Scotland becomes first nation to provide free period products for all

From The Guardian:

Scotland has become the first country in the world to provide free and universal access to period products after a four-year campaign that has fundamentally shifted the public discourse around menstruation.

The Period Products (Free Provision) (Scotland) Act, which passed unanimously through its final stage on Tuesday evening, will place a legal duty on local authorities to make period products available for all those who need them, building on the work of councils like North Ayrshire, which has been providing free tampons and sanitary towels in its public buildings since 2018.

Period poverty – the struggle to pay for basic sanitary products on a monthly basis – has surged during the coronavirus pandemic, according to charities.

Earlier research by the grassroots group Women for Independence revealed that nearly one in five women had experienced period poverty, which has a significant impact on their hygiene, health and wellbeing. Women are estimated to spend an average of £13 a month on period products and several thousand pounds over a lifetime.

The legislation will also enshrine in law the requirement for schools, colleges and universities to provide the products for free, which was announced by first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, in 2017. This was then a world first, while the Scottish government has also funded a project in Aberdeen to deliver free period products to low-income households as well as a further £4m for councils to continue the roll-out to other public places.

In the interim, a number of individual businesses – restaurants, pubs and even football clubs – started providing free products independently. It has become increasingly common in Scotland to walk into a women’s toilet and find free products by the sinks, or with an honesty box.

read more here @ The Guardian

The True Story of Rose Dugdale - The Woman Who Stole Vermeer

From CrimeReads:

When Rose Dugdale became international news in the mid-1970s, she emerged as an emblem of the times. Fiery, bold, and brash, she defied the conventions of her birth and of her gender in everything from action to attire. At the same time, she was generous, articulate, and unquestionably bright. Her criminality, combined with her lineage, her degree from Oxford, and her doctorate in economics, made her a curiosity to journalists not only in Ireland and Britain but in North America as well. She was media gold, having abandoned a life of wealth and leisure to take up arms in operations that would almost certainly, if not intentionally, lead her to prison.

Dugdale was also a radical, not just politically but criminally. No woman before her or since has ever committed anything resembling the art thefts for which she served as mastermind, leader, and perpetrator. For these and other crimes, she carries no regrets or remorse and offers no alibis. The ethical decisions she made during her life were her own, formed after years of intense study in universities and on the ground, from Cuba to Belfast.

Hers was an age of conflict. The antiwar movement, assassinations and riots in the United States, massive student protests in major cities in Europe, civil wars from Guatemala to Ethiopia, a recent revolution in Cuba, a coup in Portugal, and the Troubles in Northern Ireland— these were the fires burning around the world, and she studied all of them.

Her unbridled zeal for her causes was the topic of countless contemporaneous journalistic opinions, and they typically lay somewhere on a continuum, with “Reluctant Debutante Rebelling against Her Parents” at one end and “Poor Little Rich Girl Radicalized by Her Boyfriend” at the other. In fact, neither of these is completely accurate. Yes, there are elements of rebellion against her parents’ wealth, and it is indeed correct that her militancy intensified while she was with boyfriend Walter Heaton, but the truth is that her convictions were the result of her own studies, her own mind, and her own soul. Rose Dugdale was her own person—not her parents’, not Heaton’s, and not the IRA’s.

read more here from Anthony Amore @ CrimeReads

Lady Judith Montefiore: A Brief History

From aish dot com:

It was, in the words of Charles Dickens, “The best of times and the worst of times.” While revolution and political strife roiled Continental Europe, Britain in the 1780s and beyond was home to progressive social change, and to a growing community of educated, cultured Jews who flocked to England.

This group of highly educated, ambitious Jews called themselves the “Cousinhood” – brilliant Jewish families who built empires of business and service, married into each other’s families and created a new, vibrant Jewish community. One of the most prominent of these immigrant Jews was the Dutch-born Levi A. Barnet Cohen who moved to London in the 1770s and eventually became one of a dozen Jews newly elected to Parliament, without compromising his Orthodox Jewish faith. He married a brilliant Jewish woman named Lydia and together they raised an observant Jewish family. Their daughter, Lady Judith Montefiore, became a great – and little known – patron of Jewish life.

Judith used her wealth to support poor Jews, helping build the Jewish Ladies’ Loan and Visiting Society, a Jewish orphanage in London, and educational programs for girls at Jews’ Hospital. Moshe also rose in British society. He was knighted in 1837 (Judith gained the honorific Lady then); that year he was also elected the Sheriff of London – only the second Jew ever elected to that post. Yet despite the Montefiore’s high social position, they were dogged for years by anti-Semitism and snide anti-Jewish remarks.

read more here @ aish dot com

Local Mexican folk artist honors murdered or disappeared women

From SWNews4U:

Artist Gabriela Marvan’s ‘Dia de los Muertos’ (Day of the Dead) exhibit at VIVA Gallery in October is dedicated to the “souls of the 10 women who are killed or disappear each day in Mexico.” 

Gabriela Marvan is part of a collective of Mexican artists, which formed in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic to face their struggles together.

“The origin of this idea began when I realized that my artist friends in Mexico were struggling with the pandemic situation. I know how talented they are, and I know that the world would be interested in knowing more about their art. Our goal with this collective is to develop a connection between the Mexican folk artists living in Mexico and the Mexican folk artists living in USA, empowering our art through sharing our process, our towns, our inspiration.”

Was Senenmut Queen Hatshepsut’s Secret Lover?

From The Great Courses Daily:

Hatshepsut had a glorious reign over Egypt, but her personal life did not seem as glorious. She never mentioned her husband after he died, and she became the king. Her daughter, Neferu-Re died when she was a teenager, and her name was erased from her temple by Tuthmosis III to show that he was the legitimate king, like his father and grandfather. Did she get in a secret relationship with Senenmut to compensate for all this?

Senenmut was a wealthy commoner, an overseer of works, and the tutor of Neferu-Re. Many believed that he was the secret lover of Queen Hatshepsut as well, judging by the graffiti on a wall: the female pharaoh being made love to by an overseer. Widowed women in ancient Egypt did not remarry, but it did not mean they could never fall in love again.

read more here @ The Great Courses Daily

Footprints tell story of woman carrying toddler while dodging sabre-toothed cats

From The Telegraph:

Locally known as "ghost tracks" because they can only be seen under certain weather conditions, the adult tracks were first discovered in 2017, followed by the child's.

The prints tell the remarkable story of a woman and a small child as they made their way across the mudflats with large predators crossing their path.

An analysis found the woman was moving at a rapid pace, intermittently carrying and putting down the child.

On the outward journey, her prints show that she was slipping, suggesting conditions were wet and treacherous. But on her return, following the same path almost exactly, she was alone and no slipping marks were detected.

read more here @ The Telegraph

New Zealand election: Jacinda Ardern's Labour Party scores landslide win

From BBC News:

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has won a landslide victory in the country's general election.

With all votes tallied, Ms Ardern's centre-left Labour Party won 49.1%, bringing a projected 64 seats and a rare outright parliamentary majority.

The opposition centre-right National Party won 26.8% in Saturday's poll - just 35 seats in the 120-seat assembly.

The poll was originally to be held in September but was postponed by a month after a renewed Covid-19 outbreak.

Ms Ardern, 40, told her supporters after the victory: "New Zealand has shown the Labour Party its greatest support in almost 50 years. We will not take your support for granted. And I can promise you we will be a party that governs for every New Zealander."

read more here @ BBC News

US woman faces first federal execution since 1953

From BBC News:

The US is to execute a female federal inmate for the first time in almost 70 years, the Justice Department said.

Lisa Montgomery strangled a pregnant woman in Missouri before cutting out and kidnapping the baby in 2004. She is due to be given a lethal injection in Indiana on 8 December.

The last woman to be executed by the US government was Bonnie Heady, who died in a gas chamber in Missouri in 1953, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

US Attorney General William Barr said the crimes were "especially heinous murders".

read more here @ BBC News

Horrifying Attacks On Indian Women

From Daily Mail Online:

An Indian husband walked to a police station in India carrying the decapitated head of his wife who he beheaded after accusing her of having an affair. 

Chinnar Yadav attacked his wife Vimla with a sharp weapon after a heated argument in which he accused her of being unfaithful with their neighbour, according to police.

After killing and beheading his wife, Yadav was then filmed carrying her severed head to their local police station in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh.

Similar scenes were captured in Uttar Pradesh in February when another man decapitated his wife and walked through the streets singing the Indian national anthem. 

This is not the only attacks on women in this region. You have the following horrific examples:

- husband kills wife he thinks is about to give birth to a daughter

- gang rape reported but not believed by police

- reporting sexual assault is termed a conspiracy

- rape culture criticised

- vulnerability of women

- acid attack on woman by neighbours

- cremation of rape victim under scrutiny

- high incidents of crime against women

- congress woman assaulted for speaking out

- woman brutalised

- another gang rape death

- sexual assault not believed, justice delayed

- woman beaten for resisting public molestation

- high level of crimes against women

The northern region of Uttar Pradesh is one of the four largest states in India, with a population to 200 million (and growing). With the fifth largest economy, the state is now dominated by the services industry. The service sector comprises travel and tourism, hotel industry, real estate, insurance and financial consultancies.

Uttar Pradesh also has the highest number of crimes among any state in India, but due to its high population. Uttar Pradesh also continues to top the list of states with maximum communal violence incidents. An analysis of Ministers of State of Home Affairs states (2014), 23% of all incidents of communal violence in India took place in Uttar Pradesh - this includes violence against religious minorities, social castes, and women. According to a post from NDTV, "... 4,322 cases of rape were reported in 2018, with almost 12 taking place daily ..." - and further statistics are provided in this article from The Hindu, with this alarming statistic that "... the conviction rate in rape-related cases stood at 27.2% even though the rate of filing chargesheets was 85.3% in such cases ..."

This is just over the last year or so; it boggles the mind to think of the brutality women and girls have been silently subjected to in years past. Something needs to be done!