Tag Archives: gender discrimination

Rwandan genocide, 30 years on: Omitting women’s memories encourages incomplete understanding of violence

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A father is searching for his missing child using ICRC assistance during the 1994 Rwandan Genocide. Photo: British Red Cross/flickr/CC

By Anneliese M. Schenk-Day, Ohio State University. Published 4-5-2024 by The Conversation

The eruption of violence that Rwanda experienced beginning on the evening of April 6, 1994, continues to haunt the central African nation 30 years on – it has also changed the country’s gender dynamics.

The genocide resulted in hundreds of thousands of men being killed, with many more fleeing the country or being incarcerated. It left a previously male-centered society with hundreds of thousands of female-headed households. Of course, women were also subjected to the violence itself, with many killed and between 250,000 and 500,000 raped in the three months of genocide.

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Biden Signs Two Executive Orders to Advance Gender Equality on International Women’s Day

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“Let us recommit to the principle that our nation, and the world, is at its best when the possibilities for all of our women and girls are limitless.”

By Jenna McGuire, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 3-8-2021

Photo: Narih Lee/flickr/CC

On Monday—International Women’s Day—President Joe Biden signed an executive order to establish the White House Gender Policy Council to address gender equality and human rights of women and girls and “ensure that every domestic and foreign policy we pursue rests on a foundation of dignity and equity for women.”

“We know that governments, economies, and communities are stronger when they include the full participation of women—no country can recover from this pandemic if it leaves half of its population behind,” read a statement released by the White House on the new Gender Policy Council. Continue reading →

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Police fire on femicide protest in Cancún, Mexico

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The femicide of a 20-year-old girl on the Mexican Caribbean coast adds to a pandemic of bloody murders that do not remit despite popular outrage.

By Danica Jorden.  Published 11-16-2020 by

Portrait of Bianca Alejandrina Lorenzana, Alexis | #justiciaparaalexis

“Im afraid to leave the house and never see my mom again.”

— Alexis

The details were sickening and at the same time so familiar. Another young woman missing, raped, murdered and mutilated. This time she was 20 years old and her name was Bianca Alejandrina Lorenzana, known as Alexis, and, until November 7, 2020, she lived in the balmy resort town of Cancún, Mexico. She had dared to leave the house alone one evening to make a little money selling a vape and now she was never coming back. Her body, like those of so many of her sisters, had been cut up and placed in garbage bags. Continue reading →

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‘This Is Deadly’: Trump HHS Scraps Protections for Transgender Patients and Those Seeking Abortions

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“The Trump administration has made a mission out of putting politicians and religious beliefs above a patient’s healthcare.”

By Jessica Corbett, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 6-14-2020

LGBTQ Americans and allies rallied outside the White House to protest President Donald Trump’s effort to ban trans people from military service. (Photo: Ted Eytan/Flickr/cc)

In a move widely decried by LGBTQ, reproductive, and human rights advocates, the Trump administration late Friday finalized a healthcare rule that revokes Obama-era nondiscrimination protections for transgender and nonbinary people, patients seeking abortions, and those who do not speak English.

“This is deadly and all of us should be outraged,” declared ACLU deputy legal director Louise Melling. “This is beyond heartless.” Continue reading →

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Ruling Against Rape Victim in Alabama, Say Critics, Shows Stand-Your-Ground Laws ‘Not Created for Women’

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Brittany Smith’s attorneys plan to appeal the decision.

By Julia Conley, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 2-4-2020

A judge in Alabama rejected a woman’s “Stand Your Ground” defense regarding the shooting of her alleged rapist. (Photo: Lori Shaull/Flickr/cc)

A woman in Alabama could face life in prison after losing her “Stand Your Ground” hearing in spite of testifying she shot a man in her home in January 2018 because he raped her and attacked her brother.

Brittany Smith was charged with first-degree murder after killing Todd Smith, her acquaintance, but sought immunity from prosecution citing Alabama’s Stand Your Ground law. The state is one of 25 with laws that ostensibly permit the use of deadly force in the case of self-defense in the case of a burglary or the threat of violence. Continue reading →

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‘Outrageous’ and ‘Reprehensible’: Trump Gives Taxpayer-Funded Groups Green Light to Discriminate Against LGBTQ People

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“This rule is an abuse of taxpayer dollars in the name of empowering hatred and bigotry towards society’s most vulnerable members.”

By Jessica Corbett, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 11-1-2019

The Trump administration continued its attack on LGBTQ rights Friday with a new rule that gives federally funded programs permission to discriminate against LGBTQ people. (Photo: Ted Eytan/Flickr/cc)

From taxpayer-funded foster care and adoption agencies to programs that serve individuals struggling with substance abuse and youth homelessness, grantees of the Department of Health and Human Services got a green light from the Trump administration Friday to discriminate against LGBTQ people.

HHS awards hundreds of billions of dollars in grants annually. The department claimed that the proposed rule (pdf), which took effect immediately, “would better align its grants regulations with federal statutes, eliminating regulatory burden, including burden on the free exercise of religion.” Continue reading →

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This year at the Supreme Court: Gay rights, gun rights and Native rights

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The Supreme Court begins its newest session on the first Monday in October. AP/J. Scott Applewhite

Morgan Marietta, University of Massachusetts Lowell

The Supreme Court begins its annual session on Oct. 7 and will take up a series of cases likely to have political reverberations in the 2020 elections.

Major cases this year address the immigration program for young people (“Dreamers”) known as DACA, the Affordable Care Act (again), and public money for religious schools.

Justices will also consider cases that involve several aspects of defendants’ rights: whether criminal convictions require a unanimous jury, minors can be given a life sentence and a state can abolish the insanity defense. Continue reading →

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Warnings of ‘Taxpayer-Funded Discrimination’ Against LGBTQ Workers as Trump Pushes Religious Exemption Rule for Contractors

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“This rule seeks to undermine our civil rights protections and encourages discrimination in the workplace—and we will work to stop it,” said the ACLU

By Jake Johnson, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 8-14-2019

Photo from We Won’t Be Erased – Rally for Trans Rights, Washington, DC. Photo: Ted Eytan/flickr

Rights groups on Wednesday accused the Trump administration of attempting to permit workplace discrimination against LGBTQ employees and other vulnerable people after the Labor Department unveiled a rule that would allow federal contractors to cite religious beliefs to protect themselves from bias claims.

On Twitter, the ACLU said the proposal “aims to let government contractors fire workers who are LGBTQ, or who are pregnant and unmarried, based on the employers’ religious views.” Continue reading →

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‘Insulting, Inhumane, and Unacceptable’: LGBTQ Rights Advocates Blast Trump’s Latest ‘Reckless Attack’ on Trans Americans

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“The cruelty and bigotry of this administration truly has no limit.”

By Jessica Corbett, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 10-21-2018

LGBTQ Americans and allies rally outside the White House to protest President Donald Trump’s effort to ban trans people from military service. (Photo: Ted Eytan/Flickr/cc)

Sparking immediate outrage among LGBTQ Americans and allies on Sunday, the New York Times reported on a memo revealing that “the Trump administration is considering narrowly defining gender as a biological, immutable condition determined by genitalia at birth, the most drastic move yet in a governmentwide effort to roll back recognition and protections of transgender people under federal civil rights law.”

In a move that “would essentially eradicate federal recognition of the estimated 1.4 million Americans who have opted to recognize themselves—surgically or otherwise—as a gender other than the one they were born into,” the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), is currently considering a legal definition that “would define sex as either male or female, unchangeable, and determined by the genitals that a person is born with,” according to the Times. Continue reading →

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On Equal Pay Day, New Study Shows Wage Gap Actually Growing for Women Under 40

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Advocates are demanding equitable policies such as paid parental leave and affordable childcare while also declaring “we must address harassment and discrimination!”

By Jessica Corbett, staff writer for CommonDreams. Published 4-10-2018

Several women’s advocacy groups marked Equal Pay Day by delivering a petition to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to demand the agency collect American employers’ pay data to accurately monitor the nation’s gender wage gap. (Photo: @AAUW/Twitter)

A new report released on Equal Pay Day shows that the gender wage gap has actually worsened for women under 40 in recent years, despite increased media attention on the issue alongside mounting demands that businesses and politicians crack down on workplace sexual harassment, which researchers have tied to pay inequality.

Pay ratio

“Despite the great awareness of the gender equity issue, there is evidence that we have lost ground on this important measure of equality,” said John Schwarz, chief executive of Visier, the workforce analytics firm that conducted the study. “These findings should be a wake-up call to business leaders.” Continue reading →

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