On a final note, bringing my thoughts back to International Women's Day today, I want to celebrate the men who fight for gender equality. Those who courageously and counter-culturally work to improve the lives of women and challenge communities to move towards equality. I believe that these men are not only incredible, but key in reaching the masses of men who need healing and hope, setting a powerful example and putting their necks on the line! 
Finally, it's about the principle. I'm not the most intelligent writer, nor have I individually got much political clout, I don't have enough money to improve the lives of half the world's population and I'm not going to get a chance to do a speaking tour around the world to change hearts and minds any time soon... But add my voice, my pennies and the simple fact of 'knowing' to the tens of thousands of others who give a damn and look, we have a stirring. We have a movement of people who have decided that the way the world works isn't fair and that they must do something, however basic. Occasionally this simple action prompts more and we have some peaceful activitism occurring. And peaceful activism has some form, dontchaknow...
by Susie Burdettby Richard McAdam
Gentlemen.
Is for you the word 'feminism' burdened with negative connotations? Does it foster in your manly breast prejudice and resentment, and elicit little more from you than a cocky rolling of the eyes and the arching of an insouciant brow? Does it conjure up images of angry, shrill lesbians daring to express outrage at invisible injustices? Then let me, as one man to another, prescribe the following course of action: through rigorous self-examination, self-education and self-flagellation, you resolve to STOP BEING AN IDIOT, and with the aid of some sort of neuro-linguistic programming adopt a deep and irrefutable notion that the above reactions to the f-word are clear and present symptoms of your BEING AN IDIOT. YOU IDIOT.
What this does not mean: adopting 'feminist' views as a means-to-an-end, paying lip service in order to get some 'lip service' ifyouknowwhatImean. (I mean kissing). It does not mean merely affecting outrage at the objectification or oppression of women when you are not possessed of any true and tangible notion of what that actually means, on any real and visceral level. It does not mean insisting on workplace equality and settling for that as being the only kind of equality that is important. It does NOT mean spouting hollow homilies on the strength and individuality of women or the beauty of the female form whilst at the same time clinging to an idea of them as possessions, convenient accessories for your ego. Don't kid yourself that the men who inflict the horrific physical and emotional violence in the stories from distant lands are some sort of different species, 'monsters' completely alien to your idea of yourself. We might not all necessarily be nurturing the capacity for that sort of cruelty; but that sort of cruelty has been born of these sorts of attitudes.
Let me offer you up a contemporary role model: the motion-picture actor Ryan Gosling. Here at Mr. Hugo Schwyzer's blog (a site I'd recommend you delve deep into as part of your self-education), Mr. Schwyzer suggests Mr. Gosling's characterisations as presenting 'a new kind of masculine ideal', because 'he plays flawed and complex men whose tender decency is always at war with his compulsions and his rage,' and not 'overgrown boys'.
The skills needed to fight that war, and to achieve the goals of altering/enhancing/maintain your attitudes toward women are conveniently concomitant with the skills required to be fulfilled and happy. (Or the act of striving to cultivate those skills is in itself fulfillment and happiness, probably, or something.) They are the skills that will, ultimately, make the world a better place. Responsibility, kindness, maturity, and a balance of stoicism and sensitivity. These shall be your goals and your rewards.
Also, girls will like you more, you idiots.
The United Nations has declared the 25th November as the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, and marks the beginning of the 16 days of Activism Against Gender Violence Campaign. Which seems as good a time to blog as any!
But the difficulty is what to blog about. I could talk about the abuse women suffer at the hands of those at home, by strangers, and even, in some places, by the authorities. I could discuss the use of such cruel punishments as flogging and the death penalty (or even just the death penalty itself). The choice is (sadly) almost endless, but I think I’m going to take inspiration from the root of the day, and see where it takes me…
The 25th November isn’t just a random date chosen from the 365 available, but is the anniversary of the assassination of the Mirabal Sisters. Patria, Minerva and Maria Teresa were three sisters (their fourth sister is still alive and curates a museum dedicated to them) heavily involved in the resistance against the Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo, who ordered their assassination. On the 25th November, after a visit to their husbands in prison, the three sisters, plus their driver, were dragged into a sugar cane grove then beaten and strangled to death. This marked the beginning of the end for Trujillo, who was assassinated a year later.
The Mirabal Sisters are just some of the many female political campaigners who dedicate their lives, sometimes at great danger to themselves, to promote democracy, equality or justice. Women all over the world, in many different ways, have, do and will continue to fight for what they see as right. From the Suffragettes of late 19th/early 20th Century Britain, to women participants in collective action in the South America, Asia and Africa, women have and do fight to promote democracy.
Political participation, however, continues to be problematic for the female sex. Women who wish to actively participate in politics continue to face challenges and obstacles, even when they have gained the right to vote and to stand in government. In Afghanistan, for instance, female candidates face intimidation and often violence during their campaigns. For one candidate, this intimidation ended in tragedy when five of her campaigners (all male) were killed.
Even in countries with a longer history of equal participation, such as the US, women candidates face obstacles in their campaign. This article shows how news media in the US treat male and female candidates differently. Female candidates not only receive less coverage, but their coverage concentrates more on their viability as candidates than their issue positions, and to further compound their chances, their viability coverage is more negative than their male counterparts (for instance, we are likely to be able to say more about the likelihood of Christine O’Donnell being a witch than on her political beliefs). With this kind of coverage, the general public, who are often dependent of the news media for their information on candidates, are more likely to form a negative opinion of female candidates than their male opponents.
But let us be more positive for a moment. Where there is success for female activists, and there are many successes, the benefit isn’t just to them, or just to women, but to the whole of their communities, country and to the wider world, who in today’s global communication era are touched by the efforts of others. This week we have also seen the release of Aung San Suu Kyi, whose decades long campaign to bring democracy to Burma, which has come at such a huge personal cost, has brought international attention to the plight of the Burmese people, and whose release will hopefully bring fresh hope to the people of Burma.
I realise that I have strayed from the theme of eliminating violence against women, but I firmly believe that without democratic privileges, women will not be free from violence, as they will not be able to hold to account the people who perpetrate that violence without the mechanisms which democracy gives them. Democracy is also an appropriate subject, as for many prominent female political campaigners (as well as make campaigners), violence and aggression are common tools employed to silence them.
I have always said that I will cast a vote at every opportunity given to me, because people have fought to give me that right and people continue to fight for that right, facing intimidation, aggression and violence. Voting is a privilege I am lucky to have, and with privilege comes responsibility.
I took the title for this blog post from the latest summer romance film ‘Letters to Juliet’. It’s a feel-good movie about a lost true love and a letter written to Shakespeare’s character Juliet. However, seeing trailers and posters for the film everywhere just reminds me of a Juliet I met recently. She was far away from the naive and lovestruck teenager of Shakespeare’s creation and even further from the glossy Hollywood film that’s gracing our cinema screens.
