Elimination Of Violence Against Women Day.
(25th November.)

I Remember The Butterflies.





If you would like to support or celebrate our sisters add a butterfly picture to this thread..



History:

The Mirabal Sisters:

"The three sisters, Patria, Minerva, and Maria Teresa were born to Enrique Mirabal and Maria Mercedes Reyes (Chea) in 1924, 1927 and 1935 respectively in the Cibas region of the Dominican Republic. All three were educated in the Dominican Republic, Minerva and Maria Teresa going on to achieve university degrees.

All three sisters and their husbands became involved in activities against the Trujillo regime. The Mirabal sisters were political activists and highly visible symbols of resistance to Trujillo’s dictatorship. As a result, the sisters and their families were constantly persecuted for their outspoken as well as clandestine activities against the State. Over the course of their political activity, the women and their husbands were repeatedly imprisoned at different stages. Minerva herself was imprisoned on four occasions. Despite Trujillo’s persecution, the sisters still continued to actively participate in political activities against the leadership. In January 1960, Patria took charge of a meeting that eventually established the Clandestine Movement of 14 June 1960 of which all the sisters participated. When this plot against the tyranny failed, the sisters and their comrades in the Clandestine Resistance Movement were persecuted throughout the country.

In early November 1960, Trujillo declared that his two problems were the Church and the Mirabal sisters. On 25 November 1960, the sisters were assassinated in an "accident" as they were being driven to visit their husbands who were in prison. The accident caused much public outcry, and shocked and enraged the nation. The brutal assassination of the Mirabal sisters was one of the events that helped propel the anti-Trujillo movement, and within a year, the Trujillo dictatorship came to an end.

The sisters, referred to as the "Inolvidables Mariposas", the "Unforgettable Butterflies" have become a symbol against victimization of women. They have become the symbol of both popular and feminist resistance. They have been commemorated in poems, songs and books. Their execution inspired a fictional account "In the Time of the Butterflies" on the young lives of the sisters written by Julia Alvarez. It describes their suffering and martyrdom in the last days of the Trujillo dictatorship. The memory of the Mirabal sisters and their struggle for freedom and respect for human rights for all has transformed them into symbols of dignity and inspiration. They are symbols against prejudice and stereotypes, and their lives raised the spirits of all those they encountered and later, after their death, not only those in the Dominican Republic but others around the world."

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"I'm trying to maintain a shred of dignity in this world." - Me

Good Morning to you! ;-) I am looking though the happenings here,
and are waiting for my coffee.. I have not read the main post yet, but
I sign anyway! At once! ;-) I`ll read later.

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Google News: 'Elimination Of Violence Against Women Day.'






YouTube: Celtic Woman - The Butterfly.



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Nymphalidae sasakia charonda butterfly

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BOINC Wiki . . .

Science Status Page . . .

One for each sister...with respect.

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Reality Internet Personality

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Selected Works by Karla Andersdatter



TAMBOURINE

"When you mingle
in the singing tme of
my silent heart
I am drawn to the light,
remembering whispers
and promises
within the tangled net
in which I dwell,
a singular fish
unable to speak
unable to breathe
aloud, unable
to believe
until
the words of you
enter my heart. Then
there are tambourines and bright
parrots in the landscape of
my forest."

by Karla Andersdatter

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BOINC Wiki . . .

Science Status Page . . .

I generally think that every day should be a non violence day against women.

That's just my egoism talking of course. (Oh, and non violence against men too...children, and small furry animals)

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Founder of BOINC team Objectivists. Oh the humanity! Rational people crunching data!
I did NOT authorize this belly writing!

< might like to look @ the

Indian Country Project . . .

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BOINC Wiki . . .

Science Status Page . . .

Karla Andersdatter

Is this womans parents from Norway? hmmm...

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LETS BEGIN IN 2010

Violence against women is neither culture nor region-specific; it cuts across community and class. Shocking though it is, the fact is that
violence against women has become an acceptable norm of life,
writes Swapna Majumdar



IN Delhi, the daughter of a former Union Minister files for divorce citing mental torture by her well-known businessman husband. In Mumbai, a leading actress contends her actor husband kicked her while she was pregnant. In Kolkata, neighbours respond to distress calls from a woman battered by her husband for refusing to join his drinking revelry. And in Chennai, the wife of a highly placed bureaucrat finally speaks up after enduring years of physical and mental abuse for being unable to bear a child.

Violence against women is neither culture- nor region-specific; it cuts across community and class, making no distinction. Shocking though it is, the fact is that violence against women has become an acceptable norm of life.

Statistics reveal that 45 per cent of Indian women are slapped, kicked or beaten by their husbands. About 74.8 per cent of the women who reported violence have attempted to commit suicide. Based on a sample size of 10,000 women, these figures are from a study conducted by the International Centre for Research on Women (ICRW) in collaboration with the International Clinical Epidemiologists Network in seven cities of India, in the year 2000.

However, a more recent ICRW study (2002) conducted on men, masculinity and domestic violence in four Indian states, finds that men are not naturally violent.

"Well, just because a person is a man, it cannot be assumed that he will resort to violence. The study found that there are vast numbers of men who do not engage in violence. There are complex linkages between masculinity and violence. The behaviour of men stems from their understanding of masculinity and what their role should be vis-`E0-vis women, especially their wives," says Nandita Bhatla of ICRW.




Men have always been taught to perceive themselves as the superior sex, says Jyotsna Chatterjee, director, Joint Women's Programme, Delhi. It is this conditioning, she says, that makes them believe they have to control their wives. "In fact, there are instruction manuals detailing when a man can beat his wife. This is readily available (in Delhi definitely and perhaps elsewhere too) and its sales indicate that it is being read. Among other reasons listed, the main justification listed in the manual for violence against women is disobedience. Obviously there is sanction to beat the wife if the husband feels his wife is disobedient," reveals Chatterjee.

The ICRW study also found that disrespect towards the husband was a key factor in linkages between violence and masculinity. According to the study—conducted in Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Punjab and Delhi—77 per cent of the men felt their masculinity was being threatened if their wives didn't listen to them. They said force was justified to assert their superiority.

The use of violence by men must be seen from different perspectives, according to Radhika Chopra of the Department of Sociology at the Delhi School of Economics. Men's violence must be seen in their different roles as perpetrators, witnesses and narrators of violence, contends Chopra, a specialist in gender and masculinity.

"Violence is framed and formed by cultures of power and deprivation," says Chopra. "There is enough evidence to demonstrate the unequal gender distribution of critical resources, an inequality that is weighed against women. Also, violence within a household does not remain untouched by political ideologies of violence or cultural dimensions of caste. So, the question of men and violence demands that we rethink the ways in which men inhabit particular subject positions in relation to violence."

This is why men's perception of masculinity and its association with different markers like age, caste, socio-economic status and education become important, points out Bhatla. The ICRW study found that while masculinity is rooted in a broader patriarchal ideology of differences in attributes, roles and responsibilities between men and women, sexuality is a very critical marker of masculinity.

The study found 79 per cent of the men asserted violence as a legitimate means of controlling their wives' fidelity. Violence in the marital relationship is closely associated with power, control and the privilege of being able to express and satisfy sexual needs. Although control and sexual violence decline steadily with age, the ICRW study found a disturbing correlation between violence, socio-economic status and education. The highest reported rates of sexual violence were found from men who were relatively more literate than those who were illiterate. Thirty-two per cent of men with 0 years of education and 42 per cent men with 1-5 years of education reported sexual violence. While this figure increased to 57 per cent among 6-10 years of education, it stayed at this level for men with high school education and those who had moved further up the educational ladder.

A similar pattern was seen among men in the privileged socio-economic class. The lowest rung in the socio-economic ladder reported the lowest rate of sexual violence at 35 per cent. The rate almost doubled to 61 per cent among the highest income groups.

Startling as it is, the finding that relatively high education, and socio-economic status increases the risk of violence against women does not surprise theatre personality and activist Tripurari Sharma. She says she was shocked to learn recently that an educated and respected actor in her theatre group was abusing his wife, also an established actress. "He was the most helpful, cordial and endearing man. His wife would attend rehearsals with bruises at times (that she would cover up). Later, I found out she was being beaten. If the actress herself had not told me, I would have never believed it. I think it is a myth to think that the higher the education and economic status, the less the risk of violence against women."

Many experts, including Sharma, feel that one way to address this harsh reality is to begin gender sensitisation at an early stage. Intervention strategies need to focus on attitudinal change in families, and the negative impact of the use of violence has to be stressed in a structured form in schools, towards promoting gender equity.

Besides, women themselves need to break out of the silence and the stigma related to violence within the home. Unfortunately, women continue to accept violence as a part of their married life until it becomes intolerable - statistics show that more than 55 per cent of women perceive violence as a normal part of marriage.

For interventions to be effective — especially those that emphasise gender equity as a strategy to prevent domestic violence - it is imperative that more and more women refuse to accept violence, no matter what the circumstances. — WFS

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LETS BEGIN IN 2010

on Karla Andersdatter


I became acquainted with Karla Andersdatter and her poetry at a writer’s workshop with Denise Levertov in the late 1970’s. We formed a friendship and a sister-poet relationship that has lasted until today. Over the years we have shared and critiqued each other’s work, enjoyed each other’s readings and performances.

In the early 1980’s, Karla organized an event to raise money for anti-nuclear organizations. Women poets read their work at the Unitarian Church in San Francisco; Karla Andersdatter, Denise Levertov, Ellen Bass, Susan Griffin. Karla named the event, “Feminine Energy for Alternative Power”. It was one of the first events of that nature, in protest of nuclear proliferation, in the San Francisco Bay Area.

I was the M.C. of the event, and when I introduced Karla, I called her “a rainmaker”, wherever she goes, things happen. She read at other anti nuclear readings given during those years, with many well known poets, including Robert Bly, Robert Creeley, Carolyn Kizer.

Her work has reached many people, having been published in literary journals, newspapers, and collected into anthologies and volumes of poetry and prose. Her work is most noted for its powerful but controlled and eloquent emotional content. She does not shy away from the most difficult topics. It speaks to a lost connection with the Earth and a lost connection to ourselves.

It is an integrative and original vision in an attempt to reconcile gender differences and deepen male/female understanding. She has explored these themes in her work for 30 years. She is a prolific writer, and one who is old enough to have something to say. An educated public deserves to read her work

Mary Donahoe, Ph.D.
University of Oregon



"It is the artist in me, in whatever form she takes, who wants me to live, who brings joy to others and cleanses my emotions, who gives meaning to my life and allows me to listen to my heart, to believe the best, and find compassion for the worst in myself and in others."

"I believe that this creative force needs to be nurtured and used to its fullest extent during my lifetime, lest it become crippled and tortured, or turn in on itself to grow cruel, conniving, or destructive. It is always the Muse who rids one of darkness."

Karla Andersdatter

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BOINC Wiki . . .

Science Status Page . . .

Karla Andersdatter

Is this womans parents from Norway? hmmm...

Borglum Genealogy Links and Resources . . .

and Other "Borglum" family trees: Pedersdatter, Jensen, Andersdatter

> ps AriZ, i left a Message on Karla's machine and i quote her message there:

. . . the Butterflies are gone, and so am i . . . leave a Message and i Shall get back to you soon

;)

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BOINC Wiki . . .

Science Status Page . . .

...and then there is always Saudia Arabia where violence to women is institutionalized under the guise of a religion protecting women.

"Freedom and Democracy" take a back seat to black goo.

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