CNN reports that a 12-year-old Yemeni girl died of injuries to her genitals a few days after her arranged marriage to a much older man. The story comes via the United Nations Children’s Fund and the Sisters’ Arab Forum for Human Rights (SAF), a women’s advocacy group in the region that denounces child marriage. The […]
Author: Catherine A. Traywick
Catherine is an assistant features editor at Hyphen magazine and a first year student at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. She interned at Ms. in the spring of 2010, and has since reported on the gendered impact of immigration enforcement in Arizona, the rights of health care workers in the Philippines and indigenous women's struggle against Big Oil in Canada. She has a B.A. in English and a minor in Women & Gender Studies from Arizona State University.
How We’re Doing: Women Experts on the Radio
It seems NPR isn’t quite as balanced as we think–or so NPR ombudsman Alicia Shepard discovered after conducting a gender analysis of the network’s programming. With the help of NPR librarian Hannah Somers, Shepard examined how often women appeared as commentators and experts on the network’s regular programs over 15 months. The pair found that, […]
90210 Hearts Gloria Steinem (and Ms. Magazine!)
We know our audience here at Ms. magazine. Which is why we’re pretty sure you didn’t catch this week’s episode of the new 90210 and, in particular, requisite quirky girl Erin Silver’s shout-out to Ms. Here’s how it went down (sorry, we don’t have a clip): Adrianna: Hey, I wanted to bring you both a […]
Marie Curie vs. Masculine Science
The Madame Curie Complex, by historian Julie Des Jardins, challenges the prevailing notion that interest and aptitude are enough to rectify gender disparity in science. As she illustrates through a dozen or so profiles of women scientists from Marie Curie onward, when passion and genius take a woman’s shape, the male-dominated scientific community puts her in her place.
How We’re Doing: Maternal Mortality Increasing in the US
In the ongoing furor over abortion and health care, there’s an issue at the intersection of the two that has gone little-examined: maternal health. A new Amnesty International report released before this weekend’s critical vote—in combination with a call for action to President Obama—reveals a problem that remains under most people’s radar: Maternal mortality rates […]
Philippine Condom Giveaway Hailed
Today, the Philippine Commission on the Status of Women hailed the Department of Health’s recent condom distribution program, responding to intense disapproval of the program from Malacañang Palace and the powerful Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines.
How We’re Doing: Women’s Wealth
According to the study, women of color are further disadvantaged by existing wage disparities (Hispanic and Native women linger on the bottom rung), lack of access to the “wealth escalator” (employment and tax benefits), the long-term debilitating effects of public assistance and being targeted by predatory lenders, among others.
D.C. High School Hires Woman Football Coach
A high school in D.C. has hired a woman as head coach of its varsity football team. Natalie Randolph, 29, has played women’s professional football for five seasons and served as an assistant coach to another D.C. high school for two seasons.
Choosing Abortion in Utah May Be Criminal Act
The new “criminal homicide” law takes these a step further: Prior to its ratification, abortion providers alone were threatened with a felony for the provision of “illegal” abortions, but now women who obtain those “illegal” abortions can be charged with murder — as doing so constitutes an “intentional or knowing” act to cause the death of an “unborn child.”
The Verdict: Sex Tourism Gets 20 Years in Prison
Although U.S. federal law prohibits American citizens and nationals from engaging in illicit sexual conduct with minors outside the U.S.–even mandating a 5-to-30-year prison sentence for perpetrators–international sex tourism is a growing industry, exacerbated by the global economic crisis, which has pushed scores of women and girls into the commercial sex trade.