Pakistani court sentences woman to death for WhatsApp ‘blasphemy’

Islamabad, Pakistan – A Pakistani court has sentenced a Muslim woman to death for committing “blasphemy” by sharing images deemed to be insulting to Islam’s Prophet Muhammad and one of his wives, also considered a holy personage by many Muslims.

The trial court in the northern Pakistani city of Rawalpindi on Wednesday sentenced Aneeqa Ateeq under the country’s strict blasphemy laws, which impose a mandatory death penalty for insulting the Prophet Muhammad.

Afghanistan's Taliban ban long-distance road trips for solo women

The Taliban have said Afghan women seeking to travel long distances by road should be offered transport only if accompanied by a male relative.

The directive, issued on Sunday, is the latest curb on women's rights since the Islamist group seized power in August.

A majority of secondary schools remain shut for girls, while most women have been banned from working.

Women march in Kabul to demand role in Taliban government

Kabul, Afghanistan – Dozens of women took to the streets of the capital on Saturday to demand their right to work, a role in any future government, and a seat at the table in discussions with the Taliban.

The protest began with 50 women marching towards the presidential palace.

However, Razia Barakzai, 26, said the women were stopped near the entrance to the finance ministry, where the Taliban “surrounded” them and kept them from continuing on their march towards the palace entrance.

Women make less than men in virtually any job they take

Tuesday marks the day by which, thanks to the gender wage gap, American women have worked long enough to match what men made in a single year last year. The gap still means that a woman who works full-time, year round will on average make just 80 percent of her male peers. There hasn’t been statistically significant progress in closing the gap in nine years.

Some women may hold out hope that they can find the right work that will pay them equally. But virtually anywhere they go they are at risk of being paid less.

The War on Women Is Over—and Women Lost

When she was 20 years old, Renee Chelian began every Friday with a predawn drive to an airplane hangar outside Detroit. There she met an abortion doctor, and a pilot who flew them to Buffalo, New York.

This was 1971. Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court decision that established a woman's right to an abortion, was still a year and a half away, and New York was one of the few places in the country where abortion was legal. Chelian was the doctor's assistant. She cleaned instruments and made appointments for women who hitchhiked or drove from all over the Midwest and New England to reach the clinic.

Inequality Between Women Is Crucial to Understanding Hillary’s Loss

Attempts to explain what the hell happened on Tuesday have been coming fast and furious. Hillary Clinton was touted by her supporters as the best-qualified candidate ever to run for president. How could she have possibly lost to a buffoon who is not only a political novice but also a despicable bully, nasty racist, world-class grifter, and deranged sex criminal?

Racism was certainly an important factor. A slew of studies have found that Trump supporters rack up high scores on measures of racial resentment. Sexism, too, is part of the story. Hillary Clinton was subjected to a nonstop barrage of ugly misogynist attacks by Trump, his supporters, and users of social media. No wonder the gender gap—24 points—was the largest in the history of presidential elections. And if you still question whether racism and misogyny played a significant role in this election, the many frightening acts of violence and harassment aimed at women and people of color that have occurred in the wake of Trump’s victory should quell any remaining doubts.

Justice Alito Is Clueless About How Health Insurance Works. That’s a Big Problem for Women.

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito has earned a reputation, fairly or not, that he doesn't understand the reality of women's lives.  He's been observed shaking his head and rolling his eyes at his female colleagues, particularly the venerable Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, when she read a dissent from the bench opposing his opinions in a pair gender discrimination cases.  The oral arguments in Zubik v Burwell Wednesday probably did nothing much to improve that perception.

Budget 2016: Not enough Real Change for women

Don't you love it when your government talks to you like a seven year old (with all respect to seven year olds)? I do.

This year's federal budget continues in the long tradition of past budgets by introducing us to a happy Canadian family. Meet David and Neera. (Last year it was Henry and Cathy and the year before that it was Blake and Laurie… you get the picture).

Discriminatory Tax Goes Beyond Women's Tampons

While the rally cries of 'don't tax my vagina' are confronting and provocative, there is far less understanding concerning the gendered implications of how governments tax income, savings and wealth, and redistributes this using the transfer system.

While women clearly face a wide variety of circumstances that may affect their savings balances, decision to seek work, and superannuation payouts -- no single issue appears to affect the female experience as directly as the marginal costs of tax, welfare and childcare. As a result, tax and transfer policies (i.e. the money the government taxes its citizens and uses to transfer to the public interest) are a far larger concern than the media tends to make out.

Rush Limbaugh Says Too Many Female Journalists Lead To The 'Chickification' Of The News

Conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh thinks Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton is getting "sympathetic" treatment from the media because most of the journalists covering her are women.

During his syndicated radio show on Tuesday, Limbaugh referenced a Politico article titled "The Women In The Van," which profiles the largely female press corps covering Clinton's presidential campaign.

6 Years Ago, New York Banned the Shackling of Pregnant Inmates. So Why Are These Women Still Being Restrained?

When Maria Caraballo delivered her daughter in 2010, she was handcuffed to the hospital bed.

"They didn't even remove my cuffs for me to hold my baby," says Caraballo, who at the time was serving a prison sentence in New York. "I had to hold my baby with one hand for two to three seconds. They didn't take my handcuffs off until after I was stitched up and in the prison ward, and I didn't see my baby until the next day."

Alone in Alabama: dispatches from an inmate jailed for her son’s stillbirth

On 29 April last year Amanda Kimbrough sat down in her cell inside the notoriously tough Tutwiler women’s prison in Wetumpka, Alabama, and began writing a letter in which she described her feelings of loss and remorse. It was a poignant moment, as six years earlier to the day her only son Timmy had been born prematurely and had died from complications at birth after only 19 minutes.

“Tim Jr would be six years old [today],” she wrote, “and not a day goes by I don’t think of him. While I was out we keep his grave decorated and kept up, my husband and family do while I’m here.”

A TALE OF TWO TERRORS

Eleven months to the day Michael Zehaf-Bibeau went hunting for targets in Ottawa – killing ceremonial guard Nathan Cirillo at the national war monument – another lone gunman was on the loose in Eastern Ontario, murdering three women as Renfrew County was set to host its annual Take Back The Night march.

As happened during the Parliament Hill shooting, schools, courthouses, and other public institutions were on lockdown in a number of Ottawa Valley communities on September 22. Heavily-armed police searched for and eventually arrested a suspect (Basil Borutski) in the targeted killings of Anastasia Kuzyk, Nathalie Warmerdam and Carol Culleton. All were reportedly former partners of Borutski who, according to published reports, has a lengthy criminal record (including past charges involving two of the women).

The Many Ways Women Are Beaten Down in America

In 1955 Mrs. Dale Carnegie, whose husband wrote the best-seller “How to Win Friends and Influence People,” advised her fellow housewives: “The two big steps that women must take are to help their husbands decide where they are going and use their pretty heads to help them get there. Let’s face it, girls. That wonderful guy in your house – and in mine – is building your house, your happiness and the opportunities that will come to your children.”

No Female Executives At Many Canadian Companies, Securities Regulators Find

TORONTO — A review of more than 700 companies listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange has found that the number of women on corporate boards and in executive positions varies by industry and company size.

For example, about 60 per cent of TSX-listed companies with a market capitalization more than $2 billion reported having at least two female board members. And 59 per cent of the reporting issuers of that size said they had at least two female executive officers.

Here's A Sad Indicator Of Just How Little We Do For Working Moms In The U.S.

This is glacial progress: The very best companies for working mothers in the U.S. were offering an average of just eight weeks of paid maternity leave in 2014, according to Working Mother magazine’s list of the 100 best companies, released on Tuesday.

That's a record high, up from seven weeks in 2013 -- and it's a sad indicator of how little we do for women in this country.

Harper's Decision To Skip Women's Issue Discussion Met With Boos

TORONTO — Federal party leaders courting female voters have made their pitch, laying out proposed childcare plans and promises of an inquiry into missing and murdered aboriginal women Monday in pre-recorded statements to a panel of women.

But one leader was conspicuously absent — Prime Minister Stephen Harper, whose decision not to attend elicited boos from the master of ceremonies at the start of the livestreamed discussion.

Marines Seek To Close Combat Jobs For Women

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Marine Corps is expected to ask that women not be allowed to compete for several front-line combat jobs, inflaming tensions between Navy and Marine leaders, U.S. officials say.

The tentative decision has ignited a debate over whether Navy Secretary Ray Mabus can veto any Marine Corps proposal to prohibit women from serving in certain infantry and reconnaissance positions. And it puts Gen. Joseph Dunford, the Marine Corps commandant who takes over soon as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, at odds with the other three military services, who are expected to open all of their combat jobs to women.

Men Educated At Ivy League Schools Vastly Outearn Female Classmates

Attending the country's most prestigious schools doesn’t make you immune to the unfortunate societal stew of sexism, bias and history that drives the income gap between men and women in the U.S.

Men who graduate from the country’s most exclusive universities vastly outearn their female counterparts, according to startling statistics released over the weekend by the Department of Education.

Why Stephen Harper doesn’t want to talk about ‘women’s issues’

Last night’s “All-Candidates Debate on Women’s Rights & Gender Equity” in Halifax was falsely billed: not all candidates were present. NDP candidate (and incumbent) Megan Leslie, Andy Fillmore of the Liberals and Dr. Thomas Trappenberg of the Green party agreed to participate. Conservative candidate Irvine Carvery sent his regrets, pleading a previous engagement. Given that the four riding associations were informed about the debate last December, Carvery’s schedule must be busy indeed. Speculation over whether Carvery’s no-show was part of a larger party strategy was inevitable, given the fact Stephen Harper declined to participate in a national leaders’ debate on issues classified as “women’s” (or the more modern “gender”)—inequality, violence against women and girls, and child care—proposed by Up for Debate, an alliance of “more than 175 women’s organizations and their allies.” That event imploded after Harper said no, leading Tom Mulcair to bow out. The group  turned to “Plan B,” says Up for Debate spokeswoman Kelly Bowden—interviewing the NDP, Liberal, Green and Bloc leaders separately for 20- to 30-minute videos to be aired Sept. 21. Again, Harper said no thanks.