Today, the women of the world are celebrating (International Women's Day), March 8, to express the representation of a remarkable proportion of them in political and social life in many countries, and to remind the world that there are other women who still captives of oppression and suppression of societies and social, political and religious powers in numerous countries. However, it is undeniable that women have not reached this moment of victory only after great, long and painful sacrifices against discrimination and oppressive societal domination.
At the same occasion, the Yemeni women commemorate this anniversary at a time when the wave of dark fundamentalist tide has reached its climax, and it is trying to sweep away many of the gains of the women in Yemen that were conquered over many decades of tireless struggles through education, employment, and engagement in public service, which were made available to them, thanks to the political and social transformation processes that heralded in the Yemeni revolution, starting in the early sixties of the last century.
In fact, discrimination against women began with the spread of "Wahhabi" wave, which since the early seventies has become an integral part of the structure of power. Thus, it redefined Yemeni women in urban and rural areas from the strict prospective of Bedouinism that is concealed in political religion, so it dressed them in black instead of the colors of life, and silenced their voice as being naked; to maximize the power of masculinity. However, this voice was re-used and employed for political purposes with every need it wanted to fulfill or during elections that religious profiting groups have ran.
Moreover, the great advantages made by women in the "Family Law" came to nothing with the early cracks in the wall of the unity state. As for the high value of the idea of production in the Yemeni countryside, which is based on the effort of participation of women and men, it has also become a crime in the extremist preaching speeches.
Additionally, the “Wahhabi” conservative wave was reinforced, two decades ago, by a toxic wave of obscurantism, which is known as the “Khomeini” surge, that imposed, during the years of chaos and conflicting, crude racial discrimination, starting from: banning mixing male and female students in school classes, all the way to imposing the color of their clothes and the methods of tailoring them as well as the defamation of the work of women in the public service. Yet, it did not end with the imposition of the “Mahram” as a condition for the travel and movement of women, but it did not even pay attention to their miserable state of hunger and poverty, which is indicated by the growing state of begging among women, and eating from dumps.
Despite all this intimidation, women still produce various forms of spontaneous resistance against this discrimination and abuse. Not only that, but they also made accomplished many success stories in this rugged path, as they have been determined to reach what they want given that the logic of life and the mind shall win out in the end.
Since its launch on March 10, 2020, until today, March 8, 2023, the "Khuyut" platform has been working, and in very harsh circumstances, to be a faithful carrier of the voice of the vulnerable and marginalized groups, especially women. It has assigned, in its many windows, a lot of materials that examine and shed lights on women’s issues and topics, from the position of its professional and moral responsibility so that these materials have became an important file with the accumulation, under the title (The Squandered Half) through which the reader can find a lot of the living representation of women’s voice threatened to be erased, not just absented.
