The criminal trial of Bill Cosby on charges related to the 2004 drugging and sexual assault of Andrea Constand started in Philadelphia today. Prosecutors opened by arguing that this assault was predatory and planned, calling another victim to the stand to point to a pattern of abuse. Defence lawyers opened by arguing that Andrea Constand is a liar.
A CBC report describes the appalling treatment of Angela Cardinal by the justice system in Alberta. Cardinal, an Indigenous woman who was the victim of a brutal sexual assault, was remanded to the same correctional facility as her attacker, transported to court in the same vehicle as him, and shackled while testifying.
A male pharmacist at a Walgreens in New Mexico refused to fill a birth-control-related prescription because of his “personal beliefs.” The woman, who was trying to get her daughter’s prescription filled has filed a complaint of sex discrimination with the Human Rights Bureau.
“According to the complaint, the pharmacist’s behavior constitutes sex discrimination as ‘[r]efusing to fill prescriptions that are directly tied to the attributes that make women different from men — i.e., the ability to become pregnant — constitutes sex discrimination.'”
In the UK a group of older, single women have set up their own collectively run retirement community.
On Friday, we linked to a story about Beatrice Hunter, an Inuk woman being held in a men’s prison for her involvement in environmental protests. Sign the petition demanding her release.