Passepartout

Italy’s northern city of Reggio Emilia declared its intention to follow the footsteps of Germany, where the unisex public toilets are already at work since long time. Reggio Emilia’s Mayor, Democratic Party (PD) member Luca Vecchi, called the newly approved protocol — the first in its genre all over the country — a step forward on the way of granting “full rights and equal dignity for all people” regardless of their gender in public institutions such as city halls, schools, universities, and hospitals.

The sign used to mark gender-neutral toilets at Åbo Akademi University (ÅAU) in Turku, Finland. Credit: Åbo Akademi University.

A Sunday in London

“Fight like a girl”. Photo: Steve Parkins/Rex/Shutterstock.

“We shall overcomb”. Photo: Wiktor Szymanowicz/Barcroft Images.

“Time is up on rape culture”. Photo: Chris J. Ratcliffe/Getty Images.

Nevertheless, she persisted

Thousands of people joined Women’s March in London for gender equality on Sunday a year and a day since Donald Trump took office as U.S. President. Photo: Steve Parkins/Rex/Shutterstock.

Above are two signs from the mass Women’s March of last Sunday. Photo: Chris J. Ratcliffe/Getty Images.

The Importance of Not Being Arcovazzi’s Wife

Beirut, Lebanon: An installation of wedding dresses by Lebanese artist Mireille Honeïn and ABAAD NGO on Beirut’s Corniche, denouncing the article 522 of Lebanon’s penal code allowing rapists who marry their victims to go free. Photo: Patrick Baz/AFP/Getty Images.

The Importance of Not Being Arcovazzi

Pol Kurucz, the founder of Rio de Janeiro-based creative group Kolor Collective, thinks that now more than ever there is a need for gender equality worldwide and a place for black women in society. Photo: Kolor Art Collective.

The Importance of Not Being Arcovazzi

Kolor Collective is a Rio de Janeiro-based creative group that challenges the struggle faced by black women in Brazil through theatrical and provocative art. It was founded in 2015 by Franco-Hungarian photographer Pol Kurucz, who often touches on his own experiences of discrimination to call out sensitive social problems. Photo: Kolor Art Collective.

The photos in the series have a distinct glam-trash aesthetic that’s very theatrical. Photo: Kolor Art Collective.

“Occupy Men’s Toilet”

Protesters hold banners with slogans including “If you love her, do not let her wait in line”, during the Occupy the Men’s Toilets campaign in 北京 (Běijīng), China. Photo: Imaginechina/Corbis.

The Importance of Not Being Arcovazzi

Lima, Peru: People take part in a protest against violence against women. Photo: Guadalupe Pardo/Reuters.

Something is rotten in the state of California

Women post images online with messages such as “Judge Persky, you help more rape” after student given six-month sentence Chinese feminists are speaking out in support of a woman who was sexually assaulted by a former Stanford University swimmer, posting photographs denouncing the attack on social media. Images of Chinese women holding up messages of solidarity for the victim began circulating on Weibo, China’s Twitter, on Wednesday and are being gathered on the Facebook and Twitter pages of a group called Free Chinese Feminists. [Read more].

• Tom Phillips, Chinese feminists post selfies in solidarity with Stanford assault victim, The Guardian, June 10, 2016

Images taken from the Free Chinese Feminists campaign page. Photo: Free Chinese Feminists (Facebook).

Big Jim Golden Commander

The online community hosted on Reddit is where men go to air their toxic views about women. Stephen Marche aims to find out if The Red Pill is perpetuating a culture of hatred – or if it’s just a place to vent How shitty are men really? The question hung in the air, invisible but omnipresent, like the smell of a garbage fire from a nearby town. By 2016, a series of catchphrases had come to dominate the chaotic state of gender politics – “male privilege”, “rape culture”, “men’s rights” – but confusion reigned. And in the middle of this confusion, a group of anonymous men retreated to The Red Pill, an online community hosted on Reddit, to revel in their loathing.

• Stephen Marche, Swallowing the Red Pill: a journey to the heart of modern misogyny, The Guardian, April 14, 2016

Pablo Picasso’s portrait of Lee Miller (1937). Copyright Succession Picasso/DACS, London 2015.

Thus Spoke Judit

Chess has long been a sport plagued by charges of sexism. Earlier this year, British Grandmaster Nigel Short drew blood on the black-and-white battlefield by declaring that female players simply don’t have the right brains for the game. They are, he said, “hard-wired very differently”; comments which echoed his Russian chess rival, Garry Kasparov’s controversial assertion that “women, by their nature, are not exceptional chess players: they are not great fighters”. [Read more].

• Rachel Halliwell, On the black-and-white battlefield with the world’s greatest female chess player, The Telegraph, December 5, 2015

Judit Polgár (@GMJuditPolgar)