Violence against Women Awareness Month

Violence against Women. It has a universal ring to it- be it physical or emotional violence. It does not matter if the women are white, black, brown or yellow, rich or poor, young or old. The story is the same all over.

A group of women have decided to speak up against it, and October has been earmarked for an awareness campaign about Violence against Women.

Link to VAWM blog

The team is cognizant with the fact that the subject of violence against women is very huge and includes multiple aspects. To ensure that this awareness campaign is effective, the scope is limited to the following aspects….

1. Domestic violence – Physical violence against the woman by husband/partner and other family members

2. Violence against girl child including deprivation

3. Sexual violence - including marital rape, date rape

4. Emotional/psychological abuse

5. Dowry related violence including Bride Burning

6. Female Infanticide

7. Acid attacks

We would be delighted to have your support for VAWM Oct 2011. The plan is similar to CSA April 2011. We have a blog (http://www.vawawareness.wordpress.com/) on Violence Against Women where we invite guest posts, expert posts and anon survivor stories.

We also would urge bloggers to post on this topic on the blog all through October, first announcing the awareness campaign and second, posting on any aspect of this topic they feel strongly about.

We also have a twitter handle (@VAWMonth) which will tweet information about VAWA and invite experts, NGOs, counsellors, etc to take questions.

Do let us know if you would be interested in participating, and how would you like to participate. Also, if you have any leads to NGOs or organisations you think we should partner with do let us know.

The email to write in to is vawawareness@gmail.com.

Do post about this initiative on your blog, and use the above image to link to the VAWM blog. Also, if possible, do put the link up on your side bar. Help to spread the word.

I will, of course, be sticking to reviewing a few books that are related to the topic, some written by experts and some by survivors. Some may even be fiction.

I am painfully aware, of course, that for every survivor who has come out with her story, there will be thousands who are facing violence mutely every day, some of them with scars that last a lifetime, and many thousands for whom the violence proves fatal- either the way of homicide or suicide.

There may be millions more who may not be actively facing violence in its injurious form, but being discriminated against for the simple fact of being born a woman-- little, piffling things that can eat away at one's self-esteem, not having real choices, and being criminalised for the choices that they do make from the ones left to them. All of which can have debilitating repurcussions, preventing them from ever being able to tap their full potential. Something that is commonplace in most homes. Subliminal violence, I would call it. Insidious, and all the more dangerous for that.

I would like to share this, too. Yesterday, I was sitting in my usual place near the children's play area in my complex, reading a book that I mean to review. A lady from the complex, with whom I was on just a nodding aquaintance, came by and showed interest in the book I was reading. When I told her about this initiative, she came up with a surprising (actually not so surprising) question. According to her, the women who have any access at all to a blogpost were women with at least some priviledges. How does this 'armchair variety of awareness' help the common woman? Does it seriously have a trickle-down effect? Even if there is, isn't the change too slow to be of any significance? And for all the apparent awareness about these problems, aren't the papers everyday full of just such cases?

Any answers?

And for some hypnotic magic: Molly Moon

This is a fun book that was recently recommended to us by Choxbox's FB, and we were thrilled to realise that we had picked it up at the recent Strand book sale. There's a picture at the bottom of this post.

Pic courtesy flipkart

MOLLY MOON'S Incredible Book of Hypnotism
Written by Georgia Byng
Published by Macmillan Children's Books
Ages 8-12 yrs

Hardwick House, the decrepit orphanage where Molly, our 10 yr old heroine lives, is a Dickensonian place, owned and run by the mean and spiteful Miss Adderstone and Edna, the equally mean and spiteful cook whose cooking is horrible. There are other bullies, too, the older children who make life extremely difficult for the younger ones.

Molly, too, is no angel, and often gets into trouble because of her lazy and stubborn ways, although she is good to those younger than her. Her only friend is Rocky, a boy at the orphanage, who has a calming personality, the one person who can motivate Molly and keep her from getting into trouble.

Then everything goes further wrong one day when Rocky is taken away by an American couple who want to adopt him, and he goes away without saying goodbye. Molly's one support in her short life is gone.

Just when things begin to look very bad indeed, Molly finds a book on hypnotism in the library. She 'borrows' it, and learns the art by following the very clear instructions in the book. What follows is an out-and-out fantasy that any 10 yr-old might have and thoroughly enjoy.

We have Molly winning a talent show, and using her winnings to travel all the way to New York, with Petula, the pug belonging to Miss Adderstone who is now hypnotised into loving Molly. In New York, along the way to finding Rocky, she becomes a huge star, which draws her into the clutches of Simon Nockman, a crook out to use her talents for big-time robbery.

How does it all end? Since the fantastical seems to escalate? Well, you have to read the book to find out. The narrative is just as hypnotic, and both A and I read it at one go, unable to put the book down. Things do resolve, and a lot of good lessons are learnt. All around. Molly and the reader included. While having a good laugh as we read.

The book reminded me of Mathilda by Roald Dahl, another book about an extraordinary little girl belittled by her own parents and bullied by the monstrous school headmistress, Miss Agatha Trunchbull, and who uses her magical powers to teach her a lesson.

A loved this one, and we will be looking out for the sequels, Molly Moon stops the world, Molly Moon's hypnotic time-travel adventure, Molly Moon Micky Minus and the time machine and Molly Moon and the morphing mystery. They all sound delicious.

Crossposted at Saffrontree.

There's hope yet!

March 8th. Women's day. A day to celebrate feminism. A woman myself, mother of a daughter, I hope to see my daughter have a better life. Not to need to make the compromises I have had to make. Not to be presented with choices like the ones I have had to choose between- choices that were not really choices- at times.

Here is a poem by a woman poet, written almost 2500 years ago. Followed by a poem by a woman of the 20th century. An inspirational woman. Decide for yourselves if things have really changed that much over the centuries!

A WOMAN WELL SET FREE

At last free
at last I am a woman free
No more tied to the kitcen
stained amid the stained pots,
No more tied to the husband
who thought me less
than the shade he wove with his hands.
No more anger, no more hunger,
I sit now in the shade of my own tree.
Meditating thus, I am happy, serene.

by Sumangalamata : "Sumangala's mother." She was the wife of a weaver of baskets and shade-umbrellas, circa 600 B.C. A member of the women-followers of Gautama Buddha. This poem has been translated from Pali. From a compilation called Therigatha.

STILL I RISE

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard
'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin' in my own back yard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I'll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.

by Maya Angelou. A thinker, poet, educator, historian, best-selling author, actress, playwright, civil-rights activist, producer and director, but most of all, an inspirational woman. This poem was posted yesterday by The Mad Momma on her blog.

I'm hopeful that there will come a day, when we can just be human beings, with all that it means to be human. Neither being put on a pedestal, nor marginalised, nor judged. Just let be!