Running Toddler's blog

AWID Forum, 14th to 17th Nov 2008 – Testing times? Maximising commonality and minmising conflict within and between movements

There’s a difference between privacy and confidentiality. If the blood test results show that someone is HIV positive or has AIDS, there’s a confidentiality about the results, but it doesn’t mean that the results would be private…

AWID Forum 2008, 14th to 17th Nov 2008 – Speaking Out against Homophobic Hate, Claiming Justice, Celebrating Rights

Don’t you want to have children? All of us will die, so for the world, you should want to bear children. Don’t you think the kind of sex you have spreads diseases? Didn’t you grow up with a religion?

These were just some of the questions (and judgments) that met an obvious disgruntled and very loud rumble from women who were in the room, women who felt hurt and offended, women who identify as lesbian, bisexual or transgendered.

AWID Forum, 14th to 17th Nov 2008, Cape Town – Forgotten Voices: Women with Disabilities and the AIDS Pandemic – Sex Workers Meet Feminism – Measuring the Success of Our Movements

This phrase has been bandied about for so often and so long that I’m increasingly confused as to what it really means. Women’s rights groups have often said, it’s best to “agree to disagree”. But what are we agreeing to disagree on except for the fact that we cannot come to a concensus?

AWID Forum, 14th to 17th Nov 2008, Cape Town – Forgotten Voices: Women with Disabilities and the AIDS Pandemic – Sex Workers Meet Feminism – Measuring the Success of Our Movements

These past few days, I’ve been constantly reminded of the power of the visual. From the simple energiser activity of “Do what I say” to “people see the disability, rather than the woman”. The visual allows us our quick perceptions, our quick judgments, our assumptions, our “what we think we know”, our quick disapprovals.