Friday, August 17, 2012

Women's Views on News

Women's Views on News

London exhibition celebrates the lives of Arab sportswomen

Posted: 16 Aug 2012 08:30 AM PDT

Holly Peacock
WVoN co-editor

For the first time in history a female competitor from every country took part in the Olympic Games.

Many of the women came from Arab countries such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Brunei.

In celebration of the Arab female athletes, French photographer Brigitte Lacombe compiled an exhibition of photographs which was shown in London's Sotheby's Gallery.

The photographs were complemented with videos by her sister – documentary and film-maker Marian Lacombe.

Commissioned by Qatar Museums Authority (QMA), the exhibition displayed fifty Arabic sportswomen from 20 different countries who excelled in a range of sports and was on show until the 11 August.

Speaking to CNN Lacombe said she felt the exhibition and the inclusion of women from all countries in this year's Olympics demonstrated that women and sport was hopefully turning  ”a really important corner.”

You can watch a taster of the exhibition on the QMA’s YouTube channel here.

Call for more female judges in South Africa

Posted: 16 Aug 2012 07:00 AM PDT

Deborah Cowan
WVoN co-editor

Lulu Xingwana, Minister for Women, Children and People with Disabilities in South Africa has called for more gender and race equality in the judiciary and more women judges on the bench.

Xingwana was addressing a gathering of the International Association of Women Judges in Port Elizabeth when she made her statement.

The conference theme was 'Judicial Leadership: An Inclusive Judiciary' and considered issues such as judicial ethics, and documenting the work of women.

In her speech, Xingwana talked more broadly about the persistent sexism and gender inequality in her country, saying that women were forced to continue to operate under a patriarchal system.

More specifically, she was concerned at the slow pace of change and progress towards equality between the sexes, particularly in the judiciary – Africa’s first female Judge President, Monica Leeuw, was appointed only two years ago.

She cited the constitution as a model for change.

'The pursuit of race and gender representation is not an idle numbers game, but a constitutional imperative… [The Constitution] requires that when appointing judicial officers, the need for the judiciary to reflect broadly the racial and gender composition of South Africa should be considered.'

She continued: 'We would like to see 50:50 gender parity in the judiciary,' adding that, since women make up over half of the population in South Africa, this was 'reasonable to demand'.

Xingwana also criticised male members of the judiciary who held "entrenched negative attitudes towards gender equality", and who said that women were not competent to decide cases.

She stated: 'Quite often, when we talk about women representation on the bench, we are told there are no women to appoint.

'This is an insult to all women in the legal profession. I believe that women are as competent as their male counterparts. The real reasons behind such assertions are the stereotypes that influence the perception of the world around us.'

She also pointed out that better representation of women in the judiciary would increase women's access to justice.

The conference was timely, as the Women Empowerment and Gender Equality Bill will progress to the Cabinet in the coming months. The Bill is aimed at putting legal requirements in place for the government and private sector to adopt gender equality employment policies.

Xingwana also said that the Cabinet had approved the establishment of the National Council against Gender-based Violence, which will launch next month.

But, warning that there could be no complacency in the fight for equality, she said:

 ‘I call on women judicial officers to become vocal on matters such as these so that together, we can ensure that the agenda of women empowerment and gender equality is consolidated and advanced.’

Olympic legacy – will women’s football in Britain continue to benefit?

Posted: 16 Aug 2012 05:30 AM PDT

Penny Hopkins
WVoN Olympics editor

It's official – women's football has, at last, registered in the British consciousness.

The massed ranks of media pundits, experts, and fans alike agreed that the women's tournament at London 2012 was one of its great successes.

The football was of a consistently high standard; exciting, skilful and committed.  Some of us could have told the doubters a long time ago that this was going to be the case, but we are just happy that they have eventually come to the same conclusion.

And it has other attributes.  Great Britain winger Karen Carney  summed it up when she said:

“We get a lot of positive feedback saying we don’t dive, we don’t swear as much as the men, we have to continue to do that and be respectful….I have a five-year-old niece. .. I’d hate to be a bad role model for her.”

The statistics speak for themselves: 70,584 people were at Wembley Stadium on 31 July to see Great Britain's women beat Brazil 1-0 in their last group game.

This is comfortably the largest crowd watching Britain's women in this country.  The attendance for the final was even more impressive with 80,203 watching the USA beat Japan 2-1.

And yes, we did go out at the quarter final stage, to a brilliant Canadian side (at least it wasn't on penalties), but surely the spark has been ignited and coverage of this sport will from now on thrive in this country.

Or will it?

One thing is sure, the FA will not be able to do it on its own no matter how it tries to capitalise on the feel-good factor surrounding the sport.

The last two years have been ones of huge change for women's football in this country.  The UK now has two semi-professional leagues, the Women's Super League and the Premier League National Division.

The FA is seemingly committed to developing women's football.  Over one million women regularly play organised football in this country.

County Football Associations employ women's football development officers and there is a strategy in place for developing female referees and officials.

But there has to be a sea-change in the way women's football is covered in the mainstream media, given that only 5% of sports coverage features women’s sport.

The majority of this is women's football, but the fact that no domestic games are currently shown on terrestrial television shows just how small a fraction it represents.

At first, even the women's Olympic football was confined to the internet or red button coverage until the outcry was such that matches began to be screened on BBC2.

There are websites, such as shekicks, which are devoted to women's football, but you have to scour the sports section of the BBC website or the daily newspapers to find even the merest mention.

The 2011 FA Cup Final, played at the Ricoh Arena in Coventry attracted  an audience of 13,885, while this year's, at Bristol City's ground, Ashton Gate, drew a crowd of 8,723.

The match was televised live on Sky but coverage was controversially cut short before the penalty shoot out, to go to the warm up for the men's League One play-off final between Sheffield United and Huddersfield.  It is this kind of shoddy treatment that women's football needs to overcome.

The odds are that the British team that we all fervently supported at London 2012 will be the last.

Today the FA announced that it was "unlikely" that a unified Team GB women's team would play in Rio in 2016.  It is just too difficult to sustain a "British" team rather than teams one each from the four home nations.

So the onus is on us.  We need to find out our local women's team and go out and support them.

If women's football is to thrive in this country, we need better attendances to encourage better media coverage.  In turn this will encourage attendance, and so on.

Get out there and support your local team.  Badger your local press into covering women's matches.  And hopefully, eventually, women's football on television or the back pages will become the norm not a novelty.

Saudi Arabia to build women-only city for female workers

Posted: 16 Aug 2012 04:00 AM PDT

Natasha Wilson
WVoN co-editor

A women-only city is being constructed in Saudi Arabia to allow women to work while adhering to the Kingdom's strict gender segregation laws.

The city, to be built in the Eastern Province city of Hofuf, is set to be the first of several planned for the conservative kingdom.

The aim is to allow women to achieve greater financial independence and to play a more important role in the country's development.

The developers, The Saudi Industrial Property Authority (Modon) expect it to open next year, creating about 5,000 jobs in textiles, pharmaceuticals and food-processing industries.

Modon said the Hofuf site was a suitable location given the “proximity to residential neighbourhoods to facilitate the movement of women to and from the workplace.”

Although Saudi law does not forbid women from working, a recent survey found that only around 15 percent of Saudi’s workforce is female despite the fact that nearly 60 percent of the country’s university students are female.

Women find it difficult to find work as they are often not allowed to be interviewed by a male boss and they are not allowed to drive or use their wages to pay for a driver.

Samar Fatany, a Saudi radio host and one of the Kingdom's prominent female voices, says the all women city is a good thing for the country.

She told ABC News that although it seems like more segregation to outsiders it is empowerment in Saudis' eyes.

"Their culture and environment won't let them work any other way.

"It's an opportunity to have an income, be financially independent. It's an economic necessity."

Last September King Abdullah announced that women would be able to vote in the 2015 local elections and in January a law was passed allowing Saudi women to be employed in lingerie and cosmetic shops.

New guidelines for cervical cancer testing in Canada

Posted: 16 Aug 2012 02:30 AM PDT

Auveen Woods
WVoN co-editor

Cancer Care Ontario, a provincial government agency, has recommended that women in Ontario aged 21 and over should have a Pap test to screen for cervical cancer or other abnormalities every three years until the age of 70.

The new guidelines released on Tuesday recommend retesting for women every three years even if they have had no cervical issues for two years.

In contrast to a a national report by Health Canada, Cancer Care Ontario’s new guidelines suggest that women begin screening for cervical cancer at age 21 instead of 18.

Dr. Linda Rabeneck of Cancer Care Ontario argues that a Pap test every three years starting at 21 will detect any changes in cervix that might lead to cancer.

She said that ”new research shows that screening women under age 21, regardless of the age they first became sexually active, doesn’t actually reduce their risk for cervical cancer”.

Pre-malignant changes occur over years which is why it is believed that regular screening over a three year period would be most effective and reduce false positive results sometimes associated with frequent testing.

It is estimated that in 2012 1,350 Canadian women will be diagnosed with cervical cancer and 390 women are expected to die from the disease.

Worldwide cervical cancer is the second most common cancer in women with an estimated 520,000 new cases and 274, 000 deaths in 200.

The continuing prime cause of cervical cancer remains the human papilloma virus or HPV, which is passed from person to person through sexual contact.

HPV is common in men and women but most HPV infections actually clear up on their own.

In some cases, however, HPV can lead to cervical cancer.

More female delegates to attend Chinese Congress

Posted: 16 Aug 2012 01:00 AM PDT

Emma Davis
WVoN co-editor

The number of female delegates attending the Chinese Communist National Congress has risen this year along with the number of young people elected to attend, according to a report this week.

Women will represent 521 of the 2,270 delegates elected to attend the party's 18th congress, 76 more women than 2007.

Despite the increase, women are poorly represented in the party's main policy-making bodies.

At present, the country's Politburo has only one female member out of 25 and there are only four women on the 35-member state council. The Politburo Standing Committee, which is the country's supreme decision-making body, has no female members.

Delegates at the congress elect members of the Central Committee, which in turn selects the Poliburo and Politburo Standing Committee.

Bloomberg Businessweek reported that the changes in the make-up of congress delegates are part of a wider effort to ensure the longevity of the party, bolster public support and the legitimacy of the leadership transition after the recent scandal involving former Politburo member Bo Xilai.

A senior academic suggested that the turnover in the party's top ruling bodies could be some of the most dramatic in the past 30 years.

Cheng Li, a scholar who focuses on elite Chinese politics at the Brookings Institution in Washington, predicted that at least 70 per cent of members in these powerful bodies would be replaced mainly because of their age.

According to China Daily, Wang also announced at the briefing that there would be greater intra-party democracy, with members of a high-level ruling body of the party, the Central Committee, being elected from a wide pool of candidates and a multi-candidate method used for determining preliminary lists of candidates.

He said: “A better enforcement of the right to know as well as the right of participation, decision and supervision are also essential in reinforcing the dominant power of the Party members.”