Friday, April 13, 2012

Women's Views on News

Women's Views on News

Oxfam’s Big Bra Hunt supports women in Senegal

Posted: 12 Apr 2012 10:00 AM PDT

Liz Draper
WVoN co-editor

Oxfam is calling on women to donate unwanted bras as part of a campaign to help women in West Africa.

According to the charity, British women have nearly £1.2 billion of unworn and forgotten bras, which could help provide valuable economic support to market traders in Senegal.

The Big Bra Hunt, which is supported by celebrities such as Helen Mirren and Zoe Ball, aims to collect one million bras this month.

While some of the bras will be sold at Oxfam shops in the UK, many will be sent to Frip Ethique, Oxfam’s second hand clothing project in the Senegalese capital of Dakar.

Frip Ethique employs 40 people, mostly women, who are able to buy clothing at market value and sell it on at a profit in the city’s many markets.

In addition to providing economic support, the campaign aims to change the way the second hand clothing trade is organised in Senegal.

According to Fee Gilfeather, Oxfam’s trading marketing manager, the trade is ‘largely informal and poorly regulated’ in developing countries.

By ‘extending their involvement further along the supply chain, rather than simply selling in bulk to wholesaler importers’, Oxfam is able to support more ethical business practices.

The complicated manufacturing process means that most bras are manufactured in the West, so second hand bras are highly sought after in developing countries.

However, bras are rarely donated to charity shops. A poll for Oxfam found that 33% of women do not donate bras because they forget about them, and 10% did not think charity shops accepted them.

Miss Universe pageant to allow transgender contestants

Posted: 12 Apr 2012 08:00 AM PDT

Liz Draper
WVoN co-editor

Transgender women will be allowed to compete in the Miss Universe beauty pageant from next year, officials announced on Tuesday.

The move comes just two weeks after Jenna Talackova was disqualified from the Miss Universe Canada pageant after organisers discovered she was born a man (see WVoN story here). The disqualification was reversed last week following a public outcry, and protests from Talackova herself.

Advocacy group GLAAD, which called on pageant officials to review Talackova’s case, has been working closely with the Miss Universe Organization on the policy change.

According to a GLAAD spokesperson Herman Graddick, the move sets a precedent for the equal treatment of transgender women.

“The Miss Universe Organization today follows institutions that have taken a stand against discrimination of transgender women including the Olympics, NCAA, the Girl Scouts of America and America's Next Top Model.

“Jenna and all of the LGBT advocates who have called for this change and spoken out in support of transgender women are to be commended.

“At a time when transgender people are still routinely denied equal opportunities in housing, employment and medical care, today's decision is in line with the growing levels of public support for transgender people across the country."

GLAAD will continue working with the Miss Universe Organization to finalise the details of the policy.

How men erased women from world religion for 800 years

Posted: 12 Apr 2012 06:00 AM PDT

Denise Turner
WVoN co-editor

Divine Women, a new TV series, fronted by historian Bettany Hughes, sheds light on how 800 years ago, women were systematically excluded from religious study and practice by men.

She explores several cases of how women were once able to exploit the currency of sacred wisdom with surprising results.

Ninety seven per cent of all global deities were female; meaning that for the majority of human experience, man has worshipped at the shrine of the goddess, not the god.

Women were regognized for their wisdom, but this been largely forgotten.

Hughes sets out to find out why, by examining various cases such as that of Theodora, empress of Byzantium.

Though not high born, she started out as an erotic dancer, Theodora’s understanding of biblical wisdom enabled her to make sound judgments; she legislated furiously and founded safe houses for prostitutes, outlawed pimps and introduced penalties for rape.

In partnership with Justinian, her husband and co-ruler, Theodora also established the Justinian code; a system of law that still underpins much of European law.

Islam also acknowledged the important role of women in implementing God’s instruction. Hadiths, sayings attributed to the prophet Muhammad, urge women and men to seek knowledge.

One of the first recorded universities in the world, the Qarawiyyin University in Fez, was built in the ninth century by a Muslim Tunisian woman, Fatima al-Fihri.

Over 25 years, Muhammad Akram Nadwi from the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies has found 8,500 female scholars.

They flourished in the early years of Islam, and in the 12th century in reaction to the crusades, when women preached in the great mosques of Damascus, Medina, Cairo and Jerusalem.

The story was similar in the East. The Asian matriarch Wu Zetian should be a household name today, her seventh century achievements were so remarkable.

She led the invasion of Korea and Tibet, reformed the administrative system, adopted Buddhism and adopted printing; 700 years before the Europeans.

But within decades of her death her memory had been eradicated and her memorial stone at Qianling in China’s Shanxi province remains blank.

This golden age for women’s sacred wisdom was short-lived.

All of these women have been forgotten because they were systematically written out of history by men in the 12th century when universities became centres of learning.

Divine Women started on BBC2 at 9pm (UK time), Wednesday 11 April.

Wisconsin state senator says ‘money’s more important for men’

Posted: 12 Apr 2012 04:00 AM PDT

Denise Turner
WVoN co editor

The Republican governor of Wisconsin Scott Walker last week repealed the state's 2009 Equal Pay Enforcement Act.

According to Wisconsin state representative Christine Sinicki, a Democrat co-author of the original law, it's one in a series of anti-working class acts that has included the dismantling of unions.

Combined with conservative attacks on reproductive rights; the ending of the Act, which allowed victims of workplace discrimination to seek damages in state courts, is a particularly serious blow to women by Walker, whose policies  extend to every aspect of their lives.

They also represent a dangerous trend in conservative reactionism that could have potentially devastating consequences for women and women’s health.

Though the Act was enacted largely in response to Wisconsin's large gap between men and women's pay (in 2009 it ranked 36th in the US in terms of gender pay parity), it also offered protection from discrimination based on race, age, disability, religion, sexual orientation and other factors.

Republican state senator, Glenn Grothman, a vocal supporter of the Act’s abolition, said: "You could argue that money is more important for men. I think a guy in their first job, maybe because they expect to be a breadwinner someday, may be a little more money-conscious.

“To attribute everything to a so-called bias in the workplace is just not true."

Fatima Goss Graves at the National Women's Law Center said: "The idea that pay discrimination is a myth is a myth in and of itself. Study after study has shown the exact opposite."

Her view is supported by Linda Meric, national director of 9to5, an organization devoted to working women's issues who said:

"Scott Walker and the Wisconsin state legislature are rolling back the clock on women's rights, putting women's economic security in greater jeopardy at the exact moment that they should be assisting women to get ahead in this tough economy,"

Unfortunately for working people and women, Walker is in line to become the third governor in US history ever to be recalled to the senate.

Cheap sanitary pads help Kenyan girls stay in school

Posted: 12 Apr 2012 02:00 AM PDT

Sara Dzregah
WVoN co-editor

A women’s group in Kenya’s slums are supporting adolescent girls to stay in school by producing cheap, hygienic sanitary pads.

The lack of affordable sanitary pads is a widespread cause of infections and non-attendance at school.

“We were moved by sad stories we gathered from various villages in the country about young girls and jobless single mothers who could not afford to buy even a single pad,” said Salma Uledi, the chairperson of the group Al-Subra.

She claims that some schoolgirls even resort to having sex with men in return for pads.

Al-Subra has been making sanitary pads for the last two years and is based in the Majengo slums of Nyeri County. The cloth pads are made from locally available materials, and are reusable for up to four months.

The initiative is supported by Nairobi-based NGO, Binti Africa, which provided training in producing the pads. Binti Africa works to empower girls and women through promoting access to information, education, leadership and economic independence.

In 2007, the NGO won a World Bank grant of nearly $18,000 to implement their project ‘Sustainable Sanitary Health for Improved Girls’ Education’. As well as supporting the production of affordable sanitary pads, the project included building girls’ washrooms in 15 pilot schools.

Al-Subra’s sanitary pads are now so popular that they have been able to increase their number of sewing machines from two to five.

Where do the funny women go?

Posted: 12 Apr 2012 12:32 AM PDT

Karen Whiteley
WVoN co-editor 

Where are the funny women?  We all know the answer to that one, don’t we?

They’re nowhere.  Because women aren’t funny, amirite?

Speaking as a women who is generally considered by friends and co-workers to be utterly hilarious, I’m not sure where this leaves me.

Equally, I’m not sure where it leaves Sarah Millican, Victoria Wood, Jo Brand, Miranda Hart, Tina Fey, Catherine Tate, Andi Osho, Jennifer Saunders, Dawn French, Ruby Wax, Rhona Cameron, Joan Rivers, Roseanne Barr, Josie Long, Sarah Silverman, Kirsten Wiig, Ellen DeGeneres, or the woman down my local pub whose running gags about her Swedish boyfriend can leave me immobilised by excessive guffawing whilst simultaneously making me need to make a run for the toilet.

Because despite all these wonderfully funny women the stereotype persists.  Men are funny, women aren’t. Men’s job is to cause the laughter.  Women’s job is to provide it.

Yet whilst the existence of the stereotype is universally acknowledged, there are still many people who deny that it has an effect on the success and visibility of female comedians.

Steve Lount runs The Comedy Box club in Bristol, and while acknowledging that ‘anecdotally [he's] heard that some audiences don't respond well when a female act is announced onto the stage’, he  nonetheless expresses the views of many when he says:

‘There are so few female acts out there, and fewer still who are any good in my opinion.’

And he’s adamant that sexism against female comics plays no part in his view.

‘Stand-up comedy is a meritocracy. Yes, some personal taste does come into who you book and there are plenty of male comics who I also avoid booking. But my aim has always been to book the most interesting and best acts my budget will allow, disregarding their gender, disability, race or creed.’

But are there really ‘so few’ female acts around?

Not according to comedian Kate Smurthwaite, who also teaches stand-up comedy:

‘There is absolutely no shortage of funny women. At workshop and open mic level there are honestly more women in comedy than men. When I teach, I often have classes with only one or two guys in.’

Fellow comedian Josie Long agrees:

‘There's not fewer women than men. If you go to open spot clubs, it's at least 50/50. It is, it really is. If you go to workshops it's half and half.’

So what happens after a comedy course or an open mike night?  Where do all these women disappear to?  Are they really just not funny enough to make it?  Is the stereotype about funny women a stereotype because it’s true?

But stereotypes are funny things.  They don’t persist because they’re true.  They persist because every time we encounter behaviour that matches a stereotype, we nod our heads sagely at how true that stereotype is.  When we encounter behaviour that runs contrary to a stereotype, we quietly ignore it.

If you don’t believe me, consider another one: women are no good at maths.  Higher exam results, especially among Anglo-American populations amongst whom the stereotype seems strongest, seem to bear this out.

But when women taking a difficult calculus test were told beforehand that, despite testing on thousands of students, no gender difference had ever been found in the level of achievement on the test, they outperformed a different group of women taking the test who hadn’t had the stereotype challenged.  More interestingly, they also outperformed the men in both groups by a good margin.

This is just one of many examples you can find in Cordelia Fine’s book, ‘The Delusions of Gender’, on the amazing power of stereotypes.

And we like to cling to them at all costs.  When we’re forced to acknowledge something that doesn’t fit – like a person who’s clearly female making us rock with mirth – we don’t challenge the validity of the stereotype.  We simply mark it down as ‘The Exception’.

All the women listed above are ‘The Exception’.

At least one male comedian seems to get it. Chris Coltrane says:

‘I always hear female comics tell stories of audience coming up to them after a gig to say: “I don't like female comedians, but I like you”, as if that female comedian were somehow an exception, a blip that science can't explain.

‘Rather than just judge each individual person on their merits, they've decided they don't like all women comedians, and then are surprised and astonished when they're proven wrong. But even when they are proven wrong, they won't adjust their beliefs.’

I don’t personally find Al Murray remotely amusing.  I actually find him so unamusing that when I see him on TV,  I always ponder setting up some kind of charitable fund to provide him with comedy-assistance therapy.

If he’s going to persist in trying to be funny in front of a national audience, I think it’s only fair we help him if only to avoid my own embarrassment at his efforts.

What I don’t think, however, is well, there you go; men just aren’t funny.  What I don’t think is well, that’s it for half the world’s population; they just cannot make me chuckle, I must banish Mock the Week from my television forever.

When a man’s not funny, he’s just not funny.  But when a woman fails to raise a laugh, she’s exhibiting a genetic flaw shared by half of the world’s population.  When she does raise a laugh, she’s a biological mutant.

And we’re supposed to think that this attitude doesn’t affect female comedians?  It seems absurd to even suggest it.  Funny is the thing for a comedian.

Try being funny when your whole industry and your whole audience is starting from a presumption  of unfunny.  How much harder do you have to work to even begin to challenge that presumption and actually get to the laughs?  Try being a rocket scientist when people presume you can’t count down from ten.  These things matter.

Comedian Lara A King, says:

‘Just because there are more men doing it, that doesn’t necessarily mean they are better at it. I think they get given the breaks a bit more, and they get given a little bit more slack. I think women are less encouraged and less supported.’

And there you have a definition of sexism as it relates to the world of stand-up comedy.

Other comedians however, don’t see the problem.  Depressingly, Sarah Millican, currently the most successful female comic in the UK, is one of them. She’s content to have female comedians lumped together as one homogenous mass:

‘Bookers will spread [women] out,’ she says, ‘a bit like they might spread out the one-liner guys. You’re kind of a bracket on your own – which is fine. I understand that people want variety on a bill.’

One woman on the bill at any time is thus considered enough.  We can’t have too many exceptions, after all. We might start thinking they’re not exceptions at all.

This is what happens to that 50% of comedy courses and open mic nights.  They are reduced by both club bookers and the audience to a ‘lump’.

And if they’re not being booked at clubs, they’re not getting exposure.  They’re certainly not getting on TV in any significant numbers as even a passing glance at comedy panel shows will tell you.

In February this year, the BBC at least admitted that this was true and even accepted that it was – gasp! – a problem.

‘BBC’s Controller of Entertainment Commissioning Mark Linsey said: ‘We don’t have enough female comedians on television – that’s something we are aware of and trying to do something about.’

According to The Independent, Linsey ‘accepted more progress should have been made in the years since Victoria Wood appeared to have made a breakthrough in gender equality by achieving television success in the 70s.’

However, even within the BBC, Linsey’s comments don’t resonate with everybody.

BBC comedy controller Cheryl Taylor is completely relaxed about the dominance of men in comedy:

‘I’m aware that if you tot things up numerically, there are more male comedians around than female comedians, and probably more male comedy writers, but it doesn’t strike me that it’s a crisis.’

It’s arguable that the small representation of women in comedy isn’t a ‘crisis’. What’s not arguable is that sexism and negative stereotypes about women don’t play a significant part in it.

And even if a woman does manage to be seen as funny, the sexism still doesn’t stop there.  Because ‘women’s problems’ just aren’t considered to be a proper subject for comedy.

Lee Aronsohn, the co-creator and executive producer of the ode to misogyny ‘Two and a Half Men’, was the latest to make this point last week.

Referring to the fact that there are a number of female-driven sitcoms currently running on US television, Aronson commented: ‘Enough, ladies. I get it. You have periods.’ And this from a man responsible for a show which consists almost entirely of ‘fart and dick jokes’.

Because that’s what women comedians do, isn’t it? Waffle on about their periods and ‘lady bits’. And how could men possibly be interested in that?

Well, as Sarah Millican said, ‘if you’re funny, they laugh’ but the final word should go to US comedian and comedy writer, Jen Kirkman:

‘I hear guys talk about their dicks nonstop. No one is saying anything new about their dicks.’

And yet still we get the endless stream of penis-related gags from swaggering, self-satisfied male comedians all over the television. Dicks, it seems, never stop being funny, as long as it’s the holder of one telling the joke.

Penises are funny, periods aren’t.  I think, finally, that’s something we can all agree on.