Category Archives: Women

Day of the Girl is critical, but support is needed year-round, say campaigners

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From period poverty to blockchain, initiatives raising awareness of girls’ rights abound on 11 October, but long-term help is needed after Covid setbacks

International Day of the Girl is critical in highlighting girls’ rights globally, but action is urgently needed to reverse the damage of the pandemic, campaigners have said.

“Girls who were once hopeful about their futures say to us: ‘We’re not sure if we’re going to achieve our dreams now, if we’re ever going to go back to school’,” said Emily Wilson, chief executive of UK and Uganda-based organisation Irise International, which works to combat period poverty.

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Bolsonaro blocks free tampons and pads for disadvantaged women in Brazil

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Campaigners say president’s veto is ‘absurd and inhumane’ in country where period poverty keeps one in four girls out of school

President Jair Bolsonaro’s decision to block a plan to distribute free sanitary pads and tampons to disadvantaged girls and women has been met with outrage in Brazil, where period poverty is estimated to keep one in four girls out of school.

Bolsonaro vetoed part of a bill that would have given sanitary products at no charge to groups including homeless people, prisoners and teenage girls at state schools. It was expected to benefit 5.6 million women and was part of a bigger package of laws to promote menstrual health, which has been approved by legislators.

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Digital gender gap: men 50% more likely to be online in some countries – report

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Failure to ensure women have equal access to the internet hampering developing economies and fuelling gender inequality

A failure to ensure women have equal access to the internet has cost low-income countries $1tn (£730bn) over the past decade and could mean an additional loss of $500bn by 2025 if governments don’t take action, according to new research.

Last year, governments in 32 countries, including India, Egypt and Nigeria, lost an estimated $126bn in gross domestic product because women were unable to contribute to the digital economy.

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Harvey Weinstein PA says abusers still have the legal power to silence victims

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Outrage ensued when Zelda Perkins revealed her non-disclosure agreement in 2017 but the expected reforms never came

In the weeks after she first broke her non-disclosure agreement, Zelda Perkins, Harvey Weinstein’s former personal assistant, felt dizzy with optimism.

After an appearance on Newsnight in 2017, in which she spoke publicly about the oppressive non-disclosure agreement (NDA) she had been silenced by as a 24-year-old two decades earlier, Perkins found herself feted in parliament. The end of the use of NDAs as a means to cover up abuse was, she thought, in sight.

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How do we talk to teens about sex in a world of porn?

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Teenage boys’ easy access to violent sexual images is creating a crisis for them – and for women, argues the anti-porn campaigner

Violence against women is never far from the news, but currently it is high on the agenda – and porn features again and again as a factor. From the murder of Sarah Everard to the paltry sentence handed down to Sam Pybus, the latest man to use the so-called “rough sex defence”, it seems the world is riven with misogyny.

Sarah’s killer Wayne Couzens was attracted to “brutal sexual pornography”, the court heard during his trial. Pybus – who was sentenced to four years and eight months last month for manslaughter after strangling a vulnerable woman during sex – was also known to use violent porn. Tackling porn culture is clearly a key part of tackling sexual violence towards women. I have campaigned to end the sex trade for decades, and am well aware of its role in the sexual exploitation of women.

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Priti Patel’s fury as Johnson blocks public sexual harassment law

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Home Office fears PM views aggressive targeting of women and girls as ‘mere wolf whistling’ amid moves to create specific offence

Boris Johnson has infuriated the home secretary by overruling attempts to make public sexual harassment a crime. This has prompted concern at the Home Office that the prime minister views the issue as mere “wolf whistling”, rather than the aggressive targeting of women and girls going about their daily lives.

Sources say tensions have emerged between Johnson and Priti Patel, and other senior Home Office figures, after he blocked plans to make public sexual harassment a specific offence.

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Texas’ restrictive abortion law temporarily reinstated one day after being blocked

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A New Orleans-based appeals court quickly granted the state’s request to set aside a suspension until the case is reviewed

A federal appeals court on Friday night allowed Texas to temporarily resume banning most abortions, just one day after clinics across the state began rushing to serve patients again for the first time since early September.

Abortion providers in Texas had been bracing for the 5th US court of appeals to act quickly, even as they booked new appointments and reopened their doors during a brief reprieve from the law known as Senate Bill 8, which bans abortions once cardiac activity is detected, usually around six weeks.

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Barbara Hershey on Beaches, Woody Allen and breastfeeding on TV: ‘I was an innocent’

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Now 73, the star of Hannah and Her Sisters shines in Jason Blum’s new horror. She talks about why audiences are hungry for mature movies, and her unhappiness at becoming an accidental poster girl for cosmetic surgery

In 1973, Barbara Hershey – then known as Barbara Seagull, for reasons we’ll get into shortly – went on the popular US talkshow The Dick Cavett Show and torpedoed her career. She was on alongside her then partner, the actor David Carradine, but when Hershey/Seagull walked out on stage, she could hear their eight-month-old baby crying off-camera. So she ran off and returned with the little boy, named Free. Unfortunately, Free continued to fret. So Hershey/Seagull breastfed her baby live on air. Cavett was stunned and so, clearly, were the producers, who cut to commercials.

“Did you breastfeed the baby earlier or was that my imagination?” Cavett asked when they returned, Free now fed. “I did it,” Hershey, then 25, replied, entirely unabashed.

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The indecent exposure epidemic: ‘How are they not taking this seriously after Sarah Everard?’

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Flashing is a sexual offence, victims say it can have a lifelong impact and experts say it can lead to escalating crimes against women. Why is the police response so often dismissive?

Cathkin Braes country park, in south Glasgow, is beautiful. You can see the city and, behind it, the mountains. Clara (not her real name), a 35-year-old community worker from Glasgow, went there in March to enjoy the view from her campervan. As she relaxed, she looked over and saw a car parked beside her, with the passenger window rolled down. A man was staring at her, and masturbating. He clearly relished her visible fright. “That is what was turning him on,” Clara said. “His head was nearly out of the passenger window, staring at me.”

Because she was in a campervan, it wasn’t easy to get away quickly: Clara had to get out to fold away some seats. “I decided to jump out,” she says, “and when I looked at him, he was wiping ejaculation off his dashboard and looking at me.” She took a photograph of his car numberplate and drove away. But the man realised what she had done and gave chase. For 15 minutes, he tailed her through the streets of Glasgow. Frightened for her life, Clara drove to a police station, but the man turned off before she arrived.

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‘Instead I am the criminal’: China’s MeToo figure speaks out after case fails

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Even if her appeal against sexual harassment verdict is unsuccessful, Xianzi is proud that more women now feel they can share their experiences

Sitting inside a Beijing courthouse late at night last month, Zhou Xiaoxuan and her lawyers came to a quick decision. Their years-long effort to seek justice for her alleged sexual harassment by one of the country’s most popular celebrities was clearly not going to go their way. In a short statement the court ruled she had tendered insufficient evidence.

On Weibo she wrote to her supporters with a list of criticisms of the judgment and process. “Failure is not shameful, and I am honoured to have stood with you together in the past three years … Thank you very much, everyone, I will definitely appeal.”

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US judge temporarily blocks Texas’ near-total abortion ban in blow to contentious law

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Judge excoriates ‘unprecedented scheme’ to deny women abortion right as law faces uncertain future

A US federal judge has temporarily blocked the near-total ban on abortion in Texas, dealing the first legal blow against the contentious law and throwing its future into uncertainty.

The law, known as Senate Bill 8, banned most abortions in the nation’s second-most populous state and, until now, had withstood a wave of early challenges.

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Najla Bouden: what next for Tunisia’s first female PM?

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Academic’s appointment marks historic moment for Arab world but comes amid political and economic crisis, with some fearing she will be Kais Saied’s pawn

Sara Medini, political analyst at the Tunisian feminist organisation Aswat Nissa, was in a meeting at work last week when she happened to glance at a news alert on her phone. What she saw left her at first flabbergasted, then delighted.

“I couldn’t believe my eyes. I thought I had misread it,” she said. “I told my colleagues: ‘He’s appointed a woman! He’s appointed a woman!’

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Why are so many pregnant women not taking the vaccine?

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Only 31% of pregnant Americans are fully vaccinated. I felt responsible for this bean-like bundle forming in my body. But the conflicting advice made it hard for me to decide

These are the first three things I did when I found out I was pregnant in February. I took about six more tests. Then, I called the doctor’s office to make an appointment. A few days later, I signed up for a Covid-19 vaccine. I stood in line, freezing, at a high school in Coney Island to get my shot.

Deciding to get the vaccine that same month was not easy – even as a former health reporter accustomed to deciphering medical journals. I felt a very visceral and personal responsibility toward this bean-like bundle forming in my body. There were only preliminary studies about vaccine safety – saying the vaccine was likely safe – but based on participants who didn’t know they were pregnant during trials. Gynaecologists and family physicians had not yet achieved full and public consensus on their recommendations as most have now.

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‘We are fearful’: Indigenous Mexicans dread new military buildup on ancestral land

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As the Tzeltal people resist huge infrastructure projects across Chiapas state, the new national guard barracks springing up are alarming many

Micaela* always stops to kiss a cross at the base of three hills, a lush swath of land in the indigenous ejido of San Sebastián Bachajón, Chiapas. Her ejido, meaning communal land, is shared among more than 5,000 Tzeltal inhabitants. But soon, they will also have to share it with Mexico’s national guard.

The national guard has built 165 barracks in Mexico since it was created only two years ago by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador to replace the federal police, which he said was corrupt. Micaela’s community is leading the first lawsuit against one of 500 or so barracks planned across the country.

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The 81 women killed in 28 weeks

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Since Sarah Everard’s brutal murder, only one thing has changed – the death toll

People said something had changed with the awful death of Sarah Everard. But the message certainly hasn’t reached the men who rape, harm and kill women. And I can’t see a difference in the government, police, Crown Prosecution Service or the judiciary either.

Since Sarah Everard was abducted, raped, murdered and, in the words of her mother, “disposed of as if she were rubbish”, at least 81 other UK women have been killed in circumstances where the suspect is a man. It is absolutely ludicrous that we know this because of my work, a random northern woman in east London, not the government, not the National Police Chiefs Council. Each of these women will have died in terror and pain, just like Sarah. Each one leaves behind grieving friends and family for whom the loss will last a lifetime.

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Fear on the ward: UK mothers threatened with social services for refusing maternity care

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Women who turn down advice from health service staff say they are being coerced with threats of referrals to agencies and police

Pregnant women and new mothers are being referred to social services by midwives for refusing to follow their advice, patient advocacy groups have warned.

Expectant parents who have declined care, including opting out of scans, refusing inductions or failing to attend antenatal appointments, are among those who have faced threats from healthcare professionals amounting to coercion, according to the Association for Improvements in the Maternity Services (Aims).

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Police log 10,000 indecent exposure cases, but fewer than 600 reach court

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Exclusive: England and Wales figures show ‘epidemic’ of flashing against women, after allegations against Wayne Couzens emerged

Women are facing an “epidemic” of flashing and other forms of indecent exposure, with police in England and Wales recording more than 10,000 cases last year but taking fewer than 600 people to court over them, Guardian analysis reveals.

The findings come after Wayne Couzens was reported for repeated instances of alleged indecent exposure in the years and days before he raped and murdered Sarah Everard, but faced no action. Police accepted they may have had enough clues to identify the police officer as a threat to women sooner, amid fears that flashing is a gateway to other sex crimes.

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‘I don’t know where to go’: uncertain fate of the women in Kabul’s shelters

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Women in refuges have been sent home to their abusers or to prison since the Taliban takeover. Those in the few shelters still open fear what lies ahead

Zari was seven years old when her parents died, forcing her to move in with her uncle. But when he died four years later, his two widows beat Zari and forced her to work long hours weaving carpets. During her teenage years, Zari tried to kill herself.

After her suicide attempt, Zari, now 28, moved into a shelter for abused women. For the past eight years she has held on to the belief that things would get better. She made friends and learned to sew clothes, eventually teaching others to do the same.

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Abortion pledge adds to scepticism over women’s rights in China

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Analysis: plan to reduce abortions as birthrates plunge draws comparisons to The Handmaid’s Tale

Far-reaching proposals from Beijing on “women’s development” have sparked concern over a pledge to reduce abortions, with feminists and academics pointing to the government’s history of control over women’s reproductive rights.

On Monday China’s state council published its latest 10-year outline for women’s development. The lengthy document contained guidelines for China’s gender-based policy, but it was a short phrase that caught particular attention: a pledge to “reduce abortions conducted for non-medical reasons”.

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