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Reuters blog archive
from The Human Impact:
Extreme measures to “protect” daughters in India
Gurpreet Singh is a determined man. But he is an even more concerned father.
The 32-year-old investment adviser is leaving India and migrating to Australia. There is nothing new in that -- tens of thousands of professional Indians emigrate every year.
Unlike most of them, Singh’s reason for leaving is not the pursuit of greater economic returns, but a search for something increasingly perceived by parents to be lacking in India -- security for their daughters.
It was the gang rape and murder of a young woman on a bus in Delhi last December that jolted Singh, like millions of middle-class urban Indians, and awakened him to the brutalities women and girls face in this largely patriarchal country.
Since then he has been exposed to a torrent of daily news reports of the molestation, abduction and rape of women, and even more worryingly, of young girls, upsetting him so much that he felt he had little option but to fill in the Australian visa forms for himself, his wife and his three-year-old daughter.
from The Human Impact:
Could there be another female F1 driver? Susie Wolff thinks so
When Susie Wolff first got behind the wheel of a race cart as a young girl, the experience didn’t give her the thrills.
"My first time out on the race track, I remember carts flying past me - much quicker - and this little boy - really aggressive - hitting me as I was going past," she said.
from The Human Impact:
A devastating fire displaces an already displaced population
In early March, I visited two refugee camps along the Thai-Myanmar border to report on the challenges facing refugee women and girls and was struck by the enthusiasm of students I met in Ban Mae Surin, a camp set in a remote but picturesque setting along the Mae Surin river.
The students were part of the Karenni Further Studies Programme and were rehearsing a group dance for International Women’s Day celebrations on March 8.
from Breakingviews:
Review: Bending over backwards to lean in
By Megan Miller
The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are her own.
Sheryl Sandberg’s “Lean In” isn’t a self-help guide, corporate charter or memoir. The Facebook chief operating officer claims it’s not a feminist manifesto, either. It’s more of an amalgamation of all these genres. It ranges from intensely personal and insightful to didactic and methodical. Quoted research into how women measure themselves in the workplace and at home underpins a central Sandberg proposition - that women need to be more ambitious and men more accommodating.
from Chrystia Freeland:
Why are people leaning on “Lean In”?
"Man is defined as a human being and woman is defined as a female. Whenever she tries to behave as a human being she is accused of trying to emulate the male." That observation by Simone de Beauvoir helped to inspire the feminist revolution after World War Two. Two generations later, Sheryl K. Sandberg has written a book, "Lean In," arguing that is still the case today.
Some critics have challenged Sandberg's authority to comment on the female condition because her gilded perch as chief operating officer of Facebook makes her one of the most powerful and richest women in the world. But it is precisely that insider's perspective - what Sandberg demurely describes as her front-row seat - that makes her "sort of feminist manifesto" so persuasive and so radical.
from Photographers Blog:
Underground with Bosnia’s women miners
Breza, Bosnia and Herzegovina
By Dado Ruvic
Since I started photography, miners have always been an attractive subject matter for me. They provide all photographic elements in one place. Throughout the years, I have often worked on stories below ground for the local newspaper, spending shifts with miners. As March 8th neared, I came up with the idea to do something different related to International Women's Day. The story, which I had planned a few years earlier but had no reason to shoot, was now ready: Women miners.
GALLERY: LONE FEMALE MINERS OF BOSNIA
One morning I went into the Breza mine and the first person that greeted me at the door was a very strong, smiling woman named Sakiba. I felt the spirit of mining through her. After she finished the morning's preparation and made a few phone calls, we went to the change rooms. After I awkwardly donned mining clothes, our day started, and a crowd of dirty particles were smiling on my camera. At the entrance to the pit, there was a second miner Šemsa, waiting for us.
from Photographers Blog:
Front line female Marines
Ternate, Philippines
By Romeo Ranoco
Long before U.S. President Barack Obama allowed female soldiers to be deployed for combat duties, the Philippines has been doing exactly that for several years, in particular among those in the Marines.
I was excited to photograph some of the women during a military exercise at a Marine base south of the capital Manila. This was not the first time that I had taken pictures of female soldiers during training exercises, but I volunteered again because this time I would be documenting new recruits.
from The Human Impact:
Transporting bras to help sex-trafficking survivors
A cast-off bra can do more to change the world than you might think.
CNN Freedom Project, which shines the spotlight on the perils of modern-day slavery and human trafficking, aims to show us how in a 30-minute documentary airing on Feb. 15, 2013, at 11:30 a.m. EST on the CNN television network.
“Mozambique or Bust”, narrated by actress Mira Sorvino -- who also serves as U.N. goodwill ambassador against human trafficking -- tells the tale of how Denver-based charity Free the Girls collected 34,000 donated bras and recruited help from Truckers Against Human Trafficking and other volunteers to transport them via Chicago to Mozambique.
from The Great Debate:
Chocolate, darling? The enduring fear of the female poisoner
Last month, Elle magazine published a letter to columnist E. Jean seeking marital advice. “I suspect,” confided the reader, “he’s putting something in my coffee.” If that weren’t enough, her skin showed alarming reactions to the usual lotions. Would a hidden camera catch hubby in the act? The reader was advised to get an attorney posthaste and check her bank accounts: “A husband who tampers with a wife’s moisturizers,” warned E. Jean, “will tamper with her money.”
Poison is an ancient method of dispatching a spouse or lover. But when we think of plots involving philters and powders, a female usually springs to mind, like the fabled Black Widow. Is poison becoming egalitarian in an age when more women hold the power and the purse strings?
from The Human Impact:
Menstruation taboo puts 300 mln women in India at risk – experts
More than 300 million women and girls in India do not have access to safe menstrual hygiene products, endangering their health, curtailing their education and putting their livelihoods at risk, say experts at the Geneva-based Water Supply & Sanitation Collaborative Council (WSSCC).
At least 23 percent of girls in India leave school when they start menstruating and the rest miss an average of five days during each monthly menstrual period between the ages of 12 and 18, according to WSSCC, a partnership run by government, non-governmental organisation (NGO) members and a United Nations-hosted secretariat.
