Study finds female athletes cop brunt of online abuse

It has long been suspected that female athletes are subjected to more vitriol on social media than their male counterparts – now a new study has confirmed It has long been suspected that female athletes are subjected to more vitriol on social media than their male counterparts – now a new study has confirmed it.

Source: Study finds female athletes cop brunt of online abuse | The New Daily

‘Cross-dressing males’ to be allowed in women-only gym sessions in Glasgow

Female-only swimming and gym sessions across Glasgow are to be opened up to cross-dressing males, sparking claims that women and girls’ sport in…

Source: ‘Cross-dressing males’ to be allowed in women-only gym sessions in Glasgow | HeraldScotland

Indigenous women come forward with accounts of forced sterilization, says lawyer

A Saskatchewan-based class action lawsuit filed for certification alleges coerced sterilization of Indigenous women is yielding reports from more than one hundred women across Canada who say they were sterilized without their consent.

Source: Indigenous women come forward with accounts of forced sterilization, says lawyer | CBC News

Women undertake 72% of all unpaid work in Australia

Women doing 72% of unpaid work has egregious outcomes that are totally gendered; Australian males lives ride on the exploitation of women’s work.

“Men won’t easily give up a system in which half the world’s population works for next to nothing,” New Zealand feminist economist and former politician Professor Marilyn Waring CNZM said.

“I’m not talking about repaying this time. It’s about the redistribution of government resources. It’s a productivity and choice issue. Why should women spend all their time in unpaid work on a road to poverty. The poorer I am, the longer it takes me to do the things I need to do.

“In 2017, Price Waterhouse Cooper research concluded women undertook 72 per cent of all unpaid work in Australia. The bulk of this unpaid work is childcare. It is Australia’s largest industry – three times the financial and insurance services industry, the largest industry in the formal economy. The rest of unpaid work combined is the second largest sector in the Australian economy.

“This has egregious outcomes that are totally gendered; childcare, superannuation, equal pay and pay equity, the right to leisure – Australian males lives ride on the exploitation of women’s work,” said Waring.

Source: Women undertake 72% of all unpaid work in Australia

More women in Australia are going to prison than ever before. Here’s why

In the past 10 years, there has been a 75% increase in women’s rates of incarceration.

While men make up the majority of the Australian prison population, the number of women entering the prison system is increasing at a much faster rate.

Just over a third of female prisoners in Australia are Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander. This is particularly significant given Indigenous women comprise just 2 per cent of the general female population in Australia.

Source: More women in Australia are going to prison than ever before. Here’s why

Trans-gender politics puts very basis of feminism at risk – Susan Dalgety

While the numbers shouldn’t matter in a society where every person should matter, it is interesting to observe how a relatively small section of the population has been able to dominate public debate in recent years.

So much so that feminists are now split between those who adhere to a more traditional view of gender equality where biological sex matters, and those who – genuinely it seems – believe that a man is a woman if he simply says he is.

On one side sits the First Minister and a number of well-connected feminist campaigners who support the Government’s plans to simplify the process of changing sex, and regard any concerns, no matter how gently they are expressed, as extreme prejudice.

On the other is a large number of women, genuinely concerned that their rights, particularly regarding single-sex safe spaces, are being ignored by politicians and campaigners, desperate to mollify a tiny minority.

And there is a very real fear that women’s biological identity is being slowly erased by trans activists and their woke sisters.

Source: Trans-gender politics puts very basis of feminism at risk – Susan Dalgety – The Scotsman

Nusrat Rafi burned to death for reporting sexual abuse

A schoolgirl was burned to death in Bangladesh on the orders of her headteacher after she reported him for sexually harassing her, police said on Friday.

The death of 19-year-old Nusrat Jahan Rafi last week sparked protests across the south Asian nation, with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina promising to prosecute all those involved.

Rafi was lured to the rooftop of the religious school she attended where her attackers asked her to withdraw the sexual harassment complaint she had filed with police.

When she refused, she was doused in kerosene and set on fire. On April 10, she died from the burns, which covered 80 percent of her body.

Source: Nusrat Rafi burned to death for reporting sexual abuse: Police | News | Al Jazeera

Ninety per cent tax for a day’s work: The battle facing Aussie mums

New figures show primary carers will gain little to overcome entrenched tax disadvantages in this year’s election

Source: Ninety per cent tax for a day’s work: The battle facing Aussie mums

‘It’s soul destroying’: the stress and stigma of being a single parent on welfare

On census night in 2016, there were about 959,000 single-parent families in Australia, 82% of which were single mothers. The majority of single parents with children under four years old are not in paid work. Instead, they are three times more likely to be living below the poverty line. Their median income of $974 a week is about half that of all households. All up, about one-third of sole parents and their children live in poverty, according to the Australian Council of Social Service.

Most observers point to the Howard government’s decision during the mining boom to move those with children eight and older off parenting payment (now $384.25 a week) and onto Newstart ($297.55 a week) as the starting point to a new, more punitive approach to welfare payments for single parents.

“I think that is so dark in terms of the financial context we were in,” says Terese Edwards, the chief executive of the National Council For Single Mothers and their Children. “Everyone was getting a pat on the back, a hand up … Except if you were a single mother. And then, bang, you became officially unemployed.”

Exacerbating the situation, Edwards says, is Australia’s $1.5bn child support debt, the cost of child care and the fact that governments are focused on a “deficit model” that blames parents for their predicament.

Once the child turns six, parents face the same job search requirements as everyone else. The problem, McLaren says, is that well-paid jobs with child-friendly hours are “very thin on the ground”. “That means you are having to sign up to casual work,” says McLaren, who has studied Australia’s ‘Welfare to Work’ policies. “They give you lots of flexibility to be with your kids, but you don’t get sick leave and holiday pay and all those kinds of allowances. That’s the exchange.”

Source: ‘It’s soul destroying’: the stress and stigma of being a single parent on welfare | Australia news | The Guardian