The Week in Women
Women are pissed.
Scenes from another life: Tanzania, 2016
Hello, readers, and 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 (or upgrade your subscription!), and share.
What to Know
Reclaim These Streets: The Sarah Everard case has galvanized women across the UK. Everard was walking home from a friend’s house when she was kidnapped and murdered; a police officer has been arrested and charged. Thousands gathered in South London for a vigil on Saturday night, defying Covid-19 rules. Women (and lots of good men) are furious — at a world that tells women they should stay home and not the men who attack them; at a police force that shuts down anti-violence protests after a police officer allegedly killed a woman; at the fact that a young woman was just walking home when her life was snatched from her. And they’re specifically furious that, again, a man committed a horrific act and it’s women who are told they should stay inside.
Terrorism: The link between the anti-abortion movement and the rioters at the Capitol.
Separated: Yazidi women raped by ISIS often had their children stolen from them. Now, some are stopping at nothing to get their babies back.
Locked Out: Women in Italy have long struggled to break into the workforce. Now, the pandemic has set them back again.
Music to My Ears: Women cleaned up at the Grammy’s.
Patriarchal Violence: El Salvador has one of the strictest abortion laws in the world, and tosses women in jail for having miscarriages the police suspect were really intentional terminations. One of those women in Sara, who was sentenced to 30 years behind bars for aggravated homicide — she says she slipped and fell, causing her to miscarry her pregnancy. Her case has the potential to change these profoundly cruel and misogynist laws.
Spiked: Italian athletes are often forced out of their jobs if they get pregnant. One volleyball player is fighting back.
Crackdown: UN Women is sounding the alarm about violence targeting women in Myanmar.
The F-Word: The Feminist Coalition is changing everything for women in Nigeria.
Walkout: Is it time for women to strike?
#IAmMySong: Kabul banned girls over 12 from singing. Girls and women protested — by singing.
Still the Worst: A Saudi court has said it will uphold the prison sentence issued to Loujain al-Hathloul, whose crime was driving while female.
Also Still the Worst: Small, sad man Piers Morgan is pissed that Megan Markle ignored him, and now he won’t stop trashing her.
Seen: Meghan Markle’s struggles with depression felt very familiar to a whole lot of postpartum women.
Free the Nipple: How a viral photo of a policewoman breastfeeding is changing the conversation on women, motherhood, and work in Cambodia.
Namesake: Japan has an absurd rule requiring married couples to share a last name — meaning women who get married are overwhelmingly forced to cede their identities. That’s now up for debate, and women are talking about all they lose when they lose their names.
Fisherwoman: She was told “the water doesn’t need women.” After her son’s death, she decided it did. Yayi Diouf became the first woman in Senegal to get a fishing license, and from there banded with other women to get everyone paid and keep their kids safe.
Feministe: A feminist lawyer in France takes on sexual violence.
Not Any Men: Australians have taken to the streets to demand government action on sexual violence. But where are the men?
Time’s Up: Andrew Cuomo’s gotta go.
What to Read
Just read every single part of the New Yorker’s Women’s History Month package.
And that’s it! Please feel free to share this newsletter, and feel even freer to subscribe.
xx Jill