More than 30 female world leaders including current and former heads of state have called for a fightback against the erosion of women’s rights, with one former minister singling out countries led by “a macho-type strongman” as part of the problem.
Susana Malcorra, the former Argentinian foreign minister, said in some countries the push for women’s rights was seen as something that harmed men, rather than an opportunity to change gender expectations in a way that helped everyone.
“There is a sense of the established power being threatened by women gaining respect,” she said.
Animated Music Video Celebrates Gender Identity & Games
It’s awesome being awesome, isn’t it?
This new song and music video from nerdy duo the Doubleclicks, “I’m Winning,” is all about video games and identity, celebrating the feeling that comes from living with your authentic gender. And the band brought 16 non-binary, trans, and genderqueer artists onboard to bring that winning vision to life. Rebecca Sugar would be proud.
Sex education: Menstrual health to be taught in school by 2020 – BBC News
t will be compulsory to teach about periods at schools in England by 2020, which endometriosis sufferer Alice Smith calls “massive”.
The 23-year-old was diagnosed with the chronic condition at 14 and has been campaigning for menstrual health to be on the school curriculum.
Alice says the new guidelines mean girls will know “from a much younger age what is normal” and what isn’t when it comes to their periods.
Consent is also to be taught at school.
via Sex education: Menstrual health to be taught in school by 2020 – BBC News
Boy ‘scared’ after finding racist graffiti at Salford flats – BBC News
A 10-year-old boy says he is “too scared” to walk to school after racist graffiti was daubed outside his home.
David Yamba found “No Blacks” painted on three doors in his block of flats in Salford on 8 February, five days after his family had moved in.
His father Jackson reported it to Greater Manchester Police on the same day but said on Saturday they “still haven’t been here to investigate”.
The force has since apologised and said it would review its approach.
via Boy ‘scared’ after finding racist graffiti at Salford flats – BBC News
Viewpoint: Jameela Jamil on why airbrushing should be illegal – BBC News
If you buy the products airbrushing is used to advertise, you won’t look like the person in the photograph.
It’s used to smooth lines, hide blemishes, lighten skin, slim features, lengthen limbs, and brighten eyes and teeth.
It exists to sell a fantasy to the consumer that this “perfection” is indeed possible. If you have yet to achieve this beauty standard, it tells you, you should buy some expensive products immediately, because then you will look like the person in the photo. (But, as I said just a moment ago, you won’t.)
via Viewpoint: Jameela Jamil on why airbrushing should be illegal – BBC News
The Interview: Everyday Sexism founder Laura Bates on how teenage boys are being raised on a diet of misogyny | The Sunday Times Magazine | The Sunday Times
When Laura Bates created the Everyday Sexism Project in 2012, I remember thinking if only it had come 40 years earlier, and wondering what we would have reported if it had. Since then more than 150,000 women and girls have posted their personal experiences of sexism on the forum, and public shock at this sheer volume of testimony has done a great deal to galvanise the new feminist resurgence we see today. Bates’s project can look like #MeToo’s twin sister — online, inclusive, contemporary — but it has been sobering to see how many of the experiences posted today could just as easily have been logged when I was at school.
What I do not recognise from the 1980s, however, is a subgenre of sexism that Bates encounters again and again when she visits schools to talk to teenagers. It makes no difference if the school is private or state, co-ed or single sex, in the south or the north; everywhere she goes, boys say the same things. “Rape is a compliment, really,” they tell her. “It’s not rape if she enjoys it.” “It’s normal for girls to cry during sex.” “A girl has to have sex with you if you’re her boyfriend.” Why does Bates even bother talking about consent and assault, they demand, “when everyone knows so many women lie about it”?
Many States Don’t See Link Between Domestic and Gun Violence
We tend to talk about young people and gun violence almost exclusively in the context of school shootings, but the reality is that home can be a very dangerous place for children. More than 130 children were shot and killed in domestic violence incidents in the last year, according to the Miami Herald, McClatchy, and gun-violence outlet The Trace, which have worked with hundreds of teenagers to document the number of children killed in shootings of any kind since the Parkland shooting last February.
Most of the domestic incidents were murder-suicides committed by a family member, and the perpetuator in many cases was also a romantic partner with “clear signs” of a history of domestic violence. In one case, a Texas woman’s ex-husband shot and killed their three children, her new boyfriend, and himself after she told him she was ready to move on. “I’m not going to kill you,” the shooter told Amanda Simpson. “I’m going to leave you to live with it.”
via Many States Don’t See Link Between Domestic and Gun Violence
Why Drug Testing For Sexual Assault Often Fails Victims
n investigation by Buzzfeed News has found that date rape drug testing is notoriously unreliable and inconclusive, yet continue to be presented in courtrooms and by investigators as evidence. The end result, former prosecutors say, is that rapists are walking away free.
Buzzfeed reports on the broken, notoriously flawed system in place for the forensic toxicology of date rape drugs:
America’s system for date rape drug testing is riddled with flaws, according to a review of thousands of pages of lab manuals from every state across the country, as well as dozens of interviews with nurse examiners, toxicologists, law enforcement officials, advocates and lawyers. The testing equipment in some labs isn’t sensitive enough to detect substances at low concentrations, despite the fact that drugs break down quickly in the body, and it may be hours or even days before the victim has recovered sufficiently to report an assault. Other labs test only blood, even though evidence of drugs last much longer in urine, or don’t have the resources to test sexual assault cases at all.
And some labs rely entirely on a type of drug screen so notoriously fallible that the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime recommends that it never be used in drug-facilitated sexual assault cases — noting that “false negative results” caused by its “insufficiently sensitive methods” risk bringing investigations to a premature end.
The Power Book to Become Amazon TV Series From Reed Morano
Amazon audiences will soon see a world controlled by women who can shock the shit of of you. That’s because the company just ordered Naomi Alderman’s book The Power to become a 10-episode series directed by Reed Morano of The Handmaid’s Tale.
First published in 2016, The Power was named one of the ten best books of 2017 by The New York Times, and one of Barack Obama’s favorites as well. It tells the story of a world where women suddenly acquire the power to electrocute people. It starts small but eventually ends up shifting the entire balance of the world, as told via a book within a book, 5,000 years after all this happens.
via The Power Book to Become Amazon TV Series From Reed Morano
Promoting equality in Milton Keynes through the Arts – OpenLearn – Open University
Budding stars of the stage performed to highlight all people are equal and should enjoy social, political and economic rights and opportunities.
Created by Back to Back Theatre , The Democratic Set is an approach to creating short films and performances that explores the belief that all people are equal. The Democratic Set MK was commissioned by The Open University for IF: Milton Keynes International Festival 2018 and produced by The Stables with Independent Cinema Milton Keynes.Filmed in Queen’s Court, centre:mk, the engaging short film below captures a series of live performances and screen-based video portraits by the people of Milton Keynes. The Democratic Set MK premiered at the Festival in 2018.
via Promoting equality in Milton Keynes through the Arts – OpenLearn – Open University