🕊ď¸ Global Observatory.org - 2019 <big><big>The Role of Women in Northern Irelandâs Peace Process: </big></big> Q&A with Monica McWilliams by Samir Ashraf. For clarity, the Ireland-England conflict dates back at minimum to about 1540, and in some views to the 12th century.
🕊ď¸ Council on Foreign Relations 2018 <big><big>Women's Participation in Peace Negotiations in Northern Ireland Made Them Less Likely to Fail </big></big> Blog Post by Rachel B. Vogelstein and Jamille Bigio Twenty years ago, the landmark Good Friday Agreement ended 30 years of violence (known as the Troubles) between British Protestant unionists and the Irish Catholic nationalists. A critical factor that helped secure and preserve the peace is too often overlooked: the participation of women.
🕊ď¸ herstory.ie 2019 <big><big>"The Troubles ââ or the Northern Ireland conflict â was an ethno-nationalist conflict which began in the late 1960s and is generally accepted as having ended with the signing of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998. </big></big> Fuelled by historical events, the conflict was largely political and sectarian, the main point of contention being the constitutional status of Northern Ireland. Unionists or loyalists â who were mostly Protestant â wanted to remain a part of the UK. Nationalists/republicans â who were mainly Catholic â sought a united Ireland. 3,532 people were killed during the conflict, with approximately 50,000 total casualties over the three decades. Women from all walks of life in Northern Ireland, in particular, played a vital role in the peace process and continued this cross-community dialogue long after the Good Friday Agreement was signed. They did everything from supporting victims of sectarian violence and victimsâ families, to lobbying politicians and organising mass protestsâŚ.
<big>Women are âcitizens of the state, inheritors with men of all the history which enobles a nation, guardians with men of all the best life of the nation; bound as much as men are bound to consider the good of the whole; and justified as much as men are justified in sharing the good of the whole.â â Isabella Tod </big> From as far back as the 1860âs, women in the North of Ireland had been working together to assert their civil rights and challenge various laws that restricted their freedoms; issues regarding womenâs education, married womenâs property rights and voting rights. In 1872-3, Isabella Tod, a Scottish-born Presbyterian living in the North of Ireland since the 1850s, founded the North of Ireland Womenâs Suffrage Society in order to campaign for a womanâs right to the parliamentary vote. Because Ireland was under British rule at the time, there was a certain collaborative effort on the part of women from both the north and south of the country, as well as with the women in England, Scotland and Wales, in their efforts to establish these common goals. This cooperative characteristic of the womenâs movements continued into the 20th century...
🕊ď¸ jstor - 2006 <big><big>Engendering Democratic Transition from Conflict: Women's Inclusion in Northern Ireland's Peace Process </big></big> <tt>No paywall if you read <100 articles per month, but you do need to register. Go via URL at wikipediaâs article on JSTOR (short for Journal Storage), âa digital library of [almost 2,000 full-text] academic journals [plus] books, and primary sources ⌠in the humanities and social sciences " </tt>
...Hence, despite women's activism within civil society, a transition from militarized ethnic conflict is necessary to build and sustain effective cross-community political mobilization by women. The transition in Northern Ireland has demonstrated that a democratic process of conflict resolution not only puts an end to violence but can open up opportunities for marginalized groups to participate in civic life...
🕊ď¸ TheConversation Feb 22, 2024 <big><big>Israel-Gaza: how opinion polls used in Northern Ireland could pave a way to peace </big></big> by Gemma Ware (Editor and Co-Host, The Conversation Weekly Podcast) interviewing Colin John Irwin (Research Fellow, Department of Politics, University of Liverpool)
..In this episode ... we hear about a method called peace polling, tried out successfully in Northern Ireland, that could offer a blueprint for how to reach a settlement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict... in May 1998 the people of Northern Ireland were asked to vote in a referendum on a peace deal, known as the Good Friday Agreement. The referendum passed with a 71% majority. ... Colin Irwin [had] been part of a team working for months alongside the formal negotiations on a series of public opinion polls in Northern Ireland.
The questions were agreed with all the political parties involved in the negotiations, including some of those linked to the worst of the violence during Northern Irelandâs Troubles. Irwin says the most important poll he did was the one just before a deal was reached. "We had a precis of the agreement and we asked people if they would accept it. Within one percentage point, we were accurate to what the final referendum was, by which time the parties knew that our polls were very accurate ⌠<big> They then knew that they wouldnât be committing political suicide by signing up to the deal...." </big>
🕊ď¸ Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace, and Policy <big><big>Masculinities and Peacebuilding </big></big>
The Women, Peace and Security (WPS) Agenda was formally introduced on October 31, 2000, with the unanimous adoption of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325. The historic resolution recognizes womenâs specific experiences of conflict, as well as the necessity of involving women in the process of building sustainable peace.
While [it] rightfully centers on women, womenâs empowerment cannot be realized without buy-in from men and without engaging the men, masculinities, and gendered orders that underpin patriarchal systems ⌠the role of men and masculinities in peace, conflict, and gender inequality...
🕊ď¸ ForeignPolicy <big><big>Women are the key to peace. </big></big> Cease-fire negotiations that exclude them are more likely to fall apart. Hereâs how the U.N. can boost their participation at the bargaining table.
foreignpolicy.com <big><big>Women make peace stick </big></big> When only men sit at the negotiating table, cease-fires fall apart. By Olivia Holt-Ivry
In recent decades, a growing body of research has shown that when womenâs groups ... influence peace processes, the resulting agreements are stronger and more likely to last.
... Women made up over 30 percent of the negotiators of the 2016 Colombian peace agreement with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) â which was also the first peace process to include a Gender Subcommission â and in the 2014 peace agreement between the Philippines government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, where they [increased] inclusion of womenâs civil society groups and gender provisions. <big>Cease-fires, however, remain the stubborn exception. </big> being often [misperceived as] standalone elements of military technicalities⌠But new research from Inclusive Security reveals that from bringing warring parties to the peace table, to defining the terms of the cease-fire and monitoring its implementation, womenâs groups can help transform these fragile, tenuous agreements into more comprehensive, lasting peace processes. </big>
In a study of 40 peace processes since the Cold War, researchers noted four reoccurring actions, the first being the frequency with which women mobilized to pressure warring parties into reaching a cease-fire. The second was the tendency of womenâs groups to pressure parties to remain at the peace table until they reached an agreement. <big>In none of the 40 cases did womenâs groups organize against peace; in fact, they mobilized in favor of it more than any other group.</big>
Women [also expand the definitions] of hostilities covered by cease-fires. In Burundi , mediators consulted a group of civil society representativesâmany of them womenâin parallel to the formal cease-fire talks. They <big>brought to light violent acts the armed parties had kept silent about, helping the mediators advance a more comprehensive ban on hostilities. </big> In addition to troop movements and supplies of ammunitions , the final agreement forbade âall acts of violence against the civilian population â summary executions, torture, harassment, detention and persecution of civilians ⌠incitement of ethnic hatred , arming of civilians, use of child soldiers.â
This is significant. <big>Cease-fire monitoring and verification missions base their mandates on such lists,</big> meaning they heavily influence what will be counted as a cease-fire violation and what types of dispute mechanisms will be needed to prevent re-escalation. The more holistically cease-fire agreements reflect the realities of citizens, not just those the combatants wish to acknowledge, the harder it becomes for the latter to claim adherence to the agreement as they continue to attack, torture, and rape members of one anotherâs communities.
Most cease-fire agreements also require monitors to consult with local populations. As 21st-century warfare decentralizes, moving away from battlefields and into cities and villages, the truth on the ground locally takes on new urgency. Yet widespread instability makes it difficult for international monitors to access such areas. Thatâs why in Mindanao, the Philippines, Mary Ann Arnado formed an entirely volunteer civilian monitoring group called Bantay Ceasefire.
Arnado realized early on that all-female units would increase the organizationâs ability to engage with women and sensitize male counterparts to the different impacts of war on men, women, boys, and girls. Their establishment not only led to a significant increase in reporting, but Gen. Ariel Bernardo, the former chair of the Government Cease-fire Committee, reflected that âour soldiers are now more afraid to commit any violation against civilians because of the women monitors who are constantly watching.â The groupâs domestic legitimacy and reliable reporting of violations on all sides quickly won it an invitation to join the official International Monitoring Team.
<big>But in places like South Sudan , </big> entirely male, international, military monitoring and verification teams struggled to recruit South Sudanese community liaisons... In part because it was particularly dangerous and taboo for South Sudanese women to deploy with a foreign, male force, the teams were left with an entirely military and male perspective that resulted in a heavy focus on military action and a lack of attention to civilian protection and humanitarian concerns. <big>The teams were [only] equipped to engage with armed actors</big> [rather than also] with conflict-affected civilians, particularly women.
ForeignPolicy <big><big>Women write better constitutions </big></big> 2023
<big>If you want to form a more perfect union, in Syria or elsewhere, you canât rely on men âŚ.</big> By Marie O'Reilly
UnitedStatesInstituteOfPeace <big><big>The Essential Role of Women in Peacebuilding </big></big>
...An International Peace Institute study of 182 signed peace agreements between 1989 and 2011 found that when women are included in peace processes, there is a 35 percent increase in the probability that a peace agreement will last 15 years or more.
Evidence indicates that <big> women participants in peace processes are usually focused less on the spoils of the war and more on reconciliation, economic development, education and transitional justice â all critical elements of a sustained peaceâŚ. </big>
An Illinois judge circumvented the law to void a defendant's conviction for sexual assault. The judge has now been removed for misconduct .
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Texas hospital denied an abortion to a woman with a life-threatening ectopic pregnancy . Fortunately, a different hospital did the right thing.
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Although it may be on the verge of repeal in Missouri, at least seven states won't allow a divorce to be finalized if one of the partners is pregnant. Surprisingly, California is among those states! California and Texas do allow exceptions for domestic violence, which typically escalates during pregnancy.
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Florida pauses bill treating embryos as "children" as the backlash mounts to the Alabama ruling.
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TheConversation Taiwan election 2024: how presidential candidates left women voters unimpressed
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FOUR HUNDRED YEARS ⌠times 2
What Is the Dominant Emotion in 400 Years of Women's Diaries? A new anthology identifies frustration with things as they are as a recurring theme in journals written between 1599 and 2015.
FromTheNation A Hidden History of Europeâs Pre-Modernist Women Artists â A recent exhibition documenting four centuries of work from female painters and illustrators offers a new way of seeing these eras of art history where women are often left out.
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Beatrix Potterâs 15 years of journaling in cipher , first published in 1966 , continues to transform her reputation from âbrilliant childrenâs book authorâ to âwriter for the agesâ with her observations on art, literature, science, nature, politics, society, her own hopes and frustrations, and a particular window to her era and class â thanks to tireless Potter-phile Leslie Linder. Not only dedicating nearly as many meticulous years to translating her secret masterwork as she took to writing it, he amassed a unique collection of her drawings, letters and other papers, now housed in the Victoria and Albert Museum. He and his sister Enid wrote two books on Potter, and he is biographed himself in Andrew Wiltshireâs Beatrix Potterâs Secret Code-Breaker: the Tale of Leslie Linderâs Luck, Perseverance and Generosity.
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From Al-Monitor email:
Amnesty International accused Saudi authorities of forcibly disappearing women's right[s] activist Manahel al-Otaibi , who has been detained since November 2022. Otaibi was accused of leading a âcampaign to incite Saudi girls to denounce religious principles and rebel against the customs and traditions" and has not been heard from since November 2023.
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Medscape <big>Research has found that women are especially likely to experience medical gaslighting </big> (article title for professionals: âMedical Gaslighting â Are You Guilty?) In the context of healthcare, gaslighting refers to a patientâs medical concern being persistently downplayed, dismissed, or arbitrarily attributed to a psychological or natural cause by healthcare professionals. This is a long-known, studied phenomenon, e.g.,
the 1973 Rosenhan experiment in which nine healthy people with no history of mental illness feigned auditory hallucinations in order to be admitted to a psychiatric hospital. After admission, these âpseudopatientsâ [behaved] normally and told staff they were no longer experiencing hallucinations [yet] were kept in hospital an average of 19 days. As a condition of their release , [they] were forced to admit having psychiatric illness and to agree to take antipsychotic medication ... All but one was diagnosed with schizophrenia "in remission" before their releaseâŚ. [Rosenhanâs study ⌠also illustrated the dangers of dehumanization ...]
...<big><big>âWhere there is power imbalance </big></big> between medics and patients, there is a lot of scope for things to go wrong, and they do go wrong,â [said Univ of Oslo Noway philosophy professor Anna Smajdor, who specializes in medical ethics.] âFreud[dian psychology regarded many illnesses as] psychosomatic and all to do with repression and sex [and these outdated ideas are still influential] about what plays into womenâs medical complaints.â
David Smith, associate professor of healthcare ethics at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, said [this issue] illustrates the need [for] patient-centred care, and delivering [it] relies on one of the key pillars of healthcare: âPartnership [which] relies on doctors working together with patients ⌠There has to be respect for the patient and their views ⌠Doctors must listen to the patient and watch for unspoken messages [and] advocate on behalf of the patient.â...
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Misogyny/Schools/UK: Labour to help schools develop male influencers to combat Tate misogyny â The shadow education secretary said they would help schools train role models as âpowerful counterbalanceâ to Andrew Tate influence. In an interview with the Guardian, Bridget Phillipson said that in order to combat sexual harassment, Labour wanted to see schools develop role models who could provide a âpowerful counterbalanceâ to Tate and others like him.
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a âregenderedâ version of the Hebrew Bible, What if the first book of the Hebrew Bible had a female God who created the world â and what if the first human created was a woman, not a man? What if the story of the near sacrifice of Isaac by Abraham was flipped â and a mother was told by God to sacrifice her daughter? If the Torah were centered on women rather than on men, would we experience these holy books differently? In asking these questions, Israeli-American artist Yael Kanarek, 56, and associates created Toratah, âher Torah,â. reversing the genders of all characters in many books of the Hebrew Bible, for a matriarchal, rather than patriarchal, lineage...
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BLACK WOMEN TRANSFORM EDUCATION:
The Unfailing Optimism of Dr. Gloria Ford Gilmer (1928â2021) <br>â https://www.ams.org/... <br>â https://www.ams.org/...
â https://en.wikipedia.org/âŚ
Schools should have never segregated math from the arts. If you miss the integration of math, science and art, you miss the best part of life.
h/t Dan Bacher
TheConversation <big>How educator Gloria Jean Merriex used dance, drills and devotion to turn around a failing elementary school in a year </big>
When Duval Elementary â a school that served mostly Black and poor students in East Gainesville, Florida â failed the stateâs high-stakes standardized test in 2002, district leaders pressured the schoolâs educators to more closely follow the curriculum.
But Gloria Jean Merriex, who taught third and fourth grade reading and fifth grade math, wasnât interested. She argued that doing more of the same would yield more of the same results. She rebelled by creating a customized curriculum and going out of sequence, teaching the hardest units first.
Opting for a more kinetic approach to learning, she introduced music and movement. She revamped math and reading instruction by infusing the lessons with hip-hop, dance and other innovations.
And she got results, leading Duval from an F to an A in 2003 and maintaining that academic excellence until she died of a diabetic stroke in 2008. Her students achieved the greatest gains in math among all of Floridaâs fifth graders .
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TIME Magazine <big>Women of the year .</big>
The 2024 TIME Women of the Year list features 12 honorees, including:
<big>WOMEN WAGE PEACE</big>
actor, writer and director Greta Gerwig , actor and entrepreneur Taraji P. Henson , artist Andra Day , tennis player Coco Gauff , medical scientist and professor of research on hyperemesis gravidarum Marlena Fejzo ,Global CEO of Chanel Leena Nair , <big>co-founder and leader of Women Wage Peace Yael Admi , founder and director of Women of the Sun Reem Hajajreh , president and chairwoman of nonprofit Nadia's Initiative Nadia Murad , founder and executive director of The Chisholm Legacy Project Jacqui Patterson , U.S. Poet Laureate Ada LimĂłn , and economic historian and labor economist Claudia Goldin .</big>
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NativenewsOnline <big>NINE LITTLE GIRLS </big> a two-part series exploring the tragic story of the Charbonneau sisters.
For more than a decade, nine sisters battled the South Dakota legislature for the right to sue the Catholic Church for sexual abuses they endured during the 1950s and '60s at an Indian boarding school the church operated. State lawmakers have denied these women and hundreds of other Native survivors of sexual abuses the right to sue, and some have died without receiving justiceâŚ.
...This meticulously researched, and deeply personal series, took nearly two years to complete. The impact of COVID-19, and the passing of three sisters, presented significant challenges, highlighting the sensitivity and dedication of the reporting team. "Nine Little Girls" stands as a powerful testament to our commitment to sharing important Native American stories, and advocating for truth and justice.
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