Thursday, October 11, 2012

Women's Views on News

Women's Views on News

Big book, big ambition, big day

Posted: 10 Oct 2012 01:32 PM PDT

Giant book tours UK ahead of International Day of the Girl

Soap stars and feminists flocked to Manchester city centre to take a closer look at a giant book installation celebrating the importance of female education.

The larger-than-life book has been travelling around the UK during the run-up to the United Nations' first ever International Day of the Girl, which takes place on October 11.

It is the brainchild of children's charity Plan UK, and one of the main features of their prolific Girls Campaign.

Featuring enormous pages entitled 'Because of education, I can…' the book has been scrawled on by thousands of people who support the need for educational equality.

Messages varied from the practical '…play music' and '…deliver a baby' to the heartfelt '…think for myself' and '…rule the world'.

One passionate participant simply wrote 'listen to girls'.

"A third of girls around the world don't get any education," explained Plan UK representative Imogen Wilson. "This campaign is about raising awareness of that and getting everyone involved in the debate. Girls, if educated, have the power to break the cycle of poverty."

Marie Staunton, Plan UK CEO, said: “…We lobbied to the UN for the Day of the Girl to be formally recognised, because the potential of girls should be celebrated. Our book installation is a celebration of that potential.

“By showing what education has done for women and girls in the UK, we want to highlight just how important education could be for millions of girls across the world who are denied the choice to go to school.”

The charity was also appealing for the public to sign a petition which it plans to lobby the UN with when it has four million signatures, stressing the importance of prioritising female education.

Coronation Street star Ian Puleston-Davies, who pays builder Owen Armstrong in the soap, was on hand to write a message himself.

"I think it’s an absolutely smashing campaign and it’s one that I’m backing 100 per cent," he said.

"It’s just as important for girls to have that confidence and encouragement as boys. When my daughter comes home from school with a big smile on her face it's priceless.

"When you look at what we have in this country in terms of education compared to other places in the world you realise how essential it is.”

And it would seem the general public agrees. "I think it's an awesome campaign," said Caroline Smith, a student from Manchester. "Girls supporting girls can only be empowering."

To find out more about Plan UK, visit their website.

To find out more about International Day of the Girl click here.

Wikipedia writes women back into history

Posted: 10 Oct 2012 07:00 AM PDT

The Royal Society and Wikimedia UK ‘edit-a-thon’ to combat online encylopedia’s dearth of women.

As part of the Women in Science: Wikipedia workshop on 19 October, the Royal Society is making their resources available for the mass update that promises to redress the balance by adding profiles for women in science, technology, and engineering.

Those wishing to get involved can do so online, and Society journals will be accessible free from 19 October-29 November to assist in the project.

The event has been organised as part of the annual celebrations to commemorate Ada Lovelace Day, an international celebration aimed at inspiring and educating people about the achievements of women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM).

Ada Lovelace, who collaborated with Charles Babbage on the Analytical Engine which was to become the modern computer, is already profiled on Wikipedia.

However, among those missing and under consideration for the “edit-a-thon” are women such as:

Lilian Bland, the first woman to design, build and fly her own bi-plane.

Phyllis Clinch, plant pathologist, who helped the Irish Department of Agriculture develop stocks of disease-free potatoes for farmers, and

Alice Everett, astronomer and engineer, who worked with John Logie Baird to increase the efficiency of his television transmitting apparatus.

Uta Frith, Fellow of the Royal Society and Emeritus professor at University College London, will lead a panel discussion after the workshop in Londo.

She expressed concerns about the visibility of women in the field of science and technology, asking: ”Can you immediately come up with a handful of names of female staff in technology?

“Is that because there aren’t any or because they’re sort of invisible?”

“It’s catch-22 – if you can’t find them easily in a place like Wikipedia, you won’t know anything about them. You’ll think they are not important.”

The “edit-a-thon” is one of several planned globally. Similar events will be taking place in India, Sweden and America.

Dutch abortion group makes waves

Posted: 10 Oct 2012 03:06 AM PDT

Dutch abortion counselling group Women on Waves found themselves in choppy waters last week as Moroccan officials prevented them from entering the port of Smir, and naval vessels later escorted the ship boat from Moroccan waters.

It was the group’s first trip to a Muslim country.

Founded in 1999, Women on Waves is a Dutch organization that travels by ship to countries across the globe to give women information on abortion and offer medical assistance, rather than performing medical procedures.

Their aim, they say, is to provide information about safe methods of abortion and provide medical care and counselling to women who may not otherwise have access to such services.

Group founder Rebecca Gomperts, who had flown to Morocco ahead of the ship’s arrival, was also met with hostility on Thursday, as protesters waved banners and chanted 'assassin' and 'terrorist' as she tried to hand out fliers on abortion to the crowd.

Abortion is illegal in most cases in Morocco.  Moroccan law provides allowances when the mother's life, physical or mental health is at risk, but offers no such exceptions in the case of rape or incest.

It is also illegal to provide medical advice and information about abortion.

The Moroccan health ministry said that the ship could not operate on its territory, and requested the relevant authorities to escort it from its waters even though Alternative Movement for Individual Freedoms (MALI), a local women's rights organization seeking the legalization of abortion, invited Women on Waves to Morocco.

The ship initially sailed around the harbour displaying banners which advertised the group's abortion information helpline.

However, a Women on Waves member later said that this was a second vessel, the first ship having already docked in the harbour several days previously, in anticipation of officials blocking the port to their entry.

The second vessel also left the harbour.

According to the Moroccan Association of the Fight Against Clandestine Abortion (AMLAC) hundreds of abortions take place every day in Morocco with many being carried out unsafely.

Marlies Schellekens, a doctor from Women on Waves said, 'In Morocco, between 600 and 800 abortions are done every day, but only about 250 are done by doctors, so they are safer, while the rest are taking risks.'

Illegal abortions are often dangerous and unregulated, carried out in underground clinics and putting women's lives at risk.

In the absence of abortion as an option for Moroccan women with unwanted pregnancies, they are left with adoption as the sole option, given the stigma associated with pre-marital sex.

Women on Waves provides counseling and abortion medication on their ship outside the territorial waters of the countries that outlaw the procedure.

The group has previously caused controversy when they visited the traditionally Catholic countries of Spain, Portugal and Ireland, sparking protests from anti-abortion campaigners.

Back in Morocco, the debate seems set to continue.  Many still oppose the legalisation of abortion.

But for Rebecca Gomperts and Women on Waves, it's about a woman's choice, it's about safety and it's about social justice.

And until these issues are on the political agenda, the  journey for Moroccan women continues.

Bharti Kher opens solo exhibition

Posted: 10 Oct 2012 03:00 AM PDT

Indian artist Bharti Kher opens her first solo exhibition in London.

The artist, famous for both her intricate constellations of colourful bindi dots, and her way of playing with the idea of femininity, presents a selection of her paintings and life-size sculptural works.

The bindis found in Kher’s art are not the traditional red circular dots that many Asian women commonly use to decorate their forehead, but appear in multiple colours and are often shaped like sperm.

Associating this overt representation of femininity with such a pronounced masculine characteristic illustrates the kind of juxtaposition that Kher often brings to her work.

Warrior With Cloak and Shield (2008) is a striking sculpture depicting a mythical female creature prized with huge antlers.

It is neither woman or animal, but an amalgamation of two species.

Kher has been quoted as saying her work is about “the idea of the self as a multiple”.

Identifying that we usually play more than one role in our lives, she relates:

“In my studio I’m the artist. When I go home I’m someone else. When I go somewhere else, I’m somebody else again.”

A prominent sculpture in the exhibition, The Skin Speaks a Language Not Its Own (2006), is a fibreglass life-size elephant collapsed on the ground.

The piece was born out of Kher stumbling across a tiny newspaper photograph of a slumped elephant being loaded into a truck.

Finding an elephant to photograph in her home town of New Delhi would not have proved problematic. Shepherding it into her studio and fixing it in an obviously painful position, would have been.

So Kher instead used substitutes, namely cows. And with some specific centre of mass calculations, Kher guessed how an elephant would fall and moved the project on from there.

Kher did a good job. The ornate design and sequence of white bindis manage to describe the female animal’s skin texture flawlessly.

Aesthetically, the sculpture is spectacular. But conceptually, these sperm-shaped bindis cast confusion onto its meaning.

Are we simply watching the death of a majestic creature? Or does the choice of using swimming sperm-like bindis represent a reincarnation in metamorphosis?

Kher often parallels more individual and personal questions with larger sociological and political topics.

Journalist Jackie Wullschlager questions, does the elephant represent “Indian art overcome by the weight of colonial history” or “a power about to rise”?

Kher is no stranger to audiences misinterpreting her works, nor does she seek to explain the misunderstandings.

Born in 1969 to Indian parents, she was raised in London but moved back to India in 1991 when she was 23.

It was there she met her husband, artist Subodh Gupta, and settled in New Delhi to have two children.

Having been born and bred in the UK, returning to the country her parents emigrated from has allowed Kher to identify those sensitivities of belonging to more than one culture.

But Kher is eager to emphasise a more universal participation in the art, saying, “feelings of neither being from here or there don’t just apply to those who move from different countries”.

If you want to see an artist whose work is as atheistically exciting as it is conceptually meaningful, go and see Bharti Kher at The Parasol Unit (London).

The exhibition runs until 11 November 2012.

No turning back time on women’s equality

Posted: 10 Oct 2012 01:10 AM PDT

Currently 1.10 million women are unemployed and 74 per cent of welfare cuts come from women's pockets.

Responding to the Chancellor of the Exchequer's speech to the Conservative Party Conference about plans for a further £10 billion in welfare cuts, Ceri Goddard, Chief Executive of the equality campaign group the Fawcett Society, said: "We are in the grip of a record 25 year high in women's unemployment, whilst more than two thirds of the current welfare cuts are coming from women's incomes not men's pockets.

"If the government pursues yet another massive swath of welfare cuts it will be critical, and a legal requirement, that they properly assess and are upfront about how this could further disadvantage women far more than men.

"If, as seems likely, women will be yet again worst hit when it comes to a further reduction in welfare, the government will either have to properly and publicly justify this or tell us how they intend to mitigate the effects of such a such a skewed impact.

"At a time when many women are facing some of the biggest threats to their financial security and independence in recent memory we need to hear far more robust plans on how the government will tackle this – and far less retrograde musings on reducing hard won reproductive rights."

Moves to reduce the country’s deficit have left women facing a ‘triple jeopardy’ of slashed benefits, job cuts, and a reduction in the core public services they rely on for themselves and those they care for.

Don’t let the government turn back time on women’s equality.

Help the Fawcett Society’s Cutting Women Out campaign.

Demand change at the highest levels. Write a personalised letter to the Chancellor to ask if he will commit to do more to consider the gendered impact of tax and benefit changes on equality between women and men and if he will work with colleagues across government to ensure that lone parents are not made poorer.

Share your story. Real life accounts of how the cuts are impacting on women are essential in order to illustrate the Fawcett Society's concerns and push for change – they can make a far greater impact on a parliamentarian or decision-maker than stats and facts alone.

If you have a personal story you are willing to share – even if you wish to remain anonymous – then email this address.

We need to talk about Harriet

Posted: 10 Oct 2012 01:00 AM PDT

Harriet Harman’s speech at the end of Labour Party Conference hit a dull note for women.

Last week saw the annual Labour Party Conference take place in Manchester.

The week drew to a close with the final speech being delivered by Harriet Harman, one of Labour's most reliable figures, a respected and seasoned parliamentarian with a trailblazing track record in equalities.

Not only that, she is also the longest continuously serving female MP in the House of Commons.

Harriet, lest we forget, is the women who, in Gordon Brown’s cabinet, was Minister for Women and Equality. She sponsored the Equality Act which, amongst other things, set out new protections against discrimination for women with regards to pay, maternity rights and employment conditions.

So all in all, a good egg, one might say.

And while her current portfolio in the Shadow Cabinet is no longer in the field of equalities, being as she is the Shadow Culture Secretary, she is still seen as a torchbearer for feminist equality by countless women – and indeed men.

With this in mind, it's little wonder that many were left more than a tad bewildered by her 'performance' at the 2012 conference.

For it was indeed a performance, which The Telegraph referred to as 'Harriet's hilarity roadshow'.

It seems to be more and more common for the political big hitters to pepper their speeches with comedy, particularly when wrapping up the annual conferences.  Some carry it off, some not so much.

Unfortunately for Ms Harman, it was not so much.

Bad jokes and bad delivery aside, it was the content of her address that made for jaw dropping listening.

Picture the scene.  The conference is drawing to a climax.  Ms Harman prepares to take the stage.  The audience are pumped (in expectation of Ms Harman's closing address….. and perhaps also because it is nearly home time.)

At last Harriet takes to the stage to warm applause….. or rather, as The Telegraph put it, 'on she tottered, beginning with an impression of a Page 3 girl. "Hello conference," she piped, "I'm Hattie, 62, from Camberwell!" To the relief of the room the impression ended there, jacket and blouse intact.'

Eh?  Could this be the same Harriet Harman who opened her 2009 conference speech, with 'Since last Conference, we have had twelve months of determined progress towards equality?  It's been a year of promises made and promises kept. Twelve months ago, I pledged to you that we would press forward on our progressive agenda to help make Britain a fairer and more equal place.'

Make no mistake. It pains me to write this.  I like Harriet, I really do.

But when she said '’Women are finding it hard to hang onto their jobs – and that’s just the women in David Cameron’s Cabinet. You know Angry Birds used to be David Cameron’s favourite computer game – now it’s his pet name for Caroline Spelman and Nadine Dorries’, I almost wept.

Harriet!  What are you doing?

In 2009 she said 'For us, for Labour, equality is not just a slogan – it's what we are about. It's a way of life.'  She talked about the eradication of the gender pay gap, about greater choices for working mothers, about protecting women from violence and sexual exploitation.

This year she talked about '50 Shades of Grey', saying that women didn't want a man who would tie her to the bed, but rather one who would load the dishwasher and let her watch the ‘Great British Bake Off ‘ in peace.

Given her track record in fighting discrimination and, in particular, being a figurehead and spokesperson for gender equality, one can only hope that this was a momentary glitch, high spirited end-of-conference hysteria.

Either way, at the end of the day, it just showed that trying to be 'one of the boys' was, frankly, beneath her.