Takes up: a yearly 2.5% increase in self-harm cases among people aged 24 and under; proposed UK ban of pornography depicting incest where one person is pretending to be under 18; and the situation of pregnant women and girls in ICE custody.
sexual violence
Women World Wide—February 2026
February 25, 2026Takes up: the life of U.S. mathematician Gladys Brown West; and the insufficiency of laws punishing rape in cases in London, Germany and France.
Women WorldWide: December 2025
December 23, 2025Takes up: spread of the Nordic Model in Europe, i.e., decriminalizing victims of prostitution while criminalizing pimps and customers; and 2025 International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women.
Women WorldWide: October 2025
October 25, 2025Takes up: the life of anti-gender violence activist Susan Xenarios; South Korean women suing the U.S. military for maintaining a network of prostitution; World Women’s March in Canada; and an anti-femicide march in Argentina.
Women WorldWide: August 2025
August 31, 2025Takes up: a demonstration in Lippstadt, Germany, against Evangelical Lippstadt Hospital’s decision to stop providing abortions; a Superior Court Justice in Ontario, Canada, finding five men not guilty of sexual assault; and police removing migrants, mostly women and children, from a makeshift encampment outside the City Hall in Paris, France.
Grooming Gangs
February 19, 2025“Grooming gangs” in England have lured thousands of girls into prostitution. Only a few abusers have been convicted. Studying successful tactics and groups created by survivors gives us confidence to replace exploitation with a compassionate society.
Women WorldWide: January 2025
February 1, 2025Takes up: International Criminal Court prosecutors investigating the Taliban’s horrific laws oppressing women as war crimes; the formation of a “morality police” to enforce new restrictions on women in Libya; and “deepfake” porn targeting girls in Toronto, Canada.
Women WorldWide: Gisele Pelicot ignites a movement
November 22, 2024The trial of Dominique Pelicot, who arranged for 82 men to rape his wife, Gisele Pelicot, over 200 times began in September. Gisele successfully fought for the judges to open the trial to the public, igniting a new wave of a women’s movement fighting mysogyny and sexual violence worldwide.
Handicap This!: June 2024
June 11, 2024Takes up: employees at a hospital in Japan sexually abusing patients with severe disabilities; the push to enforce Humane Alternatives to Long-Term Solitary Confinement Act in the U.S.; ‘Menopause and Me,’ a video for women with autism and learning disabilities; and an update of the situation of people with disabilities in Russia.
Women World Wide: January 2024
January 15, 2024Takes up: In memoriam to Dale Spender, Australian radical feminist activist, author, and broadcaster; a report on U.S. maternal death rates by The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; and medicine’s #MeToo movement exposing the culture of sexual harassment and assaults by higher ranking male doctors.
Women WorldWide: August 2023
August 9, 2023Takes on: Lebanese woman-led media platform “Khateera”; a fine in Chihuahua, Mexico, for singing lyrics in live performances that sexually objectify or promote violence towards women, and the deaths of Dr. Susan Love and Sinéad O’Connor.
Women WorldWide: July 2023
July 13, 2023Takes up: the Taiwanese TV drama that is inspiring a #MeToo movement; the struggle to get authorities in India to take seriously accusations of rape and harassment against the chief of the Wrestling Federation of India; the legislation passed by Maine to help survivors of prostitution rebuild their lives; and Canada’s failure to implement the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls after three years of federally ordered hearings and testimonies from survivors and victims’ families.
The courage of #MeToo
June 5, 2023A defense of women who report abuse, rape, etc. and are accused of lying, etc. Fraudulent accusations are rare, and assaults are vastly underreported. Women realize that it is a gamble to call on a patriarchal institution for protection from abuse by a man. Women normally expect to be ignored or scorned.
May-June: Women WorldWide
May 11, 2023Takes up: Canadian Dawn Dumont Walker’s struggle to keep her son and escape her abusive ex-partner; the Spanish parliament passing legislation for paid leave for debilitating menstrual pain and decriminalizing abortion, including for minors; and the life-altering and horrendous suffering of women in Bangladesh due to climate chaos.
The needed courage of #MeToo
March 19, 2023It is status quo for police, judges, and the general public, to doubt accusations made by women of abuse by men. But the idea that women are seeking money, and commonly lie about partner violence and sexual abuse, is a myth. Fraudulent accusations are rare, and assaults are vastly underreported.
Women Worldwide: March-April 2023
March 17, 2023The U.S. Youth Risk Behavior Survey of 17,000 high school students revealed “America’s teen girls are engulfed in a growing wave of sadness, violence, and trauma”; women and girls in Iran are revolting against the regime by uncovering their hair and throwing out hijab; and the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team and the Canadian Women’s National Soccer Team turned their match into a labor solidarity action.
Woman as Reason: Church survives on sexism & hypocrisy
January 25, 2023Misogyny is ingrained in society, as are disdain, discrimination and abuse. Sexism works for the Catholic Church and they are determined to keep it.
‘Women Unsilenced’
November 12, 2022Review of: ‘Unsilenced: Our Refusal to Let Torturer-Traffickers Win,’ whose authors worked out therapy for victims of what they called Non-State Torture (NST) which goes beyond abuse. Perpetrators of NST employ the same “classic” torture techniques, especially rape, used by state representatives—police, military, or prison guards.
Queer Notes: September-October 2022
September 13, 2022Queer notes on human rights violations on LGBTQ+ people in Ghana; anti-LGBTQ+ actions against UpRising Bakery and Café in Lake in the Hills, Illinois; and South Korea’s Seoul Queer Culture Festival.
Women WorldWide: June 2022
May 30, 2022Takes up: in a groundbreaking ruling a Tokyo Court ordered Juntendo University to compensate women because they were rejected from medical school which had tampered with their exam scores and set stricter requirements for women; women in refugee camps in Somalia created their own credit lending system; Sandbach High School’s feminist club in Cheshire, UK, launched a petition calling for the government to ban sales of school uniforms in sex shops and their use in porn videos; and the girls’ track team at Albany High School in New York launched a petition to “Stop Gender Biased Dress Codes: Allow the Girls Track Team to Wear Sports Bras.”
Handicap This!: May-June 2022
May 19, 2022Takes up: Difficulty for a disabled raped women in Kyrgyzstan to get justice; Mexican women marching on International Women’s Day for disabled women’s rights; the Disability Rights Coalition of Nova Scotia hailing a victory; and the U.S. Bureau of Prisons’ ad seeking psychologists boasted of all the mentally ill people in U.S. prisons.
World in View: Victory for #MeToo
March 15, 2022A new federal law renders binding arbitration clauses in contracts void in cases of sexual assault and harassment. Women’s rights activists and national organizations worked for five years to get legislation introduced to stop the practice. This year it passed by a wide margin in February, and took effect March 3.
Women WorldWide, Jan.-Feb. 2022
February 1, 2022Women demonstrate at Boise State University against misogynist professor Scott Yenor; four male porn stars in France were charged with rape after 53 women performers complained; Sudanese women demonstrated in three cities against gang rapes by security forces; and in India, two men and a woman were arrested for creating a website pretending to “auction” over 100 Muslim women as slaves.
Women WorldWide
December 10, 2021Women WorldWide takes up: Afghan women MPs set up an organization in exile to help other activist women escape; the thousands who marched in Istanbul, Turkey demanding action against widespread violence against women; women in Poland marching again against restrictions on abortion; and the 7,000 women who gathered in Madrid, Spain, protesting male violence against women.
Readers’ Views: November-December 2021, Part One
November 19, 2021Readers’ Views on Draft for Marxist-Humanist Perspectives 2021-2022; Labor shortage?; Workers as reason; Support El Milagro workers!; Detroit women’s march; Chapelle’s sexism; Afghans dead and buried; Betrayal of Haitians; and Which side are you on?
Youth in Action: September-October 2021
September 21, 2021Youth in several Afghan cities resist Taliban; young Colombians become “First Liners” in resistance actions; high school students march in Los Gatos, Calif., and Ninnekah, Okla., to protest schools’ negligence regarding sexual abuse and harassment.
Abiy Ahmed’s bloodbath in Tigray
July 5, 2021Ahead of parliamentary elections, Ethiopia’s President Abiy Ahmed proclaimed that he was aiming for a country “where every Ethiopian moves around relaxed, works and prospers.” but instead he launched a brutal civil war against the northern Ethiopian region of Tigray.
A Review: ‘Men Who Hate Women…’
July 4, 2021Adele favorably reviews “Men Who Hate Women: From Incels to Pickup Artists: The Truth About Extreme Misogyny and How It Affects Us All by Laura Bates. The book exposes the extreme damage caused to society by online misogynist communities, or the “manosphere.”
Native Americans challenge Line 3
July 1, 2021The protests over the Enbridge Line 3 pipeline in Minnesota are the latest front in a long struggle of Native Americans. It is also part of the movement to confront climate change in a way that benefits Black, Indigenous and People of Color, women, workers and youth, rather than narrowly aimed to help capital.
Colombian strikers reject dispossession and repression
June 29, 2021In-person report on the revolt in Colombia and the history of displacement, repression and revolt from which it flows.
Thoughts From the Outside: Capital is out of control
Where I work among the homeless on the street, I see the infinite degradation experienced by those discarded by capitalist society and barely surviving on its margins. There were always those who live on the edge. Karl Marx was describing the lack of transparency in social relations: what appears to be a free decision to sell your labor is nothing of the kind. Yet people stay away from thinking about how all labor, even paid labor, is forced labor.
Colombia in Repression and Revolt
May 12, 2021In Colombia there is an ongoing rebellion against the neoliberal, authoritarian government of Iván Duque, who has unleashed his military and police against the unarmed population. Here we print translated excerpts from a May 9, 2021, interview with Afro-feminist Bety Ruth Lozano, a Colombian social leader living in the city of Cali, the epicenter of the revolt and also of the repressive cruelty that has resulted in deaths, disappearances, rapes and hundreds of injuries.
Biden’s broken immigration policy
May 8, 2021The number of people who cross the border without documents is rising and has been for many years. This trend has remained steady through the transition from Trump to President Biden, notwithstanding the self-promotional lies and distortions of professional smugglers and ultraconservative members of the U.S. Congress.
Review: #ChurchToo
Author Emily Joy Allison created the hashtag #ChurchToo to share her story of an adult youth group leader’s attempt to groom her into being raped when she was a teenager. By the next morning, thousands had used #ChurchToo to tell their stories of abuse within the Church.
Stop illegal evictions!
Detroit Eviction Defense (DED) and Detroit Will Breathe/Black Lives Matter held a rally of over 100 people near Detroit Police Headquarters on April 10 to stop illegal evictions perpetrated by the police.
Women from India to the USA fight against misogynist violence
March 11, 2021Violence against women has worsened in the era of COVID-19. Sexism, like racism, is systemic to almost every culture. Nevertheless women fight back with creative activism and thought. What is new is the internationalization and deepening of that struggle. This year’s International Women’s Day shows women deepening our fight for full freedom and new human relationships.
Review: Women Are Blamed for Everything
November 29, 2020A feminist review of a book by Jessica Taylor, ‘Women Are Blamed for Everything: Exploring the Victim Blaming of Women Subjected to Violence and Trauma’ that explores how and why each victim of abuse was always blamed in some way although it was never her fault, even internalizing self-blame.
Women worldwide, May-June 2020
May 1, 2020Women seize homes in Los Angeles for the homeless; Rachel Lloyd awarded for services for victims of commercial sexual exploitation and domestic trafficking; huge increase in domestic violence intensified by COVID-19; and the Colabo organization in Tokyo, Japan, helps teen girls fleeing home due to abuse, poverty or other reasons.
Woman as Reason: The torture of abortion bans
April 29, 2020Abortion bans during the COVID-19 pandemic are cruel, based on lies, and constitute torture against women, causing not only more deaths, but also revealing the contempt with which women are held and the danger in forcing women to give birth against their will at this time.
Woman as Reason: Abortion in the time of COVID-19
April 15, 2020Abortion bans during the COVID-19 pandemic are cruel, based on lies, and constitute torture against women, causing not only more deaths, but also revealing the contempt with which women are held and the danger in forcing women to give birth against their will at this time.
Youth in Action: May-June 2019
May 3, 2019An action against Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School allowing the ranking of girls by boys; K-8 Charter Day School students win against sexist dress code; Savitribai Phule Pune University graduate students win stipends and demonstrate for better meals; University of Illinois at Chicago graduate student teaching assistants strike.
Review: ‘Politically Incorrect Feminist’
March 10, 2019Feminist Adele reviews Phyllis Chesler’s book “A Politically Incorrect Feminist: Creating a Movement with Bitches, Lunatics, Dykes, Prodigies, Warriors, and Wonder Women,” seeing in it an important first-person history that can help today’s movement.
Women WorldWide: March-April 2019
Women WorldWide takes up the South Korean Escape the Corset movement, Greta Thunberg’s work against global warming, and the struggle by BethAnn McLaughlin to draw attention to the harassment of women in science by prominent men.
Woman as Reason: Church abuses nuns
The rape, forced abortion, and sexual abuse of nuns is the newest scandal to plague the Catholic Church. The do-nothing attitude of the Church on this abuse has continued for centuries. Will anything change now?
Masses for freedom fight Trump-Kavanaugh’s reactionary grab for power
October 10, 2018Given the moral bankruptcy of Congress and Donald Trump, it was no surprise that Brett Kavanaugh’s appointment to the Supreme Court was pushed through Congress. The surprise was the vibrancy, strength and determination of the fight against that nomination…
Women WorldWide, September-October 2018
September 28, 2018Pimps target incarcerated women in the U.S. for prostitution; the death of Maria Isabel Chorobik de Mariani, a founder of Argentina’s Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo; the organization World Without Exploitation; nurses at the University of Vermont Medical Center strike for themselves and their non-union coworkers as well.
II. Spreading revolt opens new doors
May 3, 2018We look at the true opposition to Trumpism: mass revolt worldwide of women, youth, Black people, labor…–the context to work for new beginnings.
Women Worldwide: May-June 2018
May 2, 2018A roundup of women’s news including: the Boston Women’s Health Collective will no longer update the iconic Our Bodies Ourselves; Maxine Hammond is fundraising to preserve the Suppressed History of Archives of women resisting oppression; protests against the murder of Black Lesbian Brazilian feminist Marielle Franco; and Belfast Feminist Network’s protest outside an Ulster Rugby team match after players were acquitted of rape.
MSU students rally against Larry Nassar
March 10, 2018While over 200 girls and women gymnasts testified against long-time sexual abuser Dr. Larry Nassar, less has been heard of the hundreds of MSU students who marched against their university.
Prisoners on #MeToo
March 8, 2018Prisoners at California’s largest prison for women discuss the #MeToo movement with News & Letters.