Blog posts from February 2006
Abortion Stories
By Catherine Redfern | 28 February 2006, 22:27
A chance to help influence the abortion debate for the better, from Abortion Rights: “Marie Claire magazine is running a big feature on women\x92s experience of abortion and need women to contribute. The story is a re-run of a feature…
Libyan rape victims imprisoned and brainwashed
By Jess McCabe | 28 February 2006, 07:57
Rape victims in Libya are being confined in jail-like conditions and subjected to brainwashing attempts, according to Human Rights Watch. These so-called “social rehabilitation” centres sound horrific in their own right, but more worrying is the fact that instead of…
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Pay gap report calls for action
By Jess McCabe | 26 February 2006, 21:00
Government should take urgent action to close the gender pay gap, a report published tomorrow will say. The Sunday papers are already mulling over advanced copies of the Women and Work Commission’s report. From the Independent: Tomorrow a report of…
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Europe reports 15% gender pay gap
By Jess McCabe | 24 February 2006, 21:53
European women earn an average of 15% less than men, although we are now winning more jobs EUobserver reports. “More than four in ten employed women work in public administration, education, health and social activities, compared to less than two…
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Torygraph moralises on pregancy
By Jess McCabe | 24 February 2006, 21:38
Oh, middle England, when is the right time to get pregnant? Certainly not too late, when you’ve obviously and callously delayed going forth to multiply in order to do something selfish like have a career. But it’s not too early…
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Another step towards abortion ban for US
By Jess McCabe | 24 February 2006, 11:04
South Dakota’s state senate has passed a bill banning abortion in all cases, except where the mother will die unless the procedure takes place. There is no exception for cases of rape, incest or where carrying the pregnancy to term…
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A quarter of a million feminist bloggers! (and the new carnival is up)
By Jess McCabe | 23 February 2006, 10:47
There are a quarter of a million feminist bloggers on the internet. Or so says the person who set up the Carnival of Feminists (which we have been honoured to be included on more than once, including this month). Over…
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US edges closer to abotion ban
By Jess McCabe | 22 February 2006, 21:01
The US Supreme Court is set to rule on whether a ban on partial-birth abortion in South Dakota is unconstitutional or not. As the New York Times reports, pro-lifers say the ban would only affect terminations very late in pregnancy,…
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Sexual Apartheid in Saudi Arabia
By Jess McCabe | 21 February 2006, 13:40
Are women in Saudi Arabia slowly edging out of “sexual apartheid”, the Guardian asks today in a fascinating feature. A male reporter, Brian Whitaker, reports on the women who are entering the workforce. And apartheid really is the word: women…
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Women Warned: Procreate!
By Jess McCabe | 19 February 2006, 22:34
Nary a month goes by without a new study berating or warning or generally telling off women for not having enough babies. First we had fertility tests so working women could tell how many years we have left to get…
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When Women Pursue Justice
By Jess McCabe | 19 February 2006, 12:25
London is one of the world’s most vibrant cultural hubs. But for all its theatres, art galleries, concert halls, gig venues, underground cultural centres and other forms of artistic life, there is one area in which it is desperately impoverished….
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Film fans pay attention
By Jess McCabe | 18 February 2006, 09:27
It’s nearly time to celebrate International Women’s Day once again, and as usual the Bird’s Eye Film Festivalare marking the occasion by showcasing films directed by talented women. THE FILMS: FOURTEEN dir. Nicole Barnette (USA), 7min, 2005 UK Premiere fresh…
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"Feminism's unfinished revolution"
By Jess McCabe | 18 February 2006, 09:09
“How is resurrecting every stereotype of female sexuality that feminism endeavoured to banish good for women? Why is labouring to look like Paris Hilton empowering? And how is imitating a stripper or a porn star - a woman whose job…
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Cameron takes paternity leave despite voting against it
By Jess McCabe | 17 February 2006, 09:41
Ah, the hypocrisy. David Cameron, the Tory party’s still new-ish leader, is taking his full two weeks in paternity leave after the birth of his third child. Which would be great, if he hadn’t voted against the entitlement to do…
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Angry Wimmin
By Jess McCabe | 12 February 2006, 09:34
Turn on your TVs this Wednesday, because BBC4 is screening a documentary on the women’s movement in London in the 1970s. Angry Wimmin is part of a series called Lefties, on left-wing radicals of all stripes. The show on the…
Prison pageant wows Bogota
By Jess McCabe | 11 February 2006, 08:32
Beauty pageants have been a feminist bete noir for so long now, I was literally amazed that anyone could call one “liberating”. But this is no ordinary pageant: it takes place inside a Colombian jail and the contestents are “contract…
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A gel to stop HIV infection, but does it come at too costly a price?
By Jess McCabe | 9 February 2006, 16:44
A gel which could protect women against HIV is in the advanced stages of human trials. That’s the good news. But a drug company is using thousands of poor African women to test it, and questions are being asked about…
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Capitalwoman 2006
By Lynne Miles | 9 February 2006, 15:20
Ken Livingstone is holding his third annual conference for women on Saturday 4th March. Capitalwoman is a forum for discussing the issues that matter to, and affect, women in London. It enables women to question the Mayor and other policymakers,…
Betty Friedan 1921-2006
By Lynne Miles | 7 February 2006, 14:23
Betty Friedan, credited with kick-starting second wave feminism, died last weekend on her 85th birthday. She was best know for her 1963 book, The Feminine Mystique, which challenged the ‘Stepford Wives’ mentality of the American middle classes and said that…
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Pink: The new Sheila Jeffreys?
By Catherine Redfern | 6 February 2006, 23:11
Pink’s new song, “Stupid Girls”, takes on the celebrity, porn-influenced current culture of pop and some of the women who perpetuate it, branding them “stupid” and encouraging girls to aspire to more. “What happened to the dreams of a girl…
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UK defies US over abortion funding
By Jess McCabe | 6 February 2006, 11:35
Britain is to step in and replace funding for abortion services and family planning services withdrawn by the the United States, the Guardian reports today. The Bush administration instituted the “global gag rule” in 2001, meaning that no aid organisation…
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How a cup of Femenino improves the lot of poor Peruvian women
By Jess McCabe | 5 February 2006, 22:44
A women’s co-operative in rural Peru is using a new coffee brand to improve the lot of female coffee workers - a sort of “Fairtrade plus gender”. With so much bad news lately, Women’s eNews has chosen the perfect time…
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The Personal is Still Political
By Lynne Miles | 3 February 2006, 12:32
The BBC is carrying a report of a rape trial taking place in Scotland in which a drunk man attempted to rape and threatened to kill a woman on her way home. He has pleaded guilty to attempted rape (saying,…
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Alito confirmed to US Senate
By Lynne Miles | 1 February 2006, 12:26
The conservative judge Samuel Alito was confirmed by the US Congress yesterday to the Supreme Court - which seems to have been somewhat lost in the UK coverage of Bush’s State of the Nation speech. The Supreme Court is responsible…
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