NEWSWORTHY
Japan to ease restrictions on types of facilities conducting prenatal tests
The Japan Society of Obstetrics and Gynecology has drafted a plan to ease restrictions on the types of medical facilities that can provide noninvasive prenatal testing to detect genetic abnormalities in unborn babies. The draft plan, drawn up by the ethics committee of the society, ...
Japan's women need more than office jobs
If the country wants to slow its population decline, it must abolish its two-track labor system.
More and more women in Japan are abandoning the tradition of giving obligatory chocolates to male coworkers on Valentine's Day, instead using the occasion to treat themselves. The trend reflects shifting societal norms and consumer attitudes in the country, creating new opportunities and challenges for ...
Japanese-born director wins Grammy as rap artists and women take center stage at awards ceremony
Japanese-born filmmaker Hiro Murai won the 2019 Grammy Award for Best Music Video as rap artists and women — who have both felt shunned by the Grammys in recent years — took center stage over the weekend. Murai's video for rap artist Childish Gambino's hit ...
Japanese government panel criticized over watered-down sexual harassment countermeasures
A recent panel report did not call for punitive measures for sexual harassment, apparently over concerns from businesses about legal exposure.
Majority of women to buy Valentine's chocolates for themselves, averaging ¥4,200, Japan survey shows
Over 60 percent of women who plan to buy chocolates for Valentine's Day are considering treating themselves and buying chocolates for their own enjoyment, a survey by Matsuya Co.'s Ginza department store in Tokyo has shown. Of all respondents, 94.1 percent answered that they will ...
U.S. Supreme Court blocks restrictive Louisiana abortion law while litigation continues
A divided U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday stopped a Louisiana law imposing strict regulations on abortion clinics from going into effect in its first major test on abortion since the retirement of Justice Anthony Kennedy last summer. The court on a 5-4 vote granted an ...
Unicode's new emoji aims to help break bloody taboo surrounding periods
Women and girls will be able to use an emoji to chat about their periods from next month, which will help to end the shame around menstruation, a child rights group said on Wednesday. Coding consortium Unicode, which distributes emoji across mobile devices, said it ...
At Trump's State of the Union, women in white make a statement
He didn't count on the women in white. U.S. President Donald Trump's State of the Union speech on Tuesday was billed as his attempt to unify the country. But female Democratic lawmakers from the House of Representatives, many of them dressed elegantly in white to celebrate ...
Rohingya refugee women take on new roles as workers and learners amid 'forced societal change'
On a blue mat in their mud-and-bamboo home in the middle of the world's largest refugee settlement, Mohammad Selim is pacing his 9-year-old daughter Nasima Akter on her taekwondo drill. As a local taekwondo champion in his majority-Rohingya district in Myanmar before fleeing to Bangladesh ...
Aso told reporters he would retract the remark “if it caused misunderstanding” but didn’t elaborate on what he had intended to say.
Women in South Korea start to question society's unreasonable expectations of beauty
Veering for years between extreme dieting and overeating as she pursued her dream of becoming a fashion model, Park I-seul realized she had a problem. She was not tall and skinny, like typical runway models, nor was she big enough to be a plus-size model. Park, ...
