by Faten Hijazi
-USA-

• The group of MBA students outside a newspaper in Turkey. Hürriyet means "freedom." Photo courtesy of the author.•

Faith itself is a choice, and my decision to cover my hair is an extension of that choice. I make this choice consciously, because I want to, because it makes sense to me, and because I find happiness in it. Wearing a headscarf is not about making a statement; it is an extension of my wardrobe. If it symbolizes anything, it is my freedom to dress as I please and I could care less how other women choose to dress.

by Jessica Mosby
-USA-

Rarely does a film come along that floors you in its perfection and then continues to resonate for months after that first viewing. I saw the German film When We Leave at the 2010 Tribeca Film Festival, where it won best film in the world narrative feature competition. When I entered the theater at Tribeca, I had no expectations about the movie. But two hours later I could not stop thinking and talking about what I had just watched. Writer, Director, and Producer Feo Aladag flawlessly couples the humanistic and thriller elements of filmmaking to create a cinematic force that makes you care about the characters while sitting on the edge of your seat fearful of what will happen next.

by Alexandra Marie Daniels
-USA-

The Lottery, one of two films about American public education to make the short list for the 83rd Academy Awards, gives hope that public awareness about the dire state of American education will continue to build.

The statistics that cross the screen at regular intervals during The Lottery are difficult to digest. Nationwide, 58% of African-American fourth graders are functionally illiterate and in Harlem, the neighborhood where the The Lottery takes place, 19 out of the 23-zoned public schools have fewer than 50% reading at grade level. Tragically, children who fall behind in elementary school are less likely to graduate from high school and more likely to end up in jail or juvenile detention.

High school dropouts are an economic loss to the entire country. As President Obama points out during the film, the achievement gap “costs us hundreds of billions of dollars in wages that will not be earned, jobs that will not be done, and purchases that will not be made.”

by Liz McGinn
-UK-

My eldest daughter is going to university in 2012. She is academically gifted and wants to study mathematics and French. She has no idea what she wants to do with her degree, but she wants to study subjects she enjoys and is good at. Her choice of degree course should open doors for her in years to come and give her a head start in the working world. Instead, she is heading for a potential lifetime of debt courtesy of the U.K.’s coalition government.

Beginning in 2012, students will be facing rises in tuition fees from £3,290 ($5,187 USD) per year up to a maximum of £9,000 ($14,190 USD). This means that a student on a typical three-year degree course faces tuition fee debt of £27,000 ($42,571 USD).

by Suad Hamada
-Bahrain-

Savatri used a condom for the first time in her life when she was forced into prostitution a few months ago. Fortunately, the 34-year-old Indian woman was instructed by the managers of the brothel to insist that her clients wear a condom - the only preventive method against sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), including HIV, in use by sex workers in Bahrain.

Sex workers’ last hope for proper medical care was lost at the International AIDS Conference in Vienna last July when Bahrain officially declined to provide licenses to sex workers as a measure to reduce HIV/AIDS cases. Although sex work remains one of the risk factors in increasing HIV/AIDS rates, Bahrain rejected the proposal without hesitation out of fear of clashes with our conservative society, Dr. Somaya Al Jowder, head of the National AIDS Program, tells me.

by Leanne A. Grossman
-USA-

The Sumgayit Refugee Camp was nothing like I expected. Rather than mud-colored tents blowing in the wind, I encountered two half-painted cement structures surrounding a grey dirt courtyard. While it seemed a world away from Baku, Azerbaijan’s capital, we had left Baku only 30 minutes earlier. A woman wearing a cobalt blue outfit is bending over a bathtub that serves as her washtub minus the running water. Her family laundry will soon be added to the clotheslines that wave overhead. Time has called Sumgayit “the most polluted city in the world” due to oil and chemical industrial exploitation of the Caspian Sea basin.

I came to Sumgayit Refugee Camp as a representative of a global philanthropy organization and was joined by Azerbaijani colleagues who arranged our camp tour. My goal was to see firsthand the conditions in which refugees lived and to speak directly with camp residents about their lives.

by Reem Abbas
-Sudan-

On January 9 citizens of South Sudan will begin voting in a week-long vote on whether they will secede from or remain united with the North. This referendum involves more than the yes or no vote. After decades of civil war, this referendum may have implications for people’s citizenship, safety, and the place they call home.

In 1995 Al–Jaaley arrived in Jabarona, an internally displaced persons (IDP) camp on the outskirts of Omdurman, where hundreds of thousands of IDPs from the South, the Nuba Mountains, and, recently, Darfur live.

Jabarona literally means “we were forced” in Arabic. It began as a direct result of the massive displacement caused by the civil war raging in the South. Jabarona is one of four official camps in Khartoum.

by Sarah Irving
-Australia-

Across the West Bank the sound of construction work seems incessant. The grind of diggers and the steady thud of pile drivers reverberate around cities like Ramallah, Bethlehem, and Nablus. The construction boom has been hailed by mainstream commentators like Bloomberg and Reuters, by the Palestinian Authority, and by the Israeli government as the sign of a resurgent West Bank economy.

by Katharine Daniels, Executive Editor

This author profile is the first in a series of conversations between our executive editor and The WIP Contributors. Many women, like Binalakshmi, are successful agents of change in their communities and are leading powerful movements for peace. By highlighting their work we hope to strengthen The WIP’s role promoting the extraordinary efforts of our contributors.

Peace and Happy New Year from everyone at The WIP. –Ed.

In Manipur, a state in northeast India bordering the country of Burma on the east and south, a political conflict with India has persisted since the once independent kingdom was forced to join India after the British left in 1947. While the conflict is political in origin, the influx of weapons over the last five decades has prompted soaring rates of violence among ethnic groups in the region. Manipur has the highest number of gun-related deaths in India – violence that creates 300 widows per year. Yet the world rarely hears about Manipur or the “slow genocide” Binalakshmi Nepram has witnessed.

by Merle Exit
-USA-

2010 was season 11 for Andra Douglas, owner of the New York Sharks, the longest operating and most successful all-female football team in the U.S. Douglas’ pioneering spirit and far-reaching vision ensured that it was a historic year for women’s sports worldwide.

by Alia Turki Al-Rabeo
-Syria-

Every morning I start my day with the sight of our block’s cutest child Nour rushing to catch a bus to school. This nine-year-old wakes up at dawn as his school is an hour’s drive from home.

Nour speaks Arabic better than I do and in a Syrian accent. He loves Syrian food and sings Syrian national songs. Yet he cannot enroll in any government school. Sawsan, his mother, must renew his residency every year because according to the Syrian Nationality Law she cannot pass on her nationality to her husband or child. Nour inherited this discrimination because Sawsan chose an Iranian to be her husband and his father.

by Jessica Mosby
-USA-

Tiny Furniture is poised to be 2010’s indie darling. The film is a charming coming of age story for a generation unsure of how to apply their education and execute their aspirations beyond the ubiquity of social networking.

The film opens with Aura, played by writer and director Lena Dunham, returning home to her family’s enviable Tribeca loft after graduating from college in Ohio. Aura aspires to make films, but her current professional resume is comprised of YouTube videos, the most famous of which captures her wearing a bikini and bathing in a campus fountain.

At home, Aura’s post-college malaise is exacerbated by her overachieving younger sister Nadine and accomplished photographer mother Siri. The film’s title refers to miniatures her mother photographs. Nadine and Siri are played by Dunham’s real life sister, Grace Dunham, and mother, fine art photographer Laurie Simmons. Neither had ever acted onscreen before, yet their deadpan performances are far from amateurish.

Unsure of how to proceed in life, Aura gets a job as a day hostess at a neighborhood bistro. While answering the reservation line in an empty restaurant, Aura falls for the attractive yet callous sous chef Keith (David Call). A bit desperate for male attention, Aura invites Jed (Alex Karpovsky), a visiting creative type whose work she admires on YouTube, to stay at the loft while her mother and sister are away visiting colleges. These misguided romantic endeavors are encouraged by Aura’s best friend Charlotte (Jemima Kirke), a bad influence who likes a good time.

by Moira Birss
-USA-

“Ciudad Juárez won’t be a big deal. You spent two years in Colombia!” my friend reassures me.

“Yeah,” I reply with nervous knots in my stomach, “but isn’t Juárez one of the most dangerous cities in the world?”

The violence wracking Mexico, largely fueled by the country’s drug war, is magnified in the border town of Ciudad Juárez, just across the Rio Grande from El Paso, Texas. So even though I spent two years as a human rights accompanier in Colombia visiting some of the country’s most dangerous regions, the concentration and apparent randomness of the violence in Juárez left me apprehensive about my upcoming trip.

Just days before my departure the last weekend in October, four maquila factory workers were killed and fifteen more injured when gunmen shot up three company buses carrying the workers home. The following weekend, 20 more were killed. Since 2008, the murder rate has surpassed 6,500 in a city of about 1.5 million.

But despite my nervousness, I was determined to go. I planned to attend the Foro Internaciónal Contra La Militarización y la Violencia – the International Forum Against Militarization and Violence – on behalf of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, an organization I had worked for in Colombia. As U.S. government officials suggest the application of a U.S.-Colombia-style policy in Mexico, those of us who have worked in Colombia and strongly criticize the human rights implications of that policy are seeking to get involved in the Mexico discussion.

by Sandra Miniutti
- USA -

During the holiday season many of us are deciding which charity to support with our gifts. To help determine which charity is best for you, The WIP Editors are republishing the following article about an independent charity evaluator and how to make the most out of your donations. Please consider a donation to The WIP to support women's voices and global perspectives on relevant issues from around the world. - Ed.

After a short career as a scientist, after many years volunteering and contributing to various causes and after earning a MBA, I decided to leave corporate America for the non-profit sector. My first position was working at a local art, science and history museum. Quickly, I was initiated into the world of non-profit marketing and fundraising. Not many surprises there. We struggled to make payroll while producing quality exhibits and educational programming. The work was exhausting, but fulfilling.

by Jessica Mosby
-USA-

Made in Dagenham is a feminist manifesto arriving in theaters just in time for the holidays. The historical fiction film dramatically captures the struggles of female machinists working at an out-dated Ford factory in 1960s England who demand pay comparable to their male counterparts. The women go on strike until their demands are met, thus starting an international revolution for equal pay.

Sally Hawkins plays Rita O’Grady, a working class mother who puts in long hours sewing upholstery for new Ford cars. During a visit by union organizer Albert (Bob Hoskins), Rita is recruited to attend an upcoming meeting at Ford’s corporate offices. Shady union head Monty (Kenneth Cranham) tells Rita and her coworker Connie (Geraldine James) to keep quiet and act agreeable to whatever he says. Once at Ford’s offices, Rita becomes enraged when the machinists’ work is described as “unskilled” by Ford’s arrogant executives.

by Meghan Lewis
-Cambodia-

An ancient Khmer proverb says, “A man is gold; a woman is a white piece of cloth.” Gold can get dirty or be dropped in the mud, but it can be polished and become as shiny as new; if white cloth is dropped in the mud, it will be forever stained, soiled, and ruined. This is a sad reflection of how Cambodian society traditionally views female sexuality. The silencing and shaming of female sexuality means that women often lack their sexual rights and autonomy.

by Aralena Malone-Leroy
-France-

Résiste
Prouve que tu existes
Cherche ton bonheur partout, va,
Refuse ce monde égoïste
Résiste
Suis ton cœur qui insiste
Ce monde n’est pas le tien, viens,
Bats-toi, signe et persiste
Résiste

- Résiste, France Gall, 1981

Resist! Prove that you exist! ... Refuse this selfish world. … Fight, make your mark, and persist! came to my mind while I listened to yet another group of protesters hurl words of indignation at the pension reforms proposed by French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s administration this summer. These celebrated lyrics by France Gall, first broadcast in the early 80s, speak to the Gallic instinct of not accepting political change sitting down.

by Stephanie Koehler
-USA-

How many rapes will it take to bring to our consciousness the devastating consequences inflicted on both rape survivors and society? How many more rapes do we need to hear about to make this plague our own personal problem? The 2009 National Crime Victimization Survey, conducted by the U.S. Department of Justice, reported approximately 79 percent of sexually assaulted women were attacked by a current or former husband, cohabitating partner, friend, or date. Strangers committed only 21 percent of the assaults counted in this survey.

According to RAINN, the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network, one out of every six American women has been the victim of an attempted or completed rape in her lifetime. The same is true for about three percent of American men. Approximately 15 percent of sexual assault and rape victims in the U.S. are under age 12. These horrifying numbers only reflect a fraction of factual rapes as most go unreported. And in countries such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the vast numbers of women affected by sexual assault defies accurate reporting.

by Tonopah Greenlee
-Singapore-

After college I moved to Sub-Saharan Africa for a year. During that time I learned a myriad of useful skills. I learned to kill a chicken and prepare a traditional meal. I mastered dancing like a “true African.” I could barter my way through any market. And I learned how to urinate in the open. In fact, I became so good at urinating in public I have since taken this skill with me to every major city I have visited that lacks adequate public restrooms or does not maintain the ones they have. I can say with the utmost confidence, I can pee like one of the boys.

But I never mastered, nor attempted, openly defecating. In truth, it was not something I spent much time thinking about until a few months ago when I came to work for the World Toilet Organization in Singapore. In many ways this is backwards. I lived in one of the poorest regions of the world where open defecation is a fact of everyday life, and never thought about it, only to move to one of the richest countries in the world where sanitation is at 100 percent, and I think about it every day.

by Eloisa Morra Pucacco
-Italy-

After the great battles of the Italian feminist movement in the 1970s – when fascist codes on “family law” were modified and women obtained the rights of divorce and abortion - it seems that today we are having a backlash. In Italy, as in many countries, women often study faster and with better results than men, yet at work they are paid less than their male colleagues. Violence against women is increasing. The current Italian government is not working to create laws against discrimination.

At the heart of what appears to be a backward trend is Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who owns three private TV channels and many national newspapers. Every day Italian families absorb his vision of the world. Italian TV shows are filled with naked women in imagery similar to pornographic movies.

Despite this, a “new Italian feminism” is emerging. To understand what it means to be a woman in Italy, I find it useful to have an outside point of view. In “Notes on Visconti’s Bellissima,” a brilliant essay written in 2009, English novelist Zadie Smith writes, “In the Piazza della Madonna dei Monti, in the ombra del colosseo, expats gather to complain. Italian women is a subject to stretch from morning coffee to midday ravioli. ‘The land that feminism forgot!’ And on cue it all rolls out like an index: the degrading sexualisation of, the nightly televisual humiliation of, Berlusconi's condescending opinion of, perilous abortion rights of, low wages of, minimal parliamentary presence of, invisibility within the church of, et cetera. Yet there exist confusing countersigns, in the land that feminism forgot.”

by Huma Yusuf
-Pakistan-

A few days after this summer’s flooding in Pakistan had gained momentum the phone calls began. The waters from the inundated valleys of the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province were now rushing towards the fertile plains of the Punjab. Foreign correspondents of several international news outlets based in Islamabad wanted to know how the flooding would impact counterterrorism efforts in the region. Would extremist organizations use the floods as an opportunity to infiltrate Pakistan’s rural areas? Would their religious rhetoric help give meaning to the calamity, thereby spurring recruitment among the rural poor?

I fumbled through answers to these questions, all the while transfixed by the disaster movie images on my television screen, and the soaring statistics about the number of people affected. In many exchanges with journalists, both domestic and foreign, I debated the risk posed by extremist groups who might try to exploit feelings of frustration and helplessness that would abound in flood-affected communities. But those discussions were half-hearted and distracted—I was more preoccupied by the humanitarian toll of the flooding than its impact on counterterrorism strategy.

by Alexandra Marie Daniels
-USA-

Can art change lives? Two artists, photographer Vik Muniz and filmmaker Lucy Walker, search for an answer by traveling to the largest landfill on the planet, Jardim Gramacho, located on the outskirts of Rio de Janiero, Brazil. Out of poverty, desperation, and misfortune, a community of catadores - or garbage pickers - lives and works in the landfill plucking recyclable material from mountains of trash.

by Zubeida Mustafa
-Pakistan-

Zuhra is four and she has recently learned her Sindhi alphabet – 52 letters in all. She wants the world to know about her achievement. When I met Zuhra at the Indus Resource Centre’s (IRC) tent city for the flood affected in Dadu - a small town in Pakistan’s southern province of Sindh - she tugged at my sleeve and insisted I listen to her recitation.

Data collected from IRC tent cities in Khairpur, Dadu, and Sehwan in Sindh provides an idea of how women fared the ravaging floods in July through September. Of the 8,089 people housed in these camps, 49 percent were females and 47 percent were children, indicating the prevalence of large family sizes and its implications for women.

by Cheery Zahau
-Burma/India/Thailand-

It is a critical time in my country’s history. The military junta, called the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), has ruled Burma since 1962 through violence and the severe repression of dissidents, ethnic armed-resistance groups, and pro-democracy leaders.

On Sunday, November 7, the SDPC will hold a general election, the first since 1990 when they rejected the result of National League for Democracy's (NLD) landslide victory and placed Daw Aung San Suu Kyi – a leader who has the potential to lead the country forward - under house arrest and unable to contest the elections.

At first glance, an election seems to offer new hope for the people of Burma who have been fighting for democracy for so long. Yet, while the authorities claim the elections will be free and fair, the political space is tightly controlled, and opponents of the ruling regime are routinely harassed, detained, tortured, and imprisoned.

by Jessica Mosby
-USA-

On Tuesday you may think that you are going to the polls to choose your next elected official, but the upsetting reality of many congressional and state elections is that incumbent politicians have manipulated district boundaries to decide the outcome of elections before any votes are cast. During every election we experience the effects of gerrymandering, and yet outside of high school civics class, the term “gerrymander” is not commonly used or understood by most voters.

To Gerrymander: To divide (a territorial unit) into election districts to give one political party an electoral majority in a large number of districts while concentrating the voting strength of the opposition in as few districts as possible.

The new film Gerrymandering clearly explains its namesake while documenting how racial, partisan, and incumbency gerrymandering are responsible for the state of our democracy. Director Jeff Reichert approaches his subject matter with a sense of urgency, as the United States will once again redistrict in April 2011 based on the results of the 2010 census.