous. Retrieved from https://in-sightjournal.com/2018/07/15/parekh-timson-sofocleous/.
Jacoby, S. (2012, August 16). A Woman’s Place? The Dearth of Women in the Secular Movement. Retrieved from https://thehumanist.com/magazine/september-october-2012/features/a-womans-place-the-dearth-of-women-in-the-secular-movement.
Jacoby, S. (2018). Susan Jacoby. Retrieved from http://www.susanjacoby.co/.
Jacoby, S. (2013, January 5). The Blessings of Atheism. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/06/opinion/sunday/the-blessings-of-atheism.html.
Judge, M. (2015, April 6). Why I Won’t Date Secular White Women. Retrieved from https://www.realclearreligion.org/articles/2015/04/07/why_i_wont_date_secular_white_women.html.
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Secularism is a Women’s Issue. (2019). Secularism is a Women’s Issue. Retrieved from https://www.siawi.org.
Skirry, J. (n.d.). René Descartes (1596—1650). Retrieved from https://www.iep.utm.edu/descarte/.
Su, A. (2019, February 8). The Rising Voices of Women in Pakistan. Retrieved from https://pulitzercenter.org/reporting/rising-voices-women-pakistan.
Tejada, C. (2017, September 27). Women Still Do More Chores At Home Than Men, Study Finds. Retrieved from https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2017/09/27/women-chores-home_a_23224733/.
The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. (2018b, May 24). Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/biography/Elizabeth-Cady-Stanton.
The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. (2018c, March 18). Matilda Joslyn Gage. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/biography/Matilda-Joslyn-Gage.
The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. (2018d, August 4). Sir Roger Penrose. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/biography/Roger-Penrose.
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TOI Staff. (2017, May 28). Chief rabbi implies immodest secular women are like animals. Retrieved from https://www.timesofisrael.com/chief-rabbi-implies-immodest-secular-women-are-like-animals/.
UN Women. (2018, November). Data: Ending violence against women. Retrieved from www.unwomen.org/en/what-we-do/ending-violence-against-women/facts-and-figures.
UNICEF. (2017). A Familiar Face. Retrieved from https://www.unicef.org/publications/files/Violence_in_the_lives_of_children_and_adolescents.pdf.
UNICEF. (2018). Child Marriage; latest trends and future propspects. Retrieved from https://data.unicef.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Child-Marriage-Data-Brief.pdf.
UNICEF. (2016). Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting. Retrieved from https://www.unicef.org/media/files/FGMC_2016_brochure_final_UNICEF_SPREAD.pdf.
United Coalition of Reason. (n.d.). Interview: Elsa Roberts of Secular Woman. Retrieved from https://unitedcor.org/interview-elsa-roberts-of-secular-woman/.
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Watson, R.A. (2018, April 6). René Descartes. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/biography/Rene-Descartes#ref43354.
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—
Scott Douglas Jacobsen is the Founder of In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal and In-Sight Publishing. He authored/co-authored some e-books, free or low-cost. If you want to contact Scott: Scott.D.Jacobsen@Gmail.com.
[1] Utilitarianism: Chapter 2 What Utilitarianism Is (1863) states:
I must again repeat, what the assailants of utilitarianism seldom have the justice to acknowledge, that the happiness which forms the utilitarian standard of what is right in conduct, is not the agent’s own happiness, but that of all concerned. As between his own happiness and that of others, utilitarianism requires him to be as strictly impartial as a disinterested and benevolent spectator. In the golden rule of Jesus of Nazareth, we read the complete spirit of the ethics of utility. To do as you would be done by, and to love your neighbour as yourself, constitute the ideal perfection of utilitarian morality. As the means of making the nearest approach to this ideal, utility would enjoin, first, that laws and social arrangements should place the happiness, or (as speaking practically it may be called) the interest, of every individual, as nearly as possible in harmony with the interest of the whole; and secondly, that education and opinion, which have so vast a power over human character, should so use that power as to establish in the mind of every individual an indissoluble association between his own happiness and the good of the whole; especially between his own happiness and the practice of such modes of conduct, negative and positive, as regard for the universal happiness prescribes; so that not only he may be unable to conceive the possibility of happiness to himself, consistently with conduct opposed to the general good, but also that a direct impulse to promote the general good may be in every individual one of the habitual motives of action, and the sentiments connected therewith may fill a large and prominent place in every human being’s sentient existence. If the, impugners of the utilitarian morality represented it to their own minds in this its, true character, I know not what recommendation possessed by any other morality they could possibly affirm to be wanting to it; what more beautiful or more exalted developments of human nature any other ethical system can be supposed to foster, or what springs of action, not accessible to the utilitarian, such systems rely on for giving effect to their mandates.
Mill, J.S. (1863). Utilitarianism: Chapter 2 What Utilitarianism Is. Retrieved from https://www.utilitarianism.com/mill2.htm.
[2] These include Rebecca Newberger Goldstein, Rev. Gretta Vosper, Shanaaz Gokool, Allie Jackson, Karen Garst, Claire Klingenberg, Joyce Arthur, Colleen MacQuarrie, Catherine Dunphy, Melissa Krawczyk, Sarah Wilkins-LaFlamme, Sikivu Hutchinson, Mandisa Lateefah Thomas, Leslea Mair, Helen Austen, Angie Johnson, Ellen Wiebe, Wendy Webber, Marieke Prien, Shari Allwood, Violine Namyalo, Emily Newman, Sarah Mills, Terry Murray, Stephanie Guttormson, Tina Block, Christine M. Shellska, Cheri Frazer, Anya Overmann, Sophie Shulman, Monica Miller, Houzan Mahmoud, Tammy Pham, Ajomuzu Collette Bekaku, Pamela Machado, Julia Julstrom-Agoyo, Amanda Poppei, Kim Gibson, Marieme Helie Lucas, Nicole Orr, Jennifer C. Gutierrez Baltazar, Linda LaScola, Rebecca Hale, Roslyn Mould, Tara Abhasakun, Kate Smurthwaite, Maryam Namazie, Reba Boyd Wooden, Cynthia Todd Quam, Annie Laurie Gaylor, Morgan Wienberg, Anissa Helou, Marissa Torres Langseth, Hannah Lucy Timson, and others, including, and some repetition, Marissa Alexa Lennex-McCool, Mandisa Thomas, Yasmine Mohammed, Sikivu Hutchinson, Bridgett “Bree” Crutchfield, Marquita Tucker, Samantha A. Christian, Judy Saint, Jummai Mohammed, Marissa Torres Langseth, Alexus Jean Black, Alisha Ann, and Susan Nambejja from this article (Jacoby, 2018; Jacobsen, 2016a; Jacobsen, 2018a; Jacobsen, 2018b; Jacobsen, 2018c; Jacobsen, 2018d; Jacobsen, 2018e; Jacobsen, 2018f; Jacobsen, 2018g; Jacobsen, 2018h; Jacobsen, 2018i; Jacobsen, 2018j; Jacobsen, 2018k; Jacobsen, 2018l; Jacobsen, 2018m; Jacobsen, 2018n; Jacobsen, 2018o; Jacobsen, 2018p; Jacobsen, 2017a; Jacobsen, 2018q; Jacobsen, 2017b; Jacobsen, 2017c; Jacobsen, 2017d; Jacobsen, 2017f; Jacobsen, 2017g; Jacobsen, 2017h; Jacobsen, 2017i; Jacobsen, 2017j; Jacobsen, 2017k; Jacobsen, 2017l; Jacobsen, 2017m; Jacobsen, 2017n; Jacobsen, 2017o; Jacobsen, 2017p; Jacobsen, 2017q; Jacobsen, 2017r; Jacobsen, 2016b; Jacobsen, 2016c; Jacobsen, 2016d; Jacobsen, 2016e; Jacobsen, 2016f; Jacobsen, 2017s; Jacobsen, 2017t; Jacobsen, 2018q; Jacobsen, 2018r; Jacobsen, 2018s; Jacobsen, 2018t; Jacobsen, 2018u; Jacobsen, 2018v; Jacobsen, 2017u; Jacobsen, 2017v; Jacobsen, 2018w; Jacobsen, 2017w; Jacobsen, 2019a; Jacobsen, 2019b; Jacobsen, 2019c; Jacobsen, 2019d; Jacobsen, 2019e; Jacobsen, 2019f; Jacobsen, 2019g; Jacobsen, 2019h; Jacobsen, 2019i; Jacobsen, 2019j; Jacobsen, 2019k; Jacobsen, 2019l; Jacobsen, 2019m; Jacobsen, 2019n; Jacobsen, 2019o; Jacobsen, 2019p; Jacobsen, 2019q; Jacobsen, 2019r; Jacobsen, 2019s; Jacobsen, 2019t; Jacobsen, 2019u; Jacobsen, 2019v; Jacobsen, 2019w; Jacobsen, 2019x; Jacobsen, 2019y; Jacobsen, 2019z; Jacobsen, 2019aa; Jacobsen, 2019ab; Jacobsen, 2019ac; Jacobsen, 2019ad; Jacobsen, 2019ae; Jacobsen, 2019af; Jacobsen, 2019ag; Jacobsen, 2019ah; Jacobsen, 2019ai; Jacobsen, 2019aj; Jacobsen, 2019ak; Jacobsen, 2018x; Jacobsen, 2018y; Jacobsen, 2018z; Jacobsen, 2018aa; Jacobsen, 2018ab; Jacobsen, 2018ac; Jacobsen, 2017x; Jacobsen, 2018ad; Jacobsen, 2018ae; Jacobsen, 2018af; Jacobsen, 2018ag; Jacobsen, 2017y; Jacobsen, 2017z; Jacobsen, 2017aa; Jacobsen, 2017ab; Jacobsen, 2017ac; Jacobsen, 2017ad; Jacobsen, 2017ae; Jacobsen, 2018ag; Jacobsen, 2018ah; Jacobsen, 2018ai; Jacobsen, 2018aj; Jacobsen, 2018ak; Jacobsen, 2018al; Jacobsen, 2018am; Jacobsen, 2018an; Jacobsen, 2018ao; Jacobsen, 2018ap; Jacobsen, 2018aq; Jacobsen, 2018ar; Jacobsen, 2018as; Jacobsen, 2018at; Jacobsen, 2018au; Jacobsen, 2018av; Jacobsen, 2018aw; Jacobsen, 2018ax; Jacobsen, 2018ay; Jacobsen, 2018az; Jacobsen, 2018ba; Jacobsen, 2019al; Jacobsen, 2018bb; Jacobsen, 2018bc; Jacobsen, 2018bd; Jacobsen, 2018be; Jacobsen, 2018bf; Jacobsen, 2018bg; Jacobsen, 2018bh; Jacobsen, 2018bi; Jacobsen, 2018bj; Jacobsen, 2018bk; Jacobsen, 2018bl; Jacobsen, 2018bm; Jacobsen, 2018bn; Jacobsen, 2018bo; Jacobsen, 2017af; Jacobsen, 2017ag; Jacobsen, 2017ah; Jacobsen, 2017ai; Jacobsen, 2017aj; Jacobsen, 2017ak; Jacobsen, 2017al; Jacobsen, 2017am).
[3] Now, this stands apart from theories of consciousness and conscious mental activity found with, for one instance, Sir Roger Penrose and Stuart Hameroff with the Orch-OR Model of Consciousness or Orchestrated Objective Reduction Model of Consciousness, where Penrose remains one of the more prominent and respectable individuals positing stretches in the scientific methodologies and epistemologies for explanation of a difficult phenomena (some say epiphenomena) – consciousness – and did receive a tip-of-the-hat from Edward Witten (The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2018d; Артём Журавель, 2016). Penrose argues the comprehension of non-computable facets of the basic operations of the universe by the human mind in the case of being capable of knowing the truth of the Godel Incompleteness Theorems, and their relationship between axioms & the truths of mathematical formal structures and the computations of the human mind, creates the basis for the expanded model of space-time and physics to include consciousness and space-time geometry as fundamentally interrelated with one another. This creates the basis for models of the universe & consciousness, and the brain and so the mind, with non-computable aspects because of the implications, within the perspective of Penrose, of the realization of some human operators being capable of understanding the Godel Incompleteness Theorems. Something which should not be possible if human computation involved only systems with formalized axiomatic mathematical structures and systems. The mind does; so, new models needed, argues Penrose. He posits isolated collapse of a quantum wave function superposition into a single state in a closed system as not simply a reduction of the system or a collapse of the wave function – as is seen in open systems – but as an Objective Reduction or OR. In complex closed systems or isolated systems, this may become an orchestrated phenomenon as in, for example, consciousness and, therefore, the Orchestrated (Orch) OR or Orch-OR (sorry for that one) Model of Consciousness becomes the possible bridge. The potential state selected from the superposition links to spacetime geometry as non-random and non-algorithmic and non-computable. You see the idea there. To Penrose et al, the span of time until the quantum wave function collapses/the quantum superposition of states reduces to one/objective reduction or OR occurs approximately equates to the simple division function with the gravitational self-energy of the space-time object as the denominator and the reduced Planck constant as the numerator, where the implication of the eventual computation amounts to the bigger the object or the more self-energy then the faster the gravitational self-collapse or the smaller then the slower the rate of the process through time. Important things have more energy; small things have less; thus, big thing OR faster than small thing OR. OR needs isolation. That is, an isolated system for OR. The brain and even neurons are too big and non-isolated for OR in Orch-OR. However, the neuronal microtubules have the approximate correct size and system isolation for OR. They may orchestrate massive OR. That is Orch-OR. Witten believes consciousness will remain a difficult problem despite the advances in the coming decades in knowledge about the detailed structure and function of the brain with modern neuroscience and other disciplines in brain science. Witten remains skeptical of purported forthcoming solutions to the problem of consciousness, taking the position, probably, of consciousness not being a problem with a potential answer but as a mystery with no solution given the structure of the human mind and sciences used to discover the basic nature of the cosmos. Most professional researchers hold skepticism about Orch-OR. With the assumption of a discrete rather a continuous fundamental state of the universe, the proposition in Orch-OR equates to the quantity of self-energy in a given spacetime volume necessary to collapse a quantum superposition – a set of associated states co-occurring or mutually existent; the collapse would occur within a reasonable amount of time into a single new state with smaller objects taking longer and bigger objects taking shorter to self-collapse for a collapse to connect the non-computational aspects of decision-making [read: Gödel’s incompleteness theorems, where “all consistent axiomatic formulations of number theory include undecidable propositions” (Weisstein, 2018)] to associate with the experiences – let’s say qualia and other facets – somehow embedded into the fundamental substructure or even superstructure of the universe – in some Platonic theory about the lowest possible rung of the existent (makes sense as Penrose is a Platonist or a Neo-Platonist), where the neurons of the brain for this form of consciousness would be too large but the microtubules within each neuron – thousands in each neuron – would suffice in scale for sufficient self-energy and also isolation from potential decoherence effects impacting the functional quantum superposition collapse. As far as I know, no or very few minor evidences support, and no major evidence supports, this Orch-OR Model of Consciousness.
[4] NIV (2018a) Genesis 2:7 states:
Then the LORD God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.
NIV. (2018a). Genesis 2:7. Retrieved from https://biblehub.com/genesis/2-7.htm.
[5] NIV (2018b) Genesis 2:22 states:
Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.
NIV. (2018b). Genesis 2:22. Retrieved from https://biblehub.com/genesis/2-22.htm.
[6] Dr. Francisco Ayala: Donald Bren Professor, Biological Sciences; Professor of Philosophy; and Professor of Logic and the Philosophy of Science, University of California, Irvine (Part One), in part, states:
Prior to Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species, Priest William Paley in the 19thcentury argued in his book, Natural Theology (1802), he provided an analogy of the watch and watchmaker to reason by analogy for the existence of a designer. In your book from 2007, Darwin’s Gift to Science and Religion, you discuss some of the larger theological aspects related to some modern biological debates, especially those relating to modern creationist and intelligent design theory. In it, you argue against creationism and intelligent design as scientific explanations. Dobzhansky makes note of this in his 1973 essay. He argues science and theology do not conflict. In that, science on the one half; theology on the other half. They deal with different subject-matter. Could you discuss some of the larger, brief historical aspects of the design arguments that have come around? In particular, how did they come to the fore?
Yes, the sign of design in nature. Obviously, I have the eyes to see, hands can manipulate, and leaves can photosynthesize, and on and on. Organisms give evidence of being designed. That tended to be explored in classical Greece among the great philosophers of the 5th and 4th century BCE. They were looking at the signs this way. These signs were attributed to the gods, but not in the modern sense of a modern God – not a universal god. This was very much taken up in the Greek tradition. That organisms were designed because there seemed no other way you explain such design. Thomas Aquinas, a great Christian theologian in the opinion of many people, he used this as one of five arguments that God exists. Since the organism is designed, animals and plants, only a universal creator could explain it. That tradition continues. There are very important works including books written about it. The most complete elaboration of the argument was written by William Paley, published in 1802. He was an author of several books of Christian theology. Also, he was known in the latter part of the 18th and 19th centuries. You may have read this in the book. He was known mostly as a public speaker for abolitionism. He was fighting against slavery. He had to give up his public speaking career. Instead, he decided to study biology. He produced his book Natural Theology, which is the most complete book on the argument for design. He provides the most complete argument about design in organisms in nature such as plants and animals. It is a beautiful book, 350 pages or so. There was no other argument until Darwin came with the Origins of Species (1859). Well, first of all with the two earlier long essays written by him. However, the 1859 book was the greatest contribution to science and one of the most important discoveries of science was being able to provide a scientific explanation of the design of organisms. Because everything else, we have the Copernican revolution with Copernicus, Galileo, and Newton, and others in chemistry, but the design of organisms seemed impossible to explain in terms of science. In terms of natural causes, the great contribution of Darwin was to provide the scientific explanations of design, which makes it one of the great scientific revolutions of all-time.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2014, June 15). Dr. Francisco Ayala: Donald Bren Professor, Biological Sciences; Professor of Philosophy; and Professor of Logic and the Philosophy of Science, University of California, Irvine (Part One). Retrieved from https://in-sightjournal.com/2014/06/15/dr-francisco-ayala-donald-bren-professor-biological-sciences-professor-of-philosophy-and-professor-of-logic-and-the-philosophy-of-science-university-of-california-irvine/.
[7] Interview with Marissa Alexa Lennex-McCool:
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Women have been increasingly assertive about their concerns about the social, political and economic conditions within their own part of a country, in their respective nations, and, indeed, regions of the world and on the international scene. How? Why is this important?
Marissa Alexa Lennex-McCool: This has happened because women in many of them are affected by the social, political, and economic conditions and are tired of not being represented and spoken over. In many instances, if we are not told we are being too emotional, told to get back in the kitchen or focus on raising children, or serving a husband, we’re condescended to or pushed aside for the good ol’ boys clubs. While many women may not agree with each other, a good percentage of them are sick of having things decided for them without a say, especially when men make decisions about women’s bodies without the faintest idea of what it is like.
Jacobsen: In each of those domains – social, political, and economic conditions, in the non-religious communities, what are the concerns of American women? What about women in North America? Please give examples or reasoning.
Lennex-McCool: All those domains, and the women within them, are as diverse as the populations themselves. I think it is fair to say one of the biggest and most prevalent in recent memory is sexual harassment and assault in the workplace, not to mention the processes by which one can report those things, both at work and in general. Even with people being temporarily inconvenienced by allegations, they are often free to come back whenever they want with few, if any, repercussions for their actions.
The political conditions see evangelicals returning to power and asserting their theocratic views over others under the guise of religious liberty, among many others. Making sure women’s healthcare is dictated by their specific religious beliefs and everything else puts an undue burden on them, not to mention the queer, trans, and women of color who are disproportionately affected by the religious right’s influence on the government.
Jacobsen: #MeToo led to #ChurchToo, #MeccaToo, #MosqueToo, #SynagogueToo, and so on; these have been replicated in consequences and call-outs of poor behavior by men in the non-religious communities. What are the main concerns of North American non-religious women as regarding the behavior of the men?
Lennex-McCool: That this behavior has consequences, that it is not just a temporary hiatus or vacation from the spotlight before they try to return like nothing happened. But, and more importantly, that it is not just celebrities who face any consequences for these allegations. Perhaps even worse are the perpetual defenders of these men who defend the perpetrators no matter how much evidence or credible the allegations are, and that alone causes many women/non-men in the secular movement to either stay silent or leave it. Part of the reason we left religion was to get away from that mindset, but many seemingly have not left it behind.
Jacobsen: More men dominate the non-religious conversation, globally. What are your thoughts on this? Should it be changed? If so, how?
Lennex-McCool: I just spoke at a convention that had eight women speakers, an all-women lineup. This convention booked it that way in response to the previous year’s lineup being all white men. Other voices in the community are often attacked, harassed, silenced, or bullied out of the movement, and when platforms are often given preferential treatment to white men, it can make it discourage. Marginalized communities need to be given the opportunity to speak and given the chance to speak on more than just the experience of being marginalized. Women of color can speak on more than race issues. Queer and trans people can speak on more than being queer and trans. The frustration comes from not having the chance to speak, but also being pigeon-holed as to only being invited to speak on your identity. I have three degrees from an Ivy League school. None of those three are degrees in Being Trans, Being Queer, Being a Woman, etc.
Jacobsen: Are there some things non-religious women simply only talk about with other non-religious women that non-religious men just do not hear? If so, what are these experiences? If so, what are these things? If so, why only the discussions like those happening woman-to-woman rather than woman-to-man?
McCool: I belong to a women’s-only facebook group, because often the regular ones are intolerable. Women are harassed and spoken down to, queer and trans women are bullied, mocked, doxxed, and virtually treated like the religious communities treat them, but science and logic are the words of defense rather than God and Jesus. Often, we discuss things in those places because we are sick of being ignored, spoken over, or having to stop every six seconds and educate someone who might just be JAQing off (Just Asking Questions.) Often that comes from someone not actually interested in learning, but just disrupting, and it is hard to tell the difference. We do not owe anyone an education.
Jacobsen: What can the non-religious communities do to include more women, people of color, and people from a wider variety of nations in the global non-religious community? What can we do to include more women’s voices in the mainstream dialogues, discourses, and discussions? What are the ways in which the non-religious community and men can help these efforts? What have been historic failures of the non-religious, and of men, to include women in the talks, the community, the literature, the media, and the important philosophical, scientific, and ethical discussions of the non-religious community?
Lennex-McCool: Give more than just the white men a chance to speak and be heard and give them a chance to speak on more than just their identity. Book more women, women of color, queer women, trans people, non-binary folx, indigenous activists… People who are not given a certain level of privilege have perspectives, experience, and opinions that were not formed in a place that men, especially white men, can understand and empathize with. The experience is not the same for everyone, and we need to stop pretending the perspective of a white man is universal or speaks for everyone. Men can turn down opportunities to speak if others are not being represented, and some have made it a practice to do so. If they are given the most credence within a community, they also have the power to change it. There are plenty of secular women of color, queer people, trans people, and others who are not religious, but many actively avoid the community because they are sick of seeing only white men represent them. The white men of the movement have the power to change that by advocating for others, and not just checking off a list (see: have the person of color talk about being a person of color, a trans person talk about being trans, etc.) The secular movement is as diverse and complicated as the population itself; the experience of being an atheist goes beyond just white men speaking about it.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Marissa.
Marissa Alexa Lennex-McCool
University of Pennsylvania, Class of 2017, LPS, Cum Laude
English/Cinema and Media Studies/Anthropology
Podcast Host
The Inciting Incident Podcast
The Cis Are Getting Out of Hand
Co-Founder
The Trans Podcaster Visibility Initiative
Author
The PC Lie: How American Voters Decided I Don’t Matter
False Start
Silent Dreams
Voice in the Dark
Passing Cars: The Internal Monologue of a Neurodivergent Trans Girl
Once Unspoken: A Series of Monologues From The Previously Unheard
The PC Lie: Can We Stop Giving Him A Chance Yet?
[8] Interview with Mandisa Thomas:
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Women have been increasingly assertive about their concerns about the social, political, and economic conditions within their own part of a country, in their respective nations, and, indeed, regions of the world and on the international scene. How? Why is this important?
Mandisa Thomas: Women are being more assertive by creating organizations that address relevant issues, organizing protests, marches, as well as getting more involved in the political process by voting and running for office. This is important because while being a woman does not necessarily equal effective change, it does show that women are more likely to consider factors that will benefit the masses as opposed to special interests, especially when working together.
Jacobsen: In each of those domains – social, political, and economic conditions, in the non-religious communities, what are the concerns of American women? What about women in North America? Please give examples or reasoning.
Thomas: Concerns include access to birth control, equal consideration in the workplace and policy making, complete objectification by men, and subjection to harassment.
Jacobsen: #MeToo led to #ChurchToo, #MeccaToo, #MosqueToo, #SynagogueToo, and so on; these have been replicated in consequences and call-outs of poor behavior by men in the non-religious communities. What are the main concerns of North American non-religious women as regarding the behavior of the men?
Thomas: The main concern IMO is the entitlement that men feel to say and do whatever they want without consequences, which has been the case for many years. Such entitlement and power have kept women silent and enduring harsh treatment, and now that more are speaking up, there is a concern that there will be more backlash by men AND other women.
Jacobsen: More men dominate the non-religious conversation, globally. What are your thoughts on this? Should it be changed? If so, how?
Thomas: This is a product of historical male domination, and the thought that men are the final authority. It absolutely should be changed, which can be done by everyone reconsidering what has been done previously, what has worked and what has not, and then work towards reform.
Jacobsen: Are there some things non-religious women simply only talk about with other non-religious women that non-religious men just do not hear? If so, what are these experiences? If so, what are these things? If so, why only the discussions like those happening woman-to-woman rather than woman-to-man?
Thomas: Nonreligious women are discussing their concerns with the men. Discussing and debating. The responses range from many men being supportive and changing their actions, to many others becoming combative and remaining obstinate. But they are hearing our concerns for sure.
Jacobsen: What can the non-religious communities do to include more women, people of color, and people from a wider variety of nations in the global non-religious community? What can we do to include more women’s voices in the mainstream dialogues, discourses, and discussions? What are the ways in which the non-religious community and men can help these efforts? What have been historic failures of the non-religious, and of men, to include women in the talks, the community, the literature, the media, and the important philosophical, scientific, and ethical discussions of the non-religious community?
Thomas: First and foremost – LISTEN. Do not just hear what we are saying, listen. Do not be dismissive or reactionary when we bring up legitimate concerns. Do include more of us in discussions, events policy making, etc, and it should be consistent. Not one-time initiatives, or when issues fade from the spotlight. Support the organizations that are working on these efforts, financially and with resources. And work with them too.
That is where the difference is made, and where it counts.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Mandisa.
[9] Interview with Yasmine Mohammed:
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Women have been increasingly assertive about their concerns about the social, political and economic conditions within their own part of a country, in their respective nations, and, indeed, regions of the world and on the international scene. How? Why is this important?
Yasmine Mohammed: It is important because there seems to be this prevailing fallacy that the work of feminism is done-that we have achieved equality. Unfortunately, this is an untrue statement. To varying degrees, there is still a lot more work to be done.
In the West, women have fought and succeeded in achieving equality in many ways, but social changes do not occur at the flip of a switch. Just like in the fight against racism, winning civil rights battles did not ensure that there is no longer racism. Of course, there is. Though those battles that have been fought and admirably won have undoubtedly made huge strides in our Western societies, there are other societies, like in the Middle East and North Africa, where those strides are virtually unheard of. Women in Saudi Arabia have recently won limited permission to drive cars (they still need their male guardians’ permission to obtain the license, purchase a car, or even leave the house).
It is important for people to understand that not only is the battle not over, in some places the battle has not even begun.
Jacobsen: In each of those domains – social, political and economic conditions, in the non-religious communities, what are the concerns of Canadian women? What about women in North America? Please give examples or reasoning.
Mohammed: In a general sense, for Canadian women, and for all women in North America, the fight is for equalitywith our male counterparts. For a social example, as a female, I am attacked on social media far more and far more viciously than my male peers. A specific example would be when I was a cohost on Secular Jihadists podcast. In that podcast, one of my male peers made a controversial statement “Islam is worse than Nazism”. My other male peered agreed and added “I think all religions are worse than Nazism”. Although I was present, and agreed with my co-hosts, I said nothing. However, even though I never said a word, the resounding backlash on social media was entirely in my direction. It is easier for men and women to attack a woman for her views than it is to attack a man. We are still perceived as weaker – even by our non-religious community which purports to know better.
For an economic example, as a female, I am quite often not offered any speaking fee at all or I am offered significantly less than my male counterparts. As well, when I had a talk scheduled with two other female speakers that unfortunately had to be postponed, the three of us were so disrespected and summarily ignored in a way that would never happen if we were male.
Jacobsen: #MeToo led to #ChurchToo, #MeccaToo, and so on; these have been replicated in consequences and call-outs of poor behavior by men in the non-religious communities. What are the main concerns of Canadian non-religious women as regarding the behavior of the men?
Mohammed: I think all women, religious or not, have the same concerns. We just want to be regarded as equal human beings. We would love for people to treat men and women with equal respect.
Jacobsen: More men dominate the non-religious conversation, globally. What are your thoughts on this? Should it be changed? If so, how?
Mohammed: Yes, this is true. It is historically easier for men to be atheists as it is considered a confrontational or at least controversial stance by most people. Women are generally expected to be the caregivers and the social/community support of a religious group aids in family cohesion. There are many reasons why men far outnumber women in our community.
And that is exactly why more women need to be given the opportunity to speak publicly. “You cannot be what you cannot see”. If all our atheist talks are all male speakers, how will that encourage more women to see themselves as having the courage to be open about their atheism? They need to see examples of women, of mothers, successfully making that transition. Then they will be inspired and will then they will know that it is possible.
Jacobsen: Are there some things non-religious women simply only talk about with other non-religious women that non-religious men just do not hear? If so, what are these experiences? If so, what are these things?
Mohammed: Yes, I think we talk about our experiences with religious patriarchy. Our experiences with women policing other women in religious contexts-and worse, women oppressing other women. Because religions are made by men for men, it is obvious that women would have very different experiences under religion. It is not just an intellectual epiphany for us. As a woman, you have been bred to see yourself as lesser-than. The modesty and shame culture thrust upon you from an early age – all those poisons need to be cleansed from our bodies. Our experiences are more like that of LGBT people who have left their faiths. We were raised to think that we are dirty sinners and that our existence provokes more sin.
Jacobsen: What can the non-religious communities do to include more women, people of color, and people from a wider variety of nations in the global non-religious community? What can we do to include more women’s voices in the mainstream dialogues, discourses, and discussions? What are the ways in which the non-religious community and men can help these efforts? What have been historic failures of the non-religious, and of men, to include women in the talks, the community, the literature, the media, and the important philosophical, scientific, and ethical discussions of the non-religious community?
Mohammed: I think the failures and the uphill battle is no different than that of any other male-dominated industry. And the solutions are the same. We are stuck in a vicious cycle where people only know of the dominant male speakers/writers, so they only want to hear from the dominant male speakers/writers. Women need to fight for our seat at that table. Make ourselves heard. Make ourselves known. It is a battle we are accustomed to. We just should not be lulled into thinking that, as atheists, we are immune to the same social ills as all other human beings. Of course, our issues are nowhere near to the same extent, and I am very grateful for that, but if we are unaware of the fact that women are fighting tooth and nail in our community, then we will not be sensitive to reaching out a hand. Knowledge is key. I think if more men understood that it is a problem, then they would be more than willing to do what they can to change the landscape.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Yasmine.
[10] Interview with Sikivu Hutchinson:
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Scott Douglas Jacobsen: More men dominate the non-religious conversation, globally. What are your thoughts on this? Should it be changed? If so, how?
Sikivu Hutchinson: More men, specifically, white men, dominate secular conversation because women have historically been marginalized in secular/atheist/humanist power circles and organizations. Non-religious contexts share the same sexist, misogynist conventions, ideologies and hierarchies as religious contexts. Although recent sexual abuse “scandals” involving high-powered white male secular leaders are the most egregious examples of this, these hierarchies have always existed in the non-religious sphere. Simply removing god-belief from the equation does not eliminate hierarchies based on the sexual objectification, commodification and occupation of women’s bodies and the devaluation of women’s work. And it certainly does not disrupt white supremacist, colonialist notions of the liberated secular West versus “backward” “third world” cultures steeped in superstition and tribalism. Moreover, women of color have traditionally been under-represented in non-religious discourse and leadership due to the ways Black and Latinx female morality/respectability is tethered to religiosity and god. In addition, women of color are more likely to be connected to religious institutions because of the social, economic and political resources that they provide in capitalist nations with minimal social safety nets.
See my comments below on how this could be changed.
Jacobsen: What can the non-religious communities do to include more women, people of color, and people from a wider variety of nations in the global non-religious community? What can we do to include more women’s voices in the mainstream dialogues, discourses, and discussions? What are the ways in which the non-religious community and men can help these efforts? What have been historic failures of the non-religious, and of men, to include women in the talks, the community, the literature, the media, and the important philosophical, scientific, and ethical discussions of the non-religious community?
Hutchinson: Part of the global success of New Atheism has been best-selling white atheist rock star authors and the popularization of cults of personality like the Four Horsemen. Unfortunately, this kind of idolatry has eclipsed recognition of and attention to the ground work being laid by grassroots humanist organizations in their local communities. Progressive atheists organize around issues that go far beyond the usual church/state separation and “science and reason” agenda. You cannot fight for economic justice in communities of color without advocating for reproductive justice, unrestricted abortion rights and access to universal health care. You cannot preach “equality” of genders without redressing the heterosexist lack of representation of queer and trans people of color in K-12 curricula. You cannot advocate for LGBTQQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and questioning) enfranchisement without confronting all the mechanisms that criminalize queer and trans youth of color and make them at greater risk for being incarcerated, placed in foster care and/or becoming homeless. Coalitions that form around these intersectional issues should be actively promoted—especially those that cultivate ties with progressive believers and non-atheist secular community-based organizations. Further, non-believers who write about and organize around these issues should be tapped for leadership positions in humanist and atheist organizations. There are currently little to no people of color in executive management positions in the major secular/humanist/atheist organizations (i.e., CFI, American Atheists, American Humanist Association, etc.). As a result, it is precisely because of the lack of culturally responsive humanist organizations and institutions that most non-believers of color do not feel comfortable openly identifying as atheist. Where are the humanist institutions that support the realities of our lived experiences in a “Christian nation” based on capitalist, racist, sexist, heterosexist class power? When atheism is primarily associated with academic elites patronizingly condemning believers as primitive and backward—while systematically profiting from racial segregation and straight white male privilege—then many people of color will see no compelling reason to ally with atheist causes and organizations by coughing up hundreds of dollars to attend navel-gazing conferences.
[11] Interview for Bridgett “Bree” Crutchfield:
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Women have been increasingly assertive about their concerns about the social, political, and economic conditions within their own part of a country, in their respective nations, and, indeed, regions of the world and on the international scene. How? Why is this important?
Bridgett “Bree” Crutch: ‘Sooner or later when oppression can no longer be tolerated a voice or chorus of voices will rise up. This has ALWAYS been important. I cannot think of greater advocates for women other than…women. Men have subjugated, oppressed, judged, demeaned, humiliated women since the dawn of time. Why would we as women expect men to have a long awaited, well overdue, epiphany and do right by women? Women have ALWAYS been vocal. We gain strength by watching others share similar truths as ourselves. We are no longer ‘alone.’
In each of those domains – social, political, and economic conditions, in the non-religious communities, what are the concerns of American women? What about women in North America? Please give examples or reasoning.
‘FREEDOM AND FAIRNESS.
In 2018, women are still awaiting their “Mr. Maybe Right.” They are still led to believe they are incomplete if their child-free and/or manless. Our womb, our reproductive rights continue to be put to a vote. We’re still fighting for equal pay and nonreligious women are tired of our womanhood being judged if we don’t attend church.’
Jacobsen: #MeToo led to #ChurchToo, #MeccaToo, #MosqueToo, #SynagogueToo, and so on; these have been replicated in consequences and call-outs of poor behavior by men in the non-religious communities. What are the main concerns of North American non-religious women as regarding the behavior of the men?
Crutch: ‘The concerns are the same as religious women. Misogyny, sexual predators and rape apologists have been the subjects of many a think piece. Initially, I was embarrassed as I assumed secular men were…different. I have learned since then; it could not be further from the truth.
‘We want to survive romantic relationships. We want to NOT be victims of domestic violence. We want to NOT fear for our lives when we turn down the advances of men. We want to not fear for our daughters and not force them to live a life in hopes of not getting raped. We WANT LAWS that protect women and PUNISH MEN and their brutality REGARDLESS of their socioeconomic status. Is that too much to ask?’
Jacobsen: More men dominate the non-religious conversation, globally. What are your thoughts on this? Should it be changed? If so, how?
Crutch: ‘I have no thoughts regarding the male dominated conversations, as my focus is on the women-centered conversations.’
Jacobsen: Are there some things non-religious women simply only talk about with other non-religious women that non-religious men just do not hear? If so, what are these experiences? If so, what are these things? If so, why only the discussions like those happening woman-to-woman rather than woman-to-man?
Crutch: ‘These conversations parallel those of religious women. Like most oppressed groups, women require safe spaces. A space where we can discuss our interactions with men and not have our statements second guessed or worse explained to us by men.
Jacobsen: What can the non-religious communities do to include more women, people of color, and people from a wider variety of nations in the global non-religious community? What can we do to include more women’s voices in the mainstream dialogues, discourses, and discussions? What are the ways in which the non-religious community and men can help these efforts? What have been historic failures of the non-religious, and of men, to include women in the talks, the community, the literature, the media, and the important philosophical, scientific, and ethical discussions of the non-religious community?
Crutch: ‘The secular community is slow to change. While there a couple of organizations that are progressive, the community is not. The treatment or rather the mistreatment of oppressed groups, women and people of color within the secular community is well documented. Suggestions, ideas and proposals have been presented in doses and the disenfranchised are STILL disenfranchised. The secular community is not as open and freethinking as it purports to be to the religious. The community is disproportionately white male, conservative and I do not see that changing anytime soon especially in the roles of major leadership.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Bree.
[12] Interview with Marquita Tucker, M.B.A.:
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Women have been increasingly assertive about their concerns about the social, political, and economic conditions within their own part of a country, in their respective nations, and, indeed, regions of the world and on the international scene. How? Why is this important?
Marquita Tucker: Women are half of this planet’s population. We have been hushed and dismissed for so long and look how things have turned out. It is important and it is time for us to be more assertive and vocal about our ideas on social, political and economic concerns. Our input should be valued and taken seriously. You cannot run a nation let alone any part of the world with just one half of the population’s view and say on everything.
Jacobsen: In each of those domains – social, political, and economic conditions, in the non-religious communities, what are the concerns of American women? What about women in North America? Please give examples or reasoning.
Tucker: Two words: reproductive rights. This one issue is an amalgam of social, political, and economic conditions concerns. Socially, we still have the religious right attacking a woman’s right to choose what to do with her body. Politically, conservative politicians are still confusing birth control pills with actual abortions. Economically, if a woman does need an abortion, that woman has several barriers in place from transportation to paying for the procedure. A woman’s right to choose sometimes makes the difference between her and her child(ren) living a life of poverty and poor education with little upward mobility or her being able to make moves that will improve her life and thus the life of her future children.
Jacobsen: #MeToo led to #ChurchToo, #MeccaToo, #MosqueToo, #SynagogueToo, and so on; these have been replicated in consequences and call-outs of poor behavior by men in the non-religious communities. What are the main concerns of North American non-religious women as regarding the behavior of the men?
Tucker: Isn’t it the same issue across any and all countries, religions, races, politics, etc.? One consistent thing: men think they know everything; and I do not think it is a nature thing, I think it is a nurture thing. Men often take up more space, men often talk over women when, men disregard women when they have an idea or suggestion. Its conditioning. That does not change no matter where you are from or what you believe or do not believe.
Jacobsen: More men dominate the non-religious conversation, globally. What are your thoughts on this? Should it be changed? If so, how?
Tucker: I think that more men dominate the non-religious conversation because it is more acceptable for men to do what they want. Men are perceived as the thinkers, philosophers of the sexes (funny, because there have been female thinkers and philosophers, but they have been dismissed or disregarded because they were… female). I know in the black community, when you go to a black church, you will see the church filled with mostly women. When you think about it, there are a lot more rules and conditions when it comes to be a woman in religion than there are for men. So, I guess rules are socialized into women from birth and not so much into men, giving men more of a chance to freely think outside of the box and express their disagreements with sects or religion and act upon those disagreements than women. I mean, how many female religious sect founders or cult leaders can you think of?
Jacobsen: Are there some things non-religious women simply only talk about with other non-religious women that non-religious men just do not hear? If so, what are these experiences? If so, what are these things? If so, why only the discussions like those happening woman-to-woman rather than woman-to-man?
Tucker: Of course, there are! I cannot tell you about it because then you will know our secrets. Just kidding. As a non-believing black woman, I talk all the time about how my family treats me differently because I do not believe in Jesus. In the black community, we cannot wash our hands without thanking god. So, for a black woman to not rely on a blond haired, blue eyed white male for everything… I am a bit of an outcast. And this is a common situation with other non-believing black women I have conversed with. I have come across many black male non-believers who state that they simply just never believed. That they were never really forced to go to church or required to pray or anything like that. So, when I bring it up, black male non-believers kinda say things like, “well, I just wouldn’t have done it. I just wouldn’t have gone.” Like, you do not get it. Girls are not given the level of autonomy that boys are most of the time. I’ve yet to meet an American black woman who was not conditioned to have to believe in god.
Jacobsen: What can the non-religious communities do to include more women, people of color, and people from a wider variety of nations in the global non-religious community? What can we do to include more women’s voices in the mainstream dialogues, discourses, and discussions? What are the ways in which the non-religious community and men can help these efforts? What have been historic failures of the non-religious, and of men, to include women in the talks, the community, the literature, the media, and the important philosophical, scientific, and ethical discussions of the non-religious community?
Tucker: I think that an openness to want to learn about people different from yourself without judging is a good start to more inclusion in the global non-religious community. If we do that, then we are open to hearing what they have to say in various discussions. It has funny how the non-religious proclaim to be the opposite of those “closed minded religious people” when there are parts of the non-religious community who are just as closed minded in different areas. Non-religious men can start by having a seat sometimes and not always having something to say about everything. Sometimes you learn more by listening to others. We have missed so many opportunities to hear great perspectives and vast knowledge from non-believers simply because they were female and thus never given a chance to be heard. It is time that that stops.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Marquita Tucker.
[13] Interview with Samantha A. Christian:
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Women have been increasingly assertive about their concerns about the social, political, and economic conditions within their own part of a country, in their respective nations, and, indeed, regions of the world and on the international scene. How? Why is this important?
Samantha A. Christian: I think more women are feeling empowered and have become apologetically honest and confident. Which I think is amazing, especially in countries where sexism/gender roles are so suffocating. It takes even greater courage to do that! This also means that more women are finally realizing they deserve to be treated better and with respect for a change. So, when I see someone not allowing themselves to be “mansplained away”, bullied and taken advantage of, it gives me hope for humanity. ^^
Jacobsen: In each of those domains – social, political, and economic conditions, in the non-religious communities, what are the concerns of American women? What about women in North America? Please give examples or reasoning.
Christian: I honestly have no idea and can only speak for myself. I purposely do not join non-religious communities or any community for that matter. The things I am worried about is the creepy attempts to normalize rape here and other parts of the world. Then trying to make people as ignorant and fearful as possible. Making them hate truth, facts, research, knowledge and education. That is extremely scary. The psychological community is doing nothing about this while simultaneously enabling toxic majorities (religious people, god gullibles, bigots of all kinds) and ignoring the toxic influences that make them that way in the first place. There is this idea that if a lot of people say or believe something it must be true or even respected. I do not want a democracy I want a meritocracy. In the last question it was mentioned that women re becoming more empowered all over the world. I have noticed that there is one group of women that seem to fee less empowered as time goes on: white women. They even voted for their abusive husbands and candidates in the election recently. I think we need to do something about that. Have a place where white women can feel safe, supported and empowered, especially since their husbands (white men) are the ones who commit the most domestic terrorism in the USA and yet still are in positions of power.
Jacobsen: #MeToo led to #ChurchToo, #MeccaToo, #MosqueToo, #SynagogueToo, and so on; these have been replicated in consequences and call-outs of poor behavior by men in the non-religious communities. What are the main concerns of North American non-religious women as regarding the behavior of the men?
Christian: I was not aware that these other movements existed. Again, I can only speak for myself but sexism towards women and men is a fundamental problem. I think the sexism against men can be more suffocating which leads so many guys to fear being honest or being themselves. This means that, whether it is in cult communities or non-religious ones, you will have the same toxic behaviors. The thing that worries me from what I have observed in non-religious communities is how many men have a deep hatred and distrust of women. So, much so that when a woman reports being raped or abused, they do not believe her, and victim blame her. I get a lot, “Well, people shouldn’t blindly believe gods are real, so why should I believe women when they talk about rape?” This is ridiculous. People are supposed to recognize gods are fictional. If you do not believe, then the consequences a minor. You can easily pretend that you do as a survival tactic if you must. In terms of rape and abuse it is so important to believe the victim. If you do not, then horrid acts of humanity go unpunished. There is no justice. So, many people’s lives are literally destroyed while it enables the rapist/abuser to keep raping/abusing other people, because they were not properly punished and held accountable. People do not really lie about rape/abuse. Maybe 4% tops. So, they should be taken seriously. When someone comes to you saying they are bullied, abused, or raped, the moral and humanitarian thing to do is to believe them and support them. The consequences if you do not are far worse than anything religious or god belief related.
Jacobsen: More men dominate the non-religious conversation, globally. What are your thoughts on this? Should it be changed? If so, how?
Christian: I do not think it is a problem, but it depends on the guys speaking. Have they internalized sexism on such a deep level? Do they feel they can be themselves 100%? Or do they feel they must act a certain role to survive in society? That is the problem. Whether the community is religious or not, we need to do something about this. Help educate people that there is no such thing as an “opposite sex” because women and men have far more in common than differences. Any differences between these 2 common sexes (female and male) are minor at best. Even our genitals are homologous. If we have a lot of men abused by sexism in society representing the atheist community, that is not good. If we have men who have overcome it and feel empowered enough to be their authentic selves, then it would not matter if there are a lot of men talking or a lot of women talking. People like Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris make the non-religious community look bad while people like Daniel Dennett, Neil Carter and Darrel Ray do so much to help the non-religious and anti-religious communities. Once again, I go back to how white women seem to be the one woman in the world who feel less empowered. It is the same in the non-religious community too. Which is also dominated by white men. It would be great if we had more people as a face of atheism. It would humanize us more in the world. See more black men, Latin men, white women, black women, Asian women. All of us. That there is no one demographic that is dominant in our communities.
Jacobsen: Are there some things non-religious women simply only talk about with other non-religious women that non-religious men just do not hear? If so, what are these experiences? If so, what are these things? If so, why only the discussions like those happening woman-to-woman rather than woman-to-man?
Christian: In my case, nope. I am upfront with everyone no matter their sex or if they are a cult addict (religious) or not. I cannot think of anytime when I was not upfront or honest about a subject, especially online. I am really the only non-religious, anti-religious, atheist person in my family, friends and daily life. My mom and BGF (boy-girlfriend, my lover was born intersexed. We use this nickname to protect her identity online. ) are not into religion but have not called themselves “non-religious” or “atheist” officially. My point being, I really do not have many in person conversations about religion. My online ones, I have with everyone and am upfront/honest with everyone regardless of their sex. The funny thing in my case more men reach out to me than women do. About sexist expectations on men, their sexual orientation, desires and identity. Religion usually comes up because that is what is pushing those sexist ideas and destroying their lives to begin with. As mentioned earlier, at lot of women (except white women) feel empowered but the sexism against men is still very strong (at least in the USA). It is still on the same level. It is so important to help people realize that women are men are the same (with only minor differences). Thus, we should be treated the same way. There should be age expectations/roles not gender expectations/roles. If people feel uncomfortable about being honest with someone because of their sex, I am more inclined to wonder why that is. I get the same thing from the guys I have spoken too saying they feel they cannot be honest or open with the women in their lives. Why the disconnect when we (women and men) have so much in common? Feel free to read about the gender similarities hypothesis and the persistent disconnect with the elevated level of sexism in society. https://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/releases/amp-606581.pdf
Jacobsen: What can the non-religious communities do to include more women, people of color, and people from a wider variety of nations in the global non-religious community? What can we do to include more women’s voices in the mainstream dialogues, discourses, and discussions? What are the ways in which the non-religious community and men can help these efforts? What have been historic failures of the non-religious, and of men, to include women in the talks, the community, the literature, the media, and the important philosophical, scientific, and ethical discussions of the non-religious community?
Christian: That’s easy, the divisive labels. It is all right to label yourself in a way, but it is also important to educate yourself about each of our demographics. Research over time keeps showing we have vastly more in common and that any differences are minor and insignificant. Same mentioned above about biological sex. The 2 common ones (female and male) have so much in common that it is beyond ridiculous for sexism to exist or for anyone to think there is an “opposite sex.” homosexuality and heterosexuality (monosexuality) are both the same thing. Gay men = straight women. They are both androsexual, the proper term to describe those attracted to men. Lesbians = straight guys. They are both gynesexual, those attracted to women. Same thing. Another thing people obsess about and cause trouble over when the reality is, they are the same. Even more research shows that monosexuality is a myth and that humans are either part of the bisexual spectrum or asexual spectrum. What is my point? The quick spread of misinformation about race, sex, human sexuality and humanity in general is what is preventing a more inclusive system or community. Not just for non-religious groups but ALL groups. Don’t’ focus on getting more POC or women into the fold. Focus on getting more non-religious people, humanist, agnostics, atheists into the fold and naturally people will unite. The bigger problem is the misinformation going around. That is what we need to focus on. Putting an end to all the lies we are forced fed since birth, not just the religion/god lies but the ones about race and sex. Create more educational opportunities. Stop shaming people for being a demographic, this will allow them to feel more comfortable being themselves. The biggest danger that poses a threat to all of humanity is the need to fit in or be accept. That is why people join religions, create toxic group, do not stand up to bullies, bigots, etc. Therefore, we get the bystander effect, why so many men (especially white men) are just brutal to women and each other. To fit in, to be accepted. If humanity evolved past the need for such things, we would be more moral, happier, healthier and better friends to each other.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Samantha.
[14] Interview with Judy Saint:
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Women have been increasingly assertive about their concerns about the social, political, and economic conditions within their own part of a country, in their respective nations, and, indeed, regions of the world and on the international scene. How? Why is this important?
Judy Saint: How: Women are more assertive by talking with each other, as women did in the USA when fighting for the right to vote. That died down as women focused on resembling men, in clothing, competition and executive function. They stopped talking with each other until sexual harassment took center stage. Women again found each other as mutual combatants. Why it is important: I cannot imagine a woman ever asking why asserting women’s rights is important.
Jacobsen: In each of those domains – social, political, and economic conditions, in the non-religious communities, what are the concerns of American women? What about women in North America? Please give examples or reasoning.
Saint: American women are not all concerned with their rights in any of these domains. We only see a portion of women out there advocating in these spheres. The concerns of those not fighting for rights seems to be to “fit in” and fulfil society’s mandate of being a quiet servant to men. As for those who are out there fighting for women’s rights, their concerns are that women have all the advantages men are routinely given, and the ability to change society to a more cooperative world, away from the testosterone-laden competitive world men created for us. One example, a survey of women who voted against women’s rights (and for Trump) said they voted in ways that supported their husbands’ needs. Another example, Bill and Melinda Gates sponsor helping women start local businesses because they found that when men succeed, they take all the money with them away to larger cities so they can make more, but when women succeed they invest in their local communities and in each other.
Jacobsen: #MeToo led to #ChurchToo, #MeccaToo, #MosqueToo, #SynagogueToo, and so on; these have been replicated in consequences and call-outs of poor behavior by men in the non-religious communities. What are the main concerns of North American non-religious women as regarding the behavior of the men?
Saint: Secular women want responsibility to be placed on perpetrators of aggression toward women, rather than abusing women’s rights as a cover for poor behavior. Responsibility and early training of little boys are the main concerns.
Jacobsen: More men dominate the non-religious conversation, globally. What are your thoughts on this? Should it be changed? If so, how?
Saint: Atheism is a non-issue unless the religious community becomes a threat. In that case, it is men who rise to combat and protect, which is reflected in the makeup of out and vocal atheists. Being out and vocal is combative, more natural to men.
Jacobsen: Are there some things non-religious women simply only talk about with other non-religious women that non-religious men just do not hear? If so, what are these experiences? If so, what are these things? If so, why only the discussions like those happening woman-to-woman rather than woman-to-man?
Saint: I could say the obvious: we cannot tell you because you are a man. Seriously, being a male asking this question could subliminally influence the answers you get from women. But, let me try, anyway. Mainly it would be about cooperative and supportive efforts that men do not want to help with. “Women’s work” like providing food for a meeting or gathering clothing for disaster survivors or helping other women leave abusive husbands who are religious. Women are cooperative; men are competitive. That has why men are not included in women’s discussions – it is not about competing or winning, and therefore of little interest.
Jacobsen: What can the non-religious communities do to include more women, people of color, and people from a wider variety of nations in the global non-religious community? What can we do to include more women’s voices in the mainstream dialogues, discourses, and discussions? What are the ways in which the non-religious community and men can help these efforts? What have been historic failures of the non-religious, and of men, to include women in the talks, the community, the literature, the media, and the important philosophical, scientific, and ethical discussions of the non-religious community?
Saint: We have in Sacramento a Black Humanist Group. They want their own secular organization because their discussions and concerns are not addressed in groups where they are in the minority. So, supporting more smaller groups that address unique subgroups of interests could give more people a home where they feel understood and listened to. Publicity of their unique problems could keep them energized and supportive of those groups.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Judy.
[15] Interview with Jummai Mohammed:
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: What was family and personal background regarding geography, culture, religion, and language?
Mohammed: Good evening.
My name is Jummai Mohammed. I am a Hausa lady from the northern part of Nigeria. I was born into a muslim home but in a predominantly Christian society. I was born and bread in the southern part of Nigeria which is mostly dominated by Christians.
Jacobsen: How did this impact early life? What was early education like for you? Was religion a part of that education?
Mohammed: I will say being born in a Muslim home in a Christian dominated society tend to shape my being an atheist this day. As a young girl, I was practically confused on the contradictions in both religions, yet they both claim to serve the supreme God. I never love Islam schools since the ustaz in those schools always look and act mean. The way in which children are beaten up, young boys tied into poles while being flogged mercilessly in the name of punishment made me hate going to Islamic schools; on the other hand, whenever I have the opportunity of following my Christian friends to church, I tend to enjoy the less tensed environment, the songs, the dance and everyone smiling faces and that paved my way into converting to Christianity in the later years. So, I have practised and experienced the two most popular Abrahamic religion.
Early education for me was fun. I attended a private nursery and primary school. Yes, religion was part of the education. I later proceed to a church owned private high school for secondary education. I converted to Christianity while in secondary school, but a closet one.
Jacobsen: When did you first start to begin questioning religion, or were you always an atheist?
Mohammed: I have always question religion right from primary school, I always question bible/Quran stories right from time, because the stories don’t add up. I ask questions like why did God created us, why placing an apple tree in the garden when he does not want humans eating from it.
Jacobsen: Are women treated differently than men and religions? How is this difference manifested in Nigeria?
Mohammed: However, joining a popular Nigeria online forum known as nairaland influenced and fasting my decision of becoming an atheist.
Jacobsen: What has been your experience as an adult atheist in Nigeria?
Mohammed: Yes, it is a glaring fact that religion preaches subjugation of women and it is very evident in the Nigeria society. Women are being treated more like a semi human or should I say slaves in Nigeria, most especially in the northern part of the country which I come from.
Jacobsen: Who are some prominent male atheists in Nigeria? Who are some prominent women atheists in Nigeria?
Mohammed: My experience as adult atheist is just religious fanatics unwillingness to get close, make friends or do business with me. I do not live in the north where most atheist are likely to face death threat; I reside in Lagos.
Jacobsen: Can you recommend any books on atheism that are popular within Nigeria? Those that are written by non-Nigerians. Also, those that are written by Nigerians, or a Nigerian.
Mohammed: Prominent female atheist:
Jummai pearl, Neshama, Dorris etc
Mubarak Balah, Azaya, Calistus, Juwon, Dr Leo. Etc
No.
Jacobsen: What are the main forms of discrimination against atheists, especially open ones, in Nigeria?
Mohammed: Discriminations varies, depending on the atheist environment. In the southern and eastern parts, the discriminations are; family and friends rejecting one, people not wanting to make friends or involve in any sort of business with one, relationship/marriage breakups. etc..
Jacobsen: How can people become involved in the atheist movement or community in Nigeria? If outside Nigeria, how can people support those that are atheists inside of Nigeria?
Mohammed: In the northern part which is predominant by Muslims, atheist faces death threats, lynching and co, together with what I listed up there faces by southern atheist.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Pearl.
[16] Interview with Marissa Torres Langseth:
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Women have been increasingly assertive about their concerns about the social, political and economic conditions within their own part of a country, in their respective nations, and, indeed, regions of the world and on the international scene. How? Why is this important?
In each of those domains – social, political and economic conditions, in the non-religious communities, what are the concerns of Filipina women? What about women in Southeast Asia? Please give examples or reasoning.
Marissa Torres Langseth: ***It is important that women be partners and equal in any societal norm, be it economic, political or social, because women population is about half or the population in this world. Population, female (% of total) | Data).
| Population, female (% of total) | DataPopulation, female (% of total) from The World Bank: Data |
Misogyny is common in the Philippines because of patriarchal orientation, and upbringing. We were brought up thinking that a male is more dominant in any household and women should just stay home and take care of the children. Women are treated like baby factories in the Phils with the RH or Planned Parenthood on hold due to the religious nature of the Philippines, these women succumb to high morbidity and mortality rates. : Maternal Mortality in the Philippines – The Borgen Project
| Maternal Mortality in the Philippines – The Borgen ProjectFor the Philippines, improving maternal health was an extremely important MDG since the maternal mortality rate … |
SEA women like Indonesia has the biggest Muslim population, therefore, women are subjected to being the lowest in the totem pole and Sharia law.http://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/indonesia-population/
Women in Islamic nations are subject to honor killings and gender discrimination, arranged marriages and mutilation of sex organs. Equality is a far cry due to religious implications, whereby death is the punishment to apostasy (Gender Discrimination in Southeast Asia – BORGEN
| Gender Discrimination in Southeast Asia – BORGENGender Discrimination in Southeast Asia impacts women’s health, psychologically and physically |
Women from SEA who go to other countries as service personnel or house cleaners are at risk of being raped and abused due to the belief of others that women in the third world countries will do anything to put food on their table including prostitution. Unfortunately, a lot of these uneducated women end up as prostitutes and taken advantaged of. Even the most careful women end up raped and dead. I have read a lot of horror stories about this. Maid in Saudi Arabia ‘died of rape’
| Maid in Saudi Arabia ‘died of rape’Woman reportedly pointed at employer when asked who abused her |
Arrests made in Kuwait murder of Filipina house cleaner
| Arrests made in Kuwait murder of Filipina house cleanerBoth two main suspects in case of house cleaner whose body was found stuffed in a freezer in Kuwait have been held |
Jacobsen: #MeToo led to #ChurchToo, #MeccaToo, #MosqueToo, #SynagogueToo, and so on; these have been replicated in consequences and call-outs of poor behavior by men in the non-religious communities. What are the main concerns of Southeast Asian non-religious women as regarding the behavior of the men?
**This Me Too movement became an international outcry, however, I have not seen it in SEA quite frankly.
The nonreligious women in SEA will not resist to whatever men would do to them due to fear and early indoctrination. (I cannot comment more regarding this Me Too movement in SEA)
More men dominate the non-religious conversation, globally. What are your thoughts on this? Should it be changed? If so, how
Langseth: increased women nowadays are empowered and unafraid of coming out as nonreligious. The stigma is waning and fading away.
My take is that, if they can see us women as successful without gods, we can be notable examples of how to live decently and practice clean living with high ethical values. Documentation and the advent of social media are just examples of how we can show to the religious world that we are equal to those who profess “good moral compass”.
Jacobsen: Are there some things non-religious women simply only talk about with other non-religious women that non-religious men just do not hear? If so, what are these experiences? If so, what are these things? If so, why only the discussions like those happening woman-to-woman rather than woman-to-man?
Langseth: am not afraid to divulge to anyone that I am nonreligious. I even said that to the church members where my husband and I go to occasionally.
I have even said that to my husband’s male friends who are Italian, and Jewish. I did not care what their opinions and who cares anyway about their opinions. I know who I am. If my husband values me and sees me as an equal. that is enough for me. My husband is even ready to leave his church, if the church members will ostracize me, truth be told. He is a White Anglo-Saxon Protestant (WASP).
Jacobsen: What can the non-religious communities do to include more women, people of color, and people from a wider variety of nations in the global non-religious community? What can we do to include more women’s voices in the mainstream dialogues, discourses, and discussions? What are the ways in which the non-religious community and men can help these efforts? What have been historic failures of the non-religious, and of men, to include women in the talks, the community, the literature, the media, and the important philosophical, scientific, and ethical discussions of the non-religious community?
Langseth: **More awareness and more education about equality. More social media coverage, more inputs from women old and young alike.
**Maybe less men to be at the spot light and emphasize more women leaders to hold higher and better positions in nonreligious societies.
Failures are the usual backstabbing from groups, infighting and trying to outsmart the others due to immaturity and vanity and self-aggrandizement.
Some men also back stab women due to their insecurities and low self-esteem.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Marissa.
Langseth: Thank you for this opportunity, Scott.
[17] Interview with Alexus Jean Black – Philippines:
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Women have been increasingly assertive about their concerns about the social, political and economic conditions within their own part of a country, in their respective nations, and, indeed, regions of the world and on the international scene. How? Why is this important? In each of those domains – social, political and economic conditions, in the non-religious communities, what are the concerns of Filipina women? What about women in Southeast Asia? Please give examples or reasoning. #MeToo led to #ChurchToo, #MeccaToo, #MosqueToo, #SynagogueToo, and so on; these have been replicated in consequences and call-outs of poor behavior by men in the non-religious communities. What are the main concerns of Southeast Asian non-religious women as regarding the behavior of the men? More men dominate the non-religious conversation, globally. What are your thoughts on this? Should it be changed? If so, how? Are there some things non-religious women simply only talk about with other non-religious women that non-religious men just do not hear? If so, what are these experiences? If so, what are these things? If so, why only the discussions like those happening woman-to-woman rather than woman-to-man? What can the non-religious communities do to include more women, people of color, and people from a wider variety of nations in the global non-religious community? What can we do to include more women’s voices in the mainstream dialogues, discourses, and discussions? What are the ways in which the non-religious community and men can help these efforts? What have been historic failures of the non-religious, and of men, to include women in the talks, the community, the literature, the media, and the important philosophical, scientific, and ethical discussions of the non-religious community?
Alexus Jean Black: I think that women especially now a days have been very vocal about those subjects it is because we have more freedom than what we used to have. Although, in some parts of Asia, middle east for example have still some kind of discrimination towards the women. It is important for women to be included in all sort as we also are a part of the nation. I do not really know a lot of ppl who are non religious in my country as Philippines is one of the most religious countries in the world. But there are some concerns I want to address like «christian subjects» are mandatory in elementary schools, some laws are based on religion, ex: divorce is still illegal.
Having men dominate the non religious community does not mean there are more non religious men but shows that mostly women are very conservative about their thoughts which I will explain in a bit. I do not talk a lot about religion or being a non-religious in the Philippines. As I said they are very religious, and I do not want to disrespect them, so I just do not simply talk about it. Although there are lots of people who would ask me about being an atheist , most of them are men. I think that the non religious community, to engage the women more, is to just let them. I do not think we should oppress anyone about topics that are sensitive for them.
[18] Interview with Alisha Ann:
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Women have been increasingly assertive about their concerns about the social, political, and economic conditions within their own part of a country, in their respective nations, and, indeed, regions of the world and on the international scene. How? Why is this important?
Alisha Ann: Because we feel safe enough to. We are no where near as safe as we should be. We have fought long and hard for the right to vote, earn a living outside the home and control our own reproduction. Those rights are not secure and are constantly threatened. As usual, we stand on the shoulders of the giants before us. We have the bravery of the feminist activists in generations prior and feminist voices today to build on. We are stronger together. And when one stands up, we tend to stand with them. Their fight is our fight.
And that is just here. Many women in other countries are still heavily oppressed. We help them by progressing. Progressive countries serve as a contrast to regressive ones.
Jacobsen: In each of those domains – social, political, and economic conditions, in the non-religious communities, what are the concerns of American women? What about women in North America? Please give examples or reasoning. #MeToo led to #ChurchToo, #MeccaToo, #MosqueToo, #SynagogueToo, and so on; these have been replicated in consequences and call-outs of poor behavior by men in the non-religious communities. What are the main concerns of North American non-religious women as regarding the behavior of the men?
Ann: Social – life. I am concerned about male violence against non-males. From clergy raping children, to intimate partner violence, to attacks against the transgender community. Men have a problem. And only men can fix it. So, far, we have stuck Band-Aids on a mortal wound by asking women and children to take steps to not get raped and killed. Which is to say, “Make sure he rapes them instead of you.” Because we have not solved the root issue: male violence. Political – rights. The patriarchy lives on in the old white men who run our government. And they are so afraid of being treated the way they’ve historically treated women and minorities, that they resist progress. Or worse, are blind to injustice all together. Equality feels like oppression to the privileged. So, they resist everything women and minorities do to level the playing field. From denying reproductive freedom, to voter suppression, to poverty wages. Economic – poverty. We have consolidated power to a few, which disenfranchises us all. The economic system we have in place will fail. And the people who will suffer the most are not the 1%, they will just be the loudest.
That they will not be better in my lifetime. That the standard bearer of meaningful change will not be retired with my generation and will require passage to my children to complete. If we cannot convince men to be better, we not only pass the responsibilities of progress to them, but the dangers of our failings.
Jacobsen: More men dominate the non-religious conversation, globally. What are your thoughts on this? Should it be changed? If so, how?
Ann: It absolutely must change. Diversity of opinion has always been better. We can only speak to our own experiences. Unless we only care about improving the experiences of white men, then we must include women and minorities. The way we do that is by checking ourselves and our privilege. We actively overlook an ethnic sounding name when hiring. We do not assume a woman cannot speak on a topic. We seek out and value the opinions of those not like us. We listen to each other and validate.
Jacobsen: Are there some things non-religious women simply only talk about with other non-religious women that non-religious men just do not hear? If so, what are these experiences? If so, what are these things? If so, why only the discussions like those happening woman-to-woman rather than woman-to-man?
Ann: Not necessarily whisper networks, but things women are more comfortable discussing amongst and between themselves rather than with men. Anything involving sexual harassment, sexual assault, abuse, violence and inequality. Because, as a block, they do not see it or believe it happens. Those that do, are still routinely shocked by the extent of it. And all of them tend to default to victim blaming and responsibility shifting. It is why we have whisper networks. We cannot depend on men to protect us from themselves or believe our stories. So, we warn each other about repeat or egregious offenders behind the scenes to protect ourselves.
Jacobsen: What can the non-religious communities do to include more women, people of color, and people from a wider variety of nations in the global non-religious community? What can we do to include more women’s voices in the mainstream dialogues, discourses, and discussions? What are the ways in which the non-religious community and men can help these efforts? What have been historic failures of the non-religious, and of men, to include women in the talks, the community, the literature, the media, and the important philosophical, scientific, and ethical discussions of the non-religious community?
Ann: The failures have been the same overall social failures we see on a larger scale. Appointing men to leadership and overlooking women/minorities. Assuming women are less knowledgeable on certain topics and overlooking them for speaking gigs or as resources. Assuming a man is better able and tasking him with more high-profile gigs – like public speaking or media events. Assuming women and minorities just do not want to be in certain fields, like science or philosophy, and therefore not seeking out those candidates. However, the secular community suffers from a lack of diversity for a unique reason in my opinion. It is been an older white man’s club because older white has historically retained their social, political, economic, and religious privileges regardless of their allegiances. Their survival does not depend on their adherences to certain groups.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Alisha.
[19] Interview with Susan Nambejja:
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Women have been increasingly assertive about their concerns about the social, political, and economic conditions within their own part of a country, in their respective nations, and, indeed, regions of the world and on the international scene. How? Why is this important?
Susan Nambejja: Women have been more assertive by getting involved into different activities, socially women have struggled to act independently or combine efforts with men for those who are married, and single mothers have more determined to bring up their children meeting all needs alone. Politically women have engaged into leadership positions, at various levels, they are now community leaders, presidents, ministers and so on, for example our Kampala capital city authority Director is a woman. (Jennifer Musisi) Economically: women are now entrepreneurs nationally and internationally; they now operate big businesses worldwide. Importance of this is that: the time when women were considered as domestic slaves is now over, women are now enjoying liberty than in accent days hence boosting their esteem and lack of respect. Jacobsen: In each of those domains – social, political, and economic conditions, in the non-religious communities, what are the concerns of Ugandan women? What about women in Africa? Please give examples or reasoning. Susan: much as I have explained in different domains, non religious women in Uganda are still facing a lot of challenges. Being non religious in Uganda is considered evil, immoral, inhuman, that may hinder a woman’s chance to become a minister, community leader and so on, people may not cast a vote for such a person. Leadership is highly based on religion.
Socially marriage may not be a success for a non religious woman, and, but economically if a non religious woman sets up for example a business, most strict religions may find it hard to support such a business for example the Muslims have a tendency of supporting fellow Moslems on a belief that any thing from a non Moslem is considered unclean (haraam). This makes it difficult for operate well businesses. All this means there is a lot of segregation in Uganda between the religious and non religious, this is because Uganda is a highly religious populated country. Non religious are still very few.
Jacobsen: #MeToo led to #ChurchToo, #MeccaToo, #MosqueToo, #SynagogueToo, and so on; these have been replicated in consequences and call-outs of poor behavior by men in the non-religious communities. What are the main concerns of African non-religious women as regarding the behavior of the men?
Nambejja: Men in Africa are still cherishing African cultural practices, and some put a woman as inferior, much as many are educated, they still consider them selves as (kings). Most cultures men are still dominating, leadership is still for men in most cultures in African traditions. Women are still lacking self esteem due to the fear of how the society will interpret their actions, few women have come up to speak for others in our countries.
Jacobsen: More men dominate the non-religious conversation, globally. What are your thoughts on this? Should it be changed? If so, how?
Nambejja: Yes, it is because men are more open towards different issues, they have no fear to speak out who they are and what they stand for, women tend to protect themselves silently thinking more of the out comes of the effects. For example, speaking about being non religious in Uganda is not safe unless if you have enough ways to protect your self. Men have no fear for segregation, women mind about it a lot. This should be changed, by giving more chance to women more than men, by supporting their causes, invite women as speakers at conferences, those who get a chance to speak will end up becoming more confident of their non religious beliefs. And hence others will get inspired and do the same way.
Jacobsen: Are there some things non-religious women simply only talk about with other nonreligious women that non-religious men just do not hear? If so, what are these experiences? If so, what are these things? If so, why only the discussions like those happening woman-to-woman rather than woman-to-man?
Nambejja: I will put this more on social setting, for example if a woman is married to a religious man, she will talk about this with a non religious woman probably facing same challenge than talking about it with a man. Why? Due to fear of judgement she speaks to fellow woman. If it is an initiative, like projects on girl child, menstrual education, a non religious woman will feel more speak to person non religious woman more comfortably than woman to man. We have a tendency of thinking that this should be told to fellow woman. Yet, in a non religious way, I think this should stop. That is according to my thinking please it is just according to my assumption.
Jacobsen: What can the non-religious communities do to include more women, people of color, and people from a wider variety of nations in the global non-religious community? What can we do to include more women’s voices in the mainstream dialogues, discourses, and discussions? What are the ways in which the non-religious community and men can help these efforts? What have been historic failures of the non-religious, and of men, to include women in the talks, the community, the literature, the media, and the important philosophical, scientific, and ethical discussions of the nonreligious community?
Nambejja: I think women should be given more audience, for example, if it is an event try to balance the number according to sex of speakers, empower women by supporting their causes. Women feel inferior if their initiative s are not supported hence loose hope. Our non religious communities still lack a spirit of togetherness, if we can’t support ourselves, invite women by showing them the benefits of public talks, include them in media discussions, if a mistake is made by a woman, correct her silently, don’t criticize, educate women in different areas, for example NGO management, business, leadership among others. In our non religious communities encourage women to get involved and aspire for or stand for leadership positions. Our non religious communities have failed to work as sisters and brothers of same spirit, we should have gatherings that can transform us into more useful citizens, we should support those who are seriously in great danger, an earnest heart of humanism means acting not t
Our non religious communities have failed to initiate universities for non religious, have failed to have institutions which support the non religious in different areas for example banks for non religious where people can acquire loans and so on, scholarships for non religious, among others just to mention but a few.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Susan.
Nambejja: Thanks for giving me a chance to be interviewed.
Susan Nambejja
Managing director and programmes coordinator
Malcolm Childrens Foundation Uganda.
https://malcolmchildrensfoundation.wordpress.com
Email: snambejja@gmail.com
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/03/18
Terrah Short earned a Bachelor’s in Philosophy (Analytic) with a Minor in Disaster Risk Reduction from Western Washington University in March 2017. She is a product of a working single father and the Puget Sound area of Western Washington in the United States of America. Here we talk about customer service.
One of the main jobs of the individual who is working with each customer is keeping them happy. This is not an easy task. Indeed, it is highly difficult. Although, retail work is considered lowly and menial work, and can be in many instances; the skill-set required for the proper delivery of retail customer service is high-level sociability and affable interaction with a wide smattering of customers who may be coming to the store with a variety of issues.
Short said, “You must take into account the individual, with each customer. When I really think about it, it does seem quite exhausting! Like in all facets of life, it’s important to remember that they are each an individual person, just like every retail worker. To get more in-depth, how I manage each customer is going to depend on what shift I’m working, what time of day it is, how busy it is, and sometimes it comes down to my own mood or what’s going on in my life, though I do my best not to let that affect my quality of service.”
She makes an explicit and concerted effort to meet the customers where they’re at, so Short can be provided for their need relative to the role and mandate of the role for her retail position. Some need meat. Others need soap. Still others, they may need bags; whereas, others may not care so much.
Short stated, “I recall a customer who appeared able-bodied, but when I asked if they needed their bags light (they had brought a large amount of them), they lit up and were grateful I asked as they had recently had surgery and couldn’t lift more than 10lbs. At the end of the day, I think we all appreciate someone taking an interest in the big or small needs that we as a customer may forget to ask or just appreciate even if we weren’t in need of the accommodation.”
There can be problems of a customer who is wrong. This is one problem. However, if the customer is amiable and willing to cooperate and converse with the retail service worker, then this can expedite corrections to the issue. The real issue is a customer who is both wrong and belligerent. This can create a stressful and nigh impossible task of de-escalation.
Short puts in the effort to hear them, to see where they are sincerely come from; nonetheless, as you might imagine, this can be a difficult task at times. One solution is simply getting the transaction done and then offering whatever is needed to soothe and manage the situation most amicably. As with other areas of work, if something rises to a rather unmanageable level, then there can be escalation to higher levels of authority. Those with more responsibilities within the mandate of their roles.
“The biggest challenges have come up when I personally was working our swing/night shift (generally 8pm-3:30am), and I have other co-workers who work this shift and have had similar experiences. At night, since there can be anywhere from myself (the cashier) and four others (our grocery night stockers) to just myself and the night PIC,” Short explained, “Generally, I would try to triage the situation myself, tolerate what could be described as abusive behavior from customers, because if I wasn’t in danger or if it wasn’t becoming too much of an issue, there was no reason to bring the PIC into it.”
Those who come into retail stores will, quite predictably, come from a wide range of the population of America. Within this population sampling, Short will experience a wide set of the total population of the United States, including the mentally ill, the deranged, high school and college students, professors, tourists from Europe, and others.
Certainly, one problem can the issue of helping the lower-level employees deal with a problem that has been escalated to the level of Short. If the lower-ranked employee can manage, then this isn’t an issue. However, in other contexts, it can be an issue. That is when there is a need for an escalation to a higher level of the issue, to the supervisors for example.
Short concluded, “I think it relates to all of it. Do your best to provide a positive experience for the customer, but make sure you adhere to, or even defer to, company policy. That is one way we are encouraged to protect ourselves or to explain decisions made, especially when selling alcohol or tobacco, that it is company policy and there is nothing we can really do. I think it is important that we as retail service folks start to stand up with the power that is being afforded us through our Unions and support from our supervisors. Taking care of ourselves needs to be the priority, but far too often, we just need to pay the bills and sometimes that means putting up with unpleasantness.”
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/03/18
Sally Buxbaum Hunt is a Sexual Education, Sex-Positive, Separation of Church and State Activist and Organizer, and a Progressive. Here we talk about AIPAC and Israel.
Some media items can be overblown by both the Left and the Right. Especially true in the instances of individuals who simply speak the truth in a direct way about the problems of aspects of foreign policy, there can be excuse-making, as should be expected, by apologists for state violence; one’s own state violence and rights violations around the world, even internally, too.
Hunt and I had the chance to talk about the mainstream media narrative around Rep. Ilhan Omar, who has been branded as an antisemite. The real question here is if this is the case. If it is not the case, then the issue of the claim to antisemitism, or the charge to the epithet becomes another concern, because this would appear to be an invective intended to blast the individual making the claim so as to make the claim seem undeniably insane or immoral.
Hunt, in response to the claims of antisemitism about Ilhan Omar, stated, “It has been difficult seeing the mainstream media narrative that Ilhan Omar has been antisemitic based on her remarks. It has been the main messaging from most of our politicians. That is unacceptable because it’s not true. Ilhan Omar did not say anything antisemitic.”
Hunt is Jewish. She is secular and non-practicing, but ethnically within the heritage Jewish. She went on to explain the basic claims made by Omar. That is to say, AIPAC is a lobbying group and lobbying groups can be a problem. In this case, IAPAC is a pro-Israeli lobbying group that gives money to politicians in the United States in order for those politicians, in return, to support Israel, probably often unwaveringly.
Hunt said, “That is the whole point of AIPAC. They are a pro-Israel lobbying group. AIPAC raises money, gives this money to politicians, and then those politicians should give unwavering support to Israel and special privileges to Israel. That this lobbying group, AIPAC, is giving extra tax dollars — US tax dollars — to Israel’s government. This is true. This is absolutely true [Laughing]. Ilhan Omar was pointing this out. Then many people freaked out and said this was antisemitic.”
Then within the forcefulness of the Democratic leadership, Omar was pressured or coerced into retracting or watering down the statements. In the apology, though, Hunt appreciated how she still made an important or salient point about the problem with the lobbying groups and their impact on the political contexts in the United States.
Hunt considers the pressure from the Democratic party wrong. She thinks that the pressure or coercion for an apology by Omar never should have happened in the first place. Indeed, even with the statement or with the apology, in fact, Omar said nothing intrinsically wrong or factually incorrect.
“She was pressured to make the apology. She definitely shouldn’t have been pressured to apologize at all. Because she said absolutely nothing wrong. Part of this fake controversy is just because she’s a Muslim. A big problem is the extreme bigotry against Muslims, and also that she is black,” Hunt stated, “That makes her a bigger target. I think racism is another reason here. She is a target for being a Muslim woman and a black woman, especially [Laughing] being both of those at the same time. But this idea that no one can criticize AIPAC or can ever criticize Israel is irrational and illogical.”
Hunt was moderately flabbergasted with the notion of Israel representing all Jewish peoples, as Jews are not a monolith and Israel is the Israeli state – not the Jewish state. Therefore, it cannot, in any way, speak for all Jews or Jewish people. If it was a solely Jewish state, then this may leave Arab Israeli citizens as second class to say the least.
Hunt said, “Not every Jewish person supports the occupation of Gaza and the West Bank. That is what this issue is about. No one should support the occupation. That is the bottom line. Palestinians who live in the occupied territories are trying to live their lives. Their home communities are constantly under military occupation. They are constantly being terrorized, brutalized, harassed, and oppressed. They don’t even have voting rights regarding the government that rules over them every day.”
The inability to live a free life, free of poverty, away from an utter sense of hopelessness, and so on, is a problem for the Palestinians and much less so for Israelis. Hunt states unequivocally that the Palestinians are rightfully anngry at the Israeli government.
“The government of Israel is an occupying force of a government. They are a warmongering and oppressive government to Palestinian civilians living in these occupied territories. That is the point right there. Ilhan Omar is right to point out AIPAC, the pro-Israel lobbying group, has one mission. That is to raise money for politicians, so they give unwavering support from US taxpayer funds that are supporting this occupation,” Hunt concluded.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/03/17
Mark Gibbs is an independently educated nonbeliever, who has some interesting and precise thoughts about the terminology in the survey data presented to the unbelieving community over the years. Here, in this series, we will explore some of the content, starting with the term “Nones.” Two prior sessions here: Ask Mark 1 — Somethin’ About Nothin’: The Nones Ain’t Nothin’ and Ask Mark 2 — Squeezing More Some Things from Nothings.
The surveys and the analysis of the surveys can be another level of issue or concern for Gibbs. The conversation, to conclude for this topic, shifted into the issues of statisticians, analysis of experts in the relevant areas of studying the non-religious, and more.When asked about some hypothetical do-overs for surveying and analyzing the belief landscape of the unbelievers by Pew Research, Gibbs described the technicalities and precision required for proper surveys and analysis. This may be truer in a population, probably, not studied as much as they could be, but Gibbs’s complaints remain valid.
“There’s a very good reason why they keep using affiliation as a metric: it’s so easy and cheap. It’s a single question, it’s easy for survey respondents to understand, and it’s trivial to group data by. It also allows your data to be easily compared with just about every other survey out there. And, honestly, there are times when affiliation is a useful metric,” Gibbs said.
His example was the higher proportion of Catholics who hold a “disgusting opinion,” which can be important if one wants to know this fact about some Catholics. It may lead to lines of inquiry about them.
Gibbs stated, “However… it is true that using affiliation as a metric just doesn’t work for finding out about nonbelievers. And nonbelievers are my people; I want to know more about them. So with respect to the experts, I’ll just brainstorm some possibilities. And I want to stress this is really only aimed at people doing opinion surveys, not actual social scientists. This may already be a solved problem in social science; I don’t keep up with the field closely enough to know.”
His main concern was on the emphasis on affiliation at present. He believes there should be more focus on beliefs and the intensity of belief. Gibbs provided an example, in a modest & humble-Shire tone:
Which of the following best reflect your beliefs (choose all that apply):· ☐ I believe that God exists.· ☐ I believe that there is life after death.· ☐ I believe in reincarnation.· ☐ I believe that psychic powers (precognition, telekinesis, remote viewing, etc.) exist.· ☐ (and so on…)His issues with typology or the terminology & interpretation set become the need to provide a new one based on the aforementioned re-emphasis on beliefs and intensity of beliefs, and a de-emphasis on “affiliation.Gibbs concluded, “Is that actually practical? You’d have to ask experts in the field. Certainly it would be more complicated (and thus, more expensive) than a simple affiliation/identification test. But I think that’s justifiable given that religion is such a complicated topic. And we really need more research done about actual beliefs — not mere affiliation — not least because you can’t really learn anything about nonbelievers if all you ask is mere affiliation.”
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
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Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/03/17
Madeline Weld, B.Sc., M.S., Ph.D., is the President of the Population Institute Canada. She worked for and has retired from Health Canada. She is a Director of Canadian Humanist Publications and an editor of Humanist Perspectives.In the work of interviewing a professional demographer, the importance of precision in the terminology of the field becomes of utmost importance. Weld provided a summary listing at the outset, as follows:Abortion rate: The number of abortions per 1,000 women ages 15–44 or 15–49 in a given year.Abortion ratio: The number of abortions per 1,000 live births in a given year.Birth control: Practices that permit sexual intercourse with reduced likelihood of conception and birth. Abortion is included in the definition of birth control.Carrying capacity: This is an ecological term that you won’t find in a glossary of demography although it is relevant to humans. Carrying capacity refers to the number of organisms of a given species that can be supported indefinitely in a given environment. (See also Overshoot.)Cohort: A group of people sharing a common temporal demographic experience who are observed through time.Contraception: Practices that permit sexual intercourse with reduced likelihood of conception. Modern methods include the pill, injectable hormones (such as Depo-Provera), implants (small hormone-releasing rods implanted in the upper arm), intra-uterine devices or IUDs, condoms, and sterilization.Contraceptive prevalence: Percentage of couples currently using a contraceptive method.Crude birth rate: Births per 1000 population.Crude death rate: Deaths per 1000 population.Demographic transition: The historical shift of birth and death rates from high to low levels in a population. The mortality decline usually precedes the fertility decline, resulting in rapid population growth during the transition period.Demography: The scientific study of human populations, including their sizes, compositions, distributions, densities, growth, and other characteristics, as well as the causes and consequences of changes in these factors.Doubling time: The number of years required for the population of an area to double its present size, given the current rate of population growth.Emigration rate: The number of emigrants departing an area of origin per 1,000 population in that area of origin in a given year.Family planning: The conscious effort of couples to regulate the number and spacing of births through artificial and natural methods of contraception. Family planning connotes conception control to avoid pregnancy and abortion, but it also includes efforts of couples to induce pregnancy.Fecundity: The physiological capacity of a woman to produce a child.Fertility: The actual reproductive performance of an individual, a couple, a group, or a population. See general fertility rate.General fertility rate: The number of live births per 1,000 women ages 15–44 or 15–49 years in a given year.Growth rate (or population growth rate): The annual rate of change in the size of a population. This change includes the increase (or decrease) from births over deaths and the net migration (immigration minus emigration), expressed as a percentage of the population at the beginning of the time period.Immigration rate: The number of immigrants arriving at a destination per 1,000 population at that destination in a given year.Infant mortality ratio: The number of deaths of infants under age 1 per 1,000 live births in a given year.Life expectancy: The average number of additional years a person could expect to live if current mortality trends were to continue for the rest of that person’s life. Most commonly cited as life expectancy at birth.Maternal mortality ratio: The number of women who die as a result of pregnancy and childbirth complications per 100,000 live births in a given year.Migration: The movement of people across a specified boundary for the purpose of establishing a new or semi-permanent residence. Migration can be international (between countries) or internal (within a country).Net migration: The estimated rate of net migration (immigration minus emigration) per 1,000 population. For some countries, data are derived as a residual from estimated birth, death, and population growth rates.Net migration rate: The net effect of immigration and emigration on an area’s population, expressed as an increase or decrease per 1,000 population of the area in a given year.Overshoot: This is not a term that you are likely to find in a glossary of demography, although it should be there. In population ecology, overshoot occurs when a population temporarily exceeds the long-term carrying capacity of its environment. This situation arises when a species or population encounters a rich and previously unexploited stock of resources that promotes its increase. When the stock is exhausted, the species faces a precipitous population decline or crash. Many ecologists think that the age of oil has sent the human population into overshoot.Population: The total number of persons inhabiting a country, city, or any district or area.Population control: A broad concept that addresses the relationship between fertility, mortality, and migration, but is most commonly used to refer to efforts to slow population growth through action to lower fertility.Population density: Population per unit of land area; for example, people per square mile or people per square kilometer of arable land.Population increase (or population growth): The total population increase resulting from the interaction of births, deaths, and migration in a population in a given period of time.Population momentum: The tendency for population growth to continue beyond the time that replacement-level fertility has been achieved because of the relatively high concentration of people in the childbearing years.Population projections: Computation of future changes in population numbers, given certain assumptions about future trends in the rates of fertility, mortality, and migration. Demographers often issue low, medium, and high projections of the same population, based on different assumptions of how these rates will change in the future.Replacement level fertility: The level of fertility at which a couple has only enough children to replace themselves, or about two children per couple.Rule of 70: You aren’t likely to find this term in a demography glossary but it’s very useful to determine the approximate doubling time of a population based on the annual growth rate. To get the doubling time, divide 70 by the annual growth rate. For example, populations growing at 1, 2, and 3% annually have respective doubling times of 70, 35, and 23 years.Total fertility rate (TFR): The average number of children that would be born alive to a woman (or group of women) during her lifetime if she were to pass through her childbearing years conforming to the age-specific fertility rates of a given year. This rate is sometimes stated as the number of children women are having today.Unmet need: Women with unmet need for spacing births are those who are able to become pregnant and sexually active but are not using any method of contraception (modern or traditional), and report wanting to delay the next child or limit their number of births.Zero population growth: A population in equilibrium, with a growth rate of zero, achieved when births plus immigration equal deaths plus emigration.You can get more information about terminology at these and many other sites:https://www.prb.org/glossary/https://population.un.org/wpp/General/GlossaryDemographicTerms.aspxhttp://www.iiep.unesco.org/sites/default/files/glossary_demographic_terms.pdfhttp://www.bestlibrary.org/ss11/files/glossary_of_demography_and_population.docWith this glossary, I would highly recommend continuing to it, whether for this current in-depth educational article or prior, or future, ones in this educational series on demography. The terms for fields can amount to jargon; however, within the disciplines, these can increase speed of communication and clarity in the productions of the discipline to the experts.Weld noted the ways in which the consequentiality of the increase in the global human population, its growth, is vastly understated as an impactful factor on the outcomes of the future world.
She said, “How many people know that Syria’s population quadrupled from 5 million to 20 million between 1950 and 2010? Once self-sufficient in wheat, Syria has become increasingly dependent on more expensive imported wheat. The 2007–2010 drought was the worst in modern history its water resources dropped by 50% between 2002 and 2008.”
The subsequent or even concomitant crop failures led to hundreds of thousands or mostly Sunni populations moving from rural areas into the coastal cities.Those dominated by the Alawite minority. This may be one of many correlates, or even causes, of exacerbations in the conflicts in the region.
Weld believes the situation may have been better with a more stable population, at the time, of 5 million compared to the 20 million seen in 2010. Or, let’s take the ways in which there is reportage on the problem of underpopulation and overpopulation, a city, region, or country having a population loss is stated in positive terms.”More fuss has been made in the media about Japan’s shrinking population than about the out-of-control growth in many sub-Saharan countries, Syria, Gaza and some others. Yet Japan is coping much better with its decreasing population than the others are with their growing populations,” Weld stated, “As for the use of demographic terms, many people probably couldn’t give dictionary-perfect definitions of a lot of them and many may confuse such terms as fecundity and fertility (both defined above). Nevertheless, the gist of some terms can be intuitively grasped. For example, the definition of total fertility rate (TFR) given above may sound a bit convoluted, but in a nutshell it is the average number of children that women of a given country or region have in their lifetime. Most people would probably get some sense of that from the term itself.”
She covered 6 areas in this session in-depth. The first is population density. This is simply the number of people in a given unit land area. Tokyo, Japan, is more densely populated than probably any area of Canada. That is, Tokyo has a higher population density than Edmonton, Toronto, or the numerous small towns through Canada.
Weld dispensed of the myth that Canada has infinite space for the inclusion of more and more people. Newcomers tend to congregate in the cities rather than attempting to make a living within the spaces on the outskirts of the societies, or in the tundra. This is a fact of the outcomes of the immigration policies in Canada.With the rapid increases in the growth of the population, cities in Canadian society continue to experience stresses on both infrastructure and social services while losing biodiversity, wildlife, and farmland. The second topic was population growth and population growth rate. It is the increase or the decrease in the total numbers of the population.
It is a modestly more complicated calculation, but, nonetheless, it comes to a reasonably straightforward calculation of the births minus the deaths and the immigration minus the emigration. Canada’s fertility rate is 1.6. The replacement rate of the population is 2.1. That means Canadian citizens, on the whole, are not replacing themselves.
The population of Canada can retain its size due to the face that there is a significant amount of immigration into Canada to maintain the population size.Weld said, “A population can be growing in absolute numbers even if its rate of growth is slowing down. The growth rate of the global population has in fact slowed down a lot in the past several decades. This has led to a perception among many (including in the media) that the problem is solving itself. But the absolute number of people being added annually has gone up, because the size of the population is bigger. This is illustrated in the table below. It is the absolute number of people that puts pressure on the environment. Yet many people seem to think that a decreasing growth rate solves the problem.”
The third section was the Total fertility rate or the TFR. Weld talked about the average number of women per child in a country or region throughout said woman’s lifetime. The TFR was 2.5 in 2018 based on UNFPA’s State of the World Population. There is a ‘plummet’ of the TFR over the last decades. According to Weld, this is a good thing.
It is indicative of the overpopulation problem, or 0.4 above 2.1, solving itself. This is all part and parcel of a continuing problem of the decrease in the number of people in the world per year compared to if the TFR was increasing or maintained itself from the previous year. The growth rate, not the total population, of the world is on the decrease.
However, this is not the whole story, Weld said. Because this is simply a coarse metric not taking into account the global population and the population differences when comparing regions or countries.
“For example, the countries defined by the UNFPA as ‘more developed regions’ have a TFR of 1.7, while those in the ‘less developed regions’ have a TFR of 2.6, and the ‘least developed countries’ have an average TFR of 4.0. The TFR of Somalia is 6.1 and of Niger 7.1,” Weld explained, “Many, probably most, or the countries with very high TFRs are failed or failing states, with emigration pressures that are already huge and that will likely only worsen with time. Africa’s population is projected to explode from 1.2 billion today to 2 billion by 2050 and over 4 billion by 2100.”
The fourth part was contraceptive prevalence versus unmet need. Contraceptive prevalence is the percentage of couples who are actively and properly using a contraceptive method (actively and properly, hopefully). Unmet need are women who remain capable of pregnancy and are sexually active but do not want to become pregnant and are not using contraceptives.
Sometimes, there is a correlation between contraceptive prevalence and unmet need. Although, there are times when the want of a large family does not reflect lack of access to contraceptives.
Weld stated, “That is why the completely hands-off approach taken at the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development (Cairo conference) with regard to promoting small families represents a huge failure, in my opinion. People were to ‘freely and responsibly’ decide on the number and spacing of their children, but this idealistic thinking did not take into consideration the strong influence of cultural norms, religion, and tradition on desired family size. The UN developed no programs to educate people about the impact of population growth and to promote smaller families. (Unlike, for example, programs to promote and implement child immunization that were developed right after the World Health Organization was created.)”
A stark example given by Weld is Kenya, where there was an understanding of married women (96%) and their husbands (98%) of modern contraceptive methods. 40% of the women did not intend to use contraception ever. 8% of the non-married women gave the reason for their not wanting to use contraception, which was, quite simply, to have more children.
“Among the reasons given for not using contraception by women who were not pregnant and did not want to become pregnant, only 0.8% cited lack of availability of contraceptives, and 0.4% cited cost. The top four reasons among those who are still fecund: (1) concern with the medical side effects of contraceptives (31%); 2) religious prohibition (9%); (3) personal opposition (8%); and (4) opposition from the husbands (6%). (The information on the DHS survey is from a December 2012 paper by William Ryerson of the Population Media Center.) In a 2015 presentation by Dr. Ryerson summarizing the major reasons given for non-use of contraceptives in over 30 rapidly growing countries, lack of access was the main reason in only 1% (a single country) or below of the people surveyed in every country,” Weld said.
The big reason being fear of side effects. This was followed to varying degrees depending on the opposition of the spouse, the health concerns, the religious prohibition, and the lack of knowledge. The changing of fertility rates, especially the high ones, will have to take more into account than the simple notion of contraceptive knowledge leading to an increase in the use of the contraceptives
The fifth section was the population projections based on the assumptions of fertility, migration, and mortality. The fecundity of the population; the transfers into and out of the population in a specified bounded geography; and the deaths of the population.
The projections or the estimates of the population only become so good as the assumptions plugged into the calculations and the terms used in order to gather the data according to the definitional constraints. Research is tough. This explains the reasons for the differentials in the lower, moderate, and higher projections as to the future population of the world.
Weld said, “…there was optimism that the world population would peak at 9 billion before 2100 and then decline, but current projections are for a still-growing population of over 11 billion in 2100. Almost all of the increase in the projected global population is because fertility rates did not fall as quickly in sub-Saharan Africa as had been assumed. In 2004, the United Nations projected a population for Africa in 2100 of 2 billion, but by 2015 had upped its projection for 2100 to 4 billion. The increase in the projected population of sub-Saharan Africa accounted for almost all of the increase in the projected global population.”
The decrease in the TFR is one consideration. But this is one among many different considerations in the world. One of the assumptions was that there would be a transition of the demographics for the developing countries. Those that would automatically happen around the world as a matter of natural science or inevitable history. It did not happen in sub-Saharan Africa and some other countries.
“One thing that population projections do not take into account is the depletion of resources. The human population may not undergo the gradual decline that demographers foresee based on their assumptions of fertility decline, but a rather more abrupt crash based on resource shortages, starvation, war, the outbreak of diseases resistant to antibiotics, and other dystopian factors,” Weld said.
The sixth section of the interview with Weld was the demographic transition or the demographic transition theory (DTT)/model (DTM). Weld see the DTM or the DTT as the main reason for individual global citizens becoming complacent about the mostpressing problem of our era, which is the laziness towards too many people and too little resources.
Weld stated, “The demographic transition theory posits that societies will transition from having high fertility and high mortality to low fertility and low mortality as a natural consequence of socioeconomic modernization. The transition is usually divided into four stages. In the first stage, the population of a society is fairly stable because the high birth rate is balanced by a high death rate. In the second stage, as the society develops and health and hygiene improve, the death rate falls but the birth rate remains high, leading to rapid population growth. In stage 3, population growth starts to decrease as the birth rate falls due to better economic conditions, more education and an improvement in the status of women, and more access to contraception. In stage 4, both the birth rate and the death rate are low, and population growth is negligible or even declining.”
It isn’t based on inaccuracies if taken in the abstract, as there was important developments in the work towards transitions for the demographics of a nation or region seen in Europe from the middle ages to the more modern technological and industrial societies. The ongoing and damaging mistake in the reasoning is the application of the conditions of middle age Europe to the contexts of other regions in the modern world now.
Weld pointed out that the “DTT was embraced by the 1987 Brundtland Commission on sustainable development. Sustainable development would be achieved through economic growth in developing countries, social equity, and environmental protection. But how would these be achieved without controlling population growth? The demographic transition would take care of it because people would have fewer children as they became richer. The same thinking guided the International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo in 1994.”
Since 1994, the global population has grown from 5 billion to 7.6 billion. The hoped-for continued developments have stalled to with increases in the population and the subsequent damage to both the natural world the biodiversity of the natural world. This is where we find ourselves at the crossroads of theory and reality with reality repeatedly standing right in front of our faces awaiting an acknowledgement.
“Much emphasis has been placed on things like education for girls and economic development to indirectly address population growth. There is indeed a negative correlation between the level of female education and the TFR, and education and equal opportunities for girls and women are desirable in their own right. But, as Dr. Jane O’Sullivan has shown, expecting an increase in wealth to lead to a reduction in fertility is putting the cart before the horse,” Weld stated.
The fertility decline is associated with increases in wealth and with an increase in per capita wealth comes when the birth per women hits between 2 and 3 children. Girls’ education was “neither a pre-requisite nor a sufficient measure” to set forth the decline in the levels of global or local fertility. However, fertility decline was important for sustained economic growth. O’Sullivan explained how the best contraception is not development, as per the adage.
Weld firmly stated, “There is an urgent need to make population growth an issue in its own right. Some countries, such as Bangladesh and Thailand, have done so. But most have not, nor has the United Nations made population growth a central part of its Millennium Development Goals (launched in 2000) or its Sustainable Development Goals (launched in 2016). The American population activist Rob Harding has proposed a UN Framework Convention on Population Growth, in which every country would take responsibility to bring its own population to a sustainable level. Other countries could help rapidly growing countries to achieve a sustainable population, but would not be expected to take in their surplus population (which appears to be the objective of the UN’s Global Compact on Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration).”
The DTT simply received too much credit for insufficient reasons. The seventh and final section in the responses by Weld were the Overshoot. It was based on William Catton’s book entitled Overshoot. It was published in 1980 while still remaining relevant. In it, the basic argument that every decision-maker who believes in infinite growth within an infinite planet are making a catastrophic mistake because the world exists with limited resources on a finite planet, or, more appropriately framed as a counter to the framing before, an infinite growth within an infinite planet can lead to catastrophic conclusions in argument and in reality. This echoes the sentiment of Malthus, not as extreme but, simply put, in spirit and result if not taken seriously to some degree.
“The gist of Catton’s book is that oil provided the energy for humans to draw down the world’s resources, which has allowed the human population to greatly exceed the long-term carrying capacity of the Earth (i.e., to go into overshoot). When resources become scarce or run out, there won’t be enough to support the human population, which is likely to undergo a steep decline or a crash. The world is an ecosystem with limits to growth and nature will have the last word,” Weld stated, “It took until 1804 for the human population to reach one billion. It increased to 2 billion by 1927, and 3 billion by 1960. The next three billion were in 1974, 1987, and 1999. In 2011, the human population reached 7 billion, and is now over 7.6 billion. Our population increases by 1,000,000,000 every dozen or so years. There is an eerie parallel of this spectacular increase in the growth of the reindeer population on St. Matthew Island, a remote outcrop in the Bering Sea, 300 km from Alaska.”
As noted about the reindeer on St. Matthew Island, the end-result can be troublesome for both the human population and the ecosystems on which human beings and other fauna and flora need to survive. The food supply, the lichen, by the reindeer was consumed in a short time, only a matter of a couple decades or so, and then when the researchers visited the island once more; they found the island littered with reindeer skeletons. The health of the reindeer was worse. These are the dynamics of growth of an organism population in a finite area of land with a finite amount of resources.
Weld concluded, “It’s true that the Earth is bigger than an island, and humans are smarter than reindeer, but we are exploiting resources globally on a colossal scale and the negative impacts of this drawdown of resources are becoming ever more evident. We would be wise to take heed.”
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/03/16
Gayleen Cornelius is a South African human rights activist from Willowmore; a tiny town in the Eastern Cape province. She grew up a coloured (the most ethnically diverse group in the world with Dutch, Khoisan, Griqua, Zulu, Xhosa Indian, and East Asian ancestry). Despite being a large Demographic from Cape Town to Durban along the coast, the group is usually left out of the racial politics that plague the nation. She has spoken out against identity politics, racism, workplace harassment, religious bigotry and different forms of abuse. She is also passionate about emotional health and identifies as an empath/ humanist. Here we talk about South Africa and progressivism.
The context for South Africa simply comes out as one of the most progressive countries in the world. Without the progressive movement, South Africa would be in a terrible mess due to the human problem at the source of many societal issues in many countries.
The problem of racism and its outpourings through the generations. It is, simply put, an illusion with real implications and disastrous consequences for the lives of individual citizens, for groups, and, indeed, for the health and wellness & wealth of societies around the world.
Cornelius stated, “South Africa is a very diverse country with 14 national languages. Historically rival ethnic groups like the Zulu and the Xhosa would have continued with the tribalist violence that almost got out of hand before the reconciliation programs in 1994. Xenophobia against other African nationalities would have been violent and gruesome. Racism wouldn’t have progressed at all since the Apartheid era and boiled out to a civil war. The LGBTQ community wouldn’t have come out of hiding fearing for their lives. These are situations that many people considered inevitable when Nelson Mandela assumed power in 1994 but he did a great job implementing a culture of progressivism and averting all the tribalism, racism and bigotry.”
One perennial threat to progressive shifts to a more peaceful and just society, especially in terms of race relations, is towards animosity or antipathy with one another. Even with th knowledge of the tree of life and the terminology of species, there can still be instances of problems for all peoples coming into the world. It can be problems of the race as too embedded in the social networks and the social fabric.
“The race issue is the most volatile fir as long as I can remember. We still have a large number of white supremacists from the who weren’t very happy about the end of Apartheid because they benefited a lot from it,” Cornelius said, “There have been many cases of white farmers killing their black workers for sport and various surveys have shown that a great number of farm workers are sexually abused by these farmers.”
There has been retaliation by black workers with murders of white farmers. Neither situation helps with the peace and just desired by most South Africans. Racisms threatens the fabric of South African society. However, it does not mean all hope is or should be lost.
“Racism has threatened a lot of aspects affecting South African civil society and that has led to the rise of a far left wing of black nationalists and an alt right wing of white nationalists. The populist sentiments that have risen through Julius Malema’s Economic Freedom Fighters and the Afrikaner community’s Afriforum can possibly worsen identity politics and if any one of them get into power in 2019, it would be a newer version of Apartheid all over again. That is the single and most imminent threat to progressivism in South Africa and a lot has to be done to prevent the worst from happening,” Cornelius opined.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/03/16
Mark Gibbs is an independently educated nonbeliever, who has some interesting and precise thoughts about the terminology in the survey data presented to the unbelieving community over the years. Here, in this series, we will explore some of the content, starting with the term “Nones” in an extended conversation continuing from Ask Mark 1 — Somethin’ About Nothin’: The Nones Ain’t Nothin’.
We started on some definitional issues. Those focused on the proper definitions for terms. Gibbs, astutely, identified the need to target the specific population. That is, the sub-population ones to research, for example.
Gibbs stated, “You see, Professor Kosmin wasn’t wrong. ARIS is the American Religious Identification Survey; the whole point of it is which religion you identify with… not what you believe. Kosmin knew exactly what he was talking about: he was talking about people who don’t identify with any religions… he was not talking about nonbelievers; they’re not the same thing. The problem isn’t the term itself.”
Thus, the problem was not the word use, but the misuse and subsequent – or, maybe, presequent – reflected a deep problem in two other words. Two other terms reflecting operations-of-mind. On the one hand, the affiliation with a religion. On the other hand, the belief in a religion. These can overlap in a Venn diagram. However, these do not necessarily have to fit snugly one into the other.
“That’s always a problem — for example, Islamophobic bigots make a point of not differentiating between believers in extremist Islamic ideologies and literally everybody who calls themselves ‘Muslim’,” Gibbs explained, “But it becomes particularly acute when you start talking about the lack of a religion: are you talking about the lack of affiliation, or the lack of belief? Or both? If your goal is actually specifically to talk about people who are not affiliated with any religions, then ‘None’ is exactly the right term.”
There is a “But…” there, though. The trouble with “None” comes from the synonymous interpretations of “None,” “nonreligious,” “atheist,” and the like. He continues to describe the ways in which reality is a messy affair, apart from the abstract descriptions of terms more interesting in the isolation of a linguistics or a philology class.
To make the point, Gibbs described how the idiosyncrasies of extremist ideological stances or fundamentalist religious views create an interesting situation, as follows: someone holds the same beliefs of a religion and does not claim to follow the faith.
“And most of the time, affiliation is useless as a categorization anyway. There’s lots of evidence out there that fundamentalist Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus, and so on have more in common with each other than they do with the moderate, casual, or progressive members of their own religions,” Gibbs said.
With the percentage of Christians who may hole “some awful belief,” the label “Christians” becomes difficult for proper interpretation and may, in fact, blur the lines of the true diverse categories of Christian believers.
Gibbs stated, “I’d be far more interested in learning how prevalent the awful belief is among casual religious believers — and it doesn’t really matter whether they’re Christian or something else; that would better tell me whether it’s something to be concerned about or not. That would be more useful in assessing whether the problem is only extreme religion, or if even moderate religion is a concern.”
Gibbs summarized the position for him. He thinks None can be used, but he believes “None”, as a term, should be used in the proper context. A context in which None makes sense or appropriately applies. With the confusion, though, Gibbs argues against the use of the term, as a practical matter.
Even further, the situation becomes more complicated, according to Gibbs. The entire “typology” of the terms will become new, in meaning and addition of words. Apparently, last year, Pew Research worked to came up with a new typology to help understand religiosity.
Gibbs stated seven categories arose with two new non-religious ones. One for the spiritual but not religious and the others for those who do not believer in supernaturalism. Shown in the image below:
Gibbs explained, “Pew’s new grouping actually illustrates how useless the ‘None’ grouping is (unless all you care about is specifically affiliation, and not beliefs). The ‘Solidly Secular’ are pretty much synonymous with ‘nonbelievers’… yet 24% of them identify with a religion. The ‘Nones’ include most of the ‘Solidly Secular’ and ‘Religion Resisters’… but it also includes 30% of the ‘Spiritually Awake’ and 17% of the ‘Relaxed Religious’, and even 22% of the ‘Diversely Devout’. So ‘Nones’ doesn’t just include a lot of people who aren’t nonreligious, it also excludes at least a quarter of those who are!”
Gibbs appreciates the Pew a grouping. While, at the same time, the main criticism remains the focus on Christianity and on the United States. The emphasis can skew the outcomes of the research, unfortunately. The questions arise about the nature of terms in relation to other faiths or faith groupings, and adherents.
“I think I would do something very similar to what Pew did, though less US/Christianity-focused; so asking about belief God or a god generally, not specifically ‘God as described in the Bible’. But I’m not a fan of the name ‘Solidly Secular’. ‘Secular’ already has too many other meanings, and this is just guaranteed to sow more confusion. For example: technically, devout Catholics who aren’t clergy are secular. But don’t get me started on all the problems with the word ‘secular,'” Gibbs concluded, “I think a better term for that group would be ‘unbelievers’, because these are people who don’t believe in the tenets of religion — whether they still identify with a religion or not — and also don’t believe in other woo that isn’t normally called ‘religious’, like psychics and pyramid power. So I think I’d use a more generic variant of Pew’s typology, but with ‘Solidly Secular’ renamed to ‘[something] Unbelievers’; I’ll leave it up to Pew to come up with a cute alliteration.”
Image Credits: Pew Research Center.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/03/15
Mark Gibbs is an independently educated nonbeliever, who has some interesting and precise thoughts about the terminology in the survey data presented to the unbelieving community over the years. Here, in this series, we will explore some of the content, starting with the term “Nones.”
With the general conversation on the nature of the terminology within the secular community, Gibbs remarked on the independent research into the demographics of atheism in Canada. He notes several studies and surveys indicate modest trends in the atheist beliefs or characteristics in Canada, as in flavours of atheism within a Canadian conceptual landscape.
On the term the “Nones,” Gibbs stated, “As near as I’ve been able to trace its origins, it seems to have literally started out as a joke. The story I’ve heard is that in 2001, while doing the second American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS), Professor Barry Kosmin noted the massive growth in the number of people who did not affiliate with any religion — they’d almost doubled in size since the previous survey from 1990 (8.2% to 14.1%; these are US numbers). He realized there wasn’t really a term for this group — they were the ‘No religion’ category, but what would you call them? ‘No-religionists’?”
He quotes the article, which states:
“Nonreligious” was a possibility. So was “non-faith” and “non-affiliated.”
But Kosmin rejected all of these. The “non” part bothered him. “Non-affiliated” would be like calling people “non-white,” he said. “We didn’t want to suggest that ‘affiliated’ was the norm, and every one else was an ‘other.’”
“Nomenclature,” he added, “is quite important in these things.”
Gibbs notes how the intention was, in fact, positive. However, the term “none” arose out of the mishmash of “none of the above,” as a truncated version of it. The base reasoning was the following: if someone did not have a religious denomination presented, then they would choose “none of the above” or “none.” It started as a joke and then created a life of its own.
“It’s really important that we clarify what ‘None’ actually means, because there is a lot of confusion about it. ‘None’ does not mean ‘not religious’, or ‘having no religion’. ‘None’ means specifically having no religious affiliation,” Gibbs explained, “Surveys like ARIS and population censuses usually don’t ask about your beliefs; they usually ask a question that looks something like this: ‘Which religion or denomination do you identify with?’ Note that the question is about affiliation, not belief.”
Gibbs remarked on the definition of religion based on the definition of religion provided by Statistics Canada. In fact, it was used for the 2011 National Housing Survey. As far as Gibbs found through independent research, this was the last time the census asked about religion, where the next time will be 2021. He quotes the documentation’s definition:
Religion refers to the person’s self-identification as having a connection or affiliation with any religious denomination, group, body, sect, cult or other religiously defined community or system of belief. Religion is not limited to formal membership in a religious organization or group. Persons without a religious connection or affiliation can self-identify as atheist, agnostic or humanist, or can provide another applicable response
Gibbs states the definition of religion does not amount to what you believe in particular; however, it does relate the faith one feels a personal connection. Gibbs makes a distinction between the 2011 National Housing Survey and the 2011 census.
As he states, “In 2010, the Harper government scrapped the mandatory long-form census and replaced it with an optional survey. They justified it as answering calls from a tiny minority of people who objected to the government collecting personal data. The move sparked outcry from just about everyone who cared about social research and evidence-based governance, and, as predicted, was a disaster. The mandatory long-form census was restored by the Trudeau government in time for the 2016 census, but unfortunately we won’t actually get religion data until 2021. Until then, the dodgy 2011 National Housing Survey data is all we have, other than data from the 2001 census.”
Gibbs explains, firmly, a “None” does not equate to an individual without a religion. A “None” is someone who simply does not affiliate with a religion or a religious group – full stop. Gibbs points to the extreme cases, in the extremely religious individuals.
He notes those with extreme religious beliefs become particular. A situation in which the belief system becomes idiosyncratic and weird, no doubt. He described the syncretism within the extreme religious community or the mixing of beliefs of the extant religious traditions. Extremely religious people far more often affirm rather than deny their religiosity than deny it.
Via an example, Gibbs stated, “For example, a person might believe literally every single part of the Catholic dogma except that they reject dyophysitism (Jesus has two natures: divine and human) in favour of miaphysitism (Jesus has one nature that is both divine and human), and feel so strongly about it that it’s enough for them to reject any affiliation with Catholicism.”
Then he noted the ways in which “religion” has become a bad word. It gets lumped with a denial of the natural world discovered through empirical methodologies and scientific tools. Individual may hold to core beliefs of traditional religions while also working to never proclaim identification with the title of a traditional religion. Words matter, but so does the content of beliefs implied by the words.
Gibbs talked about spiritual but not religious or SBNR. however, was unsure as to the StatCan filing of this terminology. Based on a graphic from recent Pew surveys of US adults, most of the “Nones” are within this category:
Gibbs further explained, “The situation may be even more extreme in Canada. A 2014 Angus Reid survey found that a plurality of Canadians are SBNR, and even if you single out the people who reject religion, 41% of those are SBNR.”
Gibbs, as articulate and intelligent as he is, emphasizes the importance of precision, as he is here, when using the terms. We may slip in the future. However, this can be a note to be mindful of the utilization of the terms “None,” “nonreligious,” and “atheist.” If one mixes these, they make “huge mistakes.”
Gibbs provided a favourite example from The Atlantic: “Atheists Are Sometimes More Religious Than Christians”. The admixture is between atheists and Nones for the entirety of the article. He quotes the article:
Second, the researchers found that American “nones” — those who identify as atheist, agnostic, or nothing in particular — are more religious than European nones. The notion that religiously unaffiliated people can be religious at all may seem contradictory, but if you disaffiliate from organized religion it does not necessarily mean you’ve sworn off belief in God, say, or prayer.
The third finding reported in the study is by far the most striking. As it turns out, “American ‘nones’ are as religious as — or even more religious than — Christians in several European countries, including France, Germany, and the U.K.”
“That was a surprise,” Neha Sahgal, the lead researcher on the study, told me. “That’s the comparison that’s fascinating to me.” She highlighted the fact that whereas only 23 percent of European Christians say they believe in God with absolute certainty, 27 percent of American nones say this.
In the utility of surveys and censuses, and in the usefulness of classifications of the population for demographic analyses, bad terms can slant the reality shown by the research on the nonreligious. Gibbs continued to emphasise the “None” category as a census and survey category. He lamented the “tragic dearth” of science on nonreligious people, real scientific and social scientific research on secular people. He made a recommendation to see Professor Melanie Brewster’s 2014 talk at Skepticon 7.
In his framing, the current researchers are not appropriately collecting data because the terms are misleading, and so lead to misleading conclusions about the nonreligious.
Gibbs summarized, as follows:
- It doesn’t mean what most people think it means. It has nothing to do with being nonreligious. It’s only about affiliation; it’s only about identifying with a religion, not believing in that religion’s tenets.
- The category is actually dominated by the “wrong” people. By “wrong” I mean: not the people “Nones” are generally assumed to be. Most people assume “Nones” are nonreligious. In fact, most “Nones” are very religious, and in some ways even more religious than the average person that affiliates with a mainstream religion.
- The categorization has already negatively impacted science. In the talk linked above, Professor Brewster explains how lumping atheists in with the “unaffiliated” distorted psychological research for almost two decades, and led to false notions about the mental health and social success of atheists.
- The categorization has already negatively impacted atheists. Following from the point above, those false notions about the mental health of atheists led to actual discrimination. To this day, you don’t have to look too far to find people repeating myths that “science” has proven that atheists are psychologically unhealthy.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/03/15
Dr. Lloyd Hawkeye Robertson is a Registered Doctoral Psychologist with expertise in Counselling Psychology, Educational Psychology, and Human Resource Development. He earned qualifications in Social Work too.
His research interests include memes as applied to self-knowledge, the evolution of religion and spirituality, the Aboriginal self’s structure, residential school syndrome, prior learning recognition and assessment, and the treatment of attention deficit disorder and suicide ideation.
In addition, he works in anxiety and trauma, addictions, and psycho-educational assessment, and relationship, family, and group counseling. Please see Ask Dr. Robertson 1 — Counselling and Psychology, Ask Dr. Robertson 2 — Psychotherapy, Ask Dr. Robertson 3 — Social and Psychological Sciences Gone Wrong, and Ask Dr. Robertson 4 — Just You and Me, One-on-One Counselling, as these are the previous sessions in this educational series. Here we talk about self-actualization.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Famously, so famous, in fact, as to become a common phrase indicative of common sense wisdom — which, as one may joke about ‘common sense,’ may be uncommon sometimes and other times not-so-wise, the late Abraham Maslow, American Psychologist, remarked on the existence of problems and tools to solve them:
I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail.
Dr. Philip Zimbardo, Professor Emeritus at Stanford University, and others — including Dr. Warren Farrell, who speaks in a pace and tone so as not to offend even the fly on the wall, for content reasons, obviously — continue to focus on some overlooked issues for males, young males and boys in particular; where as a collective, interrelated culture, these become issues for us, too. Maslow constructed the hierarchy of needs in the 1943 paper entitled A Theory of Human Motivation.
Zimbardo, who specializes in the psychology of evil (Stanford Prison Experiment in experiment and Abu Ghraib in reality, though this experiment came under more critical scrutiny, recently) and time perspective (e.g., living, mentally speaking, in the past, the present, or future), spoke on young men and boys since the early 2010s right into the present.
In particular, Zimbardo spoke on the failure of some boys and young men in multiple domains of life, where mainstream cultures — multinationally speaking — demand certain levels of performance and expect achievement of specific milestones by culturally affirmed ages for social approval. If not, then cue the epithets and societal reproval.
It is not an all-or-nothing evaluation, but it is a change in the ratio of the boys and young men succeeding compared to previous generations on average — and, especially, in contrast to the wonderful rise of girls and women. It becomes a dual-facet phenomenon of decline for boys and young men and incline for girls and young women with higher-order analysis implications, in time and in persistence of culture in bounded geography. Zimbardo reflected on the failures, by his estimation, as indicative of a hijacking or hacking of the hierarchy of needs by pornography, video games, and fatherlessness/(male-)mentorlessness — in part.
That is to say, with the self-fulfillment and psychological needs removed from the hierarchy of needs or ignored by the boys and young men, this left, at least, pornography, video games, and mentorlessness as central pillars in the decline of self-actualization and psychological needs, in boys and young men.
In the end, Zimbardo argues the result becomes a context in which young men and boys find themselves fulfilled as purely safety-and-physiological-needs-based beings, while also creating, in his research and assertions, i.e., not formally accepted by the academic psychological community in the DSM-5, “arousal addictions”: a psychological mode of a move towards pleasure and drift, or shift, away from pain in every life dynamic with a consistent need for novelty, which is an addiction for similar hyperstimuli with perpetual novelty, e.g., pornography and video games, as opposed to the same hyperstimuli, e.g., cocaine and gambling.
Of course, as a side remark, Dr. Leonard Sax, M.D., Ph.D., American Psychologist and Physician, describes endocrine disruptors and educational system changes as additional factors in this.
No planning, no contingencies, no notions of the future, no orientation towards larger life goals, and little or no incentive to move out of this hedonistic, presentist mental state. Did Maslow predict this psychological orientation of young men and boys? If so, how? Did anyone (else)?
Dr. Lloyd Hawkeye Robertson: Your pre-amble certainly covers a lot of ground, Scott! The short answer as to whether Maslow predicted the current psychological orientation of young men and boys is “no.” He was interested in individual as opposed to collective psychological development. On the other hand, his hierarchy of needs may be applied to such developments.
There is a lot of evidence that males in modern Euro-American cultures are not doing well. Males, on average, die younger. Male unemployment is increasing with large numbers of younger males considered virtually unemployable, yet 97% of workplace deaths are men. Seventy percent of graduates in Canadian universities are women. Male suicide rates are four times that of women. Men are more likely to suffer from addictions, be incarcerated and be victims of violent crime. Eighty percent of homeless are men. Things have gotten worse for men since ex-feminist Warren Farrell wrote his book two and a half decades ago. From a Maslow hierarchy of needs perspective, things have not been going well, and part of that can be attributed to the influence of feminism.
Sax, whom you also referenced, in a brilliant analysis of kindergarten curricula in the United States, said that the curricula had been changed in preceding decades to conform to girl’s normative development. Specifically, he said that kindergartens had come to emphasize verbal skills which developmentally favour girls at that age. Had kindergartens emphasized spatial skills then boys would have been favoured. The result of this gynocentric curricula is that boys are more likely to experience frustration in their early schools, like school less, and more frequently experience failure. If female normative development and behaviour is set as normative across society, then boys and men will be disadvantaged. But that is only part of the story.
Using qualitative methods, I was able to demonstrate that a diverse sample of Canadian men have experienced harsh stigma as a result of their sex. Stigma is the imputation of characteristics to a class of people that renders them unfit for certain social roles. The men were viewed as a threat to others or irresponsible with respect to family responsibilities simply because they were men. As a result, they were judged as unfit, or less fit, in their roles as parents or as employees in specific occupations despite a lack of evidence of any wrongdoing. We see this stigma in society with notions of “toxic masculinity” where guilt does not have to be proven, it is assumed. Thus, even when men overcome disadvantages built into education, they remain at a disadvantage. The alienation of fathers from their families, in large part because of stigma, compounds the problem because boys, raised by single parent mothers, are less likely to have effective role models matching their gender and they are more likely to experience addictions, incarceration and suicide.
So, as Zimbardo has argued, many young men are dropping out. They are not competing for careers. They are not establishing families. They are not contributing meaningfully to society. They are occupying themselves with short term gratification. Maslow argued that until self-esteem needs are met, people are more preoccupied with meeting those needs than pursuing self-actualization. If a group of people are disadvantaged in education and suffer stigma for being a member of their group, it could be expected that in accepting the dominant society’s normative view, they suffer low genderized self-esteem. Zimbardo’s famous prison experiment showed definitively that people tend to become the roles societies set for them. The scary implication of this is that many of these young men could become the “toxic masculine” stereotype feminists have set for them. But I think there is another way of looking at this.
About three decades before Maslow built his famous pyramid, Alfred Adler said that all humans are born with a “striving for perfection” which is similar to Maslow’s idea of self-actualization. Those who give up this striving are people who are discouraged and this describes those young men who are dropping out. We need to combat society’s message to boys that they are both bad and failures and we need to reintroduce the striving for goodness.
Robertson’s article on Male Stigma can be found at: https://www.hawkeyeassociates.ca/images/pdf/academic/Male_Stigma.pdf
Jacobsen: Following from the previous question, what therapeutic methods, in a professional setting — group and one-on-one, work with the young men and boys, who, by standard cultural expectations, continue to fail at, probably, increasing rates?
Robertson: In 2012 I attended a workshop on how to counsel men at a Canadian Counselling and Psychotherapy Association annual convention. The presenters were both women one of whom asked, with wide eyed innocence, how many of the attendees, who were overwhelmingly women, had actually counselled a man. Fewer than half the workshop participants raised their hands. The workshop then proceeded with a review of statistics on how few men seek psychotherapy, how men experience depression and suicide ideation less but nonetheless commit suicide at higher rates, and how men sublimate their mental health needs through alcohol, anger, and violence. The prescription of the presenters was that men need to learn how to admit their failings and seek help; they need to be in touch with their feelings more and make themselves “vulnerable” by discussing those feelings; and they need to find allies and build support systems. In short, they need to become more like women.
The suggestions of these female facilitators are not totally wrong. Many men benefit from honing these skills; but I would argue that many women would benefit from learning skills in which men tend to more easily excel. The problem with the paradigm that was presented at this workshop is exactly the problem Sax found with gynocentric kindergarten curricula — it sets up female developmental experience as normative to which both sexes should aspire.
The dominant themes in psychotherapy have always been gyno-normative, even when most of the practitioners were male. For example, Freud’s patients were all female (and rich females at that), and it was on his experience with them that he based his theories. It is probably no coincidence that the psychoanalysis he developed consists of symbolism, dream interpretation, random thoughts, free associations and fantasies in a process that can take years. In contrast, the male approach is to define a problem and solve it. Sometimes this involves setting aside one’s emotions so that rational processes are better able to take charge. My experience with men is that they do not want to be in therapy for a long time. Albert Ellis’ Rational Emotive Therapy makes sense for many men although women may equally benefit from this approach.
I don’t mean to recapitulate John Grey’s Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus thesis. A non-sexist psychotherapy will treat each person as a culture of one with the therapist setting out to learn that culture; however, we need to recognize that there are certain tendencies that may be culturally or genetically driven. Sexist psychotherapy occurs when the normative experience of one sex is set as the norm for both. For example, the presenters at the “How to Counsel Men” workshop I just cited were mystified as to how it was that men were far more likely to commit suicide than women but were far less likely to suffer from depression. It did not occur to them that the American Psychological Association defines depression using the female normative experience. Male symptoms that differ from the female expression are not recognized, and I submit this is one reason why men are under diagnosed with this condition.
It is not at all clear that men’s mental health needs will receive serious attention any time soon. The APA Guidelines for the Psychological Practice with Men and Boys released last year, attempts to link traditional masculinity to racism, ageism, sexism, classism, and heterosexism, and this, we are told, results in “personal restriction, devaluation, or violation of others or self.” The unsubstantiated suggestion is made that men commit higher levels of intimate partner violence and are estranged from their children because they lack the will or ability to have positive involvement in healthy family relationships. Psychologists are cautioned about believing their male clients who protest their innocence because, in the words of the APA, “Male privilege tends to be invisible to men.”
I think we should consider the possibility that men do not seek counselling or therapy because they do not see counsellors and therapists as sympathetic to their experiences and the APA guidelines fail to dispel this perception. This should not be seen as an indictment against all therapists. Jordan Peterson’s “Twelve Steps” are based on practices that are common to Rational Emotive and Cognitive Behavioural therapies, and he expressed surprise that his approach has been overwhelmingly endorsed by young men because those approaches are gender neutral. I think his experience demonstrates that men are willing to seek help for their mental health issues if the helpers are seen to be sympathetic to their lived experience.
My advice to men who are interested in psychotherapy is to interview a number of psychotherapists before settling on one. Ensure that the therapist you choose is sympathetic to your needs and has an approach with which you feel comfortable. I think most therapists would feel comfortable answering such questions, and if they do not, you do not want to use the services of that therapist.
Jacobsen: Recalling a remark by Sax, he noted, after the age of 30, no reliable intervention — inasmuch as his research and professional practice work are concerned — for the aforementioned failure, in terms of steerage back onto the high seas of normal cultural life. He states, according to recent research on the architecture of the brain, an adult female is aged 22 and an adult male is aged 30.
Robertson: Neuropsychology is not my field; however this sounds like an old idea that girls mature faster than boys. I will rely on Susan Harter on this who did a meta-analysis and concluded that the frontal lobes normally complete their development around age 25 for both sexes. She published this in her 2012 book, and there may be subsequent research of which I am not aware. On the other hand, Sax is on solid ground in contending that there are inherited sex-linked differences with respect to personalities, drives and certain aptitudes although it should be remembered that when discussing such differences we are talking about averages and that knowing a person’s sex will not reliably tell us anything about any individual person’s personality or aptitudes. In any case, we are not born with a blank slate as Steven Pinker classically articulated in his book of that name, and on that point I think Sax is on very solid ground scientifically.
The 1950s and 60s popular notion that girls mature faster than boys was grounded in a number of observations that included girls verbal and social development, and the fact that young women were often ready to settle down and raise a family by their late teens. Young men, on the other hand, were often more interested in things than people and would rather explore and experiment than settle down and raise a family. The related conclusions regarding maturity was again grounded in a gynonormative perspective. We now know that different lifestyles and experiences can affect the brain’s structure such that male curiosity, if allowed expression, will result in a strengthening of relevant parts of the brain. Neo-natal scarcity can also lead to phenotypical gene expression that may be adaptive in a world of grinding poverty but are maladaptive in the modern context. Sax may have been thinking of this research in putting limits on when profitable interventions may be undertaken. Recent research has debunked the idea that the brain loses all plasticity by age 30, and in any case, I have helped many adults past middle age to lead satisfying lives after having had a career of dysfunctionality.
Jacobsen: Looking at the last two questions, if we look at the short, medium, and long term futures of men and, thus, in part, societies, what will be the outcomes for those who begin to succeed, and those who continue to fail, by the standard cultural expectations in Canada? What will be the outcomes for the Canadian culture if the trends lean towards further failure or further success — as defined before? For example, Sax reflects on the work by Professor David D. Gilmore, Professor of Anthropology at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, with the likely dissipation and replacement, as an assessment and not a judgment of Gilmore, of secular English-speaking culture in North America, and, in fact, elsewhere, because of the lack of strong bonds across generations and the current cultures with young men and boys on one failure, and girls and young women on another standard success, trajectory, where these sub-cultures in larger Canadian society will not reproduce themselves for a variety of reasons and, therefore, will undergo steady replacement by other sub-cultures enacting the behavioral, communal, familial, and mating patterns indicative of those who have endured in previous generations for millennia, e.g., the Navajo, the Chinese, the Jewish, and so on.
Robertson: Again, there is a lot packed into your question. I would predict that some men will continue to succeed and they will assume the position of alpha males. I predict that large numbers of men will continue to fail, in part due to societal structures that lead to this result, and in part due to their own state of personal anomy flowing from a breakdown in the intergenerational transmission of values. I would argue, however, that reproduction below replacement levels is occurring worldwide and cannot be attributed solely or even primarily to events unique to Euro-American cultures but seem to be correlated with higher levels of educational opportunity available to women that allow for alternate avenues to self-actualization besides the mother archetype. I don’t think a low birth rate is necessarily a bad thing, but I am concerned about male roles in this new culture.
With the words “alpha male” my mind went immediately to the Canadian prime minister who may or may not be prototypical. Alpha males operate by different rules than are available to ordinary males. Feminists in Trudeau’s cabinet like Chrystia Freeland and Jane Philpott gave Mr. Trudeau a pass on substantiated allegations of a past sexual assault while applauding the expulsion from the Liberal caucus backbench members who faced unproven allegations of sexual assault. This would be an example of how rules between classes of men differ in the new society. The problems men who are not alpha face are either invisible or ignored. Even though three times as many male aboriginal men are missing or murdered as compared to aboriginal women, a Canadian inquiry into the problem excluded consideration of the men. When the government announced that Syrian refugees would be admitted, single males were specifically excluded from refugee status. When foreign aid increases were announced, agencies receiving the aid had to agree that none of it would go to men. I do not think the majority of men can expect much consideration from such feminized alpha males.
One problem faced by the majority of men is we do not normally confide in and support other men. I have been part of that problem. In 1969 I marched with Women’s Liberation to protest the “Saskatoon Club.” This was a club for well-to-do men in the city of Saskatoon. Men got to relax, play pool, discuss business and politics, and enter into mentoring relationships without the perceived distraction of women. We succeeded in opening it up to women. About three years later a succession of women rose at a meeting of Women’s Liberation to state that there were women present who felt intimidated by the presence of men. They politely asked the men present, who numbered about a quarter of the group, to leave, and we did so without protest. The result is that there was no net gain in inter-sex cooperation. The difference involved a shifting of gender specific networking and mentoring capacity. Ordinary men to this day remain largely unorganized.
The lack positive male self-identity can be traced to an intergenerational fail in the transmission of values. This fail began long before the advent of feminism. With the Industrial revolution men were forced to work in factories for 12 to 16 hours per day six days per week. Men became absentee parents whose contribution to the family was largely as a “good provider.” Mothers raised their children but necessarily gave them a woman’s perspective. This division of labour became a cultural norm, maintained long after working hours were reduced. Most men still measured their self-worth by their ability to be that good provider for their families differing to women in matters of child-rearing. But now, if men work hard and achieve financial success they are told that they are the recipients of unearned male privilege. Some men are saying, “Why bother?” I think the appeal of people like Peterson is that he has given them a reason to bother that transcends current ideological constraints, and that reason has to do with the development of personal integrity. In a sense, he is reaching out intergenerationally, filling a need in building positive male identities, as I also hope to do in this interview. Thank you for the opportunity.
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Madeline Weld, B.Sc., M.S., Ph.D., is the President of the Population Institute Canada. She worked for and has retired from Health Canada. She is a Director of Canadian Humanist Publications and an editor of Humanist Perspectives.
Malthus is the source of the term “Malthusian.” He has been seen as a controversial figure throughout the history of the study of demographics. Nonetheless, this became a point of import to me, to bring Malthus to the fore.
Weld pointed out one of the main purposes of identifying Malthus, many times, simply comes in the form of using a derogatory term “Malthusian,” mentioned before. She noted Google doodle did not mention his 250th anniversary on Fbebruary 13, 2016, either.
Weld said “Thomas Robert Malthus (1766–1834) was English Anglican cleric and academic who is most famous for his book An Essay on the Principle of Population, first published in 1798 and re-published in a greatly expanded second edition in 1803. This was followed by four more editions with minor changes from the second edition, the last published in 1826.”
The main argument within the text was the growth of the human population in exponential ways. The ways in which the food supply and the human population become important for consideration in their mutual interplay.
“The crux of Principle of Population is that the human population can grow exponentially, while the food supply can only grow arithmetically. Therefore, Malthus reasoned, whenever the food supply is increased (through improvements in agriculture or the opening of new lands), human numbers will always increase until the abundance is eliminated and the poor are once again clinging to the edge of existence, on the borderline between survival and famine,” Weld explained in more detail.
There are, as Malthus stated, “positive checks” on the mortality that increase it, including disease, starvation, and other things leading to – let’s say – premature death. Then there are things called “preventive checks” that reduce fertility, including late marriage and contraception.
He saw birth control as a vice. Malthus published the first version of the text based on the urging of his father. Those ideas discussed of William Godwin and the Marquis de Concorcet, and others.
Weld stated “Malthus did not share their optimism about the inevitability of human progress. His views were informed by his own observations of his impoverished parishioners (at Oakwood Chapel in Surrey), whose diet consisted mostly of bread and whose children developed late and were stunted in growth. But despite the misery, the number of births Malthus recorded in the parish registry greatly exceeded the number of deaths.”
He – Malthus – argued that science and human progress could be eaten by the growth of the population. There was, in a sense, an upper limit increase with a rapid gain on the upper limit by the ongoing growth of the human population.
With more food, more children of poor backgrounds or families would not survive and the share of each family, in terms of general food or nutritious caloric intake, would be decreased per family, per individual.
“Malthus is criticized for being indifferent to the suffering of the poor because he proposed the gradual abolition of the ‘poor laws’ (i.e., state welfare) by reducing the number of persons qualifying for it, and thought a private charity could help those in dire distress. He thought the poor laws tended to ‘create the poor which they maintain,'” Weld said.
Weld reported on a statement by John Meyer who spoke about Malthus. Meyer stated Malthus was making a call for an end to growth with higher real wages, a reduction in inequality with an emphasis on economics for the provision of the necessities of life for the poor, as opposed to the “luxury goods for the rich.”
Malthus was arguing for more power and influence to the middle class and a reduction in poverty for the poor. This would tie to removal of the means by which the rich accumulate wealth, i.e., cheap labour and asset inflation.
Weld said, “Malthus also thought the rich were morally obliged to produce fewer children because if they had large families, the poor would disproportionately suffer material shortages. He questioned the morality of colonization and anticipated and deplored the fate he foresaw for the inhabitants of the New World as settlers claimed their lands. In short, Malthus wanted a better life for people and greater social equality.”
Malthus was a historian. He looked at historical events from the analysis or referent frame of logic and mathematics. Within the first and second editions of the book, he travelled a fair bit.
Within this travel, he worked hard to provide detailed accounts of the European explorers and gathered data from a variety of societies of the time. He described the ways in which societies were “replete with population surges and collapses.” Indeed, he was, according to Weld, the first person to describe population cycles.
“Malthus was limited by the data that was available to him 200 years ago. We now have far more detailed data that stretches back thousands of years and this data supports his concept of population cycles. Given the rate at which we are consuming and depleting resources, while our population is still growing by one billion every 12 years or so, it would be imprudent for us to assume that we are not in a global population cycle,” Weld said.
Weld mused about the reason for Malthus not being a popular or a prominent name now. She described how Meyer talked about Darwin, da Vinci, Aristotle, and others, who opened minds to the wonder of the natural and abstract worlds. Malthus talked about societies dying or decaying. Truly, and to quote Weld, “Who likes a party pooper?”
Malthus had and has a bad reputation because of the elites of the day. Those who saw the ideas produced as threats to power and prosperity for them. Even those without the ascent in the social and economic worlds, the socialists dismissed Malthus as offensive. Then there are the techno-optimists, who believe technology will solve all problems and, therefore, dismiss Malthus.
Weld said, “Since Malthus’ time, the world’s population has increased almost 8-fold, from about one billion to over 7.6 billion today. This is often used as evidence that he was wrong. However, the fact that close to one billion people are hungry and about three billion suffer from nutritional deficiencies that affects the physical and mental development of many supports Malthus’ argument that the human population will grow to meet the food supply such that some people remain impoverished. In fact, it is precisely the countries with the most rapid population growth that are unable to pull themselves out of poverty.”
She noted two limitations in the vision of Malthus. One is the massive increase in the number of humans via the intervention of oil into the energy life of the world. It has powered economies for the last 150 years. The next is the green revolution connected to the developments in agriculture.
Weld also noted a 19-fold increase of the global economy, which is remarkable, since 1950. Within this framework, the global population has simply grown significantly in a short period of time. Reflect, without an international economy with the imports of foods from around the world, how many populations, at a local level, would simply collapse along the lines of decaying and defunct societies tracked by Malthus.
Weld described how the expansion of the human population has left many other animals, non-human animals, to die to a large extent because of the funnelling of the fruits of the planet, artificially induced and natural, into the coffers, bellies, and infrastructure of humans and human societies.
“There is a crucial concept outside of Malthus’ ken – overshoot. Many informed people believe that humanity is in overshoot. Overshoot occurs when a species greatly exceeds the long-term carrying capacity of its environment,” Weld explained “This can happen when a species encounters a rich and previously unexploited stock of resources (think oil in our case) that promotes its reproduction. Without significant predation or disease (think advances in hygiene and medicine), while large amounts of the stock remain available (“age of oil”), the population of the species can grow many-fold.”
When the stock begins to decrease, lower quality versions of the resource become the transition point, e.g., tar sands in Alberta or deep-sea drilling off the coast of North America. Without the resources, the population can die when the resources run out. This is called a “population crash or die off” in the parlance of ecologists.
Humanity is taking oil as the be-all and end-all of their energy resources, for the most part, now. This inevitably will lead to ecological catastrophe without alteration of our collective course, seems like the implication to me.
On an interesting note, Weld stated, “Malthus thought that the human population would approach a sustainable limit and then hover there, with many people living in poverty and misery. The crash of a human population in overshoot will bring about the death and misery of billions: a catastrophe on a scale far beyond anything that Malthus could have imagined. Therefore, in the words of the late David Delaney, ‘Malthus was an optimist.'”
She provided an example of St. Matthew Island in the Bering Sea. Reindeer are not native to the island. 24 female and 5 male reindeer were released into the island in 1944 by the US Coast Guard. The purpose was to provide a possible food source for the employees stationed.
As things developed, there wasn’t a predator for the reindeers on the island to keep the population in check. There was a lot of food for them, lichen. By 1957, 1,350 reindeer were present; 1963, 6,000 were present. The vegetation on the island had been altered by the time of the 1963 survey.
“…the vegetation on the island had been significantly altered and the condition of the reindeer showed major deterioration and there was a greatly reduced percentage of young animals. At the next survey, in 1966, the population had crashed to 42 reindeer with no fawns or yearlings. The curve of the population growth of the reindeer on St. Matthew Island leading up to the crash is eerily similar to that of the human population since Malthus’ time,” Weld said.
The conversation veered into fears, legitimate and illegitimate, around overpopulation. Weld provided an opening remark on the difficulty to find any illegitimate fears around overpopulation. In other words, to a professional and nearly adult-lifelong demographer, overpopulation is a serious issue with far more legitimate fears surround the issue than not.
Weld stated, “No one can predict the future, the best we can do is make educated guesses. But our impact on the environment — both the physical environment and its biodiversity — is undeniable. It has been so dramatic that scientists are calling the times we live in the Anthropocene. The techno-optimists point out that we’re wealthier and longer-lived than we ever have been, and they argue that things will only get better.”
She also noted the ignoring of the costs of a more crowded and stressful world with many individual human beings impoverished and malnourished. With the extermination of other natural life, this is not stated as a loss. That is concern to Weld or, t a minimum, an oversight, especially within one major concern of a depleted planet.
Weld said, “Climate change receives the lion’s share of the coverage of our depredations on Earth, in terms of its potential to acidify the oceans, raise sea levels and flood coastal communities, and change rainfall patterns in many areas, including in our vital breadbaskets. But humans have also taken over about one-third of the Earth’s land surface for their own use (and over half the land surface that is habitable).”
Furthermore, 3/4 of the land on Earth is covered by human activities and affected by them to some degree, even “significantly.” Major fisheries are depleted, where others are beyond the capacity to replenish themselves. This is the problem of overpopulation, of too many people.
In a recent study from the World Wildlife Fund, 60% of birds, fish, mammals, and reptiles have been “wiped out” by human beings. This is widespread extinction due to human activity. We are a deadly species by many reasonable interpretations of this data.
“In the words of Rose Bird, the late former Chief Justice of the California Supreme Court: ‘We have probed the earth, excavated it, burned it, ripped things from it, buried things in it, chopped down its forests, leveled its hills, muddied its waters, and dirtied its air. That does not fit my definition of a good tenant. If we were here on a month-to-month basis, we would have been evicted long ago,'” Weld explained.
We do not have to destroy the ecosystem and ecological balances of the Earth. However, the current dogmas of the economies and political systems around the world remain tied to the unsustainable aspects of the world. We are adding more than 80 million new people to the population of the Earth per annum. There is a wider understanding of proper contraceptive use and the importance of family planning.
We should set a limit on the number of children with the threats of global warming before us. In addition, on an opining note, Weld disagrees with Malthus that birth control is a vice. However, his arguments about the severity of the real limits to growth of the human population forever are valid.
Weld concluded, “Norman Borlaug, the father of the green revolution, is almost universally honored, while Thomas Malthus is more often than not dismissed and even vilified. But when Borlaug was awarded the Noble Peace Prize in 1970 for his achievements, he said in his acceptance speech: ‘There can be no permanent progress in the battle against hunger until the agencies that fight for increased food production and those that fight for population control unite in a common effort.’ Thomas Robert Malthus would have agreed.”
Sources used:
Avery, John Scales. Thomas Robert Malthus, We Need Your Voice Today! Countercurrents. 11 June 2017. https://countercurrents.org/2017/06/11/thomas-robert-malthus-we-need-your-voice-today/
Delaney, David. Overshoot in a nutshell. http://davidmdelaney.com/overshoot-in-a-nutshell.html
Klein, David R. The introduction, increase and crash of reindeer on St. Matthew Island. Journal of Wildlife management, Vol. 32 (2): 350–367, 1968. http://dieoff.org/page80.htm
Meyer, John Erik. Why Malthus is Not a Social Hero Like Darwin. Humanist Perspectives, Issue 198: 16–19, Autumn 2016. https://www.humanistperspectives.org/issue198/05-Article_Meyer-34_pp_16-19.pdf . (Disclosure: I am a co-editor of Humanist Perspectives magazine.)
The Socialist Party of Great Britain. World Poverty and Birth Control: Malthus Was Wrong. November 2018. https://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1970s/1970/no-792-august-1970/world-poverty-and-birth-control-malthus-was-wrong/
University of Cambridge. The man we love to hate: it’s time to reappraise Thomas Robert Malthus. May 18, 2016. https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/the-man-we-love-to-hate-its-time-to-reappraise-thomas-robert-malthus
Weld, Madeline. Sadly, Malthus Was Right — Now What? Montreal Gazette, February 15, 2016. Reprinted in Free Inquiry, June/July 2016, p. 42. https://montrealgazette.com/opinion/columnists/opinion-sadly-malthus-was-right-now-what
Wikipedia. Gross World Product (accessed Nov. 7, 2018). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gross_world_product
Wikipedia. Thomas Robert Malthus (accessed Nov. 5, 2018). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Robert_Malthus
World Wildlife Fund. A Warning Sign From Our Planet: Nature Needs Life Support. October 30, 2018. https://www.wwf.org.uk/updates/living-planet-report-2018 See also The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/30/humanity-wiped-out-animals-since-1970-major-report-finds
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Professor Mir Faizal is an Adjunct Professor in Physics and Astronomy at the University of Lethbridge. Here we talk about terrorism and Islam.
The conversation started on the idea of global terrorism and the forms of religion in the world. It began, in other words, on the definitions of things. Dr. Faizal or Faizal sees the problem in its complications due, in part, to the proliferation of terms and the plethora of meanings intended by each of the words, often more than one meaning per word.
Faizal stated, “Let us start from the simplest definition of terrorism, a terrorist organization as an organization that deliberately kills civilians to achieve an ideological purpose. To be more precise, let us add that, an origination can be called a terrorist organization only if at least two democratic countries (on two different continents, e.g., North America, Africa, and so on, or in two different recognized regions, e.g., Middle East-North Africa, and so on) recognize it as such.”
The other form of restriction can limit the level of abuse of the word. For example, in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the definition of atheism is a criminal offense, i.e., a terrorist offense or terrorism. In this, we can see the emphasis of Faizal.
“This definition of terrorism is also important, as it helps us identify the real practical problem when dealing with real issues rather than, possibly, invented legalisms. This is the terrorism that governments have to be careful about when they are considering a visa application, or when they are checking someone for security reasons,” Faizal noted.
In terms of the relationship of Islam to terrorism, the situation is simple on some facts, but also complicated in some other means of analysis. The positive correlation between Islam and terrorism is true. It is a fact of the world.
“To say all Muslims are terrorists is clearly unreasonable and incorrect, and to say all terrorists are Muslims is also wrong (as there are many non-Muslim terrorists too); on the other hand, to say that Muslims are like any other religious group is also not correct,” Faizal explained, “the number of violent events from Muslims seems to be far more than non-Muslims (if we again neglect the wars between nation states for the moment, as that is beyond the present definition of terrorism).”
When Faizal looked at the number of terrorist attacks in the month of December in 2018, he found about 170 attacks, internationally speaking. From this set of terrorist incidences, there were about 20 of the 170 were done outside of an Islamic ideological framework. In other words, a real correlation, in December of 2018 alone, exists between Islam and terrorism. The questions then arise about the roots or the sources of it.
Faizal posed, “We need to first accept this problem, scientifically analyze its causes, and finally come to a proper, rational solution. It could be interesting to carry out this analysis further and observe the variation of this probability with different sects of Islam.The first observation is that some sects of Islam are more violent than others. In fact, there are sects of Islam, which have almost zero histories of violence.”
These sect differences in the rates of violence are incredibly important in the advancement of peace, dialogue, and the work for the reduction in terrorist incidences in the world. If someone belongs to one branch of Islam, then they may be more likely to commit acts of violence than others. These denominations, as with Catholics and Protestants in Christianity, may live within different geographic and cultural areas, in which the violence rate may not be completely or entirely attributable to religion; and if so, then the issue is which ideological stances are the issue.
Faizal clarifies, “This means the if someone belongs to those sects of Islam, then there is almost a certainty he/she will not commit any act of terrorism. For example, Ahmadi Muslims (both Qadiani and Lahori Ahmadis) or Quranist Muslims (Muslims who follow only Quran) have a zero history of violence. In fact, they have been the targets of violent attacks and have never responded violently. On the other hand, most of the global terrorist moments come from Sunni Islam. Some sects of Shia Islam have been involved with many forms of violence at the state level, but using our definition consistently, we cannot classify it as terrorism.”
Indeed, Faizal was unable to find an act of terror done by Shia Muslims in December of 2018. Think about that, as a simple factual account, the issue of violence and religion becomes complicated and, therefore, should be not taken within a context of simple violence to religion correlation.
As Faizal observed, “The Shias are also focused on Israel and the Middle East, and do not commit violent acts against other countries. On the other hand, it is Sunni Islam, which seems to have a monopoly on global terrorism.”
Then this led to some further analysis of the directions of the violence within the sects or denominations of Sunni Islam based on the preliminary analysis of the data on terrorism and Islam by Faizal. He found only three sects or denominations associated with terrorism or terrorist acts: Salafi, Deobandi, and Barelvi.
“The Barelvi and Deobandi are Sufis, and so, it is incorrect to say all Sufis are non-violent. Barelvis are only obsessed with blasphemy and tend to limit the violence to those, who they think have insulted Muhammad,” Faizal stated, “The person who killed the Salman Taseer (governor in Pakistan) was a Barelvi. The Taliban are Deobandi. However, both Barelvi and Deobandi have almost no influence beyond the Indian subcontinent (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan), and are only concerned with local issues. So, the only group which has international global influence are the Salafis.”
Not the Shia, only the Sunni and simply a minority within the Sunni, the Salafi, appear to commit the majority of the violent terrorist acts in the world, in December of 2018. After the name of the founder of the movement, and within the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the Salafis can be called Wahhabis. Some may hyphenate the title into Salafi-Wahhabi. Thus, we come to Salafi-Wahhabi Islam within the Sunni tradition as the narrowed-down definition of Islam within the correlation found between terrorism and Islam.
Faizal reiterates, “It may be noted Salafis are called Wahhabis (named after their founder, who is closely related to the founder of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia). I could not again find any act of terrorism done by Barelvis in December 2018, and around forty terrorist attacks done by Deobandis. However, most of these attacks done by Deobandis were limited to the Indian subcontinent. This leaves more than one hundred international terrorist attacks, which were done by Salafis. However, Salafis make up less than one percent of the total Muslim population, and even in Saudi Arabia, they are a minority, and only form twenty-three percentage population. Furthermore, not all Salafis are violent.”
Faizal described how the official sect or denomination of Saudi Arabia. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabi bans protests against the government. Those who simply blindly follow the government are called the Madkhalis. That is to say, those are who Salafis and government-oriented fundamentalists are Madkhali Salafis. However, others exist who are the non-violent ones, who are non-Madkhali Salafis.
“As they form a small population of the total Muslim population, this correction becomes a more direct one. It may be noted that like the Shias, the violence promoted by Barelvi and Deobandi is circumstantial, and not intrinsic. However, the violence by certain Salafi sects (such as the ISIS) is intrinsic, and not circumstantial. Even with this difference, it may be noted that there are some deep common features between Salafi, Deobandi, and Barelvi. In fact, as the main concern of different governments is that they want to reduce the probability of someone blowing himself/herself up,” Faizal stated.
Faizal central point was that you cannot make this number or probability zero. However, the number can be brought down to a low level. So low in fact, you can simply ignore it. The work that needs to be done is around the source of the problem and the comprehension of some of the derivative effects too.
When we look into the global news, Faizal states, “For example, if a country is in global news about remakes on blasphemy they need to be careful of Salafis and Barelvi, and if a country is involved in Afghanistan, they need to be careful about Salafis and Deobandi. However, as both Barelvi and Deobandi are not concerned with international news, they need to only warn their citizens visiting Indian subcontinent. So, internationally, they only need to worry about the Salafis. As Salafis form a very small portion of the Muslim population, and Salafis can also be from peaceful sects (like Madkhalis), it is only a specific kind of Salafis that any government has to be worried about when it comes to terrorism.”
As the conversation developed, the level of specificity of the type and geographic locale of Islam and its association with terrorism, in this preliminary analysis, continued onward. Islamic scriptures can be a juncture of conversation for some. In that, if the purported holy texts of the religion of Islam relate to the full and theological foundation as a grounds for war, for terrorist incidences, then this should be dealt with in a theological manner. But there may be a more effective means by which to see a relation between religion and violence, and religion and peace.
Faizal, as a mathematician, deals with the issue “mathematically and statistically here. He notes the totally peaceful interpretations of Islam with the Ahmadis and the Quranists. Then he also described the “totally violent” ones with the Barelvis, Deobandis, and Salafis. Most Muslims, Faizal argues, are within the range of these two sets of extremes of the totally peaceful and the totally violent.
“So, instead of getting involved in an academic theologically discussion, we can analyze this problem mathematically, by simply identifying the common features of peaceful Muslims and violent Muslims. This way we can get a better more accurate practical understanding of the problem. It may be noted here that even though not all Salafis, Deobandis, and Barelvis are violent,” Faizal stated, “but all acts of violence, with a Sunni Islamic justification, comes from these groups. On the other hand, no act of violence with an Islamic justification has ever been conducted by the people in the first group, such as Ahmadis and Quranists.”
This can lead to some analysis, of the features of those who would be peaceful Muslims and violent Muslim sects – or interpretations of Islam with the possibility of leading to more peacefulness and more violence. By implication, this can be applied to other political, social, religious, and secular ideologies.
“There is an interesting correlation between what peaceful and violent Muslims sects believe, and this holds for most sects in the two groups. To understand that we need to first understand that apart from Quran and Mutawatir practices (collective practices which most Muslims perform, like prayers), theirs is a huge body of ahad Hadith literature, which describes what Muhammad did, and it was written some two hundred years after Muhammad,” Faizal explained, “The idea of Muhammad marries a six-year-old girl comes from this literature, the idea that apostates should be killed also come from them, the idea that homosexuals (as well as people who commit adultery) should be killed also come from them.”
The ahad Hadith literature is filled with both peaceful and violent passages based on the interpretation, where these ahad Hadith pieces of literature were written about 200 years after Muhammad. Most or all terrorist organizations have a common belief in some of the verses from the Quran abrogated from these ahad narrations.
Thus, the ahad narrations rather than the Quran in this context becomes the basis for the violent interpretations. Faizal argues that the peaceful verses of the Quran, for the terrorist organizations, were abrogated for violent purposes. For those who do not adhere to the abrogation theory of the narrations, they can be see in their own outcomes, which, apparently, are far more often mostly or completely non-violent, as in the Ahamdi Muslims and the Quranist Muslims.
That is to say, the Ahmadi and Quranist interpretations of Islam do not adhere to the ahad narrations and, by implication, can be seen as less violent or completely non-violent compared to those who believe in this theory of abrogation with the ahad narrations.
Faizal continued, “Even Sunni Muslim scholars, such as Adnan Ibrahim and Javed Ghamidi, who actively preach against violence, do not hold to this theory of abrogation, and base their belief on the Quran rather than ahad Hadith. In their theory, the violence in any verse is contextual (and those verses only refer to war), and has to be read in the light of general more peaceful verses of the Quran. So, we can again establish a mathematical relation between Muslims who not hold to a textual discontinuity in Quran (the discontinuity between a Meccan and Medinan verses), and peacefulness.”
Such is the working of a mathematical mind, there is the basis for some means of hope and reasonable discourse, especially for much of the West that does not seem to know much about Islam or the ways in which various sects or denominations function in the terms that seem to matter to most Westerners: violence and the relation to textual-theological discourse on the Quran, Hadith, and the life of Muhammad.
” In fact, there is a direct statistical correction between those Muslims who base their belief on the Quran (rejecting the theory of abrogation) and peacefulness. Furthermore, there is also a direct statistical correction between those Muslims who base their beliefs on ahad Hadith (accepting the theory of abrogation) and violence. It is important to realize that not all Muslims, who hold to textual discontinuity in Quran are violent, but all Islamic terrorists, believe in the existence of a textual discontinuity in the Quran,” Faizal said.
Faizal asserts, based on this analysis, that no terrorist incident has occurred within the framework of textual continuity rather than textural discontinuity or, for example, the theory of abrogation proposed with such interpretations as the ahad narrations applied to the Quran within many terrorist organizations. Therefore, individuals who claim to be Muslim and take a textual continuity approach will not be a terrorist.
Faizal explained, “In fact, there has never been a terrorist, who holds to the textual continuity in Quran. So, the probability of anyone who believes in textual continuity of Quran, and basis his beliefs on it, to commit acts of terrorism is zero. In other words, it is almost certain that any Muslim who bases his beliefs on the Quran, rejecting the theory of abrogation cannot be a terrorist.”
Then the questioning comes to the issue of having the government involved to prevent and stop terrorism for the good of the general population. Faizal claims, based on the above analysis, that the there should be a scientific approach by the governments in order to deal with the problems of terrorism and terrorist attacks.
“For example, they can identify the right kind of questions that are being asked during a visa application, or other application. If you ask a person about his sect, and come to know he is an Ahmadi or a Quranist, then you can be certain he will not commit any act of violence. Furthermore, any person who is a potential terrorist will never identify himself/herself as such,” Faizal proposed, “In fact, for a Sunni Muslim, a good test could be a question (hidden in lots of other questions), where he/she is asked if they think that Ahmadis should be allowed to pray like other Muslims, and consider themselves as Muslim.”
With an affirmation or a “Yes” answer, this can indicate the possibility of this individual being a terrorist. Faizal proposes governments gathering and database of terrorist attacks that have happened into the present. Then there should be a mathematical and statistical analysis. From these, we can see if common features exist in the total population, e.g., education, nationality, ethnicity, religion, sect, and so on.
This would not be a basis for discrimination with the data but a foundation for discriminating within specific probabilities. For example, there can be specific statistical weights given to the demographic characteristics within the general population.
Faisal stated, “They can weight each aspect of a person, give them a statistical weight, and then subject them to different levels of security checks. As this will be done scientifically, no one will feel discriminated by scientific data (discrimination is a human attribute, and mathematics cannot discriminate). It is also important to realize that whether Islam is a peaceful or violent religion, is an academic question, and it is not important for dealing with terrorism.”
He – Faizal – was firm on the argument that the perception of Islam preaching violence as a serious issue, where the perception can lead to real acts of violence by individuals who follow the religion of Islam. He notes the discontinuity interpretation exists in Muslims and non-Muslims who perceive the ahad narrations of the Quran.
“In fact, we can easily state one statistical fact, that it is this belief in textual discontinuity in Quran that is directly proportional to the intrinsic (not circumstantial) acts of violence by violent terrorists (like the ISIS), and everything that can be done to counter it (with the constraint that it does not violate the freedom of speech), should be done, to minimize the probability of terrorist attacks,” Faizal concluded.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Madeline Weld, B.Sc., M.S., Ph.D., is the President of the Population Institute Canada. She worked for and has retired from Health Canada. She is a Director of Canadian Humanist Publications and an editor of Humanist Perspectives.
Some of the basic premises of the world of demographics and demography as a field of study is the statistical outlook of the field dealing with births, deaths, diseases, marriages, and so on, of the population(s).
Weld’s interest is in the areas of the growth of the population and the ways in which continually growth-oriented humanity may or may not be having a negative outcome on the biosphere. The net migration of a country, such as Canada or the United States, will reflect this, where net migration is defined as both immigration and emigration – and also linked to the number of births and the number of deaths to define “population growth” of any country, or population.
Weld, in describing how she became interested in the field, stated, “As far as being concerned about population growth goes, I can say all of my life — at least as soon as I started to consciously think about things. I can’t remember too much from my very early years. But when I was two months short of five, my dad, who was in the foreign service, was posted to Brazil (November 1959 — June 1962), and I became acutely aware of the extreme differences in wealth in that country and the sprawling favelas.”
Weld also was recognizing the way in which the separation between the poor and the rich could, at times, be completely arbitrary. Why do some live in rich areas while others live in potential squalor? This is a young inquisitive and ethical mind.
At the time while living in Pakistan, Weld noted the population was only about 60 million, circa 1965-67. Now, the population is about 200 million. When she was younger, the teacher would talk about the “vast” forests and oceans including the resources available to humans in them.
“As far as being officially active in the area of population, that didn’t start until 1992, when Population Institute Canada was founded under the name “The Ottawa Family Planning Project” by the late Dr. Whitman Wright (a professional engineer who also founded Planned Parenthood Ottawa). I was the vice-president and then in 1995 became president,” Weld said.
The Ottawa Family Planning Project became the Global Population Concerns Ottawa, and then the Global Population Concerns Ottawa became Population Institute Canada, which is its current incarnation. Weld has been active and petitioning the government to support family planning for a long time, especially in its international assistance programs. Weld also argues for the protection of the biology and agriculture of Canada. The world is neither an infinite resource holder or bottomless trash can.
Weld earned a B.Sc. in Zoology from the University of Guelph, and an M.S. and a Ph.D. in Physiology from Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. In her time as an academic-in-training, her main focus of course work that could somewhat relate to the demographic career was in Ecology. The research into how animal populations can expand and then get knocked down as they rise because of predators, disease, and the like.
“The topic of human population was my own ‘extra-curricular’ interest. Whenever I would read newspaper articles or hear news reports about conflicts iis dealing with Ecology. In particular regions or about some environmental problem (erosion, deforestation, depleted water supplies, pollution), I’d note how the population growth aspect of the problem was either completely overlooked or, very occasionally, mentioned in passing as something inevitable,” Weld stated.
Some of the basics of demography within a Canadian context, as laid out by Weld, came with the caveat that the internert, not, makes the life of any independent research much easier. One can find out about the net population growth in Canada, and, in turn, the number of emigrants, immigrants, and the rate of births and deaths. It is a wonderful achievement and testament to the technological age in which we find ourselves.
Weld explained, “It’s noteworthy that Canada’s population increased over 5-fold over the 20th Century. It was almost 5.4 million in the 1901 census, and almost 30.7 million in 2000 (a 5.7-fold increase). The current population is almost 37 million. But our population could have stabilized a long time ago at well under 30 million because our total fertility rate has been near or below 2 children per woman since 1970. We have been driving Canada’s rapid population growth with high levels of immigration.”
One problem is the ability to find some critical analysis of the policies set out by the government with direct, or even indirect for that matter, impacts on the status of the population, in the short-term and the long-term. There is no official policy around population in Canada. However, other policies throughout the governments, federal and otherwise, do impact the eventual population of Canadian society.
“Canada’s immigration policy as of 1990 has increased Canada’s population by about 1% a year, and under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen, our intake is being upped even more. But there is no public discussion about the costs of those policies — the loss of wildlife habitat and greenspace in cities,” Weld stated, “the congestion and ever-increasing amounts of time that people spend stuck in traffic, the stresses on social services (such as health care) and on infrastructure, and on those seeking jobs. Our immigration policy benefits the few (developers, bankers, businesses that benefit from cheap labor, some politicians courting the ethnic vote) but the costs are borne by everyone.”
The “de facto policy” of Canadian society and, in particular, the Canadian federal government functions against the scientific evidence, according to Weld. In that, in 1976, the Science Council of Canada in Report #25 entitled “Population, Technology, and Resources” recommended or suggested, or “advised,” the Canadian government to implement and the Canadian public to support a restriction on the level of immigration, as this would conserve the limited resources of the nation-state in addition to stabilizing the population.
Remembering, of course, this was way back in 1976. For younger cohorts, it is important to develop a sensibility of a timeline of decades and centuries to comprehend the current social and political, and so policy, landscape of the nation, not simply in Canadian society but elsewhere too.
Weld explained further, “In 1991, the Intelligence Advisory Committee with input from Environment Canada, the Defence Department, and External Affairs, produced a confidential document for the Privy Council, called ‘The environment: marriage between Earth and mankind.’ It states that ‘Controlling population growth is crucial to addressing most environmental problems, including global warming.’ It notes that while Canada’s population is not large in world terms, its concentration in various areas has already put a lot of stress upon regional environments in many ways.”
There was research by Fraser Basin Ecosystem Study done by Michael Healey and others through The University of British Columbia in Vancouver, British Columbia. It was published in 1997. They found that the rapid growth in the urban centre in British Columbia, Canada, would overwhelm – eventually – and degrade the environment, where this was beginning to be seen at the time. Once more, this is more than two decades ago. Prior generations have been warning and working on these issues. However, there has not been sufficient governmental and public pressure and activism on it.
“When the study was released, Michael Healey said, ‘The lower Fraser basin exemplifies all the social, environmental, and economic problems of modern industrial nations. These problems are not going away and it is high time that we faced up to them,'” Weld stated, “Some people have written critically about Canada’s immigration policies. The late Martin Collacott wrote extensively about the need for reform, and economists Herb Grubel and Patrick Grady estimated that recent immigrants cost the government $30 billion more in services than they pay in taxes each year.”
She – Weld – spoke about Who gets in, a book by Daniel Stoffman from 2002, which talked at length about the immigration policy of Canadian society. Same with Immigration: the Economic Case by Diane Francis, also from 2002. The basic stipulations within the texts are debunking or dismantling the economic arguments made for the growing of the Canadian populace with Canadian society not necessarily becoming richer with immigration and immigration not changing the fundamental structure of Canadian culture either. In that, immigrants get old too; while, at the same time, the truth of the matter is a growing population is having a negative impact on the environment.
Weld stated, “But the media — and most environmentalists for that matter — do not discuss let alone promote the concept of stabilizing and reducing Canada’s population as an environmental measure. Instead, we do hear about ideas like the Century Initiative, which aims to grow Canada’s population to 100 million by 2100. If this were to come about, it would be to the detriment both of working Canadians and the environment.”
With the continual growth of the human population by more than 80 million people per year and one billion per 12 years now, this is a highly sobering statistics about the rapid growth of human societies and the need to be sober in the evaluation and analysis of the scientific, probably, consensus on immigration and the populations of countries for sustainable living with the surrounding ecosystems that, in turn, sustain and permit human life in the first place. As we’re seeing more and more, the poorer and lesser developed nations of the world tend to having the highest birth rates and the larger negative impacts with the unsustainable growth trajectories of their populations, which can lead to significant issues for the health and wellness, and happiness, and, in fact, wealth on average, of their populations.
“This rapid population growth in poor countries is leading to resource scarcity, unemployment, and conflict, and driving people to risk their lives to immigrate elsewhere, where their welcome is increasingly wearing thin,” Weld concluded, “Witness what is happening in Europe. And for anyone who cares about life on Earth, it is sad to see the devastation of wildlife on land and in the oceans, rivers, and lakes. We should ask ourselves whether we really want to turn the Earth into a feedlot for humanity or preserve some of its natural beauty.”
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Shireen Qudosi was named one of the top 10 Muslim reformers in North America in 2011. She works to further the progressive movement within Islam. Qudosi earned a B.A. in English and a B.A. in Political Science from University of California, Irvine.
She attended California Western School of Law, but left to build a foundation for her work as a Muslim Reformer. Here we start this educational series off on reformers.
On the work with Qudosi, an important distinction should be made between individuals who leave Islam and others who reform the faith from within it. Her focus has been on the work of reform. In which, she sees this facet of the faith as something happening since its inception into the present day.
Qudosi said, “We see it in the way Islam waxed and waned during Prophet Muhammad’s time, starting out as peaceful and later emerging as a more warring religion when early Muslims were at risk of annihilation. We saw it in the first hundred years after the prophet’s death, as Muslims tried to flesh out the faith, as the faith adapted to local regions and branched into niche interpretations of Islam. And of course, there has been a consistent involvement of scholars (now imams and celebrity community activists) who try to shape Islam based on reasoning or propaganda depending on the character of the individual. For better or worse, Islam is not a static faith. It is better understood if it’s seen as an organism, or an evolving consciousness.”
The new wave of the thought leaders within some of the Islamic communities are the reformers. Women, as a result, have begun to gain more of a voice. Qudosi sees this rise of women as an inevitable aspect of modernity, especially with the prior grooming of some women into silence and even “groomed by voodoo.”
She spoke about the idea of external influences preventing acting as one’s true self. These restrictions can be particularly damaging to girls who become women. This form of “cultural rot” becomes a basis of enjoying an immortality of repressive values for women, in some interpretations of religion.
Qudosi said, “Privately, we are many voices. Publicly, you only see a few handfuls. All of us carry a rich heritage of philosophy and inquiry, and I can’t think of a greater act of faith than to ensure that right is exercised and that legacy is protected for future generations.”
As she founded Muslim Reformers, she wanted to highlight the continuum or reformer beliefs on hand in the modern period. The idea of the injustice and seeking to rectify those injustices in some way. She saw and experienced “small cruelties,” which were during her formative years.
“When I was four-years-old, I used to listen to the story of A Little Match Girl, over and over again, pulled into the narrative and empathizing with her before I could even read properly, before I even knew what empathy was, and before I realized that it’s perhaps not so ‘normal’ to feel another’s pain so intimately,” Qudosi stated.
While growing into an adult, she developed some of the capacities of adulthood, as in becoming “more self-aware and confident”; wherein, a sense of purpose can begin to take more root and flourish. Over 15 years, her sense of love for human potential and a way in which humanity can grow with a sense of dignity drives her, and has developed over time.
Qudosi explained, “That’s essentially why I do what I do. Muslim reform for me started with a question, a possibility. Over time I’ve learned so much and I’ve gotten to know so many incredible people and their stories, that it’s not something I can just put down and walk away from at this point. In some way or another, this will always be a touchstone in the work I do. How much I’m able to do will always depend on the resources and funding available.”
The modern media and communications landscape can be important in this progressive work, especially as the technology becomes cheaper over time. In fact, it can provide freedom in speaking one’s mind, being oneself, and without the direct fear of retribution.
“Technology gives us the ability to get our message across, to connect with each other, to keep educating ourselves so we’re more refined in our message. However, technology dependency is crippling and dances on the perimeter of dehumanization,” Qudosi stated, “Media, however, is an entirely other matter. You have to be a sort of gladiator if you want to be successful in media — and that’s not necessarily to anyone’s benefit, including the gladiator.”
Qudosi does not see a value in much of the soundbite-based ‘dialogue’ and ‘conversation’ of the modern media with the canned responses and the cant remain the norm rather than the outlier. Part of the problem is the ideological camp-based polarization of the media.
She sees meaningful dialogue exemplified in a 1977 interview with Patrick McGoohan. She does see, though, positive developments in the media, in terms of meaningful and in-depth dialogues on the issues of the day in all kinds of media. But, probably, not on the larger, mainstream basis in general.
“As a dear friend recently shared, this sort of coming together involves the kindling of a rapport, which he described as ‘creating a connection in and through our communication…People who are in good rapport with each other start to breathe, talk, and move in the same rhythm,'” Qudosi said, “I was recently reading John O’Donohue’s Beauty, in which he spoke of timing and patience — two things I confess I’m still a bit wobbly in at times.”
Qudosi quoted “Towards a Reverence of Approach”:
“What you encounter, or recognize or discover depends to a large degree on the quality of your approach. Many of the ancient cultures practiced careful rituals of approach. An encounter of depth and spirit was preceded by careful preparation and often involved a carefully phased journey of approach. Attention, respect and worthiness belonged to the event of nearing and disclosure…Our culture [now] has little respect for privacy; we no longer recognize the sacred zone around each person. We feel like we have a right to blunder unannounced into any area we wish. Because we have lost reverence of approach, we should not be too surprised at the lack of quality and beauty in our experience…We have become more interested in ‘connection’ rather than communion.”
Qudosi sees reverence outside of the realm of the gladiators. We, as human beings, should not fight, but should work for communion through reverence. She wants to write a variety of subject matter, but feels distracted by the disease of the early 21st century of needing an opinion on everything the internet provides to us, incompletely.
She wanted to take on a form of sabbbatical, so to speak, in order to collect her thoughts and find her voice once more; her true voice, not the cant provided by the constant chatter of the internet. A voice found in silence, reflection, apart from the everyday world of social media and distraction.
“Because of my work I cannot disconnect completely but I do still shelter myself as much as possible from these things and hope to more so in the years to come. One simply cannot think and create if they’re fed a steady supply of other people’s thoughts,” Qudosi stated.
Qudosi sees the media, in the current period, feeding some of the culture of vanity. With 9/11 happening 18 years ago, there is a push to sensationalize grievance of 9/11, a tragedy, rather than emphasize the progressive work of reformers within the Muslim world.
The only outlets who seem to highlight the reformers come at times of convenience for them. She feels this “sometimes” plays “into the myth of the noble savage.”
With the rise of the empowerment and advancement of women, the next questions reverted to the international rights issues important to women and the ways in which their rights can be violated in a modern context to some degree.
Qudosi was short or to the point. She wants the media to stop caricaturing Muslim women in the world. She sees the liberal media sitting too closely, at times, with figures who simply may not represent the general outlook and perspective of most Muslim women. Qudosi continued to talk about the issues around the rhetoric of figures who do not represent the views of many Muslim women and may reflect regressive political and social outlooks.
“And there is rage, a powerful component of the female psyche — but rage is a process. It is not the solution,” Qudosi stated, “The other thing the media can do is lose the trope of sad Muslim woman. This has been going on before reformer was even a buzz word. Around mid-2000’s, I pieced together a totally rubbish book (if we can even call it a book), with uninformed, uncultivated hodgepodge of ideas about faith, identity and belonging.”
She thinks this should have been thrown directly into the trash, but this was picked up in the UK with a manuscript bid between three publishers. According to Qudosi, the condition was the necessity to write on “being a sad Muslim woman.”
Qudosi refused. She read a similar story around that time and did not want to replicate the narrative there. To her, the narratives can be too-self-indulgent. Also, she noted that she was too young and did not know some of the other facts of life at that time.
On things to look out for now, Qudosi stated, “We’re looking forward to bringing some new names on. Elliot Friedland and I co-founded Toke for Tolerance, a radically honest interfaith festival we hope to launch in 2019. Our vision includes using this space to nurture newer voices, both men and women, in a sacred space that honors the art of approach.”
Now, Qudosi is working on a book entitled Islam’s Origin Story.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
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Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/03/09
Kavin Senapathy is a writer covering science, health, medicine, parenting, and the intersection of these topics. Her work appears in Slate, SELF Magazine, Forbes, Skeptical Inquirer, SciMoms, and other outlets. She’s a proud “Science Mom” to a 7-year-old and 5-year-old. Here we talk about science and pseudoscience.
The conversation focused on science and pseudoscience in food, and in diet and health and, in turn, the common fads that can continually pop up within recent memory. Of course, to set the stage of the conversation with the wonderful Senapathy is to set the ground, the first stage to set is the difference between science and pseudoscience.
“Pseudoscience can be a powerful weapon in the hands of those who know how to exploit it, primarily because it can sound so credible (and because the demarcation between pseudoscience and science isn’t as black and white as some would like to believe). That’s especially true for food, and unfortunately, it’s not always as clear-cut as separating ‘science’ from ‘pseudoscience,'” Senapathy explained, “Take, for example, the concept of ‘clean’ eating. It doesn’t really mean a whole lot — the FDA only talks about ‘clean’ with regard to sanitation and food safety, and neither the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics nor the Dietary Guidelines for Americans define ‘clean’ eating.”
Senapathy continued to discuss those who are proponents of the clean food movement. The notion is the avoidance of foods or diets containing synthetic or artificial food additives. However, their fundamental scientific, medical, and dietary claims are base pseudoscience and filled with numerous misrepresentations of the true nature of science, of medicine, and at the interplay between the two with proper health science seen in normal recommendations for diets.
“But that doesn’t necessarily mean that people who avoid common clean eating “nonos” (I’m not kidding, major food companies like Panera have “no no lists”) are fundamentally misguided. It turns out that these concepts are often more about values than science. Several nebulous food concepts, like “clean” and “GMO”, have become proxies for perceived and real ills of the food system,” Senapathy stated.
There are common values. There are common circumstances. With similar values and circumstances, communities can come together and form non-science or misinformed and misguided movements. This seems to have happened within the health fad movements. They may talk about corporate control of food, real rises in disease or not, environmentalism, irrational or rational fears about particular chemicals, the health wellness of the young and the general population, and so on.
Senapathy, while remarking she shares some of the values, said, “So, instead of demarcating “science” vs. “pseudoscience,” I’ve come to realize that the most important step we can take is to really define our concerns so that we can truly address them rather than blame dietary scapegoats. For one example, I wrote about the social consequences of the GMO debate with the other SciMoms here.”
On common fads and myths, Senapathy exclaimed that there are several books on the subject. But that the common ones are that somehow non-GMO is better for the environment or those working in the agricultural industry.
Nonetheless, there may be one area in which there could be substantial progress. That is the area of the microbiome and its health, and then its health’s relation to the health of the entire body and the mind. The research appears to be preliminary. But, in fact, some research seems to indicate a relationship between the microbiome and mental health in a materialistic, biological, non-magical and real correlative sense.
On the nature of campaigns and becoming more involved in activism, Senapathy opined:
The proposed solutions to pseudoscience susceptibility are complex, but one of the biggest missing pieces is that far too many people don’t know the basics of evaluating the credibility of information on the internet, which is where these waves proliferate fastest. I’m also a firm believer that the media’s breakneck pace in the internet age is a problem. An example that comes to mind is the recent, widely-covered study concluding that layers of the body that exist between connective tissue and organs are actually a newly discovered “organ,” called the interstitium, described as “a highway of moving fluid.” Several news outlets breathlessly reported that the discovery of this “organ” could explain how acupuncture works because one of the study authors said so. Turns out that this study doesn’t explain acupuncture at all, and that this specific author has long promoted pseudoscientific ideas about health. I covered the whole thing for Slate back in April.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Dr. Lloyd Hawkeye Robertson is a Registered Doctoral Psychologist with expertise in Counselling Psychology, Educational Psychology, and Human Resource Development. He earned qualifications in Social Work too.
His research interests include memes as applied to self-knowledge, the evolution of religion and spirituality, the Aboriginal self’s structure, residential school syndrome, prior learning recognition and assessment, and the treatment of attention deficit disorder and suicide ideation.
In addition, he works in anxiety and trauma, addictions, and psycho-educational assessment, and relationship, family, and group counseling. Here we talk about the clientele.
Some of the first steps, even non-verbal ones, for the client to counselor relationship is the construction of trust and rapport. Robertson stated that half of the variance in therapeutic outcomes relates to the rapport in the client-counselor relationship.
Some psychologists, generally speaking, have concluded on the ways in which the school or the methodology of the counselor may, in fact, be unimportant, or, at least, not that important in the larger scheme. Indeed, data from studies show rapport as an important factor in the positive outcomes of the patient regardless of the school of thought in counseling psychology.
Robertson stated, “Probably the easiest way to build rapport is to identify commonalities between therapist and client. This could include gender, race, ethnicity, religion, social status, and so on. Once the client has revealed the problem or issue that has brought him or her to therapy, the therapist may share that he has faced a similar issue, and this too has the effect of establishing rapport, but there are risks associated with this approach.”
But as with the artistic nature of the endeavor, there are a variety of risks and dangers. Some of those can undermine the therapeutic process in its entirety. If we take a look into the issue of the volitional self, as one can see in the research work of Robertson, this tends to form a post-behaviorist and modernist sensibility of the self. One with the ability to will something; an organism with freedom of the will, volition, or, at a minimum, the appearance of it, and the internalized self-justification of it, whether or not freedom of the will exists.
These unique volitional selves comprising human families, human communities, and human societies. Robertson talked about the possible risk in the over-emphasizing the external common traits, as this can deny some of the more self-empowering aspects or facets of the therapeutic process.
“The clearest example I can think of occurred when I was Director of Mental Health for Northern Saskatchewan. Concerned with the lack of effectiveness of its alcohol and drug addiction program, the province brought its addiction program under the authority of the mental health program. I discovered that addictions workers had been hired,” Robertson opined, “not on the basis of their competence in psychotherapy, but on the basis of their status as “recovered” alcoholics. These workers had maintained sobriety for years, and they thought they could use their own experience as a template for others. They gave advice based on their own experiences and they thought they were doing therapy. Such an approach denies the individual experiences and cognitions of the client.”
Robertson went into another problem with the finding of common identity with the client in the possibility of a confirmation of a “dysfunctional worldview.” He noted psychotherapy is simply about the transformation from one range of mental states to another. Thus, if a patient continues onward into a dysfunctional range of mental states through the affirmation of the worldview by the counselor or the psychotherapist, and if this is happening because of the rapport built with the client or the patient, then the therapist or the counsellor may be liable and, as importantly, the client or the patient may fail in their desired ends – to become more functional in their range of mental states in the context in which they live, in contrast to their current way of life. We’re talking about a reduction in human suffering. It seems like a serious issue to me, in this light.
Robertson relayed an example stating, “If a man comes to me having been abused by women, and I reveal to him that I also have been abused by women, then we could commiserate and blame while avoiding dealing with the changes the man will need to make to have healthy transsexual relationships. Similarly, Feminist Psychotherapy adds an ideological perspective to the field and that perspective could keep female clients from undergoing beneficial self-change.”
The key word in the quotation, truly, is the phrase “self-change,” in which the client or patient, ultimately, needs to own their decisions, their tools for dealing with life, and, in turn, their tools for dealing with their decisions in life, whether happenstance trauma including abuse by a man or a woman, or life tragedies that come everyone’s way.
Robertson was right to point out: this is not a discounting of the therapist and client commonalities in the construction of rapport. However, it is important, especially in dealing with individuals not functioning at 100% capacity – so to speak, to work with a knowledge of the ponds, the sandboxes, and the rough (if you will pardon a golf metaphor) in order to work within a healthy range of treatments for the benefit of the client and within professional ethics in the field of counselling (and psychotherapy).
“There is another way of building the therapeutic alliance. Adler viewed the client or patient as an expert in himself and therapy as a collaboration between two experts. Another way of picturing this approach is to view the therapist as a kind of consultant. The client identifies the issues he or she wishes to tackle, and I offer alternative therapies the client may use to reach agreed upon goals. We then co-construct a treatment plan,” Robertson explained.
This alternative. This form of treatment can be useful. With the provision of a variety of techniques and sussing out the strengths and, indeed, weaknesses of the client, the counselor/psychotherapist can help with the creation of never-had or better self-monitoring and self-assessment skills of the client or patient.
Another thing for counselors to keep in mind is the issue of timelines. How long will the client need before more intensive help if at all? How much time will this take for the sessions? What is the overall projected timeline based on the explicit goals of the client or the patient?
Robertson said, “In most cases, the client comes to me with an issue or issues on which they wish to work. We don’t necessarily stay with the same issue. In one example, the client came to me with the complaint that she was too sensitive to criticism. Following a couple of sessions, it became apparent that she was the recipient of emotional abuse, so this shifted the strategies we used.”
A new client came to Robertson complaining about an inability to maintain long-term attention. He subsequently noted how she had difficulty focussing because of the depression. This then involved a re-negotiation of the treatment planning. He likes to project possible sessions into the future in order to develop a treatment plan, where Robertson and the client/patient can then see how many of the targeted objectives were achieved (or not). This evaluation could lead to ending the sessions, continuing on course, or trying a new one negotiated together, und so weiter.
Now, there is the final issue discussed in this session dealing with the possibility of a traumatic experience victim client or patient and a counselor having the transference of the trauma to themselves, or simply the problem of the reactivity of the counselor. If a counselor had similar negative life experiences, then this can create a problem for them. A man who is a professional, licensed, and respected counseling psychologist within the community of professional counseling psychologists may have witnessed the abuse of one parent by another in their youth and, in turn, hearing the recounting, by a patient or client, of their own traumatic experiences in a similar context can work them up.
“Hopefully the counselor has dealt with his or her related traumas before they attempt to help someone who has had a similar traumatic experience. If the counselor has not successfully dealt with that trauma then he or she should not accept such clients,” Robertson explained, “On the other hand, if the counselor has successfully dealt with a similar event, that counselor may be able to offer unique helpful insights. The person who experiences a trauma is not necessarily forever wounded by it. The issue of transference was first noted by Freud who viewed the client or patient’s attribution of emotions and motivations to the therapist as an opportunity to generate positive insight.”
Robertson narrowed in on the concern, of mine, in terms of the client or patient relationship with the counselor or therapist. In that, they may take on the emotions of the patient or client. There is a certain intimacy that develops in the sessions with the counselor or the therapist. He remarked on Karl Rogers and the stance that unconditional positive regard is important as a therapeutic stance.
Alfred Adler stated that one needs to get inside the skin of the client, to see the world as others see it – as the patient sees it. The possible danger in this instance is the possibility of facets of the worldview and trauma of the patient being taken on by the counselor.
Robertson concluded, “By maintaining this cognitive distance from the client’s emotions and behavior, the therapist is actually modeling those skills the client will need to gain control of problematic emotionally laden behaviors. Some people equate cognitive distance as a lack of empathy, but this is a misunderstanding of the concept. The therapist practicing cognitive distancing is empathetic enough to understand that the client, to gain control of his or her emotions and behaviors, must be able to sufficiently objectify them to understand them and thereby gain control.”
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/03/08
Gayleen Cornelius is a South African human rights activist from Willowmore; a tiny town in the Eastern Cape province. She grew up a colored (the most ethnically diverse group in the world with Dutch, Khoisan, Griqua, Zulu, Xhosa Indian, and East Asian ancestry). Despite being a large Demographic from Cape Town to Durban along the coast, the group is usually left out of the racial politics that plague the nation. She has spoken out against identity politics, racism, workplace harassment, religious bigotry and different forms of abuse. She is also passionate about emotional health and identifies as an empath/ humanist. Here we talk about South African progressivism.
Starting on the points about forming the first progressive publication in South Africa, of which I was privileged to take part, Cornelius spoke about the story of the construction and growth of Cornelius Press.
Cornelius stated, “We live in a very Afrikaner (Dutch) area known as the Garden Route. Local newspapers and media outlets aim to preserve the culture and never brings up progressive concerns unlike bigger cities like Cape Town, Port Elizabeth, Johannesburg or Durban that have progressed out of apartheid norms. News publications in these major cities are not dedicated to progressive issues either because they do not find the need to; their diverse communities are already liberal.”
The purpose of the publication was to counter some of the racism in South Africa. In particular, since the apartheid regimes, Garden Route has not progressed, as it remains white dominated with a hiddenness inside of wine and hop farms and forests. Those forests overlooking some of the Southern parts of the Indian Ocean.
Cornelius’s partner, Takudzwa Mazwienduna, chose to develop the publication for the complete set of progressive African concerns in order to balance the not necessarily progressive media seen by some South Africans.
“Social trivia (with a lot of reports on speculations about witchcraft allegations), political propaganda and tourism journals summarizes everything there is to know about Southern African media. We tried our best to juggle our livelihoods with this new initiative, but our barriers by far outweighed anything we could handle at that time,” Cornelius stated, “South Africa is undoubtedly the most progressive country in Africa. It was the first to recognize LGBTQ rights on the continent, did away with most repressive laws (especially from Apartheid), pushed for secularism in public schools and recently legalized cannabis for recreational purposes. A lot of people will attest to the fact that South Africa is a lot more liberal than most first world countries.”
These are important statements from individuals living in a somewhat demonized area of the world, except for the legacy of the late Nelson Mandela and others. Cornelius spoke on a variety of rather terrible atrocities including the purportedly ‘corrective’ rape of lesbians. In fact, this is common, not rare.
Cornelius said, “A lot of the demographics that make up the population still uphold inhumane cultural norms like how domestic violence is considered normal in African communities, arranged marriages in Indian groups and racism in white communities. These unhealthy social vices that people overlook slackens our progressive legislation.”
She went on to describe the workplace too. It is a bad place for undocumented African immigrants. Those who lack rights and can be abused, then the abuse or violence against them is not reported in any way. She explained parts of this as the reason for the extreme crime rate and violent strikes within the country. There are progressive policies. However, there needs to be follow-up.
“Inhumane cultural norms, racism and a low regard for worker’s rights are the three main impediments holding the country back in terms of progressivism. There is need for cultural reform. Cultural practices that infringe on human rights should be ruled out. There is need for race relations to improve too. There has been cases of white farmers who kill their black and coloured workers for sport, black workers who retaliate; repaying violence with violence,” Cornelius concluded, “When the news comes out from the white owned publications, it is just the black workers who are pointed out as murderers. The media and politicians should give a non racialist view when dealing with problems affecting South Africa to encourage all the citizens to work together with a common goal. Worker’s rights should also be addressed discouraging the culture of exploiting workers.”
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/03/06
Dr. Lloyd Hawkeye Robertson is a Registered Doctoral Psychologist with expertise in Counselling Psychology, Educational Psychology, and Human Resource Development. He earned qualifications in Social Work too.
His research interests include memes as applied to self-knowledge, the evolution of religion and spirituality, the Aboriginal self’s structure, residential school syndrome, prior learning recognition and assessment, and the treatment of attention deficit disorder and suicide ideation.
In addition, he works in anxiety and trauma, addictions, and psycho-educational assessment, and relationship, family, and group counseling. Here we talk about different notions of empirical and ethical wrongness (and rightness) in science in general and then in psychological and social sciences in particular.
The interview started on the issue of when the sciences, in general, go wrong. Robertson’s answer was simply “all the time,” in terms of a preliminary answer. Remarking, of course, that proper care in observation, attention to detail, and precision are part and parcel of the scientific process, where, even with imperfections in observation, the proper perspective is that science is tentative, provisional, and perpetually incomplete.
“Therefore, scientists will always acknowledge that their knowledge claims are provisional, dependent on further evidence. This is why, in modern science, replication and peer review are so important in identifying any biases that may have affected interpretations placed on research,” Robertson explained, “You may have been referring to Thomas Kuhn with respect to the second part of your question on hidden premises. Kuhn said that for a discipline to become a science it had to be united by a paradigm which he defined as a body of intertwined theoretical and methodological belief.”
Way back in the 1970s, there was a declaration that psychology exists as something like a proto-science, an inchoate science, or, perhaps, in some ways, pre-scientific in the modern sense. The reason for this is the incompleteness of the world explained by the scientific processes adhered to, within psychology. It does not have the unifying framework of plate tectonics and continental drift linked to gradualism within geological sciences, evolution by natural selection in biological sciences, the germ theory of disease in medical sciences, Quantum Mechanics and General & Special Relativity of modern physics with – at least – standard Big Bang cosmogony, the Table of Elements of Mendeleev for chemistry, the information theoretic and communication theoretic foundation in the modern world of mass communications and information technologies – including Moore’s Law for decades, and so on.
Psychology remains an epistemologically and, therefore, almost entirely, ontologically disjunct endeavor. Some will state freedom of the will, consciousness, and qualia – or the traits of experience (e.g., some may of have heard the oft-said and always-now boring phrase, “The redness of red,” akin to the phrase “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence” of the late astrophysicist Dr. Carl Sagan and variations found in Simone LaPlace, David Hume, and Marcello Truzzi) – as base level problems in psychology without clear solutions. Part of the lack of clarity is the lack of a unified theory, or paradigm rather, in psychology.
Robertson stated, “A quarter of a century later Pat Duffy Hutcheon examined three possible paradigmic formulations in psychology — the psychoanalysis of Freud, the developmentalism of Piaget, and the classical behaviorism of Skinner — and she found all had failed to establish themselves as the dominant paradigm in psychology for various reasons. I believe that since then a fourth paradigm has implicitly taken root in the field and that is the subject of the final chapter in a book I am writing about the evolution of the self. That paradigm is based on our self-definition as a species that includes our selves as discreet, relatively stable, volitional, reflective and rational beings.”
The title of the upcoming book was not given within the context of the interview. However, we can look forward to updates on it. But if we look into the furtherance of the conversation between Robertson and I, the former paradigm of psychotherapy – probably within some remnants floating around in their community – was the cognitivist paradigm. This paradigm was, simply put, a reaction to behaviorism’s limitations in a lack of a coherent explanation of the internal operations of the mind for a simple reason: behaviorists just rejected serious attempts at explications of the inside mechanics of the human mind from early life to late life and death.
“At this time results within the field of psychotherapy are overwhelmingly interpreted from this cognitivist paradigm. Consistently obtained scientific results that cannot be understood within this paradigm would force a scientific revolution replacing this paradigm with another more inclusive one,” Robertson explained, “I suppose you could say the research and interpretations of findings are ‘poisoned’ by the assumptions built into the more primitive paradigm. The classical example of this would be the pre-Copernican notion that Earth was the center of the universe. Using this paradigm, the planets exhibited complicated orbits around Earth, sometime speeding up or slowing down, performing strange loops and so on until the paradigm shifted placing our sun in the center of the solar system.”
In some interesting writing on freedom of the will, Robertson made an argument for an emergent psychological paradigm within the studies of the mind with volition and rational choice as fundamental in the species-wide self-definition. Some, in response, see this as a construct of individualism while, also, poisoning individuals against what some deem collectivism. He does not share this critique, but views this as, at root, an academic debate for the time.
Robertson considers the public not seeing the slow, incomplete progress of science and, in particular, its own correcting methodology built into itself. Science does not create knowledge or assert wisdom as in the case of various ideologies and religions, but, instead, harbors a tentativeness without an assumption of absolute knowledge.
“An example of this would be the attack on the theory of evolution by people who want to believe Earth is only 6,000 years old. A second example would be people who believe environmental scientists are part of a great conspiracy to fake evidence related to global warming. A third example would be people who wish to think that evidence debunking notions that our minds are a “blank slate” when we are born are part of a patriarchal backlash,” Robertson stated.
He recalled an interview with the late Dr. Carl Sagan, of Cosmos fame, and the Dalai Lama, of the Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism. In it, the Dalai Lama stated that if there was an impossibility of reincarnation, then the belief in reincarnation within Buddhism would need to alter to the more accurate scientific view at that time. Robertson considered this an important aspect of remaining tentative in conclusions so as not to be servants of belief systems, whatever the source.
Within the contexts of the Canadian story, the narrative of Canada, we come to the issues of dark patches – long ones – in the historical record with the Residential School system or the residential schools and the associated problems of enforcement of one religious culture with the sanction of the government, and then the abuse, the intergenerational impacts of the abuse, the imposition of a bureaucratic developmental model rather than a community development model, and the needs of the community being ignored for long periods of time – right into the present.
Robertson, in reflection on work as the Director of Health and Social Development for the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations in the 1980s, stated, “…many chiefs repeated the refrain that they had been ‘studied to death.’ They were, of course, not claiming that they had been physically harmed. They were claiming that there had been numerous studies and they had not seen any positive results. In some cases, studies were conducted but the results were not communicated back to the communities in question. I believe that knowledge should be ‘open access’ and shared between all stakeholders.”
Robertson then made a distinction and transitioned into a conversation on the ways in which the psychological knowledge acquired has been utilized in the past and in the current period with the emergent fourth paradigm. For example, while the Director of Health and Social Development, a band education authority hired a psychometrician for a reserve in northern Saskatchewan. The psychometrician was Albertan and from Edmonton in particular.
This Edmontonian psychometrician tested the intelligence of the elementary pupils on the reserve, where 60% of those students were labeled mentally handicapped or were found to be mentally handicapped based on the results of the psychometric testing. Robertson noted the cultural bias in intelligence testing. In fact, Robertson knows the northern Saskatchewan community from the testing.
“…I can tell you that the psychometrician must not have followed test protocol with respect to testing children whose second language is English and who come from cultural traditions do not favor speeded, timed tests. At first, the band education committee was happy with these results as they received considerable extra funding for special needs children,” Robertson explained, “But this was, in my opinion, a false economy with a negative impact. You see, educational programming for mentally handicapped is quite different from what was needed.”
Robertson in further reflection on former professional capacities as the Director of Life Skills for the Saskatchewan Indian Federated College. He described how he educated students from a variety of remote communities in the forms of habits and skills required for academic success. The program added one year to the university education of the students, but the initiative with the adaptations was incredibly successful.” Robertson found an important part of the educational process where the education in cross-cultural skills necessary for academic success, especially in the context of modern industrialized society and the global economy.
The conversation moved to a closing section on the alleviation of the impacts of RSS or residential school syndrome. Robertson separated the task of scientists to study the natural world and then the work for the greater good. In this sense, science is good for knowledge about the world. The question about a greater good is another question, which can mean those in power – the “power-brokers” – can abuse their influence and control and, in fact, limit research into things, including climate change – as happened in Canada under the leadership of former Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper.
“Decisions by authorities on what constitutes the greater good are often ideologically based. That being said, research into ways to alleviate human suffering interests me, and as you have alluded, residential school syndrome has been one of my interests. As a kid who stayed with the families of friends on reserve in the 60s, I knew something about the dark history of Indian residential schools,” Robertson stated, “So, I was surprised when chiefs in Saskatchewan commissioned me, along with my colleague Perry Redman, to do research into keeping one of these schools open after they had been closed elsewhere in the country.”
The world is complex and rarely black and white. In this gray example, Robertson was hired as a youth suicide prevention expert, as a school psychologist, in a different Indian Residential School. Under Amerindian administration, the school remained open. Robertson continued to explain how he was “commissioned” by Indian Child and Family Services in Lac La Ronge in order to have a better look at the students in “one of the last remaining residential schools in the country.”
Robertson stated, “Then, at the turn of the millennium, I accepted a contract with the Aboriginal Healing Foundation to provide psychological support to various projects aimed at alleviating the effects of residential schools in northern Saskatchewan. I have published articles on residential school syndrome and the related concept of historic trauma.”
RSS has been identified as one form of PTSD or post-traumatic stress disorder affecting some minority of individuals who have attended the residential schools in Canada. The symptomatology includes “extreme rage, lack of emotional connection with one [who] has children, and aggressive alcohol and drug abuse in addition to those symptoms that are normally associated with PTSD.”
In the work of Robertson, which has its own noble underpinning, in my opinion, includes a combination of CBT or Cognitive Behaviour Therapy – probably one of the most common and widely used forms of therapy – alongside Narrative Therapy. The purpose is to use a form of traditional Aboriginal storytelling as one way in which to construct meaning. One view in the psychological community is that human beings are meaning-making beings. Narrative Therapy follows in this tradition.
Robertson emphasized the import of individualization of the treatment for the clients, as in an individual assessment and treatment per client or patient. He described how some have had benefits from the practices and learning experiences about Turtle Island or “North American” Aboriginal traditions and spirituality and, in turn, ways of looking at the world. In an article by Robertson, he noted how some elders feel attempted introduction of Aboriginal Spirituality, by the band health administration, is somewhat or simply oppressive.
“A concern I have is the tendency of some to essentialize and universalize experience. One woman approached me worried that she might be ‘in denial.’ She had good memories of her residential school experience and was leading a happy and productive life, but the negative media reports about these schools had led her to question her remembered experiences,” Robertson concluded, “Not all residential schools were the same and not all students at such schools suffered or witnessed abuse. Even worse, in my opinion, is the concept of historic trauma, where a whole race of people is said to suffer from a psychological condition irrespective of when, where and under what conditions colonization occurred. In my mind, undo psychologising is destructive of peoples’ mental health.”
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/03/02
Charlotte Littlewood is the Founding Director of Become The Voice CIC. A grass roots youth centred community interest company that she has built in response to the need to tackle hate, extremism and radicalisation within communities and online.
When I asked Charlotte about the social media training for the grassroots activists in Palestine, she talked about the full program set out for them. They may have the motivation. But the Palestinian youth may not have the appropriate training with everything.
Alongside the social media training, Littlewood worked on the creation of various levels of awareness. For example, this included women’s groups looking at domestic violence, abortion rights, early marriage, in addition to the well-known stigma surrounding divorce.
“They could put forward their reflections and positive message on social media. Some had large social media followings. They all had Instagram, Facebook accounts, Twitter was new to them. We started with basic training around Twitter,” Littlewood explained, “Because they weren’t using that as much. Then skills like making sure the hashtag you’re using is the most popular hashtag of its type. The use of hashtags on Instagram and not on Facebook (because there is no point). @ing at people who have followers, so you can have more exposure and people in the conversation.”
Littlewood went into more of the specifics of the training for the social media in terms of the ways in which to optimally utilize the boldness of colors, the captions in the Instagram posts, and then, also, the faces are used. Presumably, this would include active and intelligent, and so discretionary, use of emojis and so on.
However, with the current culture in Hebron, Littlewood remarked on how some activists did not want to show their faces, while, at the same time, others did.
“Then there are certain times in the day for Facebook and Instagram posts. Instagram is pretty much active all day. facebook has peak times. We try to make sure everything is optimized. We then had everyone join a group, so they would like and share with each other to be a platform for one another,” Littlewood stated.
The activist will choose a topic. They will focus on it. Then this will be the basis for garnering more awareness. The work in the groups who were traning ended on how to know if you’re a victim and if someone is a victim.
“The things around posts, how and what to post and the tone of the posts and making sure to use hashtags and include organizations with large followings; Twitter was taught, how to set it up. They were very competent on Facebook. They are using social media a lot already,” Littlewood concluded, “But there are some cultural issues around images and images of people, interpretations of Islam that women should not be doing social media themselves. There are mixed approaches to social media posts with girls around that.”
Please see the project report: https://becomethevoice.org/news-insights/
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/03/04
Tara Abhasakun is a colleague. We have written together before. I reached out because of the good journalism by her. I wanted to get some expert opinion on women’s rights, journalism, and so on. I proposed a series. She accepted. Abahasakun studied history at The College of Wooster. Much of her coursework was in Middle East history.
After graduating Tara started blogging about the rights of women, LGBT, and minorities in MENA. She is currently a freelance writer. She is of Thai, Iranian, and European descent. She has lived in Bangkok and San Francisco. Here we talk about updating gender dynamics in the workplace.
When I opened on the conversation on the newer open channels of talking about sexual misconduct, in not only work and but almost all situations – personal and professional, I wanted to get Abhasakun’s opinion on the ways in which this, specifically, would impact the workplace dynamics of the genders.
Abhasakun stated, “I think that in the beginning, things may be a bit rocky because many people are afraid about false accusations and the idea that anything they do will be read as misconduct. I think that in light of the #MeToo movement, we are seeing some of the frustrations over this issue fizzle out.”
Abhasakun views much of the expressed frustration is, basically, from men who are real misogynists. Those men who feel as if every interaction with women can be seen as harassment or potentially branded as such.
“I don’t have all the answers. But I think the beauty of the #MeToo movement is that we are HAVING these conversations. This is only the beginning, and I think the reason we see this type of tension, awkwardness, and frustration is BECAUSE we are finally addressing issues that, for a long time, have been swept under the rug,” Abhasakun opined, “We are seeing the birth pangs of the movement, now that men and women are thinking about these issues. We are starting to answer questions such as, ‘How much touching is appropriate in X situation?'”
Abhasakun finds these frustrating and, indeed, hard. Because this is simply, not merely, the beginning stages of these forms of discussions. She estimates another generation before clearer answers begin to come forward on these questions.
“But I think that as we continue trying to answer these questions, things will settle down, and hopefully one day we can have a world free of all sexual violence and misconduct, though that day is probably far off in the future… I believe that we need to be careful in prescribing one exact “remedy” for sexual misconduct,” Abhasakun concluded.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/03/04
Gayleen Cornelius is a South African human rights activist from Willowmore; a tiny town in the Eastern Cape province. She grew up a coloured (the most ethnically diverse group in the world with Dutch, Khoisan, Griqua, Zulu, Xhosa Indian, and East Asian ancestry). Despite being a large Demographic from Cape Town to Durban along the coast, the group is usually left out of the racial politics that plague the nation. She has spoken out against identity politics, racism, workplace harassment, religious bigotry and different forms of abuse. She is also passionate about emotional health and identifies as an empath/ humanist. Here we talk about Cornelius Press and progressive voices.
I should preface this with the proclamation that Cornelius is, in fact, my boss, as she is the main person running the, at present, down Cornelius Press. That progressive, not common, publication and voice within South Africa and, in turn, southern Africa.
Her work, along with Takudzwa Mazwienduna, is rare. Cornelius Press went through some difficulties with the publications because of the transition of the website.
Cornelius stated, “The Cornelius Press website was hosted by a huge German tech company in South Africa. We had more than one website hosted by the company but they restricted ads for some content which was considered not favorable for advertisers. This had a serious implication on the website’s potential for revenue and as a result, we ended up indebted to the company with Cornelius Press being suspended.”
Following this, obvious, concern, I looked into the next steps for the publication given the current rebooting issues. Cornelius stated that they are on the lookout for more “wallet-friendly” services at the moment.
I asked about some progressive voices within South Africa. She mentioned the important fact that South Africa is, probably, among the most progressive countries in Africa. This is important and indicative of the non-accidental development of progressive publications such as Cornelius Press there compared to other places in Africa.
“The government alone has been implementing progressive policies since 1994 with same-sex marriage being legalized years before most first world countries caught up. There hasn’t been much cause for activism on a broader scale except for the problem of racism,” Cornelius explained, “Most activists in South Africa today fight against racism and income inequality, our two biggest problems that the end of apartheid didn’t take with it.”
The farther left movements including the Economic Freedom Fighters and the alt-right activists are in the mainstream of the civil discourse and so the civil society within South Africa. There is a huge “rage” of identity-based politics there, too.
Cornelius, on the identity politics, concluded, “… the progress we South Africans take for granted is lost. There is a need for progressive activists to make it in the mainstream and protect whatever liberties are under threat.”
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/03/03
Dr. Lloyd Hawkeye Robertson is a Registered Doctoral Psychologist with expertise in Counselling Psychology, Educational Psychology, and Human Resource Development. He earned qualifications in Social Work too.
His research interests include memes as applied to self-knowledge, the evolution of religion and spirituality, the Aboriginal self’s structure, residential school syndrome, prior learning recognition and assessment, and the treatment of attention deficit disorder and suicide ideation.
In addition, he works in anxiety and trauma, addictions, and psycho-educational assessment, and relationship, family, and group counseling. Here we talk about the psychotherapy.
In some previous interviews for the Athabasca University student magazine, The Voice Magazine, Robertson and I discussed some of the background and work of Robertson in addition to some material on psychotherapy and then some of the prominent figures within it.
We continued to discuss the definition of psychotherapy, especially what the therapeutic process involves for the individual student too. To Robertson, as a certified and qualified, and highly intelligent, practitioner, described psychotherapy as a process – no mention as to the specific speed – of effectuating change in the individual who voluntarily enters into a relationship with the patient or client (and vice versa), this implies a lot, and requires significant unpacking.
“The change is psychological in that it is intended to impact positively on the client’s cognitive and emotional functioning. The therapist acts as a facilitator of such change in keeping with the client’s goals. There is a consensus across the schools of psychotherapy that the therapeutic process is not advice giving,” Robertson stated, “To give advice is to presume that the advice-giver knows the client better than the client does. To give advice is disempowering because, if the advice works, it leaves the client dependent on the advice-giver the next time there is a problem.”
The central purpose of the psychotherapeutic methodology is for the development of the individual, as a client or patient, who is seen as a person of worth and volition. There are differences between schools of thought in psychotherapy.
Some incorporate advise giving. Others do not, and, instead, focus on the issue of solving problems. Thus, we come to the general field of the practice known as psychotherapy and then the individuated schools of thought within psychotherapy. Still more, some will mix and match the terminology of psychotherapy and counseling together, which was covered, in brief, in the first of this series.
Two of the main thinkers known to the public are Freud and Jung. Both, according to Robertson, brought attention to the phylogenetic factors within the work of studying the human psyche, in the broadest terms possible. Bearing in mind, of course, the two of them did not have the advanced technological means for comprehension of the physical structure of the organ producing the mind at the time.
It seems akin to the ancient Greeks with the Milesian school, and others, where we can see tremendous amounts of metaphysics without much physics; this created a number of issues in theorization about the bottom rung of the world in terms of magnitude and constituents. They talked about the Apeiron or the infinite, water, and air. But they did not have the physics to get at the fundamental notion of a basic structure and set of constituents of the universe.
It may have been cognitive limits. It may have been philosophical conceptual limits. At the same time, certainly, it was a limit in the ways of knowing the world through their tools. These individuals and societies had a limitation in their ability to know the world around them, in a natural sense. But they had lots of fancy thoughts about it: sophisticated, intuitive, and, wrong, metaphysics.
Robertson continued on Freud and Jung, “By suggesting that archetypes are encoded, instinctive, preconfigured patterns of action, Jung was, in effect, taking a deterministic stance. Similarly, in Freud’s tripartite division the poor ego is left frantically balancing the instinctual drives of the id with the dictatorial culturally determined superego. Although I am not a determinist, I count the recognition of genetic and environmental constraints as an important contribution. I think Freud’s greatest contribution is that he popularized the idea that psychology is a science.”
Robertson considered another important contribution of Freud the bringing out of the closet – so to speak – the limitations on the sexuality of the Victorian era. He thinks Freud got the notion of penis envy wrong. Alfred Adler described how women can be envious of men in the early 20th century, not because of penis envy but, because of a great deal of social inequality.
“Jung’s conceptualization of archetypes from which we create meaning has application to cultural and self studies, but he dabbled in mysticism and his notion that there exists a collective unconscious has bolstered the beliefs of some religionists. This can have dangerous consequences,” Robertson cautioned.
According to Robertson, Jung claimed the so-called Aryan race was somehow was rooted in the land; whereas, the Jewish peoples were a rootless people – nomadic almost, or even in actuality. This belief contributed to the awful rise of Nazism that led to all sorts of horrors and catastrophes. Jung looked at the ideas of Freud and Adler as okay for the Jewish peoples, but claimed his psychology was more suitable for the German “Volk.”
The conversation went into figures of similar notoriety but, unfortunately, without more public recognition within the general consciousness. Robertson’s opinion is that Adler never received, even to the present day, sufficient recognition for contributions to the intellectual life of the psychologists in the history of psychology and right into the present.
Robertson also mentioned Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers in terms of leading the charge of Humanist Psychotherapy. Duly note, Robertson is the Vice-President of Humanist Canada. This may be biased, but, certainly, not an unjustified or uninformed opinion.
Intriguingly, he described how, in fact, Adler was given insufficient recognition by these two giants – Maslow and Rogers – of Humanistic Psychotherapy, especially with Adler as a precursor to their ideas and theories. The concepts of self-actualization and client-centered therapy, in particular.
Adler concluded, on self-actualization, that this is – in the words of Adler – a “striving for perfection.” Indeed, he provided a basis an anticipatory psychological basis, or psychotherapeutic foundation – of sorts, for the client centered therapy with the declaration of “the patient or client was expert in his or her self with psychotherapy defined as a collaboration between experts, ” Robertson stated.
Adler set foot within behaviorism, too. He had, apparently, “homework assignments” intended for the reinforcement and reshaping of the behavior of clients or patients. However, Robertson speculated that, perhaps, the behaviorists of the time may have been irked, maybe, with the notion of mankind having consciousness and freedom of the will of some form. Any form – compatibilist, incompatibilist, and so on – freedom of the will becomes a problem for the fundamental substructure of the theories of behaviorists.
In this manner, Robertson proposed, rather naturally, the anticipation, once more of another field, of Cognitive-Behaviorism. Albert Ellis, who founded Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy (these are all the biggest theories and methodologies, even in the current period), credited Adler with an influence on the development of Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy. His basic aim was the recognition or suggestion of clients as they went about revision of their worldviews. Meaning-making is a modern view of human beings. We evolved to make meaning in the world. This is a view of some or many modern psychotherapists.
Robertson concluded, “Today we have a plethora of schools of psychological practice with the founders of each emphasizing some feature or technique that makes their school distinctive. I argued in https://www.hawkeyeassociates.ca/images/pdf/academic/Free_Will.pdf that these schools are united by a theory of human potentiality and that the project of psychotherapy is to teach people to reach the potential implied by that theory. I think Adler tapped into this vision of what it means to be human over a century ago and he addressed it holistically.”
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/03/03
Dr. Lloyd Hawkeye Robertson is a Registered Doctoral Psychologist with expertise in Counselling Psychology, Educational Psychology, and Human Resource Development. He earned qualifications in Social Work too.
His research interests include memes as applied to self-knowledge, the evolution of religion and spirituality, the Aboriginal self’s structure, residential school syndrome, prior learning recognition and assessment, and the treatment of attention deficit disorder and suicide ideation.
In addition, he works in anxiety and trauma, addictions, and psycho-educational assessment, and relationship, family, and group counseling. Here we talk about the psychotherapy, and standard terms and definitions.
I started the conversation with an obvious acknowledgment of a large number of postsecondary qualifications acquired by Dr. Robertson. But this quickly shifted into the central content to begin to the educational series., which is setting the definitional tone and tenor with psychotherapy and counseling. What are they? How are they defined in a modern sense?
Robertson stated, “Psychotherapy is concerned with the process of change at the level of the individual. If the discomfort a client feels is due to external events, that individual must still choose to respond to those events in some way. An element of free will is thus built into the core practice of the discipline. There is much evidence to indicate that we are not born with free will and that it is never entirely unencumbered.”
He – Robertson – argued for the teaching of clients how to self-actualize based on a specified mental model. A model in which there is an explanation with defined premises as to which it is to be a human being.
This would incorporate a social and volitional self with objective beliefs having a form of internal self-consistency. Robertson makes the case that this is an idealized notion of self: with “uniqueness, constancy, and volitionality as a product of changes in culture. In this, the modern sense of self is cross-cultural, which links to the work in psychotherapy and counseling.
“The terms ‘counseling’ and ‘psychotherapy’ are often used interchangeably; however the former can be applied to anyone who gives advice or ‘counsel.’ ‘Psychotherapy’ is a narrower term that refers to applied psychology,” Robertson explained, “although it has also been appropriated by social workers and others who do not necessarily receive training specific to psychology. This term, at least within the field of psychology, does not generally refer to advice-giving but to self-change, that is, change to the self of the individual.”
Robertson views the Adlerians, or the school of thought emerging from Alfred Adler, as having the cleanest or clearest definition between the work of psychotherapy and counseling. Neither involves the giving of advice.
“Therapy is what is done when a change to the structure of the self is required. Counseling assumes an intact self but that circumstances, such environmental or societal constraints, require the development of problem-solving and perception checking skills. In both modes of intervention, counseling and psychotherapy, Adlerians would refrain from giving advise but would invite the client to select a plan from a variety of co-constructed possibilities,” Robertson described.
He also went into the definition of “theory.” Robertson described how psychology “misappropriated” the word from the harder sciences and then used them in the softer sciences. This transitioned into the work of Thomas Kuhn, who wrote a famous text entitled The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. The labels of the wide smattering of psychotherapy schools as simply different theories may be a misreading of Thomas Kuhn and, in fact, “retarded psychology’s evolution into a true science,” Robertson explained.
Robertson concluded, “As Korhonen brilliantly argued in her dissertation research, these schools, along with the counseling of Inuit elders, and the practice of multicultural psychotherapy share the same basic assumptions as to the structure of the self, and these assumptions include the importance of individual choice, the understanding of client difference, and the importance of context. These assumptions constitute a unified theory of what it means to be human.”
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/03/02
Leo Igwe is the founder of the Nigerian Humanist Movement and former Western and Southern African representative of the International Humanist and Ethical Union. He is among the most prominent African non-religious people from the African continent. When he speaks, many people listen in a serious way.
He holds a Ph.D. from the Bayreuth International School of African Studies at theUniversity of Bayreuth in Germany, having earned a graduate degree in Philosophy from the University of Calabar in Nigeria. Here we talk about a new humanist event that took place.
Looking at the landscape of belief and nonbelief, in terms of the traditional religions on offer around the world, we come to the perspective of the nonbelief or the secular regarding the standard religious answers provided in a number of contexts.
One of those is the general way in which the nonreligious or the secular carve themselves into groups. Some may see themselves as representatives of Richard Dawkins and memes, while making what seem like externalized phrenological investigations: meme maps of the self.
Others look simply for the separation of church and state, mosque and government, or otherwise. There is a general notion of ways of life as well, including humanists and ethical culture people, or in worldviews, including skeptics and Brights.
Nigerians have been gathered through the founder of the humanist movement in Nigeria Dr. Leo Igwe. He has been an incredibly important figure in this.
He, prior to the event in an interview, stated, “This event is important in several respects. First, it is the first of its kind because, at this event, humanists, atheists, agnostics, and freethinkers in Nigeria are meeting to discuss an unusual topic: Leaving Religion. Humanists are convening to share their stories and experiences. Too often, people who are persecuted for leaving a religion or for renouncing religious beliefs suffer physical attacks and psychological abuses.”
Noting, of course, the, obvious, reasons for some leaving formal religion found in, for example, those who have been abused by a religious family or community, or the communal and familial practitioners of the religion.
Even being critical in public, whole societies may react negatively to the more prominent cases with threats, harassment, and intimidation. This, in Nigeria, is particularly bad, because many, many people simply lack the access to a space built for and by the non-religious, the non-believers.
“Thus, many non-believers live in fear. They suffer silently. Those who doubt or disbelieve religious claims think that they are alone and that their persecution is normal because those who persecute non-believers do so with impunity,” Igwe explained, “This convention provides a rare and historic platform to break the silence and give the doubters and disbelievers a space to share their stories and register their concerns.”
This event, set for January 12 in Abuja, sets an important tone as to those Nigerians who may doubt and even reject the fundamentalist religious certainties of much of the society, even wanting a more secular Nigerian state.
Igwe said, “In addition, the dominant impression is that the religious public treated others kindly and compassionately including non-believers. In fact, there is seldom the case. This event draws attention to religious cruelties, to the various ways that the religious maltreat those who exit religion.”
But coming from all this, it is intended to build on the previous meetings of rationalists and humanists in their fight against “witchcraft related abuses, Osu caste system, religious extremism, and related human rights abuses etc.”
These programs and initiatives exist within Nigeria, but these can create havoc in the lives of those who organize them or attend them. It, simply as a matter of course, is much more difficult for Nigerians to find their way within the society than others.
“The program will highlight the stories and experiences of those who have abandoned religion and those who are trying to do so. There will be testimonies from those who left the Christian, Islamic and traditional religion,” Igwe, commenting on highlights, said, “They will recount their struggles with their families, friends and the community at large. At this event, those who have exited religion will explain the reasons and justifications for their actions. They will also get to meet other apostates in a friendly and welcoming environment.”
The central purpose, according to Igwe, for the creation and attendance of this event in Nigeria for the non-religious is to help them know that there are others just like them and that the non-religious demographic has a history. There is a backdrop for them; there is a place for them; this is a situation in which they can feel understood.
The rights, lives, and ideas of the nonbelievers matter in this context, especially for those who have been left out of society and, thus, feel alone in a number of ways – even rejected in a number of others.
“A community is a necessity for humanists because one potent mechanism that religious believers use to undermine humanism is ostracization. They sanction those who exit religion or those who live as non-religious persons. Religious believers cut off family and community ties. They treat non-believers as social outcasts. Building a community is critical in beating back the tide of persecution and abuse that humanists suffer in Nigeria,” Igwe explained.
The capital of Nigeria – Abuja – as mentioned was the place for it. This is an especially important event for the nonbelievers because, in this context, they can finally find some community with those who simply see “clashes between Islamic jihadists, herdsmen and Christians.”
Igwe lamented, “People who leave religion or who question religious beliefs live in constant fear of their lives, their jobs, businesses, and family relationships. This is because sanctioning, sometimes violently those who renounce religions or those who criticize religious claims have been part of the religious tradition. Religion is so visible in Africa mainly because the religious do everything overtly and covertly to suppress, oppress, undermine, exclude and make invisible irreligious and non-religious persons and perspectives.”
I thanked him for his time. Then he concluded on the pleasure of being interviewed for reportage on this event.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/02/22
Terrah Short earned a Bachelor’s in Philosophy (Analytic) with a Minor in Disaster Risk Reduction from Western Washington University in March 2017. She is a product of a working single father and the Puget Sound area of Western Washington in the United States of America. Here we talk about retail.
The interview started on a large number of North Americans who work in the retail business, where a wide smattering of brands will attract poor and rich customers alike.
The first question was oriented around the basic function of the retail industry to provide a fundamental backdrop for the conversation. Short described the basic function, in her terms, one of the middlemen who keep a steady flow of the demand and the supply of the store.
The roles can include a manager, an assistant manager, or simply cashiering, stocking, and cleaning the store. Shorts background has been as a cashier and an assistant to the customers. It is about customer relations, customer service, and having consumers leave with positive affect at the end of the transaction.
Then, of course, there are negative aspects of the work. Short relayed how she experienced, while on shift, being yelled and cursed at, even having items thrown at her. These did not happen all the time. But they do happen and this can be an upsetting aspect of the life experience for her.
She noted how some customers feel the right to grab or touch her. Those individuals tend to be older and white men.
When I asked about the positives, Short opined, “Working my first job, which was in retail, an older woman came into my work and myself and another coworker helped her find the things she needed. We were an office supply store, and she was so grateful for our demonstrated commitment to helping her, when she had many questions about the products, she made her purchase but told us to wait a minute. She went out to her car and brought in two hand-made teddy bears. She said she made them and loved to give them to people who deserved them. We were so warmed by this gesture.”
She continued to note that those experiences of providing genuine service to people can be extremely rewarding moments on the job. Those are times in which she feels happy for the happiness of the customers, as this is a moment of genuine recognition of service to the community.
On the whole, the customers end to treat others with civility and respect. Then, sometimes, consumers may simply be having a bad experience or a bad day. That is where experienced retail staff come into situations and work to mitigate them.
Short, on code of conduct and ethics, explained, “Basically, be courteous, follow company policy, try to provide genuine service, and make it a positive experience to the best of our abilities. One thing I have noticed as a trend is giving more authority to retail workers to stand up to the abuse we can sometimes have from customers, especially women and minorities.”
As the retail is done, I asked about some of the minimum tasks and responsibilities of the new employees. She described how there is a general being thrown in with a minimal amount of hands-on training.
She continued, “An orientation that packs a lot of information in a short amount of time, cheesy corporate videos we have to watch, and maybe a couple hours of training and shadowing, depending on the time of year and how busy we are. At times new folks are just bodies when there’s going to be a busy time and availability is minimal. But most often, rookies/newbies are given the responsibilities listed in the job description right off the bat. This leads to a sink or swim environment, in my opinion.”
To close the interview, Short spoke to the transition from basic skills building to more advanced ones. Part of this is becoming more efficiency an productive in the work. Another is simply maintaining a positive and consistent response or feedback from the customers. These can be noticed by managers who then, may, promote the individual with the, at the present, lower rank.
“A lot of the time, you can be excellent at your current position but your availability isn’t right for moving up. There is upward mobility in many retail jobs, but often it means little pay or benefits increases for quite a significant amount more work. It really depends on the corporation or business, as well. However, I find that retail workers build an incredible amount of skills that can bleed over to other types of jobs or future schooling opportunities,” Short concluded.
–(Updated 2018-11-10, only use the updated listing, please) One can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights:
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the optional protocol (1993).
- Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), Five-year review of progress (2000), 10-year review in 2005, the 15-year review in 2010, and the 20-year review in 2015.
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), and the UN Security Council additional resolutions on women, peace and security: 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013), and 2242 (2015).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
- UN Women’s strategic plan, 2018–2021
- 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
- 2015 agenda with 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (169 targets for the end to poverty, combatting inequalities, and so on, by 2030). The SDGs were preceded by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) from 2000 to 2015.
–Human Rights
Wednesdays 7 pm EST / 4 pm PST
Call-In Details: (701) 801-1220
Meeting ID: 934-317-242
Lead Page: https://goodmenproject.lpages.co/conscious-intersectionality/
Led by: Scott Douglas JacobsenTo the socio-political Right, a disclaimer; to the socio-political Left, a trigger warning: the subject matter may be disturbing or triggering for some listeners, speakers, or call members. The statistics on international violence against women is disproportionately more than violence against men. In turn, there is violence against women committed by women against women but more often by men against women. It is the statistical difference, which is the basis for the international emphasis on violence against women in multiple spheres rather than localized differences. Wednesday morning, we will speak on violence against women for one hour or so.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/02/22
Sally Buxbaum Hunt is a Sexual Education, Sex-Positive, Separation of Church and State Activist and Organizer, and a Progressive. Here we talk about demarcating the lines between progressive and non-progressive for 2019.
When we opened the conversation, the main purpose was to focus on progressives and the definition of modern progressivism. Hunt stated how, to her, this meant advocating for the most overly burdened, marginalized, and struggling citizens.
Some of whom would including the poor, the minority populations, the middle class, and the working class. The point is to be willing to advocate for policy change better suited to those populations of the country.
Hunt stated, “I think this is the difference between progressives and moderate Democrats who would not necessarily identify as progressives. I think we have to be both. I think we have to be a progressive and liberal democrat. But the progressive part is the most important part.”
The advocacy for the changes in the society at those needed levels characterizes the fundamental basis of modern progressivism to Hunt. Because the current status quo benefits the rich while also haring the poor, the working class, and the middle class, and simply overburdening them even more.
When I asked about some specific policy changes now, Hunt remarked, certainly, on the increase in taxes on the rich. Other items that came to mind were Medicare for all and universal healthcare.
She notes that the United States as a very wealthy country could afford it.
It means that we are advocating for changes in policy that will benefit people who need changes, who are hurt and suffering because of the status quo. The status quo favors the richest people in the nation.
It causes more suffering in the working class, the middle class, and the poor; it makes them poorer and even more burdened.
“It would not be too difficult. It would be like every other developed nation in the world. It has to happen. People are sicker and more in debt, poorer than they have to be, which burdens employers as well,” Hunt said, “It is the employers having to cover healthcare for their employees. It makes the employees feel as if they have to be employed and not be able to leave a job that they do not like. They feel as if they cannot become self-employed and entrepreneurs because they’ll lose their healthcare.”
Hunt re-emphasized the need to raise the taxes on the rich in addition to the legalization of marijuana and the cessation of the “War on Drugs.” All these are “destroying lives” while universal healthcare and universal mental healthcare could help the nation a great deal. In addition, these could include rehabilitation programs as well.
Hunt concluded, “It needs to include drug rehabilitation programs. If we were to end this war on drugs and legalize drugs, instead of treating it as criminal activities, we would, actually, treat people and help them to get past their addictions and mental health issues leading to the drug use in the first place. The education inequality, education should be federally funded and equally. It should not depend on property taxes.”
–(Updated 2018-11-10, only use the updated listing, please) One can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights:
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the optional protocol (1993).
- Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), Five-year review of progress (2000), 10-year review in 2005, the 15-year review in 2010, and the 20-year review in 2015.
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), and the UN Security Council additional resolutions on women, peace and security: 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013), and 2242 (2015).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
- UN Women’s strategic plan, 2018–2021
- 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
- 2015 agenda with 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (169 targets for the end to poverty, combatting inequalities, and so on, by 2030). The SDGs were preceded by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) from 2000 to 2015.
–Human Rights
Wednesdays 7 pm EST / 4 pm PST
Call-In Details: (701) 801-1220
Meeting ID: 934-317-242
Lead Page: https://goodmenproject.lpages.co/conscious-intersectionality/
Led by: Scott Douglas JacobsenTo the socio-political Right, a disclaimer; to the socio-political Left, a trigger warning: the subject matter may be disturbing or triggering for some listeners, speakers, or call members. The statistics on international violence against women is disproportionately more than violence against men. In turn, there is violence against women committed by women against women but more often by men against women. It is the statistical difference, which is the basis for the international emphasis on violence against women in multiple spheres rather than localized differences. Wednesday morning, we will speak on violence against women for one hour or so.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
Share this:
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/02/18
Catherine Broomfield is the Executive Director of iHuman Youth Society. She loves the challenge and excitement of the job, especially with the diversity of the workplace and the people with non-profits. She has worked, in fact, in both the public and the private sectors. Here we talk about Indigenous troubled youth.
Indigenous youth tend to experience more difficulties in Canadian society than others. One orientation may be to meet those most troubled Indigenous youth where they’re at, as this, probably, can apply to other populations as well.
“This principle of ‘meeting youth where they’re at’ or as we like to refer to as ‘keeping it real’ is fundamental to iHuman’s youth work practice and the overall operation of the agency. Working from this perspective means that our approach is based on relationship,” Broomfield explained, “Being able to appreciate the place a youth is coming from requires creating a space that is safe and non judgmental. When we attune to what a young person needs there is no ego or expectation of the staff person involved — it isn’t about what we might think an appropriate response, action or solution might be, rather what does that young person think needs to be done now.”
The orientation of meeting youth where they’re at simply reflects the needs of troubled young, not pushing too hard and using due diligence to work with them while honoring their background.
Broomfield described some of the methodological orientation. One is asking what happened with the young people in order to garner acceptance of the youth. It is finding out who the young person is and where they’re at, in other words.
“That getting help is sometimes less about the person in need of help and more about the motivation of the person offering it. To act with the ‘keeping it real’ principle, iHuman staff are consistently asking themselves: am I helping because I want to be ‘the hero’; is my help enabling that person; or am I supporting that person to honor their own internal need,” Broomfield described.
It is an approach to help a vulnerable youth population. The use of sensitivity and understanding of the unique contexts of the Indigenous communities within our collective communities.
Broomfield continued, “This approach is a communal approach to helping which is reflective of Indigenous ways of community. Therefore, because we have put the young person in the driver’s seat, the effectiveness of the programs is ultimately in their control.”
She noted how these solutions those built from the ground, i.e., by and for the youth populations who are undergoing their own difficulties. Broomfield proposes this as the source of the success of the efforts.
The interview moved into the prototypical trends of some young people. While, at the same time, I bore in mind the unique experiences of each child or young person.
“At the core of the issues iHuman youth experience is the erasure of identity. I’ve mentioned this previously — that the finding of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission on the genocide of Indigenous culture by the Government of Canada and/or its agents — can trace the systemic issues of trauma that manifest in the present day reality of young people,” Broomfield stated.
The issues are addiction, homelessness, isolation, mental health, and violence. In unison or alone, these, as factors in the life script or history of a young, impact the lifelong trajectory, often for the worse. These can, in turn, exclude people from society.
Broomfield noted that the stories can be both painful and raw. Some of the common narratives are the lack of self-knowledge leading to a void in making a path in life. These are the cases Broomfield honorably deals with and framework that she builds young people’s sense of self once more.
Broomfield concluded, “I was recently at a workshop where the following quote was posted on the wall. I do not know the author, his story or what he might do, however, it was attributed to William Pirar: ‘We are what we know. We are… also what we do not know. If what we know about ourselves — our history, our culture, our national identity — is deformed by absences, denials and incompleteness, then our identity is fragmented. Such a self lacks access both to itself and to the world.'”–Human Rights
Wednesdays 7 pm EST / 4 pm PST
Call-In Details: (701) 801-1220
Meeting ID: 934-317-242
Lead Page: https://goodmenproject.lpages.co/conscious-intersectionality/
Led by: Scott Douglas JacobsenTo the socio-political Right, a disclaimer; to the socio-political Left, a trigger warning: the subject matter may be disturbing or triggering for some listeners, speakers, or call members. The statistics on international violence against women is disproportionately more than violence against men. In turn, there is violence against women committed by women against women but more often by men against women. It is the statistical difference, which is the basis for the international emphasis on violence against women in multiple spheres rather than localized differences. Wednesday morning, we will speak on violence against women for one hour or so.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/02/18
Catherine Broomfield is the Executive Director of iHuman Youth Society. She loves the challenge and excitement of the job, especially with the diversity of the workplace and the people with non-profits. She has worked, in fact, in both the public and the private sectors. Here we open with iHuman Youth Society, cultural sensitivity, and the unseen populations of Canada.
The interview opened on the work through iHuman Youth Society by Broomfield. She remarked on the Executive Director position with the standard leadership and administrative tasks that come with the station.
She also commented on the budget monitoring and forecasting, the grant writing, and the strategic planning as well. It amounts to the standard set of tasks for an executive director. But not so normal, her role requires another set of specific tasks, too.
“Atypically, but normal for a smaller organization, I also do front-line work with the youth such as responding to crises and critical incidents within our building or connecting with them about opportunities they want to pursue and seeing how iHuman can support those ideas. I’ve also been known to clean toilets, shovel snow. Basically whatever might need doing to support the agency I’m at the ready,” Broomfield stated.
When I asked about the need to build cultural sensitivity into the work with a diverse group of young people who need help, she noted that this was, indeed, an important question while also making a distinction between cultural sensitivity and cultural safety.
Where the former is sometimes used and the latter is intended or necessary, cultural sensitivity being the awareness of the interaction with others in a cultural context. The cultural safety being something of a recognition of a positionality in relation to others and then working to create a space for safe and healthy communication.
“Inherently then, you can appreciate that trauma awareness is embedded in practice that is cultural safe. I believe the term evolved from nursing practice in New Zealand and has been recognized for its value especially as it relates to working with Indigenous peoples and others who have experienced systemic trauma,” Broomfield explained, “Therefore, cultural safety, is a key element of the relational approach iHuman takes when we work with marginalized and traumatized young people. Our youth practice, then, involves creating safe and trusting interactions that build into relationships where the young person can describe the barriers they face, express what they need, and how they’d like that support provided.”
Those approaches with a young person help them feel valued and witnessed, where the ultimate goal is an improvement in the young person feeling a sense of belonging, identity, self-worth, and sense of purpose.
Broomfield continued to describe the subpopulations of those who are, in essence, the commonly unseen members of the general population, by definition as they do not fit within the normalized structure of the society.
Broomfield stated, “For people who experience erasure, I would suggest this is a profoundly fundamental question about equity, justice and privilege. For myself, I believe this discrimination stems from human societies tend to privilege one class of people above others. It’s a way to distribute abundance and resources to those deemed worthy of these means and control and withhold the same from those identified as the ‘nots’. Why this is the case is truly beyond my understanding.”
She concluded stating that iHuman Youth Society is built around the building of relationships with young people that they value. It is honoring what is built there and helping include those who have been feeling excluded, through the provision of a sense of community.
—
Human Rights
Wednesdays 7 pm EST / 4 pm PST
Call-In Details: (701) 801-1220
Meeting ID: 934-317-242
Lead Page: https://goodmenproject.lpages.co/conscious-intersectionality/
Led by: Scott Douglas Jacobsen
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/02/14
Strategic objective D.3.
Eliminate trafficking in women and assist victims of violence due to prostitution and trafficking
Actions to be taken
130. By Governments of countries of origin, transit and destination, regional and international organizations, as appropriate:
b. Take appropriate measures to address the root factors, including external factors, that encourage trafficking in women and girls for prostitution and other forms of commercialized sex, forced marriages and forced labour in order to eliminate trafficking in women, including by strengthening existing legislation with a view to providing better protection of the rights of women and girls and to punishing the perpetrators, through both criminal and civil measures;
c. Step up cooperation and concerted action by all relevant law enforcement authorities and institutions with a view to dismantling national, regional and international networks in trafficking;
Beijing Declaration (1995)
The Beijing Declaration in this particular section deals with the significant rights violation of the trafficking of women and the assistance of victims of violence due to either prostitution or trafficking. As stipulated, it is about dealing with the governments where this is originating.
But it is also dealing with the issues of transit and the destinations, as in girls and women being trafficked from other countries into, for example, Canada for the extreme violence against women to be perpetrated.
Then there is the case of the larger-than-national organizations that can help deal with this problem. Ethics in any situation involving the relations between conscious beings remains a consistent fact of the world. As a subdiscipline in philosophy, it is an unavoidable context: when dealing with others, one or another ethic is operative. An inescapable quandary; either an act is good, bad, or neutral within the referent frame of the ethical system or operating moral framework at play in any given moment between conscious entities.
What ethics do you choose? Is it to optimize pain? Is it simply to self-define an ethical matrix and then ignore all others? Is it work towards some idealized platform of specific injunctions for thou shalts and thou shalt nots? Is it sourced from the heavenly realms bursting forth through the choirs of angelic voices singing life into the cosmos? Or is it simply coming from the mucky evolved cognitions of conscious, to varying degrees, beings? What about nihilism, or no ethical grounding or acting? That, too, is an ethic; it’s an ethic of inaction or a-consideration of others, or of oneself at times. Ethical and value questions remain instantiated in a universe with consciousnesses; universes arise. Some may have consciousnesses. Of those that do, those consciousnesses, inevitably, will be dealing with one another, whether artificial and constructed, natural and evolved, or otherwise. Cosmology and physics are inevitable; ethics, in a universe with conscious entities, is inevitable. One derives another.
The issue of trafficking is no less pertinent or important on this issue. The dealing with the root of problems is much easier if they are dealt with through identification and parsing of the “root factors.” This simply makes a problem ease to work through.
Next, there are external factors that innervate the considerations here. Those that “encourage trafficking in women and girls for prostitution and other forms of commercialized sex, forced marriages and forced labor in order to eliminate trafficking in women.”
The fundamental ethical considerations here are the ways in which simply ignoring the rights and freedoms of women and girls can lead to disastrous consequences, due to our collective unwillingness to have a mass and directed response to this “extreme” form of violence against women, and girls, and violation of the fundamental rights and freedoms of women, and girls.
Some of the means by which to deal with the problem can be working with the frameworks already available to us. Those can help provide some protections of the rights of women and girls. In addition, the standard legislation in place, at least in those places that have it, can be a solid basis for the punishment of perpetrators of the extreme violence against women, whether by acts, by trafficking, and so on.
The criminal courts and civil society can be a good means to do it. The final stipulation deals with the law enforcement agencies and other forces working together to be able to deal a blow against the networks at the national, regional, and international levels to effectively combat sex trafficking of girls and women.
Because, at the end of the day, the one side is individual women being violated in a number of aforementioned ways; the other side of the collective networks needed for the criminals to commit their atrocious behaviors and crimes against women and girls.
–(Updated 2018-11-10, only use the updated listing, please) One can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights:
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the optional protocol (1993).
- Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), Five-year review of progress (2000), 10-year review in 2005, the 15-year review in 2010, and the 20-year review in 2015.
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), and the UN Security Council additional resolutions on women, peace and security: 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013), and 2242 (2015).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
- UN Women’s strategic plan, 2018–2021
- 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
- 2015 agenda with 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (169 targets for the end to poverty, combatting inequalities, and so on, by 2030). The SDGs were preceded by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) from 2000 to 2015.
–Human Rights
Wednesdays 7 pm EST / 4 pm PST
Call-In Details: (701) 801-1220
Meeting ID: 934-317-242
Lead Page: https://goodmenproject.lpages.co/conscious-intersectionality/
Led by: Scott Douglas JacobsenTo the socio-political Right, a disclaimer; to the socio-political Left, a trigger warning: the subject matter may be disturbing or triggering for some listeners, speakers, or call members. The statistics on international violence against women is disproportionately more than violence against men. In turn, there is violence against women committed by women against women but more often by men against women. It is the statistical difference, which is the basis for the international emphasis on violence against women in multiple spheres rather than localized differences. Wednesday morning, we will speak on violence against women for one hour or so.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
Share this:
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/02/14
Strategic objective D.3.
Eliminate trafficking in women and assist victims of violence due to prostitution and trafficking
Actions to be taken
130. By Governments of countries of origin, transit and destination, regional and international organizations, as appropriate:
- Consider the ratification and enforcement of international conventions on trafficking in persons and on slavery;
Beijing Declaration (1995)
The specific stipulations here deal with some of the more gruesome cases of violence against women with trafficking and prostitution. The questions about choice are not the consideration here, as these women will often have none – and this may be a significant majority of the cases. Thus, the questions, often only in libertarian social outlooks amongst 18-to-35-year-old men, simply skip over the considerations of legalized work or not.
Here, we have the serious issue of a massive crime against women and girls as individuals en masse, and, thus, as a grouping or sub-demographic in the world. The Canadian Women’s Foundation notes that forced prostitution and the sexual exploitation of girls and women is a problem around the world and in Canadian society as well.
The trafficking is illegal, a human rights violation, and described as an “extreme form of violence against women.” When we try to skim over this issue when we’re thinking of pornography, a pornified society, or legal sex work, it is, conveniently, leaving aside the serious issue to do with the human rights violations around this.
The particular stipulation here, in the Beijing Declaration, is as relevant now as in 1995 when it was first formulated. Here, we can look into the ways that girls and women, as, basically, slaves, are – literally – bought and sold and then trafficked in Canada and around the world.
The international community is clear on this subject matter. It, apparently, only becomes an issue when mostly young males in Western societies who seem to ignore the obvious ethical implications of the situation here.
To be absolutely clear, this is labeled an extreme form of violence against women and, therefore, should rank high on the priority list of consideration; whereas, we have a select demographic focusing on the opposite case of legal prostitution, which does seem to indicate an inversion of the consideration of what is salient as an ethical consideration and what is not. The myopia of consideration is not fooling anyone; it is happening around the world in cases of rights violations and abuses of girls and women, then the question is about legality?
There is trafficking and forced prostitution inside of Canadian society and across borders. Girls and women who are bought and sold, where the marginalized sectors of the society, e.g., Aboriginal, racialized, immigrant, and abuse survivors, are the far more likely to be the ones to be trafficked than others.
With the development of communications technologies, as has been noted recently via in memoriams of the humanist and homosexual Alan Turing, the internet has provided a wide range of benefits to much of the planet’s population with accessibility to the entirety of human knowledge for potential use in educational curricula or the possible utility in the improvement of communal life somehow.
In addition to this, we can see minuses via the various facets of the fourth edge of technological warfare with the cybersecurity concerns and such, but also this has been a negative with the anonymity too.
That is to say, it is providing a basis for the trafficking efforts that are the basis of evil acts and black market industries to flourish, thrive, and continue to further their machinations, of the, in essence, dehumanization of girls and women.
In fact, the traffickers, in Canada, can gain about 280,000CAD per annum for each girl or woman that trafficked or forced into prostitution. If under the age of 18, then there is a higher return on investment for the traffickers. This is the language that may well be used within the community of traffickers: clinical, calculating, and dehumanizing, where girls and women are not individuals with rights and privileges, responsibilities and obligations, hopes and dreams, and community and familial bonds and connections. They are tools of the trade and items to be traded on the black market of trafficking, make no mistake about it.
Based on reports and consultations with 250 organizations and 150 survivors of sex trafficking, the Canadian Women’s Foundation found that “many girls in Canada are first trafficked into forced prostitution when they are 13-years-old.”
Sex trafficking has been properly termed “modern day slavery” by many and, in fact, this is a precise and powerful image about the ways in which sex trafficking can produce a variety of rights violations, bodily abuses, and long-term damage and, potentially, lost lives akin to slavery during the height of the industry of cotton. In fact, the statement or phrase may not go far enough; it is not simply an image. It is a visceral reality for thousands and thousands of girls and women around the world; it should be felt.
Some questions may arise about the statistics of the modern day slavery of sex trafficking and forced prostitution. 78% of Canadians, based on a National Angus Reid public opinion poll, agree that girls under the age of 16 are not in prostitution by choice; 67% of Canadians consider girls in Canada under the age of 16 are being recruited or trafficked into prostitution against their will; another 70% see women brought to Canada from other countries as forced into prostitution against their will.
The national consciousness is there. It is the incipient consciousness; one that simply needs a little push for some mass activism on this huge rights violation happening in our doorstep, or to other nationalities brought into our own corridors. This is a case for pause and reflection.
If we look into the various international conventions, which, as you may surmise, is a lot of them. The basic emphasis is the need not only to have them as symbols of international consensus or consideration of what is the problem – its parameters – but also what to do about it. It is, once more, an ethically elementary position; the world got together, talked it over, wrote down the ideas, signed some documents with the concepts and solutions on them, and then… simply need to instantiate and implement the proposed solutions for the reduction and eventual elimination of (extreme) violence against women.
That’s it. This stipulation is built within this framework. The international community got together and agreed; now, act on it.
–(Updated 2018-11-10, only use the updated listing, please) One can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights:
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the optional protocol (1993).
- Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), Five-year review of progress (2000), 10-year review in 2005, the 15-year review in 2010, and the 20-year review in 2015.
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), and the UN Security Council additional resolutions on women, peace and security: 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013), and 2242 (2015).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
- UN Women’s strategic plan, 2018–2021
- 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
- 2015 agenda with 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (169 targets for the end to poverty, combatting inequalities, and so on, by 2030). The SDGs were preceded by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) from 2000 to 2015.
–Human Rights
Wednesdays 7 pm EST / 4 pm PST
Call-In Details: (701) 801-1220
Meeting ID: 934-317-242
Lead Page: https://goodmenproject.lpages.co/conscious-intersectionality/
Led by: Scott Douglas JacobsenTo the socio-political Right, a disclaimer; to the socio-political Left, a trigger warning: the subject matter may be disturbing or triggering for some listeners, speakers, or call members. The statistics on international violence against women is disproportionately more than violence against men. In turn, there is violence against women committed by women against women but more often by men against women. It is the statistical difference, which is the basis for the international emphasis on violence against women in multiple spheres rather than localized differences. Wednesday morning, we will speak on violence against women for one hour or so.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
Share this:
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/02/11
Strategic objective D.2.
Study the causes and consequences of violence against women and the effectiveness of preventive measures
Actions to be taken
129. By Governments, regional organizations, the United Nations, other international organizations, research institutions, women’s and youth organizations and non-governmental organizations, as appropriate:
c. Support and initiate research on the impact of violence, such as rape, on women and girl children, and make the resulting information and statistics available to the public;
d. Encourage the media to examine the impact of gender role stereotypes, including those perpetuated by commercial advertisements which foster gender-based violence and inequalities, and how they are transmitted during the life cycle, and take measures to eliminate these negative images with a view to promoting a violence-free society.
Beijing Declaration (1995)
This section follows from the former about the necessity of research and analysis to provide informed recommendations on dealing with violence against women. In particular, and here, the emphasis is the support and initiation of said research into violence against women.
Insofar as the international documents provide some form of indication as to the direction and widespread acceptance of the ethical principles, and the data on the prevalence and severity of the issues facing women, and girls for that matter, around the world, the next steps are to work towards the provision of this information and statistical set of information to the public.
These are necessary for any mass mobilization for political and social change. It is the same with combatting the excesses of various facets of societies. In this, the media, and in general the mass media, can be important assistance if informed and controlled, and guided, by the general public – not only in the will but in actuality.
The combatting of, for example, the various gender stereotypes that abound about women is one issue. But then, there is, also, the issue to do with the ways in which a variety of commercial agencies and industries are buying into these and – we – the public continue to bolster it unduly and burden future generations with these stereotypes, as prior generations did to us.
Those advertisements and marketing campaigns with the tacit endorsement of gender-based violence and inequality stereotypes. These give an implicit culture force to these. The import is to work to eliminate the negative images that come into the minds and eyes of the next generations, in order to create the desired “violence-free society” that so many of us desire.
But it won’t come from holy text; it won’t come from the heavens; the gods will not deliver us from ourselves; mighty Lady Justice will not reign in glory over us, to give us the glorified just and ideal society; our solutions to our problems will come from us if they come from anyone, as the evils of the past infect and perpetuate through, and because of, us. We can do better; however, first, we have to expect better of ourselves.
–(Updated 2018-11-10) One can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights:
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the optional protocol (1993).
- Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), Five-year review of progress (2000), 10-year review in 2005, the 15-year review in 2010, and the 20-year review in 2015.
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), and the UN Security Council additional resolutions on women, peace and security: 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013), and 2242 (2015).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
- UN Women’s strategic plan, 2018–2021
- 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
- 2015 agenda with 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (169 targets for the end to poverty, combatting inequalities, and so on, by 2030). The SDGs were preceded by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) from 2000 to 2015.
–Human Rights
Wednesdays 7 pm EST / 4 pm PST
Call-In Details: (701) 801-1220
Meeting ID: 934-317-242
Lead Page: https://goodmenproject.lpages.co/conscious-intersectionality/
Led by: Scott Douglas JacobsenTo the socio-political Right, a disclaimer; to the socio-political Left, a trigger warning: the subject matter may be disturbing or triggering for some listeners, speakers, or call members. The statistics on international violence against women is disproportionately more than violence against men. In turn, there is violence against women committed by women against women but more often by men against women. It is the statistical difference, which is the basis for the international emphasis on violence against women in multiple spheres rather than localized differences. Wednesday morning, we will speak on violence against women for one hour or so.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
Share this:
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/02/11
Strategic objective D.1.
Take integrated measures to prevent and eliminate violence against women
Actions to be taken
127. By the Secretary-General of the United Nations:
Provide the Special Rapporteur of the Commission on Human Rights on violence against women with all necessary assistance, in particular the staff and resources required to perform all mandated functions, especially in carrying out and following up on missions undertaken either separately or jointly with other special rapporteurs and working groups, and adequate assistance for periodic consultations with the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women and all treaty bodies.
128. By Governments, international organizations and non-governmental organizations:
Encourage the dissemination and implementation of the UNHCR Guidelines on the Protection of Refugee Women and the UNHCR Guidelines on the Prevention of and Response to Sexual Violence against Refugees.
Beijing Declaration (1995)
Paragraphs 127 and 128 of the Beijing Declaration deal with some of the more rote aspects of the United Nations, boring bureaucratic aspects of the UN. But if we’re looking at some of the stipulations here, we can see the obvious important in the work to provide “integrated measures to prevent and eliminate violence against women” from the levels of the Secretary-General of the UN – the highest office in the UN – in addition to the national and internatonal levels of helping deal with the issue of violence against women.
All of this is, yes, bureaucratic while, at the same time, an important note as to the ways in which the highest offices and authorities can be important enforcers of the rights of women. The Secretary-General is bound, herein, to support the Special Rapporteur of the Commission on Human Rights on violence against women.
The support is not even partial. As a close reading indicates, it is “all necessary assistance.” The questions before us, then, is for the work to improve the status of women in the domain of violence against women: how may we increase the pressure on these levers of power, and on the individuals in power and influence, to enact the measures needed for the reduction and eventual elimination of violence against women?
The carrying through on the stipulations within multiple documents available and produced until 1995 and since 1995 into 2019. These are easy questions. It is simply elementary. The documents were produced internationally, signed on to or ratified, and, thus, should be enacted throughout the world with the force of any other rights or legal document. But it takes pressure, and so work: continuous effort and persistent work.
–(Updated 2018-11-10) One can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights:
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the optional protocol (1993).
- Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), Five-year review of progress (2000), 10-year review in 2005, the 15-year review in 2010, and the 20-year review in 2015.
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), and the UN Security Council additional resolutions on women, peace and security: 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013), and 2242 (2015).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
- UN Women’s strategic plan, 2018–2021
- 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
- 2015 agenda with 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (169 targets for the end to poverty, combatting inequalities, and so on, by 2030). The SDGs were preceded by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) from 2000 to 2015.
–Human Rights
Wednesdays 7 pm EST / 4 pm PST
Call-In Details: (701) 801-1220
Meeting ID: 934-317-242
Lead Page: https://goodmenproject.lpages.co/conscious-intersectionality/
Led by: Scott Douglas JacobsenTo the socio-political Right, a disclaimer; to the socio-political Left, a trigger warning: the subject matter may be disturbing or triggering for some listeners, speakers, or call members. The statistics on international violence against women is disproportionately more than violence against men. In turn, there is violence against women committed by women against women but more often by men against women. It is the statistical difference, which is the basis for the international emphasis on violence against women in multiple spheres rather than localized differences. Wednesday morning, we will speak on violence against women for one hour or so.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
Share this:
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/02/10
Strategic objective D.1.
Take integrated measures to prevent and eliminate violence against women
Actions to be taken
126. By Governments, employers, trade unions, community and youth organizations and non-governmental organizations, as appropriate:
c. Develop counselling, healing and support programmes for girls, adolescents and young women who have been or are involved in abusive relationships, particularly those who live in homes or institutions where abuse occurs;
d. Take special measures to eliminate violence against women, particularly those in vulnerable situations, such as young women, refugee, displaced and internally displaced women, women with disabilities and women migrant workers, including enforcing any existing legislation and developing, as appropriate, new legislation for women migrant workers in both sending and receiving countries.
Beijing Declaration (1995)
The proper levels of administration and advocacy work, in many or even each of these cases, comes from the preliminary statements prior to the stipulations, in which, as an example, in this case, the governments, employers, trade unions, and others, are emphasized as the scales of the advocacy.
In terms of the stipulation specifications here, the counseling, healing and support programs for girls, adolescent girls, and young women are important for the after-the-violence that women experience. There may be some preparatory educational materials to be aware of the prevalence and various safety measures, and then, also, providing some knowledge about the resources available to them.
But this is so on the surface, so marginal in many ways, where this does not deal with the root evil; the root evil of men’s violence against women. It is not that all men are bad; that men are simply to be shot down and demonized, or dismissed as abusers in training. This would be to completely misunderstand much of the purpose of The Good Men Project and of this casual commentary on human rights documents relevant to the human rights of women.
Proper articulation of our values comes in the form of realizing the statistics standing before us. Then it is working within the context of the obvious consequences to the lives of women in these contexts.
It is the abuse that follows from a variety of correlates coming together in common instances, of which women will experience, as a significant minority of their lives, at least once in their life. Of course, this leads to further questions about how many will re-occur, will have second, third, fourth, and so on, instances of violence against them.
But it is also realizing the ways in which the, even in the environment of violence against women, remedial changes can be done to clean up some of the damaged caused by abusive men. It is about encouraging healthy masculinity or virtuous men, in which there are systematic encouragement and gradual elimination of violence against women in this domain.
Then for the violence against women that impacts some women, the proactive response will be to provide some relevant help, mentioned above, for repairing the psyches and the bodies following from the abuse. It is not complicated. But it is about being compassionately responsive.
Some populations of women, of course, will be more vulnerable to levels of violence and kinds of violence. It is the same with the region. We are the same species. So, the same brains, thus minds, and then the social systems and power dynamics become important factors in describing the variations in the levels of violence against women by region, by culture, and by subgroup of women: “young women, refugee, displaced and internally displaced women, women with disabilities and women migrant workers.”
The recommendation is the enforcement of extant legislation or the creation of new legislation in order to deal with the various forms of violence against women that simply come the way of women more than men.
This leads to some of the similar and obvious conclusions from before, about the need for an assertive and active compassionate response to the violence against women around the world and then working together, men and women, for the reduction and eventual elimination of violence against women.
–(Updated 2018-11-10) One can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights:
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the optional protocol (1993).
- Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), Five-year review of progress (2000), 10-year review in 2005, the 15-year review in 2010, and the 20-year review in 2015.
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), and the UN Security Council additional resolutions on women, peace and security: 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013), and 2242 (2015).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
- UN Women’s strategic plan, 2018–2021
- 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
- 2015 agenda with 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (169 targets for the end to poverty, combatting inequalities, and so on, by 2030). The SDGs were preceded by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) from 2000 to 2015.
–Human Rights
Wednesdays 7 pm EST / 4 pm PST
Call-In Details: (701) 801-1220
Meeting ID: 934-317-242
Lead Page: https://goodmenproject.lpages.co/conscious-intersectionality/
Led by: Scott Douglas JacobsenTo the socio-political Right, a disclaimer; to the socio-political Left, a trigger warning: the subject matter may be disturbing or triggering for some listeners, speakers, or call members. The statistics on international violence against women is disproportionately more than violence against men. In turn, there is violence against women committed by women against women but more often by men against women. It is the statistical difference, which is the basis for the international emphasis on violence against women in multiple spheres rather than localized differences. Wednesday morning, we will speak on violence against women for one hour or so.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
Share this:
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/02/10
Strategic objective D.2.
Study the causes and consequences of violence against women and the effectiveness of preventive measures
Actions to be taken
129. By Governments, regional organizations, the United Nations, other international organizations, research institutions, women’s and youth organizations and non-governmental organizations, as appropriate:
- Promote research, collect data and compile statistics, especially concerning domestic violence relating to the prevalence of different forms of violence against women, and encourage research into the causes, nature, seriousness and consequences of violence against women and the effectiveness of measures implemented to prevent and redress violence against women;
- Disseminate findings of research and studies widely;
Beijing Declaration (1995)
The Beijing Declaration, as with most documents, will enter into some of the drier aspects of the dealings with reduction and eventual elimination of violence against women. This, in no way, is to deny some of the unique difficulties facing men or boys, or young men in the current moment who, in difficult economic and educational and cultural circumstances, find themselves adrift to various degrees.
What emerges from these are a variety of epithets and such, these intended to identify sectors of the, typically, young male population who have struggled within their particular societies. As an aside, one small bit of research can find terms including hikikomori meaning “pulling inward, being confined” or “acute social withdrawal” – related to parasite singles and freeters and Fushūgaku, Sōshoku(-kei) danshi meaning “Herbivore men or grass-eater men,” diaosi meaning “dick hair,” bamboccioni meaning “big babies,” Man-Child/Child-Man meaning “…Childish Man,” Peter Pan Syndrome means “someone who does not want to grow up,” NEETs meaning Not in Education, Employment, or Training,” and MGTOW meaning “Men Going Their Own Way.”
There is a wide smattering of them. They can be comedic. In some, or even many, cases, they may even be descriptive. But is this orientation compassionate or constructive? In the end analysis, it may not be. In fact, it may regress the conversation and worsen the situations for these particular males. Once past the ridicule stage, the next questions, potentially, for the general public is constructive criticism and work to reintegrate these males back into society.
On the more numerous and often more severe cases facing women, we can observe the stipulations in the Beijing Declaration here about the national and international levels to be brought into the fold of consideration for the work towards dealing with violence against women.
One is the base level of recognition and acknowledgement by the wider public. Women may know, suspect, or speak to one another occasionally about their experiences in difficult circumstances, in which, no doubt, there will be trauma produced.
But, at the same time, there may need to be more data collected and analyzed for those who are unwilling to acknowledge the reality a significant minority of women will face in their lifetimes. This is the reason for the first stipulation here. Its purpose is a proposal of the proper widespread collection and compilation of data on domestic violence in order to have better knowledge of it. Its effects. Its prevalence, and so on.
Wiht this, the more efficacious measures against this can be worked towards. I would argue. We have the data now. We know many of the causes, as highlighted by UN Women, by the World Health Organization, by national statistical databases and so on.
The next steps are simply moving forward with the proper and full, without pulling punches, dissemination of the research and the studies into these matters of violence against women. Upon this rock, we can carve a new story, a new tale, without reference to the ephemeral and working on the actualization of a newer ethical bounded to the world and within the constraints of the evidence before us.
–(Updated 2018-11-10) One can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights:
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the optional protocol (1993).
- Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), Five-year review of progress (2000), 10-year review in 2005, the 15-year review in 2010, and the 20-year review in 2015.
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), and the UN Security Council additional resolutions on women, peace and security: 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013), and 2242 (2015).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
- UN Women’s strategic plan, 2018–2021
- 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
- 2015 agenda with 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (169 targets for the end to poverty, combatting inequalities, and so on, by 2030). The SDGs were preceded by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) from 2000 to 2015.
–Human Rights
Wednesdays 7 pm EST / 4 pm PST
Call-In Details: (701) 801-1220
Meeting ID: 934-317-242
Lead Page: https://goodmenproject.lpages.co/conscious-intersectionality/
Led by: Scott Douglas JacobsenTo the socio-political Right, a disclaimer; to the socio-political Left, a trigger warning: the subject matter may be disturbing or triggering for some listeners, speakers, or call members. The statistics on international violence against women is disproportionately more than violence against men. In turn, there is violence against women committed by women against women but more often by men against women. It is the statistical difference, which is the basis for the international emphasis on violence against women in multiple spheres rather than localized differences. Wednesday morning, we will speak on violence against women for one hour or so.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
Share this:
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/02/08
Strategic objective D.1.
Take integrated measures to prevent and eliminate violence against women
Actions to be taken
126. By Governments, employers, trade unions, community and youth organizations and non-governmental organizations, as appropriate:
- Develop programmes and procedures to eliminate sexual harassment and other forms of violence against women in all educational institutions, workplaces and elsewhere;
- Develop programmes and procedures to educate and raise awareness of acts of violence against women that constitute a crime and a violation of the human rights of women;
Beijing Declaration (1995)
The Beijing Declaration here deals with governments, employers, and so on. Those entities representative of, often, the more working-class folk. Those citizens at the, typically, bottom of the income distribution and prestige in society scales. Formal procedures and programs meant for dealing with sexual harassment may not be foolproof in, and of, themselves.
However, there may be the co-creation of a culture over time of no tolerance for these behaviors, if these are combatted from a variety of other fronts. In general, the development of standardized policies can set in place a system in which women can feel safer within the workplace as a global stipulation.
This comes in “all educational institutions, workplaces and elsewhere.” Within this context, we can see the general means by which there can be the development of a more just and fair world, at least through the workplace and in educational institutions.
Then, of course, in the second stipulation – although, I think the ordering ought to have been reversed for clarity, we can see the statements to educating and raising the awareness about violence against women as a crime and, in fact, as a violation against the fundamental human rights of women – full stop.
All of these measures are to the good.
–(Updated 2018-11-10) One can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights:
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the optional protocol (1993).
- Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), Five-year review of progress (2000), 10-year review in 2005, the 15-year review in 2010, and the 20-year review in 2015.
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), and the UN Security Council additional resolutions on women, peace and security: 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013), and 2242 (2015).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
- UN Women’s strategic plan, 2018–2021
- 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
- 2015 agenda with 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (169 targets for the end to poverty, combatting inequalities, and so on, by 2030). The SDGs were preceded by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) from 2000 to 2015.
–Human Rights
Wednesdays 7 pm EST / 4 pm PST
Call-In Details: (701) 801-1220
Meeting ID: 934-317-242
Lead Page: https://goodmenproject.lpages.co/conscious-intersectionality/
Led by: Scott Douglas JacobsenTo the socio-political Right, a disclaimer; to the socio-political Left, a trigger warning: the subject matter may be disturbing or triggering for some listeners, speakers, or call members. The statistics on international violence against women is disproportionately more than violence against men. In turn, there is violence against women committed by women against women but more often by men against women. It is the statistical difference, which is the basis for the international emphasis on violence against women in multiple spheres rather than localized differences. Wednesday morning, we will speak on violence against women for one hour or so.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
Share this:
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/02/07
Strategic objective D.1.
Take integrated measures to prevent and eliminate violence against women
Actions to be taken
125. By Governments, including local governments, community organizations, non-governmental organizations, educational institutions, the public and private sectors, particularly enterprises, and the mass media, as appropriate:
h. Disseminate information on the assistance available to women and families who are victims of violence;
i. Provide, fund and encourage counselling and rehabilitation programmes for the perpetrators of violence and promote research to further efforts concerning such counselling and rehabilitation so as to prevent the recurrence of such violence;
j. Raise awareness of the responsibility of the media in promoting non-stereotyped images of women and men, as well as in eliminating patterns of media presentation that generate violence, and encourage those responsible for media content to establish professional guidelines and codes of conduct; also raise awareness of the important role of the media in informing and educating people about the causes and effects of violence against women and in stimulating public debate on the topic.
Beijing Declaration (1995)
The rights to be free, in life, from violence is simply a right to one’s own health and happiness. In the cases in which these rights are violated for women, in particular, we simply label this violence against women, which remain non-trivial and something most women will not experience but, unfortunately, a large minority of women will, in fact, have to fear in their lives.
As the World Health Organization and the United Nations tells us, the general image is about 1/3 of women will go through some sexual or physical violence in their lifetimes. It may not be the most precise data, but, certainly, it provides a basis for concern about the ways in which women lead, not necessarily scary but, more cautious lives than men.
It is simply the nature of the world. If women can have proper understanding and be informed about – not the violence inflicted themselves or other women, which they generally already known – the services available for them.
Then women can be able to feel more supported by the systems around them that, traditionally speaking, have only informed the men and enfranchised the men. Bearing in mind, of course, as noted by Rebecca Traister in some contexts, the enfranchisement is simply being extended to women now, which is the reason for this seen as revolutionary; that is to say, but in this specific context, women are, now, becoming enfranchised through protections to their livelihoods to fully participate safely and healthily within society compared to before.
To be perfectly clear, this is not about dismissing men’s suffering of violence from men or from women, or to downplay women’s violence against women, but it, certainly, is about the ways in which the international community is united in efforts to support women in disproportionate negative effects and levels of violence against women more often inflicted by men, often physical and sexual and amongst the most brutal and degrading forms of violence.
Other things that are recommended here are the provision and funding of counseling, and to encourage men to get it, in addition to the rehabilitation programs for the perpetrators, in a compassionate manner even, of the violence against women. That is, against the stereotypes of the progressive movements and international rights movements, not anti-male, but among the higher forms of compassion amongst those males or men who are bound by vices or showing toxic forms of masculinity – as opposed to the healthier forms of traditional masculinity.
No one, or so few as to matter little, is arguing against the behavioral output of bad masculine traits seen throughout history; traditionalists and progressives should be coming together rather than permit true extremists and ideologues fill the void to encourage divisiveness rather than unity and cooperative solidarity and efforts. It can be done. It has been done before, and can be done now.
The counseling and rehabilitation is important in this effort not to tame men or masculinity, or derogate traditional virtues of men and masculinity; it is to protect the futures that those men have left and, more importantly, the potential future violence to be inflicted on women, where this shows a compassionate and emotionally responsive culture rather than a barbaric one.
The media is, of course, an important agent in the collective efforts for education and, in part, better-informed behaviors. Our minor daily dramas play out on the television screens and in the movie theatres. Those media portrayals that may increase the possibility of violence should be worked against in an affirmative matter. In addition, those can easily be done by using our dollars wisely and also encouraging the better angels of the artists’ natures.
Not the FCC, but codes of conduct and guidelines may help in these efforts at improving the general tenor of attitudes and personae portrayed within even the most protracted and emotionally cardboardy dramas; as with, for an example, the powerful image of the son without an involved father on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air with a young Will Smith. These can impact portions of the consciousness of a generation, perhaps more if powerful and universally conveyed enough.
–(Updated 2018-11-10) One can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights:
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the optional protocol (1993).
- Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), Five-year review of progress (2000), 10-year review in 2005, the 15-year review in 2010, and the 20-year review in 2015.
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), and the UN Security Council additional resolutions on women, peace and security: 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013), and 2242 (2015).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
- UN Women’s strategic plan, 2018–2021
- 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
- 2015 agenda with 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (169 targets for the end to poverty, combatting inequalities, and so on, by 2030). The SDGs were preceded by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) from 2000 to 2015.
–Human Rights
Wednesdays 7 pm EST / 4 pm PST
Call-In Details: (701) 801-1220
Meeting ID: 934-317-242
Lead Page: https://goodmenproject.lpages.co/conscious-intersectionality/
Led by: Scott Douglas JacobsenTo the socio-political Right, a disclaimer; to the socio-political Left, a trigger warning: the subject matter may be disturbing or triggering for some listeners, speakers, or call members. The statistics on international violence against women is disproportionately more than violence against men. In turn, there is violence against women committed by women against women but more often by men against women. It is the statistical difference, which is the basis for the international emphasis on violence against women in multiple spheres rather than localized differences. Wednesday morning, we will speak on violence against women for one hour or so.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
Share this:
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/02/03
Article 25
1. The present Convention shall be open for signature by all States.
2. The Secretary-General of the United Nations is designated as the depositary of the present Convention.
3. The present Convention is subject to ratification. Instruments of ratification shall be deposited with the Secretary-General of the United Nations.
4. The present Convention shall be open to accession by all States. Accession shall be effected by the deposit of an instrument of accession with the Secretary-General of the United Nations.
Article 26
1. A request for the revision of the present Convention may be made at any time by any State Party by means of a notification in writing addressed to the Secretary-General of the United Nations.
2. The General Assembly of the United Nations shall decide upon the steps, if any, to be taken in respect of such a request.
Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979)
Articles 25 and 26 of the CEDAW are more procedural notes than anything, but, nonetheless, important to its overall contents. This convention needs to have a few things equality for all and access for every Member State. It needed to have the ability for all Member States able to sign onto it.
To deny signatory status to it, it is a rejection of its contents, in part or whole, with the implication of an entire rejection of the document as a result, as a whole based on the in part or in whole rejection in content.
Looking at a similar document with a huge scope and breadth is the UN Global Compact on Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration that began with 18 months of deliberation and then on July 13, 2018 the considerations and negotiations became more concrete with a “fully endorsed” version on December 19, 2018. It was a rapid affair.
In the voting procedures, there was an overwhelming consensus with 152 votes for, 5 against – including the United States and Israel, 12 abstains, and 24 no votes; in other words, if a Member State of the United Nations voted, then the Member State of the United Nations voted overwhelmingly in favor of the UN migration compact.
Similarly, it speaks to those who did and did not sign the CEDAW as well. The rest of the stipulations in these articles simply look into the processes of ratification and accession for the Member States involved in these signings.
–One can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights:
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3 and Article 13.
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979).
Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (1993).
Beijing Declaration(1995).
United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000).
Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
Share this:
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/02/02
Strategic objective D.1.
Take integrated measures to prevent and eliminate violence against women
Actions to be taken
125. By Governments, including local governments, community organizations, non-governmental organizations, educational institutions, the public and private sectors, particularly enterprises, and the mass media, as appropriate:
e. Organize, support and fund community-based education and training campaigns to raise awareness about violence against women as a violation of women’s enjoyment of their human rights and mobilize local communities to use appropriate gender-sensitive traditional and innovative methods of conflict resolution;
f. Recognize, support and promote the fundamental role of intermediate institutions, such as primary health-care centres, family-planning centres, existing school health services, mother and baby protection services, centres for migrant families and so forth in the field of information and education related to abuse;
g. Organize and fund information campaigns and educational and training programmes in order to sensitize girls and boys and women and men to the personal and social detrimental effects of violence in the family, community and society; teach them how to communicate without violence and promote training for victims and potential victims so that they can protect themselves and others against such violence;
Beijing Declaration (1995)
The Beijing Declaration in these sections is focused on organization, recognition, support, funding, and promotion in general, as actionable modes for the stipulations. In terms of the opening salvo, we can see the general framework of working for the community programs and initiatives aimed at the increase in awareness.
One of the myths abounding in many cultures may be marriage as a magical barrier to the acts of sexual and other violence against women. But there can also be the ways in which simple denial of the rates of violence against women, especially when data has been collected from nation to nation and region to region.
A collected set of data that provides the famous statistics about 35%, or 1 in 3, women undergoing some form of “physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence or non-partner sexual violence in their lifetime.” That’s high.
It is right in front of our faces with a firm empirical basis in “worldwide” data. Then we also have the issues following from the recognition. It is one thing for relevant sectors of the general public to know about the facts.
But it is another order entirely to work on the development of a grassroots coalition of people willing to even risk civil disobedience in order to create the change wanted in the current moment and into the next generations.
A world in which women can enjoy their “human rights and mobilize local communities.” There are, certainly, differences in the standard modes of conflict resolution. Some cultural sensitivity and knowledge will be needed in order to do it. But some novel means by which it can be done have been mentioned in other publications, including #RefugeeToo to help refugees or #Basma, and others, to help women in difficult circumstances.
It is more than simply a pragmatic issue. These are ethical and moral issues of a high order. On top of this, we find the need to “recognize, support and promote” the relevant intermediate institutions that can attenuate the negative effects of violence against women.
There is no doubt to the informed on the severe levels of violence against women more often perpetrated by men. But also, there is little doubt as to the negative impacts on the lives and livelihoods of women, and girls, who speak with one another as a group more probable to be violated in some way, to have violence cracking their human rights on the stone of injustice.
All the aforementioned secondary institutions – “primary health-care centres, family-planning centres, existing school health services, mother and baby protection services, centres for migrant families” – are important to have in place following or even coinciding with the higher acknowledgement and recognition of the problem.
But without the broader public knowledge, any strongman ideologue could emerge and strip these social programs overnight of their funding, because the public has been kept distracted or unaware and then the defunding can go on without a hitch or a stall, or a protest or a march.
But the active citizenry remain the prime force in the changes of societies. Those same citizens become the important members of a global community intended for the reduction and eventual elimination of violence against women. Those are represented in this and other documents in the stipulations orienting themselves towards the ultimate goal of a justice on a social level disproportionately negatively impacting women.
This can be derided as social justice activism by SJWs in some sense. But then this leaves a retort query, what form of mind mocks and ridicules and works to deter those working to improve the social justice implied in the reduction of violence against women – and others?
All these secondary programmes and initiatives are important infrastructure, but, as noted, the central need is the development of information campaigns, workshops, and other measures to begin to develop a deeper understanding of the context in which violence against women happens and, hopefully, to learn in community about its severity around the world. This may lead to conclusions about the realities in one’s own home country, not necessarily the most comfortable conclusions, either.
This education and training and be helpful in self-empowerment of those who have been violated or those who may be, in terms of providing a context speaking out for themselves on their own rights and then, also, improve their ability to fend off possible incursions into their rights, as happens around the world and, likely, right in the backyard of your own community.
–(Updated 2018-11-10) One can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights:
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the optional protocol (1993).
- Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), Five-year review of progress (2000), 10-year review in 2005, the 15-year review in 2010, and the 20-year review in 2015.
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), and the UN Security Council additional resolutions on women, peace and security: 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013), and 2242 (2015).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
- UN Women’s strategic plan, 2018–2021
- 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
- 2015 agenda with 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (169 targets for the end to poverty, combatting inequalities, and so on, by 2030). The SDGs were preceded by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) from 2000 to 2015.
–Human Rights
Wednesdays 1 pm EST / 10 am PST
Call-In Details: (701) 801-1220
Meeting ID: 934-317-242
Lead Page: https://goodmenproject.lpages.co/conscious-intersectionality/
Led by: Scott Douglas JacobsenTo the socio-political Right, a disclaimer; to the socio-political Left, a trigger warning: the subject matter may be disturbing or triggering for some listeners, speakers, or call members. The statistics on international violence against women is disproportionately more than violence against men. In turn, there is violence against women committed by women against women but more often by men against women. It is the statistical difference, which is the basis for the international emphasis on violence against women in multiple spheres rather than localized differences. Wednesday morning, we will speak on violence against women for one hour or so.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
Share this:
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/02/01
Strategic objective D.1.
Take integrated measures to prevent and eliminate violence against women
Actions to be taken
125. By Governments, including local governments, community organizations, non-governmental organizations, educational institutions, the public and private sectors, particularly enterprises, and the mass media, as appropriate:
- Provide well-funded shelters and relief support for girls and women subjected to violence, as well as medical, psychological and other counseling services and free or low-cost legal aid, where it is needed, as well as appropriate assistance to enable them to find a means of subsistence;
- Establish linguistically and culturally accessible services for migrant women and girls, including women migrant workers, who are victims of gender-based violence;
- Recognize the vulnerability to violence and other forms of abuse of women migrants, including women migrant workers, whose legal status in the host country depends on employers who may exploit their situation;
- Support initiatives of women’s organizations and non-governmental organizations all over the world to raise awareness on the issue of violence against women and to contribute to its elimination;
Beijing Declaration (1995)
Important to note about these specifications within the documents here, we can note the ways in which the ideals connect to highly practical measures for the improvement of the wellbeing of those who have been abused in some manner or other.
Let’s take even the specific nature of the recommendation for shelters or relief support for girls and women, it is not about anything too high falutin’. It can be the basic provision of a safe space and haven for women, and potentially girls, who have undergone some form of violence against them.
From this basis, there can be the work on the source of the problem, which, in the language of religious traditionalism, is vice and, in the language of secular progressivism, is toxic; that is to say, the men and women of virtue implies a male vice set and set of female vices too, but also links to the dichotomy of healthy masculinity and toxic masculinity.
Not in every facet or aspect, but, on their face, though coming from different perspectives on the overall orientation of the nature of the world and the sexes and genders, they, in essence, aim for some of the same core values of virtue and health, and work against vices and toxics.
Given the orientation of the audience here in The Good Men Project, obviously, we will come from the center-left set of the aisle more often than not, where this will produce a form of language use to get a message across with the toxic masculinity as a central one.
The toxic masculinity, in one aspect, is the abuse of legitimate power or the development and assumption of illegitimate power over another human being. Something like this, as these are casual commentaries. Looking into the toxic masculinity, we can note the ways in which the higher innate aggressive tendencies in males leads to more violent instances, as one factor.
Another is the sense of entitlement of the men and then outcroppings of this in behavior and in the unfortunate, frequent, criminal, and common instances of women being attacked by men. These, and other, low cost or even free assistance can help mitigate the post-occurrence damages, including “medical, psychological and other counseling services and free or low-cost legal aid.”
Each can be important for the improved livelihoods of women who have gone through horrible circumstances. But if we look at migrant women and girls, and works, they can be victims of gender-based violence with layered problems including language and culture barriers.
If the services or supports for these victims are not available, this makes them similarly vulnerable to those who have a native tongue and cultural heritage of the mainstream society, which is one issue; however, or on the other hand, if these services are available but not in a language or with a cultural sensitivity of the migrants or the migrant workers, then this leaves them outside of the realm of full treatment options – of those, typically, available to the women who have the language, say English, and culture, say British Anglo-Saxon that an Arabic-speaking Kurdish woman may not.
These are the difficulties confronting us as a global community for the health and wellbeing of women. These are relatively cheap interventions for the health and wellness of abused women, but these are also nuanced means by which to help them. It is cheap. But it requires thoughtfulness and consideration of the individual circumstances of the woman.
There should be a common backdrop, as per the stipulation, of recognition of disproportionate violence faced by women migrants and women migrant workers compared to other working and migrant populations. There are situations in which their employers will simply abuse their rights and privileges as employers over and against their employees: these migrant women and women migrant workers.
This leads to the last part for this one with the emphasis on the women’s organizations and the non-governmental organizations, the NGOs, with the focus on raising awareness about the violence against women and its associated reduction and eventual elimination.
None of this is some arcane and esoteric knowledge, as if exegetes find out Timothy Leary is an admirer and someone carrying on the work of Aleister Crowley. It is simply a base discussion about the rights of women migrant workers and women migrants who are disproportionately likely to be affected negatively by several circumstances of violence against women.
It is simply working on the fundamental basis of the reduction of suffering of those who are amongst the most vulnerable to suffer and then working to attenuate that pain and despair. Not much more sophisticated moral analysis required there.
–(Updated 2018-11-10) One can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights:
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the optional protocol (1993).
- Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), Five-year review of progress (2000), 10-year review in 2005, the 15-year review in 2010, and the 20-year review in 2015.
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), and the UN Security Council additional resolutions on women, peace and security: 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013), and 2242 (2015).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
- UN Women’s strategic plan, 2018–2021
- 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
- 2015 agenda with 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (169 targets for the end to poverty, combatting inequalities, and so on, by 2030). The SDGs were preceded by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) from 2000 to 2015.
–Human Rights
Wednesdays 1 pm EST / 10 am PST
Call-In Details: (701) 801-1220
Meeting ID: 934-317-242
Lead Page: https://goodmenproject.lpages.co/conscious-intersectionality/
Led by: Scott Douglas JacobsenTo the socio-political Right, a disclaimer; to the socio-political Left, a trigger warning: the subject matter may be disturbing or triggering for some listeners, speakers, or call members. The statistics on international violence against women is disproportionately more than violence against men. In turn, there is violence against women committed by women against women but more often by men against women. It is the statistical difference, which is the basis for the international emphasis on violence against women in multiple spheres rather than localized differences. Wednesday morning, we will speak on violence against women for one hour or so.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
Share this:
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/01/26
Strategic objective D.1.
Take integrated measures to prevent and eliminate violence against women
Actions to be taken
124. By Governments:
r. Cooperate with and assist the Special Rapporteur of the Commission on Human Rights on violence against women in the performance of her mandate and furnish all information requested; cooperate also with other competent mechanisms, such as the Special Rapporteur of the Commission on Human Rights on torture and the Special Rapporteur of the Commission on Human Rights on summary, extrajudiciary and arbitrary executions, in relation to violence against women;
s. Recommend that the Commission on Human Rights renew the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on violence against women when her term ends in 1997 and, if warranted, to update and strengthen it.
Beijing Declaration (1995)
The basic program in the work fighting or combatting violence against women, and girls, comes in the acknowledgment of the human rights of women, and girls, where this, at a minimum, sets a stage of a base consideration of women as human beings deserving of the same freedoms and rights as men.
This basic consensus ethic is a basis for modern morality. Within this universalistic rather than objectivistic ethic, we find a reasonable basis for the continuance of the work for the reduction and eventual elimination of violence against women. Of course, looking at the specific stipulations here, we can note the ays in which there are specialized individuals, commissions, and so on, for the protection of women from violence.
In particular, we can note the rather serious content with the extrajudiciary and the arbitraty executions as well; those related to violence against women. Then the rest simply remarks on some routine procedural and station notes.
–(Updated 2018-11-10) One can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights:
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the optional protocol (1993).
- Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), Five-year review of progress (2000), 10-year review in 2005, the 15-year review in 2010, and the 20-year review in 2015.
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), and the UN Security Council additional resolutions on women, peace and security: 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013), and 2242 (2015).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
- UN Women’s strategic plan, 2018–2021
- 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
- 2015 agenda with 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (169 targets for the end to poverty, combatting inequalities, and so on, by 2030). The SDGs were preceded by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) from 2000 to 2015.
–Human Rights
Wednesdays 1 pm EST / 10 am PST
Call-In Details: (701) 801-1220
Meeting ID: 934-317-242
Lead Page: https://goodmenproject.lpages.co/conscious-intersectionality/
Led by: Scott Douglas JacobsenTo the socio-political Right, a disclaimer; to the socio-political Left, a trigger warning: the subject matter may be disturbing or triggering for some listeners, speakers, or call members. The statistics on international violence against women is disproportionately more than violence against men. In turn, there is violence against women committed by women against women but more often by men against women. It is the statistical difference, which is the basis for the international emphasis on violence against women in multiple spheres rather than localized differences. Wednesday morning, we will speak on violence against women for one hour or so.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
Share this:
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/01/26
Strategic objective D.1.
Take integrated measures to prevent and eliminate violence against women
Actions to be taken
124. By Governments:
o. Adopt laws, where necessary, and reinforce existing laws that punish police, security forces or any other agents of the State who engage in acts of violence against women in the course of the performance of their duties; review existing legislation and take effective measures against the perpetrators of such violence;
p. Allocate adequate resources within the government budget and mobilize community resources for activities related to the elimination of violence against women, including resources for the implementation of plans of action at all appropriate levels;
q. Include in reports submitted in accordance with the provisions of relevant United Nations human rights instruments, information pertaining to violence against women and measures taken to implement the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women;
Beijing Declaration (1995)
Inasmuch as there are rights, then there are rights violations, as the idealized notion of every human being as fundamentally deserving of the same rights and freedoms will become violated to some extent, in different ways and to various degrees; this leads, in some small ways, to profound derivations, from purely rationalistic concerns, about the nature of the treatment of other human beings with an idealized set of abstract ethical nails-in-wood, human rights, in the real world: different nails will be hammered softly for some, hard for others, and still not at all for even another set of people.
Rights for women are new. Women, for much of the historical record, can, insofar as we can tell and broadly speaking, be considered property – of men, of the family, of the state, of He on High, or even they on the mountain – and, thus, be seen in principle and in fact as lesser than the men around them.
We find ourselves in a peculiar position with the terrible rights situations for women, and girls. Violence against women violating their human rights in child marriage, female genital mutilation, intimate partner violence, humanitarian crises, human trafficking, economic inequalities, and others, not to mention preceding in time and surrounding in context conditions for them.
We find acts of violence without the force of law to protect them. But as per the stipulations above, if there can be an enforcement of laws for both civilians and law enforcement alike, then any forces or state enforcers can use their legitimate authority in illegitimate ways, where the general tenor is an expectation of the police using the force of the law and the possible need for physical force as a means by which to accrue justice over time.
In the performance of civilian life, as we all know by now, extensively, women and girls face extreme bias. But we should also look into the ways in which the law enforcement themselves can engage in acts of violence, where the violence against women, and girls, is peculiarly and grotesquely inflicted by those whom women, and girls, are expected to trust in these matters; and, as a result, they may not trust the enforcers of the law as much in the future, further leading to a hidden level of violence against women – potentially explaining part of the lack of proper reportage.
Women talk; women teach their daughters mostly, in most cultures; and this can become a part of common wisdom in the culture based on the sharing of information and experiences of women with and girls with one another and across generations about what to coldly, and rationally, to expect in the world or their locale given experiences with men, with the law, and with the enforcers of the law, i.e., with the culture at large.
The governmental budget line items should incorporate these finances as well; the monies for the resources capable of helping the community mobilize in these instances, where there can be further activities for the reduction of the current status and eventual elimination of violence against women. This means “all appropriate levels,” which sounds as if most conceivable ones, and then need to include this funding into the plans of actions.
That which sets about pragmatic steps for progress for the aforementioned reduction and eventual elimination of violence against women. Then there are a variety of reports, to catalog the rates and types of violence against women, in the United Nations with the Declaration mentioned as another important document. But this all requires time, commitment, sacrifice, education – personal and otherwise, and work to advance the basic human rights of the individuals involved in these, at times, atrocities or simply abuses: women and girls.
–(Updated 2018-11-10) One can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights:
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the optional protocol (1993).
- Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), Five-year review of progress (2000), 10-year review in 2005, the 15-year review in 2010, and the 20-year review in 2015.
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), and the UN Security Council additional resolutions on women, peace and security: 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013), and 2242 (2015).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
- UN Women’s strategic plan, 2018–2021
- 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
- 2015 agenda with 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (169 targets for the end to poverty, combatting inequalities, and so on, by 2030). The SDGs were preceded by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) from 2000 to 2015.
–Human Rights
Wednesdays 1 pm EST / 10 am PST
Call-In Details: (701) 801-1220
Meeting ID: 934-317-242
Lead Page: https://goodmenproject.lpages.co/conscious-intersectionality/
Led by: Scott Douglas JacobsenTo the socio-political Right, a disclaimer; to the socio-political Left, a trigger warning: the subject matter may be disturbing or triggering for some listeners, speakers, or call members. The statistics on international violence against women is disproportionately more than violence against men. In turn, there is violence against women committed by women against women but more often by men against women. It is the statistical difference, which is the basis for the international emphasis on violence against women in multiple spheres rather than localized differences. Wednesday morning, we will speak on violence against women for one hour or so.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
Share this:
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/01/15
Strategic objective D.1.
Take integrated measures to prevent and eliminate violence against women
Actions to be taken
124. By Governments:
l. Create or strengthen institutional mechanisms so that women and girls can report acts of violence against them in a safe and confidential environment, free from the fear of penalties or retaliation, and file charges;
m. Ensure that women with disabilities have access to information and services in the field of violence against women;
n. Create, improve or develop as appropriate, and fund the training programmes for judicial, legal, medical, social, educational and police and immigrant personnel, in order to avoid the abuse of power leading to violence against women and sensitize such personnel to the nature of gender-based acts and threats of violence so that fair treatment of female victims can be assured;
Beijing Declaration (1995)
The Beijing Declaration deals with a substantial amount of material. But it also manages the presentation with specific sections. This particular set of paragraphs looks into the aspects of violence against women.
In these cases, the emphasis in 124(l) is either the strengthening of the gaps for women in terms of the institutional mechanisms available to them over the ability of women and girls to report violence against them to the appropriate authorities.
Within this context, we can see the general perspective of the need for a “safe and confidential environment” devoid of coercion or standard coercive techniques related to the fear of potential retribution for coming out about the abuse of the woman.
Then with this respect for the accuser, there can be a proper process, if found to be a legitimate charge, for the filing of charges against the individual who committed the act of violence against women. All parties deserve respect these conditions and, thus, require respect for due process while also taking into account the prior data; that is to say, if we take the rape statistics within the United States, after review of several cases, and in one set of research by the Home Office of the United Kingdom, only 8% of rape allegations turn out false or, more accurately, unfounded.
This makes the probability scales much different in terms of the overall framework of the accused and accuser. It does not set about a guilty soul, but, insofar as the data and not some whimsical vengeance narrative tells us, it seems rather clear and almost stark as to the nature of violence against women with, in this case, only 8% of rape cases as unfounded.
This next line focuses on women with disabilities, where the nature of a life of a person is more difficult than most other peoples; however, this fact of disability does not reduce the value and the seriousness of a rape allegation.
In fact, as we can see in one of the grotesque stories coming out of the news, we can see the ways in which a woman without consent but disabled – i.e., an unconscious woman – was impregnated while in a coma and then gave birth, also in a coma. Obviously, the moral consideration here is independent of disability; the ethical non-quandary comes from the violence against a woman in a vulnerable state.
Information and access to conscious women who also have disabilities is important and does not reduce in any way the severity – or should not – of the situation; nonetheless, we can see the general tenor of the sentence: dry, factual, but supportive. Information or data and services, whether initiatives or programs, for women with disabilities to know about violence against women.
One of, on an individual basis certainly, the lowest crimes possible. The last section of this particular set of stipulations works within the framework training programmes at all levels of the society without respect to a particular focus. Literally, the focus becomes “judicial, legal, medical, social, educational and police and immigrant personnel” within societies and organizations.
Those pieces of training, as we have seen in other contexts, are an explicit effort to reduce and eventually eliminate the level of violence against women. The nature of hierarchical structures does imply, by their nature, power imbalances; power imbalances, without the appropriate checks and balances, that can be abused, whether by Christians against Indigenous populations, whites against minorities, or men against women, where the long history of much of the world reflects these truths coming through narratives or stories.
They do not need to be the future. There can be a healthier path. But it will require concerted efforts in line with some of the stipulations above-mentioned. It is providing a basis for awareness of all parties as to what is and is not acceptable, and then knowing how to deal with it in a strict procedural and respectful manner, and then having the mechanisms in place to do it.
–(Updated 2018-11-10) One can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights:
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the optional protocol (1993).
- Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), Five-year review of progress (2000), 10-year review in 2005, the 15-year review in 2010, and the 20-year review in 2015.
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), and the UN Security Council additional resolutions on women, peace and security: 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013), and 2242 (2015).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
- UN Women’s strategic plan, 2018–2021
- 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
- 2015 agenda with 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (169 targets for the end to poverty, combatting inequalities, and so on, by 2030). The SDGs were preceded by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) from 2000 to 2015.
–Human Rights
Wednesdays 1 pm EST / 10 am PST
Call-In Details: (701) 801-1220
Meeting ID: 934-317-242
Lead Page: https://goodmenproject.lpages.co/conscious-intersectionality/
Led by: Scott Douglas JacobsenTo the socio-political Right, a disclaimer; to the socio-political Left, a trigger warning: the subject matter may be disturbing or triggering for some listeners, speakers, or call members. The statistics on international violence against women is disproportionately more than violence against men. In turn, there is violence against women committed by women against women but more often by men against women. It is the statistical difference, which is the basis for the international emphasis on violence against women in multiple spheres rather than localized differences. Wednesday morning, we will speak on violence against women for one hour or so.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
Share this:
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/01/10
Strategic objective D.1.
Take integrated measures to prevent and eliminate violence against women
Actions to be taken
124. By Governments:
i. Enact and enforce legislation against the perpetrators of practices and acts of violence against women, such as female genital mutilation, female infanticide, prenatal sex selection and dowry-related violence, and give vigorous support to the efforts of non-governmental and community organizations to eliminate such practices;
j. Formulate and implement, at all appropriate levels, plans of action to eliminate violence against women;
k. Adopt all appropriate measures, especially in the field of education, to modify the social and cultural patterns of conduct of men and women, and to eliminate prejudices, customary practices and all other practices based on the idea of the inferiority or superiority of either of the sexes and on stereotyped roles for men and women;
Beijing Declaration (1995)
The Beijing Declaration deals quite frankly and directly, though in academic and rights garb, with the serious global social and legal issue of violence against women in addition to the fallouts around it.
For examples listed above, we can take into account the basic facts of tens of millions of women undergoing female genital mutilation. The nature of cultural institutions dictating the preference for sons over daughters and, thus, the need to kill a female child over a male child because of the chance to carry on the family name more, within the context of the culture, through the sons rather than the daughters.
This extends right into the “prenatal sex selection,” which simply builds into this general line of argument against or analysis of the sex preference for boys and, thus, bias against girls. The formulation of laws and enforcement of them against these violations against the autonomy and the bodily integrity of women must be put in place, firmly.
With setting in place the plans and then enacting them “at all levels,” including legal, administrative, political, educational, and so on, the work to reduce violence against women in its systemic form can begin to take some shape.
Akin to the need to teach the sciences, to fund scientific enterprises at a national level, to alleviate and mitigate the anthropogenic climate crisis, to instill universal human values within normal human empathic and bonding sentiments, it needs to be done all at once; these approaches require pervasive administrative efforts and intensive funding linked to long-term implementation to become effective.
All these “appropriate measures” connected to the relations between the sexes can only become implemented with sufficient political will, sociocultural approval, and financial backing for the known-to-work and more experimental programs and initiatives currently on offer to solve this global problem.
It is and never has been about superiority or inferiority of men or women but about the equal treatment of them in order to reduce the stereotypes each experience throughout their lives and, in this particular section, the reduction and eventual elimination of violence against women.
–(Updated 2018-11-10) One can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights:
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the optional protocol (1993).
- Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), Five-year review of progress (2000), 10-year review in 2005, the 15-year review in 2010, and the 20-year review in 2015.
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), and the UN Security Council additional resolutions on women, peace and security: 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013), and 2242 (2015).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
- UN Women’s strategic plan, 2018–2021
- 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
- 2015 agenda with 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (169 targets for the end to poverty, combatting inequalities, and so on, by 2030). The SDGs were preceded by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) from 2000 to 2015.
–Human Rights
Wednesdays 1 pm EST / 10 am PST
Call-In Details: (701) 801-1220
Meeting ID: 934-317-242
Lead Page: https://goodmenproject.lpages.co/conscious-intersectionality/
Led by: Scott Douglas JacobsenTo the socio-political Right, a disclaimer; to the socio-political Left, a trigger warning: the subject matter may be disturbing or triggering for some listeners, speakers, or call members. The statistics on international violence against women is disproportionately more than violence against men. In turn, there is violence against women committed by women against women but more often by men against women. It is the statistical difference, which is the basis for the international emphasis on violence against women in multiple spheres rather than localized differences. Wednesday morning, we will speak on violence against women for one hour or so.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
Share this:
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/01/10
Strategic objective D.1.
Take integrated measures to prevent and eliminate violence against women
Actions to be taken
124. By Governments:
g. Promote an active and visible policy of mainstreaming a gender perspective in all policies and programmes related to violence against women; actively encourage, support and implement measures and programmes aimed at increasing the knowledge and understanding of the causes, consequences and mechanisms of violence against women among those responsible for implementing these policies, such as law enforcement officers, police personnel and judicial, medical and social workers, as well as those who deal with minority, migration and refugee issues, and develop strategies to ensure that the revictimization of women victims of violence does not occur because of gender-insensitive laws or judicial or enforcement practices;
h. Provide women who are subjected to violence with access to the mechanisms of justice and, as provided for by national legislation, to just and effective remedies for the harm they have suffered and inform women of their rights in seeking redress through such mechanisms;
Beijing Declaration (1995)
In the long history of violence against women, we can examine the straightforward women simply by religion, culture, patriarchal attitudes, and traditions were not viewed as human beings, as those worthy of independent consideration and valuable in and of themselves.
It is, in this direct sense, the modern work to provide policies and initiatives with women as the focus has become a central arena upon which to see better gender equality provided for women and men.
But also, the active work to disseminate accurate information to inform, actively, policy and programs have been crucial in working to reduce the level of violence against women. It is, in short, about the reduction of the violence against women, as emphasized here, through those measures within the society that can have short-term effects with medium and long-term consequences on the health and wellness of women – re: violence meted out against them.
Now, the ease is simply stating the truisms here. Violence against women is a reality. There is a distinct sense in which the fundamental rights of women are violated through violence committed against them. It is not only a distinct social disadvantage against women and crime in violation of their basic protections, but also a form of psychical and physical damage that can, in turn, affect the long-term life prospects of the individual woman.
The basic premise in the violation against women is the social and legal sanction of it. The reduction of this would start in the home and the schools working in conjunction, while, at the same time, looking into the means by which to prevent the violence perpetuating into the next generations or of those who the familial and communal bonds did not suffice in preventing their committing violence against women.
At the level of the legal and law enforcement stages, we need to base the laws and actions of the enforcers of the legal system within the framework of the sensitivity, respect, and due process. There is the real risk of revictimization of women through the implementation of insensitive legal and law enforcement proceedings.
The point, obviously, is not to emphasize innocence of either party but to take into account the vast majority of claimants to any ill-treatment are real rather than feigned and, thus, to be taken seriously while still retaining respect and dignity for those whom one is dealing with in the process of sussing out the veracity of the claims and, if true, the kinds and degrees of violence inflicted on women.
The provisions of state can be an important factor in this. But the two important emphases here are the judicial system and the national legislation. The passing of laws and policies to help women have better chances a higher quality of life in trying circumstances: dealing with the legal system for instance, tied to law enforcement inquiries.
The other would be associated downstream with the aforementioned respectful and more dignified treatment of women within the contexts of the law o a nation and the larger environment of fundamental human rights for women. It is not that men are intrinsically disordered or bad, but it does not better education to reduce a social ill-health problem: the contagion of violence.
–(Updated 2018-11-10) One can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights:
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the optional protocol (1993).
- Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), Five-year review of progress (2000), 10-year review in 2005, the 15-year review in 2010, and the 20-year review in 2015.
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), and the UN Security Council additional resolutions on women, peace and security: 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013), and 2242 (2015).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
- UN Women’s strategic plan, 2018–2021
- 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
- 2015 agenda with 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (169 targets for the end to poverty, combatting inequalities, and so on, by 2030). The SDGs were preceded by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) from 2000 to 2015.
–Human Rights
Wednesdays 1 pm EST / 10 am PST
Call-In Details: (701) 801-1220
Meeting ID: 934-317-242
Lead Page: https://goodmenproject.lpages.co/conscious-intersectionality/
Led by: Scott Douglas JacobsenTo the socio-political Right, a disclaimer; to the socio-political Left, a trigger warning: the subject matter may be disturbing or triggering for some listeners, speakers, or call members. The statistics on international violence against women is disproportionately more than violence against men. In turn, there is violence against women committed by women against women but more often by men against women. It is the statistical difference, which is the basis for the international emphasis on violence against women in multiple spheres rather than localized differences. Wednesday morning, we will speak on violence against women for one hour or so.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
Share this:
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/12/06
Strategic objective D.1.
Take integrated measures to prevent and eliminate violence against women
Actions to be taken
124. By Governments:
d. Adopt and/or implement and periodically review and analyse legislation to ensure its effectiveness in eliminating violence against women, emphasizing the prevention of violence and the prosecution of offenders; take measures to ensure the protection of women subjected to violence, access to just and effective remedies, including compensation and indemnification and healing of victims, and rehabilitation of perpetrators;
e. Work actively to ratify and/or implement international human rights norms and instruments as they relate to violence against women, including those contained in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,/21 the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, 13/ the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights,/13 and the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment;/22
f. Implement the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, taking into account general recommendation 19, adopted by the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women at its eleventh session;/23
Beijing Declaration (1995)
Where the rights of women are violated, then, in many instances, we can predict proportional violence against the autonomy and bodily safety of women within the sub-population in question. Without a doubt, akin to the findings of evolution by natural selection and of the anthropogenic global warming ongoing since the Industrial Revolution, violence against women remains a perennial social and public health problem more often inflicted on women by men.
These are the need to catalog and categorize the things done to women, as important as finding out the metrics of harm done to men on harsher worksites in order to prevent and lower the levels of injury and death. There is a distinct need to work on analyzing said data, reviewing it, and then using this information to improve the situation for so many men and women around the world.
As women tend more to be the victims of violence against women, there, certainly, is the need to bring about a better understanding of the rights of women and the ways in which violence against them violates their rights as human beings. A proper review and analysis process can be a genuine means by which to work on the reduction of rather vile acts against women.
But if we look further into this, not only as to the data collection and analysis of the offender rates and victim types, the appropriate remedies can be catalogued and oriented within the framework of understanding or comprehending the world, which is the important or most salient here; even with the piddling or rather, likely, marginal provision of resources – outside of the grand rhetoric – towards solving this problem, or set of them, the solutions will be akin to a Swiss Army Knife approach, in which the raped woman, the battered woman, the financially coerced woman, and so on, each are given a specific means out of an abusive situation.
To the men with concerns about the males of the species, this can also apply to them when these do happen to them, as the solutions, quite probably, have an overlap and, by implication, an overlap within the context of both problems and solutions. We can take examples of far more men dying and being injured in their physical labor; as women enter more of the lower-wage, harsher jobs, the more the statistics will decrease as a male-dominated phenomenon, as well as the increase in respect for fundamental rights and labour laws will provide a context in which men’s and women’s livelihoods will be more respected, whether in the sweatshops of China or the construction sites of America.
Any work to ratify, sign, and implement the rights enshrined in the listed documents, and many others, will become an important aspect of the basic ideational stances of the international community and the Hippocratic notion of “do no harm.” Respect for the rights and wellness, and health, of those, typically, among the least among us. This comes to the violence against women statistics with 1/3 women, which is a substantial minority, experiencing some form of physical or sexual violence in their lifetimes; this implies a substantial majority of women do not and a substantial majority of men do not inflict it, as an important caveat.
The calls for ratification and recognition of these substantial and important international rights, and women’s rights, in particular, documents is an incredible part of the beginning waves for equality. Without them, the world of rights for all but the richest would be rather dismal, akin to the times of only the Divine Right of Kings being in place. From these, there can a direct line of data collection, analysis, production of recommendations, and so on, oriented within the international rights frameworks signed, ratified, and implemented.
–(Updated 2018-11-10) One can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights:
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the optional protocol (1993).
- Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), Five-year review of progress (2000), 10-year review in 2005, the 15-year review in 2010, and the 20-year review in 2015.
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), and the UN Security Council additional resolutions on women, peace and security: 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013), and 2242 (2015).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
- UN Women’s strategic plan, 2018–2021
- 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
- 2015 agenda with 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (169 targets for the end to poverty, combatting inequalities, and so on, by 2030). The SDGs were preceded by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) from 2000 to 2015.
–Human Rights
Wednesdays 1 pm EST / 10 am PST
Call-In Details: (701) 801-1220
Meeting ID: 934-317-242
Lead Page: https://goodmenproject.lpages.co/conscious-intersectionality/
Led by: Scott Douglas Jacobsen
To the socio-political Right, a disclaimer; to the socio-political Left, a trigger warning: the subject matter may be disturbing or triggering for some listeners, speakers, or call members. The statistics on international violence against women is disproportionately more than violence against men. In turn, there is violence against women committed by women against women but more often by men against women. It is the statistical difference, which is the basis for the international emphasis on violence against women in multiple spheres rather than localized differences. Wednesday morning, we will speak on violence against women for one hour or so.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
Share this:
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/01/06
Strategic objective D.1.
Take integrated measures to prevent and eliminate violence against women
Actions to be taken
124. By Governments:
- Condemn violence against women and refrain from invoking any custom, tradition or religious consideration to avoid their obligations with respect to its elimination as set out in the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women;
- Refrain from engaging in violence against women and exercise due diligence to prevent, investigate and, in accordance with national legislation, punish acts of violence against women, whether those acts are perpetrated by the State or by private persons;
- Enact and/or reinforce penal, civil, labour and administrative sanctions in domestic legislation to punish and redress the wrongs done to women and girls who are subjected to any form of violence, whether in the home, the workplace, the community or society;
Beijing Declaration (1995)
The ways in which violence against women becomes enshrined probably emerges from both social sanction, higher aggression in the males of our species, and the sociological interpretation of entitlement of men to engage in overt acts of violence against women based on some slight to the man’s core masculine identity.
Any condemnation of this entitlement, as per the calls of the Beijing Declaration, can be important in a first reaction, first-response preventative, to the overwhelming violence against women around the world. But also, we can examine the ways in which women remain are kept down through the excuses of tradition and religion within societies.
Indeed, we can see the religious injunctions in the language and the forms of misrepresentation of women throughout societies. It can be for the noblest or ignoblest of reasons, but it results in the same forms of explicit, and often tacit as well, discrimination against women.
The reduction and eventual elimination of violence against women become important movements connected to these early stipulations of paragraph 124. If we continue this into section (b), it follows from the condemnation of acts of violence against women with the refraining from engagement in it.
This amounts to more of an individual and state dual-level moral stipulation about the need to use due caution in cases of violence against women for the benefit of the wellness and health of the women. If we look at the instances of the false accusations, such as the American case of Rolling Stone, we can see the need to bear in mind some estimates state 2-10% of the claims of rape are false, with the FBI finding of 8%.
That is to say, in the cases of some of the most severe forms of violence against women, most claims are true – over 9 out of 10, according to the FBI. The national legislation should reflect this in addition to the severity of the situations involving the violence against women. This includes “due diligence” in investigations for proper justice and prevention, so this does not happen as much.
From the levels of “penal, civil, labour and administrative sanctions,” violence against women as a global social health problem; mostly, men imposing on women. The purpose of the invocation of all these levels fo societies is to prevent, treat, and create a just reaction to and preventative framework for instances – very common – of violence against women.
Punishment for wrongs and comprehensive frameworks for prevention into the future. These remain important aspects of the work to reduce and eventually eliminate violence against women, whether “in the home, the workplace, the community or the society.”
–(Updated 2018-11-10) One can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights:
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the optional protocol (1993).
- Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), Five-year review of progress (2000), 10-year review in 2005, the 15-year review in 2010, and the 20-year review in 2015.
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), and the UN Security Council additional resolutions on women, peace and security: 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013), and 2242 (2015).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
- UN Women’s strategic plan, 2018–2021
- 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
- 2015 agenda with 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (169 targets for the end to poverty, combatting inequalities, and so on, by 2030). The SDGs were preceded by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) from 2000 to 2015.
–Human Rights
Wednesdays 1 pm EST / 10 am PST
Call-In Details: (701) 801-1220
Meeting ID: 934-317-242
Lead Page: https://goodmenproject.lpages.co/conscious-intersectionality/
Led by: Scott Douglas JacobsenTo the socio-political Right, a disclaimer; to the socio-political Left, a trigger warning: the subject matter may be disturbing or triggering for some listeners, speakers, or call members. The statistics on international violence against women is disproportionately more than violence against men. In turn, there is violence against women committed by women against women but more often by men against women. It is the statistical difference, which is the basis for the international emphasis on violence against women in multiple spheres rather than localized differences. Wednesday morning, we will speak on violence against women for one hour or so.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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123. In addressing violence against women, Governments and other actors should promote an active and visible policy of mainstreaming a gender perspective in all policies and programmes so that before decisions are taken an analysis may be made of their effects on women and men, respectively.
Beijing Declaration (1995)
The Beijing Declaration continues to provide insights into the phenomenon of violence against women and, in particular, the itemization of ways in which to catalog and deal with it, as provided by the international community.
Governments and other relevant actors become the emphasis or the scale of the suggested solutions here. If we look into the ways in which the, by analogy, structural adjustment programs did not include women in the considerations of the international community, and the ways this led to more horrors in making these social and economic transitions for women compared to men.
We can then also reflect on the negligence of much policy in the incorporation of a gendered lens. That is to say, there should be a focus on the ways that women tend to get a worse straw or stick in the global lottery of life, in time, in space, and in culture.
Women around the world tend to have a harder time and more barriers; in this sense, men tend to swim in water while women seem to swim in the muck of molasses to travel through this ordeal called life.
The mainstreaming of a gendered perspective can be an important part of the inclusion of women into the global conversation of rights, in particular, their own, and the ways in which violent acts tend to impact them more, including even in contexts of civilians caught in the crossfires of military actions and events.
With policies and programs set out for the benefit of the international community, one problem can be found in the forms of them oriented within the concerns more often afflicting women.
In this specific context, we’re speaking about the majority of violence in multiple spheres impacting women more, more brutally, and more consistently around the world as a cross-cultural phenomena, probably ranging from 1 in 5 to 2 in 5 women, dependent on region, experiencing some form of violence against them in their lifetime, e.g., sexual or physical violence by an intimate partner.
An analysis and set of policy recommendation set forth with the women of the world as the core concern would set the gendered lens within policy and programs as more viable, concrete, and, hopefully, less bound by dogmas of non-gendered lenses of priorm policies and programs.
–(Updated 2018-11-10) One can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights:
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the optional protocol (1993).
- Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), Five-year review of progress (2000), 10-year review in 2005, the 15-year review in 2010, and the 20-year review in 2015.
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), and the UN Security Council additional resolutions on women, peace and security: 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013), and 2242 (2015).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
- UN Women’s strategic plan, 2018–2021
- 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
- 2015 agenda with 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (169 targets for the end to poverty, combatting inequalities, and so on, by 2030). The SDGs were preceded by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) from 2000 to 2015.
–Human Rights
Wednesdays 1 pm EST / 10 am PST
Call-In Details: (701) 801-1220
Meeting ID: 934-317-242
Lead Page: https://goodmenproject.lpages.co/conscious-intersectionality/
Led by: Scott Douglas JacobsenTo the socio-political Right, a disclaimer; to the socio-political Left, a trigger warning: the subject matter may be disturbing or triggering for some listeners, speakers, or call members. The statistics on international violence against women is disproportionately more than violence against men. In turn, there is violence against women committed by women against women but more often by men against women. It is the statistical difference, which is the basis for the international emphasis on violence against women in multiple spheres rather than localized differences. Wednesday morning, we will speak on violence against women for one hour or so.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/12/21
122. The effective suppression of trafficking in women and girls for the sex trade is a matter of pressing international concern. Implementation of the 1949 Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Persons and of the Exploitation of the Prostitution of Others,/20 as well as other relevant instruments, needs to be reviewed and strengthened. The use of women in international prostitution and trafficking networks has become a major focus of international organized crime. The Special Rapporteur of the Commission on Human Rights on violence against women, who has explored these acts as an additional cause of the violation of the human rights and fundamental freedoms of women and girls, is invited to address, within her mandate and as a matter of urgency, the issue of international trafficking for the purposes of the sex trade, as well as the issues of forced prostitution, rape, sexual abuse and sex tourism. Women and girls who are victims of this international trade are at an increased risk of further violence, as well as unwanted pregnancy and sexually transmitted infection, including infection with HIV/AIDS.
Beijing Declaration (1995)
The sexual trafficking of women and girls can be a serious issue needing dealing with a conscious set of identifications, analysis of the data, and implementation of counter-action plans.
Throughout the world, the continual criminal activity around sex trafficking has been disproportionately negative for women compared to other groups. There is a reference to a 1949 international rights document.
But this may not seem necessary, as we can consider simply the largest market of the pornographication of the imagination. It’s mostly men. This reflects a long-term historical trend of the sexualization and objectification of women.
The question before us: is it appropriate in civilized and modern society at large, as a norm? We can ask women; we can report the real experiences of women. The public can have a vote on this if they so choose. Then this sensibility can be extended into international human rights work to protect women from sexual violence via sexual trafficking.
The effective suppression mentioned can seem vague, but the statement does not necessarily have to be vague. The tackling of the networks that entrap young women into destitute lives caught in sex trafficking, permitting them to be vulnerable to all forms of violence typical of violence against women and bound to some of the standard contexts with financial entrapment.
Women without financial independence can be caught in the loop of sexual trafficking far more easily. This is an incredibly important factor in most other violence against women contexts with even intimate partners, i.e., husbands or male sexual partners.
Not only violations of the rights of women, but sexual violence committed against women can also come with STIs and STDs, potentially. As per some of the concerns from the previous documents, HIV/AIDS can leave women stuck with sexual diseases that will likely kill them, assist in early death, or leave them with lower quality of life compared if they did not have them – apart from the psychological trauma of those who have experienced sexual trafficking.
Similar with 1995, there should be continued diligence and urgency about the rights of women and the violation of the rights of women in these contexts, as women may simply be more probable to be subject to sexual diseases and unwanted pregnancies with what amounts to conditions of rape.
–(Updated 2018-11-10) One can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights:
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the optional protocol (1993).
- Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), Five-year review of progress (2000), 10-year review in 2005, the 15-year review in 2010, and the 20-year review in 2015.
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), and the UN Security Council additional resolutions on women, peace and security: 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013), and 2242 (2015).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
- UN Women’s strategic plan, 2018–2021
- 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
- 2015 agenda with 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (169 targets for the end to poverty, combatting inequalities, and so on, by 2030). The SDGs were preceded by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) from 2000 to 2015.
–Human Rights
Wednesdays 1 pm EST / 10 am PST
Call-In Details: (701) 801-1220
Meeting ID: 934-317-242
Lead Page: https://goodmenproject.lpages.co/conscious-intersectionality/
Led by: Scott Douglas JacobsenTo the socio-political Right, a disclaimer; to the socio-political Left, a trigger warning: the subject matter may be disturbing or triggering for some listeners, speakers, or call members. The statistics on international violence against women is disproportionately more than violence against men. In turn, there is violence against women committed by women against women but more often by men against women. It is the statistical difference, which is the basis for the international emphasis on violence against women in multiple spheres rather than localized differences. Wednesday morning, we will speak on violence against women for one hour or so.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/12/20
Waleed Al-Husseini founded the Council of Ex-Muslims of France. He escaped from the Palestinian Authority to Jordan and then to France, after torture and imprisonment in Palestine. He is an ex-Muslim and an atheist.
I started the conversation for this session by asking about the prospects for increased secularization in France, especially as he founded the Council of Ex-Muslims of France.
It is important to keep some of these activities in mind as secularism is something not only protects the citizens from religious encroachment but also protects some citizens more who tend to be vulnerable within the context of religious threats, including death threats.
Al-Husseini stated, “Our secularism is dangerous in 2019. We are losing. They were talking about reforming the law of 1905 at this time. I don’t agree with doing this now. Because they are doing this bless Muslims and Islamists, and let more Islamic values into society. To be more clear, I’m with reforming it to go forward not backward, like what they will do now. I want to keep all religions and religious values out of public life. That’s why our fight now should not let this happen. We should stand up against it and show the dangers of this.”
Then I asked about the robustness of the ex-Muslim network in France. Al-Husseini noted the strength of it. That they continue to stand for their secular and areligious values within France.
He wants to point to the dangers of Islamism or political Islam. It has been a bane in the work of the ex-Muslim community, especially as there are open death threats against them. In addition, it can prevent furtherance of secular values within Europe as a whole.
Al-Husseini stated, “… for ex-Muslims we still follow some cases in Arabic countries who face ‘justice’ for blasphemy. In France, we still meet to support each other and to not feel alone in this belief and kind of discussion about the situations in Islamic countries.”
Then I asked about the channels for ex-Muslims to be able to challenge religious fundamentalisms and then find some asylum within nations around the world. He noted that there aren’t really channel and the work of the Council of Ex-Muslims of France can be simply to contact various human rights organizations in order to provide ex-Muslims with their rights.
“We just give the testimony to be acceptable of asylum,” Al-Husseini noted, “That’s the maximum that we can do: the testimony for the time being. To fight fundamentalists, it will require more, especially working with other organizations and publishing articles in the name of all of us to face the dangers of Islamism.”
Now, the Council of Ex-Muslims of France and others reach out to the media to change the thinking of more people, in order to understand the threat with greater clarity. I asked about some of the prominent anti-ex-Muslim figureheads in France and things being done about them.
“The most anti-ex-Muslim groups in France are these Islamist organizations who just attack us. It is an injustice all the time. They try to make us stop talking. There a lot of these types of organizations. Also, we don’t forget the Far Left who attack us in the name of racism: imagine that,” Al-Husseini stated.
But he also pointed to the serious danger of, literally, ordinary Muslims attacking them because they’re ex-Muslims. He noted the complex nature of the situation there.
Then I asked what the government is doing, the work to protect a vulnerable minority within a minority, or ex-Muslims. Al-Husseini stared that the situation is complicated and, in fact, is limited, especially with the recent events around yellow jackets and other, as the government simply has a lot on its hands now (the Government of France).
He concluded, “The government has a lot of things on their hands, but they can arrest the individuals who call for killing us and killing others like us. However, you can see how things are complicated even with terrorists’ attacks.”
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Ms. Gissou Nia is the Board Chair of the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center and the Strategy Director of Purpose. Here we talk about human rights and leadership.
When I started the conversation, we focused on the human rights work and positions of leadership of Gissou. In particular, the potential takeaways for women with want to pursue human rights work based on her experience.
Nia spoke to human rights interests probably being based on personal experiences. Where if some things happened in a different way for her, she may have acquired different interests to channel her talents.
“Being keenly aware of that, and seeing my peers who some came from similar conditions or culture, things could have gone differently for me. That was a driving force motivating me to pursue that work,” Nia stated.
The personal connection is more important than the pay grade of the work, where the “monetary incentive” simply is not the main reason to enter into the work. It is about making an impact in the lives of others. Of those people in those impact-sector positions, Nia noted the legal qualifications commonly found in the backgrounds of the individuals in them.
She remarked on the variations in the qualifications, though, while also reiterating the J.D. credential as a prominent trend. This became a motivation to enter law school and to acquire the appropriate skills to create a “serious body of work.”
In terms of the advice to others, Nia stated, “I would say to focus on the things that personally move them and to make sure they have a serious body of work or research to show that they have expertise in an area. I think it is tempting, in the current environment, that has cropped up over the past 5 years to be in this place of personal branding and looking to being very active in terms of sharing things on social media or having an opinion but without necessarily doing the really deep work that would credibly inform that opinion or would come from a place of substance.”
Nia thinks there needs to be more of the substantive presentation of opinions and information rather than the uninformed and the superficial. We began to speak about some of the gender-selected educational statuses around the globe with, typically, more investment in the boys than in the girls.
“If there is a family with 5 children and only a few of the children can go to school because there are only the monetary resources for 2 or 3 of those children to go to school,” Nia explained, “in many countries, the boys would be seen as the ones to go to school because they are going to be seen as breadwinners and the people that the family should be most invest in as they will carry the family name.”
The issue, then, is working to overcome the inherent bias of family and culture for boys and against girls. Where this is regarded as an important part of the UN Sustainable Development Goals now, for the empowerment of women and girls, education is crucial for the advancement and empowerment of women and girls.
Nia said, “Of course, education changes everything. We see a direct connection between lower rates of child marriage, lower rates of child and teen pregnancy, and higher education rates for women and girls. There is the statistical evidence to show that it is important.”
In terms of the anecdote for Nia’s life, she saw the difference in quality schooling on her life, personal interests, and, indeed, options for her life. I remarked on the other sociocultural barriers for women and women of color, and women in developing countries.
Nia noted the ways in which, one way or another, girls and women can miss out on education. These gaps in education could come about via the death of a parent and then taking on the tasks and responsibilities of the parent for the other siblings, as the eldest daughter, for example.
“You often see women, girls, or adolescent girls are shouldering the parenting responsibilities. This is something that can happen in situations of conflict where there has been a natural disaster or in challenging circumstances involving health and the loss of a parent,” Nia explained, “Other things are the factors that I mentioned such as early marriage. Once a girl is married off, it is unlikely that she will be continuing her education. If she falls pregnant, it is unlikely that she will be continuing her education.”
Nia noted something rather astonishing. Even in the United States, teen pregnancy can be a huge issue. It’s a global problem. But it can impact even some of the richest nations in the world. Then there are factors, Nia described, in the restrictions of girls to have primary education. Something like 15 million girls will never enter a classroom compared to 10 million boys.
That is a gross disparity. She made a distinct point: no one should miss schooling. However, the disparity is the real issue. Nia said some of the issues may be menstruation and then cultural taboos around it. Girls not being able to interact with others during their periods, and so on.
Nia concluded, “She would also not be able to go to school during those days. There is a lot of awareness built around that. There are a lot of programs specifically directed at improving access for girls, but that is something very front of mind and was informing what I was saying at the beginning. I am lucky in a global sense to have those opportunities.”
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/12/19
121. Women may be vulnerable to violence perpetrated by persons in positions of authority in both conflict and non-conflict situations. Training of all officials in humanitarian and human rights law and the punishment of perpetrators of violent acts against women would help to ensure that such violence does not take place at the hands of public officials in whom women should be able to place trust, including police and prison officials and security forces.
Beijing Declaration (1995)
Paragraph 121 of the Beijing Declaration deals even further with violence against women in conflict and non-conflict contexts. When we look into the variety of situations in which there is violence forced on women, it can be in both of the aforementioned contexts.
Within a humanitarian frame, one disturbing trend is the increase of the civilian casualties from war, as a proportion of victims. In fact, the majority of the civilian casualties in war are women and children.
In either case, whether in a civil environment or a war context, women will be more likely to be subject, as non-combatants, to the impacts of war. The emphasis here, even as far back as 1995, is to work for proper training of the humanitarian and other officials in both “humanitarian and human rights law.”
The knowledge of this can provide a modicum of backdrop into the rights and potential rights violations involved around violence against women. It can also provide some information as to what the appropriate level and kind of punishment are both considered requisite and proportional to the crime.
The idea is to ensure, inasmuch as is possible in each specific locale, the lack of violence by public officials against women, especially those in whom “women should be able to place trust.” This means the law enforcement or prison officials.
To the degree that this happens, we are moving to one systematic reduction in the degree to which there is lessened violence against women.
–(Updated 2018-11-10) One can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights:
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the optional protocol (1993).
- Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), Five-year review of progress (2000), 10-year review in 2005, the 15-year review in 2010, and the 20-year review in 2015.
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), and the UN Security Council additional resolutions on women, peace and security: 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013), and 2242 (2015).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
- UN Women’s strategic plan, 2018–2021
- 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
- 2015 agenda with 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (169 targets for the end to poverty, combatting inequalities, and so on, by 2030). The SDGs were preceded by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) from 2000 to 2015.
–Human Rights
Wednesdays 1 pm EST / 10 am PST
Call-In Details: (701) 801-1220
Meeting ID: 934-317-242
Lead Page: https://goodmenproject.lpages.co/conscious-intersectionality/
Led by: Scott Douglas JacobsenTo the socio-political Right, a disclaimer; to the socio-political Left, a trigger warning: the subject matter may be disturbing or triggering for some listeners, speakers, or call members. The statistics on international violence against women is disproportionately more than violence against men. In turn, there is violence against women committed by women against women but more often by men against women. It is the statistical difference, which is the basis for the international emphasis on violence against women in multiple spheres rather than localized differences. Wednesday morning, we will speak on violence against women for one hour or so.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
Share this:
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/12/19
120. The absence of adequate gender-disaggregated data and statistics on the incidence of violence makes the elaboration of programmes and monitoring of changes difficult. Lack of or inadequate documentation and research on domestic violence, sexual harassment and violence against women and girls in private and in public, including the workplace, impede efforts to design specific intervention strategies. Experience in a number of countries shows that women and men can be mobilized to overcome violence in all its forms and that effective public measures can be taken to address both the causes and the consequences of violence. Men’s groups mobilizing against gender violence are necessary allies for change.
Beijing Declaration (1995)
The ability to parse information and delineate what is happening to different sectors of a society, in societies or even in the global community, can limit the programs, initiatives, and movements intended to change the social and economic inequalities of the world.
We can find this in the violence against women statistics, in part. The problem arises through the ways in which there is a continual onslaught against the public through imposed ignorance, via the shutdown of data gathering mechanisms that compile information on behalf of the public or the general good.
For example, without dis-aggregated data – info not cut up into groups, the violence against women statistics can be, in essence, black boxes. Those that do not have clear-cut answers as to the levels of violence against women, the forms of violence against women, the severity per forms of violence against women, and the ones women are more often subject to, and the comparison of the aforementioned with the men in societies.
This brings the notion or proposal, really, of the gender-disaggregated data as an important hallmark of what we might consider more equal societies. Those that take care and concern for the wellbeing of women seriously.
With the proper data, the elaboration and monitoring can be done more easily or with fewer consequences. Now, we can have more documentation, where solid data comes from the United Nations, the World Health Organization, rights groups, and national statistics. More documentation on violence against women in order to develop national and international action plans.
Without the data on domestic violence, sexual harassment, and violence against women and girls, our social and cultural dialogue, legal responsiveness, and national and international plans of action can be bereft of their full flowering of effect.
Of course, there are explicit efforts to prevent the work for more equality. This is known; this is done covertly, or overtly. But the important work of going about reducing and eventually eliminating violence against women remains part of the powerful waves of history marking the progression from terrible conditions for women to more and more equal status for women and girls.
Good data, robust analysis, and then the development and implementation of national and international plans of action in line with these efforts is important for the reduction and eventual elimination against women, the social movements, including MeToo and associated collective social actions, can work to build coalitions between communities and nations for the health and wellness of women, families, and societies.
Men’s groups can help with the mobilizztion as well, as noted, but, likely, only in coalition with many other collectives.
–(Updated 2018-11-10) One can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights:
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the optional protocol (1993).
- Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), Five-year review of progress (2000), 10-year review in 2005, the 15-year review in 2010, and the 20-year review in 2015.
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), and the UN Security Council additional resolutions on women, peace and security: 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013), and 2242 (2015).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
- UN Women’s strategic plan, 2018–2021
- 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
- 2015 agenda with 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (169 targets for the end to poverty, combatting inequalities, and so on, by 2030). The SDGs were preceded by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) from 2000 to 2015.
–Human Rights
Wednesdays 1 pm EST / 10 am PST
Call-In Details: (701) 801-1220
Meeting ID: 934-317-242
Lead Page: https://goodmenproject.lpages.co/conscious-intersectionality/
Led by: Scott Douglas Jacobsen
To the socio-political Right, a disclaimer; to the socio-political Left, a trigger warning: the subject matter may be disturbing or triggering for some listeners, speakers, or call members. The statistics on international violence against women is disproportionately more than violence against men. In turn, there is violence against women committed by women against women but more often by men against women. It is the statistical difference, which is the basis for the international emphasis on violence against women in multiple spheres rather than localized differences. Wednesday morning, we will speak on violence against women for one hour or so.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
Share this:
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/12/17
119. Developing a holistic and multidisciplinary approach to the challenging task of promoting families, communities and States that are free of violence against women is necessary and achievable. Equality, partnership between women and men and respect for human dignity must permeate all stages of the socialization process. Educational systems should promote self-respect, mutual respect, and cooperation between women and men.
Beijing Declaration (1995)
In the work to reduce the levels of violence against women, some of the important factors to keep in mind are 1) the problem is multifaceted and 2) there continues to be work to reduce the level of violence against women on a variety of levels.
If we look into the ways in which there are the multi-causal pathways and thoroughly positively correlated effects throughout the statistics on violence against women, we can see the need to work on promoting families and communities without violence against women, but we also may want to reflect on the ways in which a state where women are “free of violence” is a hard slog.
It is going to take a significant amount of time, but it should not take forever and, technically, could be, in theory, one generation away. Our families, communities, and various states are important actors in the prevention and eventual elimination of violence against women.
The questions become about in what ways and how much. But there are also issues to do with the ways equality can play an important role in this.
In that, as has been noted, women tend to be disproportionately lacking in finances and, thus, economic independence. Most of the structures enforced in societies and reinforced in familial and communal, and even state manufactured, values present a patriarchal family structure.
One in which men are unquestioned and the violence they potentially mete out to women in their lives is something that they simply must take. But there is also the angle of the ways in which various systems and anchors of influence within the society prevent women from being able to freely speak out against the violence inflicted on them, or simply the fear of it.
The notions or the ideals within the global community, or those participating in it, reflect the ideas of respect for human dignity. The argument here is for a ‘permeation’ at “all stages of the socialization process” for human dignity and respect, typically, given mainly to men, especially those with more powerful and influential, and extending those to women as well.
The educational system can be an important force in the increased equality and the mindset concomitant with further “self-respect, mutual respect, an cooperation between women and men” necessary for the future desired by most inherent in a more equal and just societal system.
But, of course, this will not come without difficulties or individuals who may, actively and vociferously, against equality of the sexes based on entrenched forms of privileges and influence, or simply misunderstandings about what these changes imply; however, apart from those ideologues, the basic claims of gender equality are desired by much of the international community and can be seen enshrined within the Sustainable Development Goals.
–(Updated 2018-11-10) One can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights:
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the optional protocol (1993).
- Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), Five-year review of progress (2000), 10-year review in 2005, the 15-year review in 2010, and the 20-year review in 2015.
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), and the UN Security Council additional resolutions on women, peace and security: 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013), and 2242 (2015).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
- UN Women’s strategic plan, 2018–2021
- 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
- 2015 agenda with 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (169 targets for the end to poverty, combatting inequalities, and so on, by 2030). The SDGs were preceded by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) from 2000 to 2015.
–Human Rights
Wednesdays 1 pm EST / 10 am PST
Call-In Details: (701) 801-1220
Meeting ID: 934-317-242
Lead Page: https://goodmenproject.lpages.co/conscious-intersectionality/
Led by: Scott Douglas JacobsenTo the socio-political Right, a disclaimer; to the socio-political Left, a trigger warning: the subject matter may be disturbing or triggering for some listeners, speakers, or call members. The statistics on international violence against women is disproportionately more than violence against men. In turn, there is violence against women committed by women against women but more often by men against women. It is the statistical difference, which is the basis for the international emphasis on violence against women in multiple spheres rather than localized differences. Wednesday morning, we will speak on violence against women for one hour or so.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
Share this:
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/12/17
119. Developing a holistic and multidisciplinary approach to the challenging task of promoting families, communities and States that are free of violence against women is necessary and achievable. Equality, partnership between women and men and respect for human dignity must permeate all stages of the socialization process. Educational systems should promote self-respect, mutual respect, and cooperation between women and men.
Beijing Declaration (1995)
In the Beijing Declaration, the general view is of the human rights violations and implementations, or lack thereof, with an emphasis on the human rights of women, as these tend to be the most violated around the world.
In fact, if we look into the differentials of the power relations between men and women, there is a general trend for men to behave as if women are lesser than them.
That is to say, ann form of intrinsic misogyny bound to the idea of women somehow requiring the permission of men to do some basic activities in life, whether to freely move, to acquire an education, or to work and be gainfully employed.
But this is the general trend. One of the largest social ills still plaguing most societies, and to different degrees, is the violation of the rights of women.
As noted in the extensive paragraph, we can note the historical perspective within a gendered lens. The ways in which gender, in history, has played a major factor in the violation of the rights of women, or the abuse of women as persons – or, perhaps, the view of women as non-persons.
Men have domineered and discriminated against women as a general rule. There seems to be a modern set of movement, mostly in the advanced industrial economies, to attempt to whitewash and denude the truth of this.
But the plain fact is women were property, if that, throughout much of history and this was enshrined in the world’s ‘great’ religions. Women were intended to be secondary or adjunct to the purposes and the lives of men. This is the history of women’s struggle to free themselves from the oppressive grips of the powerful.
It takes a strong propaganda system to work to misinform the public and ignore these trends throughout the history of the world. Of course, this is an even more poignant message for women of color in much of the world too, including the colonial, or even especially in the colonial, powers.
There are cultural patterns around the world still present amount to “certain traditional or customary practices” that oppress women in a variety of ways.
These can be linked to various forms of lowering women’s status explicitly or implicitly within the society, including in the “family, the workplace, the community and society.”
But then there is also the view of modern societies with the legal provisions but the lack of political will to push these laws. It is a particularly low, abhorrent, and barbaric form of an act to violate another human being to the point of stealing their humanity or dehumanizing them.
This, right into the present, prevents women’s full participation in society and their complete empowerment. Similar to those who deny the facts of evolution the facts of anthropogenic climate change, the facts continental drift and plate tectonics, and so on, the denial of the facts of violence against women as a disproportionately negative life experience for a significant minority of women remains within the same category.
There are a variety of social pressures that can make the impacts of violence against women even worse with, for example, the inability to comfortably come forward and report the experiences of women.
We can find this bursting onto the scene with some movements including the #MeToo movement. The force, power, and import of the movement reflects the failure of the social and legal measures to properly provide recourse for women victims, and to then, by implication, permit the criminals to run on their rather grotesque ways.
No aid, no protection, few legal recourses, shame for having been sexually assaulted or abused, a lack of willingness on the part of the leadership to reform laws to defend victims, and the poor responsiveness of the law enforcement to the legitimate grievances of the women within the society, this all compounded with the lack of education the subject.
There are individuals and movements who probably know better spreading malicious and false information to the public against the widespread international data, which shows women as the disproportionately negative recipients of violence against them.
It is a perpetual search for the ways in which women can garner some recourse for the violence against them and then change the socio-cultural discourse; one which, in essence, amounts to a humanistic, human rights oriented, and a feminist discourse on the nature of the relations between the sexes, where the seldom has been clear-cut indications of the long-term equality of women in society at all or even most levels.
Then we can come to the media representations of rape or sexual assault of women; there is a deep responsibility of the popular media to work harder in their depictions of violence against women and the on-screen reactions of violence against women. All of these impact the ways in which violence against women is received in society.
Take this one step further, we know the intergenerational impacts of this on women. But even further than that, the child and the young are watching this, and the violence against women impacts those who tend to the disproportionate burden-carriers of the care of the women, which is women.
Thus, we remain left with the general view of violence against women as a problem at several levels of analysis with immediate and long-term impacts and, therefore, the need for immediate and long-term plans for remediation and eventual elimination, as per the efforts of the United Nations, in part, and other world actors.
–(Updated 2018-11-10) One can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights:
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the optional protocol (1993).
- Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), Five-year review of progress (2000), 10-year review in 2005, the 15-year review in 2010, and the 20-year review in 2015.
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), and the UN Security Council additional resolutions on women, peace and security: 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013), and 2242 (2015).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
- UN Women’s strategic plan, 2018–2021
- 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
- 2015 agenda with 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (169 targets for the end to poverty, combatting inequalities, and so on, by 2030). The SDGs were preceded by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) from 2000 to 2015.
–Human Rights
Wednesdays 1 pm EST / 10 am PST
Call-In Details: (701) 801-1220
Meeting ID: 934-317-242
Lead Page: https://goodmenproject.lpages.co/conscious-intersectionality/
Led by: Scott Douglas JacobsenTo the socio-political Right, a disclaimer; to the socio-political Left, a trigger warning: the subject matter may be disturbing or triggering for some listeners, speakers, or call members. The statistics on international violence against women is disproportionately more than violence against men. In turn, there is violence against women committed by women against women but more often by men against women. It is the statistical difference, which is the basis for the international emphasis on violence against women in multiple spheres rather than localized differences. Wednesday morning, we will speak on violence against women for one hour or so.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
Share this:
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/12/16
117. Acts or threats of violence, whether occurring within the home or in the community, or perpetrated or condoned by the State, instil fear and insecurity in women’s lives and are obstacles to the achievement of equality and for development and peace. The fear of violence, including harassment, is a permanent constraint on the mobility of women and limits their access to resources and basic activities. High social, health and economic costs to the individual and society are associated with violence against women. Violence against women is one of the crucial social mechanisms by which women are forced into a subordinate position compared with men. In many cases, violence against women and girls occurs in the family or within the home, where violence is often tolerated. The neglect, physical and sexual abuse, and rape of girl children and women by family members and other members of the household, as well as incidences of spousal and non-spousal abuse, often go unreported and are thus difficult to detect. Even when such violence is reported, there is often a failure to protect victims or punish perpetrators.
Beijing Declaration (1995)
The 117th paragraph of the Beijing Declaration deals with a number of things. Some of these appear to include home, community, and notions of the state. The various forms of precarity that women feel is simply a long nightmare for too many.
The act of violence can have immediate impacts on women. It can have an impact on their lives, their trajectories. As we beginning to see the pervasive abuse of women within even comedy circles, late-night television, Hollywood in general, and through the traditional religious institutions with sexual abuse by the Christian hierarchs or female genital mutilation by some of the international Muslim community.
These form one of the bases for women’s perceived and actual precarious safety in life. But then, of course, there is also the threats of violence from the community, the families, and the government. In formal academic terminology, the ones dominated by men who then set laws and policies to the detriment of women would amount to patriarchies. Systems dominated by men with men setting the agendas. Similar things happened with the structural adjustment reforms with women not being in its considerations directly and then women being the disproportionately negative recipients.
This has little to do with the idealized world of abstraction but with the real world in which we live and women bear the brunt of negative aspects. The removal of these barriers to women’s participation in social and political, and economic life.
The general global culture of women fearing for the livelihood and wellbeing is pervasive. We can consider the ways in which there is a constraint on the free mobility of women. This can, in turn, become a barrier to women’s “access to resources and basic activities.”
In addition, not only with different clothes or feminine hygiene products, we can see the issues with higher health and other economic costs for women, who already tend to be given lower wages.
At the same time, the individual and societal costs of this can ripple for a significant period of time, even intergenerationally. One of those is the violence against women being more probable when the woman or women are placed in an inferior or “subordinate” status compared to the men in the society around them.
As well, there is simply an ignoring of these problems because may not have the safety of ability to freely speak up about injustices against them, individually or as a demographic within societies.
Take the instance mentioned, the women who are victims; they may not be able to get support and the abusers or perpetrators of the violence against women crime may simply not get a trial or a significant punishment – a “slap on the wrist.”
These are the issues facing us. But the long tide of history simply sits in our favor compared to the opposite, where further freedom and equality is clarion call of society; but not handed from on high, it comes from long, persistent struggles and fights against injustices around the world with violence against one being a particularly large social health problem.
–(Updated 2018-11-10) One can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights:
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the optional protocol (1993).
- Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), Five-year review of progress (2000), 10-year review in 2005, the 15-year review in 2010, and the 20-year review in 2015.
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), and the UN Security Council additional resolutions on women, peace and security: 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013), and 2242 (2015).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
- UN Women’s strategic plan, 2018–2021
- 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
- 2015 agenda with 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (169 targets for the end to poverty, combatting inequalities, and so on, by 2030). The SDGs were preceded by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) from 2000 to 2015.
–Human Rights
Wednesdays 1 pm EST / 10 am PST
Call-In Details: (701) 801-1220
Meeting ID: 934-317-242
Lead Page: https://goodmenproject.lpages.co/conscious-intersectionality/
Led by: Scott Douglas JacobsenTo the socio-political Right, a disclaimer; to the socio-political Left, a trigger warning: the subject matter may be disturbing or triggering for some listeners, speakers, or call members. The statistics on international violence against women is disproportionately more than violence against men. In turn, there is violence against women committed by women against women but more often by men against women. It is the statistical difference, which is the basis for the international emphasis on violence against women in multiple spheres rather than localized differences. Wednesday morning, we will speak on violence against women for one hour or so.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
Share this:
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/12/16
116. Some groups of women, such as women belonging to minority groups, indigenous women, refugee women, women migrants, including women migrant workers, women in poverty living in rural or remote communities, destitute women, women in institutions or in detention, female children, women with disabilities, elderly women, displaced women, repatriated women, women living in poverty and women in situations of armed conflict, foreign occupation, wars of aggression, civil wars, terrorism, including hostage-taking, are also particularly vulnerable to violence.
Beijing Declaration (1995)
The central focus of the Beijing Declaration remains the rights and well-being of women. Women tend to be the disproportionately negatively impacted around the world and, thus, become the foci of so much international efforts and movements.
The violence against women simply extends this concern and emphasis on them as well. Here, we see the catalogue of the major sectors of women in most contexts in which I could imagine off the top, and, in fact, even more.
The situation for the women in most environments of the women pertain to violence inflicted on them or a friend, as the international data coming from the best sources – for example, the United Nations – postulates about 1/3 women being subject to physical or sexual violence by an intimate partner in their lifetime.
Typically, though there may be some derivations from report to report, the definition of an intimate partner in these contexts is someone who is the husband or male sexual partner of the women. In other words, there is little in the way of wiggle-room for this particular definition.
Furthermore, the notion of partnership, including pair-bonded heterosexual marriage implied by the term husband, does not, in contradistinction to the arguments from several North American conservative commentators provide some magical barrier from abuse; in fact, it may be contributive or facilitative, as the men tend to harbour more of the financial and other forms of power and influence, which then become wielded over the individual women within these situations.
However, and even further, the notion may extend to other forms of couplings as well, where this can simply reject the notion of traditional courted mates and progressive derivations of such as a protection against abuse but, rather, the sufficient levels of control and power dynamics influence this more.
In that, a, not the, feminist lens can help in understanding some of the dynamics here. The interactions of the minority status of women around the world living in a variety of contexts provide a lens into the disproportionately negative lives and experiences of women compared to the men.
Indeed, if we take the basic premise of the plight of women as simply worse, and if we look at the facts, so a biased framing, or, indeed, if we take the opposite with a full-breadth examination of the global trends and then formulate an opinion, it seems relatively obvious of the trends one would find around the world, where women disproportionately negatively bear the brunt of the violence in the world – especially with civilians and not combatants.
There has been an increase in the number of civilians murders by armed forces around the world, which implies the continued increased vulnerability of civilian casualties in war being women (and, in fact, children too). What we do from here is up to us, but the message seems relatively clear, the notion of women as not subject to more violence throughout history and right into the present harbors false ideas and, potentially, those conveniently propped up for convenience of the powerful.
–(Updated 2018-11-10) One can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights:
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the optional protocol (1993).
- Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), Five-year review of progress (2000), 10-year review in 2005, the 15-year review in 2010, and the 20-year review in 2015.
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), and the UN Security Council additional resolutions on women, peace and security: 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013), and 2242 (2015).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
- UN Women’s strategic plan, 2018–2021
- 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
- 2015 agenda with 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (169 targets for the end to poverty, combatting inequalities, and so on, by 2030). The SDGs were preceded by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) from 2000 to 2015.
–Human Rights
Wednesdays 1 pm EST / 10 am PST
Call-In Details: (701) 801-1220
Meeting ID: 934-317-242
Lead Page: https://goodmenproject.lpages.co/conscious-intersectionality/
Led by: Scott Douglas JacobsenTo the socio-political Right, a disclaimer; to the socio-political Left, a trigger warning: the subject matter may be disturbing or triggering for some listeners, speakers, or call members. The statistics on international violence against women is disproportionately more than violence against men. In turn, there is violence against women committed by women against women but more often by men against women. It is the statistical difference, which is the basis for the international emphasis on violence against women in multiple spheres rather than localized differences. Wednesday morning, we will speak on violence against women for one hour or so.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
Share this:
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/12/15
Legacy
Child welfare
1. We call upon the federal, provincial, territorial, and
Aboriginal governments to commit to reducing the
number of Aboriginal children in care by:
iv. Ensuring that social workers and others who
conduct child-welfare investigations are properly
educated and trained about the potential for
Aboriginal communities and families to provide
more appropriate solutions to family healing.
v. Requiring that all child-welfare decision makers
consider the impact of the residential school
experience on children and their caregivers.
Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) Calls to Action (2015)
The welfare of the young remains an important aspect of the rights of children. But this becomes a point of special emphasis segments of the population that experience, trauma, and loss as a result explicit governmental and Christian policies enacted and implemented for explicit imposition on those populations.
Of course, the central sector of the population spoken of here is the Indigenous Canadian population. The Christian church, in general, has played an enormous and general role in the process of colonization and deliberate – and failed – attempts at extermination and genocide of the peoples and cultures of North America.
Now, the central thesis in these two further stipulations is the making sure that there is sufficient education of the social workers in order to be better equipped to work within the cross-cultural context.
This includes looking into some of the most sensitive situations or contexts for the social workers and the Indigenous communities within a historical context. The orientation here is not only acknowledgment but also the environment in which there can be healing.
Without the proper healing of the communities and the families, and the young, the intergenerational trauma from the impacts of colonization can continue and will advance and, potentially, become worse.
Another stipulation, (v), speaks to the ways in which the child-welfare decision makers should be taking into account the individual and collective experiences of the Indigenous or Aboriginal within Canada given the residential school systems.
These, only closing in 1996 and impacting tens of thousands of Indigenous people, should be acknowledged, taken into account, and used as part of the knowledge base about the Aboriginal communities within this country.
There is a deep wound in this country; this was inflicted mostly by the European settlers in the process of colonization. The basis for healing is acknowledgment and recognition of this fact followed by incorporation of this into efforts to mutually work on the healing of individuals, families, and communities within the Aboriginal context of North America.
The questions to bear in mind are the historical markers as the first point of contact, followed by the impact – negative – on the individuals who went through the traumatic experiences, and then the ways in which their trauma may leave them less capable as caregivers of the next generation and, therefore, leading the intergenerational trauma and negative outcomes for the young.
It was an imposed system based on tremendous amounts of dehumanizing activities, but it can also be a means by which to look at as something never to be done again and towards healing, and so on.
But the work needs to be done at several levels and throughout the nation.
—
(Updated: December 7, 2018)
- The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP, 2007)
- Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada: Calls to Action (2015)
- C169 – Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention, 1989 (No. 169) (1989)
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
Share this:
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/12/14
115. Acts of violence against women also include forced sterilization and forced abortion, coercive/forced use of contraceptives, female infanticide and prenatal sex selection.
Beijing Declaration (1995)
The violent acts perpetrated on women remain an important source of the problems set forth in the world. These produce a form of trauma and long-term suffering and degeneracy within societies without remedial programs to try and correct the course that the bad actions have put forward into the future.
Violence against women retains its particular inherent problematic status with the ways in women remain subject to physical, psychological, and sexual forms of violence. In particular, the forms that can be seen around reproductive health systems.
There has been a long and ignoble history in the world with the forced sterilization of women. There have also been the forced abortions of women. All in the service of the men, the family, the community, the religion, or the state, and often multiple of these referents at the same time.
The idea of women as fundamentally the property of the men in their lives remains one of the defining characteristics of the world in which we inhabit, where we can, if reading carefully or even not, the signifiers of the world around us or the religious texts in our midst the notion of women as lesser than or, in fact, property.
The modern contraceptives are part and parcel of the family planning movements of the world. But we can also see the pushback from several sectors and organizations throughout the world, too.
The coercive or forced use of contraceptives fails to see women as fully autonomous human beings worth equal consideration and rights, including the right to autonomy over their own body.
In addition, if we look at several cultures around the world, we can note the general reflection of the misogynistic impulse rather pervasive in the air – so to speak: simply reflect, observe, and analyze.
Cultures around the world and right into the present day harbor misogynistic aspects or facets to their cultures through the preference for sons to carry on the family honor and name and, thus, enact sex-selective infanticide.
This also connects to prenatal sex selection, where this amounts to a serious form of reduced status of women and girls as women and girls; they are not as useful to the overarching functionary roles assumed for them within the society and, therefore, get weeded out, in an environmental forced choice, by parents and society in the form of female infanticide and prenatal sex selection.
This happens by the millions right into the current period, which means the idea of a post-sexist world is not true in the starkest possible terms at the earliest stages of the life of a female. Most of the falsehoods will continue their march, but the truth will, more or less, remain and the rest will fall by the wayside in the end; the question for the current crop of individuals within this country and around the world is to query whether they want to be part of the move towards more equality or back towards the swamp of prejudice, bigotry towards and ownership of women whether through the force of the state or the whip of fundamentalist religion now.
–(Updated 2018-11-10) One can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights:
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the optional protocol (1993).
- Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), Five-year review of progress (2000), 10-year review in 2005, the 15-year review in 2010, and the 20-year review in 2015.
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), and the UN Security Council additional resolutions on women, peace and security: 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013), and 2242 (2015).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
- UN Women’s strategic plan, 2018–2021
- 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
- 2015 agenda with 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (169 targets for the end to poverty, combatting inequalities, and so on, by 2030). The SDGs were preceded by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) from 2000 to 2015.
–Human Rights
Wednesdays 1 pm EST / 10 am PST
Call-In Details: (701) 801-1220
Meeting ID: 934-317-242
Lead Page: https://goodmenproject.lpages.co/conscious-intersectionality/
Led by: Scott Douglas JacobsenTo the socio-political Right, a disclaimer; to the socio-political Left, a trigger warning: the subject matter may be disturbing or triggering for some listeners, speakers, or call members. The statistics on international violence against women is disproportionately more than violence against men. In turn, there is violence against women committed by women against women but more often by men against women. It is the statistical difference, which is the basis for the international emphasis on violence against women in multiple spheres rather than localized differences. Wednesday morning, we will speak on violence against women for one hour or so.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/12/14
114. Other acts of violence against women include violation of the human rights of women in situations of armed conflict, in particular murder, systematic rape, sexual slavery and forced pregnancy.
Beijing Declaration (1995)
In paragraph 114 of the Beijing Declaration, we come to the inclusion of the violence against women in the phenomenon of armed conflict. This is a serious problem around the world. One of the big problems is the way in which the murder and rape have been forces of women’s oppression for eons.
It goes back a long way, even being incorporated into purported divine holy texts with women seen as property, as purposed for the propagation of children – hopefully sons, and so on. The coercive and slave-based sexual history of much of the species reflects the oppression of women.
It is not that every individual woman is, by the necessity of being a woman, oppressed but, rather, the nature of the relations and structures within the society produce forms of inequality at the detriment of women.
Indeed, these can be the cases in which the women, in an armed conflict context, become tools of the conquerors to further humiliate and take over the defeated populations. The murder of women and children, as more often civilians, is one tragedy.
Others include the rape as a weapon of war. Rape as a means by which to subdue and control the subjugated population. Violence against women remains an important and vile aspect of human nature and human interpersonal relations. It is done; thus, it is a human capacity.
The systematic rape of women is something tackled in some of the work written on by us here, but also within the larger global conversation started in North America by Tarana Burke but had throughout world history too.
One of the contexts of this is the ways in which the conversation is had, then misrepresented or misunderstood, and, thus, obfuscated. But, in general, the proper message gets out and the public can begin to coordinate, share common experiences, and work to change the world for the better.
But, as most know, the consequences of rape can be pregnancy, which can be an enforced form of pregnancy. These are some of the real-life circumstances and contexts for the women of the world. It pervades the contexts or environments of war.
Women simply take this as a brunt, as civilians mind you, within the context of armed aggression between two groups or state powers. The “murder, systematic rape, sexual slavery and forced pregnancy” retain a sensitivity within the public conservation while, at the same time, having the data to back up the import and prevalence undergirding the level of salience of the subject matter in any honest conversation about the sexual and other violence against women.
The questions for us moving forward related to the degree to which we continue to turn a blind eye to the derivative, or even sometimes direct, consequences and even intentions of war, violence, armed conflict and aggression around the world and the impacts on the lives of women.
–(Updated 2018-11-10) One can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights:
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the optional protocol (1993).
- Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), Five-year review of progress (2000), 10-year review in 2005, the 15-year review in 2010, and the 20-year review in 2015.
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), and the UN Security Council additional resolutions on women, peace and security: 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013), and 2242 (2015).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
- UN Women’s strategic plan, 2018–2021
- 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
- 2015 agenda with 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (169 targets for the end to poverty, combatting inequalities, and so on, by 2030). The SDGs were preceded by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) from 2000 to 2015.
–Human Rights
Wednesdays 1 pm EST / 10 am PST
Call-In Details: (701) 801-1220
Meeting ID: 934-317-242
Lead Page: https://goodmenproject.lpages.co/conscious-intersectionality/
Led by: Scott Douglas JacobsenTo the socio-political Right, a disclaimer; to the socio-political Left, a trigger warning: the subject matter may be disturbing or triggering for some listeners, speakers, or call members. The statistics on international violence against women is disproportionately more than violence against men. In turn, there is violence against women committed by women against women but more often by men against women. It is the statistical difference, which is the basis for the international emphasis on violence against women in multiple spheres rather than localized differences. Wednesday morning, we will speak on violence against women for one hour or so.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
Share this:
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/12/09
Legacy
Child welfare
1. We call upon the federal, provincial, territorial, and
Aboriginal governments to commit to reducing the
number of Aboriginal children in care by:
i. Monitoring and assessing neglect investigations.
ii. Providing adequate resources to enable Aboriginal
communities and child-welfare organizations to
keep Aboriginal families together where it is safe to
do so, and to keep children in culturally appropriate
environments, regardless of where they reside.
iii. Ensuring that social workers and others who
conduct child-welfare investigations are properly
educated and trained about the history and impacts
of residential schools.
Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) Calls to Action (2015)
The basic premise within this new series is the rights of the Indigenous communities throughout the world, starting within the Canadian context or Turtle Island more generally (“North America”), and then working on the implications of the responsibilities of the international community to the recognition of and upholding of the rights of the world’s Indigenous peoples.
The first document in the series will be the Truth and Reconciliation Commission with a focus on the actionables or the “Calls to Action.” Within the context of Canadian history, there is a fraught history, to say the least, of racism, warring, colonialism, neo-colonialism, and discontent, hatred, fear, and ignorance in the relations between Occidentals or Euro-Canadians and the Indigenous peoples, of which there are many.
Canada remains a complex society comprised of few people in comparison to the international or global population norms. Now, the context of Canadian society starts with colonialism and xenophobia connected to racism. “Race” is not a scientific category; rather, “species” is a scientific category. However, people believe race.
Ethnicity remains a heritage and sociocultural category. Thus, “ethnicity” and “species” become appropriate or proper in the description of the realities of the world, not “race”; hence, any argument becomes a pseudoscientific or pseudo-ethnographic discussion if based on “race.”
In this sense, “race” becomes true as a construct in the sense that people widely believe in it. It has widespread socioeconomic and cultural, and individual, impacts because of the truth of people believing in it. However, it’s not true because people believe in it. People can believe things widely and still harbor false beliefs, which implies widespread false beliefs about the world. While at the same time, false beliefs can create horrors throughout the histories of nations with impacts on specifics populations following right into the present.
To clean the global conversation would require a transition from race discussions into ethnic and species discussions, the impacts of the ideas of race believed as true is seen throughout the racist history of Canadian society, from John A. MacDonald in explicit quotes – “savages” – and policies to slaves in New France – the first colony – to the last Residential school closing in 1996 over a century of operation with an estimated 150,000 Indigenous youth impacted, to the 60s (and other) scoops, and so on, into the derivatives with the current lower school performance, lower lifespans and worse healthspans, and higher suicide rates in Attawapiskat First Nation, and impacts of genocide of cultures and languages and the ongoing denial, implicitly, of the equal status of the socio-cultural narratives of the Indigenous in this country, especially insofar as suffering is part of life for many, including the Murdered and Missing Indigenous women stories.
This series will attempt, in its own minute way, work to present the asks or, more explicitly and assertive, “Calls to Action” of the Indigenous community within Canada of “North America” or Turtle Island. As noted by the prominent and prolific Cree author, Lee Maracle, the aim is all Truth and Reconciliation Commission calls to action being met – and in full, not 1 or 50 or 70: all of them.
The first call looks at the national to the local levels of analysis for working on the reduction of Aboriginal children inside of care. The first stipulation looks at the core aspect of cataloging and monitoring the neglect investigations. If children are neglected, their life prospects in the long term and health in the short-term can be deeply impacted by this. Our species has an unusually long rearing period.
The second stipulation looks into the adequate resources – nothing extraordinary or even simply above-average – for the Aboriginal communities within the nation in addition to the child-welfare organizations with the explicit purpose to keep the families intact for the health and wellbeing of the Aboriginal youth.
There should be, especially in the dampened or darkened light of Canadian colonial history and violence and bigoted interaction with the Indigenous populations, taken within the context of a cultural sensitivity. Nothing sycophantic or pandering, but simple respect would be a decent start, probably, and a vast improvement from the past. It is a statement, the stipulation, about working with Aboriginal peoples and individuals where they feel comfortable rather than what seems most convenient to the Canadian government.
The last stipulation for today, and for getting this series off the ground, is the ensuring that social workers and others who are going about conducting the child-welfare investigations have been given, and have been ensured to have taken in, the proper education and training relevant to these populations of young people.
This is important for sensitively working within the context of the history and impacts of the residential schools in this country. However, and even more important, it fits within an overall new approach of sensitivity, compassion, working on their terms, and making sure that past does not happen again and the prior injustices are, inasmuch as this can be done, rectified. In short, it is looking at the Aboriginal or Indigenous peoples as fellow travelers in life, as human beings.
—
(Updated: December 7, 2018)
- The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP, 2007)
- Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada: Calls to Action (2015)
- C169 – Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention, 1989 (No. 169) (1989)
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
Share this:
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/12/07
113. The term “violence against women” means any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or psychological harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or private life. Accordingly, violence against women encompasses but is not limited to the following:
c. Physical, sexual and psychological violence perpetrated or condoned by the State, wherever it occurs.
Beijing Declaration (1995)
The term “violence against women” comes with a few assumptions, often misrepresented or misunderstood: more often than not, the miscomprehending comes from the faulty representations.
The basis for violence against women remains the statistical higher probability of women throughout the world to experience trauma and violence by men to women and by women to women with the majority by men to women, where this creates an obvious tentative conclusion for an emphasis of international emphasis of the social resources of the international community: work to reduce violence against women and then this, in turn, will create a foundation upon which to work in a robust manner for the reduction in violence against women.
Here, the stipulation focuses on the activities of the State and its role in the perpetration, or perpetuation rather, and condoning of the general phenomenon of violence against women, including physical, psychological, and sexual violence against women as the first-blush general categories.
Carrying forth from this, we can see the further forms of violence against women in both “public and private life” in which they may subject to forms of state terror. This can be seen in the case of Decree 770 in Romania, where women were, indeed, commanded in a secular fashion to birth 4 children each.
In this, the state intervention into the lives of the world became an authoritarian and secular fundamentalism imposing itself on the bodies and reproductive lives of women, with, for example, the checking up once per month to see if the citizens, the female citizens, were doing their Decree 770 duty to the State.
These forms of violence against women form a basic juncture in the disproportionately negative treatment of women compared to men. We can see this, often, in economic inequalities, where the men harbor more financial independence while the women retain financial dependence, in part or completely, with the men in their lives.
It is, in this sense, the actions of the family, the community, and, as per this stipulation, the State can be forces for violence and repression against women around the world and throughout most of human history.
The current context of more identification, cataloging, analysis, and recommendation and implementation of solutions to the issue of violence against women remains an important not only moment, as Tarana Burke would state, but also a movement to be carried forth boldly and without compromise, as this is a clear evil with some easy solutions but many hard and long-term solutions ahead of us.
The basic premise of a more peaceful, just, and prosperous State comes from the recognition of the equality of women as well as the need to tackle problems disproportionately more thrust onto them needlessly compared to the men without too much regard for differences of regions in the world.
–(Updated 2018-11-10) One can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights:
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the optional protocol (1993).
- Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), Five-year review of progress (2000), 10-year review in 2005, the 15-year review in 2010, and the 20-year review in 2015.
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), and the UN Security Council additional resolutions on women, peace and security: 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013), and 2242 (2015).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
- UN Women’s strategic plan, 2018–2021
- 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
- 2015 agenda with 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (169 targets for the end to poverty, combatting inequalities, and so on, by 2030). The SDGs were preceded by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) from 2000 to 2015.
–Human Rights
Wednesdays 1 pm EST / 10 am PST
Call-In Details: (701) 801-1220
Meeting ID: 934-317-242
Lead Page: https://goodmenproject.lpages.co/conscious-intersectionality/
Led by: Scott Douglas JacobsenTo the socio-political Right, a disclaimer; to the socio-political Left, a trigger warning: the subject matter may be disturbing or triggering for some listeners, speakers, or call members. The statistics on international violence against women is disproportionately more than violence against men. In turn, there is violence against women committed by women against women but more often by men against women. It is the statistical difference, which is the basis for the international emphasis on violence against women in multiple spheres rather than localized differences. Wednesday morning, we will speak on violence against women for one hour or so.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
Share this:
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/12/01
113. The term “violence against women” means any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or psychological harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or private life. Accordingly, violence against women encompasses but is not limited to the following:
b. Physical, sexual and psychological violence occurring within the general community, including rape, sexual abuse, sexual harassment and intimidation at work, in educational institutions and elsewhere, trafficking in women and forced prostitution;
Beijing Declaration (1995)
The coercion, intimidation, and violence that women face in their lives remain an important aspect of the abuse of women around the world in several ways, but these “several ways,” in fact, fit into a select set of categorizations.
The main ones listed in the international community are physical, psychological, and sexual violence against women. These forms come alongside a select set of other ones.
Some have not even been recognized throughout history, but now, we can see the increasing relevance of the reduction in the violence against women for the flourishing of communities.
Indeed, if we even posit a glancing examination of the ways in which women’s lives are impacted by gender-based violence, we can simultaneously see the immediate and long-term impacts on the health and wellness of women.
In addition to this, the forms of violence within the family or the home extends into the general community, into the public domains of the society. Recalling, of course, that, at the same time, these are forms of violence experienced around the world by women.
The explicit purpose is known in some circumstances and not in others, but the eventualities in the lives of women, certainly, is foreseeable, as the empirical would appear to be both the modern international and national statistics on the matter in addition to the historical record.
This can be enshrined in some of the deep traditions practiced over centuries and millennia including the religious. The questions of rape, sexual abuse, and so on, retain a particular import in the current Burkean-MeToo moment.
As she noted in a recently released TEDTalk, the MeToo is not a moment but a movement; similar with the solutions to these large-scale social ills, we have the increases in the conversations on the problem but, unfortunately, at times, lack the assertive and solutions-oriented perspective on it.
Following this, the communal and professional space harassment of women may not be completely reduced to anything. However, certainly, we can decrease the levels at which women experience inappropriate commentary or physical contact, or attempts at coerced interaction on the job, for instance.
The changes in the workplaces with specific policies and guidelines on appropriate and inappropriate professional conduct with company-specific codes of conduct can be an important part in this.
In addition, not only working conditions but the coerced into particular ‘labor’ markets of some women, we can see the ways in women are continually taken into prostitution or sex work through coercion, often led by men who exploit their ‘labor.’
Women, in these and other circumstances, remain vulnerable to a wide variety of community-level, violence but also exploitation, as another form of violence against them.
But there are also the ways in which the gendered lens referenced throughout this document can provide the basis for a reframing of not only the problem as violence against women, in particular but also the solutions that may be proposed for this multiple problem.
–(Updated 2018-11-10) One can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights:
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the optional protocol (1993).
- Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), Five-year review of progress (2000), 10-year review in 2005, the 15-year review in 2010, and the 20-year review in 2015.
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), and the UN Security Council additional resolutions on women, peace and security: 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013), and 2242 (2015).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
- UN Women’s strategic plan, 2018–2021
- 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
- 2015 agenda with 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (169 targets for the end to poverty, combatting inequalities, and so on, by 2030). The SDGs were preceded by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) from 2000 to 2015.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
Share this:
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/11/30
113. The term “violence against women” means any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or psychological harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or private life. Accordingly, violence against women encompasses but is not limited to the following:
a. Physical, sexual and psychological violence occurring in the family, including battering, sexual abuse of female children in the household, dowry-related violence, marital rape, female genital mutilation and other traditional practices harmful to women, non-spousal violence and violence related to exploitation;
Beijing Declaration (1995)
Violence against women can be seen as a global health challenge – as indicated by Thaddeus Howze in a recent Human Rights Social Interest Group, as this impacts the short- and long-term health and wellness of women, children, families, and communities.
These incidences, very common, are not isolated, can happen to any woman, and reflect gender-based violence. The main forms considered by the international community are physical, psychological, and sexual.
If familiar with some of the research, there are many more forms of violence against women. The main foci for human rights calls have been on physical violence against women. Now, these are moving towards psychological violence around the world and then, likely, transitioning in 2019 into sexual violence against women.
But there are more forms of violence against women including stalking and financial abuse, e.g., withholding funds or money from a woman in order to control her. All these are components to the general phenomena of violence against women. One of the main factors is economic dependence.
The inability to live free from men in the degrees of freedom of choice in society. Within the constraints of a system set for women to have fewer choices, we can see the need for women to be more economically free for a) the right to self-determination and b) the chance to improve the economic well-being of the nation.
But violence against women, financial or otherwise, can hinder the moral and social development of a nation, alongside its economic advancement as well. This becomes, at a minimum, a tripartite duty for the advancement of women based on moral rightness, economic soundness, and wellbeing improvements.
Whether inside of the family unit or outside of the family, there is the fundamental requirement of justice to provide for the women in the society for the improved living conditions of the society.
Fewer women with trauma, while still the main recipients of the burden of the unpaid labor market including childcare and housecare – let alone emotional labor of the families and friends, can better take on the disproportionate burdens of societal responsibilities placed on them.
This comes, as George Carlin noted, ‘without pay, and without a pension.’ This is true. It is part of the issue of women simply taking on the work many men see as, potentially, beneath them or simply not paying enough and, thus, women take them on.
The forms of violence against women from within the homes can be particularly damaging to them and can, in fact, lead to severe forms of damage, or even death, on any imaginable factor of her life. This is the important of dealing with violence against women, whether defined by patriarchal values or fundamentalist theology.
–(Updated 2018-11-10) One can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights:
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the optional protocol (1993).
- Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), Five-year review of progress (2000), 10-year review in 2005, the 15-year review in 2010, and the 20-year review in 2015.
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), and the UN Security Council additional resolutions on women, peace and security: 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013), and 2242 (2015).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
- UN Women’s strategic plan, 2018–2021
- 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
- 2015 agenda with 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (169 targets for the end to poverty, combatting inequalities, and so on, by 2030). The SDGs were preceded by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) from 2000 to 2015.
–Human Rights
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Lead Page: https://goodmenproject.lpages.co/conscious-intersectionality/
Led by: Scott Douglas JacobsenTo the socio-political Right, a disclaimer; to the socio-political Left, a trigger warning: the subject matter may be disturbing or triggering for some listeners, speakers, or call members. The statistics on international violence against women is disproportionately more than violence against men. In turn, there is violence against women committed by women against women but more often by men against women. It is the statistical difference, which is the basis for the international emphasis on violence against women in multiple spheres rather than localized differences. Wednesday morning, we will speak on violence against women for one hour or so.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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112. Violence against women is an obstacle to the achievement of the objectives of equality, development and peace. Violence against women both violates and impairs or nullifies the enjoyment by women of their human rights and fundamental freedoms. The long-standing failure to protect and promote those rights and freedoms in the case of violence against women is a matter of concern to all States and should be addressed. Knowledge about its causes and consequences, as well as its incidence and measures to combat it, have been greatly expanded since the Nairobi Conference. In all societies, to a greater or lesser degree, women and girls are subjected to physical, sexual and psychological abuse that cuts across lines of income, class and culture. The low social and economic status of women can be both a cause and a consequence of violence against women.
Beijing Declaration (1995)
One of the more touchy and important social problems to tackle in the modern period, in the MeToo moment, is the global social illness of violence against women, We are a violence primate species. No doubt about it.
However, this is not our only mode of operation. We can work in ways best fit for the moves of the ethical dial towards development, equality, and peace. There does seem to be some backlash to these efforts.
Invariably, these, probably, link to religious notions of the subordination of women, to sexist notions of men own or being in control of women, to political notions of women as unhinged and too emotional for public life, or deserving of the abuse received by men in their lives.
This is part of the normalcy or normalization of violence against women from attacks at suitability in public and political, and civic, life to sexual and physical abuse in the home. The main recognized forms of violence within the international community are psychological violence (or abuse), sexual violence, and physical violence.
Within these, we find the basic forms of violence against women and the fundamental forms in which women can be kept back in their success in life. The main ones, of course, being the derivative effects that can, or may, persist throughout life.
For those familiar with some of the calls or conversations in the Human Rights Social Interest here at the Good Men Project, we have the discussions on regions, nations, impacts, prevalences, solutions, and types, with the main types as “physical, sexual and psychological abuse” that do not have much regard for the socioeconomic status, ethnicity, age,or geography of the woman.
Some sectors or demographics of women are at greater risk. However, this is not a reason for despair. For sure, this remains an important emotional valence, an area for concern. But the concern can be moved past despair; in that, women have a far better time than at many prior times in history with the provision, at least in principle, of fundamental human rights, in addition to the fact that the conversation, as done through GMP elsewhere, is working to improve the status assumptions of women in conversations.
Some areas of the conversation will need more in-depth coverage and greater moral emphasis than others; however, the general acknowledgement and discussion, and dialogue, about the rights of women as person is new and increasing, which portends the demise of particular aspects of unhealthy international or global culture: consider this an age of changing some of the parts, houses, paints, and infrastructure of the Global Village.
–(Updated 2018-11-10 based on further research) One can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights:
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the optional protocol (1993).
- Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), Five-year review of progress (2000), 10-year review in 2005, the 15-year review in 2010, and the 20-year review in 2015.
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), and the UN Security Council additional resolutions on women, peace and security: 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013), and 2242 (2015).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
- UN Women’s strategic plan, 2018–2021
- 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
- 2015 agenda with 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (169 targets for the end to poverty, combatting inequalities, and so on, by 2030). The SDGs were preceded by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) from 2000 to 2015.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Strategic objective C.5.
Increase resources and monitor follow-up for women’s health
Actions to be taken
111. By Governments, the United Nations and its specialized agencies, international financial institutions, bilateral donors and the private sector, as appropriate:
c. Give higher priority to women’s health and develop mechanisms for coordinating and implementing the health objectives of the Platform for Action and relevant international agreements to ensure progress.
Beijing Declaration (1995)
The sense of justice within the women’s rights sentiments in the Golden Rule, in the equality aspects, found in John Stuart Mill and Harriet Taylor Mill link to utilitarian foundations of a rightness-wrongness axis linked to the greatest good for the greatest number, where this becomes particularly salient with the inclusion of the other half of the speices as worth moral consideration – somewhat of a novelty in world history; hence, the Mills get quoted quite a bit.
In regards to paragraph 111 section (c) of the Beijing Declaration, there remains the fundamental notion of the equality of women within the framework of increasing rights for women. The universalization or the democratization of rights as the extension of the Golden Rule to women, to regard women as persons, and, therefore, their health and wellness of equal relevance and need for consideration with the men in societies.
In fact, with the general disparities in the consideration of the health of the men and the women in society, the maintenance of thought about men’s wellbeing and then the raising of women’s can feel like greater parity for many women and then decline for many men. It becomes a subjective or relative evaluation of provisions.
But the emphasis here is the higher priority for women’s health, probably for a series of reasons. One of them is the increase in the consideration for greater parity. Another is the unique circumstances more women than men face. For example, the gestation of the next generation in contrast to men. The health objectives set forth in the Platform for Action retain import now.
However, these do not remain the main sets of reflections about the overall health and wellness concerns of women, as science and medicine advances and the conversations about women’s equality with men advances then further ethical advances come into awareness with the widened domain of ethical discourse, of moral consideration.
–(Updated 2018-11-10 based on further research) One can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights:
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the optional protocol (1993).
- Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), Five-year review of progress (2000), 10-year review in 2005, the 15-year review in 2010, and the 20-year review in 2015.
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), and the UN Security Council additional resolutions on women, peace and security: 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013), and 2242 (2015).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
- UN Women’s strategic plan, 2018–2021
- 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
- 2015 agenda with 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (169 targets for the end to poverty, combatting inequalities, and so on, by 2030). The SDGs were preceded by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) from 2000 to 2015.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Strategic objective C.5.
Increase resources and monitor follow-up for women’s health
Actions to be taken
111. By Governments, the United Nations and its specialized agencies, international financial institutions, bilateral donors and the private sector, as appropriate:
b. Provide appropriate material, financial and logistical assistance to youth non-governmental organizations in order to strengthen them to address youth concerns in the area of health, including sexual and reproductive health;
Beijing Declaration (1995)
The inclusion of women within the decision-making and power-centres of influence within societies remains novel in the history of the world, especially within the additional reflective piece of information with the current global civilization, this global village, being the most vast and all-encompassing information-based civilization ever seen in the history of the human species.
This permission, and the moral rightness, of women within the “material, financial and logistical” decision-making frameworks of the international system remain as important as ever. It becomes something of import for the health and wellness of individual women.
It also becomes something relevant to the flourishing of the economies of nations. Some of the most impactful times in one’s life is in the earliest moments, which are childhood and adolescence. The sexual and general health and wellness of young women is the focus here.
The ability to garner proper information and knowledge about reproductive and sexual health can mean a life as a teen and young adult parent and one in which the young woman is able to garner some post-secondary education prior to the choosing to become a mother or nor.
The strengthen of the young NGOs is part and parcel of this effort.
–(Updated 2018-11-10 based on further research) One can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights:
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the optional protocol (1993).
- Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), Five-year review of progress (2000), 10-year review in 2005, the 15-year review in 2010, and the 20-year review in 2015.
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), and the UN Security Council additional resolutions on women, peace and security: 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013), and 2242 (2015).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
- UN Women’s strategic plan, 2018–2021
- 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
- 2015 agenda with 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (169 targets for the end to poverty, combatting inequalities, and so on, by 2030). The SDGs were preceded by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) from 2000 to 2015.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
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Strategic objective C.5.
Increase resources and monitor follow-up for women’s health
Actions to be taken
111. By Governments, the United Nations and its specialized agencies, international financial institutions, bilateral donors and the private sector, as appropriate:
- Formulate policies favourable to investment in women’s health and, where appropriate, increase allocations for such investment;
Beijing Declaration (1995)
Here the Beijing Declaration continues with the background perspective of the equality of the sexes or the genders, more broadly, as an important aspect of the work of the international community.
The formulations or brainstorming of policies can come from a few locations including the top-down methodology as well as the bottom-up. Take, for example, the grassroots method that comes from the popular activism of the communities within a society.
This is non-trivial. As some of the most important changes forced on the governments with racist or sexist policies, including the lack of the right to vote for women and the right to vote for minorities within several semi-democracies, by the mass activism of the conscious objector citizens to the current systems in place, these are powerful catalytic forces in the world.
Even, as noted astutely by the wonderful Rebecca Traister, the simple power of women’s anger or righteous indignation as the basis for the important social movements in the United States of America alone.
The responsible use of power can also be an important source of moral guidance and work within the nation, as those representatives of the better conscience of the nation can work to improve the material conditions of the women and the families of the nation.
It may not be a big trumpet affair, but simply the quiet workings of people of conscience working for the betterment of the society in which they inhabit.
–(Updated 2018-11-10 based on further research) One can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights:
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the optional protocol (1993).
- Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), Five-year review of progress (2000), 10-year review in 2005, the 15-year review in 2010, and the 20-year review in 2015.
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), and the UN Security Council additional resolutions on women, peace and security: 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013), and 2242 (2015).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
- UN Women’s strategic plan, 2018–2021
- 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
- 2015 agenda with 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (169 targets for the end to poverty, combatting inequalities, and so on, by 2030). The SDGs were preceded by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) from 2000 to 2015.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
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Strategic objective C.5.
Increase resources and monitor follow-up for women’s health
Actions to be taken
110. By Governments at all levels and, where appropriate, in cooperation with non-governmental organizations, especially women’s and youth organizations:
d. Develop goals and time-frames, where appropriate, for improving women’s health and for planning, implementing, monitoring and evaluating programmes, based on gender-impact assessments using qualitative and quantitative data disaggregated by sex, age, other established demographic criteria and socio-economic variables;
e. Establish, as appropriate, ministerial and inter-ministerial mechanisms for monitoring the implementation of women’s health policy and programme reforms and establish, as appropriate, high-level focal points in national planning authorities responsible for monitoring to ensure that women’s health concerns are mainstreamed in all relevant government agencies and programmes.
Beijing Declaration (1995)
Paragraph 110, in sections (d) and (e), of the Beijing Declaration deal with not only the targeted objectives/concrete goals but also the timelines in which to do them.
It speaks to the areas in which women’s rights are not fully respected and, in fact, where, unfortunately, this is important and integral for the social and economic development of societies.
That is to say, the increased respect for and implementation of women’s rights is a boon to the socio-economic livelihood of nations around the world. This is an international generalization based on the empirical evidence for the moral rightness, economic soundness, and social benefits of the moves for the advancement and empowerment of women.
This includes, as has in part been discussed before, the planning, implementing, monitoring, and evaluating of the programs and initiatives that are done for the explicit benefit of women.
It has not, even in 1995, been done haphazardly in most cases. There is a focus on the forethought and analysis. The forethought to set about a plan to be set in motion, eventually – potentially competing among others for viability based on feasibility of the timeline and available resources.
But this requires some things mentioned in prior articles that include the development of criteria for evaluation of the efficacy of the programs and initiatives, as noted: “sex, age”, socioeconomic status, educational level, and so on.
These demographic variables should not be ignored as they can be an important factor in the overall performance of the program over time and for the implementations of its improvements.
The ministerial and inter-ministerial references simply relate to the government and the inter-governmental relationships to work on, what is seen as, common international problems in relation to women.
Thus, the basic premise in this section deals with the healthy implementation of the programs for women’s health. This is in regards to policy and to programs. The purpose is to use the authority of government and “inter-ministerial” cooperation for the mainstreaming of women’s health within and between nations.
–(Updated 2018-11-10 based on further research) One can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights:
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the optional protocol (1993).
- Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), Five-year review of progress (2000), 10-year review in 2005, the 15-year review in 2010, and the 20-year review in 2015.
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), and the UN Security Council additional resolutions on women, peace and security: 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013), and 2242 (2015).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
- UN Women’s strategic plan, 2018–2021
- 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
- 2015 agenda with 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (169 targets for the end to poverty, combatting inequalities, and so on, by 2030). The SDGs were preceded by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) from 2000 to 2015.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/11/15
Strategic objective C.5.
Increase resources and monitor follow-up for women’s health
Actions to be taken
110. By Governments at all levels and, where appropriate, in cooperation with non-governmental organizations, especially women’s and youth organizations:
b. Develop innovative approaches to funding health services through promoting community participation and local financing; increase, where necessary, budgetary allocations for community health centres and community-based programmes and services that address women’s specific health needs;
c. Develop local health services, promoting the incorporation of gender-sensitive community-based participation and self-care and specially designed preventive health programmes;
Beijing Declaration (1995)
Paragraph 110 of the Beijing Declaration focuses on the innovative approaches to the advancement of women’s rights in the community. It is the basis of health services mentioned in the previous article.
The ability of women to have access to a variety of reproductive and sexual health provisions for the improvement in their livelihoods is essential to the respect for and implementation of women’s rights.
In addition, there is the need to work on making the older technologies cheaper, more widely accessible, and, possibly, in some manner mass-produced for easy delivery to nations in the world without sufficient health provisions for women’s needs.
The budget set-asides are for the possibility of women to be able to live their lives as freely as the men in the nation, which, probably, includes the girls living as well as, or as equally as well as more properly, as the boys in their lives.
The health and community centres can be important adjuncts to keep this going. But these should not be the sole means by which individual citizens empower themselves.
They can self-empower or have the promise from the international community of self-empowerment, but then to make the promise and then not provide the necessary resources to do so, or move towards doing so, is criminal.
There are girls- and women-specific programs. It is the promise plus the provision of the resources for the needs of women and girls that is central to the Beijing Declaration, which means, as has not been done, keeping the needs, wants, desires and statistical requirements of women and girls in mind as much as the boys and men – and, in fact, more as the next generations depend more on women than on others.
This comes out in the sociocultural phenomenon of more women taking on the majority of the childcare and home care responsibilities. But this can, in part, be tackled with a gendered lens on the solutions to the problems of the world.
In fact, these can be one of the main, basic premises of the programs set forth for the increase in the equality of the sexes through specialized programs and initiatives with an innovative research perspective – and, hopefully, eventual productions – that can create a more equitable world the helpful additions of modernized technologies. But this requires money.
Sometimes, a big investment at first and smaller ones as time goes onward. But the focus is to reduce costs not only with the innovation but also with the special designs of the preventive care for women.
This can, in the end, reduce overall costs, especially where it can be the most impactful in the less developed nations without sufficient resources to adequately provide for the healthcare and reproductive health needs, in particular, of women.
–(Updated 2018-11-10 based on further research) One can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights:
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the optional protocol (1993).
- Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), Five-year review of progress (2000), 10-year review in 2005, the 15-year review in 2010, and the 20-year review in 2015.
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), and the UN Security Council additional resolutions on women, peace and security: 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013), and 2242 (2015).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
- UN Women’s strategic plan, 2018–2021
- 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
- 2015 agenda with 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (169 targets for the end to poverty, combatting inequalities, and so on, by 2030). The SDGs were preceded by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) from 2000 to 2015.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Strategic objective C.5.
Increase resources and monitor follow-up for women’s health
Actions to be taken
110. By Governments at all levels and, where appropriate, in cooperation with non-governmental organizations, especially women’s and youth organizations:
- Increase budgetary allocations for primary health care and social services, with adequate support for secondary and tertiary levels, and give special attention to the reproductive and sexual health of girls and women and give priority to health programmes in rural and poor urban areas;
Beijing Declaration (1995)
Paragraph 10 of the Beijing Declaration examines the ways in which increased resources and monitoring of programs and initiatives for the rights of women can improve their overall health.
The forms of financial allocation can be the lifeblood for some of the important programs at the various levels of government for the increase in the programs and initiatives for women’s health and the health of the young.
Also, this continues into the need for some of the most sensitive areas having additional focus. These foci are the reproductive health and sexual health and women and girls.
Each of these provides a means by which to support those most vulnerable to poorer life circumstances without sufficient supports to have control over a) their own sexual health and b) their own reproduction.
It is a matter of if or when, under what circumstances, with who, and the financial and other life circumstances taken into account for the provision of the funding.
These amount to the freedom to move within a society having some minimal social support programs for the more vulnerable population in nations around the world: girls and women.
This vulnerability becomes even more exacerbated with rural women, young women, Indigenous women, and part-time or precariously employed & uneducated women.
Each of these factors should be considered of high importance to reduce the increased probability of poor life outcomes with less and less ability to take part in society in a significant manner because the finances or social supports simply do not exist.
This is a reiterated point throughout several sections of the Beijing Declaration as this is a needed area for improvement of international performance and the respect for and implementation of women’s rights.
–(Updated 2018-11-10 based on further research) One can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights:
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the optional protocol (1993).
- Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), Five-year review of progress (2000), 10-year review in 2005, the 15-year review in 2010, and the 20-year review in 2015.
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), and the UN Security Council additional resolutions on women, peace and security: 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013), and 2242 (2015).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
- UN Women’s strategic plan, 2018–2021
- 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
- 2015 agenda with 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (169 targets for the end to poverty, combatting inequalities, and so on, by 2030). The SDGs were preceded by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) from 2000 to 2015.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Strategic objective C.4.
Promote research and disseminate information on women’s health
Actions to be taken
109. By Governments, the United Nations system, health professions, research institutions, non-governmental organizations, donors, pharmaceutical industries and the mass media, as appropriate:
k. Develop mechanisms to evaluate and disseminate available data and research findings to researchers, policy makers, health professionals and women’s groups, among others;
l. Monitor human genome and related genetic research from the perspective of women’s health and disseminate information and results of studies conducted in accordance with accepted ethical standards.
Beijing Declaration (1995)
The Beijing Declaration in this section of the paragraphs deals with the need to not only provide the relevant information but grade or evaluate it.
That is, the emphasis is on the national and international systems, in addition to the relevant experts and the media, to work on women’s rights work through the relevant means by which to accomplish greater education of women.
This was interesting in the light of the statements about the genome, as the Human Genome Project was still quite new and, potentially, had not accomplished its goal by the time of the Beijing Declaration publication.
In addition, there is an emphasis on the evaluation and the monitoring of the research of genetic to see the areas in which women may be particularly vulnerable or in need of additional information.
We can see some of this emerging in the modern period with the breast cancer risk much higher in women than in men, of course; and, also of course, the genetic triggers for the variability in the riskiness of one’s life and developing cancers and tumors of the breast(s).
The accepted ethical guidelines of standard professional, medical and academic work become the basis for the reliable provision of proper information for women to make informed decisions about what happens and what they do with their bodies in all matters.
–(Updated 2018-11-10 based on further research) One can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights:
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the optional protocol (1993).
- Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), Five-year review of progress (2000), 10-year review in 2005, the 15-year review in 2010, and the 20-year review in 2015.
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), and the UN Security Council additional resolutions on women, peace and security: 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013), and 2242 (2015).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
- UN Women’s strategic plan, 2018–2021
- 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
- 2015 agenda with 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (169 targets for the end to poverty, combatting inequalities, and so on, by 2030). The SDGs were preceded by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) from 2000 to 2015.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Strategic objective C.4.
Promote research and disseminate information on women’s health
Actions to be taken
109. By Governments, the United Nations system, health professions, research institutions, non-governmental organizations, donors, pharmaceutical industries and the mass media, as appropriate:
i. Since unsafe abortion/16 is a major threat to the health and life of women, research to understand and better address the determinants and consequences of induced abortion, including its effects on subsequent fertility, reproductive and mental health and contraceptive practice, should be promoted, as well as research on treatment of complications of abortions and post-abortion care;
j. Acknowledge and encourage beneficial traditional health care, especially that practised by indigenous women, with a view to preserving and incorporating the value of traditional health care in the provision of health services, and support research directed towards achieving this aim;
Beijing Declaration (1995)
The stipulations here in the Beijing Declaration relate to some of the most consequential decisions in the life of a woman, whether to have children or not. Other factors relate to this including how many (if so), under what financial and other circumstances, and so on.
But the big reproductive health right consideration here is the unsafe abortion aspect of the (i) statement, which deeply is related to the issues or concerns of deaths and injuries in relation to denial of safe and equitable access to abortion – for any reason.
It can be seen as wrong on several levels. One of which is the denial of a fundamental human right: equitable and safe access to abortion. Another is the lifelong injuries based on having to get abortions under unsafe circumstances; still another, the ways in which there is a disregard for the health and wellness data about women as a group.
The increase in women’s and, thus, families’ well-being through the provision of their fundamental human rights. Sometimes, this can get lost in translation or in the misrepresentations about abortion as “baby killing” or other slanders.
The basic idea is a fundamental human rights argument plus the health and wellness for women with the legalization for safe and equitable access to abortion.
Indeed, there is an emphasis on the likelihood of fewer complications and fewer abortions if legalized and, therefore, a pro-life person, if true to conviction, should be pro-choice, as this become, by the evidence, pro-infant life, pro-maternal life, and pro-human right.
It is important for proper and non-fear-based information to be freely given to women for them to make free and informed decisions about what they do with and what happens to their bodies.
This should include care and “post-abortion care” as well. Next is the focus on the need to emphasize good health care provisions through the incorporation of a variety of health care relevant to culture – aiming for efficacy of those practices rather than simple appeasement at the same time.
The incorporation of traditional values can be important, though, especially as this can improve the consent to health care in general.
Sometimes, a traditional system may represent a patriarchal structure in which the modern medicine is accepted more or the acknowledged efficacy of some traditional medicines can be used in conjunction with the more modern medicine for a better outcome.
This is all to the good insofar as I can discern, as not every culture will automaticqlly trust the outsiders or those who one may see as the colonizers if not, factually accurately, the descendants of colonizers and, thus, those who shall not be trusted.
–(Updated 2018-11-10 based on further research) One can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights:
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the optional protocol (1993).
- Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), Five-year review of progress (2000), 10-year review in 2005, the 15-year review in 2010, and the 20-year review in 2015.
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), and the UN Security Council additional resolutions on women, peace and security: 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013), and 2242 (2015).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
- UN Women’s strategic plan, 2018–2021
- 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
- 2015 agenda with 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (169 targets for the end to poverty, combatting inequalities, and so on, by 2030). The SDGs were preceded by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) from 2000 to 2015.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
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Strategic objective C.4.
Promote research and disseminate information on women’s health
Actions to be taken
109. By Governments, the United Nations system, health professions, research institutions, non-governmental organizations, donors, pharmaceutical industries and the mass media, as appropriate:
f. Support and fund social, economic, political and cultural research on how gender-based inequalities affect women’s health, including etiology, epidemiology, provision and utilization of services and eventual outcome of treatment;
g. Support health service systems and operations research to strengthen access and improve the quality of service delivery, to ensure appropriate support for women as health-care providers and to examine patterns with respect to the provision of health services to women and use of such services by women;
h. Provide financial and institutional support for research on safe, effective, affordable and acceptable methods and technologies for the reproductive and sexual health of women and men, including more safe, effective, affordable and acceptable methods for the regulation of fertility, including natural family planning for both sexes, methods to protect against HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases and simple and inexpensive methods of diagnosing such diseases, among others; this research needs to be guided at all stages by users and from the perspective of gender, particularly the perspective of women, and should be carried out in strict conformity with internationally accepted legal, ethical, medical and scientific standards for biomedical research;
Beijing Declaration (1995)
If we look at the ways in which the research and dissemination of data on women’s health improve women’s health and wellness, one of the prominent referents is the HIV/AIDS concerns, especially prominent in 1995.
But this is neither the limit nor the scope. The funding becomes a major issue within the context of these paragraph sections. They speak to pluripotent funding requirements to solve the issues concerning gender inequity.
In particular, we can see the issues associated with the outcomes in a variety of treatments based on gender not being taken into account as a serious consideration.
A gendered lens is important for the effective tackling of problems linked more to one gender than to another, more to women than to men, as a statistical phenomenon.
As noted in the Human Rights calls, we can note the general negative outcomes that are strongly more negative from women to women and especially from men to women in terms of violence against women.
The significance can be seen in international and national statistics from reliable sources and not on the fringe. These are not on the fringe and simply not dealt with in a robust manner.
Now, there should be work to support the extant programs and initiatives, as well as the bolstering of the creation or construction of new ones with similar or improved aims – as discussed in casual or colloquial terms about research and monitoring for improvement of the performance in some programs.
There are health-care services and research needing financial and other backing, but there are going to simply be more of these in the advanced industrial economies compared to the others.
But this is also important for the promises of sufficient quality in the delivery of health-care to those most in need. Consider, for example, the particularly important moments around the birth and raising of a child.
There, simply, is too much work that needs to be done to provide even the most basic forms of health social services for the women most in need at this time in their reproductive lives – let alone having the right to choose to have children, and when, and how many, and under what financial and other life circumstances.
Next, as noted about the contraceptives, the funding or financing of the contraceptive methods is also extraordinarily important and, in fact, cheap compared to the long-term cost of unplanned or teenage, or coerced pregnancy.
Women reserve the right to provisions of basic reproductive healthcare services and tools based on reproductive health rights. But there is also the need to work on the effective education of women to be able to self-empower.
One of these, often opposed by the Roman Catholic Church – a non-trivial political entity, is family planning, as one of the above-mentioned categories of assistance.
Note, the inexpensive, likely, nature of most of the provisions for the sexual health of women. Within these contexts, it can be possible for women to self-empower and find their way into the “safe, effective, affordable and acceptable” means of reproductive health tools for little cost, and with the proper supports than, potentially, no cost.
Societies would benefit and have benefitted greatly from the respect for, implementation of, and maintenance of women’s rights as non-negotiable. Same with the research that goes into making the next generation of reproductive health tools.
–(Updated 2018-11-10 based on further research) One can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights:
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the optional protocol (1993).
- Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), Five-year review of progress (2000), 10-year review in 2005, the 15-year review in 2010, and the 20-year review in 2015.
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), and the UN Security Council additional resolutions on women, peace and security: 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013), and 2242 (2015).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
- UN Women’s strategic plan, 2018–2021
- 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
- 2015 agenda with 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (169 targets for the end to poverty, combatting inequalities, and so on, by 2030). The SDGs were preceded by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) from 2000 to 2015.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/11/12
Sandra El Khoury is a woman who was born in Lebanon but came to Sweden at a young age. She was brought up in a Syrian-Orthodox home with parents that did the best they could to hold on to their culture, traditions, and religion. Sandra started revolting at a young age and the more she pushed the more harm her parents caused her. She was physically and emotionally abused daily and when it did not help, her parents married her off against her will. After a year and a half, she ran away and from that time until now she is being seen as the shame of the family.
Today, she lives by herself in an apartment in a small town in Sweden and she is fighting every day to try to reach her dreams. She lives with a brain injury and Complex PTSD as a result of the abuse she endured. Still, she isn’t giving up to reach her dreams. She wants to become a spokesperson for women abused by honor culture. Sandra is also a writer and an aspiring poet.
*Note: El Khoury was kind enough to provide two personal poems expressing sentiments, experiences, traumas, and feelings at the end of the interview.*
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Where did your family come from? Where did you come from? How did you end up in Sweden?
Sandra El Khoury: I was born in Lebanon. My father was born in Syria. My mother in Lebanon. I have a mix of origins. My great-grandfather on my father’s side was Turkish. My great grandmother on my mother’s side was Greek. I have four countries in me: Greece, Turkey, Syria, and Lebanon.
So, how did we arrive in Sweden? Sweden was entirely my father’s choice. He had heard about people going to Sweden. We were the first family of all our relatives to flee the war. It was awful. I have some horrific memories from the war so in 1984 my father had enough and sent us to Sweden.
Jacobsen: What was his background or involvement in the Syrian Orthodox Church?
Sandra: Listen, when we lived in Lebanon, we were in Sunday schools. It was more social than being forced to learn the Bible. My parents were not pushing us. However, we prayed before we ate dinner or breakfast and before we went to bed.
So from what I remember, I was never beaten for not praying or sitting right in church. My mother was beating us children for other reasons, like spilling our ice cream.
The physical abuse I got from my mother was never about religion. Church back then was a playground for us. It was not about sitting around and memorizing the Bible. We were in the Scouts as well.
The three fingers up sign and then saying, “I swear on my honor to serve the Scouts.” It was never about Jesus or God. We had fun.
We got these badges when we finished an assignment. But that all changed one day. When I was 5-years-old, it was the first time I was shocked and disappointed by the church.
For me, it began there. My journey out of Christianity. Before we move on, let me explain what “Syrian Orthodox” means, people have the wrong idea. To be Syrian Orthodox, it does not mean being from Syria.
It is like the Assyrians. There is no country named Assyria because it is not bound to one specific country but several as a race and religion.
It is the same with the Syrian Orthodox people. Their origin is from Turkey, from which it spread to other countries.
Let’s go back to why I started to hate the church and question it: in the Syrian Orthodox Church, when a boy is being baptized, it takes place at the altar, where they also put the Baptist cup for boys.
After the baptism, there is a ceremony, where the priest goes first. Then the godfather carrying the baby boy, and then all other men and boys follow.
Then they go around the church 7 times. I do not know why it is specifically 7. They walk around: up on the altar, down, around the church, up and then down, 7 times.
The priest first and then all the others. Of course, only the men and boys are permitted to do it. When a girl gets baptized, the cup where they baptize the baby will be put between the front row and the altar.
So, in the Syrian Orthodox Church, a girl can never set foot on the altar, from the day she is born to the day she died. A girl, according to the Syrian Orthodox religion, is dirty and born sinful.
So, back to the day I started hating the church, my father was the godfather here.
He was carrying the baby. I wanted to walk beside my father. They pushed me to the side.
The men and my father pushed me out of the way and were angry with me. Imagine me, at 5-years-old, I wanted to walk by my father, but I couldn’t. I was so sad. I was like “Why?!”
It was the first poor treatment because of religion. I understood there and then of the inequality between boys and girls.
The next time, I was treated differently came at age 15. I was menstruating. My mother said, “You cannot participate in this.” I felt shame. I was put in the corner of the church with other girls and women who had their periods.
We were treated like parasites. We were not allowed to partake of communion or touch anything considered holy in the church, e.g., a crucifix.
We were treated as if we carried all of the shame in the universe. I was so embarrassed. As a girl, I was shy. At the age of 15, you do not want the whole world to know that you are on your period. The public humiliation was the second strike.
Let’s go back to strike one, the one with my father. In my eyes back then, my father was my hero. Not my mother, she was abusive. I was very attached to my father. For him to push me away, it was too much. I was shocked. I had many traumas before, but it was the first one caused by my father.
Jacobsen: Did you ever have a chance when you were young to talk to other girls or young women?
Sandra: That is a good question. However, no! I have never talked about this with anyone while growing up. My sister and I were controlled. We did not have friends. We couldn’t play with our cousins even sometimes; it was forbidden for us. Even our thoughts were controlled.
Some was honor culture. Some was not, in my case. My mother was a sick woman. She did some things that are not included in honor culture society or religion. Of course, you are allowed to play with your cousins in an honor culture, but it was only my mother who did not allow us to play.
If she would have told us to not play with black people or Muslim people, that is honor culture, but that was not the case here. If not supervised by her, we were not allowed to talk to anyone, not even our own relatives. She was a control freak.
I talked to doctors. They think, she could be schizophrenic. So, to answer your question, “Why I have not talked to other girls or women?” I was controlled by my mother. I was shy. I was afraid to talk to people about anything, afraid to trigger beatings from mom. Her beating was horrible.
She would beat me with wooden spoons until they break on my body. She would cut me and my sister’s hair and if we dare to cry, she would beat us with the scissors on our heads until we started bleeding.
She would beat me until I fall down on the floor and then she would kick my head so hard that my head bounced many times on the floor until it finally stopped. She would throw things on me, whatever she was holding, shoes, knifes, plates, and glasses.
If someone would have visited us back then, they never could tell that there were kids in the house. We were forbidden to leave our bedrooms. Even us kids were not allowed to talk to each other that much. It all depended on her mood. I grew up as a very traumatized and scared little girl.
It is far from the girl talking to you today. Nowadays, I speak up. I am tough. However, back then, if you would make a sudden move, I would not stop crying. I was so fragile back then. I was growing up, questioning everything, screaming out the pain but in silence.
If I cried I got beaten, if I smiled I got beaten, if I laughed I got beaten. This went on for 17 years. My father during this time would sit and watch TV. He never stopped her. I even tried to kill myself when I was 16 years old. I failed. I ended up in the juvenile psychiatric ward.
The doctors did everything in their power to make my mother visit me. She refused. My father came every day. One day my mother called. The doctors were hopeful and smiling telling me that my mother was on the phone. I ran to take the call.
She said 4 words to me and hang up the phone in my face. I remember how hurt I was as if it is happening right now. I dropped to the floor, crying, screaming. All I could hear was her 4 words on repeat in my head “I wish you died”. The story does not end there but let us change the subject.
Scott: Was there ever a connection with other Syrian Orthodox people outside the family?
Sandra: When we moved to Sweden, we lived in a village with no Syrian Orthodox people. There was no one to talk to there in our first years there. After a couple of years, my father took us to a Syrian Orthodox Church. We didn’t understand the Syriac language.
I suggested: we should go to the Swedish church. Then my father stated the closest Swedish church, theologically, was the Roman Catholic Church. After one year, my father stopped bringing us to church.
Even at home, we were not forced to pray before eating and before going to bed. So, we never met other Syrian Orthodox church members because we stopped attending church. The only remnants of the sociocultural context of the religion were the honor culture.
Now as an adult, just because my family does not want to have anything to do with me, I am a divorced woman living by myself, then Syrian Orthodox people do not want to have anything to do with me. That is fine by me. I would rather stay away from Syrian Orthodox people.
I do not like them as much as they do not like me. It is wrong of me, to think like that. Maybe, I need 20 years of therapy to change that about myself [Laughing]. Without therapy, I may not change my mind. However, now, as soon as I know they are Syrian Orthodox, I try to avoid them. In my experience, Syrian Orthodox people are the most judgmental people of all Christians.
I am terrified by them because of the long history in my life. I have experienced lies and distortions, and have been ratted out, by people in my family’s social circle. This is why I stay away.
Jacobsen: You were married at 17. At 18, you divorced. What was the reason for the divorce?
Sandra: The short answer: it was a forced marriage. I was not given a choice in who or how I marry. My uncle, he formed fingers to replicate a gun. He pointed the makeshift gun at my knees and said, “Choose which knee, I can shoot the one you choose if you do not get married. Do you want the left or do you want the right? I will make sure you end up in a wheelchair, so no boy ever wants to marry you. Either that or you get married.”
I believe that counts in the category of “forced marriage.” Right? I think so too. Both my parents and I did not know him. However, my uncle did.
Before my uncle’s threats, my mother had taken my sister, who was only 14-years-old, out of school and to Lebanon to marry her off to a cousin.
When my sister was gone, my mother came back for me. I knew. I was next. I went to social services. I told them about my sister and that I was next in line. They did not help me. A month after my mother came back from Lebanon, I was forced into marriage.
Why did I leave? He was beating the shit out of me every day and raping me every day for one-and-a-half years. How can you love someone forced on you?
While married, I repeatedly asked my father to help me. I wanted the abuse from my husband to stop. My father did not care. Not that he did not care, he might have cared. However, my father is afraid of conflicts. He becomes like a small child.
He goes under the cover of a bed. He stays there like a scared child, literally. If I ever needed to talk to my father, he would hide under the covers and say, “I do not want to. I do not want to. I do not want to.”
He has done that my whole life, at least since he came to Sweden. My mother can beat us until we bleed, but he will sit and watch TV. It is like he does not exist. He is like a ghost at home. My father has never been an authority. It has always been my mother and that is not common in an honor society.
It is the father who usually is the monster and the mother who is the kind one. So, when I called my father and told him, “I am being beaten.” He said, “Now, you are married. You have to stay with your husband.”
When my father did not help me, I tried to kill myself to get away from the marriage. It did not go well, as I am still alive. Then three months later, after my suicide attempt, I convinced the husband to let me visit my parents. He never allowed me to go anywhere.
I talked every day about it. I nagged. I begged him to let me go and see my parents. Finally, he said, “Yes.” I left the train one station before my parents’ station. I was afraid that they will catch me and force me back. I called my father.
I said, “If I come, I do not want to go back. I want a divorce.” He said, “You are not allowed to visit if you do not go back to your husband.” My mother was screaming in the back, “What is the whore saying?! What is the whore saying?!”
I continued, “Father, I have a six-month-old-baby in my arms. Where should I go?” He said, “If you were smart enough to leave your husband, then be smart enough to take care of yourself. So, it is not my problem”.
They hung up.
I collapsed at the train station, crying. Two girls helped me to call social services. That is how I got married and divorced.
Jacobsen: It is not only important to get the whole story out. Statistically, there are likely others going through the exact same thing. It is probably cathartic to you, to put a time stamp on it, to put a narrative on it, and say, “This happened.” It is an important part of processing and therapy.
Sandra: My therapist I have had for one-and-a-half years. He has yet to start my therapy. Because he wants me to trust him first, whatever that means. He does not want to move into the therapy part, until I can say that I trust him.
I haven’t even started to process my experiences. But I am doing that every day on my Facebook page and with this interview.
If I am courageous enough to speak out on my experiences and abuses, then my hope is others, especially girls, going through similar experiences and abuses will feel sufficient courage to speak out themselves, get help for themselves, and be examples for still others.
Jacobsen: That makes sense. The people who were supposed to be the first bond. You, at some level, probably feel they betrayed you. So, getting to trust a stranger who is a therapist – even though a professional and an expert, there is a certain cachet.
But the idea of trusting someone random after being betrayed by family and husband. It would, probably, make of sense. “Work on the foundation, you trust what I am going to do with you in terms of the therapeutic practice.”
Sandra: I have complex PTSD. He wants to treat me with EMDR. It means that your blocked memories will come back, from what I understood of it. I need to trust him in order for that to work according to him.
He did not use the word “totally,” but he said, “I need you to trust me, Sandra.” One-and-a-half years later, we are still here. In the meantime, I am doing a complete neuropsychiatric assessment. I have a cognitive disability caused by the brain damage from the beatings my mother inflicted on me.
So, back to that trust issue, I do not think it will happen for me. I cannot trust anyone. I like my psychiatrist. He is cool. However, trust? I do not know. I do not know what it even means. Is it to trust someone 5% or 70%?
I do not even know what trust means, because everyone can hurt you! It is not like I believe everyone is out to get me, but I do not trust anyone. Not anyone.
Even my friends, I love my friends. I have lots of good friends. I have had them for 15 years, 22 years, and so on. However, “trust,” it is a big word. It does not come easily, if ever.
Jacobsen: What is the situation with your daughter now?
Sandra: The situation started there with her, at that train station. Unfortunately, Scott, I was not a good mother. Not because I was a bad mother per se but because I was a child, I did not know how to take care of a baby.
I was scared and traumatized by my mother so much that I was terrified to become like her. For example, because my mother forced food in me to the degree that one day she was pushing food down my throat and I vomited in my own plate. I was only three years old. She forced me to eat my own vomit. So when my daughter at 4 months should have started to eat baby food, I did not push it on her. The first spoon she moved out with her tongue, I stopped immediately, afraid to become my mother.
Another thing, I carried her all the time in my arms, except when she was sleeping, of course. That caused, even at the age of 6 months, an inability to keep her head up and move from side to side. I had done it all wrong. Because I was always holding her and carrying her too much. I was afraid. I did not want to become my mother. My mother who never hugged me or held me.
So back to the train station, when social services came to pick us up, they put us with a Swedish family, temporarily, until they knew where to place us. While there, the mother of the family reported me. She told the social services, “This girl is not doing anything right with the baby.”
She told them, “The baby cannot hold its head. She should be able at this age.” I both thank and curse her. Because I wish that she would have told me this to my face. But she ratted me out behind my back. I found out many, many years later, when I was reading the files they kept back then.
In one way, it was good. I should not even have a baby. A child should not be forced to become a mother. I couldn’t even take care of myself nevertheless a baby. So, in one way, it was good, but not the way she did it. The outcome was a disaster. I lost my daughter.
What should have happened is they should have placed me with the baby in a family, I would have had the opportunity to grow into a young adult and also a mother. Instead, they placed me in an investigation home for parents.
They put you under the microscope to see if you are able to take care of your child or not. Then they will decide to take the child from you or not. While at the investigation home, the baby’s father and I still had shared custody. Here in Sweden, when you have children together, you cannot get a divorce right away. They make you wait for 6 months.
So, we still shared custody. The investigation home told the baby’s father where I was. He told my parents. This spread to my relatives. Everybody started to talk about me, “She left her husband. She is the worst. She went to the Swedish people. This should stay in our society.”
For them, I had committed a terrible sin. My older brother came to see me. He said, “You have to go back. You are embarrassing us.” I started to translate what he said in Arabic into Swedish so the staff could understand he was threatening me.
“It is our father’s duty to kill you. However, it is my duty as the older brother if he won’t. I cannot do it. If I do it, I will kill myself. However, I have to warn you. It is your uncle’s duty then to kill you.”
I translated everything. He wanted to keep me quiet. He said, “Quiet, stop translating!” and then he pushed me. I had my daughter on the sofa while facing him. When he pushed me, I fell backwards on the sofa. I was close to falling on my baby. The personnel came and took her.
They said, “She is not safe with you.” I started crying, “Please do not do this.” My brother left. They gave her back to me that day. But now, the staff started to constantly harass me, “You cannot take care of her. What happens if you go out with her? They can come and do something. She is not safe with you.”
One day I wanted to take a shower. I asked them for help to hold the baby. They said, “No, we want to see what you do with her.” I put her in the stroller and took her with me to the bathroom to take a shower. When I came out they said, “You did two mistakes. You did not put the safety belt on the child and it is too steamy in the bathroom. She could have died. You cannot take care of her.”
Every day, I was under tremendous pressure: the staff who always complained about how useless I was as a mother, to the calls that I got from my parents who told me that I was a shame to the family, and to the husband who said, “How can you do this? I can find you. I know where you are. I can do this or that to you.”
One day it all became too much. The staff said something about mistakes. I said – this is so hard for me to admit, “What do you want from me?! If you want her, then take her!”
Immediately, they took her. They placed her with a Swedish family. When my daughter was gone, they said, “You cannot stay here. This is an investigation home for families.” I asked, “Where will I go? I have nowhere to go.”
They said, “It is not our problem. You can call social services.” The social services personnel came and started asking questions. “Do you know how to pay rent?” I said, “What?” I did not know anything about rent. It was foreign to me. Even if I lived in Sweden, I did not live like Swedish people. My father took care of the finances of the family. They started to ask, “Do you know anything about electricity bills?” I did not know anything about it. I thought they were interviewing me. They were smiling. [Laughing] I was so stupid. I did not know that this would be important for me keeping my baby or not.
They decided to put me in a teenager home. In hindsight, I appreciate it because I needed time to grow up. However, they should not have done this because when the court date came, I was living in a teenager home and not a safe place for a child to grow. I did not have anything. I lost her in court. The only thing I had left was rights of access to my child.
They granted me a few hours every weekend. This went on until I became 22 years of age and got my first apartment. I went to court. I wanted part of the custody. I won half of it. For the first time in years, she could finally sleep in my arms again.
I had her every other weekend, every other holiday, and four consecutive weeks in the Summer. Time went by, when she was five, she said, “You are not my momma. I was not in your stomach. Jesus does not love you.”
The older she got, the more she had to say: “My father said that your own parents do not want you. So, why should I?” She would, from time to time, lash out at me and say, “Shut up! I hate you! I do not want you! I am ashamed of you! You will go to hell! You will burn in hell!”
She also said that a priest told her the church and Jesus loves her because she is not like me and does not follow my path in life. I would be devastated by these words, but she was only a child. It has never been her fault.
They taught her to hate me and avoid me. From the age of 14 until now I have not been allowed to talk to her very much. I am blocked everywhere on social media. Today, she is 22.
Somehow, it is never over for me. People say; I should come out of this PTSD. How could I? I am reliving the past in my future because my child is stuck in the honor culture I have tried to leave behind me my entire life.
Jacobsen: In real time, you are reliving the past vicariously.
Sandra: Exactly! All I know is if I will ever be seen as her mother then I have to become a Syrian Orthodox again. I cannot be an atheist. I also have to be married or living with my parents, as a woman can never live by herself. A single woman living alone, unmarried is seen as repulsive.
I would rather die than go back to it. So, I do not know. I wait, wish, and hope for her to come back into my life. That is all I can do for now. All these years, all my apartments, I always had my bed in the living room.
I kept the bedroom for her, wishing someday of her return to me. Today, she is an adult. However, the room is empty. It means something is wrong with me. In my brain, I cannot understand it. She is an adult. However, I am still looking for my lost baby.
I want her in my arms; I cannot explain it. It sounds crazy. Every day, when I walk past this empty room, it feels better that it is empty because I have this empty space in my heart, which carries her name. I am a mother that lost her child. It feels like nobody cares.
Nobody ever asked, “How do you feel about it?” Nobody, not even my therapists and doctors, maybe, they are waiting for me to talk about it. The way I talk to you now. I have never told a doctor about this. Not like this, I have not opened up yet.
Jacobsen: There is a syndrome called Phantom Limb Syndrome. People who come back from war. Let us say, they lost an arm through a grenade blast. Somehow, the parts of the brain. There is a map.
You can touch fingers, arms, the face. You can map the nerves of the hand connected to the part of the brain. There is a map from left to right like a big half-circle crown on the brain. You can map the circuitry.
It is like a sensory map of the brain (cortical homunculus or Penfield’s Map). For some people, the sensation does not go away for the ‘arm.’ They have a phantom limb. They will say, “My limb is stuck. Sometimes, it is stuck in an uncomfortable position.”
But it is a phantom. They do not have an arm. They have the idea that they have an arm, but stuck in an uncomfortable position.
Sandra: I have seen videos of this. That is why I get what you are saying. I know this phenomenon. So, yes, the empty room is my uncomfortable position. The ache in my heart for my lost child. Thinking that she is still a baby and that she will return.
Jacobsen: If you look at someone who plays the piano who is a virtuoso, it is almost as if the piano or instrument is an extension of themselves. I would suspect you could map this to the brain in terms of the sensory map having an extended map for the keyboard.
When you are talking about this, I can imagine a concrete, naturalistic answer. When you have a child, I can see a correspondence here.
Sandra: I was still breastfeeding her when I lost her. They ripped her away from me. I went through nights of horror for months. Milk came out of my breasts. I screamed and cried because I heard her in my mind. I was feeling that she was hungry.
People said, “No, she’s not here. It is okay.” I went through it. This kept happening until my breasts stopped producing milk. It was so hard for me. However, no one has helped me with this. Back then, the 1990s, there was not so much discussion about mental health.
Of course, there were psychiatrists and therapists back then but it was not as common as today to seek help. The staff at the teenager home said, “You should talk to someone.” They drove me to a therapist. I sat there. The therapist asked, “Sandra, can you answer?” I was like, “Mickey Mouse!”
I did not want to open up because I did not want to talk about those things. They stopped taking me to see the therapist after two weeks. They said, “Oh, you are making a fool out of us. It is not acceptable. We drive you. You act irresponsibly.”
I said, “Fine, but I do not want to go, I do not want to talk about it.” I was a child for God’s sake. I did not want to hear what they had to say to me. Today, I am 40. I still, at times, feel like a child who never grew up. I still feel like I need a mother and a father. It sounds crazy.
Jacobsen: It is okay. I understand. Every story has a context. I understand given the context. You had an abusive mother and a negligent father. A forced marriage with an abusive rapist husband. Then you had a child and fled at only 18.
Sandra: Yes, it is hard to move forward now. Also, I feel as though there are things missing with my doctors, psychiatrists, and therapists. I ask them, “Where is the education when you go to a university about honor culture? How do you help someone who went through honor culture?”
“Did you have as a part of your program any education about honor culture?” They say, “No.” I say, “How can you help me if you do not understand?” We have sects here in Sweden. It is similar to honor culture. How can the doctors be so clueless?
I ask, “Do you know how to treat someone who lived in a sect or an honor culture?” The answer: they do not know. So, how can they help me? It is the same if I go to the police, the hospital, the social services, or school. There must be proper education about victims of the honor culture.
We who live in a sect or an honor culture and want out: how can they see and help us? That is what is missing. More education about it.
Jacobsen: That is a difficult context for people. It is a failure on the part of the government rather than a failure on the part of the individual people.
Sandra: I know it is not totally the doctors’ fault, when there are no programs in their education about it. Whose fault is it? It is whoever put this program together. Is it the politicians? Who decides what topics you read at school?
Jacobsen: Even in Canada, it is asynchronous, whether in the development of psychology or psychiatry. In my province, we only, recently, banned conversion therapy. It is the purported therapy to make gay people straight; this only got banned this year, in part of the country.
Some see this as crazy, even in Canada. Given the context, there are some areas, where it takes time for developments and progress. To the point, where people, for instance, coming out of a fundamentalist background – and a culture and religion that bind themselves to honor culture – treat women differently than men, the scapegoating is more with the women than with the men.
Sandra: Yes, it is.
Jacobsen: Societies tend to be terrified of an educated woman and a sexually liberated woman. Most of the cultural restrictions are on women. Another way of doing it; if you look at the religious texts, whether Fatima, Ayesha, or Rachel, or Mother Mary Magdalene or the Virgin Mary, there are a few stories.
If they are there, they are an afterthought or an “also.” It is also in the culture as well as the texts. It is in the stories that tell people how to live their lives.
Sandra: I agree with you. You know, Scott, in the media, no one speaks about Christians; however, they talk constantly about Muslims. But honor culture does not exist in Muslim culture alone. It is in Christian culture too.
In Sweden, many of the women’s organizations who focus on helping victims of honor culture would not speak with me. They did not want to hear my story. That’s what I mean, Scott. They did not care about my story because it came from a Christian background rather than an Islamic one, which is what they’re used to.
When I tell my story to people, they assume I’m Muslim. They say, “Oh, so, you are Muslim.” No, I am not! I wonder why only Muslims get all the benefits of being believed? I exist, too. However, when they hear that my parents are Christians, they do not believe me, or assume that it would have been worse if I was a Muslim girl.
“At least you weren’t forced to wear a hijab.” How can that make it better? This piece of fabric means more than my entire existence to some people. It is horrible. As soon as you are a foreigner, people assume: Muslim.
Even now, when I get invited to parties with Swedish people, they say, “We are sorry. Because of your religion, how do you feel when we sit and eat pig?” I say, “First of all, I am an atheist. Thank you very much. My parents are Christians. Second of all, give me bacon and shut up!” [Laughing]
Jacobsen: [Laughing].
Sandra: It is the same with alcohol. It is not because it is forbidden in my culture that I do not drink. I just hate alcohol. I do not like the taste. The first and last time I drank was when I was 19 years old. I ended up in the hospital. I had my stomach pumped. I got alcohol poisoning. Since then, I hate alcohol.
Yet, when I get invited to parties by Swedish people, they say, “Oh! Sorry Sandra, we forgot. We are sorry to drink alcohol in front of you.” They will never allow me to be Swedish. Whatever I do, it does not matter if I speak Swedish fluently or dress like them.
I will always be singled out. On the other hand, my culture and country do not want me, too. They single me out as well. “You are European. You are an atheist. You left your husband. You left your child. You did this and that…”
I feel lost sometimes. Where do I belong? I want to belong to something.
Jacobsen: It is common. In this sense, it happens. It is not common. In this sense, it does not happen the majority of the time. It is stuck between worlds: family, culture, country, religion-nonreligion, modernity seen more in European culture, and family life in Lebanon.
I am sorry for what you’ve gone through.
Sandra: Thank you, when you come to a new country as a child, it is more difficult than if you would come as an adult because you already have an identity. We who came as young try to find an identity here. Your parents try then to block you from becoming a part of the community as they see the new country as the enemy of morality.
You get alienated from both countries. You feel like you do not have roots in either country. I do not know what has to happen for this to change. At least, I want to be taken seriously when I talk about honor culture.
It cannot be that my voice isn’t heard because I was born Christian. Media has to stop writing articles that only talk about Islam. There is an honor culture in every religion. My tears and pain are as true as that of a Muslim girl.
Jacobsen: Oftentimes, I think the focus for most Europeans will be Christianity. Given Europe was, historically, Christian, people give it more of a pass when bad things happen within it, whether Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, what have you.
In North America, the population is becoming less and less religious. People harbor more Christian heritage. They will be more likely to excuse it. I expect this more in Muslim and ex-Muslim household communities, even though they may have more Muslim heritage than Christian heritage as here.
That is what I heard. They do not register it. “I cannot get a job,” is not bad – though bad – as, “I am forced into marriage,” and so on.
Sandra: Even the human rights organizations that are fighting for gender equality, they only refer to what the Muslim women go through. There are ex-Muslim societies or atheist societies, or women organizations.
However, they only talk about how bad Islam is, especially for women. I have not seen a single article written to highlight honor culture within Christians from the Middle East, for example. Maybe, this article is a start. Who knows?
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Sandra.
By Sandra El Khoury
TIME TO BURY YOUR PAST
When you least expect it, it comes to you
Making you realize what you’ve been through
It makes you angry, it makes you mad
Now you realize how much power they had
Even from the first day you were born
They forced you to wear Christ’s thorn
They watched you bleed, they saw your pain
They trapped your freedom and locked the chain
When you grow up, you understand
They forced you to obey, it was planned
They forced you to think you were meaningless
And you carry it inside you in your adultness
But no evil plan is without solution
Love becomes your bloodless revolution
Real friends take your hand when you lead the fight
Your loved ones become warriors of human right
So you will be at war all your life
Your inner strength becomes your knife
It is known that war never ends
Until one of the fighters descends
That person can never be you
Not after all they put you through
The day will come at last
When it is time to bury your past
By Sandra El Khoury
IN THE REFLECTION OF MY AFTERNOON TEA
In the reflection of my afternoon tea
I see a wild wave of the Mediterranean Sea
I see the place where I was born
Where my innocent childhood was torn
I see war exploiting the Lebanese
I see politicians as an infectious disease
But as a little girl that wasn’t my terror
It was my family who were the dangerous error
I wasn’t afraid of the bombs outside
Not even the images of all the people who died
I wasn’t afraid of the bloody river in the street
Not even the thousand bullet holes in concrete
I was afraid of the adults in my life
Who brought me up to become an obedient wife
To dream was forbidden in all sort or form
They stopped my wave in the Mediterranean storm
One day they moved me many miles away
Sweden were the country where they wanted to stay
I thought maybe now there will be a change
But their convictions became more and more strange
As they’ve taken my childhood, they now took my teenage years
A new wave was created by my salty tears
The more I grew the more harm they caused
All my hopes and dreams for a future they paused
I’ll not give you details of all the horrible things that took place
That will force me into the unconscious memory trace
All I can say is that I’m looking for the wild wave in me
That I saw today in my afternoon tea
That reflection was a reminder of what they couldn’t kill
And I get closer to reach it after every psychiatry bill
One day I will find the wild wave in me for sure
Because what they did will not hurt so much anymore
I will become more than I was meant to be
I will be the waves on all the tsunamis of the sea
So come then and try to stop me
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/11/11
Strategic objective C.4.
Promote research and disseminate information on women’s health
Actions to be taken
109. By Governments, the United Nations system, health professions, research institutions, non-governmental organizations, donors, pharmaceutical industries and the mass media, as appropriate:
d. Increase financial and other support from all sources for preventive, appropriate biomedical, behavioural, epidemiological and health service research on women’s health issues and for research on the social, economic and political causes of women’s health problems, and their consequences, including the impact of gender and age inequalities, especially with respect to chronic and non-communicable diseases, particularly cardiovascular diseases and conditions, cancers, reproductive tract infections and injuries, HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases, domestic violence, occupational health, disabilities, environmentally related health problems, tropical diseases and health aspects of ageing;
e. Inform women about the factors which increase the risks of developing cancers and infections of the reproductive tract, so that they can make informed decisions about their health;
Beijing Declaration (1995)
The Beijing Declaration here is emphasizing the need to provide for the needs of women’s health within the a wide range of fields. It lists most of the relevant broad-based fields relevant to women’s health.
Furthermore, there is the focus on research once more. The ability to research with the most advanced technology remains an advanced industrial economy activity. The equipment and the personnel training is extraordinarily expensive.
Developing or poorer nations will, typically, lack the appropriate amount of resources to conduct the research. Without explicit statement, this is a colder reality about research into these various areas.
However, the provisions with financal assistance and resources relevant for education and prevention-of-sexual-diseases tools can help reduce the probability of widespread infection in poorer populations.
It is also cheaper than the research training for the personnel and for the equipment. In this, we have a particularly important message implied for the wealthier nations.
Based on international obligations and power, and resources, it is incumbent on them to conduct research and provide contraceptive resources in the best interests of all, to reduce the potential human costs in not doing the research and providing the sexual health tools.
The educational aspect, as noted, should also incorporate the facts about infection and cancer risks for the women. In this, women’s health is the focus baseed on the potentials for heavily negative harms to them.
But this is also about women to be persons, as per the UDHR, with autonomy, choice, freedoms, and those guaranteed by the stipulations of international documents.
–(Updated 2018-11-10 based on further research) One can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights:
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the optional protocol (1993).
- Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), Five-year review of progress (2000), 10-year reviewin 2005, the 15-year review in 2010, and the 20-year review in 2015.
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), and the UN Security Council additional resolutions on women, peace and security: 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013), and 2242 (2015).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
- UN Women’s strategic plan, 2018–2021
- 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
- 2015 agenda with 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (169 targets for the end to poverty, combatting inequalities, and so on, by 2030). The SDGs were preceded by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) from 2000 to 2015.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/11/11
Strategic objective C.4.
Promote research and disseminate information on women’s health
Actions to be taken
109. By Governments, the United Nations system, health professions, research institutions, non-governmental organizations, donors, pharmaceutical industries and the mass media, as appropriate:
b. Promote gender-sensitive and women-centred health research, treatment and technology and link traditional and indigenous knowledge with modern medicine, making information available to women to enable them to make informed and responsible decisions;
c. Increase the number of women in leadership positions in the health professions, including researchers and scientists, to achieve equality at the earliest possible date;
Beijing Declaration (1995)
When we look at the nature of the world and the situations in which we find the poorest of the poor and the various injustices and imbalances, collectively or globally, we can see some consistencies in them.
One is a negligence to the needs and demands, if known, of women. Interestingly, the information referenced alongside the research, treatment, and the technology is, in fact, the Indigenous knowledge.
This makes sense within the increasing relevance of the Indigenous perspective on a number of issues. There does, indeed, exist means by which to improve health outcomes with a culturally sensitive lens.
While, at the same time, there should be a keen and critical eye to things purported to be medicine and others which amount to non-medicine or ‘quackery’ – that which supposedly works and simply does not work.
But this raises some questions about the research and technology part. Technology simply amounts to some technique invented by human for a people-oriented purpose – something to make food, build a study building, help train the mind, or improve health outcomes over time.
Especially in some of the post-colonial contexts, the efficacy – as in good enough – of some treatments should provide the basic treatment for those ill and distrustful of those who resemble the colonizers of the past.
It is less about maximal health and more about optimal given human factors. Also, some medicines within a traditional setting do, in fact, improve health better than some known medicines based on centuries of people getting ill or dying in the worst form of trial-and-error to find out what herbs, and so on, work or do not.
At the center of all this, it is the sensibility of the rights of women and the ability to make autonomous decisions about their own lives and livelihoods. There are, as with 1995, more and more women entering into leadership positions, especially promising in one of the richest and most powerful nations the world has ever seen – the United States of America.
The urgency of the message here is rather striking within the international lens, recalling, of course, the United Nations as the main source of these forms of statements.
Countries’ representatives and, therefore, Member States signed onto the global work towards the furtherance of equality. But this will not come overnight or easily.
In fact, we will continue to see progress as well as reactionary pushback against international secular progress on the rights of women, whether from outright misogyny to simply sexist apathy/indifference to the plight of others while one’s own problems are more or less solved.
We’re in this together. Our collective wills should be oriented towards the same goals inasmuch as we can within the current context. But this does not mean pushing the interests of men out of the foci here.
In fact, the global data are quite clear. The zero sum thinking is illegitimate as more women in the workforce permits flexibility for men and women while also increasing the size of the national (and, thus, international) economic pie.
Basically, the emphasis on the moral argument here is one linked intimately with the economic argument. There simply is more built with more people able to freely become involved in the productive, and paid, economy.
It is in the interest of societies, communities, families, and men and children to have women empowered. No doubt about it.
–(Updated 2018-11-10 based on further research) One can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights:
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the optional protocol (1993).
- Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), Five-year review of progress (2000), 10-year reviewin 2005, the 15-year review in 2010, and the 20-year review in 2015.
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), and the UN Security Council additional resolutions on women, peace and security: 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013), and 2242 (2015).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
- UN Women’s strategic plan, 2018–2021
- 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
- 2015 agenda with 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (169 targets for the end to poverty, combatting inequalities, and so on, by 2030). The SDGs were preceded by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) from 2000 to 2015.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/11/10
Strategic objective C.4.
Promote research and disseminate information on women’s health
Actions to be taken
109. By Governments, the United Nations system, health professions, research institutions, non-governmental organizations, donors, pharmaceutical industries and the mass media, as appropriate:
- Train researchers and introduce systems that allow for the use of data collected, analysed and disaggregated by, among other factors, sex and age, other established demographic criteria and socio-economic variables, in policy-making, as appropriate, planning, monitoring and evaluation;
Beijing Declaration (1995)
Paragraph 109 of the Beijing Declaration continues in similar content and tone to the prior ones but with an emphasis on the data. There can’t be good plans, implementations, updates, maintenance, and furtherance of rights without good data, seriously.
The basic premise in this is the need for the international and national systems, including individual experts and organizations, to work together to collect data, analyze it, and then parse it.
The categories will be the standard ones including sex, age, SES status, and so on. Each of these could be easily tracked, probably, and then utilized to garner some estimates as to the efficacy of some interventions over others in the advancement and empowerment of women via their health and wellness.
The changes in what can be implemented and how it can be implemented seem important for the improved rollout of updates to extant programs and initiatives as well as the provisions of new ones oriented towards women’s fundamental human rights.
The three closing stages are “planning, monitoring and evaluation.” For those familiar with this, which I assume is many, the notion of planning comes from good data to orient the plans in a comprehensive and complete fashion for the immediate and even long-term issues.
The monitoring helps to know where things went wrong, could be done better, and, potentially, even how to do them better right off the bat.
The evaluative criteria would be the aspects of the demographics mentioned above – age, sex, SES status, and so on – to find the aspects most impactful for women’s health. Something like a priority rank-ordering of problems for solution planning could be produced from this.
Thus, data matters, especially in women’s matters.
–One can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights:
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (1993).
- Beijing Declaration(1995).
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/11/10
Strategic objective C.3.
Undertake gender-sensitive initiatives that address sexually transmitted diseases, HIV/AIDS, and sexual and reproductive health issues
Actions to be taken
108. By Governments, international bodies including relevant United Nations organizations, bilateral and multilateral donors and non-governmental organizations:
n. Support programmes which acknowledge that the higher risk among women of contracting HIV is linked to high-risk behaviour, including intravenous substance use and substance-influenced unprotected and irresponsible sexual behaviour, and take appropriate preventive measures;
o. Support and expedite action-oriented research on affordable methods, controlled by women, to prevent HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases, on strategies empowering women to protect themselves from sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV/AIDS, and on methods of care, support and treatment of women, ensuring their involvement in all aspects of such research;
p. Support and initiate research which addresses women’s needs and situations, including research on HIV infection and other sexually transmitted diseases in women, on women-controlled methods of protection, such as non-spermicidal microbicides, and on male and female risk-taking attitudes and practices.
Beijing Declaration (1995)
This section of the Beijing Declaration continues to speak to the international and national level responsibility to the health and wellbeing of women through the furtherance of their human rights.
Taking this into account, there is the first emphasis on the support programmes with women in mind. Indeed, the education should, relative to the time, recognize the prevalence of HIV/AIDS.
It remains right in line with the recent set of articles on the education of girls and women about their own bodies, about sex, and about sexuality. All important to make independent and informed choices about their health.
One issue continues to be linked to this. The possibility of ignorance of contraception and other tools of safe and responsible sex and sexuality. These preventative measures can be the first line of defence against STIs and STDs, and unplanned pregnancies, and so on.
The affordability of contraception will remain a problem for, especially, young women and women in general. It is a general support of the inexpensive to the rich but costly to the poor – but impactful in life outcome – contraceptive methods.
Poorer women have a harder time in self-financing for contraception and other methodologies. With cuts in funding for relevant social services, these increased risks for the precariat or those living in penurious circumstances will become even further exacerbated.
While there is a lack of appropriate resources, the boundary between infection or unplanned pregnancy and not will become ever-thinner.
Also, the research into the best means by which to educate and support women where they’re at is important too. This includes on particular types of contraception and the odds of acquisition of a disease.
This provision of tools and education can result, potentially, in positive attitudinal and cultural practice changes.
–One can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights:
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (1993).
- Beijing Declaration(1995).
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/11/09
Strategic objective C.3.
Undertake gender-sensitive initiatives that address sexually transmitted diseases, HIV/AIDS, and sexual and reproductive health issues
Actions to be taken
108. By Governments, international bodies including relevant United Nations organizations, bilateral and multilateral donors and non-governmental organizations:
l. Design specific programmes for men of all ages and male adolescents, recognizing the parental roles referred to in paragraph 107 (e) above, aimed at providing complete and accurate information on safe and responsible sexual and reproductive behaviour, including voluntary, appropriate and effective male methods for the prevention of HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases through, inter alia, abstinence and condom use;
m. Ensure the provision, through the primary health-care system, of universal access of couples and individuals to appropriate and affordable preventive services with respect to sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV/AIDS, and expand the provision of counselling and voluntary and confidential diagnostic and treatment services for women; ensure that high-quality condoms as well as drugs for the treatment of sexually transmitted diseases are, where possible, supplied and distributed to health services;
Beijing Declaration (1995)
The role of the governments and the various international bodies or organizations is to work for the benefits of their constituencies, whether in part or whole. With the collection of them working in relative unison, the benefits should accrue to all.
It should in principle. It may not necessarily play out this way in every case. But the specific programmes listed in paragraph 107 can provide some minimal mapping for men to become fathers.
In even relatively poor data, most men and women still want to be parents. This leads to the honest conclusion of most men simply needing to be tracked in a healthy and an appropriate manner.
This will need to start early in order for parenthood to be both planned and grounded in safe and responsible sexual practices and actions. It all sounds so clinical. But it’s not, truly.
These simply refer to the knowledge and tools for men and women to be able to make informed choices about their own sexual paths in life. No one should have control over them in this regard; however, the should retain the right to accurate knowledge of safe sex practices and the rights and responsibilities expected within a sexual activity, e.g., consent, contraception, and so on.
These will likely be negotiated within each relationship. But, nonetheless, there will be a general intent for healthy boundaries, respect between partners, and so on. This becomes especially consequential in the cases of the young and sexually active being, potentially, exposed to STIs and STDs.
It is also a risky terrain to unplanned pregnancy and so on. This can create several problems in the long-term socio-economic livelihood of the individual woman or man, or both for that matter.
Next is the – aside from the education about condoms and other methods of birth control and safe sexual practices – is the connection or linkage with the health-care system.
Where the couples can have provision from it, they can appropriately and confidently afford the various preventative services regarding STDs and STIs.
This also includes the frequently mentioned HIV/AIDS epidemic. It was still a problem in 1995 and is now. There are a wide variety of problems but the international community continues to work on them.
Now, note the “universal access” as the phraseology here, the movements and political parties fighting for universal access to health care, in essence, fight for these internationalist stipulations, ideals, or goals
For those who want it, they should have some form of health care coverage of their sexual health. It is should be fundamental and primary, as this is the health of the next generations, of a major facet of the general wellbeing of the citizenry.
Tied into this, the mention of counselling, which could, of course, expand the health and wellness around sexuality too. Unfortunately, many cultures preach, encourage, and enforce a sexual culture of Puritanism on the one side and depravity on the other.
Either extreme seems inappropriate; in fact, most people seem to fit in a healthy range but this preaching, encouraging, and enforcing lead these otherwise informed, healthy, and rational individuals to pursue unhealthy forms of sexuality, seen through the statistical outcomes at times.
But without the support in counselling, social support services with provisions of condoms and other tools, and proper knowledge about anatomy, consent, the psychology and physical aspects of sex, and so on, many adults, even older adults, can be left without proper mentalities about a safe and responsible sexual life.
–One can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights:
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (1993).
- Beijing Declaration(1995).
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/11/09
Strategic objective C.3.
Undertake gender-sensitive initiatives that address sexually transmitted diseases, HIV/AIDS, and sexual and reproductive health issues
Actions to be taken
108. By Governments, international bodies including relevant United Nations organizations, bilateral and multilateral donors and non-governmental organizations:
i. Give all women and health workers all relevant information and education about sexually transmitted diseases including HIV/AIDS and pregnancy and the implications for the baby, including breast-feeding;
j. Assist women and their formal and informal organizations to establish and expand effective peer education and outreach programmes and to participate in the design, implementation and monitoring of these programmes;
k. Give full attention to the promotion of mutually respectful and equitable gender relations and, in particular, to meeting the educational and service needs of adolescents to enable them to deal in a positive and responsible way with their sexuality;
Beijing Declaration (1995)
The Beijing Declaration in paragraph 108 sections (i), (j), and (k) looks into the means by which women and healthcare professionals can work to reduce the levels of HIV/AIDS transmission through education and provision of accurate information for women to make informed decisions about their lives.
Without good data, women are left bereft of the possibility of making those informed choices for their lives. This can be potentially highly consequential in the life of a woman and the wellbeing of her baby, especially in regards to breastfeeding.
It is an important healthcare note about the health and wellness of women being intimately connected to the wellbeing of babies in the most crucial development years of the life of the baby.
There is an emphasis on proper peer education. This means the outreach through the formal and informal organizations and mechanisms in order to improve the outcomes for girls and women. Remembering, of course, all of the recommendations and courses of action work for the furtherance of the rights and equality and, therefore, life outcomes of women.
This translates into better families, communities, and societies based on international evidence. But this requires three stages of development. One is the planning stage. Another is the implementation of the designs. Still another, it is the monitoring of the outcomes to gauge the efficacy of the programs that have been implemented.
These lessons based on the monitoring of the outcomes can be used to refine the next stages of planning for the subsequent implementations, which will be monitored themselves and so on in a continuous loop of, in theory, or in principle, improved performance over time.
The various organizations on offer can be a boon these efforts. Indeed, these can be considered among the most effective actors in the advancement and empowerment of women educationally and otherwise.
It seems far too hard for even singular outstanding individuals to make significant dents on the problems faced by women.
As well, there is a focus or a stipulation on the need to provide some increased awareness of the prospects of the perceptions of men and women to one another. The idea of a reciprocal relationship in respect for one another’s talents, merits, capabilities, triumphs over tribulations, and so on.
A significant shift in this perception or a wider awareness would move the dial to a more equitable distribution of meritorious proclamations and praise for women and men.
This move can shift the conversation about the relations of the genders. But also, this can be important in the changing of the dynamics in sexuality as well. It may reduce the tensions in the power dynamics of the relationship.
In that, the adolescents mentioned in the final section are able to be properly informed about sex, protection, consent, and sexuality in order to make those informed and independent choices about their intimate lives.
This is a means by which to build one of those positive and responsible sex lives most parents, likely, want for their children as become fully-fleshed out adults. But one of the important points is the improved sexual relations early on in life through education about sex and sexuality for the young can deal with the pipeline issue, potentially, of one of the main problems identified as a social pathology in modern movements.
Then there are also the means by which to work in large coalitions and groups to reduce the level of discrimination in health outcomes for women with newborn babies or babies generally, again related to sexual health.
The progress made on each of these fronts remains an individual choice to come together in union with others or not to vigorously, over the long haul, make changes in the lives of women and, subsequently, of men.
–One can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights:
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (1993).
- Beijing Declaration(1995).
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/11/08
Strategic objective C.3.
Undertake gender-sensitive initiatives that address sexually transmitted diseases, HIV/AIDS, and sexual and reproductive health issues
Actions to be taken
108. By Governments, international bodies including relevant United Nations organizations, bilateral and multilateral donors and non-governmental organizations:
f. Facilitate the development of community strategies that will protect women of all ages from HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases; provide care and support to infected girls, women and their families and mobilize all parts of the community in response to the HIV/AIDS pandemic to exert pressure on all responsible authorities to respond in a timely, effective, sustainable and gender-sensitive manner;
g. Support and strengthen national capacity to create and improve gender-sensitive policies and programmes on HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases, including the provision of resources and facilities to women who find themselves the principal caregivers or economic support for those infected with HIV/AIDS or affected by the pandemic, and the survivors, particularly children and older persons;
h. Provide workshops and specialized education and training to parents, decision makers and opinion leaders at all levels of the community, including religious and traditional authorities, on prevention of HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases and on their repercussions on both women and men of all ages;
Beijing Declaration (1995)
The facilitation of the welfare of women and girls in the light of the, at the time, HIV/AIDS pandemic but which continues to be a problem for many people around the world. The building of locale-specific strategies for dealing with HIV/AIDS can be effective in the prevention of transmission and care, compassion, and concern through reduction of stigma for those infected with HIV/AIDS.
For those girls and women who have been infected, there is a call on the communities to act on this facilitation and work to prevent future occurrences of its spread through the population. Now, one of the issues plaguing is the spread of the diseases. But another layered one relates to institutions.
The culture, too, and the institutions have a lack of responsiveness to the needs of women and girls in regards to their health and wellness. This links into the section of the focus for this article today.
We can see the need to strengthen the national capacity of the gendered lens across institutions through their respective implementations of “policies and programmes” in relation to STIs and STDs. All important for the improved health and wellbeing of women.
In addition to this, we can see the developments of a spread in the caregiver responsibilities from mostly women to a more egalitarian split. Because the majority of the housework, childcare work, and the care of the old and sick sits firmly with women.
It is a burden thrust upon them unduly and unfairly. It is not from on high, or from down-low from some perspectives, but, rather, the conscious decisions of people in power and in culture to subordinate some of the most tedious caring work of the society to women. This can change with human decisions in a similar manner in which this has changed before.
Now, the educational aspect continues to crop up in the discussions in the Beijing Declaration. There is a continual need to focus on education because this remains one of the first forms of self-defence against lies and distortions as well as the mobilization around a common cause for gender equality, which is, 20 years after the Beijing Declaration, one of the Sustainable Development Goals set by the international community through the United Nations.
This education should be directed at all levels, “parents, decision makers and opinion leaders at all levels of the community, including religious and traditional authorities.” The reason simply is health and working with people where they’re at rather than enforcing a generalized mould on everyone.
However, it is in this that we can see the problems of prevention and the difficulty in education, because there has to be a general framework for the education and provisions for the public. It is in this pervasive attempt at education about, prevention of, and care for those infected by HIV/AIDS that the world can begin to reduce and eventually eliminate the “pandemic” of HIV/AIDS and continue the long battle against STIs and STDs plaguing much of the world and, in particular, the developing world with lifelong impacts on women and, if they have them, their offsprign and, thus, families and communities over generations. This can be solved, but only with diligent work.
–One can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights:
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (1993).
- Beijing Declaration(1995).
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
Share this:
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/11/08
Strategic objective C.3.
Undertake gender-sensitive initiatives that address sexually transmitted diseases, HIV/AIDS, and sexual and reproductive health issues
Actions to be taken
108. By Governments, international bodies including relevant United Nations organizations, bilateral and multilateral donors and non-governmental organizations:
c. Encourage all sectors of society, including the public sector, as well as international organizations, to develop compassionate and supportive, non-discriminatory HIV/AIDS-related policies and practices that protect the rights of infected individuals;
d. Recognize the extent of the HIV/AIDS pandemic in their countries, taking particularly into account its impact on women, with a view to ensuring that infected women do not suffer stigmatization and discrimination, including during travel;
e. Develop gender-sensitive multisectoral programmes and strategies to end social subordination of women and girls and to ensure their social and economic empowerment and equality; facilitate promotion of programmes to educate and enable men to assume their responsibilities to prevent HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases;
Beijing Declaration (1995)
The encouragement throughout the facets of society can be an important first step, alongside others, in the advancement and empowerment of women. The emphasis on the compassionate retains a particular resonance in a minor era of non-dispassionate and enflamed negative rhetoric about the opposition.
The compassion and supportive encouragement can help with the advancement of policies and practices that help among those most in need, e.g., those infected HIV/AIDS. It is a horrible disease if you ever read a small bit about it.
Different nations have a different set of concerns about it. Mostly, probably, around the prevalence of the disease and then the level of institutional or infrastructural support – speaking of medical and care related – for the individuals who suffer from HIV/AIDS infection.
Next, we have an impact on women through the discrimination and stigma around infection with HIV/AIDS. It is a form of magical thinking about the possibilities of contagion through being around women with HIV/AIDS.
The gendered lens – a common phrase in these conversational commentaries – is a frequent frame of reference for these documents, as these deal with the explicit or via negligence exclusion of women from the mainstream international human rights conversation.
It is incredibly important to bear these in mind, as the benefits to whole societies come from the explicit inclusion of women in the decision-making and power centers of the society.
For one, this makes use of the other half of the species. For two, this creates a more level playing field for the society. We cannot do without the efforts and input of everyone for the advancement towards solutions of some of the most pressing problems in the modern period.
This implies a significant shift in the relation of the sexes or the genders in more general terms. The explicit exclusion of women from influence and platforms on an equal basis with the men has been a continual problem throughout the history of all cultures in the world.
Often, this comes with religious injunctions. But there are larger issues related to this. The problems of overpopulation and excessive restrictions on the choices of, at least, half of the population prevent the flourishing of the nations around the world.
In literal terms, the restriction of women has been a net negative on the progression, technologically and economically, of the species with explicit moral implications about the rightness-wrongness of the repression or “social subordination of women and girls.”
The programs and initiatives of the world system should keep the flourishing of women and girls in mind because of the basis of equality of the sexes can only come in the sincere listening ear and inclusion of the bodies and minds of women in the centers of influence and power in the world, and then replicating this in the social milieu of the nation and within the family structures. Some say, “It starts in the home,” but only in part.
It starts wherever someone is at, which makes the access points of equality in all aspects of interpersonal, and intrapersonal, life. These can emerge in the foundation of educational programs geared with men in mind for the prevention of the spread of HIV/AIDS, especially in the basics of how HIV/AIDS spreads from men to women and how the prevention of infection of others is a personal and collective responsibility.
All these “multisectoral programmes and strategies” may not solve the issues in the short-term but set a solid foundation for the reduction via prevention of the transmission of sexually transmitted diseases while simultaneously working on the central equality of the sexes issues of the subordination of women in sociocultural life.
–One can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights:
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (1993).
- Beijing Declaration(1995).
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Strategic objective C.3.
Undertake gender-sensitive initiatives that address sexually transmitted diseases, HIV/AIDS, and sexual and reproductive health issues
Actions to be taken
108. By Governments, international bodies including relevant United Nations organizations, bilateral and multilateral donors and non-governmental organizations:
a. Ensure the involvement of women, especially those infected with HIV/AIDS or other sexually transmitted diseases or affected by the HIV/AIDS pandemic, in all decision-making relating to the development, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of policies and programmes on HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases;
b. Review and amend laws and combat practices, as appropriate, that may contribute to women’s susceptibility to HIV infection and other sexually transmitted diseases, including enacting legislation against those socio-cultural practices that contribute to it, and implement legislation, policies and practices to protect women, adolescents and young girls from discrimination related to HIV/AIDS;
Beijing Declaration (1995)
In paragraph 108, the emphasis is on the nation-state, the United Nations, and a wide variety of other actors important to the flourishing of women from the top down. This is a top-heavy section.
For the women infected with HIV/AIDS, or any other sexually transmitted disease, this can be treatable in some cases and fatal in others depending on the particular form of sexually transmitted disease.
Thinking about the impacts of the life circumstances of many women, an STI/STD infection is a serious issue. It can create a situation in which there is a reduction in the chance of the woman to pursue a life course free from stigma in many cultures, or with treatment in many others – some with both problems.
Thus, in regards to decision-making relevant to women’s health around STIs and STDs, women should have a front seat. There deserve to be a part, and the main one, of the conversation regarding their own health.
Because men may not necessarily know the collective experiences or circumstances of the majority of women within their own nation. Compassion and sympathy are certainly possible and the main bridge, but the representation of women in all levels of decision-making relevant to them is important for the proper development and implementation of programs and initiatives for reduction of the rates of STIs and STDs in women.
The next section looks at the laws and practices, thus legal and cultural. The laws of the land, historically and in the present, have been, can be, and are discriminatory against women in a variety of contexts.
This can even emerge in some of the more subtle forms with the restrictions on women’s explicit in the laws. It is a discrimination via omission in this sense. There can be brutal social and cultural practices too.
Take, for an extreme example, the ‘corrective’ rape of women, even lesbians, who simply do not conform to the sexual orientation of the dominant heterosexual culture in which they find themselves. These women, in particular, can be subjected to a form of rape thought, within in the culture – wrongly, to shift the sexual orientation of the woman to one of like heterosexual men.
Simply does not work, isn’t the case, and can, sometimes, leave these women, through no fault of their own, infected with HIV/AIDS, it devastates their lives and leaves them as third-class citizens within their countries, where before they already harboured minimal consideration as human beings.
It is this form of culture and the surrounding laws that may not permit it but, certainly, do not openly condemn and punish it, which is the problem. There should be a shift in global culture seeping into the national legislation, policies, and practices in order to instantiate the enfranchisement of women as global citizens equal in stature and worth to the men.
The idea posited in the UDHR and in the Utilitarian ethic of John Stuart Mill and Harriet Taylor Mill, and enshrined in the work of the mainstay ethics of the religions in the world, in the ethical precepts or principles, found in the Golden Rule. If men would like to enjoy treatment as human beings, then women reserve the same right to enjoyment to treatment as persons.
For those women and girls already affected by HIV/AIDS, this, certainly, can hinder their advancement in a number of domains in life; however, the change in the global culture can be a significant step to the introduction of the practical realities of the equality of women and girls, of the equality of women and girls. Nothing to it besides that simple ask.
–One can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights:
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (1993).
- Beijing Declaration(1995).
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Strategic objective C.2.
Strengthen preventive programmes that promote women’s health
Actions to be taken
107. By Governments, in cooperation with non-governmental organizations, the mass media, the private sector and relevant international organizations, including United Nations bodies, as appropriate:
o. Create awareness among women, health professionals, policy makers and the general public about the serious but preventable health hazards stemming from tobacco consumption and the need for regulatory and education measures to reduce smoking as important health promotion and disease prevention activities;
p. Ensure that medical school curricula and other health-care training include gender-sensitive, comprehensive and mandatory courses on women’s health;
q. Adopt specific preventive measures to protect women, youth and children from any abuse – sexual abuse, exploitation, trafficking and violence, for example – including the formulation and enforcement of laws, and provide legal protection and medical and other assistance.
Beijing Declaration (1995)
Here we are, once again, on this long journey, dear reader: with some examination into the needed solutions on the question of women, one of the first lines of defense against regression and, in fact, offense in the long battle for the implementation of women’s rights is the knowledge of girls and women about their fundamental human rights as women.
Indeed, we can see direct attempts to keep women uninformed about a) their rights and b) their recourse to the violation of their fundamental human rights. It is an issue to deal with the basic problem of the health and wellbeing of some women.
The awareness can come from a variety of places. Not limited to the general populace themselves but also coming the legitimate health authorities, the drawing of a line between what is proper health information within the best medical science to date and what is simply junk medical ‘science.’
One of easiest means by which women can be empowered is through the knowledge of preventable health hazards, as listed. But there should be a robust educational system and public health campaigns to combat this public health hazard.
There is also the need for the medical and health professionals, starting from the training institutes and postsecondary education curricula, to have a gender sensitivity to the problems of the women.
The gendered lens is important as women’s health needs are different, especially as regards reproductive health rights implementation.
Then, as per the SIG Human Rights calles we need to focus on the protection of women and the young from forms of abuse including “sexual abuse, exploitation, trafficking and violence” because these are incredibly degrading and traumatizing acts against other human beings.
Our fundamental human rights come with respect and dignity inherent to being human beings are part of the basic documents in international human rights documents
The prevention of these crimes and punishment of them when happening, and then the treatment of those who have gone through them amount to a comprehensive package for the respect of the human rights of women and others more often subject to these violations.
–One can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights:
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (1993).
- Beijing Declaration(1995).
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Strategic objective C.2.
Strengthen preventive programmes that promote women’s health
Actions to be taken
107. By Governments, in cooperation with non-governmental organizations, the mass media, the private sector and relevant international organizations, including United Nations bodies, as appropriate:
m. Establish and/or strengthen programmes and services, including media campaigns, that address the prevention, early detection and treatment of breast, cervical and other cancers of the reproductive system;
n. Reduce environmental hazards that pose a growing threat to health, especially in poor regions and communities; apply a precautionary approach, as agreed to in the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development, adopted by the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development,/18 and include reporting on women’s health risks related to the environment in monitoring the implementation of Agenda 21;/19
Beijing Declaration (1995)
The emphasis is the global authorities for this section of the 107th paragraph. The establishing of programmes and services to move the dial towards the promotion of women’s health a lot.
Many nations around the world lack the proper provisions for the health and wellness of women. It is crucial for the health and wellbeing and, thus, the rights of women for programs and initiatives to be created with their health in mind.
Another methodology aside from the construction of entirely new programs is the bolstering of ones already in place. For example, if there is the legality of safe and equitable access to abortion for women, then the support of the abortion clinics can help with the implementation of women’s rights.
The other health system checks can be put in place for the help with the actualization of women’s rights through improved screening for some of the deadliest health issues out there, which are those connected to cancers including the ones of the reproductive system.
The other portions of this section of paragraph 107 link to the environmental hazards, which, of course, will connect more intimately to the developing rather than the developed countries around the world.
The impact of poverty cannot be understated as poor circumstances and a toxic environment can set girls and women on life paths and much poorer health and, in fact, could impact the ability to partake of education and work because of the consequences of the poor health.
This can produce a problem of more girls and women in penurious circumstances, where they already comprise the majority in these circumstances. For those with an interest in more of these details on solutions and international documents, I would highly recommend the above-mentioned documents.
The health risks to women can impact their trajectories in life. But the poor and the developing countries are the ones with the populations most probable to be impacted by the issues of environmental degradation and lack of proper health standards in living environments.
This is an international issue.
–One can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights:
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (1993).
- Beijing Declaration(1995).
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
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Strategic objective C.2.
Strengthen preventive programmes that promote women’s health
Actions to be taken
107. By Governments, in cooperation with non-governmental organizations, the mass media, the private sector and relevant international organizations, including United Nations bodies, as appropriate:
j. Ensure that health and nutritional information and training form an integral part of all adult literacy programmes and school curricula from the primary level;
k. Develop and undertake media campaigns and information and educational programmes that inform women and girls of the health and related risks of substance abuse and addiction and pursue strategies and programmes that discourage substance abuse and addiction and promote rehabilitation and recovery;
l. Devise and implement comprehensive and coherent programmes for the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of osteoporosis, a condition that predominantly affects women;
Beijing Declaration (1995)
Looking at the means by which an individual child can have sufficient nutritional and caloric intake to learn properly, the early stipulations in this particular section retain a peculiar resonance with me, as the children without proper nutrition may live with certain forms of a cognitive deficit for the rest of their lives.
That is, the kids with good food can benefit more from the education available to them than others. This is one of the cheapest and most consequential means by which to empower children who become adults, citizens, and taxpayers in nations throughout the world.
This is an important notion built into the mention of the “adult literacy programmes and school curricula.” Consider the girls, or the boys, without adequate nutrition all over the world, for cheap, they couldSmae have a much healthier and longer life than otherwise if they have or are provided with the appropriate early life nutrition.
It takes proper knowledge on the part of the community around them as well, as the individuals within the community cannot be expected to have perfect or comprehensive knowledge of good nutrition within every specific locale around the world.
These health campaigns in early life nutrition should be connected to the education on the potential risks in substance abuse and addiction, which, as a Canadian hits home because it, can be seen in the opioid crisis striking many of the city centres now.
Thousands dead among the young population of this country and many other nations around the world. These education programs, in personal opinion, should not lie to the young while not working to scare the young.
There should be proper information with a harm reduction methodology in order to work to reduce the number of the addicted, then thrown to the side by society, and the dead and those living on the streets.
This isn’t cold but simply the factual nature of substance misuses. Proper education without simplistic messages of “Just say no!” should be discouraged while comprehensive educational programs and health provisions should be put in place for the health and wellness of the young.
Same with the late-in-life programs set forth in the osteoporosis educational paradigm. There is a particular importance in the older cohorts of women to be informed, aware, of the higher possibility of osteoporosis for them compared to men.
This has been true for a long time and needs serious consideration, as fractures and breakages of bone for the elderly are significant problems in advanced age and could cause a series of other consequences to late-life health connected to the (potential) need for surgery and additional care for the woman.
All connected to one another. The basic premise in this section is the focus on the proper education of the young and provision for them in terms of the appropriate nutrition in their diet.
The other is the focus on the, mostly, adolescent and middle-aged issue of drug misuse, overdoses, deaths connected to drugs, and so on, which, in the more modern period, pertains more to the need of a harm reduction focus to prevent some of the serious consequences of ill-health impacting the much of the world now.
It has been called out both by the UN, the WHO, major internnational figures, and major cities’ health authorities within my own country. In addition, there is also the emphasis on the specific health concerns of the elderly women in terms of the risks for osteoporosis, which is non-trivial – akin to a focus, but not equal to an emphasis on, men and heart disease.
All important and part of the general educational process towards a more enlightened global populace about health and wellness.
–One can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights:
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (1993).
- Beijing Declaration(1995).
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Sara Al Iraqiya is a USA-based 2nd generation Iraqi-American social scientist, writer, and activist. Raised under Sunni Islam and a survivor of attempted radicalization in American mosques and centers — she has both lived experience as well as academic experience with Islam. By age 20, after gaining the freedom to live autonomously and exercising her right to protect herself, she left Islam altogether.
Sara aims to educate her fellow Americans and lovers of Western civilization on the horrors, inequalities, and injustices that occur in Western-based mosques and Islamic centers. Sara has been published in two languages (and counting). A world traveller, she briefly lived in France, Jordan, and even Cuba in order to complete her Masters of Arts in Global Affairs specializing in Global Culture and Society. Sara Al Iraqiya has been published in Conatus News and Spain’s ALDE Group.
Some time ago, Al Iraqiya and I talked about the general topic important to the two of us. That is, the subject matter of the written word. In particular, her early life becoming interested in writing and developing as a writer.
Al Iraqiya said, “As soon as I could take a pen to paper. I recall a project in elementary school where we learned about the concept of the biography versus the autobiography. We were asked to write a ‘tentative autobiography’ up to retirement age. I left the graded assignment which was bound like a small booklet in my family home. My dad read it.”
Since that time, she was encouraged to write and share the productions with others. Her father’s sister, her aunt, is a writer who Al Iraqiya shares a bond with. It becomes a bond between the two of them with both human rights and the writing. She notes the shared quirks of the writer, which is, as she states, a cliché.
When I asked about the demarcation between a good and a bad writer, and even a greater writer, Al Iraqiya shifted the formulation of the response into the idea of no true good or bad writer in existence.
“Perhaps a bad writer is one who commits plagiarism — I really have zero tolerance for that. Also, I understand that many folks use ghostwriters, but that concept has just gone over my head. A great writer takes his or her time. They feel emotionally and perhaps in a sense spiritually moved by words,” Al Iraqiya stated, “A great writer is either extremely afraid or extremely unafraid of his or her feelings. The point is to not be afraid to record those sentiments and share them with the world. These are simply my own personal observations.”
There were some new events, at the time, in the life of Al Iraqiya. Now, she works in television, even while not owning a television. She tries to remain connected to the global liberty movements. Those peoples proposing means by which to increase general freedom for the intellectual benefit of all.
Al Iraqiya exclaimed, “I moved to New York City — the Big Apple! I absolutely love it because I can be fucking weird and it’s normal here, you know? The city is full of candour. Washington, D.C. was a bit uppity but again I will be corny and say going back to D.C. is very sentimental for me and I enjoy my frequent visits back to my nation’s capital. It is a place I called home for 20+ years.”
Also, she loved Mount Vernon in D.C. while also enjoying getting away from the pervasive noise of NYC. I asked about the article most prominent in her memory, in terms of having pride in writing. Without skipping a beat, she said “Muslim-American Femicide and the Intersectional Feminist Enablers” for Conatus News.
“Because it pissed people off. But many of those same people actually took a step back, questioned their own beliefs, and thought critically about why their visceral reaction was adverse. Thought provoking — I think every writer wants to be thought-provoking. Also, it lit a fire under the asses of feminists who did not realize their own bigotry, hypocrisy, and yes — misogyny. I wrote that article for my missing friend.”
This “missing friend” extended into writing the article for young women who died for “authenticity” and who “suffer in silence.” She did receive some feedback for the article, and enjoys the civil discourse, critique, or compliment of her writing.
I noted a ubiquitous fact of history. Men being the “source of a lot of inspiring work and a lot of horrifying catastrophes.” I asked about the encouragement of a healthier sense of masculinity in men.
Al Iraqiya reflected and said, “It was the men in my life who inspired me to be the woman I am today. Male family members, male friends, and male mentors. What they all had in common, when I was sort of an isolated walking stereotype of a writer, was ‘Sara you need to get out there!’ They really pumped me up! I cannot thank the wonderful men in my life enough.”
The one common trait for the good men in life, to her, is having a solid work ethic. For the boys transforming, hopefully, into mature men, she stated the importance of recognizing the healthy sense of masculinity that makes the most sense to you (the man).
“Some men embrace what many call a ‘feminine’ side. Why are we calling it that? Some examples of men who have been described as ‘feminine’ would be artists who incorporate striking and flamboyant physical appearances such as David Bowie, Prince, and Freddie Mercury but I say this is still masculinity. Because it is a male doing it. Merely existing is masculinity,”
She sees the David, Prince, and Freddie as “go-getters and trailblazers” for their time in the history of the culture. They are remembered for it. Thus, masculinity, Al Iraqiya argues, is not simply about being the tough and gruff, rough and tumble dude. A real man, in this sense, permits flexibility in presentation but always shows “vision, determination, and innovation.”
“Too often I’ve seen men from certain cultural or religious enclaves where there is a pressure to — and I’ll be frank — there is a pressure in those communities to treat women like garbage in order to be considered a so-called ‘real man.’ This is detrimental to something very important for a man’s growth — his relationships with women,” Al Iraqiya concluded, “You have to take a step back from any toxic communities and practice intellectual autonomy. It is the most precious thing we as free human beings have. I think the healthiest thing a man can do is think for himself. Stay away from counterproductive modes of thought. Just act natural.”
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
In-Sight Publishing 