Good afternoon!
Apologies for the lack of email last fortnight - other deadlines took over my life for a bit there. So this issue covers the whole of March… for better or for worse.
By the way, if you do like Solidaritas, don’t forget there’s a paid option! It’s just US$5/month or US$40 for a whole year:
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In solidarity,
Kate
Afghanistan
“Is gaining knowledge a sin?”: Afghan girls contemplate a future without schools after the Taliban backtracked on their promises. In late March, several dozen women and girls held protests in front of the Ministry of Education to demand the reopening of schools.
Related: The Conversation takes a look at why girls’ education is such a focus for the Taliban.
The Taliban have now also reportedly banned women from flying without their male guardians, while women who served in the Afghan military are pleading for help, as Taliban fighters hunt them down.
Australia
Grace Tame and Brittany Higgins are supremely admirable, but are nonetheless the acceptable white faces of Australian feminism.
Culturally diverse women are paid less, get stuck in middle management longer, and are more likely to be harassed.
Up to 70,000 women may have been coerced into withdrawing from their superannuation retirement funds.
Bangladesh
Women from coastal communities are planting mangroves to save the Sundarbans.
China
China is facing renewed calls to lower its legal marriageable ages – the oldest in the world – after its number of marriages plunged to a new low last year.
Women remain invisible in the upper echelons of the Chinese government. No woman has ever held a seat in the Politburo Standing Committee, or taken one of the top three party, military or state leadership positions.
Federated States of Micronesia
The election of the FSM’s first woman to the country’s congress shows why it is important to incorporate local custom into Pacific gender advocacy.
Hong Kong
A new study has found that almost 40% of Hong Kong women have experienced sexual abuse.
India
Transgender women are finding increasing levels of respect in India, but the country’s traditional gender-nonconforming group, hijras, remains heavily stigmatised.
For the first time, 70% of zilla parishads (a type of district development council) in Odisha will be headed by women.
Following the pandemic, millions of Indian women are now on the brink of poverty, especially among those working in rural areas in the informal sector, who made up 80 per cent of job losses in March-April 2020.
Indonesia
Nahdlatul Ulama, the world’s largest Islamic organisation, has welcomed women into its top leadership roles for the first time since it was founded nearly 100 years ago.
A cute story about Indonesian women learning to play Australian rules football in Central Java.
Japan
Japan will finally begin to actively promote the HPV vaccine for girls and women.
More signs that the Japanese government still doesn’t take women’s issues seriously:
At a session of the Japanese parliament this week, a female lawmaker pleaded with Prime Minister Fumio Kishida to close a loophole that could make it easier for the adult film industry to exploit teenage girls.
Colleagues’ response to Ayaka Shiomura’s appeal: laughter.
Laos
Hundreds of Lao women are trapped in the Chinese-run Golden Triangle Special Economic Zone, unable to leave due to unpaid debts.
Nepal
One in every two pregnancies in Nepal are unwanted, says a new UNFPA report. This equates to more than 600,000 pregnancies.
New Zealand
One in five rugby players in New Zealand are now women, and their numbers are rising. But persistent stereotypes are proving hard to dismantle.
Māori women face significant discrimination in the housing market, particularly if they have children, leading to disproportionate rates of homelessness.
Pakistan
Prior to IWD 2022, Pakistan’s Minister for Religious Affairs called for events to be cancelled and replaced by ‘Hijab Day’ activities instead. He especially wanted to ban the country’s Aurat Marches (Women’s Marches). Women’s activists were not impressed.
The Philippines
The Philippines has long been seen as an outlier on the global front of the gender gap, having elected not just one but two women leaders in the last 20 years. So why are places of power still dominated by men and why aren’t women leaders valued?
Regional
Why fewer Pasifika women are breastfeeding their babies. (Hint: it’s mostly due to systems that don’t support working women!)
How social media users are working to redefine perceptions of Pasifika beauty.
Singapore
Women aged 21 to 35 in Singapore could soon choose to freeze their eggs regardless of marital status.
South Korea
South Korea has one of the worst women's rights records in the developed world. Yet it is disgruntled young men who have been the focus of the country's 2022 presidential election, resulting in the election of avowed “anti-feminist” Yoon Suk-yeol. Plus, The Diplomat takes a look at new data that explores the gender divide.
In the 1960s, selling women’s and girls’ hair to the wig industry became a crucial lifeline for many poor South Korean families. How did it all come about?:
“The hair collectors would come to the neighborhood yelling ‘hair collection!’,” Kang recalls. “Collecting hair was so popular that hair collectors would even go to hair salons. If the hair was in good condition, the hair stylist would tie it in a ponytail and hang it on a wall for the hair collectors.” …
It worked. Over the next decade, the wig industry boomed in South Korea. In 1964, wig sales totaled a measly $14,000. By 1970, wigs brought South Korea over $93 million in annual revenue. At its height, wigs made up 9.3% of South Korea’s exports and was the country’s number two export.
Sri Lanka
More Sri Lankan women are learning to surf:
Growing up in a small fishing village along the east coast of Sri Lanka, Shamali Sanjaya would often sit on the beach and look out at the boisterous waves. She would watch in envy as others, including her father and brother, grabbed surfboards, paddled out into the sea and then rode those waves smoothly back to shore. “I longed for it in my heart,” she said.
But as a local woman, surfing was strictly out of bounds…
Yet now, as a 34-year-old mother of two and with another baby on the way, Sanjaya is at the forefront of a quiet female surfing revolution that has swept not just her village but the whole country. In 2018, she helped set up Sri Lanka’s first all-female surf club in Arugam Bay and in 2020 competed in Sri Lanka’s first women-only category in a national surfing competition.
New research shows that one in three pregnancies in Sri Lanka are unintended.
Timor-Leste
Several female candidates stood in March’s presidential election: who were they? One woman, Armanda Berta dos Santos, came in third place, with 8.7 percent of the national vote. A run-off round will be held later in April.
Tonga
Tonga’s 2021 general election was one of the most eventful in the nation’s history, with long dominant political parties ousted by a new wave of independents. Despite this political shift, women are still excluded from the Kingdom’s highest elected offices.