In what is an alarming trend among American women, a study has found that for the first time in decades the life expectancy for women is declining. Women have always enjoyed longer life expectancies than men during modern times due in large part to their historic roles as homemakers. As more and more women have left the home and joined the workforce they have begun to suffer from the same stress related illnesses as men have suffered. As a result of their new roles outside the home they are now being diagnosed with larger instances of diseases such as diabetes, lung cancer, and heart disease. Most of these diseases are related to stress, poor eating and health habits.

http://z15.invisionfree.com/The_Living_Room/index.php?showtopic=436

Leila Saralayeva | Osh, Kyrgyzstan | April 9

AP - Not long ago, she was a wife, mother and teacher. Now Dilfuza Mustafakulova is HIV-positive and has lost her husband and her job. Mustafakulova's baby son was among 72 children infected with the virus at two Kyrgyz hospitals. Sixteen mothers also have contracted it - in some cases by breast-feeding their children.

The scandal has led to charges of negligence against 14 medical workers in the impoverished former Soviet republic, where investigators suspect the children were infected by tainted blood and the reuse of needles.

April 5

BBC - Women are discriminated against in almost every country around the world, a UN-commissioned report says.

It says that this is despite the fact that 185 UN member states pledged to outlaw laws favouring men by 2005.

It adds that 70% of the world's poor are women and they own just 1% of the world's titled land.

The report, which was prepared for UN Human Right Commissioner Louise Arbour, says rape within marriage has still not been made a crime in 53 nations.

James Macintyre | March 27

Independent - A man who used to be a woman before having gender reassignment surgery claims he is five months pregnant and expecting a baby girl in July.

Thomas Beatie, who is married and from the US state of Oregon, has written an article in the gay magazine Advocate, saying it feels "incredible" to be a "pregnant man". He adds: "Despite the fact that my belly is growing with a new life inside me, I am stable and confident being the man that I am."

Born Tracy Lagondino, Mr Beatie kept his female organs when he changed genders. He turned to home insemination after what he says was discrimination from doctors. He says he is carrying a child on behalf of his wife, Nancy, because she has had a hysterectomy. The couple have been together for 10 years.

Karl Ritter | Stockholm, Sweden | March 15

AP - Selling sex isn't illegal in Sweden, but buying is - a radical approach to prostitution that faced ridicule when it was introduced nine years ago.

Now, while Americans are preoccupied with the downfall of New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer in a prostitution scandal, some countries are considering emulating the Swedish model, which prosecutes the client but views the prostitute as an exploited victim.

Officials say the changed approach has reduced the demand for prostitutes and reshaped attitudes toward the sex trade.

"We don't have a problem with prostitutes. We have a problem with men who buy sex," said Kajsa Wahlberg, of the human trafficking unit at Sweden's national police board.

Special investigation by Johann Hari

This is the story of the 21st century’s trade in slave-children. My journey into their underworld took place where its alleys and brothels are most dense - Asia, where the United Nations calculates 1 million children are being traded every day. It took me to places I did not think existed, today, now. To a dungeon in the lawless Bangladeshi borderlands where children are padlocked and prison-barred in transit to Indian brothels; to an iron whore-house where grown women have spent their entire lives being raped; to a clinic that treat syphilitic 11-year-olds.

March 11

BBC -

Saudi women's rights activists have posted on the web a video of a woman at the wheel of her car, in protest at the ban on female drivers in the kingdom.

Wajeha Huwaider talks of the injustice of the ban and calls for its abolition as she drives calmly along a highway.

She says the film was posted to mark International Women's Day. Thousands have viewed it on the YouTube website.

The last such public show of dissent was in 1990 when dozens of women were arrested for circling Riyadh in cars

There have been times in this election when I have truly felt sorry for Hillary Clinton. While the truth is that she has not been well served by this campaign or her advisers, this only highlights a bigger issue that has plagued her. Regardless of how this election turns out for her she can never win. The reason she can never win is because she can never be herself or she can never have her own voice. It is this lack of a true consistent voice that continues to plague her and her campaign. Regardless of what you may think of her competitors they have been afforded the luxury of being who they are, Hillary on the other hand has not.

Adopting sharia alongside Britain's legal system should not be 'unavoidable'

By Mona Eltahawy

When it comes to Islamic law, or sharia, words certainly do come easy if you're a man. You can marry four wives, receive double the inheritance a woman gets and you can end your marriage simply by saying "I divorce you" three times.

So why not pontificate?

Words are especially cheap if you're Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, who ignited a social storm in the United Kingdom last week by saying that the adoption of some parts of sharia alongside Britain's legal system "seems unavoidable" in certain circumstances.

Mark Stevenson | Santa Maria Quiegolani, Mexico | January 27

LA Times - Women in this Indian village high in the pine-clad mountains of Oaxaca rise each morning at 4 a.m. to gather firewood, grind corn, prepare the day's food, care for the children and clean the house.

But they aren't allowed to vote in local elections, because -- the men say -- they don't do enough work.

It was here, in a village that has struggled for centuries to preserve its Zapotec traditions, that Eufrosina Cruz, 27, decided to become the first woman to run for mayor -- despite the fact that women aren't allowed to attend town assemblies, much less run for office.

The all-male town board tore up ballots cast in her favor in the Nov. 4 election, arguing that as a woman, she wasn't a "citizen" of the town. "That is the custom here, that only the citizens vote, not the women," said Valeriano Lopez, the town's deputy mayor.

Hussein Dakroub | Beirut | Nov 28

AP - A Muslim woman is allowed to fight back in self-defense if she is hit by her husband, Lebanon's top Shiite cleric declared Tuesday in a ruling rare for the region's male-dominated Islamic society.

Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah issued the fatwa, or religious edict, on the occasion of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women.

``We consider that if a man used physical violence against a woman and she could not defend herself except by retaliating with similar violence, she can do so out of self-defense,'' Fadlallah said in his fatwa.

A statement by his office said Fadlallah stressed that although Islam gives men supremacy over their wives in household affairs, it ``does not approve of a man using any sort of violence against a woman, even in the form of insults and harsh words.''

Daniel Howden | Nov 29

The Independent - A young woman has been sentenced to 200 lashes after being gang-raped. The Western world has expressed outrage – which has, in turn, provoked anger among the Saudi establishment. Now, for the first time, the woman tells her story.

Inside Saudi Arabia she has come to be known simply as the "Qatif girl", a teenager who was gang-raped then humiliated by first the police, then the judicial authorities. Her case has propelled her into the international headlines and made her an acute embarrassment for the House of Saud. To the Saudi Justice Ministry, she is an adulteress whose case is being used by critics of the Kingdom. To much of the rest of the world, she is a symbol of all that's wrong with Saudi Arabia.

Today she lives under effective house arrest. She is forbidden to speak and may be taken into custody at any time. Her family's movements are monitored by the religious police and their telephones are tapped. - (read more after the jump)

Earlier posts here and here.

Musa Sadulayev | Grozny, Russia | Nov 21

AP - The president of Chechnya has called for all women to cover their heads with scarves, the latest in a series of his unofficial orders toughening social customs for women in the violence-wracked, mainly Muslim Russian region.

The recommendation by President Ramzan Kadyrov during a TV address last week was not a legally binding order or legislation passed by the regional parliament.

However, several government institutions in the capital of Grozny, including the main government-owned publishing house, posted signs earlier this week forbidding women without head scarves from entering, and guards were enforcing the rule.

Frances Harrison | Nov 15

BBC - An appeal court in Saudi Arabia has doubled the number of lashes and added a jail sentence as punishment for a woman who was gang-raped.

The victim was initially punished for violating laws on segregation of the sexes - she was in an unrelated man's car at the time of the attack.

When she appealed, the judges said she had been attempting to use the media to influence them.

The attackers' sentences - originally of up to five years - were doubled.

Barbara McMahon | Sydney | Nov 11

The Observer - *Ocker: an uncultivated or boorish Australian ... now the target of the feminist Ernie awards

Australian men who make sexist remarks rarely hang their heads in shame, but a book published tomorrow may cause a few red faces.

One Thousand Terrible Things Australian Men Have Said About Women includes a celebrity chef remarking after watching Nigella Lawson's TV show, 'Why doesn't she get them out; that's what they are watching for,' and a magistrate telling a defendant to 'come back when your IQ is as high as your skirt'.

James Daley | Nov 10

The Independent - Sex has more to do with personal finances than you might think

The gap between women's and men's salaries has fallen to its lowest ever level over the last year, according to new research published by the Government this week. However, when it comes to those in full-time employment, men are on average still earning about 30 per cent more than the opposite sex.

But the financial gender gap is not all one sided. Although women often lose out in the workplace, and subsequently on pensions too, they tend to get cheaper car and life insurance than men of the same age.

Although the European authorities have made several attempts to stop financial services companies basing their pricing on sex, there remains a number of statistical differences between men and women that insurers and pension providers find impossible to ignore.

In a post on why Obama can't be a better candidate for women than Clinton, Taylor Marsh writes:

No man can ever understand or appreciate a woman's reality in the work force, family or in the world at large better than a woman who has walked in those shoes herself. It's an insult to posture otherwise and something we've been hearing for far too long.

Granted, team Obama needs to reach out to women voters if only to blunt Cliton's built in advantage among women, especially as national poll numbers give women an even bigger reason to team up with Clinton.

I came across this piece in the NY Times by Katharine Seelye, "Women, Politics and the Internet."

What really caught my attention was the mention of Momocrats, a progressive community blog of online mothers who are pooling their resources to effect political change.

Momocrats was started last month by a group of mothers who are all noted bloggers in their own right and who cross-post on each other’s blogs (CityMama, TechMama, LawyerMama, PunditMom and the Silicon Valley Moms Blog), which are generally about daily life with a dose of politics.

“We belong to this community of mothers who blog and we see the need to bridge the gap between the campaign and the community,”

The 1st World Women's Forum -Defining Leadership & Success, took place in Seoul, Korea, September 12-14, 2007.

http://www.womanforum.org/english/about/message/index.html

It is obvious that the dedication of a few to a better world continues: The May Lee show reveals that Rajaa Al-Khuzai, President of the Iraqi National Council of Women, Member of the Former Iraqi Transitional Government and President of the Iraqi Widows Organization is a perfect example of that dedication. So determined was she to attend the forum that she walked 3, dangerous kilometers to get to a check point where she would be permitted to exit the country.

What really goes on when young women pick up a glossy women's lifestyle magazine? What have psychologists, sociologists and other researchers found out about how they affect women's health and wellbeing? What messages are really being sent through these magazines? How do advertising images affect us? What do magazines have to do with eating disorders?

Oct 8

The Guardian -
Last November it became a crime for a woman to have an abortion in Nicaragua, even if her life was in mortal danger. So far it has resulted in the death of at least 82 women. Rory Carroll reports on the fight to have the law changed

Human Rights Watch, in a recent report titled Over Their Dead Bodies, cited one woman who urgently needed medical help, but was left untreated at a public hospital for two days because the foetus was still alive and so a therapeutic abortion would be illegal. Eventually she expelled the foetus on her own. "By then she was already in septic shock and died five days later," said the doctor.

October 7

RT (Trend) - A year after the murder of journalist Anna Politkovskaya, human rights activists, journalists and opposition parties will hold ceremonies to commemorate her death on Sunday.

Many people are expected to come to the apartment block where she lived, lay flowers and pay their respects to Politkovskaya. Her colleagues will be gathering at Pushkin Square for a rally, and they are also expected to make their way to her apartment.

Some colleagues from Novaya Gazeta newspaper and her daughter, Vera Politkovskaya, attended a ceremony earlier this week.

Anna Politkovskaya was shot down on October 7, 2006 and a year after her death she is still being honoured around the world. Recently in Italy a small square in Rome’s Villa Pamphili was named after Politkovskaya.

Nicholas Kulish | Sofia, Bulgaria | October 6

NYT - She had worked in Germany, she said, where prostitution is legal, but preferred Bulgaria because, she said, “everything here is with condoms,” whereas men in Germany insisted that she perform unprotected oral sex on them. Asked how she ended up in prostitution, she replied simply, “No one has become a prostitute for a good reason.”

The anti-prostitution movement has received significant support because of the link between prostitution and human trafficking. According to the State Department, an estimated 800,000 people are taken by traffickers across international borders each year, four of five of them women. In December 2002, the United States adopted a foreign-policy position against legalized prostitution, based on the link with trafficking.

Michael Slackman | Kafr al Manshi Abou Hamar, Egypt | September 19

IHT - The men in this poor farming community were seething. A 13-year-old girl had been brought to a doctor's office to have her clitoris removed, a surgery considered necessary here to preserve chastity and honor. The girl died, but that was not the source of the outrage. After her death, the government shut down the clinic, and that got everyone angry.

Circumcision, as supporters call it, or female genital mutilation, as opponents refer to it, was suddenly a ferocious focus of debate in Egypt this summer.

Though the practice is common and increasingly contentious throughout sub-Saharan Africa, among Arab states the only other place where this practice is custom is in southern Yemen, experts here said. In Saudi Arabia, where women cannot drive, cannot vote, cannot hold most jobs, the practice is viewed as abhorrent, a reflection of pre-Islamic traditions.