China's feminists undeterred by detentions

Five women who all worked as activists for various feminist causes and had organised public events to raise awareness of a host of issues, from eradicating domestic violence to the need for more women's toilets in China. Few predicted the women would ever become targets of the authorities, since their causes seemed relatively unobjectionable. That is, until last March, when the women were planning a multi-city protest to call for an end to sexual harassment on public transport. The size of their networks and their determination to speak out in public appeared to unnerve the authorities. One by one, they were detained by police.

The protests the women had planned were supposed to be peaceful; the treatment they endured in Chinese detention centres was not. For more than a month, the women were subject to continual interrogations by police. All were forced to sleep on floors, and some were denied vital medication. One woman, Wu Rongrong, was repeatedly told by police that "we'll tie you up, throw you in a cell with men, and let them gang rape you". They also threatened the future of Wu's four-year-old son.

Another woman, Li Tingting, was interrogated 49 times in 27 days. A global campaign to push for their release ensued, and there was an outpouring of relief on Twitter when the #FreetheFive group were released. Months later, the women remain under police surveillance. The group are pushing for their case to be withdrawn. Li Tingting told the BBC she believes the police want a swift conclusion too. "They probably want to retract the case now, because there's nothing to investigate," she explains. "They are also afraid of us demanding compensation. They need to close this case and return my passport to me."

More at BBC News

ISIS sex slaves subjected to rape freed by secret resistance network

Women and young girls held as sex slaves by depraved Islamic State militants are fleeing their captors with the help of a heroic underground network of resistance fighters. Risking certain death and torture in a bid to flee their brutal oppressors, many spend several days making their way through Syria and Iraq to the safety of government-controlled territory. Many of them have been subjected to appalling violence, rape and sexual abuse at the hands of ISIS fighters and commanders.

ISIS has carried out 'systematic sexual crimes' against girls from the Yazidi community since kidnapping more than 3,000 girls from their homes in northern Iraq last August. Unjustly regarded as ‘devil worshippers’ on account of their unusual beliefs, the Yazidi have for centuries been one of the most persecuted minorities of the Middle East. Islamic extremists regard them as infidels, worthy only of being killed. Those considered the 'most beautiful' by ISIS leaders are sent to horrendous auction houses where they are stripped naked and sold to the highest bidder.

More at Daily Mail Online

US Female Student Was Murdered On Campus, And Men’s Rights Activists Are Celebrating

In April this year, 20-year-old University of Mary Washington student Grace Mann was found bound and choked to death in her campus residence. This month, so-called “Men’s Rights Activists” are celebrating her death, claiming it “served a purpose.”

While no trial has yet been held to confirm the circumstances behind Mann’s murder, one possibility is that she was killed for her prominent role in feminist activism on the campus in Friedricksburg, Virginia. Mann was a member of the group Feminists United, which published an op-ed in the school paper in January to “expose the insidious misogyny and hatred” on campus.
The most egregious example of this “insidious misogyny” was a violent chant performed by the school’s rugby team at a party last fall. The chant celebrated rape, murder, and necrophilia against “whores.” A male friend of Feminist United president Paige McKinsey managed to record the song, which included the lyrics:

Finally found a whore (Finally found a whore!)
She was right and dead. (She was right and dead!)
Well god damn son of a bitch we’re gonna get it in! (God damn son of a bitch we’re gonna get it in!)Finally got it in (Finally got it in!)
Wiggle it all about (Wiggle it all about!)
God damn son of a bitch I couldn’t get it out (God damn son of a bitch we couldn’t get it out!)Finally got it out (Finally got it out!)
It was red and sore (It was red and sore!)
Moral of the story is never fuck a wh*re!

Feminists United handed over the tape to college administrators who deliberated the matter for four months before acting. They chose to dissolve the entire men’s rugby team indefinitely, and mandated all 46 members of UMW’s Mother’s Rugby attend sexual assault training classes.

Misogyny is not a joke. It is not some hobby horse that “angry women” ride around to piss men off. It killed 18,000 American women in the last 12 years. This means that more women have been killed at the hands of their husbands and boyfriends since 9/11, than Americans died during 9/11, and in all terror attacks and wars since. This year, the country will spend $38bn on Homeland Security, and $598bn on defense. It is estimated that America will spend just $4bn addressing violence against women. It is long overdue that we take violence against women, and the attitudes which promote it, with the seriousness they deserve.

More at Addicting Info

The World’s Craziest Anti-Women Laws

Where You Can Freely Abduct a Woman

In Malta and Lebanon, crimes are literally erased once the offender marries the victim. For instance, in Malta, if a kidnapper “after abducting a person, shall marry such person, he shall not be liable to prosecution,” the law says. If the marriage occurs after a trial and conviction, the abductor’s sentence will immediately be wiped. Similarly, in Lebanon, crimes including rape and kidnapping, will be halted at the time of marriage. If there’s divorce within five years of a felony crime, the prosecution or penalty can resume.

Similar abominable laws were overthrown in Costa Rica, Ethiopia, Guatemala, Peru and Uruguay, in the past decade.

It’s Legal for Women to Be Beaten

In Nigeria, violence “by a husband for the purpose of correcting his wife” is considered lawful. Violence is similarly allowed if a parent or schoolmaster is punishing a child, or a “master for the purpose of correcting his servant.”

Where It’s Illegal for Women to Do Labor

In China, women can’t “work down the pit of mines,” or do difficult physical labor, or, specifically, “other work that female workers should avoid.” Similar laws are repeated in books across the globe—making for a totally geographically diverse triangle. In Madagascar, women cannot be employed at night in an “industrial establishment” unless it’s the family business. And Russian lawmakers decided that “labor of females on hard, dangerous and/or unhealthy trades...is forbidden.” This sweeping statement covers 456 different types of work, including driving trains, carpenting, frontline firefighting, and sailing.

More Crazy Anti-Women Laws atThe Daily Beast

India Asks YouTube To Remove Delhi Rape Documentary

India has asked YouTube to remove all links to a controversial documentary about the gang rape and murder of a woman in Delhi after banning its broadcast, a government official told Reuters on Thursday.
Leslee Udwin's "India's Daughter" features an interview with Mukesh Singh, one of four men sentenced to death for the rape and torture of a 23-year-old woman on a moving bus in December 2012.
Comments released to the media show that Singh blames the victim for the crime. He says that women are more responsible than men for rape.
"We just forwarded the court order and asked them (YouTube) to comply," an official at the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology told Reuters.

More at Huff. Post

It’s Her Fault She Was Gang Raped, Says Rapist

"Indian authorities ordered television stations Tuesday not to broadcast a documentary about a gang rape on a New Delhi bus in which one of the attackers blames the victim and says she could have avoided being killed if she had not fought back, a government official said.
The order followed an outcry over giving a convicted prisoner a nationwide platform to express repugnant views about a horrific crime that shocked Indians and prompted hundreds of thousands to take to the streets in protest. In response to the 2012 attack, India's government rushed through legislation doubling prison terms for rapists to 20 years and criminalizing voyeurism, stalking and the trafficking of women.” *

The Young Turks

Ultra-Orthodox Jewish Newspaper Edits Female World Leaders Out of Charlie Hebdo March

The historic march across Paris included over 40 world leaders expressing solidarity for France after the Charlie Hebdo massacre, but if you read this Haredi newspaper, you’d believe that none of them were women.

The image that ran on the front page of the Israeli newspaper The Announcer edited two female world leaders out of the image, originally provided by wire service GPO: German Chancellor Angela Merkel and EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini. A third woman in a blue scarf who we can’t identify was also photoshopped out.

Details at Mediaite

B.T.W.:

Russia bans drivers with sex, gender 'disorders'

Extending Russia's legal campaign against homosexuality, a new law aimed at reducing traffic deaths denies driver's licences to people with "disorders" involving sexual preference and gender identity. The decree, signed Dec. 29 by Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, empowers officials to ban transsexual and transgender people from driving, along with others suffering from such "mental disorders" as fetishism, exhibitionism, voyeurism, compulsive theft or "pathological" gambling.

Specifically, the decree — "to promote public health" — applies to those with "gender identity disorders, disorders of sexual preference and psychological and behavioral disorders associated with sexual development and orientation." The rules also apply to people with schizophrenia, "mood" disorders and "neurotic, stress-related" problems. "The decisions are aimed at reducing deaths from vehicular accidents," the decree declares. Nearly 28,000 fatalities -- 55 per 100,000 vehicles -- occurred on Russian roads in 2012, according to the most recent statistics available.

USA Today

Saudi Women Drivers Referred To Terrorism Court

Two Saudi women detained for nearly a month in defiance of a ban on females driving were referred on Thursday to a court established to try terrorism cases, several people close to the defendants said. The cases of the two, Loujain al-Hathloul and Maysa al-Amoudi, were sent to the anti-terrorism court in connection to opinions they expressed in tweets and in social media, four people close to the two women told The Associated Press.

They did not elaborate on the specific charges or what the opinions were. Both women have spoken out online against the female driving ban. Activists say they fear the case is intended to send a warning to others pushing for greater rights. The four people spoke on condition of anonymity because of fear of government reprisals.

The Specialized Criminal Court, to which their cases were referred, was established in the capital Riyadh to try terrorism cases but has also tried and handed long prison sentences to a number of human rights workers, peaceful dissidents, activists and critics of the government. For example, this year it sentenced a revered Shiite cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, a vocal critic of the government, to death for sedition and sentenced a prominent human rights lawyer, Waleed Abul-Khair, to 15 years in prison on charges of inciting public opinion.

Huffington Post

They Put Her In Solitary Confinement For 7 Months. Before That, She Was In A Prison Full Of Men

Because, while Johanna is a woman, she is also transgender. And because of her gender identity, Johanna's life is in constant danger. The bias and hatred against transgender women is very real, as Johanna's story sadly shows. Often, the people who commit violence against transgender women assume that they must be gay men because they might wear make-up or might wear their hair long.

Not only is she a transgender woman, she is a transgender woman who crossed the U.S. border undocumented. This makes things more complicated. Because, unfortunately, she didn't find help. Instead, she found herself in the immigration detention system. Johanna was placed in a jail — with men.

...being locked up was a nightmare. She was beat up by a male cellmate. Then, guards told her the only safe way to house her was solitary confinement. There, she sat in a 6-by-13-foot cell for 23 hours a day with no human contact and no view of the outside world. She waited for an asylum decision for seven months. Johanna decided that going back home was far better than being locked up in solitary confinement. She was deported to El Salvador. Almost as soon as her plane landed in the San Salvador airport, more nightmares followed.

upworthy.com

Turkish President: 'Equality between men and women is against nature'

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has said equality between men and women is “against nature” at a summit in Istanbul. He sparked outrage with the speech made at a convention organised by women’s groups campaigning to eliminate gender discrimination in all its forms.

“You cannot make women and men equal; this is against nature,” Mr Erdoğan told the meeting full of women including his own daughter, Today’s Zaman reported. “You cannot subject a pregnant woman to the same working conditions as a man. You cannot make a mother who has to breastfeed her child equal to a man. You cannot make women do everything men do like the communist regimes did…this is against her delicate nature.”  The President reportedly claimed that Islam dictated motherhood to be the prime role of women, reciting a hadith saying that “heaven lies at your mother’s feet”.

More at The Independent

'That’s A $500,000 Vagina Tax!'

To kick off a new campaign calling for equal pay, Sarah Silverman says she’s doing the only thing she can to ensure her wages won’t be stolen just for being a women: getting a penis.

The video launches the National Women’s Law Center’s Equal Payback Project campaign. Silverman says that for women who want to take less extreme measures than getting new genitalia, the campaign is aimed at crowdfunding the wage gap. And with 69 million women in the workplace, that sets the goal to nearly $30 trillion. The money raised, however, will actually go to the NWLC, which is fighting to end the wage gap through legislation.

More at Alternet and equalpaybackproject.com

Violence Against Women and the Athletic Industrial Complex

What It's Like To Walk Alone If You're A Woman In Cairo

Two female filmmakers have released a video documenting what it's like for a woman to walk by herself down a bustling street in Cairo, Egypt. The blatant stares from many of the men encountered along the way highlight the country's problem of rampant street harassment.

"Today we will be filming what it's like to walk down the busiest bridge in Cairo as a girl," says American-born filmmaker Colette Ghunim, introducing the short clip, above. From that point on there are no more words spoken -- just the leering gazes from almost every man Ghunim walks by.

World Post

Council of Islamic Ideology declares women’s existence anti-Islamic

The Council of Islamic Ideology (CII) concluded their 192nd meeting on Thursday with the ruling that women are un-Islamic and that their mere existence contradicted Sharia and the will of Allah. As the meeting concluded CII Chairman Maulana Muhammad Khan Shirani (see his Facebook page) noted that women by existing defied the laws of nature, and to protect Islam and the Sharia women should be forced to stop existing as soon as possible. The announcement comes a couple of days after CII’s 191^st meeting where they dubbed laws related to minimum marriage age to be un-Islamic.

After declaring women to be un-Islamic, Shirani explained that there were actually two kinds of women – haraam and makrooh. “We can divide all women in the world into two distinct categories: those who are haraam and those who are makrooh. Now the difference between haraam and makrooh is that the former is categorically forbidden while the latter is really really disliked,” Shirani said.

He further went on to explain how the women around the world can ensure that they get promoted to being makrooh, from just being downright haraam. “Any woman that exercises her will is haraam, absolutely haraam, and is conspiring against Islam and the Ummah, whereas those women who are totally subservient can reach the status of being makrooh. Such is the generosity of our ideology and such is the endeavour of Muslim men like us who are the true torchbearers of gender equality,” the CII chairman added.

Pakistan Today

Boko Haram video claims to show missing Nigerian schoolgirls

Boko Haram released a new video on Monday claiming to show the missing Nigerian schoolgirls, alleging they had converted to Islam and would not be released until all militant prisoners were freed.

Acid attacks rising against Colombia's women

At least five people have been attacked with acid in Colombia over the past two weeks. Until now, authorities have done little to address the problem. But a high profile case in the capital Bogota has pushed the government into restricting acid sales, and increase penalties. Al Jazeera's Alessandro Rampietti reports from Bogota.

Fox News Gone Wild

Why do Arab men hate women?

Why do they hate us? With these five words in a controversial magazine article, Egyptian-American journalist Mona Eltahawy shot to fame, unleashing a devastating critique of womens rights in the Arab world.In the season premiere of Head to Head , Mehdi Hasan challenges Eltahawy on her views regarding the status of women in Arab states.Are Arab or Muslim societies inherently patriarchal? And how does the narrative of Islam as sexist play into geo-politics and Western stereotypes of the Middle East?

See the "About" on YouTube

Banaz A Love Story

Banaz Mahmod was murdered by her own family, in an honour killing. This film tells Banaz’s story, in her own words, for the first time – and tells the story of the extraordinary police team who refused to give up, and finally brought her killers to justice.

This is a documentary film chronicling an act of overwhelming horror – the honour killing of Banaz Mahmod, a young British woman in suburban London in 2006, killed and “disappeared” by her own family, with the agreement and help of a large section of the Kurdish community, because she tried to choose a life for herself.

Fuuse