As the Worldcrunch Today crew takes a week of break, we offer a series of thematic articles straight from the Worldcrunch vault. Are We Anti-Kids? A Deep Dive Into South Korea’s Plummeting Fertility Rate SEOUL — A café owner served Minkyung a persimmon cake stuffed with soft cheese, a seasonal Korean favorite. The 40-year-old is […]
Category: Women Worldwide
Doing the laundry, tidying up after men, “I’ll do it”: Even modern women fall for stereotypical patterns in the household. They should learn to put their feet up.
In the darkest corners of gender violence there is “violencia vicaria”, or vicarious violence, aimed at one person (usually inside a family) to hurt another. It is a devastating shadow over mothers and children. Between silence and invisibility, this form of abuse leads to tragedies and leaves deep scars — and calls for urgent and greater recognition and protection for victims.
Women over 40 are storming the catwalks — and discovering a new source of self-esteem.
The Argentine comic strip, who is now about to get its own Netflix series, was created at a time when Latin America was going through political censorship. A testament to Mafalda’s innocent-but-serious attitude toward world problems, an excellent example of how young people often see more clearly than the rest of us.
Several women have announced their candidacy in Algeria’s presidential election, on Sept. 7, which will potentially mark a new chapter in the North African county, five years after peaceful protests forced President Abdelaziz Bouteflika to resign after two decades in office.
Marta Lida Arias, a veteran LGBTQ+ activist in Medellín, discusses how she’s created a community for other women who were once intimidated by Colombia’s patriarchal society and norms, and why their fight isn’t over yet.
In Egypt, some 90% of cyber blackmail victims are women; yet only 10% of victims report these incidents for fear of social stigma or what they call “scandals” for their families. Expecting a lack of support from their families, they also turn to community initiatives.
Laws in the late 1990s ended bans on women from wearing pants in Brazil’s courts and legislature, a practice that de facto has continued in many place. Female judges and legislators discuss how dress codes hinder women’s access to power, and the battle to change habits.
More than seven months after Poland’s longstanding conservative government lost national elections, its moderate successors are struggling to reconcile their coalition that includes traditional Catholics intent on blocking changes to the strictest abortion bans in Europe.
Former inmates of the Miraflores Women’s Penitentiary Center — where former Interim President Jeanine Anez is now serving her sentence — share their stories of solidarity and support among the women there, but they also call for changes within the prison system and society.
It is not not gray-haired men who feel uncomfortable with feminism, but rather Gen Z boys. So what is causing young men, witnesses of #MeToo, to take sides against feminism?
In Lebanon, as in many countries in the Arab world, abortion is criminalized, leaving women with few safe options to end a pregnancy. In the Beirut-based independent digital media Daraj, Nour, 20, shares her story of learning she was pregnant out of wedlock and seeking a secret medical abortion.
Influenced by social media, more and more teenagers in Argentina, and elsewhere, are using anti-aging products. Dermatologists warn that this trend is not only unnecessary but can also be harmful for their young skin.
The author was from one of the rare families in Damascus who were not direct victims of Syria’s long civil war. But she hardly emerged unscathed.
Erasing the practice of midwifery through legislation seems impossible, yet fear persists in Mexico, which counts at least 16,000 midwives, trusted by thousands of women every year, especially peasant and indigenous women.
Brazil may become the last in a long list of countries to restrict legal access to abortion. However, the consequences here would be devastating for girls aged below 14, who represent more than 60% of victims of rape.
In just 60 years, from 1960 to 2020, South Korea’s fertility rate has plummeted from 6 to 0.8. Can a new round of government programs to incite pregnancies, or will it backfire gain?
Palestinian women are suffering disproportionately in the Gaza conflict, where they represent 70% of casualties and more than half of the displaced people.
Legalized in Argentina up to 14 weeks in 2020, abortion is now under attack by Javier Milei’s far-right government, which is compromising access to the procedure and spurring anti-abortion movements in the country — with implications for women in neighboring Brazil, Paraguay and Chile.
The arrival of a child is rarely discussed publicly by female bosses. A number of them told Les Echos about special time in their lives, and revealed some tips on how to juggle their professional and private lives.
Trafficking people, especially for sex, between Colombia and Mexico is rife and rising, buoyed in part by pervasive social and media contempt for the working-class girls who are among the chief victims.
An anthropologist who has focused on urban geography and violence, Omnia Khalil reflects on how her daily movement was shaped by architectural design in Egypt, a country where sexual harassment is a widespread and serious problem.
A winemaker in Italy reclaimed her grandparents’ vineyards and created her own queer winery dedicated to the LGBTQ+ community, including wines bearing the names of women accused of witchcraft. And yet this innovative and sustainable initiative has generated unforgivable homophobic and sexist comments on social networks.
For decades, feminists have accused Marxism of not addressing women’s specific struggles. With presidential elections in Mexico approaching in June, an interesting experiment may happen, as two female candidates are in the race. A vision for how Marxism and feminism, together, can help change Mexican society — with a woman at the helm.
After seeing the 2024 Met Gala photos, the common denominator seems to be how uncomfortable most women appeared to be. Squeezed in tight dresses and high heels, and often in need of a man — who’s always wearing a comfortable suit — to somehow achieve the perfect level of what we call “femininity.”
Cecchettin was stabbed to death by her ex-boyfriend in northern Italy, a murder case that quickly turned into a political movement. The supposed motive is chilling in what it says about the current state of male-dominated society.
With their country in an intractable civil war, thousands of Yemeni women have been unable to obtain passports and other official documents without the permission of a male guardian or relative — as warring authorities have been systematically violating Yemeni law and women’s right to freedom of movement.
Determined to reinterpret the roots of Islam, progressive Muslim women are breaking down conservatism that’s been blocking their emancipation, and questioning the authority of established institutions and the scholarly consensus on religious norms.
While more than 2 million Italians and millions more around the world are thought to have fibromyalgia, the hunt for a cure for this chronic pain disorder is a long road. Between small legislative advances and psychedelics, Mariachiara Rafaiani shares her hopes for understanding and relief.
A right-wing association of men in Portugal wants housewives to be recognized for their work — but in doing so wants to make sure that housework is something that is only connected to the female gender. Stop right there.
While “Most Views” which aired in Egypt during the month of Ramadan is credited with showing poverty in the country, the drama series misses an important opportunity to address the root causes of the TikTok girl trend.
Shakira made headlines this week for calling the Barbie movie “emasculating,” yet the Colombian superstar, with a radical image change in 2009 and her signature hip moves, has created her own pack of undeniable feminist she-wolves.
Violence against women, including rape, has been widespread in the war in Sudan, especially in the western region of Darfur. Now the women who led the uprising that toppled Omar al-Bashir in April 2019 are fighting to stop wartime sexual violence.
A debate about the Spanish entry for this year’s Eurovision prompts one woman writer to challenge the benefits of re-appropriating the word “slut.”
Long hidden and even seen as shameful, menopause is finally making its way into the public sphere in France, and elsewhere. Celebrities, journalists and sociologists are now talking about it openly, and brands are offering solutions to help reimagine what this physical and psychological change means to some women.
With men leaving for the front, Ukrainian women have stepped in to fill the void, notably in the coal industry. A reportage from the mines of the Dnipropetrovsk region to see how women are faring in this male-dominated field.
Women are used to getting advice about how they’re dressed, their unattended glass — and their route to get back home on Saturday night. This is what rape culture looks like. “Text me when you get home” is part of the silent sisterhood pact that we cherish, but also wish we didn’t need.
Increasingly children in homes plagued by domestic violence are the ones to finally report the abuser. It’s a grim situation when their mothers don’t back them up — but may also be a sign of progress that younger generations know how to defend their rights.
Women in the Islamic Republic are fighting to recover social rights and freedoms granted some 80 years ago by a monarchy that was once reviled and is now keenly missed by younger generations.