Women's Leadership

Downing Street has not used a female minister to lead its coronavirus press conference for more than six months, a tally by the Guardian has found, prompting accusations that Boris Johnson does not value the women in his team.

It has also emerged that the government has sent out no female minister as its main representative on the regular morning round of TV and radio interviews for five weeks – and has done so only once in the past two months.

Denouncing sexual violence, demanding abortion reform and destigmatising sex work –- once-taboo issues are finding public expression in Thailand as women take up leadership roles in a youth-led pro-democracy movement.

On the protest frontlines, they are urging for gender equality in a kingdom where workplaces and politics are still dominated by men.

On the night police tried to stop protesters from marching to the Thai parliament, activist Chonticha Jangrew remembers rallying them to push past the barricades.

In situations of crisis, language and communication matter — particularly at the highest levels of political leadership. But do men and women use language differently when they are in positions of power? A new study sets out to investigate, and MNT spoke to its authors about the implications of their research for global health policy.

Recently, there has been much discussion in the media about gender imbalance in the COVID-19 response.

Hundreds of women peacefully marched through the main streets of the Central African Republic’s capital Bangui today to demand for inclusive, violence-free elections.

“All we want is peace,” sang the participants who donned white t-shirts, a symbol of their message for peace. They called for election security and respect for women’s rights; they denounced election-related gender-based violence and urged unity among Central Africans.

A councilwoman who was ousted from the town assembly in a famous Japanese hot springs resort after accusing the mayor of sexual assault said Friday her case highlights the problems of male-dominated small town politics in which women are often silenced.

Shoko Arai, the only woman in the 12-member assembly in the town of Kusatsu, northwest of Tokyo, was voted out of office in a Dec. 6 referendum initiated by the mayor and his supporters.