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The Guardian: Kate Millett Obituary
New York Times: Kate Millett, Ground-Breaking Feminist Writer, Is Dead at 82
The New Yorker: A Last Interview with Kate Millett
Kate Millett
Advancing Universal Rights and Justice
Uprooting Fascisms and Fundamentalisms
Across the globe, feminist, women’s rights and gender justice defenders are challenging the agendas of fascist and fundamentalist actors. These oppressive forces target women, persons who are non-conforming in their gender identity, expression and/or sexual orientation, and other oppressed communities.
Discriminatory ideologies are undermining and co-opting our human rights systems and standards, with the aim of making rights the preserve of only certain groups. In the face of this, the Advancing Universal Rights and Justice (AURJ) initiative promotes the universality of rights - the foundational principle that human rights belong to everyone, no matter who they are, without exception.
We create space for feminist, women’s rights and gender justice movements and allies to recognize, strategize and take collective action to counter the influence and impact of anti-rights actors. We also seek to advance women’s rights and feminist frameworks, norms and proposals, and to protect and promote the universality of rights.
Our actions
Through this initiative, we:
- Build knowledge: We support feminist, women’s rights and gender justice movements by disseminating and popularizing knowledge and key messages about anti-rights actors, their strategies, and impact in the international human rights systems through AWID’s leadership role in the collaborative platform, the Observatory on the Universality of Rights (OURs)*.
- Advance feminist agendas: We ally ourselves with partners in international human rights spaces including, the Human Rights Council, the Commission on Population and Development, the Commission on the Status of Women and the UN General Assembly.
- Create and amplify alternatives: We engage with our members to ensure that international commitments, resolutions and norms reflect and are fed back into organizing in other spaces locally, nationally and regionally.
- Mobilize solidarity action: We take action alongside women human rights defenders (WHRDs) including trans and intersex defenders and young feminists, working to challenge fundamentalisms and fascisms and call attention to situations of risk.
Related Content
Dear Feminist Movements: A Letter from the Board
Dear feminist movements,
Speaking on behalf of the Board, I write to express our deepest gratitude, appreciation, and respect for Hakima Abbas and Cindy Clark, our extraordinary Co-Executive Directors during the past five years who will be stepping aside to refresh the AWID leadership as we move into a new strategic plan and phase of our organizational life. They have consistently practiced the best principles of feminist organizational leadership and ethics of care as they navigated us through one of the most unpredictable, turbulent times in recent history of the world, the COVID-19 syndemic, and the subsequent downward global political spiral. They held AWID, our Staff, and Board firmly, gently, and lovingly as all of us experienced various impacts. They also held steadfastly to AWID vision and mission as they responded respectfully and strategically to various changes, not least the cancellation of the AWID Forum.
Going forward… we expect to continue with the co-directorship model given the nature, scope, and weight of the responsibilities of the executive role at AWID. Our first experience with co-leadership was a success in a multitude of ways, as you all have seen.
The Board decided to prioritize an internal recruitment process first, fully recognizing the great potential that exists within the current team. We expect to complete the transition by the end of 2022. Hakima and Cindy will stagger their departure, and will facilitate a smooth transition to the new leadership.
Seeing Cindy and Hakima leave AWID is difficult for the Board as well as others who have worked closely with them and love them. Nonetheless, rest assured the AWID Board is leading the transition process in a way that fully recognizes the beautiful and inspiring indelible marks Hakima and Cindy will be leaving as part of our 40-year history, that embraces the next step of on-boarding and supporting new leadership, and that inspires us to do better at this moment in AWID's life.
Major organizational transitions are neither simple nor easy. Sometimes they are forced, beyond anyone’s control, fraught, or even destructive. I, and many of you, have seen examples of those kinds of transitions. At other times, the staff’s needs and aspirations are aligned with those of the organization. Although we did not choose or wish Cindy and Hakima to leave AWID, their decision and AWID moving into the next strategic plan and new decade of existence are aligned. Best of all, we are in the wonderful, super competent, creative, and feminist hands of the Staff and Board.
We thank you, dear Feminist Movements, for your confidence in AWID. We also ask you to support our leadership transition in the coming months. Let’s continue to build, deepen, and strengthen our connections, as we have done for the past 40 years.
Please stay tuned for more concrete developments and updates. You will be hearing from us in the coming weeks.
In feminist solidarity and love,
Margo Okazawa-Rey
President, AWID Board
CFA 2023 - what you need to know - thai
สิ่งที่จำเป็นต้องรู้
- เราให้ความสำคัญกับกิจกรรมที่เอื้อและส่งเสริมการเชื่อมต่อและการมีปฏิสัมพันธ์ระหว่างผู้เข้าร่วม เป็นอันดับแรก
- หากกิจกรรมของท่านสามารถจัดทางออนไลน์หรือแบบผสมผสาน (เชื่อมต่อผู้เข้าร่วมในสถานที่จริง และออนไลน์) โปรดคำนึงถึงการสร้างการมีส่วนร่วมอย่างแท้จริง และการมีปฏิสัมพันธ์กับผู้เข้าร่วม ทางออนไลน์ด้วย
- เราสนับสนุนให้เกิดขบวนการเคลื่อนไหวข้ามสาขา ข้ามภูมิภาค และการสนทนาแลกเปลี่ยน ระหว่างคนรุ่นต่างๆ
- โปรดออกแบบกิจกรรมของท่านในลักษณะยืดหยุ่นกับจำนวนผู้เข้าร่วม อาจมีบางกิจกรรมจำกัดไว้ เฉพาะกลุ่มเล็กๆ แต่กิจกรรมส่วนใหญ่จะต้องรองรับจำนวนคนที่มากได้
- หากกิจกรรมของท่านเหมาะสมกับรูปแบบจำนวนหนึ่งหรือไม่มีเลย สามารถระบุไว้ในแบบฟอร์ม ใบสมัครได้
ภาษาที่ใช้ในการจัดกิจกรรม
- ภาษาสำหรับการสมัคร: ในการสมัคร สามารถใช้ภาษาอังกฤษ ฝรั่งเศส สเปน อาหรับ และไทย
- ภาษาที่ในการประชุม: ในการประชุมรวม มีล่ามแปลภาษาแบบฉับพลันเป็นภาษาอังกฤษ ฝรั่งเศส สเปน อาหรับ และไทย รวมถึงภาษามือสากล (ISL) และอาจมีมากกว่านั้น ส่วนกิจกรรมอื่นๆจะมีการจัดล่ามแปลเป็นบางภาษา แต่ไม่ทั้งหมด และอาจมีล่ามแปลเป็นภาษาอื่น เช่นภาษาสวาฮีลี เป็นต้น
Love letter to Feminist Movements #8
Dearest Beloved Feminist Movements,
Hello again, and again, and again. I have known and loved you my entire adult life, since I first met you meaningfully, after graduating from university. I’d seen you one time before then. That was you appearing as Betty Friedan on a local TV talk show in the US Midwest, in the late-1960s. At the time, Mrs. Wells, my other mother, and I commented on what wild, far-fetched ideas this woman was trying to convince us about. Decade after decade since then I have fallen more deeply in love with you, Beloved, and understand and witness your political and theoretical brilliance, ethical and moral authority, creativity, joy, and love, above all. Nearly 60 years later, I know we are partners forever.
The early years of our acquaintanceship was ok. I was quite self-involved--figuring racial, gender, and sexual identity; getting clear on my core politics, values, and ethics; completing my formal education--and you provided numerous settings, intellectual drop-in centers, and comforting holding environments where and through which I was able to craft the young-adult building blocks of the feminist and human being whom I would become.
The predominantly white women’s movement of Cambridge and Boston, including Daughters of Bilitis, was my starting place. That suited me at the time but soon realized I desired something more. Poof! Like magic (serendipity), I connected with a small group of radical, anti-imperialist, Black, socialist lesbian women and we soon became the Combahee River Collective.
That early Combahee experience, combined with critical life lessons and particular African-American/Korean immigrant racial politics of early-1990s in the US, prepared me for the journey that has led me to identify and work as a transnational feminist to address militarism and to dedicate myself to imagining other worlds where all living beings will thrive.
The next two critical women’s-movement moments were decades after Combahee years but deeply linked. First was meeting and being invited into the Korean feminist movement organizing against US military bases and supporting the “kijichon women” the Korean women whose lives, including for some, their mixed-race children, revolved around servicing US military personnel in numerous ways in villages and towns adjacent to the bases. Korean Beloved Feminists, especially Kim Yon-Ja and Ahn Il-Soon, the first sisters I met and traveled with, made me see and understand the critical importance of nation as an analytical and organizing principle. The “capstone” was living, working in occupied Palestine. The late Maha Abu-Dayyeh introduced me to the Palestinian women’s movement, with a profound comment, “you can leave Palestine but Palestine will never leave you.” So true. And, all my work and experiences across many borders brought me to AWID--my second home.
As you know, Beloved, being with you has not been easy or simple. Indeed, you are demanding, consistently riddled with contradictions, and sometimes even hurtful. Nonetheless, you continue to grow and develop, as you are supporting my political, emotional, and spiritual growth and development. I guess we are growing each other--a very profound process to which I will dedicate the rest of my time in my current form.
The through-line of being with you all these decades is this:
Feminists Collectively Engaging the Heads, Hearts, Hands, and Spirits to transform our worlds
So much love, Feminist Movements!
Your Margo
AKA DJ MOR Love and Joy
Wellfleet Massachusetts USA
Deborah Holmes
At the time of her death, following a short but aggressive battle with cancer, Deborah was the Chief Communication and Engagement Officer at the Women’s Funding Network (WFN).
Deborah also worked for the Global Fund for Women from 2008 to 2017. Deborah was extremely loved and respected by board, staff, and partners of Global Fund for Women.
Kavita Ramdas, former CEO of the Global Fund for Women aptly noted that Deborah was “a small package exploding with warmth, generosity, intelligence, style, and a passionate commitment to fusing beauty with justice. She understood the power of story. The power of women’s voice. The power of lived experience. The power of rising from the ashes and telling others it was possible. And, still we rise.”
Musimbi Kanyoro, the present CEO of the Global Fund for Women, added, “We have lost a sister and her life illuminates values that unite and inspire us all. As we all come together to mourn Deborah’s passing, let us remember and celebrate her remarkable, bold, and passionate life.”
What criteria are you using to select the activities?
Please refer to the Call for Activities for this information, including the section “What you need to know”.
Privacy and cookies - before 25 Apr 2023
AWID Privacy Policy, Your rights to privacy and cookies
This policy governs all pages hosted at www.awid.org, and any other websites under the control of the AWID (the “Website”) and registrations for these sites. It does not apply to pages hosted by organisations other than AWID, to which we may link and whose privacy policies may differ. Please read the following policy to understand our privacy policy regarding nature, purpose, using and sharing of your personal identifiable information that is collected via this website.
1. Types of information collected on this site
Generally, you can browse this website without submitting your personal information to us. However, in some circumstances, we will ask for your personal information.
1.1 Information you provide to us
When you are on the website and are asked for personal information, you are sharing that information only with AWID.
1.1.1 The information you provide to get updates from AWID:
When you register to use the website – for example, subscribe to receive emails from us or apply to become a member - you provide us with the mandatory information about you like Name, country, language to receive email updates and email address. This information is provided by you through secure forms and is stored on secure servers.
1.1.2 The payment information you provide to become member or registering for a paid event:
Also, while becoming a member or registering for events, you may need to provide payment information. AWID doesn’t store any credit card information on its servers and uses payment gateway to process the payment information.
1.1.3 The optional information you chose to give us as AWID member (with consent)
When you communicate with AWID, provide optional information through forms on the website or use the site to communicate with other members, we collect information about your communication and any information you choose to provide.
1.1.4 Information you provide us through contact forms or when you directly communicate with us
When you communicate with us, we collect your communication and any other information you choose to provide us.
1.2 Information that is automatically collected (third party cookies)
In addition, when you interact with the Website, our servers may keep an activity log that does not identify you individually (“Non-Personal Information”). Generally, we collect the following categories of Non-Personal Information:
- We may collect certain demographic data such as age and gender as part of collecting personal information;
- We collect and store certain device information about your computer, mobile device, or other device that you use to access the Website. This information may include IP address, geolocation information, unique device identifiers, browser type, browser language, and other transactional information;
- We automatically log certain usage information about your use of the Website. This information includes a reading history of the pages you view. We use this information to provide you with a more customized experience on the Website;
- We collect and store additional “traffic data” such as time of access, date of access, software crash reports, session identification number, access times, and referring website addresses; and
- We collect and store your search terms and search results.
- We also collect and store certain other information regarding our users’ use of the Website so that third parties may provide us with reports and analysis regarding usage and browsing patterns of the Website.
For more information about cookies, please see www.allaboutcookies.org.
If you do not wish to receive cookies you can easily modify your web browser to refuse cookies, or to notify you when you receive a new cookie, see how here.
2. Use of information collected on this website
AWID uses the information we collect about you to:
- Better understand how you are using our website and what we could do to improve your experience.
- Communicate with you via email to share resources and analysis in the field of women's rights, connect with you and provide opportunities to engage with our work, keep you updated about developments at AWID and with our partners.
- Comply with our legal obligations to:
- Detect and prevent fraud, spam, abuse, security incidents, and other harmful activity.
- Conduct security investigations and risk assessments.
- Verify or authenticate information provided by you (such as to verify your authorization to act as an agent on behalf of a nonprofit organization).
- Conduct checks against databases and other information sources, to the extent permitted by applicable laws.
- Resolve any disputes with any of our users or customers and enforce our agreements with third parties.
- Enforce our Terms of Use and other policies.
3. Distribution of information
If you have subscribed to AWID´s e-newsletters or email updates or you have become a member, we will send you regular communications as specified in the relevant area of the website. You are able to unsubscribe from any of the e-newsletters or email updates at any time by using the unsubscribe information provided in our emails.
4. Accessing, changing and removing information
The accuracy of your individual identifying information is important to AWID. We are always looking for ways to make it easier for you to review and correct the information that AWID maintains about you through our website. If you change your email address, or if any of the other information we hold is inaccurate or out of date, please write to us here.
- Where you have provided AWID with consent to use your personal data, you can withdraw it any time by sending us a communication and specifying which consent you are withdrawing. Please note that the withdrawal of your consent does not affect the lawfulness of any processing activities based on such consent before its withdrawal.
- Where applicable, you may also have a right to receive a machine-readable copy of your personal data. If you would like to have a copy of the personal data we hold on you or if you think that we hold incorrect personal data about you, please write to us.
- You also have the right to ask us to delete your personal data or restrict how it is used. There may be exceptions to the right to erasure for specific legal reasons which, if applicable, we will set out for you in response to your request.
- At any time, regardless of applicable law, you may object to us processing your personal information for direct marketing purposes. You may, at any time, ask AWID to cease processing your data for these direct marketing purposes by Contacting Us.
5. Sharing information
Except as explained below, AWID will not disclose any of your personally identifiable information, and will not sell or rent lists containing your information to third parties. AWID may disclose information when it has your permission to do so or under special circumstances, such as when it believes in good faith that the law requires it.
6. Information security
We are continuously implementing and updating administrative, technical, and physical security measures to help protect your information against unauthorized access, loss, destruction, or alteration. Some of the safeguards we use to protect your information are firewalls and data encryption, and information access controls. If you know or have reason to believe that your AWID membership credentials have been lost, stolen, misappropriated, or otherwise compromised or in case of any actual or suspected unauthorized use of your AWID membership account, please contact us through on Contact Us.
7. Changes to this policy & Contacting us
This policy may change from time to time. The changed policy will be posted on this website and Last updated date at the end of the policy will be updated. There will be an email update sent to you for the revised policy and if you do not agree with the revised policy, you will have the option to cancel you registration(s) with us. You can also write to us here. We welcome your feedback!
Last updated: May 2019
Mary Assad
An expert on social development and anthropologist by training, Mary was best known as a pioneer in the battle against Female Genital Mutilation (FGM).
Born in Cairo Egypt in 1922, Mary’s work in development started early, as she joined the Youth Women’s Christians’ Association (YWCA). Mary was a member of the World Council of Churches and became increasingly concerned with issues regarding women’s health. Her long struggle against FGM proved fruitful in 2008, when Egypt finally criminalized the practice.
She is remembered as a mentor to many Egyptian feminists and activists.
متى وأين سيكون المنتدى؟
2-5 ديسمبر 2024، بانكوك، تايلاند! سنجتمع في مركز الملكة سيريكيت الوطني للمؤتمرات (QSNCC) وكذلك افتراضيا عبر
Efua Dorkenoo
Affectionately known as “Mama Efua”, her work to end Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) movement spanned three decades and helped bring international attention and action to end this harmful practice.
In 1983 Efua co-founded FORWARD (The Foundation for Women’s Health, Research and Development), which became a leading organisation in the battle to raise awareness about FGM. Her 1994 book, “Cutting the Rose: Female Genital Mutilation,” is considered the first on FGM and, featured in Columbia University’s “Africa’s 100 Best Books for the 20th Century”.
Originally from Ghana and a nurse by training, Efua joined the WHO in 1995 and successfully pushed for FGM to go on the agendas of WHO member states. She also worked closely with the Nigerian government in formulating a comprehensive National Policy that laid the groundwork for Nigeria’s anti-FGM laws, still in place today.
Her ground breaking work culminated in an Africa-led campaign, “The Girl Generation,” which is committed to ending FGM within a generation. Efua demonstrated how one person can become the unifying voice for a movement, and her wise words - “shared identity can help bring activists from different backgrounds together with a common sense of purpose” – are more relevant than ever.
ويخطط عدد من الأشخاص من منظمتي لحضور المنتدى. هل يوجد خصم جماعي للمنتدى؟
لا تقدم جمعية حقوق المرأة في التنمية خصومات جماعية، ولكننا نقدم خصومات التسجيل للأعضاء/ العضوات. (انقر هنا لمعرفة المزيد عن كيفية الانضمام)
Yelena Grigoriyeva
Yelena Grigoriyeva, often called Lena by friends, was a prominent LGBT rights campaigner in Russia.
She was part of democratic, anti-war and LGBT movements. In her activism, Yelena was a fierce critic of President Vladimir Putin and his administration, expressing her opposition against Russia’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula and the ill-treatment of prisoners.
Yelena came out as bisexual earlier in 2019.
"Her coming out was a surprise to me, and I didn't approve of it. I told her 'Listen, Lena, you already have a target painted on you because of your political activity. You've just pinned another to your chest."
- Olga Smirnova
Yelena did receive multiple death threats and according to some of her acquaintances, was listed on a homophobic website that called on its visitors to hunt down LGBT persons. She reported the threats to the police, however the Russian state failed to provide protection.
But even in a society where political opposition, as well as members of the LGBT community and advocates for their rights, face continuous and increasing violence, Yelena kept campaigning for social justice and equality.
“She did not miss a single action. And they detained her so often that I already lost count,”
- Olga Smirnova (fellow opposition activist and friend).
Yelena was murdered on 21 July 2019, not far from home. A suspect was arrested but according to some sources, many friends and fellow activists believe that the suspect is a scapegoat and that this was a targeted political killing.
For Yelena’s relatives and friends, her case remains unsolved even though the suspect confessed.
In 2013, Russia passed legislation banning the spreading of what it described as ‘gay propaganda’. In 2014, Human Rights Watch published a report relating to this.
ما هي المعايير اختيار الأنشطة؟
يرجى الرجوع إلى فتح باب التقديم للحصول على هذه المعلومات، بما في ذلك قسم "ما تحتاج/ين إلى معرفته".
Mena Mangal
Mena Mangal was a prominent TV journalist, women’s rights advocate and cultural adviser to Wolesi Jirga, the lower house of Afghanistan's national parliament.
For more than a decade, she worked for Ariana TV, Tolo TV's Pashto-language channel Lamar, and the private Afghan national television broadcaster Shamshad TV. As a presenter, Mena focused on women’s rights and cultural talk shows.
"Women's rights activist Wazhma Frogh said Mangal "had a loud voice" and actively spoke out as an advocate for her people."
Off-screen, she also ran popular social media pages that advocated for the rights of Afghan girls and women to education and work. In terms of her private life, Mena wrote extensively about being forced into an arranged marriage in 2017 and the process she had to go through to finally obtain a divorce.
In a Facebook post, Mena wrote she was receiving death threats from unknown sources but would continue to carry out her work.
On 11 May 2019, she was attacked by unknown gunmen and shot dead in broad daylight in a public space in Southeast Kabul.
"We are concerned about the situation because it has a direct impact on women who work outside their homes...Female journalists are changing their professions due to the increasing risks they are facing." - Robina Hamdard, Kabul-based women’s rights activist.
ฉันไม่เคยเดินทางมาก่อน ฉันควรทำอย่างไร
เราทราบดีว่าการเดินทางครั้งแรกอาจจะน่าตื่นเต้นและบางครั้งอาจสร้างความกังวล จากการตระหนักถึงข้อท้าทายต่างๆต่อเรื่องนี้ เราจะจัดเตรียมข้อมูลมากขึ้นกว่านี้สำหรับการเดินทางมายังกรุงเทพฯเมื่อมีการเปิดรับลงทะเบียนในปีหน้า
Aïssata Kane
Aïssata Kane, also fondly known as “Yaye Kadia” (Mother Kadia), was a feminist with a lifelong committment in advocating for African and especially Mauritanian women’s rights.
In her career as a politician, she was appointed Minister of Family Protection and Social Affairs in 1975, the first time a woman held such a position and in which Aïssata fervently worked to improve the status of women in her country.
This work included advancing girls’ and women’s education, fighting against the practice of force-feeding of young women, lobbying for an inclusion of a marital rights provision, and advocating for a female representation quota to be created in the Parliament.
“[Aïssata] realized all her passions with humility, courage and determination. She didn’t want to disturb anyone by her fight on all these fronts at the same time.” Ball Halimata Dem, Aïssata’s niece
She founded the National Union of Women of Mauritania (UNFM), co-creating and publishing Marienou for them, a magazine dedicated to the emancipation of Mauritanian women. Aïssata also directed several sub-regional and local organizations, including as the President of the International Association of Francophone Women (AIFF) and as a resolute ecologist, she was President of the Association for the Protection of the Environment in Mauritania (APEM).
In 2018 she received the Pioneer Woman Award. It honors her work in advancing Mauritania’s women’s status and recognizes her strong leadership and sense of innovation.
Aïssata passed away on 10 August 2019.
CFA FAQ - Other questions - AR
اسئلة أخرى
Snippet - CSW68 - March 13 - EN
Day 3
13th March
Snippet - WITM Start the survey 1 - EN
The survey is available in: Arabic, English, French, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish!
Who should participate in the survey?
Groups, organizations and/or movements working specifically or primarily for women, girls, gender justice, LBTQI+ and allied people’s rights in all regions and at all levels, both newly formed and long-standing.