Lionesses of Syria

From Mail Online:

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has recruited an army of women to guard checkpoints and carry out security checks in an attempt to plug the holes left by defections and casualties in his dwindling army.

Up to 500 women have been drafted into the new paramilitary force known as the 'Lionesses for National Defence.' 

They have been in trained at a boot camp in Wadi al-Dahab in the Syrian city of Homs.

They form part of the recently formed 10,000-strong National Defence Force (NDF), a key part of Assad's counter insurgency strategy, as the president desperately tries to regain control of the country's towns and cities.

Decked out in army fatigues and armed with Kalashnikov assault rifles, the women have also been seen guarding areas of Homs where the majority of locals are known to support the government's regime.

Bald Barbie

From Good:

Barbie has proven a controversial figure since her shapely beginnings in 1959, but as time and different civil rights movements have marched forward, Barbie’s image has morphed to include various races and cultures. Now, she’s going bald for a good cause.

Mattel, the makers of Barbie, announced last month that a hairless "friend of Barbie" will "be distributed exclusively to children’s hospitals and other hospitals treating children with cancer throughout the U.S. and Canada, directly reaching girls who are most affected by hair loss." The decision came after a facebook group called "Beautiful and Bald Barbie! Let’s see if we can get it made" scored thousands of "likes" within hours of its creation.

From Secretary To King

From CNN:

When Peggielene Bartels went to bed on a summer night in 2008, she was an ordinary administrative assistant living in a modest one-bedroom condo just outside Washington D.C.

But a few hours later, when a persistent ringing phone woke her up in the dead of the August night, the 55-year-old found out she was much more than simply a secretary.

At the other end of the line was Bartels's cousin, from Otuam, a small fishing village on the coast of Ghana. Excited and humble, he congratulated her on being the new king of Otuam.

After the initial shock, Bartels decided to accept the kingship. Over the course of a few days, she went from being plain old Peggielene Bartels, who had worked for nearly three decades at the Ghanaian Embassy in the United States, to becoming King Peggy -- the first female king of Otuam, reigning over approximately 7,000 people.

Ancient Peruvian Priestess

From Sky News:

The reconstructed face of a high ruling Peruvian priestess has been unveiled by researchers from Utah Valley University.

They revealed the reconstruction during a presentation at the Bruning Museum in Lambayeque, Peru.

Priestesses were very powerful in ancient Peru and this one is said to have governed in around 1200 AD.

"This was probably one of the most powerful people in Lambayeque 800 years ago, so she was a central person in the political and religious structure," said Haagen Klaus one of the project's land researchers.

The ruler's mummified remains were discovered in a tomb last year near the city of Lambayeque, at the Chotuna Chornancap archaeological site.

And from World Archaeology:

The discovery of a 13th-century priestess at a ritual site in northern Peru is forcing a reassessment of the role of women in Lambayeque culture.

The 25- to 30-year-old woman was buried at Chotuna-Chornancap, adorned with elaborate jewellery, ceramic offerings, and gold and silver ritual objects proclaiming her elite status.

‘This has revolutionised our thinking,’ Project Director Carlos Wester La Torre told CWA. ‘It shows wealth and power were not a male privilege in this culture; this is categorical evidence of women involved in the political and ideological apparatus of the time.’ He added: ‘Her youth indicates the post was hereditary, and her grave goods suggest she performed rituals such as sacrifices, receiving offerings, and celebrating changes of the seasons, the moon, and tides.’

Queens, Concubines & Ordinary People

From Isle of Man Today:

Did you know that there are no women fighting for crowns, and very few women are named in the Chronicles of the Kings of Man and the Isles?

Women are not entirely absent from the record, but their description is often far from complimentary.

The Chronicles state that when rumours spread of an imminent attack on the church at Maughold, the ‘weaker sex with disshevelled hair ran about…uttering lamentations and crying at the tops of their voices’.

In the kingdom monogamy was not expected and although the church disapproved, many of the ruling elite took a liberal view to marriage.

The Chronicles tell the stories of the Kings of Man and the Isles but, like Queens, very little mention is made of ordinary people.

Origins of Female Genital Mutilation

From Discovery News:

United Nations Member States recently approved the first-ever draft resolution calling for a global ban on female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C).

Hailed by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon as a major step forward in protecting women and girls and ending impunity for the harmful practice, the text is expected to be endorsed by the UN general assembly this month.

How did the practice begin anyway?

Although theories on the origins of FGM abound, no one really knows when, how or why it started.

"There's no way of knowing the origins of FGM, it appears in many different cultures, from Australian aboriginal tribes to different African societies," medical historian David Gollaher, president and CEO of the California Healthcare Institute (CHI), and the author of "Circumcision," told Discovery News.

Used to control women's sexuality, the practice involves the partial or total removal of external genitalia. In its severest form, called infibulation, the vaginal opening is also sewn up, leaving only a small hole for the release of urine and menstrual blood.

While the term infibulation has its roots in ancient Rome, where female slaves had fibulae (broochs) pierced through their labia to prevent them from getting pregnant, a widespread assumption places the origins of female genital cutting in pharaonic Egypt. This would be supported by the contemporary term "pharaonic circumcision."

The definition, however, might be misleading. While there's evidence of male circumcision in Old Kingdom Egypt, there is none for female.

Epidemic of Rape in Peru

From RH Reality Check:

Peru, while famous for its modern culinary delights and ancient civilizations, also has a far less flattering distinction: it has more reported cases of rape and sexual violence than any other country in South America. Eight in ten of these victims are minors.

Researchers estimate that 35,000 pregnancies occur every year in Peru as a result of rape. Women and girls in this situation are faced with two options: seek an illegal abortion and risk going to jail or carry the pregnancy to term and suffer the psychological and physical trauma that go along with giving birth to your rapist’s child. Women who can prove that a pregnancy is the result of rape receive a “reduced” sentence of three months in jail (the standard prison sentence for illegal abortions in Peru is two years). Perversely, this reduced sentence does not apply to married women who are raped by their husbands, even though marital rape is a crime under Peruvian law. Doctors who perform abortions in cases of rape face up to six years in prison.

A coalition of women’s rights groups have launched a campaign to challenge this cruel violation of human rights. The campaign, Dejala Decidir (“Let her decide”), seeks to introduce a new law that decriminalizes abortion in cases of rape (currently, abortion is only permitted when the woman’s life or health is at risk). The groups, led by partners of the International Women’s Health Coalition—PROMSEX, Demus, Catholics for the Right to Decide-Peru, Manuela Ramos, CLADEM-Peru, and Flora Tristán—need to collect 60,000 valid signatures to petition Congress to consider the bill.

The Scream

From Al Arabiya News:

At the peak of the uprising against now ousted Yemeni strongman Ali Abdullah Saleh, Khadija al-Salami left her diplomatic post in Paris to film the mass participation by long-marginalized women in the revolt.

In her documentary “The Scream,” screened at the Dubai International Film Festival, Salami -- who was forced to marry aged just 11 -- focuses on the role women played during the year-long uprising in the impoverished Arab state.

“Traditionally, a woman’s voice must not be heard, just as her hair must remain covered,” said Salami, who herself does not cover her long dark hair.

“I chose this title for my film because women have shouted out through their uprising and movement that they exist” in Yemen’s male-dominated society, she said.

New Delhi Gang Rape Outrage

From Time World:

Last Sunday in New Delhi, at around 9.30 p.m., a 23-year-old woman was gang raped for almost an hour on a moving bus and then thrown semi-naked on the road to die. Hideous violence against women is nothing new in India, but this particular outrage has caused widespread anger. Perhaps it was the casual ferocity of it. Or the fact that it took place on some of the teeming capital’s busiest streets. Or perhaps a nation at great pains to modernize is finding it hard to stomach what feels like an increasingly predatory sexual culture.

Experts say blaming survivors of sexual assault is common in India. Rather than prosecute perpetrators, many say the fault belongs to rape survivors, who are shamed for, say, daring to walk alone, taking public transportation or wearing certain clothes. “Blaming the victim has been in some way also part of the larger design of the system, where you want to push the women to say they are responsible for what happens to them,” says Ranjana Kumari, a member of the National Mission for Empowerment of Women. “It is like saying men are not responsible but it is the women who lured them into this.”