Monthly Archives

May 2023

‘I got a brain injury and a life sentence’: the hidden legacy of male violence against women

by Narges Mohammadi May 21, 2023

HEALTH/ The effects of head trauma on athletes are well documented. Finally, a UK study is examining the long-term brain health of females abused by their partner The violence began long before Freya Doe* married at 18 – and it quickly escalated. “It was what I thought love was,” she says, speaking on Zoom from her home in the US. On one occasion, her husband punched her in the face, threw her off a porch, and repeatedly slammed her head on the ground. He threatened her with one of the several guns he owned and then strangled her until she lost consciousness. When she came to, he was talking on the phone, saying: “I finally did it. I finally killed the bitch.”

Blood vessels in her eyes had burst. She was in hospital for a week. Twenty-two X-rays were taken of her head, neck, back, and chest. “I was told the migraines would go away. They didn’t,” she says.

Doe left her husband after 18 months. “He slams your head against a wall – which he used to do a lot – and a couple of days later, he [does it] again. Your brain doesn’t have time to recover from those traumas.” Fifteen years later, in her 30s, Doe thought she was experiencing early-onset dementia. She would forget words and suffer from anxiety and panic attacks. Then, in 2017, she read an article by US neuroscientist Dr. Eve Valera, a pioneer in the field, and she understood. Her ex-husband’s violence had damaged her brain. “I laugh about it now,” she says, “so I don’t cry.”

Brain Injury

The connection between traumatic brain injury (TBI) and intimate partner violence (IPV) is a global scandal and a public health secret. In the UK, it is hard to find any reference to it on websites concerning violence against women and girls, women’s organizations, major brain injury charities, or in training for health, police, and social workers. Yet physically, mentally, and emotionally it can affect thousands of women over their lifetime, long after the abuse has ended.

Precisely how many is unknown but in the UK now, for the first time, a longitudinal study is underway to try to establish the potential scale of the numbers of people affected and investigate the long-term brain health risks associated with exposure to IPV.

The Drake IPV study was established in 2021 and is due to publish its first two papers soon. It is headed by Glasgow University neuropathologist Prof William Stewart. The study focuses on women who are participating in Prevent Dementia, a UK-wide longitudinal study looking at risk factors for dementia in midlife.

“Remarkably, up to 30% of women may experience IPV over their lifetime, yet so little is understood,” says Stewart. “Even that statistic makes people sit up and say: ‘Hang on a second, that can’t be right.’ But it is. Sadly, studies and pathology of IPV-related TBI are vanishingly small.”

Drake Foundation

Scientific publisher James Drake initially established the Drake Foundation in 2014 to understand and improve the health and welfare of people in sports affected by head injuries. Research has since established that footballers have four to five times the risk of developing dementia than the general public. In 2021, 1.7 million women in England and Wales experienced domestic violence.

How many are also at increased risk of dementia? “You’re doing my head in” may yet prove all too true. The brain, floating in fluid, is highly fragile. Injury is caused by a hard blow or jolt that causes the head to move rapidly back and forth. Injury can also happen from lack of oxygen to the brain as a result of strangulation or suffocation.

One extreme consequence of multiple concussions is chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), which may mimic forms of dementia and the development of neurodegenerative diseases. CTE is only established after death by a post-mortem. Doe, now in her 50s and happily remarried, has had to cut down her work and suffers from neural fatigue, anxiety, migraines, and dizziness. “It’s damage that’s progressive and it’s going to last my lifetime,” she says.

“At Glasgow, we have the largest archive of brain tissue for research globally,” Stewart says, “25% to 30% female. Undoubtedly, we must have many cases of unrecognized IPV-related brain injury in our archive, but the stories remain hidden.”

Standing Courageous

Individuals who have become campaigners, like Doe, do have personal stories to tell. Paula Walters is another survivor. She founded Standing Courageous, a non-profit organization, in Ohio in 2015. In 2006, her then-boyfriend threatened her at gunpoint. He hit, kicked, and strangled her. “I don’t know if I should kiss you or kill you,” he said. He was given probation and a fine. “I got a disability and a life sentence.”

Walters developed problems with balance. She became forgetful and irritable and found it difficult to concentrate. She was constantly tired and avoided bright lights and noisy areas. Medical bills left her in debt as one incorrect diagnosis followed another. A paramedic, she lost her job.

It took 13 years before Walters received a correct diagnosis – traumatic brain injury caused by IPV, revealed by an MRI scan. Since 2019 she has been getting her life back on track. “I didn’t realize how sick I was until I felt well,” she has said.

Now she speaks publicly about IPV-related TBI and trains professionals, including the police. They may see a woman in a confused state and unable to get her story straight and assume she is lying or drunk. The signs of brain injury are rarely recognized. In 2019, the domestic abuse charity SafeLives conducted research for the Disabilities Trust. It revealed that 81% of practitioners supporting survivors of domestic abuse had no training in brain injuries and 62% felt unprepared to identify symptoms.

More Details of the Research for Disabilities Trust

Survivors themselves may fail to realize the true cause of their lives falling apart – behavior that may result in eviction from a refuge, a failure to navigate benefits, housing, employment, and the loss of a child because of perceived “failings” as a mother. “Taking the children away and giving them to the abuser, what sense does that make?” asks Valera. In the 1990s she was studying neuropsychology while volunteering in a women’s shelter where users were reporting many post-concussive symptoms. Valera linked. “I heard what the women were saying. Shockingly, my search for literature on this topic yielded zero results.”

Undaunted, and unable to acquire proper funding, Valera conducted her research “on a shoestring”. She interviewed 99 women in a shelter: 75% reported at least one brain injury sustained from partners, and half reported sometimes many more. Interviewees had major cognitive difficulties and suffered from high levels of anxiety and depression.

Thirty years later Valera points out that while there has been lavish funding and a plethora of concussion-related research into “punch drunk syndrome” in boxing and a range of other sports and the military, the connection between battered women and brain injury has only just begun to attract attention. Why the delay?

“We live in a patriarchal society and women are still second class,” Valera says. “We aren’t given the same appreciation in science. Males, including in animal research, are studied far more than females.” Valera also points out that while athletics makes money, dealing with the aftermath of male violence does not. “Money is key.”

The Enigma

The Enigma (Enhancing Neuro Imaging Genetics through Meta-Analysis) consortium is an ambitious global attempt to study neuroimaging, cognitive, psychological, and genetic data to uncover biomarkers and outcomes associated with different diseases and disorders. Set up in 2009, it now encompasses over 40 countries, 1,400 scientists, 200 institutions, and 50 working sub-groups examining areas such as schizophrenia, autism, brain injury, and the development of aging. The group has already accessed over 50,000 participants.

Five years ago, the Enigma brain working team developed a sub-group to investigate IPV-related brain injury – except that, globally, very limited data on IPV-related violence exists. “At the time, I don’t think people in our field understood how high the prevalence of brain injury and head trauma is in people with exposure to intimate partner violence,” says Dr. Carrie Esopenko, head of the sub-group.

Not all brain injury is apparent when individuals are seeking support so, says Esopenko, the right questions must be asked – by police, by health professionals, by researchers. She is also conducting a separate brain study of IPV. “We received a multimillion-dollar grant in 2021 but this is a marathon, not a sprint.”

As research develops, questions to be answered include how much IPV may increase a woman’s risk of dementia, as well as her fertility and health, later in life. It ought also to trigger a reappraisal in policing and the criminal justice system of a crime that can inflict more injury than initially is apparent. In 2019, the Canadian government gave $1m for research on IPV-related TBI to Soar (Supporting Survivors of Abuse and Brain Injury through Research) set up three years earlier in British Columbia by Karen Mason, head of a women’s shelter, and neuroscientist Dr Paul van Donkelaar.

Goals of Soar

Soar has three goals, “Explore, Educate, Empower”.

“When you think about injuries in sport, people choose to do it anyway,” Doe says. “But a victim of IPV is an unwilling participant.”

One woman who suffered at least three concussions at the hands of her ex-partner suggested to her doctor that the violence might be the cause of her migraines. She was told: “Let’s not go chasing zebras every time we hear hoofbeats.” By contrast, at Soar, survivors receive six months of part-time holistic rehabilitation services that include counseling, occupational therapy, aerobic exercise, meditation, and help addressing health and practical problems, plus follow-up support.

“I have yet to meet a woman who doesn’t find it empowering just to know that TBI is part of their trauma versus not knowing,” Valera says.

The dots haven’t yet been fully joined up but awareness is growing. In 2019 the Disabilities Trust organized a roundtable of frontline professionals and called for “uniquely tailored support”. More recently, research revealed that four in five women prisoners in Scotland have a history of significant head injury, while the Brain Charity announced a free program to support those who work with offenders with brain injury and other neurodiversity.

Last week, the Institute for Addressing Strangulation (IFAS) opened and it, too, hopes to improve training and awareness of the risk of brain injury.

“What can we do if we do learn more?” says Professor Stewart. “If the answer is ‘nothing’, I wouldn’t be doing this work.”

Source: The Guardian

May 21, 2023 1 comment

Asia Politics

AGAIN; The Taliban Government Suppresses Women’s Demonstrations in Kabul ©

by Narges Mohammadi May 19, 2023

AFGHANISTAN/Afghan women protested against the continued Taliban ban on girls’ education. There chants were “Education is our right“, “Right, justice, freedom” and “Either all or none“.

The first demonstration of Afghan women this year was held in the west of Kabul. The Taliban government suppressed these protests “violently”.

When the protestors arrived at the “school station” in the west of Kabul, they faced the obstruction of the Taliban troops who disrupted the women’s demonstration with “violence” and “insults”. They arrested three women in these protests.

According to the information provided by certain sources, Malala Hashemi, Roqia SaeI, and Fatemeh Mohammadi are the women who were arrested. We have no further information about their fate until now.

Female protesters say that the Taliban transferred these women to the 13th security district of Kabul City after their arrest, and they still do not have more information about them.

Continuation of Oppressing Women

The three women who were arrested by the Taliban group; were the first group of female protesters who were imprisoned in 2023.

Afghan protesting women say that the arrest of these three women is a sign of the continuation of the Taliban group’s policy of oppression against women.

One of the protesting women, told a news reporter that “Taliban are afraid of women’s street protests, and that is why they suppress these protests with absolute violence.”

The journalist added that they had started their demonstration by observing the full hijab and in a completely peaceful manner.

Another female protester also says that Afghan women have been deprived of all their rights under the rule of the Taliban group for more than a year and a half.

She says that “Our girls are in a bad mental state and live in their homes like a prisoner.”

According to what she says, they will not be “stopped” by oppression and violence. If such a policy could have stopped them, their protests would not have continued for the past year and a half.

Request for the immediate release of the detainees

By publishing leaflets, demonstrators say that they are worried about the fate of the 3 women that are now in the custody of the Taliban group and want them to be released immediately.

Richard Bennett, the special rapporteur for human rights of the United Nations in Afghanistan, also called for the immediate release of the women who have been arrested by Taliban.

The United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human Rights for Afghanistan has called for the “immediate” and “unconditional” release of the 3 women.

Human rights organizations call the policy of the Taliban group towards women “sexual apartheid” and demand its recognition by the international community.

These institutions say that the international community should practically stand by the women of Afghanistan and not limit themselves to issuing declarations in response to the Taliban’s misogynistic policies.

May 19, 2023 0 comment

Europe Society

NEW; No Reward For Leaning in-The Workplace Toll of Emotional Labor

by Narges Mohammadi May 17, 2023

OPINION/Women are expected to play an impossible game in workplace: show compassion and submission while being assertive and confident

When Devin McNalley, a Michigan native, landed a job in marketing at a large legacy automotive company in her 20s, she couldn’t wait to prove her worth. Her university degree in communications and a self-starter attitude that had transformed a server job into a PR one made her believe she could do good work, get noticed, and even start to meaningfully climb the corporate ladder.

The Story

Devin was entering a male-dominated industry, but she didn’t blink at it. Her mother was among the first generation of women to enter white-collar industries en masse in the second half of the 20th century. The figure of a corporate woman was normal to her, and she had good reason to believe her qualifications, combined with her natural intelligence, charm, and assertiveness, would work in her favor as she sought to get ahead.

Only a few years prior, in 2010, Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s then-COO, delivered a viral Ted Talk titled Why We Have Too Few Women Leaders, followed by a 2013 bestselling book, Lean In. Her insight promised younger women like Devin the tools to do what few women of older generations had managed: climb the corporate ladder and thrive.

Sandberg called on women to act as if they belonged in positions of power and be as self-assured as the men who didn’t hesitate to center themselves and their ideas. She posited that women tended to lean out in professional settings, where they needed to lean in. Sandberg’s message was clear and empowering: with the right kind of individual attitude, personal life choices, and toning down of apologetic feminine behaviors, women could finally move forward, and up. Her ideas hit a nerve with women in America and beyond.

The cherry on the cake came when one of her male directors told her she ‘came across as really abrasive for a woman’

Devin, entering the workforce just as this worldwide cultural phenomenon was taking place, knew that if anyone was unafraid of grabbing a seat at the table, leaning in, and making their voice heard when they knew their stuff, it was her.

Soon enough, an opportunity arose.

Invited into an all-male marketing meeting on tactics for “reaching millennials”, which was then the largest young generation over 18, she remembers listening dumbfounded as the men in the room proposed a strategy focused on the use of print magazines for advertising. There was no mention of social media, let alone any inquiring as to the degree young people read physical magazines.

It was instantly clear to her that this would not work. Her insight crystallized even further when meeting attendees proposed – to widespread approval – a “sticker” idea, which would involve free stickers in these print magazines that could be peeled out and stuck on objects. The idea could not have seemed more out of touch to a member of a generation that receives most of its information online.

Devin thought this strategy would not resonate with any of her contemporaries, let alone reach them. As a member of the marketing team as well as a member of the millennial group the whole meeting was about, she believed the point was worth sharing.

She recalls enunciating, “This is a really bad idea,” before going into a clear explanation of the problems with the proposed ideas. The room froze.

This is how Devin had witnessed the men in the meeting talk to one another, regardless of status or age. She was simply interacting with them the way she had observed them interacting with each other. But for a woman, this kind of behavior carried penalties, she learned.

Her lean-in moment, alas, did not carry any rewards. Quite the contrary.

A male colleague from another team turned to her and asked whether she shouldn’t be quiet and take notes. After the meeting, well-meaning older women, who had heard of the incident, sought her out. She thought she might receive sympathy or shared shock. Instead, she received a reprimand. “They told me the only way you are going to get ahead in the corporate world is to boost the male egos around you” – a form of emotional labor, making male colleagues and superiors feel good, specifically tied to affirming their power. It rang like a metaphorical constant kissing of the ring. The cherry on the cake came when one of her male directors chimed in in an email, telling her she “came across as really abrasive for a woman”.

In particular, the use of the word “abrasive” was a trigger point for Devin. Men around her were allowed to be just as direct, if not more, but she was being penalized with an adjective that was deeply gendered: a double standard in emotion expression requirements that seemed grossly unfair. She had never witnessed a man being told off for objecting to an idea, however bluntly, let alone being told they were abrasive. And yet word got around and everyone in the company knew about her comments in the meeting and what they meant about Devin.

Devin talked to her mother, who told her to finesse her tone and learn how to adapt to some of the cultures, which felt hard to swallow. “I entered the workforce sort of naïve. Expecting competition. I knew there was a pay inequality issue I needed to be aware of, but I didn’t expect this.”

What Happened?

It only became worse. Her female boss suggested, among other tips, that she add smileys to emails. Even digitally, she had to present as upbeat and non-threatening.

In all communications, she was expected to do the emotional labor of making sure she made people feel good, as a priority over and indeed a prerequisite to the actual requirements of her job.

Devin’s lesson was a harsh one, but growing bodies of research show that her experience was somewhat predictable. One paper from 2018 posed the question of why, despite shrinking differences in career aspirations between genders, women were still a minority in leadership positions. Zooming in on 236 engineers at a big multinational company, 23% of them women, the study surveyed engineers on their self-perceptions and also asked colleagues and superiors to assess them.

The authors found that competent engineers were perceived as equally confident and ambitious, regardless of gender. But this “confidence appearance” was linked to gender-based differences when it came to workers’ likelihood of then getting ahead.

Men

For men, being perceived as competent and confident were the two ingredients that led them to gain influence and rise. Do well and act like you know what you are doing: a simple recipe.

But for women, these two attributes were insufficient for career advancement. If women wanted to gain influence in the same way as their male counterparts, they needed to also possess and display what is known in organizational psychology as “prosocial orientation”. Prosocial orientation consists of those communal attributes often associated with the female gender: being other-oriented, concerned, and considerate of others’ interests, as well as the company’s interests, being sweet, caring, nurturing, and expressing thoughtfulness. Performing comforting stereotypes of womanhood was found to be an additional, implicit requirement for women to achieve success.

In other words, doing their job was not enough. There was an extra layer of work required of them: they had to perform emotional labor.

Emotional Labor

For a lot of female workers, this is a catch-22. If you must be seen to be extremely considerate of other people’s needs and sensitivities to advance, it can be difficult to also present as assertive and confident.

Much as sexual harassment makes women feel a lack of power, forcing women to exhibit supportive, caring, and submissive traits acts as a way of reinforcing women’s support-act role. The same applies to men of color, particularly Black men, expected to engage in constant communication and presentation of self-policing and submissive expressions to avoid racist stereotypes and penalties.

Of course, that is part of what Sandberg understood when she told generations of female workers to lean in: to rid themselves of secondary-citizen status and behave like winners. But this cannot be done until we recognize the uneven emotional labor requirements.

Micro & Macro Injustices

These micro and macro injustices are given life through the deployment of a backlash effect, threatening individuals straying from gender norms with not just social penalties but economic penalties too. This is made possible as people across genders engage in policing of others and of themselves, conspiring – intentionally or not – to maintain rigid stereotypes. For women, expected constantly to be displaying nurturing, altruistic qualities, taking on what is called “agentic” behavior – dominant, assertive, competitive – to ascend professionally causes backlash.

To modulate the backlash, and not be seen as too hungry for power or too eager to get ahead, women have to play a game of compensation. As they assert themselves as competent and confident, they must also dole out doses of reassuring emotional labor. Because these two sets of character traits are often cast in opposition to each other – as expressions of domination and submission rather than as complementary – conveying both can feel impossible. This becomes even more of a burden for anyone who veers from traditional, heteronormative behavioral scripts, particularly for those of us whose brains process social situations differently, whether because of neurodivergence or any other unseen reason.

May 17, 2023 0 comment

Europe Society

SUPREME; Focus on women’s financial wellbeing

by Narges Mohammadi May 15, 2023

Men were the decision-makers when Sarah Ottery was growing up in a West Otago farming family – at least from a visual perspective. Financial Services Council research showed more than 80% of New Zealand women rated their level of financial wellbeing as moderate, low or very low.

When stock agents visited and sat around the table, the conversation was always directed at her father, something the young Sarah could not understand, and often wondered about.

“As far as we were concerned, my mother ran the show,” she said.

Ms. Ottery, an experienced professional director, was part of a panel discussion at an Institute of Directors Otago-Southland branch event held at Forsyth Barr in Dunedin this week, discussing building better financial outcomes for women.

The panel included Pie Funds executive director and chief executive Ana-Marie Lockyer, Forsyth Barr’s head of summer and IoD branch chairwoman Trish Oakley, Mary Lewis, who has been in the finance sector for more than 40 years, Forsyth Barr senior investment adviser John Gallaher and Ms. Ottery.

More than 60% worried about money daily, weekly or monthly and 62% did not feel prepared for retirement. However money worries decreased with age.

Reflecting on the ratings of financial wellbeing, Ms. Lockyer said women often tended to mark themselves down, versus their male counterparts, and she believed not enough conversations were held on the topic.

Knowledge came from power, power came from information and information came from the ability to talk, she said.

When asked the critical steps to support women to remove that worry, Mr. Gallaher said the more that knowledge and understanding of “how this all works” could be created, then the more people would have the confidence to get involved.

Education System

Over the years, Mr. Gallaher had given presentations to the education sector.

One of the things the education system did not do well in early stage was introducing conversations in schools, he said.

Ms. Ottery said employers provided support often “as an ambulance” such as providing an employee with the contact for the employee assistance programme and suggesting they get the likes of budgeting advice.

But financial literacy almost fell under the wider responsibility of wellbeing under the Health and Safety Act and more work could be done in that space, she believed.

Ms. Lewis, who created The Success Formula for women, once worked in London in a firm of 800, where she was one of only five women.

Returning to New Zealand, there were no women partners in the firms she worked for in senior roles.

She was grateful for the support she received from a role model and said it was important to “have that legacy and turn around and help the ones who aren’t doing as well as you”.

Women should be in the same position that men were in at retirement and she implored women to understand their KiwiSaver investment.

“It’s your money when you put your money in that fund, it’s not the money of the funder.

“You need to be able to ask questions about it, feel like you own it,” she said.

While statistics showed 48% of financial products were owned by couples — that was legal ownership — actual ownership was nothing like that, and women not getting involved was a problem. KiwiSaver did not split ownership among couples, only when they split up, and that was giving the wrong signal.

KiwiSaver

She did not believe motherhood was valued in society.

“I think we’re far too silent on valuing motherhood and that would help us value our ownership of wealth,” she said.

Ms. Lockyer said KiwiSaver had been a “game changer” in New Zealand and it was great to see some employers taking steps to address lifestyle choices both men and women had been making around caring for children at home.

The industry was also starting to think and talk about decoupling employee and employer contributions, meaning those who were struggling to afford contributions were not disadvantaged in the future.

Pay Gap campaigners MindTheGap have been pre-emptively thanking Prime Minister Chris Hipkins for his support in addressing pay gaps.

Government’s Plans

In the next few weeks, the Government will consider recommendations from the committee tasked with looking at pay transparency including MindTheGap request for legislation to make pay gap reporting mandatory.

Stats NZ figures showed women were paid on average 9% less than men and the pay gap was worse for Maori and Pasifika women.

Ms. Lockyer gave “a big thumbs up” to the MindTheGap registry which hopefully brought more transparency to New Zealand businesses, she said.

When it came to employer value propositions beyond remuneration, Ms. Ottery said the last three years had changed dramatically — “a bit like energy and climate change conversations”.

“Flexible work is here and we’re writing policy around that, almost after the fact,” she said.

In the last two years, all the companies she had been involved in had been matching inflation.

Universal health care had been introduced at both Skyline Enterprises and Christchurch International Airport.

Out-of-cycle adjustments were regular and asked for, people were asking to be benchmarked and collective agreements were “upping the ante” in how people were being remunerated.

In the wellbeing space, areas such as learning and development, which had diminished during the Covid-19 pandemic, were now “back on the table”.

At both Skyline and Whitestone Cheese, staff were provided with a daily hot meal and that was an initiative that was worth it to the companies, she said.

Final Word

Mr. Gallaher said it was about creating an environment which felt conducive to people to doing well and that did provide a challenge as to where the balance was.

Asked what conversations were being held globally around menopause and menstruation, Ms Ottrey said it was something which used to be “generally hidden” but it was becoming a conversation topic.

“It’s an issue depending on who you are and how you experience it.

“It does affect us during our lives. It shouldn’t be something to be hidden. The more information out there, the better,” she said.

Source: Otago Daily Times News

May 15, 2023 0 comment

Culture Europe

NEW; FRANCE/ “What’s Wrong Between Men & Women; Debate About Femicide”

by Narges Mohammadi May 15, 2023

FRANCE/ Cold-case drama The Night of the 12th has just swept the board at the Oscars in France and has the nation talking about misogyny and murder. We talk to its director, Dominik Moll, about how it made him question his place in the patriarchy. At 6 am on a Tuesday in May 2013, the half-charred, petrol-doused body of a young woman was found on a residential street, 25km east of Paris. It was 21-year-old Maud Maréchal, who had been returning at night from a friend’s house to her family home, just a few meters from where she was killed. A neighbor discovered the corpse, the police fruitlessly investigated this horrific murder, and then Maréchal’s death was filed away, hardly noticed by the French press.

Until now in France

A fictionalized account of the murder, The Night of the 12th by Franco-German director Dominik Moll, has just swept the boards at France’s Oscars equivalent; the César awards, reviving interest in the Maréchal case. “It was important to remind people there was a real victim; and her name was Maud,” says the director, speaking over Zoom from his home in Montreuil, 20km from where the young woman lived. “But then quite a few journalists started to talk about the real case in a very irresponsible way.” Rather than Maréchal murder, he was intrigued by the idea of investigators becoming obsessed with the case that gets away. But adapting the 30pages devoted to the case, but he quickly found himself framing it within the context of the raging public debate in France about femicide: “My co-writer Gilles Marchand and I felt that we needed to develop this aspect of what’s wrong between men and women. The #MeToo movement made us more aware of these problems.”

The police make jokes, to let off steam. But they’re saying: ‘All these crimes get to me, and I feel depressed’

Moll’s previous film, the 2019 highlands thriller Only the Animals, also featured a young woman’s murder but put it at the heart of a globalized reflection on desire. The somber, almost shell-shocked The Night of the 12th is more rigorous in its interrogation of gender relations. But compared to modern cold-case classics such as Zodiac or Memories of Murder, it feels uninterested in prodding us with thriller mechanics. Instead, it emphasizes the devastation experienced by the victim’s family, before turning the lamp firmly on the investigators: the stolid new boy Yohan, played by Bastien Bouillon, and his silverback partner Marceau (Bouli Lanners), for whom the dead woman’s sex life touches a nerve, given his failed marriage. Moll spent a week with the judicial police in the Alpine city of Grenoble, where he relocated the story, and realized that almost all of them were men. This led to a certain atmosphere: “When there’s a group, there’s always this thing where you can’t show weakness. And so you can make jokes about things, to let off steam. But it’s saying: ‘All this violence, all these crimes get to me, and I feel depressed.’ I think it’s more difficult for men than women to talk about intimate things.” You can see how much routine flippancy could harden into the kind of institutional misogyny that has recently been found in London’s Metropolitan Police.

I have a problem with a lot of Tarantino’s violent scenes because I feel he’s just having fun

Another such position is, of course, that of film director – exercising representational control over the portrayal of women. Moll has often spoken about Hitchcock as his lodestar, an inspiration visible in his previous César winner, the 2000 sly black comedy Harry, He’s Here to Help, and the 2005 thriller Lemming. When I mention the master’s women-in-jeopardy fetish and misogynistic tension with many of his female leads, Moll leaps to his defense. He says Hitch’s precision regarding point of view inspired him when depicting Clara’s death and carbonized remains in The Night of the 12th – which he told his producers was necessary to lend the crime the appropriate gravity. “I have a problem with a lot of Tarantino’s violent scenes because I feel he’s just having fun. Hitchcock helped me because he is very good at conveying violence without showing it. So we had those tight closeups when she meets the killer, on the lighter, on her eyes, then suddenly to have the very wide shot – unspectacular in a sense – of her crossing the frame as a small burning figure. All those things come from studying Hitchcock and his film language.” Moll doesn’t think his work is getting necessarily darker as he gets older, even though The Night of the 12th is shorn of the piquant ironies of Harry, He’s Here to Help. But with his early noughties and present-day work is equally drawn down into unconscious nooks of the psyche, his interest in human foibles is constant. During the lockdown, he took up an old childhood love again, a remnant of his pre-cinema interest in art and biology: drawing. “Very detailed drawings of animals in black ink,” he specifies. Source: The Guardian

May 15, 2023 0 comment

Europe Health

NEW; “Russia’s War in Ukraine Exacts a Heavy Toll on Women”- says UNFPA

by Narges Mohammadi May 7, 2023

RUSSIA-UKRAINE/ As war rages, health services for women are perilous and they are particularly vulnerable to trafficking; domestic abuse, and gender-based and sexual violence.

As Russia’s bloody war in Ukraine continues to devastate lives across the country, women in particular are suffering detrimental effects to their mental, physical and sexual; and reproductive health.

Millions of women remain displaced, making them extremely vulnerable to trafficking as well as gender-based and sexual violence.

The International Rescue Committee warned last month that abuse against women was rising.

Some expectant mothers give birth without medical assistance in basements and bomb shelters while hospitals are attacked, while basic services have been disrupted to such an extent that the reproductive health of many is in jeopardy.

We have found an interview with the Ukraine representative for the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), Jaime Nadal, about the continuing risk the conflict poses for women.

How many babies have been born since the conflict began and what complications does war bring to pregnancy and childbirth?

Jaime Nadal: In 2022, almost 180,000 women gave birth in Ukraine, many suffering a risk to their lives because of difficulties accessing appropriate healthcare.

Hospitals and civilian infrastructure have been targeted with shelling. A pregnant woman [should] not be wandering around in the middle of shelling to access facilities.

The supply chain for items needed for C-sections and the management of birth and pregnancy complications is also impacted. In the most extreme cases, healthcare professionals have been forced to live in the hospitals they work in, adding significant stress.

We are seeing an increasing number of preterm babies and miscarriages, as well as conditions like eclampsia and hypertension. The nutrition of women is also being compromised by months of displacement and physical exhaustion.

What are the dangers of giving birth without access to medical professionals or a hospital?

Nadal: The most critical moment in a pregnancy is the delivery and the next 72 hours that follow. Any woman who is unable to follow up with a professional during that time could suffer life-threatening complications.

In the first week of the full-scale war, 84 women gave birth in the Kyiv metro. When women give birth while sheltering from missile attacks underground in metro stations or basements, they can develop life-threatening conditions such as sepsis that pose a great risk to them and their babies.

Do attacks on hospitals – especially on maternity units, as seen in the southeastern city of Mariupol in March last year – make women scared to seek medical care when they need it?

Nadal: Any attack on civilian infrastructure, including a hospital, is a human rights violation and should never happen. These attacks undermine civilian access to life-saving services.

Many women are hesitant to go to hospitals and are in the middle of shelling. It can be extremely risky to attempt to do. At the beginning of the war in Chernihiv, to the north of Kyiv, several women went to hospitals to give birth and found they couldn’t go home again as Russia had occupied their villages.

One woman went to a hospital with her husband to give birth, leaving her other children with their grandparents. Russia occupied her home and she was unable to see or speak to her children for a month. You can imagine the level of anxiety and stress that causes.

There has been a rise in sexual and gender-based violence in Ukraine since the start of the war and an increase in domestic violence.

How can women be protected?

Nadal: The invasion displaced millions of people, many of them women and children. When you have so many people at that level of vulnerability, the risk of gender-based violence, sexual violence, trafficking, and exploitation is high.

Our priority was to quickly re-establish services such as shelters and mobile clinics and to make sure women know they can access psychosocial support and hygiene kits to preserve their dignity.

We first started seeing cases of sexual violence after the liberation of Bucha and Irpin. None of the survivors had reported the cases to law enforcement, and most wanted help to test for STIs [sexually transmitted infections] or pregnancy.

This is a very complex issue surrounded by stigma. Sometimes women don’t even identify themselves as having been assaulted. Some women have been forced into sex acts to cross a checkpoint, for example.

It takes a lot of work from psychologists to get them to open up and identify as survivors, and the trauma will take a long time to heal.

Before the war, we developed an initiative that provides space for men in the Ukrainian military to engage meaningfully with their children and wives. The first hubs were in the east in 2014. We provide men with psychosocial support that steers them away from toxic masculinity. This helps them process trauma, which can manifest in violence, abuse, or alcohol misuse.

What are the latest figures on the scale of sexual violence in Ukraine?

Nadal: It’s hard to rely on numbers, as they don’t give an accurate reflection of the problem. Many survivors are reluctant to disclose what happened due to trauma, stigma, and self-blame.

Out of the cases recorded by OHCHR, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, two-thirds are women and one-third are men, many of them former prisoners of war. The number of cases reported is probably the tip of the iceberg.

In our Dnipro center, staff told me that for every 100 women they have seen, maybe 10 have suffered gender-based violence and one from sexual violence. Sometimes people try to pretend it didn’t happen or try to live with it and don’t seek help.

We need to ensure that survivors know they are not alone, the situation matters, and that the UN and the Ukrainian government are working to provide them with the best care possible. Our mobile teams have provided general support to over 17,000 women so far, and our relief centers have almost 10,000. The more services we put in place the more survivors will seek help.

The situation is very different for people in the west of the country compared to the east. How does that affect the provision of support for women?

Nadal: We’re very worried about the protracted nature of this crisis now. There has been a huge movement of women from the east and south to central and western Ukraine and abroad.

The harsh conditions of displacement increase the complexity of women’s needs.

The lack of available work and income poses a huge challenge to the well-being of women and their families, as well as the difficulty in accessing healthcare in some places. What we’re seeing is that the situation is worse in 2023 and we are constantly trying to keep up with new developments.

We have repeatedly requested access to occupied territories, but have not been granted it. In the east of the country, we’re very concerned about the situation of older women. Some don’t want to leave their homes behind and are living close to the front line of the conflict with serious health conditions, such as uterine prolapse.

With hospitals shelled, where are these women supposed to go if they experience something like this?

Nadal: There are some mobile clinics run by the government that we support that go to communities to help, especially for those with mobility issues or disabilities, and for areas where there is no public transport.

War comes with suffering, pain, stress, and anxiety. The extension of this war is prolonging the distress of millions of women.

Source: Al-Jazeera

May 7, 2023 0 comment

Asia Culture

by Narges Mohammadi May 3, 2023

STUDY/ In all religious studies, we see that there are different sayings and narratives of the arrival of a “Saviour” for humanity. This Saviour in Islamic studies is known as “Mahdi or Imam Mahdi”. Now, according to what Islamic scholars say women also will be a huge part of Mahdi’s companions.

This government of divine justice with the guidance of Imam Mahdi and the help of more than 300 special companions of his; (as the agents of the formation of the government) is made up of various groups; of which women have a great share of this, as well as men.

The presence of women in the global government of the Holy Prophet (PBUH); is an issue. This issue has been mentioned in many narrations from the starting Era of Islam. In some cases, their number and even their names have been mentioned.

Based on some narrations, the role of women at the time of advent has been compared to their role at the time of the Holy Prophet (PBUH). Duties such as delivering water and food to the warriors, cooking, maintaining the warriors’ equipment, preparing medicine, … is defined for them.

In some other narrations, it is mentioned that women were active in the treatment and health sector. From the interpretation of some other narrations, it is clear that several women were managers and agents of His Holiness’ government and will play an active role in management positions.

Imam Baqir (PBUH), the 5^th Shiite Scholar says in this regard: “By God, three hundred and fifty people will come, and there are fifty women among them.”

First Group of Women: Presence of fifty women among his companions

The first group of women who rush to his presence are those who lived in those days and, like other companions of him, they serve him when he appears in the sacred sanctuary of God.

There are two narrations about this:

First narrated by Om-Salame from the Great Prophet (PBUH): “At that time, a refugee takes refuge in God’s safe sanctuary and people flock to him like pigeons that rush from four directions until three hundred and fourteen people gather in front of him. Some of them are women who will win over every tyrant”.

Second Narration: “Jaber bin Yazid Jaafi, along with a detailed saying from Imam Baqir (PBUH) has narrated some signs of his emergence: “By God, three hundred and thirteen people will come, fifty of whom are women, who will gather together in Mecca without any prior appointment. This shows the meaning of the noble verse: ((Wherever you are, God will make you all present. Because he can do everything)).”

Second Group: Celestial Women

The second category is the 400 chosen women whom God has reserved in heaven for the world government of Mahdi. They are the ones who lived in those days and like others. His companions serve him when he appears in the safe sanctuary of God. Mahdi (AS) will come to earth with Jesus (AS).

Third Group: Awaiting Women

The third group of helpers is a group of pious women who passed away before appearing. At the time of his appearance, they are told: “Your imam has appeared, you can be present if you wish.” They will be resurrected by God’s will. The return of women is not related to a specific group.

Fourth Group: Menstruating Women

The fourth group of the helpers of Mahdi are women whom God will bring back to the world once again.

May 3, 2023 0 comment

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