Red Ajah IWW:2015 Presents International Influential Women

[Ahmyra al'Ruley]

Hey y'all, have you ever heard a story about a woman that influenced you, someone you know or the world at large?

Someone like Mother Theresa? Why don't you share a story about her, show us a picture if you can find one, or shoot us a link to her wiki page with a little blurb about why you think she deserves the title of International Influential Woman.

 

 

I'll start us off with Kate Middleton.

 

From this:

 

To this:

 

 

I think that Kate is an inspiration to all women out there. She did not let the humble(ish) beginnings of her birth stop her from going after everything she wanted out of life. She got a freakin' Prince of her own out of the deal. I am truly glad that if I ever have a little girl that she will be able to grow up with Kate as a role model.

 

 

Let's see your International Influential Women!

[Daruya]

Don't you know my mind went totally blank just now.  I'll be back, though!  Great topic, Ahmyra!

[Ryrin]

Mukhtar Mai Women’s Organization

• Envisions an equal opportunity society where men and women are treated equally and are able to exercise their civil, political, social, economic and cultural rights.
• Is committed to work against all forms of violence and discrimination against women through advocacy, capacity building, awareness raising and service delivery at all levels of society.
• Is aspiring to bring about positive and lasting change by provisions of services that promotes economic, social and cultural empowerment.
• Is working to eliminate violence against women through education, advocacy, capacity building, awareness raising, and service delivery at all levels of society.

http://www.mukhtarmai.org/mission/

 

After Mukhtar Mai was gang raped on the orders of a tribal court in Pakistan in 2002, local tradition dictated she was expected to commit suicide.  She defied her attackers and fought for justice. More than a decade on, she is still fighting for women's rights in Pakistan and inspiring many around the world. Mai's "honor revenge" was carried out on the orders of a jirga -- a tribal assembly -- because her 12-year-old brother was wrongly accused, according to a subsequent investigation ordered by the Punjab governor, of improper relations with a woman from another tribe. Initially, her rapists were sentenced to death and all but one were later released in 2011.

 

Convinced that lack of education contributed to the poor treatment of women, Mai established a girls' school, initially in a single room of her family home with a just one teacher and three students, including herself." The first school I attended was my own school," said Mai.  For the first three years, she ran the school without any outside funding. "Whatever I earned I used to pay the salary of the teacher. Sometimes I had to sell my own things," she said. Mai's school gained worldwide attention following a spate of articles in the international press in 2005 and donations began to pour in -- as well as some government money. Today the Mukhtar Mai Girl's Model School offers free education, books and uniforms to 550 girls from nursery to the beginning of high school. In addition, she has set up a women's shelter and resource center for victims of violence, while her memoir, "In the Name of Honor", was published in 2006 and has been translated into 23 languages.

 

[Sooh]

That's an amazing story, Ryrin! What a woman!

[Ahmyra al'Ruley]

Holy brave and strong batman!!! Excellemy story!

[Daruya]

Truly a strong woman, Thanks for sharing that, Ryrin.

[Elgee]

That was a truly inspiring story, Ryrin - thank you for sharing that!

[Ahmyra al'Ruley]

Feel free to share more stories. There have to be more women out there....

[Ryrin]

We had a local theater group put on this play "Seven."  That's where I learned about Mai and the others.  SEVEN has been performed all over the world and has been translated into 25 languages.

 

http://seventheplay.com/the-women-the-playwrights/

 

 

5

 

 

Hafsat Abiola Nigeria 

 

When Hafsat Abiola was studying at Harvard University in 1994, she was approached by a group of students on campus. Brandishing clipboards and pens, they urgently told her that an elected President was being held in jail in Nigeria, and they were collecting signatures to demand his release. Abiola broke down. They were speaking about her father.  He later died while incarcerated.  Her mother was killed by a gunman on the day she was supposed to fly to the States to see her daughter graduate.

 

Her parents battled for gender equality and democracy in a nation where both have been repressed for decades.  True democracy in Africa’s most populous country remains far off. “[My parents] sowed so many seeds. If I’m not careful, if I just ignore and abandon their work, then everything that they did will be for nothing. I want everyone to be able to benefit from their sacrifice.”

 

Hafsat founded the Kudirat Initiative for Democracy, which provides skills-training and leadership opportunities for young women across Nigeria. She now serves as the youngest member of the Ogun State cabinet in Nigeria and is also the Special Adviser on the Millennium Development Goals to the State governor. 

 

[Ryrin]

Oh, you are all welcome.  

[Ryrin]

“A WOMAN CALLED THE HOT LINE AND SAID HER HUSBAND PLANNED TO KILL HER. I CALLED THE POLICE BUT THE OFFICER IMMEDIATELY CALLED THE HUSBAND, SAYING, ‘LOOK , IF YOU DO IT, DO IT QUIETLY.’ AND I REALIZED THERE WAS NO HOPE.”

 

Marina Pisklakova is Russia’s leading women’s rights activist. She studied aeronautical engineering in Moscow, and while conducting research at the Russian Academy of Sciences, was startled to discover family violence had reached epidemic proportions. Because of her efforts, Russian officials started tracking domestic abuse and estimate that, in a single year, close to 15,000 women were killed and 50,000 were hospitalized, while only one-third to one-fifth of all battered women received medical assistance. With no legislation outlawing the abuse, there were no enforcement mechanisms, support groups, or protective agencies for victims. In July 1993, Pisklakova founded a hot line for women in distress, later expanding her work to establish the first women’s crisis center in the country. She lobbied for legislation banning abuse, and worked with an openly hostile law enforcement establishment to bring aid to victims and prosecution to criminals. She began a media campaign to expose the violence against women and to educate women about their rights, and regularly appears on radio and television promoting respect for women’s rights. Today her organization ANNA (National Center for the Prevention of Violence) operates a network of 170 crisis centers across Russia and the former Soviet Union. She is now active not only in combating the scourge of violence against women, but also in trafficking of women and children. In 2004 she was the recipient of the Human Rights Global Leadership Award. Pisklakova’s efforts have saved countless lives, at great risk to her own.

 

[Elgee]

I despair at the atrocities of this world quite often, but hearing the stories of women like those mentioned above astounds and uplifts.

[Daruya]

If you do it do it quietly?  WTH?!  *headdesk*

[WildTaltos]

Tshaukuesh

 

From Survival International:

 

Elizabeth ‘Tshaukuesh’ Penashue is an 84 year old Innu woman from Sheshatshiu in Labrador.

 

For many years she has led a spring-time walk through the local Mealy Mountains, with the aim of reconnecting the younger Innu generation with the lands they have lived on for nearly 8,000 years.

 

I don’t want to see my children lose everything. I don’t want them to lose their Innu identity, culture and life, she told a Survival International researcher. Before I’m gone, I have to teach the children. If nobody teaches our children, what will they think when they grow up? Will they think ‘I’m not Innu, I’m a white person’?

 

It is important to know who you are. I am Innu. The country is my life. I’m proud that I was born in a tent. No nurse, no doctor. My father helped my mother give birth.

 

When I walk into the country, I feel like I’m going home, into my own place. The Innu place.

 

i admire her for her championing indigenous cultural preservation and think her superb physical health for her age is testament to what living a natural lifestyle can do.

[Ryrin]

I too, despair, quite often, but these women are so uplifting.

 

Taltos, Tshaukuesh, is awesome.  She both lives and wants to transmit her culture to the young ones.  She appears very strong in that picture and appears to easily be able to do for herself.

[WildTaltos]

Vandana Shiva

An indian environmental rights and anti-globalisation activist and author of over 20 books concerning these subjects. She is a member of the International Forum on Globalization, an advocacy group created to address building sustainable economies and democratic societies in the face of increasing wealth and rights inequity and ecological collapse driven by globalisation. She is an advocate of what is known as alter-globalisation, which supports the benefits of globalisations such as inter-community cooperation, but rejects the various negative consequences such as habitat simplification and introduction of invasive species, cultural destruction and homogenization, and capitalistic exploitation. 

 

Having an recieved a PhD from the University of Western Ontario, Vandana has been involved in interdisciplinary research and informed political advocacy groups in line with her philosophy. She is an advocate for ecofeminism, a set of philosophy and practices which advocates that environmental health and the building of ecologically sustainable societies is dependent upon the inclusion of women and their equality with men as opposed to the environmentally-destructive force of domination and subjugation which today's civilisations are built upon that is patriarchy. She has also written extensively about and opposes GMO crops/organisms and their dangers, including the controversial practice of patenting genes and organisms which she has dubbed "biopiracy." With her advocacy groups, Vandana has won several cases against US organisations that attempted to patent native Indian plants such as neem and basmati rice. She has also written about the "hoax of golden rice," citing that there are many native greens that children can eat with far more vitamin A than golden rice, and while opponents have countered that most children in question do not have access to such greens, it is largely because of exploitative economic relationships, in which many people in developing and in developed countries are prevented access to these plants, either physically through environmental destruction and westernised property laws or mentally through dessiminating cultural knowledge of these greens, and such exploitation Vandana aims to eliminate by returning power and food autonomy to local, indigenous levels. Finally, as mentioned, she is an advocate for indigenous ways of life, which are invariably sustainable, autonomous, and culturally diverse.

 

She has been a recipient of numerous awards, including the Earth Day International Award and the Sydney Peace Prize, and she is admired globally by indigenous rights advocacy groups and environmental advocacy groups.

[Elgee]

Those are two amazing women, Taltos! Nature and sustainable farming are especially close to my heart, too.

[Ryrin]

As a young girl, Malala Yousafzai defied the Taliban in Pakistan and demanded that girls be allowed to receive an education. Malala Yousafzai was born on July 12, 1997, in Mingora, Pakistan. As a child, she became an advocate for girls' education. Yousafzai attended a school that her father, Ziauddin Yousafzai, had founded. After the Taliban began attacking girls' schools in Swat, Malala gave a speech in Peshawar, Pakistan, in September 2008. The title of her talk was, "How dare the Taliban take away my basic right to education?"  In early 2009, Yousafzai began blogging for the BBC about living under the Taliban's threats to deny her an education. In order to hide her identity, she used the name Gul Makai. However, she was revealed to be the BBC blogger in December of that year. When she was 14, Malala and her family learned that the Taliban had issued a death threat against her. On October 9, 2012, on her way home from school, a man boarded the bus Malala was riding in and demanded to know which girl was Malala. When her friends looked toward Malala, her location was given away. The gunman fired at her, hitting Malala in the left side of her head; the bullet then traveled down her neck.  The shooting left Malala in critical condition, so she was flown to a military hospital in Peshawar. A portion of her skull was removed to treat her swelling brain. To receive further care, she was transferred to Birmingham, England.  She recovered after multiple surgeries. She continues to speak out.  In October 2014, Yousafzai received the Nobel Peace Prize, along with Indian children's rights activist Kailash Satyarthi. 

 

[Elgee]

That girl is a walking miracle.

[Daruya]

That girl is a walking miracle.

 

And an inspiration.

[Ryrin]

Wise beyond her years. Amazing!

 

“The extremists were and they are afraid of books and pens, the power of education frightens them. They are afraid of women,” Malala said. “When we were in Swat … we realised the importance of pens and books when we saw the guns."

[Ahmyra al'Ruley]

this is awesome ladies!!! It is so great to hear/read these stories of women that are making a difference!

[Ryrin]

That young woman is such a blessing to others....... what courage and wisdom at such a young age.

[Ryrin]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2984205/Four-year-old-Siahj-Chase-responds-verbal-smackdown-boy-calls-ugly.html

 

When a little boy called a four-year-old girl ugly, she gave him a hilarious verbal smackdown that included some valuable lessons wise beyond her years.

 "I didn't come to make a fashion statement. I came here to learn, not look pretty."

 

 

 

[Ahmyra al'Ruley]

Out of the mouth of babes....

 

These are great everyone!!