On International Women’s Day Kate Mosse, co-founder of the Women’s prize for fiction and bestselling author of Labyrinth, heralds a new honour

Gloria Steinem said: “The story of women’s struggle for equality belongs to no single feminist nor to any one organisation but to the collective efforts of all who care about human rights.” The key then, for all of us trying to make the world a better place for women, is not to complain but to act.

I am celebrating this International Women’s Day in the same week that my own initiative to promote women’s equality, the Women’s prize for fiction, announced its longlist, and in the same year that we launched the inaugural Women’s prize for nonfiction.

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The sexism, stereotypes and sniggering don’t deter the members of TPM as they prepare to compete in Rio’s carnival

• Photographs: Ana Ionova for the Guardian

Preparations for Brazil’s carnival are in full swing in Madureira,neighbourhood in Rio de Janeiro famed for its strong samba tradition. In a courtyard strewn with colourful paper and fabric scraps, a handful of women are working on costumes.

The mostly middle-aged black women snipping, gluing and painting belong to one of Rio’s newest samba schools: Turma da Paz de Madureira (TPM), or the Madureira Group of Peace. All of its members, from the directors down to the percussionists and dancers, are women.

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Where I saw colour and fun, they saw the reflection of something darker: a new generation of men who fear feminism

Taylor Swift is many things. But she did not, at least until recently, look like the battleground on which an election could be fought.

Though on reflection, maybe it makes a weird kind of sense. Like Donald Trump, whose allies are said to be threatening a remarkably silly-sounding “ holy war ” against the singer, Swift is an unstoppable cultural phenomenon with a deep hold over the American psyche. She epitomises what many young women want to be – powerful but joyful, financially independent, patently not in need of a man but having zero trouble getting one – while he stands for all those threatened by this subversion of the patriarchal order.

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Greta Livraria in Lisbon and Rare Birds in Edinburgh are among the new stores dedicated to women’s writing

With its neatly arranged tables and shelves laden with books written by women, Greta Livraria’s small space masks its big ambitions. Since opening earlier this year, the bookstore in Lisbon has dedicated its space entirely to promoting a group that has, for the most part, been overlooked and undervalued by society: female authors.

It is a “form of historical reparation”, said Lorena Travassos, the store ’s founder, one that aims to “counter the longstanding disparities in sales and publications faced by women.”

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The limited series on the Russian feminist collective will be based on the forthcoming memoir by founder Nadya Tolokonnikova

The Russian feminist protest collective Pussy Riot is headed for television in a limited scripted series, Deadline reported on Wednesday.

The group’s creator, artist and activist Nadya Tolokonnikova, reached a deal with STX Entertainment to develop the series based on her forthcoming memoir.

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After I became a mother, I just couldn’t listen to the demeaning tracks of artists such as Eminem, Lil Jon and Busta Rhymes

During my final year of university, I remember hanging out with friends by a lake one summer. One friend set up his new hookah pipe as a dozen of us settled on a picnic mat, preparing for a laidback evening of good conversation and music. I offered up my iPod to the friend-of-a-friend who had a portable speaker and was controlling the music. But as she scrolled through my music library, the mood soured; she looked at me aghast, berating me for my choice of “un-feminist” music.

One by one, she read out the titles of songs by Eamon, Busta Rhymes and other artists whose names I can no longer remember, who rapped profanities that I no longer feel comfortable typing on my keyboard, disgusted. As a woman, I shouldn’t be listening to such music, she told me.

Her public admonition of my music choices irked me, but I didn’t let her condemnation get in the way of my enjoyment. I continued to jam to rappers such as R Kelly, Fat Joe, Lil Wayne and Lil Jon. My favourite artist as a teen was Eminem . I memorised all the lyrics to Without Me and was certain that his songs enriched my own vocabulary – especially after he revealed that he studied the dictionary as a child. In my 20s, my late-night solo drives were incomplete without my car pulsating to Lil Wayne. Sure, the lyrics could be vulgar but, despite this, I genuinely enjoyed the music – the raspy voice, the penetrating beats and the speed at which he dropped what I thought were witty rhymes. It made me feel carefree and confident as I drove with my windows down and volume cranked up to the maximum.

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Before she died, aged 28, Pauline Boty’s work brought a female gaze to the London art scene. Now she is set to reach a new generation

When Marilyn Monroe died in August 1962 , the British artist Pauline Boty did what she always did when something happened in the world that affected her. She turned to her easel to paint it.

The resultant pop art picture captured a happy and carefree Marilyn set against a background of red roses, while on either side grey abstract panels seem to close in around her.

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An exhibition of feminist activism charts the struggle towards equality, but hard-won rights are increasingly being taken away around the world

‘Brainwashed by a homicidal policy” is how the man just elected president of Argentina described supporters of women’s abortion rights . The far-right libertarian Javier Milei has pledged to hold a referendum to ban abortion, just three years after Argentina became the largest Latin American country to legalise it, and the country’s feminists are gearing up for a big fight to protect their reproductive rights.

This development is part of a depressing global picture. The UN has said the world is failing women and girls , and is “way off track” to meet targets to improve women’s lives. One in five girls i s married before she turns 18, it is lawful to discriminate against women in more than half the countries in the world, and almost 250 million women experience physical or sexual violence from an intimate partner each year. In Afghanistan and Iran, the slide backwards from the relatively liberal 1970s, when women thronged the universities and cafes of Kabul and Tehran, has been absolute.

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Public policies shouldn’t be shaped around boosting birth rates, says Madeleine Hewitt . Plus a letter from Val Harding

While it’s a tragedy that so many are afraid to have children due to climate breakdown, that doesn’t have to be a decision drawn from fear, but a positive, proactive choice to help solve the climate crisis ( More people not having children due to climate breakdown fears, finds research, 9 November ).

Our growing numbers place increasing strain on the environment, with the IPCC having just last year cited population growth as one of the two strongest drivers (alongside per capita GDP) of carbon emissions. A greater public understanding of how the climate crisis will impact future generations is a good thing, motivating and equipping us all to take the actions and demand the changes that are so vitally needed. In light of this, public policies should be shaped to strengthen environmental protections and adapt to managing an ageing population, rather than boost birth rates. A universal human pursuit is to want to improve things for the next generation, even if in this case it means having a smaller one.
Madeleine Hewitt
Campaigns and media officer, Population Matters

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