feminist news round-up 28.10.15

US woman disrupts anti-planned parenthood protest with ‘yeast infection’ chant
A lone protestor has disrupted an anti-Planned Parenthood demonstration in the US by chanting YEAST INFECTION at them. The 29 year old saw the protestors from her nearby workplace and decided to speak out against them, telling the media she supports Planned Parenthood because they helped her with her yeast infections when she was younger.

chvrches singer writes about abusive relationship in latest edition of lenny letter
Chvrches singer Lauren Mayberry has penned the latest edition of Lenny Letter – the newsletter series produced by Lena Dunham. In it, Mayberry recounts her realisation that she was in an abusive relationship. The Scottish singer has a reputation for standing up to misogyny, previously writing open letters to the guardian and across social media attacking the normalisation of sexism in the music industry. To read the full letter, you need to subscribe to the website here.

tony abbott shares his border protection wisdom with europe
Tony Abbott has called on Europe to forego Christian values to save themselves from ‘catastrophe’ proving himself yet again to be a suppository of wisdom. And here we thought we got rid of him.

president Obama commends US women’s soccer team; uses word ‘badass’
Obama scored a win after telling the US women’s soccer team they ‘taught all of America’s children that “playing like a girl” means you’re a badass’. The team won the World Cup earlier in the year after defeating Japan. Obama apologised shortly afterwards for his use of M15+ language at a family event, but no one should have to apologise for telling the truth.

new report claims self-harm rife in detention centres on nauru and manus island
Transfeld, the security contractor for Nauru and Manus Island, is the subject of a new report No Business in Abuse, which claims, among other things, that a person self-harms in detention approximately every four days. This report is just one more piece of damning evidence against offshore detention. Join the GetUp campaign here.

bill gates shares thoughts on global warming
Bill Gates has stated in an interview with The Atlantic that the private sector is inept at fighting climate change. What we need instead, he believes, is clean energy miracles funded by government initiatives to slow down global warming. Gates, the poster child of capitalist success, has approximately $1.4 billion invested in fossil fuel companies and is also the founder of the world’s richest NGO. Go figure.

social class survey: where do you fit on the spectrum?
Speaking of money, an ANU study aims to broaden our notions of class in Australia. By theorising five classes, rather than working/middle/affluent divides, the study aims to categorise people based not only on their economic capital, but on their cultural and social capital as well – i.e., who you hang out with and where you hang out. See where you fit on the spectrum.