daily feminist news: 09.10.13

What do you think of this: American Apparel ‘Period Power’ T shirt?

American Apparel has collaborated with artist, Petra Collins, and produced this T-shirt featuring a graphic illustration of a woman masturbating while her vagina oozes blood. Collins is known for her work that explores feminine sexuality and teen girl culture, with half the proceeds of these shirt sales going to an online, feminist art collective, The Ardorous, which Collins curates. What do you think of the shirt? Is it empowering? Or offensive? And would you wear it?

Nebraska court rules 16-year-old ‘not mature enough’ to have an abortion.

But I guess apparently she’s mature enough to become a mother. The Nebraska Supreme Court ruled that the 16-year-old foster child lacked the maturity to make the decision on her own. New laws in Nebraska prevent women under the age of 17 from getting a termination without written consent from a parent; however in this case, the anonymous teen had no options, having been removed from her parents due to physical abuse and neglect. District Judge, Peter Bataillon, who once served on an anti-abortion committee in Omaha, allegedly asked the girl whether she knew that ‘when you have the abortion, it’s going to kill the child inside of you.’ Impartial.

Downton Abbey rape scene: necessary or gratuitous plot device?

*Trigger Warning – Rape/Sexual assault.
Fans are up in arms over a recent episode of popular period drama, Downton Abbey, which involved a controversial scene where a housemaid was brutally raped. Critics are arguing that the scene was unnecessary in the context of the drama, and was thus used as a gratuitous plot device. The scene has also prompted criticism from domestic violence and rape campaigners, who have claimed that the show ‘depicted rape in an obscene and irresponsible manner’ that could have caused rape survivors trauma and stress.

One year on: Taliban vow to attack Malala again.

Today marks one year since Malala Yousafzai was shot in the head by a Taliban gunman on a tiny school bus in Pakistan. Taliban leaders have recently claimed that they did not shoot Malala Yousafzai for her campaigns for women and girls’ right to education in Pakistan, but because she was ‘making jokes out of Islam.’  Shahidullah Shahid also stated that they shot her once and they’d totally do it again. Malala has recently been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, making her the youngest nominee for the award, and this week she released her autobiography, I Am Malala.