IMS' reader on gender and sexuality

By Nayla MansourSophie Bessis is a historian who also represents a current of universalist feminists, one which may be seen as antiquated next to a modern feminist wave that exalts and celebrates the culturalist. Have we asked enough questions about the position and effect of these two currents? We met Bessis in her Paris apartment

By Reem Bin RajabThe expressions and street idioms are infused with patriarchal notions and draw from a dictionary of male authoritarianism. What we fight against every day – violence, sexual harassment, and economic discrimination based on sexual divisions and male superiority – are issues that the genre never addresses or even cares about. We are

“We don’t make fun of the issue, but of the people, the culprits and society,” he adds. “Communicating these issues in most traditional formats falls on closed ears and usually preaches to the converted. We believe we are able to reach a bigger and much more diverse audience with satire and in this way challenge

By Nour AhmadUpon hearing the word “cyborg”, perhaps the first thing that comes to mind is a fusion of human and machine. Our imagination might even drift to an image of Frankenstein’s monster or a depiction such as Major Mira Killian in the anime Ghost in the Shell. A cyborg is actually just a hybrid

By Theang Soriya“You sell products, not your breasts”, Hun Sen said, adding that authorities should “educate” the online vendors and tell them to change their clothes.Ven Rachna, who sells clothing and lingerie via her Facebook page under the name Thai Srey Neang, was the first victim of the government’s new crackdown on what women wear. Rachna,

When filmmaker Dina Naser starts documenting them in 2012, their respective ages are 11, nine and five. The children speak openly with Naser about the horrors they experienced in Syria, but they remain resilient and cheerful.As the years pass, Naser sometimes loses contact with the family despite her best efforts. But the children continue to

By Diana MoukalledThe “Hasbi Allah” phrase, (“Almighty Allah is enough for me”), that accompanied her clearly recorded tormented voice, doesn’t only reflect helplessness but also a conviction that what is happening couldn’t be resisted.These were the last moments of the “collective execution” of Palestinian woman Israa Gharib, as documented in a harrowing video leaked from

[“Honour killings” is set in quotation marks as the term is highly disputed] By Nour Dalati, Hala Ibrahim, Reham Assaad and Mohamed HomsThe “nightmare” channel is dedicated to publishing scandals as well as practices by the opposition forces in the city of Jarabulus, in the northern countryside of Aleppo. Under the pretext of exposing the violations

In multiple villages in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger, women often organise in civil society “listening” clubs which gather to actively listen to and discuss the programmes broadcast by their local radio stations. In IMS’s Sahel programme we have “twinned” these women’s listening clubs with the local radios and given them support so they themselves

By Myint Myat ThuWhat if Mya Mya, the lead character in the Myanmar horror film of the same name, released on 6 February were to enact revenge on the men who gang-raped her, not by menacing them as a forlorn ghost, but by seeking justice as a tenacious survivor?For the moment, such a plot turn

The #EnaZeda movement creates a space for thousands of individuals across the country to break the code of silence maintained by patriarchal norms. This audio documentary “#EnaZeda – beyond stories, a political act” by the independent, non-profit media group Inkyfada considers the political side of the movement – through meetings, discussions and critiques – alongside

By Koral Noori (Al-Quds Al-Arabi/Sulaimaniyah)“I screamed in his face at this point and left the station headquarters with my nerves collapsing,” says Aras, raising her eyebrows and raising her voice as if to regain the tone of her director’s speech. Before joining the channel affiliated with the Kurdish parties represented in parliament, Aras, 29 years old,

“A dark story” is a short documentary film produced by Tana Bana Private Limited where women from the Badi community talk about these dark aspects of their life in a dark, closed room. It is their first time telling their stories openly to an outsider. In order to protect their privacy, the story was filmed

By Maya Al-AmmarWomen and girls in many countries around the world suffer under “virginity examinations” which reinforce norms that perpetuate women’s inequality – including stereotyped views of female morality and sexuality – and serve to exercise control over women and girls.Please accept marketing cookies to see this video.What is a hymen, and what is virginity

In their podcast, Jordanian podcast media Sowt tries to answer this question in their series Eib (Shame). This series discusses taboos and subjects that are considered shameful, let those who feel shamed share their personal stories and shed light on issues that are silenced in public conversations. Listen to the original podcast in Arabic or read

In multiple villages in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger, women often organise in civil society “listening” clubs which gather to actively listen to and discuss the programmes broadcast by their local radio stations. In IMS’s Sahel programme we have “twinned” these female listening clubs with the local radio stations and given them support so they

The Aurat March (Women’s March) is held despite of a massive opposition from the conservative and religious sections of the society – which explains the deployment of security forces to protect it from attacks. The women’s march is typically portrayed by the media as a disruptive act that wants to upend Pakistan’s social and cultural

The Assad regime used deadly force to crush the protests demanding the president’s resignation. The unrest spread and the crackdown intensified. Opposition supporters took up arms, first to defend themselves and later to rid their areas of security forces. The Assad regime used besiegement, chemical weapons and scorched-earth policy to forcibly displace the civilians and

By Soha HassanOn 8 April, a picture circulated of a girl, Alaa Saleh, standing on what appeared to be a platform. Only later did it become clear to us that the platform was a white car whose details were obscured by the large crowd surrounding the girl. She stands shrouded in the Sudanese tobe which, with its layers of

In multiple villages in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger, women often organise in civil society listening clubs which gather to actively listen to and discuss the programmes broadcast by their local radio stations. In IMS’ Sahel programme, we have “twinned” these women’s listening clubs with the local radio stations and given them support so they

By Eaint Thet Su​In recent years, gender identity has become one of the most discussed, and controversial, topics in countries throughout the world, including in Myanmar, where an increasing number of people have become more open about expressing non-binary sexuality.Despite murmurs of disapproval in what is an overwhelmingly sexually conservative society, many young Myanmar people,

By Khin Chan Myae MaungThe fight for women’s rights is a battle that is happening on several fronts. If it is not being challenged by institutional roadblocks, social taboos or dismissive attitudes towards women’s issues, it is the argument that feminists are “man-haters”. Feminism and feminists are regarded by some as “feminazis”, whereby women are

By Hossam El Din DarwishFrom “disorder” to sexual orientationIn recent decades, major shifts occurred in the vocabulary and substance of discourse on homosexuality. These changes have not been limited to the Western world, but to a certain extent pervaded most parts of the world. An important change in this context is the increased use of

By Ahmad HassanMalak al-Kashef has finally said goodbye to her previous life as Abdelrahman, the male body that was her prison for the first 19 years of her life. After a series of sex reassignment surgeries, she has declared victory over patriarchal norms, abandoned a manhood that had crippled her all her life and is

The UP did surprisingly well in local and national elections. Due to this success, beginning in 1988, reactionary forces sought to exterminate the movement; paramilitary forces, with the aid of the military, killed more than 2,500 militants.In 2016, President Juan Manuel Santos apologised for the responsibility of the state. The case is now before the

Forced disappearances constitute one of the worst practices of the combatants. The peace agreement signed with the FARC created a special body to search for the disappeared. Most official and media narratives only told the story of men. Through the case of a young girl in the Eastern Plains, one of the war’s epicenters, a

Through a circle of women and weaving, they supported each other, they built a political consciousness and they became determined to return to their land.They are now exploring the possibility of setting up their own women’s reservation, but they found a number of obstacles: first, they need to be recognised as indigenous women and then

Jin War is a village for women and children in the Autonomous Administration of north-east Syria. Hanaa Alkalaf, a 40-year-old mother of three, shares her experience of living in that village and highlights the dilemma of an isolated village like Jin War, that is both a safespace – “a place for abused women or women