Our “special day” even though we live it 27/7/365.
When the government can take away one of our rights, then they can take away all of our rights.
A reminder
Women’s rights are human rights!
We are all entitled to human rights. These include the right to live free from violence and discrimination; to enjoy the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health; to be educated; to own property; to vote; and to earn an equal wage.
But across the globe many women and girls still face discrimination on the basis of sex and gender. Gender inequality underpins many problems which disproportionately affect women and girls, such as domestic and sexual violence, lower pay, lack of access to education, and inadequate healthcare.
Taliban Bans the Selling of Contraceptives in Afghanistan
In the latest attack on women, the Taliban has ordered pharmacies in Kabul and Mazar-e-Sharif to stop selling any form of contraceptives. The Taliban has called family planning and the use of contraception “Western” and “forbidden” in their interpretation of Sharia law. Mazar-e-Sharif is the largest city in northern Afghanistan, where many family planning programs were popular during the two decades under the republic.
~snip
Since the Taliban takeover of the government in Afghanistan, much of that progress has been reversed, and according to a United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) report from August 2022, Afghanistan “has the most maternal deaths in Asia-Pacific at 638 deaths/100,000 live births,” compared to 394 deaths in prior year.
The age-old principle of keeping women barefoot and pregnant with the added threat of death.
Women's Day: Iranian women vow to press on despite clampdown.
Despite 44 years of propaganda and systematic attempts at brainwashing in all educational institutions, Iran's regime has failed to prevent women from rising up against the clerical establishment.
~snip
But the ideology behind it hasn't changed for decades. Since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, the nation's clerical rulers have been trying to control the image and role of women in the public sphere.
In their view, the role model for women must be Fatima, who was married off at the age of 9 and became a mother of five children. They want today's Iranian women to be like her — a pious wife who was compliant, subordinate and hardly visible in public.
Ah, the patriarchal religions, such a godsend for women. -/s
Overturning of Roe v Wade abortion law a ‘huge blow to women’s human rights’ warns Bachelet
“Whether abortion is legal or not, it happens all too often. Data show that restricting access to abortion does not prevent people from seeking abortion, it simply makes it more deadly”, UNFPA highlighted.
According to the agencies’ 2022 State of World Population report, nearly half of all pregnancies worldwide are unintended, and over 60 per cent of these may end in abortion.
UNFPA said that it feared that more unsafe abortions will occur around the world if access becomes more restricted.
“Decisions reversing progress gained have a wider impact on the rights and choices of women and adolescents everywhere”, the agency emphasized.
WHO echoed the message on their official Twitter account, reminding that removing barriers to abortion “protects women’s lives, health and human rights”.
States With Abortion Bans Also Don't Provide Comprehensive Sex Education
Exactly half have no mandate that schools teach sex education, data from the Institute reveals, and only four of the 26 require curricula to cover the topic of contraception. Twenty-three allow districts to skip over consent entirely.
Restricting abortion access in a country that already limits young people’s resources for learning about sexual health is “a horrifying picture,” said Cassandra Corrado, a sex educator who works with high school and college students in Florida, where an abortion ban now is expected.
The familiar twosome ban abortion and restrict contraception by skipping education, not to even mention consent, is an abomination.
One-in-three countries not making progress on women’s rights [written before the SCOTUS decision]
Not a single country has yet achieved full gender equality, but Scandinavian countries once again take the crown for best score, with Denmark, Sweden and Norway in the top three positions. As in the 2019 report, the authors point out that high scores are not always a reflection of wealth – for example, despite having one of the highest national per capita incomes, the United States came in at position 38.
How Autocrats Weaponize Women's Rights [you can download the pdf in the link]
This essay introduces the concept of "autocratic genderwashing" to shed light on why authoritarian states adopt gender-equality reforms. Autocratic genderwashing occurs when autocrats take credit for advances in gender equality in order to turn attention away from persistent nondemocratic practices, such as violations of electoral integrity and human rights. In doing so, they exploit the often simplistic association between gender equality and democracy to seek legitimacy and achieve regime stability. Gender equality is used to devise legitimation strategies tailored to specific groups. Awareness of this phenomenon might make scholars and democracy activists less likely to accept inclusion as a substitute for competition in nondemocratic states.
Add gender-washing to sports-washing and entertainment-washing, see the absolute monarchies in the gulf. We capitalists see equality in proportion to the money spent, apparently.-/s
The other grandiose linkage has been between women’s rights and trans-rights, using but, but we are protecting women’s rights! How about protecting both?
Is it any wonder that even the slightest whiff of autocracy makes me want to puke?
The fight for women’s rights is the fight for everyone's rights.