In the News

This week's "In the News" segment is going to be blissfully brief, as it's Good Friday and a lot of my energy is going towards celebrating the culmination of the Lenten season. When I say "brief," I mean it: I have a grand total of three (!) links for you all today. It's not that there isn't more to go on- every time I open up the Daily Mail's homepage and see their "Femail" column I throw up a little inside- but I don't want to make today a froth-at-the-mouth day.

The first link today is a BBC feature on an Afghan practice known as Bacha Posh, wherein parents disguise their daughter as a son when she's in public so she can work and have access to education. It's apparently not uncommon, and as with all adaptations to inequality, some of the daughters find it empowering and others feel robbed of their identities. I feel that the human rights aspect of the piece is a bit skewed- it's gender, not access- but it does highlight the fact that sex-based inequality continues to be a significant problem in Afghanistan. The whole cultural acceptance of the practice is even more fascinating to me in that light.

The second link today, also from the BBC, is a feature on a woman whose daughter was kidnapped and trafficked into sex work ten years ago in Argentina. Susana Trimarco, the mother, has been fighting human trafficking- often at risk to her own life- ever since. She is credited with finding the information needed to prosecute dozens of traffickers and rescue 129 trafficking victims, and she has started a foundation to respond to trafficking throughout Argentina. Wow. A round of applause, folks.

Our final link comes in light of the controversy over Sandra Fluke's Congressional testimony on contraceptive costs, and it's a link to individual cis women's testimonies about their experiences with hormonal contraceptive costs. I think it's a particularly good thing to think about in light of the tone of public debate over contraceptive coverage, and I also recommend looking at Emily's post from Friday.

That's all, folks!