Maya Oppenheim, Independent, UK - There is no shortage of grim stats that elucidate the bleak repercussions of misogyny and gender inequality. As the only women’s correspondent at a UK news outlet, I am all too familiar with these facts and figures. Take the statistic that between two and three women are killed by a current male partner or ex-partner every single week in England and Wales, or that a woman is killed by a current or ex-partner with a gun every 16 hours in America. Or that less than 20 per cent of landholders in the world are women. Or that 80 per cent of those displaced by climate change are estimated to be women.
Or that in some countries around the world, the legal restrictions on abortions are so stark that women risk long prison sentences – even women who become pregnant after being raped or if her pregnancy has a fatal fetal anomaly or if her health conditions mean she could die from carrying to term or giving birth. Or the fact that roughly 40 per cent of women who are of reproductive age are living somewhere in the world where pregnancy terminations are either illegal or restricted. . . .On top of all this, women are statistically more likely than men to work in low-paid, insecure, precarious forms of employment with zero-hours contracts. They are also far more likely to suffer domestic abuse or sexual violence. The World Health Organisation states that one in three women across the world will be forced to endure physical or sexual violence at some point in their lives and it will most likely be perpetrated by a partner. This is unsurprising when 38 per cent of all murders of women around the world are carried out by partners.
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