Saturday, July 14, 2012

Women's Views on News

Women's Views on News

Girls protest Teen Vogue and meet with ‘rude’ editors

Posted: 13 Jul 2012 07:30 AM PDT

Brogan Driscoll
WVoN co-editor 

Teen Vogue magazine has been targeted by a group of girls unhappy with the magazine’s ‘unrealistic’ portrayal of beauty. Its editors, however, seem less than open to criticism.

The girls, disturbed by the damaging effects of fashion magazines on young readers, protested outside Conde Nast’s New York Office in Times Square.

Armed with ‘Keep it Real’ placards and a petition with 28,000 signatures, the girls put on a mock fashion show before meeting with the magazine’s editors.

For 17-year-old Emma Stydahar and Carina Cruz, 16, meeting with the editors was a far cry from what they had expected.

“It was kind of shocking how rude they were to us,” Cruz told NY Daily News after they were handed copies of the magazine to ‘study’.

“We have done our homework,” she continued. “That’s why we started this campaign, because three out of every four girls feel bad about themselves after reading a fashion magazine.

“We walked in, there was no handshake, no my name is, none of that. Just you sit here, you sit here. So you wanted this meeting — what do you want to say,” Stydahar told Jezebel.

“We said what is in our petition. They proceeded to take out handfuls of magazines with little Post-It notes in them, [marking] what they perceived to be diverse images.

“Most of them were thin African-American models. It was a good start – we love seeing women of colour in these magazines. But two or three an issue – and all of them super stick skinny – isn’t what we’re looking for.”

The action comes days after the girls, affilated with the SPARK movement – a group dedicated to ending the sexualisation of women and girls in media – secured a promise from Seventeen magazine pledging to change the way women are presented in its publication (see WVoN story).

“We're really excited,” the girls said.

“Seventeen didn't just promise one un-photoshopped spread a month, they went even further by promising not to change the faces or body size of their models, to listen to readers' feedback and to celebrate beauty in all of its diverse shapes, sizes and colours.”

Earlier this year Vogue, also of Conde Nast, took a stand against eating disorders and the use of underage models in the fashion industry. The magazine issued a six-point plan detailing how it planned to tackle the issue (see WVoN story).

Terry Trial: fighting for equality in football?

Posted: 13 Jul 2012 06:00 AM PDT

Faye Mooney
WVoN co-editor

This week former England captain John Terry has appeared in court following allegations that he racially abused Anton Ferdinand during a match.

The court proceedings have given an insight into the ‘banter’ about women (wives, girlfriends and mothers) that takes place in the (man’s) world of premier league football.

The Independent reports that Terry admitted that although race is a “no-go” area, “girls are part and parcel” of the abuse exchanged by players on the pitch.

As if to evidence this, the court used the term ‘handbags’ to describe the altercation.

The trial is taking place in the aftermath of the Euro 2012 football tournament, the coverage of which was criticised for being sexist. The relentless focus on women in the audience shamelessly marketed female fans as little more than sexual objects.

The problem appears to lie in the negative role of women in some aspects of football’s ‘lad culture’, where sexist humour can be dismissed as ‘banter’.

It is possibly this very culture which caught out two respected football pundits last year, when Andy Gray and Richard Keys lost their jobs at Sky after being recorded making sexist jokes and suggestive comments about female match officials and colleagues.

This year London hosts the 2012 Olympics and Paralympics. With women's football still the fastest growing sport in the world, and hopes that the presence of female stars in the UK for the Games will provide a boost for the sport, it is essential that we uphold all of the vital principles of equality in sport that the John Terry trial claims to support.

Women with fragile bones benefit from drinking alcohol

Posted: 13 Jul 2012 04:30 AM PDT

Rachel Ogbu
WVoN co-editor

Researchers at Oregon State University (OSU) have announced that drinking moderate amounts of alcohol may help protect women against osteoporosis.

The researchers measured the effects of alcohol withdrawal on bone turnover in postmenopausal women. They did this by measuring the blood markers for bone turnover, at the beginning of the study and after the women had abstained from drinking alcohol for two weeks.

Prior to the study, the group were consuming 1.4 alcoholic drinks a day on average, with more than 90% being wine drinkers. Their average age was 56.

“What we found was that the [blood] markers were higher, significantly higher [after the women stopped drinking],” explains Urszula Iwaniec, associate professor at OSU. “Indicating that more bone was being resorped,” she says.

But once the women went back to the nightly glass of wine? The blood markers dropped back to where they’d been before.

In other words, the alcohol seemed to slow down the bone turnover rate, which may over time protect against fractures.

Even more surprising: the researchers found that less than a day after the women resumed their normal drinking, their bone turnover rates returned to previous levels.

In people with osteoporosis, more bone is lost than reformed resulting in porous, weak bones.

Postmenopausal women are at greater risk of osteoporosis because oestrogen, a hormone that helps keep bone remodeling in balance, decreases after menopause.

Alcohol appears to behave similarly to oestrogen in that it reduces bone turnover, the researchers said.

“Drinking moderately as part of a healthy lifestyle that includes a good diet and exercise may be beneficial for bone health, especially in postmenopausal women,” says Iwaniec.

The women in the study who drank more alcohol (up to two drinks per day) had denser hip bones than those who drank less (as little as half a drink per day).

The Framingham Heart Study also documented that moderate drinkers — people who consume one to two drinks per day — have higher bone mineral density compared with heavy drinkers and people who don’t consume alcohol at all.

German town introduces female parking spots

Posted: 13 Jul 2012 03:00 AM PDT

Rebecca Rogers
WVoN co-editor

The introduction of 12 ‘easy’ parking spots in a small town in Southern Germany designed specifically for women is part of a marketing campaign to entice more tourists, according to the town’s mayor.

Gallus Strobel, the mayor of Tribeg in Germany's Black forest region, insists that the new parking spots are a bit of a joke and says there have been no complaints so far.

“I have had much pleasure with this idea,” said Strobel. “I decided last month to do this as a question of humour for our society, and as a question of justice,” he added.

In addition to the 12 female-designated parking spots, there are two ‘difficult-to-manoeuvre’ parking spots in the parking complex that are to be left for ‘better’ male drivers. These spots are narrower, have concrete pillars and must be reversed into.

Strobel said: “It’s a joke.  Everyone in Triberg thinks it is a joke. We looked at the two parking spaces and we said ‘they could be dangerous for your car’, so at the same time, we decided to make them for men, and then give 12 others for women.”

The mayor's main reason for the new parking rule is to try and bring in more tourists to Triberg. He said that the new parking lot is geared towards the 60,000 tourists a year who come to visit the country’s highest waterfalls and the world’s biggest cuckoo clock.

Not a new concept, the city of Tianjin in China recently introduced female-only parking spots also. Similar to those in Triberg, these spots are also better lit, wider and marked with pink paint.

Commenting on the media attention, Strobel said: “I never expected this reaction. I’ve been on the phone all day, the TV will come. I am happy, and it looks like we’ve hit a raw nerve in society. It’s been a great marketing gimmick.”

He added: “Women can come here and prove me wrong, and while they’re at it they can see the town’s attractions.”

According to statistics published earlier this year by the Driving Standards Agency, women are more likely to fail their driving test based on parking problems. In 2010-11, 40,863 women failed due to a lack of control whilst completing the reverse parking manoeuvre – over double the 18,698 men failing for the same reason.

Woman executed for adultery in Afghanistan sparks protests

Posted: 13 Jul 2012 01:30 AM PDT

Naomi Wilcox
WVON co-editor

Protestors gathered in Kabul this Wednesday after the public execution of a young Afghan woman, who had been accused of adultery.

News broke earlier in the week of the execution-style killing of a woman in the Parwan province, about one hour from Kabul. The killing was captured on video by an onlooker and shows a crowd of men gathered around the woman, who is crouched down on the ground with her back to the camera.

A man can be seen reading from the Koran, shortly after which the woman is shot from behind several times. As the woman, who is said to have been 22 and called Najiba, lies dead on the ground, the camera pans to a large group of men who cheer and shout “long live Mujahideen”.

The murder has provoked wide-spread condemnation from within Afghanistan, and the international community.

British Foreign Secretary, William Hague said: “I am shocked and disgusted by [the] reports. Such deplorable actions underline the vital need for better protection of the rights of women and girls in Afghanistan.”

President Hamid Karzai’s palace condemned the killing as an “un-Islamic and inhuman action”, and the most senior NATO commander in Afghanistan, US general John Allen,  called it  ”an atrocity of unspeakable cruelty”.

During the Taliban’s reign over Afghanistan in the 1990s, public executions such as these became commonplace. While the Taliban has denied involvement with this killing, the incident has reignited concerns about the future safety of women in the country as international troops prepare to withdraw.

At the protest staged in Kabul on Wednesday, women and men marched together with large banners, including one which read ‘International Community: Where is the protection and justice for Afghan women?’

One activist, Zuhra Alamyar, who was present at the rally said: “We want the government to take action on behalf of these women who are victims of violence and who are being killed. We want the government to take serious action and stop them.”

Wazhma Frogh, executive director of the Research Institute for Women, Peace and Security said that while this killing had created a fresh sense of worry and fear amongst Afghan women, it was indicative of the reality of women’s lives in Afghanistan. “The truth is… every day we are under threat. If we stay at home we are under threat. If we go to school we are under threat,” said Frogh.

Depite the progress that has been made for women since the fall of the Taliban in 2001, the UN Development Programme still ranks Afghanistan as one of the world’s worst countries when it comes to equal rights for women.

The protest comes just days after an international gathering in Tokyo, at which over 80 donor countries pledged $16 billion in aid to Afghanistan. At the forum, and in response to the video,  Hilary Clinton gave  an impassioned speech giving her support for the women of Afghanistan:

“The United States believes strongly that no nation can achieve peace, stability and economic growth if half the population is not empowered… [It] will continue to stand strongly by the women of Afghanistan.”