Women's Views on News |
- Family planning good for the economy
- Book review: Revolutionizing Feminism
- The reality of domestic violence
- Ten ways to help stop rape in wars
| Family planning good for the economy Posted: 19 Nov 2012 07:23 AM PST
Family planning and contraception are controversial issues in countries across the globe, from the Middle East to middle America. Economic, social and religious pressures often mean that millions of women do not – or cannot – access family planning services and take control over their own reproductive systems and futures. We know that this is disproportionately gender impactful and affects women's choices, freedom, and often, their health. It can be a pathway to poverty, poor health and gender inequality for women. A study published by the UN Population Fund (UNPFA) says that there are economic benefits to be gained by proper access to family planning, and that it’s an 'effective means' of “empowering women to make them more economically productive.” The State of the World Population 2012 report, By Choice, Not By Chance, says that there are currently over 200 million women in developing countries unable to exercise their right to family planning services. This is putting them at risk of unwanted pregnancies. The report suggests that, should developing countries invest positively in family planning, more than $11 billion a year could be saved in health care costs for pregnant women and new born babies. Consequently the rates of unsafe abortions, maternal deaths and infant mortality would fall. Population growth was also highlighted as an issue. The UN estimates that in the next thirty or so years, the global population will grow from 6.7 billion to 9.2 billion and eventually the demand for water, food and fuel could become unsustainable. Comparisons were drawn with developed countries in Europe and America, where planning for families and reducing unwanted pregnancies lowered the birth rate and reduced the drain on the economy and on resources. It also talked about pregnancies in teenagers, and the ripple effect on their opportunities for further education and career development, which also had a negative impact on economic growth. The report provides a stark look at the economic reality, even for developed countries, where family planning is not provided effectively. But it also talks about the status and wellbeing of women. Dr Babatunde Osotimehin, Executive Director of UNFPA said: “Not only does the ability for a couple to choose when and how many children to have help lift nations out of poverty, but it is also one of the most effective means of empowering women. “Women who use contraception are generally healthier, better educated, more empowered in their households and communities and more economically productive. “Women's increased labour-force participation boosts nations' economies.” In short, a failure to provide services leads to poverty, poor health and gender inequality. 'By Choice, Not By Chance' also talks about the human right to access family planning. It says: “The basic right of all couples and individuals to decide freely and responsibly on the timing and number of their children is understood as a key dimension of reproductive rights. “Alongside the right to attain the highest standard of sexual and reproductive health, and the right of all to make decisions concerning reproduction free of discrimination, coercion and violence.” Economic sustainability is now, more than ever, a global concern and the rights, mental and physical wellbeing of women should be too. Perhaps this report will deliver on both fronts.  |
| Book review: Revolutionizing Feminism Posted: 19 Nov 2012 04:00 AM PST
Anne E. Lacsamana's new book, Revolutionizing Feminism The Philippine Women's Movement in the Age of Terror, both critiques current trends in Western academic feminist theory and offers a more historically grounded method for understanding the grassroots activism of women's groups in the Philippines. At the centre of her critique is what she sees as the current trends in feminist theory that depoliticize women's experiences and divorce them from "concrete realities" which underpin their choices or lack of choices for women in the Global South. Lacsamana is particularly concerned with Western feminism being applied to non-Western cultures. She believes that Western ahistorical and individualistic theories do a disservice to women in the Global South because their material existence is embedded within communal identities and they directly reap the ramifications of Western imperialism. What she describes as the "standard lenses"—agency and resistance—Western feminism employs are not useful for understanding women's activism in the Philippines precisely because they are theoretical tools not grounded in the capitalist and imperialist processes that have shaped the modern Philippines and women's lives within the nation. Furthermore, Lacsamana challenges the notion that nationalism is patriarchal and cannot be functional for women's advancement because, in the case of the Philippines, women’s movements have been intricately connected to nationalist activism. Lacsamana's book focuses on the collective action of grassroots women's organizations in the Philippines using a framework of historical materialism that allows her to examine women's activism within a trajectory of Philippine relations with the United States and Spain. Her book begins with a discussion of the historical factors that have tied the Philippines to the United States economically, culturally and militarily and how this tense relationship has contributed to the current political situation in which the government regularly violates human rights. From there Lacsamana presents a history nationalist feminism in the Philippines starting with an explanation of how the Spanish and the United States presence affected women and how this history impacts the contemporary women's movement. Lacsamana also takes on the two of the most prevailing issues for women in the Philippines – overseas contract work and tourism. She situates the current trend in exporting the labour of Filipina workers as domestic and service workers within the international division of labour and argues that collective resistance is necessary and effective rather than individual agency. Similarly, Lacsamana examines the debate on sex work/prostitution in order to argue that choice for Filipinas in selling their bodies for sex or marriage is qualified by the larger political circumstances that draw them to these highly limited options. In her final chapter, Lacsamana analyzes the Subic rape case, when a US soldier raped a local woman. In this complex case, she argues that the US-Philippine relations interfered with justice and even though women's groups actively supported "Nicole," the victim, the history of colonial relations created an ambivalent public response to Nicole's case. The value of Lacsamana's book lies in its groundedness in Philippine history and how this history still resonates in contemporary life, especially for women. Further, her focus on women's groups and their collective identities rather than individuals is far more appropriate than the Western feminist focus on the individual given that family relations are more fundamental to Filipino culture than Western cultures. However, Lacsamana's critique of Western feminism is extended and overplayed to the point of being defensive of her own method and ultimately detracts from her analysis of the Filipina women's movement. Her rebuttal of Western postmodernist feminism is repetitive and takes up more of the book than a more substantive analysis of the history, strategies and legacies of the Filipina grassroots feminist movement. And while she points out in the Subic rape case chapter that Catholicism heavily influences people's views of women in the Philippines, she does not take on the Church in her analysis, something that, I believe, should have been a more central part of her project. Despite these shortcomings, Lacsamana's book is a valuable contribution to understanding feminist activism in the Philippines. Its value lies in its reorientation of the feminist lens and challenges readers to rethink their understanding of feminism and its limitations as a one-size-fits-all ideology. While Lacsamana's argument assumes an understanding of Western academic feminism in its current formation, she provides enough grounding for those less versed in the nuances of postmodernism. Anne E. Lacsamana is Associate Professor of Women’s Studies at Hamilton College, Clinton, New York. She is the coeditor of Women and Globalization (2004) and has published several articles on global/transnational feminist theory and US-Philippine relations. Revolutionizing Feminism The Philippine Women's Movement in the Age of Terrorism is the first feminist analysis of the contemporary human rights crisis in the Philippines, where over 1,000 activists have been murdered since 2002.  |
| The reality of domestic violence Posted: 19 Nov 2012 03:05 AM PST
With 1 in 4 women suffering domestic violence (DV) in the UK and two women murdered – yes murdered - each week, the reality of DV for many women goes beyond the figures. If you are lucky enough to not have experienced this, the odds are that you know someone (or more than someone) who has. This is certainly true in my case: as well as being a survivor of DV in childhood, I also survived DV in at least two adult relationships, and currently have a close friend who is in the midst of trying to flee her own abuser, which began when she had to run from her own home, complete with children, in the middle of the night. It was against this backdrop that I received a link to a new video about domestic violence, produced by Dr Kai Switgart, a US psychologist specialising in trauma working for a US counselling service. The video was produced to raise awareness for October's Domestic Violence month, and is in part a reflection of Dr Switgart's experiences as a therapist. The text that accompanies the video states: “Once I began working with a woman after she had been nearly beaten to death, and the next time I saw her she had shot and killed her husband in order to save her own life.” As a survivor of DV I am always interested in media that attempts to show how prevalent and dangerous DV is to women and children. So I duly clicked on the link*. Called 'Don't feel like Heaven Anymore', what followed was a harrowing four minutes watching women being beaten by men overlaid with a soundtrack by singer songwriter Fire Prince. The scenes in the video are taken from existing films, such as the Girl with a Dragon Tattoo, Ike and Tina and The Burning Bed. Horrified, I sat frozen throughout the four minutes of the film, appalled at the level of violence displayed. Having seen at least three of the films, I perhaps shouldn’t have been shocked, but spliced together the effect punched through the mental defences I had built up around my own experiences and left me feeling sick from the adrenalin rush. This effect lasted all day, and by that evening I was exhausted from the flood of emotions and flashbacks triggered by the video. My first reaction was to email Dr Switgart and request that he put a trigger warning on any subsequent emails because it was so upsetting. Also, given that we at WVoN made a recent policy decision that any stories about DV should not feature the usual ‘bruised victim pic’, to avoid perpetuating the image of women as victims ‘cowering in a corner’, I also talked with a friend about whether this type of video should even be in the public domain. After some thought, whilst I recognised that my reaction to this video was related to my own experience, this does not take away from the fact that this was because the scenes rang true. As there is no context to frame the scenes, they are raw, violent and brutal. As such, the video lays bare the reality of domestic violence without any accompanying contextual information, such as the 'she nagged me' defence. For me, this type of defence obscures the fact that a victim of domestic violence is being violently assaulted and so should have no part in this equation. Similarly, contextual information surrounding rape victims – 'she was wearing a short skirt/drunk/flirting etc etc' – should also have no part in that equation. Violence against women is just that, and no amount of contextual information (victim blaming) should obscure the fact that women are being assaulted, beaten and raped every day. This obscuration of the reality of DV is reflected by the law: as it stands there is no actual specific DV criminal offence in the UK; instead we have a 'definition', which refers to 'incidents of threatening behaviour, violence or abuse'. More recently, this definition is to be broadened to include: ‘those aged 16-17 and wording to reflect coercive control.’ But still this is not to be written into law. Meanwhile, although – according to the CPS - DV prosecutions have 'risen by 15,000 over four years' many women do not come forward in the first place. Even when they do, they might not want to see the case through or they withdraw their complaint. And why? Well, going back to the friend I mentioned at the beginning of this article – she is still trying to get the police to take her seriously: to date they have refused to arrest her partner for DV, a refusal that has led her to feel that the next event will be her death at his hands. So, to sum up – we have contextual information that obscures the reality of DV, a police force that refuses to see DV as a ‘real’ assault, and a law that does not recognise DV as an entity in its own right. And so, upsetting as the video is, I believe that it may play an important role in showing the reality of DV to decision-makers and help them move towards laying down a specific law, automatically enforced by police without the need for a woman – who may have suffered years of abuse and thus is experiencing battered woman syndrome - to press charges against her abuser. I emailed Dr Switgart for a quote about the video and whilst he acknowledged it is 'hard to watch’, he feels that it is a graphic representation of the need for us, as a human race, to evolve: ‘I believe that, until we have, as a race, evolved beyond the point of using physical size and strength to exert power and control over other human beings, we will be unable to effectively evolve any further, since this type of primitive behavior will continue to pull those of us seeking enlightenment back down into the lower level consciousness in order to survive.’ *Due to the graphic nature of the video, I have not linked to it, but it is easily searchable by the title on You Tube. The search comes with a SEVERE trigger warning. Help and support:
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| Ten ways to help stop rape in wars Posted: 19 Nov 2012 01:00 AM PST
The International Campaign to Stop Rape and Gender Violence in Conflict unites organisations and individuals around the world working to amplify the voices of survivors and stop rape. It is a global collaboration between Nobel Peace laureates, international advocacy organisations, and groups working at regional and community levels in conflict zones. And it is demanding urgent and bold political leadership to prevent rape in conflict, protect civilians and rape survivors, calls for justice for all and effective prosecution of those responsible. Although rape and gender violence destroy individuals and families, entire communities and the fabric of society, it has increasingly become a deliberate tactic of terror in war and other conflict situations. In recent years massive numbers of women – and sometimes men and boys – have suffered not only the physical trauma of rape and gender violence in war and other conflict situations, but also the shame and stigma that often leaves survivors suffering – usually in silence – long after the event. It has become clear that perpetrators have been going unpunished and impunity is the order of the day. And it has also become clear that national, regional, and international commitments to end rape and gender violence in war and other conflict situations are either seriously inadequate or are not being enforced. The campaign will focus on four countries to begin with: Burma, Colombia, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Kenya; four places where immediate, coordinated action is needed. And if you want to help, here are 10 things you can do:
For suggestions as to how to do any, or all, of the 10 things, click here. For more information about the International Campaign to Stop Rape and Gender Violence in Conflict, click here.  |
New video shows the brutality of domestic violence
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