Friday, January 6, 2012

Women's Views on News

Women's Views on News

Did sexism or the Christian right scupper Bachmann’s chances?

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Summary of story from The Daily Beast, January 4, 2012 Michele Bachmann, erstwhile Republican candidate for US president, is an extremist who spouts weird conspiracy theories, garbles history and foreign policy, and tells untruths with such conviction that she's less a liar than a denizen of an alterative reality. But could sexism really have been [...]

Study shows that women’s sexual satisfaction increases with age

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Summary of story from USA Today, January 5, 2012 A new report has shown that a majority of women report that sexual satisfaction increases with age. And – despite  low sexual desire – arousal and orgasm are frequent. Susan Trompeter, author of the report, in January’s The American Journal of Medicine, said: “A more positive [...]

Women farmers in Italy diversify to survive

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Summary of story from The New York Times, January 3, 2012 Women farmers in Italy are making the best of a time when small farms in the country are struggling. One-third of Italy’s farmers are women, and they in particular have been diversifying their business strategies to sectors such as agricultural tourism, farmers’ markets, organic [...]

Pakistan to send new ambassador to US

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Summary of story from Dawn, January 3, 2012 Pakistan’s newly appointed ambassador to the United States, Sherry Rehman (see WVoN story), is scheduled to arrive in Washington on January 9, amid a low point in US-Pakistan relations. The US State Department said it knew Ms Rehman and “look[ed] forward to working together with her.” Ms [...]

Prominent American poet dies at 96

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Summary of obituary from The Telegraph, January 1, 2012 American poet Ruth Stone’s poems tackled feminist satire and personal tragedy, and in the last decade of her life, she earned a wide readership. Born in Roanoke, Virginia in 1915, Ms Stone won the National Book Award in 2002 at age 87. She was a finalist [...]

Burma opposition leader hopes for democracy

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Summary of story from BBC News, January 5, 2012 Aung San Suu Kyi thinks she’ll see democratic elections in her lifetime. The 66-year-old Burmese opposition leader, speaking after the country’s first elections ended 20 years of military rule, said she trusts the new president, Thein Sein. “The most important thing about the president is that he [...]

Gambian campaign raises awareness of FGM

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Summary of story from Daily Observer, January 3, 2012 The Gambia Committee on Traditional Practices affecting the health of Women and Children (GAMCOTRAP) has completed training and campaign activities to raise awareness and eradicate Female Genital Mutilation (FGM). About 200 women and men benefited from the workshops funded by the European Union / Non-State Actors [...]

Elderly UK woman sexually assaulted

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Summary of story from the BBC, January 5, 2012 A 79-year-old woman was sexually assaulted on New Year’s Day in Bristol, UK. The assault took place at about 10:30 on East Street in Bedminster after she noticed someone behind her. Police said the attacker was a clean-shaven white man around the age of 60 with [...]

Football veteran says women football players have more fun

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Summary of story from IEWY and Fifa.com, January 4, 2012 Coach of German women's Bundesliga side Turbine Potsdam, Bernd Schroder is a pioneer in women's football with over 40 years’ involvement in the game. He told Fifa.com that: "In my opinion, women's football hasn't yet become straitjacketed by tactics, and you sense the players are [...]

Myanmar’s first girl band pushes boundaries

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Summary of story from New York Times, January 4, 2012 With Western style outfits and dance routines, Myanmar’s first girl band is pushing the limits of censors and their parents in this socially conservative country. The band is called Me N Ma Girls, a word play on Myanmar Girls. The five band members are battling [...]

Light shone on Europe’s first female professor

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Summary of story from Stanford University News, January 4, 2012 Documents about the life and work of scientist Laura Bassi, a leading light of the Italian Enlightenment, are to go online this year, making them accessible to a world audience. Stanford University’s libraries have teamed with the Bologna library and the Istituto per i beni culturali della Regione Emilia-Romagna, to put [...]

Filmmaker Lisa Merton remembers Wangari Maathai

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Summary of story from Women’s E-News, January 5, 2012 Lisa Merton, the creator of the film “Taking Root: The Vision of Wangari Maathai”, looks back on making the film in Kenya and her engagement with the recently deceased Nobel Prize winner (see WVoN coverage). The film will be broadcast tonight on PBS. Merton first met [...]

UK: police focus on missing women in Sandringham remains case

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Summary of story from The Guardian, January 4, 2012 DNA analysis on human remains found on New Year's Day on the UK’s royal estate at Sandringham has so far not identified the victim, profiled as a female aged between 15 and 23. Detective Chief Inspector Jes Fry of Norfolk Police said “We will be focusing [...]

New research shows men and women think differently

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Summary of stories from Telegraph, Scotsman and PLoS ONE, January 5, 2012 A new scientific paper claims that the difference in the psychology of men and women is more complex than has previously been thought. The team led by Marco Del Giudice from the University of Turin, with Tom Booth and Paul Irwing from the University of [...]

South African government condemns mini-skirt attack on students

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Summary of story from Bernama.com, January 5, 2012 An attack at a Pretoria taxi-rank on two female students by a group of men, apparently triggered by one of the students wearing a mini-skirt, has been condemned by the South African government. The department of women, children and people with disabilities said that it was sad that [...]

Influential abstract painter Helen Frankenthaler dies

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Summary of story from The Washington Post, December 28, 2011 Helen Frankenthaler, an influential abstract painter whose quietly eloquent canvases of the 1950s inspired the Washington Color School of painting, has died at her home in Connecticut, USA, aged 83. Ms Frankenthaler was best known for developing an innovative technique in which she poured diluted paint [...]

Jamaican elections return woman to PM’s post

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Summary of story from BBCNews, December 30, 2011 Jamaica’s opposition People’s National Party (PNP) has secured a big election victory after a campaign dominated by the economy. The result means a return by veteran PNP politician Portia Simpson Miller to the post of prime minister. Despite forecasts of a close race, preliminary official results showed [...]

Stop rewarding sexist obstinacy

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Summary of story from The Huffington Post, January 2, 2012 The US ranks 40th in the world for women’s political empowerment and 72nd for parliamentary representation — legislatures, state and national. Shocked by these stats, feminist satirist and media critic Soroya Chemaly picks up on a question asked in a recent “Forum” section of The [...]

Iranian leaders urged to investigate rape of prisoners

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Summary of story from Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, January 4, 2012 Mehdi Karrubi, former Iranian parliament speaker and leading figure for the opposition, has called for an investigation into the brutal rape of women and young boys detained after contentious elections last June. Karrubi has written to former President and Assembly of Experts head, Akbar [...]