Entries from Byline Portal tagged with 'Society'
Fight back, Pakistanis!
by Shazia Mirza, The Dawn, Pakistan - I will be thinking of all the women who have been denied the basic right to express any kind of silent opinion. Who have been denied the right to put any mark on...
It Ain’t Easy Being a Bilingual Girl
by Kaori Shoji, Japan Times, Japan - This bilingual thing … they say that it’s a both curse and a blessing. Watakushigotode kyōshukudesuga (私事で恐縮ですが, A thousand pardons for having the gall to talk about myself), but I think of it...
Bloody Compact Discs: Thatcher's Detractors Came From All Classes
by Olga Khazan, Atlantic, USA - Margaret Thatcher died of a stroke this morning at the age of 87, but not everyone is mourning. Though she was revered by many, some Britons are marking the death of a woman who...
Crazy Food Economy
by Helen Lobato, WINGS, Canada - Helena Norberg Hodge is an analyst of the impact of the global economy on cultures and agriculture worldwide, a pioneer of the localisation movement, and the articulator of the core ideas of Counter-development....
The Implications of Embryo Screening
by Kerstin Kullmann, Der Spiegel, Germany - A controversial procedure that lets would-be parents test embryos for certain genetic defects will soon be allowed in special cases in Germany. What does this mean for society?...
Let's Not Be Wed to Outmoded Ideas of What Marriage Is
by Jill Filipovic, Guardian, UK - Values conservatives have got it wrong: marriage doesn't foster social stability and economic prosperity. It's the other way around....
Sing the Body Unelectric
by Lucy Ellmann, Aeon, UK - Electricity is a tyranny of buzzing and chirping demands. Here's to wrinkled clothes, typewriters and life off-grid....
It's Time to Remove Racism from Children's Books
by Dialika Neufeld, Der Spiegel, Germany - There are also children for whom constantly being labeled a "nigger" is more painful than it was for me in my own childhood. That alone is enough reason why publishers should revise their...
The Sexy Lie
by Caroline Heldman, TedX, USA - A leading advocate for spotlighting how the mainstream media contributes to the underrepresentation of women in positions of power and influence in America, Caroline Heldman offers straight talk and an often-startling look at the...
Against Work-Life Balance
by Amanda Kolson Hurley, Parlour, Australia - What “work-life balance” obscures is what people never like to associate with women, and that is the open pursuit of money....
We Must All Counter the Mood Music of Rape Culture
by Libby Brooks, The Guardian, UK - In trying to understand the horror in India, we would do well to define the beliefs that excuse or condone sexual violence....
Poland: Kids Are So Last Century
by Martyna Bunda, Polityka, Poland - Poles are staying in education longer and putting off having children – sometimes for too long. The country already has one of the lowest fertility rates in the world and if current trends continue,...
This Lily-Livered Marriage Bill Must Make Room for All of Us
by Gaby Hinsliff, Guardian, UK - Gay people are still being denied marriage, while straight people are deserting it in droves. The institution itself is a mess....
Rape Is Shredding Syria’s Social Fabric
by Lauren Wolfe, CNN, USA - The unending "dishonor" and manipulation of Syrians through sexualized violence is committed by all sides, although the majority of our reports indicate government perpetrators. It is creating an entire nation of traumatized people: not...
Canada’s Most Unwanted
by Jasmine Budak, The Walrus, Canada - With rising infertility rates and the availability of foreign infants declining, some 30,000 children in government care have a better shot at finding a family....
New Futuro Narrows the Education Gap for Latino Students
by Kathryn Hawkins, The Atlantic, USA - A Chicago startup is partnering with community groups and companies to make college goals more accessible to Latino youths in the United States....
She Who Dies with the Most 'Likes' Wins?
by Jessica Valenti, The Nation, USA - Women adjust their behavior to be likable and as a result have less power in the world. And this desire to be liked and accepted goes beyond the boardroom—it’s an issue that comes...
How Populism Grew Its Roots in the Netherlands
by Yvonne Zonderop, openDemocracy, UK - As politics and elite behaviour move away from consensus and inclusion, Geert Wilders has been able to capitalise on the social compartmentalisation that characterises the modern Netherlands....
The Neets, a Generation in Need
by Fleur de Weerd, Trouw, The Netherlands - Fourteen million European young people are neither working nor in school. Their number is growing because of the economic crisis, with disparities according to the countries. Sociologists worry of the social and...
Generation Nixed: Why Canada’s Youth Are Losing Hope for the Future
by Tavia Grant and Janet McFarland, Globe & Mail, Canada - Crippling debt to buy credentials no one wants. Low-paying, short-term jobs that put middle-class prosperity out of reach. And, for good measure, the prospect of a penurious retirement....
A New Wave of Stores Keep German Villages Alive
by Renuka Rayasam, Der Spiegel, Germany - German villages are slowly dwindling and residents are suffering as they lose places to meet and shop within walking distance of their homes. Now concerned villagers are trying to stabilize bleeding populations by...
Abortion Stigma is Simply Discrimination: Here Is How We Get Rid of It
by Leila Hessini, RH Reality Check, USA - The social construct of abortion stigma creates an “us-versus-them” mentality—in spite of the fact that in the United States one in three women have abortions and a much higher share of all...
A World without the West
by Rafia Zakaria, Dawn, Pakistan - A little over a week ago, Pakistani youth activist Malala Yousufzai was shot in the head by the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan. The country, already bearing the burden of daily barbarities, stood stunned....
Next Stop Sell-Out City
by Nicole Vrenegor, Eurozine, Austria - Is it chance or social class that determines where one gets on and off the bus? How are the stops really connected? How does civic space create social structure, and how does social structure...
The Myth of Male Decline
by Stephanie Coontz, New York Times, USA - The curtailment of such male entitlements and the expansion of women’s legal and economic rights have transformed American life, but they have hardly produced a matriarchy. Indeed, in many arenas the progress...
Their Europe Is Ours Too
by Cláudia Carvalho, Público, Portugal - What is our Europe like? How do we see it? How do we experience it? We all live in the same space, but without seeing it in the same way: an observation demonstrated by...
Why the ‘Mommy Wars’ Is a War against Women
by Anne Kingston, Maclean's, Canada - Pitting women who work against women who stay at home isn’t the solution—unless the goal is to avoid talking about complex issues and to force women to identify themselves exclusively through a domestic and...
Family Well-Being Tied to Men's Work Lives
by Joan C. Williams and Anne-Marie Slaughter, SF Gate, USA - "As long as it's viewed as more 'manly' for men to prepare for marathons than to spend time with their children, those of us who want an ambitious career...
Hopefully, France Is Opening a New Chapter with Islam
by Katia Yezli, Daily Star, Lebanon - It is imperative to provide a more balanced view of what France’s colonial past was really about; it was not only a “civilizing mission.” France should acknowledge both the problems with colonialism as...
Up in Arms over Comedy
by Huma Yusuf, Dawn, Pakistan - Shows like Citizen Khan are essential in multicultural societies and help put all communities on an equal footing — if everyone can have a laugh at everyone else’s expense, then no one can claim...
Arab Diaspora a Business Opportunity
by Nada Akl, Common Ground News, USA - For immigrants in the Arab diaspora – those who have left Arab countries for the West or other regions – the tension between trying to stay connected to one’s homeland and trying...
Why I Help Addicts Shoot Up
by Meera Bai with John Stackhouse, Christian Week, USA - Constant humiliation makes the people I work with especially vulnerable, and vulnerable in almost every way: to violence, to exploitation, to false hope and finally to despair. When allowed into...
The Trendification of Brooklyn and the Perils of a Successful Urban Brand
by Sarah Goodyear, The Atlantic: Cities, USA - Depending on who you talk to, the borough of Brooklyn is a great urban success story, a painful hipster cliché, or a provincial backwater....
Pussy Riot Are a Reminder that Revolution Always Begins in Culture
by Suzanne Moore, Guardian, UK - Pussy Riot exist to draw attention to precisely what is so disturbing, a totalitarian nation where the church and state are become one. Some have warned that Russia is becoming a new entity, a...
Forget "All": Why Most Women Never Even Get Half
by Sherrilyn Ifill, Beacon Broadside, USA - Slaughter’s piece fails to recognize that women in the 1% have real power to transform the work/family reality for women at the economic bottom, who are seeking the luxury of the kind of...
City at Heart of Jewish Deportations Confronts Past
by Catherine Nicholson & Andrea Davoust, France 24, France - Despite a poll suggesting a shocking lack of knowledge about the WWII round-up of Jews being commemorated Sunday, cities like the Parisian suburb of Drancy, which housed an infamous deportation...
The Most Powerful Pregnant Woman on the Planet
by Andie Fox, The Wheeler Center, Australia - Mayer, who is due in October, is under pressure to prove something else, too, and that is that she will be so undisturbed by motherhood that she will be able to steer...
Youngsters Change Shape of Te Reo Maori
by Yvonne Tahana, New Zealand Herald, New Zealand - "The attitudes of older speakers tells us this: If it really didn't matter about how we pronounced a language, older generations wouldn't bother commenting about it. The way we pronounce a...
Who Framed Feminism?
by Lenore Taylor, Sydney Morning Herald, Australia - Apparently women can demand equality of opportunity only if ''feminism'' can find a way to bend the laws of physics to create 48 hours in days that have previously held 24. Now...
Surfing the Rape Wave: What Tosh Teaches About Humor, Power and Privilege
by Jennifer Pozner, Fem 2.0, USA - Why did comics who usually disagree about everything—even those known as creative, unusually inventive comedians—choose to circle the wagons around Tosh’s gang rape invitation? The knee-jerk explanation has been that anything goes, no...
Magic Mike: Old Sexism in a New Package
by Caroline Heldman, Sociological Images, USA - Make no bones about it, this movie is all about reinforcing the notion that men are in control and men’s sexuality matters more... Have we learned to devalue our own sexual pleasure so...
Working Moms Not Exhausted? Oh Yes We Are
by Allison Stevens, Women's eNews, USA - Here's what's truly revolutionary about Slaughter's piece: she states that she wants to spend more time with their children. When's the last time you heard a feminist say that?...
Sharing Religious Identity Can Help Build Greater Amity
by Beth Katz, Daily Star, Lebanon - What if we could give more people the chance to define and share their religious or spiritual identity in their own words, and confront the misconceptions they face because of it?...
The Demise of the Doofus Dad in Ads
by Heather Chaet, Adweek, USA - A backlash against the bumbling father figure is paving the way for the Superdad....
New French Government Partially Lowers Pension Age
by Shirli Sitbon, France 24, France - France's Socialist government said Wednesday it moved to lower the retirement age to 60 for those who began working when they were very young, partially undoing an unpopular and much-protested reform of recently-departed...
More Men Say ‘I Do’ to Mail-Order Vietnamese Women
by Yan Shuang, Global Times, China - For a group purchase price of 30,000 to 40,000 yuan ($4,727-$6,303), an attractive Vietnamese bride aged between 18 and 25 can be "bought" from a marriage agency based in Yunnan Province, which regularly...
Emirati Girls Launch Campaign over Tourist Dress Code
by Marie-Louise Olson, The National, UAE - The sight of scantily clad shoppers showing too much flesh has prompted two Emirati women to call for a dress code in malls....
In All the Debate About Breastfeeding, Where Is the Support For Mothers?
by Jessica Gonzalez-Rojas, RH Reality Check, USA - We should not be relegated to a bathroom or closet because society has not deemed it critical to create private nursing or pumping spaces in public locations. We should not have to...
Europe’s New Soft Right Is Winning
by Katrine Kielos, Aftonbladet, Sweden - Triumphant a decade ago, today social democrats have been voted out office in most European countries — a change that is due to a lack of new proposals, but also and more importantly to...
For Many Indians, the Land of Opportunity Is the Land They’re Going back To
by Stephanie Nolen, Globe & Mail, Canada - Canada has traditionally competed for India’s skilled migrants with Australia, Britain and the United States. But now there’s a new country in the mix, a destination with increasing appeal for young, educated...
Undocumented Mothers Have Dreams, Too
by Angy Rivera, Mónica Novoa, Colorlines, USA - My mother and I landed in New York on August 29, 1993, a week before my third birthday. She didn’t know that starting this day, we would become undocumented. For years I...
Bedtime Stories
by Amalia Rosenblum, Haaretz, Israel - In an ‘instant’ world, where every minute we have to get used to a new boss, new war or new enemy, it’s not surprising we want to see the same TV or literary heroes...
Leave Work at 5:30
by Andie Fox, Daily Life, Australia - It is possible for a mother to disguise her family priorities sufficiently to climb the ladder to that height? And importantly, it is possible to run a company worth $100 billion while still...
Venezuela’s New Labour Law: Promoting Mutual Parental Responsibility
by Lady Gomez, Venezuela Analysis, Venezuela - For Alba Carosio, member of the Feminist Spider Network, the labour rights gained are a tool for dissembling patriarchal society, which is dedicated to the exploitation of workers’ labour and discrimination against women....
What do You Mean, the Good Old Days?
by Jessica Mann, The Guardian, UK - Like most of her 60s peers, Jessica Mann was a full-time mother and housewife – and resented it. So why do younger women yearn to turn back the clock?...
The Flight From Conversation
by Sherry Turkle, New York Times, USA - We live in a technological universe in which we are always communicating. And yet we have sacrificed conversation for mere connection....
Émilie du Châtelet, the Woman History Forgot
by Mandy De Waal, Daily Maverick, South Africa - Émilie du Châtelet could possibly be one of the greatest female intellectuals, mathematicians and thinkers in history, but the love of Voltaire’s life who contributed significantly to the Enlightenment all but...
France’s Suburbs a Dim Memory in Presidential Election
by Ségolène Allemandou, France 24, France - Formerly a topic of national debate and a key issue in France’s 2007 presidential elections, the country’s neglected suburbs appear to have been all but forgotten this time around....
Europe’s Welfare States Aren’t Protecting Their Citizens from Harm
by Paulina Neuding, Daily Star, Lebanon - We may not know much about Merah, but we are, unfortunately, increasingly well acquainted with this imported form of anti-Semitism, which is proving to be extremely difficult for European societies to confront. No...
It Gets Better: Mormon Edition
by Joanna Brooks, Religion Dispatches, USA - Please watch. Please share. And welcome to the Mormon twenty-first century....
Europe's Youngest State: No Work, No Way out, No Country for Young People
by Mary Fitzgerald, Irish Times, Ireland - Unemployment in Kosovo is at 45 per cent overall, and its population is the youngest in Europe. With no chances to travel and few opportunities at home, what hope is there for the...
Our Lost and Found Memories of Vimy Ridge
by Jane Urquhart, Globe and Mail, Canada - Vimy, as far as I could remember, had received short shrift during my history teacher’s brief foray into the role of the British Expeditionary Force in the First World War....
Senegal: I Live in a Democratic African Country…
by Arame Tall, Pambazuka News, Kenya - Relief. Jubilation. Levity. And most of all: Liberation. These are the emotions that surged up as I, along with the 12 million Senegalese citizens in Senegal and abroad, heard the news at 21:30...
Dutch Village Offers Dignified Care for Dementia Sufferers
by Barbara Hans, Der Spiegel, Germany - A village in the Netherlands inhabited entirely by elderly people with dementia offers a new answer to how society can deal with its aging population. It's a world without yesterday or tomorrow where...
What Future for a Greece in Crisis?
by Kirsty Hughes, OpenDemocracy, UK - An early spring Sunday afternoon in Athens finds tourists and Greeks alike chattering away in cafes and on terraces soaking up the sunshine. But a walk around the centre soon reveals boarded up shops...
Emigration – a Beautiful Mirage
by Patrícia Carvalho, Público, Portugal - Along with a lost generation of young people in low-paid and insecure jobs, the crisis is now pushing couples with families to seek work elsewhere in Europe. Unfortunately, arriving in foreign countries ill-prepared, not...
Sext up KIDS
by Maureen Palmer, CBC, Canada - From tiny tots strutting bikini-clad bodies in beauty pageants to companies marketing itty-bitty thongs and padded bras to 9-year olds, images of ever-younger sexualized girls have become commonplace. Add to that: ever-younger boys with...
When Did Parenting Become a Competitive Trap?
by Suzanne McFadden, New Zealand Herald, New Zealand - The way we raise our children has become a source of conflict and competition among today’s increasingly judgmental parents....
Awakening, Counter-Awakening, and the End of Church
by Candace Chellew-Hodge, Religion Dispatches, USA - The United States is currently in the throes of a spiritual awakening, says Diana Butler Bass. In her new book, Christianity After Religion, the author argues that we are at a crossroads in...
The Honour Problem
by Rafia Zakaria, Dawn, Pakistan - With laws and workshops, activists assume, the pestilence of honour killings, of people being killed needlessly for the crime of choice, can be eliminated. In the meantime, honour killings continue not secretly or surreptitiously...
It’s Not Just Rush
by Katie Roiphe, Slate, USA - These are heady days for liberal self-congratulation. With Rush Limbaugh calling a law student a “slut,” and the general Republican fuss over contraception, there is a comforting sense of us and them, with us...
Coding a Better Government
Jennifer Pahlka, TED, USA - Can government be run like the Internet, permissionless and open? Coder and activist Jennifer Pahlka believes it can -- and that apps, built quickly and cheaply, are a powerful new way to connect citizens to...
Feeling of Family Fades as Expatriates Scattered to the Wind
by Maryam Ismail, The National, United Arab Emirates - As the search for a better life spreads us across the world, I somehow feel like an old Roman citizen of the empire, where one could move from the Iberian Peninsula...
The Richer Sex
by Cathy Gulli, Macleans, Canada - One-third of women now earn more than their husbands, and not everyone is happy....
Losing Weight: A Challenge for Women in GCC Countries
by Dr. Mona S. Almunajjed, Arab Times, Saudi Arabia - The percentage of the population aged 20-79 with diabetes in 2010 is 19 percent in the UAE, Saudi Arabia 17 percent, Bahrain, Qatar, and Kuwait around 15 percent, and Oman...
Is the Internet Closing?
by Esther Dyson, The Daily Star, Lebanon - Collective action in the form of government interference is sometimes necessary. The problem is that we are as likely to get bad measures – like the recently abandoned U.S. attempt to enact...
The Colour Of Beauty
by Dainty Smith, Gender Links, South Africa - Truth be told, there is a subliminal pop culture message that yes, black is beautiful, just so long as the blackness in question is not darker than a brown paper bag....
The Art of Waiting
by Belle Boggs, Orion, USA - Yearning for conception in a world of fecundity....
Youth Unemployment: South Africa's Ticking Bomb
by Claire Price, Mail & Guardian, South Africa - "We have seen in almost every direction around Johannesburg, periodic violent protest actions led by young people and women, the two sections of the community that bear the brunt of that...
Zimbabwe: Is Divorce an Indication of Women's Empowerment?
by Koliwe Nyoni, Gender Links, Zimbabwe - Women in Zimbabwe now realise their legal and social rights; the need for education and have more awareness about self and the world around them. This self-awareness coupled in some instances with financial...
2012: The Year of the Cooperative
by Jessica Reeder, Yes!, USA - The United Nations has named 2012 as the International Year of Cooperatives, and indeed, co-ops seem poised to become a dominant business model around the world....
Any Strategy for Growth Must Include Decent Childcare for All
by Polly Toynbee, Guardian, UK - Reversing our dwindling birthrate would do much more for the economy than making people work longer into old age....
For Young Russians, It’s All about Peeling, Shopping and Protesting
by Esther Dyson, The Daily Star, Lebanon - Today’s protesters do not want a traditional revolution. They are mostly educated enough about the past to fear blood in the streets. They want Putin gone, not punished (mostly); they realize that...
One Town's War on Gay Teens
by Sabrina Rubin Erdely, Rolling Stone, USA - In Michele Bachmann's home district, evangelicals have created an extreme anti-gay climate. After a rash of suicides, the kids are fighting back....
The Faces of French Poverty
by Valérie Labonne, France 24, France - With the rise in fixed expenses such as rent, public transport, electricity and healthcare, French people on small salaries are having difficulty making ends meet. Twelve to fifteen million of them, who live...
Is There Such a Thing as Ethical Capitalism?
by Kerry-anne Mendoza, OpenDemocracy, UK - In response to a growing realisation that neo-liberal capitalism is morally and literally bankrupt, Britain’s political leadership have provided three visions of ethical capitalism for us to aspire to. So, is there such a...
Fortune-Tellers and Psychics Pervade Italian Media
by Mariella Radaelli, European Journalism Centre, Netherlands - Why are spiritual programmes flourishing on local private television channels? The reason seems to be that small channels have established a large amount of contractual agreements with psychics, in order to secure...
The Politics of Immigrant Scapegoating: Not Just an American Pastime
by Michelle Chen, Colorlines, USA - Around the world, as long as people keep moving, politicians will continue to talk breathlessly about the immigration “crisis.” It’s a campaign trail standard in the U.S., but in Britain and Western Europe as...
The Power of Words
by Dawn Turner Trice, Chicago Tribune, USA - Teens tells us what they think about rumors that the hip-hop artist will stop using the B-word after the birth of his daughter....
The Occupy Movement - A Revolution in Our Sense of Self
by Kerry-anne Mendoza, OpenDemocracy, UK - The Occupy Movement, far from having no programme, has revolutionized our sense of self. The Citizen of the World adopts a panoramic view of society and takes the interests of others all over the...
Does Feminism Discriminate against Men?
by Meghan Murphy, The F Word, Canada - While the concept of male privilege does not mean that women do not ever hold power, it is an acknowledgement that men's power, as a class is institutionalized in comparison with women,...
China: Building a Cultural Front against the West
by Antoaneta Becker, IPS, Italy - President Hu Jintao of China made headlines in the early days of the new year saying China and the West were engaged in an escalating culture war, and calling on Chinese people to strengthen...
Arranged Marriage: Invention or Custom?
by Rafia Zakaria, Dawn, Pakistan - Working with an archive of material on marriage in Bengal over two centuries, Majumdar reveals how the concepts of arranged marriage and the joint family were instead innovations responding to pressure on family structures...
The High Cost of Poverty: Why the Poor Pay More
by DeNeen L. Brown, Washington Post, USA - The poorer you are, the more things cost. More in money, time, hassle, exhaustion, menace. This is a fact of life that reality television and magazines don't often explain....
Pink or Blue
by Alicia Hayashi, Canada - The "Baby Storm" case is not necessarily as unusual as it was exposed in the media to be....
Searching for Danger
by Elspeth Dehnert, JO, Jordan - Along Jordan’s northern border, a team of women is doing one of the most dangerous jobs in the country—clearing landmines. They’re the first all-female de-mining squad in the Middle East....
High Fashion Meets Home-Made
by Marjolein Stoop, Radio Netherlands, The Netherlands - Every week, young designers and grannies get together in a room in Laurens, a nursing home in Rotterdam. In exchange for a cup of tea, a piece of cake and some company,...
There’s a Whole Lotta Lovin’ Goin’ on
by Ira Trivedi, Outlook India, India - Indian couples are exploring a few ‘open’ ways out of desultory middle life....
Permaculture Pioneers: Stories From The New Frontier
by Kerry Dawborn & Caroline Smith, Countercurrents, India - Permaculture is much more than organic gardening. Some believe it is one of Australia’s greatest intellectual exports, because it has helped many people worldwide to design ecologically sustainable strategies for their...
Why We Need to Stop Bemoaning the 'End of Men'
by Meghan Casserly, Forbes, USA - Despite the case-by-case expectations of equality in gender roles, culturally we haven’t let go of the paternalistic authority of men over women. And stories about the “decline” of our men-folk aren’t making things better...
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