Year: 2019

United States (Conversation) – Jeffrey Epstein, a powerfully connected American financier, is facing charges of sex trafficking, bringing underage girls as young as 14 years old into homes in various locations across the US. He reportedly had a network of more than 50 victims, and evidence against him included hundreds of lewd photographs of girls and young women. Accusations against high-profile people such as Epstein temporarily raise awareness of this significant human rights violation. But regardless of the outcome of this case, the ugly truth is this is just the…

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United States (Conversation) – Summers often bring a wave of childhood memories: lounging poolside, trips to the local amusement park, languid, steamy days at the beach. These nostalgic recollections, however, aren’t held by all Americans. Municipal swimming pools and urban amusement parks flourished in the 20th century. But too often, their success was based on the exclusion of African Americans. As a social historian who has written a book on segregated recreation, I have found that the history of recreational segregation is a largely forgotten one. But it has had…

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United States (Conversation) – On a typical day, men spend a third as much time cleaning as women. Does that make women beacons of cleanliness, while men are genetically unable to see the messiness in their midst? This myth is a common explanation for why men don’t do as much housework as women. Men walk into a room and apparently can’t see the dust bunnies gathering on the floor or the piles of laundry stacked up on the couch. It lets men off the hook for not doing their fair…

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Albania (GV) – Made in Prison is a website that sells handmade products by female inmates of the Ali Demi prison in Tirana, the only prison for women in the Balkan country whose population totals 2,8 million. The project is an initiative by Orkidea (meaning “the orchid” in Albanian language), a local women’s rights NGO, and has received funds from the US Embassy in Tirana. Since its launch on March 8, 2019, the project has been endorsed by Albania’s Ministry of Justice and the General Directorate of Prisons. As of June 12, the inmates have produced 235 handmade…

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World Wide (Conversation) – Shortlisted for the Oxford English Dictionary’s 2018 word of the year, “gaslighting” has well and truly found its way into contemporary thought and vernacular. The term has recently been employed to explain the behaviour of contestants on The Bachelor Australia, Monica Lewinksy’s experiences with the media post-Bill Clinton, and the words of US President Donald Trump. But what, exactly, does it mean? Where did it come from? And why is it experiencing a resurgence today? Gaslighting takes its name from the 1944 film Gaslight, starring Ingrid Bergman…

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United States (Conversation) – In last week’s New York magazine, journalist E. Jean Carroll recounts her rape in a New York department store dressing room, some 23 years ago. “[He] opens [my] overcoat, unzips his pants, and, forcing his fingers around my private area, thrusts his penis halfway —or completely, I’m not certain —inside me.” The alleged rapist? United States President Donald J. Trump. Carroll joins more than a dozen other women who have publicly accused the sitting president of sexual assault or harassment, with no consequences yet for Trump….

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World Wide (Conversation) – Coffee, apples, honey – were it not for the precious work of pollinators, countless things that we eat and drink would not exist, totalling more than 30% of global food production. Most pollinators are insects, particularly from the bee family (close to a thousand species in France alone), along with butterflies and diptera, such as syrphids. Apart from helping feed humans, these insects also play a vital role in the reproduction of a wide variety of wild plants, fertilising them by transporting pollen from one flower to…

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United States (Conversation) – Iran shot down a U.S. drone on June 19, further escalating tensions between Iran and its adversaries. Relations with Iran have been worsening for months. In early May, one year after the United States withdrew from the nuclear deal negotiated in 2015 between Iran, the U.S., the European Union and five other countries, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said that his country may also withdraw from the agreement, which limits its ability to develop nuclear weapons in exchange for lifting sanctions. In June, Rouhani announced that Iran…

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Colorado, United States (Yes) – Twelve years ago, unintended pregnancies among young women in Colorado was at a stubbornly high rate. Federally funded family planning clinics in the state had been providing free contraception to families who couldn’t afford them for four decades, yet six of every 10 women, ages 15 to 24, who had a live birth that year said their pregnancy had been unintended. In 2008, an anonymous donation allowed the state to expand family planning services and for the first time provide long-acting reversible contraception, such as IUDs…

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