The institution of marriage has curtailed women’s freedom for centuries, says Julie Bindel. So why are so many feminists trying to reclaim the tradition as a subversive act? If you want to get married, she says, just get on with it – but please don’t pretend that being a feminist changes its meaning
This is the reality of what’s happening in women’s refuges around NSW since the NSW government’s Going Home Staying Home homelessness program was introduced in July last year. The changes led to the closure of some women’s refuges. Many other long standing community and feminist run domestic violence refuges have been handed over to large charity providers, who won 75 per cent of the tenders.
The Kempsey Women’s Refuge had a 25-year long record of success in providing services to victims of domestic violence. Now operating as the Kempsey Homeless Support Service for Women, it was taken over by Newcastle-based charity the Samaritans.
A spokesperson for Samaritans told New Matilda the organisation has no experience in running women’s refuges. There is no reference to domestic violence or refuges on their website.
New Matilda has spoken to a number of ex-staff and local domestic violence support workers who say the quality of care for women and children escaping domestic violence has dropped dramatically since the Samaritans Foundation took over the Kempsey refuge.
https://newmatilda.com/2015/03/23/regional-womens-refuges-are-being-ripped-apart/
Margaret Atwood’s evergreen dystopian novel The Handmaid’s Tale is about to become a television drama. Published in 1985, it couldn’t feel more fresh or more timely, dealing as it does with reproductive rights, with the sudden accession to power of a theocracy in the United States, with the demonisation of imagined, pantomime villain “Islamic fanatics”.
Former inmates of the notorious Parramatta Girls Home in Sydney’s west are fighting to turn parts of the site into a hub for services helping women fleeing domestic violence.
Domestic violence services in Western Sydney say more providers are desperately needed to ease the pressure they are under, with the region recording some of the highest rates of domestic violence in Australia.
At this stage, part of the Parramatta Girls Home site has been earmarked for the development of apartments but it is understood the plan is yet to be finalised.
chttp://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-03-25/parramatta-girls-home-into-domestic-violence-refuge/8383144
A woman says she has been left trapped in a “loveless and desperately unhappy” marriage after senior judges refused to allow her to divorce her husband of 40 years on the grounds of unreasonable behaviour.
The highly unusual ruling by the court of appeal triggered calls from divorce lawyers for parliament to introduce “no fault” divorce and warnings that the decision would force separating couples to make more aggressive allegations to justify marital breakdown.
Several White Ribbon members who attended the IWD forum in Hobart last week expressed concerns about White Ribbon’s current resistance to confronting male violence to women in the sex trade. White Ribbon Australia continues to fall behind on best practice policy on stopping all violence to women.
In keeping with the spirit of International Women’s Day, it is time for White Ribbon Australia to stand in solidarity with their international partners who have joined the growing global movement against the global sex-trade and in support Nordic Model laws on prostitution.
http://tasmaniantimes.com/index.php?%2Fweblog%2Farticle%2Fdissent-in-white-ribbon-starts-to-bite%2F
Empress Wu Zetian (also known as Empress Consort Wu, Wu Hou, Wu Mei Niang, Mei-Niang, and Wu Zhao, 624-705 CE, r. 690-704 CE) was the only female emperor in the history of China. She reigned during the Tang Dynasty (618-907 CE) and was one of the most effective and controversial monarchs in China’s history.
Although modern historians, both east and west, have revised the ancient depiction of Wu Zetian as a scheming usurper, that view of her reign still persists in much that is written about her. The woman who believed she was as capable as any man to lead the country continues to be vilified, even if writers now qualify their criticisms, but there is no arguing with the fact that, under Wu Zetian, China experienced an affluence and stability it had never known before. Her reforms and policies lay the foundation for the success of Xuanzong as emperor under whose reign China became the most prosperous country in the world.
While it would be tempting to write off the exchange as simple rudeness, this brand of slight is familiar to most women. Perhaps it happens when you go to buy a car and the salesperson only speaks to your male partner. Or when you meet someone at a work event and they only introduce themselves to the male colleague beside you.
Or, if you’re Angela Merkel, maybe the notoriously misogynist president of the United States refuses to shake your hand or even deign to look at you during a press conference.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/mar/21/trump-did-to-merkel-what-men-do-to-women-all-the-time?
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2017/03/17/angela-merkel-donald-trump-handshake/99310398/
“If I quit, everybody’s going to believe women can’t do this.”
That’s the thought that latched itself into Kathrine Switzer’s head when a male official tried to push her off the course of the Boston Marathon in 1967
Perhaps the most significant of Switzer’s achievements was her role in having the women’s marathon added to the Olympics in 1984 — almost 90 years after the men’s event.
Scientists are working to find answers — but, although it is as common as asthma and diabetes, endometriosis is allocated only a fraction of the millions of dollars they each receive in research funding.
