Turns out
boys are not better than girls at maths and science. Hooda thunkit?
Hulk vs. Valkyrie! "Every male chauvinist pig in the world will tremble!"
Down Under
Australian women still face sex bias, including high levels of outright
sexual harassment. A
national plan means to tackle that, plus "Boosting women's retirement savings, encouraging family-friendly work practices, [reviewing] sex discrimination laws, and promoting women in leadership roles."
This one's from June:
Gender wage gap under review: with women still earning less than men, even for comparable work, the Australian guvmint plans a pay equity tribunal.
Challenge to legal boys' club: female barristers are being systematically excluded from work; state governments seek to redress this.
Designer vaginas blacklisted by gynos: Australian and NZ doctors
reject the West's version of Female Genital Mutilation as unnecessary, dangerous, and exploitative.
To hell and back: appetite for life regained: Lucy Howard-Taylor's Biting Anorexia "is the only memoir written by a recovered anorexic to be endorsed by the Eating Disorders Foundation of NSW because it refuses to glamorise the disorder".
Australian women wrong on heart disease: survey: "Most women mistakenly believe that breast cancer is the leading cause of death among females, underestimating heart disease as the nation's biggest killer."
Hillsong hits schools with beauty gospel: troubled young women taught by unqualified counsellors to boost their self-esteem through nail polish?
Family violence unit incomplete: promised domestic violence police unit for NSW pretty much forgotten.
Abused wife thought: "I've got to kill him".
Meanwhile, in the rest of the world
Women working for the government or contractors in occupied Iraq under threat from their male colleagues:
After rape victim used cell phone to call for help, KBR bans use of personal phones in Iraq. (See also
this blog post from last December.)
In the UK:
Rape victims told alcohol consumption may cost them compensation. The relevant body, CICA, admits it was wrong to reduce compensation by as much as 25%, but
refuses to review such cases unless victims complain. One woman's story:
'I did my bit in reporting a rapist, the authorities didn't do theirs'.
Still in the UK:
Sex assaults: Police accused of adopting 'Life on Mars' attitude. The former head of Derbyshire CID: "My advice to cops is: investigate. If someone gets their car nicked or their house broken into and their DVD player's gone, then you start an investigation, irrespective of the respectability of the victim. While some forces are embracing change, there are other individuals playing the Life on Mars stance where they allege that most cases are
false allegations and not worth pursuing."