Saturday, May 19, 2012

Women's Views on News

Women's Views on News

Almost third of seats in Algerian general election won by women

Posted: 18 May 2012 07:30 AM PDT

Aisling Marks
WVoN co-editor

Almost a third of the seats in the Algerian parliament were won by women in the general election last week.

According to a provisional count, at least 145 of the legislative body’s 462 seats will be taken by women, up from about eight percent previously.

This increase followed the adoption in January of a quota stipulating a minimum of 30 percent women.

UN Women, the entity responsible for gender equality and women’s empowerment, welcomed the result.

Its executive director, Michele Bachelet, said:

"UN Women commends Algeria for reaching and surpassing the target of 30 per cent women in parliament as recommended in the Beijing Platform for Action and general recommendations of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women”.

But activists in Algeria are not holding their breath and emphasise that it remains to be seen how effectively the new women MPs, many of them inexperienced, will work together across party lines.

"Women now have to prove that they deserved their seats," said Nadia Ait Zaid, a jurist who runs a center that campaigned for the quotas and trained some of the women candidates.

She said the two main issues facing female lawmakers are a family code that still does not grant full equality to women and a bill criminalizing domestic violence.

Other activists also complained that some party leaders had paid only lip service to the new equality rules by naming their wives and daughters on the lists.

NHS responds to spurious abortion statistics spouted by Mail and Telegraph

Posted: 18 May 2012 06:00 AM PDT

Rachel Ogbu
WVoN co-editor 

Last week the hair on the head of apologists for the pro-life movement was reported to be “standing on end” following stories that the National Health Service (NHS) was spending around £1 million in taxpayers' money each week on abortions.

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out the source. Yes, it’s the good old Daily Mail, spouting the usual rubbish about British abortion laws.

The Telegraph also got in on the act, reporting that thousands of women are using the service to terminate unwanted foetuses; in some cases up to nine times.

Both papers seem to have used sources from pro-life groups only. There’s a surprise I hear you say.

For its part, the NHS said on its website that it was not “clear from the Mail's coverage why these figures are making headlines today.

“On April 16 2012, the Labour MP Diane Abbot asked the secretary of state for health to provide estimates on the number of repeat abortions performed in 2010, 2011 and 2012.

“She asked that these figures be provided based on the marital status and age of the women across each primary care trust.

“However, as abortion figures are published a year in arrears, the 2012 figures will not be published until 2013. Also, the 2011 figures are not scheduled for official publication until the end of May 2012, meaning that only figures up to 2010 are available at this time.

“The House of Commons website also reports that the 2010 statistics provide information on the number of repeat abortions by age, but not marital status. The Daily Mail, however, quoted statistics based on both age and marital status, and it is unclear how these have been derived”.

It also criticised the Mail for failing to give "information on women's reasons or motivations for seeking an abortion".

It added that "The 'abortion as contraception' claim appears to be an interpretation of the data provided by campaign groups and abortion legislation critics.

“Also, the data suggest that only a tiny fraction of abortions were in women who have had seven or more previous abortions – 85 procedures out of the 189,574 performed in 2010″.

If you want to read more about this, go to this article on the Ministry of Truth website.

Half of new French president’s cabinet are women

Posted: 18 May 2012 04:30 AM PDT

Kathy Audin
WVoN co-editor

It seems that Francois Hollande is making good on his promises to be a feminist French president.

During his campaign Hollande promised that, were he to win, he would ensure an equal representation of men and women in his government. And, amazingly, he has delivered, with 17 women in posts out of a possible 34.

Sadly, he has given only one heavy-duty ministerial portfolio – the Justice ministry – to a woman.

However, as the Daily Mail helpfully (I’m being sarcastic by the way) points out in this article: ”more than 80 per cent of French MPs are men, meaning there is only a small pool of experienced women from which Hollande can choose”.

The headline to its article will give you a flavour of its content – “Hollande’s honeys: New French President unveils his cabinet of beauties”. Yes, it really is that bad.

Luckily there are possibly more talented women in France than the Mail realises. One of them is that new Justice minister.

Christiane Taubira, from French Guiana, who has served as a deputy in the French national assembly since 1993, gave her name to a 2001 law denouncing slavery as a crime against humanity. She was also the first black candidate to stand for the presidency in 2002.

Najat Vallaud-Belkacem will serve both as the government spokesperson and minister of women's rights, a newly created cabinet post. She was advisor to Ségolène Royal‘s campaign during the 2007 French general election and acted as Hollande's spokeperson during the 2012 presidential campaign.

Aurelie Filippetti, another Hollande campaign advisor has been appointed Culture Minister. She is member of the National Assembly representing the Moselle department.

Other appointments include Marisol Touraine as Minister of Health and Social Affairs, former Green Party leader Cecile Duflot as Housing Minister and another environmentalist, Nicole Bricq, who will serve as Minister of Ecology, Energy, and Sustainable Development.

Segolene Royal, Hollande’s ex-partner and mother of his four children, and presidential candidate for the Socialist party in 2007 was not awarded a top government seat.

Challenging the stigma of rape

Posted: 18 May 2012 03:00 AM PDT

Challenging the stigma attached to rape

Bethany Rivett
Rape survivor

Have you ever been the victim of a house burglary?

Most victims don't need to be subjected to violence or see the burglars to no longer want to live in their house. They feel "dirty", that their personal space has been invaded

Friends and neighbours will be curious as to how the burglar got in. But even if the back window was left open or the door unlocked, the victim is not blamed.

You are the victim and what the thief (or thieves) did by entering your property and stealing or destroying your belongings is unthinkable. The burglar will forever remain a criminal and you the victim of a horrible crime.

What if I told you that I was raped? What if I was wearing a short skirt when I was raped? Would that be the same as an open window? Would easy access to my property be a factor that people would hold against me?

In the case of the burglary, the open window is disregarded; the thief should not be entering to begin with.

In the case of rape do you feel the same about what a girl is wearing? Is it her fault or the rapist's? Would he have left me alone if my skirt had been five inches lower?

When I was raped, I was on my way to buy food, wearing flip flops, shorts and a t-shirt. I was dragged off of the main street and raped. Was that my fault? Was there something about me that led the rapist to think he had access to me?

When I told my friends I had been raped, they were not quite sure what to say. The questions they asked me seemed suggested I was the one at fault. What time of day was it? What was I wearing? Was I alone? Was I drunk?

But should they not have focused on the crime HE committed? HE was the one who forced the door open, HE was the one who came up the stairs and HE was the one who stole from me.

HE had the power and I had none. HE stole all my belongings and I was left with the empty house.

Somebody penetrated me sexually using violence. He held me so hard and covered my mouth so that I couldn't move or scream. But my experience is that rape victims are the ones kept at arms length, subjected to mental scrutiny and interrogation.

When I told people I'd been raped, I was faced with reactions of utter discomfort. Some people were scared to discuss it, some didn't make eye contact while others said the necessary things in order to move on and change the conversation.

Although people were not conscious of how they were making me feel, these reactions provoked shame and embarrassment. If someone got struck by lightening would you interrogate them? Where were they were standing? What were they wearing? Were they alone?

Why does society struggle with truly accepting people who have been raped as victims? I think there are many reasons but the main one is clear – people are scared of rape. Scared that it will happen to them and scared to talk about it.

We see advertisements for rape prevention but very rarely do we see support for victims. We have no voice because society is scared to hear it.

After becoming a victim of rape I feel that I was further victimised by society. It was as if the rape wasn't a random act but something I had brought on myself.

In a world where sexualisation dominates and even children idolise sexualised figures, why are we so uncomfortable with talking about rape?

As a rape survivor I feel it's my responsibility to speak out and give people the chance to understand things from a victim’s perspective.

This is why I am looking for rape victims who are willing to take part in dance therapy workshops. These workshops, held in a supportive space with dance therapists and counsellors, aim to give survivors a different way of experiencing therapy.

As a rape victim I know how hard it is to articulate the feelings that stem from rape. I asked myself, 'we feel in our body so why not communicate through movement?'

I am asking other victims to join my ambition to change public attitudes to rape. Together we can overcome and change the stigma.

As Ghandi once said "Be the change you want to see in the world".

Click here to find out more about the dance workshops and my efforts to challenge the stigma of rape.

British rail company facing £25 million discrimination lawsuit

Posted: 18 May 2012 01:30 AM PDT

Kathy Audin
WVoN co-editor

Over 30 women middle managers of a British rail company, Network Rail, have filed an equal pay claim which is said to be the “largest ever” in the rail industry.

The women allege that they are paid £4500 less on average than their male counterparts in similar roles at the company which maintains tracks, signals and stations.

The women’s union, the Transport Salaried Staffs Association (TSSA), said they could expect to receive lump sums of over £25,000 each in back pay if their claims succeed.

An initial claim for the 34 women was backed at the union’s annual conference in Cardiff this week.

Union general secretary Manuel Cortes said the women were “the tip of the iceberg” when he outlined his equality plans at a legal briefing for delegates.

Hundreds more claims could follow as up to 1,000 female staff were being discriminated against on pay.

He said an equal pay survey of 2,000 staff had revealed the pay gap of £4,500 at NR.
“That is just an average figure, in some cases the gap is as high as £10,000,” he added.

“This is completely unacceptable in a firm which receives the majority of its funding, £4 billion a year, from the taxpayer.

“We are determined to end women being treated as second class citizens in the rail industry when it comes to pay.

“NR should set an example to the rest of the industry, bearing in mind the Equal Pay Act became the law of the land more than 35 years ago.”