OPINION
November 16, 2011
Battle of the sexes Re "Israel women fear setback," Nov. 13 Why is it that ultra-conservative religions, no matter which one, always get around to deciding that women need to be controlled? A caption for one of the article's photos reads, "Ultra-Orthodox leaders say segregation of the sexes in public places is needed to protect women from exploitation and men from temptation. " Conservative Muslims give the same reasons for forcing women to wear burkas; other religious groups here offer similar reasoning for insisting that women wear strange garb.
WORLD
April 22, 2011 | By Alex Rodriguez, Los Angeles Times
In a ruling seen as a setback for women's rights in Pakistan, the country's Supreme Court on Thursday freed five men accused of gang-raping a woman on the orders of a village council. In 2002, elders in the southern Punjab village of Meerwala decreed that Mukhtar Mai, 30 at the time, should be raped in retaliation for her 13-year-old brother's alleged relationship with a woman from a wealthier family. Because of the severe social stigma associated with rape in Pakistan, many victims commit suicide or do not file complaints.
OPINION
April 1, 2011
Imagine you decided to have a medical procedure but state law said that, even though your doctor supported your decision, you had to be screened to see if you were mentally fit for it, and then had to go to a clinic that directly opposes doing the procedure and listen to its spiel before you could go ahead. Most of us would call that unconscionable interference in our ability to make decisions about our own health. Now imagine you're a pregnant woman in South Dakota. Under a law signed by Gov. Dennis Daugaard last week, women who seek an abortion will have to wait 72 hours, undergo two visits to physicians to be checked for unspecified physical and mental risk factors, and be proselytized by an antiabortion counseling center before they can have the procedure.
WORLD
February 2, 2011 | By Laura King, Los Angeles Times
Of all the astounding things that Rihab Assad has witnessed during these days of tumult, one stood out for her: the sight of a woman with a megaphone leading a crowd of demonstrators in chants. "And all of these men just chanting after her, repeating what she said," said Assad, an office manager in her 40s who lives in Cairo. "To me, this was something entirely new. " For many Egyptian women, the massive street demonstrations that have shaken the authoritarian rule of President Hosni Mubarak have also raised hopes of a more personal brand of liberation.
WORLD
December 31, 2010 | By Batsheva Sobelman and Edmund Sanders, Los Angeles Times
Former Israeli President Moshe Katsav was convicted Thursday of raping an aide and sexually harassing two other women, a verdict hailed as evidence of the nation's independent judiciary and a reminder that no one is above the law. The case, one of the most serious ever brought against a high-ranking government official here, drove Katsav from office in 2007. Although the spectacle of a president being brought up on rape charges became a source of national embarrassment, many found solace in the judges' guilty verdict.
WORLD
November 22, 2010 | By Jeffrey Fleishman, Los Angeles Times
The unveiled one enters. That's what you notice first when Amal Basha, black hair flowing, hurries into the room, deploying sentences like poetic armies. She mentions that she's just returned from a human rights conference and is on her way to a seminar against torture. A man slides a tray before her and disappears. Tea? Coffee? A cigarette? A story? "I had to wear the full niqab when I was 8 years old," she says of the face veil worn by women here. "I couldn't breathe.