October 2019 – Bridge Agents

Anti-Rape Devices May Have Their Uses, but They Don’t Address the Ultimate Problem

October 4, 2019 Bridge Agents

World Wide (Conversation) – Crime prevention initiatives targeting sexual violence are by no means new. But as technology advances and costs decrease, we are seeing an abundance of digital and technological strategies emerge. Last month, an invisible anti-groping stamp sold out within an hour of its launch in Japan. The stamp can be used by victims to mark someone who gropes them on public transport. This mark can only be seen when a black light (that comes with the device) is cast over it. But we need to ask: are…

Connecting With Centuries-Old Stories About Women’s Painful Struggles

October 3, 2019 Bridge Agents

World Wide (Conversation) – This is an edited extract from a chapter in the recently published “Teaching for Change”. In 2016 female students at South Africa’s universities started the #EndRapeCulture campaign to mobilise against the pervasive culture of sexual violence on the different campuses. In Stellenbosch the campaign was marked by two striking occasions. One evening in April 2016, the fire alarms went off at 2am across the Stellenbosch University campus. This was to signal the message that the student community would no longer be silent about their fellow students…

Misrepresentations Regarding Soviet/US Roles in WWII and the Cold War

October 2, 2019 Bridge Agents

INTRODUCTION The Soviet Union contributed more than did any other nation to the defeats of Germany and Japan in World War II, but America and Britain together defeated Italy. Many prominent Western ‘historians’ white-out the Soviet roles in defeating Hitler and especially Hirohito, and they overstate the importance of America’s victories to the ultimate outcome, and ignore or underplay Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s strong rejection and repudiation of Winston Churchill’s imperialistic agenda, not only for a continuation of empires, but for a continued postwar exploitation of colonies, as being acceptable goals…

Misogyny, Male Rage and the Words Men Use to Describe Greta Thunberg

October 1, 2019 Bridge Agents

World Wide (Conversation) – Detractors have dismissed Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg – a Nobel Prize nominee – as mentally ill, hysterical and a millennial weirdo after she pleaded with world officials last week to address the climate crisis. Here, two researchers explain the stereotypical labels deployed by critics to undermine Thunberg’s call to action, which the activist herself has described as “too loud for people to handle”. Camilla Nelson, Associate Professor in Media, University of Notre Dame Greta Thunberg obviously scares some men silly. The bullying of the teenager…