Category: Gender Equality

Top 10 worst excuses for not appointing women executives – BBC News

~ mcequality

The top 10 excuses for not appointing women were:
“I don’t think women fit comfortably into the board environment”
“There aren’t that many women with the right credentials and depth of experience to sit on the board – the issues covered are extremely complex”
“Most women don’t want the hassle or pressure of sitting on a board”
“Shareholders just aren’t interested in the make-up of the board, so why should we be?”
“My other board colleagues wouldn’t want to appoint a woman on our board”
“All the ‘good’ women have already been snapped up”
“We have one woman already on the board, so we are done – it is someone else’s turn”
“There aren’t any vacancies at the moment – if there were I would think about appointing a woman”
“We need to build the pipeline from the bottom – there just aren’t enough senior women in this sector”
“I can’t just appoint a woman because I want to”

via Top 10 worst excuses for not appointing women executives – BBC News

A Conversation with Michaela Mendelsohn, the Fast-Food CEO Determined to Bring Jobs to the Trans…

~ mcequality

Ever since, she’s been a major force within the LGBTQ community, particularly as the founder of TransCanWork, a nationwide effort to help “transgender people thrive in the workplace”; and vice chair of The Trevor Project, an organization that provides “crisis intervention and suicide prevention services to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning youth.” In addition, she was named the National Face of Diversity by the restaurant industry earlier this year, and next month, she’ll serve as the Grand Marshal of the 2018 L.A. Pride Parade.

via A Conversation with Michaela Mendelsohn, the Fast-Food CEO Determined to Bring Jobs to the Trans…

Aberdeen sanitary product pilot to start across Scotland – BBC News

~ mcequality

A project to provide free sanitary products to women from low income households in Aberdeen is to be rolled out across the country.
The Scottish government scheme – designed to tackle “period poverty” – was launched in July last year.
The six-month pilot was continued in March, and has distributed free products to more than 1,000 women.
Equalities Secretary Angela Constance has announced the project will be extended across Scotland.

via Aberdeen sanitary product pilot to start across Scotland – BBC News

Hunt ‘determined’ to eliminate doctors’ gender pay gap – BBC News

~ mcequality

A review announced by the health secretary will look at why male doctors are paid on average £10,000 more than female doctors, as the BBC reported.
Across the whole NHS, women are paid 23% less than men despite far more women being employed.
A leading female doctor is to lead the review into the reasons behind the gap.
Prof Jane Dacre, president of the Royal College of Physicians, will lead the independent review into gender pay inequality.

via Hunt ‘determined’ to eliminate doctors’ gender pay gap – BBC News

What some women and girls have to put in their underwear each month – BBC News

~ mcequality

We asked photographic artist Maisie Cousins to interpret the lengths that some people in the UK have to go to because of their periods.

Poverty, homelessness or stigma forces some women and girls to come up with makeshift sanitary products.

Her photographs here are in contrast to the sanitised images of periods often seen in advertising and media.

Here are some of the items that a 2018 survey by charity Plan International found that women and girls use instead of traditional sanitary products.

via What some women and girls have to put in their underwear each month – BBC News

Ireland Appears to Have Voted in a Landslide to Repeal Abortion Ban

~ mcequality

During the campaign, the story of a woman named Savita Halappanavar was again used to push for change. Halappanavar died in 2012, the Guardian reports, after suffering a miscarriage in Galway. She went to the hospital 17 weeks pregnant and in extreme pain, and was told a miscarriage was likely inevitable. However, she was refused a number of times after asking for an abortion, because a fetal heartbeat was detected. Abortion is against the law in Ireland even in cases of “rape, incest or fatal fetal abnormality.” She died from sepsis eight days after being admitted, at the age of 31.

via Ireland Appears to Have Voted in a Landslide to Repeal Abortion Ban

Six New Sexual Abuse Allegations Added to USC Student Lawsuit Against Campus Gynecologist 

~ mcequality

On Monday, a class-action lawsuit was filed against George Tyndall, the University of Southern California student health center’s primary gynecologist who was permitted to continue practicing at the school despite years of sexual misconduct allegations dating back to the 1990s. Also included in the lawsuit are USC and its board of trustees. The original complaint detailed the experiences of plaintiff Lucy Chi, a graduate student at the school who was assaulted by Tyndall. He’s currently being accused of making sexualized comments about patients’ bodies while giving exams and racially targeting Asian patients, among other heinous crimes.

via Six New Sexual Abuse Allegations Added to USC Student Lawsuit Against Campus Gynecologist 

I’m Tired of Enduring the Abuse and Pain That Makes Me a ‘Strong Black Woman’

~ mcequality

It started because I couldn’t hear my co-workers. We were returning from a trip where we had seen an exhibit that discussed the explicit manifestation of racial bigotry and how it was perpetrated by those meant to govern and protect. We used the words that we are comfortable using in the safety of our offices, words that I had temporarily forgotten are triggers for the outside world.

“White privilege” is not a term up for debate among my co-workers. “Systemic inequity” is the basis of our discussions. The analysis that drives our work is an understanding that racism is the cause for negative life outcomes for folks who look like me.

With this conversation going on, I asked the driver to please lower the volume on the radio. He responded rudely. He was not going to do so. I let it go. I was in the first row of four in a van and nearest the driver.

via I’m Tired of Enduring the Abuse and Pain That Makes Me a ‘Strong Black Woman’

The Bachelorette’s Meredith Phillips Says She Was Drugged and Sexually Assaulted During the Show’s Filming 

~ mcequality

“She was hired to give me a massage and she said, ‘I’m going to give you a pill.’ I just assumed it was an aspirin or something to loosen up my back or a Tylenol or something, and it wasn’t that, that’s for sure. The last thing I remember is she got naked and she was in the tub with me rubbing my back and rubbing areas that probably she shouldn’t have. Then I was put in bed. I woke up naked. Don’t remember much. I wasn’t even drinking.”

via The Bachelorette’s Meredith Phillips Says She Was Drugged and Sexually Assaulted During the Show’s Filming