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Raffia is an online magazine on gender, diversity, and feminism in academia, art, organizations, and

25/05/2025

“On March 10th, Radboud University will mark International Women’s Day with an afternoon program organized by the Radboud Network of Female Professors and the Halkes Women+ Faculty Network. The event aims to showcase the achievements of female researchers, including studies on testosterone’s impact on girls and innovative approaches to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. In essence, the university is giving women a platform to present their research - not necessarily because of its groundbreaking nature or its relevance to International Women’s Day, but simply because of the researchers’ gender.
While celebrating women in academia is important, this approach raises deep concern. The event highlights women’s work without addressing the systemic barriers they face within the institution. Thereby, International Women’s Day is reduced to a token gesture rather than a meaningful commitment to women’s rights and gender equality. Rather than confronting the structural issues impacting women at this institution, Radboud adopts a performative approach to showcase women while ignoring the underlying barriers they face. In doing so, Radboud becomes actively complicit in the perpetuation of s*xist culture - their feminism is selective and performative, and only manages to reinforce the very inequalities it claims to challenge.”

📌Read the full article on our website via the link in our bio!

14/05/2025

Ava explores how s*xism is embedded in urban planning. Cities were built for men.

Continue reading the full version on our website raffia-magazine.com or via the links in our bio!
Raffia Magazine is open to guest writers and collaborators.

Feel free to email us with your article ideas!

***r care

12/05/2025

As fascism rises, many universities across the world are failing their students. Radboud is one of them.

“However, Radboud not only deflects and weaponizes social safety, but it actively fosters an unsafe environment by repeatedly relying on police force to intimidate and discourage students from protesting. By anticipatedly calling the police on campus and by closing off buildings before a protest even starts, Radboud creates tension and unsafety, for both activists and uninvolved students. The only reason that these protests are dangerous is that the executive board of Radboud University uses excessive violence instead of engaging in conversation with its own students. The executive board of Radboud is supposed to orient itself in the service of the people studying and working for this university. “

Continue reading the full article via the link in our bio. 🇵🇸

11/05/2025

”On March 10th, Radboud University will mark International Women’s Day with an afternoon program organized by the Radboud Network of Female Professors and the Halkes Women+ Faculty Network. The event aims to showcase the achievements of female researchers, including studies on testosterone’s impact on girls and innovative approaches to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. In essence, the university is giving women a platform to present their research – not necessarily because of its groundbreaking nature or its relevance to International Women’s Day, but simply because of the researchers’ gender.
While celebrating women in academia is important, this approach raises deep concern. The event highlights women’s work without addressing the systemic barriers they face within the institution. Thereby, International Women’s Day is reduced to a token gesture rather than a meaningful commitment to women’s rights and gender equality. Rather than confronting the structural issues impacting women at this institution, Radboud adopts a performative approach to showcase women while ignoring the underlying barriers they face. In doing so, Radboud becomes actively complicit in the perpetuation of s*xist culture – their feminism is selective and performative, and only manages to reinforce the very inequalities it claims to challenge.“

📌 Read the full article on our website via the link in our bio!

14/03/2025

✨Queer history is one of Raffia‘s most popular subjects, so we are excited to share this new article with you, hot off the press:

„One of the most touching items for display is a letter written by American soldier, Brian Keith, titled ‘Letter to a G.I.’ in which Keith writes to his former lover, ‘Dave’, with whom he had planned to reconnect after they had returned home from the war. Dave however, never returned to his home across the Atlantic Ocean. Within this letter, Keith opens his heart and reminisces on their time together and the plans they had made together.“

📌 Read the full review of the exhibition ”Love in Wartime“ on Raffia via the link in bio.

‼️ You can still see the exhibition for yourself in the Freedom Museum in Groesbeek till the 6th of April!

13/11/2024

✨🍿In need of a recommendation for a q***r TV series?Raffia has you covered!

“In times of growing intolerance regarding LGBTQ+ individuals, positive forms of media put q***r hearts at ease by employing q***r representation. A recent example of this is TV-series Heartstopper, based on Alice Oseman’s graphic novels. The TV-series shows q***r joy by portraying a blossoming romance between the two main characters in a positive yet complex narrative, underpinning its value as an educational tool for audiences that do not identify as q***r. This paper aims to establish Heartstopper’s pedagogical value for young audiences, teaching them that being q***r comes in as many different variations as there are q***r people on Earth.“

✨🍿Continue reading the article on raffia-magazine.com or via the link in our bio!

***rstories ***rtv

28/09/2024

Teresa Margolles’ Cimbra Formwork (2006) is a conceptual artwork addressing feminicide in Ciudad Juárez. It consists of 546 pieces of clothing belonging to women victims of gendered violence, submerged in cement. The piece reflects Margolles' frequent exploration of violence and death, drawing on her experience as a mortician. The term "feminicide" is used here to highlight systematic gender violence influenced by political and economic conditions, as argued by theorist Rita Laura Segato.

Cimbra Formwork uses metonymy, where the victims' clothes represent their absent bodies, and metaphor, as the cement represents the violent disposal of those bodies. This technique avoids sensationalizing the dead, a common issue in discourse around feminicide. Margolles’ work emphasizes the invisibility of these crimes, echoing the societal neglect and the use of women’s bodies as "waste" in patriarchal structures. While ambiguous, the artwork challenges viewers to confront feminicide's reality and maintains an ongoing conversation about the victims’ stories and societal impact.

Read the full piece on our website, link in the BIO!

19/09/2024

In this episode, Nanette Ashby takes you with her to the Prostitution Information Centre in Amsterdam. It is located in the heart of the Red Light District next to the Oude Kerk, or the Old Church. Nat Portnoy is the person interviewed for this episode. She is a multidisciplinary artist, activist, performer, filmmaker and s*x worker. First we dive into the history of the Prostitution Information Centre, or PIC. The language and terminology we use matters. Nat describes the diversity of s*x workers, their work and the variety of clients. There is still stigma associated with s*x work. We examine which misconceptions and stereotypes are the most damaging and why. Nat explains in detail the legal situation and process of registering as a s*x worker in the Netherlands. More generally, Nat illustrates the crucial differences between legalisation and decriminalisation of s*x work.

Listen to the full episode with the link in the BIO!👆🎧

*xwork *xeducation

11/09/2024

The text examines how urban environments perpetuate patriarchal structures, especially in "global cities," where gendered issues become pronounced. Caroline Criado-Perez’s Invisible Women highlights that public transportation systems prioritize men's needs, making women's care-related trips difficult. Other urban challenges for women include s*xual harassment, inadequate public facilities, and car-focused infrastructure.

The text focuses on class dynamics in global cities like Brussels, where wealthy women offload their care responsibilities to lower-class, often migrant women, reinforcing the gendered division of labor. This phenomenon is part of a broader issue where the burdens of care work are transferred rather than equalized, highlighting internal divisions among women based on class and race.

Although some European cities, like Vienna, are making strides towards gender equity, the text argues that these efforts don't address the deeply ingrained patriarchy within cities. True equality requires a radical restructuring of urban spaces to address the unequal care burden.

Link in BIO!

22/08/2024

Outside of Italy, it is not common knowledge that the country of food and marvellous historical monuments is grappling with a silent but deadly crisis: the alarming rise in the number of femicides. Despite changing times and the rather slow progress towards increased gender equality, each day one or more names are added to the list of women murdered by their husbands, their ex-partners or male family members. This article delves into the harrowing reality of femicides in Italy, analysing the most recent cases which became famous Europe-wide.

Read the full article on our website, link in the BIO!

13/08/2024

In the past years, the phenomenon of femicide has gained increasing space in the news, together with a progressively growing awareness of systemic gender violence matters, such as the gender pay gap, the movement against s*xual harassment in the entertainment world, and structural discrimination. According to the EU Monitor, one out of three women in the EU has experienced physical and/or s*xual violence since the age of 15. In 2015, the UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls, its causes and consequences, Dubravka Simonovic, requested the creation of The Femicide Watch Initiative to collect observations and data on the phenomenon. Along with an increasing wokeness, we are witnessing a controversial wave of scepticism towards the very legitimacy of the term “femicide”. Let’s delve into a more precise definition of the phenomenon. Diana Russel, a feminist scholar and activist, popularised the word “femicide” in the 1970s, defining it as “the killing of women because they are women.” (Seelye, 2020).

Read the full article on our website, link in BIO!

07/08/2024

"The sun is shining, and the tulips are blooming just in time for the “lentekriebels” week at Dutch Primary Schools. During this theme week, children playfully learn about their bodies, puberty, and budding s*xual feelings. Relationship and S*x Education (RSE) has been part of the curriculum of Dutch primary schools since 2012. The “lentekriebels” week was initiated by Rutgers, the Netherlands Centre on S*xuality, which also provides specific teaching plans for schools and teachers who would like to participate."

Read the full piece on our website! Link in the BIO.👆

*xeducation *xuality

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Raffia - An online magazine on gender, diversity, and feminism

Raffia Magazine publishes informative and opinion pieces in Dutch as well as in English. The articles and columns are written by students, PhD candidates, scholars, professionals on behalf of organizations, artists, experience experts, and any others interested in the field. Raffia is affiliated with Radboud Gender & Diversity Studies of the Radboud University. We are based in Nijmegen, the Netherlands.