What’s Current: Every UK women’s refuge could close due to proposed housing benefits restriction

  • Women’s shelter movement workers are concerned that a Tory proposal that would ban the use of housing benefits to cover the cost of room and board could cause every women’s refuge in the UK to close. Currently, housing benefits make up half of all refuge funding.
  • Marlene Bird, a residential school survivor from the Montreal Lake Cree Nation, has died two years after a brutal attack that cost her an eye, both legs, and left her with severe burns.
  • The global outpouring of women’s stories about male sexual violence has prompted religious women to start a #ChurchToo hashtag, and for the wives of Australian clergy to come forward about domestic violence.
  • A candlelight vigil was held in downtown Ottawa for the victims of Basil Borutski, who murdered three former partners — Anastasia Kuzyk, Nathalie Warmerdam, and Carol Culleton — in 2015, while he was on parole for assaulting and attempting to choke Kuzyk.
  • The US-based spa franchise, Massage Envy, is facing over 180 allegations of sexual assault by female clients.
  • Forbes argues Seth Myers is the perfect feminist choice to host the Golden Globe Awards.
Natasha Chart

Natasha Chart is an online organizer and feminist living in the United States. She does not recant her heresy.