Raising Her Voice: Feminism around the world

by Emily Brown, Oxfam Great Britain

Yesterday I shared with you a new animation on women’s political voice – and today, to inspire you, I would like to share with you a selection of the finest feminist activist sites from around the world.

Between 2008 and 2013, Raise Her Voice (RHV) supported over one million marginalized women to be heard. To celebrate this – and show the value and importance of continued work in this area – Oxfam has launched a short animation by Cognitive, the creative geniuses behind the RSA Animate series.

Raise you voice

We’re asking viewers to share it with your networks and friends, to find out more by visiting our Raising Her Voice pages, and to make your voice heard in the global movement for women’s rights. Sharing is easy, we can all hit send on an email, finding out more is also a doddle. But how do you get involved in calling for women’s voices to be heard?

We asked activists around Oxfam and beyond to nominate some of their favourite, most inspiring feminist activist sites.

Ranging from labour rights, everyday sexism, political participation to menstruation action campaigns, all of them have one thing in common: these sites, campaigns and calls to action make visible the invisibility of so many of women’s daily experiences, voices and demands.

Have your say… and help Oxfam, and the millions of women activists, allies, organizations and movements worldwide with whom we work to continue raising women’s voices – for millions more… and counting.

From Martiza Gallardo, Oxfam Active Citizenship and Gender Justice Coordinator, Honduras

• Honduras Femicide Campaign: This powerful campaign aims to eradicate impunity for violence against women and Femicide in Honduras. In memory of their lives, let not their deaths go unpunished.
• For information about the campaign in English see this Oxfam blog on femicide in Honduras.

From Teresa Yates, Oxfam Gender Justice Coordinator – Tanzania

• The Shirt on your Back: How did the clothes you’re wearing get to you? Guardian journalists trace the lifecycle of the shirt on your back via the teeming workshops of Dhaka, where labor, particularly women’s labor, is cheap, factories are cheaper and just going to work can be fatal…

From Shukri Gesod, Gender Justice Lead, Oxfam’s Pan-Africa Programme

• Gender Justice Across Africa: Founded in 1992, Equality Now aims to mobilize public support to achieve legal and systemic change that addresses violence and discrimination against women and girls around the world and on a range of issues urgent and specific to African women. The organization runs a (and supports its 44 member organization’s) wide range of campaigns, including a call to the Sudanese government to change the law – allow victims of sexual violence to access justice and Nigeria’s #BringBackOurGirls campaign.
• The Fawcett Society – UK Women in Power Campaign: Across the UK today, women are dramatically under-represented in positions of power and influence – be it politics, business, media or other walks of life. Black and ethnic minority women, older and younger women, women from lower socio economic groups, disabled women and lesbian, bisexual and transgender women are particularly under-represented in positions of power and influence across public life.
• Demand change: sign Fawcett’s Counting Women In petition, asking David Cameron to keep his promise to make a 1/3 of his ministers women by the end of his first term as Prime Minister.

From MONA MEHTA Gender Equality and Knowledge Manager, Asia

• Musawah: Musawah, ‘Equality’ in Arabic is a global movement for equality and justice in the Muslim family. Musawah is pluralistic and inclusive, bringing together NGOs, activists, scholars, legal practitioners, policy makers and grassroots women and men from around the world.

From Nay El Rahi, a Beirut-based journalist, researcher and activist and Oxfam Communications Manager

• “I love the site Feministing, an online community for feminists and their allies. The community aspect of Feministing – community blog, campus blog, comment threads, and related social networking sites – exist to better connect feminists online and off, and to encourage activism – a forum for a variety of feminist voices and organizations.”

Other sites we love …

• See the Women Under Siege blog: A journalism project highlighting the stories of women victims of sexual violence. Includes a live crowdsourced map documenting sexual violence in Syria.
• The Everyday Sexism Project exists to catalogue instances of sexism experienced by women on a day to day basis. They might be serious or minor, outrageously offensive or so niggling and normalized that you don’t even feel able to protest.
• The bold, creative and courageous Association of Women in Development support a wide range of Urgent Actions on women’s rights.
• #MenstruationMatters, the first ever Menstrual Hygiene Day launched this year in May.
• Meet the new wave of activists making feminism thrive in a digital age.
• Mas Mujeres al Poder: (More Women in Power) calls for more women in public decision making and public representation: This clever, mixed-media campaign seeks to raise public awareness – and a sense of urgency – into debates about strengthening democracy – impossible without women – in Chile, and worldwide. Women make up half of Chile’s population, 53% of the electorate, but are still only 12.7% of elected officeholders… one of the lowest levels of participation of women in the world.
• UK Feminista: A movement of ordinary women and men campaigning for gender equality – lads mags, sexism in schools…..
• More From Nay El Rahi, a Beirut-based journalist, researcher and activist and Oxfam Communications Manager: “Following the Isla Vista killings, the campaign #YesAllWomen started – and the stories that women worldwide are tweeting in response are chillingly real. A tumblr account, When Women Refuse, also started shortly after the twitter campaign. This is so powerful, sort of an archive of poignant stories of women who endured violence, and many who died because they refused sexual advances.”

Oxfam’s Raising Her Voice program set out to support women’s voices to be heard with greater confidence in political, public and private life. 

Emily Brown is Oxfam Great Britain Gender and Governance Adviser.
This blog originally appeared at blogs.oxfam.org

Related Oxfam Canada links

• A Leader in Women’s Rights: Oxfam Canada gets top marks from partners
• Oxfam Canada Success Stories