Friday, March 23, 2012

Women's Views on News

Women's Views on News

Fiji women’s rights movement offers training on how laws are made

Posted: 22 Mar 2012 12:30 PM PDT

Alison Clarke
WVoN co-editor 

The Fiji Women's Rights Movement (FWRM)has just put 20 participants through a three-day programme on Legislative Lobbying, Building Skills in Governance and Leadership Training. 

Those who attended learnt about 'tools' to help both civil society as well as government partners on how legislature reform takes place and how to play a role in it.

Some of the tools included: problem analysis; research/data analysis; working on campaign plans and identifying strategies to address issues; the importance of coalition building and devising communications strategies.

The participants were a mix of civil society and civil service representatives, as well as community leaders.

"After holding one of the trainings in the Northern Division in November last year, FWRM has conducted this much needed second training," said executive director Virisila Buadromo.

"The training shares elements from our Legislative Lobbying Toolkit, which is a publication we co-produced with the Secretariat of the Pacific Community/Pacific Regional Rights Resource Team in 2010," she said.

Lorraine Foster, the Rainbow Women's Network's Administration Coordinator, said the training meant she could start advocating for a change in the law to better protect marginalised women.

"As a member of the LGBTQI community, I believe that this training will provide our Association with the necessary information on how to start campaigning. I know it will take time for reforms to take place but we need to start acting now," she said.

The president of the Soqosoqo Vakamarama Cakaudrove, Siliva Leweniqila, agreed:

"This is my first workshop with a women's NGO. The skills that I learnt here, I will take back to the women in the communities who need assistance," she said.

Afghan shooting suspect failed to mention killing women and children

Posted: 22 Mar 2012 10:30 AM PDT

Jale Arif
WVoN co-editor

The US soldier held over the killing of 16 Afghan civilians initially told officials that he had shot several Afghan men on March 11, but failed to mention that a dozen women and children were among the dead, officials said.

The Los Angeles Times reported that army Staff Sgt, Robert Bales admitted to officials that he killed several older Afghan men outside a US combat outpost in southern Afghanistan.

“He indicated to his buddies that he had taken out some military-aged males,” a senior official said. This is a term used frequently to denote insurgents.

Bales' lawyer has said that he has gaps in his memory of the night and doesn't remember the incident.

Defence attorney John Henry Browne, said: "Bales has no memory of … he has an early memory of that evening and he has a later memory of that, but he doesn’t have memory of the evening in between."

Mr Browne said that he will not be seeking an insanity defense, but will argue that his client suffered from “diminished capacity”.

Bales is currently being held in an Army prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas and is expected to be charged with 16 counts of murder later this week.

His wife, Karilyn Bales, and children have been moved to a military base in Washington State for their own protection.

She issued a statement  a few days ago, extending her condolences to the families in Afghanistan and saying that she does not know what happened either.

Equality still out of reach for Algerian women

Posted: 22 Mar 2012 08:30 AM PDT

Deborah Cowan
WVoN co-editor

It's 50 years since the Algerian revolution, the war which eventually led to Algeria gaining independence from France after nearly eight years of bitter conflict, terrorism and social disintegration.

Throughout this struggle for independence, the women of Algeria played a prominent role, fighting alongside their fellow countrymen as full citizens, and fully integrated into the war effort in both combative and non-combative roles.

According to academic Meredith Turshen in her paper 'Algerian Women in the Liberation Struggle and the Civil War: From Active Participants to Passive Victims', women functioned in a broad range of roles.

“Women participated actively as combatants, spies, fundraisers, as well as nurses, launderers, and cooks,” she writes, adding that women were no more spared the wartime practices of torture than their fellow male soldiers, with thousands being arrested and subjected to physical abuse.

Yet 50 years on, according to South African news website IOL, women's position in society has once again been eroded to one of inferiority.

According to former independence fighter Zoulikha Bekaddour, the post war decline for women from positions of prominence to passive insignificance began almost instantly.

She said: "We realised that even though we had fought as full citizens, we had to return home and be quiet, which was hard to accept."

As a result, a group of female war veterans called a rally in 1965 to voice their concerns.  Thousands of women took to the streets of Algiers in response.

But, Bekaddour said: "We quickly saw that our struggle had been hijacked. We held a march that frightened the men."

The role of women in Algerian life continued to deteriorate as time passed.  "At the first constituent assembly there were 13 women; at the second there were only two. It was over. The regression had begun," says Bekaddour.

She was right. In 1984, a family code was passed which once again designated women as minors, despite standing in direct contravention of the Algerian constitution, which protects men and women as equals.

Nevertheless, Algerian women continued their fight for equality, with a further feminist surge in the 1980s. However, this was overshadowed by other events which would once again plunge the country into civil war in the 1990s.

Today, the picture is more mixed, but equality is still a long way off.  Fatma Oussedik, Algerian author and sociologist said that, although Algerian women constitute 53% of the population, no real progress has been made toward greater political participation or social equality.

Statistics show that, of Algeria’s 389 lawmakers, only 30 are women and only three of the country’s 1,541 mayors are women.

And according to the International Monetary Fund, unemployment among women is 19%, compared to the national average of 10%.

However, women are performing better in education, with 60 percent of school leavers being female. In employment, women also dominate in health, education and justice sectors.

Their presence is dominant in the judicial system, with 65% of judges being female. However, despite such a surprisingly high figure, none has presided over the bar since independence.

The problem with these gender gaps seems to be that, while women are now better educated and seem able to gain skilled jobs, they are still struggling to attain more senior positions.

Politically, the picture is about the same.  In November last year, the Algerian Parliament passed a law which was supposed to facilitate greater representation of women in political life, initially announcing a 30% electoral list quota for women across the board.

A later modification saw this quota changed to between 20% and 40%, depending on the size of the constituency.

The fight has been a long and often bitter one for the women of Algeria, but it is a fight they are determined to continue.

"History shows that nothing has been handed to Algerian women," Fatma Oussedik said. "Everything has been won through suffering."

Rick is not “anti-women”, says Mrs Santorum

Posted: 22 Mar 2012 06:30 AM PDT

Deborah Cowan
WVoN co-editor

Her husband often jokes that people would like to hear more from her and less from him.

But Karen Santorum, wife of Republican presidential candidate and former US Senator Rick Santorum, maintains a deliberately low media profile and is seldom seen at the side of her newsworthy husband.

However, in a rare and much publicised interview with Piers Morgan on CNN earlier this week, Mrs Santorum came out fighting on his behalf.

Rick, of course, has been making his own headlines over the last few weeks, as he slugs it out with Mitt Romney for the Republican candidacy.

He has raised eyebrows and heckles with his policies and ideologies around women's issues, from banning contraception and abortion to questioning the inclusion of women in the military.

Thanks to these – and other – conservative social attitudes, the women of America are turning away in their droves.  And they are taking their votes with them.

Enter Karen Santorum.

Many see Karen as the quintessential stay at home mum (of seven) who keeps the fires of domesticity burning, home schools her children and soothes the fevered brow of her hard working husband.  Hardly a campaigning feminist.

But is there more mettle behind that countenance of domestic felicity?

Those who know her well seem to think so, describing her as one of her husband's 'most trusted and pragmatic advisers' who isn't afraid to assert her own authority.

One American website describes her as Santorum's 'de facto damage controller' on the campaign trail, after her husband called President Obama a "snob" for encouraging people to go to college, whereupon she immediately reprimanded him for his comment and made a public statement about it.

She has also been described as 'politically savvy', and as a former nurse and lawyer, she is certainly an educated woman.

But her interview with Piers Morgan was more in defence of her husband than the rights of her fellow American women.

Although the interview was conducted in a very un-Morgan type fashion – he seemed to avoid any of the hard hitting questions he would like to think he has become known for – Karen Santorum attempted to set a few records straight on behalf of her husband.

She began by immediately defending him from the seemingly relentless criticism that he is 'anti-women'.

"Not at all — he is not anti-women," she told Morgan, saying:

"I am a registered nurse, a lawyer and an author of two books and when I was on my book tour he was home making meals, changing diapers, cleaning the kitchen. He's been supportive of me and my career."

Also high on her agenda was the defence of her husband's stance on contraception.

Morgan voiced the concern of millions of women across America, asking if they should worry that her husband might ban the use of contraceptives should he become Republican candidate and defeat Barack Obama in November's general election.

Fair question – only last year Santorum pledged that, if elected, he would end federal funding for contraception on the grounds that it encouraged promiscuity, saying:

'It's not okay.  It's a license to do things in a sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be'.

He has also said that he would support the right of individual states to ban the use of contraception outright (see WVoN story).

He also bitterly opposed Obama's proposal requiring religious institutions such as charities and hospitals to provide contraception coverage in their health care plans and just a few weeks ago, he referred to contraception as a ‘grievous moral wrong’

Although this thorny issue has continued to follow Santorum on the campaign trail, Karen Santorum was adamant in his defence.

"Women have nothing to fear, when it comes to contraceptives, he will do nothing on that issue," she said, adding that her husband would 'absolutely not' bring his personal religious beliefs in to play were he to become president.

When pressed on whether, as president, he would respect the rights of women to make choices for themselves, including the use of contraception, she emphatically replied “absolutely”, stressing that the real issue was “not allowing the government to be intrusive in our lives and force us to do something against our conscience.”

She went on to say: “It makes me really sad when the media do that to him.  They try to make it look like he is something that he's not. Rick is a great guy. He is completely supportive of women."

For someone who does not court media attention, Mrs Santorum's unusually public defence of her husband, albeit for a brief eight minutes, is undoubtedly to her credit as a wife.

However, given that the majority of American women have at some point used contraception or are still doing so, and bearing in mind Santorum's previous damning pronouncements on contraception and abortion (he is of course anti-abortion), Karen's 'nothing to fear' assertion may do little to quieten those who insist her husband's words speak far louder than his actions.

Postscript: They say that a sense of humour is essential to survive a presidential campaign.   It's certainly essential when bearing witness to one.

So the Democratic voters of America enjoyed a modest titter, courtesy of Senator Scott Brown last week, who made fun of Santorum's contraception beliefs (and presumably his large breed) at a St. Patrick’s Day event.

He said: "I see that both Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum now have Secret Service with them on the campaign trail.  And in Santorum's case, I think it's the first time he's actually ever used protection."

Showing the voters of America that she too was in possession of a sense of humour, Mrs Santorum magnanimously described Senator Brown's comments as 'sort of funny'.

Israel law bans underweight models

Posted: 22 Mar 2012 04:30 AM PDT

Lindsay Carroll
WVoN co-editor

Israel has passed a law to discourage companies from using malnourished models in ads.

It also requires them to say if they digitally altered the models’ photos to make them thinner.

The law bans models who are underweight according to World Health Organisation standards, with body mass indices of 18.5 or less.

The Knesset’s Research and Information Center showed data at hearings that said about 1,500 children in Israel are diagnosed with eating disorders each year, according to Israeli paper Haaretz.

“We want to break the illusion that the model we see is real,” said Liad Gil-Har, an assistant to the law’s sponsor, according to the Associated Press.

Israeli modeling agent Adi Barkan said he supported the bill after seeing women try to meet industry standards of beauty.

“They look like dead girls,” he said.

Models also must provide medical records that prove they are not underweight, according to the law.

A 2008 Israeli study called the eating and dieting behavior of young Israelis “highly disturbing”. It said between 60 and 80 percent of Israeli teenagers felt dissatisfied with their weight.

The law’s stipulations also apply to foreign advertisements used in Israel.

Increased attention to eating disorders and their connection to the fashion industry’s modeling standards led to similar measures by the industry itself.

Both Milan and Madrid’s fashion weeks previously decided to ban models under certain body weights from participating.

Other countries could take Israel’s example to try to curb the problem. But some critics say the law could affect healthy models who are naturally thin.

Israeli agent Eli Edri told Haaretz that the WHO’s body indexes are “arbitrary” and could hurt the careers of healthy models who are naturally thin.

“Such a law would disqualify them without determining whether they are really sick or not,” Edri said.

The UK’s National Centre for Eating Disorders says that media “implies a strong connection between being thin, using beauty products and being happy,” often associating women’s thinness with status, wealth and success.

Meanwhile, the US National Eating Disorders Association applauded the Israeli parliament and called for a similar American law.

“We know that eating disorders are so dangerous, and yet in the US we continue to turn a blind eye to the problem and the many contributing factors,” association President Lynn Grefe said.

Israeli model Segal said her efforts to become thin enough left her in the hospital twice and led her to stop menstruating.

She said it would be hard to gain enough weight to qualify under the country’s new standards, but that it was worth it.

“In the end it’s a very low price to pay when I think about other girls who won’t grow up sick in the future,” Segal said.