Michael Cook for BioEdge writes:
Successful womb transplants have given birth to the notion that transgender women or even cisgender men could bear children. In the latest edition of the Journal of Law and the Biosciences, Amel Alghrani, of the University of Liverpool (UK) strongly defends the idea that they have a right to gestate. “Transgender, non-binary, and other gender plural individuals have the same procreative liberties as cisgender individuals,” she contends. Denying them this right would be tantamount to cissexism.
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entonces_99 • a day ago Life imitates Monty Python: https://www.youtube.com/wat…
https://www.bioedge.org/bioethics/do-transgender-women-have-a-right-to-gestation/12805
Author: fem4admin39
One For The Ladies: UNSW’s Helpful Guide On How Not To Get Raped
Chris Graham for New Matilda writes:
The problem with telling grown women that they need to adopt certain habits and behaviours in order to make themselves more safe is that you’re not telling them anything they don’t already know, and haven’t already known since they were old enough to understand the concept of stranger danger.
Unfortunately, the problems with the UNSW email don’t stop there. Firstly, the content of the email does precisely nothing to deter offenders from offending. It’s not even written for them, which begs the question, why write it at all? Secondly, the email also tells women who are the victims of sexual assault or rape, that there were things they could have and should have done to prevent what happened. In other words, that they are partly to blame.
If you’re a man, and you’re still lost, flip it around and you might find it a little easier to understand. If you’re at the pub having a beer and some random idiot walks up and punches you in the face, you’re probably not going to react too well to police (or the publican) sending you an email to let you know that you could reduce the chances of being randomly assaulted by not going to the pub for a beer.
Sometimes, it takes a lot of repetition for some messages to sink in. But the message on this occasion is not that women need tips on increasing their personal safety. It’s that personal safety is a basic human right, and we all have a collective responsibility to work harder to ensure it’s fully extended to ALL members of our community. Because at the moment, what we’re doing is clearly not working.
https://newmatilda.com/2018/09/16/one-ladies-unsws-helpful-guide-not-get-raped/
Push to double aged care fees – amid shocking revelations
Isabelle Lane for the New Daily writes:
A powerful aged care industry group featured in Four Corners‘ Monday night exposé is lobbying for aged care residents to be charged more than double the current maximum fee for daily living costs.
Residents in aged care homes are already forced to sacrifice 85 per cent of the aged pension to cover daily living costs, but according to Leading Age Services Australia – the peak body representing Australia’s private and not-for-profit aged care services – they are not paying enough.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison, who in 2016 slashed $1.2 billion from the aged care budget, also announced a royal commission into the sector.
Four Corners shone a spotlight on the harrowing living conditions, neglect, and abuse suffered by elderly residents in aged care homes across the country.
[ed: Women outnumber men in aged care 2 to 1. Source]
https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/national/2018/09/18/aged-care-lobby-four-corners/?
Jacinda Ardern to guest edit New Zealand newspaper on anniversary of suffrage
Charles Anderson writers for The Guardian:
Jacinda Ardern will guest edit the country’s largest daily newspaper on Wednesday as New Zealand marks 125 years since becoming the first nation in the world to give women the vote.
The country is marking the occasion in various ways – with a vast number of exhibitions and special projects dedicated to the event.
In 1893, New Zealand suffragists gathered the signatures of nearly 32,000 women to demonstrate the breadth of support for their cause. Despite opposition, the legislation allowing women to vote was passed by both houses of parliament and became law on 19 September.
The news sent shockwaves throughout New Zealand and went on to inspire suffrage movements around the world. In 1902, Australia followed suit, however Indigenous men and women were forced to wait until 1962 before they were allowed to vote in federal elections.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/sep/18/jacinda-ardern-guest-edit-new-zealand-newspaper-on-anniversary-of-suffrage?
Inquiry into surge in gender treatment ordered by Penny Mordaunt
Tony Grew from The Sunday Times reports:
An investigation has been ordered into why so many girls are seeking gender reassignment after the number referred for treatment rose by more than 4,000% in less than a decade.
The equalities minister, Penny Mordaunt, has instructed her officials to look into the cause.
Official figures show the number of girls being given gender treatment has risen from 40 in 2009-10 to 1,806 in 2017-18.
Last month the junior equalities minister, Victoria Atkins, was criticised by transgender rights campaigners for expressing caution about those undergoing “serious and life changing” gender reassignment treatments.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/inquiry-into-surge-in-gender-treatment-ordered-by-penny-mordaunt-b2ftz9hfn
Enforcing men’s sexual rights in international human rights law
Sheila Jeffreys in Dr Radfem writes:
We are in this dire situation where lesbian and gay rights and ‘gender identity’ rights are inextricably yoked together in a document which is extremely influential and increasingly seen as best practice by governments and other assemblies. The YP [Yogyakarta Principles] and all the instruments that arise from them state that ‘gender identity’ should be self-defined.
The YPs substitute gender, the male fetishistic understanding of what women are, for the term sex and thereby eliminate any protections for women as an oppressed class of persons based upon biological sex. When they were updated in 2017 with something called the Plus 10, the language became even more peculiar and exclusionary towards women and women’s rights. . . . The Plus 10 includes, for instance, the demand that sex, the biological basis for women’s oppression, be eliminated for official documents. They call for an end to ‘the registration of the sex and gender of the person in identity documents such as birth certificates,identification cards, passports and driver licences, and as part of their legal personality’ (Yogyakarta Principles, 2017). This eliminates the sex class of women and the possibility of recording any information relating to discrimination against women and violence against us. If sex cannot be mentioned, then woman as a category is disappeared and feminism and the idea of women’s rights cannot exist.
Another way in which the Plus 10 go further is in including ‘surrogacy’ under the ‘right to found a family’. The right to traffic in babies and use women in reproductive prostitution has gained more and more acceptance as a result of gay men’s taking up and promoting this commercial baby market. The embracing of ‘surrogacy’ makes it clearer that the Principles are about men’s
rights and against women’s rights.
http://drradfem.org/enforcing-mens-sexual-rights-in-international-human-rights-law/
Year 11 and 12 students in NSW will no longer learn about women's contributions to physics
The new Higher School Certificate (HSC) physics syllabus for NSW will contain no mention of the contributions of female physicists to the field. Not teaching students about their contributions to the field denies young women role models, and denies all students important knowledge about physics.
The new syllabus has 25 scientists mentioned 56 times. But no women are referred to by name, nor are any contributions women have made to physics included.
This new syllabus focuses completely on male physicists and their work. Women have been and continue to be told physics is primarily a male endeavour.
This syllabus conveys the message that female physicists aren’t significant enough to mention. This is not only incorrect, but discouraging to female students. When we focus entirely on male scientists, we devalue women and their work in this field.
https://theconversation.com/year-11-and-12-students-in-nsw-will-no-longer-learn-about-womens-contributions-to-physics-102988
Kids Don’t Damage Women’s Careers — Men Do
Jessica Valenti for Medium writes:
For those of us uninterested in circus tricks, a bit of perspective: It’s not actually motherhood or kids that derail women’s careers and personal ambitions — it’s men who refuse to do their fair share.
If fathers did the same kind of work at home that mothers have always done, women’s careers could flourish in ways we haven’t yet imagined. But to get there, we need to stop framing mothers’ workplace woes as an issue of “balance,” and start talking about how men’s domestic negligence makes it so hard for us to succeed.
It’s easy to split, for example, who packs a school lunch or dresses a child in the morning. But someone also needs to keep track of those days when lunch needs to be bagged for a field trip, or when it’s time to buy new underwear or sneakers. How many dads do you know who could tell you their child’s correct shoe size?
This kind of invisible work almost always falls on women, and we rarely talk about the impact it has on our professional lives. Imagine if instead of our mind being filled with to-do lists about grocery shopping and dentist appointments, we had available head space for creative thinking around our work and passions. For mothers, the freedom to just think is a privilege.
Studies also show that fathers continue to have significantly more leisure time than mothers and that mothers use their off time to do chores and child care while fathers use time off for hobbies and relaxing. This, too, is about careers: We know that people who have more leisure time and time for creative activities tend to perform better at work.
If women in relationships with men seem to be more concerned with these tasks, perhaps it’s because we know it’s not our husbands who will be looked at askance if our kid goes to school sporting inch-long fingernails or ill-fitting shoes.
Americans need to stop believing that women do the majority of care work because we want to. It’s because we’re expected to, because we’re judged if we don’t, and most of all, because it’s incredibly difficult to find male partners willing to do an equal share of the work.
It’s not that women can’t “have it all,” it’s that men won’t stop taking it.
https://medium.com/s/jessica-valenti/kids-dont-damage-women-s-careers-men-do-eb07cba689b8
The state of Australia's abortion laws: risk of jail is very real
Erica Millar for The Conversation writes:
Abortion is common, safe, and the only criminalised listed medical procedure in Australia due to an archaic, flawed piece of legislation inherited from Victorian England.
“Unlawful abortion” is punishable by up to 10 years’ imprisonment in NSW. Case law permits medical practitioners to perform abortions on physical, mental health, economic or “social stress” grounds.
In 2017, a woman who had experienced reproductive coercion was convicted of attempting to procure a miscarriage.
Also in 2017, the NSW Coalition government unanimously voted against decriminalising abortion. Safe access zones were established in June 2018. The Greens continue to campaign for law repeal.
Australian laws obstruct access to abortion. Gestational limits, which are generally interpreted conservatively, often make second and third trimester abortions accessible solely to those who can afford to travel interstate or overseas.
Abortion remains a doctor’s choice in several jurisdictions. Abortions are generally costly, and one in three women find it difficult or very difficult to finance them. Law repeal is therefore one of many changes necessary to ensure better abortion access.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/sep/13/the-state-of-australias-abortion-laws-risk-of-jail-is-very-real?
We need quotas: Liberal MP Julia Banks' stinging Parliamentary speech
Women’s Agenda reports:
The Liberal Party needs quotas, and there are an equal number of ‘meritorious’ women in the real world as there are men, Julia Banks said during a Parliamentary speech last night.
“The meritocracy argument is completely and utterly flawed. There are an equal number of meritorious Liberal women out there in the real world as there are men. But they won’t come if the barriers to entry and mountains to climb are too high.
Her exit is a significant blow for the Liberal Party, given there are just 13 Liberal women in the House of Reps, compared to 62 men
Prime Minister Scott Morrison responded to Banks’ speech by declaring it’s been a “harrowing time” in the Liberal Party and that his approach is to support his colleagues and “ensure there’s the support available to them that they need.”
That followed comments he made on the ABC earlier this week that women don’t need quotas, but rather more “practical” approaches like training and support.
https://womensagenda.com.au/latest/julia-banks-stinging-speech-quotas/
