the world’s toughest places for women

Women and girls changing their worlds — and ours. No Images? [Click here]( [Across Women's Lives]( Amy Costello's reporting on charities and NGOs is top notch. We've enlisted her numerous times to do important work, and this week, we're pleased to share her [story about a UN aid worker](who was sexually assaulted and felt the response by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees was also especially damaging. This was our most-read story last week — and worth your time. Amy will be back next week with a new series on the international aid sector's own #MeToo movement. Humanitarian workers from across the globe are speaking out about their experiences with sexual abuse and harassment and are demanding major reforms. [Join us on our Facebook page]( Thursday, March 22, at 4 p.m. ET for a Facebook Live with Amy and others on this crucial topic. Also, don't miss Shirin Jaafari's [story about a US Army officer]( — a woman who's preparing for her first deployment to Afghanistan. While she's getting ready to be away from home for a year, she's also responsible for the well-being of a platoon of 23 other soldiers — all men. And, in our links, don't miss the story of a woman fighting for press freedom in Rodrigo Duterte's Philippines. Please join in on the social conversation on Facebook or Twitter, with our hashtag, #womenslives. The best content about women and girls from across the web, curated by AWL Editors. [devex]( 'Women's empowerment:' Ambiguous term or effective call to action? [Devex]( The term “empowerment” has become “diluted" and has drawn criticism for implying that an external force bestows empowerment upon a woman — diminishing her own power and agency. “However, we endorse the term as naming a process — that is the process of a woman activating her own internal power and agency to change her circumstances. The process is often the result of many factors, internal and external,” said Jensine Larsen, founder and chief executive officer of World Pulse. [The Guardian]( The woman taking on Duterte in a press freedom fight in the Philippines, [The Guardian]( Maria Ressa says “I never saw it coming.” The founder and driving force behind the Philippines news organisation Rappler admits to surprise when President Rodrigo Duterte effectively declared war on her journalists and heralded with it the biggest threat to freedom of the press the country has seen in decades. Ressa is now in a highly politicised fight for the survival of Rappler, which has reached the Supreme Court. "We’re ready to fight it,” she said defiantly. “ [The Atlantic]( Julie Washington’s quest to get schools to respect African-American English, [The Atlantic]( Washington, a professor of communications sciences and disorders at Georgia State, has devoted her career to exploring the challenges that speakers of the dialect known as African-American English face in the classroom. Not all African American students speak the dialect, but most do. Teaching kids to “code-switch” between their home dialect and the dialect spoken at school, Washington has come to believe, is an important step toward creating a more level playing field. Washington suspects that dialect may very well account for a significant part of the black–white literacy gap. [Lifetime]( Her America, [Lifetime]( It began with a bombshell. On the heels of a presidential election, which defied every poll and every pundit, the people at Lifetime asked themselves, how well did they really know their audience? Over the course of the year, they crisscrossed the country to meet women from every state, asking one simple question: if you could broadcast your story to the world, what would you share? Together with the storytellers at The Moth, they listened to women bold enough to share their personal stories on stage and without a script. Hear from a badass dog sledder, a refugee arriving in the US with only a single plastic bag, a woman confronted by her husband’s confession that he might be gay, and more. [ID]( This radical fashion blogger won’t be exoticised for wearing a hijab, [I-D]( A self-described abolitionist, Hoda studied international relations and Middle Eastern politics at the University of Chicago, which is when she first became interested in the idea of subversive fashion as a sign of resistance. "The hardest thing about being a woman, while wearing a hijab, means you’re instantly exocticised, fetishised, labelled “oppressed” and your image is used to justify western militarisation and invasion of Muslim countries." [Q CBC]( The Handmaid's Tale costume designer Ane Crabtree on the feminist power of fashion, [Q]( Award-winning costume designer Ane Crabtree discusses her work on the TV adaptation of A Handmaid's Tale, and why the show's red cloaks and white bonnets have been adopted by protesters around the world to make a dramatic statement on women's rights. "These women have infused it with their own personal take politically, you know, personally and they have their own stories attached, so it kinda became its own thing, separate from me and the birth of it." Across Women’s Lives is PRI’s ambitious multiplatform journalism and engagement initiative about the connection between the empowerment of women and girls, and economic development and improved health around the world. This newsletter highlights our reporting and the work from staff at PRI, The World and The Takeaway in calling attention to the ways that women are shaping a better future for their communities. [SUPPORT AWL]( [Facebook]( [Twitter]( [Instagram]( [Website]( PRI Public Radio International Hear a Different Voice [Forward]( [Preferences]( | [Unsubscribe](