Engender blog
GUEST POST: Food for thought
Dr Shridevi Gopi-Firth is a Speciality Doctor in Eating Disorders working in Scotland. Her international education and career, including third sector work across India, Russia and the UK have given Shri a wide exposure to diverse cultural, social, educational and healthcare settings, thus successfully complementing her lived experience and clinical skills to develop a holistic understanding of the person. Here, she explores how stigma around eating disorders can affect women in BAME communities.
Eating – the most basic need of all things living, from the prokaryotic amoeba to the Dalai Lama. So when this signal in the brain gets scrambled and the eating becomes disordered, the inevitable reaction of the general populace is confusion, indignation, frustration and pity – empathy is a far way off since one cannot truly understand what causes a person to turn away from this basic need. This is never more pronounced than in Asian and African cultures where food brings people together and is the centre of every festival and get-together, big and small. Food is serious business in these cultures – I mean, in Asia alone, there are several deities devoted to food, the growing of it, the eating of it, the digesting of it, the gifting of it – one does not mess around with the concept of food!
F-words: Writing ourselves into existence
Raman Mundair is an Indian born, Queer, British Asian writer, artist, photographer and film maker. In this contribution to our F-words series, Raman explores the power that words can have in giving voice to experiences and identities so often ignored.
Follow Raman on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram (@ramanmundair & @rmundair), and listen to her 'intersectional voices' work at Anchor.fm.
Content note: this article discusses racism, childhood abuse, and victim-blaming.
![Black and brown women's perspectives [are] ignored, spoken over, co-opted or drowned out. A whole lexicon of lived experience wilfully erased.](siteimages/Blog/F-words/resized/f-words-(14)-400.png)
I recently read an article by Professor Lena Karlsson - 'Towards a language of sexual gray zones: feminist collective knowledge building through autobiographical multimedia storytelling' - which led me to consider that beyond the infinite shades of grey lies a rainbow of Black and brown women's stories that never get to breathe and take up space, not even in the constant hum of social media. These are doubly marginalised voices from within the grey spaces women can inhabit or are pushed into - Black and brown women's perspectives which are ignored, spoken over, co-opted or drowned out. A whole lexicon of lived experience wilfully erased.
F-words: Words against stereotypes
Juliana da Penha is a freelance journalist and founder of Migrant Women Press, an independent media organization about women’s experiences with migration. Here she blogs for us about the stereotyping of migrant women, and the power of words to challenge that. Follow Migrant Women Press on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
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What is the first word that comes to your mind when you think about migrant women?
If you are used to the mainstream media coverage about migration, while reading news about this topic, you will probably find the prevalence of some words. What are the implications of these words on the collective understanding of migrant experiences? More importantly, what is the impact of these words on women’s experiences with migration?
It’s a fact, exposed mainly by organizations focused on gender and migration, that the issues migrant women face are underreported. Although many scholars and migration specialists emphasize the phenomenon of “feminization of migration”, migrant women stories are invisible in the mainstream media coverage. Though, when we see news about them, what words are related?
In a quick Google search, I found words like “vulnerable”, “problem”, “difficult”, “exploited”, “crisis”, struggle”.
F-words: Language, power, and Blackness
In this first blog in our 'F-words' series, Claire L. Heuchan writes about how the capital 'B' in Black illustrates the link between words and anti-oppression. Claire tweets as SisterOutrider and blogs here.
Since taking my own place in the feminist movement, I’ve given a lot of thought to the relationship between language and power. Words are the markers we use to make sense of the world around us and where we fit in it. The language we choose can uphold social inequalities. Or it can challenge them. There is a connection between words and power, a bond that thrums with potential. Everyday words and phrases can be turned on their head, their meaning subverted.
The earliest example I can remember hearing comes from The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. The Banks family had gathered round the dinner table for their evening meal. A Christian family, they kicked off dinner by saying grace. And Ashley Banks – Will’s cousin, who brought a much-needed feminist perspective to the series – finished her prayer with ‘a-women’.
GUEST POST: Being a Black Woman in Scotland: A Unique and Complex Experience
In this guest blog, Aleisha Omeike writes for Engender about the need to recognise the unique experiences of Black women. Follow Aleisha on Twitter at aleisha_omeike.
CN: this piece references and quotes racist language and slurs.
In this piece, I have shared some of my opinions and observations being a mixed-race woman (White Scottish and Black African) in Scotland. The experience of Black (and minority ethnic) women in Scotland is a unique and complex one. I have chosen to discuss two of the most under addressed of these experiences, including the ongoing trauma and detrimental influence racist abuse can have on women of colour and the hypersexualisation of Black women.
With the large engagement in the Black Lives Matter Movement, I hope that Scotland can begin implementing the change so desperately needed to start improving Black women's experiences.
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Engender Briefing: Pension Credit Entitlement Changes
From 15 May 2019, new changes will be introduced which will require couples where one partner has reached state pension age and one has not (‘mixed age couples’) to claim universal credit (UC) instead of Pension Credit.
Engender Parliamentary Briefing: Condemnation of Misogyny, Racism, Harassment and Sexism
Engender welcomes this Scottish Parliament Debate on Condemnation of Misogyny, Racism, Harassment and Sexism and the opportunity to raise awareness of the ways in which women in Scotland’s inequality contributes to gender-based violence.
Gender Matters in Social Security: Individual Payments of Universal Credit
A paper calling on the Scottish Government to automatically split payments of Universal Credit between couples, once this power is devolved to the Scottish Parliament.
Gender Matters Manifesto: Twenty for 2016
This manifesto sets out measures that, with political will, can be taken over the next parliamentary term in pursuit of these goals.
Scottish NGO Briefing for UN Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women
Joint briefing paper for the UN Rapporteur on Violence Against Women.
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