Populism Speaks to Young Men – Why Don’t Human Rights?

by EditorNo Comments
By Matilde Da Luz By now, most women recognize the script. Raise a point about sexism, feminism, or gender equality and the response is often predictable. You are “angry.” You are “too woke.” You have, somehow, made things awkward. The figure of the angry feminist woman has become so familiar that it no longer feels like an accusation so much as a reflex – a shorthand for dismissing political discomfort without engaging it. You become labelled, often unconsciously, as the “killjoy.” What is striking is that this stereotype persists at a moment when anger is hardly in short supply. Much of it belongs to men, and is increasingly confident, public, and political. It circulates online, where terms like incel and manosphere emerge in everyday vocabulary. It is surfacing in dating culture, classrooms, and family conversations, where feminism is framed less as a demand for equality than as a provocation. And it is showing up in electoral politics. According to a recent study that...
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Dayak Women’s Wisdom as A Pathway to Indonesia’s Climate Resilience in Preserving Kalimantan Forests

by EditorNo Comments
By Devira Sari When the bulldozers came for Dijah’s land, she was not home to stop them. Dijah, a member of the indigenous Dayak people of West Kalimantan, returned from work to find her family’s ancestral forest being cleared for a palm oil plantation. The expansion has stripped communities of their forests, their traditional medicine, and a matrilineal way of life passed down through generations. When Dijah organized her community to resist the land clearing, she was met with state repression. Members of BRIMOB (The Mobile Brigade Corps) detained her, aiming to silence her defense of the communal lands. Dijah’s experience reflects the broader structural violence that underpins Indonesia’s palm oil industry where state-corporate collusion, gendered marginalization, and environmental destruction intersect. Yet despite intimidation, Dayak women continue to resist, embodying both ecological and cultural resilience against an economy that prioritizes profit over justice. Dijah’s story is not an isolated tragedy, it is a repeated experience of Dayak women who have long...
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The Diavata Refugee Camp: Reflections on Humanitarian Work in ‘Fortress Europe’

by db3731No Comments
By: Gracyn Elizabeth McGathy Every evening at 6:35 p.m., the iron bars of Diavata Refugee Camp glow orange. The sun sets fiercely over its weed-covered fields, illuminating a collection of discarded goods: a worn shoe, crushed soda cans, and ripped plastic. The bus to the nearest city, Thessaloniki, will have come and gone by now, completing its second of only two stops it does each day in Diavata.  The only piece of evidence left to prove that help was once there lies rotting by the side of the road. With faded letters barely legible now, a scrap of once-white tarp labeled “United Nations.” The 2015 refugee crisis, a consequence of the Syrian Civil War, drew many major humanitarian organizations to the desolate expanse of Diavata. Casa Base, a small local NGO, housed in a rusting warehouse adjacent to the camp. The only organization left of its kind, forced to be the main organization responsible for providing critical humanitarian aid to the refugees...
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It’s Not Pop Culture—It’s Racism and Fetishizing Roma Women

by EditorNo Comments
By Mara Bulzan It’s 2024 and I could not stop staring in disbelief at the costumes worn by Columbia students at Halloween parties. Ostentatious reproductions of stereotypical Roma clothing (derogatorily referred to as “gypsies”) worn to frat parties by young, white, and highly educated women. And no one called them out for it. They were not Roma, so their smiles and dancing could not have been weighed down by a history of over 800 years of enslavement, genocide, forced displacement and eugenic policies. They were not stigmatized for “looking Roma,” so they could use it as a costume. When they looked in the mirror that night, the face of someone deemed a perpetual outsider did not glare back at them.  Contemporary popular culture has normalized the stereotypical depiction of Roma women to the point in which it has become an aesthetic with fetishistic tendencies. She is only allowed to be a free-spirited, sly seductress with fortune-telling abilities. It is preferable that she...
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Manipur Violence: The Weaponizing of Sexual Offenses During Conflicts

Manipur Violence: The Weaponizing of Sexual Offenses During Conflicts

by Meryem BahadirNo Comments
By Guest Writer Prabhu Gupta The small Indian state of Manipur has been engulfed in intense civil conflict due to ethnic tensions. The primary Meitei population, along with the smaller Kuki minority, are engaged in a struggle for control and territorial dominance, leading to violent clashes. Recently, a video went viral showing two naked women being paraded naked, molested, and raped by a mob in the violence-inflicted areas resulting in a huge uproar from both within and outside the nation. Factual Backdrop and issues leading to the crisis The northeastern Indian state of Manipur, situated to the east of Bangladesh and sharing a border with Myanmar, has a population of approximately 3.3 million people. The majority population belongs to the Meiteis, while around 43% belong to the Kuki and Naga tribes, which make up the predominant minority groups. In Manipur a situation of ongoing violence began in May, resulting in the death of at least 130 people and injuries to 400 more. The conflict...
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Arbitrariness at its Worst: The Inhumane Treatment of Haitian Migrants at the U.S.-Mexico Border

Arbitrariness at its Worst: The Inhumane Treatment of Haitian Migrants at the U.S.-Mexico Border

by Winston Ardoin IINo Comments
By Guest Contributors Emma S. McDonnell* and So Yeon Kim** They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Mark Naison, a professor at Fordham University, explains “History is alive. Images move like wildfire.” That’s why it was no surprise when violent and graphic images showing the treatment of Haitian migrants by the United States Border Control surfaced, they were met with global outcry. These photographs are placed within the context of arbitrary policy, inhumane treatment, and unsuitable camps, as well as a history of ambivalence in relation to forced migration. In other words, a humanitarian disaster. The situation at the border is a reflection of arbitrary and ambiguous policy-making. The Biden Administration has reversed policies and directives from the former administration, but has left some of the Trump administration’s shameful policies in place, such as Title 42. Only ending Title 42 can enable a more fluid asylum process. Without an end to Title 42, the policy will continue to be dominated...
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All the World’s a Stage: Accessibility and Theatrical Spaces

All the World’s a Stage: Accessibility and Theatrical Spaces

by Winston Ardoin IINo Comments
By RightsViews Staff Writer Carina Goebelbecker   Theater is a heartbeat of community. Theaters are a microcosm of society, situating audience members within entrenched social and cultural dynamics, while allowing them to imagine and empathize with characters onstage. Despite 26% of adult Americans having some type of disability, theaters are traditionally not accessible to disabled people, an extension of the challenges disabled folks face when navigating their daily routines. If all the world’s a stage, it should be an accessible one.  The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) is one of the most prominent pieces of legislation relating to disability. The ADA National Network defines disability as a “physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities.” However, disability is more contextual. In the journal article “Disability Worlds,” theorists Faye Ginsburg and Rayna Rapp (2013) define disability as “created by the social and material conditions that ‘dis-able’ the full participation of a variety of minds and bodies...the result of negative...
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ECHR and Brexit: Putting the British Human Rights Law into Contex

ECHR and Brexit: Putting the British Human Rights Law into Contex

by Noah SmithNo Comments
By  RightsViews Staff Writer Lindsey Alpaugh    On December 13th, Dominic Raab outlined a “sweeping overhaul” of the current Human Rights Act in the United Kingdom. Raab, who serves as Deputy Prime Minister, Secretary of State for Justice, and Lord Chancellor, said that “the reforms will strengthen “typically British rights” and add a “healthy dose of common sense” to the interpretation of legislation and rulings.” It was revealed earlier this year that Raab, said, “I don’t support the Human Rights Act and I don’t believe in economic and social rights,” in a previously unreleased tape from 2009. The original piece of legislation was introduced in 1998, and permitted the European Convention on Human Rights to be implemented as domestic legislation. The legislation entails provisions including “basic rights to a fair trial, life and freedom from ill treatment - and protections against discrimination or unfair interference in private and family life.” The United Kingdom was the first signatory to that convention. Additionally, the United...
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NYCHA’s Public Housing Fosters Crime, Poverty and Dreadful Living Conditions

NYCHA’s Public Housing Fosters Crime, Poverty and Dreadful Living Conditions

by Noah SmithNo Comments
By Staff Writer Emily Ekshian   GRANT HOUSES, MORNINGSIDE HEIGHTS - Is the government truly concerned, or are they simply clustering low income communities together to keep them immobile, and in one space?  The New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA), has a profound legacy as the country’s first government - sponsored public housing agency. Established in 1935, the 334 housing developments provided by NYCHA include apartment units, houses and shared small building units across New York City’s five boroughs. And the agency’s core mission is to provide decent, safe, and affordable housing primarily for low income New Yorkers, though tenants at the Grant Houses would disagree.   Casually leaning on an NYPD smart car on the collapsed curbside area facing 50 La Salle St, Officer Kang guards the Grant Public housing apartment park, where a shooting occurred down the street just about a week ago. “We’re close to the bottom here,” he says. “Bad living conditions, it tends to get crowded often, and most people are...
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The Rittenhouse Verdict Explained

The Rittenhouse Verdict Explained

by Noah SmithNo Comments
By Staff Writer Susanne Prochazka On November 19th, 2021, a jury returned from 27 hours of deliberation and declared 18-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse not guilty on all charges he faced after fatally shooting two people and wounding a third during a 2020 night of unrest in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Rittenhouse shot and killed Joseph Rosenbaum (36) an unarmed man who had chased Rittenhouse, and Anthony Huber (26), a demonstrator who had struck him with a skateboard and then lunged for his rifle, and severely wounded a third, Gaige Grosskreutz (now 28) a demonstrator and paramedic who was armed with a Glock pistol. Prosecutors had charged Rittenhouse with five felonies: first degree reckless homicide, use of a dangerous weapon; first-degree recklessly endangering safety, use of a dangerous weapon; first-degree recklessly endangering safety, use of a dangerous weapon; first-degree intentional homicide, use of a dangerous weapon; and attempted first-degree intentional homicide, use of a dangerous weapon. A sixth charge, possession of a dangerous weapon by a...
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