Author: fem4admin39

UK judges change court rules on child contact for violent fathers

Senior judges are taking steps to end the presumption that a father must have contact with a child where there is evidence of domestic abuse that would put the child or mother at risk.

The reforms are to be introduced in the family courts after campaigning by the charity Women’s Aid, which identified that 19 children have been killed in the last 10 years by their violent fathers after being given contact with them by judges.

The changes include a demand from one of the most senior family court judges for all the judiciary to have further training on domestic violence and to act to ensure women and children are protected.

He also said judges needed to be more alert to perpetrators of domestic violence using the courts as a way to continue their abuse. “Family court judges should be sure that they understand the new offence of coercion [controlling or coercive behaviour in an intimate or family relationship],” he said.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/jan/20/uk-judges-change-court-rules-on-child-contact-for-violent-fathers-domestic-abuse?CMP=share_btn_tw

Calls for Family Violence Victims to Access Super

HESTA, along with others in the community sector, is urging the federal government to change superannuation rules, proposing that victims and survivors of family violence be able to access up to $10,000 of their super under compassionate grounds.

“Finances are too often a barrier for women trying to leave a violent relationship and, unfortunately, financial support for survivors of family violence is grossly inadequate,” Blakey said.

“While early access to super is currently possible to stop the bank selling your home, pay for a dependant’s funeral or get medical treatment under compassionate grounds, this is denied in instances of family violence.

“We think it’s entirely appropriate that super regulations extend compassion to victims and survivors of family violence to empower women with the financial means to escape abusive relationships.”

(ed: But shouldn’t it be his super that is depleted in these circumstances?)

https://probonoaustralia.com.au/news/2017/06/calls-family-violence-victims-access-super/?

NSW government accused of “sanitising” its review of scripture in schools

The NSW government’s review of scripture in public schools deleted a section of a 2015 draft report showing children were exposed to lessons on the conservative Christian concept of “headship” – where women “submit” to their husbands – and negative messages on homosexuality.

The draft ARTD Consultants report found an unidentified major Christian publisher’s lesson material taught “the concept of ‘headship’ and that women should submit to their husbands, abstinence only sex education, negative LGBTI messages and that sexual intimacy is only acceptable to God between a married man and woman”.

The concept of “headship” is most strongly supported in the Sydney Anglican Diocese where women cannot be priests, but it divides even Christian groups. Some delegates walked out of a recent evangelical women’s conference in Sydney after a speaker suggested women should submit to men at home, in church and in the workplace where they should consider themselves “helpers” of male colleagues.

http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/nsw-government-accused-of-sanitising-its-review-of-scripture-in-schools-20170618-gwtl5f.html

The terrifying truth about online trolls: there is nothing virtual about them.

“Essentially the internet is no different to our offline lives. Just like we have civil society offline we need it online too,” she says. “If someone came up to me in the supermarket and said “I’m going to cut your uterus out and kill your children” no one would suggest not visiting the supermarket.”

And yet, that is effectively the advice law enforcement have given victims of cyber hate and cyber bullying.

‘Stay off the internet love’, is what Gorman was told by police when she reported the flood of abuse she was facing.

“Women are increasingly becoming the objects of these tsunamis of hate. It is the virus of misogyny and it’s not ok.”

https://womensagenda.com.au/latest/eds-blog/online-trolls-are-terrifying/

Slap the Pimps on the Back: Prostituted women Don’t Matter in Australia

Sitting in front of the select committee in South Australian parliament to testify against the decriminalisation of sex-buyers, pimps and profiteers in 2016 I could have been forgiven for thinking the sex-trade was comprised of women with disabilities buying sex from men. My experience of being bought by men along with that of currently and formerly prostituted women seemed to disappear in a puff of smoke.

Not all of the bill is problematic. On paper it has some healthy rhetoric around removing restrictions on the prostituted on the basis of stigmatisation and discrimination. It is ‘fluffy’ language and meaningless in terms of efficacy but at least it looks like they tried. Scrolling through the proposed bill nothing seems untoward until one finds the clause protecting pimps,sex-buyers, advertisers and procurers. That they are added under such protections is a dangerous and unnecessary inclusion in an otherwise harmless kind of document.

https://sim345.wordpress.com/2017/06/11/slap-the-pimps-on-the-back-prostituted-women-dont-matter-in-australia/

Varadkar announces abortion referendum for next year

Health Minister Simon Harris would be responsible for bringing forward legislation to allow for the referendum on the eight amendment, which gives an equal right to life to the mother and the unborn.

On Tuesday, The United Nations Human Rights Committee ruled for the second time that Ireland’s abortion laws currently violate women’s human rights.

The ruling came after an Irish woman, Siobhán Whelan, was denied access to abortion services in Ireland following a diagnosis, in 2010 of a fatal foetal impairment.

The Committee said that Ireland must provide Ms. Whelan with reparations for the harm she suffered and reform its laws to ensure other women do not continue to face similar violations.

http://www.newstalk.com/Varadkar-announces-abortion-referendum-for-next-year–
[category: global, reproductive rights]

Feminist Camille Paglia On Transgenderism: ‘The Cold Biological Truth Is That Sex Changes Are Impossible’

Asked by Jonathan Last why there has not been an open confrontation between feminism and transgenderism, Paglia responded that there has already been such a confrontation in the United Kingdom, citing the transgender community’s attacks on iconic feminist Germaine Greer and radical Australian feminist Sheila Jeffreys, the author of Gender Hurts.

Then, the shot straight from the hip: “The cold biological truth is that sex changes are impossible. Every single cell of the human body remains coded with one’s birth gender for life. Intersex ambiguities can occur, but they are developmental anomalies that represent a tiny proportion of all human births.”

Paglia added, “Like Germaine Greer and Sheila Jeffreys, I reject state-sponsored coercion to call someone a ‘woman’ or a ‘man’ simply on the basis of his or her subjective feeling about it.”

http://www.dailywire.com/news/17591/feminist-camille-paglia-transgenderism-cold-hank-berrien
[category: global, reproductive rights, feminism]

ALHR one of 88 organisations urging government to further protect victims of domestic violence renting in NSW

In an initiative led by Women’s Legal Service NSW, ALHR along with 87 other organisations has signed an open letter to Minister Kean and Minister Goward, urging the NSW Government to expand the evidence victims of domestic violence will be able to rely on to end their tenancy immediately without penalty.

https://alhr.org.au/alhr-one-88-organisations-urging-government-protect-victims-domestic-violence-renting-nsw/
[category: Aust, domestic violence]

American Economic Association – Why do mother’s earn less?

Mothers tend to work fewer hours and earn less than women without children.

It’s called the “motherhood penalty,” and while economists are well-aware of the phenomenon, they have struggled to understand why it exists.

University of Amsterdam professor Erik Plug explores the motherhood penalty in a paper that appears in this month’s issue of the American Economic Review.

(ed: No idea why they should struggle with perceiving the obvious.)

https://www.aeaweb.org/research/why-do-mothers-earn-less

The Abortion Battlefield

The Trump administration has made it clear that it, along with the Republican Congress, will do everything possible to bring an end to abortion. Consider the omens: one of Trump’s first executive orders was to stop funding for overseas medical facilities that even mention abortion as an option. His attorney general, Jeff Sessions, referred to Roe v. Wade as “one of the worst, colossally erroneous Supreme Court decisions of all time.” The new Congress is poised to eliminate federal funding for Planned Parenthood, the largest provider of reproductive health care services in the United States—which includes cancer screening and contraception as well as abortions. As governor of Indiana, Vice President Pence signed one of the most restrictive of the state abortion laws. “I long for the day,” he has said, “that Roe v. Wade is sent to the ash heap of history.” If Neil Gorsuch, Trump’s addition to the Supreme Court, is in agreement, which is likely, Roe v. Wade could be overturned or further eroded if a relevant case comes before the Court.

In the past half-century, women have made giant strides toward equality, and there is no question that a major reason is the availability of reliable contraception and safe and legal abortions. Women now earn more undergraduate and graduate degrees than men and are closing the income gap (from 58 cents to a man’s dollar in 1968 to 78 cents in 2013). But they have not reached parity, and there is still a glass ceiling. Moreover, further progress is not inevitable, and change does not move in only one direction. We can go backward as well as forward—something Iranian women experienced in 1979, and Afghan women in the 1990s. It will take awareness of the fragility of progress, as well as political action, to stop the Trump administration from turning back the clock.

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2017/06/22/the-abortion-battlefield
[category: global, reproductive rights]