Taisa wanted to be a singer, but ended up becoming a victim of one of Russia's most patriarchal and violent societies. oDRussia continues its series of 'stories you weren't meant to hear' with a harrowing narrative from Chechnya.
Young women in Kabardino-Balkaria must resort to lies and stratagems to navigate a society governed by man-made rules and double standards. In this excerpt from an unpublished novel, Marina Marshenkulova reveals through fiction the reality she cannot describe as a journalist.
As the 2012 International AIDS Conference gathers to review “the science”, Jessica Horn examines the powerful role of faith-healing in African communities affected by HIV and AIDS, and asks why there is still so little policy and activist action on the issue.
A Congressional bill has been proposed that will finally repeal the severe restrictions on American servicewomen’s access to abortion. But how will this sit with the religious right currently gearing up for the 2012 Presidential elections?
A London-based theatre company founded by two women prisoners will take a play about trafficked girls to the UK’s Latitude Festival this weekend. Lucy Perman talked to openDemocracy 50.50 about the play and why prison is no solution for the women who find themselves on the wrong side of the law.
As a protest space created by men and women, 15-M has not developed tools for recognising the patriarchal logic to be found at its heart, and transforming them from a feminist perspective. The result has been to render violence invisible and to silence women’s voices.
Will the gender gap that decisively helped Bill Clinton and Barack Obama win the presidency again? Only if women remember who waged the 'war against women', against their economic equality and against their reproductive rights, says Ruth Rosen
The lack of accuracy in understanding honour based abuse in the UK has critical implications, not only for social policy and strategies developed to protect women, but also in fostering equality and anti-racism
Reaction inside Russia and further afield to the imprisonment of 3 members of a punk rock girl band after their performance in one of Moscow’s cathedrals has been by turns outraged and baffled. The girls are still on remand, awaiting trial for hooliganism (maximum sentence 7 years). One can only h
Gendered approaches to migration often emphasise the experiences of female migrants, at times privileging their assumed vulnerability, as a necessary counter to the ‘privileged’ status of men within contexts of migration and beyond. To whom is this approach beneficial?
In Egypt the Muslim Brotherhood have offered to circumcise women for a nominal fee as part of their community services, a move that threatens to reverse decades of local struggle against the harmful practice argues Mariz Tadros
Why and how did verse 4:34, and not other verses in the Qur’an, become the foundation for the legal construction of marriage? Why are qiwamah and wilayah still the basis of gender relations in the imagination of modern-day jurists and Muslims who resist and denounce equality in marriage as alien t
