The Week in Women
Bad missionaries, bad parents, bad governments, bad tippers, bad men, and some very good dogs
A scene from another life (Marsabit, Kenya, March 2016)
Happy Monday, readers. Welcome to The Week in Women, a roundup of women’s rights news from around the world, followed by links to a few good features, longform pieces, podcasts, and radio stories in the universe of gender equality, international human rights, politics, and whatever else is interesting on the internet.
Enjoy, subscribe, and share.
What to Know
Mission from Hell: An American Christian missionary ran an orphanage in Kenya, was accused of sexually abusing children, and ran away. An “ordinary” woman took him on and won.
Coronavirus casualties: Thanks to Covid, female genital cutting is on the rise.
Re-educated: Chinese Uighurs, members of a Muslim minority, have been sent off to “re-education” camps by the Chinese government. Uighur women have long alleged systematic reproductive abuses, included forced and coerced contraception and sterilization; now, many women are also saying they were raped, sexually abused, and tortured in the internment camps in Xinjiang.
Hot tip: The sub-minimum wage — the base hourly wage employers have to pay to tipped employees like wait staff — is a vestige of slavery. It’s racist, it’s sexist, and it keeps women and families in poverty.
Unessential Workers: Speaking of bad tippers, members of the Trump administration were the very worst.
I love you man: Creating a new vision of what a man could be (finding masculine self-help in a drum circle).
Justice served: The new liberal lion of the Supreme Court is Sonia Sotomayor.
Didn’t see this coming: Mitt Romney has a child allowance plan and it’s actually pretty good.
The Good Guys: The US rejoins the UN Human Rights Council. Trump pulled the nation out in 2018.
Cold comfort: A Harvard professor is in deserved hot water after he wrote a paper arguing, falsely, that sexually enslaved Korean “comfort women” were sex workers operating under voluntary agreements.
Hysteria: That sound you hear? It’s mothers all over America howling in frustration.
Majority-minority: More than half of U.S. state legislatures now have anti-abortion majorities, putting women’s rights and lives at risk across the nation.
She Was Right: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez went on Instagram live to talk about how the Republican Party’s strategy of denial, false apology, blame, and demands to move on is pulled right from the domestic abuser’s handbook.
Who We Believe: Last week in this newsletter, I wrote about who we believe when it comes to accusations of domestic violence. If you want to read more from people who are much smarter than I am, check out this University of Pennsylvania law review article from professors Deborah Epstein (Georgetown law) and Lisa Goodman (Boston College) digging into why and how domestic violence survivors are discredited and disbelieved.
Are Children People? Last week in this newsletter I also wrote about children’s rights and the efforts of the conservative Christian homeschooling movement to subjugate women and endanger and deprive children. The excellent Katherine Stewart wrote a whole book about this, and you can read her over at NBC.
Pandemic within the Pandemic: Women are being excluded from Covid-19 response and recovery plans, even as women make up 70% of frontline workers. Some 47 million women are projected to fall into extreme poverty because of the pandemic.
Pro-life policies: Black maternal health in the U.S. is in an emergency state. Here’s how some lawmakers are trying to improve it.
Backlash: Honduras hardened its already-strict ban on abortion. Women are fighting back.
Resurrection: Trump disbanded a White House office focused on women’s issues. Biden brought it back.
Listen to Men: Marilyn Manson boasted about abusing and harassing women. No one cared.
Hell Hath No Fury Like a Man Scorned: Report sexual harassment, get fired.
Her Too: Tarana Burke on how Black women own their own futures.
The Original Spinster: Queen Elizabeth? Really?
9 to 5: Parents, know your workplace rights.
Rest in Power: Margaret C. Synder, the U.N.’s “first feminist,” died at 91.
First Lady: Yulia Navalnaya, Aleksei Navalny’s wife, is in the spotlight. But that also puts her in the Kremlin’s crosshairs.
Sins of the Daughter: Gulalai Ismail, a Pakistani women’s rights activist, escaped her homeland and found safety in the United States. But Pakistan has now thrown her father in jail, in what critics say is an act of transparent revenge.
Erased from history: Julia Chinn could have been the Second Lady of the United States, married to our ninth Vice President, Richard Mentor Johnson. She was also a slave who was largely erased from the history books. She died before Johnson took office, and Johnson, who was willed ownership of Chinn by his father, never freed her.
Make Babies Not Bombs: Maybe just let the joy of having a baby be enough, you don’t need to fire cannons or set off pipe bombs or shoot guns or start wildfires. A baby is great! Explosions are dangerous! Let the baby be enough.
What to Read
How Andrew Gillum’s Marriage Survived a Night of Scandal (and how the Gillum’s didn’t realize they agreed to be profiled by a real journalist) [GQ]
Risking Everything to Come to America on the Open Ocean [The New York Times]
The Indoor Dining Debate Isn’t a Debate at All [The New Yorker]
Take a Break
…and discover your true sexual orientation.
Hope you have a beautiful week. If you’re enjoying these emails and want even more, please consider a paid subscription. And always, feel free to share this newsletter far and wide.
xx Jill