Applying Feminism Globally

I spent Thursday at the rich, thought-provoking, and inspiring Applying Feminism Globally conference at the University of Baltimore School of Law (also known as the Center on Applied Feminism's Fourth Annual Feminist Legal Theory Conference). I've offered below a brief summary of each the many papers presented, and IntLawGrrls readers can look forward to guest posts by several of the speakers.
Unfortunately, I was unable to attend Wednesday's first panel, entitled Lessons from Feminists Abroad, which included IntLawGrrl Johanna Bond and guest/alumna Penelope Andrews. I did make it to the keynote presentation by Nobel-prize winning author Toni Morrison (pictured left), who at the age of eighty was electric as ever, offering her lively and provocative thoughts on global legal feminism. She explored the ways in which women's experience of harm might differ from law's focus, using as an example the character Setha, from her novel Beloved, who was more upset that her attackers took the milk from her breasts than that they raped her. Morrison also emphasized the importance of trying to view male perpetrators of sexual and gender-based violence as brothers, husbands, and sons -- in other words, of including their motivations and perspectives in discussions about how to respond to such acts.
Thursday opened with a panel entitled Global Perspectives on Women's Bodies, Health and Reproduction. Farah Diaz-Tello (pictured left) and Kathrine Jack of National Advocates for Pregnant Women presented a paper exploring the application of international human rights law to reproductive rights issues, most interestingly noting the ways in which the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the Convention on the Rights of the Child have been leveraged by anti-choice groups to argue against abortion rights. Seema Mohapatra of Barry University (pictured near right), who will offer a fuller discussion of her paper on this blog, spoke on legal responses to surrogacy, using India as a case study. Brook Kelly, the HIV Human Rights Attorney at WORLD (pictured far right), discussed the human rights violations suffered by women living with HIV in the United States. She offered a case study of a woman whose abuser was able to manipulate a state law criminalizing HIV exposure and transmission to have her imprisoned on felony charges; though she has served her time, this woman has been unable to put her life back together.
The second panel, entitled Women, Work, and Socioeconomic Rights in the Global Economy, was equally engrossing and informative. Julie Goldscheid of CUNY (pictured far right) presented a comparative paper on the relationship between economic independence and gender violence in the United States and South Africa. Guest/alumna Lisa Pruitt of UC Davis (pictured left) and her student Marta Vanegas explored Article 14 of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women and its impact on rural women, focusing on its facilitative role in encouraging economic development and the inclusion of women in planning at all levels. Finally, Sarah Rogerson of Baltimore Law (pictured near right) discussed the importance of the economic advancement of individual women to macroeconomic growth, and suggested ways in which international law should focus on promoting women's rights to achieve economic goals.
The third panel, Women in Combat and Conflict -- and Consequences, discussed the ways in which law regulates women's roles and lives as combatants, beyond conflict, and post-conflict. Pamela Laufer-Ukeles of the University of Dayton presented a paper entitled Cross-Dressers with Benefits, discussing laws regulating women's combat roles in Israel and the United States, and how differences in background levels of gender equality have impacted these roles on the ground. I presented my paper, Questioning Hierarchies of Harm, which discusses the ways in which international and domestic laws fail to protect refugee and internally displaced women living in camps from sexual and gender-based violence. Shana Tabak of George Washington University spoke about her paper False Dichotomies of Transitional Justice, using Colombia as a case study to explain the ways in which common conceptions of transitional justice create binary distinctions that fail to comport with the significantly more complex lives of women during conflict.
The last panel, Feminist Activism Around the World, began with a lively presentation by guest/alumna Fatou Kine Camara of Cheik Anta Diop University in Dakar (pictured far left), Senegal, on the ways in which Africa's matriarchal history should be leveraged to encourage participatory governance, requiring gender parity in assemblies and governing bodies, in modern Africa. Nancy Cook of the University of Minnesota (pictured near left) discussed the gap between the truth found by our judicial systems and the truth experienced by those who participate in that system, and offered narrative acts of witness as a potential solution. Holly Maguigan of NYU (pictured middle right) and Shamita Das Dasgupta of Manavi (pictured near right ) asked whether reliance on criminal intervention has utility in the domestic violence context, and offered the contrasting case studies of India and the United States to explore the ways in which close attention to the needs of women on the ground can lead to the construction of more successful responses to domestic violence. Finally, Deborah Weissman of the University of North Carolina (pictured far right) explored the ways in which Cuban feminists, given their national history and role in the global order, were able to leverage the politics of human rights to alter the status quo without posing a threat to the Cuban nation.
I'm still chewing through the many implications of the day's presentations, and look forward to sharing guest posts on several of these papers with readers in the near future!

Sabar: The Forbidden Dance

Senegal is a country with two vibrant traditions: Located on Africa's west coast, Senegal's population is ninety-five percent Muslim. But the traditions of the ancestors are an integral part of society. One way such traditions are kept alive is through art and culture. Sabar, a traditional dance and drumming technique, holds pride of place with Senegalese both as a form of expression and as a method of connecting with Senegal's rich past. It is played at weddings, christenings, as well as large family gatherings.

Not every segment of society views Sabar with pride. Since independence in 1960, some of Sabar's dance steps have been banned by various governments for being too sexually explicit. Muslim leaders have repeatedly denounced Sabar, and in the more fundamentalist regions of Senegal, the dance is simply forbidden. Sabar is under siege, but it persists.

The ban on Sabar also has gendered implications. Whenever the explosive combination of sex and religion meet, women always seem to find themselves in harms way. Recently, a famous female traditional dancer was tried and condemned for dancing the Sabar (the presiding judge was also a woman.)

Thankfully, with the advent of 21st century technology--and yes, globalization--the Senegalese are able to share the rich cultural heritage of Sabar with the world. Attached below is a short YouTube clip detailing the dance steps (for the prurient among us, the "objectionable" steps begin at 2:39!)]. The second clip is a short and excellent documentary exploring gender issues, Islam, and the Sabar in Senegal.


The Forbidden Steps of the Sabar:




Sabar and Women: A Documentary






Heart felt thank you to IntLawGrrl guest/alumna Fatou Kiné Camara for information on this important issue!

Guest Blogger: Fatou Kiné Camara

IntLawGrrls is pleased to introduce our guest blogger for today, Professor Fatou Kiné Camara (left). Kiné is Associate Professor of Law at the Cheikh Anta Diop University in Dakar, Senegal, where for almost twenty years she has taught Family Law, International Law (private aspects), International Arbitration and Dispute Settlement, and African Customary Law. (The New York Times did a story on the university, which can be found here.)
Kiné's research and writing centers on African customary law with an emphasis on feminist jurisprudence from an African perspective. Kiné is the author of two books (in French), Power and Justice in Black People’s Tradition and Matrimony in Black People’s Tradition, and is hard at work on her third, Propositions for a Democratic, Humanist and Developed Africa, which will provide a detailed blueprint on adapting Ancient Africa’s social, economic, and political structures to current challenges facing the continen a range of areas:
► "establishing a true democracy at every level of society";
► "implementing an effective industrialisation program"; and
► "changing the philosophy of the criminal law system."
A prolific writer, Kiné’s law review articles are too numerous to cite here, but a sampling includes: Women and the Law - A Critique of the Senegalese Family Law (Social Identities Journal for the Study of Race, Nation and Culture, Volume 13 Issue 6, 787), The Constitution of the Wolof Monarchies and the Lebu Republic: Addressing Gender in a Secular and Representative Democracy, (Droit Sénégalais, n°6, Nov. 2007), and Research on African Customary Law: A Proposed Methodology (Revue de Droit Sénégalais, n°5, November 2006). She was a visiting professor at Griffith Law School in Brisbane, Australia, and Gaston Berger University in Saint-Louis, Senegal, and was a faculty member in a seminar led by Richard Goldstone (former Justice of the South African Constutitonal Court and the first chief prosecutor in the UN International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia) entitled “Reconciling Religion and Culture in a Constitutional Framework.” When she is not teaching, writing or traveling, Kiné is an exceptional visual artist; her work was showcased at a gallery in Washington, D.C.
Kiné was recently invited to present a paper on African Customary law at a conference hosted by Fordham's Leitner Center for International Law and Justice, and her post below provides a glimpse at that forthcoming presentation. Kiné dedicates her guest post to Lingeer Ndaté Yàlla (depicted below). “Lingeer” is roughly translated from the Wolof (one of Senegal’s languages) as “queen,” although Kiné notes that in the West a queen is either the spouse of the king, or a woman who rules alone on the throne. By contrast, the Lingeer—who may be married—holds the title of counselor to the king, but she effectively holds true political power. As head of the kingdom of Waalo, Lingeer Yàlla, who joins IntLawGrrls' transnational foremothers listed at right, fought the French colonial army until her troops were defeated in 1855. You can read more on her life in French here and here, and in the English-language children's book depicting her at left.
Heartfelt welcome!

The Search for a True African Renaissance

I want to thank IntLawGrrls for inviting me to contribute a guest post to this extraordinary forum.
In a few months, I will participate in a conference on African Customary law hosted by Fordham's Leitner Center for International Law and Justice. My paper will address Africa’s all-too familiar problems in a new way. The Black Continent’s current woes resemble Europe’s experience during the Middle Ages: civil wars, famine, diseases, epidemics, raging fundamentalism, and rampant illiteracy. But these are merely causes and effects. One cannot continue doing the same thing over and over and expect different results. Outside intervention in the form of evaluations, analyses, solutions, aid, and loans have been tried, all to no avail. Maybe it is time for Africa to try something “new.” Maybe it is time to look to ancient African laws and institutions for a solution. (photo credit)
Political leaders who speak of an “African Renaissance” overlook the true meaning of the word. The term “renaissance” was used by historians to describe the period marking the emergence of Europe out of the Dark Ages into a new era of great discoveries and of economic, intellectual and technical development. That feat was achieved thanks to the move back to Ancient Greek and Roman philosophy and art created by the great artists and thinkers of the early 15th to the late 16th centuries. These men and women leaped more than a thousand years back in time in order to learn from the great scientists, artists, lawmakers, and geniuses of the Greek and Latin civilizations. From that experience, Europe created a better future for itself. And it is not the only continent to have benefited from taking a look back at how things were done “way back when”. In Asia, a true cultural renaissance paved the way for that continent’s spectacular economic development.
Africa also needs a true renaissance. It stands to reason that if Africa is to efficiently utilize the concept of renaissance, it must rediscover the ideas of the great African civilizations, which were dismantled during the slave trade and colonization, and adapt them to modern times. Collecting and identifying all of our indigenous rules is of the greatest importance to Africa. We must take stock of our past laws if we want to implement much-needed culturally based sociolegal reforms. The purpose of my paper is to demonstrate that far from being a useless enterprise, researching ancient and pre-colonial African laws is Africa’s key to a true renaissance.
The research methodology proposed in this paper consists of identifying the rules and values different African communities have in common, going as far back in time as the available data allow. By focusing on the rules that can be traced back to the earliest times of African civilization, the aim is to develop researchers’ capacity to correctly identify and interpret, and ultimately to nurture, Africa’s cultural heritage. It is equally important to restore women's power in African society. If Africa’s history shows one thing, it is that empowerment of women at all levels of society—social, familial, economical, political and religious—leads to respect for the basic human rights of all. There is abundant historical evidence of that fact from Ancient Egypt to precolonial Africa. There is equally abundant historical and modern evidence, however, that male supremacy goes hand in hand with women’s subordination. A true renaissance must include a bright future for all. (photo credit)