feminist news round-up 19.02.17
Women can avoid rape by staying at home, says Indian politician
This just in: your vagina is like a car and to avoid “accidents”, it’s best you keep it parked at home. At least that’s what Indian politician Kodela Shiva Prasad said while speaking at a press conference before the National Women’s Parliament in Amravati. ‘When you buy a vehicle like a car, if you keep it parked in the garage at home, then accidents can be avoided, right? But when it’s taken out on roads, accidents are likely to happen.’ If women are kept at home, he said, things like harassment, kidnapping and rape could all be avoided. He later backtracked on his insightful remarks by saying that while women should be educated and given the freedom to work outside the home, ‘their protection should be taken care of’. Righteo.
End of the road for wicked campers and their misogyny on wheels
Queensland looks set to ban those revoltingly sexist Wicked Campers from the State’s roads. The bill introduced into parliament received bipartisan support and, if legislated, will ensure vans painted with offensive slogans will be deregistered – and it looks like the Victorian and Tasmanian governments will follow suit. With slogans as charming as, “A wife: an attachment you screw on the bed to get the housework done” and “In every princess there is a little slut who wants to try it just once”, all I can say is it’s about bloody time.
‘A day without a woman’ general strike to take place on international women’s day
Hot on the heels of the Women’s March, which saw millions of people worldwide march in opposition to the new POTUS, Donald
Trump, and what his administration might mean for women’s rights, the organisers have called for a general strike, ‘A Day Without a Woman’, to take place on March 8. In an op-ed for The Guardian, eight women activists call for an ‘expansive feminist movement’ and ‘a day of striking, marching, blocking roads, bridges, and squares, abstaining from domestic, care and sex work, boycotting, calling out misogynistic politicians and companies, striking in educational institutions.
Sweden’s “first feminist government” criticised for wearing Hijab during visit to Iran
In a statement that went viral on Facebook and Twitter this week, Human Rights NGO, UN Watch criticised the Swedish government following a visit to Iran during which Trade Minister Ann Linde and other members of the government covered their bodies in veils and hijab in deference to the Iran’s oppressive compulsory hijab law – despite the nation’s promise to promote ‘a gender equality perspective’ internationally. They’ve also been called hypocrites by Iranian human rights activist Masih Alinejad, whose Facebook page gives Iranian women a space to show their hair as an act of resistance to the laws. Linde et al were in Iran to sign trade deals with Iranian ministers in a move that also has a few people scratching their heads.
Australia pledges $9.5 million to International Planned Parenthood following defunding by Trump
Foreign Minister, Julie Bishop this week announced that Australia will ‘continue our partnership with the International Planned Parenthood Federation to deliver the Sexual and Reproductive Health Program in Crisis and Post Crisis Settings (SPRINT) in the Indo-Pacific region’ by sending $9.5 million over three years ‘to strengthen sexual and reproductive health, rights and support during humanitarian crises’.
