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Indybay Feature

Thursday, March 8th is International Women's Day

by womyn rising
Thursday, March 8th is International Women's Day - a day on which women on all continents to come together to celebrate their various struggles for equality, justice, and peace. Many events are planned for March 8th in the Bay Area and the Central Valley.
At 5:00pm, the Foreign Affairs Council will host child rights activist Betty Makoni at 827 Valencia Street, Suite 101. Makoni founded Girl Child Network in Zimbabwe, a community based organization that is working to empower over 20,000 girls.

The Women of Color Resource Center will host Speaking Fierce, an evening of art, poetry, music and dance, beginning at 6:30pm at the First Congregational Church's Reidenbach Hall, 2501 Harrison Street in Oakland.

The C.A.F.E. Infoshop at 935 F Street in Fresno will host the Women’s Studies student organization P.O.W.E.R. (People Organized for Women's Empowerment and Representation) and the Femicide Action Committee for "Help Stop Femicide in Juarez," a night of education, networking, refreshments, and fundraising, beginning at 7:00pm.

The Progressive Jewish Alliance will kick off its first annual Sweatshop Awareness Month with a screening of "China Blue", Micha Peled’s documentary that illustrates the lives of young women working in a blue jeans factory in China. The film will be shown at 7pm at the Cerrito Theater, 10070 San Pablo Avenue in El Cerrito. A Q&A with the director will follow the screening, as well as a brief update on PJA’s Kosher Clothes Campaign.

Acción Zapatista Davis will be holding an event with "fotos & music & video & dialogue about transnational rebellion & collective visions of (an)other world" at 7:00pm at 105 Olson Hall on the UC Davis campus

In San Francisco, ANSWER will screen the film "Maquilopolis" at 7:30pm at ATA, 992 Valencia Street.

Read more at http://www.indybay.org/womyn
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by from Global Women's Strike
The next mega-march of women in Oaxaca has been called for 8 March, International Women’s Day.
http://elenemigocomun.net/871
Far away places have a certain romantic aura in political discussion. However, the war against women is taking place right here at home and it is here at home where we can do the most about the attacks on women. For instance, women's right to abortion is seriously threatened by the current 5 to 4 majority AGAINST abortion on the Supreme Court, 1 case away from OVERTURNING Roe v. Wade, and there is a case soon ready to go to the Supreme Court. The votes are: Alito, Roberts, Kennedy, Scalia, Thomas AGAINST abortion; Breyer, Ginsburg, Souter, Stephens FOR abortion. Then we have the Catholic Church of San Francisco attempting to establish a fascist base in San Francisco with now 3 annual marches against abortion every January. Where is the condemnation of the Catholic Church for attacking abortion and promoting hatred of women? Abortion saves women's lives and is the most safe medical procedure one can have while a women faces death every time she becomes pregnant. Where is the press conference condemning the Catholic Church's despicable actions, aided by the Democratic Party machine of San Francisco that gives them a permit for this hate march? Above all, WHERE ARE THE THOUSANDS OF PRO-ABORTION FORCES IN A MAJORITY PRO-ABORTION SAN FRANCISCO EVERY JANUARY? Where is the mobilization of this majority to protest every January, and ALL THE REST OF THE YEAR? WHY DO NONE OF THE EVENTS LISTED ADDRESS THE ATTACK ON ABORTION IN THE UNITED STATES?
by wondering
What about violence against women in Muslim countries? Stoning? Second class status? Can't marry without males' permission. Can't own property. Can't drive. Can't leave the country without males' permission.

What about THESE problems with women's rights?

And editor, why do you delete this comment when you KNOW it's true? Or do Muslims get a pass from the left? If so, why?
by well
"Stoning? Second class status? Can't marry without males' permission. Can't own property. Can't drive. Can't leave the country without males' permission."

As far as I know Iran started using stoning after the Iranian revolution and there have been some extreme countries that used it since but its not common to most Muslim countries.

2nd class status coudl be accurate but it would also apply to most nonMuslim countries.

Marriage doesnt require male permission in most Muslim country. In Iran the main complaint is about divorce (women are force to stay in marriages even if they want out), but couldnt one say Ireland was almost worse 10 years ago when divorce was still illegal?

Property ownership is allowed for women in most Muslim countries.

Driving cars is only banned in Saudi Arabia as far as I know and there is no such law in any other Muslim countries including Iran.

Can't leave the country without males' permission. Not sure about that one.



Oppression of women is common across all religions. Many women in India in the 1500s-1800s converted to Islam to avoid things like Sati since Islam was seen as less oppressive than some forms of Hinduism practiced at the time. In the US today one was fundamentalist Christians with a lot of power in government and many belive that women shoudl be subserviant to men in marriages (just look at the stuff comming out of groups like the Promise Keepers). In Israel Jewish fundamentalist attacked some relatives of mine since they went there with a female Rabbi. And of course you cant forget the extreme forms of oppression in the Ukraine, Thailand, and other places where large numbers of women are actual slaves working for prostitution gangs.
The oppression of women in Islamic countries is caused by men misinterpreting the Quran and is not as widespread as portrayed by the mainstream media, a Fulbright scholar from Morocco told a University of Central Florida audience last week.

Fatima Amrani Zerrifi said the true interpretation of the Quran is not oppressive and instead lifts women up. The author and educator at Sid Mohamed Ben Abdellah Fes University in Morocco spoke to a crowd of about 50 students and community members on Thursday, Nov. 9.

Amrani gave an hourlong presentation, sponsored by the Women’s Studies Program and Office of Interdisciplinary Studies, that snubbed theories that there is gender inequity in Islamic culture. She said Mohammed was one of the first feminists.

“If I, as a Muslim, told you it (oppression) didn’t exist, I would be a liar, but it is a very small minority,” Amrani said. “But you never see a normal, civilized Muslim speaking his mind on TV.”

Amrani, who specializes in women and gender studies research, as well as women in Islam and gender mainstreaming, is a strong supporter of the Islamic Feminist movement.

The feminist movement calls for educated women to question men to explain their interpretations of the Quran.

“If you are secluded for a long enough time, you become ignorant and dependent on the man,” Amrani said.

After the fall of the Soviet Union, Amrani said, the enemy of the west became Islam and that’s where the accepted negativity originated. However, Amrani states that the majority of non-Muslim converts since Sept. 11, 2001 have been women.

Amrani asks, “If Islam is so negative, why is it the fastest-growing religion in the world?”

She said there are 57 Muslim countries in the world and 1.5 billion Muslims who are as diverse as other groups. Oppression, she said is a result of the cultures of each country and not the Muslim faith.

The veil and body coverings, commonly found among Muslim women, are not required by the Islamic religion and are a Jewish tradition, Amrani said. Each Islamic country has its own veil of different patterns and fabrics. Amrani recalled one discussion with a young girl who explained her veil and clothing choice quite simply.

“I want to be appreciated for who I am, not because I have a sexy body,” she said.

In a religion whose name means “submission to God,” the commonly accepted oppression of women is being converted to a sense of female appreciation. According to Amrani, though, it is a slow process.

“It is easy to change our habits, but it takes ages to change our mentality.”

http://news.ucf.edu/UCFnews/index?page=article&id=0024004105bd60439010c0c76ce2f004743
Baptists, Mormons Share Some Views

By KRISTEN MOULTON
.c The Associated Press

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) - The Southern Baptists chose Salt Lake City for their convention partially because of the opportunity to evangelize the Mormons, whom they consider not to be Christians.

But when it comes to telling women they should ``submit graciously'' to their husbands, the Baptists are preaching to the converted.

The Baptists, the nation's largest Protestant denomination, and the Mormons share many of the same views, including the notion behind the Baptist proclamation this week that ``a wife is to submit graciously to the servant leadership of her husband, even as the church willingly submits to the headship of Christ.''

In 1995, the Mormon church said fathers should ``preside over their families in love and righteousness.''

Whatever the similarities, the statement grabbed the nation's attention. The new article added to the Baptist Faith and Message was the first change in the statement of beliefs by the nearly 16 million-member church in 35 years. It was one of the more controversial church guidelines in recent memory; two of the nation's more prominent Baptists - President Clinton and Vice President Al Gore - said they didn't exactly agree with the statement.

The annual meeting ends today.

The Baptists' new article also defines marriage exclusively in heterosexual terms, and that's how Mormons view it, too.

In fact, one of the hottest recent political feuds in Utah has been between Republican Gov. Mike Leavitt and Democratic Attorney General Jan Graham, both Mormons, over which tactics to use in battling same-sex marriage.

The Mormon church considers homosexual acts to be grounds for excommunication, but the church has not joined the year-old Southern Baptist boycott of Disney.

The Southern Baptists are protesting Disney's practice of extending health insurance to same-sex partners of employees and of having ``Gay Days'' at its amusement parks.

Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptists, Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, said Wednesday that the boycott should go on because it is hurting the Magic Kingdom. He mentioned the recent cancellation of ABC's ``Ellen,'' which featured television's first leading homosexual character. Disney owns ABC.

``This boycott has traction. This boycott has legs. It is bothering Disney,'' he said, without offering specifics.

Disney spokesman John Dreyer said the boycott isn't bothering the company's bottom line. He said Disney's revenue, earnings and amusement park attendance were records last year.

Maxine Hanks, a feminist author and excommunicated Mormon, said the new Baptist article on marriage shows conservative religions are moving closer together on moral and social issues, though they still differ drastically on theological matters.

``This notion of women being submissive to male authority is terribly out of balance and it prevents these churches from evolving into the enlightened Christian ideal they claim,'' she said.

The Southern Baptists and Mormons are going the opposite direction from most other denominations, which have taken a more egalitarian stand on the relationship between husband and wife.

Frank Ruff, a Roman Catholic priest who is the liaison to the Southern Baptists from the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, said the new article will only hurt the Baptists' evangelizing. He said the word ``submit'' has come to mean oppressive domination.

In 1993, the bishops' conference issued a pastoral letter that acknowledges differing marital roles but says ``mutual submission, not dominance by either partner, is the key to genuine joy.''

The Episcopal Church holds that ``the equality of the woman and man is assumed,'' while the United Methodists' Book of Discipline explicitly rejects the Southern Baptist notion.

The Assemblies of God teach that while a wife should submit to her husband, ``It is only after each spouse submits to one another from a heart of love that the head/submission relationship will work.''

Mary Mohler, a homemaker from Louisville, Ky., and a member of the committee that wrote the new article, said the word ``submit'' may be politically incorrect and unpopular.

``But it is a biblically correct word and that's what counts,'' she said. ``I submit to the leadership of my husband in our home, not because it is a command from Al Mohler, but because it is a command from almighty God to me as a Christian woman.''

http://www.skeptictank.org/hs/mormwom.htm
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