Across Women's Lives Archives - The World from PRX

It was a scorching hot day at the Al Marmoom Camel Racing Track located just outside of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. Dozens of people gathered outside the main arena; some huddled in the shade under a handful of trees, chatting and laughing, while others were taking selfies with the camels in the parking lot. On a typical morning, these arenas are packed with hundreds of enthusiastic fans placing bets on the early-morning camel races (early morning because temperatures are often in the triple digits by 10 a.m.). For those races, the cash prices can run into the hundreds of thousands of US dollars. Camel racing is an ancient sport — its roots stretch back to at least the 7th century on the Arabian Peninsula. But the races at Al Marmoom are a modernized version. Instead of riders, small robots sit atop the camels’ humps and control them with reins. The robots are controlled remotely by men who speed alongside the racetrack in cars, directing their camels. But the people gathered on this hot afternoon had come for something different but also far more traditional: The season's first women’s race. Signage at the Al Marmoom Camel Racing Track located just outside of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. Credit: Stacey Vanek Smith/The World Though the crowd was undoubtedly smaller than the hundreds who regularly show up for the men’s races, the women's team — a part of the Arabian Desert Camel Riding Center — has started to get real traction in the last few years. News outlets covered the race, and Jeep sponsored the event, along with a handful of local businesses, including Camelait, a company that sells camel milk. “It’s high in calcium,” the emcee informed the crowd. “We have some around, so please do try that.” Spectators gather outside the race, some taking selfies with the camels. Credit: Stacey Vanek Smith/The World Meanwhile, the four women riders led their camels to the racetrack. One of the racers, 31-year-old Linda Krockenberger, is the reason behind the rise of women’s racing — she founded the women’s camel racing team. Krockenberger came to Dubai in 2015 to work in the hospitality industry. She had raced horses back in Germany and decided to try her hand at camel riding. She was instantly hooked and was determined to learn how to race camels. The only problem was she couldn’t find anyone to train her. For years, she was told the sport was not for women. Some even suggested that if she wanted to train, she should ride only at night “or maybe dressed as a boy,” she recalled laughingly. But Krockenberger kept trying until she found a willing trainer, Obaid Al Falasi, a highly respected community member. As soon as she felt comfortable with her skills, Krockenberger and Al Falasi decided to open a school. “I felt that it hadn’t been necessarily accessible to many others,” she said. “This was a little bit [of] a doorway for that.” Before she knew it, local and tourist women were flocking to her for lessons. Camel racing is an ancient sport — its roots stretch back to at least the 7th century on the Arabian Peninsula. But the races at Al Marmoom are a modernized version. Credit: Stacey Vanek Smith/The World Krockenberger emphasized the support she has gotten from the camel-riding community. The UAE has officially licensed her school, and a new club branch has just opened in Saudi Arabia. Still, Krockenberger added, there have been many skeptics. “Critics sometimes say, ‘Oh, do we really need a German to teach us an Arabic tradition?’ Of course, these comments do get to me because I don't want to impose myself on the culture,” she said. “But I try to calm these thoughts by saying, ‘Well if you're such a great teacher, there's nothing that stops you from teaching as well.’” Krockenberger’s riding school emphasizes the Bedouin camel riding tradition. The racers ride barefoot and don’t use saddles, just Bedouin blankets. “Barefoot, it’s more freeing,” racer Rawan Salah...

Since Haiti’s President Jovenel Moïse was assassinated in July of 2021, the country’s capital of Port-Au-Prince has turned into a battlefield for violent gangs. They continue to fight for territorial control of residential areas and are increasingly using violence against women as a weapon of war. Pascale Solages is a co-founder of Nègès Mawon, a feminist organization in Port-Au-Prince, Haiti. Credit: Courtesy of Pascale Solages “Gang members see the number of rapes as the number of victories,” said Pascale Solages, the co-founder of Nègès Mawon, a feminist organization in Port-Au-Prince. “It’s a strategy of terror.” Even with few resources, Solages’ organization is trying to address some of the horror that Haitian women are facing. “We give medical assistance, legal, psychological and economic support, and we help relocate women and girls who had to leave their neighborhoods,” she explained. She and her team are used to receiving multiple calls a day from sexual abuse survivors, sometimes late at night, who tell her about their painful experiences. “Sexual violence has now become a systematic problem in Haiti,” Solages said, “and perpetrators operate with complete impunity.” In 2023, close to 3,000 people were kidnapped by gangs in Haiti, according to the UN. “When gangs kidnap a woman, almost always they rape her,” she said. Many women have been taken as hostages and kept as sex slaves. “In a neighborhood attack, a gang member can suddenly decide that a woman is his wife or his girlfriend and that he wants to have sex with her,” Solages explained. “And many times, to survive, the women have to accept.” She said some of the women who are in this situation have handed their children to her organization to try to protect them from the violence happening in their own homes. Collective rape is also common. In a recent case, she documented, a young woman was gang-raped by six men at her home in front of her siblings. Another seven women were kidnapped while traveling on an urban bus in Port-Au-Prince late last year. They were kept for several days and forced to do laundry and make food. They were also raped multiple times by gang members. One of the survivors, a 17-year-old girl, got pregnant. Nathalie Vilgrain is the head of Marijàn, another feminist organization in Port-Au-Prince, sheltering about 150 women who have been displaced by sexual violence. She said that, in the last few months, her organization has been receiving between one or two women every month who get pregnant after being sexually abused. Most of the time, they have to carry the child, she said, because in Haiti, abortion is illegal, even in cases of rape. Some organizations have been trying to help pregnant women perform safe abortions, “because, if not, many will do it anyway,” she said.“We don't have any government official to speak to. We don't have a president. We don’t have a parliament. Elections are not on the table amid this security crisis. There's nothing that can be done at the moment to advance legislation." Both Solages and Vilgrain have been trying to advocate for women’s rights in Haiti, but it’s a major challenge. “We don't have any government official to speak to. We don't have a president. We don’t have a parliament. Elections are not on the table amid this security crisis. There's nothing that can be done at the moment to advance legislation,” Vilgrain said. Solages said she and her staff face constant threats by the gangs. “They don’t like that we offer medical and legal support to survivors,” she said, adding that her work has caused her a lot of anxiety. Solages also said that finding people to work with her is difficult. “Many have reported psychological problems or leave shortly after they start, because the work is too hard.” It’s difficult to know how many people have survived sexual violence in Haiti, because many cases go unreported, according to local activists. The staff of Nègès Mawon, a feminist...

Finding a surrogate in the United Kingdom is a little like a dating game, said Brett Griffin Young, the father of three children. Brett Griffin Young and his three children. Credit: Courtesy of Brett Griffin Young Two of his three children were born through surrogacy. In Britain, paid surrogacy is illegal. Griffin Young and his partner in Nottingham struggled to find someone who would have their child for purely altruistic reasons beyond financial gain. “There are so many intended parents and so few surrogates that you have to really put yourself out there and be as popular as possible to be chosen by a surrogate,” he said. In the end, the couple used the services of Circle Surrogacy, an agency based in Boston, Massachusetts. Griffin Young said a call by Pope Francis last week for the practice to be banned raises the risk of stigmatizing children born via surrogacy and their parents, many of whom are same-sex couples or people struggling with infertility issues. It’s not the first time the pope has spoken out against surrogacy. In 2022, he called it an “inhuman and increasingly widespread practice” in which “women, almost always poor women, are exploited,” and the children are “treated as merchandise.” Last week, he said surrogacy was “despicable,” and added that a child should never be “the basis of a commercial contract.” The following day, the US Conference of Catholic Bishops echoed his statement, saying that surrogacy, in their view, does a “grave injustice” to everyone involved. Surrogacy is already illegal in Italy where the Pope resides. Last year, the Italian government proposed legislation that would make it a criminal offense for Italian citizens to use surrogates abroad. Jens M. Scherpe, professor of comparative law at Aalborg University in Denmark, said exploitation can occur — particularly in poorer nations — but banning the practice solves nothing. “The only thing we achieve is that we remove the exploitation from our own nation where it doesn't happen to other, very often poorer nations and we have no control over what happens there,” he said. Ronda is the surrogate who carried the couple's son, Frederick. Credit: Courtesy of Brett Griffin Young Many couples in Europe use US agencies, although only some US states expressly allow surrogacy, and not all of them allow surrogate compensation. Surrogacy is banned in several EU nations including France, Germany, Italy, Portugal and Spain. Denmark, the Netherlands and the UK allow “altruistic” surrogacy only — meaning, no money can be exchanged. Before the Russian invasion in 2022, Ukraine was the world’s second-largest commercial surrogacy market outside of the US. The business has since expanded to Georgia, but last year, the Georgian government announced plans to ban paid surrogacy for foreigners from 2024. India, once a popular surrogacy destination for foreigners, outlawed commercial surrogacy in the Surrogacy (Regulation) Act of 2021, and blocked members of the local LGBTQ+ community from becoming parents through altruistic surrogacy. Griffin Young, who now works as an independent surrogacy access consultant in Europe, said when his first child Sebastian was born, the cost came close to $150,000. He had a good salary working at a bank and conceded that the cost is prohibitive for some. Much of the expense covers medical and legal bills as well as agency fees. Griffin Young said in the US the surrogate might receive about $40,000 to $50,000. Neither of the women, both living in the US, who carried his two children did it for the money, he said. “They genuinely wanted to help other people have a family and experience the joy that they have. They love being pregnant,” he said. The couple used the services of Circle Surrogacy, an agency based in Boston, Massachusetts. Credit: Courtesy of Brett Griffin Young It’s not clear how many children are born each year by surrogacy because many arrangements are...

Editor's note: This interview discusses reports of sexual violence committed by Palestinian militants, mostly against women. The war between Israel and Hamas started 10 weeks ago. Some 18,000 Palestinians have been killed, according to health officials in Gaza, with hundreds of thousands displaced and massive destruction across the territory. On Oct. 7, Hamas militants from Gaza attacked and killed 1,200 Israelis. The militants took 240 Israelis as well as foreign nationals hostage. Deeply disturbing details about that day are still coming to light, including incidents of sexual violence committed by Palestinian militants, mostly against women. Last week, Pramila Patten, the UN special representative on sexual violence in conflict expressed “grave concern” about these allegations. And she pledged to visit Israel to meet with survivors and hear their testimony firsthand. Christina Lamb is the author of "Our Bodies, Their Battlefield: What War Does to Women." Here she is pictured at the Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict Conference in London in 2022. Credit: Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office/Wikimedia Christina Lamb, the chief foreign correspondent for The Sunday Times in the United Kingdom, recently returned from a reporting trip to Israel. Lamb is the author of "Our Bodies, Their Battlefield," a book about what war does to women. She joined The World’s host Carol Hills to discuss what she heard on her reporting trip in Israel, including testimonies from first responders on Oct. 7. “They told me how some of the young girls and women that had been killed, they'd been shot in the head, their jeans were pulled down, their underwear had been pulled down. They were often bruised legs and bloodied. And it seemed clear what had happened to them,” she told The World. Lamb also spoke with people working in the morgue who identified bodies and then prepared them for burial. “Again, they talked about women,” Lamb said. “Some had even had their pelvis broken. They'd been attacked so brutally. I saw pictures and videos which the IDF [Israeli military] made available,” she said. “But most convincing for me was talking to survivors of the music festival who told me about how they had actually witnessed as they were hiding and running for their lives. For hours after that, they had seen Hamas fighters attacking girls, gang-raping them, often by eight to 10 [men], and raping one girl and beating them and then shooting them in the head at the end.” The people telling these stories were deeply traumatized, Lamb said. Carol Hills: Christina, you've reported on the use of sexual violence in conflict zones for a long time. What are the challenges in determining whether or not these sorts of acts were actually committed? Christina Lamb: So, I mean, first of all, some people are saying, in terms of why this hasn't been reported before in Israel, you know, where are the victims? Who are the survivors of rape? Well, first of all, I would say, having written about this research about it in many countries, it's very difficult for women to come forward. I've interviewed women who've literally taken 50 years to come forward. People often don't come forward at the beginning because rape, unfortunately, is the one crime where the victim is often made to feel that they've done something wrong, so they worry that they will be blamed. But the other thing is, I mean, nobody was looking for this on Oct. 7, when they received survivors —it's not something that had happened in conflict there before. When young women were brought into hospitals, nobody was asking them, "Were you raped?" Or if anything like that happened. So, no, there was no testing, no rape kits. So, there may be forensic evidence that was lost. Now, we don't know whether there were survivors of rape and that they just haven't spoken, or the other possibility is that most of the people who were raped were either killed or taken hostage. And it was notable...

Just days before the presidential elections in Argentina, many Taylor Swift fans made their political views known. Pink posters with the caption: "Swifties don't vote for Milei” popped up all around the country’s biggest stadium, El Monumental, where the American singer performed three sold-out concerts recently. Javier Milei is a far-right populist with a real chance of being elected as the next president of Argentina in Sunday's elections. Polls show him neck and neck with left-wing finance minister Sergio Massa. Milei, a messy-haired libertarian economist, is proposing radical changes to his country’s economy, including eliminating Argentina’s Central Bank and officially adopting the US dollar as the national currency to combat triple-digit inflation. Some of these proposals are appealing to young people, many of whom have experienced rising poverty and less employment opportunities in recent years. Pink posters with the caption: "Swifties Don't Vote for Milei” were spotted all over Buenos Aires’ soccer stadium, El Monumental, where Taylor Swift performed three sold-out shows last week. Credit: Lautaro Grinspan/The World But many Taylor Swift fans – mostly women in their 20s and 30s – don’t like Milei’s abrasive style and conservative views on social issues. They compare him to Donald Trump, whom Milei has said he admires. Milei has made contentious statements, including that humans aren’t responsible for climate change and that the pay gap between men and women does not exist. He has voiced support for liberalizing gun ownership and the selling of human organs in an “organ market.” Before the start of the shows, thousands of Taylor Swift’s fans waited under the burning sun for the stadium's gates to open. Some had even been camping out for six months to get the best seats. Guadalupe Rodriguez, a Taylor Swift fan interviewed outside of the concert venue in Buenos Aires, said real Swifties not only connect with her music, but also with her values. Swift has mobilized her fans against the right in the US, endorsing Joe Biden for the 2020 presidential race, and frequently supporting women and LGBTQ rights through her music. Swift has not commented on Argentine politics, but some of her fans are convinced that, if she were Argentine, she would never vote for Milei. “Being a Taylor Swift fan has actually taught us a lot of things,” Lucía Faría said. “As Swifties, or simply as women, it doesn’t make sense for us to vote for someone who is trying to take most of our rights away.” A few weeks ago, a group of fans posted a statement on social media urging fellow Swifties to vote against Milei, and complained about some of his recent comments against feminism. Milei said he would reverse the abortion decriminalization law that was recently passed in Argentina. “That would be a huge loss of something we’ve been fighting for years,” said Rodriguez, who participated in massive marches in Buenos Aires in support of the abortion law ahead of its passing in 2020. Supporters of left-wing presidential candidate Sergio Massa took the opportunity to capitalize on the Swiftie’s sentiment against the rising far-right in Argentina. Credit: Lautaro Grinspan/The World Voters between 18 and 29 years old represent a quarter of Argentina’s electorate. “For sure, the young vote is a battleground for both candidates in the second round of elections,” said Bruno Binetti, an Argentine political scientist with the Inter-American Dialogue. Young voters aren’t a monolith, Binetti said, and Milei’s proposals remain appealing to a lot of them. “They see the collapse of a state-based economic model with rising poverty, with rising inflation, less opportunities for job and social progress, so it makes sense that they would look for somebody that promises to unleash the market forces and retrench the state.” Even some fans of Taylor Swift see Milei as a good option. Romina Giaccio said she felt like a “black sheep”...

The principality of Andorra, located in the Pyrenees mountains between Spain and France, is one of the smallest, least-populated countries in Europe. It’s also the only one with a total ban on abortions. Not only are abortions in Andorra illegal, but also a taboo, said Sandra, an Andorran who asked for anonymity due to fear of public exposure. Sandra said she was raised to believe that abortion was not an option for her, and she had an unplanned baby at the age of 19. Later, she had a second baby. But, a few years ago, when she got pregnant again, she knew she wouldn’t be able to support a third child by herself. She wanted an abortion, but it wasn't possible in Andorra, she said, so she traveled three hours to a clinic in Barcelona. It was a painful experience — and expensive — she said. Now, Sandra is adamant that abortions should be accessible and carried out in the best-possible conditions. “You’re not going to stop someone from having an abortion by banning it,” she said. “You’re just going to make it worse.” The principality of Andorra is a tiny enclave on the Pyrenees mountains between Spain and France Credit: Alan Ruiz Terol/The World Andorra’s total ban on abortion is a result of the country’s unique system of governance. The microstate has a democratically elected government, but two princes also serve as heads of state — a constitutional arrangement rooted in a 13th-century feudal treaty. One co-prince is the president of France. The other is the bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Urgell. The role of the co-princes is thought to be symbolic, but in practice, having a bishop as head-of-state has meant that abortions cannot be carried out in the country. But today, some Andorrans are pushing for change. During the last weekend of September, a hundred people marked International Safe Abortion Day in Andorra la Vella, the capital of Andorra. They protested for being forced to travel abroad to terminate a pregnancy. Even the government of Andorra admits that change is due. Andorra’s government’s minister of institutional relations, Ladislau Baró, said that just like elsewhere in Europe, Andorran society is becoming ever more secular, and a majority of people don’t agree with the abortion ban. “Of course, we’re concerned. We’re aware of society’s demands,” he said, adding that the government, led by Prime Minister Xavier Espot, is discussing the matter with the Bishop of Urgell and even the Vatican. A group of women of all ages calling for better reproductive rights joined the Sept. 30 march in Andorra. Credit: Alan Ruiz Terol/The World If abortion were legalized, the Holy See has warned, Bishop of Urgell Joan-Enric Vives would have to step down as prince of Andorra. This would cause a constitutional crisis and end a centuries-old tradition. Vatican officials recently said they were open to finding a “satisfactory solution for everybody” but admitted it was “very complicated.” Baró said the government is trying to find the balance between decriminalizing abortion and not authorizing it. Thirty years ago, when Andorra passed its constitution, the right to life was enshrined in article 8 of the constitution and “fully protected on its different phases” to accommodate the bishop’s wishes. Additionally, Andorra’s criminal code prosecutes “consensual abortions,” with a penalty of arrest for the woman having an abortion and prison for those procuring it. Over the past decades, though, the crime of abortion has very rarely been enforced. (In 1987, a woman was arrested in Andorra for shooting herself in the womb.) The government says it wants to abolish the crime and believes that abortions will still be prohibited, as per article 8 of the constitution. But Andorra’s Constitutional Court has never ruled on the matter, and some advocates want a different interpretation of article 8 — one that sees life as starting not at conception but in the later stages of the pregnancy. Manuel...

This December will mark one year since Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers imposed an indefinite ban on higher education for women in Afghanistan. The insurgent group has been cracking down on women’s rights ever since taking back power in August 2021. Since then, thousands of women have fled to seek education elsewhere. Being able to study in the US has granted them many opportunities. But for one young Afghan woman studying at a private university on the East Coast, life in the US is still filled with all kinds of instability. In our profile, the student wonders what happens after she finishes her master's degree. It’s not clear how long she can stay in the United States. Most of the 90,000 Afghans who have arrived in the US since mid-2021 do not have official residency and were granted a temporary status called humanitarian parole. Last month, the Biden administration extended protection for another 18 months. Once it expires, the young Afghan woman, who spoke on condition of anonymity because she fears for her family back in Afghanistan, could still lose everything. “I think [about] what will happen [to] my own civil life here,” she said. The student talked to The World about living between two worlds of uncertainty: the first is the situation for women and girls back home and the second is what happens if she loses the right to remain in the US — because going home is no longer an option. Related: He spoke out against banning girls’ education. The Taliban silenced him.

Forty-four boys, aged nine to 14, sing in a remote mountain church in Montserrat, Spain. It’s Europe’s oldest all-boys choir, and for more than seven centuries, the Escoliana de Montserrat has been singing sacred songs there. Benedictine monks run the abbey. Nothing much has changed over time, but a big one’s underway: They’re letting girls in. In Spanish, they call the choir of young boys whose voices haven’t yet changed voces blancas, or “white voices." You can hear the high, ethereal echo of sopranos and alto sopranos during Sunday mass. The church’s pews are filled with faithful members and tourists who’ve made an hour-long trek from Barcelona. This tradition dates back to 1307, said Efrem de Montallá, headmaster at the adjacent boarding school where the choir boys study and live. The Benedictine abbey is even older. Since the 11th century, families have been dropping their boys off there. Visits used to be rare, but the world’s changed, and these days, parents want more time with their kids, de Montallá told The World. The monks sought ways to make that possible for years without messing with the choir’s strict every-weekend schedule, de Montallá said. Then, last year came a eureka moment: Why not create a parallel choir with boys and girls? The idea would consider a performance once a month so that the boys in the main choir could have a weekend off. The young women and men rehearse on the morning of their first public performance. Credit: Anne Cassuto/The World The World stopped by during recess recently to ask some boys what they think about girls singing, too. “It’s a very good idea,” said 11-year-old soprano Guillem Masabat. “I think it will be very successful. We’ll be able to rest more and do other things. I can hang out at home or go for walks." The monks held auditions for girls last May, and 17-year-old Mireia Espada made the cut. “I got the email and just started running around the house, screaming,” she said. “I didn’t believe it. I told friends and family right away.” During the audition, Espada said she knew she had to make it happen “because this has been a dream of mine since I was a little girl.” The dream’s real now – it’s show day, a Monday mass, and Espada is warming the pipes with a little Schubert. Espada’s nervous. She and the other 27 singers are about to sing in public for the first time. Listening in, it’s easy to tell the difference between the two choirs. This one’s smaller. And members are older, between the ages of 17 and 24. That means the boys, men really, can take on tenor and baritone parts, while the young women are the sopranos. This new vocal range is a real benefit for the mixed choir’s director, Pau Jorqueras. He said that by breaking with tradition, the monastery has made it possible to unlock another tradition that’s long been on ice. Mixed choir director Pau Jorqueras gets his singers warmed up before the liturgy. Credit: Anne Cassuto/The World Jorqueras shared with The World staff Montserrat’s archive of sacred music. Inside, rows of shelves are packed with grey folders. In each, one will find sheet music and choral compositions. There are 1,577 different works here. The monastery’s monks wrote many over the centuries, and most have never been performed like one that Jorqueras pulled out from 1810. “I’ve yet to even look inside all of the folders,” Jonqueras said, leafing carefully through the sheet music. “I believe this arrangement consists of two choirs plus an orchestra.” Two choirs of four singers each, in fact, male and female. Plus violins, two oboes, trumpets and cellos. “No one knows what this arrangement will sound like,” Jorqueras said excitedly. “It’ll be so beautiful to have the kids work on it, perform it and possibly make a recording of it.” He said there’s a lifetime of work among the dusty shelves. And today’s new voices will bring this hidden music to life, like Laia Quinquillá, whose pitch-perfect C-sharp...

Last June, at a music festival in Barcelona, Spain, the Puerto Rican rapper and reggaeton trailblazer Villano Antillano took a break in the middle of a song to address the crowd. "In memory of the women and trans women killed in Puerto Rico and the world," she said. "Never forget." She went on to sing "Mujer," one of the songs on her debut album, "La Sustancia X," from last December, which she has described as the soundtrack of her transition into a woman. She rapped in Spanish in the chorus: "I am a woman full of power./I can decide how to defend myself./I can kill, but I can be understanding./I can love you or subjugate you./Deprive you or provide you./You can't tell me what to do./I control the pencil; I have the brush./I am the master of dawn." Villano Antillano's lyrics are bold and explicit, reveling in pride and often reclaiming homophobic slurs as a means of self-affirmation. Her stage presence is just as eloquent: She can be sassy and playful or impassioned and defiant — but whether rapping or dancing, her fans say, she is always magnetic. The artist is emerging as one of the most transformative figures in reggaeton and the broader urbano movement — the Spanish-speaking music scene encompassing other hip-hop-influenced genres, like trap. "Energetic, attractive, a fire, an explosion!" said Angélica Vilariño, a fan from Puerto Rico who attended Barcelona's Primavera Sound festival. "It makes me want to move my bottom, to dance with my friends!" Amanda Soliván, another fan from Puerto Rico, described the artist's energy as sensual, even sexual: "Women are taught we cannot express our sexuality, but seeing her doing it so openly, regardless of what people say, inspires you to do the same." Soliván praised Villano Antillano for her message of female empowerment, which she said contrasts sharply with the history of sexism in reggaeton: "She is showing that women, people in the [LGBTQ] community, everybody can be part of this genre." A large crowd gathered at the 2023 Primavera Sound Barcelona music festival to watch Villano Antillano perform. Credit: Alan Ruiz Terol/The World The singer's breakthrough came a year ago. It was a rap session in collaboration with Argentine producer Bizarrap, which has surpassed 200 million plays both on Youtube and Spotify. Shortly after, Villano Antillano was invited to perform the song live by reggaeton superstar Bad Bunny during one of his massive shows in Puerto Rico. The following two nights, Bad Bunny invited on stage Young Miko and RaiNao, two other Puerto Rican artists from the LGBTQ community. In an article for Rolling Stone magazine, journalist Frances Solá-Santiago called the gesture "monumental" and said Bad Bunny "co-signed a women-led revolution that's been brewing in Puerto Rico over the past several years." In this revolution, Villano Antillano is one of the leading figures, said Ashley Oliva Mayor, the co-director of Hasta' Bajo Project, a group preserving the history of reggaeton in Puerto Rico. "She is a pioneer," said Natalia Merced, a content creator at Hasta' Bajo Project, about the artist. "While there are other queer women in the genre, nobody is doing it quite like her, being so genuine and vocal." The causes for reggaeton's "queer turn," as Oliva Mayor calls it, are a changing public, which has become more accepting of diversity, but also the transformation of the music business. Merced said the digital revolution is allowing people from marginalized groups, who may lack support from the industry, to record and release their songs at a low cost online while building a fan base through social media. "There's still so much prejudice that these artists may not be able to go to a label, show their music and get signed up," she said. "Sadly, they must prove themselves first." That was the case for Villano Antillano, who started independently. Her first EP, "Tiranía," was released in 2019, and her Soundcloud page features tracks dating back to...

In Russia, where the Kremlin promotes traditional values, many citizens believe it is a woman’s patriotic duty to give birth and become a mother. The experience was surprising for Amie Ferris-Rotman, who is originally from the UK and has lived in Russia for years as a foreign correspondent. Amie Ferris-Rotman in St. Petersburg, Russia during her 2019 pregnancy. Credit: Joel van Houdt In 2019, she became pregnant with her first child. Ferris-Rotman, a global news editor for New Lines Magazine, said that while the experience was "overwhelmingly positive," she did notice many cultural differences. She wrote about it in a personal essay called, "What my pregnancy in Moscow taught me of Russia's Putin." In the essay, she details some of the reasons why motherhood and motherland are linked throughout history. She said that throughout her pregnancy in Russia, notions of motherhood and motherland were inextricably intertwined. “Everything about it is about women and what women can then do for the state,” she said. She talked about it with The World's host Marco Werman. To hear the full interview, click on the audio player above.

Spain has won the Women’s World Cup for the first time, outplaying a tough England team on Sunday in Sydney, Australia. The winning goal was a left-footed bull’s eye into the corner of the net by Spanish captain Olga Carmona. This win is for the whole country, Carmona said to the press after the match. “To all the fans in the streets, we did it, but it was a very hard struggle,” she said. That struggle was on and off the field. Last September, 15 of Spain’s top players quit the national team. That’s more than half the squad. They said that their head coach, Jorge Vilda, was too authoritarian and controlling and that his behavior was affecting their mental health. In a press conference at the time, player Irene Paredes said that for people to return to the team, Spain’s soccer federation needed to address their concerns. But the federation, led by Luis Rubiales, backed Vilda. Spain's Olga Carmona celebrates after scoring a goal during the Women's World Cup soccer final between Spain and England at Stadium Australia in Sydney, Australia, Aug. 20, 2023. Credit: Mark Baker/AP So, Spain came to this cup with a bench full of young players untested on the world stage. That inexperience nearly cost them the cup. Japan pounded them 4-0 in an early round. But those same young players rallied to keep Spain’s hopes alive. Nineteen-year-old Barça star Salma Paralluelo scored one of her two World Cup goals, one that would help eliminate Sweden. Paralluelo also took home the cup’s best young player award. When Sunday's final whistle blew, the players rushed the pitch, piling on top of each other, dancing and crying. Noticeably not included was Vilda, who at first stuck to hugging other male staff members. It was a subtle sign of the lingering tensions on the team. In the not-so-subtle category: As Spanish soccer chief Luis Rubiales handed out the victory medals, offering each player a traditional kiss on the cheek, he grabbed star forward Jennifer Hermoso. And, to her surprise, and in front of a global audience, he planted one on her lips. Spain's Salma Paralluelo lies on the ground with her medal at the end of the Women's World Cup soccer final between Spain and England at Stadium Australia in Sydney, Australia, Aug. 20, 2023. Spain won 1-0. Credit: Abbie Parr/AP In locker room celebrations afterward, Hermoso said she did not like that. On social media, fans called for Rubiales’ resignation. Some said it was a sign of Spain’s chauvinist attitude toward women athletes. Later, Rubiales apologized — even as Hermoso herself excused the kiss as a natural and spontaneous gesture of joy. But in the larger scheme of things, the team’s victory is sure to inspire women in their fight for equality with men. And, just to play the game. Already, more and more young Spanish girls are suiting up, including Spain’s 15-year-old Princess Sofia. President of Spain's soccer federation, Luis Rubiales, right, reacts as he greets Rocio Galvez on the podium following Spain's win in the final of Women's World Cup soccer against England at Stadium Australia in Sydney, Australia, Aug. 20, 2023. Pictured from left, is FIFA President Gianni Infantino with Spain's Jennifer Hermoso, Spain's Alexia Putellas is embraced by Queen Letizia of Spain as Princess Infanta Sofia watches. Credit: Mark Baker/AP After the bittersweet win, Carmona, who scored the decisive goal, learned that her father had died. He’d been suffering from a long-term illness, and Carmona’s family chose to let her play without the grief. After, she wrote on X, formerly Twitter, “I had no idea my ‘guiding star’ had been by my side during the game, giving me strength. Rest in peace, Dad.” On Monday night, Spain’s national team brings its World Cup trophy home. Awaiting them will be throngs of fans celebrating on the streets of Madrid. Related: A traditional Iranian sport has been closed off to women. One activist wants to change that.

Renu Rai Yalgaonkar grew up in Lonavala, a hill station close to Mumbai, India. Her father moved to Lonavala from a relatively poorer area to work for the Indian railways. Her mother was a homemaker. Yalgaonkar and her five siblings always lived on their father’s single income. Yalgaonkar holds a university degree, had some early success as a mathematics tutor, and even got a scholarship to enroll in a management program in the United Kingdom. But when she got married, she stopped working. “Since [my husband’s] family was really well-to-do and there was no financial need,” she said. Many Indian women like Yalgaonkar are more educated and healthier than in the past, but their participation in the workforce is declining, which has surprised global economists. Across the world, higher economic growth has seen a rise in women’s employment. But India is bucking that trend. In 2005, 35% of Indian women were working. By 2021, that number had drastically reduced to 19%. For context, India’s economic growth in 2005 was approximately 9%, while in 2021, the country grew at 21%. Indian leaders predict that the country will become the 3rd largest economy in the world in the next few years, behind the US and China. But economists are saying that’s unlikely — although India is the most populous country in the world, women are not doing enough paid work. Prosperity keeps women out of workforce Yalgaonkar’s experience is common to an entire generation that benefited from the opening up of India’s economy in the early 1990s, when many middle-class families were propelled to wealth. “Male wages increased and they withdrew women from the workforce [because they could] manage on one salary,” said Vibhuti Patel, a former gender studies scholar at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences in Mumbai. In other countries, education for women often translates to employment, but that’s not the case in India, according to Sairee Chahal, who runs an online employment and entrepreneurship platform called Sheroes. Chahal said educated women in India join the workforce but often drop out when family responsibilities take over. Nandita Bedi graduated with an economics degree from Lady Shri Ram College at the University of Delhi. She worked at an organization that would influence IT policy in the 1990s, when the internet was just making inroads into India. Bedi moved cities after she got married. “I quit my job when I moved from Delhi to Calcutta,” she said. Bedi decided to quit her job because she felt her children needed her attention. Her husband supported the change. Nuclear families with limited extended support along with insufficient child care options mean women like Bedi often make the choice to prioritize their families. Bedi’s family moved to nearly a dozen cities in 25 years, due to her husband’s work. She spent most of her time adjusting her family to the new cities and setting up homes in each of them. 'Valorized as homemakers' In 2014, a Hindu nationalist party took over at the federal level. Patel, the gender studies scholar, said although conservative ideas existed before that, gender stereotypes have been consolidated since then. “Women are valorized as homemakers,” she said. Many women in India have in fact dropped out of the labor force, but experts say the numbers are misleading because women who work in informal economies often get paid in cash that is not reflected in the gross domestic product. For example, Anisa Sheikh works as a cleaner in Mumbai, earning about $35 a month that is paid in cash. When her 9-year-old son fell ill, she took cash loans to get him treated at a nearby hospital. “I don't have a bank account, I care for my three children with whatever cash I get paid as salary,” she said. According to a 2018 International Labor Organization report, about 82% of the total number of working women like Sheikh do not get counted in the GDP. They are concentrated in the informal sector, working in fields such as...

Women in Afghanistan went to the streets this week to protest a ban on beauty salons. The Taliban had ordered all beauty salons closed by the end of the month. The protesters say thousands of women will be jobless, some of whom are the only breadwinners of their families. “Work, bread, justice.” Three simple demands from women in Afghanistan. That’s what they were chanting yesterday at the protest in Kabul. Today, women protesters in Kabul demanding their rights were violently dispersed by the Taliban. Brave women, protesting Taliban's oppression for almost 2 years, have faced raids, imprisonment, & torture. The erasure of women from society in #Afghanistan must end. pic.twitter.com/aILVYkWuA0 July 19, 2023 A small group gathered outside beauty salons. A source of income that roughly 60,000 women will lose in the coming days. The women wore face coverings to hide their identity and stood side by side, forming a wall to protect one another in case of attacks from the Taliban. It didn’t take long for the security forces to respond. Taliban forces fired gunshots in the air and sprayed the women with water cannons. Masumeh Amiri, owner of a beauty salon in Kabul, said that the Taliban forces used tasers to disperse women and that protesters planned to go to the Taliban officials in person and plead for a change in their decision. But they didn’t get far. “They want to eliminate women from society,” Amiri said. In the past two years that the Taliban have been in power in Afghanistan, they have banned women from getting higher education and working for international NGOs. They have also restricted their presence in public. Yesterday, as women protested, Afghan media reported that the group has prohibited female students from taking the university entrance exam. Women in Afghanistan have said that this is an all-out war. "We are really scared," Fatima, a 40-year-old salon owner, told The World. She didn’t want her full name used for this interview out of fear of the Taliban. Every day, she said, they come out with a new restriction, erasing women from society. FILE - A woman walks past beauty salons with window decorations which have been defaced in Kabul, Afghanistan, Sunday, Sept. 12, 2021. A spokesman at Afghanistan's Vice and Virtue Ministry said Tuesday, July 4, 2023, the Taliban are banning women's beauty salons. Credit: Rahmat Gul/AP The Taliban respond to any protest with violence, but Fatima said women are fed up and have nothing to lose. “We are walking dead,” said Fatima. “That’s why we continue to protest.” The Taliban’s response to criticisms about the ban on beauty salons has been confusing. Mohammad Akif Muhajir is the spokesman for the Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice. He told Afghan media that women should have paid attention to the letter sent out by the ministry, recently, banning beauty salons. The group has also said that salon services are against Islam. They’ve argued that the costs for bridal services impose an unfair burden on the grooms’ families. No other Islamic country has banned women’s beauty salons. Fatima, the salon owner in Kabul, finds these excuses ridiculous and she said women will continue to fight back. “What’s next,” she asked. “Probably a ban on women breathing.” Related: After Taliban ban, women NGO workers in Afghanistan struggle to make ends meet

When Rayeheh Mozafarian talks about Varzeshe Pahlavani, her eyes light up. The 37-year-old lives in Tehran, Iran, where she practices the centuries-old sport. She is among the many Iranian women who want to participate officially but are not allowed to. So, she has embarked on a campaign to try and change that. Varzeshe Pahlavani goes back more than 2,000 years, to what was then the Persian Empire. “This art of Pahlavani runs like a thread throughout the history of Iran,” said Khashayar Azad, who is based in Sydney, Australia, and teaches the sport. “There have been several waves of invasions and conquests and empires building and falling, etc.,” he said, “but one thing that they have had in common throughout the long history of Iran and Persian culture has been Pahlavani as an art form.” Pahlavani combines sports with rhythmic music in a place called the zoorkhaneh, which literally translates to “house of strength.” Pahlevan Namjoo Zurkhaneh in Azadi Street, Tehran, Iran. Credit: Reza Dehshiri/Wikimedia Commons Athletes typically form a circle in a pit and they lift two large wooden clubs above their heads and twist them in circular motions. The men then move an iron bow from side to side and perform what’s known as the shenow, similar to a push up. According to Azad, step one to mastering Varzeshe Pahlavani is to let go of one’s ego. That’s why, for example, the pit in the zoorkhaneh dips to a lower level than the ground — to emphasize modesty and humility. “It is the art of developing and cultivating spiritual strength and physical strength [in] equal measure,” he said. But what’s not always been equal in this tradition is the exclusion of women from practicing in the zoorkhaneh or mixing with the men. “This is a national sport. That means it belongs to all Iranians, not just men.” “This is a national sport,” Mozafarian said from her home in Tehran, “that means it belongs to all Iranians, not just men.” She wants to help women gain access to the zoorkhaneh and be able to form teams of their own. But doing so has been a challenge. Mozafarian said she has heard all kinds of excuses from officials and male athletes who want to keep women out of the sport. “For example, one thing they tell me,” she said, “is that this is too tough for women and it’ll make their bodies too muscular and masculine.” “I tell them to mind their own business,” she added. “I remind them of how women carry a baby for nine months and deliver it, no problem.” She’s even met with religious officials and said that they are not, in fact, the ones standing in the way. They even issued a fatwa — or religious edict — leaving the door open to women’s participation. The most intense pushback has come from a small, but vocal, group of purists. Campaigning online To work around the hurdles, Mozafarian has taken her campaign online, posting about Pahlavani on an Instagram page called Zan va Zoorkhaneh, or Woman and Zoorkhaneh. She has received videos and pictures of women and girls playing the sport in their homes or in quiet corners at parks. What was surprising, she explained, was that many of them were getting training from their fathers, brothers or husbands, which shows that the men in their lives support their participation in the sport. Rayehe Mozafarian Credit: Courtesy of Rayehe Mozafarian Mozafarian has also given interviews to the news media and shares some videos of women practicing Pahlavani at home. “These photos of women holding the wooden clubs and practicing Pahlavani and playing the music that goes along with the sport,” she said, “all that is helping to break this long-held taboo on women’s participation.” Even though Mozafarian hasn’t been able to persuade leaders to let women have their own teams and participate, she said the recent protests that began in September against restrictions on women’s freedoms in Iran have helped her cause. “The protests are like a wake-up call,” she said, “a...

Xiomara Castro is the first female president of Honduras, a small Central American country about the size of Louisiana. Today, Castro is one of only two women leading countries in Latin America. It is not an easy job in Honduras, a country long considered to be one of the most sexist and violent against women in the region. Outside of a mall in the capital city of Tegucigalpa, many people blamed Castro for rising inflation. “It’s great that she’s the first female president,” said Jessica Kuthe, a mall employee. “But in this last year and a half, she hasn’t done much for the people,” she said. “We, poor, can’t even eat beans. The price of everything has gone up too much, and minimum wage hasn’t gone up with it.” Castro’s government did increase the Honduran minimum wage by 9.8% in February. But clearly, times are hard. Activists say the bar is that much higher for Castro, simply because she is a woman. Early last year, Castro was inaugurated in a wave of hope after the Honduran people had experienced years of challenges. Honduras had been rattled by a coup, accusations of rigged elections, human rights violations and violence against women. The previous president, Juan Orlando Hernández, was extradited to the United States after being indicted on drug trafficking and firearms charges. “Honduran women, I will not fail you,” Castro promised in her first speech. “I am going to defend your rights. You can count on me.” This was a big promise. “If we look at the number of femicides, if we look at the number of teenage pregnancies, Honduras has one of the highest rates in the region,” said Alice Shackelford, the UN resident coordinator for Honduras. “There is tremendous violence against women and girls, which is the fruit of a deep-seated patriarchy.” Two months into her administration, Castro signed an agreement with Shackelford pledging to end violence against women and girls in Honduras. Castro also approved the use of the emergency contraceptive morning-after pill in March. But the rollout has been slow. “The president is committed to women’s rights,” Shackelford said, “but there has been pushback. Conservative groups are pushing back. So are anti-women’s rights groups. And they are present in Congress and even in different parts of the government institution itself, which makes it very, very difficult to advance.” The pushback is also a sign of the divisions within Castro’s own government. For example, Daniel Sponda, Castro’s own education minister, physically tore up a copy of the government’s new guide for gender inclusion in the classroom on a talk show in late June. “We are not going to promote values that aren’t part of our society,” he said on air. Sponda was reprimanded by the country’s human rights minister. But his actions were a sign of the deep divides over women and gender issues in Honduras. "It’s a symbol of the pact with the church, and with the most conservative ideology in the country,” said Karla Lara, a radio journalist, musician and women’s rights activist based in Honduras. Protests have hit southern Honduras in recent months against development projects and Castro’s plans for a new progressive tax reform. In May, opposition congressional officials, who hold a legislative majority, railed against Castro and her party Libre, chanting “Libre never again.” “They don’t want Castro’s government to succeed,” said Bertha Oliva, a human rights defender and the founder of the country’s Committee of Relatives of the Disappeared. “So, they go against anything she does. They can’t believe that a woman is governing, so they say that ex-president Manuel Zelaya is really pulling the strings.” According to a recent poll, roughly half the country believes that claim. Castro is the wife of Zelaya, who was ousted in a coup in 2009. According to Oliva, saying he’s really the one making the decisions is offensive to Castro because it insinuates that she isn’t as capable of governing as her husband. “There...

Tears rolled down Maliheh’s face this week as she took down the sign of her beauty salon in Farah province in southwestern Afghanistan. The business she had owned and operated for the past 22 years can no longer operate because the Taliban have ordered all female beauty salons in the country to close down. “We have no hope in this country,” she said. “Women have no place here.” When the Taliban took over Afghanistan by force almost two years ago, one of the images that circulated online was that of women’s faces being blacked out on billboards and public signs. “These photographs were used for advertising on the outside of beauty salons in Afghanistan, and suddenly, they’d been painted over. It was a very powerful visual symbol of how things had changed,” said Heather Barr, associate director of the women’s rights division at Human Rights Watch. Barr added that suppression of women has been central to the Taliban’s mission in Afghanistan. For two decades, the group indoctrinated its fighters by telling them that women’s rights is a Western concept and a plot to undermine Islam. “And so, the suppression of women, I think, became part of what their fighters felt that they were fighting for.” The result of that indoctrination is evident in Afghanistan today. Over the past two years, the Taliban have systematically taken away women’s freedoms. They are not allowed to pursue higher education, work for international, nongovernmental organizations and most government jobs, and they can’t go to parks or gyms. The recent ban on beauty salons is particularly concerning, Barr said, because it is the first time that the group is targeting women’s ability to work in the private sector. Until now, the private sector was the only area left for women to earn a living. The salon ban means that thousands of women head of households will lose their incomes. Maliheh, who only gave her first name because she fears backlash from the Taliban, is one of them. She is the sole breadwinner of her family. Her husband had a stroke recently and is unable to work. They have four kids. “Our family of six is now relying on God for sustenance,” she said. Further north, in the province of Herat, another salon owner, 32 year-old Niloufar, said the news has left her speechless. She and her two sisters opened up their business in Herat City 10 years ago. She, too, didn’t want me to use her full name, because she worried about Taliban harassment. Her salon offers a range of services, she explained: haircuts, nails, eyebrow tattoos, and bridal makeup. The three sisters employ eight women. Now, they’ve been forced to shut down. “After the Taliban banned women from getting an education, we focused our attention on this salon,” Niloufar said. “It was our only hope.” Roughly 60,000 women will lose their jobs as a result of this ban, a source from Afghanistan’s Ministry of Commerce told the BBC. That’s at a time when there has already been a 25% drop in women’s employment since the Taliban took over the country, according to the International Labor Organization. “The ban on beauty salons will undoubtedly increase poverty among women,” said women’s rights activist Razia Barakzai. Barakzai herself was among the first women to take to the streets to protest the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan in August 2021. She recounted being arrested, taken away and beaten. “Even under the barrel of the Taliban’s guns and after being lashed, we shouted, ‘The Taliban don't have any legitimacy,’” she said. Barakzai had to flee Afghanistan and lives in Pakistan with her family. But even there, she said, she doesn’t feel safe. She rarely leaves the house. Yet, Barakzai continues to speak out against the Taliban’s assault on women’s rights. She has been in touch with salon owners in Afghanistan who have told her that the group is going after their male relatives, too, warning them that if they don’t pressure their female relatives to shut down their salons, they...

Taiwan is now several weeks into a #MeToo movement that has seen dozens of political figures, celebrities, professors and activists accused of sexual misconduct. The movement was sparked, in part, by an award-winning political TV show. Every day, more survivors come forward with further stories of someone who harassed them, touched them inappropriately, or sexually assaulted them. Although the movement began within political parties, it’s since spread to many other sectors of society such as entertainment and academia. And in some cases, there’s even been a backlash. For example, last Wednesday, a TikTok influencer named Chiu Yao-Le held a press conference to accuse a prominent actor and singer, Aaron Yan, of forcing him to make sex tapes with him when Chiu was only 16 years old. With Chiu only a few sentences in, the accused, Aaron Yan, himself, burst into the room and bowed deeply, just feet away from Chiu. "I want to solemnly say sorry to you here for making you suffer things that you should not have to bear in life,” Yan said. “I’m sorry.” Yan said he “absolutely did not secretly film [Chiu],” and that he “did not do anything against anyone's will.” He then left the room. Chiu, visibly shocked, took a break before resuming the press conference. After coming back, Chiu refused to accept the apology, saying it was insincere. “In regard to recording intimate videos of an underaged person, it’s illegal, that’s unquestionable,” Chiu said. It’s an example of some of the factors making Taiwan’s #MeToo movement so unique. Some of the high-profile accusers are actually men. And in many cases, the accused haven’t been afraid to challenge the narrative, or publicly deny accountability. When #MeToo took off in many countries including the US in 2017, it didn’t reach Taiwan at the same time. Lu Shengyen teaches history at National Taiwan Normal University. She wrote a book on toxic masculinity and its history in Taiwan. She said that now that the #MeToo movement has arrived, it faces challenges unique to Taiwanese society and culture. One example that she and other feminist scholars point out is that in many cases when men tow the line around inappropriately touching women, they’re often said to be “eating tofu.” “They would touch your arms, or put their hands on the small of your back, and slowly slide into danger areas, and probably just stop there … if it happens in America, probably, it’s a very sound [case of] sexual harassment, but in Taiwan, many people will view it as not a crime,” Lu said. Still, she said that she thinks the #MeToo movement is changing the culture. And she’s not the only one. Sabrina Lim, a Taipei city councilor, joined several other women in Taiwanese politics to announce legal support for survivors of sexual harassment and abuse. Credit: Ashish Valentine/The World Chen Chien-jou, a former staffer for the ruling Democratic Progressive Party, helped spark the movement in Taiwan when she posted in late May about her experience of being sexually harassed by a contractor and bringing it up to a superior, only to have a senior party official cover it up. In her post, she referenced a hit Taiwanese political TV series, “Wave Makers,” which premiered in late April and explored sexual harassment in politics. She said it helped inspired her to share her story in the first place. Since the movement in Taiwan began, “There are people who are starting to genuinely self-reflect, especially on their daily interactions like, am I offending? Am I crossing a line?” Chen told The World in the first media interview she has done since she posted. At the same time, she said, “a lot of the perpetrators are taking actions that are retraumatizing the victims, abusing the law and threatening to sue … there have even been perpetrators, whose spouses, whose wives have had to come forward with them and take responsibility … which, as a woman makes me especially angry.” Chen said she is amazed at how the...

Italian couple Davide Fassi and Davide Chiappa talked about wanting to have kids on their first date at a restaurant in Milan in 2009. In late January this year, the couple who had a civil union in 2019, flew to Portland, Oregon, to attend the birth of their son. Only one of them — Chiappa — was allowed into the delivery room due to COVID-19 restrictions where Morrisha, their American surrogate, gave birth to a baby boy, Martino. “It was so amazing to see Martino being born,” said Chiappa, who sent live videos and photos of the birth to Fassi, who was in the waiting room. The couple chose a surrogate in the US because it is one of the only countries worldwide that permits same-sex couples to have a child via surrogacy. Now, the Italian government wants to put a stop to the practice altogether, proposing a new law that would prosecute any Italian citizen having a child through surrogacy, even when it’s done legally abroad. If passed, the law will carry a possible prison sentence of up to two years and a potential fine of more than $1 million. Davide Fassi and Davide Chiappa's baby, Martino. Credit: Loredana Celano The proposal was met with protests outside of Italy’s Parliament last week. Grazia Di Maggio, a lawmaker with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party, said the legislation would put an end to “womb-lending” in Italy. Meloni, whose government is heavily promoting the bill, has previously described surrogacy as “an abomination.” Far-right Meloni has put the concept of the “traditional family” at the center of her government’s agenda in spite of being a single mother, raised in a one-parent household. History professor David Broder, who teaches at Syracuse University in Florence, said Meloni regularly refers to her own absentee father as the reason she believes so strongly that a child should be raised by two parents of the opposite sex. It’s a perspective largely supported by Meloni’s conservative base, said Broder, who just published a book titled, “Mussolini’s Grandchildren,” about the reinvention of the far-right movement in Italy since World War II. Meloni’s government renamed a number of departments after coming to power in September: “The Ministry of Economic Development became the Ministry of Businesses and Made in Italy, so it sounded more nationalist, with a pro-business focus. And the Families and Equality Department added in the word ‘birth rates.’” Meloni has been less vocal on divisive culture war issues since taking office but her party colleagues have not held back. In a live television interview in March, fellow lawmaker Federico Mollicone, who's president of the Italian Lower House's culture committee, described surrogacy as a crime worse than pedophilia. David Broder is a history professor at Syracuse University in Florence. Credit: Courtesy of David Broder Broder said the comments provoked outrage among government opponents, which is exactly the reaction the far-right party wanted. Broder said for Meloni, it’s a sort of a game. “She likes to play the stateswoman, standing for Italy on the international stage, whereas her ministers and leading members of her party, they’re more inclined to give some red meat to the base.” Italy is one of the only countries in Western Europe not to legalize same-sex marriage or gay adoption. But Broder said social attitudes toward homosexuality and gay adoption are more liberal than Italian laws would suggest. A poll on surrogacy conducted in March by Quorum/YouTrend showed 40% of Italians are in favor of it being legalized for all couples, while 27% said they are against the practice entirely. Younger Italians were more in favor of it than older generations. Targeting gay fathers Davide Fassi, an associate professor at the design department of the Politecnico di Milano, said he knew things would change under the premiership of Meloni but he never expected the changes to happen so fast. He said the social...

Dozens of people have come forward in recent days accusing prominent figures in Taiwanese society of sexual harassment and abuse, in what many experts are calling Taiwan’s #MeToo moment. Starting late last week, several people accused officials in Taiwan’s ruling political party, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), of sexual harassment. The allegations have since spread to both major parties and across Taiwanese society, with dozens of survivors coming forward with accusations of sexual harassment and abuse. Taiwanese audiences turned on their TVs last week to see officials from the DPP bowing deeply to apologize for a sexual harassment allegation. A former DPP staffer mentioned in a May 31 Facebook post that her superior had refused to take the allegation seriously when she first brought it up and even asked why she didn’t scream for help at the time the harassment took place. The official accused of covering up the scandal — DPP Deputy Secretary-General Hsu Chia-tien — resigned on June 1. The next day, new allegations surfaced, which the DPP met with a new apology and promises to change how the party handles sexual harassment. A further three DPP officials resigned due to the additional cases. Then, a third day of allegations, a third apology and an adviser to President Tsai Ing-Wen resigned. Party chairman and presidential candidate Lai Ching-Te said in a televised speech, "I once again express my deepest apology to all those who have been injured in the DPP because I did not stand with you when you needed it most…In the face of gender equality incidents and workplace bullying, there is absolutely no need to ‘focus on the big picture.’" That expression was a reference to a hit political series called “Wave Makers,” which debuted in late April on Taiwanese Netflix. In the first episode, a young political staffer named Chang Ya-Ching is touched inappropriately by a colleague. She talks to her supervisor, Weng Wen-Fang, but since she has no proof, she initially decides to drop the case. Her supervisor, Weng, remembers her own experience with harassment and how she dropped it to “focus on the big picture.” In an iconic scene, they talk on a late-night phone call. “Many things can’t be forgotten,” Weng said. “If you do that, you’ll slowly die.” Slowly, they repeat after each other… “Let’s not let this go.” That last expression, which in English roughly translates to “Let’s not let this go,” or “Let’s not forget this,” “我們不要就這樣算了/Wǒmen bùyào jiù zhèyàng suànle” in Mandarin, became the first line of the Facebook post that launched this whole movement in real life. The phrase has popped up across Taiwanese social media as people discuss the allegations and share their own stories of harassment and abuse. “This is the biggest anti-sexual harassment movement in Taiwan so far,” said Chen Mei-Hua, who teaches sociology at National Sun Yat-sen University. Chen would know. She studies gender rights and used to lead a prominent gender equality NGO, the Awakening Foundation. She said when the #MeToo movement spread globally a few years ago, it didn’t impact Taiwan much. “Taiwan already has very strong anti-sexual harassment legislation,” Chen said. She said the problem isn’t that the laws aren’t already on the books — but organizations, especially in politics and the private sector, just aren’t following them. Taiwanese women actually participate in politics at relatively high rates. Over 40% of Taiwan’s legislators are women, who make up most of the mayors and county magistrates. Taiwan’s President, Tsai Ing-Wen, is also a woman. Sabrina Lim, a Taipei city councilor, joined several other women in Taiwanese politics to announce legal support for survivors of sexual harassment and abuse. Credit: Ashish Valentine/The World But underneath the surface, politics is hardly an equal playing field, said Sabrina Lim, a city councilor in Taipei. “Even though Taiwan has more female politicians in higher...

A film called “The Kerala Story,” released in India earlier this month, claims that thousands of Hindu and Christian women from the southern Indian state of Kerala are being tricked into converting to Islam and then being forced to join the terrorist group ISIS. The filmmakers have claimed that it is a “never-before-told true story — revealing a dangerous conspiracy that has been hatched against India.” But many have objected to this message, saying it is divisive. Last week, a heated debate on social media soon escalated, leading to dozens of people gathering outside the police station in the central Indian town of Akola, where one person died and eight others were severely injured. Authorities suspended the internet in the region and arrested more than a hundred people. Meanwhile, the state of West Bengal — which has a significant Muslim population — had preemptively banned the film in order to prevent such violence from breaking out. The filmmakers took the ban to India’s Supreme Court. And last week, the court reversed it, but directed the filmmakers to add a disclaimer that the film is fictionalized. Art or propaganda? In November 2020, the US State Department stated that only “66 known Indian-origin fighters” were affiliated with ISIS, and that not all of them were from Kerala, nor were they all women. About a year later, India’s National Investigation Agency said that it had arrested 168 people connected to 37 cases linked to ISIS. But there is no evidence that anyone was coerced or tricked into joining the group. “It was quite obvious from the trailer itself that this was propaganda through and through. It is toxic, divisive propaganda.” Therefore, critics say “The Kerala Story” grossly exaggerates true events and indulges in significant misrepresentations of the Muslim community in Kerala. “It was quite obvious from the trailer itself that this was propaganda through and through,” said Deepanjana Pal, managing editor of the website Film Companion. “It is toxic, divisive propaganda.” Pal said that youth radicalization is an important topic that should be discussed, and that there should be films made on the issue. But, she added that “The Kerala Story” is as simplistic and Islamophobic as inciting WhatsApp forwards. According to her, the film presents a clear cause and effect: “When a good Hindu woman is not aware of her faith and its rituals, etc., she becomes vulnerable to Islamic propaganda, and obviously the next thing is a) to become pregnant by a terrorist and b) to join ISIS.” Sowmya Rajendran, a film critic originally from the state of Kerala, said the film gives the impression that every Muslim in Kerala is evil and is out to convert people from other religions, and then force them into terrorism. “Every single Muslim in the film is represented as a violent savage person who just has one agenda,” she said. Such messaging plays into the narrative of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has endorsed the film, while two BJP-ruled states made the film tax free. And some political leaders even hired buses to ferry their constituents to theaters to watch the film. “The film is clearly an attempt to defame the state,” Rajendran said. Kerala is known for its religious diversity and high levels of development. Meanwhile, some film critics drew parallels to another film released last year called “The Kashmir Files.” “Both ‘The Kerala Story’ and “The Kashmir Files” have been used by the politicians for their campaigning and exhorting the public to watch [them],” managing editor Pal said. Film does good business “The Kerala Story” was released on May 5 and has made about $25 million. “That is an obscene amount of money for a low-budget film to make,” Pal explained. “This is a producer’s dream.” It was marketed as a movie that reveals a certain truth that had been deliberately hidden from the public. This raises everyone’s curiosity, said Rajendran. Moreover,...