Thousands of women who have been underpaid by up to £11,000 a year set to launch claim, GMB union says
Sheffield city council is to become the latest local authority to face a mass equal pay claim from women who have been underpaid by up to £11,000 a year, the GMB union has said.
Thousands of women will launch claims against the council on Monday over a “scandalous” job evaluation scheme that discriminates against female-dominated roles, the union claimed.
Continue reading...Corporation says accusations span a number of years, including 2006 to 2008, when comedian worked for Radio 2
The BBC has said it is “urgently looking into the issues raised” by the publication of allegations of rape, sexual assault and emotional abuse against Russell Brand.
The Sunday Times published allegations this weekend that Brand had sexually assaulted four women after a years-long investigation into claims about his behaviour in collaboration with Channel 4’s Dispatches.
Continue reading...Former Spanish football federation president prevented from approaching World Cup-winning player Jenni Hermoso
A Spanish court has imposed a restraining order on the former president of the country’s football federation, forbidding him from communicating with, or coming within 200 metres of, the female player he controversially kissed after Spain’s World Cup victory last month.
Luis Rubiales – whose decision to kiss Jenni Hermoso prompted a national and international debate on sexism and eventually led him to resign five days ago – was handed the order on Friday by a judge at the audiencia nacional, Spain’s highest criminal court.
Continue reading...Apology and ‘substantial’ payouts to Patsy Stevenson and Dania al-Obeid mark major climbdown after years of legal battles
Scotland Yard has apologised and paid “substantial damages” to two women arrested during the vigil for Sarah Everard, in a major climbdown following years of legal battles over the policing of the event.
In a move that the new Metropolitan police commissioner, Mark Rowley, will hope draws a line under one of the darkest periods of the Met’s recent history, the force acknowledged that it was “understandable” that Patsy Stevenson and Dania Al-Obeid had wanted to attend a candlelit vigil at Clapham Common because they felt women had been “badly let down”.
Continue reading...Shops that serve unveiled women could be shut under draft law UN human rights body says suppresses women into ‘total submission’
Women in Iran face up to 10 years in prison if they continue to defy the country’s mandatory hijab law, under harsher laws awaiting approval by authorities. Even businesses that serve women without a hijab face being shut down.
The stricter dress code, which amounts to “gender apartheid”, UN experts said, comes one year after the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, 22, who had been detained for allegedly wearing the Islamic headscarf incorrectly. Her death, after allegedly being beaten by police, led to the largest wave of popular unrest for years in Iran.
Continue reading...Style featuring pastel makeup and modest clothing has taken off, but many are objecting to the ethos behind it
A social media debate has erupted in China over a trend among some women to dress and behave in a way that’s “good for marriage”, with detractors saying it discourages independence.
China, like much of east Asia, is battling with a demographic crisis and young people increasingly choose to forgo marriage and children. Last year China officially recorded its first decline in population for more than 60 years.
Continue reading...GMB union is supporting 3,000 claims in Birmingham – and is gathering evidence from 20 other councils
Councils in the UK are facing compensation bills running into billions of pounds over equal pay claims, campaigners have warned, as they called on the government to intervene.
The GMB union is supporting more than 3,000 equal pay claims against Birmingham city council, and has disputes against councils in Coventry, Westmorland, Cumberland, Glasgow, Dundee and Fife.
Continue reading...Hundreds of women across Spain join Se Acabó movement and open up about ‘micromachismos’ they have suffered
More than 200 women from across Spain have anonymously shared their personal experiences of sexism or abuse of power in the workplace, as the reckoning sparked by Luis Rubiales’ unsolicited kiss spills into other spheres of Spanish society.
Since mid-August Spain has been in the grip of a national conversation over sexism in football after the federation president grabbed the player Jenni Hermoso by the head, pulled her towards him and planted a kiss on her lips at the World Cup medal ceremony in Sydney.
Continue reading...Campaigners say many facilities and medical workers are likely to deny access since procedure is banned in many local jurisdictions
Human rights activists in Mexico have welcomed a historic ruling by the country’s supreme court that decriminalized abortion, but warned that the historic decision will not automatically make terminations accessible for all Mexican women.
Wednesday’s unanimous decision stripped away federal criminal penalties related to abortions – but not the many local laws banning the procedure, which remain on the books in 20 of Mexico’s 32 states.
Continue reading...Government seeks views on periods, contraception, fertility, pregnancy and menopause for health strategy
Women in England are being urged to help shape reproductive health policy by sharing their experiences of a range of issues.
The government’s launch of the survey comes more than a year after ministers first promised to seek women’s views on issues including periods, contraception, fertility, pregnancy and the menopause, as part of its women’s health strategy.
Continue reading...Director attacks ‘extremes’ of movement while promoting Coup de Chance, his 50th film, at Venice film festival, as well as addressing persistent interest in historic allegations against him
Woody Allen has voiced his support for the #MeToo movement while promoting his new film, adding that he sometimes finds cancel culture “silly”.
The director’s career has lately been mired by a recent refocusing in social media on an allegation made against him in 1993, when his adopted daughter, Dylan Farrow, said he had sexually assaulted her in an attic at the time of the custody battle between Allen and Dylan’s adoptive mother, Mia Farrow.
Continue reading...Giorgia Meloni called on to condemn partner who appeared to suggest women could avoid rape by not getting too drunk
A row has erupted in Italy after a journalist and the partner of Giorgia Meloni appeared to suggest that women could avoid rape by not getting too drunk, with opposition parties calling on the prime minister to distance herself from his comments.
“If you go dancing you are fully entitled to get drunk ... but if you avoid getting drunk and losing consciousness, perhaps you’d also avoid getting into trouble, because then you’ll find the wolf,” Andrea Giambruno said on his show on the right-leaning channel Rete 4 after recent high-profile gang rape cases near Naples and in Palermo.
Continue reading...Minister says women visiting the lakes of Band-e-Amir have not been wearing their hijabs properly
The Taliban have banned women from visiting one of Afghanistan’s most popular national parks, adding to a long list of restrictions aimed at shrinking women’s access to public places.
Thousands of people visit Band-e-Amir national park each year, taking in its stunning landscape of sapphire-blue lakes and towering cliffs in the country’s central Bamiyan province.
Continue reading...Governing body says it will take ‘necessary legal action’ against female players protesting over Luis Rubiales kiss scandal
The Spanish football federation has threatened to sue Jenni Hermoso, the player at the centre of a row over its president’s conduct, for lying and defamation.
It has also threatened to sue the 79 women’s football players who signed a letter in which they refused to play for their country as long as Luis Rubiales remained in his post.
Continue reading...Medical records from across the region show sexual violence continues to be used ‘to intimidate and terrorise communities’
Eritrean and Ethiopian soldiers continue a widespread and systematic campaign of rape in Tigray despite the peace agreement signed in November last year, a new report reveals.
In the first report to document sexual violence – using hundreds of medical records from the start of the conflict in November 2020 through to June 2023 – healthcare professionals recount cases of gang-rape, sexual slavery and murder, including the killing of children.
Continue reading...Study of chronic fatigue syndrome also finds women are more likely to develop worse symptoms over time
Women with chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) tend to have more symptoms than men and are more likely to develop increasingly severe symptoms over time, according to initial results from a major study.
It is already known that women are at higher risk of CFS, also known as myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME), and the latest study, called DecodeME, provides new insights into how their experience differs from men. The study found that women who have ME/CFS for more than 10 years are more likely to experience increasingly severe symptoms as they age.
Continue reading...Two cases to be heard this month could serve as legal precedent to outlaw the holding of patients against their will for unpaid bills
Two women who were prevented from leaving hospital over unpaid medical bills are to have their case against Ugandan authorities heard this month in a case that lawyers hope will end the practice.
Akello Esther Susan, 23, and NS (known by her initials) are jointly suing the government, two district councils and church dioceses over their treatment after giving birth in 2020 and 2021 respectively.
Continue reading...Singer Eva Amaral this week created headlines by baring her chest at a festival, joining a string of other artists asserting this freedom in the name of defending women’s rights
In the middle of her performance at the Sonorama festival in the northern Spanish town of Aranda de Duero on Saturday, Eva Amaral was about to lead her band Amaral into her song Revolución when she took off her red sequin top and threw it on the floor.
“This is for Rocío, for Rigoberta, for Zahara, for Miren, for Bebe, for all of us,” she said, listing the names of fellow artists before uncovering her breasts. “Because no one can take away the dignity of our nakedness. The dignity of our fragility, of our strength. Because there are too many of us.” In a concert marking the Spanish band’s 25-year career, going topless was a way of defending women’s dignity and freedom to go nude, and “a very important moment”, Amaral later told El País.
Continue reading...A successful Australian trial of a urine test to detect whether an abortion has worked will be welcomed by rural and remote patients, say clinicians
A home test that checks whether a drug-induced abortion has worked is not only safe but reduces rates of unnecessary follow-up surgery, an Australian-first study has found.
People who attend clinics to access medication to terminate a pregnancy, known as a medical abortion, usually need to see a doctor 14 days later and may undergo a blood test to examine levels of a hormone known as hCG, along with an ultrasound to rule out complications.
Continue reading...For the first time in decades, the products could get a significant update, which makers say better absorbs fluid
It’s been over 90 years since Tampax created the first modern tampons, and the product’s design remains mostly unchanged. But the FDA just approved a new design that could change the appearance of a product that’s looked the same for decades.
The design, patented by the independent startup Sequel, has diagonal grooves that spiral down the product. The brand’s founders say the product’s helical shape better absorbs fluid, which leads to less leakage and a more reliable experience.
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