Good afternoon!
I hope wherever you are right now, it is warmer than Canberra, where it has been sleeting (a miserable combination of snow and rain) for the past several days.
While you’re here, I’d like to mention an awesome gender and politics newsletter I was introduced to recently. It’s called Impact. Impact is a bilingual (English and French!) covers feminist social movements and the public policies that affect women’s lives. Impact’s focus is worldwide, so if you’re interested in looking beyond Asia and the Pacific, I encourage you to subscribe.
I spoke to Impact’s editor, Megan Clement, a couple of weeks ago to get the latest on what’s happening with feminism in Europe.
Kate: What are two of the most under-covered feminist issues in Europe at the moment, in your opinion?
Megan: Until recently, I would have said abortion access, but the war in Ukraine, the potential overturning of Roe v Wade in the US and the prosecution of feminist activist Justyna Wydrzyńska have all brought more attention to just how bad the situation is in Poland, which has a near-total ban. Still, we don't talk enough about the fact that it is still too difficult for people in Ireland and Northern Ireland to access abortion despite recent changes in the law, nor is enough pressure placed on Malta, which enacts a total ban. The new president of the EU Parliament is from Malta and is anti-abortion, which shows that reproductive rights are not given adequate consideration in European politics.
Europe also really struggles with intersectional feminism. In countries like France, where I live, making reference to the specific challenges of ethnic minority women, or Muslim women, or refugee women, often attracts criticism, with people saying that choosing to analyse inequality in this way is a "woke" import from the anglophone world. Many European countries have a certain blindness to intersectional issues baked into their constitutions or at least into their national psyches – the idea is that because everybody should be equal according to a country's foundational principles, that means that they automatically are, and it is seen as divisive to point out that some women might be even less equal than others for reasons of structural racism. As an example, I am currently working on an article about how the alleged 'gender blindness' of the asylum system in Denmark, which is seen around the world as a bastion of equality, is actually driving refugee women into detention centres or forcing them to flee because the specific threats they face, for example the risk of domestic violence, are not considered to be adequate grounds for refuge.
Kate: There have been many distressing developments with regard to women's and LGBTQ rights over the past few years. Can you share with us a recent good news feminist story from Europe that made you feel optimistic?
Megan: Thankfully, Europe is also full of good news on gender and LGBTQI+ equality. France recently made fertility treatments available to single and lesbian women for the first time. San Marino voted to decriminalise abortion last year, as did Gibraltar. Switzerland has voted for marriage equality. I am not inclined to see the elevation of individual powerful women like Christine Lagarde or Ursula von der Leyen and certainly not Roberta Metsola (the aforementioned anti-abortion EU parliament president) as major victories, but I am very optimistic about grassroots successes like the months-long strike by the cleaners of the Hotel Ibis Batignolles in Paris, which won better working conditions for some of the most precariously employed people in one of the most heavily feminised professions. The leader of that movement, Rachel Keke, is now running in the upcoming French parliamentary elections and that gives me an enormous amount of hope. In a similar vein, the ousting of Slovenia's far-right President Janez Janša was masterminded by the leaders of that country's feminist movement, which I hope will set a precedent for ending the illiberal backlash that has taken hold in many other parts of the continent.
If you’d like to follow these and other developments, subscribe to Impact.
Afghanistan
The Taliban have ordered all female TV presenters to cover their faces on air. At Tolo News, male presenters are protesting this development by wearing face masks when presenting.
When the Taliban seized power last August, 27-year-old Sara Seerat lost her job and her bank account was frozen. She’d been an adviser to the Afghan High Council for Women, which was then under the Ministry for Women’s Affairs, but she was taken in for interrogation by the country’s new rulers. Seerat is now living in Berlin with her family on a humanitarian visa.
Afghanistan women, blocked from working, are now economically worse off than before.
Australia
Australia has a new government, and women played a huge role in kicking out the old one.
Speaking of which, new PM Anthony Albanese’s cabinet has a record 10 female cabinet ministers. But will it contribute to making parliament a safer place for women to work? Plus: meet new MP Sally Sitou, a young woman of Chinese heritage whose parents fled Laos due to the Vietnam War.
Australia needs to introduce a menstrual leave policy, but it must be supported by other initiatives, too.
In 1881, Nie, a Pacific Islander woman, walked off a plantation in Queensland. What does her story tell us about the history of slavery in Australia?
Bangladesh
Rural families in Bangladesh are using the bulk of their money to protect themselves and their homes from climate change, especially households headed by women, who are allocating up to 30 percent of their spending for that purpose.
China
In 2021, feminist journalist Sophia Huang Xueqin was awarded a Chevening scholarship to pursue gender studies at the University of Sussex. In September, on the way to the airport to catch her flight to the UK, Sophia “vanished.” She hasn’t been seen since.
China’s first woman in space, Liu Yang, is returning for her next mission: spending six months on the Tiangong space station.
Fiji
More Fijian workplaces need polices on gender-based violence, advocates say.
India
Thivya Rakini is a divorcee, domestic violence survivor, and former nun. Now, she’s also the president of the Tamil Nadu Textile and Common Labour Union (TTCU), Tamil Nadu’s only female-led garment workers union, and she’s taking on sexual harassment and assault in the garment industry:
Rakini’s fearlessness in taking on the might of Tamil Nadu’s garment industry is extraordinary considering the mafia-like hold that textile companies exert over garment-worker communities. She and her TTCU colleagues have faced death threats and harassment and she says that she was nearly driven off the road while riding her scooter, when investigating the disappearance of two workers from a cotton-spinning mill.
Yet she is undaunted. “In my own life, all my struggles I’ve faced alone,” she says. “Now, at TTCU, for these women, I want to be the person I needed when I had nobody to turn to.”
For workers who live in employee hostels, the restrictions placed on them often seem prison-like. Interestingly, young women garment workers don’t always see it that way.
Sonia Marak's coaches think she's good enough to play soccer for India, but poverty could dash her dreams.
Women have long had difficulties entering the formal workforce in India, but COVID-19 has made things worse, with 90% of women now effectively shut out of formal work.
Indonesia
Women in Indonesia are forced, at some point, to choose between career and family. One reason that needs to be examined is how the current taxation system is biased against women:
Unlike most countries, Indonesia’s tax system is a household income tax, considering the family as a taxation unit with the husband as the default head. This system contains explicit bias since it unequivocally treats men and women differently. Such tax codes also create implicit bias by imposing higher effective marginal rates on secondary earners, mostly wives.
Japan
Japan is set to approve the abortion pill. Unfortunately, partner consent will likely be required, as it is for surgical abortion:
The policy can have tragic consequences. Last year, a 21-year-old woman was arrested after the body of her newborn baby was found in a park in central Japan. The woman, who was given a suspended prison sentence, told the court she was unable to end her pregnancy because she could not gain written consent from her partner.
Doctors had insisted that she obtain consent, even though the health ministry later said hers was one of the few cases in which it was not required because the father could not be contacted.
As parental benefits improve for working mothers, more women are staying in Japan’s workforce, albeit mostly in part-time roles.
Malaysia
Datuk Nurulhidayah Ahmad Zahid, the daughter of Umno president Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, apparently thinks that women are not natural leaders.
Grab co-founder, Tan Hooi Ling, wants to empower more women to hold powerful roles in business. She has announced that Grab will raise the proportion of women in leadership positions to 40% by 2030 – up from 34% now – and is committed to ensuring equal pay.
Should Malaysia adopt a menstrual leave policy?
Mongolia
Go back in time and meet the women who ran Genghis Khan’s empire.
Myanmar
Being a female star in Myanmar can have its downsides. In the immediate wake of the 2021 military coup, actresses, models, and social influencers became targets of the junta if they spoke out against the military power grab.
Since the coup, millions of Burmese people have been unable to access basic food and medical needs. For women, the hardships are compounded by the challenge of managing their monthly periods.
Nepal
A young woman’s account on TikTok of being drugged, raped and then blackmailed by a beauty pageant organiser when she was 16 years old has provoked outrage in Nepal and prompted calls to reform the country’s “grossly inadequate” rape laws.
New Zealand
80-year-old lesbian icon Miriam Saphira has been awarded the Order of Merit for her advocacy on LGBTQ+ rights.
North Korea
North Korea’s COVID outbreak may be leading to a rise in stillbirths as pregnant women thought to be suffering from the disease are shuttled into improvised medical facilities that lack proper treatment, sources report.
Pakistan
A 25-year-old mother of two was raped by three men onboard a Karachi-bound train. A ticket checker allegedly lured her to an empty compartment.
Stefanus Prize laureate, activist, and documentary filmmaker Wagma Feroz uses her work to call for greater religious freedom and rights for women in Pakistan. She tells DW that “Women are not considered human beings” in her home country.
Papua New Guinea
PNG’s elections are fast approaching, and there is a record number of women standing for election this year. Many are ‘young and determined’, as just seven women have ever been elected to PNG’s parliament in its 50 year history.
One woman standing for election is Dulciana Somare-Brash, who is putting women’s and children’s rights at the forefront of her campaign.
The Philippines
Groups advocating for women's health say the government must be accountable for the insufficient access to women's healthcare, especially during the pandemic.
Regional
A minority in a minority, transgender Rohingya beautician Tanya has faced discrimination on even more fronts than most other residents of the world's biggest refugee camp. But now, her make-up skills earned her a reputation as one of the best make-up artists in Cox's Bazar -- and better earnings than most other Rohingya.
On the challenges of being LGBTQ+ in the Pacific, despite long histories of queerness prior to colonisation.
A study on online abuse against women in Australia and India has confirmed that women with marginalised identities experience more and worse attacks:
What’s worse is platform content moderators are failing to recognise this cyber violence – often because they don’t understand the nuance and contexts ins operate. …
One study found Indian Muslim women politicians faced 94.1% more ethnic or religious slurs than women politicians of other religions, and women from marginalised castes received 59% more caste-based slurs than women from more general castes.
Samoa
Samoa's Supreme Court has ordered the nation's Parliamentary Speaker to swear an additional three women to Parliament immediately, bringing the number of women in Parliament to seven, out of a total of 54.
Singapore
A new report from AWARE has found that stable housing is crucial for single mums to gain better employment and increase income.
Women hold 13.1% of CEO positions in Singapore, the highest in the world. But the city-state wants to raise the share even higher.
The debate over whether women should be required to perform national service continues.
Solomon Islands
Solomons’ first female rangers will join the fight to protect the leatherback turtle.
South Korea
World War II sexual violence survivor Lee Yong-soo is fighting for an apology and resolution on behalf of the 200,000+ women and girls who were forced into sexual slavery under the Japanese military. But she’s 93, and she’s worried time is running out.
Meet Park Ji-hyun, a previously-anonymous feminist activist who fought against online sex crimes who is now a rising political star:
In the five years since Park Ji-hyun's 21st birthday, the South Korean activist has busted an online sex crime ring, published a memoir, revealed her identity to the masses, and become a senior advisor to a leading presidential candidate.
He lost, but she didn't. The election elevated Park to the highest levels of national politics. Just months after emerging from anonymity, Park was named interim co-chair of the Democratic Party and the leader of its rebuilding efforts.
Sri Lanka
A photo essay featuring female rickshaw driver, Lasanda Deepthi, who - in the face of nation-wide inflation - plans her day around fuel queues. Petrol prices in Sri Lanka have soared 259% since October 2021.
Despite massive protests against the government, Tamil women have been notably absent. VICE takes a look.
Thailand
Tawan Tuatulanon is fighting against the monarchy, and is risking her freedom by doing so. She is part of an underground anti-monarchy group called Thaluwang (‘Shattering the Palace’), which is made up mostly of young people in their 20s who use performance art, stunts, and other unusual tactics to question the king’s hold on power.
Vietnam
Accidental drowning is one of Vietnam’s biggest killers of children. Meet one woman in the Mekong Delta who is doing her utmost to teach children the vital skill of swimming.