The World’s Most Powerful Women: November 2

The Hollywood Reporter has a fascinating profile of Jin Xing, who’s considered the Oprah of China. The TV host—who draws some 100 million viewers a week but is little known outside her home country—has past experience as a dance prodigy, a prima ballerina, and a decorated colonel in the People’s Liberation Army. And she was also born a man.

Since LGBT issues are still taboo in China and the government’s stance toward them is opaque, Jin’s popularity as a TV host, which she’s gained since transitioning, is remarkable—so much so that it’s prompted speculation that Beijing somehow “allowed” it all to happen.

Nevertheless, Jin has been deemed a trailblazer and an inspiration, but she demurs at those characterizations, stating, “I’m too individualistic.”

Clairezillman

EUROPE/MIDDLE EAST/AFRICA

Tread carefullyA parliamentary committee and the U.K. Home Office are holding inquires to determine if sharia courts in the U.K. Comply with British law. Shaista Gohir, chair of the Muslim Women’s Network U.K., has written an open letter urging both bodies to consider how their decisions might affect Muslim women. "[C]losing down sharia councils would drive divorce services underground, leading to even less transparency and more discrimination," she wrote. Guardian

Making himself clear

There was speculation that Pope Francis might ease the restriction on women becoming priests when he established a commission to study whether women could be ordained as deacons. But yesterday he said the ban would not change. “On the ordination of women in the Catholic Church," he said, "the last word is clear.”

New York TImes

THE AMERICAS

Practice what you preach

Led by Dell, more than 80 CEOs signed an open letter to the two U.S. Presidential candidates with policy suggestions that could enhance business opportunities for women entrepreneurs in the U.S. They recommended things such as "encouraging conscious placement of women on boards," which is something CEOs themselves can—and often don't—do.

Observer

A significant stat

Stitch Fix, an online retailer and personal styling service, has snagged Salesforce engineering SVP Cathy Polinsky as its new CTO. The new hire means Stitch Fix's executive team is now three-quarters women, a rarity in the startup world.

Recode

Complicated contraception

Since 2012, Melinda Gates has helped lead an international effort to provide birth control to 120 million more women by 2020. She talked to The New York Times about the findings of a new report that say achieving the goal might be harder than expected.

New York TImes

ASIA-PACIFIC

A scandal, simplified

Still trying to make sense of the utterly bizarre scandal rocking South Korean President Park Geun-hye? I don't blame you. Here's a cheat sheet of five things about the brouhaha that you really need to know.

Coins2Day

Flush with toilets

Dhamtari has became the first district in the central Indian state of Chhattisgarh to be declared free from open defecation, a practice that can sometimes lead to rape and disease. That accomplishment is due to the efforts of 105-year-old Kunwar Bai Yadav. Determined to have a toilet in her village, Yadav sold some of her only assets—a few goats—to build one near her home. Word of the facility spread and prompted other residents to construct their own.

BBC

IN BRIEF

This is the No. 1 thing holding women back on Wall Street

Coins2Day

Here's when women need to act more like men at work

Coins2Day

This model from Senegal turned taunts about her skin into inspiration

Motto

Arianna Huffington explains the key to a more productive workforce

Coins2Day

This Republican feminist is Donald Trump's worst nightmare

Refinery29

Here’s Maria Shriver’s challenge to Corporate America on Alzheimer’s

Coins2Day

PARTING WORDS

"I’m barely getting through this but I am being told I’m the lucky one, some sort of VIP."

--Emily Doe, the anonymous woman who was sexually assaulted by Stanford student Brock Turner. She wrote an essay for Glamour's Women of the Year issue.