Thursday, November 8, 2012

Women's Views on News

Women's Views on News

Phone app launched for lap dancers

Posted: 07 Nov 2012 05:00 AM PST

 'Dancers Info' promotes safety and rights at work.  

Women working as lap dancers in the UK can now access employment rights, information and personal safety advice with a new iPhone application.

The Dancers Info app gives tips on how to stay safe and in control with customers and managers, as well as guidance on self-employment and tax issues.

It was developed by researchers at the University of Leeds after a study they conducted into the UK's sex entertainment industry revealed that recent changes to the licensing laws have not guaranteed dancers' welfare and safety.

The new licensing laws were introduced in 2009, following a campaign to tackle the increase in lap dancing clubs along the high street.

The changes mean lap dancing clubs are no longer licensed in the same way as cafes but as 'sex entertainment venues' and local authorities can limit the number of clubs operating in town centres.

While the majority of the 300 women they surveyed said they liked the work and felt safe in their workplaces, many also had concerns about verbal harassment, unwanted touching and financial exploitation.

Almost three-quarters of respondents said they had left a shift without earning any money, a consequence of having to pay up to £200 in fees and 80 per cent commission to work in some clubs.

They also faced fines of up to £50 for chewing gum, using mobile phones or being late.

Some migrant workers said they also had to pay out a lot for accommodation and organisation of their work.

In addition, 90 per cent of the respondents said they had never had a contract and more than 80 per cent said they had never received a wage slip.

"I find the terms and conditions of the job (depending on the club/company) disempowering and exploitative," said one participant.

The research also found most dancers were concerned their welfare and working conditions were not being taken seriously by the new legislation with standards of management and safety varying significantly between clubs.

Another participant said: "The new licensing laws have done nothing to change the way the dancers are charged fees and fined and treated by the owners, in fact they will now probably have to charge the dancers more to cover the licensing cost."

The researchers looked at 45 council licensing policies and found that while some had included terms to ensure dancers’ protection, this was not being done automatically.

Rosie Campbell, one of the researchers, said: "It's important regulators take on board the views and working conditions of dancers themselves and not operate with assumptions about what these are."

For further information about the phone app and research findings, visit the Dancers Info website.

Sexual harassment rife in Australia

Posted: 07 Nov 2012 02:30 AM PST

One in four women have been sexually harassed at work in Australia in the past five years. 

Weeks after the event, Australians are still talking about Prime Minister Julia Gillard and the accusations of 'misogyny' she fired at opposition leader Tony Abbott.

Despite the fact that her speech contained example after example of Abbott's sexist actions and comments over the years, there is – still – a debate over whether her motives for such a public dressing down were genuine or were for reasons of political traction.

There are those who believe that her comments were overblown and an example of political grandstanding. Surely, given that the Prime Minister is female, sexism is no longer alive and well in the Australian Parliament, they say.

Well, bad news for those Antipodeans who think so.

Because it's not just the political arena that needs reminding, vocally and insistently, that sexism is rife and remains consistently unchallenged in Australia.

According to a survey carried out by the Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC), one in four women have been sexually harassed at work in the past five years.

That's a quarter of all working women in Australia.

The survey is carried out every four years, and the 2012 figures showed that levels of sexual harassment have not abated in recent years, suggesting that recognition and tackling of the problem has essentially stalled.

The report, 'Working Without Fear', also showed that, while one in ten men say they have been sexually harassed, targets of sexual harassment tended to be women under forty, and that the harassers were overwhelmingly male.

And although there is an increase of men being subjected to sexual harassment, it is not women who are doing it.

Australia’s sex discrimination commissioner Elizabeth Broderick said: ”Four out of five perpetrators are male, although we did find that targets of sexual harassment, the overwhelming majority were women, but also there’s a growing group of men who are sexually harassed in the workplace.

“The survey shows the type of harassment against men is typically different from that perpetrated against women.

“It is predominantly from other men, and its…target is often the man who is not part of the traditional macho culture of the organisation.

“So he’s the man who likes music not sport, he’s the man who sits about outside the group, maybe exhibits greater feminine qualities than other men.

“They’re the ones that are the targets of sexual harassment.

“It is about gender stereotypes, it’s also about power. In fact women are five times more likely to be harassed by their boss or manager, men more likely by their co-worker.”

The fact that Australia actually has a commissioner for sexual harassment would suggest that, when harassment of this nature rears its ugly head, employers will be duty bound to address the problem and take action against the perpetrator.

Unfortunately, this is far from the case, and women still feel overwhelmingly intimidated by the task of asking their employer for protection and for justice.

The AHRC report showed that only twenty per cent of those surveyed who had been subjected to sexual harassment had made a complaint.

And while almost half of those who reported the harassment said it stopped after they did so, nearly a third said that reporting the harassment had a detrimental impact on their working life, and that they were consequently castigated as troublemakers, suffered further victimisation or were demoted.

If only a fifth of women feel confident enough in their employer to report what is happening to them, clearly there are deeply entrenched institutional practices that need to change.

Perhaps the facts that men still dominate senior leadership positions in Australia, as they do in  Britain, and that the gender pay gap as of 2010 was 16.9 per cent, go some way to explaining these figures.

Elizabeth Broderick says that sexual harassment is part of a continuum that started with demeaning attitudes about women and ended with rape and gender-based violence.  She said it 'ruins lives'

She also said of the report: “I am concerned because it shows that sexual harassment in Australia is still pervasive and persistent and really despite all our efforts over the last five years we really haven’t made much of a dent.”

Well, why the hell not?

If the picture is as frustrating and bleak as Ms Broderick claims, bearing in mind she is the commissioner for sexual harassment, then why are there not more robust and punitive measures in place for those who are essentially bullying and victimising colleagues, the majority of whom are women?

If the government, in its infinite wisdom, looked at the problem through an economic lens – dollars lost through long-term sick leave, under performance due to stress, staff turnover due to persistent harassment – then perhaps it would be more inclined to stop turning a blind eye to a practice that should have been eradicated with the plague.

So back to Ms Gillard.

It does puzzle me why people are still debating her motives.

Abbott, in a nationwide campaign, publically called her a 'bitch' and a 'witch' – never mind the ironing comments.

Despite this, a poll in an Australian newspaper last week showed that 39 per cent of people believed Abbott had behaved in a sexist way towards Gillard, but that 45 per cent felt he had not.

Australia, wake up and smell the sexism.

You have a prime minister who is prepared to stand up and at least attempt to tackle the behemoth that is gender inequality.

That’s more than we can say in the UK.