Gender Studies

Progress on gender equality is slow, but these four Nordic countries (Iceland, Norway, Finland and Sweden) lead the way on closing their gender gaps. What can the rest of the world learn from them?

BBC News : World Service : Programme: The Conversation : When a woman chooses not to have children, why is it still seen as a radical decision? Doreen Akiyo Yomoah is a writer and blogs at Childfree African. Born in Accra, Ghana, she is currently based in Geneva, Switzerland. She thinks being child free is part of a wider discussion about reproductive rights and feminism. Nina Steele is the founder and editor of Nonparents.com. She is originally from the Ivory Coast and she is now based in the UK. When she discovered she couldn't have children, she decided to stay childfree. She says her website has become a resource for African childless and childfree women and men alike. Requires UK location and non-University login to access.

Dr Amanda Foreman looks at the role of women in revolutions that have transformed the modern world, from political uprisings to reproductive rights. Amanda discovers, through women like campaigner and writer Olympe De Gouges, that the French Revolution's promise of equality, liberty and brotherhood would be limited to men. Bolshevik radical Alexandra Kollontai would find that while her fellow Russian revolutionaries may have put women's rights at the forefront of ideological change, the post-revolutionary world would be as rife with gender bias as the societies they'd helped transform. University Login required.

Documentary from Al Jazeera Close Up. Al Jazeera is a Qatari state-funded broadcaster based in Doha, Qatar: As one of a few female mental health professionals in Syria’s Idlib province, Abeer al-Faris has her work cut out for her. Every day, she gets up at dawn to manage the Dar al-Amal Education Village, an independent care centre for widows and orphans of war. The Village is one of a few sanctuaries in Atmeh, a small but growing town in northern Idlib, where residents receive free healthcare, education and counseling. But managing a mental health facility in a warzone, as Abeer explains, is not for the faint hearted. “The biggest difficulty has been getting around without a male guardian,”...

Videos connected to a variety of subjects within 'gender studies' from Ted Talks. Ted Talks are part of TED, a nonprofit organisation devoted to spreading ideas, usually in the form of short, powerful talks (18 minutes or less). TED began in 1984 as a conference where Technology, Entertainment and Design converged, and today covers almost all topics — from science to business to global issues — in more than 100 languages.