16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence is approaching its 21st anniversary with a campaign theme, “From Peace in the Home to Peace in the World: Let’s Challenge Militarism and End Violence Against Women!” The Rutgers site explains that, “Participants chose the dates November 25– International Day Against Violence Against Women- and December 10– International Human Rights Day- in order to symbolically link violence against women and human rights and to emphasize that such violence is a violation of human rights.”
I first learned of this focused time of activism and awareness when I was active in Second Life®, a virtual world platform where avatars create and explore a virtual world. I joined a group there that was actively participating the 16 days events that year, so I learned a great deal about it. There continue to be online events this year as well as ones in the physical world and they are listed here on the Center for Women’s Global Leadership directory of events for 16 Days.. So if you cannot find an event near you, there are online events in which you can participate and information which you can access. I highly recommend informing yourself about the state of gender violence in the world as it is not a subject you will find covered in any depth or breadth in the popular media.
I created an exhibit about women and the violence of war a few years ago on my virtual “island”, The Women’s Center, for 16 days, and I will pull it out of digital storage if I can find the time to set it up in a different virtual world in which I have only just starting creating a village to use as an exhibit and meeting place. If I get this exhibit put up up it will be advertised on a main page sidebar of my site: nfhill.com and I will have instructions on how to access the virtual world platform there.
I will be writing more about gender violence in these coming weeks.
