Wednesday, May 2, 2012

Women's Views on News

Women's Views on News

Sexy Baby: new documentary shows impact of digital age on sex

Posted: 01 May 2012 12:00 PM PDT

Julie Tomlin
WVoN co-editor

Witnessing the rather pedestrian attempts of young women at a nightclub to attract boys' attention with pole dancing prompted photographer Ronna Gradus to begin a three and half year exploration of sexuality in a digital age.

Working with journalist Jill Bauer she went on to explore views on sex and sexiness in the United States and how the availability of pornography is shaping their perspectives.

Recently premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival, Sexy Baby: a Documentary About Sexiness and the Cyber Age follows Nichole, a former porn star; Laura, a 22-year-old who feels pressured by remarks from her porn-loving boyfriend to spend thousands on surgery on a “designer vagina”; and Winifred, a 12-year-old from Manhatten who is exploring what sexy means in the age of Lady Gaga and Facebook.

Asked what she had learnt about how people define sexiness and attraction, Bauer answered:

"It’s more computer-focused, Facebook-focused. Like, Like, Like – 20 Likes, 30 Likes, 40 Likes, wow, I'm a superstar – versus I'm just going to pass you a note in class and admire you.

“Instead of “I'm going to hit you on the playground because I'm telling you in my way that I like you,” it’s “Let me slap you silly because I saw it in porn.”

Gradus said: "Watching Winifred put up her pictures on Facebook, I just kept thinking to myself, thank God this was not around when I was coming of age."

“Farewell sex” law story suggests Egypt’s media is up to its old tricks

Posted: 01 May 2012 10:00 AM PDT

Julie Tomlin
WVoN co-editor

A story last week that a law was about to be passed in Egypt allowing a husband to have sex with his wife's corpse certainly made for some lurid headlines.

But after Mervat el-Tallawy, president of the National Council for Women denied the claims yesterday, many are left wondering if they are a sign Al Ahram, Egypt's oldest newspaper is up to its pre-2011 tricks.

The "farewell intercourse" story trail can be followed back to an opinion piece published in Al Ahram by Amr Abdul Samea, a supporter of former president Hosni Mubarak.

It claimed that Mervat el-Tallawy, the head of Egypt’s National Council for Women, had complained that Egypt’s parliament was considering passing an Islamist-sponsored law that would allow husbands to have sex with their wives after death.

Egyptian ON TV also reported the story and after it was translated into English by Al Arabiya, it was pounced on by the internet and western media, including Reuters and The Daily Mail, which suggested that the legislation had already gone through.

When rep0rts that the story was untrue emerged, WVoN removed its coverage.

Commentators suggest that the furore was all down to state supported newspaper Al Ahram continuing in the role it played under Mubarak of discrediting Islamists.

But while the debate continues, it appears that there is a draft law before the Egyptian parliament that could affect women's rights, namely one that would allow girls to be married at the age of 14 instead of 18.

The position of women in Egypt and in other Arab countries was also in the spotlight last week after American-Egyptian columnist Mona Eltahawy  suggested that Arab men hate women.

Whatever purposes such controversies serve, there are no doubt concerns that with only eight women MPs in the parliament and some of those on the socially conservative side of the spectrum, women's freedoms could be endangered.

Of course, many fear that the revolution itself is under threat, which means that there are many battles ahead, including the right to be involved in the drafting of the new constitution.

India’s Dalit women and the real cost of fast fashion

Posted: 01 May 2012 08:00 AM PDT

Julie Tomlin
WVoN co-editor

The High Street frenzy that follows when the Duchess of Cambridge is snapped wearing a new dress can lead to  24-hour shifts for women working in some of India’s garment factories.

That’s one of the  findings of a new report Maid in India that reveals the impact that unexpected orders and the frequency at which high street stores change their collections is having on some of India's most disadvantaged women.

The 69-page report labels the majority of clothing brands and retailers as 'laggards' over their failure to take steps to ensure decent working conditions after it calculated that 99,000 women – and girls aged between 14 and 18 – are working in exploitative conditions close to bonded labour in Tamil Nadu in South India.

Lured by the promise of a lump sum for a dowry at the end of their employment, the women are often tied to the factories for three to five years under what is known as the Sumangali Scheme (in Tamil 'Sumangali' refers to a happy and contented married woman who has good fortune and wealth).

Almost 60 per cent of the girls working under the scheme belong to the 'Scheduled Castes' or 'untouchables' the report by the Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations (SOMO) and the India Committee of the Netherlands (ICN) says.

For the factory owners the scheme offers guaranteed labour and as many of the women live in hostels on the factory site or close, they provide a ready workforce.

Conditions are worst in spinning mills where the machines run 24-hours a day. A woman can expect to be woken up at any time during the night if there is an order that has to be completed quickly.

Overtime of up to four hours is usual and in exceptional cases – an urgent order – women can work up to 16 and sometime 24 hours in one stretch.

There are no unions or grievance procedures, few women have contracts and the pressure to comply with the demands is great because they risk losing their job or the final payment, which they see as an opportunity for a better life.

Presented as a bonus, the sum, which amounts to around 400 to 850 euros, is in fact just withheld wages – and many women never receive it.

Some simply can't complete the time period due to sickness, others have been sacked shortly before their time is up, or the money has been withheld for bogus reasons while women are forced to work longer than initially agreed.

Published a year after an earlier report into working conditions in the region's manufacturing industry, Captured by Cotton, this latest report notes some improvements at the four manufacturers surveyed.

One manufacturer has stopped using the Sumangali Scheme altogether, another has phased it out at some of factories. Women have been allowed more freedom of movement, in that they are allowed to leave the hostel site unaccompanied and use telephones.

But this is small beer when compared to the suicides, the frequent accidents resulting from a lack of training and sleep and the reports of abuse from supervisors who are recruited from higher castes.

The report points out how difficult it is to find out which fashion retailers use the South Indian clothing manufacturers – they don't readily provide information about their customers and only a few pioneering garment companies reveal information about their suppliers.

After carrying out their own research, the report's authors concluded that giant retailers such as Tesco, department stores such as Marks & Spencer, fashion brands like Ralph Lauren, Tommy Hilfiger and Diesel and (fast) fashion retailers including Inditex and Primark accounted for some of the European and American clientele.

Fashion retailers now pride themselves on changing their collections as many as eight times a year instead of two to three previously. Bulk orders have been replaced by smaller, more frequent orders so that the clothes reach the stores within the shortest possible time frame.

But they have been less responsive when it comes to keeping to agreements to monitor working conditions at the factories that are required to meet this new pattern of demand, concludes the report.

Unionisation of the factories is recommended in order that the workers can begin to voice their needs.

The report concludes that:

"The majority of the brands and retailers can safely be classified as 'laggards’.

"The same is true for the manufacturers. The overall picture shows lack of progress in improving recruitment and labour conditions."

Show your support for Ched Evans’ rape victim on Mumsnet

Posted: 01 May 2012 06:00 AM PDT

Alison Clarke
WVoN co-editor 

Unless you’ve been living under a rock in the UK, you will have read about the vile exploits of footballer Ched Evans and his five-year conviction for rape earlier this month.

For those who live elsewhere, this is a truly disturbing story about a young man who ended up in an hotel room with an extremely drunk woman, had sex with her in front of his friends (one man even tried to film the incident on his mobile phone) and left through a fire escape after raping her.

As if this wasn’t bad enough, a few hours after the court conviction a frenzied pantomime of hatred emerged on twitter, under the hashtag #justiceforChed.

It now appears that his supporters have set up a Facebook campaign calling for a retrial because:

… Apart from the obvious that he is innocent, it is just not right. This case had so many holes in it and a massive amount of doubt that how any jury can come to the verdict they did is beyond us. Keep the support coming as its the only thing keeping him going and slowly restoring his faith in society.

As a result, someone else has posted onto the online site, Mumsnet, to give the victim their support as part of their campaign to “believe” rape survivors:

Dear Mumsnet

As you are no doubt aware, there has been the most extraordinary hate campaign waged this week by some football fans, against a rape victim in the wake of the Ched Evans Guilty Verdict.

The jist of the hatespeak, has been that a drunk woman has no right to expect the basic human right of not having her body penetrated without her active participation in that sexual act, or even her passive consent. Presumably because men (or at least footballers and their friends) have the right to penetrate women who are incapable of consent. And that if a man rapes you, it is because you are a slut, a slag and all the other hate-speak words used to de-humanise women and make it easier for people not to empathise with us when we are abused.

This week has seen the really ugly spectacle, of a bunch of men asserting their right to rape women, handmaidens supporting that right and both of them sending out a clear warning to all other rape victims, to know what to expect if they dare to pursue justice if they are raped.

If there had been a similar outpouring of hatred against any other historically oppressed group, the rest of the media would have been tearing their hair out analysing why some men hated this group so much, where the hatred came from, why it existed, what could be done about it; but ironically apart from the Daily Fail, there has been very little comment in response to the Twitter hate-campaign. If Twitter had buzzed with indignation at the jailing of the man who posted hate-speak about Fabrice Muamba, I've no doubt that the FA would have tracked down the posters and banned them from football matches. Because they're busy kicking racism out of football. Sexism, though, is fine. They can give a bloody award to a convicted rapist, while their supporters conduct what must be a terrifying hate campaign against his teenage victim– right now, football fans don't look all that much better than the Taliban, do they?

Mumsnet, will you use the voice you have against this horrible hate campaign? Will you tell the woman that Ched Evans raped, that We Believe Her? Will you ask the FA to state publicly, that they too, believe her and that in future, they will work as hard to kick sexism out of football, as they do to kick racism out?

Thank You.

Mumsnet founder, Justine Roberts, told the Telegraph newspaper that:

"The case has grabbed people's attention mostly because of the reaction on Twitter afterwards, where the victim was named and there were questions over whether Evans should have been convicted.

"Mumsnet members have wanted to show support to her and express their feeling that naming her was outrageous. They want to let her know that what he did was wrong and that they stand behind her.

"We are really hopeful the We Believe You campaign will be taken seriously as an issue."

Hundreds of people have already posted onto a dedicated thread, often using the simple words: “We believe her”.

I believe her too.

Please show your support by adding your belief to the thread.

Bolivian sex workers on hunger strike against hospital closures

Posted: 01 May 2012 04:00 AM PDT

Ilona Lo Iacono
WVoN co-editor

A number of Bolivian sex workers reportedly started a hunger strike in the city of El Alto on Saturday, in protest against widespread hospital closures due to an ongoing doctors' strike.

About a dozen of the striking sex workers, both female and male, protested in the lobby of a neighbourhood health clinic on Sunday. They vowed to continue their hunger strike until the authorities resolve the stand-off with doctors and health care provision returns to normal.

Sex workers in Bolivia – where prostitution is legal, but pimping and brothel ownership are not – are required by law to have weekly check-ups, which are provided free at public hospitals and clinics.

However, due to the doctors' strike, "It’s been more than a month since we’ve been checked,” said Lilli Cortez, president of the Organisation of Night Workers.

“We hope this will be solved once and for all because they are playing with our lives, with our health,” said Jacqueline, one of the sex workers on hunger strike.

“You can’t play with health,” she said. “It’s a time bomb that is going to explode at any moment. The lives of the entire population are at stake here.”

Doctors, who are paid an average of US$200 a week and receive no benefits, pension or overtime pay, went on strike on March 28, following the passage of Supreme Decree 1126.

The decree mandates that public sector workers, including health care providers and teachers, face an increase in working hours from the previous six a day to eight a day, without a corresponding increase in salary.

More than 500 public sector workers, including doctors in El Alto, have reportedly joined a hunger strike against the decree.

Sex workers in the impoverished city, which is 12 km from the capital, La Paz, and home to about a million people, have resorted to hunger striking before.

In 2009, 10 women sex workers sewed their lips together with thread, and approximately 30 more went on hunger strike, to demand that the mayor reopen brothels and bars which were destroyed by El Alto residents who had stormed the red light district.

The current protest, however, is very different from that of 2007, in which up to 35,000 sex workers across Bolivia refused their regular check-ups, after a citizens’ rampage in El Alto in which brothels were burned and sex workers were beaten and forced to strip.

At that time, threatening public health with possible sexually transmitted infections was the sex workers' only weapon against continued violence, harassment and intimidation by police.

Now, in an effort to force a resolution of the Bolivian hospital crisis, they are demanding the check-ups they once shunned; but, yet again, they are putting their own bodies at risk.

Thousand Roma evicted from Belgrade settlement

Posted: 01 May 2012 02:07 AM PDT

Ilona Lo Iacono
WVoN co-editor 

Serbian authorities evicted approximately 1,000 Roma from their homes in Belvil, New Belgrade, on Thursday, despite opposition from human rights groups.

According to Amnesty International (AI), the Roma of Belvil were not properly consulted, and were denied adequate information, notice and legal remedies.

Some residents were handed slips of paper informing them of their resettlement location just one day before the eviction.

The lack of consultation, the organisation says, has meant that some of the 250 families may have been split up, while others now face homelessness.

A pregnant 17-year-old girl was reportedly told that she will be sent to the town of Nis in southern Serbia, where she has no home, and nowhere to stay.

A disabled woman who uses a wheelchair was sent to a site far away from where her daughter – who cares for her – lives. After the woman spoke with non-governmental organisations (NGOs), the Serbian authorities promised to move her from that site, although no action has yet been taken.

Romani women in Serbia face serious barriers to receiving adequate healthcare at the best of times.

Lack of identity documents, health insurance or health cards prevent many of them from accessing such services, while medical practitioners also discriminate against them, according to the European Roma Rights Centre.

"Discrimination against Romani women is particularly evident in the areas of reproductive and maternal health and emergency care due to these being the most commonly used health care services," the Centre says.

Substandard housing and extreme poverty are also major contributing factors to the poor health of Roma in Serbia, and, while some argue that the eviction from the wooden and cardboard shacks of Belvil (see AI’s video of the settlement here) will improve living conditions, previous evictions have not done so.

Roma who were evicted in March from Belgrade's Block 72 were moved into metal containers which AI describes as "old, dirty, overcrowded and without ventilation or electricity".

The evictees are to be moved to several different sites, where they will be housed in metal containers, which NGOs warned do not meet adequate standards, given that each person has been allocated only two square metres of space.

Residents of Resnik, a suburb of Belgrade, protested for weeks against the relocation of Roma to their neighbourhood, who  are unlikely to find a welcoming home anywhere: Roma are regular victims of far-right violence across Europe, and Serbia is no exception.

Almost half of the 250 families who were resident in Belvil are internally displaced people from Kosovo, and will be resettled in other areas of Belgrade.

Some of the families, who have signed an agreement, will reportedly be returned to Kosovo, to the towns they left during the conflict in 1999.

Others who are not registered as residents of Belgrade are being returned to their original municipalities, which AI says are likely to be ill-prepared for the new arrivals.

According to Serbian human right activists, this is the nation’s 17th Roma eviction in the past two years.