Montana on Friday (April 29) has become the latest American state to ban or restrict gender-affirming medical care for transgender kids. The ban is set to take effect on October 1. According to a report by the news agency Associated Press, Montana is one of at least 15 states to ban such medical care despite protests from the families of transgender kids that the care is important.

<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/us-montana-transgender-democrat-leader-barred-from-house-floor-for-586585">Zooey Zephyr, a transgender lawmaker, decried the signing of the bill</a> by saying that it was unconscionable to deprive Montanans of "the care that we need."

“I know that this is an unconstitutional bill. It is as cruel as it is unconstitutional. And it will go down in the courts,” Zephyr said. On Monday, the lawmaker stood defiantly on the House floor with her microphone raised as protesters shouted “Let her speak,” disrupting House proceedings for at least half an hour.

ALSO READ |&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/kansas-imposes-sweeping-anti-transgender-bathroom-law-586767">Kansas imposes sweeping anti-transgender bathroom law</a>

She was then banned from the House and its gallery and voted on bills from a bench in the hallway outside the House on Thursday and Friday.&nbsp;

House Speaker Matt Regier refused to let Zephyr speak on the House floor until she apologised and she has not, the report said. And the Montana Freedom Caucus deliberately misgendered Zephyr using male pronouns in a letter saying the lawmaker should be censured.

Lambda Legal, the American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Montana, meanwhile, said they would file a court challenge against the ban. The Montana Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics said the bill is an "overly broad blanket ban" that takes decisions that should be made by families and physicians and put them in the hands of politicians.&nbsp;

As per the new law, health professionals who provide care banned by the measure could have their medical licences suspended for at least a year. Such professionals could be sued in the 25 years following the banned procedure if the patient suffers physical, psychological, emotional or physiological harm. The law states that physicians cannot hold malpractice insurance against such lawsuits. It also prohibits public property and employees from being involved in gender-affirming treatment.

The parents of transgender children in Montana testified the bill infringed on their parental rights to seek medical care for their children.

On April 17, Montana Governor Greg Gianforte signaled his willingness to sign the bill when he offered some amendments to make it clear that public funds could not be used to pay for hormone blockers, cross-sex hormones, or surgical procedures. In a letter accompanying the amendments, Gianforte said the bill protects Montana's children from permanent, life-altering medical procedures until they are adults, mature enough to make such serious decisions.&nbsp;

(With inputs from agencies)

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Montana on Friday (April 29) has become the latest American state to ban or restrict gender-affirming medical care for transgender kids. The ban is set to take effect on October 1.

Montana on Friday (April 29) has become the latest American state to ban or restrict gender-affirming medical care for transgender kids. The ban is set to take effect on October 1. According to a report by the news agency Associated Press, Montana is one of at least 15 states to ban such medical care despite protests from the families of transgender kids that the care is important. Zooey Zephyr, a transgender lawmaker, decried the signing of the bill by saying that it was unconscionable to deprive Montanans of "the care that we need." “I know that this is an unconstitutional bill. It is as cruel as it is unconstitutional. And it will go down in the courts,” Zephyr said. On Monday, the lawmaker stood defiantly on the House floor with her microphone raised as protesters shouted “Let her speak,” disrupting House proceedings for at least half an hour. ALSO READ | Kansas imposes sweeping anti-transgender bathroom law She was then banned from the House and its gallery and voted on bills from a bench in the hallway outside the House on Thursday and Friday. House Speaker Matt Regier refused to let Zephyr speak on the House floor until she apologised and she has not, the report said. And the Montana Freedom Caucus deliberately misgendered Zephyr using male pronouns in a letter saying the lawmaker should be censured. Lambda Legal, the American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Montana, meanwhile, said they would file a court challenge against the ban. The Montana Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics said the bill is an "overly broad blanket ban" that takes decisions that should be made by families and physicians and put them in the hands of politicians. As per the new law, health professionals who provide care banned by the measure could have their medical licences suspended for at least a year. Such professionals could be sued in the 25 years following the banned procedure if the patient suffers physical, psychological, emotional or physiological harm. The law states that physicians cannot hold malpractice insurance against such lawsuits. It also prohibits public property and employees from being involved in gender-affirming treatment. The parents of transgender children in Montana testified the bill infringed on their parental rights to seek medical care for their children. On April 17, Montana Governor Greg Gianforte signaled his willingness to sign the bill when he offered some amendments to make it clear that public funds could not be used to pay for hormone blockers, cross-sex hormones, or surgical procedures. In a letter accompanying the amendments, Gianforte said the bill protects Montana's children from permanent, life-altering medical procedures until they are adults, mature enough to make such serious decisions. (With inputs from agencies) WATCH WION LIVE HERE You can now write for wionews.com and be a part of the community. Share your stories and opinions with us here.

US: Montana becomes latest state to ban gender-affirming medical care for transgender kids

A transgender Democratic member of the Montana House of Representatives is facing heat for using language that has not gone down well her Republican counterparts.&nbsp;Representative Zooey Zephyr was making an impassioned plea to her colleagues to reject a bill banning gender-affirming care for transgender minors saying it would 'tantamount to torture', when the Conservatives took offence.&nbsp;

“This body should be ashamed.&nbsp;If you vote yes on this bill and yes on these amendments I hope the next time there’s an invocation, when you bow your heads in prayer, you see the blood on your hands," said Zephyr.&nbsp;

After Zephyr's statement, House Majority Leader Sue Vinton stood and said, “I will note that this is entirely inappropriate, disrespectful and uncalled for. We can debate matters civilly and with respect for each other,"&nbsp;

Later, the Montana Freedom Caucus, a group of conservative lawmakers wrote a letter, accusing&nbsp;Zephyr of espousing 'hateful rhetoric'. Later on the same day, the Caucus took to Twitter and demanded Zephyr be censured for the speech.

"For attempting to shame the Montana legislative body and by using inappropriate and uncalled-for language during a floor debate over amendments concerning Senate Bill 99 - to ban sex changes of minor children" stated the Republican leaders.&nbsp;

<h2>Zephyr misgendered&nbsp;</h2>

Zephyr, who represents&nbsp;Montana's 100th House District replied saying the Caucus had misgendered her by using 'his' pronoun in the letter.&nbsp;

“It is disheartening that the Montana Freedom Caucus would stoop so low as to misgender me in their letter, further demonstrating their disregard for the dignity and humanity of transgender individuals. Their call for ‘civility and respect’ is hypocritical given their actions," said&nbsp;Zephyr.&nbsp;

“It is particularly troubling that the moment they were confronted with the impact their legislation has, they chose to silence the only trans woman elected to public office in Montana as opposed to doing the right thing and voting down this harmful legislation."

<a href="https://www.wionews.com/videos/transgender-rights-activists-clash-with-neo-nazis-in-melbourne-573615">WATCH |&nbsp;Transgender rights activists clash with Neo-Nazi's in Melbourne</a>

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<h2>Other states have banned gender-affirming care</h2>

Montana is not the first US state to bring in a legislation banning gender-affirming care. Earlier this month,&nbsp;Idaho and Indiana passed similar bills, making sure that&nbsp;minors will not be able to transition from their assigned gender at birth.&nbsp;

Those against passing the bill say that banning healthcare facilities is an impediment for the trans community kids who might require vital and often life-saving care. They added that most procedures available to trans kids are reversible and safe.&nbsp;

<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/usa-idaho-and-indiana-approve-legislation-banning-gender-affirming-care-579807">ALSO READ | USA: Idaho and Indiana approve legislation banning gender-affirming healthcare</a>

Meanwhile, the supporters of the legislation argue that such procedures are harmful and carry lifelong repercussions and that only an adult should take the decisions - not the minor or their parents.&nbsp;

(With inputs from agencies)

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A transgender Democratic member of the Montana House of Representatives is facing heat for using language that has not gone down well her Republican counterparts.

A transgender Democratic member of the Montana House of Representatives is facing heat for using language that has not gone down well her Republican counterparts. Representative Zooey Zephyr was making an impassioned plea to her colleagues to reject a bill banning gender-affirming care for transgender minors saying it would 'tantamount to torture', when the Conservatives took offence. “This body should be ashamed. If you vote yes on this bill and yes on these amendments I hope the next time there’s an invocation, when you bow your heads in prayer, you see the blood on your hands," said Zephyr. After Zephyr's statement, House Majority Leader Sue Vinton stood and said, “I will note that this is entirely inappropriate, disrespectful and uncalled for. We can debate matters civilly and with respect for each other," Later, the Montana Freedom Caucus, a group of conservative lawmakers wrote a letter, accusing Zephyr of espousing 'hateful rhetoric'. Later on the same day, the Caucus took to Twitter and demanded Zephyr be censured for the speech. "For attempting to shame the Montana legislative body and by using inappropriate and uncalled-for language during a floor debate over amendments concerning Senate Bill 99 - to ban sex changes of minor children" stated the Republican leaders. Zephyr misgendered Zephyr, who represents Montana's 100th House District replied saying the Caucus had misgendered her by using 'his' pronoun in the letter. “It is disheartening that the Montana Freedom Caucus would stoop so low as to misgender me in their letter, further demonstrating their disregard for the dignity and humanity of transgender individuals. Their call for ‘civility and respect’ is hypocritical given their actions," said Zephyr. “It is particularly troubling that the moment they were confronted with the impact their legislation has, they chose to silence the only trans woman elected to public office in Montana as opposed to doing the right thing and voting down this harmful legislation." WATCH | Transgender rights activists clash with Neo-Nazi's in Melbourne × Other states have banned gender-affirming care Montana is not the first US state to bring in a legislation banning gender-affirming care. Earlier this month, Idaho and Indiana passed similar bills, making sure that minors will not be able to transition from their assigned gender at birth. Those against passing the bill say that banning healthcare facilities is an impediment for the trans community kids who might require vital and often life-saving care. They added that most procedures available to trans kids are reversible and safe. ALSO READ | USA: Idaho and Indiana approve legislation banning gender-affirming healthcare Meanwhile, the supporters of the legislation argue that such procedures are harmful and carry lifelong repercussions and that only an adult should take the decisions - not the minor or their parents. (With inputs from agencies) WATCH WION LIVE HERE:

US: Republicans want transgender lawmaker censured for condemning bill banning gender-affirming healthcare

In what comes as a major setback for the LGBTQ+ community and their rights, the Republican states of Indiana and Idaho in the United States have approved legislation banning all types of gender-affirming healthcare for minors — meaning they will not be able to transition from their assigned gender at birth.

In what comes as a major setback for the LGBTQ+ community and their rights, the Republican states of Indiana and Idaho in the United States have approved legislation banning all types of gender-affirming healthcare for minors — meaning they will not be able to transition from their assigned gender at birth. Eric Holcomb, the Idaho governor signed the bill on Wednesday prohibiting transgender youth from seeking medication or surgeries that help in the transition process. Additionally, the bill mandates those taking medication for transition stop doing so by the end of the year. Notably, the legislation in the northwestern state will come into effect from July 1 and doctors providing gender-affirming care would be disciplined by a licensing board, per an Associated Press report. “Permanent gender-changing surgeries with lifelong impacts and medically prescribed preparation for such a transition should occur as an adult, not as a minor,” said Holcomb. WATCH | Transgender rights activists clash with Neo-Nazi's in Melbourne × Assisting transition a felony crime Meanwhile, Idaho Governor Brad Little signed the legislation on Tuesday which criminalised gender-affirming care for youth. The law kicks into effect from January next year and doctors who are caught providing hormones, puberty blockers or other gender-affirming care to minors would be charged with a felony crime. “In signing this bill, I recognise our society plays a role in protecting minors from surgeries or treatments that can irreversibly damage their healthy bodies,” said Little before adding, “However, as policymakers, we should take great caution whenever we consider allowing the government to interfere with loving parents and their decisions about what is best for their children.” ALSO READ | This US state has approved construction of monument dedicated to aborted fetuses Naysayers and supporters argue the legislation The naysayers of the move say that banning healthcare facilities is an impediment for the trans community kids who might require vital and often life-saving care. They added that most procedures available to trans kids are reversible and safe. Indiana American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit, immediately after the passing of the legislation saying it was a violation of individuals' constitutional rights which guarantees equal protection regarding medical services. Meanwhile, the supporters of the legislation argue that such procedures are harmful and carry lifelong repercussions and that only an adult should take the decisions - not the minor or their parents. ALSO READ | In a first, five pregnant women sue the state of Texas over abortion ban (With inputs from agencies) WATCH WION LIVE HERE:

USA: Idaho and Indiana approve legislation banning gender-affirming healthcare

A new regulation that prohibits minors from undergoing gender transitioning procedures has taken effect in Florida, even as Republican state lawmakers plan to strengthen the restrictions even further.

From Thursday, doctors performing gender transition surgery or prescribing puberty blockers to treat gender dysphoria to those under 18&nbsp;could see their medical license getting revoked.

Although minors who are currently getting treated with puberty blockers or hormone therapies before Thursday would be allowed to continue the treatment, however they won’t be able to undergo sex reassignment surgeries under the new rule.

Moreover, GOP politicians are currently pushing through a bill in the Florida Senate that will make it a felony to provide any such gender-affirming care to minors, as well as ban state funds from being used to cover the same care for adults, reports CBS News.

Florida’s Republican Governor Ron DeSantis, who is expected to run against Joe Biden in 2024, is among the GOP lawmakers nationwide targeting gender-affirming care for minors.

The Democrats have said that they will file a lawsuit in the coming months and challenge the rule.

The proponents of the rule argue that that gender-affirming treatment for youths is experimental and not backed by robust clinical research.

Earlier, Joe Biden criticised the regulation saying that it's not like a child wakes up one day and decides to change their gender.

“It’s just terrible what they’re doing,”&nbsp;Biden told “The Daily Show” earlier this week.

“It’s not like, you know, a kid wakes up one morning and says, ‘You know, I decided I wanted to become a man,’ or ‘I want to become a woman’ … I mean, what are they thinking about here?”

“It’s cruel,” the President added.

DeSantis hit back, tweeting, “It is not ‘sinful’ to prohibit the mutilation of minors. It is not acceptable for the federal government to mandate that procedures like sex change operations be allowed for kids.”

(With inputs from agencies)

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A new regulation that prohibits minors from undergoing gender transitioning procedures has taken effect in Florida, even as Republican state lawmakers plan to strengthen the restrictions even further.

A new regulation that prohibits minors from undergoing gender transitioning procedures has taken effect in Florida, even as Republican state lawmakers plan to strengthen the restrictions even further. From Thursday, doctors performing gender transition surgery or prescribing puberty blockers to treat gender dysphoria to those under 18 could see their medical license getting revoked. Although minors who are currently getting treated with puberty blockers or hormone therapies before Thursday would be allowed to continue the treatment, however they won’t be able to undergo sex reassignment surgeries under the new rule. Moreover, GOP politicians are currently pushing through a bill in the Florida Senate that will make it a felony to provide any such gender-affirming care to minors, as well as ban state funds from being used to cover the same care for adults, reports CBS News. Florida’s Republican Governor Ron DeSantis, who is expected to run against Joe Biden in 2024, is among the GOP lawmakers nationwide targeting gender-affirming care for minors. The Democrats have said that they will file a lawsuit in the coming months and challenge the rule. The proponents of the rule argue that that gender-affirming treatment for youths is experimental and not backed by robust clinical research. Earlier, Joe Biden criticised the regulation saying that it's not like a child wakes up one day and decides to change their gender. “It’s just terrible what they’re doing,” Biden told “The Daily Show” earlier this week. “It’s not like, you know, a kid wakes up one morning and says, ‘You know, I decided I wanted to become a man,’ or ‘I want to become a woman’ … I mean, what are they thinking about here?” “It’s cruel,” the President added. DeSantis hit back, tweeting, “It is not ‘sinful’ to prohibit the mutilation of minors. It is not acceptable for the federal government to mandate that procedures like sex change operations be allowed for kids.” (With inputs from agencies) WATCH WION LIVE HERE

Florida’s rule banning transgender treatment on minors takes effect

Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud revealed on Wednesday (March 15) that the Supreme Court of India would soon release a legal glossary of inappropriate gendered terms. Justice Chandrachud was speaking at a belated celebration of International Women's Day organised by Gender Sensitisation and Internal Complaints Committee, said media reports.

He said that the glossary was a mission he undertook a few years ago and was nearing its completion. Justice Chandrachud drew attention at the use of words in court matters which denigrate women

"One project I had started a few years ago is a legal glossary of inappropriate terms in the discourse on gender. For instance, I have come across judgments which have referred to a woman as a ‘concubine’ when she is in a relationship. Women have been called 'keeps' in judgements where there were applications for quashing of FIRs under the Domestic Violence Act and Section 498A of the Indian Penal Code. It is important for us to bring focus on these terms not to be little a judge but to understand why use of these terms belies our openness to gender sensitisation." he said as quoted by Bar and Bench dot com.

India's top judge added that the purpose of the list was not to belittle judges but to make everyone understand “our problems within the mind.” These, he said, were preconceived notions, biases and more

“Unless we are open about these facets, it will be difficult for us to evolve as a society,” said Justice Chadrachud.

He revealed that the glossary was prepared by a committee chaired by Moushumi Bhattacharya, Calcutta High Court Judge. Other people who were involved in making of the glossary were Delhi High Court Judge Justice Prathiba M. Singh, former judges Prabha Sridevan and Gita Mittal, and Jhuma Sen, Advocate, Calcutta High Court and Supreme Court, also an adjunct faculty member at the West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences in Kolkata.

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Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud revealed on Wednesday (March 15) that the Supreme Court of India would soon release a legal glossary of inappropriate gendered terms.

Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud revealed on Wednesday (March 15) that the Supreme Court of India would soon release a legal glossary of inappropriate gendered terms. Justice Chandrachud was speaking at a belated celebration of International Women's Day organised by Gender Sensitisation and Internal Complaints Committee, said media reports. He said that the glossary was a mission he undertook a few years ago and was nearing its completion. Justice Chandrachud drew attention at the use of words in court matters which denigrate women "One project I had started a few years ago is a legal glossary of inappropriate terms in the discourse on gender. For instance, I have come across judgments which have referred to a woman as a ‘concubine’ when she is in a relationship. Women have been called 'keeps' in judgements where there were applications for quashing of FIRs under the Domestic Violence Act and Section 498A of the Indian Penal Code. It is important for us to bring focus on these terms not to be little a judge but to understand why use of these terms belies our openness to gender sensitisation." he said as quoted by Bar and Bench dot com. India's top judge added that the purpose of the list was not to belittle judges but to make everyone understand “our problems within the mind.” These, he said, were preconceived notions, biases and more “Unless we are open about these facets, it will be difficult for us to evolve as a society,” said Justice Chadrachud. He revealed that the glossary was prepared by a committee chaired by Moushumi Bhattacharya, Calcutta High Court Judge. Other people who were involved in making of the glossary were Delhi High Court Judge Justice Prathiba M. Singh, former judges Prabha Sridevan and Gita Mittal, and Jhuma Sen, Advocate, Calcutta High Court and Supreme Court, also an adjunct faculty member at the West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences in Kolkata. You can now write for wionews.com and be a part of the community. Share your stories and opinions with us here. WATCH WION LIVE HERE ×

Supreme Court of India to release glossary of inappropriate gendered terms

The British government said on Monday that it will oppose a proposed Scottish bill that would make it easier for people to legally alter their gender, upsetting transgender rights activists and the nationalist Scottish government in Edinburgh. Alister Jack, the secretary of state for Scotland, declared he would stop the measure from receiving royal assent, the last step before it becomes law, because of fear that it contradicts "Great Britain-wide equalities legislation." This law provides women and girls access to single-sex areas like restrooms and shelters, among other things.

The Scottish administration will likely appeal the ruling to the United Kingdom Supreme Court.

Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon referred to the Conservative Party's choice as "a full-frontal attack" on the Scottish people.

“The Scottish Government will defend the legislation and stand up for Scotland’s Parliament,” she said on Twitter. “If this Westminster veto succeeds, it will be the first of many.”

Also read |&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/uk-teachers-announce-strikes-most-english-and-welsh-schools-to-face-closure-553276">UK teachers announce strikes, most English and Welsh schools to face closure</a>

The Scottish law does away with the necessity of a gender dysphoria diagnosis by allowing people aged 16 or older in Scotland to change the gender designation on the identity documents of their own choice.

Additionally, it reduces the amount of time that transgender persons must live in a different declared gender before the transition is recognised legally from two years to three months for adults and six months for those between the ages of 16 and 17.

Also watch |&nbsp;UK to supply battle tanks to Ukraine amid Russian strikes

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The argument put up by opponents is that it runs the danger of giving predatory men access to places designated for women, including shelters for victims of domestic violence. Others contend that 18 should continue to be the minimum age for transitioning.

Since the establishment of the Scottish government and parliament a quarter century ago, this is the first case in which the UK government has blocked the ratification of Scottish legislation. The action will serve as fodder for nationalists who want Scotland to secede from the United Kingdom and establish an independent nation.

(With inputs from agencies)

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The British government said on Monday that it will oppose a proposed Scottish bill that would make it easier for people to legally alter their gender, upsetting transgender rights activists and the nationalist Scottish government in Edinburgh.

The British government said on Monday that it will oppose a proposed Scottish bill that would make it easier for people to legally alter their gender, upsetting transgender rights activists and the nationalist Scottish government in Edinburgh. Alister Jack, the secretary of state for Scotland, declared he would stop the measure from receiving royal assent, the last step before it becomes law, because of fear that it contradicts "Great Britain-wide equalities legislation." This law provides women and girls access to single-sex areas like restrooms and shelters, among other things. The Scottish administration will likely appeal the ruling to the United Kingdom Supreme Court. Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon referred to the Conservative Party's choice as "a full-frontal attack" on the Scottish people. “The Scottish Government will defend the legislation and stand up for Scotland’s Parliament,” she said on Twitter. “If this Westminster veto succeeds, it will be the first of many.” Also read | UK teachers announce strikes, most English and Welsh schools to face closure The Scottish law does away with the necessity of a gender dysphoria diagnosis by allowing people aged 16 or older in Scotland to change the gender designation on the identity documents of their own choice. Additionally, it reduces the amount of time that transgender persons must live in a different declared gender before the transition is recognised legally from two years to three months for adults and six months for those between the ages of 16 and 17. Also watch | UK to supply battle tanks to Ukraine amid Russian strikes The argument put up by opponents is that it runs the danger of giving predatory men access to places designated for women, including shelters for victims of domestic violence. Others contend that 18 should continue to be the minimum age for transitioning. Since the establishment of the Scottish government and parliament a quarter century ago, this is the first case in which the UK government has blocked the ratification of Scottish legislation. The action will serve as fodder for nationalists who want Scotland to secede from the United Kingdom and establish an independent nation. (With inputs from agencies) WATCH WION LIVE HERE:

UK: Rishi Sunak's govt overrules Scotland’s gender self-recognition bill

While many may have adjusted to working from home since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, gender appears to play a role in who picks up more slack around the house while working from home. A new study has found that among dual-earning couples, both men and women completed more family-related tasks when working from home. Watch this to know more.

Work From Home affects gender roles

In a historic move, lawmakers in Spain passed a transgender rights bill on Thursday permitting people above the age of 16 to change the gender on their ID card, legislation which has left the feminist movement and left-wing government of Spain divided.

The bill which received 188 votes in favour and 150 against as well as seven abstentions, will now go to the Senate, where if it remains unchanged, it will take the form of a law in weeks.

With this move, Spain will become one of the few countries in the world that permits transgender citizens to change their gender on the ID card with a simple declaration.&nbsp;

ALSO READ| <a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/spain-divided-over-bill-that-allows-transgender-people-over-16-to-change-gender-in-id-545351">Spain divided over bill that allows transgender people over 16 to change gender in ID</a>

As per the draft bill, the procedure for changing the gender status on the national identity card of a person will be simplified, permitting people to simply file a request for a change on the basis of a simple statement.

After the request is submitted, the applicant needs to confirm the request three months later, after which it becomes valid.

However, the draft bill's text has ensued a bitter quarrel between LGBTQ equality campaigners and activists in the powerful feminist lobby of Spain.

The legislation regarding transgender rights is among the Podemos-held equality ministry's flagship projects. Podemos is Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez's Socialist-led coalition's radical left-wing junior partner.&nbsp;

WATCH| Spain passes sexual, reproductive health law; abortion now free in public health clinics

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"At last this law depathologises trans lives and guarantees trans people's rights," Equality Minister Irene Montero stated while speaking in the parliament during debate on Wednesday.

"Trans women are women," the minister added, who has strongly advocated gender self-identification and has denounced any opposition as "transphobia".&nbsp;

(With inputs from agencies)

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In a historic move, lawmakers in Spain passed a transgender rights bill on Thursday permitting people above the age of 16 to change the gender on their ID card, legislation which has left the feminist movement and left-wing government of Spain divided.

In a historic move, lawmakers in Spain passed a transgender rights bill on Thursday permitting people above the age of 16 to change the gender on their ID card, legislation which has left the feminist movement and left-wing government of Spain divided. The bill which received 188 votes in favour and 150 against as well as seven abstentions, will now go to the Senate, where if it remains unchanged, it will take the form of a law in weeks. With this move, Spain will become one of the few countries in the world that permits transgender citizens to change their gender on the ID card with a simple declaration. ALSO READ| Spain divided over bill that allows transgender people over 16 to change gender in ID As per the draft bill, the procedure for changing the gender status on the national identity card of a person will be simplified, permitting people to simply file a request for a change on the basis of a simple statement. After the request is submitted, the applicant needs to confirm the request three months later, after which it becomes valid. However, the draft bill's text has ensued a bitter quarrel between LGBTQ equality campaigners and activists in the powerful feminist lobby of Spain. The legislation regarding transgender rights is among the Podemos-held equality ministry's flagship projects. Podemos is Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez's Socialist-led coalition's radical left-wing junior partner. WATCH| Spain passes sexual, reproductive health law; abortion now free in public health clinics "At last this law depathologises trans lives and guarantees trans people's rights," Equality Minister Irene Montero stated while speaking in the parliament during debate on Wednesday. "Trans women are women," the minister added, who has strongly advocated gender self-identification and has denounced any opposition as "transphobia". (With inputs from agencies)

Spain passes transgender rights bill, allowing people above 16 to change gender on ID

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and her Finnish counterpart Sanna Marin have long faced questions about their age and gender at a joint press conference at Auckland’s Government House.

Leaders of New Zealand and Finland hit back at reporter’s question on age and gender

Asserting that the Russian war on Ukraine is a “perfect example of toxic masculinity”, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has claimed that Vladimir Putin&nbsp;would not have invaded Ukraine if he were a woman.

Terming the invasion as "crazy, macho", the UK prime minister called for "more women in positions of power".

Johnson's comments come during an interview with German media following the G7 summit in Schloss Elmau.

“If Putin was a woman, which he obviously isn’t, if he were, I really don’t think he would have embarked on a crazy, macho war of invasion and violence in the way that he has,” Johnson told broadcaster ZDF.

“If you want a perfect example of toxic masculinity, it’s what he is doing in&nbsp;Ukraine.”

Johnson also said that G7 leaders "desperately" seek an end to the war in Ukraine and that there is "no deal available" currently.

He also described the summit as "incredible" as leaders "got closer and closer" to an agreement.

Johnson asserted that the West must support Ukraine militarily in order to get President Volodymyr Zelensky "in the best possible position" in negotiations with Russia "when talks eventually come".

Meanwhile, there seems to be no end to Russia’s attack on Ukraine which is going on for more than four months now.

On Monday, missiles struck a shopping mall with more than 1,000 people in the central city of Kremenchuk.

Also read |&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/putin-has-become-a-terroristsays-zelensky-urges-un-to-expel-russia-492787" hreflang="en">Putin has become 'a terrorist,'says Zelensky, urges UN to expel Russia</a>

Incensed Zelensky accused Putin of becoming a “terrorist” and leading a “terrorist state”. He further urged Russia’s expulsion from the United Nations.

Also read |&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/nato-to-invite-finland-and-sweden-to-join-alliance-after-turkiye-lifts-objections-492760">Finland, Sweden set to become NATO members after Türkiye lifts objections</a>

During a virtual address to the UN security council, Zelensky urged the UN to establish an international tribunal to investigate “the actions of Russian occupiers on Ukrainian soil” and to hold the country accountable. “We need to act urgently to do everything to make Russia stop the killing spree,” he said.

(With inputs from agencies)

WATCH WION LIVE HERE

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Asserting that the Russian war on Ukraine is a “perfect example of toxic masculinity”, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has claimed that Vladimir Putin would not have invaded Ukraine if he were a woman.

Asserting that the Russian war on Ukraine is a “perfect example of toxic masculinity”, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has claimed that Vladimir Putin would not have invaded Ukraine if he were a woman. Terming the invasion as "crazy, macho", the UK prime minister called for "more women in positions of power". Johnson's comments come during an interview with German media following the G7 summit in Schloss Elmau. “If Putin was a woman, which he obviously isn’t, if he were, I really don’t think he would have embarked on a crazy, macho war of invasion and violence in the way that he has,” Johnson told broadcaster ZDF. “If you want a perfect example of toxic masculinity, it’s what he is doing in Ukraine.” Johnson also said that G7 leaders "desperately" seek an end to the war in Ukraine and that there is "no deal available" currently. He also described the summit as "incredible" as leaders "got closer and closer" to an agreement. Johnson asserted that the West must support Ukraine militarily in order to get President Volodymyr Zelensky "in the best possible position" in negotiations with Russia "when talks eventually come". Meanwhile, there seems to be no end to Russia’s attack on Ukraine which is going on for more than four months now. On Monday, missiles struck a shopping mall with more than 1,000 people in the central city of Kremenchuk. Also read | Putin has become 'a terrorist,'says Zelensky, urges UN to expel Russia Incensed Zelensky accused Putin of becoming a “terrorist” and leading a “terrorist state”. He further urged Russia’s expulsion from the United Nations. Also read | Finland, Sweden set to become NATO members after Türkiye lifts objections During a virtual address to the UN security council, Zelensky urged the UN to establish an international tribunal to investigate “the actions of Russian occupiers on Ukrainian soil” and to hold the country accountable. “We need to act urgently to do everything to make Russia stop the killing spree,” he said. (With inputs from agencies) WATCH WION LIVE HERE

If Putin was a woman, he wouldn’t have invaded Ukraine: UK PM Boris Johnson

Women worldwide are assigned more work than men. Women do more unpaid jobs than men. Women are paid 77 cents for every dollar given to men. This income inequality is called the gender pay gap. Every woman is a victim in this story. Listen in to Palki Sharma Upadhyay.

Gravitas Plus: Close the gender pay gap

A&nbsp;Texas&nbsp;judge on Friday blocked investigations into the parents of transgender minors, halting for the time being a controversial directive by the southern US state's governor.&nbsp;

"Victory," the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in&nbsp;Texas&nbsp;said on Twitter.&nbsp;

"A judge has blocked Gov. Greg Abbott and TexasDFPS's unlawful actions targeting essential medical care for transgender youth," it added, referring to the state's Department of Family and Protective Services.

Judge Amy Clark ruled Abbott's directive was unconstitutional, saying transgender minors and their parents would suffer "imminent and irreparable injury" if the directive was not halted, the Houston Chronicle reported.

Also read |<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/us-vice-president-kamala-harris-faces-flak-for-laughing-on-question-over-ukrainian-refugees-fate-461512">&nbsp;US Vice-President Kamala Harris faces flak for laughing on question over Ukrainian refugees’ fate</a>

Abbott issued the directive late last month to the DFPS to investigate instances of minors receiving gender-affirming medication and "sex change procedures," which he argued "constitute child abuse under existing&nbsp;Texas&nbsp;law."

Texas&nbsp;Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican, said he would appeal the ruling on Friday.&nbsp;

"Democrat judge tries to halt legal and necessary investigations into those trying to abuse our kids through 'trans' surgeries and prescription drugs," he wrote on Twitter.

"I'm appealing. I'll win this fight to protect our&nbsp;Texas&nbsp;children."

Also read |&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/us-spy-agency-probes-sabotage-of-satellite-internet-during-russian-invasion-sources-461510">US spy agency probes sabotage of satellite internet during Russian invasion: Sources</a>

The ACLU and Lambda Legal, an LGBTQ rights organization, had already managed to suspend a probe into the parents of a 16-year-old transgender girl in early March, filing a lawsuit on behalf of the mother.&nbsp;

Shortly after Abbott's directive, the mother had been suspended by her employer, the DFPS, and visited by a state investigator who sought to learn whether her child was "currently transitioning from male to female,"&nbsp;court&nbsp;documents said.

US President Joe Biden has condemned Abbott for what he called a "cynical and dangerous campaign targeting transgender children and their parents."

Watch |&nbsp;UNSC Meet: Russia accuses US of backing bioweapons program

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Gender-affirming medical care for transgender minors, much like participation by transgender athletes in sports competitions or the use of toilets according to their gender identity, is the subject of extensive debate in the United States, where many conservative states have moved to adopt restrictive regulations.

A Texas judge on Friday blocked investigations into the parents of transgender minors, halting for the time being a controversial directive by the southern US state's governor.

A Texas judge on Friday blocked investigations into the parents of transgender minors, halting for the time being a controversial directive by the southern US state's governor. "Victory," the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in Texas said on Twitter. "A judge has blocked Gov. Greg Abbott and TexasDFPS's unlawful actions targeting essential medical care for transgender youth," it added, referring to the state's Department of Family and Protective Services. Judge Amy Clark ruled Abbott's directive was unconstitutional, saying transgender minors and their parents would suffer "imminent and irreparable injury" if the directive was not halted, the Houston Chronicle reported. Also read | US Vice-President Kamala Harris faces flak for laughing on question over Ukrainian refugees’ fate Abbott issued the directive late last month to the DFPS to investigate instances of minors receiving gender-affirming medication and "sex change procedures," which he argued "constitute child abuse under existing Texas law." Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican, said he would appeal the ruling on Friday. "Democrat judge tries to halt legal and necessary investigations into those trying to abuse our kids through 'trans' surgeries and prescription drugs," he wrote on Twitter. "I'm appealing. I'll win this fight to protect our Texas children." Also read | US spy agency probes sabotage of satellite internet during Russian invasion: Sources The ACLU and Lambda Legal, an LGBTQ rights organization, had already managed to suspend a probe into the parents of a 16-year-old transgender girl in early March, filing a lawsuit on behalf of the mother. Shortly after Abbott's directive, the mother had been suspended by her employer, the DFPS, and visited by a state investigator who sought to learn whether her child was "currently transitioning from male to female," court documents said. US President Joe Biden has condemned Abbott for what he called a "cynical and dangerous campaign targeting transgender children and their parents." Watch | UNSC Meet: Russia accuses US of backing bioweapons program Gender-affirming medical care for transgender minors, much like participation by transgender athletes in sports competitions or the use of toilets according to their gender identity, is the subject of extensive debate in the United States, where many conservative states have moved to adopt restrictive regulations.

Texas court suspends investigations of parents of transgender minors

A recent research by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington has revealed that women have experienced greater negative social and economic impacts of Covid than men. The ongoing pandemic possess a serious threat of reversing all the progress which has been made towards gender equality.

A massive gender gap was seen in employment and uncompensated labour. Globally, nearly 26 per cent of women reported a loss of work compared with 20 per cent of men in September 2021.&nbsp;

Not just this but women and girls were also more likely to drop out of school and more likely to report an increase in gender-based violence. Senior author Prof Emmanuela Gakidou, in a report by The Guardian, said, "This study provides the first comprehensive global evidence on gender disparities for a wide range of health-related, social and economic indicators throughout the pandemic."

“The evidence suggests that Covid-19 has tended to exacerbate previously existing social and economic disparities rather than create new inequalities."

<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/anxiety-and-depression-cases-surged-by-over-25-due-to-covid-who-458266">Also read |&nbsp;Anxiety and depression cases surged by over 25% due to Covid: WHO</a>

As a part of the study, publicly available datasets were analysed from 193 countries. Surveys were taken from March 2020 to September 2021 on health and wellbeing during the pandemic.&nbsp;

It was then concluded that everywhere, women experienced higher rates of employment loss than men.&nbsp;

Dr Luisa Flor, the study’s co-lead author was quoted by The Guardian as saying, "Economic impacts have affected women more than men in some countries because they tend to be employed disproportionately in sectors harder-hit by Covid-19, such as the hospitality industry or as domestic workers."

Meanwhile, the World Health Organisation has said that cases of anxiety and depression have surged by over 25 per cent globally as Covid has taken a severe toll on the mental health of people.&nbsp;

During a scientific brief, the organisation revealed that there was a 25.6 per cent hike in cases of anxiety disorders all across the globe.&nbsp;

Here as well, women have been the worst affected.&nbsp;

There have been 374 million cases of anxiety disorders around the world in 2020. Out of these, nearly 76 million were new cases caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

(With inputs from agencies)

A recent research by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington has revealed that women have experienced greater negative social and economic impacts of Covid than men.

A recent research by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington has revealed that women have experienced greater negative social and economic impacts of Covid than men. The ongoing pandemic possess a serious threat of reversing all the progress which has been made towards gender equality. A massive gender gap was seen in employment and uncompensated labour. Globally, nearly 26 per cent of women reported a loss of work compared with 20 per cent of men in September 2021. Not just this but women and girls were also more likely to drop out of school and more likely to report an increase in gender-based violence. Senior author Prof Emmanuela Gakidou, in a report by The Guardian, said, "This study provides the first comprehensive global evidence on gender disparities for a wide range of health-related, social and economic indicators throughout the pandemic." “The evidence suggests that Covid-19 has tended to exacerbate previously existing social and economic disparities rather than create new inequalities." Also read | Anxiety and depression cases surged by over 25% due to Covid: WHO As a part of the study, publicly available datasets were analysed from 193 countries. Surveys were taken from March 2020 to September 2021 on health and wellbeing during the pandemic. It was then concluded that everywhere, women experienced higher rates of employment loss than men. Dr Luisa Flor, the study’s co-lead author was quoted by The Guardian as saying, "Economic impacts have affected women more than men in some countries because they tend to be employed disproportionately in sectors harder-hit by Covid-19, such as the hospitality industry or as domestic workers." Meanwhile, the World Health Organisation has said that cases of anxiety and depression have surged by over 25 per cent globally as Covid has taken a severe toll on the mental health of people. During a scientific brief, the organisation revealed that there was a 25.6 per cent hike in cases of anxiety disorders all across the globe. Here as well, women have been the worst affected. There have been 374 million cases of anxiety disorders around the world in 2020. Out of these, nearly 76 million were new cases caused by the coronavirus pandemic. (With inputs from agencies)

This is how Covid could reverse all the progress made towards gender equality

People in Switzerland will be able to legally change gender by a visit to the civil registry office from January&nbsp;1, putting the country at the forefront of Europe's gender self-identification movement.

Switzerland joins Ireland, Belgium, Portugal and Norway as one of the few countries on the continent that allow a person to legally change gender without hormone therapy, medical diagnosis or further evaluation or bureaucratic steps.

Under the new rules written into Switzerland's civil code, anyone aged 16 and above who is not under legal guardianship will be able to adjust their gender and legal name by self-declaration at the civil registry office. Younger people and those under adult protection will require guardian consent.

This marks a change from the current set of regionally prescribed standards in Switzerland, which often require a certificate from a medical professional confirming an individual's transgender identity.

Some cantons - semi-autonomous regions in federal Switzerland - also require a person to undergo hormone treatment or anatomical transition in order to legally change gender, while, for a name change, proof could be required that the new name has already been unofficially in use for several years.

Switzerland, long known as socially conservative in the main, voted in September to legalise civil marriage.&nbsp;

With the new gender change rules, Switzerland joins just two dozen countries worldwide aiming to decouple gender choice from medical procedures.

While some other European nations including Denmark, Greece and France have removed the requirement of medical procedures, including sex reassignment surgery, sterilisation or psychiatric evaluation, their rules require further steps or conditions.

People in Switzerland will be able to legally change gender by a visit to the civil registry office from January 1, putting the country at the forefront of Europe's gender self-identification movement.

People in Switzerland will be able to legally change gender by a visit to the civil registry office from January 1, putting the country at the forefront of Europe's gender self-identification movement. Switzerland joins Ireland, Belgium, Portugal and Norway as one of the few countries on the continent that allow a person to legally change gender without hormone therapy, medical diagnosis or further evaluation or bureaucratic steps. Under the new rules written into Switzerland's civil code, anyone aged 16 and above who is not under legal guardianship will be able to adjust their gender and legal name by self-declaration at the civil registry office. Younger people and those under adult protection will require guardian consent. This marks a change from the current set of regionally prescribed standards in Switzerland, which often require a certificate from a medical professional confirming an individual's transgender identity. Some cantons - semi-autonomous regions in federal Switzerland - also require a person to undergo hormone treatment or anatomical transition in order to legally change gender, while, for a name change, proof could be required that the new name has already been unofficially in use for several years. Switzerland, long known as socially conservative in the main, voted in September to legalise civil marriage. With the new gender change rules, Switzerland joins just two dozen countries worldwide aiming to decouple gender choice from medical procedures. While some other European nations including Denmark, Greece and France have removed the requirement of medical procedures, including sex reassignment surgery, sterilisation or psychiatric evaluation, their rules require further steps or conditions.

Switzerland simplifies legal gender transition

2021 has been a year with lots of ups and downs. With the entire world trying to battle the deadly coronavirus, there are a few incidents that managed to divert people's attention.

2021 has been a year with lots of ups and downs. With the entire world trying to battle the deadly coronavirus, there are a few incidents that managed to divert people's attention. From making a major mistake on social media and listing baby on sale to using a real tiger at a gender reveal party. Here are few incidents from 2021 that surprised the netizens. Scroll below to see video and images. Back from dead? Woman who 'died' of coronavirus returns home after In January, people were surprised after an 85-year-old woman, who was thought to be ''dead'' by her family suddenly reappeared. The woman's family was told that she had passed away due to the deadly coronavirus. The hospital further told the family that she had been buried. However, after nine days, she reappeared. It was then concluded that there was a mix-up over names leading to confusion. Already scared on the roller coaster ride, teenager collides with a seagull Roller coaster rides can be extremely scary. The high speed and height can frighten any person. In a terrifying incident in July this year, a teenager who was screaming while sitting on a roller coaster was scared to death after a seagull landed on her chest. Frightening the netizens, the video of the incident went viral. Kiley Holman was celebrating her friend's 14th birthday on the SpringShot ride at Morey's Piers on the Jersey Shore when she was surprised by an unexpected visitor. WATCH: Seagull hits teen in the face as she rides roller coaster. https://t.co/WVytDiS3YW pic.twitter.com/cbVy2o1gLG — WFLA NEWS (@WFLA) July 22, 2021 × Tiger at a gender reveal party People in foreign countries follow a ritual of gender reveal parties. In such parties, the gender of an upcoming baby is revealed. People resort to many creative ways to do so. This couple from Dubai got way too creative when they used a real tiger to indicate the gender of their baby. Posted on Instagram, a video shows a tiger roaming on the beach next to the famed Burj al-Arab hotel in Dubai. Around the tiger, there are a few balloons floating around. Curiously, the tiger makes a big leap, bursting a balloon that sends pink powder into the air, indicating that it is a girl. After the video went viral on the internet, the couple received a lot of criticism from the netizens. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Carlotta (@carlotta.cavallari) × Man alive after surviving hours in a morgue freezer In a strange incident in November, a man managed to survive after spending a night in the morgue freezer. The man was declared dead after a road accident. At a private medical facility in Delhi, a doctor declared him dead upon arrival. After this, he was transported to a government hospital for a post-mortem. After being examined, there were no signs of life found. After the police were informed, his body was placed in the morgue freezer until his family arrived. It was only when one of his relatives noticed that he was moving, it was concluded that he is alive. A video went viral which show the relative saying, "He's not dead. How did this happen? Look, he's breathing." Here is the video. A 45-year-old man, who was declared 'dead' by doctors, was found alive despite spending a night in the freezer of a hospital morgue in #UP’s Moradabad#UttarPradesh #Moradabad pic.twitter.com/iLnTl6VWDi — Journalist Siraj Noorani (@sirajnoorani) November 22, 2021 × Mom lists baby up for sale on Facebook by mistake Social media can sometimes be a tricky thing to understand. Few mistakes made online can never be taken back. In one such mistake, a young mom from Leeds listed her baby for sale accidentally on a local Facebook group. This happened when she was trying to put an image of her sofa for sale but instead, she somehow put an image of her son with a caption that said she needs it "gone today." She realised that she had uploaded the wrong image after people from all over Leeds commented on that post. Lucy, who is 20-years-old, had posted pictures of her brown sofa but she did not realise that she had also included a smiling image of his seven-months old baby boy Oscar. The incident left netizens in splits as the post gathered hilarious comments from the netizens. Vietnamese noodle seller summoned by police after this video went viral People were shocked after a noodle seller in Vietnam was called summoned by the police for a parody video of the very famous Salt Bae. Bui Tuan Lam shared a video where he can be seen imitating the chef. While it became a reason for laughter for many on the internet, Bui Tuan Lam had to face some serious consequences. However, it turned out that the incident had to do with much more than Salt Bae. Vietnam's Minister of Public had recently visited Salt Bae's restaurant in London. Post his visit, images of him having gold leaf encrusted steak went viral on social media. This steak costs USD 1960. When Bui Tuan Lam made this video it was seen as a way of mocking the minister. Here is the video which was shared. × Elderly man survives an attack by bear People were taken by surprise after there were reports of a 70-year-old hunter in France getting bitten by a bear. Animal's bite can be injurious and for a 70-year-old to be able to survive such an attack astonished many people. However, as per reports, arteries in the man's leg were severely damaged in the incident and he had to be transported to the intensive care unit of a hospital in Toulouse. In retaliation, the man managed to shoot the bear in the Seix region of Ariege, reported the officials. An investigation to analyse the circumstances of the accident is still ongoing.

From tiger at gender reveal party to a bear attack, here is a look at the top trending incidents of 2021

Rarely in the world have women’s and girls’ rights been challenged as they have been in Afghanistan. The latest developments give cause for great concern.&nbsp;The EU has made it clear that future development assistance to Afghanistan will depend on the respect for the international legal framework and for norms on human rights, including women’s and girls’ rights. The EU is determined and committed to continue to support the women and girls of Afghanistan and worldwide, sticking to our values and beliefs.&nbsp;

Together with human rights, freedom and democracy, equality represents one of the core values that make the European Union what it is. It enriches our societies and strengthens their resilience. Gender equality is a core part of peace, security, economic prosperity and sustainable development. Moreover, defending and promoting gender equality is required by the EU Treaties.&nbsp;

That is why working politically, operationally and financially to promote and safeguard progress on gender equality is a political priority and a key objective for the EU. The EU Gender Action Plan III and the new EU external action budget provide a roadmap for global action towards a gender-equal world. We work closely together with multilateral, regional and bilateral partners, including civil society organisations, to achieve those objectives. We still have a long way to go; there is no room for complacency. However, we are stronger together while many challenges remain.

In many countries, the COVID-19 crisis has exacerbated existing gender inequalities across different areas: education, vocational training, health, security and safety, sexual and reproductive health and rights, decision-making, and economic opportunities.&nbsp;

The COVID-19 lockdowns have often seen an increase in gender-based violence, in particular domestic violence, while women and girls’ access to sexual and reproductive health services has been reduced. At the same time, a significant part of the care burden has fallen on women and girls. Workers in the informal economy and in low-skilled jobs (most of whom are women), migrants, and those belonging to minorities, have been more at risk and face multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination.&nbsp;

Moreover, school closures have exposed girls to an increased risk of sexual exploitation, early pregnancy, child labour and forced marriage. The Malala Fund estimates that 20 million more girls risk dropping out of school, adding up to a total of 150 million girls – equivalent to a third of the EU population – without educational prospects.

According to a recent UN report, military spending in 2020 still outplaced the worldwide expenses on health, even in a year that was dominated by the corona pandemic. For a sustainable recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, we need to redouble our efforts to promote gender equality.&nbsp;

Now is the time to do more&nbsp;

This challenge requires a global response and needs to be tackled now, when we are building the future we wish for our children and grandchildren to grow up in a post-pandemic world that is more equal, more diverse, and where equal opportunities are a reality. We need to address the root causes of gender inequality and gender-based discrimination in order to achieve sustainable change.

The European Union and its members states, as well as the European financial institutions have stood with the women and girls of the world throughout the pandemic. As Team Europe, we have already mobilised €46 billion in support of over 130 partner countries, with a particular focus on women and youth.

Three examples as an illustration: In Nepal, we helped one million girls and boys continue their education through radio-based learning. In Togo, we supported the creation of a universal income scheme and the appointment of women to head new municipalities. Worldwide, the EU-UN Spotlight Initiative has helped 650,000 women and girls prevent or address violence against them, and educated 880,000 men and boys on positive masculinity, non-violent conflict resolution and parenting.&nbsp; 
&nbsp; 
Still, to meet the growing challenges, we need to do more and better. That is the purpose of the Gender Action Plan III. It promotes leadership and meaningful participation of women, girls and young people in political, economic, social and cultural life, as well as in all matters related to peace and security, worldwide.

We work to get human development back on track

We are now making this plan a reality with the help of the new €79.5 billion NDICI-Global Europe instrument that will support the EU’s external action for the next seven years.&nbsp;

Support for education and particularly girls’ education will have a central role. Just as we support education in emergencies, the EU has worked with partner countries throughout the pandemic to minimise its impact on learning and the well-being of children and to facilitate a safe return to school.&nbsp;

We already provide more than half of all global aid to education as Team Europe. But we will increase funding further, to promote gender equality through quality education at all levels. Our joint €1.7 billion pledge to the Global Partnership for Education in July – to transform education for girls and boys in up to 90 countries and territories – is part of this new beginning.&nbsp;

We are multiplying our efforts across the board, from supporting women and girls’ education and economic opportunities to improving their access to sexual and reproductive health services. By 2025, 85% of all the EU’s new external actions, across all sectors, will contribute to gender equality and women's empowerment.

This is now being finalised with our partner countries based on close consultation with civil society organisations, women's rights activists and youth.&nbsp;

We need to put human development back on track and achieve the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030, leaving no woman or girl behind.&nbsp;

It is crucial that we get it right.

This article was written on the occasion of International Day to Eliminate Violence Against Women, which falls on November 25.

Authored by: Josep Borrell Fontelles, High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy/VP of the European Commission; Jutta Urpilainen, EU’s Commissioner for International Partnerships, and EU Ministers of Foreign Affairs and Development from 24 Member States.

(Disclaimer: The views of the writer do not represent the views of WION or ZMCL. Nor does WION or ZMCL endorse the views of the writer.) &nbsp;&nbsp;

Rarely in the world have women’s and girls’ rights been challenged as they have been in Afghanistan. The latest developments give cause for great concern. The EU has made it clear that future development assistance to Afghanistan will depend on the respect for the international legal framework and for norms on human rights, including women’s and girls’ rights.

Rarely in the world have women’s and girls’ rights been challenged as they have been in Afghanistan. The latest developments give cause for great concern. The EU has made it clear that future development assistance to Afghanistan will depend on the respect for the international legal framework and for norms on human rights, including women’s and girls’ rights. The EU is determined and committed to continue to support the women and girls of Afghanistan and worldwide, sticking to our values and beliefs. Together with human rights, freedom and democracy, equality represents one of the core values that make the European Union what it is. It enriches our societies and strengthens their resilience. Gender equality is a core part of peace, security, economic prosperity and sustainable development. Moreover, defending and promoting gender equality is required by the EU Treaties. That is why working politically, operationally and financially to promote and safeguard progress on gender equality is a political priority and a key objective for the EU. The EU Gender Action Plan III and the new EU external action budget provide a roadmap for global action towards a gender-equal world. We work closely together with multilateral, regional and bilateral partners, including civil society organisations, to achieve those objectives. We still have a long way to go; there is no room for complacency. However, we are stronger together while many challenges remain. In many countries, the COVID-19 crisis has exacerbated existing gender inequalities across different areas: education, vocational training, health, security and safety, sexual and reproductive health and rights, decision-making, and economic opportunities. The COVID-19 lockdowns have often seen an increase in gender-based violence, in particular domestic violence, while women and girls’ access to sexual and reproductive health services has been reduced. At the same time, a significant part of the care burden has fallen on women and girls. Workers in the informal economy and in low-skilled jobs (most of whom are women), migrants, and those belonging to minorities, have been more at risk and face multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination. Moreover, school closures have exposed girls to an increased risk of sexual exploitation, early pregnancy, child labour and forced marriage. The Malala Fund estimates that 20 million more girls risk dropping out of school, adding up to a total of 150 million girls – equivalent to a third of the EU population – without educational prospects. According to a recent UN report, military spending in 2020 still outplaced the worldwide expenses on health, even in a year that was dominated by the corona pandemic. For a sustainable recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, we need to redouble our efforts to promote gender equality. Now is the time to do more This challenge requires a global response and needs to be tackled now, when we are building the future we wish for our children and grandchildren to grow up in a post-pandemic world that is more equal, more diverse, and where equal opportunities are a reality. We need to address the root causes of gender inequality and gender-based discrimination in order to achieve sustainable change. The European Union and its members states, as well as the European financial institutions have stood with the women and girls of the world throughout the pandemic. As Team Europe, we have already mobilised €46 billion in support of over 130 partner countries, with a particular focus on women and youth. Three examples as an illustration: In Nepal, we helped one million girls and boys continue their education through radio-based learning. In Togo, we supported the creation of a universal income scheme and the appointment of women to head new municipalities. Worldwide, the EU-UN Spotlight Initiative has helped 650,000 women and girls prevent or address violence against them, and educated 880,000 men and boys on positive masculinity, non-violent conflict resolution and parenting. Still, to meet the growing challenges, we need to do more and better. That is the purpose of the Gender Action Plan III. It promotes leadership and meaningful participation of women, girls and young people in political, economic, social and cultural life, as well as in all matters related to peace and security, worldwide. We work to get human development back on track We are now making this plan a reality with the help of the new €79.5 billion NDICI-Global Europe instrument that will support the EU’s external action for the next seven years. Support for education and particularly girls’ education will have a central role. Just as we support education in emergencies, the EU has worked with partner countries throughout the pandemic to minimise its impact on learning and the well-being of children and to facilitate a safe return to school. We already provide more than half of all global aid to education as Team Europe. But we will increase funding further, to promote gender equality through quality education at all levels. Our joint €1.7 billion pledge to the Global Partnership for Education in July – to transform education for girls and boys in up to 90 countries and territories – is part of this new beginning. We are multiplying our efforts across the board, from supporting women and girls’ education and economic opportunities to improving their access to sexual and reproductive health services. By 2025, 85% of all the EU’s new external actions, across all sectors, will contribute to gender equality and women's empowerment. This is now being finalised with our partner countries based on close consultation with civil society organisations, women's rights activists and youth. We need to put human development back on track and achieve the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030, leaving no woman or girl behind. It is crucial that we get it right. This article was written on the occasion of International Day to Eliminate Violence Against Women, which falls on November 25. Authored by: Josep Borrell Fontelles, High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy/VP of the European Commission; Jutta Urpilainen, EU’s Commissioner for International Partnerships, and EU Ministers of Foreign Affairs and Development from 24 Member States. (Disclaimer: The views of the writer do not represent the views of WION or ZMCL. Nor does WION or ZMCL endorse the views of the writer.)

Putting gender equality first 

The United States has issued its first-ever passport offering a third gender designation, 'X' for those who identify as intersex.

US issues first-ever passport with 'X' gender marker

Deputy Representative for UN Women in Afghanistan Alison Davidian has called for gender equality for long-term development and lasting peace in the country.

In her recent article Davidian said that gender equality is crucial for future development, lasting peace, and for creating a vibrant economy in Afghanistan, reported Khaama Press.

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Davidian has criticized the Taliban's all-men caretaker cabinet, the abolishment of the ministry of women, and not allowing Afghan women to work and get out of homes without a male parent in some provinces.

She has promised that the UN women will remain committed to not only advocating the rights of women and said that they have to be heard directly, reported Khaama Press.

The deputy representative has also expressed concern about one per cent of the overseas development assistance being given to Afghan women.

She said that the women's civil societies and organizations must be supported and be given a bigger share from international assistance.

"Violence against women by their intimate partners increased around the world including Afghanistan after COVID-19.

UN Women will work with partners to ensure the services are given to Afghan women to prevent violence," said Davidian's article.

Also Read |&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/south-asia/ghanis-ex-bodyguard-ready-to-give-proof-of-ex-president-fleeing-with-bags-of-cash-419575">Ghani's ex-bodyguard ready to give proof of ex-president fleeing with bags of cash</a>

She also expressed concern about the looming humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan as half of the population is in need of assistance and two-thirds of the people do not know where their next meal comes from.

She has suggested that the only way to overcome the ongoing situation in Afghanistan is through the full participation of women in all spheres of society.

The statements come as women are still not going to works except for teachers and doctors. Girls are also not allowed to attend secondary, high schools, and universities reported Khaama Press.

Deputy Representative for UN Women in Afghanistan Alison Davidian has called for gender equality for long-term development and lasting peace in the country. In her recent article Davidian said that gender equality is crucial for future development, lasting peace, and for creating a vibrant economy in Afghanistan, reported Khaama Press.

Deputy Representative for UN Women in Afghanistan Alison Davidian has called for gender equality for long-term development and lasting peace in the country. In her recent article Davidian said that gender equality is crucial for future development, lasting peace, and for creating a vibrant economy in Afghanistan, reported Khaama Press. Also Read | Iraq, Syria terrorists actively entering Afghanistan: Vladimir Putin Davidian has criticized the Taliban's all-men caretaker cabinet, the abolishment of the ministry of women, and not allowing Afghan women to work and get out of homes without a male parent in some provinces. She has promised that the UN women will remain committed to not only advocating the rights of women and said that they have to be heard directly, reported Khaama Press. The deputy representative has also expressed concern about one per cent of the overseas development assistance being given to Afghan women. She said that the women's civil societies and organizations must be supported and be given a bigger share from international assistance. "Violence against women by their intimate partners increased around the world including Afghanistan after COVID-19. UN Women will work with partners to ensure the services are given to Afghan women to prevent violence," said Davidian's article. Also Read | Ghani's ex-bodyguard ready to give proof of ex-president fleeing with bags of cash She also expressed concern about the looming humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan as half of the population is in need of assistance and two-thirds of the people do not know where their next meal comes from. She has suggested that the only way to overcome the ongoing situation in Afghanistan is through the full participation of women in all spheres of society. The statements come as women are still not going to works except for teachers and doctors. Girls are also not allowed to attend secondary, high schools, and universities reported Khaama Press.

UN calls for gender equality for long-term development of Afghanistan

As per a new research, a failure to ensure that women have equal access to the internet has cost low-income countries $1 trillion over the past decade. Also, this could mean an additional loss of $500 billion by 2025 if governments continue to not take an action.

As per a new research, a failure to ensure that women have equal access to the internet has cost low-income countries $1 trillion over the past decade. Also, this could mean an additional loss of $500 billion by 2025 if governments continue to not take an action. In 2020, governments in 32 countries, including India, Egypt and Nigeria, lost an estimated $126 billion in gross domestic product because women were unable to contribute to the digital economy. This highlights the digital gender gap, which is, the difference between the number of women and men who can access the internet. The report revealed that the digital gender gap cost $24 billion in lost tax revenues in 2020 This could have been invested in health, education and housing. The study, conducted by the World Wide Web Foundation and the Alliance for Affordable Internet (A4AI), analysed 32 low and lower-middle-income countries, where the gender gap is often greatest. Also read | Capsule from 1765 containing air reveal facts about Antarctic ice It was concluded that a third of women were connected to the internet compared with almost half of men. The digital gender gap has barely improved since 2011 as it has dropped from 30.9 per cent to 30.4 per cent. Globally, men are 21 per cent more likely to be online than women, rising to 52 per cent in the least developed countries Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, former executive director of UN Women and founder of the Umlambo Foundation was quoted by The Guardian as saying, "We will not achieve gender equality until we eliminate this digital gap that keeps so many women offline and away from the opportunities the internet provides.” Various factors contribute to this gap and prevent women from going online. This includes expensive handsets and data tariffs, social norms that discourage women and girls from being online, fears around privacy, safety, and security and a lack of money. Also read | Jeff Bezos shares an old article predicting Amazon's failure, Elon Musk replies Catherine Adeya, director of research at the World Wide Web Foundation was quoted by The guardian saying, "As the internet becomes a more potent enabler for education, business, and community mobilisation, a failure to deliver access for all means failing to realise everyone’s potential to contribute.” Some governments have implemented specific policies to give women access to the internet. According to the A4AI’s 2020 Affordability report, more than 40 per cent of countries had no meaningful policies or programmes to expand women’s access to the internet.

Digital gender gap: Unequal access to the internet has cost low-income countries $1 trillion

According to a new guideline, people can answer queries regarding their gender in Scotland’s 2022 census on the basis of how they identify themselves rather than as per the legal status, the body responsible for the survey has said. &nbsp;&nbsp;

On Tuesday, the National Records of Scotland (NRS) issued guideline telling the people to answer the sex question according to how they self-identify and not on the basis of the details on their birth certificate or a gender recognition certificate, if they have. &nbsp;&nbsp;

Watch:&nbsp;Know how to stay happy and healthy in old age

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“If you are transgender the answer you give can be different from what is on your birth certificate. You do not need a gender recognition certificate (GRC),” it said. &nbsp;

“If you are non-binary or you are not sure how to answer, you could use the sex registered on your official documents, such as your passport,” it further said. &nbsp;

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Without a formal legal process, a person’s sex can be altered on the passport. &nbsp;&nbsp;

Delayed for a year due to the coronavirus pandemic, the census also includes a voluntary question about transgender status or history for the first time, for those aged 16 or over. &nbsp;&nbsp;

According to a new guideline, people can answer queries regarding their gender in Scotland’s 2022 census on the basis of how they identify themselves rather than as per the legal status, the body responsible for the survey has said.

According to a new guideline, people can answer queries regarding their gender in Scotland’s 2022 census on the basis of how they identify themselves rather than as per the legal status, the body responsible for the survey has said. On Tuesday, the National Records of Scotland (NRS) issued guideline telling the people to answer the sex question according to how they self-identify and not on the basis of the details on their birth certificate or a gender recognition certificate, if they have. Watch: Know how to stay happy and healthy in old age × “If you are transgender the answer you give can be different from what is on your birth certificate. You do not need a gender recognition certificate (GRC),” it said. “If you are non-binary or you are not sure how to answer, you could use the sex registered on your official documents, such as your passport,” it further said. Also Read: With tools as ‘cutlery’, wild cockatoos extract seeds from tropical fruit Without a formal legal process, a person’s sex can be altered on the passport. Delayed for a year due to the coronavirus pandemic, the census also includes a voluntary question about transgender status or history for the first time, for those aged 16 or over.

People can self-identify to answer gender queries in Scotland’s 2022 census

The ruling could not have been more clear.

One of soccer’s six regional bodies had engaged in discriminatory behavior against a female official by hindering her chances of getting a seat on its board and a leadership position with the sport’s global governing body, FIFA.

The official, Mariyam Mohamed, also convinced judges at sports’ top court that an influential Kuwaiti sheikh had actively interfered in elections held by the Asian Football Confederation in 2019 to achieve his desired outcome.

The full ruling, which has not been published, was obtained by The New York Times. In it, a panel at the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Switzerland concluded that the inaction by Asian soccer officials over several months amounted to a “denial of justice” for Mohamed. Yet two months since the decision was announced, the effect of what appears to be a powerful denunciation of ethics breaches and a disregard for women’s rights has had all the effect of a snowball hitting a tank.

Nothing has happened.

The tainted elections will not be rerun. The men who offered Mohamed inducements to drop out have not been punished. And soccer’s leaders have taken no action.

FIFA said in an email it had no comment, even though it previously insisted it would follow up on the court’s findings with soccer officials in Asia. Asian soccer’s governing body also declined to comment, saying its leaders had nothing to add to a January statement in which they had pledged the organization would review the findings.

For Mohamed, the silence has been maddening.

“It’s just a game for them, justice denial, the same process that I was in,” she said in a phone interview. “They’re waiting for time to pass by, and hoping I get fed up. Now the verdict has come, and it’s just very sad. I don’t know where else to go now.”

Mohamed, who filed her complaints to the Asian federation’s disciplinary department in May 2019, says she initially celebrated the ruling, but came to realize it may amount to a Pyrrhic victory.

She has not been contacted by officials from the AFC, she said. Nor has she heard from ethics investigators from FIFA, even though the organization’s rules state that gender discrimination is “strictly prohibited and punishable by suspension or expulsion.”

The case and its aftermath have highlighted how power works in global sports. It shows how a tainted Gulf royal linked to other cases of corruption has been able to exert significant control over one of soccer’s largest governing bodies even though he has no official role in its affairs. And it shows how a strategy of delay can be its own kind of injustice.

Mohamed’s case had roots in FIFA’s response to its own problems with discrimination: To address a lack of women on its governing board, the organization since 2013 set aside specific seats for women, starting with one voting member in 2013 and now a minimum of one from each of FIFA’s six regional confederations.

Mohamed, a former soccer player and coach from the Maldives, an archipelago in the Indian Ocean, had hoped to win the AFC’s spot in a vote in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in April 2019. It did not take her long to realize that the power brokers of Asian soccer had already decided the election’s outcome.

She filed her first complaints about the election to the Asian confederation’s disciplinary department a month later. Emails show the organization responded to her inquiries by insisting it had begun an investigation, although it appears little was done. The AFC, citing confidentiality, refused to supply any evidence of its investigation to the court.

At a hearing at the Court of Arbitration for Sport last July, the AFC hardly put up a defense. Its lawyers offered no witnesses to challenge Mohamed’s testimony that a top confederation official and the head of the soccer federation of Qatar had been present in a luxury hotel suite when the Kuwaiti sheikh, Ahmad al-Fahad al-Sabah, told Mohamed he had decided that his preferred candidate, Mahfuza Akhter Kiron of Bangladesh, would be elected as the AFC’s female representative to the FIFA Council.

Mohamed was told she should drop her candidacy, and do so within 24 hours. She later claimed, in testimony that went unchallenged by the AFC, that Sheikh Ahmad attempted to mollify her by saying he had so much sway in international soccer circles that he could obtain for her “any other position of her choosing at the AFC or FIFA” in exchange for her withdrawal.

By this point, Sheikh Ahmad had no official role in soccer, having resigned his position on the FIFA Council in 2017 after allegations emerged in a U.S. federal court that he had bribed Asian officials. But Mohamed’s decision to take her case to court provided a rare public glimpse into his continuing stature as a power broker in global sports through his role as the president of the Olympic Council of Asia, an organization created by his father in 1982.

At a 2013 International Olympic Committee meeting, for example, Sheikh Ahmad’s support helped Thomas Bach secure the IOC presidency and also deliver the 2020 Olympics to Tokyo. Since he was indicted in a forgery case unrelated to sports in 2018, he has “self-suspended” from two prominent Olympic roles. But his opinion still carries weight.

Before the AFC’s 2019 elections, his legal troubles did not seem to be an issue. A list of his favored candidates was distributed to AFC voters on the eve of the elections and, aware of the talks with Mohamed and of Sheikh Ahmad’s preference for a different candidate, the leaders of several federations pressured Mohamed to drop out, she said. She declined to withdraw, and lost the vote, 31-15. Every candidate on Sheikh Ahmad’s list, however, was elected to seats on the AFC’s executive board or, as in Kiron’s case, as a confederation representative to FIFA.

After reviewing the evidence presented by Mohamed and her lawyers, the CAS panel made clear in the summary of its decision that it agreed with her version of the events. The panel confirmed that the 2019 elections had breached FIFA and AFC rules on gender discrimination. It concluded that Sheikh Ahmad had tried to influence the outcome, and that the AFC had denied Mohamed justice by not making a ruling on her complaint. It did, however, also say that by not bowing out of the elections, Mohamed ensured the sheikh’s efforts to influence the election in her case were not effective.

But the court said it was powerless to order that the flawed elections be annulled, or to punish any of the individuals accused of interfering with them. Any decision on further action was for FIFA, and the AFC, to decide, the court said.

Because of the rules governing the court, the panel’s full findings have been cloaked in secrecy since the verdict was announced on Jan. 25.

“If nothing happens it is a disgrace for FIFA, the AFC, and undermines the authority of CAS indirectly,” said Miguel Maduro, the former FIFA governance head who gave evidence in Mohamed’s case. “This award and what follows tells us at once that CAS has exposed corruption at the highest level of elections in football and at the same time tells us they cannot do anything about it.”

Maduro added that at the very least, FIFA should have initiated an ethics inquiry after the ruling. To date, it has not.

Such a move, though, would be extremely sensitive for soccer’s global leadership. The FIFA official responsible for overseeing the 2019 election, Eduardo Ache, told the CAS panel that soccer’s guidelines to improve female representation were mere recommendations. The panel said Ache’s evidence suggested he was “prepared to accept any discrimination provided at least one woman was elected to FIFA.”

But pressing for discipline in the case also could be uncomfortable for FIFA’s president, Gianni Infantino, who relies on the support of national and regional soccer leaders to push his agenda. He recently spent two weeks touring Africa, for example, to ensure that his favored candidate, a South African billionaire with no high-level experience in soccer administration, was elected president of the continent’s regional confederation. And he is unlikely to press for discipline against the leader of Qatar’s soccer federation — reportedly present when Mohamed was offered inducements to step aside — or any other Asian leader a year before Qatar hosts the 2022 World Cup.

The longer the full ruling in Mohamed’s case goes unpublished, though, the more it will give the appearance soccer’s leaders are trying to brush a problematic situation under the carpet, said Johan Lindholm, a professor of law at Umea University in Sweden who has published a book on CAS.

“Whether it’s because of bad PR or there are other things going on, then you would probably want to keep it as secret as possible,” Lindholm said.

The ruling could not have been more clear. One of soccer’s six regional bodies had engaged in discriminatory behavior against a female official by hindering her chances of getting a seat on its board and a leadership position with the sport’s global governing body, FIFA.

The ruling could not have been more clear. One of soccer’s six regional bodies had engaged in discriminatory behavior against a female official by hindering her chances of getting a seat on its board and a leadership position with the sport’s global governing body, FIFA. The official, Mariyam Mohamed, also convinced judges at sports’ top court that an influential Kuwaiti sheikh had actively interfered in elections held by the Asian Football Confederation in 2019 to achieve his desired outcome. The full ruling, which has not been published, was obtained by The New York Times. In it, a panel at the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Switzerland concluded that the inaction by Asian soccer officials over several months amounted to a “denial of justice” for Mohamed. Yet two months since the decision was announced, the effect of what appears to be a powerful denunciation of ethics breaches and a disregard for women’s rights has had all the effect of a snowball hitting a tank. Nothing has happened. The tainted elections will not be rerun. The men who offered Mohamed inducements to drop out have not been punished. And soccer’s leaders have taken no action. FIFA said in an email it had no comment, even though it previously insisted it would follow up on the court’s findings with soccer officials in Asia. Asian soccer’s governing body also declined to comment, saying its leaders had nothing to add to a January statement in which they had pledged the organization would review the findings. For Mohamed, the silence has been maddening. “It’s just a game for them, justice denial, the same process that I was in,” she said in a phone interview. “They’re waiting for time to pass by, and hoping I get fed up. Now the verdict has come, and it’s just very sad. I don’t know where else to go now.” Mohamed, who filed her complaints to the Asian federation’s disciplinary department in May 2019, says she initially celebrated the ruling, but came to realize it may amount to a Pyrrhic victory. She has not been contacted by officials from the AFC, she said. Nor has she heard from ethics investigators from FIFA, even though the organization’s rules state that gender discrimination is “strictly prohibited and punishable by suspension or expulsion.” The case and its aftermath have highlighted how power works in global sports. It shows how a tainted Gulf royal linked to other cases of corruption has been able to exert significant control over one of soccer’s largest governing bodies even though he has no official role in its affairs. And it shows how a strategy of delay can be its own kind of injustice. Mohamed’s case had roots in FIFA’s response to its own problems with discrimination: To address a lack of women on its governing board, the organization since 2013 set aside specific seats for women, starting with one voting member in 2013 and now a minimum of one from each of FIFA’s six regional confederations. Mohamed, a former soccer player and coach from the Maldives, an archipelago in the Indian Ocean, had hoped to win the AFC’s spot in a vote in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in April 2019. It did not take her long to realize that the power brokers of Asian soccer had already decided the election’s outcome. She filed her first complaints about the election to the Asian confederation’s disciplinary department a month later. Emails show the organization responded to her inquiries by insisting it had begun an investigation, although it appears little was done. The AFC, citing confidentiality, refused to supply any evidence of its investigation to the court. At a hearing at the Court of Arbitration for Sport last July, the AFC hardly put up a defense. Its lawyers offered no witnesses to challenge Mohamed’s testimony that a top confederation official and the head of the soccer federation of Qatar had been present in a luxury hotel suite when the Kuwaiti sheikh, Ahmad al-Fahad al-Sabah, told Mohamed he had decided that his preferred candidate, Mahfuza Akhter Kiron of Bangladesh, would be elected as the AFC’s female representative to the FIFA Council. Mohamed was told she should drop her candidacy, and do so within 24 hours. She later claimed, in testimony that went unchallenged by the AFC, that Sheikh Ahmad attempted to mollify her by saying he had so much sway in international soccer circles that he could obtain for her “any other position of her choosing at the AFC or FIFA” in exchange for her withdrawal. By this point, Sheikh Ahmad had no official role in soccer, having resigned his position on the FIFA Council in 2017 after allegations emerged in a U.S. federal court that he had bribed Asian officials. But Mohamed’s decision to take her case to court provided a rare public glimpse into his continuing stature as a power broker in global sports through his role as the president of the Olympic Council of Asia, an organization created by his father in 1982. At a 2013 International Olympic Committee meeting, for example, Sheikh Ahmad’s support helped Thomas Bach secure the IOC presidency and also deliver the 2020 Olympics to Tokyo. Since he was indicted in a forgery case unrelated to sports in 2018, he has “self-suspended” from two prominent Olympic roles. But his opinion still carries weight. Before the AFC’s 2019 elections, his legal troubles did not seem to be an issue. A list of his favored candidates was distributed to AFC voters on the eve of the elections and, aware of the talks with Mohamed and of Sheikh Ahmad’s preference for a different candidate, the leaders of several federations pressured Mohamed to drop out, she said. She declined to withdraw, and lost the vote, 31-15. Every candidate on Sheikh Ahmad’s list, however, was elected to seats on the AFC’s executive board or, as in Kiron’s case, as a confederation representative to FIFA. After reviewing the evidence presented by Mohamed and her lawyers, the CAS panel made clear in the summary of its decision that it agreed with her version of the events. The panel confirmed that the 2019 elections had breached FIFA and AFC rules on gender discrimination. It concluded that Sheikh Ahmad had tried to influence the outcome, and that the AFC had denied Mohamed justice by not making a ruling on her complaint. It did, however, also say that by not bowing out of the elections, Mohamed ensured the sheikh’s efforts to influence the election in her case were not effective. But the court said it was powerless to order that the flawed elections be annulled, or to punish any of the individuals accused of interfering with them. Any decision on further action was for FIFA, and the AFC, to decide, the court said. Because of the rules governing the court, the panel’s full findings have been cloaked in secrecy since the verdict was announced on Jan. 25. “If nothing happens it is a disgrace for FIFA, the AFC, and undermines the authority of CAS indirectly,” said Miguel Maduro, the former FIFA governance head who gave evidence in Mohamed’s case. “This award and what follows tells us at once that CAS has exposed corruption at the highest level of elections in football and at the same time tells us they cannot do anything about it.” Maduro added that at the very least, FIFA should have initiated an ethics inquiry after the ruling. To date, it has not. Such a move, though, would be extremely sensitive for soccer’s global leadership. The FIFA official responsible for overseeing the 2019 election, Eduardo Ache, told the CAS panel that soccer’s guidelines to improve female representation were mere recommendations. The panel said Ache’s evidence suggested he was “prepared to accept any discrimination provided at least one woman was elected to FIFA.” But pressing for discipline in the case also could be uncomfortable for FIFA’s president, Gianni Infantino, who relies on the support of national and regional soccer leaders to push his agenda. He recently spent two weeks touring Africa, for example, to ensure that his favored candidate, a South African billionaire with no high-level experience in soccer administration, was elected president of the continent’s regional confederation. And he is unlikely to press for discipline against the leader of Qatar’s soccer federation — reportedly present when Mohamed was offered inducements to step aside — or any other Asian leader a year before Qatar hosts the 2022 World Cup. The longer the full ruling in Mohamed’s case goes unpublished, though, the more it will give the appearance soccer’s leaders are trying to brush a problematic situation under the carpet, said Johan Lindholm, a professor of law at Umea University in Sweden who has published a book on CAS. “Whether it’s because of bad PR or there are other things going on, then you would probably want to keep it as secret as possible,” Lindholm said.

A soccer official proved her discrimination case. No one was punished.

Marwa Alomari’s compassionate and patient style made her a popular English teacher, filling her classes in Irbid, Jordan, with eager students and her off hours with private tutoring.

A university graduate, she was paid up to $3,000 a month, far more than most fellow Jordanians.

But after she married an army officer and moved in with his family, he began to resent that she was paid more than he was. Even though she contributed to the household with both money and housework, he and his family discouraged her from working and the marriage nearly fell apart, she said.

“I became adamant that I wasn’t going to quit, but eventually I found no support and I just got tired and gave up,” said Alomari, 35. “I went back to cooking, cleaning, gossiping with women. And this wasn’t my ambition.”

Her story reflects what is happening across Jordan — a small Arab monarchy that has been a steadfast ally of Western countries — where women’s status in terms of labor force participation, health and politics has been regressing for years, even lagging behind more conservative countries in the region.

For the past 10 years, the country has sat near the bottom of the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report, which tracks gaps between women and men in employment, education, health and politics.

After big gains over the past three decades, more women than men in the country now graduate from university, and women also have higher literacy rates.

Despite that, 86% of women in the country are absent from the workforce, according to government figures and the latest Global Gender Gap Report. That is the highest rate in the world for a country not at war, according to the World Bank.

In contrast, Western Europe has moved the most toward gender parity and is continuing in that direction, followed by North America.

And the effects are felt far beyond economics.

“As long as women are absent from the labor market, they are absent from the public sphere,” said Asma Khader, the president of the nonprofit group Sisterhood is Global Institute in Jordan. “Top officials are afraid to impose decisions favoring women, because society is conservative. But I believe when there is real economic reform, women will become empowered and make demands.”

With its close ties to the West, an outspoken queen, and female members of parliament and police officers, Jordan has long had the image of a relatively progressive kingdom in a conservative neighborhood. But recently, some Gulf neighbors have seen an increasing number of female-led startups and changes in employment legislation that have led to growing opportunities for women.

In Jordan, the head of the household is usually defined as the husband, unless he is dead, missing or has lost his citizenship. This gives him sole guardianship over children, with authority over matters such as travel, citizenship and opening bank accounts. In Saudi Arabia, though, recent amendments allowed women to also be considered a “head of household,” at least in theory.

Traditional attitudes, discriminatory legislation, a lack of access to public transportation and pay disparities are hindering women’s advancement in Jordan.

Elections for the country’s 130-seat parliament in November were a testament to women’s shrinking role. Voter turnout was low, and female candidates lost starkly. Women did not take a single seat beyond the quota of 15 female legislators, compared with 20 in the previous parliament.

Sara Ababneh, an assistant professor of politics and international relations at the University of Jordan, said the problem went beyond elections.

“Sometimes we talk about women’s representation — we say that there should be more women ministers,” she said. “But we never talk about overall rights and real political empowerment.”

Recent World Bank research found that men in Jordan are paid as much as 40% more than women are for the same job in the private sector. In the public sector, the gap is 28%.

The disparity in employment — 53% of men are in the labor force compared with 14% of women — is nearly double that of nearby countries such as Bahrain, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates.

Traditional roles in Jordan are enshrined in laws that differentiate between women’s and men’s rights and responsibilities. There is no law prohibiting gender discrimination in the workplace. And while the country's constitution provides that “every worker shall receive wages commensurate with the quantity and quality of his work,” there is no right to equal pay for women and men.

For Muslims, who make up most of Jordan’s population of nearly 11 million, matters of marriage, divorce, child custody and inheritance are governed by Shariah, or Islamic law, and adjudicated in Shariah courts rather than civil or military courts. Under Shariah law, for example, women can inherit property, but daughters receive half as much as sons.

And during the Arab Spring a decade ago, many women and human rights activists assailed a parliamentary committee for breaking its promise to include the word gender in the constitution’s Article 6, which is supposed to guarantee the equality of all Jordanians. It states, “There shall be no discrimination between Jordanians with regard to their rights and duties on grounds of race, language or religion.”

Despite the obstacles, some women have managed to succeed professionally.

Jamileh Shetewi is by all accounts an exception among Jordanian women. She grew up in a one-room mud-walled home with her eight siblings and parents, and spent her childhood days picking tomatoes, eggplants and bananas in hot and shadeless farms with her four sisters.

The odds were stacked against her. She dropped out of school at age 17 and married at 18. As a young farmer from 1997 to 2002, she was paid $3 a day less than the men she worked alongside, and she had to cook for them on top of her job.

She decided to go back to school, and went on to earn a doctorate in archaeology. Today she heads the Department of Antiquities for the Jordan Valley region.

“Yes, I defied all expectations,” said Shetewi, 50. “I fought and shattered the culture of shame.” But without changing laws and perceptions, she said, most women will not be able to advance.

“I didn’t care what people had to say, and I told my husband, ‘I need your support to make our lives better,’” she said. “We aren’t the enemy. Do you think a country can reform and prosper without half its population?”

Marwa Alomari’s compassionate and patient style made her a popular English teacher, filling her classes in Irbid, Jordan, with eager students and her off hours with private tutoring.

Marwa Alomari’s compassionate and patient style made her a popular English teacher, filling her classes in Irbid, Jordan, with eager students and her off hours with private tutoring. A university graduate, she was paid up to $3,000 a month, far more than most fellow Jordanians. But after she married an army officer and moved in with his family, he began to resent that she was paid more than he was. Even though she contributed to the household with both money and housework, he and his family discouraged her from working and the marriage nearly fell apart, she said. “I became adamant that I wasn’t going to quit, but eventually I found no support and I just got tired and gave up,” said Alomari, 35. “I went back to cooking, cleaning, gossiping with women. And this wasn’t my ambition.” Her story reflects what is happening across Jordan — a small Arab monarchy that has been a steadfast ally of Western countries — where women’s status in terms of labor force participation, health and politics has been regressing for years, even lagging behind more conservative countries in the region. For the past 10 years, the country has sat near the bottom of the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report, which tracks gaps between women and men in employment, education, health and politics. After big gains over the past three decades, more women than men in the country now graduate from university, and women also have higher literacy rates. Despite that, 86% of women in the country are absent from the workforce, according to government figures and the latest Global Gender Gap Report. That is the highest rate in the world for a country not at war, according to the World Bank. In contrast, Western Europe has moved the most toward gender parity and is continuing in that direction, followed by North America. And the effects are felt far beyond economics. “As long as women are absent from the labor market, they are absent from the public sphere,” said Asma Khader, the president of the nonprofit group Sisterhood is Global Institute in Jordan. “Top officials are afraid to impose decisions favoring women, because society is conservative. But I believe when there is real economic reform, women will become empowered and make demands.” With its close ties to the West, an outspoken queen, and female members of parliament and police officers, Jordan has long had the image of a relatively progressive kingdom in a conservative neighborhood. But recently, some Gulf neighbors have seen an increasing number of female-led startups and changes in employment legislation that have led to growing opportunities for women. In Jordan, the head of the household is usually defined as the husband, unless he is dead, missing or has lost his citizenship. This gives him sole guardianship over children, with authority over matters such as travel, citizenship and opening bank accounts. In Saudi Arabia, though, recent amendments allowed women to also be considered a “head of household,” at least in theory. Traditional attitudes, discriminatory legislation, a lack of access to public transportation and pay disparities are hindering women’s advancement in Jordan. Elections for the country’s 130-seat parliament in November were a testament to women’s shrinking role. Voter turnout was low, and female candidates lost starkly. Women did not take a single seat beyond the quota of 15 female legislators, compared with 20 in the previous parliament. Sara Ababneh, an assistant professor of politics and international relations at the University of Jordan, said the problem went beyond elections. “Sometimes we talk about women’s representation — we say that there should be more women ministers,” she said. “But we never talk about overall rights and real political empowerment.” Recent World Bank research found that men in Jordan are paid as much as 40% more than women are for the same job in the private sector. In the public sector, the gap is 28%. The disparity in employment — 53% of men are in the labor force compared with 14% of women — is nearly double that of nearby countries such as Bahrain, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates. Traditional roles in Jordan are enshrined in laws that differentiate between women’s and men’s rights and responsibilities. There is no law prohibiting gender discrimination in the workplace. And while the country's constitution provides that “every worker shall receive wages commensurate with the quantity and quality of his work,” there is no right to equal pay for women and men. For Muslims, who make up most of Jordan’s population of nearly 11 million, matters of marriage, divorce, child custody and inheritance are governed by Shariah, or Islamic law, and adjudicated in Shariah courts rather than civil or military courts. Under Shariah law, for example, women can inherit property, but daughters receive half as much as sons. And during the Arab Spring a decade ago, many women and human rights activists assailed a parliamentary committee for breaking its promise to include the word gender in the constitution’s Article 6, which is supposed to guarantee the equality of all Jordanians. It states, “There shall be no discrimination between Jordanians with regard to their rights and duties on grounds of race, language or religion.” Despite the obstacles, some women have managed to succeed professionally. Jamileh Shetewi is by all accounts an exception among Jordanian women. She grew up in a one-room mud-walled home with her eight siblings and parents, and spent her childhood days picking tomatoes, eggplants and bananas in hot and shadeless farms with her four sisters. The odds were stacked against her. She dropped out of school at age 17 and married at 18. As a young farmer from 1997 to 2002, she was paid $3 a day less than the men she worked alongside, and she had to cook for them on top of her job. She decided to go back to school, and went on to earn a doctorate in archaeology. Today she heads the Department of Antiquities for the Jordan Valley region. “Yes, I defied all expectations,” said Shetewi, 50. “I fought and shattered the culture of shame.” But without changing laws and perceptions, she said, most women will not be able to advance. “I didn’t care what people had to say, and I told my husband, ‘I need your support to make our lives better,’” she said. “We aren’t the enemy. Do you think a country can reform and prosper without half its population?”

Gender gap persists in Jordan’s work force

It was a February day so overcast that noon looked like dusk, and Frances McDormand felt a little rattled. She told me this as we ambled down the main street of the small coastal town where she lives, a modest, hidden place so far from Hollywood that studio searchlights would have a hard time finding it. Still, someone had managed.

Earlier that day, the phone rang at McDormand’s house, and while she didn’t recognize the man on the other end, he certainly knew who &lt;em&gt;she &lt;/em&gt;was. When the caller told her he was watching “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri,” the 2017 movie in which she plays an avenging mother named Mildred, McDormand realized she was on the phone with a fan who had tracked down her unlisted landline.

“It was the first creepy call I’ve gotten in 16 years here,” she told me. Though she hung up right away, McDormand now wondered what she might have asked him: “OK, what part were you watching? The scene where I threw the Molotov cocktail at the police station?”

Maybe the fan had hoped to speak with righteous Mildred, who harangues priests and cops and hurls fire bombs in the pursuit of justice. Instead, he reached Frances McDormand, a 63-year-old woman who chats up everybody she comes across in her small town, doesn’t like to think of herself as famous, and has won two Oscars.

This is the tricky thing about how persuasively McDormand embodies her characters: You think you know&lt;em&gt; her&lt;/em&gt; because you’re certain you know them. Whether it’s kindhearted Marge from “Fargo,” tetchy Olive from “Olive Kitteridge,” or bohemian Jane in “Laurel Canyon,” McDormand specializes in playing women with worldviews. You can tell right away what they like and don’t like, who they would be friendly with and who they can’t stand.

Since she rarely grants interviews, most people only see the real McDormand blazing an iconoclastic streak through televised awards shows, where she is barefaced instead of Botoxed and once wore her own jean jacket in lieu of borrowed couture. (In Hollywood, this mild noncompliance is tantamount to a declaration of war.) McDormand is highly skeptical of any ceremony where actors are done up like glamorous gladiators, and when her husband, filmmaker Joel Coen, was once asked to produce the Oscars alongside his brother, Ethan, McDormand suggested they set the telecast at Coney Island, which would have forced Hollywood glitterati to mingle with the freak show.

That irreverence is McDormand’s most endearing trait: On the day we met, she ducked into a liquor store to satisfy her craving for Fritos — “You know they’re gooood, right?” she teased — and before we sat together on a concrete wall by the coastline, McDormand clambered on top of it and used the length of her splayed body to measure a pandemic-appropriate distance between us. She makes a concerted effort not to treat herself like a precious movie star in the hopes that you won’t, either.

That’s why she lives where she lives and why, as she perched on the wall opposite me in an olive puffer jacket, she asked me not to divulge the name of her town. That morning’s phone call aside, “I get to live my more authentic self here,” she said, “and I don’t have to pretend to be anybody else.”

She nodded toward the beach, where a handful of people cavorted with their dogs and surfboards. “I don’t mind being&lt;em&gt; their&lt;/em&gt; movie star,” she said. “I’m just not going to be yours.”

STILL, THE LINE BETWEEN McDORMAND and her characters will only grow blurrier with the release of her intimate new film, “Nomadland.” In this sunset-dappled drama from the director Chloé Zhao, McDormand plays Fern, a widow who packs her things into a van and joins up with a tribe of older itinerant workers to spend their golden years working odd jobs all across the American West.

“Nomadland” would eventually require more from this private star than she is used to giving, but when McDormand first met with Zhao in early 2018, she was mostly curious what the up-and-coming director would think of her: “I was like, ‘Man, I just want to be relevant. Do you think I’m relevant?’”

Perhaps that’s a surprising admission for a woman who was then on the verge of winning her second Oscar, for “Three Billboards,” but McDormand had just entered her 60s and worried that good opportunities could prove harder to find. Even before that, most of her best-known roles had required some hustle to obtain, which is part of the reason McDormand has lately become a producer, too.

“Our industry is such an ageist industry,” Zhao told me by phone. “Someone like Frances McDormand who is just so authentically herself, who has not tried to erase those lines on her face or cover that up to fit into the industry — to me, she’ll be relevant forever.”

And it was exactly that authentic self that intrigued Zhao. In her previous films, “The Rider” and “Songs My Brothers Taught Me,” Zhao had cast nonprofessionals and built character arcs for them that were inspired by their actual experiences. “Nomadland,” based on a nonfiction book by Jessica Bruder, would offer her the same opportunity: Real nomads from Bruder’s book, like Linda May and Swankie, were enticed to play pivotal supporting roles in the film.

But since Zhao wanted those women to simply be themselves in front of the camera, she decided that for the sake of coherence, McDormand would need to play a version of herself, too. “It’s very interesting, the layers of it,” Zhao said. “Fran is playing Fern, but even the name ‘Fern’ came from herself and who she thinks she might be if she hit the road.”

In fact, McDormand had long harbored a fantasy of turning her back on Hollywood, changing her name, and setting off in an RV upon reaching her 60s. “Chloé tapped into the truth of it,” McDormand said, “which was at different points of my life, I’ve said to my husband, ‘I can’t take this anymore, I’m dropping out.’”

“Nomadland” let McDormand play out that dream and a few others. Many of the people McDormand interacts with in the film had no idea she was a famous actress — they figured she was just another nomad, and spoke to her like a normal person in exactly the way that she craves.

In some ways, all that verisimilitude could be grueling, too — McDormand was surprised at how exhausted she would feel after long days of simply being present in front of the camera, reacting to the stories real people unspooled. Zhao also asked McDormand to put in actual hours at Fern’s odd jobs, like harvesting beets in Nebraska or working at a warehouse in California.

But the result is a performance that McDormand has never given before, one that has less to do with acting and more to do with simply &lt;em&gt;being&lt;/em&gt;. As Los Angeles Times critic Justin Chang wrote in his “Nomadland” review, “McDormand doesn’t disappear into Fern; she’s revealed by Fern, and Fern is revealed by her.”

That sort of ineffable, hard-to-pin-down portrait was exactly Zhao’s intention. “I like to think that we have captured a great performance,” she said, “but also, an essence of Fran as well.”

Still, the director and her star sometimes disagreed on just how much of that essence to use. Details both large and small have been pulled directly from McDormand’s real life: Fern proudly shows off a set of plates that McDormand’s father bought her as a college graduation gift, and Zhao cast one of the actress’s oldest friends as Fern’s sister so the recriminations they air in the film could have a real weight.

But when Zhao floated the idea of finding a role in the film for McDormand’s son, Pedro, or suggested that Fern’s dead spouse, glimpsed only in a photograph, should be played by McDormand’s actual husband, Joel Coen, her lead drew a line in the sand. “I have to believe that it’s not just a documentary of me,” McDormand said. “I did create a character, just like I’ve created myself in 63 years, too.”

FOR MOST OF HER LIFE, McDormand has been fascinated by the formula through which one concocts a self-image. How much does it have to do with authenticity, and to what extent is it constructed by playing pretend?

“I would say probably fifth grade is the first time I can remember, ‘Oh, I know what they think I am, and I’m going to subvert it,’” she told me.

What they knew about McDormand then was that she was the adopted daughter of Vernon McDormand, a minister for the Disciples of Christ. That sort of role in that sort of family required a certain amount of public respectability, but as she got older, and an English teacher at McDormand’s school in Monessen, Pennsylvania, asked her to read the role of Lady Macbeth in a workshop, she found herself thrilled to leave propriety at the door.

“That was the hook,” McDormand said. “It was the power of being a really shy, slightly suspect seventh-grader who could stand in front of a group of people and keep their attention.” She loved, too, that Shakespeare’s female characters were as power-hungry as the men: “It’s like I used to say to Joel, ‘Why don’t you guys write better roles for women? In fact, why don’t you just write a role for men and then let me play it?’”

She had married Coen not long after making her screen debut in the 1984 noir “Blood Simple,” which he directed with Ethan. Twelve years later, the Coen brothers would give McDormand her signature role, one that could only be played by a woman: Marge, the chirpy, pregnant police chief in “Fargo.”

That film made her famous, a condition that McDormand considered a fire to be stomped out: After hiring a publicist, she almost immediately instructed him to turn down most requests.

“I made a very conscious effort not to do press and publicity for 10 years in what other people would think would be a very dangerous moment in a female actor’s career, but it paid off for exactly the reasons I wanted it to,” she said. “It gave me a mystery back to who I was, and then in the roles I performed, I could take an audience to a place where someone who sold watches or perfume and magazines couldn’t.”

To her, “Nomadland” is the culmination of that effort to keep herself unspoiled in the public eye. “That’s why it works,” she said. “That’s why Chloé could bear to even think of doing this with me, because of what I’ve created for years not just as an actor, but in my personal life.”

We traipsed back through town, and as we walked up a hill covered in overgrowth and eucalyptus trees, McDormand drew one final line: “So I’m going to pass my house, and then I’m going to leave you,” she said. She asked if I had dinner plans, and directed me to a farm stand I could stop by on the way home. “They’ve got gorgeous little gems and some good old arugula,” she said, “but no eggs right now because the chickens are all cold.”

As McDormand offered me kindly advice while standing in front of a felled eucalyptus trunk, I could have sworn I was talking to Fern, who is so practical and self-reliant. It reminded me of a story she had told me earlier: Not long ago, for the drive-in premiere of “Nomadland” in Pasadena, California, McDormand had decided to pull the van from the film out of storage. She thought it would be fun to sit in during the screening, but when she came face to face with the car she had lovingly named “Vanguard,” McDormand found herself overcome.

She had considered that van “the interior life of Fern, and therefore me,” she said, and to see Vanguard dirty and filled with junk after two years apart was almost too much to bear. An hour and a half into their reunion, Coen found McDormand still scrubbing the car, dripping sweat, insisting that she needed just a little more time with Vanguard. “I’m cleaning her,” McDormand told him. “I can’t let her go!”

It isn’t easy to move on when you’ve made something that requires so much of you. Before we parted ways, I asked McDormand how she felt after making “Nomadland.” I thought she scoffed at me, but she was laughing at the very idea.

“Well, at what point?” she said. “&lt;em&gt;Is&lt;/em&gt; it afterwards? I don’t know!” Then she shoved her hands into the pockets of her puffer jacket and disappeared into the eucalyptus grove, taking Fern with her.

It was a February day so overcast that noon looked like dusk, and Frances McDormand felt a little rattled. She told me this as we ambled down the main street of the small coastal town where she lives, a modest, hidden place so far from Hollywood that studio searchlights would have a hard time finding it.

It was a February day so overcast that noon looked like dusk, and Frances McDormand felt a little rattled. She told me this as we ambled down the main street of the small coastal town where she lives, a modest, hidden place so far from Hollywood that studio searchlights would have a hard time finding it. Still, someone had managed. Earlier that day, the phone rang at McDormand’s house, and while she didn’t recognize the man on the other end, he certainly knew who she was. When the caller told her he was watching “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri,” the 2017 movie in which she plays an avenging mother named Mildred, McDormand realized she was on the phone with a fan who had tracked down her unlisted landline. “It was the first creepy call I’ve gotten in 16 years here,” she told me. Though she hung up right away, McDormand now wondered what she might have asked him: “OK, what part were you watching? The scene where I threw the Molotov cocktail at the police station?” Maybe the fan had hoped to speak with righteous Mildred, who harangues priests and cops and hurls fire bombs in the pursuit of justice. Instead, he reached Frances McDormand, a 63-year-old woman who chats up everybody she comes across in her small town, doesn’t like to think of herself as famous, and has won two Oscars. This is the tricky thing about how persuasively McDormand embodies her characters: You think you know her because you’re certain you know them. Whether it’s kindhearted Marge from “Fargo,” tetchy Olive from “Olive Kitteridge,” or bohemian Jane in “Laurel Canyon,” McDormand specializes in playing women with worldviews. You can tell right away what they like and don’t like, who they would be friendly with and who they can’t stand. Since she rarely grants interviews, most people only see the real McDormand blazing an iconoclastic streak through televised awards shows, where she is barefaced instead of Botoxed and once wore her own jean jacket in lieu of borrowed couture. (In Hollywood, this mild noncompliance is tantamount to a declaration of war.) McDormand is highly skeptical of any ceremony where actors are done up like glamorous gladiators, and when her husband, filmmaker Joel Coen, was once asked to produce the Oscars alongside his brother, Ethan, McDormand suggested they set the telecast at Coney Island, which would have forced Hollywood glitterati to mingle with the freak show. That irreverence is McDormand’s most endearing trait: On the day we met, she ducked into a liquor store to satisfy her craving for Fritos — “You know they’re gooood, right?” she teased — and before we sat together on a concrete wall by the coastline, McDormand clambered on top of it and used the length of her splayed body to measure a pandemic-appropriate distance between us. She makes a concerted effort not to treat herself like a precious movie star in the hopes that you won’t, either. That’s why she lives where she lives and why, as she perched on the wall opposite me in an olive puffer jacket, she asked me not to divulge the name of her town. That morning’s phone call aside, “I get to live my more authentic self here,” she said, “and I don’t have to pretend to be anybody else.” She nodded toward the beach, where a handful of people cavorted with their dogs and surfboards. “I don’t mind being their movie star,” she said. “I’m just not going to be yours.” STILL, THE LINE BETWEEN McDORMAND and her characters will only grow blurrier with the release of her intimate new film, “Nomadland.” In this sunset-dappled drama from the director Chloé Zhao, McDormand plays Fern, a widow who packs her things into a van and joins up with a tribe of older itinerant workers to spend their golden years working odd jobs all across the American West. “Nomadland” would eventually require more from this private star than she is used to giving, but when McDormand first met with Zhao in early 2018, she was mostly curious what the up-and-coming director would think of her: “I was like, ‘Man, I just want to be relevant. Do you think I’m relevant?’” Perhaps that’s a surprising admission for a woman who was then on the verge of winning her second Oscar, for “Three Billboards,” but McDormand had just entered her 60s and worried that good opportunities could prove harder to find. Even before that, most of her best-known roles had required some hustle to obtain, which is part of the reason McDormand has lately become a producer, too. “Our industry is such an ageist industry,” Zhao told me by phone. “Someone like Frances McDormand who is just so authentically herself, who has not tried to erase those lines on her face or cover that up to fit into the industry — to me, she’ll be relevant forever.” And it was exactly that authentic self that intrigued Zhao. In her previous films, “The Rider” and “Songs My Brothers Taught Me,” Zhao had cast nonprofessionals and built character arcs for them that were inspired by their actual experiences. “Nomadland,” based on a nonfiction book by Jessica Bruder, would offer her the same opportunity: Real nomads from Bruder’s book, like Linda May and Swankie, were enticed to play pivotal supporting roles in the film. But since Zhao wanted those women to simply be themselves in front of the camera, she decided that for the sake of coherence, McDormand would need to play a version of herself, too. “It’s very interesting, the layers of it,” Zhao said. “Fran is playing Fern, but even the name ‘Fern’ came from herself and who she thinks she might be if she hit the road.” In fact, McDormand had long harbored a fantasy of turning her back on Hollywood, changing her name, and setting off in an RV upon reaching her 60s. “Chloé tapped into the truth of it,” McDormand said, “which was at different points of my life, I’ve said to my husband, ‘I can’t take this anymore, I’m dropping out.’” “Nomadland” let McDormand play out that dream and a few others. Many of the people McDormand interacts with in the film had no idea she was a famous actress — they figured she was just another nomad, and spoke to her like a normal person in exactly the way that she craves. In some ways, all that verisimilitude could be grueling, too — McDormand was surprised at how exhausted she would feel after long days of simply being present in front of the camera, reacting to the stories real people unspooled. Zhao also asked McDormand to put in actual hours at Fern’s odd jobs, like harvesting beets in Nebraska or working at a warehouse in California. But the result is a performance that McDormand has never given before, one that has less to do with acting and more to do with simply being. As Los Angeles Times critic Justin Chang wrote in his “Nomadland” review, “McDormand doesn’t disappear into Fern; she’s revealed by Fern, and Fern is revealed by her.” That sort of ineffable, hard-to-pin-down portrait was exactly Zhao’s intention. “I like to think that we have captured a great performance,” she said, “but also, an essence of Fran as well.” Still, the director and her star sometimes disagreed on just how much of that essence to use. Details both large and small have been pulled directly from McDormand’s real life: Fern proudly shows off a set of plates that McDormand’s father bought her as a college graduation gift, and Zhao cast one of the actress’s oldest friends as Fern’s sister so the recriminations they air in the film could have a real weight. But when Zhao floated the idea of finding a role in the film for McDormand’s son, Pedro, or suggested that Fern’s dead spouse, glimpsed only in a photograph, should be played by McDormand’s actual husband, Joel Coen, her lead drew a line in the sand. “I have to believe that it’s not just a documentary of me,” McDormand said. “I did create a character, just like I’ve created myself in 63 years, too.” FOR MOST OF HER LIFE, McDormand has been fascinated by the formula through which one concocts a self-image. How much does it have to do with authenticity, and to what extent is it constructed by playing pretend? “I would say probably fifth grade is the first time I can remember, ‘Oh, I know what they think I am, and I’m going to subvert it,’” she told me. What they knew about McDormand then was that she was the adopted daughter of Vernon McDormand, a minister for the Disciples of Christ. That sort of role in that sort of family required a certain amount of public respectability, but as she got older, and an English teacher at McDormand’s school in Monessen, Pennsylvania, asked her to read the role of Lady Macbeth in a workshop, she found herself thrilled to leave propriety at the door. “That was the hook,” McDormand said. “It was the power of being a really shy, slightly suspect seventh-grader who could stand in front of a group of people and keep their attention.” She loved, too, that Shakespeare’s female characters were as power-hungry as the men: “It’s like I used to say to Joel, ‘Why don’t you guys write better roles for women? In fact, why don’t you just write a role for men and then let me play it?’” She had married Coen not long after making her screen debut in the 1984 noir “Blood Simple,” which he directed with Ethan. Twelve years later, the Coen brothers would give McDormand her signature role, one that could only be played by a woman: Marge, the chirpy, pregnant police chief in “Fargo.” That film made her famous, a condition that McDormand considered a fire to be stomped out: After hiring a publicist, she almost immediately instructed him to turn down most requests. “I made a very conscious effort not to do press and publicity for 10 years in what other people would think would be a very dangerous moment in a female actor’s career, but it paid off for exactly the reasons I wanted it to,” she said. “It gave me a mystery back to who I was, and then in the roles I performed, I could take an audience to a place where someone who sold watches or perfume and magazines couldn’t.” To her, “Nomadland” is the culmination of that effort to keep herself unspoiled in the public eye. “That’s why it works,” she said. “That’s why Chloé could bear to even think of doing this with me, because of what I’ve created for years not just as an actor, but in my personal life.” We traipsed back through town, and as we walked up a hill covered in overgrowth and eucalyptus trees, McDormand drew one final line: “So I’m going to pass my house, and then I’m going to leave you,” she said. She asked if I had dinner plans, and directed me to a farm stand I could stop by on the way home. “They’ve got gorgeous little gems and some good old arugula,” she said, “but no eggs right now because the chickens are all cold.” As McDormand offered me kindly advice while standing in front of a felled eucalyptus trunk, I could have sworn I was talking to Fern, who is so practical and self-reliant. It reminded me of a story she had told me earlier: Not long ago, for the drive-in premiere of “Nomadland” in Pasadena, California, McDormand had decided to pull the van from the film out of storage. She thought it would be fun to sit in during the screening, but when she came face to face with the car she had lovingly named “Vanguard,” McDormand found herself overcome. She had considered that van “the interior life of Fern, and therefore me,” she said, and to see Vanguard dirty and filled with junk after two years apart was almost too much to bear. An hour and a half into their reunion, Coen found McDormand still scrubbing the car, dripping sweat, insisting that she needed just a little more time with Vanguard. “I’m cleaning her,” McDormand told him. “I can’t let her go!” It isn’t easy to move on when you’ve made something that requires so much of you. Before we parted ways, I asked McDormand how she felt after making “Nomadland.” I thought she scoffed at me, but she was laughing at the very idea. “Well, at what point?” she said. “Is it afterwards? I don’t know!” Then she shoved her hands into the pockets of her puffer jacket and disappeared into the eucalyptus grove, taking Fern with her.

What Frances McDormand would (and wouldn’t) give to 'Nomadland'

When questioned about crimes against women by wayward youth, the former Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh Mulayam Singh Yadav once said, rather than condemning, that kids can commit mistakes.

On the other hand, our Prime Minister, Narendra Modi once said that we don’t ask our sons, when returning home at night, as to why they are late or where they have been, but daughters are grilled. These are two contrasting statements worth thinking about if we have to change the situation.

The brutality of the rape of our daughters&nbsp;Nirbhaya, Kathua and Hathras refuses to fade away from our minds. The pain is only deepening further with the number of cases increasing at an alarming rate and their brutality getting severe. &nbsp;

A heinous crime like rape is not only devastating to the victim but most damaging to the survivor as well as the community.&nbsp;

National Crimes Records Bureau 2019 data indicates India faces about 88 rapes every single day. The number is worrisome also because sexual abuse reported on minors and even infants is on the rise. &nbsp;

Even animals are not aggressive so the depraved human perpetrators need to be called devils and not insult animals. Rajasthan is in the top spot per lakh population with one of the highest reported numbers of rapes and sexual abuse.&nbsp;

The state administration cites ease of reporting to be one of the factors for the increased number of cases reported in comparison to states like Uttar Pradesh that recorded less reporting than previous years. &nbsp;

Number of reported crimes is not true portrayal of the problem as the conviction rate remains very low. Only 27 percent of cases got a conviction decree in the year 2018. Nearly three quarter of the total number of devils got away.

An important fact here is that the number of reported cases is just the tip of the iceberg, if we go by the findings of a study commissioned by the Ministry of Women and Child Development in the year 2007, one of the major findings is that 50 per cent of the abusers are persons known to the child or in a position of trust and responsibility. &nbsp;

Moreover, politicisation of cases, threatening victims, blaming and shaming them and insensitive media coverage discourages rape survivors and victims' family to report the case.&nbsp;

Even with stringent laws, legal processes remain tedious and insensitive with advocates dealing with the abuse survivors as they interrogate criminals.&nbsp; 
Delay in justice and low conviction are dampeners for under-reporting or withdrawal from seeking justice.&nbsp;

Low social status of women and the caste dynamics clearly seems to favour the abusers and rape as a tool to re-establish their status by targetting vindictive actions on women. &nbsp;

Who can forget Bhanwari Devi’s case in Rajasthan about 25 years ago that lead to formulation of prevention against sexual harassment at workplace law.&nbsp;

Bhanwari Devi was 'taught a lesson' for preventing child marriage by the angry Gujjar community. Thus the crime of child marriage in the region also continued unabated. &nbsp;

The case stormed the nation but the caste dynamics strongly prevails and the unfortunate Harthras case not only reflects that we as a society have not changed a bit but the process also remains as complex as it was.&nbsp;

The discrimination faced by the victim's family is further fuelled by statements made by people in leadership and political positions. These statements often defend such acts by men and boys by blaming and shaming women for their quest for equality.

Kathua rape and murder of a minor led to nationwide protest and agitations eventually leading to formulation of stringent legislation. But even death penalty fails to curb the massive number of rapes in the country.&nbsp;

Harsh punishments like the death penalty also pose a risk of under-reporting if the abuser is from an influential family. The social construct and power dynamics are often in favour of supporting male members and influences the decisions hugely.&nbsp;

We really need to introspect deeply on where we as individuals and as a society are failing.&nbsp;

It is important to realise that the problem of abuse and rape is deep-rooted and relates closely to the status of women in society. Deteriorating child sex ratio, high percentage of girls dropping out of education, child marriage, teen pregnancies and more statistics that otherwise look comparatively benign tell a much greater story.

Evidently, all of these issues reflect a more serious situation among under-privileged scheduled tribes and castes, the communities that face high number of rapes and abuse.

Stringent legislation and its enforcement are no doubt the most important factors but it is equally important to assess how these laws are impacting the community. If so then legislations need to be re-visited in favour of safeguarding the survivors.&nbsp;

Hitting the issue early and at the right time is crucial, devising a robust sex education component in school education and sensitising our communities and particularly leaders to behave responsibly could have a long-lasting positive impact. &nbsp;

And not to forget that there are good examples from other countries that look at rape as the most heinous crime causing lifelong damage to a person. These countries have then worked effectively on penalties and solutions.

(The opinions expressed in this article are writers' own)

When questioned about crimes against women by wayward youth, the former Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh Mulayam Singh Yadav once said, rather than condemning, that kids can commit mistakes.

When questioned about crimes against women by wayward youth, the former Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh Mulayam Singh Yadav once said, rather than condemning, that kids can commit mistakes. On the other hand, our Prime Minister, Narendra Modi once said that we don’t ask our sons, when returning home at night, as to why they are late or where they have been, but daughters are grilled. These are two contrasting statements worth thinking about if we have to change the situation. The brutality of the rape of our daughters Nirbhaya, Kathua and Hathras refuses to fade away from our minds. The pain is only deepening further with the number of cases increasing at an alarming rate and their brutality getting severe. A heinous crime like rape is not only devastating to the victim but most damaging to the survivor as well as the community. National Crimes Records Bureau 2019 data indicates India faces about 88 rapes every single day. The number is worrisome also because sexual abuse reported on minors and even infants is on the rise. Even animals are not aggressive so the depraved human perpetrators need to be called devils and not insult animals. Rajasthan is in the top spot per lakh population with one of the highest reported numbers of rapes and sexual abuse. The state administration cites ease of reporting to be one of the factors for the increased number of cases reported in comparison to states like Uttar Pradesh that recorded less reporting than previous years. Number of reported crimes is not true portrayal of the problem as the conviction rate remains very low. Only 27 percent of cases got a conviction decree in the year 2018. Nearly three quarter of the total number of devils got away. An important fact here is that the number of reported cases is just the tip of the iceberg, if we go by the findings of a study commissioned by the Ministry of Women and Child Development in the year 2007, one of the major findings is that 50 per cent of the abusers are persons known to the child or in a position of trust and responsibility. Moreover, politicisation of cases, threatening victims, blaming and shaming them and insensitive media coverage discourages rape survivors and victims' family to report the case. Even with stringent laws, legal processes remain tedious and insensitive with advocates dealing with the abuse survivors as they interrogate criminals. Delay in justice and low conviction are dampeners for under-reporting or withdrawal from seeking justice. Low social status of women and the caste dynamics clearly seems to favour the abusers and rape as a tool to re-establish their status by targetting vindictive actions on women. Who can forget Bhanwari Devi’s case in Rajasthan about 25 years ago that lead to formulation of prevention against sexual harassment at workplace law. Bhanwari Devi was 'taught a lesson' for preventing child marriage by the angry Gujjar community. Thus the crime of child marriage in the region also continued unabated. The case stormed the nation but the caste dynamics strongly prevails and the unfortunate Harthras case not only reflects that we as a society have not changed a bit but the process also remains as complex as it was. The discrimination faced by the victim's family is further fuelled by statements made by people in leadership and political positions. These statements often defend such acts by men and boys by blaming and shaming women for their quest for equality. Kathua rape and murder of a minor led to nationwide protest and agitations eventually leading to formulation of stringent legislation. But even death penalty fails to curb the massive number of rapes in the country. Harsh punishments like the death penalty also pose a risk of under-reporting if the abuser is from an influential family. The social construct and power dynamics are often in favour of supporting male members and influences the decisions hugely. We really need to introspect deeply on where we as individuals and as a society are failing. It is important to realise that the problem of abuse and rape is deep-rooted and relates closely to the status of women in society. Deteriorating child sex ratio, high percentage of girls dropping out of education, child marriage, teen pregnancies and more statistics that otherwise look comparatively benign tell a much greater story. Evidently, all of these issues reflect a more serious situation among under-privileged scheduled tribes and castes, the communities that face high number of rapes and abuse. Stringent legislation and its enforcement are no doubt the most important factors but it is equally important to assess how these laws are impacting the community. If so then legislations need to be re-visited in favour of safeguarding the survivors. Hitting the issue early and at the right time is crucial, devising a robust sex education component in school education and sensitising our communities and particularly leaders to behave responsibly could have a long-lasting positive impact. And not to forget that there are good examples from other countries that look at rape as the most heinous crime causing lifelong damage to a person. These countries have then worked effectively on penalties and solutions. (The opinions expressed in this article are writers' own)

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