May 16th, 2016 4:34 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
From teleSUR English on Facebook:
Women are rising up against the sexist coup government in Brazil! Tens of thousands of, mostly, women took to the streets in at least 5 major cities across Brazil to express outrage over the coup government of Michel Temer that announced very sexist and neoliberal plans after ousting the left-wing female President Dilma Rousseff.
Led by women student groups, feminist organizations and trade unions, people of all age groups and ethnicities in Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, San Salvador, Belo Horizonte, and Porto Alegre blocked traffic and shouted slogans including “Temer coup-monger” and “Out with Temer” against the newly-installed conservative leader.
In the very first hours after being installed, the new coup government
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Posted in Notes and Comment Blog |
8 comments
Tags: Brazil, Dilma Rousseff
May 16th, 2016 4:03 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
A press statement April 13 by AIDS-free World’s Code Blue Campaign:
April 13, 2016 — AIDS-Free World has received leaked information that 41 additional cases of sexual violence by peacekeepers have been documented by MINUSCA, the United Nations peacekeeping mission in the Central African Republic (CAR), following interviews with victims in Dekoa, a remote town in the country’s Kemo prefecture. In an April 7th code cable, MINUSCA informed UN headquarters that an “integrated team” sent to Dekoa from March 25th to April 4th interviewed 59 women and girls. While some were on a list of 98 victims who reported sexual abuse to UNICEF last month, the team documented 41 new cases never previously reported.
The code cable to UN
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Tags: UN peacekeepers
May 16th, 2016 12:48 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
The Guardian asked readers to share their experiences of sex discrimination in film making.
Conscious and unconscious bias is alive and well in our business. And much is to do with how “talent” is evaluated. Because of the belief in the auteur, a conceptthat has infected the film space but particularly public funding, women have been at a disadvantage – auteurs are generally men and if you can’t see it, not only can’t you be it, but no one will let you be it either. The way women’s work is assessed and their talent rated doesn’t cut it, because they’re being measured against a male paradigm.
Mia Bays, film producer, 44
Of course – because only men are … Read the rest
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
May 16th, 2016 12:25 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
Another entry for the “to the surprise of no one” file – very few British films are written or directed by women.
A report commissioned by Directors UK found that between 2005 and 2014 just 13.6% of British films were directed by women and only 14.6% of those had a female screenwriter, as a result of “unconscious, systemic bias”.
The damning report concluded that the problem of gender inequality had remained almost unchanged in those 10 years, revealing that in 2005, 11.5% of UK films had a female director, which only increased to 11.9% in 2014.
We know. How do we know? We see the movies, and the advertising for the movies, and the reviews of the movies.
Beryl
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May 15th, 2016 4:28 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
News from Saudi Arabia: women there face flogging and imprisonment if they check their husband’s phone without his permission.
The offence would be prosecuted as a violation of privacy because it is not covered in the country’s Islamic laws, senior lawyer Mohammad al-Temyat has said.
Well it wouldn’t be, would it. There weren’t phones to check when Mo wrote the Koran – which is reason number 4 billion whatever whatever for why we shouldn’t take a very old book as something we’re not allowed to change or dispute or throw away. Mo didn’t know everything, including phones and secularism and feminism and human rights, so he shouldn’t be set up as an infallible authority on all things.
Speaking to
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May 15th, 2016 11:44 am |
By Ophelia Benson
Bangladesh yesterday:
Police in Bangladesh say a 75-year-old Buddhist monk has been hacked to death in the south-eastern district of Bandarban.
An official said the monk’s body was found inside a Buddhist temple.
It is the latest in a spate of murders of religious minorities, secular activists and academics.
It’s ideological cleansing.
Police said Maung Shue U Chak appeared to have been attacked by at least four people at the temple in Baishari, 350km (220 miles) south-east of the capital Dhaka.
His killing follows the murder of two prominent gay activists, a law student and a university professor in April.
In February a Hindu priest was beheaded in northern Bangladesh.
In other news –
Locals in presence of a
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May 15th, 2016 |
By Leo Igwe
The recent arrest of six young men in Nigeria for the ‘supposed crime’ of homosexuality has once again demonstrated the misplaced priorities of the Buhari-led government. The arrest casts serious doubt on its supposed commitment to transforming Nigeria.
Going by recent developments, hope is fading very fast and disillusionment is setting in as many people are beginning to realize that the change mantra may end up being a ruse, a strategy that was used to win an election. The proposed change is a farce, at least when it comes to the dignified treatment of gay persons otherwise, how does one explain the current detention of some young men by police in Benin for engaging in homosexuality?
As if the arrest … Read the rest
Posted in Articles
May 14th, 2016 6:19 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
More from the piece on prostitution in Germany by Manuela Schon at Feminist Current. There’s a section on…prostitution in the educational system.
Pro Familia, a member of the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF), is an organization that advises schools in their sex education materials. Among the material they recommended for teenagers is a book called, “Sexualpädagogik der Vielfalt“ (which loosely translates to “Sexual Pedagogy of Diversity”). This text includes suggestions and material for projects in which students are asked to name sex positions and to “modernize a brothel.” In small groups they are to discuss what “services” a “Freudenhaus der sexuellen Lebenslust” (which loosely translates to “pleasure house of sexual lust for life”) should offer.
Those who protested this
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10 comments
May 14th, 2016 5:22 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
The New York Times reports on the feminist side of Donald Trump.
Hahahahaha no just kidding, of course.
Mr. Trump was not just fixated on the appearance of the women around him. He possessed an almost compulsive need to talk about it.
Inside the Trump Organization, the company that manages his various businesses, he occasionally interrupted routine discussions of business to opine on women’s figures. Ms. Res, his construction executive, remembered a meeting in which she and Mr. Trump interviewed an architect for a project in the Los Angeles area. Out of the blue, she said, Mr. Trump evaluated the fitness of women in Marina del Rey, Calif. “They take care of their asses,” he said.
“The architect and
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May 14th, 2016 12:44 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
From Feminist Current, legalized pimping in Germany:
A flat-rate brothel chain called “Pussy Club” made headlines when, on its opening day on June 5, 2009, 1,700 men lined up to get in. The long lineups outside women’s rooms lasted until closing time when many of the women collapsed from exhaustion, pain, injuries, and infections, including painful rashes and fungal infections that spread from their genitals down their legs. It was shut down a year later for human trafficking.
Flat-rate brothels are very common in Germany, as well as “tabuslos,” meaning “no taboos.” In practice, this translates to “everything without any protection.” As a result, STDs are on the rise in Germany (HIV rates have gone up after several
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May 14th, 2016 12:35 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
From Science Daily a year ago:
New research from the University of Alabama at Birmingham shows that high-heeled-shoe-related injuries doubled between 2002 and 2012. The findings were published online May 12 in the Journal of Foot and Ankle Injuries, and the frequency and severity of those injuries were sufficient to make the investigators suggest that wearing the appropriate shoes for the appropriate occasion and being aware of one’s surroundings are good ideas.
“Although high-heeled shoes might be stylish, from a health standpoint, it would be worthwhile for those interested in wearing high-heeled shoes to understand the risks and the potential harm that precarious activities in high-heeled shoes can cause,” said lead investigator Gerald McGwin, Ph.D., vice chair and professor
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May 14th, 2016 11:30 am |
By Ophelia Benson
Janice Turner wrote a piece at the Times titled The trans lobby peddles a pink and blue world. I expect that will get her added to The Index if she’s not there already, but it’s true.
A friend of hers commented that he thought she was gender fluid, and she was taken aback.
I’d never thought about my gender identity before. It hadn’t occurred to me that not being a “girly” girl meant I wasn’t 100 per cent woman. The point, I’ve always believed, is to expand the categories “man” and “woman”, to tear down pink and blue prisons. So a little girl can like trucks, spacemen, getting dirty and still be a girl; a boy can put on
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May 14th, 2016 10:47 am |
By Ophelia Benson
Originally a comment by Steamshovelmama on Faithful and regular worshippers, a post about a council-funded bus service that refused to pick up a student because he’s not Catholic.
OK, I’ve found some more out about this.
The parents of the boy in question have chosen to send him to Holy Trinity Academy (yes, bloody academy status, thank you David Cameron) rather than to one of the geographically nearest schools. Because that has been their choice, the local council expects the parents to arrange and fund school journeys. Where the geographically nearest school has been accepted it is the local council’s role to ensure that journey is safe and affordable – for instance some pupils may be eligible for a … Read the rest
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May 14th, 2016 9:37 am |
By Ophelia Benson
Rose Hackman writes in the Guardian that a major part of the emotional labor women are forced to do is the de-escalation of incidents of harassment.
Years later, I realized the abuse was less in the act I had been subjected to, and more in my learned silence. De-escalation had been my trick, to the detriment of my agency.
A blog entry from last fall put this into words for me. It made me realise [w]hat women around me had been doing for years: de-escalating situations caused by men, with the burden of minimising incidents being placed squarely on our shoulders.
Occurrences could be as mundane as a street catcall, as infuriating as a sexist comment at work, or as
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May 13th, 2016 5:39 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
A horror story from the Sydney Morning Herald: a woman got advice from a “naturopath” on how to treat her infant’s eczema.
Over the next two months, police allege Ms Bodnar convinced the mother she could cure her baby’s eczema and made her feel guilty for using steroid creams for her son’s condition.
Ms Bodnar, a former nurse and midwife, convinced the mother it was best to use nothing to allow the baby’s skin to breathe.
She also advised her to go on a “raw only diet” to alkaline her milk to her breast-feeding baby, which would “help heal him faster by eliminating the toxins out of his body”, police allege.
Yeah that’s not a thing, it’s just word salad.… Read the rest
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog |
6 comments
Tags: Naturopathy