Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Women's Views on News

Women's Views on News

Women say no to Shanghai Metro’s suggested dress policy

Posted: 26 Jun 2012 11:00 PM PDT

By Rachel Ogbu
WVon co-editor

Following a warning from Shanghai Metro authorities to “dress modestly,” female citizens in Shanghai protested in the city.  The warning came in the form of a Chinese social network post, Weibo, after a number of harassment complaints were made by women traveling by train.

The post read:  “Dressing like that, it would be unusual for a lady not be harassed. There can be perverts on the subway and it’s hard to get rid of them. Please have self-respect, ladies.”

To avoid assaults by “perverts,” they advised women to dress up in a "dignified" manner.  The warning sparked strong reactions, many claiming it was sexist in nature.

"I can be coquettish, but you can’t harass me," read signs raised by protesting women commuters who believed the warnings were offensive.

"It was a fight against the company’s statement on its micro blog. We believe women have the freedom to choose what to wear, and how people dress should never be an excuse for sexual harassment," one woman who joined the protest told state-run China Daily.

Lan Tian, a media officer from the Shanghai Metro operations centre, defended the online warning by saying it was intended as “a kind reminder for more self-protection.”

“As the city’s subway operator, we have the responsibility to warn women of the potential danger of sexual harassment on the subway,” he said.

He added that there had been an increase in the number of complaints of sexual harassment on the subway, including men exposing themselves and others assaulting women.

One man was accused of ejaculating on a woman’s legs while on a train at the People’s Square Station.

The BBC  reported that the majority of Internet users who responded to a Sina Weibo survey agreed that women should dress conservatively when taking public transportation.

“Dressing appropriately in public is a matter of public courtesy,” said one micro blog user.  ”Asking women to be self-respecting in the way they dress does not equate to justifying sexual harassment.”

Tian described reports of a protest on the underground as “sheer hype”, blaming it on a “feminist organisation.”

Women becoming more prominent in Mexican drug cartels

Posted: 26 Jun 2012 08:30 AM PDT

Alice Rogers
WVoN co-editor 

More and more women are taking on key management roles within Mexico's drug war, says Arturo Santamaría, a researcher at the Autonomous University in Sinaloa.

Mexico's ghastly drug war has led to the arrest and death of thousands of young men and boys over the past five years, making room for the ascent of women within drug trafficking organisations.

Around 50,000 people have been killed since 2006 in a government crackdown on organised crime.

In his book, 'Female Bosses of Narco-Traffic' Santamaría explains how women have gone from being observers to key players in the drug war.

“Widows, daughters, lovers and girlfriends of the men, who are part of the same criminal families,” have had to lend a hand, he said.

Women have been involved in the drug trafficking business since the 1920s and were initially recruited into the business to extract juice from poppy, a process requiring delicate handling.

However they eventually started to take more active roles, including transporting drugs, laundering money and engaging in 'narco-diplomacy'.

Santamaría also claims that the more visible presence of women could strengthen the drug trade, as more and more women are participating in a much more 'intelligent' way.

Apparently they tend to act with more caution and use deadly force much more sparingly than their male counterparts.

However he also added that younger women were just as 'bloodthirsty' as men.

A total of 46 female cartel leaders have been arrested in the past nine months by Mexican authorities and 2,143 Mexican women have been arrested in the United States for involvement with drug trafficking.

Elsewhere research shows that women are disproportionately affected by the war when it comes to sexual violence and femicide, which has increased dramatically since the war began.

A study carried out by the Fundación Thomson Reuters claims Mexico is one of the worst places in the world for a woman to live, due to poor access to education, healthcare, job opportunities and high levels of violence against women.

Southwest Airline tells female passenger to cover up “inappropriate” cleavage

Posted: 26 Jun 2012 07:00 AM PDT

Holly Peacock
WVoN co-editor 

Since 9/11 the security at airports has increased exponentially.

However, one airline's rules and regulations may just have gone too far.

Earlier this month a woman called Avital (who chose not to reveal her surname) attempted to board a flight from Las Vegas to New York wearing a checked shirt and cotton dress.

To her surprise she was told by Southwest Airline staff that she wouldn't be able to fly unless she buttoned up her shirt. It seemed her revealing cleavage was "inappropriate" because … well … who knows why.

A week later, American culture magazine Jezebel broke the news to the world online sparking a global outrage.

Since then bloggers, UK magazines and the New York Daily News have covered the story, forcing the airline to appologise.

Speaking to Jezebel a Southwest spokesperson claimed that the airline apologised to Avital and has since offered her a refund.

They added that their company policy allows staff the discretion to turn away passengers if they feel they are dressed inappropriately.

Unfortunately for Southwest, Avital pointed out that:

“The guy sitting in front of me on the plane was wearing a shirt with an actual Trojan condom embedded behind a clear plastic appliqué and had no trouble getting on his flight.”

Drop in US abortion rate among young women attributed to contraception

Posted: 26 Jun 2012 05:30 AM PDT

 

Catherine Scott
WVoN co-editor 

In a year of unprecedented attacks on American women’s rights to contraception, a recent report  has vindicated the message of reproductive rights advocates.

The study, by the the US National Center for Health Statistics, shows that both abortion and pregnancy rates have fallen amongst 20-something women, and attributes the improvement, in part, to increased contraception use.

Between 1990 and 2008, pregnancy rates for women in their early 20s fell by 18 percent, with abortion rates for the same group falling by 32 percent. There was also a drop in pregnancy and abortion rates for women in their late 20s, albeit small.

The provision of birth control remains a controversial issue in the US, where the Obama administration’s mandate that all employers must include contraception coverage in employee healthcare plans has been opposed by Catholic bishops and political conservatives.

According to the New York Times, 63 percent of Americans support the mandate.

The report also emphasises recent findings that show “an increase in the proportion of teenagers who use a method of contraception” but “a steady, long-term decline in the proportion of teenagers who are sexually experienced”.

This directly contradicts claims by proponents of abstinence-only sex education that educating teens about sex and contraception necessarily leads to immediate sexual activity.

Attack by Afghan minister sounds alarm over women’s shelters

Posted: 26 Jun 2012 04:00 AM PDT

Afghanistan Matters, Creative Commons

Julie Tomlin
WVoN co-editor 

The Afghan government's policy towards women's shelters is again under scrutiny after the justice minister claimed victims living in them were prostitutes.

Activists have demanded that Habibullah Ghaleb be sacked after he suggested they were places of “immorality and prostitution”.

Speaking at a conference organised by the women’s affairs committee of the upper house of parliament, Ghaleb said that the 12 internationally funded shelters had been encouraging young women to defy their parents.

“Mostly they were encouraging girls, saying, ‘If your father says anything bad to you don’t listen to him, if your mother says anything to you don’t listen to them. There are safe houses for you where you can stay.’ What safe houses? What sort of immorality and prostitution was not happening at those places?” he said.

Plans for the Afghan government to take over the running of women's shelters in the country were abandoned last year after widespread opposition (see WVoN story).

There was widespread concern that the move was aimed at appeasing extremist elements in the country and that increased government control over the shelters' procedures would make it harder to protect women (see WVoN stories).

There are around 250 women, most of them victims of domestic violence, living in homes run by charities and funded by international donors, according to the Women’s Affairs Ministry.

After this latest attack, leading Afghan women’s rights campaigner Wazhman Frogh said the allegations were unfounded and demanded that Predisent Hamid Karzai sack him.

“We are demanding the president fire the minister for his remarks,” she said.

Baroness Ashton, the EU foreign minister, said in a statement that she was “deeply troubled” by Ghaleb's comments, which “set back” efforts to fight violence against women in Afghanistan:

“Women forced to resort to shelters are amongst the bravest Afghans we know: they refuse to continue being victimised and instead have acted to ensure their own safety and that of their children,” she said. “They deserve the support of the international community and from the Afghan Government.”

Photo credit: Afghanistan Matters via Creative Commons

Zainab Salbi: What does the future hold for ‘young Zainab’ in Iraq

Posted: 26 Jun 2012 02:30 AM PDT

Julie Tomlin
WVoN co-editor

The childhood home of Zainab Salbi, founder of Women for Women International, has been through a series of changes that themselves tell the story of Iraq and its people in the past 40 years.

Speaking at the Andaz Hotel in London at the launch of Women Making a Difference, a new initiative to help Iraqi women, Salbi said it was "crucial" that we paid attention to what was happening in Iraq.

The hotel chain will be using laundry bags made by Iraqi women as part of the project, which also aims to raise funds to help women rebuild their lives.

From a beautiful home with luscious gardens where she lived with her young, western-educated, fun-loving "yuppy" parents, Salbi described how the atmosphere in the house changed after President Saddam Hussein asked her father to be his personal pilot.

"He started visiting our home a lot, so the house moved from a normal family's home to a house where the blinds were all closed and the neighbours were arrested when they tried to get to their home."

In the 80s there were new dangers during the Iran/Iraq War and during the Gulf War of 1990 bombs again rained down on the city close to their home.

After Salbi's mother fled the country to escape Hussein's regime, having arranged for her daughter to leave for America some years earlier, the family were isolated and punished by the president and the house became run down as a result of sanctions.

In 2003, when the war began, Salbi visited the house and rescued the pictures and paperwork "because I'd learnt from my experience that in times of war that's what people cherish the most and that's the most important thing to preserve".

As security in Iraq broke down, the house was taken over by one of the southern militias and used as an execution centre, where between 20 to 100 people were killed each day.

After that the house became a brothel, a reflection of the growing problem of trafficking and prostitution in Iraq, and then a military base.

Two years ago, in 2010, the house was finally released and her father sold it. Salbi, who is now 42 and has dedicated much of her working life to helping women victims of war rebuild their lives, decided to visit once more during a recent visit.

Now "completely unrecognisable" and rundown, the house is home to another girl called Zainab who sleeps in the same room as she had done many years before.

But life is very different for the nine-year-old who lived there, Salbi explained:

"The library opposite the house is now a mosque, the trees that once surrounded the house are now concrete walls, the garden is utterly bare, and the house where my family used to hold parties and drink cocktails now just has religious flags," she said.

"In that house where I grew up – in a secular family with dreams of doing whatever I wanted in life – there is another Zainab who lives in a very traditional family right now, wears a headscarf, my library is her mosque and my trees are her concrete walls and my luscious garden is a bare one."

Iraq has gone through a "sad shift" and "everything of magic" she knew in her younger life there has been destroyed, she said.

But she added that: “What I have learnt is that what women need the most after experiencing war is not handouts or charity, although she might appreciate a secondhand shirt and even some cash,” said Salbi.

“But what she really wants is the dignity that comes with a job.”

Saudi Arabia allows qualifying female athletes to take part in the 2012 Olympics

Posted: 26 Jun 2012 01:00 AM PDT

Holly Peacock
WVoN co-editor 

Until last week, Saudi Arabia was the only major nation to ban female athletes from their Olympic teams.

However, the BBC has now reported that its Olympic Committee will “oversee participation of women athletes who can qualify”.

Despite the apparent U-turn, it seems that none will qualify as the only hopeful – equestrian jumper Dalma Malhas - is unlikely to attend because her horse has been injured, according to the Guardian.

Due to lack of provision and a clear, intentional restriction of women's access to physical activity (Saudi's regime actually closed private gyms for women in 2009 and 2010) , the ban was only lifted after the International Olympic Committee (IOC) faced calls to ban the country from the games altogether.

Protestors demanded a ban on the basis that Saudi's existing gender discrimination conflicted with the core principles of the IOC.

Although there is still a long way to go for gender equality in Saudi Arabia, King Abdullah, the country's monarch since 2005, has spoken supportively in the past about giving women the right to drive, vote and serve in the country's advisory Shoura Council.

A senior Saudi official told the BBC that “King Abdullah is trying to initiate reform in a subtle way, by finding the right balance between going too fast or too slow.

“For example, he allowed the participation of women in the Shura council [an advisory body] so the Olympic decision is part of an ongoing process, it’s not isolated.”