Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Women's Views on News

Women's Views on News

Safe houses for victims of violence in Haiti

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Summary of story from UNWomen, January 6, 2012 Two years on from the catastrophic Haiti earthquake, support to survivors of violence remains critical as the country continues to rebuild itself. UN Women has responded by providing technical support to six safe houses in five regions in Haiti in the past year. One of the roles safe [...]

Italian anatomist Anna Manzolini conference in St Louis

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Summary of story from the St. Louis Beacon, January 8, 2012 A female US scholar is expected to enlighten listeners about the life and works of the 18th-century Italian anatomist Anna Morandi Manzolini during a conference at the Washington University in St Louis. The conference, presented by Rebecca Messbarger and entitled ‘The Enlightenment Pope: Benedict XIV [...]

Triumph for council staff in equal pay settlement

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Summary of story from BBCNews, January 10, 2011 Hundreds of women employed by Edinburgh City Council have won a multi-million pound equal pay settlement. The women first made claims to be paid the same as their male counterparts in 2005, and in 2008 an employment tribunal ruled in the women's favour, but the local authority appealed [...]

Hungary’s new constitution appears to ban abortion

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Summary of story from Pink News, January 3, 2012 Hungary's new constitution appears to ban abortion by saying that foetuses will be protected ‘from conception onwards’. The constitution, which came into effect on January 1, also bans gay marriage and does not explicitly protect gay people from discrimination. The constitution was enacted 262-44 in April 2011. [...]

Statues of party leader covered up ahead of Indian elections

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Summary of story from The Telegraph, January 10, 2012 Statues of an Indian female politician have been wrapped up in cloth after election officials ordered their covering ahead of state polls. The politician, called only ‘Mayawati’, leads the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSJ) and is currently serving her 4th term as chief minister of Uttar Pradesh. [...]

US women see signs of a jobs recovery, report suggests

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Summary of story from msnbc, January 10, 2012 The US recession saw job losses that were so much more considerable for men than for women that some dubbed it a “mancession”, but once the nation went into recovery, men saw much stronger job gains than women. And according to a Pew Research Centre report, women actually lost [...]

US film festival celebrating women leaders announces line up

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Summary of story from the Los Angeles Times, January 9, 2012 Films about Burmese activist Aung San Suu Kyi and the feminist Gloria Steinem are included in the line up of a New York film festival celebrating women. The Aung San Suu Kyi biopic, “The Lady” and the documentary “Gloria: In Her Own Words” will [...]

Women in Nepal “stolen” to boost male pride

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Summary of story from WomenseNews, January 10, 2012 Women and girls are frequently kidnapped and forced into marriage in Nepal where such practices are a matter of male pride. Opponents of the practice on the Nepali-Tibetan border areas of the country’s western region have found that men in an indigenous community in Mustang believe that stealing [...]

Young woman continues her fight against Egyptian military

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Summary of story from the New York Times, January 9, 2012 A young woman is to continue her fight against Egypt's military rulers after she was subjected to a "virginity test" (see WVoN story). It was as a result of Samira Ibrahim's determination that an Egyptian civilian court ordered the army to end forced virginity [...]

Women in Egyptian hair salon take on “virtue police”

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Summary of story from Bikyamasr, January 8, 2012 A group of women set upon a gang of self-proclaimed “virtue police” after they burst into a beauty salon in an Egyptian town and threatened to beat them. The ultra-conservative Salafis had gone armed with canes into the salon in the Nile delta town of Benha to enforce [...]

Women’s college panel discussion focuses on importance of self-confidence

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Summary of story from Bryn Mawr Now, January 9, 2012 At a recent panel discussion at Bryn Mawr, a liberal arts college for women in Pennsylvania, Vice Admiral Carol Pottinger, US Navy Deputy Chief of Staff at NATO Supreme Allied Headquarters, spoke of the difficulties she experienced with self-confidence early in her career. This sentiment [...]

Domestic violence considered “normal” in Indonesia, says woman set on fire by husband

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Summary of story from Jakarta Globe, January 9, 2012 In 1999, violent conflict broke out between Muslim and Christian communities in the Ambon area of Indonesia. For many women, brutality in the streets spread into their homes, often exacerbating domestic violence perpetrated by husbands and other male family members. Women who were victims of rape, incest and domestic [...]

Sex workers in Zambia receive help from local grassroots organisations

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Summary of story from the Global Press Institute, January 12, 2012 The Tasintha Programme, a grassroots non-governmental organisation (NGO) in Zambia, is one of several working towards eliminating sex work and HIV/AIDS in Zambia. According to the World Bank, nearly 70 per cent of the population in Zambia lives below the national poverty level. HIV [...]

Gender of Jamaican Prime Minister “irrelevant” to her leadership

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Summary of story from the Jamaica Observer, January 9, 2012 Academics in Jamaica have attacked the view that the nation's new prime minister, Portia Simpson Miller, will be a more caring leader just because she is a woman. Professor Verene Shepherd, University Director of the Institute for Gender and Development Studies at the University of [...]