Category: Equality of Opportunity

Angelina Jolie’s Breadwinner spotlights Afghan girls’ plight – BBC News

~ mcequality

The Breadwinner, made by Irish film-maker Nora Twomey, is an animation written, produced and directed by women, and adapted from the Canadian bestseller by author Deborah Ellis.
It features the voice of teenage Canadian actor Saara Chaudry as Parvana, an 11-year-old growing up under the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2001.
When her father is wrongfully arrested, Parvana disguises herself as a boy to save her mother and sisters from starvation, as women are unable to leave their house without a male relative.
Although it’s a story for children, it doesn’t disguise the details of life under the Taliban – including what happens when a woman is caught in the street without a burka.

via Angelina Jolie’s Breadwinner spotlights Afghan girls’ plight – BBC News

Male nurse: ‘I was told to become a brickie’ – BBC News

~ mcequality

David, who works in the dermatology department at the Royal Victoria Hospital, in Belfast, says: “I love the job – and think more men should consider it. But because of the stereotypes surrounding it, they don’t.
“People ask me, ‘Are you a doctor?’ Then when I say, ‘No, I’m a nurse,’ they say, ‘Do you want to become a doctor?’ I have to say, ‘No, this is what I want to do.’ Some people are surprised.
“There’s a gender imbalance – and that’s not good for patients.
“One day when I was on shift, there was an elderly man who clearly looked uncomfortable about the idea of a female nurse providing personal care.

via Male nurse: ‘I was told to become a brickie’ – BBC News

Mothers Are Incarcerated at Record Rates, Yet Prison-Nursery Beds Go Empty

~ mcequality

Prison nurseries have been proposed in other states as a way to address maternal incarceration. In 2010, the Department of Justice issued a call for proposals to develop more prison nurseries. In 2014, Wyoming built and furnished a nursery that could accommodate 11 mothers and babies. Funding and staffing shortages prevented the nursery from opening, and as of July 2017, the building sat empty. In Connecticut, where 21 babies were born to incarcerated mothers in 2013 alone, the House Judiciary Committee passed a bill to establish a prison nursery. The bill never made it to the floor for a full vote. In Oregon, where the number of women in prison has doubled in the past 15 years, there are similar efforts to establish a nursery at the state’s sole women’s prison.

But, given the strict criteria for many of these nurseries, some wonder if establishing more prison nurseries is actually the solution. Lorie Goshin, now an assistant professor at the Hunter-Bellevue School of Nursing, has also studied alternatives to incarceration for mothers and children. “U.S. prison nurseries have very strict eligibility criteria,” she said, “similar to those that make women great candidates for community alternatives to incarceration.” Goshin points out that criminal justice reform efforts are decreasing the numbers of people imprisoned for low-level, nonviolent crimes. But, she added, “women who face incarceration may be more likely to have violent convictions. It will be important for other states to consider expanding their eligibility criteria to meet the needs of their pregnant incarcerated citizens in this changing criminal justice landscape.”

via Mothers Are Incarcerated at Record Rates, Yet Prison-Nursery Beds Go Empty

Actresses and arsonists: Women who won the vote – BBC News

~ mcequality

Margaret Bondfield was one of very few working class women who rose to the top of the suffrage movement.
Born in Chard, Somerset, in 1873, the second youngest of eleven children, she became an apprentice at a drapers in Brighton aged 14.
There she saw how the daily grind wore down the women workers and affected their self-respect. She observed they were left with little time or energy to pursue interests away from work, with many girls seeming intent on getting married as early as possible in order to escape the drudgery.
Ms Bondfield left Brighton and went to live with her brother in London – working, again, in a shop. She became an active trade unionist and was shocked by the working culture of long hours, low wages, poor diet and requirement to “live in” in often dismal dormitories.

via Actresses and arsonists: Women who won the vote – BBC News

Does Pardoning Britain’s Suffragettes for Lawbreaking Really Honor Their Efforts? 

~ mcequality

Of course, there are the opponents with laws-are-laws arguments; “Instinctively I can see where that campaign is coming from so I will take a look and see if there is a proposal that I can take more seriously,” home secretary Amber Rudd told Good Morning Britain. “But in terms of pardoning for arson, for violence like that … that is a little trickier.”

But there are other objections, too. Before the announcement, historian Fern Riddell—who’s got an intriguing book out in April about the radical activist Kitty Marion—wrote a piece for the Guardian about how the women’s suffrage movement in Britain encompassed both peaceful protests and more controversial direct action

via Does Pardoning Britain’s Suffragettes for Lawbreaking Really Honor Their Efforts?