*Happy New Decade
2020*
This Week In The War On Women:
News Items and links for Jan. 11th, 2020:
The year in patriarchy 2019:
from Epstein conspiracy theories to Japanese high heels
As strongmen try to take over the world, women have been fighting back and making their voices heard. Here are some highlights – and lowlightswww.theguardian.com/...
More than 200 members of Congress urge US supreme court to reconsider Roe v Wade
Appeal in an amicus brief in a Louisiana case was signed by 205 Republicans and two Democratswww.theguardian.com/...
Abortion Restrictions
From 2010-2019 Set The Stage For 2020:
Since Roe v. Wade, over 1,000 abortion restrictions have been passed in states across the country — and in the last year alone, efforts to undermine Roe have reached new heights. This legislation has been spearheaded by anti-abortion politicians, many of whom have explicitly stated their intent to leverage the passage of these laws to challenge the precedent of Roe at the federal level.www.bustle.com/...
Republicans know that Americans don't support their anti-abortion extremism
Danielle Campoamor
Thirty-nine Republican senators signed a brief asking the supreme court to overturn Roe v Wade. But who didn’t sign is more tellingwww.theguardian.com/...
Germany’s abortion law: made by the Nazis, upheld by today’s right
Mithu Sanyal
An old 1930s law that hinders women’s access to information about terminations has survived public protest – and is being exploited by anti-abortion groupswww.theguardian.com/...
Domestic violence
kills 15 times as many as terrorism in Britain
Police budgets to counter domestic assaults must be ringfenced,
Domestic violence kills 15 times as many people in Britain as terrorism, say campaigners who want the police to be given more money to tackle the problem.
The huge disparity is highlighted in figures obtained from official sources by victims’ rights campaigners, who say the police budget for combating domestic violence must be ringfenced, as it is for terrorism.www.theguardian.com/...
Domestic Violence
Women deserve to inhabit the same world as men — free of domestic violence and the fear of violence. Although times are changing, the U.S. is still one of the most dangerous countries for women in the developed world.
On average, it takes a victim seven times to leave an abusive partner before staying away for good. My clients would often dismiss their cases out of fear of` retaliation, but love for the abuser plays the most significant role in the victim’s decision. If a client wanted to dismiss a case against an abuser, I had to honor their decision; but I would always challenge their beliefs.www.huffpost.com/...
The Temperance movement linked booze to domestic violence. Did it have a point?
Moira Donegan
Rather than moralist disdain, Prohibition activists wanted alcohol banned for a more practical reason: women’s safetywww.theguardian.com/...
The Cyprus rape case is a chilling reminder of the price women pay for speaking up
It is impossible to feel the British teenager convicted of lying about what happened to her in Ayia Napa has received justice
www.theguardian.com/...
The Cyprus case shows how easily rape victims are let down and distrusted
Joan Smith
What happened to the teenager is a stain on the Cypriot justice system. Not believing women, however, is almost universalwww.theguardian.com/...
Landmark gathering of Okanagan Nation members to discuss missing, murdered Indigenous women
‘We’re all in this canoe together,’ said Roger Hall, father to the late Roxanne Louie.Hundreds stood in silence as they remembered the women in their communities who have, over the years, either disappeared or been killed. After a few minutes, shouts and cries filled the room as each expressed the joy that these woman brought to their lives.www.keremeosreview.com/...
Why are virginity tests still legal across America in 2020?
Virginity testing is a highly invasive and entirely unscientific practice rooted in a patriarchal obsession with women’s “purity”. The state of your hymen is not an indicator of whether you’ve had sex or not – and virginity isn’t a medical fact but a social construct. United Nations agencies have noted that virginity testing has been documented in at least 20 countries around the world and have called for “this medically unnecessary, and often times painful, humiliating and traumatic practice” to endwww.theguardian.com/...
She Reported Her Sexual Harasser To Instagram
It Banned Her Instead.
By silencing victims, Instagram emboldens abusers
Jeffrey Epstein: woman sues estate alleging encounter when she was 14
Lawsuit filed in Florida says teen was approached in 2003 when she was ‘a vulnerable child without adequate parental support’www.theguardian.com/...
FBI Investigates Ghislaine Maxwell
Others For Jeffrey Epstein Links: Sources
The FBI also is following up on many leads received from women who contacted a hotline the agency set up in the wake of Epstein’s arrest.www.huffpost.com/…
Reuters) - The FBI is investigating British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell and several other people linked to U.S. financier Jeffrey Epstein, who killed himself while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges, according to two law enforcement sources familiar with the investigation.
They said a principal focus of the FBI’s investigation is Maxwell, a longtime associate of Epstein, and other “people who facilitated” Epstein’s allegedly illegal behavior.
Harvey Weinstein hit with new charges in Los Angeles during New York trial
Movie mogul charged with raping one woman and sexually assaulting another over two days in 2013 www.theguardian.com/...
Harvey Weinstein accusers gather in solidarity to mark start of trial
Rose McGowan and Rosanna Arquette among those outside the courthouse to support alleged victims who will take the standwww.theguardian.com/...
More than 100 women protest Trump and Weinstein with anti-rape anthem
Group traveled from the New York court where Weinstein is on trial to Trump Tower, chanting and singing a Chilean feminist songwww.theguardian.com/...
Hollywood: Terry Gilliam faces backlash after labeling #MeToo a 'witch-hunt'
The director Terry Gilliam has invited renewed backlash after repeating his claim that he is a “black lesbian in transition”, assailing the #MeToo movement as a “witch-hunt” and asserting that some of Harvey Weinstein’s alleged victims are “adults who made choices”.www.theguardian.com/...
TV: Surviving R Kelly Part II
what can we learn from the horrifying update?
The second season of Lifetime’s harrowing documentary detailing decades of abuse allegations against the musician covers a larger culture of complicitywww.theguardian.com/...
The film industry has utterly failed women.
I won’t put up with it any longer
I’m sick of films dominated by male characters and perspectives. This year I’m changing my cinematic dietwww.theguardian.com/...
This year's male-dominated Brit awards have an issue with women
Only one British female artist has been nominated out of 25 available slots in mixed-gender categories. It’s indicative of a wider industry problemwww.theguardian.com/...
White, male and boring: diversity row should make Bafta look in the mirror
This year’s outrageous crop of overwhelmingly white Bafta nominations shows that the academy needs to act now to make its members more diversewww.theguardian.com/...
Your definitive feminist guide to 2019’s
must-see movies
This year’s Sundance Film Festival has brought some incredible new movies to the fore, including Chinonye Chukwu’s Clemency, Awkwafina’s The Farewell, and Ask Dr. Ruth, a thought-provoking documentary about Holocaust survivor and sexual revolutionary Dr. Ruth Westheimer. With Frozen 2 and Aladdin in the mix, there are even a few films to show off to the young feminists in your life – and more than a few rom coms, too: think Isn’t It Romantic? and Last Christmas, for starterswww.stylist.co.uk/...
Record high in Hollywood films with female lead characters
Annual study finds 40% of 2019 blockbusters featured a female lead – with women’s involvement behind the camera a vital factor
In what is likely to be seen as a boost for Hollywood’s drive to redress decades of male dominance on screen, a new report suggests that a record percentage of leading characters in successful American films are female
www.theguardian.com/...
Failure to launch: why Bombshell doesn't hit its right-wing targets
Like Vice and Game Change before it, the Nicole Kidman-starrer feels as if it’s favouring awards prestige over political impactwww.theguardian.com/...
The Tina Turner mural in North Carolina defaced with swastika
Mural on pull-down storefront of Static Age Records was vandalized after shop closed on 23 Decemberwww.theguardian.com/…
The singer’s picture was defaced after the store closed on the evening of 23 December when someone drew the Nazi emblem, though incorrectly, with three of four spiraling arms pointing counterclockwise.
Elizabeth Wurtzel, journalist and author of Prozac Nation, dead at 52
Author of bestselling memoir about clinical depression, which made her ‘a hashtag before there was Twitter’, died from metastatic breast cancerwww.theguardian.com/...
Elizabeth Wurtzel showed women they could write the messy, humiliating truth
Megan Nolan
Prozac Nation kickstarted a genre often looked down on as exploitative. But such warnings risk silencing young women
"OVERLOOKED":
Since 1851, obituaries in The New York Times have been dominated by white men. Now, we’re adding the stories of other remarkable people.www.nytimes.com/...
Latin American female writers 'get literary place they deserve' in new collection
In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado
Carmen Maria Machado’s account of the abuse she suffered at the hands of her ‘petite, blond, Harvard graduate’ lover is horrifying but beguilingwww.theguardian.com/...
Why Gen X Women Aren’t Sleeping
In her new book, “Why We Can’t Sleep: Women’s New Midlife Crisis,” author Ada Calhoun explores massive debt, Gen X childhood trauma and perimenopause.
Ada Calhoun got a call from an editor at Oprah’s magazine. She had an assignment in mind, an article exploring why women in their 40s and 50s were so unhappy.www.huffpost.com/...
Widespread reported discrimination
The articles were based on a survey conducted via telephone from Jan. 26 to April 9, 2017, among a nationally representative sample of U.S. adults.theconversation.com/...
We asked people if they had ever experienced specific forms of discrimination, harassment or unfair treatment because they are black, Latino, Native American, Asian American, a woman, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or queer
The moral outrage of separating families at the border
Think of the children at the border, the children in for-profit detention centers, the children sleeping on concrete floors, the children who cry for mothers they may never see again, the children traumatized and damaged by a needlessly cruel policy that targets them for abuse, all of that is at the heart of the darkness that is Trumpian fascism.
Think, too, of those mothers suffering the worst crime that can be conceived of against mothers and motherhood, a crime abetted by people who profess reverence for “family values www.sfchronicle.com/...
What Black women need is more than a seat at the table. They need to be seen and valued and heard at the table, with the confidence to speak truth to power without retaliation. Better yet, our tremendous contributions should be matched with political and economic power.msmagazine.com/...
CARMEN RIOS
Women voters across demographic lines opened up to pollsters about what’s getting them to the polls in 2020—and from Finland and Bangor, Maine, women stepped into their historic power by taking up political office.msmagazine.com/...
2019 in review: Washington Post
A roller coaster ride for women’s rights and gender equality around the worldwww.washingtonpost.com/...
A More Perfect Union: Eight Feminist Victories from the Last Decade
Despite significant setbacks, the last decade was one that saw many gains for women in the U.S. We expanded our political power, broke a lot of glass ceilings and logged many firsts. Here are some highlights.msmagazine.com/...
The top moments for women's rights:
From Greta Thunberg to the Chilean feminist songwriters, girls and women have spoken up. Can you guess what made the list of top moments for women's rights? Read The Latest News. Follow Us On Twitter.
iwda.org.au/...
Astronaut Breaks Record For Longest Single Spaceflight By A Woman
NASA’s Christina Koch has spent more consecutive days in space than any other female astronaut.
www.huffpost.com/...
World’s First Female Spacewalk Team
Makes History: NASA Oct. 17, 2019 U.S
NASA astronauts Christina Koch and Jessica Meir made repairs on the International Space Station
www.huffpost.com/...
"state legislatures primarily in the Northeast and West, along with Illinois, are moving in the opposite direction." They have enacted laws to protect abortion rightswww.dailykos.com/...
Broadest ever therapeutic HPV vaccine to be tested in clinical trial
If we want to stop the climate emergency, we need to break the taboo around population and contraception
It's become extremely tricky to discuss the environmental effects of the world's growing population. But with emissions and habitat destruction both on the rise, the birth rate is going to have to come downwww.independent.co.uk/...
This Last Decade:
The Women’s March and #MeToo
The day after the inauguration of a president who bragged about sexually assaulting women, millions of people filled the streets across the country for a Women’s March. The Washington Post wrote that it was “likely the largest single-day demonstration in recorded U.S. history,” estimating that 4 million people—about 1.3 percent of the U.S. population—participated.
The New York Times identified 201 men ousted from their jobs in the year after the #MeToo movement took off—and found that almost half their replacements were women.
The same year, anger over pervasive sexual violence boiled over after the New York Times and the New Yorker reported decades of sexual harassment allegations against Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein. Thousands of survivors shared their own experiences of sexual violence on social media with the viral hashtag #MeToo, a phrase first used by activist Tarana Burke to encourage sexual violence survivors to share their stories.
As more survivors named powerful men who had sexually harassed or assaulted them, some of those men actually started to face consequences. The New York Times identified 201 men who were ousted from their jobs in the year after the #MeToo movement took off—and found that almost half their replacements were women.www.motherjones.com/...
'Everybody is talking about it': women's rights to take centre stage in 2020
Campaigners hail year of key global gatherings and events as vital opportunity to secure ‘bold, accountable commitments and actionwww.theguardian.com/…
World leaders, civil society and the private sector are preparing to make 2020 the biggest year yet for the advancement of women’s rights.
Over the course of the year, thousands of people are expected to attend high-level UN events and forums in Mexico City and Paris to mark the 25th anniversary of the Beijing platform for action, a landmark agreement to end gender inequality.
More than 160 countries have already submitted reports outlining the progress made and the obstacles faced in achieving the Beijing agreement. In January, the UN secretary general is expected to publish an assessment of global efforts, and member states are already negotiating ways to accelerate action.
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MORE NEWS LINKS:
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'The West believe they taught us Feminism’- the Women’s movement around the world:
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(Many thanks to the following people
for their links and news items):
thurayya officebss mettle fatigue elenacarlena
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ramara Crimson Quillfeather Besame karij
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Tara the Antisocial Social Worker SandraLLAP
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heatlhcaredive.com January 8 https://www.healthcaredive.com/....
Despite that female consumers make 80% of buying and usage decisions in healthcare, and are 65% of the healthcare workforce, less than 30% of COOs, 23% of CFOs and chief actuaries, 13% of CEOs in healthcare companies are women (article based on https://www.oliverwyman.com/.... Women in Healthcare Leadership 2019)
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13% CEOs in healthcare women make it about double the percent of CEOs in Fortune 500 companies! Woot, progress! (yes, snark)
Climate change and women's health, open access article in PLOS Medicine,. https://journals.plos.org/....
From the summary:
Climate change threatens to widen existing gender-based health disparities, especially in low- and middle-income countries.
Health impacts, and gender differences in those impacts, are mediated through socioeconomic, cultural, and physiologic factors. Policy action targeted towards these factors, which are often modifiable, can decrease negative health outcomes.
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"The Meanie, the Lightweight, the Crazies, and the Angry, Dissembling Elitists’ Lessons from a year of six women running for president."
by Traister
https://www.thecut.com/.…
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https://www.merritthawkins.com/.... From merritthawkins.com Over three-quarters of female physicians in the US experienced income inequality &/or other forms of gender-based discrimination/offense in 2019
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Women4Climate tech challenge: Applications accepted until January 31, 2020, https://w4c.org
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Climate wise women, https://www.climatewisewomen.org/....
32 types of anti-feminists, https://everydayfeminism.com/....
"God told him so": Man: "Feminism tells women to leave their husbands, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism, and become lesbians!" Woman: "Where do I sign?"
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from Reuters https://www.reuters.com/.... "State laws restricting access to family planning and abortion are contributing to rising rates of pregnancy-related deaths in the United States, researchers say.The chief contributors, they reported this week in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, are laws and fiscal restrictions that result in closures of Planned Parenthood clinics and laws restricting abortions to very early in pregnancies, often before many women know they are pregnant. "
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Donna Rotunno, attorney for Harvey Weinstein, has fired up the standard-issue anti-#MeToo talking points:
“I feel that women may rue the day that all of this started when no one asks them out on a date, and no one holds the door open for them, and no one tells them that they look nice.”
https://www.vanityfair.com/....
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From the Independent:
Ban against pregnant schoolgirls attending school in Sierra Leone is being lifted. The ban was adopted in 2015 following the Ebola crisis, when teenage pregnancy rates rose due to the closure of schools
https://www.independent.co.uk/....
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Margaret Atwood compares Greta Thunberg to Joan of Arc, thinks she needs a big white horse
https://www.independent.co.uk/....
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British women are increasingly being pressured into polygamous relationships or left without child support when relationships break up because UK law does not offer adequate protection to spouses in religious marriages, campaigners have warned.
Activists say there is a growing problem of men “marrying” women in religious ceremonies but refusing to legally register the unions – and subsequently avoiding the financial and other duties owed to a spouse.
https://www.independent.co.uk/....
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"If we want to stop the climate emergency, we need to break the taboo around population and contraception" - Berenice Langdon
https://www.independent.co.uk/....
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Income inequality amongst physicians: In general, the higher the wages, the bigger the gender and racial wage gaps. https://iwpr.org/....
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The new assistant editor of TheBitterSoutherner ( a wonderful magazine/site!) https://bittersoutherner.com/ is a young woman named Josina Guess https://bittersoutherner.com/.... and some of the current stories are "Smile, Damnit" (on just what it sounds like) by Kim Conrey on owning your own self amid southern upbringing https://bittersoutherner.com/.... and The Lipstick Queen of Farming https://bittersoutherner.com/.... about Samantha Foxx who runs Mother's Finest Urban Farm https://www.mothersfinesturbanfarms.com/ in a working-class neighborhood in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
[she] worked in the hair and makeup artist industry until she was about 30-years old. She returned home to the South seven years ago with a hunger for a slower pace and a vision to work the land - while maintaining her personality and style...
."Women and People of Color in Beekeeping" - The time has come back around to see women and people of color on a journey in the world of beekeeping to preserve and secure the bees survival. It takes one of many to stand up as a nation.
Photography by Christine Rucker
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WAPO - Colorado just used its gun seizure law for the first time — one day after it took effect
https://www.washingtonpost.com/....
"One day after Colorado’s new firearm seizure law took effect, authorities in the state appear to have used it for the first time.
Denver police invoked the state’s “red flag” law in a petition made public this week, seeking a judge’s approval to let them keep guns they confiscated from a man who allegedly beat his wife and made suicidal statements to investigators.
The law took effect Jan. 1, adding Colorado to a growing list of states with legislation allowing authorities to seize firearms from people deemed to be at risk of harming themselves or others."
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"The Book of Gutsy Women: Favorite Stories of Courage and Resilience" by Hillary Rodham Clinton and Chelsea Clinton.wikipedia.org/...
(For those of you who've urged me to make a book (an encyclopedia really) out of WOW2, this is the closest book to that - over 400 pages of true stories about inspiring women - and I am proud to say only a couple of these women are not (yet) part of WOW2. -officebss
The fact that a man took time out of his day to create this graphic makes me really sad. Things need to change #WomenInSTEM #STEM
(women scientists on Twitter speculate if the guy who created this is even a scientist)
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"The Trump administration’s subtle, devious plan to dismantle abortion rights": https://www.vox.com/...
"The Trump administration filed a brief in these cases last week, asking the Court to dramatically curtail reproductive choice. Much of that brief asks the Court to effectively ignore its decision in Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt (2016), which struck down an abortion restriction that is virtually identical to the one at issue in the June Medical cases. But the brief also offers a subtle and arcane argument involving the question of who is allowed to bring a lawsuit challenging laws restricting abortion.
Should this argument prevail — and there’s a good chance it will appeal to conservative justices who want to quietly roll back abortion rights while avoiding a political backlash — it would fundamentally alter the landscape of abortion rights. Its immediate effect would likely be to shut down suits challenging anti-abortion laws before those laws take effect (often, a new state law does not take effect until weeks or months after it is enacted)."
"States gear up for abortion fights with eye on Supreme Court": https://thehill.com/...
"State legislators across the country are preparing a new round of measures to crack down on or expand access to abortion services as supporters and opponents plot a growing legal battle that is likely to end at the Supreme Court."
"India campus attack: police fail to make arrests but charge injured student
" :https://www.theguardian.com/...
"Police in Delhi have faced criticism for failing to arrest any members of a violent mob that stormed the campus of the Jawarharlal Nehru University (JNU) in the Indian capital, while at the same time charging a student leader beaten over the head with a metal bar with two offences"
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Female Colonel Becomes First African-American Female Brigadier General In History Of US Marine Corps
https://portermedium.com/…
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https://twitter.com/...
this kind of information is only going to become increasingly necessary as resources and clinics are lost state by state and rights are violently stripped nationally.
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https://twitter.com/...
In 42 states, it's perfectly legal to perform gynaecological exams on anesthetized/unconscious women without their consent where often multiple people to take turns examining the same patient.
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https://twitter.com/...
“I was a police officer for more than 25 years and I regard domestic violence as terrorism on an epic scale. It’s a disease on pandemic proportions.”
Fmr police chief superintendent John Sutherland says domestic abuse is “the single greatest cause of harm in society.”
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https://twitter.com/...
The Vagina Bible being on sale @UCalgaryMed bookstore.
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- From JTA https://www.jta.org/... and wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/... The world's oldest living Olympic champion, a gymnast with 5 gold medals, 3 silver, and 2 bronze (plus one of each from the World Championships), is a woman, Ágnes Keleti, born 9 January 1921. And at least up until 2016
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LINKS:
* War on Women is posted Saturdays
at 8pm edt *
WOW schedule:
Jan 18 —?
Jan 25 —
Feb 1--
Feb 8--
Feb 15—
WOW2 for Early January
The first post for 2020 is up: from ancient times to recent headlines, exceptional women from every field of endeavor, and stirring events in women's history - come be inspired!
Welcome to January 11 WOW