On Balance: News from around the country:

The Green Party announced half of its Cabinet will be women if it enters Government. The party will also urge any coalition partners to have a 50/50 split of men and women ministers. Co-leader James Shaw said government had to led the way on equal representation

• A female construction worker was 'disgusted' to be told by a recruitment agency: 'we don't hire women'

• A former policeman has admitted intimidating a woman. He allegedlyposted explicit adverts about a woman in February on two websites used by people to find sexual partners, causing her to fear for her safety

• The New Zealand Government has released its National Action Plan on Women, Peace and Security. The Plan outlines how NZ will implement the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolutions on women, peace and security for the period 2015-2019

• Anti-trafficking organisations are deeply concerned at the handling of allegations into a report that Korean women are being held against their will in an Auckland apartment

• New Zealand Golf is attempting to entice more women into the sport through its She Loves Golf programme. Ambassadors of the programme include Lydia Ko, Toni Street, Amber Peebles, Laura McGoldrick and Jamie Curry

• A Whangarei mum is urging parents to keep an eye on their children's online use after her teenage daughter was pressured to send provocative images to teenage boys

• Women need to confront their employers over equal pay, take on more risk with their money and smooth out career breaks to catch up with men's retirement savings, said Sarah Whitelock, product leader at KiwiSaver provider Mercer

• We know we have women business leaders but when it comes to speaking up and being seen, women are notably absent

• Gisborne District Court’s resident judge Warren Cathcart has rejected a transgender defendant’s request for a reduced sentence on grounds that her “lifestyle choice” should not give her special privileges

• Kiwi comedians Rose Matafeo and Laura Daniel have set out to make a sketch comedy show with a predominantly female cast. Funny Girls will follow them behind the scenes and in meetings with a board made up entirely of men

• Councillor Cathy Casey is campaigning for downtown Auckland to adopt Kate Sheppard pedestrian lights to celebrate the achievements of the iconic suffragist
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Latest research:

• A group of researchers are setting out to map sexism across the globe by pulling data from incidents reported to the Everyday Sexism Project. With the project, the researchers hope to draw the public’s attention to the pervasiveness of the issue, and help to make “practical definitions of sexism and how it appears in different cultures”

• Ten years since the introduction of interest-free student loans in New Zealand there is still a gap in repayment times between men and women, but it has been reduced, according to a report by the New Zealand Union of Students' Associations and the Post Primary Teachers' Association

• For the first time in American history, more women than men hold Bachelor’s degrees. Women, historically less educated than men, now totally dominate higher education: They make up 57 percent of college students and earned 57 percent of college degrees in 2013

• Female year 12 students in Australia put the most pressure on themselves in the lead-up to exams and gifted girls who strive for top marks suffer the highest levels of stress and anxiety, new research into how Sydney teenagers cope with the HSC shows
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International news:

• When a 4-year-old girl was left bleeding following an attack by a boy in her class, her mother took her to hospital expecting sympathetic treatment. Instead she was left outraged after a reception worker told her daughter: "I bet he likes you"

• Elle Magazine Photoshopped men out of images of politics, media and other positions of power and leadership to highlight the stark gender gap in positions of power

• Playboy will no longer publish nude photographs of women

• Actress Jennifer Lawrence called out the sexist pay gap: I'm 'over' trying to be adorable in negotiations

• A body-positive advertising campaign from natural cosmetics company Lush has been reported as "offensive" in Australia

• The Puerto Rican government has relaxed its school uniform rules to allow students to wear either pants or skirts, regardless of their gender

• The Somali refugee who says she was raped on Nauru has thanked Australians who rallied to her cause and helped convince the government to bring her to the mainland for an abortion. The Nauruan police said there was not enough evidence to prove that she was raped on the island and, in an extraordinary breach of privacy, the real name of the victim was released by the Nauruan government's Australian PR agent

• Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, chief of UN Women, addressed a Security Council meeting on Tuesday, criticising them for the lack of women during peace negotiations — 15 years after a UN resolution which called for including women in decision-making positions at all levels of peacemaking and peacebuilding

• Taking away the basis for attacks on its work in fetal tissue donation, Planned Parenthood said that the handful of its health centres involved in fetal tissue research will no longer accept any reimbursement

• Ever wondered what famous quotes would sound like if they were said by women during a meeting? Well look no further, this article has the answer! Here’s an example: “I will be heard” in woman in a meeting translates to “Sorry to interrupt. No, go on, Dave. Finish what you had to say”

• When a fan asked Emma Watson during a Twitter Q&A whether she was a White Feminist, the HeForShe ambassador took the opportunity to address the issue. Watson stated that she wants “as many people as possible to feel seen, heard and included in [feminism]”

• Malala Yousafzai’s mother spoke about returning to school to learn to read and write at the Women in the World summit in London. Toor Pekai Yousafzai said she originally left school after finding herself the only girl in a class full of boys

• Women will eventually have to register for the draft if "true and pure equality" is to be realised in the U.S. military, Army Secretary John McHugh said

• Over 200 girls in Norway celebrated Ada Lovelace, the world’s first computer programmer, at Oslo’s public library for a day of coding classes. GirlsTechFest was a part of Oslo Innovation week and honoured Lovelace’s impact on women in science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM)

• Grammy award winning rapper T.I. expressed some depressingly sexist thoughts on Hilary Clinton and the idea of a ‘woman president’: "Not to be sexist, but I can't vote for the leader of the free world to be a woman...I just know that women make rash decisions emotionally...the world ain't ready yet. I think you might be able to the Loch Ness Monster elected before you could [get a woman]."

• Girls TV show creator Lena Dunham is making a new comedy called Max which will follow the struggles of second wave feminism in the 60s

• Screen Australia, the government’s key national funding body for the film industry, is considering a radical push for a quota to ensure 50 percent of the directors of its funded films are women
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Events:

• On October 23, Superu is holding an event in Wellington to discuss the findings from the NZ Crime and Safety Survey (NZCASS). The presentation will explore interpersonal violence both by type of violence and by the victims’ relationship to the offender

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