Protest – Feminism and Religion

The Gendered Dimensions of the Water Crisis in Iran: Impacts on Women’s Health, Livelihoods, and Security

Moderator’s Note: This post has been brought to you in cooperation with the NCRI women’s committee. NCRI stands for the National Council of Resistance of Iran. You can learn more information as well as see this original article by clicking this link. A description of their Council can be found at the end of this post.

The water crisis in Iran has moved far beyond a simple environmental issue — it has become a humanitarian, ecological, and economic disaster.

While at first the problem seemed to be the result of drought and declining rainfall, its true causes ran much deeper: entrenched corruption and mismanagement at the heart of the ruling establishment. Until these systemic roots are addressed and removed, Iran’s present — and its future — will only become more precarious.

A significant number of researchers and international observers emphasize that 70 to 80 percent of the current crisis stems from mismanagement, unsustainable policies, lack of transparency, and corruption. As one report notes, “Iran’s water crisis is not a crisis of resources; it is a crisis of decisions—decisions that have made the land thirstier and the future darker. This crisis, alongside the erosion of public trust in governance, is a symptom of structural and managerial failure.” (Newsweek, August 1, 2025; The Times, December 8, 2022; Reuters, April 27, 2021)

This is the time for good trouble by Marie Cartier

Marie Cartier performing this rant poem at the John Lewis Good Trouble Lives On Rally in Lakewood, CA July 17th. Photo by Mel Saywell

This I can guarantee you: there will come a day when it seems you cannot stop crying.

When will that day come? Today it came for me reading The Atlantic while I drank my morning coffee:

This is what they are reporting: the Trump administration has given the order to incinerate food instead of sending it to people abroad who need it. Nearly 500 metric tons of emergency food—enough to feed about 1.5 million children for a week—are set to expire tomorrow…the food, meant for children in Afghanistan and Pakistan, will be ash.

There will come a day.

And here we are in these United States with people in hiding, speaking of food. Why are they hiding? They are hiding from immigration officials and some of us are sending those people in hiding – food. Toiletries. Macaroni and cheese boxes line my grocery cart,

In these United States, we are building more prisons. And I read the detention center known as Alligator Alcatraz puts thirty-two people in a cage. Each person/prisoner costs the United States taxpayer approximately $275 a day. I guess I mean not prisoner, immigration detainee.

ESCORT SERVICE by Esther Nelson

These days, I spend most of my time in Roanoke, Virginia. I moved here—a three-hour drive west—from Richmond, Virginia. One of the ways I’m settling into my new community is by volunteering as an escort at Planned Parenthood.

The job is straight-forward: Greet people as they exit their vehicle when they arrive at the medical facility’s parking lot. Usually, there are several protestors in front of the building, and clients must drive past them before turning right into the driveway. Protestors wave pink, plastic bags filled with anti-abortion literature as well as pamphlets that outline a specific, Christian view of “salvation.” Not many drivers stop. If they do, I walk over to the line that divides Planned Parenthood property from public space and wave the cars forward. The drivers are grateful. So many clients are nervous, upset, and unsure of protocol. One woman asked me if I was associated with “those people out there,” pointing to the protestors. “Not at all,” I assured her. She smiled with relief.

Pride Season 2023 by Marie Cartier

Here you come again

Twenty-three states banning drag, 100 bills being considered

Just when I’m about to make it work without you

F*** you GOP

You look into my eyes and lie those pretty lies

Abortion is settled law

Gay marriage is settled law

photo essay, part 2: bans off our bodies rally by Marie Cartier

photos from bans off our bodies rally, long beach ca may 14, 2022

all photos by: marie cartier

BIO: Marie Cartier is a teacher, poet, writer, healer, artist, and scholar. She holds a BA in Communications from the University of New Hampshire; an MA in English/Poetry from Colorado State University; an MFA in Theatre Arts (Playwriting) from UCLA; an MFA in Film and TV (Screenwriting) from UCLA; an MFA in Visual Art (Painting/Sculpture) from Claremont Graduate University; and a Ph.D. in Religion with an emphasis on Women and Religion from Claremont Graduate University.

Moderator’s note: This is the 2nd of the two part series. Part 1 was posted yesterday.

Mission, Not Glory: A Dialogue by Marie Cartier

Well, he didn’t do it for the glory, that’s for sure.

Maybe he did?

He’s gone. When you immolate –you’re gone. What glory is there in that?

Well, the reason he did it—as I understand it—is because the world is burning up anyway. He made a statement.

Exactly- a single statement. So, who’s getting the glory?

I mean we don’t know the entire impact it has. He took his life for God’s sake. On the Supreme Court steps. April 22, 2022. It means something. He knew he would be immortalized.

But, what difference does it make if he’s gone? I think it was a waste. I wish he would have run for –anything. School Board! Someone that committed should have stuck around and tried to do something.

He did do something. It’s just…he made the ultimate sacrifice.

I’m sorry. He killed himself. And so…we’re left here without him. Without someone who was that committed as an activist.

The world is burning up. We won’t last another thirty years. So good for him for taking a stand. He was a Buddhist monk, right? Good for him.

He was a hippie from Boulder, Colorado. Wynn Alan Bruce.

Well, here’s a hero now. And I bet he’s a hero to Buddhist monks, too. Wynn Alan Bruce? He was a climate activist, not just a hippie. I mean, I’ll give you that he may never be well-known. But he’s known. Just not well- known.

The Race-ing of Innocence: Calling All Feminists to Converse by Marcia Mount Shoop

Well over 100,000 people and counting have read a blog post called “Nothing But the Truth: A Word to White America After the Recent Unpleasantness in Washington DC” that I wrote. Going on 400 commenters have weighed in on my website. I have not been able to keep up with replying to all the comments, but I have read them all. And a few cluster around the topic of childhood innocence and the role of adults in nurturing/protecting/informing children around the realities of things like racism, sexism, and the ugly layers of American history.

This exploration of the nature of childhood and our culture’s role in nurturing what we value about childhood calls out for feminist reflection. So, I put this out to the FAR community of conversation for discussion.

Some of the comments that interest me the most are those who gave the young men from Covington Catholic a pass because they are “just kids.” And they felt media and others were being too hard on them to expect them to understand what was going on in front of the Lincoln Memorial when competing narratives about our country converged.

Continue reading “The Race-ing of Innocence: Calling All Feminists to Converse by Marcia Mount Shoop”

Kneeling as Protest by Anjeanette LeBoeuf

In a previous FAR post, I talked about the newest trend in sports of including women in marketing strategies for American football. Today I have decided to throw my hat into the ring regarding the recent polarizing “Kneeling” protest taking place at NFL games. I started writing this on the morning that the current Vice President walked out of a NFL game due to players ‘taking the knee’ during the National Anthem; a protest which has been reported to cost TAXPAYERS $200,000. Weeks have gone by with the issue getting bigger and bigger. I can no longer stay silent.

This protest started when NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick took a knee during the National Anthem in August of 2016. He stated he was taking a knee to stand for people that were being oppressed. It has since exploded as a social movement/protest.

It has become a highly sensitive and polemic topic. And it is polarizing bcause the two groups which are opposing each other are actually, talking about two different things. The group that supports the kneeling protests understand that this ‘peaceful, and respectful’ act during the National Anthem is an important way they can voice their solidarity, take a stance, and bring awareness to the violence and injustices that minority groups face, especially African Americans. The group that radically opposes this protest only see it as a disrespecting act of our country, our flag, our troops, and their faith. Thus, the arguments and pseudo-discussions are not getting anywhere. Continue reading “Kneeling as Protest by Anjeanette LeBoeuf”

You Can’t Debate Mutuality by Sara Frykenberg

I use words like “mutuality,” “listening,” and “love,” here as I discuss my understanding of feminist justice-making and eschew debate…I want to make it abundantly clear: I see these as powerful, often forceful and even angry tools. We listen to what oppressors say so that they cannot deceive with their “alternative facts.” We love forcefully…We counter violence—we do not debate it—with anger, humor, creativity and power, in order to redirect its energies into more mutual possibilities.

Sara Frykenberg Participating in the Women’s March on Jan. 21^st in Los Angeles fed my soul deeply. I didn’t realize how much I needed to protest in this way, how stuck I had been in grief and despair after the election, and the way that coming together as a community would help me to mourn. There’s nothing quite like standing together with hundreds of thousands of people who also care deeply with hope, humor, and real power. Marching helped me to find the energy to fight back. It refilled a reservoir, so depleted in 2016, much as the badly needed winter rain in my home state of California has helped to abate the severe drought. Continue reading “You Can’t Debate Mutuality by Sara Frykenberg”

Violent and Non-Violent Protest by Sara Frykenberg

For those of you who have read my blogs before, you may have gathered that my approach to justice-making is not entirely non-violent. Researching and writing about the movement away from abusive community paradigms in my dissertation, I argue that we need to care for the kind of refractory violence or counter-violence that arises in our movements away from abuse.

The idea here is not that violence should be a goal, or even that violence is “good”—but rather, that we are in (close) relationship to violence of all kinds. All violence, as I define the term, is destructive in some way; but as many religions of the world remind us, destruction, like creation, is an important part of life. Not all violence is “bad.”

Continue reading “Violent and Non-Violent Protest by Sara Frykenberg”