August 10, 2018
Teen protest movement demanding safe roads: Their allies, adversaries, and others
The last time I heard of a student protest movement with secondary school children was in 2011. Secondary school children had joined university students in Chile to denounce their neoliberal education system that had commodified education, expanding social and income inequality between the rich and the poor.
May 26, 2018
The violent men around us
Over the last six months I've had conversations with various people about what to do with all the violent men around us. This is perhaps my current burning question, because we are having to contend with the fact that more than just a handful of men around us have committed acts of violence—if not against us, then against people we know, or people we know of. We no longer have to read the news to gauge how pervasive violence is. It is out there for all to see. Unless your eyes are closed.
March 29, 2018
No country for Beauty
SOMETHING remarkable happened this week. Babul Mia of Habiganj—who had raped Beauty Akhter (16) earlier in the year—had her raped again and killed for not withdrawing the rape case pending against him, surprising no one.
February 16, 2018
If not now, then when?
Rupa Khatun was raped and murdered on a bus near the Tangail-Mymensingh road in Tangail's Madhupur upazila last August.
December 28, 2017
2017: The year we found purpose
Each year begins with a ray of sunshine, as did 2017, oblivious to the chaos that was inevitably unleashed onto the world when some of the world's leaders took centre stage to change the world as we know it.
November 2, 2017
Of lists, naming, and shaming
SOMETIMES the paths that the oppressed choose to take are and have to be subversive, says Fanon. Neocolonial structures have to be decolonised by weaponising whatever they have.
September 30, 2017
Reproductive coercion or business as usual?
Maleka (not her real name) found herself in a whirlwind relationship in which she felt she has no control. She got pregnant because she couldn't negotiate condom use with her partner and then her partner blamed her for it, even though they both had a role in it.
August 27, 2017
August 23, 2017
Saving flood victims as we look for solutions
The year was 1988. My uncle was going to the United States for his undergraduate degree. He was the first family member to do so. The trend in those days was England. And, not just England, but Oxford and Cambridge.
July 30, 2017
Spot the patriarchy
What do you do when someone infantilises you because you're a young(ish) woman? There were men in that room with the same credentials as I. Did anyone ask them if they were teaching assistants?