<big><big>📌</big></big>Ashton Glover Gatewood, 31, a member of the Choctaw Nation and descendent of both the Chickasaw and Cherokee Nations, has long lamented the glaring lack of Native American physicians. So she decided to become one.
Gatewood is a student in the inaugural class of the first tribally affiliated medical school in the United States, the Oklahoma State University (OSU) College of Osteopathic Medicine at the Cherokee Nation. The school opened this fall on Cherokee land in Tahlequah, the capital of the Cherokee Nation's 14-county reservation in the rolling hills of rural Oklahoma, about an hour east of Tulsa…
More at Medscape - no paywall but you do have to register.
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Slightly off topic: no Action Items were brought this week so I’ll add this, received by email from werepair.org:
...tribal nations across the United States are disproportionately impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic [including women, elders and children].
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AND on a personal note, please see this diary by Eyesbright, long time Pro-Choice activist and former clinic defender, caring & conscientious dk grps member, about her terminal diagnosis.
This Week In The War On Women welcomes all who are interested to comment in the discussion, bring relevant links and stories, join in order to reblog diaries on women’s issues, and consider writing for the Saturday schedule — see schedule comment in the thread.
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Our diaries are a team effort — particular thanks this week to J Graham, Tara the Antisocial Social Worker, SandraLLAP, Angmar, ramara, and elenacarlena.
📌 26 women’s-news sources are HERE. (Please comment to link us to yet more.) 📌Our Saturday posting history the past year or two is HERE. 📌 Trailblazing Women and Events in Our History (wow2) - HERE. 📌 Everything blogged&reblogged to our group - here.📌
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*nmn — no middle name.
📌 Not only will the U.S. be getting its very first female VP, but we'll now also be getting our very first female Treasury Secretary! <small><b>NPR: Biden Picks Janet Yellen To Be Treasury Secretary In Historic Appointment</b></small>
📌 Pandemic could lead to profound shift in parenting roles, say experts
The year 2020 has been transformative for how society sees fatherhood, and could produce the most profound shift in caring responsibilities since the second world war, according to researchers, business leaders and campaigners...
...Research has shown that while women bore the brunt of extra childcare during the initial coronavirus lockdown and are being disproportionately impacted by the economic fallout, there has been also a huge surge in the number of hours men are spending with their children.
This could lead to a permanent re-evaluation of the value of fatherhood and a shift in working patterns, according to Ann Francke, the chief executive of the Chartered Management Institute (CMI)…
ec: “I suspect this report will turn out to be a bit more rosy than the actuality, but who knows?”
📌 Thousands of explicit photos and videos of Irish women have been leaked/shared on public forums without their consent. <b><small>Campaigner warns, “Someone will end up dead” because of mental health toll. independent.co.uk</small></b>
...Mary Lou McDonald, leader of Sinn Fein and Leader of the Opposition in Ireland, called the breach a “profound violation of women and girls’ rights”.
Among the “mega files” is understood to be content related to minors, as well as revenge porn...
...The pandemic and subsequent lockdowns have seen image-based sexual violence spike, with the UK revenge porn hotline seeing cases rise by 22 per cent in 2020….
📌 S. Korea sentences leader of sexual blackmail ring to 40 years in prison
Cho Ju-bin, 24, was found guilty of running an online network that blackmailed at least 74 women, including 16 teenagers, into what authorities called "virtual enslavement" by forcing them to send increasingly degrading and sometimes violent sexual imagery of themselves between May 2019 and February 2020.
[He was convicted of] violating criminal and child protection laws by making and releasing pornography and running a criminal organisation, Yonhap said.
Cho's lawyer could not be reached for comment. However, when he was taken into police custody in March, Cho said he wanted to apologise to the victims….
📌 Landmark legislation: Scotland becomes the first country to make period products free.
thescottishsun.co.uk Alba an Aigh! <big><big>🏴</big></big>
📌 November 24 — U.S. Agrees To Pause Deportations For Women Alleging Abuse At ICE Facility
Earlier this month was news that the present administration/regime had deported —and planned to deport more— of potential key witnesses in legal proceedings charging COVID negligence and medical atrocities upon those women and other immigrants imprisoned in the Irwin County Detention Center at Ocilla, Georgia, used both by U.S. marshalls and by ICE, and operated by LaSalle Corrections, a family business based in Louisiana. When the halt went through, some women were practically on deportation planes but were returned to the Center
Unfortunately, like most news items on this, there’s no mention of the two key organizations of mostly women —are Project South and the Government Accountability Project— working for some years to get the horrors of this ICE-serving private prison documented and public. Even though their work is what finally caused the Congressional Hispanic Caucus to tour the facility, which is what finally got Dems in legislature involved enough that a federal investigation of the place is finally underway.... hell, they’re only women, they don’t need recognition for what they’ve achieved for women.…
📌 A statue honoring female veterans, <small>Bossier City, Louisiana</small>
I couldn’t find a free image of that sculpture, so instead at right is one in public domain from the US Navy, of three WWII women veterans. “Camp Lejeune, North Carolina - 16 October 1943 — American Indian women too have joined the fighting forces against Germany and Japan. These three are members of the U.S. Marine Corps. They are [left to right] Minnie Spotted Wolf of the Blackfeet, Celia Mix, Potawatomi, and Violet Eastman, Chippewa.”
📌 standard.co.uk Conservative minister Baroness Sugg resigns in protest over foreign aid budget cut.
Malala Yousafzai and Baroness Chalker of Wallasey (also of the Conservative/”Tory” party) also spoke out against the cuts, as have five former prime ministers. (Check the comments thread for updates in case this cut is reversed.)
📌 November 25 was International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women.
Here's a page from HIAS with associated stats and info. And at commondreams.org, <small>[“News, political analysis, and commentary for the progressive community”]</small>
Rallies Across Globe to Mark International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women: — "Men's violence against women is also a pandemic—one that pre-dates the virus and will outlive it."
<big>📌 India’s Dalit/low-caste women are raped to keep them in their place.</big>
<big>📌 Four jailed Saudi women’s rights activists given rare court appearance</big> as the kingdom's human rights record faces new scrutiny following the election defeat of U.S. President Donald Trump.
Loujain al-Hathloul, 31, looked weak, her body shaking uncontrollably and her voice faint … her parents had sat next to her in court. It was her first appearance since March last year.
The judge announced he was transferring the case from regular criminal court to a terrorism court … Human Rights Watch denounced that decision as an attempt to escalate the case.
… three other prominent women's rights activists - Nassima Al-Sadah, Samar Badawi and Nouf Abdelaziz - also appeared. Further details about their [condition] were not immediately available.
The four … were among more than a dozen activists rounded up in 2018, the year Saudi Arabia lifted a long-standing ban on women driving but accompanied that move with a crackdown on activists who had campaigned against the ban...
<big>📌</big> A poignant Facebook post from Israel — “Today is the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. <big>On Tuesday night, activists from Lotem changed the names of dozens of main streets in Jerusalem to the names of the last 20 women murdered.</big> They did this in order to ‘remember and commemorate these brave women, who went through hell, were murdered, and abandoned by our state and society. Every woman has a name. Every murdered woman has a name...’”
“Armed with piles of documentation, Caspi-Shilony told the dayanim — the panel of three rabbinic court judges presiding over the divorce proceedings — of the terror the woman faced in the constant shadow of her husband’s physical and emotional abuse. She showed them proof that the woman had lived in a domestic violence shelter, supported by years’ worth of documents from social services demonstrating the severity of their case. Now, rehabilitated and ready to put this nightmare behind her, all the woman wanted was to be legally divorced from the man who had made her life a living hell.
‘After I presented all of the arguments and documents,’ recounts Caspi-Shilony on the CWJ podcast Mevakrot Be’Rabanut, 'one of the dayanim looked me straight in the eye and asked, "But what are her grounds for divorce?"'...
SandraLLAP explains: Because there is no civil marriage or divorce in Israel, the only way for Jews to obtain a legal divorce is via the state-operated rabbinic courts, which conduct divorce proceedings in accordance with their interpretation of Jewish law. Jewish law — and consequently, Israeli law — states that a divorce only takes effect once a man grants his wife a religious bill of divorce called a get. While the husband wields exclusive power to grant or withhold this get, the rabbinic court judges may compel the man to grant it by levying sanctions of varying severity. But they will only intervene once the woman proves sufficient grounds for divorce. And, as the case above painfully illustrates, domestic violence does not always clear that bar.”
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<big>📌 France debates whether to ban virginity tests</big>...
...with some campaigners calling the procedure barbaric and others warning of violent repercussions for some Muslim women.
Women in at least 20 countries are subjected to virginity tests, sometimes by force, as families, lovers or potential employers use them to assess their virtue, honour or social value, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
In Europe, the tests are issued in [several countries].
In France, it is most commonly used by Muslims and also by some Roma families who want proof of virginity pre-wedlock.
The UN says the test is painful, inaccurate and a violation of human rights, with no place in modern society.
But not everyone agrees, with some experts predicting unintended fallout from France's proposed ban, which is part of a wider Islamic separatism bill due in parliament next month.
Doctors say it could mean women paying excessive fees for illegal tests or risking violent repercussions from family members, partners or [prospective] in-laws if they lack proof….
<big>📌 Uzbek domestic abuse victims feel judged, trapped, despite last year’s new law.</big> One young wife said that:
"[her husband said] his father had acted like that when he was a child ... Now it was his turn to hurt me," she said, adding that she was also beaten by her mother- and sister-in-law….
..."Earlier we couldn't officially talk about domestic violence, so we used to say we supported women in difficult life situations," said Khurshida Ibragimova, director of Mehrzhon, a women rights group based in the Fergana Valley.
In a sign of how taboo the subject remains in the mainly Muslim Central Asian nation, there is no reliable data available on domestic violence ... the Uzbek government and the United Nations have started data-gathering efforts recently [that] 185 women were assaulted by their current or former partners last year. Women's rights groups said that reflected a fraction of the real number, however.
One of their biggest criticisms of the new system is that it does not do enough to help women who decide to leave abusive husbands.
"When a woman complains that she is a victim of domestic violence, the inspector for women organises a meeting with her and her husband to sign a paper. They invite them at the same time. It's inhumane," said rights campaigner Irina Matvienko….
📌 Federal appeals court rules that Tennessee can criminalize abortions performed for the "wrong" reasons <small>(race, gender, or Down's syndrome diagnosis).</small>
📌 jezebel.com — A dodgy study claims women make worse mentors than men in STEM fields. Women scientists call bullshit.
📌 WaPo - Nov 26 <small>Serious action in Mexico by women who are tired of being targets of growing violence:</small>”Mexican feminists occupy federal building, create shelter, demand officials end violence against women”
📌 from Reuters via Medscape Oral Contraceptives May Curb Severe Asthma Attacks in Young and Premenopausal Women.
So that’s another good reason.
📌 Politics and brains:
<small>⚫ a medscape commentary (with spotify) on Brain Activity Differences [that] Contribute to Partisan Divide</small>
<small> ⚫ Smog in our brains: Gender differences in the impact of exposure to air pollution on cognitive performance. VS ⚫ A growing role for gender analysis in air pollution epidemiology. </small>
Whilst the first finds the cognitive effects worse in men, the second finds the general health effects are worse in women.
📌<small> CBS News Friday Night: </small>How a 7-year-old won the battle to make female toy soldiers.
Shortly after receiving Vivian's letter, Jeff [Jeff Imel, owner of BMC Toys, Scranton, PA] enlisted the first woman into the vintage plastic military. Today, there are 22 figures in all — and this holiday, they will be taking up positions under Christmas trees across the country.
"And that makes me super happy," Vivian said. "I will play with them every day."
Because once it’s smashed, we’d still need to recycle it somehow, otherwise it’s hazardous underfoot…
;)
..and that was this week in the war. Please DO add your own finds in the comment thread.