A Gift Guide for Your Intellect
Design Thinking Book Guide
by Kristina Drury – founder of TYTHEdesign
As the holidays are fast approaching, I thought I would have a bit of fun and put together a ‘design thinking’ book list. These could be a great options to buy for your team members, your boss (maybe as a way to kindly suggest some changes) or even as a list for yourself. I thought these books could be inspiring, make beautiful coffee table books or even just a good read.
Without further ado, the ‘design thinking’ book guide (presented in no specific order):
1.
CAD Monkeys, Dinosaur Babies, and T-Shaped People: Inside the World of Design Thinking and How It Can Spark Creativity and Innovation by Warren Berger ($12)
This is a great book to introduce yourself to the concept of design thinking and the concept of social design. Berger argues that design isn’t just about the aesthetics but about changing the world. I believe the book was written as an introduction to the value of design to the non-design community. That being said, as a designer myself, I very much I enjoyed the read. An easy read with a lot of real-world examples and good practices.
2.
Gamestorming by Dave Gray, Sunni Brown, and James Macanufo($19)
The book is chock-full of copious brainstorming activities and methods for overcoming that group creative block that can sometimes plague idea generation meetings. In addition to covering many of the techniques we use at TYTHEdesign, this book offers almost 100 methods for drawing out creativity, increasing meeting productivity, and inspiring engagement and cooperation among groups. A worthy book for anyone looking to get new ideas out of your team while bringing the team together.
3.
Business Model Generation: A Handbook for Visionaries, Game Changers, and Challengers by Alexander Osterwalder ($20)
This is a must have for any one thinking of starting a business, it will help identify the basics of your business model in tangible steps. We at TYTHEdesign use techniques from this book on a daily basis and share them with our community. It’s remarkably useful, helpful and easy to follow. We would recommend this for creative thinkers planning on going out on their own in the business world.
4.
Visual Meetings: How Graphics, Sticky Notes and Idea Mapping Can Transform Group Productivity by David Sibbet ($20)
If you have ever reached for a pen to explain your idea, then you will love this book. It’s not about drawing but how to use visuals (text, simple drawn images, photographs…..) as a part of engaging your team, explaining an idea to a client, analyzing and innovating. Even though we at TYTHEdesign come from a design background, we love using this book to keep us inspired. The book has a ton of useful information that can be easily implemented. We recommend this to anyone looking to add some fun to your regular meetings.
5.
Change by Design: How Design Thinking Transforms Organizations and Inspires Innovation By Tim Brown ($19)
As the CEO of famed design consultancy IDEO, TIm Brown makes the argument for the relevance of design thinking in all global business. He believes that for a company to survive in this era, design thinking is a must. The book dives head first into practical design thinking providing a blueprint for its use across all categories.
Good luck with your holiday shopping and see you all in the new year!
—–
KRISTINA DRURY is an expert in design thinking and the Executive Director of TYTHEdesign, a consultancy serving the social sector based in New York City. TYTHEdesign uses design-based approaches to support the goals and needs of agencies in the social sector, drawing on communication and organizational design to increase the impact of their work. Feel free to contact her if you have questions at all! She’s here to help.
Print Turns to Pixels Series: She’s a Literary Agent and a Bookshop Owner
What Women Make Interviews London-based Literary Agent and Bookshop Owner Felicity Rubinstein.
Felicity Rubinstein and partner Sarah Lutyens were colleagues at two publishing houses and partners as literary agents for sixteen years before deciding to open a bookstore in the north end of Notting Hill, a shop which has several times been praised as one of the loveliest in London. Being both retailers and longtime literary agents makes them ideal interview subjects for women in all kinds of creative businesses; They are creative entrepreneurs in a tough economy and their business of choice is in an industry that is in peril but also one with fierce loyalists who want to retain this most sacred of cultural experiences. I asked Felicity to share her thoughts about agenting and owning an independent bookshop in an era of such tremendous change.
It turns out that their decision and the timing of the store was not a stance against digital books or chain stores like Waterstones (The U.K.’s Barnes & Nobles) or Borders or WH Smith (which she spoke highly of), nor did it have anything to do with the marketshare taken by Amazon. “We’d been talking about opening a bookshop for a long time. It just finally happened to come together in 2009.”
Between then and now, the popularity of digital books has moved so fast and still there’s no way to determine what will happen in either digital publishing or the bookseller landscape in the months and years to come. Still, like all good small business owners – and all writers actually who are endlessly told ‘write what you know’ – she expressed great passion for her neighborhood, an area she’s lived in her whole life, and one where she has an intimate knowledge of the market.
They saw a gap and filled it: “North Notting Hill is a highly literate area. We were sure the neighborhood would appreciate a place to buy books you wouldn’t find in a supermarket.” Felicity feels that everyone in the book business harbors a fantasy of owning a bookshop. “It’s a bit like all children wanting to own a sweet shop.” (a candy store in ‘American’.)
I personally don’t want to imagine a world without aisles of books – the smell of fresh paper, a quiet public space to browse and discover – and she doesn’t think it has to be one or the other. “The curated experience at the heart of forward-thinking retail and that’s what we offer. Change is in the air and people are frightened of change. New developments are happening very, very fast. We don’t sell digital books in our stores, clearly, but we do work on digital royalties as agents. These are exciting and scary times. One of the best things I’ve noticed is that kids are reading more than ever. If reading is on the rise in children, we feel very encouraged.”
It’s clear that their love of agenting hasn’t ebbed. In their mid-30s, both working in publishing they realized that there were very few agents their age. “Most agents at the time were half a generation older than us. We felt we’d gone as far as we could in publishing and wanted to do something new and there’s still nothing like taking on a new author and announcing that their life is going to change because their book has been accepted for publication.”
Each day, Felicity Rubinstein and Sarah Lutyens walk downstairs, slide open a wall of books in the back of the store, and enter their offices where they go to work for their writers. The day-to-day decisions in the bookshop are trusted to their full time staff. Sometimes at lunch and on weekends they’ll go behind the counter “because if you have a job that involves sitting on your bottom all day answering the phone, it’s nice to get up and talk to people in the shop,” she says laughing, but she’s adamant that their day jobs as agents are as busy as ever.
The two roles compliment one another. As agents, they have to take on authors they think they can sell but “as booksellers, we recommend books that we’d give to a friend or ask our mothers to read and we can sell books that were published any time in the last 200 years.’ The balance keeps them inspired and excited – and that’s what the energy of change is all about.
Q & A
What would you say to female writers looking to the future of the publishing industry?
Keep writing!
3-10 female living authors whose books you love
Jennifer Egan – A Visit From the Goon Squad
Cressida Connolly – My Former Heart
Melissa Bank – The Wonder Spot
Mary Lawson – The Other Side of the Bridge
Emma Forrest – Your Voice in My Head
Claire Messud – The Emperors Children
Gabrielle Hamilton – Blood, Bones & Butter
Visit:
Lutyens & Rubinstein Bookshop
21 Kensington Park Road
London, W11 2EU
Tube: Ladbroke Grove
(I thought this would be a great time to post this as I run out to go here Joan Didion speak at the Peter Jay Sharpe theater…)
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The Paris Atelier in 2011: WWM Speaks with Matieres a Reflexion
Matières à réflexion in Paris is a wonderful example of the Paris atelier in the modern context, a place that combines process, discovery, craftsmanship and human interaction in a single experience. What Women Make speaks with designer Laetitia Azpiroz and partner Cyrille Raillet about their work and their philosophy.
A Show Love production. Show Love is a brand new social content service for lovable companies. Learn what we mean by lovable companies and our approach to content in our press release post and see more of our work at www.showloveworld.com
Don’t forget to visit www.matieresareflexion.com to see other bags and accessories and view their most recent collection.
0 CommentsShe Occupies (with an SL video exclusive)
Have you seen this? This clears it up for anyone who isn’t completely sure of the agenda at OWS. One of the injustices represented is gender discrimination. WWM doesn’t overtly address discrimination but rather points out the incredible pool of outstanding women around the world that add to our culture and our lives through leadership, creative talent, innovation, personality, perseverance and spirit. But the fact is that WWM and girlonthestreet before it were born out of the experience of discrimination and lack of voice in the workplace, watching young women like myself get shot down for exuberance and ideas early in their creative careers then deciding to seek alternatives to conventional media and corporate life.
In the spirit of collective individualism, let’s add our own personal wishlists, value, talent, and actions to the cry for change. How can we do this? Women are doing it all over but the voice is not quite loud enough.
I admit it’s been a shock coming back to the U.S. – the convoluted world of ‘organic’, the 24/7 marketing messages, the giddy vapid representation of women. Join What Women Make and let me know your thoughts, your feelings, and your plans..
I’m interested in starting a WWM Meet-up in NY. If you’d like to join, email me at chauncey at whatwomenmake dot com and let me know your project and if you think there’s an interest out there in representing female creative leadership.
Here is the video my partner and I put together from our time there – an immersive walk through of Occupy Wall Street (together we are Show Love):
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Topical Thursday: Saudi Arabian Women, Drivers in the Dark
Introducing Sarah Cheverton, guest blogger and contributor to Women’s Views on News
It’s a great honour and a real privilege to be invited to feature here on WWM, a site in which I frequently finding myself losing many hours whenever I visit! Spaces that celebrate the contributions of women are vital to the ongoing success of the many international campaigns for women’s rights and for those of us committed to creating a world based on concepts of freedom and social justice for all. In this struggle, I believe that the personal freedom for women to express themselves creatively is equally as important as the achievement of broader social, political and economic freedoms. Moreover, it is often from the creative realms of art, design, photography or poetry, for example, that women share the experiences of oppression and their hopes for a fairer tomorrow.
As a writer, I am part of the fight for women’s rights particularly through my writing for Women’s Views on News, a global portal for news about, by and for women. I am delighted to be representing WVoN and women writers more generally here on What Women Make. This week, What Women Make shares an extract from a recent feature of mine on Wajeha Al-Huwaider, the writer, journalist and women’s rights activist who started the Saudi Women2Drive campaign. In the international women’s rights movement, Saudi is often referred to as ‘the world’s largest prison for women’, and not without reason. Women’s freedoms are significantly curtailed, as my article shows, not only in their inability to drive, but also to participate freely in employment or education.
However one thing that over 20 years in the women’s movement has revealed to me is that women often shine the brightest when forced to live in the dark, and the women of Saudi are no exception. I am delighted to have this opportunity to share with you not only some of my writing on one of Saudi’s most inspiring women writers and activists, but also the work of Saudi photographers and artists.
Favorite Saudi Arabian Female Artists
(I asked Sarah to give us her picks of favorite artists and photographers from Saudia Arabia. Here they are:)
self portrait by Saudi photographer Hind Masour Talal
“I find the stiletto heel as powerful a symbol of women’s oppression as others find the burqa”
photograph by Ranya Hani Jamjoom
“The over-sized eyes of the women in Tagreed Al-Bagshi’s paintings and the consistent themes of sadness and yearning for peace inspire and haunt me, in equal measure”
Painter Tagreed Al-Bagshi
article:
Wajeha Al-Huwaider, In the Drivers Seat
by Sarah ChevertonIt’s 2011 and I find myself writing a post supporting the right for women to drive in Saudi Arabia.
I write a lot of fiction in my spare time, but seriously, even I couldn’t make this shit up.
Nor would I want to.
My editor sent me a video interview with the inspiring Saudi women’s rights campaigner Wajeha Al-Huwaider.
The interview comes courtesy of the fantastic YouTube campaign, Honk for Saudi Women, which is encouraging men and women drivers from all over the world to post videos of themselves in their cars honking their support for the ban against women driving in Saudi.
Watching the interview, once again I find myself wandering amongst the many misshapen forms of contemporary global misogyny, feeling the familiar desire to twist each ugly little feature into something recognizable as sanity.
The only thing that rescues me from melting into an incoherent puddle of sailor-shaming curses is the calm, gentle and smiling certainty of Al-Huwaider as she smiles out from YouTube at me – silently beaming the message, don’t panic liberal England, we got this.
Al-Huwaider is a writer and journalist, a seasoned women’s rights campaigner, the co-founder of the Society for Defending Women’s Rights in Saudi Arabia – which, among other things, campaigns against child marriage - and the winner of the 2004 PEN/NOVIB Free Expression Award. That’s just for starters.
If you don’t know what PEN is, first go and stand in the corner until I tell you to come out – take your laptop with you, I don’t want to lose my audience here.
Second, feel the enlightenment take root as I tell you that they are a society that exists to promote international writing and solidarity amongst writers from all over the world.
No, you can’t come out of the corner yet. Ok, you can, but don’t do it again.
According to her biography on the PEN website, Al Huwaider was “first banned from publishing in 2003″ (please note that ‘first banned‘ from publishing), having been a prolific Saudi journalist writing for the Arabic language daily Al-Watan and the English language daily Arab News.
On International Women’s Day 2008, Al Huwaider was arrested for uploading onto YouTube that video of herself driving, and a few days later, so was her friend and fellow activist, Manal Al Sharif, for the same reason.
And once again, spurred on by the free space that is still a small and well-loved enclave of the internet, an innovative human rights campaign was born, supporting women’s right to basic freedom in Saudi Arabia.
Saudi women, says Al-Huwaider are “treated like children…..they cannot take any decisions on their own.”
Instead, women’s freedoms come only through the involvement of a male guardian who grants permissions for all freedoms exercised, including the right to drive.
Flashback to Stepford anyone?
Without this written permission from a man, Saudi women cannot work, cannot study, cannot marry of their own free will – and they certainly cannot drive. The guardian can be any male, even the woman’s son.
“It’s totally humiliating.”
So with so many freedoms restricted, why have the campaigners chosen to focus on driving?
Simple. The right to drive underpins and I think, symbolizes the freedom of movement of Saudi women.
“Many women in Saudi Arabia don’t work,” Al-Huwaider says and one of the reasons is that they cannot drive themselves.
“If we are not allowed to drive, it affects the whole family, not just women.”
Al-Huwaider has faced many accusations that the driving force (I can’t help it) behind the campaign is coming from outside Saudi, but believes that this is just an opposition tactic – in part fuelled by those wishing to create a secular/Islamic divide.
“It has nothing to do with Islam,” she says of the tradition against women driving, “It’s not against the law…it’s just tradition.”
Despite this, women are frequently arrested for driving without permissions. Although not usually charged, in late July a 35 year old woman was reported to be preparing to face trial for the unforgivable crime of attempting to drive herself to hospital for medical treatment.
Of her critics, she says, “It’s so funny…we’ve been demanding that right [to drive] for more than 20 years…”
“Any woman who believes in women’s rights , especially Saudi women, please support us. We need you.”
Asked whether she will be able to drive freely in Saudi in her lifetime, Al-Huwaider smiles.
“I think so, yes. It’s going to happen soon.”
Insha’allah to that.
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Topical Thursday: Sensei Gets Her Due, Killer Jeans, Men in Peril
10th Dan Black Belt 78 Years in the Making
Sensei Keiko Fukuda, 98 years old and the highest ranking woman in judo history was stuck at 9th dan black belt because she was a woman – until now. The woman who is the last living disciple of Judo’s founder has finally been awarded her 10th dan black belt. Her motto is” “Be gentle, kind and beautiful, yet firm and strong, both mentally and physically.” A humbling news story.
Watch:
story via Yahoo and Women’s Views on News
Women Workers Sick from Sandblasting Jeans
The Clean Clothes Campaign began pressing in February for leading fashion manufacturers and retailers to ban sandblasting, a technique for producing denim garments with an artificially worn look. The large amounts of silica dust produced can lead to silicosis, a potentially lethal pulmonary disease.
The process was banned in Turkey in 2009 after evidence was produced to show that 46 former sandblasting operators had contracted silicosis.
via Guardian
The Clean Clothes website states that “women account for 70 to 90% of workers.”
Men in Peril
Not gloating. WWM loves men. Adores men. This is a call to arms. it’s only little more than 4 minutes long and fascinating especially toward the end. Please watch
The Demise of Guys:
Women in Sustainability Part I
*Work of textile designer Marit Fujiwara, graduate of Chelsea College of Art and Design via Behance
I asked a handful of thought leaders about the top women in sustainability. Answers came from marketing expert and author of “Don’t think Pink” (Andrea Learned), the award-winning social entrepreneur and innovation strategist who launched the Creative Graduate Prize and now New Frontiers (Melissa Sterry), and an agency CEO who left it all to better the world, giving inspiring TED talks and most recently launching a plan of action in the form of ifwerantheworld.com defn worth a look (Cindy Gallop) — Here’s what they said:
First, former head of BBH NY and internationally recognized creative superstar
Cindy Gallop
1) What is your definition of sustainability?
A virtuous circle.
2) Why does it matter?
Because everything should work that way.
3) Name 1-3 women on the forefront of changes in the way we approach business and innovation?
June Cohen, TED
Rosabeth Kanter, Harvard Business School
Ursula Burns, Xerox
4) Name one sustainable product or service that you’ve come across in your research.
SHE, a fabulous example of what I’ve recommended to founder Elizabeth Scharpf which she calls Ragonomics
Elizabeth Scharpf created ingenious sanitary napkins out of banana leaves for women in Africa
Find her at cindygallop.com
Next: U.K.-based social entrepreneur extraordinaire:
Melissa Sterry
1) What is your definition of sustainability?
My definition of sustainability is an approach which acknowledges and addresses both environmental and social challenges using informed, intelligent, innovative, interdisciplinary and inspired solutions. Truly sustainable concepts are developed when the interactions between humans and their environment are fully understood. While many goods and services are labelled ‘sustainable’, ‘green’ or ‘environmentally-friendly’, in reality few actually are, some are the result of deliberate greenwashing, others are the result of a lack of research and due diligence in the design process.
The best design solutions are built on the most robust research, not off the back of cliches and assumptions. But at a time when most investors are focused on ventures that can potentially provide a quick return, significant R&D will be compromised. Until such time as the international investing community acknowledges the fact that stable and ‘sustainable’ future markets will be built engaging pioneering and at times radically innovative ideas that have been carefully crafted to meet both society’s existing and future needs, the world’s most promising sustainable innovators will find the tide is against them.
2) Why does it matter?
It matters because if we don’t act now and act to the very best of our ability, our species may not walk this Earth by 2150. (read the rest of Melissa’s passionate and articulate answer after the jump.)
3) Name 1-3 women on the forefront of this issue?
Naming just one or two is difficult but three inspirational women from the UK are:
1.) Multidisciplinary scientist Dr. Rachel Armstrong , a senior research fellow at University College London exploring the potential of living architecture and self-repairing buildings with their own metabolisms
2.) Joanna Yarrow, one of the UK’s most senior green living experts and a presenter, broadcaster, journalist, writer and founder of sustainability consultancy Beyond Green.
Joanna Yarrow
3.) Servane Mouazan – founder of Ogunte – the UK’s foremost organization for women leading the Social Economy.
All three are working hard to develop a blueprint for a sustainable society – all thinkers and doers with the creativity, commitment and courage to throw out the rulebook and set out on a journey to find the new frontiers. Often facing adversity and opposition to their ideas, these three women innovate their way around the obstacles, no matter how overwhelming or great they may be.
4) An insight on the future and advice for the female creative entrepreneur.
My insight – the future isn’t going to be easy, whichever way you look at it, the challenges are enormous. My advice – never under-estimate the value of the role you have to play in creating a better future.
5) One sustainable product or service you love or that caught your eye
.
The Aptera epitomizes what sustainable innovation is all about. The Aptera is uber efficient – achieving 300 miles or more to the gallon through minimized air resistance and drag, as a result of having a bullet-shaped body and three wheels, not four. The vehicle has interior and exterior LED lighting and a solar assisted climate control system. The Aptera also features recycled materials and comes in both electric and hybrid versions, achieving a top speed of 90mph and 0-60 in around 10 seconds. While it’s the most sustainable vehicle coming to market in the foreseeable future, it’s founders have pledged to continuously improve the sustainability of the vehicle as more innovations become available to them. Beyond it’s environmental credentials the vehicle is iconically beautiful and a design classic destined for the history books. My only regret about The Aptera is I wont be able to drive one in the UK any time soon.
Find Melissa Sterry at About Me.
Next Expert in Female Insights and Marketing:
Andrea Learned
1) What is your definition of sustainability?
To pursue a state of life/work in ways that mean what you do now will flourish and develop without taking away the resources that others, in future generations, will need to do the same. I love the awareness raised by something Paul Hawken wrote – there is a difference between “growing” and “developing.” Developing/development is the sustainable approach.
2) Why does it matter?
It matters because we’ve hit a brick wall – the perfect storm of bad economy, huge environmental problems due to waste of resources, and an emerging more relational, less linear (all about me) way of thinking by citizens. People are starting to face the facts that endless growth and consumerism for the sake of it doesn’t really feed and nourish our daily lives – and greatly harms the environment. If it continues, we will actually leave hugely negative effects for our children and grandchildren to deal with. Now – that’s a realization to contend with!
3) Women on the forefront:
Eileen Fisher – Fisher and the women’s apparel company she launched in 1984 have been successfully (and fairly quietly) operating with a sustainable approach. The materials and supply chains used in manufacturing her clothing and the way the company treats employees and contributes more broadly to women’s empowerment has become what I’d call “best practices” long before “sustainable” or “socially responsible” were trendy terms.
Joyce LaValle – Some have heard or read about Ray C. Anderson, CEO of Interface Inc., and his evolution toward sustainability (he is now considered a pioneer in the “movement”). LaValle is the former Senior Vice President of that company and is credited for originally inspiring Anderson’s vision on the topic. She also co-founded the Women’s Network for a Sustainable Future, which should get more notice (in my opinion) because it brings sustainability thought leaders and best cases to light so conventional businesses might learn (and it is not just about and “for women”).
Kira Gould – By way of the interviews conducted and synthesized in Women in Green, the book she co-authored with Lance Hosey, Gould’s influence has been key in my personal move to study and promote the concepts of sustainable business development. She is an architect and the director of communications for McDonough + Partners (founded by another quite recognized sustainability pioneer/author, Bill McDonough).
4) An insight on the future and advice for the female creative entrepreneur
Businesses can do well and still “do good” with regard to people, planet and profit – the oft-mentioned socially responsible, “triple bottom line.” The future is already here in that consumers have become very savvy and are much more intentional/deliberate in their buying. Businesses, however, have been slow to catch on to that. So, entrepreneurs that authentically believe and commit to the journey toward more sustainable business practices – in materials, supply chain, human resources, community support, energy use and so on – will have a significant advantage. Women, in particular, have a natural tendency toward a more holistic perspective. “Just business” really doesn’t exist, because they naturally know there’s a lot more to it.
Find Andrea at http://www.learnedon.com/
Read More…
1 CommentPerfect Vision | Four Female Thought Leaders
(*Pilings photo by Peter Crosby)“We Come From A Coat”
-Angela Ahrendts via brandchannel.com
CEO Angela Ahrendts of Burberry hit the nail on the head with Art of the Trench, a socially networked site with user submitted street photos of the classic trench in action along with snaps from Sartorialist photographer Scott Schuman (for now, other collaborators to follow). What this shows is that Burberry knows their roots and understands how to tap into their consumer’s best instincts as well as finding a natural link to social media’s major players. Nothing is forced here – which is always the problem when brands jump on board the bandwagon to wince-worthy effect. The added bonus: a direct incentive to buy yourself a new trench knowing that if you’re out there wearing one, you might end up on www.artofthetrench.com. Keeps us wearing our trenches into late fall’s chilly rain. Genius.
-C Zalkin
Nobel Prize for Literature goes to German writer, Herta Mueller
“Herta Mueller, a member of Romania’s ethnic German minority who was persecuted for her critical depictions of life behind the Iron Curtain, won the 2009 Nobel Prize in literature Thursday in an award seen as a nod to the 20th anniversary of communism’s collapse.
Mueller, born in Romania’s Transylvania Banat region, was honored for work that ‘with the concentration of poetry and the frankness of prose, depicts the landscape of the dispossessed,’ the Swedish Academy said.” -NPR
Kazuyo Sejima to be next director of Venice Biennale Architecture Exhibition
“The president of the Venice Biennale, Paola Barrata, announced this morning that the director of the 12th International Architecture Exhibition will be Japanese architect Kazuyo Sejima of SANAA Architects. Last week, we reported rumors that the next director was going to be a woman—a first for this most important of international contemporary architecture expositions. The names most frequently bandied about for this major job were Sejima and Liz Diller…In picking Sejima, the Biennale has chosen a practicing architect for the first time since Massimiliano Fuksas in 2000.” -blog.archpaper.com
Sejima is quoted as saying: “It might be argued that contemporary architecture is a rethinking and perhaps softening (borders between)…inside and outside, individual and public, form and function, physical and virtual, contemporary and classical, past and future, harmony and discord, structure partition, art and architecture, nature and man”
The “Woman Among Warlords” Comes to the U.S. to ask us to leave Afghanistan
“Malalai Joya, called the ‘bravest woman in Afghanistan,’ is finishing up a U.S. tour where she has pressed the Obama administration to pull the military out of her country. She says nothing could be worse for women than what she sees as the current civil war.
Joya gained international recognition in 2003 when she spoke out against warlords and drug traffickers at the Afghan constitutional assembly. Addressing the “felons” who controlled the country, she called them anti-woman, demanded they be put on trial in international court and declared that history would never forgive them. She was then pushed out of the assembly room in a sea of both threats and applause.
After speaking at Brown, Joya met with Women’s eNews and recounted with a smile another speech in which she compared members of parliament to animals, attacking their integrity and usefulness. That got her banned from parliament and stripped of her formal political role, but she has not stopped speaking.
Joya has little security at her speaking events, even though, as she told Women’s eNews, she faces threats from allies of Afghan warlords in this country.
Sometimes she is unable to sleep at night after she has seen pictures of the horrors, she said. It is loyalty to ‘my people’ that has brought her to the United States, where she has spoken to packed auditoriums and sold copies of her 2009 book, A Woman Among Warlords.
..Although government officials have demanded Joya’s apology for insulting them, she does not believe she is the one who should be sorry.
‘Someone had to do that and I did it . . . and I don’t regret it,’ she said.
Instead, she addresses President Obama:
‘Apologize to my people and end this.’”
-excerpts taken from article by Amy Littlefield for Woman’s ENews
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