OTTAWA - The Canadian government on Monday announced a bill to ban so-called "conversion therapy," which tries to change the sexual orientation of young LGBT people.
The bill would create five new offenses in the Canadian criminal code, including prohibiting subjecting a minor to the practice, either in Canada or abroad.
An adult would also not be able to undergo conversion therapy against his or her will, and no one would be allowed to profit from or advertise it.
If the bill passes, Canada's laws on conversion therapy would become some of the "most progressive and comprehensive in the world," David Lametti, the minister of justice, told reporters while presenting the bill to parliament.
Two adults who had been forced to undergo conversion therapy in childhood testified on about their experiences.
"I'm a survivor of conversion therapy," said Erika, a trans woman.
"My body is a prison because of what my conversion therapist did to me, and I live with that every day," she said in a vehement denunciation of the practice.
The bill's adoption by parliament appears all but assured, even though Justin Trudeau's Liberal government is the minority in the House of Commons. The left-wing New Democratic Party has already announced it intends to back the bill.
The bill states that conversion therapy causes harm not only to the victims but also to society, particularly because the practice is founded on and helps spread myths and stereotypes about sexual orientation and gender identity, including the myth that sexual orientation and gender identity can and should be changed.
The law would define conversion therapy as "any service, practice or treatment designed to change a person's sexual orientation to heterosexual, gender identity to one that matches the sex assigned at birth, or to repress or reduce non-heterosexual attraction or sexual behaviors."
According to a recent official survey, 47,000 Canadian men who identify as part of a minority sexuality group had been subjected to conversion therapy.
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Agence France-Presse
Utah is now the 19th U.S. state to ban conversion therapy aimed at changing sexual orientation or gender identity in lesbian, gay, transsexual, bisexual and queer children.
The ban in the Republican-dominated state, which took effect on Wednesday, exempts members of the clergy, lay pastors, and spiritual counselors not licensed by the state from the ban.
Despite those limits, "this is still a big victory in a very conservative state," said Mathew Shurka, 31, of Long Island, New York.
He describes himself as a "survivor" of such therapy and is co-founder of Born Perfect, a nonprofit group pushing for conversion therapy bans across the United States.
Conversion therapy involves a variety of psychological and spiritual practices aimed at changing sexual orientation and gender identity in the belief that homosexuality and transgender identity are mental illnesses.
The American Psychological Association has called the treatment harmful to young people. The American Medical Association has said that conversion therapy does not work and can trigger depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and suicide attempts.
Virginia's state senate approved a ban on Tuesday, and the bill is now being sent to the Democratic-controlled House of Delegates, where it is expected to pass, said Shannon Minter, a San Francisco gay activist working with Born Perfect.
In Utah, the ban takes the form of a regulation. Craig Hall, a Republican state representative, championed legislation that would have banned the therapy, but it failed to pass last year.
He credited support from the influential Mormon Church, to which 62 percent of Utah's 3.1 million residents belong, for the governor's decision to enact the new regulation. The church, opposes same-sex marriage and its doctrine teaches that same-sex relationships are sinful.
Leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Mormon Church's formal name, had previously opposed the legislation because it did not explicitly exempt clergy.
"We worked very closely with them on the (new) language," Hall said.
"The administrative rule has the same effect as law, and it governs all licensed therapists and doctors," he said.
A church representative did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Hall noted that the state does not license pastors and ministers.
Utah Governor Gary Herbert, a Republican, had no comment on the issue on Wednesday, said spokeswoman Brook Scheffler.
In a press release in November, Herbert said the rule change was needed "to end the harmful practice of conversion therapy on minors."
“The stories of youth who have endured these so-called therapies are heart rending, and I’m grateful that we have found a way forward that will ban conversion therapy forever in our state,” he said.
Troy Williams, executive director of the activist group Equality Utah, said that while the rule does not affect unlicensed counselors, he hopes it sends a message.
"There are a lot of therapists and life coaches still out there who run these camps, and they're dangerous," Williams said. "But hopefully with Utah taking a strong stand, this will get the word out." (Reporting by Rich McKay in Atlanta; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)
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TAIPEI — Taiwan has forged a reputation as Asia's most progressive democracy and it boasts a higher proportion of women in parliament than anywhere else in the region -- yet misogynistic insults have littered its presidential race.
The campaign for the January 11 polls has exposed an undercurrent where female politicians face a gauntlet of personal abuse and jibes that their male counterparts rarely suffer.
The island's most prominent female politician is President Tsai Ing-wen, 63, who is seeking a second term.
She has once again faced insults based on her gender, much of it focused on the fact she is not married and does not have children.
Wu Den-yih, chairman of the opposition Kuomintang party, earlier this month used a Taiwanese slang term to dub Tsai "an unlucky woman" who had brought misfortune to her people.
And her presidential opponent Han Kuo-yu, 62, invoked 2 characters from an ancient Chinese erotic novel to describe Tsai's rivalry with her running mate.
Han's running mate Chang San-cheng also said Tsai could not understand the hearts of parents because she was "a woman who has never given birth".
In a Facebook post, Tsai hit out at the campaign rhetoric.
"I find such a political culture unacceptable and we will not accept any personal attacks against women using such language," she wrote.
Wu later apologized, saying he respected women and meant to criticize Tsai's job performance.
'SOWS AND VASES'
Taiwan's election will be closely watched because much of the campaign has centered on relations with authoritarian China which has ramped up pressure since Tsai's 2016 election.
Tsai, a law professor and trade negotiator before she became a politician, is one of the few female leaders in Asia not to have hailed from a powerful political dynasty.
She is loathed by Beijing because her party refuses to accept the idea that Taiwan is part of the so-called One-China policy which denies the island's independence.
Han, the outspoken mayor of Kaohsiung city, favors much warmer relations with China.
But it is not just Tsai on the receiving end of gender-based jibes.
Chen Chu, a senior figure from Tsai's Democratic Progressive Party who was a political prisoner for 6 years when Taiwan was a dictatorship, has often been singled out for her appearance.
The KMT's Wu described her as "fatty" and "a big sow" while Taipei's mayor Ko Wen-je, head of the new Taiwan People's Party, described her as "a fatter Han Kuo-yu".
During a failed attempt to win the KMT's nomination, Taiwan's wealthiest man and Foxconn founder Terry Gou dismissed his wife's initial opposition to his bid by saying "the harem should not meddle in politics". He later apologized for his remarks.
The DPP are not free of accusations either.
A spokeswoman for KMT candidate Han complained that she was called "a vase" by Tsai's staff -- a derogatory term used to describe a pretty woman that lacks substance.
PROGRESSIVE ISLAND
On paper Taiwan has impressive credentials on progress towards gender equality in politics.
The 2016 election that swept Tsai to power also returned a legislature where 38 percent of the seats were held by women, by far the highest proportion in Asia.
The next highest proportion is the Philippines with 29 percent while South Korea and Japan have 17 and 10 percent, respectively, according to a database compiled by the Inter-Parliamentary Union as of January 2019.
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Taiwan's progressive image got a further boost when it became the first in Asia to legalize same-sex marriages in May.
But commentators say sexism and traditional views of gender still dominate -- and flourish during elections.
"Taiwan has made progress in gender equality but conservative forces are still strong," Tseng Chao-yuan, from the women's rights group Awakening Foundation, told AFP.
"It's disgusting that gender discriminatory comments keep recurring," she said, urging female politicians to stand up to the old-boy networks that dominate their parties.
A veteran figure within Tsai's own party once remarked on her first presidential run in 2012 that a "skirt-wearer is unfit to be a commander-in-chief". He later endorsed her.
But there are signs the sexist insults are backfiring.
Taiwan's younger voters are much more likely than older generations to support progressive issues such as gay marriage, and social media has filled with criticism of the language being used in this year's campaign.
Most polls show Tsai leading Han by a wide margin -- although some more recent data suggests Han might be closing the gap.
"Such vulgar and discriminatory language hurts all women living on this land," one Facebook post read.
"Women need to come out to vote to show our anger and teach them a lesson."
Agence France-Presse
GENEVA — Women may have to wait more than 2 centuries for equality at work, according to a report on Tuesday showing gender inequality growing in workplaces worldwide despite increasing demands for equal treatment.
While women appear to be gradually closing the gender gap in areas such as politics, health and education, workplace inequality is not expected to be erased until the year 2276, according to a report published by the World Economic Forum (WEF).
The organization, which gathers the global elite in the plush Swiss ski resort of Davos each year, said that the worldwide gender gap in the workplace had widened further since last year, when parity appeared to be only 202 years off.
The Geneva-based organisation's annual report tracks disparities between the sexes in 153 countries across four areas: education, health, economic opportunity and political empowerment.
The overall gender gap across these categories has shrunk, Tuesday's report showed, with WEF now forecasting it will take 99.5 years for women to achieve parity on average, down from the 108 years forecast in last year's report.
But while some sectors have shown improvements, others lag far behind.
General parity "will take more than a lifetime to achieve," WEF acknowledged in a statement.
40 PERCENT WAGE GAP
WEF said the gender gap was more than 96 percent closed in the area of education and could be eliminated altogether within just 12 years.
The gap was equally small in the health and survival category, but the WEF report said it remained unclear how long it would take to achieve full parity in this domain due to lingering issues in populous countries like China and India.
Politics meanwhile is the domain where the least progress has been made to date, but it showed the biggest improvement in the past year.
Women in 2019 held 25.2 percent of parliamentary lower-house seats and 22.1 percent of ministerial positions, compared to 24.1 percent and 19 percent in 2018.
But when it comes to the workplace, the picture is less rosy.
The report, which looked at a variety of factors including opportunity and pay, said it would take 257 years before there was equality in the workplace.
It highlighted positive developments, like a general increase in the share of women among skilled workers and senior officials.
But it stressed that this trend was counterbalanced by "stagnating or reversing gaps in labor market participation and monetary rewards".
On average, only 55 percent of adult women are in the labor market today, compared to 78 percent for men, while women globally on average still make 40 percent less than men for similar work in similar positions.
The wage gap has been steadily shrinking in OECD countries over the past decade, but it has at the same time expanded in emerging and developing economies, the WEF report showed.
GLOBAL DISPARITIES
Progress across the categories varies greatly in different countries and regions.
The report pointed out that while Western European countries could close their overall gender gap in 54.4 years, countries in the Middle East and North Africa will take nearly 140 years to do so.
Overall, the Nordic countries once again dominated the top of the table: men and women were most equal in Iceland, followed by Norway, Finland and Sweden.
Syria, Pakistan, Iraq and finally Yemen showed the biggest overall gender gaps of the countries surveyed.
Among the world's 20 leading economies, Germany fared the best, taking 10th place, followed by France at 15th, South Africa at 17th, Canada at 19th and Britain at 21st.
The United States continued its decline, slipping two places to 53rd, with the report pointing out that "American women still struggle to enter the very top business positions", and are also "under-represented in political leadership roles".
Agence France-Presse
WASHINGTON — The pronoun "they," used by non-binary people who identify as neither male nor female, was named word of the year by US dictionary Merriam-Webster on Tuesday.
In the English language, more and more people are exercising their right to choose the pronoun by which they are identified, regardless of their sex at birth -- such as "they" instead of "she" or "he."
Two months ago, the dictionary added the word "they" as a non-binary pronoun that can refer to just 1 person.
"There's no doubt that its use is established in the English language, which is why it was added to the Merriam-Webster.com dictionary this past September," the website said, adding that searches for "they" jumped 313 percent in a year.
Nonbinary people are enjoying increased representation on television and in pop culture. Among them is British artist Sam Smith, who recently revealed a preference for "they/them" pronouns "after a lifetime of being at war with my gender."
Tech giant Apple has added "neutral" emojis that don't distinguish between gender to the latest version of its operating system.
Agence France-Presse
LONDON - LGBT+ people have seen a rise in tolerance in almost every region of the world over the last decade, according to an index released on Monday.
Iceland was named as the most tolerant country towards LGBT+ people in a survey of 167 countries by British think-tank the Legatum Institute, while central Asian country Tajikistan was in last place.
"It is encouraging to see that our 2019 Prosperity Index shows a rise in tolerance towards the LGBT community globally over the past decade," Shaun Flanagan of the institute's Center for Metrics told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
"However, the LGBT community, as well as other often marginalized groups, such as immigrants, ethnic minorities and religious groups, still face considerable persecution across certain parts of the world today."
The data is part of the 2019 Legatum Prosperity Index, which measures a host of factors affecting countries' ability to create wealth and wellbeing, ranging from investment environment to health and personal freedom.
Social tolerance towards minority groups increased in 111 of 167 countries over the last decade, and across every region except for Eastern Europe & Sub-Saharan Africa, it found.
The rise in acceptance of LGBT+ people was particularly marked, rising from about one in four people expressing acceptance a decade ago to almost a third in the latest report.
Tolerance towards LGBT+ people was measured according to responses to a Gallup poll that asked more than 130,000 people around the world whether their city or area was a good place for gay and lesbian people to live.
Top-ranking Iceland was followed by The Netherlands and Norway in the 2019 index, while Canada and Denmark took fourth and fifth place respectively.
Several of the least tolerant countries criminalize homosexuality, with penalties including a potential death sentence for men in Mauritania and Somalia, both in the bottom five.
However, legality did not always equal acceptance - lowest-ranked Tajikistan decriminalized gay sex in 1998 but LGBT+ people still face widespread discrimination.
It was followed by Somalia, Azerbaijan, Senegal and Mauritania in second to fourth last place respectively.
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Inside the winding alleyways of London’s Camden Market, past walls of combat boots, money exchanges and bustling food vendors, a small white sign announces the presence of the complex’s newest tenant: the Vagina Museum.
On Saturday, during its grand opening, the humble brick space — dedicated to understanding and appreciating the vagina, vulva and gynecological anatomy — was packed, mostly with women but from all generations. I heard visitors exchange confessions like “I didn’t know what a period was until I had one” and “I used to think that all vulvas look the same.” Topics of discussion that are often reduced to hushed tones in public spaces, if they are brought up at all, were thrown around with ease and enthusiasm.
“It’s almost like there’s an embargo in society around having very open, frank, honest and educational conversations around vaginas,” said Marissa Conway, 30, who is a founder of the Centre for Feminist Foreign Policy and who attended the opening. “I didn’t expect to have a visceral reaction of gratitude, but there’s an element of relief that we can talk about this.”
The museum is the first of its kind, an answer of sorts to Iceland’s Phallological Museum. With nearly 300 penises and penile parts from local animals, the specimen-rich institution ranks among Reykjavik’s top tourist attractions. While this monument to male genitalia is in many ways an orthodox museum that revolves around a permanent collection of “marvels,” the Vagina Museum is not. Like the city’s Migration Museum, which is focused on the country’s immigrants and refugees, and the Museum of Transology, which purports to be the largest collection dedicated to the lives of transgender people, the Vagina Museum is an institution whose mission is driven by social justice and public health initiatives.
Those expecting to see ancient fertility sculptures, medieval chastity belts or Victorian-era vibrators on display should know that the young, crowd-funded venture includes no such artifacts. At the Vagina Museum, visitors will discover informational posters and sculptures, a small shop with vaginally themed products, and an events calendar that includes a dinner for Trans Day of Remembrance and “Cliterature” (book club) meetings.
“It was much smaller than I anticipated, which was disappointing,” said Seren Mehmet, 28, a technical recruiter at Amazon. “I wanted to see more vaginas!”
The museum has secured a two-year lease on its Camden Market lot, but after that, there are plans for expansion. “The ultimate goal is to build a permanent museum, but that takes a lot of time and resources. This is like our starter home,” said the museum’s founder and director, Florence Schechter, in a phone interview before the opening. The debut show, “Muff Busters: Vagina Myths and How to Fight Them,” is intentionally general and instructive. “I think it’s especially useful for younger people, because most of the time we have to figure this stuff out ourselves,” said Jade Dagwell Douglas, 22, who is a student in London.
“The anatomy has such complex politics around it, that we found it was best to first engage people through what they know, so we can teach them things they don’t know,” said Sarah Creed, the museum’s curator. “Menstruation, cleanliness, sexual activity and contraception are things that a majority of people have discussed in some format, or experienced in some way.” The exhibit addresses all of those topics.
“We can talk about cold, hard facts all we want, but that’s not going to change people’s minds. It’s all about unpacking social constructs and changing perspective through engagement,” Creed said.
Charlotte Wilcox, who illustrated the posters in the exhibit, said it was her job to “be as inclusive as possible” in bringing these myths to life. Rini Jones, 25, a policy and advocacy adviser in London, was “pleasantly surprised” by the exhibit. “I was really skeptical of the show as an activist, queer woman and woman of color,” she said. “There’s a really pervasive and unhelpful equation of women’s rights with often exclusively pink and, by association, white vaginas, in a way that is really trivializing and exclusionary.”
Despite outraging some trolls, team members say they have been pleasantly surprised by the Vagina Museum’s reception. Their biggest challenges are on the internet, where their content is often censored for violating community guidelines.
“It’s not a human problem as much as it is an issue with algorithms, which are set to assume anything with the world vagina in it is adult content or porn,” said Zoe Williams, the museum’s development and marketing manager. “Our emails go to spam and our online ads get rejected, and it’s all because of stigma,” Schechter added. “We’ve had to rely on organic reach.”
My most pressing memory of the visit is not the information gleaned but rather how comfortable I felt in the space. It’s evident the Vagina Museum is striving to make male, transgender and intersex visitors feel just as welcome and included. The word “woman" is used sparingly in wall text, and “Muff Busters” eagerly states that a vagina does not a woman make. One of its central messages is that dismantling gynecological taboos is not a gendered issue.
“This is everyone’s dialogue,” Creed said. “By segregating the issue, we only perpetuate it.”
2019 The New York Times Company
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For the first time in its long history, The Financial Times will be led by a woman.
On Tuesday, the daily known for its robust coverage of international markets, its distinctive salmon-hued paper and its impenetrable digital paywall, announced that Roula Khalaf will be its top editor, starting in January. Khalaf, a 24-year veteran of the newspaper, which has its headquarters in London, will succeed Lionel Barber, a Financial Times journalist since the 1980s and its editor since 2005.
Barber, 64, said in an interview Tuesday that he had consulted with the newspaper’s owners about a transition for more than a year. “You mustn’t see this as some kind of ‘woke’ gesture — it’s got nothing to do with that,” he said. “She is one of our most outstanding journalists. She’s been deputy editor for 4 years, she’s been tested in all sorts of areas, and that’s why she’s the next editor.”
The newspaper, which was founded in 1888 and has a paid circulation of 1 million, including digital and print subscribers, declined to make Khalaf available for an interview. In a statement Tuesday, she said, “It’s a great honor to be appointed editor of The FT, the greatest news organization in the world.”
Born and raised in Beirut, Lebanon, and educated in the United States at Syracuse University and Columbia University, Khalaf has served as the publication’s Middle East editor, foreign editor and deputy editor. Before joining The Financial Times, she wrote for Forbes magazine, where she made waves with a feature article on Jordan Belfort, the shady stockbroker who became known as the wolf in Martin Scorsese’s 2013 film, “The Wolf of Wall Street.” A character based on Khalaf appears in the movie.
Khalaf returned to the subject of Belfort in a 2014 Financial Times article, writing, “I am the journalist who in the movie wrote the 1991 ‘hatchet job’ on Belfort and his respectably named but disreputable Stratton Oakmont outfit. My character — I was a Forbes reporter when I wrote the profile — gets a few seconds’ play, followed by a scene in which Belfort is infuriated by my story. I had described him as sounding like a twisted version of Robin Hood who takes from the rich and gives to himself and his merry band of brokers. That was rather charitable since he was also probably fleecing widows and orphans.”
During his 14-year tenure as top editor, Barber guided the newspaper through a decline in the industry, as well as its sale four years ago from Pearson, the British media company, to Nikkei, the Japanese financial news publisher, for $1.3 billion.
He noted that he had traveled in the Middle East with Khalaf, interviewing the Iranian president, Hassan Rouhani, in 2013 and, in 2015, visiting Mohammed bin Salman, then Saudi Arabia’s deputy crown prince.
Barber’s legacy will include presiding over the newspaper as it reoriented its business model to be focused on circulation revenue — subscribers paying for access. Many legacy media news organizations, including The New York Times, have made this move in recent years. The Financial Times was among the pioneers, instituting an online paywall as early as 2007.
“We said, ‘We’re going to charge for content,’” Barber said. “By saying that, and also raising prices, that was a message to the outside market that we’re worth it. But it was also an incredibly powerful message to the newsroom: ‘Now we’re really going to have to be the very best.’”
2019 The New York Times Company
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Something curious happened when a husband and wife recently compared their Apple Card spending limits.
David Heinemeier Hansson vented on Twitter that even though his spouse, Jamie Hansson, had a better credit score and other factors in her favor, her application for a credit line increase had been denied.
The prominent software developer wondered how his credit line could be 20 times higher, referring to Apple Card as a “sexist program” (with an expletive added for emphasis).
The card, a partnership between Apple and Goldman Sachs, made its debut in the United States in August.
“My wife and I filed joint tax returns, live in a community-property state, and have been married for a long time,” he wrote Thursday on Twitter. “Yet Apple’s black box algorithm thinks I deserve 20x the credit limit she does.”
Hansson’s tweets caught the attention of more than just his 350,000 followers.
They struck a nerve with New York state regulators, who announced Saturday that they would investigate the algorithm used by Apple Card to determine the creditworthiness of applicants.
Algorithms are codes or a set of instructions used by computers, search engines and smartphone applications to perform tasks, from ordering food delivery to hailing a ride — and yes, applying for credit.
The criteria used by the Apple Card are now being scrutinized by the New York State Department of Financial Services.
“Any algorithm that intentionally or not results in discriminatory treatment of women or any other protected class violates New York law,” an agency spokeswoman said in a statement Saturday night.
“DFS is troubled to learn of potential discriminatory treatment in regards to credit limit decisions reportedly made by an algorithm of Apple Card, issued by Goldman Sachs, and the Department will be conducting an investigation to determine whether New York law was violated and ensure all consumers are treated equally regardless of sex,” the statement said.
An Apple spokeswoman directed questions to a Goldman Sachs spokesman, Andrew Williams, who said that the company could not comment publicly on individual customers.
“Our credit decisions are based on a customer’s creditworthiness and not on factors like gender, race, age, sexual orientation or any other basis prohibited by law,” Williams said.
David Hansson did not respond to an interview request Saturday night.
His wife’s experience with the Apple Card, the first credit card offering by Goldman Sachs, does not appear to be an isolated case, however.
Steve Wozniak, who invented the Apple-1 computer with Steve Jobs and was a founder of the tech giant, responded to Hansson’s tweet with a similar account.
“The same thing happened to us,” Wozniak wrote. “I got 10x the credit limit. We have no separate bank or credit card accounts or any separate assets. Hard to get to a human for a correction though. It’s big tech in 2019.”
In addition to Goldman Sachs, Apple partnered with Mastercard on the Apple Card, which the companies hailed as a revolutionary “digital first” credit card that had no numbers and could be added to the Wallet app on the iPhone and used with Apple Pay.
A spokesman for Mastercard, which provides support for Apple Card’s global payments network, did not respond to a request for comment Saturday.
David Hansson, a Danish entrepreneur and California resident, is known for creating Ruby on Rails, a popular computer coding language used to create database-backed web applications. He is an author and decorated race car driver on the Le Mans circuit, according to a biography on his website.
In a subsequent tweet, he said that the Apple Card’s customer service representatives told his wife that they were not authorized to discuss the credit assessment process.
He said that customer service employees were unable to explain why the algorithm had designated her to be less creditworthy but had assured his wife that the bank was not discriminating against women.
An applicant’s credit score and income level are used by Goldman Sachs to determine creditworthiness, according to a support page for the Apple Card. Past due accounts, a checking account closed by a bank for overdrafts, liens and medical debts can negatively affect applications, the page stated.
On Friday, a day after David Hansson started railing on the Apple Card’s treatment of female credit applicants, he said his wife got a “VIP bump” to match his credit limit. He said that didn’t make up for the flawed algorithm used by Apple Card.
He said many women had shared similar experiences with him on Twitter and urged regulators to contact them.
“My thread is full of accounts from women who’ve been declared to be worse credit risks than their husbands, despite higher credit scores or incomes,” he said.
2019 The New York Times Company
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WASHINGTON - Women around the world take on far more unpaid work than men but what they should never do is agree to a lower wage in the workplace, IMF chief Kristalina Georgieva said Tuesday.
She recounted her experience early in her career during the Soviet era, saying she did not know at the time she could bargain for better conditions.
To women of today she said: "Do not accept to be less paid than your colleague men, ever!"
The International Monetary Fund released a report on Tuesday which found that unpaid work "is a substantial part of economic activity that goes unmeasured and is shouldered disproportionally by women."
In fact, women do 2 hours more of unpaid work than men every day and even "in the most egalitarian countries in the world, women do at least 20 percent more unpaid work than men," notably chores around the home, the report said.
To address that issue, governments must invest in infrastructure, to provide water and electricity and internet access, but also provide services such as childcare and elder care, and improve education opportunities, to help women "replace unpaid work with paid work."
In more advanced economies, that means "implementing family-friendly policies such as parental leave and taxation of secondary earners, enhancing the efficiency of labor markets, and promoting flexible work arrangements."
But asked by one young woman how to achieve professional success, Georgieva offered no easy solutions:
"You have to be competent and to be more confident."
She also said quotas for hiring women in private firms were not a perfect solution "but it's pragmatic" since it could provide a faster path to gender equity in the workplace. Otherwise it will take a "very, very long time."
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NEW YORK - US authorities believe global retail giant Walmart likely discriminated against some female employees in US stores, paying them less or denying them promotions, according to a media report on Tuesday.
The Equal Opportunity Employment Commission, a federal agency charged with preventing workplace discrimination, found reasonable grounds to support the allegations, according to The Wall Street Journal, which cited EEOC documents.
The finding, which concerns 178 women across 30 states, comes after many years of efforts by workers to seek compensation for alleged discrimination.
Since a class action lawsuit failed before the Supreme Court in 2011, nearly 2,000 women have lodged EEOC grievances alleging sex discrimination by the company, The Journal said.
The newspaper cited documents provided by a law firm representing the women, which is calling on Walmart to reach a just resolution with the workers.
Walmart said Tuesday the complaints were old and comparatively few, given that the company has employed millions of women since 2004. The company also called the EEOC findings vague.
"We have told the EEOC that we are willing to engage in the conciliatory process with all the cases," the company said in a statement.
"The allegations from these plaintiffs are more than 15 years old and are not representative of the positive experiences millions of women have had working at Walmart."
The cases have been before the EEOC since 2012 and the company said it has urged officials to speed up the process.
With more than 1.5 million workers, Walmart is America's largest private employer.
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Are you a man who plays dress-up with your daughter? Do you enjoy bowling, and are you terrible at it? Do you have hopes and dreams and insecurities and flaws and a belly that looks more like baked Alaska than Hawaiian rolls?
You, sir, could be an underwear model.
A number of ads for briefs, boxers and other products aimed at men have lately turned away from old notions of square-jawed masculinity.
In a Hanes commercial that made its debut last month, “Every Bod,” a wide range of men perform an elaborate musical number in their skivvies.
A recent Jockey commercial focused on a man getting emotional as he described his battle with alcohol and drugs.
The underwear brand Pair of Thieves made a hilariously awkward “cool dad” the star of a commercial for socks.
Other clothing companies have also turned away from the stereotypical imagery once common in underwear ads. Campaigns from Play Out Apparel and GFW Clothing show models of unclear gender, while a diverse crew appears in a promotion for TomboyX that includes hashtags like “#genderless” and “#androgyny.”
“There are male brands and women brands,” said Katie Martell, a marketing consultant. “But progressive brands see that the future is on the spectrum.”
The emphasis on men with ordinary bodies and others who don’t fit tired stereotypes seems like progress for an industry that, a decade ago, featured a shirtless hunk scented with Old Spice. These days, more and more advertisers are telling men they don’t need to be the buffest or most interesting man in the world, just themselves.
“The possibility of change begins with this sort of foundation,” said Scott A. Lukas, a professor who created the Gender Ads Project, which examines advertising imagery with an eye toward what it says about notions of gender.
Schick got on board with a commercial that told potential customers, “It takes a man to be yourself.” And Dollar Shave Club echoed the theme with a commercial that showed one man playing video games on the toilet and another shaving his legs while in full makeup to a soundtrack of Steve Lawrence crooning “I Gotta Be Me.”
The challenging of stereotypical notions of gender has been a feature of marketing campaigns aimed at women at least as far back as Nike’s “If you let me play” campaign in 1995. Dove’s “Real Beauty” ads, of more recent vintage, also functioned as a critique of ads that placed women in categories like “bimbo” or “housewife.”
The revised approach has had its detractors, though, especially when the ads contain mixed messages. Wrangler’s “More than a bum” campaign, from 2016, drew the wrath of critics who said it paid lip service to feminist ideals while reinforcing outdated ideas of what it means to be a woman. Other companies have been accused of engaging in insincere “femvertising” while blocking women from leadership roles.
As marketers reconsider manliness, recent ads have promoted fathers who braid their daughter’s hair (Pantene), cry at their weddings (Travelers) and apply eyeliner (Just for Men). The clothing company Bonobos has urged men to “#evolvethedefinition” of masculinity.
Axe’s “bathsculinity” commercials, created by the 72andSunny agency, feature a man soaking in a bubble bath while musing that “tingle” is “not the manliest word, not like ‘machete’ or ‘hand grenade.’ ”
Such ads are variations on a news-making, #MeToo-influenced commercial from Gillette earlier this year that was critical of toxic male behaviors like brawling, bullying, catcalling and mansplaining.
While that 1:49-second spot had its fans, it also inspired a backlash, receiving criticism from the Fox News show “Fox & Friends,” media personality Piers Morgan, actor James Woods and thousands of others who clicked the thumbs-down icon on YouTube. A watch company, Egard Watches, went so far as to counter Gillette’s message with an ad of its own that said, “We see the good in men.”
Late-night host Stephen Colbert came down somewhere in the middle, saying that, while he was “sincerely moved” by the Gillette commercial, he was wary of the tendency among corporations to sell products through “moral lessons.”
Martell, the marketing consultant, also struck a note of skepticism to describe message-heavy campaigns. “It’s virtue hustling and it’s woke-washing,” she said. “And it’s trendy. Advertising has been so mired in stereotypes and tropes about men and women that anything that looks like reality is celebrated right now.”
Some observers said that the new style in ads for men’s products might not really be intended for a male audience. “I bet it’s women,” said Lisa Wade, a sociologist specializing in gender at Occidental College, who noted that women do much of the spending on such products.
“That’s what women are craving right now,” Wade continued, “because of their uniquely exploited and objectified status in American society. It’s about money, the bottom line — the people behind these ads are feeding into some kind of cultural desire.”
2019 The New York Times Company
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NEW YORK - Lady Gaga electrified thousands of revelers who gathered in New York on Friday to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the LGBTQ rights movement, exhorting the crowd to honor the past by using its "power" to extend and defend a half-century of progress.
Her warm-up speech and a subsequent rally, part of a series of World Pride events in New York this week, commemorated the so-called Stonewall uprising of June 28, 1969.
Early that morning, patrons of a Greenwich Village gay bar called the Stonewall Inn rose up in defiance of police harassment, triggering days of rioting. Their resistance gave birth to the national and global movement for equal rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and other queer people.
Lady Gaga, a Grammy Award-winner whose signature song "Born This Way" has become an LGBTQ anthem, fired up the crowd, which began gathering in the park and public square outside the Stonewall hours earlier.
Appearing with a rainbow-colored jacket and thigh-high boots, she declared that Stonewall was the moment when LGBTQ people said "enough is enough."
"I may not, to some people, be considered a part of this community, even though I like girls sometimes. I would never degrade the fight you have endured," she told the cheering crowd. "You have the power. You are so, so powerful, and I hope you feel that power today."
Later the rally alternated between political speeches and block-party gaiety. Musical performances and rhythmic dancing rattled windows in the low-slung neighborhood. Drag queens sang '80s hits like "I'm So Excited" in between speeches by activists from countries such as Uganda and Chechnya.
US politicians including presidential hopefuls Kirsten Gillibrand, one of New York state's 2 US senators, and New York Mayor Bill de Blasio also took the stage ahead of what organizers are calling the largest gay pride parade in history set for Sunday, when some 150,000 marchers and 4 million spectators are expected.
In between featured speakers, impromptu rallies formed and dispersed outside the bar, with people waving homemade signs such as "Closets are for Clothes!" and "Gay Liberation Front," paying homage to the radical group that formed immediately after Stonewall.
"Get laid, get drunk, and have a party," said Martha Shelley, one of the Gay Liberation Front founders. "And then go home, roll up your sleeves, and fight."
While the anniversary has a celebratory air, activists see the occasion as a way to protest US President Donald Trump's record, which many consider hostile to LGBTQ people. They also want to highlight the still-precarious position of LGBTQ people in many parts of the world.
Police raided the Stonewall, a Mafia-owned gay bar, ostensibly to crack down on organized crime. But their mistreatment of the patrons, part of a pattern of abuse against LGBTQ people, touched off the uprising.
While celebrating 50 years of progress, many LGBTQ activists are sounding the alarm about Trump administration initiatives, including a ban on transgender people in the military, cuts in HIV/AIDS research and support for so-called religious freedom initiatives that eliminate LGBTQ protections.
The White House claims Trump has long advocated LGBTQ equality, noting that he has backed a global campaign to decriminalize homosexuality.
"President Trump has never considered LGBT Americans second-class citizens," White House spokesman Judd Deere said in a statement.
The message has been lost on many LGBTQ people, as the Trump administration opposes extending anti-discrimination protection to gay or transgender workers under federal employment law, a legal issue currently before the US Supreme Court, with a ruling due within a year.
In nearby Washington Square Park, some 500 pro-transgender activists staged a Trans Day of Action, where some held up "Black trans lives matter" signs, lamenting that 10 transgender people have been murdered in the United States in 2019 after 26 were killed in 2018 and 29 in 2017, according to the LGBTQ advocacy right Human Rights Campaign.
"Trump has really proliferated this hate towards us," said Qweenb. Amor, 30, a trans Latina. "It's something we're going to have to face every single day for the next 20 years, despite who wins the next election because these people who put Trump in power are people we have to work with every day of our lives."
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LONDON - The first Austrian to gain official documents with a third option beyond male or female on Wednesday hailed the move as recognition for those who do not identify as either.
"(For) the first time in my life, I feel seen by the law," said Alex Juergen, who is intersex, a term for people who are born with atypical chromosomes or sex characteristics.
"There was no place for people who are not male or female."
Juergen, who fought a three-year legal battle for recognition, now has a passport with the sex classification "X" instead of "M" or "F" and a birth certificate saying "divers", which roughly translates as "other".
In 2018, a constitutional court ruled that the country's laws allowed for the inclusion of more than two sex options on identity documents.
A growing number of U.S. states, as well as countries including Germany, Pakistan and Nepal, now allow people to choose a third sex option on official documents.
Juergen also called on Austria's government to make the third option easier to get.
Regulations issued by Austria's interior ministry after the 2018 court ruling state that a child whose sex cannot be determined should have "open" on their birth certificate until a decision can be made by them or their legal representative.
An intersex person can get "divers" on their birth certificate if they are issued with a report by a panel of medical experts, a requirement that activists want removed.
"This would be a big trauma if someone would force me to go to a doctor again, and a lot of intersex people had the same experience," Juergen told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
A spokesman for Austria's interior ministry did not return requests for comment.
Intersex babies often undergo surgery to bring the appearance and function of their genitalia into line with that expected of males or females, which research suggests can lead to psychological damage later in life.
Medically unnecessary surgeries carried out on intersex children without their consent are banned in Malta and Portugal.
"There will have to be another lawsuit of a person who doesn't have a diagnosis (of an intersex condition)," said Tobias Humer, the head of Austrian intersex advocacy group VIMO.
He also encouraged people who identify as neither male nor female, and who were not intersex, to choose the third option on their identity documents.
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TOKYO - Chizuka Oe and Yoko Ogawa have been together for 25 years, but when they submitted their marriage registration at a Tokyo town hall, they knew it would be rejected.
"We were told that they cannot accept our registration because we are both women," said Ogawa, standing in the winter sun outside the building in Nakano in western Tokyo.
"There were several heterosexual couples next to us who submitted marriage registrations without any problem," she added.
The couple is now planning to take action: Along with 12 other same-sex couples, they will file lawsuits on Valentine's Day seeking to force the government to recognize gay marriage.
"Why don't we even have the simple choice of whether or not to get married?" asked Ogawa, who said she and Oe were forced to wait a long time before ultimately being turned down.
The 5 lesbian and 8 gay couples involved will file lawsuits across the country seeking damages of one million yen ($9000) a person for being denied the same legal rights as heterosexual couples.
Japan's constitution stipulates that "marriage shall be only with the mutual consent of both sexes" and the government says this means same-sex marriage is "not foreseen" in the constitution or civil law.
But lawyers for the plaintiffs and other legal experts counter that there is nothing in the constitution that would prohibit same-sex marriage.
They argue the language of the 1947 post-war constitution is only meant to ensure equality between prospective spouses and prevent forced marriages.
The government's failure to enact a law allowing same-sex marriage violates the constitutional principle that "all people are equal under the law," said Akiyoshi Miwa, who is representing some of the plaintiffs.
'AGONIZING' SITUATIONS
A survey in January found nearly 80 percent of Japanese aged 20 to 59 support legalizing gay marriage.
Japan is the only nation from the Group of Seven countries that does not recognize same-sex unions.
Historically, Japan was broadly tolerant of homosexuality, with documented cases of samurai warriors during feudal times having male lovers.
Same-sex relationships were even depicted in traditional art, such as ukiyoe, or wood block prints.
But as Japan industrialized and modernized from the late 19th century, Western prejudices against homosexuality were increasingly adopted.
Last year, the ruling party came under fire after one of its lawmakers claimed the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community was "unproductive" because they "cannot have children."
And Oe and Ogawa say they have struggled with confusion and prejudice stemming in part from Japan's lack of marriage equality.
When the couple attended the funeral for Ogawa's mother, relatives treated Oe with suspicion, particularly when she handled condolence money.
Ogawa said many relatives quizzed her on who Oe was.
She explained: "I was tired, sad, and in such an extreme situation it was agonising to explain that we are a lesbian couple, that we are the same as a regular heterosexual couple."
"If there was a legal system of same-sex marriage, it would have been easier," she added.
'A KEY GOAL'
In a landmark advance in 2015, Tokyo's bustling Shibuya district started issuing symbolic "partnership" certificates to same-sex couples.
Some other local governments -- including in the area where Oe and Ogawa live -- have followed suit, and corporate Japan is also showing signs of moving toward recognizing same-sex couples.
The certificate confers some rights: when Oe was hospitalized last year and needed a family member's signature, Ogawa was able to sign.
But not all gay couples in Japan live in areas with such certificates, meaning they can be prevented from visiting loved ones in hospitals or refused tenancy because their relationship is not legally recognized.
And the certificates "fail to give various legal rights and benefits that a marriage gives, such as inheritance and joint custody," said Takako Uesugi, another lawyer for the plaintiffs.
Only one partner in a same-sex couple is considered the legal parent of any children they share because gay marriages are not recognized so joint custody is considered impossible.
And a foreigner in a same-sex relationship with a Japanese partner cannot apply for spousal visas like their counterparts in heterosexual marriages.
The Valentine's Day lawsuits will seek damages, but the couples and their lawyers say they are ultimately hoping to force a change in the law.
"What we really want is a court ruling that says the failure to recognize same-sex marriage is unconstitutional," said Miwa.
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LONDON - Hong Kong's parliament rejected a motion that could have paved the way to legalizing same-sex unions on Thursday, in a region where no country allows gay or lesbian couples to marry.
The measure, which would have urged the government to consider granting "equal rights" to same-sex couples, was rejected by 27 votes to 24 on Thursday, with 6 abstentions, Hong Kong's Legislative Council said on its website.
"The government keeps avoiding studying policies for homosexual groups," the South China Morning Post, a Hong Kong newspaper, quoted gay lawmaker Raymond Chan, who proposed the motion, as saying.
"Opponents of this motion have to explain why they reject even such a small step forward."
No countries in Asia allow same-sex couples to marry or enter civil unions of any kind. Socially conservative attitudes prevail across the region, and opponents of same-sex marriage say such unions could destroy society and family institutions.
Homosexuality was decriminalized in 1991 in Hong Kong, which is more supportive of LGBT+ rights than mainland China. However, marriage is legally defined as a monogamous union between a man and a woman and same-sex marriage is not recognized.
Hong Kong said in September it would recognize overseas same-sex partnerships when granting dependent visas, a move that was supported by global banks and law firms operating in the former British colony.
Chan's motion would have urged the city's government "to study the formulation of policies for homosexual couples to enter into a union so that they can enjoy equal rights as heterosexual couples".
Lawmaker Priscilla Leung opposed Chan's motion on the grounds that Hong Kong should keep marriage between men and women and "refrain from shaking existing marriage institutions".
The self-ruled island of Taiwan, regarded as a beacon of liberalism in Asia, will on Saturday vote in a referendum on whether it should recognize same-sex marriage.
Taiwan's constitutional court said last year that same-sex couples have the right to legally marry, the first such ruling in Asia.
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SABARIMALA, India - The stage is set for a fresh showdown in India with traditionalists aiming to prevent women from gaining entry to the Sabarimala temple, one of Hinduism's holiest sites.
In September India's top court ruled that women of all ages could enter. But when it re-opened in October, hardliners stopped women from getting to the site.
Some 700 women are among the hundreds of thousands of devotees who have registered online to pray at the temple in a 2-month holy period that began on Saturday.
GOLD-PLATED
The gold-plated Sabarimala Sree Dharma Sastha Temple complex sits atop a 3,000-foot (915-meter) hill in a forested tiger reserve in the southern state of Kerala.
It contains a shrine to Lord Ayyappa, believed to have been the Earth-born son of 2 of Hinduism's 3 main gods, Vishnu (in his female avatar) and Shiva.
Legend has it that Ayyappa was found abandoned as a baby. A king of the Pandalam dynasty, which is still active in temple operations, found and raised him.
At 12 Ayyappa showed his divinity when he emerged from the forest rode a tigress. The boy fired an arrow which landed at the site where the temple now is.
NO SEX OR SHAVING
Those wishing to visit undergo a 41-day period of introspection and detachment -- vratha -- abstaining from sex, meat, intoxicants and even shaving.
After this period many devotees, wearing ritual bead necklaces, walk barefoot for dozens of kilometers including, and especially, the final steep climb.
The pilgrims now mostly take one of two routes -- one steep and short and the other easier but longer -- through dense forest to the top.
Only those who have observed the vratha and carry the irrumude, a symbolic offering, can enter the main courtyard up 18 divine golden steps.
The sacred offerings, tied in a cloth usually carried on the head or shoulders, include coconuts, rose water, rice and pepper.
Offerings are made by smashing the coconut at designated stops along the trek, chanting the mantra "Swamy Sharanam Ayyappa" ("God, I come to your feet").
MARRIAGE PROPOSAL
Legend says that the goddess Malikapurathamma asked Ayyappa to marry her. He said he would only do so once no first-time pilgrim visits him -- which has never happened.
Believers celebrate a festival each year when a procession of the goddess is taken to a spot close to the temple 3 times -- and she is forced to wait.
The reason for Ayyappa's refusal is because of his celibacy -- one of the arguments against allowing women of menstruating age to enter.
Currently, only females younger than 10 years old and over 50 can enter. Women can access most other Hindu temples in India.
LEGAL WRANGLINGS
The Supreme Court order is opposed by supporters of India's ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The September ruling was one a string of recent decisions to have eaten away at some of India's traditions, including outlawing a ban on gay sex and on adultery.
On November 13 the Supreme Court agreed to hear challenges to its decision from January 22, but said that until then its September ruling stood.
However, the board managing the temple is to ask the Supreme Court, likely on Monday, to be allowed to delay implementation, citing a "lack of infrastructure".
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US President Donald Trump said on Monday that transgender issues were in flux and he aims to protect the country after a report that his administration was considering defining gender as male or female based on genitalia at birth drew widespread condemnation.
"We have a lot of different concepts right now. They have a lot of different things happening with respect to transgender right now," Trump said amid a protest outside the White House and outpouring of criticism on social media about the proposal.
Asked about a campaign promise to protect the LGBT community, Trump said: "I'm protecting everybody. I want to protect our country."
Under a proposal first reported by the New York Times on Sunday, the Trump administration would narrow the definition of gender to male or female at birth and it would be unchangeable later in life.
The move would remove recognition of and protections for transgender people under US civil rights laws promoted by the prior administration of President Barack Obama in health care, schools and the military.
About 1.4 million US adults identify as transgender, according to a 2016 estimate by the Williams Institute, a research center at UCLA Law School focused on sexual orientation and gender identity law and public policy.
The reported proposal comes little more than a week after New York City created a gender-neutral "X" option for birth certificates, joining California, Oregon, Washington state and New Jersey in offering a third gender category on the government-issued identity documents.
Medical experts said on Monday that defining gender based on genitalia at birth is scientifically inaccurate and may harm patients' health.
Dr. Joshua Safer, executive director of Mount Sinai Hospital's Center for Transgender Medicine and Surgery, said the Trump administration's definition is "not consistent with current western medicine or science in terms of how we actually operate or define sex of individuals."
"Sex of individuals is not correlated always with their genitals at birth, or with their chromosomes," said Safer, who also serves as president of the United States Professional Association for Transgender Health.
Most transgender people live with a profound sense that the gender assigned to them at birth was wrong and transition to the opposite sex, while others live a non-binary or gender-fluid life.
"We urge the administration to ensure all public health policy is firmly rooted in science, and to keep discrimination and political interference out of our nation’s health,” said Dr. Lisa Hollier, president of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.
Beyond the broader issues raised by the administration memo, doctors said the new policy would be impossible to apply to "intersex" babies who are born with ambiguous genitalia or reproductive organs.
"Trump's definition does not even take this entire group of patients into consideration," said Dr. Natasha Bhuyan, a family medicine and LGBT care specialist in Phoenix.
If the administration's recommended definition is adopted, these patients will likely be assigned a male or female sex at birth, which can have devastating long-term psychological and health consequences, she said.
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