Around the world...
Thank you to everyone who followed our liveblog of International Women’s Day. Women around the world staged protests against abortion restrictions and gender violence, and for equal labor rights.
Before we go, here’s a summary of events from all over the world today (with thanks to the AP for some of this reporting):
Europe
- Spanish women went on strike and staged an enormous protest, as women’s rights have become a hot topic in the run-up to a general election.
- In France, the first Simone Veil prize was awarded to a Cameroonian activist who worked against forced marriages, Doumara Ngatansou, after she herself was married against her will at 15.
- The Portuguese Cabinet observed a minute of silence in mourning of victims of domestic violence. Twelve women have died this year in domestic violence incidents, the highest number in 10 years.
- Topless protesters in Germany tore down a metal barrier intended to keep women out of brothels in Hamburg, one of the nation’s most famous red light districts.
- Pope Francis hailed women’s “irreplacable contribution” to fostering peace. “Women make the world beautiful, they protect it and keep it alive,” the Argentine Jesuit said. Women are not able to obtain priesthood in the Catholic Church, and as a result the highest levels of power.
- Far-right activists in Kiev, Ukraine were detained after they tried to provoke activists protesting sexual violence.
Asia
- Hundreds of women marched in New Delhi, India, demanding an end to domestic violence, sexual attacks and employment discrimination. Thousands of women are killed each year there, often when a groom or his family feel a bride’s dowry is inadequate.
- In Jakarta, Indonesia, several hundred men and women carried placards calling for an end to discriminatory practices which end employments when women get pregnant.
- In South Korea, women wore pointed hats and cloaks, marching against a “witch hunt” of feminists in deeply conservative society.
North America
- First Lady Melania Trump saluted women from 10 countries on Wednesday evening, including human rights activists, police officers and an investigative journalist.
- In Puerto Rico, hundreds of protesters in purple T-shirts demanded safer housing, as the US territory struggles to recover from Hurricane Maria. Some held up signs with the names of more than 20 women reportedly killed by their partners on the island last year.
South America
- In one of the most dangerous countries to be a woman, El Salvador, three women jailed on charges of abortion had their sentences commuted. El Salvador has a total ban on abortion. Reproductive rights advocates said the move from the country’s supreme court was a hopeful sign.
- Women in Argentina took to the streets after a bill that would have legalized abortion was rejected last year. They prepared for a large march from Congress to the country’s historic Plaza de Mayo square later in the day, during which they were set to protest against violence.
- In Bolivia, women rallied in main cities, carrying giant underwear bearing messages such as, “underwear of an irresponsible and abusive father” and “underwear of a child molester.” Chilean women demanded access to free and safe abortions.
- In Ecuador, President Lenin Moreno took the day to announce the creation of a bonus of about $300 per month for the children of victims of femicides.
The bonus will help an estimated 88 orphans.
epa07423712 Indigenous women participate in a ritual, during the commemoration ‘Women in Bogota We Weave Changes’ for the work of indigenous women, in the framework of International Women’s Day, in Bogota, Colombia, 08 March 2019. International Women’s Day celebrates worldwide the achievements of women in the social, economic, cultural and political spheres and also urges society to accelerate all elements to achieve gender equality. EPA/OSKAR BURGOS Photograph: Oskar Burgos/EPA
Africa
- Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, who named one of the world’s few “gender-balanced” Cabinets last year, told a gathering that “women are the pillars of the nation and the least recognized for their sacrifices.”
- The US Embassy in Niegeria hosted talks on sexual harassment, which included a founder of the recent #ArewaMeToo campaign among women in the country’s conservative, largely Muslim north.
- In Niger, first lady Aissata Issoufou Mahamadou oversaw the awards in the Miss Intellect Niger contest.
- Women in Kenya protested against gender-based violence in the nation’s capital.
“We haven’t gotten to a stage where women are comfortable to come out and say, ‘I was sexually abused,’” said protester Esther Passaris.
International Women’s Day has also been a reminder about some of the pioneering women in history, including Dr. Rebecca Lee Crumpler, who in 1864 became the first African American woman physician in the US.
Today and always, let’s remember these female pioneers in medicine:
— Stanford Radiology (@StanfordRad) March 8, 2019
Rebecca Lee Crumpler, the first African-American woman to be a doctor in the U.S. in 1864.
Fe del Mundo, a Filipina who was the first woman to attend Harvard Medical School in 1933.#InternationalWomensDay pic.twitter.com/dkoiKcwKPs
Although Crumpler practiced in Boston, some modern-day activists are hoping her likeness might one day grace New York City’s Central Park. They hope it might replace a statue removed earlier this year.
Activists also floated the idea of creating a statue of Helen Rodríguez Trías, a Latina pediatrician and women’s rights activist who died in 2001.
“These are the ‘sheroes’ that residents would prefer to learn about as they stroll near Central Park, confident in the understanding that black lives matter,” Marina Ortiz, founder of the local group East Harlem Preservation, told the Guardian.
In El Salvador, hundreds of women marched in the capital San Salvador today, protesting for reproductive rights, against violence, and in celebration of the release of three women jailed on abortion charges.
Just a few hours before the official start of International Women’s Day, three women sentenced to 30 years in prison for abortion were freed. El Salvador is one of six countries in Latin America and the Caribbean in which abortion is illegal in all circumstances, Thomson Reuters reports.
The women had served about 10 years in prison. Upon being released from prison in San Salvador, Alba Lorena Rodríguez, 31, said: “We hope the government will recognize that a lot of women in here are innocent and, God willing, they will be freed.”
There are 18 more women in prison in El Salvador, convicted of abortion. According to Amnesty International, the countries high rates of gender-based violence and abortion ban make it one of the “most dangerous countries to be a woman”.
Reproductive rights advocates in the country said the women’s release is a positive sign. From Thomson Reuters:
The court’s ruling sets an important precedent for the other women in jail,” said Catalina Martinez, regional director for Latin America and the Caribbean at the Center for Reproductive Rights.
“Freedom for these women who have been sentenced to prison for felonies they did not commit is just one of the steps that El Salvador has to take to guarantee women’s rights.”
Campaigners for women’s rights also vowed to continue to campaign to overturn El Salvador’s total ban on abortion, in place since 1997, even when the life of the mother is at risk.
There are two bills before congress aimed at allowing abortion under limited circumstances, including in cases of rape or a risky pregnancy. But no date has yet been set for lawmakers to debate the bills.
Morena Herrera, the head of a local rights group Citizen Group for the Decriminalization of Abortion (CDFA) said, “It’s a conservative congress and country, but it’s not impossible.”
Women in Spain went on strike earlier today, including Barcelona, where demonstrators brought the city to a “standstill”. Here’s a report from the scene from Stephen Burgen:
Great placards at 8-M march in Barcelona pic.twitter.com/3zhZvZSKc1
— Stephen Burgen (@stephenburgen) March 8, 2019
Hundreds of thousands of women marched in Barcelona in a noisy but good-humored demonstration Friday evening. Police figures of 200,000 seemed conservative for a crowd that filled a 1.5km (nearly a mile) stretch of the city’s six-lane Gran Via and brought much of the city to a standstill.
Chanting “No means no”, “Without women there will be no revolution” and “They didn’t die, they were murdered”, women of all ages – along with several thousand men – sang and whistled their way slowly towards Plaça Catalunya in the city centre.
As many placards celebrated womanhood as those that condemned patriarchy. “We are not submissive, we are not keeping quiet. Strong women empowered” read one, while another said “ I don’t want flattery, I want respect”.
Others read: “I shit on your phony equality,” “They clip your wings and then complain that you can’t fly,” and “We are the granddaughters of the witches you didn’t burn”. One said simply: “Everything is pussyble”.
Outside of protests, women are also being celebrated in the arts. In New York City, classical radio station WQXR is playing 24 hours of music composed by women.
WQXR's 24-hour marathon of women composers starts today, as does our initiative to increase the number of women composers we regularly play on air. https://t.co/D1nVnzfcdL
— WQXR Classical (@WQXR) March 8, 2019
Included in the marathon earlier today were compositions by Mahler – Alma Mahler – who ended her composing career early at her husband Gustav’s insistence. But, as English mezzo-soprano Sarah Connolly wrote for the Guardian, Alma “was far from a tragic victim of misogyny.”
The music is in part voluptuous, coquettish, Wagnerian in intensity and harmony, yet intimate, sensual, charming and surprising. Among the poets whose texts she chose to set were Richard Dehmel and Rainer Maria Rilke. They expressed a visceral, sensual empathy with nature, magnifying emotions, yet they were also suspenseful, remote and ghostly. There is often a sexual charge to Dehmel’s poetry, which must have seemed perverse at the time.”
Just 14 of Mahler’s lieder compositions remain today. They are believed to be her early works. Mahler outlived her husband by 50 years.
Photos and video are emerging on social media from the demonstrations in Istanbul, where riot police fired tear gas at the crowds.
This is how Turkish police responded to the Women’s March in Istanbul’s Istiklal Street tonight, #WomensDay2019pic.twitter.com/6vy1WTnvas
— Ragıp Soylu (@ragipsoylu) March 8, 2019
Scenes from Women’s Day march in Istanbul earlier this evening. Scene 1. pic.twitter.com/2r7uAIi1uX
— Piotr Zalewski (@p_zalewski) March 8, 2019
David Agren, reporting from Mexico City, writes on how Mexico marked International Women’s Day with a push to expand access to abortion across the country. There were also counterproposals from lawmakers, including some in the left-leaning ruling party, to further restrict a woman’s right to choose.
Women in major Mexican cities tied green handkerchiefs around their necks and hung banners from overpasses reading “legal and safe abortion in all of Mexico.” They also draped green handkerchiefs over seats in the Senate on Thursday – drawing strong reactions from both sides.
A pair of lawmakers – including a former governor, who is accused of showing a crushing indifference to spate of femicides in his state – promised to introduce constitutional amendments to ban abortion.
Abortion is legal Mexico City, where it was decriminalised in 2006. Mexico’s supreme court upheld the Mexico City law, but a majority of states have subsequently approved constitutional prohibitions on abortion.
The northern state of Nuevo León approved an initiative 6 March to “recognise the right to life from conception.”
On the same day, however, interior minister Olga Sánchez Cordero said Mexico could introduce a single criminal code, in which each state and Mexico City would have the same laws on the books. Under such a scheme, abortion would be legal during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy – as it is currently in Mexico City.
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who has promised to “moralize” Mexican public life, has a history of avoiding sensitive social issues such as abortion and marriage equality.
When asked about abortion in his morning press conference on Friday, he responded, “There are many important issues and at this time I think the most important is cleaning corruption from government.”
Analysts attribute the reticence to his own personal conservativism and the broad coalition built before his election – which includes everyone from progressives to a party of Evangelicals.
Women’s groups give the president mixed grades on women’s issue since taking office 1 Dec López Obrador appointed a gender-balanced cabinet – a vast improvement over his predecessor. But he cut funding for daycare centres and women’s shelters, saying he preferred to give the money directly to women using such services.
“All of this reflects a lack of perspective on gender and commitment to the rights of women,” Regina Tames, director of Gire, a reproductive rights organisation, wrote in Letras Libres.
The Guardian sport desk has more details on the lawsuit the United States women’s soccer team filed against their own governing body alleging years of “institutionalized gender discrimination”.
US Soccer has maintained that the disparity between the women’s and men’s teams is due to separate labor agreements. For example, male players get more money when they play for the national team but are only paid when selected, whereas female players receive less money but their wages are guaranteed. US Soccer also points out that bonuses from World Cups are set by Fifa rather than national federations.
But it is undeniable that the US women’s team – who have won three World Cups and four Olympic titles – have often been treated shabbily. According to US Soccer’s own financial disclosures, the women’s team brought in more revenue than their male counterparts over the last three years, and their victory in the 2015 World Cup final was the most-watched soccer match in US history. Despite those facts, the US women’s coach, Jill Ellis, was paid less than the men’s Under-23 coach until last year.
Riot police in Istanbul fired tear gas to disperse thousands of demonstrators who tried to march along the city’s main pedestrian avenue to mark International Women’s Day, according to the Associated Press:
Thousands of people, most of them women, gathered near Istiklal Street on Friday for a march that police said was unauthorized.
Police had set up barricades at the entrance to the street and fired several rounds of tear gas to push back marchers.
Authorities have restricted protests in the country in recent years, citing security.
Earlier, hundreds of people in Istanbul protested against the imprisonment of women and children in Syrian penitentiaries.
Separately, four female members of Turkey’s gendarmerie units rappelled hundreds of feet down from Istanbul’s 15 July Martyrs’ Bridge and into the waters of the Bosporus.
El Salvador’s Supreme Court has commuted the 30-year sentences of three women imprisoned for abortion convictions, lessening their punishment to time served and ordering them to be released immediately, according to the Associated Press:
The three women had spent about 10 years in prison on aggravated homicide charges for allegedly having abortions. All claimed that they had miscarriages. The court found that the women were victims of social and economic circumstances and ruled that the original sentences were unreasonable.
“In all three cases, the court recognised that the women have had adverse social, economic and family situations, and the sentences were disproportionate and immoral,” said the Foundation for Research on the Application of the Law.
Eighteen more women remain behind bars for abortion convictions in El Salvador, where abortion is illegal in all circumstances.
The Regional Director for Latin America and the Caribbean for the Center for Reproductive Rights, Catalina Martínez Coral, said:
Freedom for these women who have been sentenced to prison for felonies they did not commit is just one of the steps that El Salvador has to take to guarantee women’s rights. This wonderful news helps us remind the world that El Salvador has very discriminatory legislation against women because a woman can suffer an obstetric emergency and be sent to prison for aggravated homicide.
El Salvador continues to ignore its international responsibilities which call for all countries to eliminate every form of discrimination against women and to recognize that forcing women to continue a pregnancy that puts her life or health at risk is cruel, inhumane, and degrading treatment. El Salvador must make stronger efforts to guarantee that reproductive rights are recognized as human rights in the country.
London’s delightful Horniman Museum and Gardens is celebrating today by sharing photos and details about items women and girls have used all over the world. The items range from instruments to celebratory headwear to fighting knives.
This is a woman’s fighting knife, or Te Butu, from Kiribati in Eastern Micronesia. It was used by 19th century i-Kiribati women for self-defence and in vengeance attacks. It's made of coconut wood, sharks teeth and human hair.https://t.co/5o8yGztYl0 #IWD2019 #WomensHistoryMonth pic.twitter.com/MRPMwdngms
— Horniman Museum and Gardens (@HornimanMuseum) March 8, 2019
This headdress, or kupas, is worn by Kalasha women at festivals. The kera symbol (the roundal) used to relate to the status gained by killing an enemy (the rank of lay-mach), although today they are understood more as decorative devices. https://t.co/XZQZaXVy3P #IWD2019 pic.twitter.com/W52xx630oi
— Horniman Museum and Gardens (@HornimanMuseum) March 8, 2019
The International Rescue Committee (IRC) identified the five most dangerous places to be an adolescent girl in an analysis published on Thursday. Indicators such as child marriage, child labor, rates of violence and adolescent birth rates helped the group determine the final list: Niger, Yemen, Bangladesh, South Sudan and the Central African Republic (CAR).
Nicole Behnam, senior director of IRC’s Violence Protection and Response unit, said the analysis showed a need for humanitarian aid suited to the unique needs of adolescent girls.
“They are amongst the most marginalized populations on earth, and efforts to support and empower them are lifesaving, not optional,” Benham said in a statement. “Until we achieve true gender equality, young girls will suffer the most.”
Data points that helped IRC determine the five include:
- The Rohingya crisis in Bangladesh has left 77% of women and girls in refugee settlement sites feeling unsafe.
- Up to 65% of women and girls in South Sudan have experienced physical and/or sexual violence in their lifetime.
- More than 75% of girls in Niger are married before the age of 18.
At IRC, we’re proud to be there for women & girls—whenever & however they need us. But even with this support, it’s important to acknowledge that there is no easy place to be a girl. Ahead of #WomensDay, here are the 5 most dangerous places to be a girl according to IRC experts. pic.twitter.com/LALc2kaSMH
— IRC Intl Rescue Comm (@theIRC) March 7, 2019
Dom Phillips reports for the Guardian from Rio De Jainero, where people at carnival are protesting against sexism and Brazil’s president, Jair Bolsonaro – who once told a female lawmaker: “I would never rape you because you don’t deserve it.”
This week Brazil’s culture wars erupted on to the streets again as revellers repeatedly chanted obscenities against Bolsonaro during street parties. The president was widely ridiculed when he responded by tweeting a graphic video in an apparent attempt to condemn Brazil’s biggest cultural festival.
Bolsonoro had inflamed feminists, said Tatiana Castro, 32, a secretary, as she led her family through carnival with a “girl power” tiara on her head.
Campaigns against aggressive sexual behaviour and harassment by men at Carnival have become increasingly visible. This year, Rio city council distributed fans advertising a new law against sexual harassment.
Liliane de Fonseca, a 30-year-old translator, had covered her bare breasts with masking tape scrawled with its slogan “no means no” at the Tupife bloco. “It’s becoming more common. Men accept it more. Last year they looked in shock. This year they are reading what’s written,” she said.
Summary
- The US world champion women’s national soccer team filed a gender discrimination lawsuit against the US Soccer Federation today – just months before the team plays in the Women’s World Cup. In 2016, five US players filed a wage-discrimination complaint against the federation which has not resulted in noticeable action.
- In Greece, women have been holding protest rallies nationwide. In villages, towns and cities, women have been gathering to mark what will be the nation’s third “feminist strike”.
- Women jailed during the ongoing protests in Sudan announced on Friday they are going on hunger strike to protest their arbitrary detention.
- In Chile, events are being held throughout the day. “This is a way to bring all Chilean women together and take a stand against sexual violence and gender inequality,” said, Alondra Carrillo, a spokesperson for the demonstrations.
- For thousands of women’s rights campaigners, International Women’s Day is just a day of prep for the challenge that will come next week when the UN’s Commission on the Status of Women opens. This year, CSW will focus on whether social protection systems and public services promote gender equality and women’s empowerment.
John Bartlett writes for the Guardian from Santiago, about how International Women’s Day, known as ‘8M’, has divided public opinion in Chile:
Events are being held throughout the day from Arica in the far north to Punta Arenas in Chilean Patagonia. Alondra Carrillo, a spokesperson for the group protests in Santiago said: “This is a way to bring all Chilean women together and take a stand against sexual violence and gender inequality,” she said.
But Chilean society remains deeply conservative.
When a series of feminist strikes and sit-ins paralysed university faculties in June, a poll found that just 2% of respondents considered themselves feminists, while 27% actively defined themselves as machista.
A campaign led by Carrillo’s organisation plastered the names of women overlooked by Chilean history on metro signs throughout the capital – from Latin America’s first Nobel Laureate for Literature, poet Gabriela Mistral, to Eloísa Díaz, the first female medical student to attend the University of Chile – in protest at the lack of female representation across the 136 stations of the metro system.
In response, Fuerza Nacional, a newly-incarnated patriotic nationalist party, leapt to the defence of perceived ‘Chilean values’, proposing a different set of names to adorn the renamed stations. These included Lucía Hiriart, the 96-year-old widow of dictator Augusto Pinochet, and conservative commentator Patricia Maldonado, known for her visceral televised rants and startling purple hair.
Shocking events on the other side of the Andean curtain have also proved a catalyst for bringing Chile’s civil society movements to the streets. Last week in Argentina, where abortion is illegal in most cases, an 11-year-old rape victim was forced to give birth after authorities refused to allow her a termination.
US women's soccer team files gender discrimination lawsuit
The US world champion women’s national soccer team filed a gender discrimination lawsuit against the US Soccer Federation today – just months before the team plays in the Women’s World Cup, according to the New York Times.
In the lawsuit, filed in United States District Court in Los Angeles, the 28 players accused the federation — their employer and the governing body for soccer in the United States — of years of what they labeled “institutionalized gender discrimination.” The issues, the athletes said, affected not only their paychecks but also where they played and how often, how they trained, the medical treatment and coaching they received, and even how they traveled to matches.
Heralded players including Megan Rapinoe, Alex Morgan and Carli Lloyd are named in the class action lawsuit, which seeks to represent any current or former players from the women’s national team since 4 Feb, 2015.
In 2016, five US players filed a wage-discrimination complaint against the federation which has not resulted in noticeable action.
Women jailed during the ongoing protests in Sudan announced on Friday they are going on hunger strike to protest their arbitrary detention, writes Zeinab Mohammed Salih in Khartoum.
The Sudanese rights group No to Women Oppression made the announcement in a statement. The head of the organisation, Dr Ihsan Fagiry, is among the dozens of people detained for participating in the protests since December.
Other women announced on social media that they would go on hunger strike in solidarity to their sisters behind the bars.
“I am on hunger strike today in solidarity with my comrades that decided to go on hunger strike whilst in Omar Al-Bashir’s detention,” said Tahani Abbas, activist and member of the group.
Abbas said about 35 women announced they would be on hunger strike, adding that some detainees recently released were among the hunger strikers.
Meanwhile, over in Greece, women have been holding protest rallies nationwide, writes Helena Smith, the Guardian’s correspondent in Greece, Turkey and Cyprus:
In villages, towns and cities, women have been gathering to mark what will be the nation’s third “feminist strike”.
Perhaps more than any other EU member state, both public and private unions have thrown their weight behind what many see as a day aimed squarely at highlighting sexual discrimination, oppression and workplace inequities.
Marching on the Greek parliament in Athens, protestors chanted: “the freedom of women is the fight of all workers.”
Though views are changing, Greece remains a bastion of patriarchal thinking. It is long ranked last in European league tables on gender equality. But with the international climate changing, hopes are mounting that progress can be made.
“At a time when anti-oppression movements are proliferating world wide, the working class is working collectively against discrimination,” proclaimed one March 8th movement. “For the first time the possibility exists to turn March 8th into a Pan-European strike.”
Hello, this is Amanda Holpuch in New York, taking over the live blog from Frances Perraudin in the UK.
Some depressing news out of the US to mark international women’s day: in 2018, US women were feeling less treated with respect and dignity than at any time since 2011, according to a survey published today by the research firm, Gallup.
When asked: “Do you believe women in the US are treated with respect and dignity, or not,” – 48% of US women responded “yes” and 70% of US men responded “yes.”
The U.S. trails all of its peers in Western Europe and Canada on the question of whether women are treated with respect and dignity. https://t.co/PHPP7nywmI #WomensDay pic.twitter.com/EjoaBIJiuY
— GallupNews (@GallupNews) March 8, 2019
Gallup conducted the survey between 13 August and 30 Sept 2018, a period that includes the lead up and start of the public hearing for supreme court justice Brett Kavanaugh, who was accused of sexual misconduct.
A little over a month after the survey concluded, the US elected a record number of women to Congress.
Updated
Meghan Markle, the Duchess of Sussex, has appeared on an International Women’s Day panel along side singer Annie Lennox and the former Australian prime minister Julia Gillard.
Asked by the chairwoman Anne McElvoy, senior editor of The Economist, how Markle responded to media coverage of her, she said:
I don’t read anything, it’s much safer that way, but equally that’s just my own personal preference, because I think positive or negative, it can all sort of just feel like noise to a certain extent these days, as opposed to getting muddled with that to focus on the real cause.
So for me, I think the idea of making the word feminism trendy, that doesn’t make any sense to me personally, right? This is something that is going to be part of the conversation forever.
When asked later if she looked at Twitter she replied: “No, sorry no. For me that’s my personal preference.”
Liz Ford, the deputy editor of the Guardian’s Global Development site, reports that for thousands of women’s rights campaigners, International Women’s Day is just a day of prep for the challenge that will come next week when the UN’s Commission on the Status of Women opens.
Many will be congregating in New York on Monday for the start of the annual two-week meeting that assesses progress towards ending gender discrimination, and looking at ways to push leaders to speed things up.
What this means in practice is a two-week fight between UN member states and activists to keep the rights secured long ago under international agreements from being diluted or taken out of discussions that are centred around a priority theme. This year, CSW will focus on whether social protection systems and public services promote gender equality and women’s empowerment.
A number of countries – you can probably guess which ones – will push for certain words to be removed from the official CSW outcome document. These usually relate to sexual and reproductive health and rights, and gender-based violence. They will likely ask for the word ‘gender’ to be removed in favour of ‘women’, and will try to get any mention of LGBTI removed altogether. The word ‘abortion’ is also problematic, as is any mention of sex workers.
Blocs of countries will trade language – you take out any reference to ‘cultural and traditional practices’ and we’ll let you have your line about ending child marriage. Things got so bad one year that European countries refused to negotiate as a bloc because of the stance of some countries.
In 2017, with Donald Trump in the White House, US negotiators found themselves aligned with Iran, Syria and Russia, countries notorious for trying to water down language. The Holy See, which has a permanent observer seat at the UN, is expected to push back on references to the family and contraception.
Activists will be heavily involved in lobbying member states to hold tight to previous commitments to ensure the outcome document, usually agreed in the early hours, doesn’t take a step backwards.
CSW is a hugely important event in the UN calendar. It exposes member states’s current thinking about women’s rights. The agreed document can and will be used by campaigners to hold their governments to account.
CSW also turns Manhattan into one huge networking event. Over the coming two weeks, hundreds of events will be held in around the city organised by UN agencies, member state missions and civil society groups. They will touch on a variety of themes, such as peacebuilding, gender-based violence, justice, humanitarian response and maternal health. It’s during these times that partnerships will be struck, people will be inspired and, crucially, energies will be restored for the fight ahead.
Journalist Clea Skopeliti reports on criticism of the prime minister’s press conference this afternoon –
Theresa May has become embroiled in a row that has overshadowed her Brexit speech in Grimsby after only taking one question from a female reporter on International Women’s Day.
The prime minister took at least three questions from male reporters following her remarks but only one from a woman, Sky’s Beth Rigby.
When May refused to take any more questions, Libby Wiener, a political correspondent for ITV, shouted: “Only one question from a female journalist?” May responded: “You’ve had answers from a woman Prime Minister.”
May was speaking at a dockside warehouse on Friday to urge MPs to back her Brexit deal and urge the EU to make new concessions over the Irish backstop.
As well as taking just one question from a woman, the Guardian’s Peter Walker said May “utterly refused to deal with any specific questions.”
Adding to the sense of drift, May leaves to angry shouted question from ITV’s Libby Wiener as to why she only took *one* question from a woman on international women’s day.
— Peter Walker (@peterwalker99) March 8, 2019
Updated
If you’re looking for even more inspiration (as if today’s IWD events haven’t been enough) here’s a stirring film from the Guardian’s video team, in which the author Jeanette Winterson reads an extract from her book, ‘Courage Calls to Courage Everywhere’. She describes the threat to women posed by the future dominance of AI.
“AI could be the best thing to have happened to human kind or the worst thing to happen to women ever,” she says.
And here’s Trump’s full IWD statement –
On International Women’s Day, we honor women worldwide for their vital role in shaping and strengthening our communities, families, governments, and businesses...https://t.co/VVnkuBPmhA
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 8, 2019
Through the efforts of remarkable women trailblazers in the United States and around the world, we have made tremendous progress in the fight for equality and justice for all.
My Administration has championed initiatives to promote women’s global economic empowerment through business, technology, and increased access to capital. These initiatives include the Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative, Canada–United States Council for Advancement of Women Entrepreneurs and Business Leaders, Overseas Private Investment Corporation’s 2X Women’s Initiative, and United States Agency for International Development’s WomenConnect Challenge.
Harriet Harman, Labour’s former deputy leader, has written for Harper’s Bazaar on why her party has never had a woman leader. (She has twice served as acting leader.) She says:
Conservative women like Margaret Thatcher weren’t seen as subversive within their own party. She wasn’t saying that she wanted to turn this party upside down. She wasn’t saying, ‘it’s been a party of men, I’m going to make it a party where women and men share power on equal terms.’ She was about succeeding within the party power structure as it was, about beating the men at their own game, on their terms. She wouldn’t change the rules to make the party more women-friendly. She didn’t believe in that.
If you argue for positive action, which the women’s movement in the Labour Party has, then that will be and has been resisted. If you are always pushing at barriers, you’re a productive force, but not necessarily a popular one. Those leading that charge can come to be considered too unpopular for the top job. That is an explanation, but it’s not an excuse. There’s no justification for not having a woman leader. We’ve had a party for 100 years, we regard ourselves as the party of equality - next time it’s got to be a woman.
President Donald Trump’s 2020 budget proposal will include $100m for a global women’s fund spearheaded by his daughter Ivanka Trump, the Associated Press reports.
The White House said the budget, expected to be released onMonday, will include funding for the Women’s Global Development and Prosperity Initiative – an initiative launched last month and led by Ivanka Trump.
In a statement to AP, Ivanka Trump noted that today was International Women’s Day and stressed the initiative was “working towards our goal of economically empowering 50 million women in developing countries by 2025”.
The White House also is expected to announce the appointment of Kelley Eckels Currie to serve as an ambassador-at-large for global women’s issues. The position was established under President Barack Obama and has been vacant since Trump took office.
Ivanka Trump praised Currie, who currently serves as the representative to the United Nations Economic and Social Council. She said Currie “is a formidable partner on women’s economic empowerment and national security issues”.
Young volunteers and campaigners with youth-led development agency, Restless Development, have shared what they are doing on International Women’s Day –
Mia, 22, from Madagascar
I am attending a global conference in Rwanda on family planning. I am leading a workshop for other young people and policy makers called “8 steps to get your government to keep its promises”.
In Madagascar young women are facing issues like early pregnancies, child marriages and violence. When people think of Madagascar they often think of the cartoon, but it is not a developed country. Myself and a group of young people started a campaign to change the law to allow under 18s to access contraception. We won our campaign! Now I can have safe sex without getting pregnant if I don’t want to.
I’m really excited to share how I won my campaign and support others to make change in their countries. Women have the right to have power because we are all equal with men.
Betty, 24, entrepreneur from Uganda
There’s a lot of gender-based discrimination against girls and young women in the labour market in Uganda. The weak regulations have confined women to jobs that are of poor pay and quality in terms of working conditions and access to social protection. These factors reinforce the status of girls and young women as secondary workers and housewives.
I have been supporting changes to laws to support women in the workplace. Recently, we were successful in changing the law to introduce a national minimum wage. Today is a national bank holiday in Uganda to celebrate International Women’s Day. I am giving a speech at the National Young Women’s Dialogue in Kampala, the capital city. The event has brought together hundreds of people from across Uganda to debate issues that affect women.
I am going to talk about how I have been supported to grow my entrepreneurial skills, and how I started a farm feed shop which enables farmers to access feeds for their animals. This has enabled me to earn a living as a young growing entrepreneur. I want to inspire other women to be a girl boss like me.
Devota, 26, from Tanzania
One in three girls are married as children in Tanzania. I am researching and campaigning on issues such as child marriage, violence against women and access to contraception. Through my research I discovered that, in the rural area where I live, local police don’t have training to handle cases of child marriage or sexual violence. I managed to arrange a meeting with the local government and the police force. The national police force agreed that their gender department will train people in the villages on how to report, and train the local police to handle these cases.
For International Women’s Day, I am training men and women in the villages on these issues and how to report them. It’s very important for young people like me to raise awareness and speak out against issues that affect us. I am now seen as a leader in my community.
Latest summary
- Michelle Bachelet, the UN high commissioner for human rights, has issued a statement thanking equalities campaigners around the world. “Thanks to the tireless work of such human rights defenders in all corners of the globe, in recent decades, we have seen remarkable progress with respect to women’s rights,” she said.
- The new chair of one of the UK’s most influential business groups has accused Britain’s biggest companies of lying when they say they cannot find enough female or ethnic minority directors. Charlotte Valeur, who joined the Institute of Directors (IoD) in September, said she would start calling for new laws next year to force firms to improve their diversity if FTSE 350 companies failed to make faster progress.
-
There were 6,355 survivors on Rape Crisis waiting lists in March last year, according to the End Violence Against Women Coalition. Rape survivor Fern Champion has waived her anonymity and launched a petition calling on the government to address the shortfall in specialist rape counselling support. It has 92,000 signatures so far.
- Spanish women are taking part in a nationwide strike and there will be 1,400 rallies across the country to mark International Women’s Day. Meanwhile, men in Russia are giving women flowers to mark the day.
- Emma Watson, Keira Knightley, and Dame Emma Thompson are among 76 actors, writers, business leaders and campaigners to have used a letter in the Guardian to call on governments to increase support and protection of women fighting for their rights around the world.
Updated
This morning, parents in east London staged a breastfeeding sit-in outside Newham hospital. They were protesting following reports that new mothers had been asked to breastfeed their babies behind a screen and that babies had been given formula without the consent of parents.
Pooney Sekar, divisional manager of women’s and children’s health at Newham hospital, said: “Privacy screens/curtains are available in maternity and neonatal units purely if mothers wish to use them. There are in some circumstances a clinical reason to offer formula feed in addition to breast milk; however, this follows discussion with the neonatal team and with the consent of the mother. Following suggestions and feedback from parents we will ensure that there is clearer signage and relevant information shared about their baby’s feeding requirements.”
Updated
Readers have been getting in touch to tell us how they are marking International Women’s Day. For some, today is an extra special day of celebration as they mark their birthdays.
Paul, 48, from Berlin is excited his daughter, Mina Coco, is turning eight this year. “It’s our daughter’s birthday so it’s cake, crazy and chaos today. Despite the party, I will be squeezing and kissing my daughter and thinking of my mum. I will also be sending love and strength to all women of the world - on 8 March and every day, always!
“As of 2019, it will be a bank holiday here in Berlin, but only in Berlin and no other state in Germany. It’s in tune with our true progressive style but sadly maybe not as understood nationwide. I hope it gives people something to think about while the shops are closed. I’m not sure a day off work solves serious problems though, but there will be protests and things going on throughout the day.”
Jo Barlow, 49, from Cornwall is celebrating her birthday today: “I am so very proud to share International Women’s Day with my birthday. A special day this year as I’m 49. As I get older, I become more and more aware of the importance of being a woman in today’s patriarchal society, fighting for recognition and equality.
“I am currently going through the menopause which seems to be a hidden problem, just like with periods, it is not mentioned and we try to hide its symptoms. This is so wrong! Something half the population will go through needs to be out in the open.
“On one hand I have signed up for a yoga and menopause workshop, as I want to empower myself. On the other, I will be celebrating being 49, alive, healthy, relatively sane and sober, with cake, pizza, a drop or two of red wine and a trip to Greenway, the summer home of Agatha Christie – a truly brilliant woman.”
Myriam from London considers herself a born feminist, especially with her birthday coinciding with International Women’s Day: “Until a few years ago, IWD wasn’t given much space in our collective consciousness or the media. If IWD is a big thing now it should also be a reminder of feminism as an international and still much-needed cause. In recent years we have come to realise that we had been too complacent about sex equality, unveiling die-hard misogyny in the western world.”
“I will be raising a glass to the loving and supporting women in my life, some of whom will be with me, with a special thought for all the girls and women all over the world who suffer simply for being born female.”
Updated
Marc Bennetts in Moscow reports on how Russia is marking International Women’s Day:
In Russia, where International Women’s Day has long lost any connection to feminist issues, 8 March is largely all about men giving women flowers and complimenting them on their looks.
This year, a bomb disposal robot even got in on the act, handing a bunch of yellow tulips to a bemused young girl in an online video posted by Russia’s emergencies ministry.
Vladimir Putin offered his own gushing tribute to Russia’s women. “You find time for everything – at work and at home, and yet remain beautiful, bright, charming and the centre of gravity for the whole family, uniting it with your love, as well as your ability to inspire and support, comfort and console,” he said in a message posted on the Kremlin website.
Putin’s comments came after he told female police officers: “What does a young woman need to maintain her figure? Three things: a workout machine, a masseuse, and a suitor.”
In Yekaterinburg, servicemen posted perhaps the day’s oddest tribute to Russia’s women, posing with assault rifles alongside ballerinas in an empty metro station. The project was entitled “The strength of a man is in the tenderness and love of a woman.”
There were, however, some limited attempts to use the day, a public holiday in Russia since 1966, to promote women’s rights. Events, including concerts, exhibitions and lectures, are being held in Russia and neighbouring Belarus under the banner “It’s Not Her Fault” to raise funds for a charity that assists survivors of domestic abuse.
At least 8,000 Russian women are estimated to die annually from injuries caused by intimate partners. The situation was exacerbated in 2017, when Putin signed off on a law that partially decriminalised domestic violence.
In St Petersburg, a group of men from a pro-Kremlin youth group burst into a newly opened feminist coffee shop during ‘women-only” opening hours and tried to force flowers on visitors. One woman appeared to pepper-spray an intruder, according to video posted by the pro-Kremlin group.
Updated
The Associated Press is reporting that thousands of ultra-Orthodox Jews have attempted to prevent a liberal Jewish women’s group from praying at the Western Wall in Jerusalem, Judaism’s holiest site.
The women gathered on Friday to mark the 30th anniversary of Women of the Wall, a women’s prayer group that seeks equality of worship at the site. It coincides this year with International Women’s Day.
The women wore religious attire that ultra-Orthodox tradition reserves for men and swayed in prayer as Orthodox men spat, shoved and shouted insults. Police tried to restrain protesters charging at the women’s prayer circle, and said they arrested one youth for attacking an officer.
The Israeli government, under pressure from ultra-Orthodox parties, scrapped plans for a mixed-gender prayer area at the Western Wall in 2017.
Updated
Amrit Dhillon, a journalist based in New Delhi, writes that Vistara is to make sanitary products available onboard its flights.
In a country where shame shrouds menstruation, one airline has taken the step of offering women free sanitary products. From today, women who get their period while travelling on Vistara airline can approach the crew and ask for a bio-degradable, organic sanitary napkin made from plant-based fibres that are free of plastic and toxins. Passengers on Vistara flights will be told about the airline’s “PadsOnBoard” initiative after the safety drill.
“The initiative … reflects our core philosophy that ‘small things make a big difference’,” said Deepa Chadha, the airline’s senior vice-president for HR and corporate affairs. Other airlines have marked IWD by deploying all-women crews. SpiceJet gave women a red rose when they checked in. GoAir upgraded women travellers. And Jet Airways surprised select women passengers with gift hampers.
This #InternationalWomensDay, Vistara is proud to be India’s first airline to provide sanitary pads aboard all domestic flights, starting 8th Mar ’19. These pads are organic & bio-degradable. #PadsOnBoard #VistaraForWomen #VistaraWomanFlyer #WomensDay #NotJustAnotherAirline pic.twitter.com/A1jmmoYYky
— Vistara (@airvistara) March 6, 2019
Updated
UN human rights head thanks women's rights campaigners
Michelle Bachelet, the UN high commissioner for human rights, has issued a statement to mark International Women’s Day. Here is an extract:
As we celebrate International Women’s Day, I would like to honour the generations of women and girls who have transformed our societies by defending human rights and demanding equality – often in the face of daunting challenges and great personal sacrifice.
Thanks to the tireless work of such human rights defenders in all corners of the globe, in recent decades, we have seen remarkable progress with respect to women’s rights. Just in the past six months, in Ethiopia, Tunisia, Costa Rica and the United States, among other countries, women have taken on important political posts and openly advocate for women’s empowerment and gender equality. In the last decade, the participation of women in the global labour force has grown to around 49%t. Maternal mortality has steeply fallen in countries like India. These are concrete advances, but there is still much more to be done. It is so important that laws and policies are drafted with the meaningful involvement of those most affected by it – women from various walks of life, including those from minority groups, indigenous communities, those who are poor, with disabilities, the elderly and the youth
I recognise the courage and determination of women worldwide who have launched powerful social movements and continued to dare to speak out about the violence they have suffered – #MeToo, #Ibelieveher, #NiUnaMenos, #cuentalo, #noustoutes, #balancetonporc and so many more. Today, on International Women’s Day, I am issuing an urgent call to governments, legislators and judiciaries around the world to build on the momentum of the social movements against gender-based violence. Entrenched gender biases create major hurdles for women’s access to justice and redress, and it is crucial that judges and police officers, among others, are trained so that unconscious bias does not get in the way of protection and justice for women.
Updated
The Icelandic prime minister, Katrín Jakobsdóttir, has marked International Women’s Day on Twitter:
On Int. Women's Day and in the lead up to #CSW63 we are reminded of the importance of international collaboration to protect and promote universal women’s rights. The stories of the #MeToo movement show that we have a long way to go. But we can do this together. Happy #IWD
— Katrín Jakobsdóttir (@katrinjak) March 8, 2019
Last year, she joined other Icelandic women in going on strike, paying homage to the country’s 1975 women’s strike, in which 90% of the country’s women staged a walkout to highlight gender inequality in the country. Iceland has topped the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report for the past nine years.
Updated
A rape survivor has waived her anonymity and launched a petition calling on the government to address the shortfall in specialist rape counselling support.
According to the End Violence Against Women Coalition, there were 6,355 survivors on Rape Crisis waiting lists in March last year – a number expected to have increased this year with growing demand for support services.
Fern Champion, 25, was raped by a stranger while she was travelling abroad. When Fern returned home to the UK and sought counselling, she was told her local Rape Crisis Centre’s waiting list was closed due to a funding shortfall.
Champion tried to get counselling over the next eight months at several centres but always found they were full and unable to help. She was eventually given support by her private sector employer.
She has launched a petition, which has 87,000 signatures, asking Theresa May to ensure all survivors have access to Rape Crisis Centres.
A 2018 YouGov survey for the End Violence Against Women Coalition found that a majority of people consider access to counselling more important than access to the police and courts process for survivors of rape.
“By not adequately funding support services, this government is telling survivors that their recovery does not matter and by extension that they do not matter,” said Champion. “When you have been raped – when someone else has deeply harmed you and you are left with the trauma and pain – the vital, life-saving counselling should just be there when you need it.”
According to the Office for National Statistics, 20% of women and 4% of men have experienced some type of sexual assault since the age of 16, equivalent to 3.4 million female and 631,000 male victims. Police recorded rape increased by 15% (to 41,186 offences) in 2017, compared with the previous year, according to the ONS. In 2017-18, Rape Crisis specialist services were accessed by 78,461 adults and children, an increase of 17% from 2016-17.
📋❤✍🏻 On #IWD2019, I encourage you to sign Fern Champion’s petition & demand that Theresa May guarantees sustained💰funding for @RapeCrisisEandW support services, so the survivors of sexual violence can access the support they need.
— Emma Watson (@EmmaWatson) March 8, 2019
🔗💌 https://t.co/oyGh5ZE278 pic.twitter.com/CgF5oPfyGO
Updated
Emmerdale is not the only soap opera to be featuring an all-female cast today. Australian show Neighbours is too! The one-off episode was also written and directed by women. It’s on Channel 5 at 1.45pm and 5pm.
Samuel Okiror, a journalist working for the Guardian’s Global Development site in Kampala, Uganda, has been speaking to Waris Dirie, the Somali model and anti-FGM activist.
She is confident that FGM, which she describes as a “brutal torture, and cruel crime against innocent little girls”, can be stamped out. “FGM will definitely end in my lifetime,” she said.
“The latest studies show a massive decrease in FGM among girls aged 14 and under in Africa since the 1990s. What a success for all of us, campaigning against FGM.”
A study published by the British Medical Journal last year showed significant decline in FGM prevalence rates in north, east and west Africa over the past three decades.
But Dirie concedes: “The seed has germinated and come up. I am more than happy with everything we have achieved, but the fight is not yet won.”
To coincide with IWD, Waris’s foundation – the Desert Flower Foundation, which campaigns against the practice – has teamed up with British lingerie brand Coco de Mer to launch a film, directed by the photographer Rankin, which highlights the impact of FGM on women around the world. She hopes it will raise awareness for the cause.
“The fight can only be won if as many people as possible join our fight. The new campaign with Coco de Mer is a step further to reach my goal to end FGM forever,” says Waris, who underwent FGM when she was five.
She added: “We need more awareness on FGM in the media and the commitment of politicians, the UN, Unesco, Unicef, WHO and all other international organisations to invest more and serious money to eradicate FGM.”
Updated
Spanish women go on strike
The Guardian’s Madrid correspondent, Sam Jones, reports on Spain’s women’s day strike:
On International Women’s Day last year, more than 5 million workers took part in Spain’s first nationwide “feminist strike” to draw attention to sexual discrimination, violence and the wage gap.
This year, there will be another strike, as well as well as 1,400 rallies across the country. Spain’s socialist government, which came to power in June last year, has made improving equality a key aim. As he entered office, the prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, appointed 11 women and six men to his cabinet, saying his government was “unmistakably committed to equality” and intended to reflect recent changes in Spanish society.
The cabinet has suspended all activity today – except for its weekly ministerial meeting – and eight ministers are due to join a protest in central Madrid this evening.
Feminism and equality have emerged as key issues in recent months, spurred largely by the emergence of the far-right Vox party, which has attacked domestic violence legislation and railed against “feminist supremacy”. Its influence has also served to drag the conservative People’s party (PP) further to the right in a bid to retain voters.
The PP’s leader, Pablo Casado, has recently spoken of revisiting Spain’s abortion laws to make terminations more difficult.
Neither Vox nor the PP will be taking part in today’s rallies. In an article for the conservative daily ABC, Vox’s leader in Madrid spelled out why.
“We don’t believe in gender laws, or quotas, nor in this feminist supremacy that seeks only privileges - not for women - but for a minority of opportunists and lobbies,” wrote Rocío Monasterio. “Nor do we accept that the organisers of this strike – who are nothing more than fronts for the big political parties – can claim to speak for all women. It’s an insult to our intelligence.”
Speaking on Thursday, Carmen Calvo, the deputy prime minister and equality minister, said it was fitting that the PP wouldn’t be taking part as “rightwing parties have never joined the struggle for equality”.
She added: “We are a feminist government that understands that in the 21st century, you can’y govern without looking at the specific problems faced by more than half the population.”
Updated
The Guardian’s Science Weekly podcast has teamed up with the tech podcast, Chips with Everything, to produce a special International Women’s Day podcast – Science with Everything. It looks at the repercussions of having a world built for men, from drugs that don’t work for women to VR headsets that give them motion sickness. Have a listen.
The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, went horse riding with female police officers yesterday, ahead of International Women’s Day. Reuters reported that the group “cantered gently around a training facility for horsebacked police in Moscow followed by other uniformed officers riding in rows”.
Putin said women were increasingly taking an interest in working in law enforcement agencies and that just over a quarter of employees at the interior ministry were now women. He then gave the officers a horse named Golden Ray as a parting gift.
Updated
For all you soap fans out there – tonight’s episode of Emmerdale will feature an all-women cast and was written, produced, directed and recorded by a female-led crew. The 30-minute programme – created to mark International Women’s Day – will follow the show’s female characters as they go about their lives.
Lucy Pargeter, who plays Chas Dingle, said: “My character Chas bonds with Laurel over some news she has; they are not two characters who normally make time for each other, so it was lovely working with Charlotte.”
The first assistant director on the episode, Val Lawson, said: “I started working in television nearly 46 years ago and production jobs for females were extremely limited. Certain departments would not even entertain the idea of women. I felt very honoured to be working with so many talented ladies and appreciated being included on this episode.”
Producer Laura Shaw said she felt “incredibly honoured to work alongside such a strong, inspiring and determined team of people at Emmerdale, and making this special episode gave us the opportunity to reflect on how far we’ve come in the workplace in the last few decades”.
“Some of the people still working on the team today helped pave the way so women like me could pursue the career they wanted and this episode celebrates that and everything we have achieved at Emmerdale.”
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has tweeted to mark International Women’s Day. He highlights a speech by the party’s shadow secretary of state for women and equalities, Dawn Butler, in which she announces their policy on flexible working. She quotes “the philosopher” Dolly Parton.
Happy #InternationalWomensDay from @DawnButlerBrent and all at the Labour Party.
— Jeremy Corbyn (@jeremycorbyn) March 8, 2019
Let's introduce flexible working from day one so mothers aren't held back in the workplace.#IWD2019 #IWD pic.twitter.com/5wa4i0OdIG
Dawn Butler has marked IWD by tweeting a picture of the African-American abolitionist and women’s rights campaigner Sojourner Truth. She is famous for, among other things, her “Ain’t I a Woman” speech (see below).
Happy #IWD #IWD2019 #InternationalWomensDay
— (((Dawn Butler MP))) (@DawnButlerBrent) March 8, 2019
"Ain't I a woman?" pic.twitter.com/JudtQ0oarC
Updated
The Guardian’s legal affairs correspondent, Owen Bowcott, reports on gender inequality within the legal profession –
Almost two-thirds of those becoming solicitors last year were women but fewer than a third are partners in senior professional positions, the Law Society has revealed in new figures released to mark International Women’s Day.
Significant regional disparaties ain the pattern of appointments are beginning to emerge in patterns of employment, according to the organisation that represents solicitors across England and Wales.
Within the jurisdiction, 62.2% of new solicitors in 2018 were women but only 30.8% of partners in private practice are women. In Eastern England and the South-East, as many as 37% of partners are women whereas in London the figure was only around 28%.
“2019 is the centenary of the Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act, which allowed women to train as solicitors, serve as magistrates and sit on juries,” said the Law Society’s president,” Christina Blacklaws. “The profession has made great strides over the past hundred years but there is still a long journey to gender equality, particularly senior levels in certain regions of England and Wales.”
Blacklaws added: “More than half of the respondents we interviewed in our survey on women in the law cited perceived unconscious bias as the greatest barrier to women’s career progression with an overwhelming 91% saying flexible working is critical to improving diversity.”
#DidYouKnow that women now make up 50.2% of practicing certificate holders, but of the 30,000 partners in private practice only 28% of partners are women? Our @LawSocPresident Christina reflects on the centenary of the Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act https://t.co/bSCHerxkbn pic.twitter.com/BBSYxkBeeV
— The Law Society (@TheLawSociety) March 8, 2019
Hello, it’s Frances Perraudin in London here, taking over from Kate Lyons in Sydney.
Emma Watson, Keira Knightley, and Dame Emma Thompson are among 76 actors, writers, business leaders and campaigners to have used a letter in the Guardian to call on governments to increase support and protection of women fighting for their rights around the world. They say women risk “backlash, censorship and violence” whenever they defend their rights or speak out over injustice.
They write:
Women in all their diversity – women of every nationality, race, ability, religion, sexual orientation and gender identity – need to have their voices heard and respected. Every woman should have the freedom to make her own choices and claim her rights. Yet, when women speak out, attempt to have a say in the decisions affecting their lives or defend their rights, far too often they are silenced, undermined and even endangered. Women are at risk of backlash, censorship and violence wherever they speak out, both online and offline. The expertise and experiences of women human rights defenders are not being recognised or trusted. Women are not being meaningfully consulted on issues that directly impact them. Women who speak out are facing all forms of violence and abuse. This has to stop.
Britain's biggest companies are lying when they say they cannot find enough female directors, says prominent businesswoman
The Guardian has this exclusive story about the lack of diversity at FTSE 100 companies.
The new chair of one of the UK’s most influential business groups has accused Britain’s biggest companies of lying when they say they cannot find enough female or ethnic minority directors.
Charlotte Valeur, who joined the Institute of Directors (IoD) in September, said she would start calling for new laws next year to force firms to improve their diversity if FTSE 350 companies failed to make faster progress.
Speaking to the Guardian ahead of International Women’s Day, Valeur criticised large listed companies for not achieving diversity targets. She said: “Do we really think that’s difficult? It’s a lie. It’s not difficult.
“I will be very unpopular with FTSE 100 [companies], but I don’t actually mind, because it’s not true that it’s difficult.”
The percentage of women on FTSE 250 boards increased only marginally, from 22.8% to 23.7%, in the year to June 2018. Over the same period, the number of female directors in FTSE 100 companies rose from 27.7% to 29%, according to a report by Cranfield University.
The percentage of female executive directors of FTSE 250 companies – who work full time for a company, rather than as independent non-executives – actually dropped during that time, from 7.7% in October 2017 to just 6.4%.
Men have always played critical roles in the women’s movement. From John Stuart Mill to Fredrick Douglass, male allies have long supported the struggle for gender equality. And today there are plenty of men who are proud feminists – just ask Andy Murray, who hired and championed a female coach, Amélie Mauresmo; or Ryan Gosling, who has become something of a feminist icon. But there is still a long way to go, and we’ll only get there by drawing more men into the conversation.
Despite all the progress made, men still dominate positions of power. And, as a string of recent harassment scandals has shown, the behaviour of some men has had profound effects on women’s careers, their success and their lives. The good news, as we mark International Women’s Day, is that many men are acknowledging the importance of playing their part to make gender equality a reality.
A new study by Ipsos Mori, in collaboration with the Global Institute for Women’s Leadership at King’s College London (of which I am the chair) and International Women’s Day, has found that while a third of British men think they are being expected to do too much to support women’s equality, far more – half – do not. In fact, three in five men in Britain agree that gender equality won’t be achieved unless they also take action to support women’s rights.
Despite attempts in some quarters to paint gender equality as a zero-sum game, there are plenty of win-win propositions for these men to advocate. Better parental leave for fathers would be a good start. Sorry, Piers Morgan, but the vast majority of respondents to our survey don’t believe that childcare is emasculating, with 75% of people globally disagreeing that a man who stays at home to look after his children is less of a man.
Government policy needs to catch up with this new reality, and the evidence is clear that, unless paternity leave is non-transferable and well paid, uptake will be low. Sweden and Norway show us that the introduction of the “daddy quota” – the period of parental leave reserved specifically for fathers – has a positive effect on male take-up of parental leave, and then on men’s long-term involvement in household work and childcare. This reaps economic dividends, as women’s talents are no longer lost to the labour force, and having an involved father has a positive effect on children’s wellbeing.
Why is it that a woman travelling alone, as I have often done for months at a time, is perceived to be “brave”, whereas men who travel alone are entirely unremarkable, wonders Rosita Boland.
The first time I travelled alone was by default, when I was 19. I was due to go Interrailing with a friend at the end of the summer. She was an au pair in Germany at the time, and announced by letter two days before my departure that she would be ditching me halfway through the month, at Vienna. She had made a more-exotic new friend, Freya, a fellow au pair, who had invited her to Finland. It was too late by then to rope in another friend, so it was either go home after Vienna, or keep going by myself. I kept going. I got on trains by myself, checked into hostels by myself, found my way around by myself. It was weird, initially, and then I got so subsumed by the atmospheric glory of Venice and the exhilaration of the overnight trains that I stopped fretting about travelling alone without even noticing.
When I got back to Ireland after that trip, I felt proud of myself. I had done something I had assumed would be hard and not much fun, and it had turned out to be not hard at all and mostly astounding. My one souvenir was a necklace of colourful gold-infused glass beads I bought at a tiny shop in Murano, from an Italian woman I somehow communicated with in my dire French. She explained her son sourced the beads, and she strung them. I survived on bread and bananas for two days after buying them, so tight was my budget.
On International Women’s Day, it’s easy to get into a funk about gender pay gaps and the dismal female representation in politics and the boardrooms. But this time of year always prompts me to count my blessings as well.
Not all women and girls world wide have the same education opportunities, health care access and freedom we sometimes take for granted in western countries like Australia.
On overseas assignments in recent years, I’ve encountered some of the most resilient and courageous women and girls grappling with the most difficult and extraordinary life circumstances.
Last August, I met Halima, an 18-year-old single mother, with a malnourished baby on her hip, in the Rohingya refugee camps at Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh.
Her husband was killed trying to protect her from a Burmese soldier who was attempting to rape her during a village attack. She walked for a week, while heavily pregnant, to escape across the border into Bangladesh.
Her home is a bamboo tarp shelter amid the stifling tropical heat, mud and monsoon rains of a tent city of tens of thousands of people. She has little earning capacity, with only a grade five education – Rohingya girls once they hit puberty are kept in isolation until they marry. Halima was all alone and without much hope for the future.
Closer to home, I also think about the Papua New Guinean domestic violence survivors who I met at crisis centre Femili PNG on a trip with Rosie Batty and those who had sought refuge at the Haus Ruth a women’s shelter.
I remember the well-dressed accountant and mother who had two miscarriages because of the bashings from her police officer husband as well as the 14-year-old school girl raped by her father.
In PNG, Australia’s closest neighbour, 70 per cent of women are raped during their lifetime. Bride prices, no welfare safety nets and a shortage of safe houses make escaping violence complicated for PNG women. Often women are “patched up by doctors” in between abuse incidents.
The sisterhood’s pursuit of equality must be blind to borders.
International women's day begins – in pictures
Why is International Women’s Day held on the 8th March?
According to the UN, the first National Woman’s Day was observed in the United States on 28 February in honour of the 1908 garment workers’ strike in New York, where women protested against working conditions.
In 1910, the Socialist International, meeting in Copenhagen, established a Women’s Day, to honour the movement for women’s rights and to build support for achieving universal suffrage for women, this expanded to also be a chance for women to protest World War I in 1913 and 1914.
In 1917, women in Russia held their “Bread and Peace” protest on the last Sunday in February (8 March). Four days later, the Czar abdicated and the provisional Government granted women the right to vote.
In 1975, during International Women’s Year, the United Nations began celebrating International Women’s Day on 8 March.
In China, where the date of IWD is 3/8 (dates are said month/day, unlike in the UK and Australia where they are expressed day/month). The term “3/8” (March 8th), means “bitch”, especially when used to refer to older women. It is unclear if this is an unfortunate coincidence, or if the insult was coined in reference to the international day.
A fun story from yesterday, when Nasa announced its first all-female spacewalk is to take place later this month, 35 years after a woman first took part in one.
The US space agency Nasa said astronauts Christina Koch and Anne McClain will walk outside the International Space Station on 29 March on a mission to replace batteries installed last summer.
They will receive ground support from flight director Mary Lawrence and Kristen Facciol of the Canadian Space Agency in Nasa’s Johnson Space Center in Texas.
“I cannot contain my excitement!” Facciol tweeted.
There have been 213 spacewalks at the ISS since 1998 for the purposes of maintenance, repairs, testing of new equipment or science experiments, according to Nasa.
Fewer than 11% of the more than 500 people who have been to space have been female, and spacewalk teams have either been all-male or male-female.
Our reporter, Sabrina Toppa, has this report about how International Women’s Day is being marked in Pakistan. She writes:
A series of International Women’s Day marches are being held in several Pakistani cities, calling for women’s place in society to be rewritten.
Speakers at the Lahore march range from a woman fighting to reform marriage laws to the women who worked on the landmark Punjab Domestic Workers’ Act – legislation that outlaws child labour in homes and provides maternity benefits to workers.
Laaleen Sukhera, a writer with three young daughters in Lahore, will march to protest against Pakistan’s regressive family laws. After years of failing to receive adequate child support and alimony, Sukhera’s acrimonious divorce was an unpleasant awakening.
“The time for change is now,” she says. “The Pakistani mindset tends to be Victorian. The system frequently grants mothers custody, but makes life a living hell for them, with little or no support for raising kids.”
Women are also protesting against discriminatory policies in universities, where male and female students are afforded different levels of freedom. “Most university hostels have a relationship of mistrust and constant surveillance of women,” says Wafa Asher, 21, a university student in Lahore participating in the aurat march. “There is over-policing of dress and behaviour and early curfews for women.”
A Pakistani university recently caused a furore on social media by banning women from wearing skinny jeans and sleeveless shirts.
Updated
Thousands of women and their supporters will rally in Hyde Park in Sydney tomorrow to mark International Women’s Day and to protest endemic violence against women and sexual harassment.
In 2018, 63 women were killed by violence in Australia, with most of those deaths resulting from domestic violence. Three months into 2019, 12 women and three children have killed by violence.
One in three Australian women will experience some form of physical abuse in their life time. Most women will know their attacker. Every day eight Australian women are hospitalised with critical injuries from their intimate partner.
China’s women’s movement has not only survived an intense crackdown, it’s grown, argues, Leta Hong Fincher, the author of Betraying Big Brother: The Feminist Awakening in China. Read her full article here.
On the eve of International Women’s Day in 2015, Chinese authorities jailed five feminist activists for planning to hand out stickers against sexual harassment on subways and buses.
China’s leaders evidently thought they could crush a nascent feminist movement by detaining five young women, but they were sorely mistaken. News of the arrest of the “Feminist Five” spread swiftly, sparking protests and expressions of diplomatic outrage around the world.
Faced with enormous global diplomatic and social media pressure, the Chinese government released the women – Li Maizi, Zheng Churan, Wei Tingting, Wu Rongrong and Wang Man – after holding them in a detention centre for 37 days.
Four years later, against all odds, the fledging women’s rights movement has not only survived an intense crackdown by the government, but grown larger.
The feminist activists have cultivated a networked community numbering into the thousands, revolving around university students and graduates. They have become effective organisers and arguably pose a larger, more complicated challenge to the communist regime than the male activists who preceded them.
“Chinese women feel very unequal every day of their lives, and the government cannot make women oblivious to the deep injustice they feel,” says Lü Pin, the founding editor of Feminist Voices, who is completing graduate studies at SUNY Albany.
Vietnamese media has taken the celebration of International Women’s Day several strides backwards with a piece in Tuoi Tre newspaper asking expat men what they think life is like for Vietnamese women.
The insightful verdict from the men, who hail from Australia, France, the UK and Japan, is that “it must be tough to be a woman in Vietnam”.
Life for women in Vietnam is indeed some of the hardest in southeast Asia, with high levels of gender inequality and domestic and sexual violence, particularly in the home.
Praise be, however, for people like Wayne Jordan from the UK.
“My Vietnamese girlfriend is amazing and works her socks off at home and at work. I try to show my appreciation by my actions. When I have time I try to help her with the washing or cleaning,” he told the paper.
God forbid you might actually ask the women to speak for themselves.
El Salvador’s Supreme Court has commuted the 30-year sentences of three women imprisoned for abortion convictions, lessening their punishment to time served and ordering them to be released immediately.
The three women had spent about 10 years in prison on aggravated homicide charges for allegedly having abortions. All claimed that they had miscarriages. The court found that the women were victims of social and economic circumstances and ruled that the original sentences were unreasonable.
“In all three cases, the court recognised that the women have had adverse social, economic and family situations, and the sentences were disproportionate and immoral,” said the Foundation for Research on the Application of the Law.
Eighteen more women remain behind bars for abortion convictions in El Salvador, where abortion is illegal in all circumstances.
2019 in South Korea – a year of female rebellion
The past 12 months have been one of rebellion among women in South Korea. The country has arguably been at the forefront of East Asia’s MeToo movement.
South Korea, meanwhile, saw some of the biggest demonstrations in recent memory after a series of sexual assault allegations against figures in politics, entertainment and the church, and mounting anger over government inaction on the widespread use of hidden cameras to spy on women in toilets and other public places. Last summer tens of thousands of women took to the streets of Seoul to call for action against the voyeurism epidemic.
In a country where as many as a third of women have undergone cosmetic surgery, the backlash spread to take on traditional – and narrow– definitions of what constitutes Korean beauty, with women using social media to post pictures of destroyed piles of cosmetics, accompanied by the rallying cry “escape the corset”.
South Korea’s government has found it hard to ignore the groundswell of anger.
The president, Moon Jae-in, has publicly supported the MeToo movement and vowed to eradicate gender discrimination and sexual violence. Measures have been introduced in an attempt to prevent the spread of upskirting, although campaigners say they do not go far enough.
And at the start of the year, South Korea’s human rights commission announced its biggest-ever investigation into abuse in sport. It plans to interview potentially thousands of athletes, including children, about a culture of abuse in sports after female athletes came forward to allege they had been raped or assaulted by their coaches.
Unfortunately there has not been the same progress in neighbouring Japan, which has struggled to gain similar traction, despite a prominent sexual misconduct scandal, the sexist treatment meted out to local politician Yuka Ogata and the revelation that female students are routinely discriminated against at Japanese medical schools.
Loudly banging pots and pans, a few hundred women protesters gathered in Madrid in the early hours of Friday to mark the start of International Women’s Day.
The women - some wearing purple bags and clothes, and holding banners that read “Sister I do believe you” – met at midnight in Puerta del Sol square in the heart of the Spanish capital, in one of the first protests in Europe to commemorate the day and call for more gender equality. Purple has in recent years been a signature colour of women’s rights protesters.
“It’s essential to demonstrate and more in a day like women’s day because there are still a lot of gaps and problems in society that women face and need to overcome. We are in a patriarchal society,” said Abril Vilatrollol, a 21-year-old cinema student protesting in the square.
She added that sometimes she fears for her safety when heading home after partying at night, and argued that there is clear discrimination against women in the cinema sector.
Larger rallies are expected in Spain later on Friday during a general strike, at a time when gender inequality has become a divisive issue ahead of an April 28 parliamentary election.
Tony Abbott, the former Australian prime minister and former minister for women, has tweeted about International Women’s Day.
Abbott is keeping things personal, tweeting about his wife and three daughters. The tweet steered clear of references to ironing and housewives.
Grateful to be surrounded by strong and independent women on this, and every International Women’s Day #IWD2019 pic.twitter.com/jFiyLDqL7v
— Tony Abbott (@TonyAbbottMHR) March 7, 2019
The Stella Prize – a major literary award celebrating Australian women’s writing – has announced its shortlist for the year.
The full list is here.
Today, on International Women’s Day, the Stella Prize is delighted to announce the 2019 shortlist.
— The Stella Prize (@TheStellaPrize) March 8, 2019
This year’s six extraordinary shortlisted books by Australian women are:
For judges' notes and more, visit https://t.co/AtIZaXWvSI #2019StellaPrize pic.twitter.com/12nJJYGxJ6
New Zealand’s police force has apologised for praising a female police officer for her work “taking charge” of “an internment camp for Japanese women and children” during World War II.
All day today, the @nzpolice twitter account has been tweeting out “notable firsts” about women’s involvement. In the morning, they picked one fact from 1941 as a highlight.
Once more for the people in the back:
— Sana (@bigshika) March 7, 2019
"My feminism will be intersectional or it will be bullshit" pic.twitter.com/74uyujKbzf
“1941 – Constable Edna Pearce was seconded to the Department of Internal Affairs to take charge of an internment camp for Japanese women and children. #internationalwomensday”
A swift backlash ensued, pointing out that imprisoning other women on the basis of their race was not something to celebrate.
The account said: “sorry if we offended anybody with our last tweet...We are wanting to show how far we have come.”
The fact about internment, along with others, remains on the police website under the heading: “75 years of Policewomen firsts”.
Sorry if we offended anybody with our last tweet, we have since removed it. We are wanting to show how far we have come. The timeline was put together for the celebration of 75 years of women in police - https://t.co/3AdY0s6zay
— New Zealand Police (@nzpolice) March 7, 2019
‘He said he hired her after seeing her in a mini skirt’– submissions to the Australian inquiry into sexual harassment
Highlighting some of the challenges women in Australia (and globally) still face, our reporter Calla Wahlquist has been making her way through the submissions to the Australian Human Rights Commission’s National Inquiry into Sexual Harassment in Australian Workplaces. She writes:
The AHRC national inquiry received more than 420 submissions, of which about 300 were from individuals.
They told stories like this:
I was sexually assaulted by a senior management colleague at a staff function. There were witnesses all evening to his repeated verbal sexual harassment and there was one witness to the assault. He said he needed to show me what a real man was so he could ‘unlesbian’ me...
I reported it to my HR manager at work the next day and was offered money to keep quiet and not go to the police. I didn’t accept any money from the company and instead tendered my resignation as I felt unsafe and unsupported. My two weeks notice was insanely trying, despite asking management to work in areas removed from my perpetrator, I was forced to work alongside him where he continued to make sexual comments…
Still to this day I feel ashamed of what happened and have not taken the matter any further legally.
In another submission, one woman who had worked as a research scientist for 20 years, said that discrimination, racism, and misogyny in the academic community had created a “missing generation” of female scientists.
The woman said her working environment was characterised by sexist jokes and derogatory nicknames. She recounted a senior male scientist giving a farewell speech for a female colleague and telling a gathering of colleagues and her friends that he had decided to hire her after seeing her in a mini skirt.
When she was pregnant, a male colleague refused to work in the same laboratory “in case [she] went into labour.” Another who was recruiting for several positions said he “already knew who he wanted in all the roles, unless he was forced to appoint a woman.”
Another submission came from a teacher who described how the school culture changed when a new principal was appointed.
“Staff members were told whether they were liked or not; who were ‘favourites’; remarks were made about body shapes — bottoms, breasts.
“At staff meetings comments were made to women teachers such as ‘I can’t concentrate on what’s going on. I’m looking at your beautiful eyes’.”
The full story is here.
Julie Anne Genter, New Zealand’s minister for women, has written this post for us, in which she addresses the purpose of and criticisms of International Women’s Day.
This is my second International Women’s Day as Minister for Women in New Zealand. It is a day to celebrate the progress women have collectively made, and an opportunity to highlight ongoing issues we must address to achieve a fairer society. If only everyone could see it that way! I note that March 8th also marks a spike in internet searches about International Men’s Day (yes, there is one.)
Nearly every social media post I make about women is trolled with comments about why there is no Minister for Men, how domestic violence hurts men too, and suggestions that gender equality is sexist against men.
I get that some men feel unfairly blamed or marginalised by references to women’s rights – but that very much misses the point. Empowering women does not diminish the human rights or status of men, it only means there is not an entitlement to abuse and exploitation of others. The sad reality is that millions of women still live in fear of physical violence from men. Many women have been unable to get justice through the courts following assault and abuse. Most women, especially indigenous and women of colour in the West, continue to be underpaid for their work. And women still carry the vast majority of the unpaid burden of domestic labour. These are real challenges to gender equality we must tackle as a society. Addressing these issues and fostering respectful relationships can benefit all people, including men.
Here in New Zealand, we are making progress for women. Our Government extended paid parental leave as one of our first acts, and is the first to have an executive position focused on domestic violence, Undersecretary Jan Logie. We have updated the family violence laws to include strangulation. We are delivering new pay equity laws that will make it easier for women to be paid fairly. But there is still a long way to go.
We need more women, and diverse women, in positions of influence and power, not just in New Zealand but around the world. It’s only fair to have equal representation.
Updated
Kirby Fenwick has written a piece for the Guardian about how the history of women’s sport has too often been overlooked.
The history of women’s sport reveals the marginalisation and exclusion of women.
For organisations like Cricket Australia and the AFL that pride themselves on their message of inclusivity and sport for all, this history must be uncomfortable. Especially because their organisations have often contributed to that marginalisation and exclusion. But they, and others like them, have a responsibility to the full story of their sport. They cannot shy away from telling that history because it doesn’t suit the narrative they sell today.
To ignore that history does a huge disservice to the many women who fought to take to the field, to play the game they love. Women who held onto leagues and competitions by the skin of their teeth and faced substandard facilities and closed doors. Women without whom we would not be enjoying the incredible growth and success of women’s sport both at home and internationally. Success that organisations like Cricket Australia, the AFL, the NRL and FFA enjoy the fruits of.
That full piece is here.
The article is definitely worth reading, particularly in light of the huge year ahead for women’s sport.
The AFLW and Super W competitions are well underway and next month will herald the start of the new Super Netball season, which will be punctuated this year by a break for the Netball World Cup in Liverpool.
The highly-rated Matildas will stake their claim for a seat at football’s top table at the Women’s World Cup in France in June, while Meg Lanning’s cricketers engage in a hugely-anticipated Ashes series at the end of the English summer.
Add in a four-week NRL season, another State of Origin game, four Wallaroos Test matches, the world swimming and athletics championships, plus the usual tennis calendar, plus much more, there will barely be time to pause for breath.
And back to Australian politics.
Penny Wong has been speaking about International Women’s Day:
You know there’s an election coming when the Liberal Party suddenly starts talking about women’s representation again. So we’re all supposed to forget the last five and a half years, in fact the last 20 years, and the way the women in that party, out of their own mouths, have not been supported, or have been bullied... but we’re all supposed to forget that on the eve of an election and somehow think that they actually do care about the representation of women...
“It’s a bit like climate change. You can always tell there’s an election coming when they start to talk about climate change, because they want to pretend they care about it.
.@SenatorWong: You know there’s an election coming when the Liberal Party suddenly starts talking about women’s representation again.
— Sky News Australia (@SkyNewsAust) March 8, 2019
MORE: https://t.co/cnxAXrLKY3 #newsday pic.twitter.com/6mvLTqIm0V
‘Shero’ Barbies
Mattel has released 20 new Barbie dolls, based on women (or “sheros” as Mattel calls them) from 18 different countries, just in time for International Women’s Day.
Look, on the one hand, this is a ultimately a company whose aim is to make money, so the gushing reportage on this subject over the last day or so feels a little much.
On the other hand, there are some seriously impressive women on the list, including tennis player Naomi Osaka, activist and model Adwoa Aboah, aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart, Nasa mathematician Katherine Johnson, journalist Ita Buttrose, director Ava Duvernay and artist Frida Kahlo.
And many of the women featured are not white (meaning we now have the first ever Māori Barbie, modelled on sports journalist Melodie Robinson) and we are always keen to see more diverse representation of women in, well, everything.
Aboah wrote that she had spent “the majority of my childhood wishing for blonde hair, pining over Barbie’s light skin and blue eyes” and was incredibly excited to see “my own doll that has my skin colour, shaved head, freckles and my tattoos.”
Updated
Moving away from Australian politics briefly, to focus on a dramatic moment in gender relations this week, as R Kelly gave a highly emotional interview to Gayle King on CBS in which he denied allegations he had sexually, emotionally and physically abused women and girls for decades.
The CBS This Morning interview comes less than two weeks after Kelly was released on $100,000 bail after being charged with 10 counts of aggravated sexual abuse against four victims, three of whom were between the ages of 13 and 17 when their alleged attacks took place.
At one point in the interview, the singer became enraged, standing up and pounding his chest as he denied the allegations against him. The interview had to be paused to allow Kelly to calm down.
One still from the interview (above), showing Kelly standing up, yelling and gesturing aggressively, while King sat impassively nearby, has gone viral.
Our deputy music editor, Laura Snapes, has written an analysis of the photograph.
The photograph has become a flashpoint amid the allegations surrounding Kelly. Even more so than in his recent mugshots, there is a sense of an alleged abuser being held to account – an image that becomes more potent in a week where allegations of sexual abuse surrounding Michael Jackson, Kelly’s former collaborator, reached an irrevocable pitch when Jackson is no longer around to face them. Kelly’s demeanour is revealing: if this is the manner in which he proclaims his innocence – screaming, weeping, pointing aggressively – in a media setting, then how might he wield his power in the private settings detailed by many of his alleged victims, in which they say he makes them call him “daddy” and ask for permission to use the toilet?
A few people are highlighting this rather extraordinary line from Scott Morrison’s speech.
We want everybody to do better, and we want to see the rise of women in this country be accelerated to ensure that their overall place is maintained.
It’s a bit of a word-salad and hard to know exactly what he’s trying to say. On the face of it, Morrison wants women to rise, so their place is maintained? Change the status quo to maintain the status quo?
Can anyone interpret? Hit me up in the comments or on Twitter.
And Tanya Plibersek has weighed in.
Gender equality is good for both women and men. It gives all of us more freedom and choice at work, at home, and in our relationships.
— Tanya Plibersek (@tanya_plibersek) March 8, 2019
Feminism is a fight for equality between men and women, what’s so complicated about that? #IWD2019 pic.twitter.com/dgoyWNwEjm
Some reaction to Scott Morrison’s comments this morning about International Women’s Day, from senators Jenny Mcallister (Labor) and Mehreen Faruqi (Greens).
Happy International Women’s Day from Scott Morrison. #IWD #auspol https://t.co/qLPsFJXSw8
— Senator Mcallister (@jennymcallister) March 7, 2019
Happy #IWD2019 from Scott Morrison whose party *definitely* doesn't have a problem with women.
— Mehreen Faruqi (@MehreenFaruqi) March 8, 2019
We can't avoid the fact that equality for women requires a rebalancing of the power patriarchy gives men. No twisted words or empty platitudes from the PM will change that. pic.twitter.com/MbHnKshoCv
Updated
‘We are far from equal,’ says Gillian Triggs
A bracing, but important thread from Gillian Triggs, the former president of the Australian Human Rights Commission, who says that this International Women’s Day she is struck by how much further Australia has to go before women achieve equality. She has also linked to some excellent stories about the burdens Australian women face financially, socially and as victims of violence.
This #IWD2019, I am reflecting on how much farther we still have to go. Despite decades of advances, we are far from equal members of the community.
— Gillian Triggs (@GillianTriggs) March 7, 2019
Today, women still only retire with 47% of men’s superannuation. https://t.co/ois6eg3B0v #IWD2019
— Gillian Triggs (@GillianTriggs) March 7, 2019
Older women represent the single fastest growing demographic among people facing homelessness. https://t.co/bwv7WKIHCP #IWD2019
— Gillian Triggs (@GillianTriggs) March 7, 2019
Seven out of ten people dealing with elder abuse are women. https://t.co/sHs1PcB0Cy #IWD2019
— Gillian Triggs (@GillianTriggs) March 7, 2019
Our prisons are filling up with women who are victims of family violence. https://t.co/LpnB3UJ8dg #IWD2019
— Gillian Triggs (@GillianTriggs) March 7, 2019
Last week I interviewed Susana Malcorra, a former Argentinian foreign minister, and one of dozens of former and current female world leaders calling for a fightback against the erosion of women’s rights worldwide
She spoke about the perception among some that the fight for women’s rights is a “zero-sum game” – that as women rise, men lose out – that Scott Morrison alluded to in his speech.
She said: “There is a sense of the established power being threatened by women gaining respect. It’s a proposition where, if men get paternity leave for example, it’s not that they lose anything, they gain by having responsibility for the family, they gain by a closer relationship with the children, that’s not zero sum, that’s a win-win. But it’s clear that there are corners of power in the world that don’t see it like that.”
Full story here.
Updated
Penny Wong, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate and shadow minister for foreign affairs, has given a speech marking International Women’s Day in Adelaide, capital of her home state. In it she talks about South Australia’s legacy as a leader on women’s suffrage, the challenges ahead for achieving gender equality and the challenges faced by women in the developing world, such as high rates of maternal mortality.
An abridged version of that speech is below.
International Women’s Day is a day of celebration. It is a day where we honour the women who have come before us. And it is a day where we take stock and reflect on the challenges that lie ahead. This year is an important year for South Australia. We celebrate 125 years of universal suffrage, the result of a campaign to enshrine the right for women to vote.
It was a campaign that made South Australian women, including Indigenous women, the most highly enfranchised women in the world. South Australia was the first place in the world where women could both vote and stand for parliament, something we are very, very proud of. This was a foundational moment in our nation’s history.
And let us not forget that demands for universal suffrage formed part of the marches that were the foundation for the day we celebrate today. 125 years later – we are much further along the path to equality.
But just as our great-grandmothers fought the battle for suffrage, our daughters will continue to fight the battle for equal representation in our parliaments. But of course equal representation is only one part of the challenge for women today.
Despite being equal in the eyes of the law women still have a 14.1 per cent gender pay gap. Women still retire with $113,000 less in superannuation on average than men. Women are still much more likely to experience violence, or to die, from the hand of their most intimate partners.
These issues affect women of all ages, all classes, all ethnicities, and all backgrounds and sexualities. That is why it is so important for those of us who have the capacity to deliver change to work together.
Instead of shying away from controversy we should build bridges and find common ground.
In our state women’s sexual and reproductive health remains a question of criminal law instead of a health issue. Many years ago, Labor women like Steph Key, led the way by arguing for full decriminalisation of abortion.
I am pleased to see that Stephen Marshall’s Government, Tammy Franks and women in the Labor Caucus are now seeking to chart a path to full decriminalisation.
Because when women feel insecure about their reproductive choices, when women don’t feel safe in their homes or on the streets, when women lack the financial security to make decisions that enable them to lead fulfilling lives, we are still some way off achieving gender equality.
It is why I hope that 125 years from now, those that come after us will be acknowledging more legacies that South Australian women have generated.
Updated
We don't want women to succeed only at the expense of 'others', says Scott Morrison
Scott Morrison has spoken at an International Women’s Day breakfast at the Chamber of Minerals and Energy in Western Australia.
In the speech the Australian prime minister does battle with a straw-person by suggesting that a certain strain of feminism is about tearing men down:
“One of the other female members of my cabinet, Kelly O’Dwyer, our minister for women, said at the Press Club last year gender equality isn’t about pitting girls against boys.
“See, we’re not about setting Australians against each other, trying to push some down to lift others up. That’s not in our values. That is an absolutely Liberal value, that you don’t push some people down to lift some people up. And that is true about gender equality too.
“We want to see women rise. But we don’t want to see women rise only on the basis of others doing worse. We want everybody to do better, and we want to see the rise of women in this country be accelerated to ensure that their overall place is maintained.”
Who could these “others” be that Morrison is concerned about? If there is a constituency that is worried about women’s rise coming at their expense (men, could it be men?) Morrison has them covered today.
Morrison also offered a very small-l liberal vision for what women’s advancement looks like, designed to draw out maximum contrast with the Labor party.
According to Morrison, opportunities are about the economy: “What Jenny and I want for our girls is for them to have all the choices in life that you would hope that they would have ... And for them to have those choices, something has to happen: And that is our economy has to be strong.
“You look around the world, where women face their biggest challenges and struggles – they’re in the developing countries of the world. Prosperity brings with it its opportunities, of course it does, for every person.”
Updated
The Australian Labor Party has launched a video for International Women’s Day in which various MPs talk about Labor’s record on and promises for moving toward gender equality.
Without once mentioning the Liberal Party, the Labor video seems designed to highlight the difference between the parties in terms of the number of female parliamentarians.
“I want the women of Australia to know that if Labor wins the election in May, we will be the first national government in the history of Australia to have at least 50% of our Members of Parliament being women,” says Bill Shorten.
“Why aren’t all governments in Australia 50% women?” Linda Burney then asks pointedly.
This is a good issue for Labor and one they are very keen to highlight as an election nears, especially given the high-profile resignations of female Liberal MPs in recent months and a sense that the party has a “women problem”.
Happy International Women's Day. I’m particularly proud to say if we win the next election, our Labor Government will be the first in Australian history with 50 per cent women in the parliamentary ranks. #IWD2019 #BalanceforBetter pic.twitter.com/dbP1o6rGko
— Bill Shorten (@billshortenmp) March 7, 2019
Updated
Liberal Party criticised over lack of female representation
The minister for women, Kelly O’Dwyer, has responded to criticism that the Liberal-National Coalition are to blame for low representation of women in parliament.
While 42% of Labor’s federal parliamentarians are women, for the Liberals the figure is 21% and the Nationals just 14%.
O’Dwyer told Radio National: “I think it’s fair to say in terms of representation in parliament we can do better – I’m not going to deny that. We have seen the numbers go up and down over time, but there’s no question [we can do better].
“What I would say – we have record number of women in cabinet, we have seven women who sit around the cabinet table where the decisions of government are made … There are women represented at the highest levels of our government.
“I think it is important to lift the number of women in parliament, I think that’s a good thing for our democracy.”
O’Dwyer supports targets and has set up a fighting fund to help women into parliament.
Updated
There will be a protest on the steps of Parliament House in Perth in just under 10 minutes, aiming to “end male violence against women”, run by the group Women Shout Out Australia.
If you’re keen to watch, it will be live-streamed on the group’s Facebook page here.
#IWD2019 action outside Parliament House in Perth, live-streamed at https://t.co/oDeR49R7rw in 20 mins- 8am Perth time/11am Melbourne time #IWD #PerthIsOK #maleviolence pic.twitter.com/Qwmfy0GJPn
— Caitlin Roper (@caitlin_roper) March 7, 2019
Hack has released its fourth annual report on gender diversity in the Australian music industry.
This year’s By the numbers report shows that while the gender gap in the Australian music industry is narrowing on most measures, there is still a way to go before female artists are afforded the same radio airtime, time on festival stages, and money.
Hack found that the earnings gap between male and female songwriters registered to APRA has narrowed by 11 cents per dollar since last year, with women now earning $0.88 for every $1 earned by male artists.
And, triple j are also marking International Women’s Day by having an all-female line-up today.
The rumours are true... We're bringing #GirlsToTheFront on #InternationalWomensDay - from the music to the presenters pic.twitter.com/LF1bM95VlJ
— triple j (@triplej) March 7, 2019
Updated
Tell us how you are marking International Women's Day
We’d like you to show us International Women’s Day where you are - share your pictures, videos and stories and we’ll add them to the live blog. You can get in touch by filling in the form here, or by contacting the Guardian via WhatsApp by adding the contact +44(0)7867825056. You can read terms of service here.
The first countries to welcome in International Women’s Day are those in the Pacific – happy IWD to you, Pacific sisters! – and Care Vanuatu and the Department of Women’s Affairs in Vanuatu have made this joyful video featuring more than 40 Pasifika women and girls.
The video features music from the music group The Black Sistaz and Care Vanuatu writes it is “dedicated to all women and girl in Vanuatu”.
Welcome to our live coverage of International Women’s Day.
We will be covering the day as it unfolds across the globe from our offices in Sydney, London and New York.
Last year, our IWD blog kicked off with an optimistic tone. There was excitement in the air as women in Saudi Arabia were allowed to drive, and conversations around harassment and pay inequality were happening, galvanised by the Time’s Up and #MeToo movements.
This year things feel a little less promising. In the last year, Brazil has elected as president a man who once told a female fellow congress member “I wouldn’t rape you because you don’t deserve it” and Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte admitted he sexually assaulted his maid while she slept.
In Australia, from where we launch this blog, International Women’s Day falls at the end of a week that has seen prominent media coverage of yet another death of a woman at the hands of her current or former partner and the prime minister say that a debate over access to abortion, which is still very patchy across the country, is “not good for the country”.
With all that going on, it seems an important moment to mark the progress, record the anger, and hear the voices of women. We’ll bring you news, features, and opinion throughout the day.
We’re also keen to hear from you. Let me know what you’re doing to mark the day, what’s happening near where you are, or your reflections on the year that has just been when it comes to the fight for gender equality.
You can get in touch through the comments, via email – kate.lyons@theguardian.com – or on Twitter @MsKateLyons.
