South Asia | India | Culture

Maharashtra dithers on plea to lift curb on women in Haji Ali dargah

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The Maharashtra government has washed its hands of a public interest litigation petition against the restrictions on women entering the sanctum sanctorum of the famous Haji Ali Dargah here. “The State has not filed a reply so far, and it does not want to file [one],” a Division Bench of Justices V.M. Kanade and B.P. Colabawalla said at the hearing on Friday. Referring to a letter of Mohammed Arif Naseem Khan, former Minister for Minority Development, the Bench said: “From the tenor of the letter, it is clear that the State government wants to sit on the fence… .” The petition, file
North America | United States | Economy

Birthrate among U.S. women rises for first time in seven years

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Here's another sign that the economy is rebounding: More people are having babies. The rate of births among women ages 15 to 44 ticked up 1% from 2013 to 2014. That's the first increase since 2007, the beginning of the recession, according to a study released Wednesday by the National Center for Health Statistics. The 3.98 million total births in 2014 were the most since 2010. Carl Haub, a senior demographer for the Population Reference Bureau, said he wasn't surprised by the federal findings. Though the increase in fertility rate is small, he said, it could be indicative of a shiftin
North America | United States | Business

This Is Why Bud Light Had No Problem Releasing An Offensive Marketing Campaign

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Yesterday, Bud Light issued an apology after facing a firestorm of criticism over beer labels that read, “The Perfect Beer For Removing ‘No’ From Your Vocabulary For The Night.” The labels are part of the “Up For Whatever” marketing campaign, which also faced criticism for a tweet during St. Patrick’s Day saying, “You can also pinch people who aren’t #UpForWhatever.” Both taglines could be construed to endorse unwanted sexual contact or, in the case of the most recent one, rape. Plenty of women know about rape culture and have fought against it, but women may not have be
North America | United States | Corruption

Pregnant women are now targets: The tragedy of Purvi Patel

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With such untrustworthy evidence, the prosecution was able to convict Patel of not only feticide, but neglect of a dependent– two seemingly contradictory crimes. Alongside the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, the Patel case signals a new era of reproductive injustices to come – in which women may fear seeking needed medical attention lest they be arrested, tried, and convinced to shockingly long sentences like Patel. Although the Purvi Patel case has been discussed extensively for its reproductive justice implications in the domestic and foreign press alike, what has been less promine
North America | Canada | Culture

Doctors warned not to encourage young women to freeze their eggs in new medical journal article

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Doctors are being warned not to encourage young women to freeze their eggs as a way to avoid “future regret,” says a just-published article in the Canadian Medical Association Journal that argues it risks perpetuating expectations that being a mother is central to being a woman. “Social egg freezing uses medical technology to respond to a non-medical problem — natural aging,” the authors of the CMAJ analysis write in a paper published Monday, which was intended to help family doctors advise women contemplating egg banking. Growing numbers of Canadian women are seeking “social
South Asia | Nepal | Ethics

In Nepal, Women As Second-Class Citizen Takes A Sad New Twist

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Sabin Shrestha, the executive director of the Forum for Woman, Law and Development, says it is really an issue of male control. "They think if they give equal rights to women in terms of citizenship, then the patriarchy system will be destroyed," she says. Former prime minister and Assembly member Madhav Kumar believes mothers should not have the same rights as fathers. The Interim Constitution made in 2007 clearly states that "any person whose father or mother was a citizen of Nepal at his or her birth is a Nepalese citizen." But in practice, women in this patriarchal society still face
Europe | France | Culture

The ‘moderate’ imam who claims ‘all women are selfish’

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An imam in France has claimed in a sermon that selfishness is part of “the nature of women”, comments that have shocked all the more because of his reputation as a progressive influence on Islam in the country. “No matter how much good you bestow upon a woman, she will deny it. Her selfishness drives her to deny it.” These were the words of Imam Mohamed Khattabi, delivered during a Friday sermon at the Aicha Mosque in Montpellier, southern France, on March 6, two days before International Women’s Day. Standing high in the mosque’s minbar (pulpit), Khattabi continued: “This