Weekly News Wrap

This week: A TikTok ban’s impact on women, the botched SOTU rebuttal, whales in menopause, and more.

March 15, 2024

Hello and Happy Friday! Here’s what’s on the rise this week:

Colombian women are breaking the emerald ceiling. Driven by economic need and lack of other job opportunities, women have flocked to the country’s lucrative, male-dominated emerald mining industry.
The number of girls worldwide who undergo genital cutting is increasing each year, according to a new analysis by UNICEF. While efforts to reduce the practice have succeeded in some places, it’s still prevalent in countries with the highest rates of population growth.
Voters in Ireland rejected two gender equality referendums that would have expanded the constitutional definition of family and removed language about a woman’s role in the home. Opponents said the proposed changes were poorly worded and still restricted to traditional definitions of nuclear families.

Tuesday was Equal Pay Day, or the day symbolizing how far into this year women have to work in order to earn as much as men did last year. In other words, the amount that men made in 2023 = the amount that women made in 2023 plus the first 71 days of 2024.
New research shows that HR leaders, who are predominantly women, have seen higher salaries and bigger titles over the last three decades.
Stephanie Linnartz was ousted as CEO of Under Armour after just one year on the job, to be replaced by the company’s controversial founder. Linnartz joined the apparel brand in a moment of struggle (glass cliff, anyone?), crafting a three-year turnaround plan that will be cut two years short.

Dating app Bumble is reconsidering whether women should make the first move, the signature feature meant to promote female empowerment. According to CEO Lidiane Jones, requiring women to reach out first now “feels like a burden” for some users.
eBay has thousands of AI-generated or photoshopped pornographic images for sale that depict celebrities like Margot Robbie and Selena Gomez, reinforcing concerns about the growing prevalence of deepfakes.
The House passed a bill that puts TikTok at risk of being banned in the U.S., a measure that could have an outsized impact on women: 77% of digital content creators are women and 67% of female shoppers rely on creator recommendations before making a purchase. The bill heads to the Senate next, where experts predict it could face an uphill battle.
According to people familiar with the matter, Mira Murati, OpenAI’s Chief Technology Officer, was a key part of raising concerns about CEO Sam Altman’s management to the board last year, leading to Altman’s brief ousting from the company.

During her delivery of the Republican response to President Biden’s State of the Union address, Senator Katie Britt used one woman’s harrowing experience of sexual abuse as fodder to attack Biden’s border policies… but the incidents she described did not happen in the United States or during the Biden administration.
- After the address, the woman at the center of Britt’s story spoke out in opposition to people who “use this issue for a political spectacle,” saying she “felt like screaming.”
- The backlash from Britt’s address—which was literally delivered from a kitchen—underscores the GOP’s challenges connecting with women voters.
The warden of a California women’s prison was ousted amidst an ongoing FBI investigation into claims of sexual abuse of inmates. The prison, which is commonly referred to as “the rape club,” also faces civil lawsuits alleging abuse.
President Biden and former President Trump became the presumptive nominees for the 2024 presidential election. Stay tuned for more information from The Rise about the candidates’ respective track records on women’s issues.

VP Kamala Harris became the first active president or vice president to visit an abortion clinic when she toured a Planned Parenthood on Thursday.
New research questions the magnitude of the maternal mortality crisis in the U.S., which has consistently reported a higher rate of maternal deaths than its peers.
Grandmother whales may shed light on the purpose of menopause. According to a recent study, whale species that experience menopause have longer life spans because grandmother whales provide care, share food, and pass on knowledge to their whale grandchildren.

Fashion icon Iris Apfel died this week at the age of 102. Her career dispels the myth that only young women can achieve success—she became a professor at age 90, wrote a book at 96, and signed a modeling contract at 97.
Pablo Picasso’s ex-girlfriend claimed the famous artist tried to sabotage her career. This week, she got her moment of justice when The Picasso Museum in Paris revealed a dedicated collection featuring her art.
Taylor Swift’s six-concert tour in Singapore added $225 to $300 million dollars to the country’s economy.

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