Dreamer Easy

A proposed amendment to Colorado law would redefine "person" to include any human being from the moment of fertilization. (The wag who sent me this link suggested this would mean you couldn't refuse to hire someone on the grounds they hadn't been born.) A Denver Post editorial explores the bizarre ramifications.

Palin: Unserious About Sex Crimes and Domestic Violence. A blogger examines Alaska's high levels of rape and domestic violence - and their low priority for Governor Palin's administration. ETA: New Evidence: Palin Had Direct Role In Charging Rape Victims For Exams. (Ta again, browneyedgirl65.)

Some good news from Australia. Firstly, a new study found that male rape in prison is less common than feared, perhaps due to safety reforms. Secondly, A Sydney woman puts her rapist behind bars, and allows her name to be released. The Judge remarked: "She is entitled to hold her head up high and identify herself as a blameless victim of a sexual assault." Jessica Loiterton, you're a hero. On ya!

Still in Australia: Nearly twice as many women in NSW die due to factors surrounding pregnancy or childbirth as previously thought - with suicide the leading cause of indirect deaths.

Australian HIV rates have increased by almost 50% the past 8 years, and Chlamydia rates in young women have quadrupled. Remember to fasten your condoms! To encourage you, here's my favourite safe sex ad ever:

Turns out boys are not better than girls at maths and science. Hooda thunkit?

Hulk vs. Valkyrie! "Every male chauvinist pig in the world will tremble!"


Down Under

Australian women still face sex bias, including high levels of outright sexual harassment. A national plan means to tackle that, plus "Boosting women's retirement savings, encouraging family-friendly work practices, [reviewing] sex discrimination laws, and promoting women in leadership roles."

This one's from June: Gender wage gap under review: with women still earning less than men, even for comparable work, the Australian guvmint plans a pay equity tribunal.

Challenge to legal boys' club: female barristers are being systematically excluded from work; state governments seek to redress this.

Designer vaginas blacklisted by gynos: Australian and NZ doctors reject the West's version of Female Genital Mutilation as unnecessary, dangerous, and exploitative.

To hell and back: appetite for life regained: Lucy Howard-Taylor's Biting Anorexia "is the only memoir written by a recovered anorexic to be endorsed by the Eating Disorders Foundation of NSW because it refuses to glamorise the disorder".

Australian women wrong on heart disease: survey: "Most women mistakenly believe that breast cancer is the leading cause of death among females, underestimating heart disease as the nation's biggest killer."

Hillsong hits schools with beauty gospel: troubled young women taught by unqualified counsellors to boost their self-esteem through nail polish?

Family violence unit incomplete: promised domestic violence police unit for NSW pretty much forgotten.

Abused wife thought: "I've got to kill him".


Meanwhile, in the rest of the world

Women working for the government or contractors in occupied Iraq under threat from their male colleagues: After rape victim used cell phone to call for help, KBR bans use of personal phones in Iraq. (See also this blog post from last December.)

In the UK: Rape victims told alcohol consumption may cost them compensation. The relevant body, CICA, admits it was wrong to reduce compensation by as much as 25%, but refuses to review such cases unless victims complain. One woman's story: 'I did my bit in reporting a rapist, the authorities didn't do theirs'.

Still in the UK: Sex assaults: Police accused of adopting 'Life on Mars' attitude. The former head of Derbyshire CID: "My advice to cops is: investigate. If someone gets their car nicked or their house broken into and their DVD player's gone, then you start an investigation, irrespective of the respectability of the victim. While some forces are embracing change, there are other individuals playing the Life on Mars stance where they allege that most cases are false allegations and not worth pursuing."