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Women and Water

April 22, 2015 By Pam

40-Painted-FacesOn museum visits, we view chipped vases decorated with images of women bearing water jars. In Sunday school, we learn about the woman-at-the-well.

“Water-haulers” of the world. That’s what UNICEF calls women and girls. From ancient times to today, it has been the work of women to find water for their families, for drinking, gardening, cooking, and bathing.

And, around the world, women are in the streets, protesting the failure to build and maintain systems to provide and protect safe, clean, free water. In honor of Earth Day, here’s a sampling of women’s creative nonviolent actions for the planet’s most precious resource.

GAMBIA’S “MARATHON WALKER”

40-Marathon-Walker(April, 2015) Last week’s World Water Forum was basically non-news, but social media was flush with photos of Siabatoa Sanneh, the strong and imaginative 43-year-old from Gambia who used the Paris Marathon to generate publicity about the water crisis.

Photographed carrying 20 liters of water on her head and wearing a traditional dress instead of runner’s clothes, Sanneh stood out from the crowd of 56,000 others, got our attention, made us think about water. She told reporters that, like many other women in Africa, she and her two daughters walk the distance of a marathon every day to get drinking water.

SMASHED WATER JARS IN INDIA

40-Kenya-smashed-pots(April, 2015) Women from the town of Sopore stood in the middle of Chanakhana Road earlier this month and threw earthenware pots to the dry ground. The clay shattered and traffic stopped. What good are pots, when there’s no water to fill them?

The women, frustrated by an ongoing water shortage, placed most of the blame for the crisis on members of the legislative assembly (“toothless and useless”) and on the Public Health Engineering department for not fixing damaged pipes. The women told reporters that their families could no longer wait.

KENYAN WOMEN BRING BABIES TO THE BLOCKADE

40-Kenya-babies-blockade(February, 2015) Hundreds of women, some carrying babies, blocked traffic for seven hours to protest the water shortage in Loitokitok.

Babies cried and drivers fumed, but the women stood their ground, demanding to speak to a high-ranking government official. Ordinarily, the police would have used teargas, but they held back because of the babies.

The Deputy Governor told the press that he recognized there were problems, but promised that talks were underway to determine how to share water from Mt. Kilimanjaro.

RIO WOMEN INVADE OLYMPIC MEETING PLACE

40-Rio-Golf-smaller(February, 2015) Several women broke through security and invaded the hotel where organizers were planning the 2016 Summer Olympic Games, objecting primarily to the new golf course and luxury apartments being erected in the city.

The women didn’t make it past the lobby, but managed to garner media attention to the concerns of groups like “Occupy Golf” and “Golf for Whom?” outraged that, to build the golf course, developers took part of a once-protected nature reserve, home to several endangered species of butterflies and frogs, bulldozed the land, and uprooted several hundred trees.

Southern Brazil is experiencing its worst drought in 80 years. From São Paulo to Rio de Janeiro people are suffering water rationing and rolling power cuts that limit access to light and the Internet. One district of Rio has been without tap water since December. Yet, while residents are making heroic efforts not to waste a drop, sprinklers are spritzing the new golf course to keep that grass lush and green.

TURKISH WOMEN SAY “NO WATER, NO SEX”

15-Absurdistan(August, 2001) Women in rural Sirt endured months of inadequate water supply, forcing them to wait in long lines at a fountain. Fed up, they declared, “No water, no sex” and called for a Bedroom Boycott. The men soon petitioned the local governor for assistance and got the 27-year-old water system repaired. This successful action inspired two films. (Movie still: “Absurdistan” — see YouTube clip below.) 

NIGERIAN WOMEN SHOCK SHELL

40-Nigeria-nude-protest(January, 2014) Although Nigeria is one of the world’s major oil producers, the Niger Delta, where the oil is found, remains poor and undeveloped. Women in Bayelsa State blamed Shell. The oil company had not kept its promises to provide clean drinking water for the local population, replace a faulty generator, and renovate a school.

Hundreds of women marched through Peremabiri with bare breasts and blocked the entrances to the oil platform with red cloth. They carried signs that read “SHELL: WE NEED WATER, LIGHT, SCHOOL FOR OUR CHILDREN.”

TO GO DEEPER

Water For Africa website: http://www.waterforafrica.org.uk  This non-profit organization builds boreholes, sustainable water sources, greatly shortening the distances that women must walk each day to find water.

“When Restive Sopore Town Broke Pots in Protest” Kashmir Life, April 8, 2015.

“Loitoktok Women Take Babies to Protest Against Water Shortage” by Kurgat Marinday, The Star, February 26, 2015

“Half-nude Women Protest Against Shell in Bayelsa”  Ecowas Tribune, January 8, 2014

“Drought-hit Rio Braces for Carnival Water Shortages” by Adriana Brasileiro, Reuters, Feb. 12, 2015


Women and Water, excellent video overview by Water For People (3:09 mins)


The 2001 Turkish sex strike inspired two modern films. The 2008 award-winning German-French comedy Absurdistan, directed by Veit Helmer and filmed in Azerbaijan, tells about two young lovers in a remote Soviet village, caught up in a sex strike for repair of a water pipeline. Absurdistan (2 min trailer)

Filed Under: Featured Tagged With: Absurdistan, Golf for Whom, Marathon Walker, Occupy Golf, sex strike, Siabatoa Sanneh, Water for Africa, women and water

Sex Strikes and Birth Boycotts — No Laughing Matter

October 10, 2014 By Pam

15-Lysis-GraduateIn Lysistrata, that bawdy old Greek comedy, scantily clad women fed up with the Peloponnesian War lured their warrior husbands home, then slammed shut the bedroom doors, so to speak, promising to open up when peace was declared.

This week, writing a chapter about women’s use of sex strikes, I learned that, ever since Aristophanes’ heroine proposed the idea in 411 B.C.E., women around the world have occasionally withheld sex or childbirth for the purpose of making an impact on society.

Hysterically funny on stage, it’s not always so funny in real life. Here’s a sampling of actual Lysistrata experiments:

●  1530, Nicaragua — Indigenous women proclaimed a “Strike of the Uterus” after the Spanish governor established a slave trade, vowing to prevent children from being born into slavery.

15-Legs●  @1600, Iroquois Nation — Noting that they produced the warriors, women threatened to forego childbearing until men conceded some decision-making powers on the war council.

●  1919, France — Feminist socialist Nelly Roussel called for a “Strike of the Wombs” to counter post-war pro-maternity propaganda.

●  1940s, China — When women in one village were denied suffrage, the Women’s Association declared a sex strike. A second election was soon called, and women were allowed to vote. They promptly elected a woman as deputy village head.

●  1979, West Germany — On Mother’s Day in Lower Saxony, over 1,000 women joined in a nationwide antinuclear campaign, pledging not to bear anymore children until the ruling powers give up nuclear weapons and nuclear power plants.

●  1985, India — In New Delhi, female students at St. Stephens College vowed to avoid relations with men until the end of the semester, to protest harassment and frequent “panty raids” by male students.

●  1986, Finland — Women collected 4,000 signatures on a petition announcing, “No Natal for No Nukes” promising to withhold sex until the government of Finland changed its pro-nuclear policies.

15-Absurdistan

●  2001, Turkey — Women in rural Sirt endured months of inadequate water supply, forcing them to wait in long lines at a fountain. Fed up, they declared, “No water, no sex” and called for a Bedroom Boycott. The men soon petitioned the local governor for assistance and got the 27-year-old water system repaired. (Movie still: “Absurdistan” — see below.) 

●  2003, Liberia — In a successful campaign to end a 14-year civil war, Leymah Gbowee led a coalition of Christian and Muslim women in a variety of nonviolent tactics, including a sex strike.

15-Lysis-Project

●  2003, Global — As the Bush administration prepared to invade Iraq, Kathryn Blume and Sharron Bower organized the “Lysistrata Project: The First-Ever Worldwide Theatrical Act of Dissent.” On March 3, there were 1,029 readings of Aristophanes’ play in 59 countries — a megaphone for antiwar protest. Unfortunately, no one in the Bush administration was listening.

15-Crossed-Legs●  2006, Colombia — Proclaiming a “strike of crossed legs,” women in Pereira withheld sex to stop gang wars and drive home the point that violence is not sexy. The ten-day strike may have worked. By 2010, Pereira’s murder rate declined by 26.5 percent.

●  2009, Kenya — Thousands of Kenyan women called for seven days of chastity to force the President and Prime Minister to talk with each other, speed reform, and end months of stalled negotiations. WIthin a week, the leaders talked.

15-Anti-Republican●  2011, Philippines —  Women in a sewing cooperative on rural Mindanao Island were unable to sell their wares because violence between men in rival villages had closed the main road. They called for a sex strike. Within a few weeks, the road was opened and deemed safe for travel.

●  2011, Togo — Inspired by the successful nonviolent campaign by Liberian women in 2003, Togolese women vowed to abstain from sex for one week to protest the 45-year military rule of the Gnassingbé family, their use of torture, and the lack of human rights. It took courage to publicly condemn the ruling family, but the sex strike had little impact beyond making headlines.

15-Access-Denied●  2012, USA — The Texas-based Liberal Ladies Who Lunch set up a Facebook page urging women to withhold sex for a week, not as a weapon against men, but as a reminder that  “if women lose our hard won rights to medical care, birth control, and pregnancy choice, it won’t only affect women.” The strike proposal was made somewhat tongue-in-cheek, but the demand that congress and insurance companies cover contraception was serious.

 

●  2014, Japan — A website threatening a sex strike against men who voted for Yoichi Masuzoe, reportedly received 75,000 hits a day. Despite objections to his misogynist comments, Masuzoe was elected governor of Tokyo.

15-Ukrainian-t-shirt

●  2014, Ukraine — After Russia annexed Crimea, Ukrainian women went online to launch the “Don’t Give It to a Russian” campaign, encouraging their sisters to say “Nyet!” to having sex with Russian men. They wore T-shirts bearing a logo of two “praying” hands held to resemble female genitalia. The group’s Facebook page immediately got over 2,300 “likes” and made headlines in Russian newspapers.

To Go Deeper

15-Lysis-JonesMusical & Theatrical Sex Strikes:

Modern adaptations of Lysistrata include the Western musical The Second Greatest Sex (1955), another musical The Happiest Girl in the World (1961), and Broadway’s recent sports-themed musical Lysistrata Jones (photo). While literary and theatrical treatments of the story are almost always comedic, Todd Rundgren’s Utopia rock band song “Lysistrata” concludes with the refrain, “I won’t go to war no more.”


15-Absurdistan-posterThe 2001 Turkish sex strike inspired two modern films. The 2008 award-winning German-French comedy Absurdistan, directed by Veit Helmer and filmed in Azerbaijan, tells about two young lovers in a remote Soviet village, caught up in a sex strike for repair of a water pipeline. Absurdistan (2 min trailer)

 


15-The-SourceThe 2011 French film, The Source, directed by Radu Mihāileanu, is set in a small Arab village in North Africa, where women go on a “love strike” to protest their hard labor carrying water from the mountains. (2-minute trailer) 

 

Real Life Sex Strikes:


2011, Philippines — Women’s sewing collective in 2 villages used a sex strike to stop men from fighting and open a much needed road. “Sex Strike Brings Peace” (3.5 minutes United Nations film)

 


2011, Colombia — News report on women’s “crossed leg strike” to demand a useable road after a woman and her baby died in labor because the ambulance couldn’t get to her. The report also touches on other recent strikes. (4.5 minutes)

 


2003, Liberia — Clip from Pray the Devil Back to Hell, about the sex strike in Liberia (1 minute)

 


2009 Kenya — News report about women’s 7-day sex boycott protesting poor leadership and demanding a national discussion of crucial issues. (2 minutes)

Credits

Featured poster by Shayna Pond for the University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma’s theatre arts production, March 2013

Lysistrata meets The Graduate by okhanorhan for the Dawson Theatre Collective, March 2012

Filed Under: Featured Tagged With: Absurdistan, Aristophanes, birth strike, crossed legs strike, Kathryn Blume, Leymah Gbowee, Liberal Ladies Who Lunch, Lysistrata, sex strike, Sharron Bower, The Source

Pam McAllister

In 1982, I edited the anthology Reweaving the Web of Life: Feminism and Nonviolence and then wrote two books about women’s use of resistance and action: You Can't Kill the Spirit and This River of Courage.

I've spent a lifetime compiling stories of courageous, creative actions, categorizing them (a la Gene Sharp), writing books and articles, speaking at university forums, church retreats, feminist conferences. I’ve also joined in the action -- antiwar protests in the '70s, Take Back the Night marches in the '80s, prison reform rallies in the '90s, and Occupy Wall Street actions in recent years.

I am currently researching more examples of nonviolent action for peace and justice around the world for two new books -- one for/about children and another about women (whose actions are still so often left out or overlooked).

Here I am with Barbara Deming, my mentor and friend, in Sugarloaf Key in the early ‘80s. The photo has faded, but the memories and love have not.

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