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Hello and welcome to this week’s open round-up and open thread. The following are a selection of links that you may find interesting. If you come across anything we have missed, please share it with the rest of us.

U.K. Poll Shows a Far-Right Swing

The coalition has sneaked a coup on a sleeping public

Female Genital Mutilation – new guidelines launched

Insurance premiums based on gender ‘discriminatory’.

Women find a way out of poverty in Bangladesh

America’s uterus police

Between the 1930s and the year 2000 only 32 novels were translated from Arabic to Hebrew

Why I left my children

Women in horror: five recommended writers

Ukrainian women’s rights activists protest over a New Zealand radio station’s competition for listeners to “win” a Ukrainian wife.

On bad critiques of rape prevalence studies (Part II) [Part I wasn’t as interesting]

Challenged Authors: Judy Blume

It’s not harassment, or is it?

The Sex Education Forum is running an on-line survey to gather the views of young people about HIV/AIDS education to inform the Select Committee on HIV and AIDS in the UK.

“If the producers of Two and a Half Men are going to take offense to personal verbal attacks Charlie Sheen makes about them, why aren’t those same producers—as well as the network—offended by his repeated physical attacks against women?”

Share your photos of women who inspire you

Secret diary of a female petrol head – the water cooler test

The Fairness of Tanning

10 Rap songs on which ladies outshine their male counterparts

The Evolution of Androgyny in Music Videos

Does the gift of flowers on International Women’s Day celebrate empowerment and equality? Or are they just another chauvinist chivalry?

And finally a short video showing how they celebrate International Women’s day in Russia. They make much more of a fuss of the day itself over there than they do here. Flower shops stock up and there are films with female leads shown on tv. But many Russian women feel they need recognition all year round, rather than just for one day.