gender equality
Birhor Girl Completes Schooling
Nirmala was celebrated by a local official in India’s Chhattisgarh state for being the first Birhor girl to complete class 12. A photo that accompanies the Times of India news story last week shows the District Collector for the Jashpur District, Nileshkumar Mahadev Kshirsagar, congratulating the girl in a ceremonial setting. Nirmala says she hopes […]
Gender Equality among the Batek
It is not too soon to begin celebrating the centenary of the 19th amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees American women the right to vote. Already, our news media are reporting on local celebrations of the growing gender equality in the U.S. that the amendment symbolized, which will presumably culminate on the actual anniversary […]
Semai Woman Becomes a Firefighter
A Malaysian newspaper, The Sun Daily, published a brief story last week about a young Semai woman who has become a firefighter. According to the reporter, she is the first Orang Asli woman to take such a position. Edaziana Matoyam, a 23-year old from Tapah, in Perak state, watched the exploits of firefighters on television […]
Progressive Paliyans
The participants in a three-day program designed to provide awareness of the Paliyan people came away from the event last week cherishing a strong admiration for the peaceful tribal society. The Times of India published a news story on Monday last week about the three-day educational and cultural event held in Pannaikadu village, a Paliyan […]
Developing Gender Equality among the Fipa
Several NGOs in the Rukwa Region of Tanzania have been campaigning recently for their society to promote more gender equality. They are particularly focused on women having better guarantees to the lands they help farm. Several of the villages mentioned last week in a news report about the situation are located in the traditional Fipa […]
Gender Violence in Peaceful Societies: The Ladakhi
One of the more significant aspects of the nonviolence that epitomizes many of the world’s most peaceful societies is the relatively high status of women and girls. Each society is different, of course, but in many of them the women and girls are considered to be equal, or nearly so, to men and boys. Males […]
Gender Violence in Peaceful Societies: The Fipa
In line with some news stories in May about Fipa women physically punishing a man, last week a report indicated that some of them have been beating their husbands. Gender violence in reverse. Although the news report does not say that the couples involved were all ethnic Ufipa, they are from the city of Sumbawanga […]
Fipa Village Women Humiliate and Punish a Man
A young Fipa man was punished by the women of his village for the crime of verbally, and publicly, abusing his mother. The crimes he committed violated Fipa traditions, so the women disciplined him with harsh, traditional punishments of their own. The story was reported widely in the middle of last week in such African […]
Zapotec Women Strive for Equality
Eufrosina Cruz Mendoza has had a fruitful career over the past 10 years as a successful politician, despite the initial resistance of the men in her hometown. The opposition to her election as mayor of the community made news headlines internationally nearly a decade ago since the town “fathers” had canceled the election results—it was […]
Gender Equality in the Education of Thai Children [journal article review]
Sometimes numbers can be intriguing, particularly when they deal with challenges to fundamental social values such as equal opportunities for public school education. Umaporn Pattaravanich and others, in a recent journal article, cite several interesting statistics as part of their analysis of Thai secondary school attendance. The authors relate the changing statistics they cite to […]
