TOPIC: feminism

The Brazilian Singer Trying To Shake The Sexism Out Of Samba

The Brazilian singer Nega Jaci has performed a new version of the well-known samba “Mulheres,” by Martinho da Vila, adapted by two Brazilian women to remove the sexist tone of the original lyrics.

LISBON — It's Saturday night in Lisbon, Portugal, and on stage at the bar Samambaia, in the Graça neighborhood, the beating of the tambourine and the strumming of the guitar signal the beginning of a hit by the carioca samba singer Martinho da Vila, which lists the various women who passed through the life of a man.

But this Saturday, the original version re-emerged as a new, liberating and empowered reinterpretatio, sung by Brazilian artist Nega Jaci.

Instead of "I've had women of all colors," Nega Jaci sings “We are women of all colors,” from an updated version created by Brazilian artists Doralyce and Silvia Duffrayer in 2018 – an adaptation that rewrites some stanzas of the original lyrics and which, since then, has become an anthem of female resistance in the “patriarchal” universe of samba.

The rewritten version by the Brazilian duo removes references to “unbalanced and confused” women in the lyrics, replacing them with feminist heroes in Brazil, including Chica da Silva and Elza Soares. Jaci also included a tribute to former Carioca councilwoman Marielle Franco, murdered in 2018.

The new lyrics reposition the woman's role, from being responsible for the man's happiness, finally concluding, in a liberated and independent tone, that the woman is everything that she one day dreamed to be.

“Samba lyrics tend to be super sexist and prejudiced, looking at women either as objects to serve men or as someone who needs to be taken care of, without giving due value to female power,” explains Jaci, who was born in Bahia, Brazil as Jacilene Santos Barbosa and has been living in Lisbon for eight years.

The feminist version of the well-known samba is unmissable in her set, and the moment when Jaci sings it in the presentation is preceded by a call to the women in the audience. It is for them that the performance is dedicated.

“I sing in honor of the women, but the men end up listening and reflecting on the theme in their own way,” she says.

This reflection has led other musicians to also look for a way to reposition themselves. Jaci recalls that not even Chico Buarque himself, universally loved among Brazilian musicians and apparently incontestable, is immune to the slippage of lyrics written in other times and contexts, but which now seem to no longer find space in a repertoire governed by political correctness.

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Parenthood, Redefined: 11 Hard Questions About Surrogacy

Contributing biologically to a child's creation no longer directly implies parenthood. Surrogacy has shaken up traditional ideas and beliefs about sexuality, reproduction and filiation. The author poses key questions that must be answered to ensure that surrogacy is driven by both science and ethics.

-Analysis-

MURCIA — We live in a rapidly changing society, particularly when it comes to interpersonal and familial relationships. Assisted reproductive technology (hereafter ART) has shaken traditional ideas about sexuality, reproduction and filiation.

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The act of child creation now goes beyond the sexual encounter between a man and a woman. Not only is reproduction without sex possible, it is also possible that there is no filial relationship between the participants who conceive a baby.

In some cases, those who gestate do not use their own eggs, such as with partner-assisted reproduction (ROPA) for couples who both possess female reproductive organs, often lesbians. In another example, sperm donors renounce their parental rights over the babies conceived.

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Mama Antula's Moment? An 18th-Century Feminist May Be The Next Catholic Saint

The Vatican may soon canonize the Mama Antula, an Argentine woman who started a spiritual movement at a time when religious intellectualism was strictly the domain the men.

BUENOS AIRES — The Vatican is studying the canonization of Mama Antula, an 18th century woman from northern Argentina who broke the rules to practice Christian spirituality. At the time, this was understood to be a job for the clergy and for men.

Some see her as an early defender of women's rights — and of the poor — in the Americas. She is also being hailed as the first "feminist" who would become a Catholic saint.

On March 7, Pope Francis declared "the time is very close when she could be a saint." The Pope, himself another Argentine, is an admirer of Mama Antula. When he was archbishop of Buenos Aires, he said "this woman is worth gold."

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Which Countries Have The Best Paternity Leave

Leave policies for new fathers differ widely around the world — and some men still worry they'll be perceived as less masculine if they take time off after having a kid. But change iis coming, and in some places where you might not expect.

PARIS — When we think of the countries worldwide which offer the best paternity leave, the Nordic countries immediately come to mind: Finland, Sweden, Norway. There's a good reason for that: after the birth of their child, Finnish fathers can take paternity leave for a maximum of 54 working days — one of the best paternity leave allowances around the world.

But since the beginning of 2023, other countries seem to be catching up — and there are various reasons for it. Of course, paternity can be considered a feminist policy and an improvement for women’s conditions, as women too often are stuck with the majority of a family’s chores and mental workload.

But that is not the only reason why, around the world, some governments are now establishing or extending paternity leave.

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Society

Dante Ureta

Spy In The Patriarchy, Diary Of A Transgender Man

The author describes his experience as a transgender man: How his physical transition has given him access to new spaces and conversations that were previously inaccessible to him as a woman, and how it's made him feel like a spy within the patriarchy.

MEXICO CITY — At the beginning of my social transition, I felt like a spy. The 250 milligrams of testosterone that entered my body every twenty-something days brought physical changes that gave me access to spaces, conversations, and situations that were previously foreign to someone perceived as a woman.

When I found myself in those situations, I laughed, imagining I'm a spy, embedded deep inside the patriarchy.

If you met me for the first time, you wouldn't know that I spent 20 years of my life being perceived as a woman. As the Spanish writer Paul Preciado says, the strangest thing about becoming a man is keeping intact the memory of the oppression.

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The sudden changes in my body became clear when, on a lonely street at night, a woman changed sidewalks when she saw me walking towards her. I felt strange; I felt the need to run after her and explain that I wasn't one of “them," that I'm trans, and that she didn't have to worry about me. But imagining the scene made me laugh at how ridiculous it would be to run after a total stranger, and just scare her more.

I noticed this too when I went to clubs and partied during my first few months on testosterone. I felt my space invaded as strangers touched me in places where before they weren't even allowed to touch by mistake.

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Dottoré!

Mariateresa Fichele

A Woman’s Work Is Never Done

... unless she's a famous influencer?

“In the morning I get up at 5:30 a.m. I clean the house, then I wake up the children at 7. I get them ready, make them breakfast, then at 7:30, we leave for school. At 8:30, I start work. I clean two offices, then at 11, I go to a lady's house to clean until 3.30 p.m.

At 4 p.m. I pick up the children. I take them home and help them with their homework. Three days a week, I take my youngest to a physiotherapist at 5.30 p.m. The other days, there’s my daughter's catechism classes and my other daughter’s gym lessons. By 7:30 p.m. it's dinner time, because at 8 p.m. I have to go clean offices when they close. Then by 10 p.m. I come back and put them to bed.

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Society

Karl De Meyer

Welcome To Umeå, The Swedish City Designed By And For Women

Umeå in northern Sweden is a veritable feminist city. And the initiatives go much deeper than just policies and promises — they shape how the city is built.

UMEÅ — For years, this university town in northern Sweden has been working towards building a city truly made for women as much as men. The task is a lot more difficult than you might first imagine. In addition to ensuring safety in public spaces, the municipality also aims to correct the biases inherited from the past.

In the Umeå town hall square, the movement is symbolized by a striking sculpture. With its muscles flexed, a sharp feline glares angrily at passers-by from a pedestal set on metal rods that signify the bars of the cage from which it has just escaped. Blazing red, the sculpture by artist Camilla Akraka, which Umeå residents have dubbed "the puma" since its unveiling in 2019, was commissioned by the municipality as an allegory for the#MeToo movement.

Its title, "Listen," means that even in a country known to be very progressive and ahead of the curve on gender equality issues, there is still work to be done.

"In Umeå, we do not have an equestrian statue of a king or a general, but an angry feline who has reason to be," says smiling Linda Gustafsson, in front of the "puma", while readjusting her hat as the first flakes of the season flutter in early November.

The gender studies graduate bears a rather unique title: she is one of the two "gender equality officers" at the town hall. The position has existed since 1989 in Umeå, the country's 13th largest city with a population of just over 131,000, almost a quarter of whom are students.

So when conservatives called for the removal of the "puma" during the municipal election campaign, which was held at the same time as the parliamentary elections in September 2022, the Social Democrats made it clear that the animal would remain in its place if they were re-elected.

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Green

Martina Di Paula, Sara Navarro and Juventud por el Clima

"Slow-Burn Consumption," A Feminist Model To Reconcile Economy And Ecology

Mass consumption is encouraged in the West, but people, particularly women, and the planet pay the price for exploitative capitalism. So, we need to be clear that taking care of each other and tackling the climate crisis are inextricably linked.

Discussing consumption is never easy. The conversation gets even more complex when you consider the political action (or lack thereof) of the person who is consuming. How do we manage the instinct of somehow holding the individual solely responsible for the climate crisis.

There is a capitalist system that drags us towards mass consumption, but when more than one person rethinks the consumption model, we sow a seed that will bear fruit if we all water it.

Leticia Toledo and Maria Victoria Coronado drew attention to this in their article 'Slow-burn Consumption': “We live in a capitalist and patriarchal economic system, the existence of which is based on unlimited growth, which consumes raw materials and human energy to generate money," they write. "In this context, the only jobs that are considered to exist are those that produce goods and services that can be monetized."

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Society

Annalisa Camilli

How Italy's "Conscientious Objector" Doctors — De Facto — Limit Abortion Rights

Italy decriminalized abortion in 1978, but the law allows for doctors to conscientiously object. And so many do that it makes it difficult for many women to access health care when they need it most, with some turning to unsafe abortions.

COSENZA — At the Annunziata Civil Hospital in this southern Italian city, every single gynecologist is a conscientious objector. So pregnancy termination is possible only twice a week here when the visiting doctor who performs the procedure is present.

“More than six months after the resignation of the only non-objector gynecologist at Annunziata, the service is still lacking and is proceeding in fits and starts," explain the activists of the FEM.IN collective, who met with the hospital's administrative director in December and made them promise to hire two more doctors and guarantee the service in the area.

The hospital is not an isolated case in Italy. According to a Ministry of Health report from 2022, 64.6% of Italian gynecologists were conscientious objectors in 2020, a rate slightly lower than 2019, while 44.6% of anesthesiologists and 36.2% of non-medical staff object to performing pregnancy terminations.

This means that 45 years after the passage of the law that decriminalized abortion in Italy through the third month of pregnancy, the "objection" rate among physicians and health care professionals is so high that it makes the termination of pregnancy effectively impractical in many areas of the country.

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Society

Julia Amigo

Kleptomania, How A "Women's Pathology" Was Built On Gender And Class Bias

Between 1880 and 1930, there was a significant rise in thefts in department stores, mostly committed by women from the middle and upper classes. This situation brought with it the establishment of a new pathology: kleptomania. A century later, feminist historians have given new meaning to the practice as a protest against the social structures and oppressions of capitalism and patriarchy.

Kleptomania is defined as the malicious and curious propensity for theft. The legal language tends to specify that the stolen objects are not items of necessity; medically, it is explained as an uncontrollable impulse.

What seems clear is that kleptomania is a highly enigmatic condition and one of the few mental disorders that comes from the pathologization of a crime, which makes it possible to use it as a legal defense. It differs from the sporadic theft of clothing, accessories, or makeup (shoplifting) as the kleptomaniac's impulse is irresistible.

Studies have shown that less than one percent of the population suffers from kleptomania, being much more common among women (although determining exact numbers is very difficult).

The psychiatric disorders manual, DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) has included kleptomania since 1962. Previously, it had already received attention from, among others, Sigmund Freud. Like nymphomania or hysteria, kleptomania became an almost exclusively female diagnosis linked to the biology of women's bodies and an “inability” to resist uncontrollable desire.

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Beatriz Gimeno

Feminism Should Not Fear Trans Rights

At some point, certain branches of feminism will have to explain how they ended up on the same side as the extreme right. But societies that fight for the rights of all are better to live in for everyone. View from a veteran of the feminist battle.

-Essay-

MADRID — As time passes, it will become more evident that a branch of feminism fell into a kind of "paranoia campaign" over what it calls trans ideology.

Someday, there will be regret about the support given to the global extreme right that invented the so-called “gender ideology” to combat feminism. For extreme right-wing evangelicals, ”gender ideology” is the great threat, comparable even to communism.

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TOPIC: feminism

The Brazilian singer Nega Jaci has performed a new version of the well-known samba “Mulheres,” by Martinho da Vila, adapted by two Brazilian women to remove the sexist tone of the original lyrics.

Suite dos Pescadores - Nega Canta a Bahia - Rtp africa

A voice that has gone around the world

Chico Buarque's new feijoada recipe

No international consensus

Risk of reproductive tourism

Questions raised

Individual vs. society

The Vatican may soon canonize the Mama Antula, an Argentine woman who started a spiritual movement at a time when religious intellectualism was strictly the domain the men.

Spiritual retreats

Path to canonization

Leave policies for new fathers differ widely around the world — and some men still worry they'll be perceived as less masculine if they take time off after having a kid. But change iis coming, and in some places where you might not expect.

Encouraging paternity leave for economic reasons

A change to tackle declining births

Masculinity and vision of the workplace

The author describes his experience as a transgender man: How his physical transition has given him access to new spaces and conversations that were previously inaccessible to him as a woman, and how it's made him feel like a spy within the patriarchy.

Black and white

What does femininity look like?

Patriarchal thinking

Assigned violent at birth

Patriarchy robs men of humanity

"Their relationship with masculinity is the cause and effect."

... unless she's a famous influencer?

Umeå in northern Sweden is a veritable feminist city. And the initiatives go much deeper than just policies and promises — they shape how the city is built.

Keeping women safe

Nobody puts baby in the corner

Exporting good design practices

👋 Ia Orana!*

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Talking risks: New research finds psychotherapy can have dangerous side effects

Mass consumption is encouraged in the West, but people, particularly women, and the planet pay the price for exploitative capitalism. So, we need to be clear that taking care of each other and tackling the climate crisis are inextricably linked.

Economics of equality

True price of fast fashion

Caring for others, and the environment

Italy decriminalized abortion in 1978, but the law allows for doctors to conscientiously object. And so many do that it makes it difficult for many women to access health care when they need it most, with some turning to unsafe abortions.

Church and state

Penalizing professionally

The conscientious objectors

A map of facilities

Politics and health care

A law with many limitations

Clandestine procedures

The first kleptomaniacs

Is kleptomania a real illness?

The sadness and symbolism of Winona Ryder

A feminist reading

At some point, certain branches of feminism will have to explain how they ended up on the same side as the extreme right. But societies that fight for the rights of all are better to live in for everyone. View from a veteran of the feminist battle.

A reactionary ideology

Denial of fear

Fighting the right fight

News for the international mind.

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