1918 Representation of the People Act Passed

The 1918 Representation of the People, or 1918 Reform Act, was passed at the end of World War I and extended the rights for certain people to vote in Scotland.  Although some women were given the right to vote once the 1872 Education (Scotland) Act passed, these rights were reserved for women who “were owners or occupiers of property above £4 annual rental” (McDermid 334).  Therefore, although some women were able to begin voting in the nineteenth century, this privilege almost always only applied to school boards and left most women without a voice in politics (McDermid 334-336).  Instead, women had to wait until the 1918 Representation of the People Act was passed to be granted voting rights more equal to those of men at the time; this act allowed most women over 30 years of age to vote (Cameron 101-105).  This act did not change the discriminatory attitude towards women who were under 30 years of age, though, and still regarded women with “property qualifications” (Cameron 101-102).  Lower-class women, particularly unmarried working women, were the most disadvantaged by this system, as these women often did not own property, were not wealthy, and did not have many “economic opportunities,” making them ineligible to vote (Cameron 105).  One member at the 1918 Labour Party Conference, John Bromley, pointed out the faults in the 1918 Representation of the People Act, stating that the act “failed to give votes to women under 30 years of age [and] denied them the right to sit in Parliament” and emphasizing the need to make “the right of becoming electors in [the] kingdom . . . based on a basis of humanity and not property” (Wrigley 66).  Although ideas such as Bromley’s were certainly present at this time, it took another ten years until the 1928 Representation of the People Act was passed.  This act did lower the minimum age for legal female voters and finally gave women the same voting voting rights as men (Cameron 101-102).

Works Cited

Cameron, Ewen A. “The 1918 Reform Act, Redistribution and Scottish Politics.” Parliamentary History, vol. 37, no. 1, WILEY, 2018, pp. 101–15, https://doi.org/10.1111/1750-0206.12340.

McDermid, Jane. “School Board Women and Active Citizenship in Scotland, 1873 - 1919.” History of Education (Tavistock), vol. 38, no. 3, Routledge, 2009, pp. 333–47, https://doi.org/10.1080/00467600902859761.

Wrigley, Chris. “The Labour Party and the Impact of the 1918 Reform Act.” Parliamentary History, vol. 37, no. 1, WILEY, 2018, pp. 64–80, https://doi.org/10.1111/1750-0206.12338.

Vladimir Lenin Perishes and Joseph Stalin Emerges

Vladimir Lenin was the father of the Soviet Union. The extremely frigid temperatures of Russia's winter in the year 1924 led to Lenin's body decomposing at a much slower rate than normal; thus, the Russian residents decided to preserve his body. The professor of medicine Vladimir Vorob'ev and the biochemist Boris Zbarskii were tasked with embalming Lenin's deceased body; their method worked. Lenin's body became recognized among the Soviet people as, of course, Vladimir Lenin, but also as the embodiment of Communision; this birthed the term "Leninism," which pertained to a person's legacy that they left behind even after thier physical body had died. The individuals who continue to preserve Lenin's body today refer to it as a living sculpture. While Lenin had been the one to lay the foundation for Communism, one of his most motivated and devoted followers, Joseph Stalin, was the one who began to build upon his foundation.

Joseph Stalin became a devoted follower of Vladimir Lenin in 1905; so much so, that he committed numerous bank heists in 1907 to fund Lenin's Bolsheviks. Eventually, in 1912, Lenin departed from the Social Democratic Party and and appointed Stalin as his new party's Central Committee; he viewed him as ruthless and dependable. Finally, in 1917, the Bolsheviks overthrew the Russian government; Lenin appointed Stalin to his cabinet as the Commissar of Nationalities. Stalin was described as not being intelligent, but being determined and hard-working enough to reach his aggresive goals. Stalin loved doing office work and eventually worked his way up more in the system that Lenin had devised. In the year 1922, Lenin suffered the first of many critical strokes which eventually led to his death in 1924; afterwards, a group of Lenin's closest companions were left to rule over Russia. However, Stalin was able to manipulate the competition and took full control of the party and had the others eliminated.

The Russian Revolution was an example of how regular citizens of a country could manipulate the class system and gain power by utilizing their intellect to make smart moves. While Stalin was not described as being particulaly intellectual, he had learned how power was passed on and how much weight it carried. Stalin was smarter than he appeared, and the Revolution was one example of how easily power could be handed off to the wrong person and how the Communistic government never completely abolished the class system.

Works Cited

"Joseph Stalin." Tribune Content Agency Photos, 2013. Gale In Context: College, link.gale.com/apps/doc/YGWNWU421704033/CSIC?u=purdue_main&sid=bookmark-CSIC&xid=29f084cd. Accessed 8 Nov. 2021.

"Joseph Stalin." UXL Biographies, UXL, 2011. Gale In Context: College, link.gale.com/apps/doc/EJ2108102152/CSIC?u=purdue_main&sid=bookmark-CSIC&xid=8593adca. Accessed 8 Nov. 2021.

Yurchak, Alexei. "Communist Proteins: Lenin's Skin, Astrobiology, and the Origin of Life." Kritika, vol. 20, no. 4, fall 2019, pp. 683+. Gale In Context: World History, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A607387978/WHIC?u=purdue_main&sid=bookmark-WHIC&xid=de903246. Accessed 8 Nov. 2021.

Djamila Boupacha's Trial and the Sexualized Torture of Female Freedom Fighters During Algeria's War of Independence

Djamila Boupacha was born February 9, 1938 in Algiers, French Algeria to a middle class family. She grew up in a revolutionary time; Algerian liberation was nigh, and she would prove to be an important figure in the liberation to come. Although she was initially sympathetic to the FLN (the Algerian National Liberation Front) and their activities, she only became one of their militants around the time she worked at the Beni Messous Hospital in Algiers as a teenager. Whilst working towards her practical certificate in nursing, she was told by the French administration that she would never be able to obtain it, on account of her ‘race’ as a ‘Moslem’. From then on, she would steal medical supplies from the hospital for the FLN, participate in intelligence gathering for the party, and shelter members of the resistance in times of need during the revolution. 

On the 10th of February, 1960 Boupacha was arrested alongside her family and temporarily held in El Bier - a French military barracks turned prison. She was being held under the suspicion of her involvement of the café bombings performed by female FLN members in months previous during the Battle of Algiers. During her short time in the barracks, she was tortured; revealing nothing about the inner workings of the FLN. 

A mere week later, on the 17th of February 1960, she was transferred to the infamous Hussein Dey prison, where she was subjected to horrendous, unfortunately common torture practices (I will include a trigger warning for the next few sentences; the graphic nature of the descriptions is not gratuitous, it plays a role in later events). They tortured her with “electroshock on her face, nipples, and genitals, water torture in a bathtub, and lit cigarettes ground in her skin…Eventually, a group of French officers penetrated her vagina with an empty beer bottle, leaving her “passed out in a pool of her own blood...she was a virgin.”’ (Kunkle). 

These horrors continued until the 15th of March, 1960 where at her trial, Boupacha confessed to planting the bomb. History would later prove this to be a false confession, spoken simply to stop the torture inflicted upon her. In the same breath as her admission however, came an accusation of the French officials for assault, torture, and rape during her time in detainment. Boupacha was met with officers who feigned ignorance, doctors who falsified documents, and Frenchmen who laughed at the idea that an Arab woman had any purity to protect in the first place. 

Here, Boupacha meets Gisèle Halimi, a French-Tunisian lawyer who takes her case. Halimi herself had been adversely affected by racism in France, and was sympathetic to the liberation movement and the FLN. She was determined to publicize Boupacha’s case so that it could not get swept under the rug as so many other torture scandals had been during the revolution. And so Halimi enlisted the help of prominent feminist and sympathizer to Algerian liberation, Simone de Beauvoir.

Boupacha’s tide turned on the 3rd of June, 1960, when de Beauvoir’s Le Monde article detailing the very graphic details of Boupacha’s time in prison, including the rape with a glass bottle. Not only was the recounting horrifying, ‘her intervention in Le Monde…highlighted this disturbing (act as) commonplace in order to make a difference: she focused on indifference, rather than ignorance, as a locus of a scandal.’ (Surkis). The story was shocking yet well-timed; international support for France from the U.N. and the U.S. was wavering as it was; the war was bloody, expensive, and more and more horrifying accounts of French torture methods were coming to light in the international community. De Beauvoir’s letter scandalized not only those in the leftist upper crust, but the French populace at large. Halimi’s desired effect had taken place; Boupacha would not - could not - be forgotten as so many other women were. 

Boupacha was not sentenced to death, but was kept imprisoned until March of 1962, when the Evian Accords were signed and Algeria won it’s hard-earned independence from the French. Stories of the torture Algerians suffered during the revolution are infamous, the women spared no mercy: just the opposite, the sexual violence inflicted upon female ‘insurgents’ seemed coded and pointed in it’s content; women were raped as commonplace practice, as Fanon notes in Wretched of the Earth; his section on Colonial War and Mental Disorders is taken directly from is time working as head of a hospital, witnessing the medical distress of the men and women brought there. Although the French understood precious little about the actual workings of Algerian culture, they grasped the knowledge that ‘defiling’ a woman not only broke the spirit of the victim, but brought shame in men, at their inability to protect them. It was psychological warfare on the most degrading scale, and the violence was even more widespread in the countryside, where women had no chance at any retributive justice against the oppressors. 

Djamila Amrane-Minne ad Louisette Ighilahriz were two young FLN members also imprisoned during the Battle of Algiers and subjected to similar if not worse torture than Boupacha. They are similarly iconic women of the revolution; upon their releases after Algeria won it’s independence they dedicated their lives to telling the stories of the fellow women they had been imprisoned alongside. The men of the revolution had their glory- their pin was spoken aloud and understood, while the women were left to at once be the heart of tradition and virtue, to never speak or think of the horrors they had lived or the freedom they had espoused. Amrane-Minne and Ighilahriz used their unique privileges of wealth and literacy, bringing to light hundreds of women’s stories chronicling their lives, strengths, woes, and at times deaths. Amrane-Minne used her unfortunate understanding of the pain these women faced to conduct 88 interviews of imprisoned women and FLN members, documenting their lives and dedication to the cause. Ighilahriz, after 40 years of silence forced on her by fellow (male) comrades, family members, and countrymen she fought alongside, published her highly detailed memoir Algerienne of the revolution and her time in prison. 

Works Cited:

Fanon, F. (2021). The wretched of the Earth. Grove Press. 

Kunkle, R. (2013). "we must shout the truth to the rooftops:” Gisèle Halimi, Djamila Boupacha, and sexual politics in the Algerian War of Independence. The Iowa Historical Review, 4(1), 5–24. https://doi.org/10.17077/2373-1842.1022 

Mortimer, M. (2012). Tortured bodies, resilient souls: Algeria's women combatants depicted by Danièèle Djamila Amrane-Minne, Louisette Ighilahriz, and Assia Djebar. Research in African Literatures, 43(1), 101. https://doi.org/10.2979/reseafrilite.43.1.101 

Surkis, J. (2010). Ethics and violence: Simone de beauvoir, Djamila Boupacha, and the Algerian War. French Politics, Culture & Society, 28(2). https://doi.org/10.3167/fpcs.2010.280204 

The Stonewall Uprising and the Spark of the Gay Rights Movement

The Stonewall Inn

The Stonewall Uprising, otherwise known as the Stonewall Riots, was a monumental progression towards gay rights in the mid-20^th century. The uprising began on June 28^th, 1969 and lasted until July 3^rd, 1969. The riots began when Stonewall Inn, a haven for members of the LGBTQ+ community which still stands in Greenwich Village, New York City, was invaded by police officers who harassed and arrested patrons and employees. This was not the first offense, and onlookers usually fled the scene, but this time, they didn’t. The witnesses chose to stand up to the officers, during a time of strict oppression and cruelty towards the LGBTQ+ community. Coincidentally, the Civil Rights Movement had erupted in the previous decade, and the Stonewall Riots are another example of how humans who deserve rights and respect fought for that.

During the mid-19^th century, there were restrictive laws for the LGBTQ+ community. It was illegal to serve alcohol to them, and for people of the same sex to dance with each other. But with restrictions and oppression, follows uprising and a demand for freedom and rights. Illinois was the first state to decriminalize homosexuality, which happened in 1962. After the Stonewall Uprising, the first gay pride parade was held in New York where thousands marched to commemorate the historical and monumental event. Shortly after, June became “Pride Month”, and several large pride parades still occur in areas all around the world.

Works cited

The Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica. “Stonewall Riots.” Edited by Amy Tikkanen, Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., https://www.britannica.com/event/Stonewall-riots.

Kelly, Bob. “The Birthplace.” The Stonewall Inn, The Stonewall Inn, 5 Dec. 2017, https://thestonewallinnnyc.com/the-stonewall-inn-story/2017/4/4/ntmsg5ni....

“Milestones in the American Gay Rights Movement.” PBS, Public Broadcasting Service, https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/stonewall-milestone....

Section 504 Sit Ins

Judy Heumann advocates for disability rights

The Rehabilitation Act of 1973 was signed on September 23rd, 1973, which included Section 504 that caught the attention of the disability community and activists. 

Section 504 stated: 
"No otherwise qualified individual with a disability in the United States, as defined in section 705 (20) of this title, shall, solely by reason of his or her disability, be excluded from the participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance or under any program or activity conducted by any Executive agency or by the United States Postal Service."

This was a huge win for disabled people's rights, as they were continually barred access from schools, public transportation, state and federal government buildings and so much else based solely on their disability. However, after a bill is signed into law, it still needs enabling regulations to tell the court systems how to interpret the law. Without these enabling regulations, the law is unenforceable. Nixon resigned from office before the enabling regulations were signed. Then President Ford’s administration said they needed time to study the law and the proposed enabling regulations already on the table. His term ended and still the enabling regulations were not signed. When campaigning, the then Governor Jimmy Carter promised that, if elected, his administration would sign the regulations. When he took office, he then claimed that they also needed more time to study the regulations, more than three years after they had originally been proposed.

The department in charge of signing the regulations was the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, also called HEW. The man at the head of this department was Secretary Joseph Califano. A group called the American Coalition of Citizens with Disabilities had been keeping track of the progress of the Rehabilitation Act and the Section 504 regulations for more than three years now. They gave the Carter Administration and Secretary Califano a deadline of April 5th, 1977 to sign the enabling regulations. When Secretary Califano failed to sign the regulations in that time, they organized protests around the country. One rally was held at the national HEW offices in Washington DC, and nine others were held at regional offices in Atlanta, Boston, New York City, Los Angeles, Denver, Chicago, Dallas, Philadelphia and San Francisco.

San Francisco’s protest was led by a collection of people, Ed Roberts, Kitty Cone, Judy Heumann, Mary Jane Owen, Steve McClelland and many more. They had a rally in front of the regional HEW offices with around 300 protestors of various disabilities and races, and many from different social activism groups, truly a diverse crowd. There were speakers lined up who talked about their disabilities and how the regulations (or lack of regulations) would impact them personally. There was a sound/microphone system set up, ramps built to get onto the stage and sign language interpreters so that the rally was accessible to all. Near what seemed to be the end of the rally, after pumping everyone up with their stories and chanting, Judy Heumann rolled onto the stage and said “Let’s go and tell HEW the federal government cannot steal our civil rights!” She immediately turned and rolled straight towards the offices and much of the crowd followed her inside. The protestors took the elevators up to the HEW offices and marched in to see the regional director, Joe Maldonado. When asked about the status of the enabling regulations for Section 504, Maldonado said “What is Section 504?” When they asked more employees of HEW, no one had ever heard of Section 504 before. When told that the protestors would not be leaving until they got assurances that the enabling regulations would be signed, regional director Maldonado left the office. The protestors decided to stay the night in the offices and continue their protest. 75 protestors and a few personal care attendants decided to stay. They started using the HEW offices as their own base of operations and called to check in on the other groups in the other cities. Only a few cities had also refused to leave the HEW offices: Denver, DC, Los Angeles and New York City, but the largest other group was DC with around 50 protestors.

Secretary Califano met with the DC protestors and told them he planned on signing the regulations, he just needed more time to study them. He then ordered the protestors to be guarded and would not allow any food or medicine to enter the building. The DC protestors only lasted 28 hours with no access to basic health necessities or nourishment, but this poor treatment of their DC compatriots gave the San Francisco group a resurgence of energy and purpose. The second day of the protest, they held a press conference in the HEW offices and first educated the press on the correct terminology to use, and then continued to go through why they were there and what they were doing. By the end of the 2nd day, the San Francisco group had grown to 110 protestors who all committed to staying another night.

On the 3rd day, security was told to not allow anyone into the building, meaning the protestors now had no access to food, medicine or clean clothes. They shut off the hot water and blocked outgoing phone calls, so they had only 2 pay phones that they were able to use for contact with the outside. Media was reporting that their sit in was only symbolic, due to DC’s sit in ending, so they reached out to an ally, Reverend Cecil Williams, who organized a vigil outside the HEW offices, to draw attention to the fact that they were still there and still fighting. News came in that Califano was reworking the regulations and watering them down, and that the Denver and New York City protests had folded. Los Angeles was down to 35 protestors.

With the spotlight of the vigil being held outside, other tokens of support and endorsement started coming in, including from California’s own Governor Jerry Brown. Every protestor committed to staying another night, and after a call from protestor Brad Lomax, the Black Panthers pushed through the door to deliver their dinner. The Black Panthers used no force, but rather promised to make a scene if the protestors were left to starve, and the security guards decided to let them in to deliver their meals every night for the rest of the protest. But that same night, security guards told everyone to get out of the building because there was reportedly a bomb. After telling the entire group about the bomb threat, every single protestor agreed that it was not a real threat and that they would stay.

On the 4th day, the protestors woke up to the building still standing and the final 2 pay phones jammed. Through the news they found out that the Los Angeles group had disbanded. They also came up with a way to work around not having access to phone lines: sign language. Their deaf protestors would sign through a window looking over the plaza to the protestors at the vigil below. These protestors would then take the message to the appropriate people on the outside. Through their respect of the building and the people working in the building, they also gained the support of 100 HEW employees, who signed a petition in support of the protestors and sent it on to Secretary Califano himself.

On Friday, April 15th, Congressmen George Miller and Phil Burton held a congressional hearing in the HEW offices so that the protestors could attend. Secretary Califano sent a representative named Gene Eidenberg who, after listening to testimony from the protestors, ran out of the room and hid. Congressman Burton had to chase after him and yell for him to go back to the room. Eventually he went back and listened to five more hours of testimony. They are told that Secretary Califano is still looking towards a “separate but equal” solution in his reworking of the regulations. The protestors decide as a group, after putting it to a vote, to send a delegation to DC to speak with Secretary Califano himself. First, they just need to raise the funds.

On Sunday, April 17th, Willy Dicks, a member of the International Association of Machinists, hears a sermon by Reverend Williams and immediately walks over to the HEW offices to give them a check for $1000. He talks to other Machinists and they agree to pay for the expenses of sending the 34-person delegation team from San Francisco to DC. The San Francisco mayor, George Moscone, shows up on the same day with a team of medical professionals to attend to the protestors neglected medical needs, and also brings things like soap, towels, cream for wheelchair sores and hoses to attach to faucets, so that the protestors can wash themselves.

Upon getting to DC, the delegation team goes straight to Secretary Califano’s personal home to hold a candlelight vigil throughout the night, where they quietly sing songs of freedom and hymns. They would later learn that he left through the backdoor so he did not have to listen to it. The delegation stayed at a local church, Luther Place Memorial, and immediately set up meetings with the 2 original sponsors of Section 504, Senators Harrison Williams and Alan Cranston. Senator Cranston was tough, but as soon as they quoted Califano’s statement of “separate but equal,” Cranston agreed to write a statement in support of their protest. In the meeting with Senator Williams, he quickly agreed to join in on Senator Cranston’s endorsement. They met with other officials in the department of domestic affairs, but while they personally agreed that it was time for the administration to act, it was an issue for HEW and not for the president. They were unable to schedule a meeting with the president, and found out that there was not a single accessible bathroom in the entire White House. They held a candlelight vigil outside of the White House that evening.

On Friday, April 23rd, the delegation went to the DC HEW offices to speak with Califano, but security guards barred them from even entering the building. And on Saturday, they again went to Califano’s house for a candlelight vigil. He again left through the back door, and would continue to do this several more times. On Sunday, they picketed outside of President Carter’s church. He and his wife also left out the back door. Carter ran with an “Open Door Administration” slogan, so they decided to use that against them. They continuously put out press statements talking about their new back door policy.

On Tuesday, April 27th, they held a protest right outside of the White House. About 100 protestors came in person, but many people sent their endorsements and support, including 7 members of the US Congress. The rally at the White House also reinvigorated protests around the country in Dallas and Houston, Texas; Hartford, Connecticut; Eugene, Oregon; Kansas City, Missouri; and San Francisco and Los Angeles, California. That night, feeling that they were near victory, they decided to send home most of the DC delegation back to San Francisco.

On Thursday, April 28th, the enabling regulations were finally signed, without the reworks that Califano had proposed. The protestors in San Francisco did not leave the HEW offices until Saturday, April 30th. They had formed such close bonds with each other in the 25 days of their protest that no one wanted to leave. They had successfully pulled off the longest sit-in of a federal building on record, and they wanted to have one last night to celebrate their winning of their long-deserved rights.

Sources

1.       Heumann, Judith, and Kristen Joiner. Being Heumann: An Unrepentant Memoir of a Disability Rights Activist. Beacon Press, 2020.

2.       Ingram, Patricia, director. Narration by Rosalie Wilkins, We Won't Go Away, The Berkeley Revolution, 8 June 2020, https://revolution.berkeley.edu/wont-go-away/. Accessed 10 Nov. 2021.

3.       Newnham, Nicole and Jim LeBrecht, directors. Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution. Crip Camp, Netflix, 2020, https://www.netflix.com/title/81001496. Accessed 10 Nov. 2020.

4.       Rehabilitation Act of 1973, 29 U.S.C. § 701 (1973). https://www.dol.gov/agencies/oasam/centers-offices/civil-rights-center/s...

5. D'Lil, HolLynn. Judy Heumann, Holding the Sign, and Kitty Cone, Right, Protested in Front of the White House on April 26, 1977. Washington DC, 26 Apr. 1977.

The Beating of Rodney King

The four officers who beat King.

While arresting Rodney King for speeding four LAPD officers exercised excessive force. The four officers: Stacey Koon, Laurence Powell, Timothy Wind and Theodore Briseno had tasered him and struck him repeatedly with batons even after pulling him out of his car. In total King was hit fifty-six times. Footage of this is aired and subsequently televised, unbeknownst to the parties involved (Bates, Sastry).

Source (including image): 

Bates, Karen Grisby and Sastry, Anjuli. “When LA Erupted In Anger: A Look Back At The Rodney King Riots.” NPR, 26 April 2017.  https://www.npr.org/2017/04/26/524744989/when-la-erupted-in-anger-a-look-back-at-the-rodney-king-riots. Accessed 3 November 2021.

The LA Riots of 1992

Korean-Americans defending themselves during the LA Riots.

April 29, 1992: The jury acquits all four officers of assault and three of them of excessive force. This acquittal sparks what is known as the LA riots of 1992, and is also the date the riots officially begin (Bates, Sastry). Korean-Americans refer to this day as Sa-I-Gu (사이구), which means “4/29” in Korean, the day when the riots began. 

April 30, 1992: Defense lines are set up that keep wealthy white neighborhoods on the inside with Koreatown to effectively act as a shield. Additionally, the LAPD never arrived when Koreans cried for help, so they were forced to take matters into their own hands. As Korean men are all required to serve in the military, many took to arms themselves and defended their stores with guns. This image was televised and broadcasted everywhere, even still being relevant today in discussions of arms and the second amendment in the USA (being oft referred to as “Roof Koreans). Koreatown suffered $400 million worth of damages, over half of what was sustained throughout the entire LA riot (Wong).

This fear was even recognized outside of California, as even my father (who is also Korean-born) was called to defend his family’s shop in inner-city Chicago. “It was very scary, but also kind of silly” he said in retrospect, “I’m there with my cousins and uncles who are military trained and armed to the teeth. And I’m standing there, just a teenager holding my skateboard like a club, in case anyone slips past” (Park). Jokes aside, Korean-Americans across the country still understood the fear and the pressure brought on by the riots and all responded in similar ways. 

May 1, 1992: Rodney King publicly pleads for everyone to “all get along,” and over 10,000 Army National Guard troops were activated in order to stop the rioting. The mayor also enacts a curfew in order to achieve the same effect. At this point the majority of the violence in the riots have come to a stop, and will officially be over within a few days (May 5th). However, the aftermath of this is still remembered to this day (Bates, Sastry).

Sources: 

Bates, Karen Grisby and Sastry, Anjuli. “When LA Erupted In Anger: A Look Back At The Rodney King Riots.” NPR, 26 April 2017.  https://www.npr.org/2017/04/26/524744989/when-la-erupted-in-anger-a-look-back-at-the-rodney-king-riots. Accessed 3 November 2021. 

Lah, Kyung. “The LA riots were a rude awakening for Korean-Americans.” CNN, 29 April 2017. https://www.cnn.com/2017/04/28/us/la-riots-korean-americans/index.html. Accessed 3 November 2021.

Park, Gilbert (my father). 2015. 

Wong, Brittany. “The Real, Tragic Story Behind That ‘Roof Korean’ Meme You May Have Seen.” The Huffington Post, 11/6/2020. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/roof-koreans-meme-know-real-story_n_5ee110a1c5b6d5bafa5604f3. Accessed 4 November 2021. 

International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation

On February 6, 2003, the day was adopted as an international day of observance by the United Nations. The first lady of Nigeria and spokesperson for the Campaign against Female Genital Mutilation, Stella Obasanjo called for an official declaration during a conference organized by the Inter-African Committee on Traditional Practices Affecting the Health of Women and Children (IAC), a nongovernmental network headquartered in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and it was thereafter adopted by the UN Sub-Commission on Human Rights. Now, every year on February 6, there are ceremonies and conferences dedicated to raising awareness and presenting accurate data on this practice that affects millions of women and children.

Feldman-Jacobs, Charlotte. “Commemorating International Day of Zero Tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation.” Wayback Machine, 29 Jan. 2009, https://web.archive.org/web/20100213125942/http://www.prb.org/Articles/2....

Female Soldiers Allowed to Join Combat Arms Units

Female UH-60 Black Hawk Pilot

            In January 2016, Defense Secretary Ash Carter’s announcement to lift the ban on females serving in combat arms units became a reality. For the United States Army, combat arms branches include Infantry, Air Defense Artillery, Armor, Aviation, Corps of Engineers, Field Artillery, and Special Forces. Since the creation of the Army, June 14, 1775, until January 2016, these branches were not open to female Soldiers. One reason the branches were only offered to men is because of the psychological differences between men and women. It is true, combat duties like scaling a wall or loading heavy artillery rounds are more difficult for women because of the 40-60% contrast in upper body strength between the two genders. It is also true that rucking or marching with a minimum of 35 pounds of military equipment, is also more challenging for women because of their smaller percentage of lower body strength in comparison to men. Despite the physical struggles female Soldiers face within combat arm environments, as long as females are meeting the standard and are physically fit enough to perform their tasks well, the Army has grown to accept females in combat arms branches. In fact, according to the first female four-star general, Ann Dunwoody, "if a woman can meet the same standards required for her male counterparts, there is no reason why she should not be able to do the job."

            Furthermore, the Army is continuing to research and pursue gender equality and gender integration. For example, in order to obtain research of first-hand experiences, a study was conducted in June 2021 on ten female officers and non-commissioned officers serving in combat arms branches within the Army, Army Reserves, and Army National Guard. The study concludes that the ten females all had similar experiences based around the themes of leadership development, acceptance, and being approachable/having emotional intelligence. The females shared about the importance of knowing their leaders had confidence in them. The ten females also had challenges with being in a combat arms unit that centered around the themes of adjusting to the culture, finding a work-family balance, and pressure to prove themselves. The women felt it was awkward when they first joined their units because the males expressed an attitude of disapproval. Even though the Army is working to have a more diverse team, every unit will have setbacks. The study proves the Army's intentions and both the positive and negative experiences that come with change. Overall, the allowance of female Soldiers to join combat arms units is moving towards their goal of gaining a more diversified, gender equal, and gender integrated force.

Works Cited

Campbell, Leona Cassandra. A Phenomenological Study of Female Army Leaders in Combat Arms Units. ProQuest Dissertations Publishing, 2021.

Dunwoody, Ann E. "Equal Opportunities for Army Women?" Army, vol. 65, no. 6, 2015, pp. 18-19. ProQuest, https://www.proquest.com/trade-journals/equal-opportunities-army-women/docview/1683318219/se-2?accountid=13360.

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