Friday, August 24, 2012

Women's Views on News

Women's Views on News

Mobile app tackles gender-based violence

Posted: 23 Aug 2012 08:00 AM PDT

Natalie Calkin
WVoN co-editor 

A Kenyan woman, Anne Shongwe, has pioneered a mobile phone application to help address violence against women.

The app, called ‘Moraba‘, is a free game aimed at children and teenagers.

The idea is to teach them about issues related to gender-based violence including what constitutes unwanted advances and how to report and give testimony for violent and inappropriate acts.

‘Moraba’ is based on a popular South African board game called Morabaraba and incorporates quiz show style questions to enable children to become informed in a fun and practical way.

Shongwe, an international development specialist and social enterpreneur, created the app following 25 years experience of working at the United Nations Development Programme.

Keen to apply her knowledge to find solutions to social problems, Shongwe started asking young Africans about their perceptions of the opposite sex.

It was then that she realised education was key to preventing negative gender stereotypes that can manifest as violence in later years.

After conducting interviews with the young people, Shongwe told Al Jazeera in a recent interview that:

“We didn’t realise that actually at the core [of much gender violence] is really just misunderstanding and misinformation”.

This realisation informs every design aspect of the app, which has already won the App Circus 2011 competition and funding and support from UN Women.

Shongwe is now looking for sponsorship to expand the game to predominant handsets in the market as well as developing distribution.

This is just the start of an ambitious goal to reach 100 million young Africans at risk of gender-based violence and to change choices and conversations around the treatment of women and girls.

With 200 million young Africans accessing mobile phones and using them for one to eight hours a day, Shongwe has a captive audience on which ‘Moraba’ could have a significant impact.

Working mothers healthier than stay-at-home mums

Posted: 23 Aug 2012 06:00 AM PDT

Shanna McGoldrick
WVoN co-editor 

Working mothers are healthier in the long-term than stay-at-home mums, a new study has found.

Researchers at the University of Akron and Penn State University have revealed that women who return to full-time work before the age of 40 after having children report better mental and physical health than those who work part-time or are unemployed.

This included greater mobility, more energy and less depression.

“Work is good for your health, both mentally and physically," said Professor Adrianne Frech, an assistant sociology professor in an American Sociological Association press statement.

“It gives women a sense of purpose, self-efficacy, control and autonomy. They have a place where they are an expert on something, and they’re paid a wage.”

The study monitored 2,540 women who became parents between 1978 and 1995.

It took a various factors into account, such as pre-pregnancy employment, ethnicity, marital status, prior health conditions and the age at which the women became mothers.

Women who were 'persistently unemployed' experienced the lowest levels of health, according to the study.

Professor French said the results highlighted the importance of career ambition and education.

“Don’t let critical life transitions like marriage and parenthood mean that you invest any less in your education and work aspirations, because women are the ones who end up making more trade-offs for family,” she said.

“Work makes you healthier. You will have the opportunity to save a nest egg. Also, should a divorce happen, it is harder to enter the workforce if you don’t have a solid work history. Don’t give up on work and education.”

Australian commission calls for special sexual misconduct unit for ADF

Posted: 23 Aug 2012 04:00 AM PDT

Rebecca Rogers
WVoN co-editor 

A review into the treatment of women in the Australian Defence Force (ADF) has recommended a dedicated unit to deal with sexual misconduct in the army, navy and airforce.

The second part of a report produced by the Human Rights Commission found that the numbers of women in uniform had not increased much in 10 years.

Sex discrimination commissioner Elizabeth Broderick commented: "If we want the most operationally effective performing defence force in this country, then we need to recognise that the talent exists in both men and women.

"A lot of the jobs and occupations I looked at required really high problem solving skills, they were highly complex jobs and they were jobs which could be equally done by men or women.

“So I do absolutely think that there will be a day when women will flourish like men in all parts of the ADF. Are we there today? The answer would have to be no."

The first part of report, released in November last year, found that a staggering three-quarters of the women at the Australian Defence Force Academy in Canberra had experienced sexual harassment or unacceptable gender-based treatment.

In addition, most of the incidents went unreported.

Ms Broderick said: "We found that members frequently did not report these incidents. Why?

“Because they feared that they’d be victimised, that their career would be jeopardised, that they’d not be believed or that they would be subjected to a sometimes unresponsive chain of command investigation."

Hence the recommendation for a Sexual Misconduct Prevention and Response Office (SMPRO). The unit would be led by a senior Defence Force member and allow people to lodge confidential complaints regarding abuse or misconduct.

Whilst abuse has been a problem for some, Ms Broderick had some encouraging words, saying: "In fact, many members said that they had never been subjected to discrimination or harassment and they described the ADF as a supportive and inclusive employer."

Other findings from the report include:

  • In the Army, only four women make up 71 generalist star ranked officers' positions (5.6%)
  • In the last five years 25.9% of women and 10.5% of men in the ADF have experienced sexual harassment in an ADF workplace
  • Only 22.2% of women in the senior positions have children, compared to 88.9% of men in the same positions

Are we living in the grips of a ‘false rape society’?

Posted: 23 Aug 2012 01:00 AM PDT

Heather Kennedy
WVoN co-editor 

It's been a busy week for the rape apologists.

First, US nominee senator Todd Atkins re-writes the facts of life by telling us: "From what I understand from doctors, that it [pregnancy from rape] is really rare. If it is a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try and shut that whole thing down."

Next up, British MP George Galloway (pictured), who explains that Julian Assange (he of Wikileaks fame) and currently facing two charges of sexual molestation, had essentially just been accused of "bad sexual etiquette".

In his nightly podcast Goodnight with George Galloway, he claimed one of Assange's accusers had consensual sex with him and then “woke up to him having sex with her again – something which can happen, you know”.

Thanks for that George, we'll all sleep soundly in our beds tonight.

With so many high profile figures dedicated to redefining the parameters of rape, it might surprise you to learn that we're actually living in a 'False Rape Society'.

The grip of this society is so pernicious that men are being driven in their droves to seek refuge in a new website, Register-her.com. Or so the creators of the site would have us believe.

Register-her.com is the latest weapon in the armoury of seasoned men's rights campaigners Paul Elam and John the Other, in their crusade against the toxic tidal wave of women who cry rape.

The website features profiles of women who they accuse of falsely crying rape. 'Offender' is the term used by the site to describe these named and shamed women.

Readers are encouraged to submit photos, names and other information on women they deem 'offenders' but must include "corroborating content on third party news or courts web sites."

So all you actually need to announce to the world that a woman has falsely cried rape is a news story accusing her of it.

Hang on a minute, since when did stories from newspapers become hard evidence of anything? If we accept everything we read in the paper, we accept that "Chocolate can halt dementia" and "Aliens could attack Earth to end global warming".

And when we're talking about rape, the problems with media reporting are cavernous. Not least because any woman who loses her case or, for whatever reason, withdraws her statement, is likely to be labelled a false accuser.

My intention isn't to argue that a woman has never falsely accused a man of rape. My intention is to shatter the assumption that a not-guilty verdict, a dropped case or a withdrawn statement is proof that a woman has falsely cried rape.

In a video called the 'False Allegation Epidemic', the case of Grimsby Town football players who were cleared of rape because the accuser was thought to be unreliable is cited as evidence of this 'false rape society'.

There are many reasons why a witness may be judged to be 'unreliable'. In this article, a woman tells the story of how her rapist walked free after she was deemed an unreliable witness.

Let's reflect for a moment on the reality of reporting a rape, a pursuit apparently so attractive to women it remains one of life’s great mysteries that around 80% of rapes go unreported.

First of all, when all you probably want to do is crawl into bed, take a shower or drink yourself into oblivion, you have to trot down the police station to relive, in minute detail to uniformed strangers, the harrowing particulars of your recent sexual attack.

If you can make it past the psychological trauma and the fear that your attacker may seek revenge, you still have the court case to look forward to, where you can expect to be confronted with your attacker and grilled by legal officials on your sexual history or drinking habits. Even then, chances of a guilty verdict remain pitifully low.

I know several women who have been raped or sexually assaulted but for these reasons and more, decided not to go to the police or pursue their cases to trial.

So the idea that there are just millions of women falling over themselves to run this gauntlet, out of spite, regret, or a zany sense of adventure, strikes me as baloney.

But a peek at the writings of Register-her.com founder Paul Elam and we can begin to appreciate the ideology and emotion that drives the website.

In his article 'The Scourge of Rape. Yeah whatever' he says:

I want to have a T-shirt made. "I Survived Rape Hysteria," it will read. If a woman goes to a bar, gets shit faced with a stranger and goes to his hotel room only to have second thoughts that are expressed in the form of mid coitus screaming, or better yet, the next morning, we are loathe to say a word. 

Elam is not a man on a mission to eradicate the deep rooted failings of our justice system. He just thinks women are predisposed to lie about rape, and in the rare case they're telling the truth, he thinks they should shut up about it.

It's fairly unlikely that this article or any other is going to spark a miraculous change of heart in the men's rights lobby, and many of their more outlandish exponents do a better job of discrediting them than I ever could.

So why do websites like Register-her.com matter?

Because the myths that women are predisposed to lie about rape, that rape is blown out of proportion and that victims are to blame form a powerful undercurrent in the psyche of our society.

Just look at Galloway and Atkins; political buffoons perhaps but both convinced that their opinions were acceptable for a public space.

And victims of rape have internalised these opinions. When the twitter hashtag #Ididnotreport was launched it solicited an outpouring of anonymous accounts from people who had been sexually assaulted.

What were their reasons for not reporting their attacks? They dismissed their experiences, felt like a fraud or didn't think they'd be believed.

Knowing they wouldn't be believed, they stop believing themselves. Galloway and Atkins would, no doubt, strenuously distance themselves from sites like Register-her.com.

But their lazy, contagious assumptions about rape, bubbling just beneath the surface of polite society, are one and the same.