{"id":4374,"date":"2019-03-22T13:42:29","date_gmt":"2019-03-22T17:42:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brackety-ack.pages.roanoke.edu\/?p=4374"},"modified":"2019-03-22T13:42:29","modified_gmt":"2019-03-22T17:42:29","slug":"rc-celebrates-international-womens-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brackety-ack.com\/?p=4374","title":{"rendered":"RC Celebrates International Women\u2019s Day"},"content":{"rendered":"

Written by Emily Leclerc<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

On Tuesday, March 12, Roanoke College hosted a luncheon and forum about women\u2019s sexuality around the globe. \u201cOur Bodies, Ourselves\u201d was organized by the Office of Multicultural Affairs and the Office of International Education. This luncheon was hosted in recognition of International Women\u2019s Day (March 8). Hosted by Dr. Pamela Serota Cote, Director of International Education, the luncheon featured a panel of female international students who discussed their countries\u2019 cultural stances on women\u2019s sexuality. The panelists were Grace Boyle, Alondra Alba, Snigdha Somani, Razan Hamed and Vanessa Mutesi. <\/span><\/p>\n

Mutesi was the panel\u2019s first speaker. She discussed her home country of Rwanda\u2019s views on female sexuality. She told her audience a humorous anecdote about how she was cautioned against any contact with boys during her childhood and how after her first kiss she returned home in tears convinced that she was pregnant. She then discussed the more conservative social expectations that Rwanda and Africa have for women. She did note the effectiveness of Rwanda\u2019s system of family planning, which has drastically reduced teen pregnancies in the nation. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cRwanda is a very conservative country. Africa in general is very conservative. So, when it comes to sex\u2026 who is sex? What is she?\u2026 Women\u2019s sexuality in itself is nonexistent,\u201d said Mutesi. <\/span><\/p>\n

Next to speak was Grace Boyle. Boyle, a native of Northern Ireland, discussed the taboos surrounding sex. Women\u2019s sexuality is not an open topic in this Catholic country. Boyle also discussed her activism in her homeland as she has been lobbying her government as a student delegate to \u201cRepeal the 8th\u201d, or to make abortion legal in the country. <\/span><\/p>\n

Snigdha Somani, a freshman from India, spoke next. She discussed the extreme secrecy surrounding female sexuality in India. She spoke about how it was illegal for doctors to reveal the sex of a child before birth as it could lead to the abortion of unborn daughters. Abortion is also illegal in India. She told her listeners about how pharmacists would conceal birth control in several plastic bags in order to protect the woman from discrimination and harassment. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWomen\u2019s sexuality is kept hushed and is almost never talked about,\u201d says Somani. <\/span><\/p>\n

Alondra Alba discussed sexism on both sides of the southern U.S. border. She discussed the difficulties of getting a sexual education in the \u201cabstinence only\u201d state of Texas. She also talked about how her family\u2019s Catholic faith also limited her sexual knowledge. <\/span><\/p>\n

The last speaker was Razan Hamed, a sophomore from Palestine. Hamed discussed the patriarchal social structure of Palestine. She talked about how sex was a complete secret. She had no one to educate her. She also talked about the complete dominance that a husband has over his wife and how a married man can force his wife to have sex at his command. <\/span><\/p>\n

The panel ended on a hopeful note as the panelists recounted stories of progress and how they hoped that soon women would be on the same societal level as men. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Written by Emily Leclerc On Tuesday, March 12, Roanoke College hosted a luncheon and forum about women\u2019s sexuality around the globe. \u201cOur Bodies, Ourselves\u201d was organized by the Office of Multicultural Affairs and the Office of International Education. This luncheon was hosted in recognition of International Women\u2019s Day (March 8). Hosted by Dr. Pamela Serota…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":4372,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4374","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brackety-ack.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4374","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brackety-ack.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brackety-ack.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brackety-ack.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brackety-ack.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4374"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brackety-ack.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4374\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brackety-ack.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4372"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brackety-ack.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4374"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brackety-ack.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4374"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brackety-ack.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4374"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}