Category Archives: Women

A radical piece of cake: feminist sculptural installation restaged at Tate Britain

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Bobby Baker’s An Edible Family in a Mobile Home (1976) will be recreated – this time with a vegan option

When Bobby Baker’s sculptural work An Edible Family in a Mobile Home was installed nearly 50 years ago, art lovers were invited to not only touch her work but eat it. Now, the seminal work by the intersectional feminist is coming back – except this time, there’s going to be a vegan option.

From 8 November, Tate Britain will present a restaging of Baker’s radical installation.

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California creates ‘Ebony alert’ to find missing Black women and girls

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System intended to rectify disproportionate number of abducted and sex-trafficked Black children overlooked as ‘runaways’

California has become the first state to create an alert system specifically geared towards finding missing Black women and girls. Senate bill 673 was signed by Gavin Newsom earlier this week amid a wave of bills that have come across the governor’s desk and were either approved or vetoed.

Ebony alerts would allow the California highway patrol to trigger emergency notifications on phones and road signs – similar to Amber and Feather alerts – to let people know that a Black person between the ages of 12 and 25 is missing in the area.

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Abortions in North Carolina drop by 30% in wake of new restrictions, data shows

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Nearby states didn’t see similar increases, suggesting those denied abortions in the state are self-managing, or going without

Abortions in North Carolina fell by more than 30% after the state enacted new abortion restrictions on 1 July, including a 12-week abortion ban, new data released on Wednesday by the Guttmacher Institute shows.

North Carolina abortion clinics performed more than 4,200 abortions in June, but just 2,920 abortions in July. Nearby states did not see a comparable surge in abortions, suggesting that patients denied abortions in North Carolina had to self-manage their own – or simply went without.

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Worries over confidence and periods hitting UK girls’ enjoyment of PE

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Survey finds less than two-thirds say they enjoy PE in schools, down from 74% in 2016

Girls’ enjoyment of physical education in school has declined over the past six years, with a lack of confidence, concern about periods and anxiety about their appearance holding them back, according to research.

Less than two-thirds of girls and young women (64%) who took part in a survey this year by the UK charity the Youth Sport Trust (YST), said they enjoyed PE, down from 74% when the poll began in 2016.

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Climate crisis is ‘not gender neutral’: UN calls for more policy focus on women

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Only a third of countries with climate crisis plans include access to sexual, maternal and newborn health services, UNFPA report finds

Only a third of countries include sexual and reproductive health in their national plans to tackle the climate crisis, the UN has warned.

Of the 119 countries that have published plans, only 38 include access to contraception, maternal and newborn health services and just 15 make any reference to violence against women, according to a report published by the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) and Queen Mary University of London on Tuesday.

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Ex-wife of Boris Johnson to help Labour protect women from bullying at work

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Marina Wheeler KC to be tasked with strengthening rights to safeguard women who report workplace harassment

A leading barrister and ex-wife of Boris Johnson is set to be appointed as Labour’s new “whistleblowing tsar”, offering advice on proposed protections for women against workplace harassment.

Marina Wheeler KC will help the party with its plans to strengthen employment rights to safeguard women from abusive colleagues, the Independent reported.

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Jailed Iranian activist Narges Mohammadi wins Nobel peace prize

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Mohammadi wins prize for her fight against oppression of women in Iran and to promote human rights for all

Narges Mohammadi, the most prominent of Iran’s jailed women’s rights advocates, has vowed to stay in the country and continue her activism after winning the 2023 Nobel peace prize.

“I will never stop striving for the realisation of democracy, freedom and equality,” she said in a prewritten statement released after the announcement. “Surely, the Nobel peace prize will make me more resilient, determined, hopeful and enthusiastic on this path, and it will accelerate my pace.”

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Group uses billboards and banners to expose Nebraska’s anti-abortion laws

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Free & Just uses signs referring to Jessica and Celeste Burgess, who received prison sentences after procuring and using abortion pills

Over the last week, if Nebraskans on their commute looked up, they might have glimpsed a striking banner flying through the sky – a red, black and white flag that read: “Extremist groups don’t want you to know women are going to jail under Nebraska’s abortion ban.”

The banner is the work of Free & Just, an abortion rights organization that, over the past few months, has launched a campaign that publicizes the case of Jessica Burgess and her teenage daughter Celeste Burgess, who were jailed last year after police accused Jessica of giving abortion pills to Celeste. Celeste Burgess was sentenced to 90 days in jail, while Jessica Burgess has been sentenced to two years in prison.

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Female drug users at risk of exploitation in mixed-sex treatment groups, study finds

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Research reports vulnerable women targeted for grooming into sex work and calls for ‘gendered response’

Female drug users are at risk of being groomed into sex work and other forms of exploitation when they attend treatment programmes with men, according to new research.

Some women reported feeling vulnerable to “predatory males” in mixed groups where they were often outnumbered two-to-one by men, but said they were not given an option to access women-only treatment programmes.

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Greenlandic women plan to sue Danish state over historical contraceptive ‘violation’

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Group of 67 claim they were fitted with an IUD between 1966 and 1970 without consent or knowledge

Dozens of Greenlandic women who say they were fitted with the contraceptive coil without their consent or knowledge are planning to sue the Danish state.

The group of 67 women, some of whom were as young as 12 when they say they were fitted with an IUD by Danish doctors in an attempt to reduce Greenland’s population, are among the 4,500 women and girls affected between 1966 and 1970.

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GB News suspends Dan Wootton after Laurence Fox’s remarks on show

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Broadcaster says it is conducting full investigation after also suspending Fox

GB News has suspended the presenters Dan Wootton and Laurence Fox as the channel struggles to contain the fallout after misogynistic comments made on Wootton’s show.

The rightwing news channel said on Wednesday: “GB News has suspended Dan Wootton following comments made on his programme by Laurence Fox last night. This follows our decision earlier today to formally suspend Mr Fox. We are conducting a full investigation.”

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French equality watchdog finds 90% of online pornography abuses women

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Report urges changes in the law to make it easier to take down content and prosecute its makers

As much as 90% of pornographic content online features verbal, physical and sexual violence towards women, and a significant amount of violence shown is punishable under existing laws in France, a report by the government-nominated equality watchdog has found.

France’s high council for equality between women and men on Wednesday handed the government a damning report on illegal porn-industry practices, urging changes to the law to prosecute makers of pornography and to take down content in order to protect those who have been filmed.

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Data breaches putting domestic abuse victims’ lives at risk, says UK watchdog

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Councils, police and hospitals endangering women by accidentally revealing details such as addresses, says ICO

Councils, police forces and hospitals are putting women’s lives at risk by accidentally disclosing domestic abuse victims’ addresses to perpetrators, the UK’s information watchdog has said.

John Edwards, the information commissioner, who has reprimanded seven organisations in just over a year for data breaches affecting victims of abuse, said: “This is a pattern that must stop.”

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Sheffield council faces mass equal pay claim over ‘scandalous’ pay grades

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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.

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BBC ‘urgently looking into issues raised’ by Russell Brand allegations

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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.

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Spanish court imposes restraining order on Rubiales after kiss allegations

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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.

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Met police pays damages to women arrested at Sarah Everard vigil

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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”.

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Iran’s ‘gender apartheid’ bill could jail women for 10 years for not wearing hijab

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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.

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‘It’s offensive’: backlash against China’s ‘good for marriage’ women’s trend

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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.

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‘It’s going to cost billions’: UK councils face huge bills over equal pay claims

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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.

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