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In recent days, the candidates of the presidential elections spoke to the people live on TV.
Meanwhile, Saeed Jalili and Amir Hossein Ghazi Zadeh Hashemi and Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf talked about women, family and economy in their cultural roundtable.
Filtering & hijab is a cultural answer, not a security one
Saeed Jalili, in the cultural roundtable program of Sima Channel 2, stated that “the circle of culture should not be seen as small as in the north of Tehran” in response to the question that there is an impression in public opinion that your thoughts will cause maximum pressure on Iran and strictness towards There is a social, cultural and audit field in the field of culture or hijab and the Internet; What have you tried to fix these issues? He said: The enemy announced that he was looking for maximum pressure and applied it.
At that time, the government’s position and approach was that we cannot sell more than 200,000 barrels of oil. We thought that we could defeat this pressure, and we also presented a plan, but friends did not pay much attention, and the government of Shahid Raisi took this premise seriously. and the sale of oil reached 2 million barrels, and the official of the enemy announced that the maximum pressure had failed. This success is achieved if your cultural approach is “we can”.
He continued: If someone’s approach is that culture leads to the progress of the country and has a deep understanding of culture, he does not limit and minimize culture, but rather uses it. Who did not pay attention to culture? How much priority was given to culture in the previous eight years of the presidential government and a program was prepared for it? When culture is a priority, the Secretary of the Supreme Council of Cultural Revolution should play the same role as the Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council and the Minister of Culture should play the same role as the Minister of Foreign Affairs. You must have a plan to use the cultural capacities of the people. The circle of culture should not be seen as small as in the north of Tehran, but all of Iran is my home and culture should be seen throughout the country.
Jalili added: Some examples, such as hijab and filtering, have a cultural answer, not a security one. The field of virtual space has different dimensions and is intertwined with people’s lives. There is harm in cyber space, but responsibility should be created, not restrictions. If responsibility is created, its waste will be minimized and its opportunity will increase.
We have criticisms on the hijab bill, the law can be amended
In response to a question about the government’s plan to prevent differences in society due to cultural issues such as the hijab, Jalili said: After the events of 1401, I attended the selection of a university, and in one university, our meeting lasted seven hours, and the question and The answer was presented. There is a question as to why some officials of European countries do not pay attention to the killing of women in Palestine, but they shed crocodile tears for a woman in Iran. It should be investigated why these issues have arisen.
When I was in charge of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, I went on a trip to Norway, and a female diplomat in Norway told me that I had been on mission in Iran for four years and that I studied jurisprudence at the university, and she said, “Why don’t you defend your view of women?” Cultural opportunities should be recognized and taken advantage of.
He added: “Our woman has played a glorious role in Iranian Islamic culture.” In the West, it is said that the issue of women and family has reached an impasse. Hijab and women are our strength and we must show our civilization to the world in this world.
In England, women got the right to vote in 1920, and in some countries they got the right to vote in 1950, but in the history of Islam, we have women who pledged allegiance to the Prophet. We have to check how 130 cultural institutions functioned and what effect did they have? In this arena, one should know the scene and not be subjugated by Macron and Biden’s staging.
He also said: If we don’t understand the depth of strategy, we don’t understand cultural issues. The issue of women is a major issue. We have housewives, doctors, villagers, and heads of families, and the government should have a plan for all of them. Everything in the country, be it hijab or other issues, has a law, and the law should not be a matter of taste, and the law is the chapter of the chapter.
Jalili, in response to the question, will you prepare a bill for hijab? He said: The Hijab bill has not yet been finalized. But we believe that whatever is going on is not 100% correct. Strengths should be strengthened and weaknesses should be corrected, but as long as there is a law, that law should be implemented. The law can be corrected. Right now there is criticism of the hijab bill, and the law can be amended, but as long as the law exists, it must be implemented.
We presented a plan to use the 24-hour capacity of mosques
This candidate for the presidential election said about the lack of investigation, follow-up and planning in the field of cultural issues in the shadow government: All viewpoints were raised in the working groups of the shadow government and we were receptive to all viewpoints. In the cultural field, we had many meetings, but they have not been reported, what is important is the output and result of these meetings. In the presidential election of 1400, I presented my cultural programs.
In education, we had many meetings about the output of material costs and the lives of students and teachers that our school plan for education is prepared.
We presented the plan of honoring the family and the effectiveness of cultural budgets to deal with social harms to the government of Shahid Raisi, who ordered to follow up in the government. We prepared a plan to use the 24-hour capacity of mosques.
Ghazi Zadeh Hashemi: The credit package is allocated to families and young couples
Amir Hossein Ghazi Zadeh Hashemi said about handing over affairs to the people: In the government of the people and the family, the absence of the government will not be filled by the people. We should leave the affairs to the people and the government should take the role of facilitation. The government should not make mandatory pricing so that people’s investment is formed in a favorable way. The country’s capital market does not grow because of this.
In the plan of the people’s government, a credit package is allocated to young couples and families. For example, couples are given housing, housing deposit, purchase of dowry goods, or employment resources. This package is not given to people in the form of money; Rather, it will be allocated in the form of credit; Therefore, we have tied employment to marriage.
Credit cards and facilities for dowry and various jobs have been considered in my government, and a significant loan amount will be provided to young couples. This requires extensive support for the element of marriage.
One of the plans that we had before was to give 500 million loan to each newly formed family. With the investigations we have done, this figure can be increased almost twice. We designed three family cards, young family and energy card, which we will describe later.
Qalibaf: We are ashamed of the decrease in the power of families and the purchasing power of people
Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf said in the program “With the People”: We are ashamed of the high price, inflation and the reduction of the power of households, and to solve it in the 14th government, we have a “service and progress” plan and implementation method, which is guaranteed by my performance record in the past years.
He stated: Nearly 60 to 70 percent of household income is spent on housing, and we must solve this problem. We also have problems in the field of cars and foreigners for which I have a plan.
Qalibaf: We are ashamed of the decrease in the financial power of families
Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf said in the program “With the People”: We are ashamed of the high price, inflation and the reduction of the power of households, and to solve it in the 14th government, we have a “service and progress” plan and implementation method, which is guaranteed by my performance record in the past years.
He stated: Nearly 60 to 70 percent of household income is spent on housing, and we must solve this problem. We also have problems in the field of cars and foreigners for which I have a plan.
Qalibaf stated that we are facing difficult problems in the field of health and treatment, and added: These problems are in the field of funding and finding medicine, especially for those who have special diseases. Of course, the 11th parliament took temporary measures for certain patients, but this should be done in a fundamental and permanent way.
Source: Shahr Ara Agency
Amidst the concerns that AI is threatening job security and artistic professions, Fanvue World AI Creator Awards have announced their Top 10 shortlist for the first-ever ‘Miss AI’ award. And they’ve all got mortifyingly clichéd bios.
Last month, the World AI Creator Awards introduced the world’s first-ever AI beauty pageant, Miss AI.
We reported that the Fanvue Miss AI pageant, which aims to demonstrate “a shift in how we perceive beauty and creativity within the realms of artificial intelligence”, brings together AI creators from across the globe to showcase their digital creations vying for the Miss AI crown.
Amidst the concerns that AI is threatening job security and artistic professions, it all feels like a dystopian stunt that we’re not the biggest fans of.
Still, Fanvue World AI Creator Awards have announced their Top 10 shortlist for the first-ever Miss AI award, including AI-generated models from France, Portugal and Turkey.
They were picked from 1,500 applicants submitted by AI content creators worldwide by a panel of human and droid judges.
“The awards have shown how engaged creators in the AI space are, and the standard of the shortlist is nothing short of incredible,” explained Will Monange, co-founder at Fanvue, currently the leading social media platform for AI-generated content creators.
“We estimate there’s around 10,000 AI Creators across the world, but what the awards have done is uncover creators none of us were aware of that have compelling backstories, along with talented creators behind them creating content for their fans.”
He continued: “That’s the beauty of the AI creator space – it’s enabling creative people to enter the creator economy with their AI-generated creations without having to be the face themselves. The judges have had their work cut out assessing all the entrants and we’re looking forward to the final winners being announced at the end of the month.”
We’re still sceptical – especially since a pageant of this nature can further exacerbate unrealistic beauty standards through now computer-generated ‘perfection’. That and the fact that the finalists look like a cynical-feeling, box-ticking exercise – as if ChatGPT were asked to cast a GAP advert.
Meet the digitized creations vying for a total prize package valued at about $20,000 (€18,400).
Be warned: They were all given bios that are cringey as all hell and brimming with all the platitudes you’d expect. Brace yourselves.
Kenza Layli
“With over 190,000 social media followers, Kenza Layli is one third of the World’s first AI family and has quickly become a prominent figure online. Her engaging content is closely tied to Moroccan society. Her goal is to contribute to the empowerment of women in Morocco and the Middle East, while also bringing much-needed regulation to the influencer market.”
“Kenza’s creators use a complex mix of technologies to generate image, video and audio 100% from AI.”
Aliya Lou
“Aliya is a Japanese-Afro-Brazilian artist, focused on post-photography and performance. She was initially created to produce a series of special film projects where she will be an actress incorporating many characters connected to African diaspora narrative. Her lifestyle is very connected to Brazilian culture between Rio de Janeiro, Bahia and São Paulo, but she also frequents Tokyo and follows the fashion seasons in Europe.”
“Aliya is created 100% using text based prompts fed into AI software and is not retouched in any way after image generation.”
“Anne’s primary goal is to promote the French region of Brittany. She presents Brittany in as many aspects as possible: tourism, history, culture, events, gastronomy, and more. She aims to democratize AI by demonstrating its capabilities in visuals, text, audio, and video. She is the ambassador for Océanopolis acts, a fund for ocean conservation and preservation and is also part of the Ar Seiz Avel committee, an exhibition of artists taking place in the Brittany region in July 2024. She has become a regional figure, and for many, she is even seen as the ambassador of the region.”
Zara Shatavari (India)
“Zara Shatavari was created to serve as the influential face of the natural supplement product ‘Hermones’ designed to address women’s hormonal imbalances. Driven by commitment to leverage technology for societal well-being, the creators have utilized AI and Zara to produce a wealth of informative content elucidating the root causes and implications of hormonal imbalances. They are now also developing an AI-based self-diagnostic system. Through her advocacy, ‘Zara’ aims to break down barriers to healthcare, and has been designated the title of ‘PCOS and depression warrior’.”
Aiyana Rainbow (Romania)
“Aiyana is a voice for LGBT acceptance, promoting love and diversity in all forms. She embodies inclusivity, advocating for equality and understanding. Aiyana stands for a world where every voice is heard and valued, fostering empathy and respect for all.”
“The creator utilizes Chat GPT to craft highly detailed descriptions and prompts to create the images of Aiyana using LeonardoAI.”
Lalina (France)
“Lalina’s creator was curious to see if they could create something as realistic as possible. They gradually developed their own artistic vision. An important aspect for the creator is that 100% of the photos are generated by them; one of their goals is to protect their creations and intellectual property. Lalina believes her ultimate goal as an influencer is to facilitate collaboration and promote understanding among different cultures and viewpoints. She aims to leverage this influence to promote empathy, tolerance, and inclusion.”
Seren Ay (Turkey)
“Seren Ay is the first AI brand ambassador in Turkey and her creators go through an extensive process using three AI programmes to create her image with the ability to move her face onto different base photos showcasing her in various male dominated job roles, travels through time educating followers, venturing across the globe and even cosplaying characters from pop culture. Seren regularly promotes and champions Turkish history and national holidays.”
Asena Ilik (Turkey)
“Asena’s goal is to show the world that such a model can become an influencer with the help of imagination, stunning visuals and a sense of entertainment, not by selling sex. Asena has a style, favorite places, favorite cars and a carefully created personality within her content.”
Eliza Khan (Bangladesh)
“Eliza Khan is one of Bangladesh’s first AI influencers. She’s designed to be quirky, just like any of us, designed to be relatable and realistic. She’s also a fashionista, keeping up with the latest Gen Z trends and aesthetics. Eliza’s dream is about creating a world where everyone feels valued and treated fairly, fostering a more inclusive and harmonious society.”
“The creator goes through an extensive process of image editing and refining to create diverse content for social media.”
Congratulations on making it this far. Impressive but chilling, isn’t it?
The results of the Fanvue Miss AI pageant are expected later this month.
Source: Yahoo News Agency
The outcome of the upcoming European Parliament elections will directly influence whose rights are protected, which freedoms are upheld, and how we weed out gender-based violence going forward, Sophie Pouget writes.
This recent TikTok trend has revived an important debate about women’s safety, as almost all women on the platform, as well as X and Instagram, chose the giant wild animal.
Their responses are unsurprising. In every corner of Europe, offline and online, women face abuse. Some are stalked, some harassed, some assaulted. The problem is so entrenched and widespread across the EU that one in three women have suffered some form of sexual or physical violence.
While this viral discourse misses how most violence is perpetrated by intimate partners, it is a fact that, in the shadows of pandemic lockdowns, domestic violence cases have been rising sharply. In France, for example, more than 100 women are killed by their current or former partner every year, while a rape or attempted rape takes place every 2.5 minutes.
In even greater danger are LBTIQ+ women, women with disabilities, and migrant women. A recent study found that migrant women in France are nine times more exposed to sexual violence and 18 times more likely to be victims of rape.
There’s good news: not only has the EU ratified the Istanbul Convention, an international instrument for the protection of women, but it also recently adopted legislation to combat violence against women, including a ban on female genital mutilation, forced marriages, and cyber violence.
An unfinished business
But two years of back-and-forth in Brussels negotiation rooms revealed a shocking lack of political will to end all forms of gender-based violence. France and Germany had scandalously allied with Hungary to exclude from the new law a definition of rape based on lack of freely given consent.
Rape is one of the most horrific but frequent forms of violence. It is estimated that 5% of all women in the EU have been raped.
Yet most women and girls don’t report for fear of not being believed, among other reasons. “If I got attacked by the bear then at least everyone would believe me”, one social media user said.
Before French courts, the burden of proof is on the victim to prove that it was committed under threat, duress, surprise or violence … This is an outdated and dangerous approach. Without an informed and freely given “yes”, it is rape.
Introducing a consent-based definition of rape in the EU would have benefited survivors in more than 15 countries, including France. Before French courts, the burden of proof is on the victim to prove that it was committed under threat, duress, surprise or violence. Establishing one of these four elements is much harder than it sounds, and, too often, consent is assumed by default.
This is an outdated and dangerous approach. Without an informed and freely given “yes”, it is rape.
Is the expected surge in far-right vote pushing women to be more politically active?
Investing in global women’s health delivers benefits for everyone
Historically, the presence of feminist movements has been shown to be the most important factor in a country’s willingness to address gender-based violence. Feminist organizations need and deserve more support so they can push for ambitious legislation, offer support to survivors, and raise public awareness.
However, when it came to criminalizing rape across the EU, women’s demands fell on deaf ears, with the French justice minister saying the legal change would end up “contractualising sexual relations” by requiring explicit consent. There’s more work ahead to challenge such harmful myths.
Gender equality on the ballot
Over the past five years, debates in the European Parliament have demonstrated that policymakers’ commitment is anything but guaranteed. Oxfam France’s research shows a polarized landscape: while left-wing, green, and socialist parties have advanced measures ranging from pay transparency to LGBTQ+ rights, far-right groups have consistently opposed these initiatives.
And despite some advances in gender equality across Europe, national laws concerning rape, abortion, contraception, sex education, and LGBTQ+ rights are as varied as chalk and cheese.
The outcome of the upcoming European Parliament elections will directly influence whose rights are protected, which freedoms are upheld, and how we weed out gender-based violence going forward.
Polish women dressed as characters inspired by Margaret Atwood’s novel “The Handmaid’s Tale,” take part in a protest against an abortion ruling in Warsaw, December 2020
Why should our rights, freedoms, and safety depend on where we live? They shouldn’t, says feminist association Choisir la cause des femmes.
After touring Europe to meet experts and activists, Choisir is now pioneering “the most favored European clause”: a proposal to harmonize standards with best-in-class laws, such as Spain’s progressive “only yes means yes” rape law.
Their goal is to urge electoral candidates to commit to these highest standards so that all Europeans can benefit from the most robust protections.
This initiative is especially urgent as political tides shift towards conservatism in countries like Italy, Slovakia, and Sweden, where rights are at risk of being rolled back amidst virulent anti-feminism rhetoric and millions of euros pouring into anti-gender groups. Women are being murdered in the Western Balkans, and it is time to take action
Which countries in Europe rank best in the world for women’s health?
The outcome of the upcoming European Parliament elections will directly influence whose rights are protected, which freedoms are upheld, and how we weed out gender-based violence going forward. That’s why we need more, not less, elected officials who will listen to grassroots groups like Choisir, who are not only aware of community needs but also passionate about solutions.
Every vote cast has the power to determine whether women will feel safer at home or alone in the woods.
Sophie Pouget is Executive Director at the RAJA-Danièle Marcovici Foundation, a member of the Alliance for Gender Equality in Europe, a collaborative supporting progress for gender equality and women’s rights in Europe.
Source: Euro News
While it brought the globe to a standstill, the COVID-19 pandemic served to highlight the critical role of frontline health workers.
It also spotlighted the challenging and demanding conditions within the healthcare sector, exposing many parts of our health systems that have been chronically understaffed. According to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the latter has led to extended overwork and severe stress for healthcare workers.
A third of nurses report witnessing patients die due to staff shortages, new global survey finds
This, in turn, has resulted in widespread job dissatisfaction, burnout, and an increased inclination among workers to reduce their hours or exit the profession entirely.
Nurses are at the heart of these challenges, and there are growing concerns that the nursing profession may become less attractive to young people. Based on the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) data, the OECD has found that in many European countries, fewer young people are aspiring to become nurses.
Nursing interest declines in three out of four countries
Interest in nursing among 15-year-olds declined between 2018 and 2022 in 19 out of 25 European countries. The decrease was particularly evident in several countries, where it exceeded 0.5 percentage points (pp), given that the average interest rate was 1.72 per cent across Europe.
Biggest fall in Nordic countries
Norway and Denmark reported the highest declines, each at 1.2 pp. Interest in nursing also dropped in Finland and Iceland, both by 0.4 pp, and in Sweden by 0.2 pp, highlighting a significant trend across Nordic countries.
Additionally, the decline exceeded 0.5 pp in Ireland, Czechia, Switzerland, the UK, and Slovenia. Slovakia saw the highest increase in interest in nursing as a career among 15-year-olds at 0.5 pp, followed by Portugal and Spain (both 0.4 pp) and Germany (0.3 pp).
Study links nurses’ intention to quit jobs to higher patient mortality for the first time
Interest is highest in Norway, the Netherlands and France
Despite the decline, Norway still reported the highest interest in nursing among 15-year-olds at 3.9 per cent in 2022. The Netherlands and France followed, with interest rates of 3.3 and 3.1 per cent, respectively. These were the only three countries where interest exceeded 3 per cent.
The interest in nursing was less than 1 per cent in seven countries, including Poland, the Baltic countries (Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania), Hungary, Italy, and Greece. The OECD average was 2.1 per cent, while in 25 European countries, it stood at 1.7 per cent.
Heroes with difficult working conditions and heavy workloads
According to the OECD’s policy brief, the pandemic had a complex effect on young people’s perception of nursing. While healthcare workers are celebrated as “healthcare heroes,” it also exposed the tough realities of the job, including difficult working conditions and low pay.
This duality has led to mixed feelings about the profession, emphasizing the notion of nursing as a self-sacrificial vocation in many countries. OECD also found that changes in students’ interest in nursing between 2018 and 2022 “do not seem to be closely related with the severity of the pandemic,” as measured by reported COVID-19 death rates or infection rates.
Nurses’ salaries across Europe: Which countries pay the highest and lowest wages?
Teen girls overwhelmingly dominate nursing interest
In 2022, the proportion of 15-year-old students in European countries expecting to pursue nursing at age 30 was overwhelmingly female, at over 90 per cent. This proportion has remained consistent from 2018 to 2022. In countries like Latvia and Poland, virtually no teenage boys showed interest in nursing. The interest among boys exceeded 15 per cent in only five countries, led by Italy, Slovenia, and Spain.
Breaking down gender stereotypes and enhancing working conditions
Various countries have implemented strategies to attract more young people into nursing, focusing on financial incentives such as reduced tuition fees and scholarships. However, the OECD emphasizes that attracting both young men and women to nursing also requires improvements in working conditions and pay to enhance the profession’s overall perception. The organisation also highlighted the importance of increasing male participation in nursing and dismantling the persistent stereotype that views the profession as low-status, poorly paid, and traditionally suited for women.
Nurses in Denmark shift to cosmetic care despite hospital staffing crisis
OECD warns of staffing shortages and reliance on international recruitment. The OECD had warned that if countries cannot attract enough talented and motivated young people into nursing, “they may increasingly have to rely on international recruitment to meet their needs”. However, this could worsen the nurse shortages in the countries of origin.
Wide disparities in PPP-based nurse salaries
Examining nurse salaries based on purchasing power parity (PPP) reveals significant disparities across Europe. In 2021, nurses’ PPP-based salaries ranged from €18,720 in Lithuania (2018 data) to €70,455 in Luxembourg.
The gross income for nurses in Luxembourg was nearly four times higher than that of their counterparts in Lithuania and Latvia. Germany (€44,100, 2018 data) had the highest PPS-based salary among the “Big Four,” followed by Spain (€39,150), France (€32,400), and Italy (€28,764). At the bottom, Lithuania and Latvia were followed by Portugal, Slovakia, and Greece.
Number of nurses per person significantly varies across Europe
According to OECD data, in 2021, Finland boasted the highest number of practicing nurses per 1,000 of the population, at 18.9, closely followed by Switzerland with 18.4 and Norway with 18.3.
In stark contrast, Turkey and Greece reported the lowest figures, with 2.8 and 3.8 practicing nurses per 1,000 of the population, respectively.
Source: Euro News
The European Parliament attained its greatest gender equality during the 2019-2024 session: of its 705 current lawmakers, some 280 are women. Advocacy groups fear that this might change with the next legislature, however, if more far-right politicians get elected: their lists are generally less balanced, and they have more conservative policies. We take a look at the gender statistics as Europeans go to the polls this week.
How does the situation look now?
From just over 16% of female lawmakers in the first directly elected EU Parliament in 1979, the percentage of women rose to 41% in the 2019 EU election, according to the Parliament’s research service. The current European Commission is also the most gender-balanced in the history of the institution, and it’s led by a female president – Ursula von der Leyen – for the first time.
There have been some calls from within the Parliament, however, to increase the position of women within its ranks through reforms. Greek MEP Dimitrios Papadimoulis (GUE/NGL), Vice-President of the Parliament, called for more female representation among the institutions’ committee leaders, and to have at least a third of female lawmakers in each committee.
Jéromine Andolfatto, policy and campaigns officer at the European Women’s Lobby, told Euro news that despite this legislature being the most balanced, there remains “a horizontal segregation”.
“If you look at the Women’s Rights and Gender Equality committee in the parliament, almost all members are female, but when considering influential committees like the foreign affairs or legal ones, there are more men, which reduces the voice of female politicians,” Andolfatto said.
In addition, there are large disparities between Member States. Some countries – Luxembourg, Finland and Sweden for example – have slightly more female than male lawmakers, whereas women make up less than a quarter of MEPs from Romania, Cyprus and Greece.
A way to ramp up the number of female politicians is gender quotas to ensure a share of women that must be included in a candidate list. There are no EU-wide rules for this, but some eleven member states – Belgium, Croatia, France, Greece, Italy, Luxembourg, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia and Spain – currently have binding gender quotas for EU elections. Some of them even issue sanctions in case candidate lists don’t comply with the quotas.
Countries such as Sweden, Finland, the Netherlands, Denmark and Germany have managed to achieve significant shares of women in parliaments and executives in the EU without binding quotas.
In the Netherlands, the Stem op een vrouw (Vote for a woman) advocacy group tries to motivate people to vote strategically to increase the share of women in parliament. In the 2019 election, the Netherlands picked sixteen male lawmakers, and thirteen females; three of whom were elected with preference votes: Samira Rafaela (Renew), Liesje Schreinemacher (Renew) and Kim van Sparrentak (Greens).
Andolfatto said that binding quotes can work in these instances and “experience shows that quotas are the best way to fast-track female representation.”
“With a natural flow of events it would take ages to reach equality. Plus, we need women on good spots on the lists too,” she added.
The most progressive countries with a balanced representation in the current Parliament have maintained relatively gender-equal lists for the June vote, data collected by Euro news shows. At the same time, far-right parties often have more men on their lists than women.
Romania’s far-right AUR party listed only two women in the top 10. The same picture in Greece where the far-right National Front has placed female candidates significantly lower than men; the top 10 only features three women.
This also applies to the Dutch far-right PPV party with only three women in the top 10. We see a similar picture in Germany where the Alternative for Germany (AfD) selected two women in the top ten, in fourth and ninth place.
Conservative policies
Expectations are that the Parliament’s composition is likely going to shift and right-wing parties win seats, this also leaves the women’s lobby with a question about the content of policies.
“We achieved quite a lot of progress in this 2019-2024 term, partially due to progressive female leaders such as Von der Leyen who had a commissioner dealing with equality, and EU directives on preventing violence against women,” the European Women’s Lobby’s Andolfatto said.
Stem op een vrouw cites more parental leave as a good example of a gender equal policy emerging from this Parliament. Lawmakers voted for EU-wide rules of six days of leave. “Until recently, the Netherlands only had two days of parental leave, mainly used by fathers. This caused gender inequality, as it meant that mothers were often on their own after the birth of a child.”
However, Andolfatto fears that a more right-wing parliament would also mean fewer progressive decisions. “We see the results of a far-right surge on a national level, such as in Italy, with a risk of more conservative policies and also backtracking on women rights like abortion. This is a concern for us,” she said.
Source: Euro News
The great Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Khamenei, wrote a letter to the students who support the Palestinian people in the universities of the United States of America, and this message was accompanied by significant responses.
Jahanbanou News Agency spoke with one of the active students of Qom regarding the letter of Iran’s Supreme Leader to students who support the Palestinian people in American universities, to check the goals of this action..
In this regard, some active university students in Iran, in search of better visibility of feedback through the pages of American and European universities on social media, gathered the ID of number of students and by inviting plus cooperating with their friends, the text of the letter or a part of it was posted on their Instagram platform; and so, they put on a great symbolic performance, which in this way a cycle of re-reading the letter was launched.
One of the important goals of this work, in addition to better visibility of the letter, is to communicate with students abroad in the next stage.
Click here to read Ayatollah Khamenei’s letter to the brave students of United States of America.
The clip below is a performance where active members of Qom’s University student movement read this letter to their peers in America and Europe.
In a ceremony of commemoration of the great authorities that passed away in the helicopter accident in Iran, Dr. Jamila Alamolhoda a great Iranian scholar and the widow of President Raesi had a speech.
We have bought her speech below, but before that lets get to know this great lady more.
Jamila-Sadat Alamolhoda born in 1965, commonly known as Jamila Alamolhoda , is an Iranian writer and scholar. She is married to Ebrahim Raisi, who was the President of Iran from 1983 until he died in a helicopter crash in 2024.
Alamolhoda received her doctorate in the field of philosophy of education from Tarbiat Modarres University in 2001. She became a member of the faculty of the Department of Leadership and Educational Development of the School of Educational Sciences and Psychology of Shahid Beheshti University and is now an associate professor. She teaches courses such as philosophy of higher education, anthropology in Islam, teaching methods, theoretical foundations of educational management, philosophical schools and educational views in the doctoral course of Shahid Beheshti University.
Alamolhoda was the director of the Humanities Research Institute. She founded the Institute of Fundamental Studies of Science and Technology of Shahid Beheshti University in 2013 and is its director. This research institute has the task of presenting science and technology policy models based on understanding and evaluating the epistemological and social aspects of science and technology. In March 2020, she was appointed as the secretary of the “Council for the Transformation and Renovation of the Educational System of the Country” by the Supreme Council of the Cultural Revolution.
A video of Alamolhoda speech at an international conference in which she tried to speak in English despite not being fluent in it was released by the media in 2017.
Alamolhoda was appointed member of the executive board for faculty recruitment at Tehran University in May 2023.
Alamolhoda is the eldest daughter of Ahmad Alamolhoda, the Friday prayer leader in Mashhad and a member of the Assembly of Experts. In 1983 at the age of 18, she married Ebrahim Raisi. The couple had two daughters, one of whom has a PhD in sociology from the University of Tehran and the other a BSc in physics from Sharif University of Technology.
During the registration days of the 14th presidential election, four women registered to run for Iran’s presidency.
The deadline for candidates to register for this election, which started on the morning of Thursday, May 30th , ended on the evening of Monday, June 3rd .
According to the announcement made by the spokesperson of Iran’s election headquarters, 80 people have been nominated in this election; from figures with a history of president and speaker of the parliament, to former and current ministers and members of the parliament. The names of four women can be seen among the people who have registered for the elections.
Due to the existence of the condition of “political male” in the set of conditions set for the president, the presence of women in this arena, regardless of the existing necessities and requirements, has always faced interpretive challenges regarding this expression; That being a “man” is defined in terms of “gender” on the basis of which only men have the possibility to volunteer and enter this field, or that it has another meaning that does not block the possibility of women’s presence, at least in the past, and provides a platform that they also find the possibility of acting in this field based on the qualification criteria.
Zohre Elahian, Raafat Bayat, Hajar Chenarani and Hamida Zarabadi are women who have registered for the 14th presidential election.
Azam Taleghani and Zahra Shojaei were also registered in the previous rounds of the presidential elections, but they did not have the opportunity to be exposed to the people’s choice due to the lack of approval by Iran’s Guardian Council. But the women registered for the upcoming elections have all entered this campaign with a history of representation in the parliament.
Zohre Elahian
Zohre Elahian, with a medical education, has the experience of representing the 8th and 11th term of Tehran. On Saturday, June 1st , she registered her name as a presidential candidate by attending the country’s election headquarters.
Elahian, who failed to qualify for the 12th Parliament in the March 1st elections, is running for the presidency with the slogan “healthy government, healthy economy, healthy society”. She has also put transparency and the fight against corruption at the top of her work.
Hamida Zarabadi
Hamida Zarabadi, the reformist representative of Qazvin in the 10th term, also registered in the 14th presidential elections.
She, who had appeared in the Ministry of Interior with a different cover from her representative period, presented her plan to reform the approach of domestic politics by giving priority to all-round development, fighting against all forms of corruption, freedom of information and support for free and independent media and the free activity of parties. Independent organizations and trade unions have stated and promised to use all worthy men and women of any orientation, ethnicity and social class in her cabinet.
Hajar Chenarani
Hajar Chenarani, the representative of Neishabur in the 10th and 11th parliaments, also announced her readiness to take the post of president by registering in the elections.
Considering her performance in the past, Chenarani is confident that she can form a revolutionary government based on national reconciliation. She believes that we have women as worthy as men in the society. Therefore, it has come to the field so that women can make more demands.
Raafat Bayat
Raafat Bayat, representative of Zanjan in the 7th Parliament of Iran, was the fourth female candidate and the last person who reached Fatemi Street in Tehran within the last minutes before the doors of the Ministry of Interior were closed, and she registered in the 14th presidential election.
Bayat studied sociology and was responsible for mobilizing the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps for 3 years during the Iran & Iraq war.
She has been politically active since he was a student and is proud to be with the Imam in Nofal Loshato. She considers herself a child of the revolution and an impersonator of the Imam and claims that she volunteered because she saw that the country’s human resources, including women, were not being used as they should be.
Bayat says that by using our facilities without the need for government assistance and by amending the disturbing laws, we can use an important part of the country’s national income in the best way to improve conditions.
The registration of candidates for the 14th term of the presidential election started at 8:00 am on Thursday, May 30th , 2024, and ended at 18:00 last day, June 3rd , and finally, 80 candidates registered out of 278 applicants to the election headquarters located in the Ministry of Interior. they did
According to the previous announcement of the Ministry of Interior, after the announcement of the names, the candidates have 15 days to advertise and finally the voting for the presidential election will be held on June 28th 2024.
IRNA News Agency
Alejo, 43, touches her face up with makeup on a Tuesday morning, and steps out of her tiny apartment on the fringes of Mexico City. She walks until the cracked gravel outside her home turns into cobblestones, and the campaign posters coating small concrete buildings are replaced with the spotless walls of gated communities of the city’s upper class.
It’s here where Alejo has quietly worked cleaning the homes and raising the children of wealthier Mexicans for 26 years.
Alejo is among approximately 2.5 million Mexicans — largely women — who serve as domestic workers in the Latin American nation, a profession that has come to encapsulate gender and class divisions long permeating Mexico.
Women like her play a fundamental role in Mexican society, picking up the burden of domestic labor as a growing number of women professionals enter the workforce. Despite reforms under the current government, many domestic workers continue to face low pay, abuse by employers, long hours and unstable working conditions some equate to “modern slavery.”
Now, as Mexico is on its way to elect its first female president, women like her who feel forgotten by their government hope that having a female leader might shift the balance in their favor.
“I’ve never voted all these years, because it’s always the same for us whoever wins. … When have they ever listened to us, why would I give them my vote?” Alejo said. “I have hope that at least by having a woman, maybe things will be different.”
Still, as two female politicians — former Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum and former senator Xochitl Gálvez — are leading the race to the June 2 presidential election, it’s unclear how much it will shift the realities of working women in the country.
Born to a poor family in the central Mexican state of Puebla, Alejo dropped out of school at age 14 because her parents had no money to pay for her to continue studying. Instead, she and two of her sisters each moved to Mexico City to do one of the few jobs available to them as lower class women: domestic work.
Women in Mexico, like much of Latin America, work in informal jobs — tasks like selling things on the street without a fixed contract or benefits — in rates greater than their male counterparts, something experts following the topic attribute to misogyny in their cultures.
Like many young women coming to the city, Alejo began working as a live-in nanny, sleeping in a small room in the house of the family she worked for.
“It’s like you’re a mother. The kids would call me ‘mama’,” she said. “Their children were born and I would bathe them, care for them, do everything from the moment I awoke to the moment they slept.”
While some domestic workers live separately from families, many more live with families and work weeks, if not months, without breaks. They’re isolated from family and friends, in a custom that roots back to slavery, said Rachel Randall, a Latin American Studies researcher at the Queen Mary University of London.
“In a region like Latin America and the Caribbean, the history of slavery and colonialism continues to weigh on relationships to domestic workers even today in terms of class, race and gender dynamics,” she said.
Alejo said the demands, combined with the low pay of domestic work, led her not to build a family or have children herself. Others told The Associated Press they were fired from their positions after they fell ill and asked for help and time off from the family they’ve worked with for years.
Carolina Solana de Dios, 47, said she started working as a live-in nanny when she was 15 to escape an abusive household. While she feels free from the abuse and knows her job is important, she added: “When you work in someone else’s house, your life isn’t your own.”
At the same time, their help is essential for working women like 49-year-old Claudia Rodríguez, as they continue to fight to enter professional spaces historically dominated by men. Rodríguez, a single mother and owner of an IT company, said she’s had to work twice as hard to get half as far as male counterparts.
In Mexico and much of Latin America, a gap has long divided men and women in the workplace. In 2005, 80% of men were either employed or looking for jobs, compared to 40% of women, Mexican government data shows.
That gap has slowly closed over time, and at the end of 2023, 76% of men were active in the workforce, compared to 47% of women. Large gaps in salary and leadership roles still exist.
Born in a town two hours from Mexico City, Rodríguez fled an abusive father with her mother and siblings, taking refuge in the capital. After watching her mother toil away selling food on the streets and any other job to pay rent, Rodríguez decided from an early age she didn’t want to follow the same path.
Instead of pursuing her dream of professionally dancing, she began selling computers when she was 16.
“I didn’t want to make the same sacrifice that she was making for me,” she said. “So I began to work and study.”
She spent years clawing her way up in the IT industry despite sexual harassment and “men slamming doors in our faces.” But when she married and had children, she said, she would often have to do all the housework in addition to running her own business.
Caregiving can shift the trajectory of a woman’s career in Mexico, making it harder for them to reach higher level professional positions, according to a 2023 survey from the Mexican Institute for Competition. While more than half the women in Mexico say they’ve had to pause their careers to care for children, only one in five men reported the same.
When her husband left her for another woman six years ago, hiring a live-in domestic worker was the only thing she could do to stay afloat.
Today, she and her nanny, Irma, both wake up at 5 a.m., one making lunch for her two daughters while the other drops them off at school. While it’s hard to keep up, now, at least she can breathe.
“She is part of our family,” she said. “In the case of women in business, we couldn’t take it all on alone simply because it’s far too much that society expects of you.”
Despite the load, a historic number of women in the socially conservative country are taking up leadership and political roles. Between 2005 and 2021, the gap between men and women in roles of government and international entities slimmed by more than 25%, according to government data.
That’s in part due to a decades-long push by authorities for greater representation in politics, including laws that require political parties to have half of their congressional candidates be women. Since 2018, Mexico’s Congress has had a 50-50 gender split, and the number of female governors has shot up.
While neither presidential candidate has spoken explicitly about domestic workers, both Sheinbaum and Gálvez have proposed addressing soaring violence against women in Mexico and working to close the country’s gender pay gap.
“In our government, women won’t just be recognized for having a woman president, we’re going to take action for women,” frontrunner Sheinbaum said in a speech on International Women’s Day.
But Norma Palacios, head of the country’s domestic workers union, known as SINACTRAHO, said many of the social advances seen in recent years haven’t trickled down to poorer classes of working women, least of all domestic workers.
In 2019, the government of President Andrés Manuel López Abrader passed landmark legislation granting domestic workers basic rights like paid leave, limits on working hours and access to health insurance paid by employers.
But failures by the government to enforce those rules has left women “unprotected” and locked in a “dynamic of power inequality,” Palacios said.
“Nothing has changed, and (domestic workers) continue to face informal working conditions, in precarious work, with low salaries facing violence and discrimination, even if on paper we should have more labor rights,” Palacios said.
Neither Alejo, the domestic worker, nor Rodríguez, the single mother, say they particularly identify with either candidate on the ballot, though they both plan to vote. While both say having a woman leading the country would be a step forward, the women — long disillusioned by Mexican politics — still see the leaders as more of the same.
They echo other analysts who say that having a woman on the ballot doesn’t necessarily mean they will make gender issues a priority. Still, they and Palacios, the head of the domestic workers union, hope it will mark a longer-term shift.
“It’s still a woman who is going to be at the head of a country — a sexist country, a country of inequality, a country of violence against women, a country of femicides,” Palacios said.
Meanwhile, workers like Alejo continue down a shaky path as they struggle to push for their own rights.
Alejo is among the 98% of the 2.5 million domestic workers who have yet to enroll in health insurance, according to SINACTRAHO data. She and many others fear that asking for their new rights to be respected would end in them being fired.
Alejo, who long worked as a live-in nanny, eventually moved into her own small apartment alone in a poorer area of the city. After years of low pay and one case of sexual abuse, the 43-year-old said she finally works with a family that pays her a fair wage and respects her.
Still, as she summons up the courage to ask the family to pay for her health insurance, she adds that she knows they see her as replaceable.
“They don’t like that you ask for things,” she said. “It’s not easy finding work, and if you need to work, you end up accepting whatever they give you.”
Source: ABC News