"Women's Rights are Human Rights"

The topic for this class was on the issue of women’s rights as human rights. This is a very big topic for this class as everything surrounds the idea of women’s rights. This presentation discussed how the rights of women are not always recognized worldwide and many women are often discriminated against on the basis of their gender. Women’s rights are often affected in a physical, sexual, and political sense, and this varies from country to country. For example in a country such as Canada women’s sexual and physical rights are not as badly affected as in a country such as India or China. In these countries there is not much regard for women and women are actually considered to be more of a burden than a blessing in these countries. An article by Charlotte Bunch titled, ‘Women’s Rights as Human Rights: Toward a Re-Vision of Human Rights,’ discussed how in these countries being a woman is actually detrimental as, females are aborted at a rate of 99 percent, during childhood girls are fed less, breast fed for shorter periods, taken to the doctors less frequently which causes mental and physical health effects and in some cases even death (Bunch, 1990). Female's rights are also violated as children as in some countries girls are not allowed to attend school because they are to stay home and help out, education is often only permissible for boys. For women who are able to survive and make it to see adulthood, their rights still continue to be violated. This can be seen in a physical, sexual sense where in some countries women do not have any control over their bodies, some are forced to endure procedures of genital mutilation to ensure that they do not become sexually active and when they are married their procedures are undone, so that they appear ‘pure’ to their husbands. Some countries do not allow women to choose their own husbands, rather they are subject to arranged marriages, some females find themselves marrying men who are twice their age. Being a woman has different effects on different women and often times not only are women discriminated on the basis of their gender, but they are also discriminated on the basis of their race, class and sexual orientation. On a constant basis women’s basic rights are violated and despite attempts to bring about change by advocacy groups, human rights, and the UN, to name a few, not much change has happened.

With these issues in mind, I believe resilience is acted out in many instances, in the ways in which the women being affected try to stand up for their rights, despite the consequences that may come with such decisions. I believe that women have gained control over their sexual and reproductive rights in countries like Canada, with their ability to use contraceptives such as birth control which allow women to control the amount of children that they have. Women in countries like Canada have also had the freedom to decide their sexuality without fear of being punished or killed and I believe that this is a form of resilience, as much advocacy and protest was done to grant homosexual women these rights. In speaking with a few of my friends who are of South Asian decent they have told me that arranged marriages have changed over the years, women now have the opportunity to play an active role in choosing who their lifelong spouse will be. They are presented with a potential spouse and if they don’t see something they like than they are allowed to pass.

While all these advancements are great we still need to address the fact that not all women have equal human rights. Why do some women have more rights than others and they live in the same country? Why should a woman not be granted the same rights simply on the basis of race, class, sexuality? Human rights are supposed to be universal, yet the rights of some women in certain countries continue to be violated. In wrapping this piece up the last question that came to mind was, how can I/we say that women’s rights are being violated, such as sexual reproductive rights, when many of these procedures are part of tradition? Is it acceptable for us to look at the ways of life for another country and tell them what they’re doing is wrong and/or violating human rights, when in fact to them that is considered normal?

Health Activism Through Art: The Power of Creativity

The topic discussed today was on the ‘power of creativity’ and the group presenting decided to focus on documentaries and I must say it pretty eye opening. From the presentation I was able to take a few things from it, first, that documentaries can act as a form of resilience for the people telling them, as they are able to tell their stories their way. In a nation where we have the right to freedom of expression, many people use documentaries as a way to express their views on an issue. Something else I took from this presentation was that documentaries are a way for viewers to see multiple perspectives on an issue. By this I mean there have been several documentaries made about Black men in low-income neighborhoods, highlighting a few in Toronto, Regent Park, Malvern and Jane and Finch. Many of the documentaries depict the people living in these neighborhoods as poor, drug dealers, neglectful, delinquent, criminals, just to name a few. There are very few documentaries that actually show what it is like to live in these neighborhoods. Another important aspect that I was able to take from this presentation was that although documentaries can be very informative there are a lot of things that the director cuts out. This means that at the end of the day it is what the director wants you to see or what they want to put in is what is included in the documentary. A very touching clip was the one about a mother raising her disabled sons. Now while I thought that this was going to be a documentary about raising disabled children it went further than that. It discussed the effects of raising disabled children on parents is rarely discussed, and that these parents often suffer their own disabilities as they try to carry out their daily routines which can often be stressful. This reminded me of my own mother who's raising disabled children and the effects that it may be having on her. I don't think I've ever really taken the time to consider what it does to her because she appears to be strong.
So this brings me to wonder whether or not as individuals can we really believe everything that we see in documentaries and take it to be fact/truth. Or should we be more critical and ask ourselves, what isn't this documentary telling us?

"Toward Democracy: Women, Gender and Public Protest"

The topic that was discussed in this class was the issue of women and democracy. Democracy is defined as a form of government where all citizens of a nation determine public policy, laws and the actions of their state, as well that all citizens have equal opportunities to express their opinions. Here in Canada women have the ability to vote, however this is not the case in all countries. A few interesting things I took from the presentation and the reading were that women are not fighting for the right to vote because they want to, rather they're doing it because they have to. Many of the women involved in protests and advocacy groups, pushing for change are doing so because there are issues that are particular to women, affecting only women and if these issues aren't being addressed by male politicians than women need to speak out and let their voices be heard. The group that presented discussed how at a point in time women in Chile were not allowed to vote and even when they were finally granted this right while under the dictatorship they were not allowed to exercise this right. The Chilean government felt as though a woman's place was in the home and politics were to be left for men. Women were not permitted to assemble together or protest, however these women resisted against this. They did so by assembling in churches and soup kitchens and places where a woman was ‘to be’ and made quilts. These quilts were more than just quilts, the images sewn in these quilts depicted the hardships that women faced under the dictatorship and were distributed worldwide. To outsiders the quilt was just a quilt but this was the Chilean women's way of resilience. They had been silenced, forbidden to exercise their political rights, and forced to stick to their traditional roles, and in doing just that they were still able to speak out and voice their opinions through the use these quilts. This is just one example of women who were not permitted to exercise their political rights, one of the presenters discussed the violent protests going on and in Egypt and touched on the 'Blue Bra' girl who was stomped on by the police during the protest and she was dubbed the 'Blue Bra' girl because she happened to be wearing a blue bra while being stomped on.

Now these women have the legal right to protest and vote yet they are either told they're not allowed to or beaten when they do. I feel that resilience is acting out or standing up for something that you believe, so for the women in Chile they were not permitted to exercise any of their political rights, yet they still did so by assembling together doing what women traditionally do. Here in Canada women have the ability to run in the government, vote, protest and we've seen these types of protest in the most recent slut walk. But how can we help women in countries like Egypt who are trying to exercise these rights but are being punished and beaten? How are these countries able to call themselves a democratic country when there is no equality among their citizens?

"Transgressive Sexuality/Coming Out Stories"

In today's class we covered the topic of Transgressive Sexuality/Coming Out Stories, where we discussed the power in storytelling, not only for those who are coming out about their sexuality, but for those who have their own personal stories to tell. We read an article called, Trauma, Stress and Resilience Among Sexual Minority Women: Rising Like the Phoenix: Kimberly F. Balsam wherein the author discussed how coming out was much harder for minority women as they already experienced various traumas and cultural victimizations of racism and heterosexism. There were two types of trauma identified in the article, indirect trauma which “occurs when hearing or learning about direct trauma,” insidious trauma which is “the daily ongoing stress associated with living with oppressions such as homophobia, sexism or racism,” and cultural victimization as the “impact of living in a heterosexist culture” (Root, 1992). Something that I found really important was that coming out and telling stories was not simply telling a story it was a form of strength and resilience for these women. They had the ability to decide whether they wanted to tell their story, disclose their sexuality, who to tell and how much they would share. Coming out also acted as a form of healing for the individual sharing their story, as well for those dealing with oppression, by developing strategies to confront oppressive situations. I would have to agree with the presenter today when she said that when one woman develops the courage to tell her story this enables other women to gain the strength to come out with their stories, which creates somewhat of a cycle, allowing these women to be silenced no more.

Although coming out is a form of resilience for these women, I believe that many women do not come out for the fear that they may be ridiculed and for some women killed for the stories that they may tell. This goes for women who may decide to come out about being abused, physically, verbally or sexually. Also, what about women who decide to come out about their sexuality in cultures and countries where homosexuality is not even spoken of, forcing them to remain silent? An example of this would be in South Asian countries where “lesbians” are unheard of and women face the risk of being murdered should they ever disclose such information. This is a violation of their basic human rights as outlined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, of, “everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status” and “everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person” (Universal Declaration of Human Rights).

Comic relief was seen as a way that women could tell their stories and an example used was when talk show host, Ellen DeGeneres disclosed she was a lesbian, however as shown in various clips there could be both negative and positive repercussions. Although a celebrity figure like Ellen coming out seemed easy, I personally feel as though using comedy as a way of coming out for these women, depending on the receiving individual/audience they may not be taken seriously and simply considered to be a joke.