The Week in Women
Women talk with other smart women. Contraception saves lives. Wages for housework. Women pay the price of war in Ethiopia, and gear up to go backwards in Afghanistan.
Scenes from another life: Uganda, May 2019
Good 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
Don’t let the door hit ya: The life and death of a woman-hater: How Rush Limbaugh made the GOP the party of misogyny. And how he turned feminists into “feminazis.”
Family planning saves lives: If you only read one piece from this newsletter this week, make it this: Venezuelan women lose access to contraception, and control over their lives. This is the future that “pro-life” movements and the Catholic Church are pushing for the world over. Is it the future the rest of us want?
Female Firsts: Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala is the first woman and the first African to lead the WTO. At the top of her list: Global economic recovery from Covid-19.
Collateral damage: Women and girls are paying the price for Ethiopia’s war.
Reproductive justice: Peru’s government forcibly sterilized indigenous women from the mid-1990s through 2001. Women are demanding answers.
Hot tip: The sub-minimum wage means that women have to tolerate sexual harassment in the workplace if they’re tipped workers. Can Covid put an end to this sexist exploitation?
Fraught fertility: Wealthier nations are loosening restrictions on surrogacy. Poorer ones are pushing back. Is surrogacy about a woman’s right to choose? Or are we setting up a system where richer women can rent wombs from poorer ones?
Pretty Hate Machine: Women are attacked mercilessly online. So are African-Americans. Kamala Harris is both, and “research shows that Kamala Harris may be the most targeted American politician on the internet, one who checks every box for the haters of the fever swamps: She’s a woman, she’s a person of color and she holds power.”
Book burners: They built libraries in honor of the women killed by the Taliban. And now they worry that, with the Taliban back in power, even small gains toward women’s rights could be wiped away.
Women walk out: South Carolina Republicans are trying to ban nearly all abortions. Democrats walked out of the House in protest.
Women Talking: Monica Lewinsky interviews Roxane Gay on how to write about trauma. And Rebecca Traister on Maya Wiley is a must-read.
Free to be: Menstrual products will be free in New Zealand schools, as they should be.
What we lose: Jennifer Carroll Foy is a brilliant politician and a woman who has given so much back to her country. She also nearly died in childbirth, a reality for an astounding number of Black women in America.
Unpaid: After the notorious Delhi gang rape, millions were set aside for a fund to combat violence against women. Where did the money go?
Diary of a wimpy president: Afraid Donald Trump would react badly to the promotion of female generals, the Pentagon waited until he was out of office to elevate them. What a pathetic, small little man.
Women running: Dubai’s Princess Latifa says she’s being held captive by her father, and is just one of several female members of her family who have tried to flee patriarchal control and abuse. The UAE, though, presents itself to the world as a forward-thinking nation that embraces women’s rights. That’s a lie. More from the BBC.
Baby steps: Saudi women can now join the military.
Going backward: Four female social workers were killed in Pakistan after terrorists ambushed their vehicle in the latest attack on women’s rights activists.
The great replacement: The head of the Tokyo Olympics committee was ousted for sexist remarks; his replacement is a female Olympian.
Pro-lifers kill women: What happened when Texas politicians decided to make it harder for poor people to get abortions, and decided to marginalize Planned Parenthood for providing abortions? Poor people suffered, poor families descended further into poverty, and lots of people died.
Never again, again: More allegations of rape and abuse are coming out of China’s detention camps in Xinjiang. The whole world is watching and… doing nothing.
Her too: He’s North Korea’s most internationally-recognized defector. Two women say he’s a rapist.
Wages for housework?: A great profile of Silvia Federici, a socialist feminist who has been sounding the alarm on the under-valuing of women’s work for a very long time.
Why we can’t have nice things: Heather McGhee’s new book gets us out of zero-sum thinking on race and class. And it should change the way progressives talk about race and class, writes Michelle Goldberg.
The minimum wage is a feminist issue: Inside the fight for 15 at an Orlando McDonalds.
Silent observers: Japan’s ruling party is overwhelmingly male. But don’t worry, ladies, they’re here to help: A few women have been invited to sit in silence and watch the men work.
Feminist domestic policy: Biden promised to prioritize women’s rights. Here’s his plan to do it. And here’s more on the Gender Policy Council that will report directly to the president.
Nest egg: How baby bonds could shrink the Black-white wealth gap.
Uphill battle: An elite Iranian ski coach was prevented from leaving the country for a competition because her husband said no, and in Iran, husbands can prevent their wives from traveling.
Fight club: Women’s roles in the civil rights movement have often been obscured. That’s changing. Many of today’s civil rights leaders are women over 50. And in cities like Boston, Black women are walking a historic activism path.
Truth wins out: An Indian woman accused her boss of harassment. He sued her for defamation, and she just won.
Rest in Power: Maureen Colquhoun, Britain’s first openly lesbian MP and a trailblazer for women’s rights. And Diana Ortiz, who spoke out about abuses by the Guatemalan military.
Big whoops: Some 10 French women who left their country to join ISIS now want to come home, and they’re staging a hunger strike in the hope that France comes and gets them.
Listen in: Lessons in resilience from female dog-sledders.
What to Read
‘We Are Going to Keep You Safe, Even if It Kills Your Spirit’: For the millions of Americans living with dementia, every day during this pandemic can bring a fresh horror. [The New York Times]
Binders Full of Men: Jennifer Berney on fertility, feminism, and queer family-building. [Longreads]
The Richest Black Girl in America [Medium]
Take a Break
…and check out Mars:
…and that’s it! As always, if you are enjoying this newsletter and want to support feminist writing and analysis, please consider upgrading to a paid subscription. And always feel free to share widely.
xx Jill