Princess Reema bint Bandar The conservative Islamic country has maintained a ban on women participating in competitive sports but has now relaxed rules on them going to the gym for health reasons, local paper Okaz has reported. Princess Reema bint Bandar said that the Islamic Kingdom planned for every district and neighbourhood to have a gym. Although swimming, running and bodybuilding will be allowed, a blanket ban will remain for competitive sports like tennis, football, volleyball and basketball. Princess Reema told the paper ‘It is not my role to convince the society, but my role is limited to opening the doors for our girls to live a healthy lifestyle away from diseases that result from obesity and lack of movement.’ Women-only gym NuYu has already opened in the more liberal city Jeddah, capital Riyadh, Dammam and al-Khobar. The General Authority of Sports has said the high-cost of running female gyms…

By: Anna MacSwan Getting men to be active fathers may not seem the most obvious way to tackle gender-based violence. But, according to Gary Barker, CEO and founder of Promundo, who engages men and boys in ending violence against women and girls, policies that encourage men to do more unpaid care work are a vital part of achieving gender equality. “To us, it seemed obvious that we needed to figure out more constructive ways to engage men on this topic,” he says. In fact, there can be consequences when men aren’t brought into initiatives to empower women. According to Barker, while in the long-term, women who are better off financially are less likely to be involved in a violent relationship and more likely to leave a violent partner, in the short-term, the opposite can be true. Micro-credit programmes that target women, for example, can initially lead to an increase in…