Visitors to Australia can be refused entry or kicked out if they have been convicted of domestic violence, under a new federal government directive.
Immigration Minister David Coleman’s decision came into force on Thursday, barring anyone who has committed violence against women or children from the country.
Minister Coleman referred to two cases in particular where the department’s visa decision had been overturned by the tribunal.
“There is a case of a person who was guilty of assaulting his young son, who was denied a visa. The administrative appeals tribunal overturned that.
“There was a case of a person who was applying for a student visa who was guilty of assaulting his wife, who was denied a visa. And the administrative appeals tribunal overruled that.”
Current laws only allow the government to revoke the visas of foreigners who fail a character test or who have spent 12 months in jail.
www.sbs.com.au/news/australia-to-refuse-visas-for-domestic-violence-offenders
[category Aust, domestic violence]
Author: fem4admin39
Why some doctors don’t take women’s pain seriously – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
A systematic review in 2018 by Anke Samulowitz was titled “Brave men” and “Emotional women”, confirming that doctors’ perceptions of and interactions with patients were different dependent on their gender.
Men are viewed as stoic and heroically carry on in the face of pain: when a man says that the pain is a problem, he is more likely to be listened to, physically investigated and effectively treated.
Research shows that men are more likely to receive pain relief, whereas women were more likely to be prescribed antidepressants or referred to a mental health service. The “emotional woman” in pain.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-03-30/why-are-women-in-chronic-pain-given-antidepressants/10945368
[category Aust, inequity]
Call for review of gun licence laws
Australia’s gun laws need an urgent review because rapid-fire weapons like the one used by the alleged Christchurch shooter are legally available to hunters and sport shooters.
Gun Control Australia says the existing firearm categorisation system is outdated and has led to high-powered guns flooding the recreational hunting and sport shooting market.
“These firearms pose a significant risk to community safety as they are capable of causing multiple fatalities within a short period of time,” the lobby group’s president Sam Lee said on Tuesday.
“Most Australians don’t realise that our world-leading gun laws are being strategically dismantled as a result of decades of pressure from the well-funded and powerful gun lobby.”
www.sbs.com.au/news/call-for-review-of-gun-licence-laws
[category global, struggle for peace, violence]
‘Massive implications’: when working families fall off the Hinch Cliff
Families are dropping out of daycare, women are cutting back on work and children are beginning school before they are ready as a result of high income-earning families losing access to childcare subsidies.
Government statistics from Senate estimates show 14,000 children dropped out of childcare in the year between September 2017 and 2018, an unusually big fall that many blame on cuts to subsidies for non-working parents or high-income families.
About 15000 families fell off the so-called “Hinch Cliff”, the $350,000 income point at which parents lose access to any government subsidy. It was named for the independent senator who insisted on the cut-off, Derryn Hinch.
[category Aust, inequity, reproductive rights]
Japan’s #KuToo Wants Jobs to Stop Requiring Women Wear Heels
While #MeToo has taken off in parts of Asia, notably finding its own unique forms in South Korea and China, the movement hasn’t quite had its moment in Japan. But a snowballing #KuToo campaign shows women in the country are pushing back against what they see as major inequality in the workplace. Following the surprise popularity of her comments, Ishikawa launched a petition on change.org calling on the country’s Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare to explicitly forbid employers from requiring women to wear certain types of shoes.
http://time.com/5548873/japan-kutoo-high-heels-metoo/
[category global, inequity, workforce discrimination]
‘Butcher of Gatineau’ granted parole, wants to live quiet life
Khaled Farhan, dubbed The Butcher of Gatineau by the press in 1999 after killing and then dismembering his lover days later, has won parole with the hopes of starting a new, quiet life as a transgender woman at an undisclosed halfway house.
After Farhan’s conviction, she(sic) was sent to a men’s prison, where she(sic) spent some time in solitary confinement. According to prison files, she(sic) was put in solitary confinement in 2010 after sending sexually inappropriate letters to guards.
Farhan was also placed in solitary confinement at her(sic) own request after she(sic) expressed a fear for her(sic) life because she identified as a trans woman. Farhan had no problems after being transferred to a women’s prison.
ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/0313-butcher
[category global, trans]
Sharron Davies on the transgender sports row: ‘How can this be fair to women?’
Sharron Davies was stopped by strangers in the street half a dozen times this week. The former Great Britain swimmer – she won a silver medal at the 1980 Moscow Olympics and two Commonwealth golds – is used to being recognised every now and then, but as she walked around Bath on Tuesday, the interactions were of a different kind.
“It was all parents who were just saying to me, ‘Thank you. Thank you for speaking out on this,’” she recalls when we meet at her home near the city. “People didn’t realise what was going on.”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/life/sharron-davies-transgender-sports-rowhow-can-fair-women/
[category global, trans]
International Women’s Day went from bloody revolution to corporate breakfasts – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
While the first “Women’s Day” was held by American socialists in 1908, it was soon picked up by others worldwide. By 1913, it had reached Russia: one of its founders there was Lenin’s wife, Nadya Krupskaya (they married, quite literally, in Siberian exile).
In 2019, International Women’s Day looks very different. Instead of striking for “peace and bread”, women are more likely to gather for platitudes and breakfast.
While it’s been a public holiday in Russia since it triggered the revolution, these days, it’s like a combination of our Mothers’ and Valentine’s Day, where Russians buy gifts to celebrate the women in their lives.
In the West, more than a century after suffragette Sylvia Pankhurst was arrested on her way to speak at IWD 1914, there are still marches in most cities but far more women take to social media than the streets, posting loving tributes to their favourite women.
While IWD may’ve lost its revolutionary edge, it seems it’s never been more prominent in our consciousness.
That’s in part thanks to a new set of champions: brands.
“This is a palatable and marketable feminism because it is non-threatening: it doesn’t address the devastation wrought by capitalism, misogyny and sexism.”
www.abc.net.au/news/2019-03-08/international-womens-day-from-revolution-to-breakfast-cupcakes/10879932
[category Aust, worforce discrimination, inequity]
NHS transgender clinic accused of covering up negative impacts of puberty blockers on children by Oxford professor
Dr Michael Biggs, an associate professor at Oxford’s Department of Sociology claims the Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS) has been giving puberty blocking hormones to children, without robust evidence as to the long-term effects.
It comes after the governor of the clinic based in London with the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust resigned last month in protest at its “blinkered” response to doctors who had raised the alarm about “woefully inadequate” care. There is also another centre in Leeds.
Declaring the trial a success, the clinic has continued to treat over a thousand children with the hormones but Dr Biggs’ research suggests that after a year of treatment “a significant increase” was found in patients who had been born female self-reporting to staff that they “deliberately try to hurt or kill myself”.
Parents also reported “a significant increase in behavioural and emotional problems” and a “significant decrease in physical wellbeing” in children born female, he claims. According to his research, there was no positive impact on “the experience of gender dysphoria”, the diagnosis given to those who are described as feeling intensely uncomfortable with their biological sex.
[category global, trans]
Women Invented Coffee Filters, Wifi, and More
Coffee filters. Monopoly. Windshield wipers. Wireless tech. These very different inventions share one thing in common: they were created by women. Despite their significant contributions, many of these female inventors have gone unrecognized.
In honor of International Women’s Day, take a moment to appreciate these six inventions we wouldn’t have without women.
https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/03/everyday-use-inventions-by-women/?
[category global, herstory]