Media Matters Has an Interesting list up:
9 Ways The Media Failed Women In 2014
Blaming And Mocking Survivors Of Sexual Assault
Downplaying Prevalence Of Sexual Assaults
Using The Hobby Lobby Case To Push Misinformation About Abortion And Contraception
Providing Shoddy Coverage Of States' Unprecedented Abortion Restrictions
Denying The Existence Of The Gender Pay Gap
Failing To Treat Harassment As A Serious Issue
Blaming Feminism For ... Everything
Launching Sexist Attacks On Politicians
Discouraging Women From Voting
And to top it off as a front page diary noted
When the war on women meets the war on drugs
Often used as a political football, the war on women has been going on for a very long time. It is not just reflected in the battle for a woman's right to control her own body, but also in efforts to gain financial parity. Neither battle seems to be going particularly well.
All I need is for some pompous asshat to declare but there is "no war on women"
Is it really that hard to understand? Or is it that many people just don't want to believe the facts?
Equal pay for equal work
To be free from assault
To have a right to one's own body
Is it really that fucking hard to grasp?
It has been a piss poor year and it is only liable to get worse next year.
As for this side of the pond
When it comes to women's rights, people across Europe have looked on in astonishment as Spain has moved backwards on women's rights to control their own bodies. Put simply, the conservative government is planning to ban abortion except in cases of rape or where there is a danger to the mother. What have the European institutions had to say? Nothing. Stony silence, as if the right to abortion was not the cornerstone on which all other women's rights are built. Without the freedom to control our own bodies, it is impossible to imagine women achieving equality in professional or political life, or within the family.
Hence this has happened
The rise of feminist candidates in Sweden, France and Germany has prompted questions about why they are standing, and why feminist MEPs might be necessary in Europe. In France in recent years feminist activists, both women and men, have chosen various strategies to put feminism at the heart of the political agenda – protesting against the political parties at public events, or getting involved with organisations on the left. The reason large numbers of activists have decided to bite the bullet and get involved in the European elections is to respond to two pressing problems: women's rights and a social crisis.
The increase of right wing fundamental evangelism largely imported from the US and that of Muslim fundamentalism in Europe have not helped in the least neither for women nor for the LGBT community.
Extreme Christianity has both latched onto and been embraced by many of our right wing parties, heaven knows we have enough problems with the traditional Catholic Church
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to work out that much of the attacks from right wing religious groups target women rights. It's one import we could do without.
In the US the word "feminism" [like "liberalism"] has become a word used to dismiss any argument no matter what its validity. The renewed attacks against Hillary Clinton will have the stench of paternalism written all over them rather than disagreement with any actual policy.
As for the rest of the world, this video saddened me immensely.
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and the overall picture
Despite great strides made by the international women’s rights movement over many years, women and girls around the world are still married as children or trafficked into forced labor and sex slavery. They are refused access to education and political participation, and some are trapped in conflicts where rape is perpetrated as a weapon of war. Around the world, deaths related to pregnancy and childbirth are needlessly high, and women are prevented from making deeply personal choices in their private lives. Human Rights Watch is working toward the realization of women’s empowerment and gender equality—protecting the rights and improving the lives of women and girls on the ground.
Summary:
I must admit even just a few years ago I would be including the US in going back with respect to women's rights, I never thought in Europe we would be having the same retrograde movement.
Conservatism no longer has any relationship to economics both the so called left and right have embraced those in the form of Austerity [see above for who that hurts the most], what it has morphed into is a religious right [and I don't care which paternalistic religion they claim guides them] hell bent upon repressing women and the LGBT community.
So when the media mocks the reality, the reality is shifted. When the politics embraces this shift, we are hurt.
Just a jumbled thought or three.