Ms. Global: Goodbye Merkel, Hello Gender Parity in German Cabinet; Barbados

The U.S. ranks as the 19th most dangerous country for women, 11th in maternal mortality, 30th in closing the gender pay gap, 75th in women’s political representation, and painfully lacks paid family leave and equal access to health care. But Ms. has always understood: Feminist movements around the world hold answers to some of the U.S.’s most intractable problems. Ms. Global is taking note of feminists worldwide.

Barbados

+ Sandra Mason will be Barbados’s first ever president as the country separates itself from British colonial links and declares itself a republic. It’s been nearly 400 years since the first English ship arrived in the Eastern Caribbean islands and nearly three decades since any nation removed the British monarch as head of state. The transition is part of a multiyear push in Barbados to become a republic. 

“The time has come to fully leave our colonial past behind,” Mason said. “Barbadians want a Barbadian head of state.”

“We believe that the time has come for us to claim our full destiny,” Prime Minister Mia Mottley said after the vote.

Philippines

+ Maria Ressa, journalist and chief executive officer at digital news organization Rappler, has won the Nobel Peace Prize and will be allowed to travel to Norway this month to receive the award.

Authorization for her to travel outside of the Philippines was a long battle as several pending charges have been levied against her by the state. For years, Ressa and the team at Rappler have attempted to expose the actions of President Rodrigo Duterte, who has continuously suppressed press freedom and is responsible for countless human right violations, as well as other lawmakers, in an effort to protect global democracy, as she describes. International organizations have fought back for years, urging the Philippines not to restrict Ressa’s travel.

China

+ A recent report from Reporters Without Borders shows China is “the world’s biggest captor of journalists.” An overwhelming number of reporters and citizen journalists that have been arrested or imprisoned in China—often for ‘provoking trouble.’ The report documents the tactics used to censor and attack journalists. 

(See also: “China Unleashed Its Propaganda Machine on Peng Shuai’s #MeToo Accusation. Her Story Still Got Out.”)

United States

+ On December 6, the White House announced it will be staging a diplomatic boycott of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics as a response to the “ongoing genocide and crimes against humanity in Xinjiang and other human rights abuses.” One publicly known case of abuse happened in the public eye, when Chinese tennis star Peng Shuai disappeared three weeks after she accused former senior official of the Chinese Communist Party of sexual assault.

The diplomatic boycott will preclude government officials from attending the Winter Games, but American athletes will still compete.

+ A $150…