On Balance - This Week in Gender Equality

04 December 2015

Kia ora koutou, welcome to On Balance - the National Council of Women of New Zealand's weekly round-up of the latest gender equality news, research and events. Please share it with anyone you think might be interested and let them know they can subscribe here.

News from around the country:
• Local clothing brand I Love Ugly released a sexist ad campaign in which a fully-clothed man touches a woman's breasts and covers her otherwise-bare private parts. Following the backlash, the company tried to do a u-turn but ultimately failed
• A 23-year-old woman was attacked from behind and knocked to the ground, tied up, and sexually assaulted by a man while she was running in a Dunedin park. Police are still looking for the assailant
• Chris Brown's tour to New Zealand and Australia has been cancelled
• A long list of failings emerged in a review of how Child Youth and Family handled the Roastbusters case. It found limited evidence of partnerships working across government services, or with the young people and their families
• A billboard in Auckland's East Tamaki which makes light of Caitlyn Jenner has been called out for its transphobia
• Malaysian diplomat Muhammand Rizalmand bin Ismail admitted a charge of indecently assaulting Wellington woman Tania Billingsley. It was also revealed that Rizalman defecated outside Billingsley’s house in a bid to make her fall in love with him
• The Warehouse and Women’s Refuge launched ‘Elves on Shelves’ tosupport women and children affected by domestic violence
• The variety of gender politics stories in 2015 show how feminist politics have moved from the margins into the mainstream
Latest research:
• Brains can't really fit into the categories of "male" or "female" - their distinguishing features actually vary across a spectrum, according to a study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
• Single women are the least likely to be able to afford even a modest lifestyle in retirement
• The health needs of women and girls must not be treated as an afterthought in times of crises, but placed at the centre of any humanitarian response, according to the UN’s state of the world population report
• Despite being far less likely to be in accidents than men, women in the United Kingdom are far more likely to fail their driving tests, according to 2014-15 British government statistics
International news:
• Emma Watson was warned that using the word “feminism” in a speech she gave as part of a gender equality campaign in 2014 would be “alienating and separating” and to avoid using it
• A Sydney hotel supervisor lost his job after making a sexist and offensive comment on the Facebook page of Fairfax Media columnist Clementine Ford
• Adult performer and writer Stoya alleged that her ex-boyfriend, fellow adult performer James Deen, had sexually assaulted her while they were in a relationship. Since the accusation, at least two more adult performers have come forward with similar allegations
• If ever there was a reason for Gordon Ramsay to dish out some deserved Kitchen Nightmares-style expletives, this is probably it – the chef’s teenage daughters were abused online after Ramsay shared a family photo of his children and their friends at a birthday party
• Images of Kendall Jenner, Emma Watson, Kim Kardashian and Miley Cyrus were edited for an alarming domestic violence campaign
• Oscar Pistorius has been found guilty of murdering his girlfriend in an appeal court ruling that could see him sent back to prison for at least 15 years
• Helen Clark on why women should be at the centre of the 2015 Paris Climate Conference (COP21)
• December 1st marked the 60th anniversary of Rosa Parks’ decision to sit down for her rights on a Montgomery, Alabama, bus, putting the effort to end segregation on a fast track
• U.S. Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter announced that the Pentagon will open all combat jobs to women, overturning a 1994 Pentagon rule that restricted women from artillery, armour, infantry, and other combat roles
• It has been revealed that Robert Dear, the man who allegedly opened fire at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs and killed three people,has a lengthy history of violent behaviour toward women
• Controversial R&B singer Chris Brown's appearance on The Daily Show with Trevor Noah was abruptly canceled without any official reasoning from Comedy Central or Brown
• 2016’s Pirelli Calendar, which usually features photographs of nude models, will instead feature a diverse range of distinguished womenchosen for their "professional, social, cultural, sporting and artistic accomplishment”
• More female surgeons will be promoted and bullies in the profession will be "called out" as the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons tries to overhaul its reputation for being an "Anglo-Saxon boys club" where sex can be traded for training
• The Statue of Liberty was originally conceived of as being a peasant Muslim woman in traditional Islamic dress, according to the Smithsonian Institution's magazine
• Saudi Arabia is to allow divorced women and widows to manage family affairs without approval from a man or a court order in a major step towards lifting some of the legal powers men hold over female relatives
• Women are the victims of climate change – and the key to climate action
• Pantone’s new colours of the year are a nod to gender equality
• Women around the world are proving pregnancy stereotypes wrong with#7monthsawesome
• More than 900 Saudi women will stand for public office in the 12 December municipal ballot, which will also mark the first time that women in Saudi Arabia are allowed to vote
• New mothers would be allowed to breastfeed their babies on the floor of Australian Parliament and take their infants into the chamber "when needed," under sweeping new recommendations put forward by a Parliamentary committee
• The Systemic Change Project, a joint initiative of Women in Film Los Angeles and the Sundance Institute, is working to bridge a massive gender-gap in employment in the entertainment industry
• A photo of a woman nursing her baby in a crowded Beijing subway trainhas unleashed a furious – and some say much needed – debate over breastfeeding in public in China
• A Philippines court has convicted US Marine Joseph Scott Pemberton of killing a transgender woman who was found strangled in a hotel room last year
• Under threat of a lawsuit, a Wisconsin elementary school cancelled a reading of "I Am Jazz," a book about transgender teen activist Jazz Jennings
• All the items of clothing women have been told not to wear in 2015
Get involved:
• The National Council of Women of New Zealand is seeking a leader for a gender equal New Zealand. We are also looking for a part-time change agent for gender equality

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