Women's Views on News

• Men form security patrol in Haiti camp
• Curves in Couture: promoting body diversity in fashion
• Malaysia’s women preachers
• Girls’ School Association president speaks out on “erosion” of innocence
• Moroccan parliamentary elections put women’s constitutional gains to test
• Custodial rape remains worst form of torture for women in India
• HOLLABACK! West Yorkshire launch survey into street harassment
• Police dismiss complaint over Twitter racial abuse
• India tests nuclear missile with woman at the helm
• Nobel laureate to run in Myanmar elections
• Archbishop condemns treatment of female prisoners in Ireland
• Menopausal hormone therapies may increase breast cancer risk
• Work without value for Bangladeshi women
• Women leading the way in new sci-fi book deals

Men form security patrol in Haiti camp Posted: Summary of story from The Guardian, November 21, 2011 Following a string of attacks on women at the Champ de Mars displacement camp in the centre of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, 27 men have joined a grass-roots security patrol to protect the women from further violence. The men work with women’s groups in the camp and are trained by the [...]

Curves in Couture: promoting body diversity in fashion Posted: Ivana Davidovic WVoN co-editor  Not-for-profit organisation Models of Diversity last week presented a charity fashion show with a difference. Instead of the usual offering of impossibly tall, thin, ethereal models strutting down the catwalk, Curves in Couture in London’s Notting Hill was a celebration of a healthy womanly figure. And all for a good cause [...]

Malaysia’s women preachers Posted: Summary of story from The New York Times, November 21, 2011 Malaysia currently has not one, but two reality TV shows dedicated to finding female preachers of Islam. The country is a secular state but Sunni Islam is the official religion and  Malays (the country’s majority ethnic group) are automatically Muslim by law. However, the [...]

Girls’ School Association president speaks out on “erosion” of innocence Posted: Summary of story from BBC News, November 21, 2011 Dr Helen Wright, president of the UK Girls’ School Association, has spoken out against the “erosion of the innocence of childhood” and parents’ role in this trend at her organisation’s annual conference in Bristol. Wright used examples of pole dancing classes for young children, high heels, [...]

Moroccan parliamentary elections put women’s constitutional gains to test Posted: Summary of story from Women’s e-News, November 21, 2011 Morocco's parliamentary elections on November 25 will decide the real reach of women's gains in the newly approved constitution. The reformed constitution, approved by a landslide popular vote in July (see WVoN story) recognizes that women – in addition to having equal civil and political rights [...]

Custodial rape remains worst form of torture for women in India Posted: Summary of story from write2kill, November 21, 2011 More than four people a day were killed in police and judicial custody in India between 2001 and 2010. The total of 14,231 includes 1,504 deaths in police custody and 12,727 deaths in judicial custody from 2001-2002 to 2009-2010 as per the cases submitted to the National Human [...]

HOLLABACK! West Yorkshire launch survey into street harassment Posted: Mary Tracy WVoN co-editor In the UK, West Yorkshire’s Hollaback! campaign has launched the first ever survey into street harassment in West Yorkshire as part of the campaign, 16 Days of Action to end Violence Against Women. The 16 days are a symbolic link between the International Day to End Violence Against Women and International [...]

Police dismiss complaint over Twitter racial abuse Posted: Summary of story from The Guardian, November 20, 2011 When freelance journalist Nabila Ramdani started receiving racist and misogynistic abuse on Twitter, she complained to the police. Given that, in the past few weeks alone, three premier league footballers had instigated police action against offensive tweets, she expected the same response. Detective Sergeant Steve Worthington, [...]

India tests nuclear missile with woman at the helm Posted: Summary of story from IBN India, November 21, 2011 In New Dehli, Tessy Thomas will be the first-ever woman director of an Indian missile project. Thomas is set to place India in an elite club of nations like the US, Russia and China with the capability to produce their own long-range Inter-Continental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs). This [...]

Nobel laureate to run in Myanmar elections Posted: Summary of story from AlJazeera, November 21, 2011 Myanmar’s most prominent dissident, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, will run in the upcoming parliamentary elections for the first time in 21 years, a senior official in her party has announced. The announcement comes three days after her party, the National League for Democracy, [...]

Archbishop condemns treatment of female prisoners in Ireland Posted: Summary of story from the Irish Independent, November 21, 2011 The Archbishop of Dublin, Dr Diarmuid Martin, has condemned prison authorities for forcing women prisoners to strip naked to be searched for drugs in the presence of male prison officers. His comments follow a recent visiting committee report which highlighted a number of ongoing problems in [...]

Menopausal hormone therapies may increase breast cancer risk Posted: Summary of story from The Times of India, November 19, 2011 A study at UCLA’s Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center has found that women taking menopausal hormone therapy that is a combination of both estrogen and progestin may be at a higher risk of developing breast cancer. The researchers discovered that women who take the combination [...]

Work without value for Bangladeshi women Posted: Summary of story from The Guardian, November 21, 2011 In Bangladesh, most households see no value in women’s work other than economic necessity. This prevailing attitude raises questions about the value and effectiveness of economic empowerment. A 2006 World Bank report argued that governments should invest in women and girls in order to achieve greater [...]

Women leading the way in new sci-fi book deals Posted: Summary of story from The Times of India, November 21, 2011 Almost two centuries after Mary Shelley’s ‘Frankenstein’ was published, a new generation of female science fiction writers has emerged in a genre that has traditionally been overshadowed by men and images of heroic masculine leads. As a result, a slew of bidding wars has erupted [...]