"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?