Jean-Michel Blanquer’s comments follow protests over high school dress codes for female students
France’s education minister has sparked a sexism row after demanding high school pupils dress in “republican style” for classes.
Jean-Michel Blanquer’s comments came a week after a protest by girls at French high schools about being hauled in front of headteachers or turned away from lessons because they were wearing mini skirts, low-cut or crop tops deemed “provocative”.
Continue reading...Under current system a female captain, for example, is called Frau Hauptmann – Mrs Captain
Germany is considering introducing feminine forms for military ranks, according to reports, 20 years after women gained the right to join the Bundeswehr.
The army has resisted using the feminine form even after women gained the right to join in 2000. A female captain in the Bundeswehr is addressed as Frau Hauptmann, the equivalent of “Mrs Captain”.
Continue reading...Venice film festival jury chief backs Berlin event’s move towards gender-neutral prizes
The Hollywood star Cate Blanchett has said she would rather be called an actor than an actress.
The Australian, who is heading the jury at the Venice film festival, gave her backing to Berlin festival’s controversial decision last week to do away with gendered prizes and only give a best actor award.
Continue reading...For years, the founder of the Everyday Sexism project has had vile abuse heaped upon her. But that still didn’t prepare her for what she found in the toxic world of online misogyny
Laura Bates founded the Everyday Sexism project in 2012, when she was 25, inviting women on social media to detail sexist encounters they’d had. Two years later, she published the book of the same name, curating a document that was horrifying but unsurprising. It should have been shocking but nobody was shocked. Six years on, we meet in King’s Cross, in London, where the cafe has separated the tables with Perspex, so I have a flash-forward to a dystopian near-future where one of us is in prison for feminist activism (obviously her, I decided, ruefully). She is as passionate and determined as I have ever seen her (I have met and interviewed her a few times before), yet somehow more cautious, for reasons that become clear.
Bates was surprised by certain elements of the Everyday Sexism project, like how many of the accounts came from girls in their mid-teens (she had expected more responses to be from women working in offices), but not the phenomenon of sexist harassment itself, which she knew was “hidden in plain sight. It was an invisible problem and this was very much trying to make it visible.” In doing so, Bates seeded an idea that would be proved again and again in the following years, in more and more vivid ways. From the #MeToo movement to Black Lives Matter, the inflection point for resisting injustice is not when one crusader saves the day, but when everybody is emboldened to speak out at once. Bates comes back to this repeatedly, and not, I think, for reasons of modesty. It was never, she insists, about her.
Continue reading...Gunjan Saxena was one of the first women in the IAF, but her biopic has drawn rebukes from fellow officers over sexism claims
Former and current members of the Indian military have criticised a Netflix film for portraying the armed forces as rife with gender discrimination.
The Indian Air Force (IAF) has written to an Indian censor board, as well as Dharma Productions, which produced the film, and Netflix to complain that Gunjan Saxena: The Kargil Girl “presented some situations that are misleading and portray an inappropriate work culture especially against women in the IAF”.
Continue reading...New study shows preference for a son is highest in north of country with Uttar Pradesh having highest deficit in female births
An estimated 6.8 million fewer female births will be recorded across India by 2030 because of the persistent use of selective abortions, researchers estimate.
Academics from King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in Saudi Arabia projected the sex ratio at birth in 29 Indian states and union territories, covering almost the entire population, taking into account each state’s desired sex ratio at birth and the population’s fertility rates.
Continue reading...White European and American practitioners have not taken charges of discrimination seriously. It’s time to do our homework and learn to change
We are long overdue a reckoning around race in gender and development work. The number of women who have recently issued public claims of racism or discrimination against global women’s rights organisations is testament to that.
The Nobel Women’s Initiative is the latest to come under fire with allegations of toxic workplace practices, joining the International Women’s Health Coalition (IWHC) and Women Deliver, among others. (I’ve previously been employed by IWHC and Women Deliver.)
Continue reading...Ryu Ho-jeong, 28, says she wore colourful outfit to challenge male dominance in parliament
South Korea is again confronting its outdated attitudes towards women in the workplace after a female MP was criticised for attending a parliamentary session in a colourful dress.
Ryu Ho-jeong, who at 28 is the youngest member of the country’s national assembly, drew condemnation and praise after she was photographed in the national assembly chamber in what local media described as a red minidress earlier this week.
Continue reading...For years, sexual predators have infested the live comedy scene. But female comedians are demanding action. Is this British standup’s #MeToo moment?
‘If this was a normal office where, on your first day, someone higher up than you goes: ‘Here’s a list of guys in the office who might rape you,’ you would go straight to HR. But there’s no HR – there’s nowhere we can go to say this is happening,” says Laura Duddy, who started out in standup comedy last year.
“For new comics, it’s normal that a more established comic will give them a list of open-mic gigs to try,” says Ellie Calnan, who began standup 18 months ago. “Whereas for women, it’s: ‘Here’s the people and gigs to avoid.’”
Continue reading...UCL and Sussex University study finds younger people confined with bigoted relatives the most depressed
The coronavirus lockdown has provoked a mental health crisis among the LGBTQ community, with younger people confined with bigoted relatives the most depressed, researchers found.
A study of LGBTQ people’s experience during the pandemic, by University College London (UCL) and Sussex University, found 69% of respondents suffered depressive symptoms, rising to about 90% of those who had experienced homophobia or transphobia.
Continue reading...New figures reflect surge in violence against women during pandemic while government implements austerity measures
Violence against women has surged in Mexico since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, but the country’s president has downplayed the problem and slashed the budgets of agencies charged with addressing women’s issues.
Figures released this week show that crimes such as femicides climbed 7.7% in the first half of 2020, when compared with the same period last year, and shelters have reported a sharp rise in the number of women attempting to flee domestic violence.
Continue reading...Model and activist signs six-figure contract to publish Transitional, ‘a manifesto for how I see society changing for the better, bringing us all closer’
The first book by Munroe Bergdorf, a manifesto on gender by the black transgender activist and model, has been bought for a six-figure sum after a bidding war between 11 publishers.
Bergdorf’s Transitional will be published by Bloomsbury in 2021. Exploring six different facets of human experience – adolescence, sexuality, gender, relationships, identity and race – the book will draw on Bergdorf’s own experiences, including growing up in a mixed-race family, going to an all-boys school and starting her transition at the age of 24. In it, she will argue that transition is an experience every person faces in every phase in life, “and that only by recognising this can we understand times of change”.
Continue reading...After 30 years under Omar al-Bashir, the country has abolished several discriminatory policies and banned FGM – in what activists have called ‘great first steps’ towards liberalisation
Sudan’s transitional government has been praised for its latest reforms, which decriminalise apostasy, ban female genital mutilation (FGM) and end the requirement for women to get travel permits.
The legislation makes major strides in pushing back against discrimination faced by women and minorities during the 30-year rule of Omar al-Bashir that came to an end in 2019, according to equality advocates.
Continue reading...‘We get recovery if we get equality’ philanthropist argues in new paper urging policymakers to address unpaid labour
The failure of leaders to take into account the disproportionate impact of Covid-19 on women, and their roles in lessening its harm, will mean a long, slow recovery that could cost the world economy trillions of dollars, Melinda Gates has warned.
Even a four-year delay in programmes that promote gender equality, such as advancing women’s digital and financial inclusion, would wipe a potential $5tn (£4tn) from global GDP by 2030.
Continue reading...Harper’s letter asserts way to ‘defeat bad ideas is by exposure, argument, and persuasion’, but critics accuse authors of censorious mentality
JK Rowling, Salman Rushdie and Margaret Atwood are among the signatories to a controversial open letter warning that the spread of “censoriousness” is leading to “an intolerance of opposing views” and “a vogue for public shaming and ostracism”.
Rowling, whose beliefs on transgender rights have recently seen scores of Harry Potter fans distance themselves from her, said she was “proud to sign this letter in defence of a foundational principle of a liberal society: open debate and freedom of thought and speech”.
Continue reading...As part of the Guardian's Childfree series, five women discuss why having children isn't for them – and how others perceive them as a result. 'There's no wrong way to be a woman,' says Sabrina, 25
Continue reading...After the resignation of Thomas Thabane the small south African nation could have addressed its huge political gender imbalance. What happened?
Lesotho, a tiny mountain kingdom in southern Africa, has always been dwarfed in size and achievements by its neighbour South Africa.
Many people around the world were not even aware of Lesotho’s existence until the beginning of this year when then prime minister Thomas Thabane and his third wife, Maesaiah Thabane, were accused of murdering Thabane’s estranged second wife, Lipolelo, in 2017.
Continue reading...Hundreds of protesters marched in central London to celebrate the black trans community and demonstrate against potential changes to the Gender Recognition Act
Continue reading...Shoppers at NZ supermarket chain Countdown will no longer see euphemistic language like ‘sanitary’ to describe pads, tampons and menstrual cups
Shoppers at a New Zealand supermarket chain will no longer see euphemistic language like “sanitary” or “feminine hygiene” products to describe pads, tampons and menstrual cups after the chain said it would be the first in the world to use the word “period” to describe the items.
No other local or international retailer used the word “period” to describe the products shoppers buy for menstruation, according to a spokesperson for Countdown, a major supermarket chain in New Zealand that operates 180 stores.
Continue reading...Emma Nicholson’s views on same-sex marriage raised as concern by writers and one former Booker winner
Damian Barr is leading a charge of writers, including one former Booker prize winner, who are calling on the Booker Foundation to remove the allegedly “homophobic” peer Emma Nicholson from her position as vice-president.
Lady Nicholson of Winterbourne, who voted against the same-sex marriage bill in 2013, is the widow of the late former chairman of Booker, Sir Michael Caine, who helped establish the prize. She is currently a vice-president of the Booker Foundation, and a former trustee of the prize.
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