Commentary
From Cairo to Louisiana, More Female Judges Needed
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Egyptian feminists are well aware of the distinction between law on the books and law in action; the challenge is now to implement the constitutional mandate.
Teen Voices
Girl Journalists at Forefront of School Censorship
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“These policies affect every inch of our production process,” says a teen who edits a school paper in Florida and worries about girls developing a self-censorship habit. A legal advocacy group is working to arm girls with the tools they need to fight back.
Law
Women Need a Department of Self-Defense
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At least one lawmaker has suggested that young women carry firearms on campus to avert rape, which only makes them more likely to get shot. Instead, I have a better idea: what if we required all high-schoolers to take a self-defense class as part of their physical education?
Crime & Law
Stakes Are Huge in High Court ACA Hearing Today
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Here’s hoping oral arguments in the Supreme Court today wind up persuading justices to preserve ACA tax credits for millions of Americans. If not, women will lose huge new legal protections and face a return to the discriminatory era of “gender rating.”
Law
More Female Officers Defuse Violent Policing Style
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Women on a police force are less likely than male coworkers to use excessive and deadly force, studies show, relying more on interpersonal skills. If policymakers knew the data, says one advocate, they’d “go on a hiring spree and hire more women.”
U.S. Supreme Court
Ruth Bader Ginsburg Scrutinizes Court’s Gender Rulings
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The 81-year-old, known to her online fans as the Notorious R.B.G., is the oldest member of the court, but she says she’s not planning on going away any time soon. Here are some of her thoughts from a New York women’s health gathering earlier this week.
Africa
Nigeria’s Lost Girls Part of Long-Term Conflict
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Nigeria’s gender-based abductions began in early 2013, a report finds, after the government imprisoned wives of Boko Haram members. Since then, the rate and scale of abductions has increased, with Christian women and girls the main target.
Work
Report Urges U.K. Parties to Fix a Women Shortage
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The U.K. has sunk to 65th place in global rankings of women’s political representation. This report offers new annual data to explain the decline and urges parties to field more women in strategic races in 2015.
Crime & Law
‘SOS Campus Act’ Actually Won’t Help Survivors
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Why would Congress put into federal law the idea that campus-rape reporting can be deterred? Congress must stop messing with the essential idea that when it comes to redressing sexual violence on campuses, women have a civil right to safety and equality.
campus assault
Calif. Campus Rape Bill Goes Beyond ‘No Means No’
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The Student Safety: Sexual Assault, or “affirmative consent,” legislation, could reach Gov. Jerry Brown’s desk by the end of the summer. A legislator who supports the bill says it’s time to change the mindset of “boys just getting crazy and drunk, being irresponsible.” LOS ANGELES (WOMENSENEWS)– Like other campus sexual assault survivors, Sofie Karasek said her attack freshman year by a classmate at the University of California-Berkeley left her distraught at first, wondering whether she should “make a big deal of it,” then puzzled and angry at what she felt was her university’s inadequate response after she reported the incident.