Sophie Tatum of CNN Politics reports:
Nearly 300 protesters were arrested at a US Senate building on Thursday afternoon as crowds of activists descended on Capitol Hill while lawmakers reviewed the FBI’s report on the allegations against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.
The Women’s March, a liberal organization that originated as a grassroots movement in opposition of President Donald Trump, was one of multiple groups tweeting from the protest at the Capitol building.
Comedian Amy Schumer was seen being arrested, and model Emily Ratajkowski tweeted that she had also been arrested.
“Today I was arrested protesting the Supreme Court nomination of Brett Kavanaugh, a man who has been accused by multiple women of sexual assault,” Ratajkowski wrote. “Men who hurt women can no longer be placed in positions of power.”
https://edition.cnn.com/2018/10/04/politics/kavanaugh-protests-us-capitol/index.html
https://www.npr.org/2018/10/04/654515122/we-believe-survivors-demonstrators-throng-capitol-hill-to-protest-kavanaugh
Author: fem4admin39
'Tampon tax' scrapped in Australia after 18-year controversy
BBC News reports:
Australia will remove a controversial tax on female sanitary products following years of campaigning by women’s groups.
Currently, tampons and sanitary pads are sold with a 10% goods and services tax (GST) because they are categorised as non-essential items.
Women have argued it is an unfair classification, noting items such as condoms and sunscreen are exempt.
Federal and state governments agreed on Wednesday to remove the levy.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-45727980
Sexual assault, harassment linked to health problems in women: study
Kim Painter for USA TODAY writes:
A history of sexual assault or workplace sexual harassment can have a major effect on the mental and physical health of a middle-aged woman, a new study suggests.
Victims of sexual assault suffer high rates of depression, anxiety and sleeplessness; victims of harassment have elevated rates of high blood pressure and sleep loss, according to the study published Wednesday in JAMA Internal Medicine.
The study is not the first or largest to link sexual assault and harassment with mental and physical health problems. But it may carry extra weight because the women in the study were directly examined by researchers and underwent formal mental health assessments. Some previous studies were based on surveys.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2018/10/03/sexual-assault-harassment-linked-health-problems-women-study/1503690002/
Nepal bans porn websites after seeing 300 per cent increase in rapes
George Martin For Daily Mail Online writes:
- The Nepali Ministry for Information and Communication issued a ruling Tuesday
- A statement linked pornography to the country’s worsening rape culture issue
- In 2016/17 there were 1,667 cases of rape compared to 400 just ten years earlier
Scandal of 260 rapists who struck again after being released from jail early – attacking one woman every week
Dan Warburton of Mirror Online writes:
Rapists freed from jail have gone on to rape again at the rate of one a week.
We discovered that 264 sexual predators released from prison over the past five years went on to strike again.
Our revelations will raise fears that rapists are often being released too soon.
We also revealed that rapist policeman Stephen Mitchell – feared to have attacked up to 30 women – has been freed less than seven years after being jailed for life.
David Spencer, Research Director at the Centre for Crime Prevention, said: “It would seem self-evident to most people that someone found guilty of a violent sex crime should not be released back into the community until we are sure beyond reasonable doubt that they will not re-offend.
“Given that many attacks are taking place very shortly after release from prison, this is clearly not the case.
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/scandal-260-rapists-who-stuck-13333084
Tasmania says confessional veil to be lifted with new laws
Grace Ormsby of Lawyers Weekly reports:
The Tasmanian government has released draft legislation to “lift the veil of the confessional” and require the reporting of child sexual abuse.
The laws reflect a government intent to make religious ministers mandatory reporters of child sexual abuse and to toughen laws around failing to report serious crimes.
The updated legislation is a reaction to the “shocking revelations of child sexual abuse which have emerged from the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse,” according to a statement from the Tasmanian Attorney-General Elise Archer.
“There is no excuse for failure to report the horrific abuse of children, least of all for institutions who have been named in the royal commission as failing to prevent child abuse in the past,” it noted.
“This step makes it clear that all members of the community have an obligation to report abuse and do everything in their power to prevent child abuse.”
https://www.lawyersweekly.com.au/politics/24171-tasmania-says-confessional-veil-to-be-lifted-with-new-laws?
California has a new law: No more all-male boards
Julia Carpenter and Jackie Wattles for CNN reports:
Companies headquartered in California can no longer have all-male boards.
That’s according to a new law, enacted Sunday, which requires publicly traded firms in the state to place at least one woman on their board of directors by the end of 2019 — or face a penalty.
It also requires companies with five directors to add two women by the end of 2021, and companies with six or more directors to add at least three more women by the end of the same year.
It’s the first such law on the books in the United States, though similar measures are common in European countries.
https://money.cnn.com/2018/09/30/news/california-requires-women-board-of-directors/index.html
China’s Women-Only Subway Cars, Where Men Rush In
Sui-Lee Wee and Giulia Marchi for The New York Times report:
In one of China’s biggest cities, the women-only subway cars are full of men.
Based on a proposal from a member of a key political advisory body to the ruling Communist Party, the effort was launched to push the concept of “caring for women and respecting women.” Ye Zichuan, the head of Guangzhou Metro’s publicity department, stressed that the cars were labeled for women but not “only for women.” He said that there was no legal basis to segregate passengers by force.
Female commuters in China have long complained that some men take advantage of the packed trains to cop a quick feel. More than half of women surveyed by the state-run China Youth Daily newspaper in 2015 said they had experienced “inappropriate touching” on public transportation in China.
“On the surface, it looks like the women-only subway cars are meant to protect women,” she said, “but the effect is that women are told that they have to stay in one place in order to avoid getting sexually harassed.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/04/business/china-women-only-subway-cars.html
Egyptian woman jailed after posting video complaining about sexual harassment
Eric Tlozek for ABC News reports:
Actor and activist Amal Fathy has been sentenced to two years in prison in Egypt after speaking out against sexual harassment in a video she posted on Facebook.
She is the second woman in a year to be jailed for publicly criticising the treatment of women in the country.
On top of being fined for making “public insults”, Fathy was sentenced to two years in jail for “spreading false news” and “possessing indecent material” after she posted a video on Facebook detailing how she was sexually harassed while going to the bank.
Mr Baoumi said Fathy was one of many people being targeted as part of a general crackdown on dissent in Egypt.
Fathy’s husband is a human rights lawyer and the director of the Egyptian Commission for Rights and Freedoms, a human rights organisation.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-10-01/egypt-jails-woman-for-speaking-up-about-sexual-harassment/10324512?
Tough love for Museums! The Guerrilla Girls continue to strike back
Gabrielle Everall for Right Now writes:
Guerrilla Girls are a group of artists and activists that aim to expose the inequality that women and people of colour experience in the art world. Like anarchists out on a demonstration, they are anonymous and don gorilla masks. The collective began in New York in 1985. Portfolio Compleat is a comprehensive record of the Guerrilla Girls’ work which consists of 129 projects in the form of posters and a video installation spanning from 1985 to 2016.
Portfolio Compleat is tucked away on the third floor of the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV), and the exhibition is smaller than I expected it to be. A video installation that includes information about Guerrilla Girls Portfolio Compleat is at the back wall of the NGV entrance. This is a pity because what the Guerrilla Girls have to say is very important.
[A]ccording to the Guerrilla Girls, no female artists names are inscribed on the facades of art galleries and museums. The Guerrilla Girls’ Portfolio Compleat forces me out of my complacency brought about by a patriarchal society; when I posed nude at art school the male artists asked for a different model, one with a better body.
According to the Guerrilla Girls galleries and museums in the U.S and Europe do not show the history of art, but merely the history of power and money.
http://rightnow.org.au/review-3/tough-love-guerilla-girls-strike-back/
