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Cheers
CNN’s Candy Crowley will moderate the second presidential debate on Oct. 16, Politico reported Aug. 13. The last woman to moderate the debate was Carole Simpson in 1990, over 20 years ago. Three New Jersey high school students pushed for a female moderator through a petition on Change.org, which currently has over 120,000 signatures. After the announcement, Crowley said, “If this is something young women look at and say, ‘I can do this,’ I think, ‘Absolutely, you can do this,’ I am all for that . . . But I think, first, I am a journalist, and this is just an amazing opportunity as a journalist . . . And I am a girl,” reported the LA Times.
More News to Cheer This Week:
Women in North Korea are now allowed to ride bicycles, reported NBC News Aug. 17. The activity was banned for women in 1996 because it was not feminine.
Women out-medaled men in the United States, China, and Russia, the Washington Post reported Aug. 12.
The Center for Women Policy Studies released seven papers examining reproductive rights in contexts ranging from the Affordable Care Act to prisons.
Brig. Gen. Tammy S. Smith is the first openly gay officer of “flag rank” in the American military, The New York Times reported Aug. 13.
U.S. women’s job growth exceeded that of men in the third year of economic recovery, although male employment still leads overall over the past three years, the Institute for Women’s Policy Research found in a report released Aug. 14 based on data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Jeers
A draft of the new Tunisian constitution describes women as “complementary to men,” a phrase that casts a cloud over women’s status in one of the Arab world’s most liberal nations, Reuters reported. Thousands of Tunisians have rallied to protest what they see as a push by the Islamist-led government for constitutional changes that would degrade women’s status.
More News to Jeer This Week:
Three women in the Russian feminist punk collective Pussy Riot were sentenced to two years in prison for hooliganism and inciting religious hatred, reported Ria Novosti Aug. 17. “Free Pussy Riot” rallies were staged in 48 cities around the world on Aug. 17, reported NY Daily News.
Unemployed women in New York City aged 55 to 64 remained out of work longer than any other demographic group last year, according to a study from Community Service Society, an advocacy organization for low-income New Yorkers, reported the New York Daily News Aug. 15.
A legal advocacy organization responded on Aug. 15 to a recent article in the New York Times that blames poverty on single motherhood. Legal Momentum claims that the problem is not single motherhood but “the flawed social policies that allow child poverty to persist in the U.S. at much higher rates than in other high-income countries.”
Ecuador granted Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks who is facing rape charges, political asylum as Britain tries to extradite him to Sweden for questioning, reported the New York Times Aug. 16.
Noted
A Muslim woman is suing Walt Disney Corp. over claims of religious discrimination, reported the LA Times Aug. 13.
Reports that Saudi Arabia was building an industrial city where women could work away from men were not true, reported Al Arabiya Aug. 16.
Rep. Cliff Stearns, R-Fla., who started a federal investigation into Planned Parenthood last fall, lost his primary race to Tea Party candidate and large animal veterinarian Ted Yoho, who raised only $300,000 during the primary, reported the Huffington Post Aug. 15.
About 100 protestors in Taipei, Taiwan, rallied outside a Japanese organization and demanded an apology by Japan for forcing over 2,000 Taiwanese women into sex slavery during World War II, reported Focus Taiwan Aug. 15.
A super PAC, or political action committee, that supports same-sex marriage is backing three Republican candidates in the 2012 elections, Politico reported Aug. 16.
The shooting of a guard at the Family Research Council, an anti-same-sex marriage organization, has prompted criticism from similar groups that the “hate group” label encourages violence, The Hill reported Aug. 16. The shooting was condemned by at least 25 LGBT organizations. The guard was hospitalized in stable condition according to the LA Times.
Romney’s pick for vice presidential candidate, Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., could broaden the gender gap in swing states due to Ryan’s staunch anti-choice position, reported The Hill Aug. 15. Read more about the response to Ryan: Romney’s Pick for VP Ignites Advocacy Outrage
Human Rights Watch on Aug. 14 criticized Nepal’s recent decision to impose a ban on women under 30 from working in Persian Gulf countries. The Himalayan Times reported that the rights advocacy group asked the government to focus instead on helping domestic workers to migrate safely and avoid abuse by recruitment agencies in Nepal.
In Memoriam
Helen Gurley Brown, who shocked early-1960s America with the news that unmarried women not only had sex but also thoroughly enjoyed it — and who, as the editor of Cosmopolitan magazine, spent the next three decades telling those women precisely how to enjoy it even more — died on Aug. 13 in Manhattan, The New York Times reported Aug. 14. She was 90 years old. As Cosmopolitan’s editor from 1965 until 1997, Brown was widely credited with being the first to introduce frank discussions of sex into magazines for women. Before she arrived at Cosmopolitan, Brown had already shaken the collective consciousness with her best-selling book “Sex and the Single Girl.” Brown routinely described herself as a feminist, but whether her work helped or hindered the cause of women’s liberation has been publicly debated for decades.
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