Month: February 2018

World (Conversation) – On February 6, 1918, British women – (well, the wealthy ones over 30) – were given the right to vote. And since the 1960s, women have been voting in British national elections at basically the same rate as men. But how is the rest of the world doing? Here’s a snapshot. 1. Ecuador: transgender friendly (at voting booths) In Ecuador, men and women vote separately. The country was in the headlines last year when it decided to allow transgender people to choose the male or female line,…

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United Kingdom (Conversation) – The British government is consulting on a new curriculum for sex and relationship education in English schools. This change provides a timely opportunity to update how, when and what children are taught about puberty. Astonishingly, the Department for Education (DfE) guidance on sex education has not changed for nearly two decades. But after concerted lobbying, research, and the recommendations of multiple committees of MPs, in 2017, the Children and Social Work Act finally acknowledged the need to provide “sex education for the 21st century”. New statutory…

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United States (FEE) –  There’s a lot wrong with a recent article in the New York Times about “What The Sharing Economy Really Delivers.” But it was this sentence about women and co-working spaces that really tied my tail in a knot: “Already many women have chosen to bypass the air-hockey subculture of conventional co-working facilities for all-female alternatives like The Wing in New York or Rise Collaborative in St. Louis. They are tired of men and their predations and inefficiencies.” Like Mad Men, but Less Glamorous Talk about walking into…

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Jamaica (GV) – Human rights activists, online campaigners — and many other Jamaicans — were pleased with the government’s recent decision to deny entry to American fundamentalist pastor, Steven Anderson. While concerns regarding free speech linger, it was not just the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender (LGBT) lobby that expressed satisfaction at the decision to keep out Anderson, who has a reputation for extreme homophobia, and preaches a volatile stance against homosexuality. News of the ban (Jamaica is the fifth country to have done so) broke via the change.org website on…

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(Conversation) – Gal Gadot and Amena Khan, both are female beauty icons, and both tweeted “problematic” tweets about the Gaza–Israel conflict in 2014. And that is where the similarity ends. Wonder Woman actress Gal Gadot hardly needs an introduction. She’s a brand ambassador for Revlon and the face of Gucci Bamboo fragrance. She has a strong social media presence, with 15.9m followers on Instagram and 1.62m followers on Twitter. She’s been described as the “ultimate badass” for “breaking gender barriers as Wonder Woman”. Amena Khan is a beauty blogger. She…

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(OpenDemocracy) – Women’s ‘shocking’ participation in far-right politics has received much media attention. But is this a new trend, or have we been here before? Dozens of feature articles have recently marvelled at the increasingly female face of the far right in Europe and North America. The New York Times reported, for instance, on the increased visibility of women in the upper-echelons of far-right parties, from France to Norway. A Vogue feature described this as “the friendly face of right-wing politics,” and “an attempt to soften and feminise” the European far right’s extreme views. In…

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