Tuesday, June 19, 2012

Women's Views on News

Women's Views on News

Is it still politic to play the good wife?

Posted: 18 Jun 2012 05:30 AM PDT

Jackie Gregory
WVoN co-editor

“The great value of wives, prime minister” mused Judge Leveson this week at the Leveson Inquiry into press standards.

It was an off-the-cuff remark, and possibly judiciously sarcastic, but had it appeared in a Jane Austen novel, scholars would describe it as perfectly crafted, weighted with class and precisely pinpointing the place of women in society.

But this is 2012 and the prime minister is David Cameron, who had to ask partner Samantha Cameron to consult their weekend diary (yes, we all have one, it’s called the kitchen calendar in our house) to see how many times he had enjoyed a “country supper” with former News International executive Rebekah Brooks.

Too many, she could have curtly replied, but no, Mrs Cameron as the PM referred to her, was able to help him out of the frying pan.

After she had consulted her diary, her husband was able to clarify that he and Brooks had met every six weeks, and not more frequently. It was then that the judge made the remark that has attracted much comment.

Quentin Letts in the Daily Mail mused: "Yikes. Harriet Harman and the sisterhood may not approve of that remark. I do hope the good Lord Justice is not subject to a class action complaint for sexism.”

It’s obvious that neither the judge nor Cameron nor Brooks, a former tabloid editor, realised that country supper  – words used in a text by Brooks to Cameron – has a totally different meaning in today’s street language, being slang for oral sex on a female.

And so through linguistics, the clubby culture and remoteness of the British ruling elite are exposed.

Cameron consulting Mrs Cameron firmly underlines her role as “the good wife”.

And it seems, in Britain at least, most MPs aspire to have one, even the gay ones.

It’s this concept that sickened Tanya Gold who wrote in The Guardian: “How I would love an inquiry into how politicians treat their wives, how they swap access for favours, how they beg them to dumb down, down, all the way to the glove drawer.

“The good wife is neat, smiling and ubiquitous, performing her role as professional tea caddy and shock absorber for her male … It is a tedious narrative but politicians need the vision of the happy woman as they harm women and their families elsewhere.”

It brings back uncomfortable memories of Judith Mellor, a couple of decades back, being forced to stand by the country gate smiling after husband David Mellor, then Tory Minister for Sport, was revealed to be having an affair.

Norma Major stayed quiet, in public at least, after John, then prime minister, had a fling with Edwina Currie. Even Sarah Brown was called in to speak up for Gordon to try and humanise his image.

Note the backlash against Cherie Booth which is still ongoing, because she failed to be a demure good wife to Tony Blair, and instead had her own career and identity. Sally Bercow, the wife of the speaker of the House of Commons, faces similar scrutiny.

Yet Naomi Wolf detects a change – on the Continent at least. While Mrs Cameron may be busy listing her husband’s supper dates, and Mrs Obama swaps a law career for growing veg in the garden, there are partners of politicians in other countries who are refusing to toe the line.

Wolf points out that the French president, the German president and the mayor of New York are not married to their partners – and no-one seems to care.

Wolf says: “Smart women may be unwilling to marry high-profile political men these days, owing to the tremendous potential downside. Other domestic arrangements might be easier than taking the matrimonial plunge, with its prospect of thankless exposure in the event of a scandal.”

Another reason is generational change with an expectation that women will have their own careers. Wolf argues this helps diminish the fear in some voters’ eyes that adoring good wives are the power behind the throne, unelected and unaccountable.

If a wife is too busy with her own career to get involved, this diminishes her power in the eyes of some electorate.

Wolf concludes: “The adoring political wife was always more caricature than character. Now, fortunately, she can finally retire.”

If Mrs Cameron does decide to step away, then she had better leave the weekend diary on Dave’s desk.

Saudi’s Women2Drive campaign presents petition to King

Posted: 18 Jun 2012 04:30 AM PDT

Kirstie Imber
WVoN co-editor

Last week the Women2Drive movement, a campaign founded by Manal al-Sharif exactly a year ago, presented a petition to the King of Saudi Arabia calling for women to be given the right to drive.

The petition, which boasts over 600 signatures, aims to “encourage women who have obtained driving licences from neighbouring countries to begin driving whenever necessary” and “establish driving schools for women and [begin] issuing licences”, according to the AFP news site.

Demonstrations were expected to take place at Saudi embassies across the globe.

On 17 June, women with international drivers licences were urged to use their cars to mark the first anniversary of the organised ‘protest drive’, which saw al-Sharif and hordes of female supporters get behind the wheel in sharp defiance of Saudi Arabia's driving laws.

But she has not been able to participate due to growing concerns for her personal safety and that of her family.

According to news reports al-Sharif has received a string of death threats from un-named ‘Saudi officials’. She is also the subject of a fatwa issued by a hard-line Muslim cleric.

Al-Sharif became a symbol of the struggle for women's rights last year when she uploaded a youtube video of herself driving across the streets of Khobar wearing a black headscarf and sunglasses. The video attracted over 500,000 hits before being pulled from the video-sharing site (see WVoN story).

“We want to change the country,” she said in the video. “A woman, during an emergency, what’s she going to do? God forbid her husband’s with her and he has a heart attack. …

“Not all of us live luxurious lives – are spoiled like queens and have drivers,” she said, in reference to the fact that many women must pay a large portion of their salaries to drivers.

She was later arrested and imprisoned for nine days, sparking a furore on Facebook and Twitter that eventually led to the formation of Women2Drive.

For al-Sharif, the campaign is about women's rights in all areas of life, not just driving.

Speaking at the Oslo Freedom Forum in Norway in May 2012, al-Sharif touched on a number of other struggles faced by Saudi women, including the lack of a right to vote or hold public office until 2015, or the lack of freedom to leave the country without permission from a male guardian.

Yet her continuing efforts to fight for women's rights in the region have led to increasing complications in all areas of her life, including the need to quit her job in order to speak up on stage in Oslo. Her former employer, Saudi Aramco, refused to comment on the situation.

Although al-Sharif doesn't expect reform to come quickly in Saudi Arabia, she hopes her own story will inspire other women to fight for change. The petition and ongoing demonstrations are a testimony to her bravery and optimism.

A giant leap for womankind in China – or is it?

Posted: 18 Jun 2012 03:00 AM PDT

Faye Mooney
WVoN co-editor

This weekend, 33-year-old Liu Yang entered the record books as China sent her first female astronaut into space.

Yang and her two male colleagues blasted off from the Gobi desert on Saturday 16 June at 10.37 GMT. The mission represents an important stage in China's long-term plans to build a space station.

Last week WVoN reported on the buzz of excitement and speculation in the Chinese media and internet following the news that a woman was to be sent into space, despite the fact that Chinese authorities appeared to be playing the decision down.

The significance of her participation appears not to have been lost on Yang, however.

Reportedly fond of making patriotic speeches, Yang told reporters before take-off that she was “grateful to the motherland and the people”.

“I feel honoured to fly into space on behalf of hundreds of millions of female Chinese citizens.

“Men and women have their own advantages and capabilities in carrying out space missions. They can complement each other and better complete their mission.”

It seems that the Chinese authorities have now moved to respond to the flurry of gender debate the announcement provoked.

Spokeswoman for the Space programme Wu Ping commented on the attributes a woman can bring to a Space mission.

“Generally speaking, female astronauts have better durability, psychological stability and ability to deal with loneliness.”

And in a nod to the symbolic importance of Yang’s inclusion, one of the country’s most senior female politicians, State Councillor Liu Yandong, read a message of congratulation from President Hu Jintao from the launch site.

Yet there has been some criticism of the apparent rush to send a female astronaut into space, with some analysts questioning the two years of training the two shortlisted women have received, compared to the standard 14 years for men.

Tony Quine, a blogger who closely follows the Chinese programme, said: "Perhaps there has simply been political pressure to send a woman into orbit? Women's Groups in China have been lobbying for a woman in space since 2004."

Meanwhile, another woman has made a big impression on Chinese social media for very different reasons.

The graphic picture posted online of 23-year-old Feng Jianwei and her dead seven-month old foetus, following a forced abortion, has caused a huge and angry reaction.

Forced abortions are rife in rural China as local governments come under huge pressure to meet birthrate quotas. The image has provoked more calls for an end to the one-child policy and its brutal enforcement.

The two stories illustrate a sad division in China and expose a complicated trajectory for its women.

The Tea Leaf Nation blog quoted a tweet from the Chinese blogosphere, which quite aptly sums up the irony of the stories of the two women:

“We can send a female taikonaut out into space, and we can also forcefully abort the foetus of a seven-months-pregnant woman from the countryside.

“The stark contrast between the fates of two women, 33-year-old Liu Yang and 22-year-old [sic] Feng Jianmei, is the clearest illustration of the torn state of this nation.

“Glory and dreams illuminate disgrace and despair, cutting-edge technology exists alongside the shameless trampling of the people. Rockets fly into the heavens while morals reach new lows, the nation rises while the people kneel in submission. This is how the best of times meets the worst of times.”

Fight for equal pay hits new blocks

Posted: 18 Jun 2012 01:30 AM PDT

Jackie Gregory
WVoN co-editor

Women in the US and Canada have been dealt blows in their fight for equal pay.

Republicans in the Senate last week blocked the Paycheck Fairness Act, a bill which would limit the excuses an employer could give for not paying a woman equally as well as a man.

This is in contrast to a recent court ruling in Israel that put the onus on the employer to explain pay inequalities (WVoN).

The Senate vote angered President Obama who said: “Senate Republicans put partisan politics ahead of American women and their families. Despite the progress that has been made over the years, women continue to earn substantially less than men for performing the same work.

“My Administration will continue to fight for a woman's right for equal pay for equal work, as we rebuild our economy so that hard work pays off, responsibility is rewarded, and every American gets a fair shot to succeed.”

The New York Times reports that almost half a century after it became illegal in the US to pay women less than men for the same job, the weekly wage of a typical woman who works full-time is almost 18% less than that of the typical working man.

Journalist Eduardo Porter says Obama’s administration has failed to look at some of the underlying reasons for pay inequality, and that it may not always be because employers are discriminating but because women are taking different jobs and following different career paths.

The Massachusetts Commission on the Status of Women declares many women are facing poverty in their old age because they take part-time or low paid jobs.

Women tend to be the primary caregivers and this affects the type of jobs they take, often low paid and without pensions, leaving them to rely on social security when they retire, explains Commission chair Victoria Budson, as reported in The Boston Herald.

"Women who worked their whole lives, who have been good workers and good mothers, end up poor," Budson says.

Another reason women are so poor in old age is that they often outlive their spouses and their savings are eaten up paying for healthcare.

In Canada a court has ruled that women may earn less than men in a job of equal value so long as their pay equalises once they have reached the top of the pay scale.

The Star.com reports that the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) argued that women often face more steps to the top than men.

A panel of three judges upheld the tribunal's decisions that found pay equity is “achieved by adjusting job rates — that is, by making adjustments to the highest rate of compensation in a job class”.

CUPE national president Paul Moist said: “It's an intolerable situation of women being blocked from getting to the top rate of pay many more years than men for work that is viewed as being similar.

“We need a statute that says the work of women needs to be valued not at the end of day, but throughout their working careers,” he said. “The path to fairness for women at work — it's a long journey.”