Showing Off Our Women
Happy International Women’s Day, TDS subscribers!
In honor of today, we want to show off a few of the women who have authored and/or been prominently featured in stories in The Development Set.
One of our goals for this publication is to fight lazy stereotypes about women and girls around the globe. Half the world’s population isn’t a monolith; being “marginalized” doesn’t mean the same thing everywhere, and the process of “empowerment” can take wildly different paths.
In some cases, as with Margaret Corvid in England, empowerment can mean quitting a desk job and becoming a dominatrix. Flávia Roberta Wiezel in Brazil, meanwhile, didn’t let her doctor bully her into having a C-section. Others, like Fati Yahaya in Niger, require a bit of luck from the universe — in her case, a verbally abusive mother-in-law who demanded Fati be banished from a life she anyway loathed, along with some timely medical assistance.
Here are three more stories in The Development Set that we hope illustrate the complexity of women’s lives. Please enjoy, and if the spirit moves you, please recommend and respond to them.
It Takes A Village to Not Marry A Girl
By Didem Tali
Didem spent weeks with communities in southern Malawi that were tired of child marriage swallowing their girls and women. With the leadership of people like 16-year-old Moreen, who recently left an abusive marriage with two children and HIV, several grassroots groups are using song and dance to end complacency around this harmful practice.
Who Are We Solving the Heroin Epidemic For?
By Britni de la Cretaz
Why are heroin addicts — both current and former — rarely included in discussions of how to solve today’s epidemic in the United States? Why do white suburban parents seem to have outsize influence with legislators and law enforcement?
As a recovering addict herself, Britni explores the damage that certain rhetoric and actions can have on curing addiction. She also opens up about what it took for her to get sober, and looks into a promising new program in a Massachusetts police department.
I Do Sex Work So I Can Look at Myself in the Mirror
Rebeka entered the sex industry to get relief from her sex dysphoria, or strong desire to be rid of her biologically male characteristics. She writes:
The narrative of a person entering the underground economy to afford medical expenses has a kind of tragic romance a la Breaking Bad, illuminating the human cost of market failure in the nation with the highest nominal GDP. Nearly every trans person I have known in the sex industry has this story: in exchange for sex, they attempt to get men to fund medical procedures that chip away at dysphoria.
Again, wishing all of you a Happy International Women’s Day! Please let me know what kinds of stories you’d like to see featured in The Development Set — and of course, please be in touch if you have a pitch for me.
All the best,
Sarika Bansal, Editor (@sarika008 on Twitter)
