Friday, July 6, 2012

Women's Views on News

Women's Views on News

Women make progress on FTSE 100 boards

Posted: 05 Jul 2012 10:00 AM PDT

Liz Draper
WVoN co-editor

The number of women on the boards of FTSE 100 companies is on the rise, according to a report released on Monday.

The Professional Boards Forum found that one in four FTSE 100 companies have exceeded government targets for female directors.

Last year, the Government recommended that Britain's largest companies aim to have 25 per cent female directors by 2015, a target which has already been reached by one in four companies.

Almost 17 per cent per cent of board members are now women, up from 12.5 per cent in 2010. Over the past three months, 44 per cent of appointments have gone to women.

Several companies have a significantly high proportion of women board members. Drinks company Diageo boasts 44 per cent female directors, with Burberry and Pearson both exceeding 30 per cent. Only eight all-male boards remain within the FTSE 100.

According to Elin Hurvenes, the founder of the forum, which aims to help chairmen find women directors:

"The figures contradict recent reports that chairmen only recruit mirror images of themselves. It also puts to rest the argument that board-­ready women don't exist."

Can Saudi women really compete at the 2012 Olympics?

Posted: 05 Jul 2012 08:30 AM PDT

Joanna Perkin
WVoN co-editor

As reported on WVoN last month, Saudi sportswomen are now permitted, in theory anyway, to compete in the 2012 Olympics.

However, according to Prince Nawaf bin Faisal, president of the Olympic Committee of Saudi Arabia, they can only do so if they dress modestly, are accompanied by a male guardian and do not mix with men during the Games.

In an interview with Aljazeerah, bin Faisal said: “The athlete and her guardian must pledge not to break these conditions.”

Dressing modestly means “wearing suitable clothing that complies with sharia” (Islamic law).

The prince added that for previous Games: “We had no women athletes… But now there are many Saudi female athletes who have expressed to the IOC [International Olympics Committee] and international unions their desire to participate.”

It remains to be seen whether any, and if so how many, Saudi women will make it to the Games as the front-runner, equestrian Dalma Rushdi Mahlas has been reportedly ruled out after failing to qualify.

Some Saudi women are worried that there may be a clampdown on women playing sport in the country once the Games are over, especially if Saudi sportswomen compete and do not perform well.

“We have to wait. I am afraid of their reaction, if we push too hard,” said Rawh Abdullah, captain of a female soccer team in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, in an interview with the Associated Press.

“We risk being shut down completely, and I do not want to reach a dead end because of impatience.”

Speaking about the prospect of Saudi women competing in the Games, Abdullah continued:

“If they do well, it will be OK, but if they have weak performance, they will turn to us, and say, ‘See, you pushed, you went, and you lost. You shamed us.”

She indicated that she would prefer proper investment in training Saudi female athletes before entering them as Olympic hopefuls.

A view echoed by Dr. Abdulrahman Al-Zuhayyan, a Saudi academic based in Riyadh, who says structural and, more importantly, cultural changes are needed before Saudi women can embrace sport and compete at international level.

Meanwhile Human Rights Watch (HRW) is sceptical about the statement from the Saudi Arabia embassy in Britain that it is “looking forward to its complete participation in the London 2012 Olympic Games”.

The New York-based group warned the IOC against becoming “complacent because one or two Saudi women are allowed to compete in the London Olympics.

“The fact that so few women are ‘qualified’ to compete at the Olympic level is due entirely to the country’s restrictions on women’s rights,” said Minky Worden, director of global initiatives for HRW.

HRW warned last month that despite the Saudi decision on the London Games, millions of women are still banned from sports in the country.

“It's an important step forward, but fails to address the fundamental barriers to women playing sports in the kingdom,” the watchdog said.

There are no written laws that prohibit Saudi women from participating in sports. However, they are not allowed into stadiums and cannot rent sports venues.

Furthermore, there is no physical education for girls in public schools, and no women-only hours at swimming pools. The few gyms that admit women are prohibitively expensive for most.

Women cannot register sports clubs, league competitions and other female-only tournaments with the government.

Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Brunei are the only three countries never to have sent female athletes to the Olympics.

“Afghan women’s rights on the brink”, says charity ActionAid

Posted: 05 Jul 2012 07:00 AM PDT

Emma Davis
WVoN co-editor

Violence against women in Afghanistan is endemic and attacks on women are increasing in the run up to the withdrawal of NATO troops, a report by the charity ActionAid has found.

Despite advances in women's rights, the report says that they are still subject to "commonplace violence at home and in public places", with their attackers often going unpunished.

The report warns that the gains of the past ten years could be reversed if early and effective action is not taken to ensure there is appropriate funding and support for women.

ActionAid is calling for the issue of violence against women to be top of the agenda when members of the international community meet in Tokyo to discuss Afghanistan's future on July 8.

The organisation is asking for international donors to demand that the Afghan government tackles the issue, as part of any financial support and that a transparent monitoring system is adopted.

The agency wants at least $90million USD to be dedicated to the cause over the next five years – more than three times the amount currently on the table.

Since the ousting of the Taliban in much of the country just over ten years ago, the majority of Afghan women say their lives have improved, according to an ActionAid survey last year.

Following parliamentary elections earlier this year, women represent 27 per cent of the country's MPs.

It is one of the few countries with quota laws where women have been elected outside the quota, despite female candidates facing violence and intimidation.

The country also established The Elimination of Violence against Women Law in 2009, which criminalised over 20 acts and specified punishments.

However, in 2011 a report by the UN Assistance Mission to Afghanistan and the Office of the UN High Commissioner found that, although judicial officials have begun to use the law, many women and members of the judicial system did not fully understand its implications.

It found that the majority of cases of violence against women are often dealt with outside the formal judicial system and often ends up in pressure on the victim to withdraw her complaint or minor punishment given to perpetrators.

Last year, the country was named as the most dangerous place to be a woman in a poll by the Thomson-Reuters Foundation.

ActionAid's survey also revealed that nine out of ten women said they feared a return to a Taliban-style government, and many were specifically worried about the withdrawal of international troops.

According to the UK's foreign and commonwealth office, the purpose of the Tokyo conference is to "secure concrete financial, development and security assistance from the international community for Afghanistan beyond 2014."

Mary Akrami, Director of the Afghan Women Skills Development Centre, said:

"There cannot be national security without women's security, there can be no peace when women's lives are fraught with violence, when our children can't go to schools, when we cannot step outside for fear of acid attacks."

Global campaigner for women’s health rights dies at 78

Posted: 05 Jul 2012 05:30 AM PDT

Joanna Perkin
WVoN co-editor

Joan Dunlop, a global campaigner for women's sexual and reproductive rights, has died of breast cancer at the age of 78.

Dunlop was instrumental in convincing the United Nations (UN) to define a woman's right to say 'no to sex' as an essential human right.

She was president of the advocacy group International Women's Health Coalition (IWHC) between 1984 and 1998.

In 1995 she lobbied delegates at a Beijing conference over a woman's right to say no to sex, a stance that was endorsed by 180 nations.

A year earlier, together with 15 colleagues, she wrote the first international guidelines on population policy based around women's rights. The guidelines were later adopted by the UN.

Her interest in, and passion for, women's sexual and reproductive rights grew from her involvement in organisations dedicated to population control.

She worked for John D Rockefeller as an advisor on population issues, introducing him to feminists including Germaine Greer and Gloria Steinem, and later as vice president of public affairs for Planned Parenthood in New York.

She believed that if women were more independent and had better living standards, they would be better able to decide how many children to have.

"When we say population policy, people think family planning, and we're saying it's far more than that," she said in an interview with The New York Times in 1994.

Dunlop had an illegal abortion while a young woman in England, an experience that drove her campaigns.

She was angry at the rise of the anti-abortion movement in the US, which she viewed as "an organising tool" for conservatives promoting their broader political agenda.

She often directly attacked the Vatican and conservative politicians, including President Ronald Reagan, on the abortion issue.

"To give the unborn child – I don't care what stage of gestation they are – preference over the woman in whom parents, teachers, society, culture has deeply invested, and say that investment has less value than a bunch of cells, is just to me an outrage," she said.

Dunlop was born Joan Marie Banks in London on May 20, 1934. She grew up in a London suburb that she described as 'Stockbroker Tudor'. Her father was deputy chairman of British Petroleum. Her mother was American.

Free emergency contraception can be posted to London residents

Posted: 05 Jul 2012 04:00 AM PDT

Emma Davis
WVoN co-editor 

Londoners are being offered the chance to stock up on the morning after pill for free to help prevent unwanted pregnancies during the summer months.

Female residents can request a 'Just in Case' kit from the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS) who will post the emergency contraception and condoms to them after a phone consultation.

Visitors to the organisation's website are reminded that it can sometimes be inconvenient to get hold of the morning after pill and so are advised to stock up in advance.

A BPAS spokesperson told The Press Association that "significant disruption" during the Olympic Games could make it more difficult to access healthcare services when emergency contraception was needed.

BPAS lead contraception nurse, Tracey Forsyth, said: “If you carry an umbrella in your bag or a spare tyre in your boot no-one would suggest you are hoping for rain or planning on a puncture.

“Having the morning-after-pill to hand is no different. It doesn’t mean you’re planning on taking chances, it means you’re planning on protecting yourself when things don’t go according to plan.”

The pill is most effective when taken as soon as possible after unprotected sex. Ideally it should be taken within 12 hours but it can be taken up to 72 hours after intercourse.

A plan to provide a "pill-by-bike" service in London earlier this year faced criticism that it would encourage underage sex, despite the fact that a credit card was needed to purchase it, as reported earlier this year by the Evening Standard.

The BPAS spokeswoman said nurses are trained in spotting under 16s, who would be referred for a face-to-face consultation or another appropriate venue.

Anybody who requires the service should visit the BPAS website here.

Media frenzy over woman MP masks real issues facing British women

Posted: 05 Jul 2012 02:30 AM PDT

Denise Turner
WVoN co-editor 

Last week, a British Treasury Minister, Chloe Smith, appeared on current affairs programme Newsnight.

Interviewed by BBC journalist Jeremy Paxman (renowed for his combative style) about the British government's proposed three pence rise in petrol duty, Smith seemed unprepared and demonstrated a shocking ignorance of government policy.

In true understated style, the Daily Mail called for her resignation, while other commentators took the approach of “poor Chloe” or were generally more sympathetic.

But as with the lack of Tory support for the party’s co-chair, Lady Warsi, the most scathing criticism came from Smith's so-called colleagues:

  • One compared Smith to a tiny mouse (was Paxman therefore the cat?)
  • Another, after Smith later appeared on Channel 4 News said: "that whoever put her in front of a TV camera again should be taken out and shot."
  • A third accused Smith’s boss, Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne of cowardice, by letting her be interviewed while he attended a 'dinner party.'

At 30, Smith is one of the youngest ever MPs and an obvious target for the kind of sexist rubbish commonly levelled at women in the public sphere.

And no doubt her support for gay marriage and atheism won't have earned her many friends in the old school Tory club either.

So should feminists defend Smith? Definitely not. For me, the debacle has only served to mask the far more important political issues facing women in Britain today.

Firstly, in his race to get more women into ministerial posts, prime minister David Cameron seems to have barely considered whether the women are actually qualified for the job.

Instead he seems to prefer a 'box-ticking' exercise along the lines of “she’s a woman, she’ll do”.

True, conservative women MPs have raised the important issues of  female genital mutilation, the depiction of topless women in the national press and birth control, but their elitism blinds them to the most important issues facing the majority of their countrywomen.

So rather than donning a tee-shirt saying ‘this is what a feminist looks like’, as Home Secretary Teresa May did last year, they might do better to turn their attention to the impact on women of rising unemployment, social immobility and the most expensive childcare in Europe.

If they could convince Cameron to address these issues, Britain might just be able to drag itself out of its present economic quagmire AND provide Cameron with a much better qualified pool from which to select future women MPs.

Brazilian workplace initiative helps women out of poverty trap

Posted: 05 Jul 2012 01:00 AM PDT

Denise Turner
WVoN co-editor 

Mão na Massa (Get your hands dirty) aims to transform the lives of impoverished women in Brazil by training them for roles in the construction industry.

Aimed at women aged 18 to 45 years old, it's a non-profit scheme that trains women from the favelas (slums) in trades such as plumbing, house-painting and bricklaying.

To date 94 women have completed training and now work in the construction industry. Their typical earnings are 631 reais a month; 14 times what they could previously expect to earn.

The hike in earnings helps to transforms participants’ lives by offering them financial independence. Training is free, as is transport, protective clothing and after qualifying, a tool kit to start up in business.

The appointment on 1 January 2011 of Brazil's first woman president Dilma Rousseff has helped create opportunities for women in the workplace.

And despite the country's sluggish economy, there is little sign of a slow-down in the jobs market.

Salaries have continued to rise, unemployment is at a record low and a talent shortage has encouraged companies to abandon male-oriented recruitment policies.

Norma Sá of Mão na Massa says graduates face little prejudice on-site: "Men don't worry that it's competition for 'their' jobs, because there is so much work for everyone."

The then president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, said at the opening of the PAC (Growth Acceleration Programme) in the Manguinhos slum, Rio de Janeiro in March 2008:

“As I see women with work clothes, they have already made progress on behalf of the PAC, these women are more respected by their own comrades because they will take home a part of what will feed their children, money earned at the expense sweat and blood of these people, this is what we want."