Posts tagged arab feminism

Feminisms in the Middle East and North Africa: Theory, Practice, and Realities

1163 days

by Nadine in Gender & Feminism

I will be speaking at this conference tomorrow – just realized it will be open to the public, so come along if you’re interested!

The Global Fund for Women invites you to attend the conference “Feminism in the Middle East and North Africa: Theory, Practice, and Realities” of its Advisory Council Members of the Middle East and North Africa. The Conference will bring together GFW Advisors, experienced women’s rights activists in the MENA region, to collectively analyze and present the challenges, problematic, opportunities and success of the women’s rights movements. The conference will be held at the Sun Meeting Room in the Kempinski Hotel (Abdul Hamid Shoman Street, Shmeisani) in Amman. Please find below the conference program details and speakers. Kindly, RSVP as soon as possible to MENA region manager at GFW, Zeina Zaatari, at zzaatari@globalfundforwomen.org.

First Day; Friday, March 19:

9 – 9:30	Welcome and Introductory Remarks
9:30 – 11:15	Feminist Thought: Efforts to Reinforce Women’s Rights Moderator: Pinar Ilkkaracan Speakers: Rym Abdou, Raufa Hassan, Zeina Zaatari
11:15 – 11:30	Coffee Break
11:30 – 1:00	Strategies of feminist change in the age of poverty, economic globalization (services, development and/or rights), cultural globalization and the new technologies of communication Moderator: Rym Abdou Speakers: Lina Abou Habib, Aminettou Mint el Mokhtar, Nurcan Baysal
2:30 – 4:15	Legal Reform: Success Stories and Future Challenges to changing Personal Status and Other Codes Moderator: Layla Naffa Hamarneh Speakers: Wajeeha Al-Baharna, Pinar Ilkkaracan, Halima Oulami, Boriana Jonsson
4:15 – 4:30	Coffee Break
4:30 – 6:00	Funding Agencies and Feminist Institutions: Their role, agendas and Effect on the Social Change Process Moderator: Lina Abou Habib Speakers: Terry Greenblatt, Caroline Sakina de la Brac Perriere, Eileen Kuttab

Second Day; Saturday, March 20:

9 – 10:40	Women’s movements between religious extremism, politicized religion, and popular religiosity Moderator: Caroline Sakina de la Brac Perriere Speakers: Mozn Hassan, Yanar Mohammed, Nehad Aboul Komsan
10:40 – 10:55	Coffee Break
10:55 – 12:45	Exposing the Taboos (Personal and Sexual freedoms, the body, violence): Whose Responsibility? Moderator: Mozn Hassan Speakers: Nadine Moawad, Zeinabou Mint Taleb Musa, Naima Zitan
2:20 – 4:00	Women’s movements under occupation, conflict zones and political repression Moderator: Suad El Gedsi Speakers: Majeda Al-Saqqa, Trees Zbidat-Kosterman, Shirouk Abayachi
4:50 – 4:15	Coffee Break
4:15 – 5:45	Political Participation in the age of no democracy and the American Imperial Project Moderator: Nurcan Baysal Speakers: Suad El Gedsi, Areen Hawari, Layla Naffa Hamarneh

Collective Work on Women’s Rights

1264 days

by Nadine in Live Reporting

I’m currently at a conference in Cairo entitled “Collective Work on Women’s Rights” organized by GTZ and NWRO. There’s around 120 participants here – mostly Egyptian – from women’s rights organizations. Check out their cool conference graphic on the rights. I’m here representing AWID <3 and will be speaking tomorrow afternoon about youth networks.

The first panel included what I call “mandatory speeches” & of course wasn’t very interesting. Ms. Seham Negm delivered a message from Dr. Rashida Manjoo, UN Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women.

The second panel, however, was extremely interesting every single minute of its 2 hours. It started off with a paper by Dr. Margot Badran on a historical perspective of women’s rights networks. Interesting things she said included:

An Egyptian Feminist Union was formed in 1923 and was the first to use the term “feminism.” It used both religious and secular nationalist (later human rights) strategies at the same time. 75 years ago, the Pan-Arab Feminist Union was formed across Egypt, Lebanon, Palestine, Syria, and Iraq. The Arab women’s movement was also the first to take advantage of the printing press to express what later became known as a ‘feminist consciousness.’ Throughout the 20th century, women gained progress in education and work rights, but still today press for political rights. When Egyptian women gained the rights to vote in 1956, it was after 32 years of hard work by the women’s movement. But we know that this was only for the benefit of the state, which shut down the Egyptian Feminist Union in the same year. We have learned that women are protected in exchange for obedience. We have also learned that strategies women activists use haven’t really changed much. What changes more is the political situation and we must know how to adapt strategically to these changes.

I will be posting more of the first panel later. Now I need to pay attention to a really cool presentation on practicalities of network-building.