Feature Archives

On Saturday, August 19th, which would have been Abeer Hamza's 15th birthday, candlelight vigils were held in several cities. Abeer Hamza was the young Iraqi woman who was raped and killed, along with her family, in March of this year by US occupation forces. The vigils in for Berkeley, New York, and Los Angeles were organized by a group of 8 young women who were outraged by the story of what happened to the Hamza family. In Berkeley, people gathered for a vigil at Willard Park from 7:30 to 9:30pm. Photos

Saturday, August 26th was the 5th Annual Sistahs Steppin' in Pride celebration. This East Bay Dyke March and Festival started at the Lake Merritt pillars at 11am, with the march leaving at noon. The free community celebration continued that afternoon in Snow Park's Sistah Village (on Harrison between 19th and 20th Streets). There were vendors, a children's area, elder space, and more. Photos and audio

Lane posted to Santa Cruz IMC that a flyer had been posted in the Seabright neighborhood, detailing an attack that a woman had survived. The flyer has been torn down, possibly by the police, perhaps because it challenges conventional responses to violence against women. The woman reported that she fought off the attacker and chased him away. She then writes about why she will not file a report with the police. Santa Cruz Barrios Unidos organized July 28th marches to call for peace in Santa Cruz. Photos and Report Seabright residents met with Santa Cruz police officers on August 3rd. At the meeting, police announced the arrest of a suspect in one of the sexual assaults. Audio and analysis

A Radical Women contingent from four U.S. cities travelled to Jackson, Mississippi to take part in marches, rallies, forums and other actions that Southern feminists have organized during the week of July 15th through 22nd. Photos During this time, the last abortion clinic in Mississippi has been under siege by Operation Save America. A rally in Jackson on Saturday the 15th was disrupted by a bomb threat. Radical Women called for people to either join them in Jackson, or lend their financial support. BACORR organized a Reproductive Rights Film Festival to benefit efforts in Mississippi. On Sunday, July 16th, the PBS documentary "The Last Abortion Clinic" was shown at the Roxie Cinema in San Francisco.

"Crisis Pregnancy Centers" (CPCs) claim to offer help for women who face unplanned pregnancies, but they are in fact run by anti-abortion organizations that want to prevent women from obtaining abortions. These fake clinics use deceptive methods to get women in the door and then bombard them with misleading information. To address this problem, Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) has introduced the Stop Deceptive Advertising for Women's Services Act (H.R. 5052) which would enforce truth-in-advertising standards for reproductive centers. Women who have gone into CPCs have reported being harassed, intimidated, and made to feel guilty for considering abortion.

On May 18th, students at UC Santa Cruz held the annual Take Back the Night. Starting with a rally at 6:30pm in Baytree Plaza, there were speakers and live performance addressing issues such as prison violence, sterilization, domestic violence, and institutionalized patriarchy. After marching through the colleges on east side of campus, the march stopped outside the College 9/10 Multi-Purpose Room for performances by UCSC's Slam Poets Team, before making its way through the rest of the colleges. Finally ending up at Oakes, students ate food while listening to testimonials about gender-based violence.

Take Back the Night has been organized at UC Santa Cruz since 1983 - two years after the event was started in San Francisco. The event has traditionally been a women-only space but this year's event, controversially, was open to all genders. Read more and view photos

Santa Cruz Indymedia

On Wednesday, May 31st, Bay Area Women in Black will host an event entitled "Palestinian Lesbians Speak Out from the Occupation." The event will take place at 7:00pm at the Berkeley Friends Church at 1600 Saramento Street at Cedar, in Berkeley. The event will be a fundraiser for ASWAT.

Two Palestinian human rights activists from Israel will be speaking that evening. Rauda Morcos is the co-founder of ASWAT, an organization that broke the silence for Palestinian lesbians and the first Palestinian woman to publicly come out of the closet. She will address the work of ASWAT and the everyday conflicts she experiences between her national and gendered identity. Nisreen Mazzawi is an environmentalist and feminist and is the Political Coordinator of Bat Shalom of the Jerusalem Link and Coordinator of the Women Empowerment Project in the Palestinian unrecognized villages in the north of Israel. She will speak about organizing Palestinian women under occupation.

ASWAT | Bay Area Women in Black | Kersplebedeb article about Rauda Morcos | International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission | Advocate Interview | Indybay's Palestine News Page