Category: weekly roundup

Weekly Roundup- 26th November to 2nd December

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“Learning is not attained by chance, it must be sought for with ardor and diligence.”

– Abigail Adams

In today’s world of information overload, we might miss something worthwhile. Every week, I’ll be flagging some of the articles I have read, which I found interesting, for you. Here’s the roundup for the week:

  1. Shamolie Oberoi writes about the staggering lack of sanitation infrastructure for women in Mumbai, India. Besides the lack of toilets, the existing toilets are also unhygienic, and seem to be designed for able bodied, non pregnant, non lactating women only.
  2. Arabelle Sircadi writes a personal account of their journey with gender in public and non public spaces, and the importance of not making someone’s gender their introduction.
  3. Probashi writes a profile on Madhumala Chattopadhyay’s work with Andamanese Tribes as an anthropologist. She was one of the people who established the first ever friendly contact with the hostile Sentinelese Tribe. Madhumala is also the first woman to be accepted by another Andaman tribe, the Jarawas, with whom she established a friendly relationship. Unfortunately her accomplishments remain forgotten.
  4. In an Indian Express podcast, Tara Krishnaswamy, the co-convener of the India Women’s Caucus, speaks about the reasons behind the low number of women in state and national politics, as MLAs and MPs, despite there having been an increase in the number of women in local and Panchayat roles.
  5. Japan Times writes about the march in Syria by Kurdish women to call for an end to violence against women. The march took places on the streets of the Syrian Kurdish-majority city of Qamishli last Sunday.

Weekly Roundup- 30th to 6th May

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“Learning is not attained by chance, it must be sought for with ardor and diligence.”

– Abigail Adams

In today’s world of information overload, we might miss something worthwhile. Every week, I’ll be flagging some of the articles I have read, which I found interesting, for you. Here’s the roundup for the week:

  1. A state of national emergency is being declared in Costa Rica in response to skyrocketing rates of gender and domestic violence against women, as newly appointed Minister of Women’s Condition Patricia Mora told reporters.
  2. Vox explains the sexual misconduct allegations against R. Kelly since 1994, when he married 15 year old Aaliyah.
  3. Yasemin Besen-Cassino writes about her new book, where she explores the earliest gender inequalities in the labour market, those that arise among teenage workers. Cassino carried out an experiment asking participants if they would give a babysitter a salary increase (sample size of 100 American adults from an online sample, who were paid for their participation; most had hired a babysitter within the past few years).
  4. As reported by Bloomberg, the Saudi government program to improve the quality of life in the kingdom called for the legalization of gender mixing and an end to the mandatory prayer closures for businesses.
  5. Pitchfork analyses the gender balance in 2018 music festival lineups, with the use of extensive data. One of their conclusions are that while the gender balance has increased since last year, there is still a large disparity, that may in part stem from the unwillingness of organisers of larger festivals especially to take risks.

Weekly Roundup- 23rd to 29th April

~ redoinggender ~ Leave a comment

let's all (3)

“Learning is not attained by chance, it must be sought for with ardor and diligence.”

– Abigail Adams

In today’s world of information overload, we might miss something worthwhile. Every week, I’ll be flagging some of the articles I have read, which I found interesting, for you. Here’s the roundup for the week:

  1. In an opinion piece, Tricia Lowther for The Guardian highlights why labelling books by gender for children only enforces stereotypes, even when it seeks to reduce them. She takes the cases of Goodnight Stories for Rebel Girls, and its more recent male equivalent Stories for Boys Who Dare to Be Different, which are among a clutch of bestselling children’s books that supposedly break down gender stereotypes. She says that books like them, even while they showcase the inspirational stories of men and women, only emphasises the difference between boys and girls through their titles, and thus impedes equality.
  2. Bustle focuses on a new font, created by Leslie Sims, Chief Creative Officer of global advertising agency Young & Rubicam (Y&R), who realised that we lack a physical language that encompasses all the issues that women face, every day. Hence, she created The Feminist Letters. Sims says that ‘Each letter represents a specific issue, through both the design and what the letter stands for, in order to further call attention to the reality of the large span that the women’s rights movement covers (for example, E is for elections, and V is for voting). By selecting a letter, you are actively learning background information and factual evidence about the relevant legislation of that issue.’
  3. Timothy Williams for the New York Times examines the differences between the trials faced by Bill Cosby, where he was accused of having drugged and sexually assaulted Andrea Constand. Between the first trial, where the jury could not agree on whether Cosby was guilty or not, and the second trial, where he was sentenced to jail, a series of revelations over Harvey Weinstein and a cascade of other powerful men invigorated the #MeToo movement. Williams examines the differences in the two trials and whether Cosby’s case was also part of a shift in the ‘norms of accountability’.
  4. BBC reports on the rules introduced by the IAAF in a bid to stop women with higher testosterone gaining a competitive advantage, and the impact it’ll have on elite female athletes, including Caster Semenya, Olympic 800m champion. These rules have been seen as divisive, and politically motivated. Further, as stated by Katrina Karkazis, a bioethicist and visiting senior fellow at the Global Health Justice Partnership at Yale, the hammer throw and the pole vault categories, which showed the highest performance advantage for women with elevated testosterone in the 2017 I.A.A.F. study, are not included in the new rules, the regulations appear to be arbitrary and not based on solid science.

Weekly Roundup- 16th to 22nd April

~ redoinggender ~ Leave a comment

let's all (3)

“Learning is not attained by chance, it must be sought for with ardor and diligence.”

– Abigail Adams

In today’s world of information overload, we might miss something worthwhile. Every week, I’ll be flagging some of the articles I have read, which I found interesting, for you. Here’s the roundup for the week:

  1. Ruth Marcus for the Washington Post highlights 3 women who have made the news this week-  U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley, Southwest Airlines pilot Tammie Jo Shults and Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), an Army veteran- and compares them to Barbara Bush in a beautiful tribute to the way she inspired change and defied norms present at that time.
  2. The Harvard Crimson muses about sexual harassment and the way it’s dealt with at Harvard University, taking in particular the case of the sexual harassment faced by Terry L. Karl by Government professor Jorge I. Dominguez, along with the writer’s personal experiences.
  3. The Good News Network spoke about the amazing work done by Gulika Reddy, a Fellow in Global Good Fund’s cohort of 2018. Currently a Dubin Fellow at Harvard Kennedy Business School, Gullika is the founder and director of Schools of Equality, a nonprofit that runs activity-based programs that reach young people to shift attitudes that perpetuate gender-based violence and other forms of discrimination.
  4. Nicola Heath, for The Guardian, talks about ‘gender creative parenting’, which seeks raise children in an environment free from gender bias. For these parents “the gender binary must not simply be smudged but wholly eradicated from the moment that socialisation begins, clearing the way both for their child’s future gender exploration and for wholesale cultural change”, writes Alex Morris.

Weekly Roundup – 9nd to 15th April

~ redoinggender ~ Leave a comment

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“Learning is not attained by chance, it must be sought for with ardor and diligence.”

– Abigail Adams

In today’s world of information overload, we might miss something worthwhile. Every week, I’ll be flagging some of the articles I have read, which I found interesting, for you. Here’s the roundup for the week:

  1. As reported by CNNMoney, the city of New York will now require sexual harassment training for all workers. This new training rule, one of the strongest legislative responses to the conversation that has been occurring increasingly often about misconduct in workplaces, will apply to any private employer with more than 15 employees.
  2. Recently, protests erupted across India after the shocking and gruesome details about the rape and murder of a 8 year old Muslim girl by 8 accused Hindu men were made public. The issue has lead to communal discord, and showed that, despite the strides India has made in the field of safety for women, there are miles to go before we come anywhere close to building a country that is safe for women. One of the more disturbing elements of this particular case, which occurred in Kathua, was that due to the communal nature of the crime, many men, including members of the ruling Bhartiya Janata Party, came out in support of the accused. Quartz reports on the same, while also highlighting the outpouring of rage and support that India has given to the case.
  3. The Guardian, in an excerpt taken from Healing from Hate: How Young Men Get Into – and Out of –Violent Extremism by Michael Kimmel, published by University of California Press in April 2018, talks about how one thing in common for most violent extremists is their gender. As observed, violent extremists tend to have fragile concepts regarding their masculinity and often feel emasculated.
  4. Nathanial Frank, in the New York Times, outlines why the Pentagon is wrong in their conclusion that people with gender dysphoria, or a history of gender transition have a higher rate of mental illnesses that “unacceptably raise the risks of harm to unit cohesion, lethality, good order and overall readiness.” Frank disputes this, and through research, tries to show the reader how this conclusion has been disproved by many independent bodies and research institutions.

Weekly Roundup – 2nd to 8th April

~ redoinggender ~ Leave a comment

let's all (3)

“Learning is not attained by chance, it must be sought for with ardor and diligence.”

– Abigail Adams

In today’s world of information overload, we might miss something worthwhile. Every week, I’ll be flagging some of the articles I have read, which I found interesting, for you. Here’s the roundup for the week:

  1. Written by Whitney Bauck, this article speaks about the gender disparity in fashion photography and the need for the industry to actively push for more women behind the lens.
  2. The Jordan Times speaks about how even within the context of extremism, women are treated differently and are usually perceived to have made their decision to join extremism because they were manipulated by men, were driven by maternal instinct, or were ‘monsters affected by mental disorders.
  3. Anoosh Chakelian, for the New Statesman talks about how to respond to people who try to ‘mansplain’ away the gender gap by referring to common quotes of that community including people who say ‘men are just more biologically competent than women’
  4. Israel has banned anti gender discrimination advertisements within its airports, according to this article. The billboards spoke about how women cannot be forced to move seats because ultra-Orthodox men refused to sit with them, and told women to ‘keep their seats’.

Weekly Roundup – 18th to 25th March

~ redoinggender ~ Leave a comment

let's all (3).jpg

“Learning is not attained by chance, it must be sought for with ardor and diligence.”

– Abigail Adams

In today’s world of information overload, we might miss something worthwhile. Every week, I’ll be flagging some of the articles I have read, which I found interesting, for you. Here’s the roundup for the week:

  1. This article in Deutsche Welle, written by Ajit Niranjan, talks about gender budgeting, which aims to remove discrimination from public policy by making policies that are not “gender blind”.
  2. Starbucks has announced that they have reached 100% gender and racial pay equity in the United States, and have stated that they will work to bridge this gap in all the other countries they operate in. In order to help other companies achieve the same goal, they’ve listed pay equity principles – equal footing, transparency and accountability-  that employers can implement to help address known, systemic barriers to global pay equity.
  3. Elena Ferrante, in her weekend column at Guardian, talks about how women are still unable to be fully themselves in a world that’s governed by male needs. She says “Women live amid permanent contradictions and unsustainable labours. Everything, really everything, has been codified in terms of male needs – even our underwear, sexual practices, maternity. We have to be women according to roles and modalities that make men happy, but we also have to confront men, compete in public places, making them more and better than they are, and being careful not to offend them.”
  4. Written by Sushma U N at Quartz, this article talks about how Indian companies are actively trying to recruit more women in order to fix their gender diversity problems.
  5. As part of the Department for International Development (DFID)-funded Family Planning Outreach Programme, which provides much-needed sexual and reproductive health services to rural women, more than 16,000 survivors of gender based violence in Tanzania are receiving clinical services, as well as the referrals required for legal and social services. Intra Health International details how the team responsible for this outcome worked over the past 3 years.
  6.  Yasemin Besen Cassino talks about her new book which studies the origins of the wage gap by studying the teenage workforce. She says “Part-time teenage jobs seem trivial, but they are the first entry into the workforce for girls and boys. In these jobs, they are socialized into the workforce—and they internalize its problems. The wage gap starts with girls—and we need to include them in our movement to close it.”