Wednesday, November 7, 2012

Women's Views on News

Women's Views on News

Ask Derby for tribute to suffragette

Posted: 06 Nov 2012 04:00 AM PST

Call for a one-minute silence at major horse-racing event in memory of Emily Davison.

On 4 June 1913, the suffragette Emily Wilding Davison ran in front of King George V’s horse during a race at the Epsom Derby and was knocked unconscious. She died of her injuries four days later.

Davison’s protest against the refusal of Britain’s rulers to grant votes for women made her a martyr for democracy and women’s rights.

It will be the 100th anniversary of her protest in 2013, and in a letter to The Guardian this week, a number of signatories have called for a minute’s silence to be observed at the 2013 Derby in tribute to Davison and the sacrifice she made.

They have asked for our support and we are asking for yours.

To add your name to the petition, click here.

The letter has been signed by: Bonnie Greer OBE; Jeanette Winterson OBE, writer; Miriam Margolyes OBE, actor; Frances O’Grady, new TUC general secretary; Tony Benn; Ceri Goddard, chief executive, Fawcett Society; Professor Richard Pankhurst OBE, son of Sylvia Pankhurst; Rita Pankhurst, daughter-in-law of Sylvia Pankhurst; Ruth Spellman OBE, Chief executive, Workers Educational Association; Sally Hunt, General secretary, UCU; Christine Blower, General secretary, National Union of Teachers; Megan Dobney, Regional secretary, Southern and Eastern Region of the TUC; Diane Abbott MP; Natalie Bennett, Green party leader; Lindsey German, author and campaigner; Vicki Baars, vice-president union development, NUS; Kate Hudson, general secretary, Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament; Nina Power, senior lecturer, Roehampton University; author, One Dimensional Woman; Louise Raw Historian; author of Striking a Light: The Bryant and May Matchwomen and their Place in History; Yvonne Ridley, European president, International Muslim Women’s Union; Mel Whitter, London and Eastern Region women’s organiser, Unite the Union; Salma Yaqoob; Laurie Penny, writer; Romayne Phoenix, Chair, Coalition of Resistance; Green party activist; Paul Mackney, former general secretary, Natfhe; Peter Barratt, great-grandson of Leicester suffragette Alice Hawkins; Jo Rust, Secretary, King’s Lynn and District Trades Council; Sarah Levitt, Head of arts and museums, Leicester city council; Clare Solomon, President, University of London Union 2010-11; Elly Badcock, NUS women’s committee 2010-11; Mary Joannou, Professor of literary history and women’s writing, Anglia Ruskin University;  Katherine Connelly, author of forthcoming biography of Sylvia Pankhurst; Jacqueline Mulhallen, actress and writer; Derek Taylor, author and journalist; Anne Moore, Museums Officer, Woodhorn Trust; and Penni Blythe-Jones, director, Centre for Creative Change.

US Elections 2012: Obama Wins!

Posted: 06 Nov 2012 02:28 AM PST

BREAKING NEWS: OBAMA WINS THE ELECTION

4.29 am UK Time: Obama re-elected for another four years!!!

Barack Obama has won a second term as US president after winning the crucial battleground of Ohio, taking him past the 270 margin. Some 33 Senate seats are also up for election as well as all 435 seats in the House Of Representatives.

See our side bar for Planned Parenthood’s twitter feed

Live updates from BBC News online live here

We have linked into the Planned Parenthood twitter feed for today and tomorrow to keep up to date with the US Elections from a woman’s point of view.

Please do let us have your comments on any coverage you are watching – especially on any women’s issues you come across, or if you see coverage that features no women at all!

Universal Credit: a step back in time for women

Posted: 05 Nov 2012 11:48 PM PST

Universal Credit is due to be introduced in some parts of the country in October 2013.

The policy will entirely replace the system of means-tested benefits and tax credits for working-age adults, including Income Support, income related Jobseeker’s Allowance, Employment Support Allowance, Working Tax Credit, Child Tax Credit and Housing Benefit.

But there is widespread concern about the impact of Universal Credit (UC), particularly on equality in the UK: in September over 70 organisations raised their concerns with the government.

Like so many of the Coalition Government’s policies, UC represents a direct attack on women's equality, and their position in UK society.

And it will undoubtedly see the nation's most vulnerable women have their financial and social independence snatched out of their hands.

The  devil of this policy is in the detail.

Take a close look at the small print, and it is possible to identify a worrying set of ways in which UC will leave many women and their families worse off – it seriously has the potential to turn back the clock on gender equality.

It is essential that as we move closer to the introduction of Universal Credit, we get vocal about our concerns.

One of the key aims of UC is to ensure that income support claimants are always better off in employment than out.

Sounds good?

Perhaps – but there is a catch: incentives will only apply to the highest earner in a household. This, it is believed, will actively dis-incentivise the lower earner.

As women are far more likely to be the lower earner – for, in general, they are paid less, work less hours and do more unpaid work such as care- they will be disproportionately affected by this stipulation.

As rewards and incentives are given to their partners, the concern is that the plans will lead to an unwelcome return of the classic “male breadwinner" scenario – a disaster for those of us who had dared to hope that it was on its way out for ever.

This potential problem will be compounded by the fact that the UC is to be paid in the form of a single monthly payment paid to one person in a household, with each family deciding who is to receive the money.

In an ideal world, the money will be paid to the family member who is best placed to distribute it fairly – likely to be the main carer, as Child Tax Credit is currently distributed.

But, as we well know  – and as, I am sure, does the government - that often isn’t quite how things pan out.

Women will be forced to ask their partners for money to buy basic necessities for themselves and their children – and they may sometimes find that that money isn't there.

Even if UC payments are successfully split between a household, the single monthly payment will pose budgeting problems for families who are used to more frequent receipt of benefits –  48 per cent of potential UC claimants budget weekly or daily.

This will again have a disproportionate effect on women, who are far more likely to be responsible for household budgeting than men – not least because 94 per cent of lone parents are women.

What, you might be asking, is the reasoning behind this?

Apparently, the government hopes that UC will mimic monthly wages.

In fact,  28 per cent of all employees are paid weekly, with 42 per cent of these being lower-wage earners.

And the idea that only one person receives wages in a household is utterly outdated.

It seems that this, then, is merely an ideologically reasoned administrative cost-cutting exercise.

The policy is also in line with the government's apparent belief that incentivising two-parent families is better for society.

This however, appears misguided, as it is argued by the Women's Budget Group that financial independence is actually a far better basis for flourishing relationships.

Moreover, there is great concern that women will find themselves trapped in abusive or unwanted relationships. Money will be used as a means of threatening or controlling vulnerable women, and those whose benefit payments are paid entirely to their partners will find it far harder to leave, should their relationship become violent.

The government's proposals seem to be set, completely mind-bogglingly, in a past time, where two-parent families were the norm; where a "male-breadwinner" model prevailed; and where women were not encouraged to live, or work, independently of their partners, even if they needed to.

It demonstrates, yet again, how unbelievably disengaged the government is from the lives of women today, and moreover, of the lives of disadvantaged women.

UC exemplifies a complete disconnect from the day-to-day financial challenges faced by less well-off families.

I am gravely concerned about the impact of this policy on female recipients of Universal Credit.

The potential damage of the policy is not widely understood – indeed, neither is the policy itself.

We need to start getting talking, and getting angry, about this attack on women.

Now, if we are to have any chance of halting these discriminatory plans.