Like so many of the businesses – and ideologies – that thrive on social media, FBS cultivates a sanitized image of the product it promotes. Saldaya never hosts podcast guests who regret their decision to freebirth. And she routinely deletes negative comments on Instagram, such as the one posted earlier this year by a mother who lost her daughter: “My baby died 41 weeks stillborn after I followed your teachings and I will regret it for the rest of my life.” (The mother was also blocked.)

The first woman known to have lost her baby after following Saldaya’s advice was Lorren Holliday. When she got pregnant in 2018, she interviewed midwives, but couldn’t afford the $5,000 downpayment for their services. Reluctantly, she resigned herself to the hospital, until, scrolling through Instagram one day, she found FBS: “What they offered was exactly what I was looking for.” A friendly animal lover with short pink hair, Holliday lives in a trailer on an acre of land in the Arizona desert wit

cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/50253898

The transportation department has unveiled a first crash test dummy in the US modeled specifically on female anatomy, a move officials say is meant to close decades of safety gaps in vehicle testing.

Sean Duffy, the US transportation secretary, unveiled the THOR-05F, an advanced female design for a crash-test dummy with upgraded technical specifications. According to the transportation department, the dummy will be incorporated into federal vehicle crash testing once a final rule is published.

Although men make up the majority of annual car-crash victims, women are more likely to die in collisions of comparable severity. Women are also 73% more likely than men to sustain serious injuries in a crash, [according to studies](https://wiareport.com/2024/03/study-finds-women-more-likely-than-men-to-die-or-be-seriously-injured-in-car-crashes/?__cf_chl_rt_tk=gy3k8_M4etqwF.lPsm812P8QOUnii8fkrZQ_h28wIcY-1763791973-1.0.1.1-nBEq

cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/50231347

Germany plans to treat the use of date rape drugs like the use of weapons in prosecutions as part of measures to ensure justice for survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault.

“We classify date rape drugs, which are increasingly used as a widespread tool in crimes, as weapons. This creates the basis for significantly stricter prosecutions,” Alexander Dobrindt, the interior minister, said on Friday. “We are committed to clear consequences and consistent enforcement. Women should feel safe and be able to move freely everywhere.”

Nearly 54,000 women and girls were the victims of sexual offences in Germany in 2024 – an increase of 2.1% on the previous year – of which nearly 36% were victims of rape and sexual assault.

A growing number of women in South Africa are learning to use guns to protect themselves against gender-based violence.

Beware of triggers. I'm in awe of these survivors

Polling, like anything else that involves human beings, is not strictly analytical. There is an emotional aspect to the results, a natural side effect of asking people how they feel about candidates or issues. That tendency is exaggerated in the current political moment (as the great Ariel Edwards-Levy has written), when partisanship runs high and polling offers Americans a non-Election-Day opportunity to express their enthusiasm or distaste for what’s unfolding in our country.

It is through that lens that we should consider new polling from Gallup indicating that 2 in 5 young women would like to permanently move out of the country. But we should not consider those numbers solely through that lens.

The Gallup finding is striking, if not sudden. The pollster has been asking a version of this question since 2008, finding that young people were consistently-but-only-slightly more likely to express interest in moving out of the U.S. than were older Americans and Americans overall

The feminist movement in the second largest country of South America has distinguished itself as being loud and proud. Massive demonstrations that filled the streets of Argentina’s biggest cities helped clinch huge victories, such as the 2020 legalization of abortion for cases up to 14 weeks of pregnancy.

But the landscape has changed under libertarian President Javier Milei, who has put the chainsaw he campaigned with into action, cutting roughly 30% of government spending in his first year in office. Along the way, he has deployed increasingly hostile rhetoric against the feminist movement, characterizing legal abortion as “aggravated murder” in public speeches, and denigrating so-called “woke” policies in an echo of his counterpart President Donald Trump in the United States. Milei’s government has used the power of funding to put that rhetoric into action, cutting financing for contraceptives and ceasing to provide abortion pills. Prior to his administration, the national g

Across the world, millions of people suffer from premenstrual dysphoric disorder, or PMDD, a condition linked with their menstrual cycle and characterized by depression and irritability severe enough to impair their daily lives. It’s unclear precisely how many women are affected by PMDD. Under the narrowest assessment, at least 1.6 percent have the disorder according to a 2024 systematic review by a group of international researchers, although the figure shifts depending on which criteria apply. (Although trans men and nonbinary people may also experience the condition, relevant data are scarce.) Other analyses suggest the figure is between 3 percent and 8 percent.

“In my experience it is probably higher due to under reporting and misdiagnosis,” wrote Nick Panay, a gynecologist and chairman of the National Association of Premenstrual Syndromes in the United Kingdom, in an email to Undark.

In cases like Stenos’, PMDD symptoms may be so intense as to lead to thoughts of self-ha

A video of the incident on Tuesday shows a visibly drunk man trying to kiss the president on the neck and embrace her from behind, as she removes his hands and turns to face him, before a government official steps in and places himself between them.

“This is something I experienced as a woman, but it is something that all women in our country experience,” said Sheinbaum in her daily press conference. “If I do not file a complaint, where does that leave all Mexican women? If they do this to the president, what happens to all the other women in the country?”

Just thought I would share for some good news. I've been following along as the My Voice, My Choice group has been campaigning to get safe and accessible guaranteed in law for all EU members. And as of about 40 minutes ago, they just won the first round of votes needed for this to happen.

I believe they still have at least one more boss battle to face in parliament now some time in the future but this is a good sign that not everything is as dark as it seems in the world right now.

@feminism Manga review: Chi no wadachi (a trail of blood).
A great title for a heavy subject, only if you can stomach its content.

https://mangaispolitical.noblogs.org/post/2025/10/15/review-chi-no-wadachi/

[...]

In some cases, setbacks in one country are prompting progress in others. After witnessing the U.S. Supreme Court overturn Roe v. Wade, the French government adopted a constitutional amendment guaranteeing a national right to abortion. And after Sweden reversed its feminist foreign policy, the Spanish parliament voted to enshrine Spain’s version in its development cooperation law.

[...]

I find that the women’s rights movement is doing a bad job of telling the story of (and learning from) our victories. Because our wins are often less far-reaching or sensational than some of the high-profile setbacks, they are less likely to receive media coverage. This is a tragedy, because it means our narrative of social change is incomplete: We believe defeat to be final, when in fact the resistance is alive and well and effective. It’s our duty to tell those stories and to learn from them, too.

[...]

That’s why the Feminist Foreign Policy Collaborative is launchi

Imagine the scene of a pregnant mother giving birth. Chances are, you are visualizing a woman lying back, legs spread, and pushing hard to bring the newborn into the world. But that’s neither the only way for a woman to deliver a baby, nor necessarily the most comfortable.

Media is partly to blame for perpetuating this on-the-back-only myth. In a study, titled “How to Give Birth – According to Hollywood,” lying on the back is the dominant birthing position in films recommended for pregnant women across multiple search lists. Among the top five mainstream films on the list, only one of eight birth scenes showed a mother delivering not lying back. And in that lone scene where a woman gives birth in a bear-crawl position, the film’s characters find her to be “crazy” and “disgusting.”

It is physiologically possible for women to deliver standing, sitting, squatting, kneeling, or on all-fours. More importantly, many women aren’t aware that they have options — and should be given th

Endless respect to all working parents