Abortion Is an Unwinnable Argument

From The Atlantic: 

In 1956, two American physicians, J. A. Presley and W. E. Brown, colleagues at the University of Arkansas School of Medicine, decided that four recent admissions to their hospital were significant enough to warrant a published report. “Lysol-Induced Criminal Abortion” appeared in the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology. It describes four women who were admitted to the hospital in extreme distress, all of them having had “criminal abortions” with what the doctors believed to be an unusual agent: Lysol. The powerful cleaner had been pumped into their wombs. Three of them survived, and one of them died.

We will never know how many women had abortions via this method, or how many died because of it. Why was Lysol, with its strong, unpleasant smell and its corrosive effect on skin, so often used? Because its early formulation contained cresol, a phenol compound that induced abortion; because it was easily available, a household product that aroused no suspicion when women bought it; and because for more than three decades, Lysol advertised the product as an effective form of birth control, advising women to douche with it in diluted form after sex, thus powerfully linking the product to the notion of family planning.

read more here @ The Atlantic

The Quandary Regarding Female Genital Mutilation Persists in Kenya

From IR INSIDER: 

A ritualistic practice dating back to Ancient Egyptian Civilization around the 5th century BCE, female genital mutilation (FGM) has risen among the most hotly contested human rights predicaments over the past hundred years. From vehement condemnation on the part of the international community, to fervent support in practicing countries of retaining a longstanding tradition, legal measures taken to cut or continue the custom have been largely indecisive, ineffective and ambiguous amongst nations of the developing world.

In 2011, the Government of Kenya felt it time to become an exception to this ambiguity. The Kenyan government passed the Prohibition of Female Genital Mutilation Act, unconditionally banning FGM in all parts of the state. Violation of this law carries an obligatory three-year prison sentence for all parties implicated. By prohibiting mutilation, this legislation is perceived by many as a long-awaited escape route for girls and women being coerced into pure barbarism, on the sole basis of tradition. 

Tatu Kamau, a female Kenyan physician, publicly objects to this law and the logic behind it. Currently, Kamau is appealing to the high courts of Kenya, arguing the option of FGM should be made open to females above the age of 18. According to Kamau, once reaching adulthood, the female has a fundamental right to do what she wishes with her body. Nobody, she argues, including the government, should have the authority to make decisions that “infringe on a woman’s right to exercise her cultural beliefs.”

read more here @ IR INSIDER

Will feminism be a crime in Mohammed bin Salman's Saudi Arabia?

From Middle East Eye: 

This week, feminism in Saudi Arabia was declared to be a crime punishable by imprisonment and lashing. 

The Saudi state security agency’s video announcement defined feminism as an extremist position, imported from the West to assert that men and women have equal rights in economic, social and political matters. 

According to this definition, feminists allegedly aim to eradicate differences between the sexes, abolish marriage and family, and encourage same-sex unions. The Saudi definition lumped feminism in with other forms of “extremism”, including atheism, homosexuality and promiscuity. 

Facing a backlash, the Saudi regime soon declared that the video had been the result of an employee’s mistaken interpretation, but it is unlikely that such an outrageous announcement was a mistake. 

Could it have been an attempt to embarrass the crown prince by the old deep state of his rivals? Or could there be government employees who genuinely believe that feminism is akin to terrorism? We may never find out, but the confusion reflects the contradictions that beset this regime, amid its ostensible attempts at reform and promote women’s empowerment.

read more here @ Middle East Eye

POLL - 81% back idea of Japan having female emperor

From Kyodo News: 

A whopping 81.9 percent of respondents to a Kyodo News survey over the weekend said they are in favor of the idea of Japan having a female emperor, while 13.5 percent indicated they are opposed.

Concerns persist over the stability of Japan's imperial succession, as the 1947 Imperial House Law stipulates that only males of the patrilineage can ascend the throne.

Following the enthronement of Emperor Naruhito, 59, the family now has only three heirs -- the emperor's younger brother Crown Prince Fumihito, 53; the crown prince's son Prince Hisahito, 13; and Prince Hitachi (Masahito), 83, the uncle of the emperor.

Emperor Naruhito and Empress Masako have a daughter -- Princess Aiko, 17 -- and there are other females in the imperial family, but the Imperial House Law requires women to abandon their imperial status after marrying commoners. 

Regarding whether to allow heirs of female lineage to ascend the throne, 70.0 percent in the poll supported the idea, while 21.9 percent were against it.

read more here @ Kyodo News

'Little Miss Sumo' wrestles sexism in Japan's ancient sport

From Reuters: 

A young wrestler dubbed “Little Miss Sumo” is fighting sexism in the ancient Japanese sport, hoping to inspire other women to step into the ring and elevate sumo to Olympic status.

Hiyori Kon is the focus of a new Netflix documentary “Little Miss Sumo”, which tracked her attempts to take on sporting inequality in a society that lags on all manner of women’s rights.

Popularly regarded as Japan’s national sport, sumo pits two giant wrestlers, clad only in loinclothes, in a test of brawn and skill waged - with crouches and charges - inside a ring floored with clay and edged with straw bales.

But tradition in a sport that began more than 1,500 years ago forbids women from entering the ring as the space is sacred and any female presence is considered a pollutant.

“Even if you are faced with someone who is big and strong - it’s not something to run away from, but engage with - like in the sumo way,” said 22-year-old Kon when asked how other wannabe but wary women wrestlers should take up the sport.

read more here @ Reuters

Scientists reconstruct face of 1,000-year-old Viking warrior woman

From Daily Mail Online: 

Scientists have re-created the face of a female Viking warrior who lived more than 1,000 years ago. 

The woman is based on a skeleton found in a Viking graveyard in Solør, Norway, and is now preserved in Oslo's Museum of Cultural History.

While the remains had already been identified as female, the burial site had not been considered that of a warrior 'simply because the occupant was a woman', archaelogist Ella Al-Shamahi told The Guardian. 

But now British scientists have brought the female warrior to life using cutting-edge facial recognition technology. 

read more here @ Daily Mail Online

Why is Emily Wilding Davison remembered as the first suffragette martyr?

OUP Blog - post by Dr Elizabeth Crawford: 

“She paid ‘the price of freedom’. Glad to pay it — glad though it brought her to death (..) the first woman martyr who has gone to death for this cause.” In the context of the women’s suffrage campaign who do you think was the subject of this eulogy? Was it Emily Wilding Davison, the centenary of whose death is being honoured this June?

Unlike Emily Davison, Mary Clarke was not merely a member of the WSPU, but one of its inner circle, fully involved in the campaign from its early days, twice imprisoned after taking part in deputations, and, from mid-1909, based in Brighton as a paid organizer. Her final imprisonment came at the end of November 1910; she had thrown a stone through the window of a London police station. On 23 December, on her release from Holloway, she spoke at a WSPU ‘welcome’ luncheon and two days later, aged 48, died of a brain hemorrhage attributed to the strain of her prison sentence. Her sister, Emmeline, was at her side when she died.

read more here @ OUP Blog

The Purest Choice: the Egyptian mothers standing up to female genital mutilation - Equal Times

From Equal Times: 

According to the World Health Organization, Female genital mutilation (FGM) “includes procedures that intentionally alter or cause injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons”. Although often associated with the countries of Sub-Saharan Africa, some evidence suggests that the practice originated in Ancient Egypt and then spread to the south of the continent. Exactly when it emerged is hard to say, but reference to it is made on papyrus dating back to the 2nd century BC, indicating that it already existed at the time of the Pharaohs.

Today, around 90 per cent of Egypt’s female population aged between 15 and 65 have undergone FGM, a practice that is referred to as “purification” in Arabic and that is deeply woven into the country’s social fabric. Although religious grounds are untiringly used to justify it, both within Christian and Muslim communities, there is no real mention of FGM in sacred texts. In 2008, the Egyptian government passed a law prohibiting the practice, but only three members of the medical profession have since been prosecuted – including one who is still known to be performing FGM today. The weight of tradition and the political instability in the country are hindering any real action, based on concrete initiatives, to tackle the problem.

The idea behind this photo report is to give a voice to the women who, in spite of social pressure, have decided to say “no”. The Purest Choice is a portrait series of women who have suffered FGM, each photographed next to their daughters, who they have refused to subject to genital cutting, giving new meaning to the idea of “purification”. Far from being passive victims, as they are all too often depicted, these survivors have managed to take their own traumatic experience and turn it into a source of positive change. By choosing not to perpetuate this practice, each of these women has become an activist in her own way.

read more here @ Equal Times

Trinity College’s new sculpture: 30 women to put on a pedestal

It has been more than 200 years coming, but better late than never: the provost of Trinity College Dublin wants the first woman to join the 40 men memorialised in marble busts in the Long Room of the Old Library. 

Patrick Prendergast has asked for nominations for who should sit alongside Aristotle, Isaac Newton, Edmund Burke and Jonathan Swift, among others. The woman needn’t have a Trinity connection nor be Irish, just be a scholar who is no longer alive. 

To get the ball rolling, here are 30 Irish scholars, writers and thinkers worth considering for the honour. 

read more here @ Irish Times