WOMEN'SHISTORYMONTH

Abuelas de La Plaza de Mayo Sofia Marsico

Throughout history, women banded together and fought for their societies rights in countless human rights crises, like the Algerian resistance, Iranian women (Woman, Life, Freedom), Black women and the civil rights struggle in the United States, and so did women across Latin America. Early in the 1970s, crimes against humanity were committed in South America under the pretext of a "National Reorganization Process," attributable to state terrorism. A grassroots human rights organization called the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo has fought and is still fighting against the oppression and sequestration that took place in Argentina under the military dictatorship, criticizing impunity and calling for truth, remembrance, and justice.

Many civilians joined revolutionary organizations in response, defending their freedom and democracy; they were The Mothers' children. These women, who would go on to become heroes, initially met on April 30, 1977, to recover the nation's kidnapped children. The organization estimated that more than 30,000 people became "Desaparecidos," or "the disappeared," between 1970 and 1980 (Source: Abuelas de la Plaza de Mayo). The authorities did not leave any documentation of these people's arrests or evidence that they had been charged, and their names were removed from public records.

I chose to highlight this group of women because of their tenacity — they have been meeting and denouncing as they always have until the truth is revealed for more than 30 years. They led a significant social change in

South America and assisted many parents in finding their missing children, and for that, I have nothing but the utmost respect.

Moreover, to me, someone that is inspirational is someone that is selfless, someone whose core values are what drives them and fights in accordance. I could never imagine having to worry about where my child has been taken or how he is being treated on a daily basis for years with no answers. Therefore it amazes me to see these women find such strength in their suffering.

On March 24, we remember those who have disappeared in activity and all those who have endured years of state terrorism. More importantly, though, we demand remembrance, the truth, and justice.

“Verdad, Justicia, y Memoria”

End the Violence Morgane Paquet

For as long as most of us remember the indigenous population of Canada have constantly been suppressed by the police, medical centers, educators, the general population, and all together our own government. I think we can all agree it is about time we put a stop to this outrageousness. The week of March 6th, more precisely International Women's Week, was celebrated at Vanier

College with over 15 events speaking about how we can help promote a change in our society as well as be good allies to the minorities experiencing said discrimination. The last event was called “Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls: How do we End the Violence?” The speaker was part of an organization called “The Iskweu Project''. The Iskweu project is meant to be a bridge between police and indigenous families, they also accompany indigenous women to file police reports as well as escort them to the hospital to make sure they get treated fairly. The sole fact that we need to worry about the people who are there to protect us, and if they will be harming indigenous women is gut wrenching. The Iskweu project shouldnt have a reason to exist in the first place, but sadly it is a necessity in today's world.

One of, if not the biggest problem when it comes to missing and murdered indigenous women, is the lack of response gotten from the police. In most cases the families of the missing indigenous women get told to “wait more time, they will show up” or “they are probably out partying or running away”. When a white family reports a missing daughter, action is immediately taken to find her.

It is a well known fact that the 48 hours after someone has gone missing is crucial to finding them. It can easily be argued that the lack of response from police officers is a determining factor to the higher rates of missing and murdered indigenous women. For a matter of fact, Indigenous women are twelve times more likely to go missing or be murdered than any other woman in Canada.

Not only is the lack of response from police officers a problem, but the trust broken between the first nation communities and the armed forces is too. Firstly the RCMP (Police officers) were the ones who took the children away from their families to bring them to the residential schools, they also abused indigenous women in multiple instances, as well as enforcing a sedentary lifestyle on their communities by killing all of their slay dogs. You don't have to be very empathetic to understand that these actions taken by our government will clearly have long lasting effects on the indigenous population. The government should be doing more than saying sorry and putting a bandaid on a problem much bigger than a simple scratch on the knee. Because not only has the police broken the trust between them and these communities, but the government has directly done it by putting in place multiple discriminatory laws. For starters, for many decades they have denied women their status as being indigenous for the sole fact of being women, today many are still not considered indigenous and are struggling to find a way to prove they are. Not only this but the separation of their communities to the rest of Canada by putting them in reserves, and letting the reserves stay in conditions that could be considered 3rd world. Not to mention the obvious, the neglectful and abusive residential school that caused unthinkable trauma for the whole community, a trauma that is still being felt immensely today.

But what can we do to help?

You may be wondering. You don't have to spend money on donating to charities (although that would be helpful).You can speakout and confront people when discriminatory events happen, you can inform yourself and inform others, you can message people in power, but most importantly you should go to the vigils, see the effects this has on people in person and understand the change that is needed, not only should you attend vigils but you should attend protests whenever possible. For more information I encourage you to go check out The Iskweu Projects instagram account @iskweuproject.

Overlapping Perspectives: Looking into Amita Handa’s Hall of Shame: Lies, Masks, and Respectful Femininity Hyacinth Domingo

It is deep-rooted in mainstream media (e.g., movies, television, news, etc.) that many girls and women from different parts of the world still face discrimination, stereotyping, and prejudices. However, the problem lies in how our society immediately attributes these overlapping issues to only one absolute cause. It is not enough that our society stops at simply defining and recognizing such issues as gender-related. For instance, whenever someone tells you about blonde stereotypes, we simply agree that they are gender-based stereotypes. When we read about freedom of bodily expression and movement or domestic and sexual violence, we immediately assume that women suffer these issues because of their gender. We never try to look beyond gender and that is what limits our ability to think further.

Amita Handa’s Hall of Shame: Lies, Masks, and Respectful Femininity explores the experiences of South Asian girls like herself and how the intersection between cultural identity and gender forms a new context that changes how we should perceive many issues relating to girls and women. She asked to define normative feminine behaviour and most of the South Asian women she interviewed answered the question by enumerating the things that girls were not supposed to do (e.g., drinking, smoking, doing drugs, and dating boys), and the things that girls were supposed to do (e.g., studying hard, going to family and community gatherings, and helping with domestic duties) (p. 111). It is important to recognize that in particular cultures, feminine behaviour is strictly measured with tolerance. It seems to be placed in a cultural spectrum which has two ends that carry completely polar views and opinions (e.g., a dominant culture vs a non-dominant culture), where a woman’s experiences may be affected depending on where she is placed in the spectrum: whether in the far side of the dominant culture, in the far side of the non-dominant culture, or in the middle. For instance, Nina, one of Amita’s interviewees, explained how restrictions on freedom of movement and bodily expression are affected by her South Asian cultural identity. She defined that being South Asian means restriction of social activities by parents (p. 112). From this, we understand that Nina’s hardships as a South Asian girl stem from her non-dominant culture’s preservation of their representation of women and their beliefs about what feminine behaviour ought to be. It is not only the fact that Nina is a girl that explains why