In the Shadow of a Man – film review

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Africa, Arab Spring, Women

Last month, DocHouse Documentary Festival screened In the Shadow of a Man, a film about four Egyptian women and their lives both before and after the revolution.  Here, DiA blogger Saara Jaffrey-Roberts reviews the film

Post-revolution, has the situation changed for the women of Egypt? Photo by Gigi Ibrahim/ Creative Commons

“As the old saying goes… better the shadow of a man than that of a wall…”

In the Shadow of a Man, directed by Hanan Abdalla, turns its lens towards Wafaa, Suzanne, Shahinda and Badreya: four Egyptian women from distinct socio-economic backgrounds who span different generations. The film presents a series of intimate conversations with these women, and we learn that, despite their differences, they are all connected in trying to determine their own destinies and break from traditional codes of Egyptian society.

Human Rights Watch Film Festival: Tall as the Baobab Tree

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Africa, Women

In the fourth of our series of reviews from the Human Rights Watch Film Festival, Holly Young reflects on the issue of child brides through a film documenting the practice in a village in Senegal

On the face of it, Tall as the Baobab Tree is a film about child marriage. Through the moving relationship of two Senegalese sisters – Debo, the 11 year old consigned to an arranged marriage by her father following the injury of her older brother, and Coumba, her older sister committed to trying to rescue her – the film sensitively illustrates the economic, cultural and emotional context to child marriage.

Human Rights Watch Film Festival: Salma

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Asia, Women

In the second of the DiA Blog’s series of reviews from the Human Rights Watch Film Festival 2013, Louisa Jones reflects on Salma, the story of a Muslim Tamil woman in India who is marginalised for striving for success

Salma becomes a role model for women in her community. Photo: mckaysavage/ Creative Commons

From a young age, we are taught to make sense of our world through facts, figures and trends. British schoolchildren will forever remember the haunting mantra, “point, quote, explanation”, encouraging fastidious analysis of fact over feeling. It was therefore with an initial sense of unease that I watched the UK premiere of Kim Longinotto’s Salma at the Human Rights Watch Film Festival in London last Thursday. This unassuming documentary tells the bittersweet story of thirty-something-year-old Salma, a fearless Tamil Muslim who has escaped her community’s harsh customs of female seclusion, yet despite her success as a poet and politician, continues to face daily prejudice from her closest relatives.

Human Rights Watch Film Festival: The Patience Stone

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Asia, Conflict, human rights, Human Rights Watch Film Festival, Women

In the first of a series of reviews from the Human Rights Watch Film Festival 2013, blog editor Emily Wight finds a moving account of one woman’s story in Afghanistan.

About a month ago Shinkai Karokhil, a member of parliament in Afghanistan, claimed: “The woman of Afghanistan today is absolutely different from the woman of Afghanistan from yesterday.”

Women in Afghanistan have faced turbulent times for decades. Photo: isafmedia

It is this conviction, that women in Afghanistan are on the cusp of a new dawn, which influences Atiq Rahimi’s film The Patience Stone, based on his novel of the same name. Our protagonist is an unnamed woman – the significance of which is ambivalent: it indicates a lack of identity but also, conversely, a blank canvas on which she can start her life afresh – in an unnamed country where the sound of gunfire and the sight of tanks on residential streets are routine.

Reflecting on attitudes towards women in India

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Asia, Women

Two weeks after a medical student was gang-raped and killed in Delhi, Daniel Hinchliffe, who is volunteering with Seva Mandir in Udaipur, reflected on what he’s seen of attitudes towards women in India. Since he wrote this post, six men have been arrested for a second gang-rape in the Punjab region. Daniel shares his thoughts below.

Why is there such a struggle for equality for women in India? Photo by Daniel Hinchliffe. See more at http://www.indiadan.co.uk

Since arriving in India, I’ve wanted to write a blog post on gender issues in the country. But I’ve always found myself confronted with a vast topic, which I feel barely competent to address. Most of what I have to go on is based on what I’ve seen or heard from those much more knowledgeable and experienced than myself, but I hope I can do the topic the justice it deserves.

After “Damini”: the Delhi gang rape and women’s empowerment in India

Tags

Asia, Women

The recent gang-rape and subsequent death of a 23 year old woman in Delhi has sparked condemnation all over the world. Former DiA 2-month India volunteer Louisa Jones considers the tensions between India’s rapid economic development and its attitudes towards women.

One of the many protests that have started up around India. Photo by ramesh_lalwani/ Creative Commons

India’s meteoric rise on the world economic stage in the last few decades has brought considerable benefits to a small, well-educated proportion of society. The boom of IT and related industries has given birth to smart metropolises bristling with foreign investment and an insatiable appetite for commercialism. The egalitarian gender roles of this pseudo-Western world have thrown upwardly mobile women a life raft, helping to break down the stigma that would have once clung to them had they dared aspire to a life outside the home.