Category Archives: Gender

Mexican president under fire for defending politician accused of rape

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Amlo again clashes with women’s rights activists as he dismisses complaints against Félix Salgado Macedonio, candidate for governor

A growing row over a gubernatorial candidate facing accusations of rape has once again pitted Mexico’s populist president against women’s rights campaigners.

Félix Salgado Macedonio has registered to run for governor in southern Guerrero state with the ruling Morena party, despite accusations of sexual violence and rape by five women dating back as far as 1998.

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Reporting on WTO’s first female head ‘sexist and racist’, say African UN leaders

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Coverage of Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala criticised by group who say such attitudes ‘discourage women from taking on leadership positions’

Senior African leaders at the UN have criticised the “sexist and racist” language used in coverage of the appointment of Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala as the new president of the World Trade Organization.

Okonjo-Iweala, a graduate of Harvard University, was confirmed as the new head of the WTO last week, making her the first woman and the first African to lead the organisation.

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The world faces a pandemic of human rights abuses in the wake of Covid-19 | António Guterres

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The virus has been used as a pretext in many countries to crush dissent, criminalise freedoms and silence reporting

  • António Guterres is secretary general of the United Nations

From the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic almost one year ago, it was clear that our world faced far more than a public health emergency. The biggest international crisis in generations quickly morphed into an economic and social crisis. One year on, another stark fact is tragically evident: our world is facing a pandemic of human rights abuses.

Covid-19 has deepened preexisting divides, vulnerabilities and inequalities, and opened up new fractures, including faultlines in human rights. The pandemic has revealed the interconnectedness of our human family – and of the full spectrum of human rights: civil, cultural, economic, political and social. When any one of these rights is under attack, others are at risk.

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The number of people in need is frightening – we need a global response | Axel van Trotsenburg

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We can rise to the challenge of a green, resilient and inclusive recovery from Covid, but only if critical changes are made

The numbers are well-publicised but bear repeating. Around 120 million more people were pushed into extreme poverty in 2020, a number that could rise to 150 million in 2021. An estimated 250 million jobs have been lost around the world, and the number of people affected by acute food insecurity was estimated to have doubled to 272 million by the end of last year. A decade of progress in the most fragile countries wiped out.

Let’s put a human dimension on these numbers. More than a billion children have been out of school during the Covid-19 pandemic, and girls are much less likely to return to the classroom.

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Japan’s ruling party invites women to meetings – but won’t let them speak

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LDP’s attempt to demonstrate gender equality after Olympic sexism row backfires

It was a move designed to show that Japan’s ruling party was committed to gender equality after the sexism row that forced one of its former prime ministers, Yoshiro Mori, to resign as head of Tokyo’s Olympic organising committee.

The time had come to give female members of the Liberal Democratic party (LDP) more prominence at key meetings, the party’s secretary general, Toshihiro Nikai, said this week, days after Mori had stepped down following his claim that meetings attended by “talkative women” tended to “drag on”.

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Scott Morrison pushes ‘professional behaviour’ changes after Brittany Higgins’ rape allegations

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Prime minister says his wife, Jenny, urged him to respond to Higgins’ allegation ‘as a father first’

Scott Morrison has drafted one of his own MPs and a deputy secretary of his department to develop options to improve “the environment” of Parliament House after allegations from former government staffer Brittany Higgins that she was raped by a colleague in 2019.

The prime minister told reporters on Tuesday he had asked Liberal backbencher Celia Hammond, a former university vice-chancellor, to lead a process of internal consultation about how to improve “professional behaviour” in political offices.

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Biden press aide TJ Ducklo resigns over ‘abhorrent’ remarks to female journalist

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In first departure from Biden administration, Ducklo says he has ‘embarrassed and disappointed’ colleagues

White House deputy press secretary TJ Ducklo has resigned, the day after he was suspended for issuing a sexist and profane threat to a journalist inquiring about his relationship with another reporter.

In a statement on Saturday, Ducklo said he was “devastated to have embarrassed and disappointed my White House colleagues and President Biden”.

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White House suspends press aide who reportedly threatened Politico journalist

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TJ Ducklo is sorry for ‘heated conversation’, says White House press secretary, but punishment appears to fall short of Biden’s threat to fire uncivil aides

The White House has suspended a press aide over allegations he threatened a reporter who was working on a story about his romantic relationship with another journalist.

Vanity Fair alleged on Friday that White House deputy press secretary TJ Ducklo had made threats – including saying “I will destroy you” – to a Politico correspondent who was reporting on Ducklo’s recently disclosed relationship with an Axios reporter, Alexi McCammond.

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Japanese lose taste for Valentine’s ‘obligation chocs’ under Covid

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Growing numbers of women ditch giri choco custom of ‘forced giving’ of gifts to senior male colleagues

Shifting gender politics and the coronavirus have combined to spell the possible end of the Japanese Valentine’s Day custom of women giving chocolates to male colleagues.

Traditionally, women are expected to buy gift-wrapped chocolates for the men in their working lives – usually senior colleagues and others who have helped them during the course of the year – as part of a tradition called giri choco, literally “obligation chocolates”.

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Tokyo governor to boycott Olympics meeting over sexism row

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Yuriko Koike says attending meeting with under-fire Games chief would not send positive message

The governor of Tokyo has said she will not attend a key meeting of Olympic officials next week, as the row over sexist comments made by the head of the 2020 Games’ organising committee intensifies.

Yuriko Koike, who became the city’s first female governor in 2016, said she saw no merit in attending the meeting between the committee head, Yoshiro Mori, the president of the International Olympic Committee, Thomas Bach, and Japan’s Olympics minister, Seiko Hashimoto.

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How Covid could be the ‘long overdue’ shake-up needed by the aid sector

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Analysis: as need outstrips funding, experts are making the case for overhauling ‘old-fashioned’ donor-recipient narratives

This year one in every 33 people across the world will need humanitarian assistance. That is a rise of 40% from last year, according to the UN. More than half of the countries requiring aid to help deal with the coronavirus pandemic are already in protracted crises, coping with conflict or natural disasters.

Even before Covid-19 threw decades of progress on extreme poverty, healthcare and education into reverse, aid budgets were heading in the wrong direction. In 2020, the UN had just 48% of its $38.5bn (£28bn) in funding appeals met, compared with 63% of $29bn sought in 2019.

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Tokyo 2020 chief pressed to resign after saying women talked too much at meetings

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Yoshiro Mori said he would not stand down after saying female participants meant meetings tended to ‘drag on’

Yoshiro Mori, the head of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics organising committee, has apologised for making sexist remarks about “talkative” women in sports organisations, but said he would not resign.

Mori, a former Japanese prime minister with a history of demeaning remarks, told a meeting of the Japanese Olympic Committee (JOC) this week that meetings attended by too many women tended to “drag on” because they talked too much.

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‘Alarmingly sexist’: Variety review boosts calls for more diverse film critics

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Male writer’s comments on Carey Mulligan’s looks said to highlight ‘double standards’ in industry

Film criticism is facing renewed condemnation over a lack of diversity after a review deemed by many – including its subject – to be alarmingly sexist.

“I just couldn’t believe it,” said Carey Mulligan, who was judged by the veteran Variety reviewer Dennis Harvey to be insufficiently attractive to convince in her latest role.

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‘They said I wasn’t hot enough’: Carey Mulligan hits out again at magazine review

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Variety review of black comedy Promising Young Woman prompts actor to speak out on industry’s institutionalised sexism

Carey Mulligan has said she was alarmed after a major publication ran a review of her new film questioning whether she was attractive enough for the role.

Related: Variety's apology to Carey Mulligan shows that the critic's ivory tower is toppling | Peter Bradshaw

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‘Nowhere is safe’: Colombia confronts alarming surge in femicides

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Vice-president joins activists in calling for zero tolerance of ‘machismo’ that has left hundreds of women and girls dead

When authorities pulled the lifeless body of four-year-old María Ángel Molina out of a river in rural Colombia on 13 January, the South American country mourned what was the 14th documented case of femicide this year.

Her murderer, Juan Carlos Galvis, also kidnapped María’s sister, and later admitted to authorities that he committed the brutal crimes in order to punish the girls’ mother for seeing another man.

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Vive l’indifférence! Netflix’s Room 2806 exposes France’s #MeToo apathy

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Centred on a sex-assault case involving former French presidential hopeful Dominique Strauss-Kahn, this docuseries reveals worryingly outdated attitudes

Most people will have only the haziest recollection of the fallout that occurred after the French presidential hopeful and then head of the International Monetary Fund Dominique Strauss-Kahn was accused of sexually assaulting a room attendant in a New York hotel in 2011. That allows the Netflix documentary Room 2806: The Accusation to possess all the qualities of a slick political thriller. Who will be believed? The immigrant, hotel cleaner, a single parent living in a flat in the Bronx or the globally powerful, immensely rich politician?

This tense, four-part documentary has astonishing material to work with. There is plenty of CCTV footage, filmed from the ceiling, of chambermaid Nafissatou Diallo making her way to the presidential suite, and later, visibly distressed, being shepherded by her supervisor to a subterranean network of shabby staff offices in the bowels of the building, away from the gilded foyer, where she wipes away tears and recounts how she has been assaulted by Strauss-Kahn as she cleaned his rooms.

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‘Luxuries I can’t afford’: why fewer women in South Korea are having children

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As the population declines, traditional gender roles and careers are leading many to forgo childbirth

The outcry created this month by Seoul city government’s advice for expectant mothers – including tips on how to cater to their husband’s every need while heavily pregnant – has reignited the debate over why so many South Korean women are choosing not to have children.

The guidelines, issued by the city’s pregnancy and childbirth information centre, were taken down in response to online fury, but not before they had provided a telling insight into attitudes towards gender roles in South Korea, one of the world’s most advanced economies.

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Denmark launches children’s TV show about man with giant penis

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Critics condemn idea of animated series about a man who cannot control his penis, but others have backed it

John Dillermand has an extraordinary penis. So extraordinary, in fact, that it can perform rescue operations, etch murals, hoist a flag and even steal ice-cream from children.

The Danish equivalent of the BBC, DR, has a new animated series aimed at four- to eight-year-olds about John Dillermand, the man with the world’s longest penis who overcomes hardships and challenges with his record-breaking genitals.

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The nobody-nose job: how the pandemic led to a rise in plastic surgery

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Wanting to emerge from lockdown ‘better’ versions of themselves, some people are turning to drastic measures

When Kaafiya Abdulle gave birth to her son in April 2017, she chose to breastfeed. A year later, she switched to baby formula, hyper-vigilant of the effects nursing had on her breasts. Unhappy with the sagging and shrinking that had occurred, she began to research breast lifts – a procedure she desperately wanted but never had the courage to pursue. Until the pandemic, that is.

Related: Why you should ignore the pressure to be productive during lockdown

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Moscow metro hires first female train drivers in modern history

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Role of train operator removed from government’s register of jobs deemed harmful to women’s health

The Moscow metro has hired female drivers for the first time in its recent history, following changes in Russian legislation prohibiting women from many professions.

The Russian capital’s transport system, which oversees the sprawling metro network, said in a statement that “the first female electric train drivers in modern history started working for the Moscow metro.”

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