South Asia | Afghanistan | Activism

The activists leading efforts for women’s rights at Afghan talks

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Jamila Afghani, a prominent women's rights activist, was getting ready to address a peace dialogue attended by Afghan leaders and Taliban representatives in Doha, when she got the news of an attack back home. Sponsored by Qatar and Germany, the two-day talks in Doha are attended by Taliban representatives and about 50 Afghan politicians and activists, including 10 female delegates. Afghani said many young female Afghans were pinning their hopes on her and other women delegates to continue talks with the Taliban on women's rights in the country. "The meeting is a good start, w
Middle East | Israel | Culture

Rare view of the lives of the ‘Taliban Women’ in Jerusalem

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A recent report from a leading news channel exposed a phenomenon of extreme religious devotion that even the ultra-Orthodox community declared to be too fanatic. The “Taliban Women” group is controlled primarily by women and its members cover themselves completely in black cloth – including their face. Their young daughters are also forced wear the same burqa-like black outfit due to strict rules of modesty. All members are Orthodox women who have decided to take their faith to “the next level”. An Orthodox female reporter pretended to be in the process of joining the group.
Middle East | Saudi Arabia | Culture

Saudi Women Can Vote For the First Time Ever — But Only 16 Have Registered to Do So

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Despite initial excitement for what appeared to be a step forward for women's rights in Saudi Arabia, the registration of women to vote in upcoming elections for the first time ever has so far been slow in the conservative kingdom. Local reporting indicates that just 16 women have registered to vote in three governorates since they were able to do so starting on August 22. The chairperson for the women's election circuit in the district of Al-Darb, Shaha Muhammad Asiri, said over the weekend that only five women registered in that district due to logistical difficulties and lack of awarenes
Europe | Germany | Culture

Committedly Islamic, avowedly feminist: Germany’s Islamic feminist movement

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There are two general tendencies that govern how Muslim minorities in Europe are spoken about by mainstream European politicians and journalists. One is that the attention is overwhelmingly on Muslim communities living in Britain and France. Other European countries get a mention only when there erupts a crisis or a murder, as was the case in the Jyllands-Posten controversy in 2005 in Denmark. The other striking tendency is that Muslim minorities in Europe are typically spoken of as distinct from the people and common sensibilities of the nation in which they live. They are taken to be
International | Culture

Why Women Still Are Forced To Pay the ‘Makeup Tax’

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The makeup tax is real: The Atlantic's Olga Khazan found stats that suggest that the average woman will spend $15,000 in her lifetime on beauty products and could devote as many as two weeks per year of her life applying all that product. Khazan than takes aim at the most common response to this issue: "Just don’t wear makeup!" She lists all the depressing ways sciences has proven that society pushes wearing makeup as a cultural norm: - In one study, women who were made up were likely to be awarded "prestigious jobs" by study participants than they were when the same women were bare-face
Europe | U.K. | Culture

UK’s First Female Sharia Judge: ‘We Can’t Ask Muslims Not to Have More than One Wife’

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Britain's first female Sharia law judge has issued a brazen warning that flies in the face of UK law, stating that the "government cannot ask Muslims not to have more than one wife." The news comes on the back of a report by the Times newspaper which claims that Britain is experiencing a "surge" in Sharia marriages, as young British Muslims adopt a more hardline religious stance than their parents.
North America | United States | Culture

Flashback: A Harvard Professor Explains How Women Can Negotiate Better

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Hannah Riley Bowles, a professor at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, has studied gender in the workplace extensively. In a recent article in the Harvard Business Review, she laid out the current state of research into differences between how men and women negotiate over salary, and how they are treated when they do. And these differences are sizable, she writes, since “in most published studies, the social cost of negotiating for pay is not significant for men, while it is significant for women.” In other words, women sometimes lose, even when they win — they may get the pa
International | Culture

Charting five of culture’s most radical women

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From M.I.A to a surrealist feminist photographer and the first black female aviator, designer Claire Barrow is set on celebrating high flying females Designed by Jamie Reid and printed by Ditto Press, Claire Barrow’s High Flyers zine is a comic-book manifesto for her label’s aesthetic. Juxtaposing early female aviators (“[They] fought stereotypes of what women at work should be,” says Barrow) with the bathetic grind of the 9 to 5, it insists on the inner strength of the modern-day woman at work. After last season’s dystopian mythmaking, AW15 staked a battleground closer to
Middle East | Iran | Culture

Rise in divorce in Iran linked to shift in status of women

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Weddings in Iran have long been an over-the-top affair with families spending thousands of dollars to celebrate a union. But now some couples are splurging on an entirely different sort of nuptial celebration: a divorce party. Local media outlets and blogs have been abuzz for months about lavish parties, complete with sarcastic invitations and humorous cakes, for couples splitting up. The phenomenon has become so widespread in Tehran and other large cities that one prominent cleric said couples who throw these parties are “satanic”. Still, the divorce parties are a sign of an undenia
North America | United States | Culture

What A Black Female Attorney General Can Do That Her Forebears Couldn’t

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As the first African American woman in U.S. history to be sworn in as Attorney General, Loretta Lynch’s appointment marks an important milestone for minority women in leadership roles. Currently, black women make up only 1% of U.S. corporate officers, despite the fact that 75% of corporate executives now believe having minorities in senior level positions fosters innovation and better serves a diverse customer base. While the appointment of Lynch as Attorney General took longer than the last seven attorney generals combined, it is a win for women, a win for racial minorities and a win
Africa | Uganda | Activism

Angry women strip naked in Ugandan land dispute protest

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A long-running district border dispute in northern Uganda took a new turn when a group of elderly local women stripped naked before two visiting ministers, in protest against perceived land grabbing. Members of the local Acholi tribe fear that a government plan to draw up new boundaries between the districts of Amuru and Adjumani will be the prelude to mass evictions, as happened in 2012 when over 6,000 Acholis were evicted to make way for a game reserve. The protest led the ministers to announce a postponement of the boundary demarcation exercise pending further consultations with inter
South Asia | India | Culture

Marriage custom challenged for symbolizing female slavery

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A group of 21 women voluntarily removed their “mangalsutras” – a sacred thread tied around the bride’s neck by the groom during the marriage ceremony – because they consider it a symbol of a wife’s enslavement. Women are supposed to wear the thread at all times, and removing it is considered tantamount to divorce. The demonstration took place in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, which is known for its rationalist ideologies.
Middle East | Iraq | Culture

From logistics to medicine: Women joining Islamic State no longer just ‘jihadi brides’

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Women travelling to join Islamic State militants are no longer just seeking to become "jihadi brides" but are taking on new roles, on the frontline in logistics and intelligence and as medics, according to military and expert sources. Female presence in Islamic State's battles to establish a medieval-style caliphate across the Middle East has been unusual with the radical Sunni Islamists imposing strict restrictions on women's dress and behaviour and deeming their role as domestic. But as more foreigners, both male and female, go to join or fight Islamic State, the traditional role of wo
Asia | Japan | Culture

Japanese City Will Pay for Women to Freeze Their Eggs

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Late last month, the city of Urayasu, in Japan’s Chiba Prefecture, decided to one-up the nation’s public medical insurance scheme by offering to subsidize egg freezing for local women. Dubbed the Urayasu Oocyte Cryopreservation Program, the plan is an apparent global first by any municipality. The local government has promised to allocate 90 million yen (about $750,000) to the local Juntendo University Hospital to promote research on the process, which involves encouraging local women to utilize the procedure. Normally, including 10 years of storage, egg freezing costs about a million yen