With the Taliban’s recent takeover of Afghanistan, the fate of around 14 million women remains uncertain. From when they ruled the country between 1996 and 2001, the Taliban were notorious for their mistreatment of women and girls, imposing restrictions on almost all aspects of their lives, from...
When Oprah Winfrey tells people, "I am here to ask you to think seriously,” apparently they do. She really did say this, in 2007, and her audience duly thought about who was the best person for the US presidency. It was Barack Obama, America’s first black president. Oprah was, and remains, one...
Angela Merkel has become a symbol of women's success and self-assertion in a political arena still dominated by men, both in Germany and globally. Until a few months ago, the prospect of a female successor seemed very likely. But the initial euphoria, shortly after the Green Party named Annalena...
“I am holding Prince Andrew accountable for what he did to me,” said Virginia Roberts Giuffre, adding that she “did not come to the decision lightly.” Now 38, she claims she was forced to have sex with a member of the British royal family while under duress and still a minor. Prince...
In the years before the civil war broke out in 2011, Syrian families where women were the main income providers and oversaw family affairs remained the exception. At the time, about 15% of women were in the labor force, a large proportion of them in agriculture. Women occupying jobs in...
The COVID-19 pandemic and the associated lockdowns have spawned a lot of changes in workplace norms. As it turns out, these norms have had both positive effects and unintended consequences concerning things like remote work and how it impacts employees. While there has been some room for...
On May 9, 1985, John J. O'Connor wrote a story for The New York Times under the headline, “Bill Cosby’s Triumph.” It was the kind of accolade the comedian had become used to: “You look at ‘The Cosby Show’ and you feel, most of the time, just plain good. Television life on Thursdays at...
The progress of women in sport has been handicapped, not by their own frailty or bodily deficiencies but by myths about their physical abilities. For nearly a century, women’s relative inferiority in sport was attributable to one thing: men. Unenlightened Victorian doctors perpetuated so many...
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan issued a decree in the early hours of March 20 withdrawing Turkey from the Council of Europe treaty — dubbed the Istanbul Convention — on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence. The convention sets comprehensive standards...
“The Elizabeth Taylor who’s famous, the one on film, really has no depth or meaning to me,” the Hollywood icon told Life magazine’s Richard Meryman in 1964. “She’s a totally superficial working thing, a commodity. I really don’t know what the ingredients of the image are exactly —...
“We are very much not a racist family,” shouted back Prince William at the reporter. The journalist had asked the wrong question. The right question would have been, “Is your family class conscious?” The reply to that would have been silence. When Meghan Markle, the duchess of Sussex...
