LAS NIÑAS TENEMOS QUE VISIBILIZARNOS

La Igualdad comienza desde el principio, desde que nuestras niñas nacen y algunas de ellas, por esos juegos del destino, bajo el "Síndrome de Rett". 

Esta es María una niña de Mallorca que quiere ser igual a todas las niñas del mundo, con las mismas oportunidades aunque desde su silla de ruedas; siempre con su mamá Catuca, su padre Frank y su hermana Lucía, al lado. Todas las familias con estas vivencias son ya ganadoras de cualquier distinción o premio; pero a María yo la conocí cuando aún no había nacido. Y su madre, mi "hermana" de Palma cuando María tenía ya unos meses me dijo: "María es diferente, su mirada es diferente" . 

Y María es diferente con una mirada que besa y abraza. 

Vota por María entrando en la página https://www.premiosromperbarreras.es/ 

¡¡ Las niñas tenemos que visibilizarnos !!

 

 

UN HOMBRE , UN PADRE y LAS MUJERES

Moncho FERRER de la Fundación Vicente Ferrer y Eva Padilla

Dos veces tuve el honor de ver a VICENTE FERRER en persona. La primera vez fue en un cine de Palma de Mallorca, acondicionado como sala para conferencias. Vicente estaba sentado en la mesa presidencial, en el escenario. Viejo, aspecto cansado, tranquilo, mirando...Yo llegué con una amiga. No fue mía la idea, fue de Isabel Guiscafré compañera de trabajo. Gracias amiga por llevarme a ver a ese hombre. Confieso que algo sabía de la Fundación y su labor en India, pero algo...

Aquello fue el comienzo, Vicente entró en mi vida. Yo lo adopté como mi "gurú", yo lo adopté como father; sí, esas personas a las que sigues y buscas y quieres encontrar. Comencé a desear  ir a India y acercarme a él, a su obra, a sus palabras, a sus acciones. Vicente Ferrer desde aquel estrado  me dijo todo lo que una persona tiene que saber en la vida...que las revoluciones se hacen en silencio, que la vida es un tapiz que tus actos van tejiendo día a día y si le das la vuelta te encontrarás que una mano ha tejido por detrás las mismas hiladas pero lo ha hecho con hilos de oro...y tú sólo quieres ver una cara del tapiz. Vicente me dijo que todo es posible. Como lo era su sueño, su verdad, erradicar la pobreza extrema de los pueblos. Sólo había que empezar y él lo hizo allí  en Anantapur, en India.

La segunda vez fue también en Palma de Mallorca, otro encuentro de la Fundación con el pueblo mallorquín. Le hablé, le saludé, me cogió las manos y me dijo que su labor no tenía importancia si no fuera por la confianza de las otras personas, es cuestión de creer que se puede....

Pero no le pregunté por las mujeres, en aquellos tiempos pareciera que las únicas mujeres del mundo fuesen las que yo conocía...pero ahora unos 15 años después, sí que le he preguntado a MONCHO FERRER por las mujeres en India. Ahora hace unos días en Tenerife he tenido la oportunidad de saludar a este otro hombre tranquilo. Dice Moncho Ferrer que uno de sus cometidos, más personal, que de la Fundación, es sensibilizar a las familias indias de la injusticia de la "dote". Él está casado con una mujer de castas bajas y obviamente, la dote no tenía lugar en su casamiento.

Moncho FERRER parece una gran persona, también un hombre tranquilo, con mucha sensibilidad y con ganas de dar más visibilidad a la Fundación, para conseguir trabajar en más proyectos e implicar a muchos sectores de la sociedad, no sólo internacional, sino también india. Un punto de vista diferente a su padre pero con visión de futuro.

El programa de la Fundación Vicente Ferrer “De Mujer a Mujer” que pretende lograr el empoderamiento y el avance de las mujeres de las comunidades y castas más desfavorecidas va caminando poco a poco pero sin pausa como le gustaban las cosas al father.

En Tenerife, en estos días, la exposición itinerante Mujeres: la fuerza del cambio en la India camina en una guagua presentando la vida de 7 mujeres indias. Desde 2011, con fotografías y las vivencias de la intensidad de un "continente", una tierra donde todo es extremadamente fuerte: los olores, los sabores, los colores y también la vida de la mujer. 

Vicente Ferrer, father

We, Women, sometimes we do hold ourselves back

¿ES POR NOSOTRAS QUE NO AVANZAMOS MÁS...?

The Guardian   
Daniel Boffey and Heather Stewart

Ministers are planning to produce information packs for the parents of daughters to help them to bring up "aspirational" young women.

The packs will offer advice on how to guide daughters through subject and career choices, amid concerns that many people feel they lack key parenting skills at such crucial times.

It is feared that girls are not being brought up to be ambitious for themselves. The number of female chief executives in the FTSE 100 has fallen in the past year, with just three now heading large London-listed firms.

The plan to roll out the information packs is being formulated by the women's minister and culture secretary, Maria Miller, in response to recommendations from the Women's Business Council (WBC), established last year by the government.

The WBC plans to publish its advice in a report on Tuesday in which it will say that a key task is to "broaden girls' aspirations and job choices before the start of their working lives".

The report will say that equalising the ratio of men to women in the workforce could increase economic growth by 0.5% a year, with potential gains of around 10% of GDP by 2030.

It will add that if women were setting up and running businesses at the same rate as men there could be 1 million more women entrepreneurs. The proposed information packs will be part of a wider government campaign to boost long-term growth by maximising the impact of women in the workplace. Among other measures, female business role models will be encouraged to visit schools and mentor girls and young women.

Miller told the Observer: "Making sure women can be successful at work and in business is essential if we want a strong economy. Encouraging women to fulfil their potential doesn't begin when they are already working; it starts when they are young, still at school. A vital part of future career success is the aspirations that girls have early in their lives, and the choices they make about subjects and qualifications.

"Parents are vital in helping girls make these choices, and we know that many parents want help with that. This campaign will give parents the knowledge and confidence they need to make sure that their daughters make choices which will help them realise their ambitions."

The WBC was set up in 2012 to advise government on what more can be done to maximise women's contribution to economic growth, focusing on areas with the greatest potential economic impact.

The "guide for girls" could be controversial, but one group of senior businesswomen claim in a letter in this week's Observer that women need to be more ambitious and should shoulder part of the blame for Britain's male-dominated boardrooms.

The letter says: "If the economic answer to delivering better-performing businesses is skilled and capable women working alongside equally talented men, then it is time that these women stand up and be counted; that they take some responsibility for the issue of the under-representation of women at the top of corporate Britain."

It is published in advance of the launch in London next week of the Two Percent Club, an organisation that tries to boost the representation of women at board level, and already has a series of regional groups. Allison Page, a partner at law firm DLA Piper in Leeds and chair of the Yorkshire branch, said: "Part of what the Two Percent Club is doing is to say: 'There are a lot of us here who are willing to take on these roles'."

The government has set a target of 25% female representation in FTSE 100 boardrooms by 2015, but recent evidence has suggested that progress towards that goal is stalling. Just 5.6% of FTSE 100 directors are women. Business secretary Vince Cable has threatened to impose quotas for women in the boardroom if the 25% goal is missed.

Linda Pollard, pro-chancellor of the University of Leeds and national chair of the Two Percent Club, agreed that it is in women's hands to increase their representation at the highest corporate level. "I think sometimes we do hold ourselves back," she said. And she rejected the idea that there is a shortage of women of the right calibre to be promoted to boards.

"I get quite irritated if I hear that. I come across I can't tell you how many unbelievable women out there: there's a plethora of them."

SÍ, LAS COSAS VAN CAMBIANDO...

Sí, sí, ya lo sabemos, las cosas van cambiando, pero que lento se vuelve todo cuando una y otra vez vislumbro de forma más clara y apabullante  una injusticia enquistada en las sociedades actuales... cuánto talento desperdiciado, cuántas energías desparramadas...

Yayoi Kusama, una de las artistas con más éxito en el Tate Modern

Kira Cochrane - THE GUARDIAN

Here's a teaser. How many female artists featured in the top 100 auction sales, ranked by price, last year? Gemma Rolls-Bentley, an independent curator, decided to find out. One day, not long ago, she sat down with the 2012 list, "and spent a couple of hours writing M next to the artists. I got to the end and there wasn't a single F." Some of those artists were alive, some were dead, all were highly valued – considered "great" or "genius" – and all were men.

Her count was part of a major project that began more than a year ago, in a packed church hall in Bethnal Green. East London Fawcett, a feminist group, had set up an event on women in the arts, and the turnout was large and vocal. "People were saying: 'I find I can't even have this conversation about equality in the art world'," says Rolls-Bentley, "because so many people think it's already been achieved. Because figures like Tracey Emin have defied the statistics, their rare success misleads people into thinking women get an equal shot." 

As the arts director of ELF, she had come armed with statistics gathered by the campaigning group UK Feminista in 2010. These showed 83% of the artists in Tate Modern were men, along with 70% of those in the Saatchi Gallery. The conversation became even more heated.

A group of volunteers decided to do their own wide-ranging audit. The results are published today, and they make interesting reading. The auction statistic surprised Rolls-Bentley the most, but she was also struck by the low proportion of public art created by women. In east London, of 43 public works of art, 14% were created by women. In Westminster and the City of London, of 386 public works of art, the proportion created by women is just 8%. 

Given that many of those commissions date back years, these numbers reflect women's marginalisation in art history – it's often estimated that only around 5% of the work featured in major permanent collections worldwide is by women. The National Gallery in London, for instance, contains more than 2,300 works; an information request made by the women's activist Tim Symonds at the start of 2011 revealed that only 11 of the artists in that enormous collection are women.

Rolls-Bentley and the other ELF volunteers were inspired in their audit by the self-styled "conscience of the art world", the feminist activist group Guerrilla Girls, who started highlighting sexual and racial inequality in the arts in 1985 – while dressed in gorilla masks. Perhaps their most famous poster came in 1989, and featured the female nude from Ingres's Grande Odalisque, wearing a gorilla mask, alongside the question: "Do women have to be naked to get into the Met Museum? Less than 5% of the artists in the modern art sections are women, but 85% of the nudes are female."

Has anything improved in the nearly three decades since the Guerrilla Girls started? Some areas of the ELF audit suggest they have. When they looked at the proportion of women artists selected to exhibit on the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square, for example, they made up 25% of the total – far from brilliant, but much better than those other statistics for public art.

They also looked at the artists represented by 134 commercial galleries in London and found that 31% were women – a figure reflected exactly in the proportion of solo shows by women at the city's non-commercial galleries. Given that women make up a majority of art students, the fact that they account for just fewer than one in three of the artists exhibited in, and represented by, London galleries might not seem much cause for celebration. But in the context of art history, it does suggest a step forward. 

Rolls-Bentley recognises that there are still problems but is hopeful that we're seeing improvements, and flags up one specific point of comparison to illustrate this. The ELF audit found 23.3% of solo exhibitions hosted by commercial galleries during the Frieze Art Fair last year were by women – when the Art Review journalist Laura McLean-Ferris investigated this in 2008, that figure was 11.6%.

The question remains how many of the female artists shown in London galleries will go on to be celebrated as true greats – and how many will be scuppered by that familiar tangle of boys' clubs, motherhood and cultural expectations. On this last point, the auction statistics suggest it is still all-male at the top, as does the assertion by the feminist artist Judy Chicago that only 2.7% of art books concern female artists. When I spoke to Chicago last year, she pointed out: "The monographs on artists, permanent collections and major exhibitions are really the path into history, and that's what is important to look at, and not be deceived by the many women showing at entry level in smaller and regional museums and galleries."

The glass ceiling in art still exists, then – but campaigners are determined to break it. The audit was set up to put this issue on the map, says Rolls-Bentley; to encourage the art world to consider gender balance much more frequently and freely. If that becomes second nature, the many brilliant women at the start of their careers today, putting on shows in small galleries, might have a genuine shot at history.

PERDER MIS SENOS O PERDER LA VIDA

ANGELINA JOLIE es esa clase de actrices americanas que no pasan desapercibidas: bien por su exuberante belleza que algunos critican por utilizar para caminar por las sendas de Hollywood; bien por el talento que otros y otras ven y adoran...A mí siempre me ha llamado la atención su deseo de tener una gran prole y además, representando todos los continentes de este planeta, a la imagen y semejanza de una ONU doméstica...Ahora me ha impresionado su relato, y su decisión de hacerse una mastectomía en sus dos senos...

LA DECISIÓN DE JOLIE

MY MOTHER fought cancer for almost a decade and died at 56. She held out long enough to meet the first of her grandchildren and to hold them in her arms. But my other children will never have the chance to know her and experience how loving and gracious she was.

We often speak of “Mommy’s mommy,” and I find myself trying to explain the illness that took her away from us. They have asked if the same could happen to me. I have always told them not to worry, but the truth is I carry a “faulty” gene, BRCA1, which sharply increases my risk of developing breast cancer and ovarian cancer. 

My doctors estimated that I had an 87 percent risk of breast cancer and a 50 percent risk of ovarian cancer, although the risk is different in the case of each woman. 

Only a fraction of breast cancers result from an inherited gene mutation. Those with a defect in BRCA1 have a 65 percent risk of getting it, on average. 

Once I knew that this was my reality, I decided to be proactive and to minimize the risk as much I could. I made a decision to have a preventive double mastectomy. I started with the breasts, as my risk of breast cancer is higher than my risk of ovarian cancer, and the surgery is more complex. 

On April 27, I finished the three months of medical procedures that the mastectomies involved. During that time I have been able to keep this private and to carry on with my work. 

But I am writing about it now because I hope that other women can benefit from my experience. Cancer is still a word that strikes fear into people’s hearts, producing a deep sense of powerlessness. But today it is possible to find out through a blood test whether you are highly susceptible to breast and ovarian cancer, and then take action. 

 

My own process began on Feb. 2 with a procedure known as a “nipple delay,” which rules out disease in the breast ducts behind the nipple and draws extra blood flow to the area. This causes some pain and a lot of bruising, but it increases the chance of saving the nipple. 

Two weeks later I had the major surgery, where the breast tissue is removed and temporary fillers are put in place. The operation can take eight hours. You wake up with drain tubes and expanders in your breasts. It does feel like a scene out of a science-fiction film. But days after surgery you can be back to a normal life. 

Nine weeks later, the final surgery is completed with the reconstruction of the breasts with an implant. There have been many advances in this procedure in the last few years, and the results can be beautiful. 

I wanted to write this to tell other women that the decision to have a mastectomy was not easy. But it is one I am very happy that I made. My chances of developing breast cancer have dropped from 87 percent to under 5 percent. I can tell my children that they don’t need to fear they will lose me to breast cancer. 

It is reassuring that they see nothing that makes them uncomfortable. They can see my small scars and that’s it. Everything else is just Mommy, the same as she always was. And they know that I love them and will do anything to be with them as long as I can. On a personal note, I do not feel any less of a woman. I feel empowered that I made a strong choice that in no way diminishes my femininity.

I am fortunate to have a partner, Brad Pitt, who is so loving and supportive. So to anyone who has a wife or girlfriend going through this, know that you are a very important part of the transition. Brad was at the Pink Lotus Breast Center, where I was treated, for every minute of the surgeries. We

managed to find moments to laugh together. We knew this was the right thing to do for our family and that it would bring us closer. And it has. 

For any woman reading this, I hope it helps you to know you have options. I want to encourage every woman, especially if you have a family history of breast or ovarian cancer, to seek out the information and medical experts who can help you through this aspect of your life, and to make your own informed choices. 

I acknowledge that there are many wonderful holistic doctors working on alternatives to surgery. My own regimen will be posted in due course on the Web site of the Pink Lotus Breast Center. I hope that this will be helpful to other women. 

Breast cancer alone kills some 458,000 people each year, according to the World Health Organization, mainly in low- and middle-income countries. It has got to be a priority to ensure that more women can access gene testing and lifesaving preventive treatment, whatever their means and background, wherever they live. The cost of testing for BRCA1 and BRCA2, at more than $3,000 in the United States, remains an obstacle for many women. 

I choose not to keep my story private because there are many women who do not know that they might be living under the shadow of cancer. It is my hope that they, too, will be able to get gene tested, and that if they have a high risk they, too, will know that they have strong options.

Life comes with many challenges. The ones that should not scare us are the ones we can take on and take control of. 

Angelina Jolie is an actress and director.

SIGO SIN COMPRENDER...

 

 

 

 

 

Dos mujeres asesinadas de nuevo. 

Sigo sin comprender

 la profunda convicción que lleva a un hombre a ensañarse con la que fue o es su compañera, 

a veces madre de sus hijos;

 y descargar, una ira encrustada en lo más hondo de su ser 

y avalanzarse sobre esa persona, esa mujer 

y dejarla abatida, desarmada, acabada, arrastrada, desamparada, vulnerada, amancillada, 

callada para siempre. 

Sigo sin comprender...

SÍ SE VA AVANZANDO...

Mujeres ocultas, mujeres ocultadas

Por: Estrella de Diego | 18 de marzo de 2013

Día tras día, nuevas mujeres se van incorporando a la historia del arte oficial. Salen de los almacenes y la memoria y salen, sobre todo,victoriosas, permitiendo establecer nuevas genealogías y hasta nuevas Historias del Arte que deben escribirse de una forma otra, redefiniendo el relato que se ha dado por bueno durante demasiado tiempo. Qué tremendo error. Está claro que esa Historia que damos por válida, la que rescata y convierte en cliché sólo algunos nombres de mujeres -Artemisia y Frida, entre otras y por cierto, mujeres sin apellido, como las amigas o las niñas-, va dejando excesivos huecos a su paso, huecos que  se van rellenando y que podrían dar un vuelco a la narración oficial. 

Ha ocurrido hace poco con la sueca Hilma af Klint, reconocida como una pintora de paisajes que, sin embargo, mantenía escondidas algunas iluminadoras pinturas abstractizantes que podrían arrebatar el protagonismo a Kandinsky o Mondrian. No es la primera vez que las mujeres que se salen del sendero de la “pintura figurativa” optan por la mascarada y el camuflaje, siguiendo el término codificado por la psicoanalista Joan Riviere en 1929 en el artículo La feminidad como mascarada : las mujeres intelectuales enfatizan  su feminidad para no presentarse como amenaza. 

 

Ocurre a menudo con las mujeres que escogen lo no-figurativo y el caso de Sophie Taeuber-Arp es paradigamático: desde sus cuadros concretos hasta sus marionetas dadaístas, al final se ha adelantado a muchos de los hombres de su generación, pero nadie repara en ello porque ha permanecido semioculta, eclipsada por el marido y como decisión personal. De hecho, es más conocida como bailarina dadá que como pintora, igual que Maruja Mallo se presenta como “surrealista”-aunque se formara en el círculo de Torres García, muy preocupado por la matemática tal y como muestran algunas obras de Mallo. Ese mismo discurso manipulador trata de explicar el cubismo de Blanchard –su anomalía, pues las mujeres no se ocupan de cuestiones relativas al espacio- en base a su diferencia física.  La propia Hilma af Klint –cuya exposición en Estocolmo viajará al Museo Picasso de Málaga donde también se mostró a Taeuber-Arp- no quiso que sus cuadros abstractos fueran mostrados sino veinte años después de su muerte, ocurrida en 1944, ya que creía que el mundo no estaba preparado para entenderlos. Aunque yo iría aún más lejos. Setenta años después de su fallecimiento, el mundo sigue poco preparado para el cambio trascendental: ¿y si la “inventora” de la abstracción fuera una mujer escandinava?

Porque si todo esto se traslada, además, hacia el Norte de Europa –fuera, pues, del circuito al uso que tiene como centro a París y a Picasso- las cosas se complican más si cabe. ¿Cuántos de nosotros conocemos, por ejemplo, a las muchas y excelentes pintoras finlandesas, cuyo movimiento feminista tuvo un peso extraordinario al coincidir con la independencia? ¿A quién le suena el nombre de Helene Schjerfbeck, una pintora fascinante y básica en la historia del arte del país nórdico y coetánea de Hilma af Klint, autora de una serie de autorretratos que van desde el “fin de siglo” hasta el Expresionismo? En esta recuperación de nombres de artistas, la última y estupenda documenta 13 presentaba los tapices de Hannah Riggen, que compartieron evento, aunque no fortuna crítica,con el Guernica. ¿Por qué, nos preguntamos? ¿Porque eran tapices o porque los había hecho una mujer? ¿Son las “artes menores” “menores” porque las hacen las mujeres o las hacen las mujeres porque son “menores”?

Ahora en el Candem Arts Center de Londres se presenta la obra de otra artista olvidada en algunos circuitos, cuyas imágenes son sin embargo presagio de muchas formas de trabajar de tantos artistas actuales que se han decantado por el dibujo como una forma de camuflaje de temas escabrosos, a la manera de Henry Darger.  La norteamericana Dorothy Iannone pintora, dibujante, poeta y música representa la sexualidad femenina y masculina de una forma muy explícita, si bien narrada de manera candorosa, casi inocente, igual que tantos de los artistas que hoy en día vuelven los ojos hacia el dibujo como forma de expresión. 

Aunque su activismo no se circunscribe sólo a lo pintado, que le valió una censura en la exposición de Berna que hizo dimitir al propio Harald Szeemann. Tuvo también la costumbre de ir escribiendo en una lista a todos sus amantes. Poco defensora de lo doméstico, apasionada y fascinante, esta mujer de 80 años que vive en Berlín, es capaz de añadir el humor a su trabajo, como en la serie Gente , de mediados de los 60 del XX, donde personajes famosos, elegantemente vestidos y convertidos en una especie de recortables, exhiben los genitales. Pero son las almas lo que quiere mostrar, comenta.  Y, de hecho, en estas pinturas, dibujos o esculturas de madera o papel, inocentes y sorprendentes que preludian a todas las mujeres que quisieron ser descaradas a finales del siglo XX y en el XXI, hay algo de espiritual, de ascenso a otra dimensión, como ocurre cuando se trascienden los tabúes. La obra increíble de Iannone se pudo ver en Nueva York, en 2009, expuesta en el New Museum, y se puede ver ahora en Londres., dejando claro que las chicas descaradas como Tracy Emin ,y  su lista de amantes, y hasta Nan Goldin, y su juego de imágenes explítcitas, tienen una abuela en la cual buscar la propia genealogía.

WE, THE PEOPLE...

 For our journey is not complete until our wives, our mothers and daughters can earn a living equal to their efforts...

CNN Politics

Vice President Biden, Mr. Chief Justice, members of the United States Congress, distinguished guests, and fellow citizens: 

Each time we gather to inaugurate a President we bear witness to the enduring strength of our Constitution. We affirm the promise of our democracy. We recall that what binds this nation together is not the colors of our skin or the tenets of our faith or the origins of our names. What makes us exceptional - what makes us American - is our allegiance to an idea articulated in a declaration made more than two centuries ago:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” 

Today we continue a never-ending journey to bridge the meaning of those words with the realities of our time. For history tells us that while these truths may be self-evident, they’ve never been self-executing; that while freedom is a gift from God, it must be secured by His people here on Earth.  The patriots of 1776 did not fight to replace the tyranny of a king with the privileges of a few or the rule of a mob. They gave to us a republic, a government of, and by, and for the people, entrusting each generation to keep safe our founding creed. 

And for more than two hundred years, we have. 

Through blood drawn by lash and blood drawn by sword, we learned that no union founded on the principles of liberty and equality could survive half-slave and half-free. We made ourselves anew, and vowed to move forward together. 

Together, we determined that a modern economy requires railroads and highways to speed travel and commerce, schools and colleges to train our workers. 

Together, we discovered that a free market only thrives when there are rules to ensure competition and fair play. 

Together, we resolved that a great nation must care for the vulnerable, and protect its people from life’s worst hazards and misfortune. 

Through it all, we have never relinquished our skepticism of central authority, nor have we succumbed to the fiction that all society’s ills can be cured through government alone. Our celebration of initiative and enterprise, our insistence on hard work and personal responsibility, these are constants in our character.

But we have always understood that when times change, so must we; that fidelity to our founding principles requires new responses to new challenges; that preserving our individual freedoms ultimately requires collective action. For the American people can no more meet the demands of today’s world by acting alone than American soldiers could have met the forces of fascism or communism with muskets and militias. No single person can train all the math and science teachers we’ll need to equip our children for the future, or build the roads and networks and research labs that will bring new jobs and businesses to our shores. Now, more than ever, we must do these things together, as one nation and one people.

This generation of Americans has been tested by crises that steeled our resolve and proved our resilience. A decade of war is now ending. An economic recovery has begun.  America’s possibilities are limitless, for we possess all the qualities that this world without boundaries demands: youth and drive; diversity and openness; an endless capacity for risk and a gift for reinvention. My fellow Americans, we are made for this moment, and we will seize it - so long as we seize it together.

For we, the people, understand that our country cannot succeed when a shrinking few do very well and a growing many barely make it.  We believe that America’s prosperity must rest upon the broad shoulders of a rising middle class. We know that America thrives when every person can find independence and pride in their work; when the wages of honest labor liberate families from the brink of hardship. We are true to our creed when a little girl born into the bleakest poverty knows that she has the same chance to succeed as anybody else, because she is an American; she is free, and she is equal, not just in the eyes of God but also in our own.

We understand that outworn programs are inadequate to the needs of our time. So we must harness new ideas and technology to remake our government, revamp our tax code, reform our schools, and empower our citizens with the skills they need to work harder, learn more, reach higher. But while the means will change, our purpose endures: a nation that rewards the effort and determination of every single American. That is what this moment requires. That is what will give real meaning to our creed. 

We, the people, still believe that every citizen deserves a basic measure of security and dignity. We must make the hard choices to reduce the cost of health care and the size of our deficit. But we reject the belief that America must choose between caring for the generation that built this country and investing in the generation that will build its future.  For we remember the lessons of our past, when twilight years were spent in poverty and parents of a child with a disability had nowhere to turn. 

We do not believe that in this country freedom is reserved for the lucky, or happiness for the few. We recognize that no matter how responsibly we live our lives, any one of us at any time may face a job loss, or a sudden illness, or a home swept away in a terrible storm. The commitments we make to each other through Medicare and Medicaid and Social Security, these things do not sap our initiative, they strengthen us. They do not make us a nation of takers; they free us to take the risks that make this country great.

We, the people, still believe that our obligations as Americans are not just to ourselves, but to all posterity. We will respond to the threat of climate change, knowing that the failure to do so would betray our children and future generations.  Some may still deny the overwhelming judgment of science, but none can avoid the devastating impact of raging fires and crippling drought and more powerful storms. 

The path towards sustainable energy sources will be long and sometimes difficult. But America cannot resist this transition, we must lead it. We cannot cede to other nations the technology that will power new jobs and new industries, we must claim its promise. That’s how we will maintain our economic vitality and our national treasure - our forests and waterways, our crop lands and snow-capped peaks. That is how we will preserve our planet, commanded to our care by God. That’s what will lend meaning to the creed our fathers once declared.

We, the people, still believe that enduring security and lasting peace do not require perpetual war.  Our brave men and women in uniform, tempered by the flames of battle, are unmatched in skill and courage.  Our citizens, seared by the memory of those we have lost, know too well the price that is paid for liberty. The knowledge of their sacrifice will keep us forever vigilant against those who would do us harm. But we are also heirs to those who won the peace and not just the war; who turned sworn enemies into the surest of friends - and we must carry those lessons into this time as well.

We will defend our people and uphold our values through strength of arms and rule of law. We will show the courage to try and resolve our differences with other nations peacefully –- not because we are naïve about the dangers we face, but because engagement can more durably lift suspicion and fear.

America will remain the anchor of strong alliances in every corner of the globe. And we will renew those institutions that extend our capacity to manage crisis abroad, for no one has a greater stake in a peaceful world than its most powerful nation. We will support democracy from Asia to Africa, from the Americas to the Middle East, because our interests and our conscience compel us to act on behalf of those who long for freedom. And we must be a source of hope to the poor, the sick, the marginalized, the victims of prejudice –- not out of mere charity, but because peace in our time requires the constant advance of those principles that our common creed describes: tolerance and opportunity, human dignity and justice. 

We, the people, declare today that the most evident of truths –- that all of us are created equal –- is the star that guides us still; just as it guided our forebears through Seneca Falls, and Selma, and Stonewall; just as it guided all those men and women, sung and unsung, who left footprints along this great Mall, to hear a preacher say that we cannot walk alone; to hear a King proclaim that our individual freedom is inextricably bound to the freedom of every soul on Earth.

It is now our generation’s task to carry on what those pioneers began. For our journey is not complete until our wives, our mothers and daughters can earn a living equal to their efforts. Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law –- - for if we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well.  Our journey is not complete until no citizen is forced to wait for hours to exercise the right to vote.  Our journey is not complete until we find a better way to welcome the striving, hopeful immigrants who still see America as a land of opportunity  - until bright young students and engineers are enlisted in our workforce rather than expelled from our country.  Our journey is not complete until all our children, from the streets of Detroit to the hills of Appalachia, to the quiet lanes of Newtown, know that they are cared for and cherished and always safe from harm. 

That is our generation’s task - to make these words, these rights, these values of life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness real for every American. Being true to our founding documents does not require us to agree on every contour of life. It does not mean we all define liberty in exactly the same way or follow the same precise path to happiness. Progress does not compel us to settle centuries-long debates about the role of government for all time, but it does require us to act in our time. 

For now decisions are upon us and we cannot afford delay. We cannot mistake absolutism for principle, or substitute spectacle for politics, or treat name-calling as reasoned debate.  We must act, knowing that our work will be imperfect. We must act, knowing that today’s victories will be only partial and that it will be up to those who stand here in four years and 40 years and 400 years hence to advance the timeless spirit once conferred to us in a spare Philadelphia hall. 

My fellow Americans, the oath I have sworn before you today, like the one recited by others who serve in this Capitol, was an oath to God and country, not party or faction. And we must faithfully execute that pledge during the duration of our service. But the words I spoke today are not so different from the oath that is taken each time a soldier signs up for duty or an immigrant realizes her dream. My oath is not so different from the pledge we all make to the flag that waves above and that fills our hearts with pride. 

They are the words of citizens and they represent our greatest hope. You and I, as citizens, have the power to set this country’s course. You and I, as citizens, have the obligation to shape the debates of our time - not only with the votes we cast, but with the voices we lift in defense of our most ancient values and enduring ideals.

Let us, each of us, now embrace with solemn duty and awesome joy what is our lasting birthright. With common effort and common purpose, with passion and dedication, let us answer the call of history and carry into an uncertain future that precious light of freedom. 

Thank you. God bless you, and may He forever bless these United States of America.

LA LIBERTAD

“Hoy he borrado el número de mi casa
y el nombre de la calle donde vivo.
He cambiado la dirección de todos los caminos.
Si queréis encontrarme ahora
llamad a cualquier puerta de cualquier calle
en cualquier ciudad en cualquier parte del mundo.
Esta maldición, esta bendición:
dondequiera que encontréis la libertad, allí tengo mi morada.”

Amrita Pritam (1919-2005)

MUJERES ETERNAMENTE MENORES DE EDAD

En un mundo globalizado, lo que le ocurre a las mujeres de Irán me ocurre a mi...

 

Iranian single women might need father's permission to go abroad

Parliamentary bill proposes requirement for single women to obtain official consent from their guardian to leave country

Saeed Kamali Dehghan

THE GUARDIAN 

An Iranian woman shows writing on her hands saying women should have the same rights as men. Photograph: Abedin Taherkenareh/EPA

 

 

 

 

 

 

Single women in Iran will need the permission of their guardians to be able to leave the country if a new bill secures enough votes in parliament.

At the moment, unmarried women and men above the age of 18 can leave the country if they have a passport but, according to the new bill, single women would need official consent from their guardian, usually their father.

Married women in Iran always need their husband's permission to be able to hold a passport both under the current legislation that dates back to the pre-1979 Islamic revolution and under the proposed bill.

Husbands can ban their wives from leaving the country at any time. Divorced women, however, are currently free to hold a passport and leave the country without permission.

"Anyone above the age of 18 can apply for a passport," Hossein Naghavi-Hosseini, the speaker of the parliamentary committee on national security and foreign policy told the semi-official Isna news agency. "According to this bill … married women of any age need the written consent of their husband to be able to have a passport and single women above the age of 18 will need the permission of their guardian." Single women whose guardian denies them permission could dispute the decision in a court.

Since the 1979 Islamic revolution, women's rights campaigners have struggled to abolish the need for the husband's consent but the new bill, if passed, would be a major setback.

Shadi Sadr, a prominent women's rights activist and human rights lawyer, told the Guardian: "The mentality behind these controversial laws is that women should have owners, to give power to men to have control over women." The majority of people inside Iran who were barred from leaving the country were either women who did not have the permission of their husbands or tax evaders, she added.

Mohammad Mostafaei, a well-known Iranian lawyer currently living in exile in the Netherlands, called the need for permission "the modern slavery". In an article published on the opposition website Rahesabz he writes: "Only slaves at the time of slavery needed permission to go here or there."

Barring citizens from leaving the country is one of the ways the Islamic republic has punished many of its critics in recent years. In a recent example, the family members of the jailed award-winning lawyer, Nasrin Sotoudeh, including her 12-year-old daughter, were subjected to a travel ban.