The National party hierarchy actively seek to exclude women, especially if they are “breeders”, and particularly in the LNI region.
I know of several selection candidates who were specifically asked if they had finished having children, or intended to have more. A question never asked of a man.
Compare that misogynist, outdated behaviour with the case of Italian MEP Licia Ronzulli.
We have already called for David Farrar to hand in his man card. Now we can be certain he lacks the required manliness to claim it back. He has posted his blouse score on Facebook:
Now either he was being overly politically correct in his answers or he lied like a flatfish, because there is no way in hell he would have scores that low. Especially the hostile sexism. If he did then he would be a happily married man and would have been so for ages.
For the record my scores were: Read more »
The Saudi government is now rolling out full electronic surveillance of women where the system sends a txt message to the husband if a woman tries to leave the country. This is seriously creepy.
The husband, who was travelling with his wife, received a text message from the immigration authorities informing him that his wife had left the international airport in Riyadh.
“The authorities are using technology to monitor women,” said columnist Badriya al-Bishr, who criticised the “state of slavery under which women are held” in the ultra-conservative kingdom.
Women are not allowed to leave the kingdom without permission from their male guardian, who must give his consent by signing what is known as the “yellow sheet” at the airport or border.
The move by the Saudi authorities was swiftly condemned on social network Twitter — a rare bubble of freedom for millions in the kingdom — with critics mocking the decision.
“Hello Taliban, herewith some tips from the Saudi e-government!” read one post.
“Why don’t you cuff your women with tracking ankle bracelets too?” wrote Israa.
Picking on women voters is unwise at the best of times, but suggesting that their voting patterns reflect their ovulation cycle is just insane. I wondered where Alasdair Thompson wound up.
In an eyebrow-raising about-turn, the corporation published, then retracted, a news story that claimed that women’s votes were governed by their menstrual cycles, triggering an avalanche of criticism.
Based on unpublished research, the news piece stated that a woman’s voting behaviour was affected by whether she was ovulating on election day.
While the story was nixed within hours, the internet reacted immediately and unforgivingly, with Twitter users swiftly tweeting key quotes.
“New research suggest that hormones may influence female voting choices differently depending on whether a woman is single or in a committed relationship”, read the article, as tweeted by @KailiJoy.
“When women are ovulating, they ‘feel sexier,’ and therefore lean more toward liberal attitudes on abortion and marriage equality” the piece went on.
“The researchers found that during the fertile time of the month, when levels of the hormone estrogen are high, single women appeared more likely to vote for Obama and committed women appeared more likely to vote for Romney”.
A host of websites swooped onto the story, showing no mercy while feeding from its apparently grossly sexist – and under-researched – line.
Huffington Post‘s headline was typical of the viral reaction: “CNN Reports That Women Voters Are Apparently Incapable Of Cognition, According To LOL Science”.
Jezebel went one step further, taunting the corporation: “CNN Thinks Crazy Ladies Can’t Help Voting With Their Vaginas Instead of Their Brains”.
There is a great deal of heat and smoke and allegations of misogyny being hurled around in Aussie politics, but they really need to take pause and stop having a sook, things aren’t as bad as they make out.
As debate rages over sexism and misogyny in Canberra and across the country, a global survey has found Australian women are the most economically empowered in the world.
The study says Australian women are the world’s most economically advanced in terms of access to education, market participation and anti-discrimination policies.
Despite Australia still failing to pay women salaries equal to men – average weekly earnings for women are 17 per cent less than men – the survey by international consulting and management firm Booz & Company found it topped a list of 128 countries in allowing women to play a role as economic agents in their social and political systems.
Australia was followed by three Scandinavian countries — Norway, Sweden and Finland. New Zealand was fifth.
At the bottom of the list were Yemen, Pakistan, Sudan and Chad.
Not much to complain about there, though I’m sure one of the Labour wimmin will find something to carp about.
An Indian minister is being forced to apologise for telling the truth:
A court case has been filed against a senior Indian minister for his remark that wives lose their appeal with age.
Non-governmental organisation Lakshya has accused Coal Minister Sriprakash Jaiswal of making obscene and defamatory remarks.
Mr Jaiswal has apologised for the comments he made at a poetry meeting.
He said he had been quoted out of context and that he was joking when he made the remarks. He said he did “not want to insult women”.
Petitioner Anita Dua of Lakshya, an organisation based in the northern city of Kanpur where Mr Jaiswal made the comment, lodged her complaint in the court of the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate NK Pandey on Wednesday.
Her lawyer said they had submitted a recording of Mr Jaiswal’s comments to the magistrate and that Ms Dua has been asked to appear in court on 8 October.
Several women’s groups in India have expressed outrage and said Mr Jaiswal’s comments were “very unfortunate”.
Cactus Kate sent me this yesterday at lunchtime as she was flicking through the only newspaper in Hong Kong she can understand.
The only question in New Zealand would be which feminist would turn up first on Campbell Live calling for a boycott of the product?
Cactus explained in Hong Kong that women from upper and middle class families are forbidden heavily discouraged by their family to marry men who cannot afford to keep them in the style they have become accustomed to as acceptable by their father. So the text will not be viewed as offensive.
Everyone knows girls can’t park cars or back trailers…and a German town is catering for this:
The mayor of a German town has sparked controversy by introducing special “easy” parking spots for women.
Mayor Gallus Strobel, from the Black Forest town of Triberg, told Germany’s Spiegel magazine he introduced the spots because men were better at parking than women.
The women’s spaces, which are marked by female symbols, are reportedly better lit and wider, while the men-only spots have concrete pillars to negotiate and can only be reversed into.
Strobel told the magazine that women were welcome to attempt parking in the men-only spots, but that “men are, as a rule, a little better at such challenges”. He denied accusations of sexism, pointing out that there were 10 women-only spots in the carpark compared to only two men-only spots.
He said he hadn’t noticed a big backlash against the scheme, but had been surprised by the level of interest from international media, which he said was good for local tourism.
“Women can come here and prove me wrong, and while they’re at it they can see the town’s attractions,” he told the magazine.
The Archbishop of Canterbury has some good advice and he and his Church grapples with same-sex marriage. He is right…people do need to deal with their own feelings instead of projecting those feelings onto others. Weird, eh? Nope, not really, it is common sense…unless you are at peace with yourself you won’t be at peace with others:
Christians need to overcome their own feelings of embarrassment, shame and disgust about homosexuality, the Archbishop of Canterbury has insisted.
Dr Rowan Williams acknowledged that the Church was still “scratching its head” about where it stands on issues like same-sex marriage despite its vocal public opposition to the Government’s plan to legalise it.
In his most frank public comments to date on the subject, the Archbishop accepted that the Church was in a “tangle” over homosexuality.
On one hand many Christians may themselves be “wrestling” with their own sexuality while others appeared to display only strong feelings of revulsion, he said.
The issue of women bishops – due to come to a head at the Church of England’s General Synod in York next week – was another matter which helped give the impression that sex was “the only thing the Church is interested in”, he remarked.
His comments came during a discussion day for a group of Christian teenagers at Lambeth Palace.
The event – entitled “Help, my friends think I’m mad” – included discussions about how the Church is viewed by the outside world.
Acknowledging that many people view Christians as “weird, “mad” and “primitive” he told them: “As somebody who doesn’t spend all his time with other Christians, I’m quite conscious too of the fact that people think that I’m weird and we’re weird.”
Some new research in the US suggests that things are going to get ugly in the boardroom:
DIM the lights in the boardroom. Brace yourself for a run of ugly women at the top.
We’re in the grip of a man drought, see, and when men are thin on the ground, women decide they better think of something else to do than marry and procreate.
The obvious alternative is a career, and those hungriest for it are females who bombed out in the beauty department.
That’s because they’re the ones “least likely to secure a mate”, according to US researchers.
I’ve read some drivel in my time but this takes the cake.
The academics cite something called the sex ratio as the key driver for the life choices women make.
It works like this: when single men are in short supply, single women choose the briefcase over the baby.
“A scarcity of men leads women to invest in their careers because they realise it will be difficult to settle down and start a family,” says Vlad Griskevicius, an assistant professor at the University of Minnesota’s Carlson School of Management. “In fact, the strongest effects were found for women who judged themselves to be less desirable to men, those women who are not like Angelina Jolie.”
Discuss.
