The Rice Thresher, Vol. 95, No. 21, Ed. 1 Friday, February 22, 2008 Page: 5 of 28
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THE RICE THRESHER NEWS FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 22,2008
Gender inequality, AIDS
focus of Duwury lecture
by Cindy Dinh
THRESHER STAFF
While Rice plans to raise over
$100 million over the next decade
to help fight AIDS and support
world health, students from a va-
riety of majors and concentrations
congregated at the James A. Baker
III Institute for Public Policy last
Friday to hear Nata Duwury (Jones
73), director of Gender, Violence
and Rights at the International
Center for Research on Women,
speak about the effects of gender
inequality as it relates to HIV/AIDS,
women's ownership of property and
gender-based violence.
Duwury's topic on women's
property ownership was the first in
the lecture series, "Gender, Health
and Human Well Being."
Drawing from her extensive
research in India, South Africa and
Uganda, Duwury started off by ex-
plaining that gender violence occurs
across cultures and is not isolated to
certain parts of the world.
'[People in Uganda
and South Africa]
think that the husband
has bought the
women when they get
married.'
— Nata Duwury (Jones '73)
Director of Gender, Violence
and Rights at the International
Center for Research on Women
Disparities between the rights of
men and women in certain cultures
hinder women's development.
Duwury said she believes the key
to promoting gender equality is
through women's property owner-
ship. She said home ownership in
the woman's name is an important
foundation for female empower-
ment. All of these directly affect
a woman's freedom to make deci-
sions about her own well-being,
she said.
"With assets you increase house-
hold power, food availability, security
and income," Duwury said.
In sub-Saharan Africa, the
inheritance rights of women are
not well-recognized, and the fluid
property rights and cultural allo-
cation suggests that women have
"user rights" to the land they work
on, not ownership.
Duwury emphasized how
gender-based violence and HIV/
AIDS are co-epidemics that can
each contribute to the increase
of the other. Domestic abuse and
rape put women at a higher risk
for contracting HIV/AIDS. On the
other hand, Duwury said women
who disclose to their partners that
they are HIV positive are two to
three times more likely to experi-
ence violence in relationships.
From her research on South Africa
and Uganda, Duwury said she attrib-
uted the low rates of female property
ownership to cultural customs.
"They think that the husband
has bought the women when they
get married," she said. "How can
property own property?"
During her five-year research in
India, Duwury examined violence
between intimate partners and how
it increased or decreased accord-
ing to certain factors such as the
husband and wife's regularity of
employment and level of educa-
tion. Although women typically
leave the house when they are
victims of domestic abuse, Duv-
vury said things were different in
India because men had to leave the
house when they were accused of
domestic violence.
Baker College sophomore Julia
Lukomnik was surprised to hear how
different the issues between India
and Sub-Saharan Africa were.
"People tend to group the de-
veloping countries together and
assume they have the same prob-
lems," Lukomnik said. "There
are culturally-specific problems
throughout Africa."
Sid Richardson College sopho-
more Anna Roberts said she was
able to relate the various statistics
Duwury presented to her class-
room discussions.
"It is not enough for people just to
hear how to solve gender inequality,"
Roberts said. "Linking it to a global
pandemic like AIDS makes it more
visible," Roberts said.
After hearing Duwury present
the facts and statistics, Lukomnik
said she wondered how to best take
this knowledge into action.
'This is a good place to go off
of instead of a good place to stop,"
Lukomnik said.
V;
rice coffeehouse
www.riceedu/cDffeshou
Program for studying in Los Angeles
now opened to Rice students
by Rachel Carlson
THRESHER STAFF
Visual arts majors may find
themselves tanning in the sun and
rubbing elbows with celebrities
through a new opportunity for
semester-long study in Los Ange-
les. A program called University of
Texas Los Angeles Center, which
coordinates undergraduate studies
in Hollywood, announced last Friday
that it will now accept student ap-
plicants from universities across
the country.
UTLA, which was previously only
open to University ofTexas at Austin
students, is a program designed to
introduce juniors and seniors of all
majors to professionals in Hollywood
arts and entertainment through
internships and class instruction.
UTLA Executive Director Phil Nemy,
a former Disney executive, said that
students must take at least three
classes, almost half of which are
held during the early morning and
nighttime to allow for internships
with major film and music studios
during the day.
Classes currently offered include
How Hollywood Works, the Creative
Process of Film and Television
Development, How Music Works:
The Business of the Music Indus-
try, and Topics in Entertainment
Professions.
The UTLA curriculum is tailored
to students' own interests, Nemy
said. Before the semester begins,
students are sent an e-mail with
about twenty different career paths
from which to choose. Students
select the three they would most
like to pursue. The top three topics
voted on by all program participants
become the focuses for individual
courses. Course instructors include
past executives, producers, design-
ers and casting directors Nemy said.
Paul Leonard, a current co-producer
of Battlestar Galactica, is one of the
instructors in the UTLA Creative
Process class called Post Production
and Editing. Students often have a
chance to create their own film or
music samples and compare them
to professional versions.
ADMISSION
REQUIREMENTS
Students with a minimum GPA
of 2.5 may apply to UTLA after
completing 60 credit hours
before the UTLA semester.
Completion of a Media Studies
course at Rice is also recom-
mended. Afterfulfilling prerequi-
sites, students must apply and
submit a $500 deposit when
applying to the program.
nies like Special Effects Unlimited.
Writers can participate in classes for
composing television scripts.
Martel College freshman Lulu
Fang said she appreciated these
outside connections for visual arts
majors.
"I think that it's really great be-
cause our department is very small
and we don't have that many teach-
ers, so Rice can't offer that many
classes," Fang said. "To have varying
opportunities by way of partnerships
allows students to have more options.
I think a lot of students will take
advantage of this."
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Wiess College sophomore Rachel
Solnick, a visual arts major, said she
liked programs like UTLA because
they allow Rice arts students to
translate their major to a practical
career.
"I'm sometimes concerned about
having a major that I'm not sure
how to apply after I graduate," Sol-
nick said. "Programs like this get
students out of the classroom, help
them make connections and make
careers more apparent."
Students who are not interested
in film or music can also participate
in UTLA. Some architects and engi-
neers work on set design and special
effects productions through compa-
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Whitfield, Stephen. The Rice Thresher, Vol. 95, No. 21, Ed. 1 Friday, February 22, 2008, newspaper, February 22, 2008; Houston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth443058/m1/5/: accessed July 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Rice University Woodson Research Center.