Thursday, January 26, 2012

Women's Views on News

Women's Views on News

Workshop held in Pakistan on gender-based discrimination

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Summary of story from Pakistan Christian Post, January 25, 2012 The Association of Women for Awareness and Motivation (AWAM) in collaboration with the Girl Guide Association of Faisalabad (GGAF) held a training workshop on gender-based discrimination and violence recently. The workshop was held at Government College University in Faisalabad last week, and 30 girl guides from different classes [...]

Iranian actress sparks discussion by posing topless

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Summary of story from RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty, January 25, 2012 An Iranian actress living in Paris has been praised for her courage and criticised for her indecency after posing topless for a French magazine and posting the photo on her Facebook page. Golshifteh Farahani, who moved to France last year, says Iranian authorities have told her not [...]

Atwood’s ‘Handmaid’s Tale’ re-released in pictures

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Summary of story from The Guardian, January 23, 2012 A new edition of Margaret Atwood's famous novel 'The Handmaid's Tale' is now being illustrated by Anna and Elena Balbusso – winners of a Gold Award from The American Society of Illustrators. First released in 1986, the dystopian story was inspired by contemporary Western fears about falling [...]

Tanzanian scientist wins Pfizer Award for sickle-cell research

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Summary of story from the New Statesman, January 19, 2012 Tanzanian-born Julie Makani has been presented with the Royal Society Pfizer Award for her research into sickle-cell disease. In the last decade she has also became a Wellcome Trust fellow, gained a PhD, been awarded a place on Archbishop Tutu's Leadership Fellowship Programme, as well [...]

World’s oldest football club lets women play

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Summary of story from Deadline, January 24, 2012 The world's oldest football club has finally created a women's team – 200 years after it first formed. The Foot Ball Club banned women from joining when it was founded in Edinburgh in 1824. Now, after holding out for 188 years, it has created a female squad. [...]

Rape and sexual abuse charity wins Guardian award

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Emma Caddow WVoN co-editor Coventry Rape & Sexual Abuse Centre (CRASAC), a UK-based charity that provides support for survivors of sexual violence and abuse, has won The Guardian's 2011 Charity Award. CRASAC offers a confidential helpline, counseling service and therapy groups for adults and children. The charity works with some 3,500 women, men and children [...]

Pashtun pop star quits singing for religion

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Summary of story from RFE/RL, January 24, 2012 One of the world’s most beloved Pashtun singers has announced she is giving up music to follow her faith. Nazia Iqbal surprised concertgoers in Dubai recently when she announced that they were witnessing her last performance. She said she was leaving music to live the “life of a [...]

Women’s brewing project launches new beer

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Summary of story from Manchester Evening News, January 25, 2012 A group of all-female brewers are raising their glasses as they launch a new pint. The new beer has been produced in Wigan, in Lancashire, as part of Project Venus, which aims to promote women in the brewing industry in the UK and in Eire. Called Venus Gold, [...]

Train editors to consider how careless words cost women their lives

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Jackie Gregory WVoN co-editor As WWoN reported on January 24, UK equality groups have been urging the Leveson Inquiry into the UK’s press standards to address inaccurate, prejudicial and demeaning portrayals of women. It is worth taking a closer look at witness statement made by the umbrella group End Violence Against Women coalition (EVAW Coalition) which is posted on [...]

Twin a toilet and keep women safer

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Jem McCarron WVoN co-editor Going to the toilet is an inconvenience, especially for women. There are few things more frustrating than being in the middle of a great movie, stuck in a traffic jam or at a music festival and hearing the 'call of nature'. Now imagine a young woman living in a refugee camp in [...]

Belarus journalist reveals threat to husband’s life

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Summary of story from Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, January 25, 2012 The wife of the jailed Belarusian presidential candidate Andrey Sannikau says he was “forced” to write a letter to President Alyaksandr Lukashenka in November, asking for his freedom. Journalist Iryna Khalip, who visited her jailed husband on January 20, said in a statement on January [...]

One man, 12 sisters and a sink full of gender stereotyping

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Jackie Gregory WVoN co-editor ‘Thank goodness I have got my own bathroom!’ Man, 24, tells of life with his 12 sisters (but admits they do run around after him)’ This was the headline of a story on MailOnline on January 24, 2012. You could be forgiven for thinking it was dated January 24, 1912, well [...]

Chagos islands exile Lisette Talate dies aged 70

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Summary of story from the New Statesman, January 19, 2012 Lisette Talate, a prominent figure in the campaign to be allowed to return to the Chagos islands, died earlier this month, aged 70. Journalist John Pilger writes that she was a wiry, fiercely intelligent woman who masked her grief about being exiled from the Chagos [...]

South Ossetia talks may end standoff

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Summary of story from Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, January 24, 2012 The protracted standoff in Georgia’s breakaway republic of South Ossetia between Alla Dzhioyeva, the opposition candidate whose victory in a presidential runoff ballot last November was annulled by the republic’s Supreme Court (see WVoN story), and the republic’s leaders may be close to an end. [...]

The Flowers of War and the rape of Nanjing

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Summary of story from BBCNews, January 24, 2012 In one of the most notorious episodes of Japan’s occupation of China, tens of thousands of Chinese were killed and raped in the Chinese city of Nanjing by the invading army between December 1937 and March 1938. The film, The Flowers of War, is based on a [...]

UN peacekeepers accused of abuse of minors in Haiti, again

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Summary of story from IPS, January 23, 2012 United Nations (UN) peacekeepers have been accused of sexually abusing minors in the earthquake devastated nation of Haiti for the third time in five years. Two new cases of  ’sexual exploitation and abuse involving minors’ were reported last week and traced to UN police officers serving with [...]

United Nations launches website to encourage women into ITC careers

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Summary of story from UN News Centre, January 24, 2012 The United Nations has launched a new website hoping to encourage more girls and women to consider a career in the information and technology (ITC) sector. The website, girlsinitc.org, targets young women between the ages of 11 and 25. The site provides a range of [...]

Government support could help women farmers ease Nigerian food shortages

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Summary of story from All Africa, January 24, 2012 Jamillah Mwanjisi, Campaigns Manager of Oxfam, has called on Nigeria to enact laws ensuring women’s land ownership. Speaking to Good Health Weekly in Lagos, Ms Mwanjisi said that encouraging Nigerian women who are mostly farmers could significantly reduce the risks of a looming food crisis. According [...]

Sheryl Sandberg, the grown-up in the Facebook boys club

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Summary of story from The Guardian, January 24, 2012 Facebook’s chief operating officer (COO), Sheryl Sandberg, is today one of the six co-chairs at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland. She will be the only woman. The lack of women in the boardroom is something Ms Sandberg is attempting to address. In [...]