Feminist News Round-up 16.12.12
Most Influential Australian Women
Fairfax website Daily Life has compiled a list of Australia’s 20 Most Influential Female Voices. Prime Minister Julia Gillard takes out top honours, mostly for that misogyny speech. Gillard commented: ‘I thought I had given a hard-hitting speech but I didn’t have any inkling of the effect of it…I said to Wayne, “Oh, we’re going to have to sit here now and listen to all these bloody speeches in reply. I should get my chief of staff to bring some correspondence so at least I can be getting on with something”.’ Since the speech, many women across Australia have sent her positive messages and gifts. Other women included on the list are: Leigh Sales (for that interview), Germaine Greer, Jane Caro, Nicola Roxon, Penny Wong, and a range of other incredibly inspirational women.
Feminist group sneaks ‘consent underwear’ into Victoria’s Secret
A US-based feminist group, FORCE: Upsetting Rape Culture, is placing underwear that reads, ‘Ask First’ next to actual Victoria’s Secret brand underwear that reads ‘Unwrap Me’ in stores. The mission is called ‘operation panty drop’. This guerrilla mission happened after the group tried to convince media outlets that Victoria Secret was producing a new ‘consent line’ of lingerie. While the consent underwear isn’t for sale, you can make your own.
High rates of self-immolation amongst Afghan women
A recent United Nations report details how crimes against women in Afghanistan are dramatically under-reported, including rape, beating and forced marriage. As a result of these difficult circumstances, many women are resorting to self-immolation. Some want to die. Others simply hope their faces and bodies are so badly disfigured that their worth will plummet. Sometimes women resort to self-immolation the day before their first marriage, hoping that their soon-to-be husband won’t want to marry them anymore. The UN report said despite some progress in implementing a three-year old law designed to protect Afghan women from violence, application of the landmark law continued to be hampered by ‘dramatic under reporting’ and lack of investigations into most incidents of violence targeting women.
Pregnant married women suffer fewer problems
A study by Toronto’s St. Michael’s Hospital has found pregnant women who are married are less likely to face spousal abuse or to have substance abuse problems or post-natal depression. Urquia’s study found that 10.6 per cent of married women reported partner abuse, substance abuse or post-partum depression. The figure rose to 20 per cent for women living in common-law relationships and even higher — 35 per cent — for single women. Most dramatically, it rose to 67 per cent for women who were separated or divorced in the year prior to the birth of a child.
Covered on Lip this week
U.S. military women continue the fight for abortion coverage
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