With deadly flooding not only in Texas, but also in India, Sierra Leone, Niger, Bangladesh and Burma/Myanmar, it’s worth noting the ways that natural disasters can hit women the hardest, both directly (lack of mobility and resources, pregnancy complications), and indirectly (predators exploiting people in dire circumstances). Past diaries by ramara and Besame have focused on this issue.
One small example of how the intersections of race, gender and poverty can increase the danger: during Hurricane Harvey, ICE left fifty immigrant women and children stranded at a bus station. Fortunately, a local church took them in.
Dr Alison Thompson, head of the disaster-response group Third Wave Volunteers, strives for aid that doesn’t erase women’s needs:
For example, while Thompson was responding to the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, she discovered the need for solar-powered lights as a security measure because women were being raped in hospitals and in tents at night. So Thompson made it her mission to bring solar lights with 8-hour batteries to every hospital and refugee camp.
“The rapist doesn’t go into a room or tent that has light in it,” Thompson told me.
As always, massive thanks for links and discussion from ramara, elenacarlena, Besame, officebss, and the rest of the WOW crew. Here’s the good, the bad and the ugly from this week’s War on Women.
Reproductive Rights:
The Texas law that would ban D & E second trimester abortions won't go into effect this week - a judge issued a stay for two weeks while providers challenging the law argue their case.
Fake crisis pregnancy centers failed so badly that they had to return taxpayer money.
An estimated 700 to 900 US women died from pregnancy-related causes in 2016, the highest rate in the industrialized world. ProPublica collected some of their stories.
Violence:
For the fifth time, Robert Lewis Dear Jr. has been found incompetent to stand trial for his attack on a Planned Parenthood clinic.
Reporting sexual assault on campus is difficult for anyone, but there can be additional obstacles for African-American women, even at historically black colleges.
A woman escaped a carjacking/rape attempt because her assailants couldn’t drive a stick shift.
Workplace Issues:
1984: the year that women stopped coding.
Shades of Remington Steele: In order to get funding for their startup, female entrepreneurs created a fake male partner.
Trump’s White House blocked implementation of rule to collect data on pay disparities, just days after going through the motions of mouthing support for Women’s Equality Day. Ivanka Trump, supposed champion of working women, backed Daddy.
In China, state media urges women to quit their jobs and “go home.”
Media:
Usborne Publishing has apologized and announced it will revise a puberty guide for boys that states that one of the functions of breasts is “to make the girl look grown-up and attractive.”
This may be the dumbest take ever on an uplifting photo:
It spawned a bunch of great responses, like this one from a gender studies professor, and others, serious and….otherwise.
Uncategorizable:
In India, a 12-year-old girl committed suicide, allegedly because her teacher shamed her about her period in front of the class.
A strange case Ohio: 18-year-old Skylar Richardson reported a stillbirth, and found herself charged with murder. Prosecutors say the baby was born alive, but it doesn’t appear possible that could be determined from badly decomposed remains.
Good News and Action Items:
In Illinois, Evanston Township High School adopted a gender-neutral dress code that rejects body shaming, and says that students and staff are “responsible for managing their own personal "distractions" without regulating individual students' clothing/self expression.”
From the organizers of the Women’s March: The Women’s Convention will bring thousands of women, femmes and our allies of all backgrounds to Detroit from October 27-29th, 2017, for a weekend of workshops, strategy sessions, inspiring forums and intersectional movement building to continue the preparation going into the 2018 midterm elections.