by Artemis
In July 2024, the short 2023 documentary Old Lesbians was popular at film festivals. It describes the Old Lesbians Oral Herstory Project founded by Arden Eversmeyer of Austin, Texas, in 1996. Interviewers and their subjects are lesbians over 70. They follow the oral tradition of preserving history by recording people talking about their lives. These stories, archived at Smith College, are transcribed into booklets with photos and documents. Unique stories of over 900 subjects growing up before coming out was a safe option “remind us all of the relative freedom we now enjoy because of the women who were strong enough to live their lives and love whom they wanted in a hostile society.” The ongoing Project now covers 39 U.S. states and also Japan, Australia, Canada, and Costa Rica.
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In August, the Taliban in Afghanistan introduced a law granting “morality police” authority to arrest anyone violating its 35 articles. These especially oppress women, forbidding them to speak or show their faces in public, where they must cover themselves in black burkas. They are forbidden to interact with non-Muslim women or to sing or read aloud, even in their own homes. Currently, over 2,000 women are incarcerated in Taliban-run facilities for alleged crimes, including fleeing their homes. Since returning to power in 2021, the Taliban executed 37 people, imprisoning dozens of women activists for up to a year. One reported being stripped naked, another gang-raped, by Taliban members. In June, human rights groups warned the Taliban would be emboldened when the UN gave in to their demand to exclude women from a conference on the international community’s approach to Afghanistan. Afghan women and girls are speaking out, singing, and showing their faces in viral videos on social media. They use hashtags #LetUsExist, #FreeAfghanWomen, and #StandWithAfghanWomen. In a zoom meeting of over 50 young Afghan women with international activists, one stated, “Borders divide us, but the fight for women’s rights unites us all.”
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Also in August, 19 Afghan women arrived in Scotland to complete their medical degrees. This was arranged and financed by the Linda Norgrove Foundation (LNF), run by parents of a Scottish charity worker killed in Afghanistan. Among their programs benefiting Afghanistan, they “put emphasis on providing education and incomes for women because we believe that these are most likely to create a lasting change for the country.” LNF previously funded scholarships for women in Afghanistan studying medicine, midwifery, law, and business until the Taliban “suspended” women’s higher education. LNF and the students struggled for three years making arrangements, even persuading the Scottish government to change the law to treat them as home students eligible for free tuition. Some of the women are from Kabul, others from remote provinces. They stated they hope it will be safe for them to return home and practice when they become doctors.
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In July, in The Gambia, the National Assembly voted 34 to 19 for female genital mutilation (FGM) to remain illegal. Gambia banned FGM in 2015 but only began arresting those performing the procedure last year. This sparked a backlash by fundamentalist Muslim clerics, who promoted an effort to repeal the ban and railing that lawmakers voting to keep it were “going to hell.” Many Islamic scholars strongly oppose the notion that FGM is part of Islam. This vote was an important victory since other countries contemplating banning FGM, such as Sierra Leone and Liberia, were watching the outcome. Human rights organizations stated that more enforcement of the ban is needed but that the recent debates have finally broken the silence on this practice that causes physical and emotional harm to women.