Melanie Perkins’ company Canva is now worth $8.6 billion

Melanie Perkins has become one of the wealthiest women in Australia this week, after her graphic design company Canva, which she co-founded with Cliff Obrecht and Cameron Adams, raised US$60 million in new funding.

This latest round of funding makes Canva the largest privately-owned company in Australia. The Sydney-based company, with more than a thousand employees operating across multiple countries across the world, operates on a “freemium” model that allows its users to access its software for free to design products including posters, websites and business cards.

Source: Melanie Perkins’ company Canva is now worth $8.6 billion

An Apology to JK Rowling

JK Rowling recently published an eminently reasonable, heartfelt treatise, outlining why it is important to preserve the category of woman.

Rowling is being subjected to an extraordinary level of abuse. There seems to be no cognitive dissonance among those who accuse her of insensitivity and then proceed to call her a cunt, bitch or hag and insist that they want to assault and even kill her (see this compilation of tweets on Medium).

Those of us on the left—and left-wing feminists in particular—who find trans ideology fraught, for all the reasons Rowling outlines, are a very small group. While Rowling is clearly privileged, she has also become the figurehead of a rapidly dwindling and increasingly vilified group of feminists, pejoratively labelled terfs, who want to preserve women’s sex-based rights and spaces.

As leftist thinkers who believe in freedom of speech and thought, who find creeping ideological and bureaucratic control alarming, we are horrified by these increasingly vicious denunciations by the left.

Source: An Apology to JK Rowling – Areo

Stop the brutality: Abolish prisons

Most women in prisons have gone through violent or sexual abuse. These already vulnerable women are then subjected to more abuse from the state. They need people to start speaking out for them, not judging them.

As an advocate for First Nation women prisoners, especially Yamatji prisoners, I find the present situation disturbing. Prisoner numbers just keep growing and new prisons keep getting built. I have learned that the number of First Nations women being locked up is growing at a faster rate than any other demographic. These women, who have more than likely encountered an aggressive police officer or two, are taken from their children or, even worse, their children are put in state care. Prison breaks up families, causing more social issues back in the community.

Women detainees also face violations of their bodies via multiple strip searches. What the average Australian would call a violation of a woman’s body is done legally in prison. The prison system legally violates a woman’s body in the name of law and order.

I support prison abolition and while people are being locked away in cages, I will continue to be an abolitionist. There is not only a strong need to abolish the police force but an even stronger need to abolish the prison system. They work hand in hand, the police and prison systems.

[Deborah Green is a Yamatji woman and writer.]

Source: Stop the brutality: Abolish prisons | Green Left

Former Justice Dyson Heydon sexually harassed 6 women, High Court finds

An independent inquiry has found Justice Dyson Heydon sexually harassed six young women as they worked as judge’s associates in the High Court of Australia.

The investigation was prompted after Josh Bornstein, Principal lawyer with Maurice Blackburn Lawyers, wrote to the Chief Justice and the Chief Executive of the Court in March 2019 notifying them of complaints of sexual harassment against Mr Heydon, as well as raising concerns about inadequate procedures within the High Court for addressing judicial misconduct.

Mr Bornstein said the investigation had unveiled a pattern of predatory behaviour and sexual harassment over many years by Mr Heydon towards young female associates he employed and highlighted a gap in both addressing judicial misconduct and protecting their employees from that misconduct.

“At the time that this sexual harassment occurred, Dyson Heydon was in his 60s, a conservative judge, a prominent Christian and a married man,” Mr Bornstein said.

Source: Former Justice Dyson Heydon sexually harassed 6 women, High Court finds – Lawyers Weekly

https://www.mauriceblackburn.com.au/about/media-centre/media-statements/2020/investigation-upholds-sexual-harassment-complaints-high-court-judge-dyson-heydon/

 

All Nigerian States Declare State of Emergency Over Rape and Gender-Based Violence

Governors of Nigeria’s 36 states have unanimously declared a state of emergency, after a series of high-profile cases of violence perpetrated against women sparked nationwide protests by activists both online and at rallies.

“I am particularly upset at recent incidents of rape, especially of very young girls. The police are pursuing these cases with a view to bringing perpetrators of these heinous crimes to swift justice,” President Muhammadu Buhari said in a televised Democracy Day address, on June 12.

Nigeria has very low conviction rates for rape cases — which contributes further to gender-based violence because perpetrators aren’t held to account.

Source: All Nigerian States Declare State of Emergency Over Rape and Gender-Based Violence

The stranded babies of Kyiv and the women who give birth for money

Lockdown exposed the scale of the commercial baby business in Ukraine, and now women hired for their wombs are speaking out.

The babies’ plight made headlines around the world, but a month on, some 50 babies remain in the hotel and the saga is casting a harsh spotlight on the ethics and scale of the booming commercial child-bearing industry in Ukraine.

Mykola Kuleba, Ukraine’s ombudsman for children, has now said reforming a system he described as a violation of children’s rights was not enough and that surrogacy services for foreign couples in Ukraine should be banned.

In a cash-strapped economy however, where the average wage is £300 a month and the war with Russia and its proxies continues, many impoverished women, especially in small towns and rural areas, are still lining up to carry babies for money, even if they are paying a heavy health and psychological price, as campaigners believe.

Source: The stranded babies of Kyiv and the women who give birth for money | World news | The Guardian

‘Rough sex’ defence will be banned, says justice minister (UK)

The so-called “rough sex gone wrong” defence will be outlawed in new domestic abuse legislation, a justice minister has told MPs.

Campaigners want to make it the expectation that murder charges are brought against those suspected of killing a person during sex.

As it stands, if someone kills another person during sexual activity they could be charged with manslaughter alone. To murder someone, there needs to have been an intention to kill that person or to cause them grievous bodily harm (GBH).

Speaking to MPs at the Commons’ Public Bill Committee, Jess Phillips said: “The law should be clear to all – you cannot consent to serious injury or death, but the case law is not up to the task.”

Source: ‘Rough sex’ defence will be banned, says justice minister – BBC News

Police in England and Wales dropping rape inquiries when victims refuse to hand in phones

Rape investigations are being systematically dropped after victims refuse to hand over their mobile phones for analysis, an investigation has found.

Freedom of information requests reveal that about one in five complainants decline to submit to what has been termed a “digital strip search”. In every case where a complainant refused to allow officers to download information the case was closed.

Silkie Carlo, the director of Big Brother Watch, said: “Our investigation shows that rape victims are being systematically denied justice if they defend their data rights. Victims of no other crime are expected to surrender their digital lives to such speculation and scrutiny.

Olivia (not her real name) reported being drugged and attacked by strangers. Police asked for seven years of phone data, and her case was dropped after she refused.

“I kept trying to ask them if the data that they took could be restricted just to the period of time of relevance to what actually happened, and they said no.”

Source: Police in England and Wales dropping rape inquiries when victims refuse to hand in phones | Rape and sexual assault | The Guardian

Trans Rights are Men’s Rights; No Wonder they Clash with Feminists

We have now reached a point where men have officially gained access to the protected spaces of women and girls without any credentials. Men who say they identify as women are now in the position to frisk women at the airport, share rooms with them, and be the doctor, or the “woman” in the room, when a woman or girl is having a medical examination. Anyone who expresses discomfort with these arrangements is reprimanded and shamed, and the men who say they’re women are made out to be the victims. Male rights activists have managed to create a reality where they can violate women and then claim to be personally injured by any objection.

Women as a group have suffered a huge loss of our sex-based protections due to the demands of these activists. Women as a sex have become legally obsolete. In many places, any man who says he identifies as a woman, based on stereotypes rather than biological reality, can walk right into a women’s locker room, bathroom, or dressing room and start undressing. If anyone tries to challenge his right to enter, they may be sued, blacklisted, or fired. Even men who say they’re women agree that women’s bathrooms are necessary to ensure a safe and comfortable place to remove some clothing in the absence of males. How is it that men have so easily accumulated the rights to invade women’s private spaces so quickly and easily?

Source: Trans Rights are Men’s Rights; No Wonder they Clash with Feminists | Women’s Liberation Radio News