Category Archives: Women

Making waves: the female surfer smashing records and stereotypes

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In the intimidating and macho world of big-wave surfing, Brazilian Maya Gabeira is breaking male and female records – and challenging the sport’s testosterone-fuelled identity

The thing that struck Maya Gabeira was the sound. “I had never heard anything similar: it was the first affirmation that that was the biggest wave I had ever ridden,” she says. “It was just ‘phwoooaaaarrrrrrr.’” She mimics a bomb exploding in her hands. There was also a continuous “Brrrrrrrrrrrrr,” she says, like a deep engine humming – the sound of tonnes of water falling, falling, falling from a great height. “It almost vibrates inside your body.”

The Brazilian big-wave surfer is reflecting on the events of 11 February 2020, when she rode a monstrous 22.4m (73.5ft) wave at Nazaré in Portugal. It set the world record for the biggest wave ever surfed by a woman. It was also the biggest wave surfed by anyone, male or female – the first time this feat has been achieved by a woman.

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Victory for Argentina’s women as abortion charges are dropped

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Hundreds of criminal cases could be halted following landmark change in legislation

Argentina has announced it will drop criminal charges against women accused of having abortions following the government’s historic decision to legalise the procedure.

The announcement offers hope to the mostly poor and marginalised women facing criminal sanctions. But lingering problems such as obstetric violence and sexism in the justice system show the struggle for reproductive justice is not over, according to campaigners.

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Canada: activists sue province over refusal to fund abortions in private clinics

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Lawsuit argues that New Brunswick’s refusal violates both the law and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms

Human rights activists in Canada have filed a lawsuit against the province of New Brunswick for its refusal to fund abortion services in private clinics – as they are in the rest of the country.

The lawsuit suit filed by the Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA) argues that the refusal violates both the law and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms – Canada’s constitution.

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Virginity tests for female rape survivors outlawed by Pakistani court

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Judge said the ‘humiliating’ practice was used to cast suspicion on the victim, and deflected focus from the act of sexual violence

A Pakistani court has outlawed the practice of subjecting female rape survivors to a virginity test in an unprecedented ruling.

Lahore’s high court ruled on Monday that the virginity test has no legal basis and “offends the personal dignity of the female victim”.

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Lupita: the powerful voice of one indigenous woman leading a movement

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Film-maker Monica Wise talks about making her documentary on Mexican indigenous resistance

Our latest Guardian documentary tells the story of Lupita, a courageous young Tzotzil-Maya woman​ ​at the forefront of a Mexican indigenous movement. Over twenty years after Lupita lost her family in the Acteal massacre in southern Mexico, she has become a spokesperson for her people​ and for a new generation of Mayan activists. She balances the demands of motherhood with her high-stakes efforts to re-educate and restore justice to the world. The film-maker Monica Wise talks to us about her experience making the film.

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‘I did hate TV’: Selina Scott on Trump, Prince Andrew, Frank Bough and the BBC

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She was one of television’s biggest names, before giving it all up to live on a farm. She talks about her friendship with Princess Diana, the horror of tabloid harassment – and the extraordinary sexism she faced

Selina Scott has come in from the cold. She lights a fire and makes herself a cup of tea – black, no sugar. The former “golden girl” of the BBC lives on a farm in North Yorkshire with a couple of dogs, a handful of rare belted galloway cattle, a waddle of ducks and swans, and the odd otter. The room looks dark and bleak, and the internet isn’t working well, so we struggle to Zoom. “I’m going to move you into another room.” Scott still pronounces room aristocratically as “rum”, but her voice is different from the old days. Back then, it was more of a stately caress, offset by a youthful giggle. Today, her voice is deeper, more flinty, though still with a hint of grandeur. The Yorkshire roots of her childhood have re-emerged and planted themselves firmly in the peaty soil.

It’s 40 years since she made her name presenting News at 10, followed by BBC Breakfast Time, The Clothes Show, The Selina Scott Show for NBC, the magazine show West 57th for CBS and a brief stint at Sky. Scott wasn’t any old presenter. She bore an uncanny resemblance to Princess Diana (or, as she prefers it, the younger Diana bore an uncanny resemblance to her) and, like Diana, she became the nation’s sweetheart. Like Diana, she was hounded by the press – in a way that no other journalist has been. And like Diana she decided to walk away from it all at the peak of her fame. Unlike Diana, she lived to tell the tale.

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The vagina dialogues: 33-metre artwork draws far right’s ire in Brazil

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Juliana Notari’s hillside sculpture sparks clash between Bolsonaro-supporting right and leftwing cultural community

A 33-metre reinforced concrete vagina has sparked a Bolsonarian backlash in Brazil, with supporters of the country’s far-right president clashing with leftwing art admirers over the installation.

The handmade sculpture, entitled Diva, was unveiled by visual artist Juliana Notari on Saturday at a rural art park on the grounds of a former sugar mill in Pernambuco, one of Brazil’s most culturally vibrant states.

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‘This is where I need to be’: the UK women defying fishing stereotypes

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Not-for-profit Women in Fisheries aims to get more women involved in male-dominated industry

Superstition among fishing crews has traditionally said that women on ships are bad luck – and it is among many of the reasons women in the fishing industry are in short supply.

Now though, they are being urged to join Britain’s fishing fleet by the first UK company to emerge that is actively encouraging women to fish.

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‘I’m fascinated by power, force and bravery’: the woman who surfed the biggest recorded wave of 2020

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Seven years ago, she was nearly killed in pursuit of the sport she loves, but she defied expert’s predictions and made a stunning comeback

In the photographs of her record-breaking ride, the Brazilian surfer Maya Gabeira is a tiny blade on the water, cutting a line of white spume down the deep ridge of the vast grey wave that climbs behind her. The wave in question measured 22.4 metres (73.5ft), the highest ever surfed by a woman, the first to be measured and verified by Scripps Institution of Oceanography, and a couple of feet greater than the one surfed by her nearest rival. It is also the biggest wave measured this year, surfed by man or woman.

Gabeira, who broke her own previous Guinness world record of 68ft, attributes her achievement to what she calls “taking a critical line”. In short, she takes her board to the fiercest and tallest part of the wave, “where the most powerful energy is, where it is actually breaking”. This, she says, is how “you put value into your wave”.

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‘It has hit my dignity’: women fight for equal treatment from Indian army

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Despite court battles, female officers face limited career opportunities and inferior pension rights to male counterparts

Nidhi Rao* has 13 years’ experience serving in the communications wing of the Indian army. Now she is looking for work online and doesn’t know where to start. “I am jobless in the middle of a pandemic, with no financial security.”

When Rao joined the army, female officers were contracted for five years, after which time they might get an extension of five more years. Unlike men, they were not offered a permanent job. Later, the initial commission period was changed to 10 years, which could be extended a further four years.

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Cutting foreign aid will put girls at risk

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Now, mid-pandemic, would be the worst time to abandon our commitment to the world’s poorest countries

“The great strategic prize of the 21st century is the full economic, political and social empowerment of women,” said William Hague, when he was foreign secretary. “There are still large parts of the world who are undervaluing, under-utilising, under-developing half their population.” That was five years ago, and there is still a long way to go. I am speaking out now, because we are about to go into reverse.

Parliament’s women and equalities committee, which I chair, isn’t afraid to take the prime minister to task when his policies fall short in providing for the marginalised and under-represented. We’ve held the government’s feet to the fire on the domestic abuse bill, the role of women in the response to Covid-19 and the disproportionate impact of the pandemic on BAME communities. But the need to level up society doesn’t stop at our borders, and many of the world’s poorest countries are also the most unequal.

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The menopause is ruining my sex life. How can I stop feeling so numb?

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Losing your libido is a symptom, not a life sentence

The dilemma I am a 52-year-old woman who has had a difficult perimenopause. I have read extensively on the subject and tried various supplements to ease this transition. My experience has included hot flushes, night sweats, depression, anxiety, insomnia and heavy periods. I was suffering the most debilitating anxiety to the point where I could barely function. I am on bio-identical HRT (Oestragel and Utrogestan), but these had little effect in easing the symptoms. I had no choice but to take antidepressants even though my symptoms were due to hormone fluctuations.

As a side effect my libido fell drastically (a healthy sex life had been maintained until this point and I have always found it easy to orgasm). What I did not expect was that my clitoris physically shrunk and orgasms become almost impossible to achieve.

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‘I am not afraid to fight’: the female Afghan colonel who survived the Taliban’s assassins

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Saba Sahar, who returned fire while protecting her daughter, survived one of a wave of recent assassination attempts that have killed six policewomen

It was just after 7am when the car carrying Colonel Saba Sahar, one of Afghanistan’s most senior female police officers, came under fire from armed insurgents. In the back seat, Sahar’s four-year-old daughter began screaming as bullets shattered the windscreen and ripped into the upholstery. As she pushed her child under the seat in front of her, Sahar saw three men carrying AK-47 assault rifles, firing as they approached the car.

In the front of the car her bodyguard and driver had both been hit and were badly injured and unconscious. Looking down, Sahar saw blood seeping through her clothing. “It took me another moment to realise I’d been shot too,” she says. She knew that she only had minutes to try to save her daughter. “They were five or six metres away, and they were moving closer to the car, still firing. They would have killed my child,” she says. Bleeding heavily from five shots to her stomach, Sahar reached forward, grabbed the gun from her slumped bodyguard and started returning fire.

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‘We’re going to save lives’: aid groups look to end of Trump’s ‘global gag rule’

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Joe Biden’s election as US president raises reproductive funding hopes – but some caution that reversing rule’s impact will not be quick

Nelly Munyasia breathed a huge sigh of relief when Joe Biden won the US election in November.

“I am excited and I am hopeful that things are going to be better. We are going to access funding and we are going to save the lives of women and girls,” she says, before explaining how tough the past four years has been.

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Gal power: is Wonder Woman 1984 the first #MeToo superhero movie?

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Gal Gadot does battle with supervillains and everyday sexism in DC’s cliche-clobbering sequel. Is it a sign of the genre’s future?

There’s a scene in Wonder Woman 1984 where the luminous Diana Prince (Gal Gadot) glides into a crowded party. Everyone is staring at her – but this is no Cinderella moment, with admiring glances and a collective gasp. It’s an exposé of sexual harassment. The camera switches to Diana’s POV, and we experience a series of persistent, entitled men cracking on to a woman who is clearly not interested. It’s a rare case of a superhero movie showing everyday sexism from the woman’s point of view.

Related: Wonder Woman 1984 review – queenly Gal Gadot disarms the competition

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Denmark strengthens rape laws, outlawing sex without explicit consent

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Justice minister says: ‘Now it will be clear, that if both parties do no consent to sex, then it’s rape’

Denmark has strengthened its rape laws by criminalising sex without explicit consent.

The new law passed by parliament on Thursday also widened the circumstances that could constitute rape – under the old legislation, prosecutors had to show the rapist had used violence or attacked someone who was unable to resist.

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‘We rise by lifting others’: outstanding women of Zimbabwe – in pictures

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In a year that Zimbabwe should have been celebrating its 40th anniversary of independence, the country has battled drought, protests and food insecurity. In response, photographer Hannah Mentz created a project showing the talents and achievements of 40 Zimbabweans, including leading women in their field

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How does a pregnant woman get to hospital when there’s no road? By stretcher …

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Women from the mountains of Uttarakhand in India have been guaranteed palanquins so that they can reach vital transport

Narendra Kumar is going to become a father in early January. His wife, Kavita, became pregnant two months after they got married in February and since then he has been worrying about getting her to hospital when the time comes.

It’s a steep three-kilometre walk along a narrow, unpaved mountain path through oak and rhododendron forests from their village of Gwalakot to the main road where they could pick up a car or ambulance to ferry them to hospital in Nainital.

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