Gold Stars and special thanks to: ramara, Besame, and Tara the Antisocial Social Worker for all the links!
Don’t miss WOW2, the monthly sister blog to This Week on the War on Women, which posted a little earlier tonight. The February list of ‘Women Trailblazers and Events in Our History’ is really packed for such a short month!
Do you know these women? Discover them at WOW2!
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The GOOD News:
- A Tribute to an unsung heroine, written by her friend and fellow-heroine Marian Wright Edelman, of the Children’s Defense Fund. — cdf.childrensdefense.org/…
- xojane’s Male version of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition. Have a good laugh at the men in the same ridiculous poses. — www.xojane.com/…
- President Obama's budget removes funding for "abstinence-only" education — Obama's FY 2017 budget cuts out funding for abstinence-only sex ed. Interesting because when he first took office, he changed W's policy of funding abstinence-only programs exclusively, and added funding for programs that had proven positive effects, but did not eliminate all a-o funding. — www.patheos.com/…
The Pope decides birth control is lesser evil in areas affected by the Zika virus. Hopefully this is just the beginning of a new direction by the church — www.npr.org/…
Wonkette's take on the Kentucky bill to protect men from themselves, requiring counseling and spousal consent before getting Viagra, is hilarious. — wonkette.com/…
NOT Good News:
- Christian conservatives push child marriage with creepy meme comparing girls to apples: “Girls are like apples on trees. Their fathers are the farmers, whose job is to care for them. He must protect his apples from pests and disease. He must guard them against thieves who may pick his apples prematurely. ...” — www.rawstory.com/…
- Indigenous woman on the painful truth behind the rape scene in “Revenant”— indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/…
A comedian tweets that, as a woman, she hopes to someday have as many rights as a gun. She then gets an avalanche of harassment and threats over it. Do Gun Lovers have any sense of humor? — medium.com/…
- Native Americans are Forced to Speak Up, Disrupt— Presidential Hopefuls omit Native Americans in their campaign speeches. — indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/…
- How Abusers Work — With Truly Chilling Calculation— www.facebook.com/...
International News:
CANADA— Over 1,200 Murdered and Missing Aboriginal Women: Minister of Indigenous Affairs Carolyn Bennett says scope of tragedy extends far beyond numbers and statistics — indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/… — Related: 8th annual Stolen Sisters Memorial March — www.timescolonist.com/…
CHINA— Women's Rights Crackdown exposes deepening crisis in Chinese society — www.theguardian.com/...
GUATEMALA — One of the Worst Places on Earth to be a Woman? Raped, murdered and mutilated — Human rights groups say Guatemala is witnessing epidemic levels of violence against women. — viralwomen.com/…
NIGERIA — Women Freed from Boko Haram Face Rejection Back Home —women and girls, many of whom were raped by militants, have been labeled “annoba,” which means epidemics… www.nytimes.com/…
SYRIA — Women Joining Syrian Civil Defense ‘White Helmets,’ the medics and search-and-rescue teams that comb the bombing rubble to save lives — diary.thesyriacampaign.org/...
Former ISIS Sex Slaves Form All-Female Battalion ‘Sun Ladies’ to launch assault on their ISIS abusers — en.alalam.ir/…
- Best Country to be a Working Woman? —Scandinavian countries rank highest — www.weforum.org/…
- Sex and the Citizenry: the global laws that leave women and children in limbo — www.theguardian.com/…
Medical News and Reproductive Rights:
- Contraceptive Coverage and the ACA — Guttmacher Institute and George Washington University Professor of Health Law and Policy Sara Rosenbaum filed amicus brief for case to be heard in March — ‘U.S. Supreme Court should hold that religiously affiliated nonprofits cannot invoke their religious views to block their employees and their employees’ dependents from receiving the contraceptive insurance coverage that is guaranteed under the Affordable Care Act (ACA)’ — www.guttmacher.org/...
- Women's Health Policy Report: what could happen in two cases scheduled in March after Scalia's death — www.womenshealthpolicyreport.org/…
- Preventing Cervical Cancer— Advice from the FDA— consumer.healthday.com/…
- Study Shows Stroke's Aftermath Often Worse for Women, Minorities — consumer.healthday.com/...
Arts and Culture:
- Kendrick Lamar won’t face backlash like Beyoncé: Socially conscious art, sexual expression and the policing of black women’s politics — It's no accident his high-profile political performance was lauded while Beyoncé's was slammed by skeptics — www.salon.com/…
- Kesha Has Been Ordered to Remain Under Contract with Her Alleged Rapist — Her fans take to Twitter to express their outrage. — www.womenshealthmag.com/…
- Keren Cytter: Radical gender reversals and theatrical performance — What if you woke up one morning as the opposite sex? Israeli artist Cytter’s live piece bridges dance, theatre, and film. — www.khanacademy.org/…
Not Yet, Surfragette: Women Athletes Still Sidelined At Big-Wave Competition — Despite a regulatory requirement to develop a plan to include women surfers, the organizers of the iconic Mavericks big-wave surf competition - staged most years on a deadly section of coastline here -- did not include any women in this year's contest — www.huffingtonpost.com/...
Worth the Read:
WMC Media Watch: The Gender Gap in Coverage of Reproductive Issues
(scroll down from intro to WMC — story begins on page 4)
….news coverage of reproductive issues remains uneven in American media, with the people whose bodies do the reproducing (or not) often left out of the discussion. New findings from the Women’s Media Center (WMC) show that even in coverage of women’s health issues, men’s voices still eclipse out women’s. Women journalists wrote just 37 percent of articles about reproductive issues….
When Justice is Battered
MOST, IF NOT all, women in prison come from abusive backgrounds, including incest, domestic violence, emotional and/or physical abuse. Half of the women in U.S. prisons would not be there at all if they were men because of far fewer alternatives to prison for women, and because of gender-based crimes, including prostitution, crimes committed to support children when courts fail to go after deadbeat dads, and crimes committed against or under duress of an abuser.
6 Simple Ways White Women Can Be Feminist Allies for Black History Month
Not only is Black History Month the shortest month of the year (seriously!?), but Black women are regularly left out of big conversations and decisions, and their achievements are overlooked. However, white women allies can be co-conspirators to disrupt this trend—allies in ensuring Black women are equally recognized during Black History Month, Women’s History Month and every damn day of the year.
Unclassifiable:
- Men and Women Give Really Different Answers to Who’s the Smartest in the Class — Anthropologist Dan Grunspan, studying habits of undergraduates, noticed a persistent trend: Male students assumed their male classmates knew more about course material than female students — even if young women earned better grades. — www.washingtonpost.com/…
- Sympathetic Story about Serial Rapist Daniel Holtzclaw — Printed then Retracted by SB Nation — ‘it’s hard to understand why it’s relevant, why this story was written, why it was published, and what lessons we’re supposed to glean.’ Failure to make it to the NFL leads to raping 13 black women?! Editorial director Spencer Hall apologizes. —jezebel.com/... — and follow-up at fansided.com/…
- ‘Nice Guy’ looks at the ‘Friend Zone’and the violence of the guys who can’t take rejection— theaquinian.net/…
Action Item:
Ultraviolet petition— The Path to Equal Pay — act.weareultraviolet.org/…
Support for Abuse Victims and Survivors
CREDIT: ‘Defend Rights of Women and Girls’ poster for Amnesty International — Shepherd Fairey
- When Stalkers Use the Law Against Their Victims— Sanctuary for the Abused — abusesanctuary.blogspot.com/…
- The National Domestic Violence Hotline— www.thehotline.org/…
- Worth Repeating: There’s No Comparing Male and Female Harassment Online — Recent arguments have suggested that men get harassed more than women on the Internet, but this ignores the violent reality —time.com/…