Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Women's Views on News

Women's Views on News

South Korean writer becomes first woman to win Man Asian Literary Prize

Posted: 20 Mar 2012 12:30 PM PDT

Ilona Lo Iacono
WVoN co-editor 

Kyung-sook Shin, of South Korea, has become the first woman, and the first Korean, to win the prestigious Man Asian Literary Prize.

Shin's novel, Please Look After Mom (also published in English as Please Look After Mother), was announced as the winner of the US$30,000 prize at a ceremony in Hong Kong on March 15.

The prize is an annual literary award given to the best novel by an Asian writer, either written in English or translated into English, and published in the previous calendar year.

Chi-Young Kim, who translated the novel into English, also received a prize of US$5000.

Please Look After Mom has sold 1.93 million copies in South Korea alone, and has already been published in 19 countries. Following its literary prize success, this will be expanded to 32 countries.

This is the first of Shin's works to be translated into English, although she has written numerous works of fiction and is one of South Korea's most widely read and acclaimed novelists.

She has previously been awarded the Manhae Literature Prize, the Dong-in Literature Prize, and the Yi Sang Literary Prize, as well as France's Prix de l'Inaperçu.

Chair of Man Asian Literary Prize Judges, BBC Special Correspondent Razia Iqbal, said that Please Look After Mom stood out from the shortlist of seven because it "worked as a complete novel" and was "compelling from start to finish", with multiple layers of meaning, ensuring that the novel was "much richer" than on first reading.

The story, told from the perspectives of four family members, begins when a mother from rural Korea travels to Seoul to visit her children, and goes missing in the crowded Seoul Station subway.

“The journey to find the mother in the book is the journey to regain what we’ve lost in the progress of modernity,” Shin said.

Iqbal described Please Look After Mom as "an incredibly moving portrait of what it means to be a mother, but also of the tradition and modernity of the family in South Korea."

In an interview for BBC Radio's Weekend Strand, Shin said, through an interpreter, that she was really surprised to find out that she was the first woman to win the prize.

"I don't feel like a man or woman, I feel like a writer," she said. "Although, in my writing, there are a lot of women, a lot of female points of view.

"I think in some respects women are closer to literature, because they see things more sensitively perhaps, they feel things more intensely, and that fits in with what literature is, to get under the skin of things."

She added that it was "strange" that she found it harder to write the narratives from the female perspectives than from the male.

"Perhaps if a male writer was writing this book about motherhood it would bring things that I might have missed… I want to read that book, the book about mother written by a man."

Shin, who says that her own mother inspired the story, and is the energy behind her writing, has said that she wants the book to show that women were ” once girls and women as we are now", not just "born to be mothers".

Shin, born in 1963, put herself through night school in Seoul while working in an electronics plant, as her farmer parents could not afford to send her to high school.

She graduated from the Seoul Institute of the Arts with a creative writing major and made her literary debut in 1985 with a novella, Winter's Fable.

The popularity of her work has been credited with helping to create a market for women's writing in South Korea.

Please Look After Mom is also long-listed for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize.

Support group set up for PIP implant victims

Posted: 20 Mar 2012 10:30 AM PDT

Susan Newcombe
WVoN co-editor 

A support group for women with leaking breast implants manufactured by French company Poly Implant Prothese (PIP) has been set up by a British woman.

Jane Brown, who discovered that one of her implants is leaking, said the group is so that victims can help one other.

The NHS  has agreed to remove her implants next month along with some lymph nodes for testing.

Although it was first thought that PIP implants made before January 2001 were safe, the British government recently revealed that a further 7,000 women may be at risk, following tests showing that substandard silicone was used before that date.

Mrs Brown said the fact there now may be even more women affected proves the scale of the problem.

“Because, like me, lots of women are struggling to find the money to get replacements we are trying to think of ways of helping each other because no-one else will help.

“It is going to be very traumatic for me because I cannot afford to pay for replacements and I can remember how I felt before I had the implants,” she said.

More than 40,000 women in the UK were thought to have had PIP implants which the manufacturer had filled with an industrial grade silicone used in mattresses.

The independent expert group set up to investigate the PIP scandal said there was not enough evidence of harm to justify routine removal, although the data kept by private cosmetic surgery clinics on the outcomes of the operations they carried out was poor.

Women who had an implant following mastectomy for breast cancer on the NHS have been offered removal and replacement on the NHS. Some private cosmetic chains, however, such as the Harley Medical Group, have refused to remove the implants free of charge.

Mrs Brown said she completely lost faith in the clinic which carried out the initial operation.

“I had a scan which showed one of the implants was leaking but the doctor said it would be fine."

“But I am in too much pain and in a state of constant worry to carry on with the implants. I have stopped exercising completely and even pushing a shopping trolley is painful. I can feel lumps under my arms.

“I am really scared – you just don’t know what is going on in your body and I just need to have the implants out.”

 

Tongan study finds 75 per cent of women experience violence

Posted: 20 Mar 2012 08:30 AM PDT

Helen Thompson
WVoN co-editor

The first ever national report on domestic violence in Tonga has revealed that 75 per cent of women have experienced some form of sexual violence, most commonly at the hands of fathers and teachers.

In an interview with Radio Australia, Gabriella ‘Ilolahia, research coordinator at the  Tonga Women and Family Centre, said that many Tongans believe that violence is an acceptable way to resolve conflict in the family.

It is not uncommon for husbands and in-laws to jointly participate in wife-beating.

Ofa Guttenbeil-Likiliki, director of the Tonga Women and Children’s Crisis Centre, says that the report shows that 83 per cent of women believe that they should agree with their husbands in order to be a good wife.

In addition, 64 per cent of women believe "that a man should show he is 'the boss'" and 59 per cent feel obligated to have sex with their husband or partner.

The survey, in which over 600 Tongan women and 40 Tongan families took part, was made possible with funding from AusAid as well as the Canadian and British governments.

In a foreword to the report, Tongan Prime Minister, Lord Tu’ivakano, argued for a return to traditional values in order to reduce violence against women.

Traditional culture in Tonga, before the advent of Christianity, meant that women enjoyed high social status, with sisters being higher than brothers.

‘Ilolahia  explained that this system acted as a check against a male-dominant society and that the four cornerstones of traditional Tongan culture were respect, reciprocity, love, and humility.

After Christianity the culture shifted to a patriarchal system and women's social status declined with gender inequalities emerging in all aspects of Tongan life.

However, some women rejected Lord Tu’ivakano’s solution, saying that women experienced violence in traditional culture.

Guttenbeil-Likiliki said that: "I don’t think it has anything to do with culture and changing culture, it’s got to do with general societal attitudes.”

Both Guttenbeil-Likiliki and  ‘Ilolahia agree that social institutions such as church and school need to play a larger role in gender education.

Currently there are no laws in Tonga criminalizing violence against women.

However, two weeks ago, the Solicitor General, ‘Aminiasi Kefu, announced a series of initiatives to end violence against women and girls, including a bill on domestic violence to be tabled in parliament this year.

Other initiatives include establishing a Ministry of Women's Affairs, a committee to address the Land Act and how it impacts on women's rights to own land, and a call to the Tongan government to ratify the UN Convention for the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women.

Egyptian Women’s Day marked by protest against “virginity test” doctor acquittal

Posted: 20 Mar 2012 06:30 AM PDT

An image displayed on posters at Friday's demonstration in Cairo

Ilona Lo Iacono
WVoN co-editor 

Hundreds of activists rallied in front of Cairo's High Court on Friday, marking Egyptian Women's Day with a protest against the recent military tribunal acquittal of the doctor named in the "virginity test” case.

Dr Ahmed Adel, an army conscript, is alleged to have conducted forced virginity tests on female demonstrators who were detained after police dispersed crowds of protesters from Tahrir Square in March 2011.

It is believed that seven women – including Samira Ibrahim, who brought the charges against Dr Adel – were beaten, subjected to electric shocks, stripped and forced to undergo "virginity tests" while being video-taped.

The doctor was acquitted of public indecency because of alleged contradictions between witness testimonies.

The Egyptian Women's Union, announcing the rally in a press release, said that the acquittal was a "nonsensical declaration".

Ibrahim, who was the only one of the women to speak out publicly or give detailed accounts of the incident, has announced her determination to continue her fight for justice.

"I will not give up, and I will file lawsuits against them before international courts," she told The Associated Press.

She also told Daily News Egypt: “I will resort to the African Commission on Human and People's Rights to retrieve my rights since the Egyptian judiciary let me down.”

Nagwa Abbas Ahmed, member of the Socialist Popular Alliance Party, said: ”In this military trial, the defendant and judge are one and the same because they are both affiliated with the military.”

In a December 2011 press release, Human Rights Watch warned that "the military cannot investigate itself with any independence, and only an investigation by Egypt's civilian judicial authorities with full cooperation from the military can provide a remedy to all protesters."

In an online video,  Ibrahim said that she and other women demonstrators were told when they were arrested that the virginity test was to "check" whether they were prostitutes.

"I was naked. It was like a show, with all those people watching, all those officers and soldiers… The man electrocuted my stomach and I was getting very badly insulted… I surrendered.

"If this is a doctor – what is he checking for five whole minutes? It's just humiliation… They're breaking you so you don't even think of asking for Egypt's rights, so that you don't even consider demonstrating against oppression."

Ibrahim said that after her examination, she was told she had to sign a statement "that I'm a girl – meaning a virgin. So am I lucky not to be married?… By this logic, had I been married, I'd have been charged with prostitution."

Witnesses to the case, including Heba Mourayef of Human Rights Watch, said that they had been told by three different generals that the virginity tests were common practice, to protect soldiers from allegations of rape.

Egyptian feminist Dr Nawal El Saadawi said in her book, The Hidden Face of Eve, that about 16.16% of girls may be born with a thin hymen, easily torn even when no sexual activity has occurred, leaving a girl or woman "incapable of proving her innocence", and also, it would seem, incapable of "proving" rape in custody.

The “proven” loss of virginity before marriage carries a shame so great that, for many Egyptians, it can only be “wiped out in blood”, she added.

Although the fight against these abuses is part of the wider fight against military rule, many Egyptians regard the concept of "women's rights" as something tainted by association with the Mubarak era, when women's rights were used as a "sop to the West" and an excuse to crack down on Islamist parties.

Amnesty International called on the Egyptian military to respect a decision by an administrative court banning “virginity tests” and to ensure women who were forced to endure tests have access to justice and reparations.

Iranian artist planning UK exhibition

Posted: 20 Mar 2012 04:30 AM PDT

Susan Newcombe
WVoN co-editor 

Internationally renowned Iranian artist Feri Tabrisi is planning her first UK exhibition exploring women of the world.

Now living in Germany she plans to bring to Britain for the first time her eclectic collection of painting, calligraphy and silks analysing the role of women in society and their identity in different cultures.

The artist, who has previously shown her work in Switzerland and Japan, left Iran shortly before the revolution.

She said that, when travelling the world, she always looks at the problems of women and finds them to be universal.

"During my travelling through different countries and contact with their culture I found out that no matter where women live they have the same problem: their work is not being seen, is not estimated.

“And this is a connection between all women of the world, they have to fight for their rights," said Ms Tabrisi.

"When I am travelling I enjoy going by plane. I have a look from above and this is what art means to me.

“It allows looking at the whole and how the different parts belong together. I have reflected these impressions in my pictures and silk paintings," she said.

The artist has attempted a silk renaissance with a continuation of the ancient Persian technique and by pictures in braille, which makes the blind able "to see" and understand in contrast to the sighted.

Although Tabrisi was born and grew up in an Islamic culture, she has lived in Germany for 28 years where she  has observed differences as well as common problems between western women and those from her culture.

But she said Muslim women do have  an additional problem – their negative image in the media.

"Non-Muslim people associate dark clothing only with Muslim women and this appears for most people threatening. This creates a great pressure on Muslim women because this correlates not to reality. The world is looking at them and judges them," she said.

"These impressions I try to treat in my works. I invite all to talk together regardless of which culture they belong to. Only this comprehensive act can help us to solve women's problems of the world."

The date and location of her exhibition are still to be confirmed.

Head of Fiji Taxi Association resigns over sexist comments

Posted: 20 Mar 2012 02:26 AM PDT

Helen Thompson
WVoN co-editor

The general secretary of the Fiji Taxi Association, Rishi Ram, resigned on Friday after saying that female passengers should dress in a certain way to avoid being harassed by taxi drivers.

Ram claimed on a local radio show on Thursday that women taking taxis should not wear short skirts because it would distract the drivers who would then harass them. This, he said, was just “human nature”.

In a press release, the Fiji Women's Crisis Centre (FWCC) lambasted Ram for his comments.

Shamima Ali, the coordinator of FWCC said: "Mr Ram's callous remarks contribute to the stereotypical ideas that women ask to be sexually harassed and/or raped because of the way they dress.

"If Mr Ram learnt more about the issue he would know that it has nothing to do with "human nature" and more to do with male authority, power and privilege which is learned behaviour rather than "natural" as he is insinuating."

Similarly, Fiji's Women's Action for Change (WAC) also spoke out against Ram's comments.

Debbie Singh, WAC Coordinator said: ""Mr Ram is a Justice of the Peace and by these comments has clearly demonstrated his complete lack of objectivity and respect for women."

Ram’s comments came just a week after graduates of a leadership programme run by Fiji Women’s Rights Movement (FWRM) held a joint conference on International Women’s Day to address sexual harassment of women on public service transport.

In light of the publicity surrounding the issue, FWRM is offering gender sensitization training to the Fiji Taxi Association and other public service transport organizations.

In a press release, FWRM executive director, Virisila Buadromo, said:

""Women, particularly young women and women from marginalized groups, experience harassment whether they are dressed in a sulu-jaba, in a salwaar kameez or in a denim skirt."

Sexual harassment is a crime which reflects the unequal power relations between men and women," she added.

Fiji Taxi Association President, Vincent Singh, asked Rishi Ram to stop down following his comments and objections from women's groups.

He said: “The FTA regrets the comments made by Mr Ram and wishes to inform the public of Fiji that all females have their right to dress code and it respects all women of Fiji and visitors to our shores."

He also pointed out that if a passenger is harassed she can file a formal complaint with the police and the Land Transport Authority (LTA).

Other transport associations have also distanced themselves from Ram's comments.

Speaking on behalf of the Fiji Bus Operators Association, General Secretary Rohit Latchan said drivers have no right to harass female passengers and women should dress how they like.

However, several taxi organizations, such as the Labas Taxi Association and the Nadi Taxi Union, support Ram and argue that he should not have stepped down for making personal comments.

Ram issued a statement of apology for his comments, claiming they were his personal views.

“Please forgive me if I have hurt someone as this was my personal agenda to educate our passengers on appropriate dressing as stipulated in the LTA regulations under the passengers’ conduct,” he said.