Women's Views on News |
- The Bell Jar and the chick-lit treatment
- Police spy story plot sickens
- Science needs women
- Changes for women’s ice hockey
- Gender theme for Women’s Day
| The Bell Jar and the chick-lit treatment Posted: 15 Feb 2013 08:04 AM PST
'Silly','hideous' and 'an insult to women everywhere' – Faber's new cover for Sylvia Plath's Bell Jar has sparked controversy and no small amount of ire. Many feel the cover - depicting a woman applying make-up – does not accurately reflect the content of the book, which follows the protagonist, Esther Greenwood, as she grapples with mental health issues. Others interpret this as an attempt to place The Bell Jar in the 'chick-lit' category. Not everyone, however, dislikes the new cover. In a letter to the Guardian, one reader pointed out it refers to a scene in the book where Esther, 'struggling with depression…bursts into tears. She takes out her mirror and repairs her makeup “with a small heart”.’ And Kirsty Grocot robustly defends the cover, arguing that it ‘captures the essence of the protagonist’s predicament perfectly'. Several other works have also received the 'chick-litification' treatment. Wuthering Heights was remarketed with artwork resembling that of the Twilight series and bearing the by-line, 'love never dies'. The recent new cover for Anne of Green Gables caused a stir as the eponymous redheaded heroine was replaced by a blonde with 'come-hither eyes'. This story has spawned some tongue in cheek spoofs – offering yet more inappropriate covers of the Bell Jar, or 'chick-lit' reworking of other classics. And contemporary female authors also face a battle to ensure that their own books aren't automatically given 'chick-lit' covers. Lionel Shriver described how her fourth novel, 'Game Control', had initially been given a pastel cover of a 'winsome young lass' in a hat, in a field. This despite the fact that the book's protagonist is a man and the plot about a plan to kill two billion people. It doesn't bode well when people think things need to be light and fluffy in order to appeal to women and the trend of placing an increasing amount of women's books in the 'chick-lit' section is worrying. In doing so, novels by women are being trivialised and lose potential readers. On a separate note, the very category of 'chick-lit' is problematic. As Lucy Uprichard points out, we have no equivalent term for men's books – however light and 'half-baked' they are. Yet for all the many problems with 'chick-lit' and the rebranding of classics, there remains one nagging question. If this new cover leads to more women picking up and reading the Bell Jar, can that be a bad thing?  |
| Posted: 15 Feb 2013 06:55 AM PST
Imagine the scene: a woman fills in a form stating who her partner and father of her child is. Then after a quick background check by a would-be employer, or a lender, or a bank official, it is revealed that there is an untruth in the signed document. Next thing comes a knock on the door. The knock is not a postman with a registered letter or a ‘you can start tomorrow’ confirmation, but some guys in uniform calling for an explanation as to why the father named in the form died when he was eight. And there she is, accused of attempted fraud – if not terrorism given today’s paranoia – and before she knows it she is in jail. All she did was have a baby. The Metropolitan police’s deputy assistant commissioner Patricia Gallan has now told a parliamentary inquiry that two secret police units broke internal guidelines when they stole dead children’s IDs for use during their undercover operations. Secret police – in the UK? One such document seen by the Guardian indicates that around 80 police officers used such identities between 1968 and 1994, and, the total number could be higher – not surprising when we consider how many protest groups there are in this country. One police officer, who adopted the fake persona of Pete Black while undercover in anti-racist groups, had even visited the dead child’s home town to familiarise himself with the surroundings, so as to 'fully immerse himself in the adopted identity and appear convincing when speaking about his upbringing'. Black, who was undercover in the 1990s, said his operation was “almost Stasi-like”, referring to how former police in East Germany are held with contempt by British governments. Black said officers in the covert unit known as the special demonstration squad (SDS), which was originally set up to tackle anti-Vietnam protests, visited the house[s] they were supposed to have been born in so they would have a memory of the building. “It’s those little details that really matter – the weird smell coming out of the drain that’s been broken for years, the location of the corner Post Office, the number of the bus you get to go from one place to another,” he said. MPs have criticised this activity – the stealing of dead children’s details – as “gruesome” and “very distressing” but have said remarkably little about the women affected by the men who stole and lived with these IDs. Another SDS undercover police officer who adopted the identity of a dead child has been named as sergeant John Dines. During his covert deployment, Dines, under the assumed name John Barker, had a two-year relationship with a female activist before disappearing from her life after faking a nervous breakdown. In an attempt to track down her boyfriend under his assumed name, the activist was unaware that she was actually searching for a dead child. She said she was relieved that she never managed to find his ‘family’, the parents of a dead boy. “It would have been horrendous,” she said. “It would have completely freaked them out to have someone asking after a child who died 24 years earlier.” The disclosure about the use of the identities of dead children, says the Guardian, is likely to reignite the controversy over undercover police infiltration of protest groups. It better had. Fifteen separate inquiries have already been launched since 2011 when Mark Kennedy was unmasked as a police spy who had slept with several women, including one who was his girlfriend for six years. Six years. Lord Macdonald, the former director of public prosecutions, has called for a public inquiry into undercover policing following the Guardian’s revelations about officers ‘who stole dead children’s identities and formed sexual relationships with members of anti-capitalist and environmental protest groups’. Macdonald said the police appeared to have “completely lost their moral compass”, and an inquiry was needed to ensure such tactics were still not being used. In the normal course of events, to search your house the police have to get a warrant, and to bug your house or tap your phone they have to have approval from the Home Secretary. But to live in your house, hear all your calls, integrate into your family, be your quasi-marital partner, have a child that they know they will leave you to bring up alone from pre-school age onwards, this apparently just requires the police to decide they want to do it. But this is not the only issue MPs appear to be not talking about. Who ordered all this? Do the police make up these missions for themselves or are they given ideas, directions and commands from acknowledged – read ‘elected’ – political sources? If ‘yes’ to the latter, are these (elected) political source connected to or some part of the government of the day? Or an international mix of governments and security services? Maina Kiai, the Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association, was in the UK for a week in January and was reported as saying: ”The case of Mark Kennedy and other undercover officers is shocking as the groups in question were not engaged in criminal activities.” “The duration of this infiltration, and the resultant trauma and suspicion it has caused, are unacceptable in a democracy.” Kiai has called on the authorities to ‘undertake a judge-led public inquiry into the Mark Kennedy matter, and other related cases, with a view to giving voice to victims, especially women, who were deliberately deceived by their own government, and paving the way for reparations’. ‘Deliberately deceived by their own government’. Those of us who live in the UK may wonder who is it who thinks so little of British women that they encourage or permit someone to hone in on them, totally invade their lives and then actively, purposely, have children they intend to leave? It makes you wonder how far this contempt for women actually goes. Earlier this month the official policing inspectorate report concluded that the “intrusive” tactic should in future be used only after independent authorisation. The report had little to say on one of the most explosive aspects of the controversy – undercover officers sleeping with, and even having children, with the activists they have been sent to spy on. Eight women, former girlfriends of these police spies, have started legal action against police chiefs, saying they were “deliberately and knowingly deceived” into forming long-term intimate relationships with undercover policemen. ‘This report,’ they said in a statement, ‘misses an opportunity to clearly and unequivocally outlaw any undercover operative from entering into and maintaining long term intimate relationships whilst undercover. ‘It is of concern that whilst the report recognises the psychological harm that may be caused to the police officer, no mention is made of the harm they cause to the women with whom they enter such a relationship which is potentially far more serious. ‘There can be no justification for such relationships and for the outrageous state intrusion on the privacy of those concerned nor for the serious emotional and psychological damage caused’. The eight want an end to this kind of conduct. “We are,” they said, “bringing this case because we want to see an end to the sexual and psychological abuse of campaigners and others by undercover police officers. “It is unacceptable that state agents can cultivate intimate and long lasting relationships with political activists in order to gain so called intelligence on those political movements.” It is indeed.  |
| Posted: 15 Feb 2013 05:55 AM PST
Discrimination against women is well documented in the fields of science, from hiring processes to grant funding and research publication. And several recent discussions have highlighted the breadth and depth of the often-involuntary male bias. But women are needed. Many items frequently used in everyday life have been researched and design-tested on the assumption of an average male body. This absence is seen in day-to day issues: crash test dummies are the size of an average man for example, and car seat belts are not designed for pregnant women. Or in medicine, where calculations for radiation dosages are based on the absorption rate of a middle-aged man. More women in science could help broaden this assumed norm of male to a more normal mix of male and female. Ian Douglas, the Telegraph's head of digital production, said in a recent article that "the problem is not only in encouraging young women to take up science, engineering, technology and maths-related subjects, but persuading them to look for a career in them once they graduate. "The Royal Society of Edinburgh found that more than 70 per cent of women who had taken science subjects at degree level did not use them in their subsequent careers, compared with 48 per cent of science-qualified men." If very few professionals are women, the ability to examine and pose questions from multiple viewpoints is necessarily decreased. And as a result of the low numbers of women entering and progressing through scientific fields of work, there is a subsequent lack of women in high profile, senior positions. This greatly reduces the number of role models available to young girls. At an astronomy event that Douglas chaired at the Royal Institution, "thinking that my daughter would enjoy something like this in a few years, I looked out at the crowd. I saw… no girls. Not one." His recommendation is this: "Parents, look at your daughters. “She might well like dolls and ponies but if you don't expose her to meteorites and quantum entanglement, how is she ever going to know any different?" There are many organisations and programmes being run to try to solve this problem, from the L'Oreal-UNESCO for Women In Science international programme to the University of Dundee's annual Women in Science festival; the Texax A&M University's annual Conference for Women in Science and Engineering (WISE); and Sheffield Hallam University's Women in Science, Engineering and Technology (WiSET) programme. However, even gaining entry into scientific fields of work is not enough to erase the bias. Hilary Rose, Emerita Professor at Bradford University and Visiting Professor of Sociology at the London School of Economics, questions current assumptions about the roles available to women. Following recent publication of the book 'Genes, Cells and Brains' about the bioscience industry which she co-authored with neuroscientist Steven Rose, she spoke to the Guardian about ethics in bioscience. Regarding stem cell research, she says that she is "more interested in the raw material which is the eggs from women's bodies which can only be secured by women putting themselves at risk – you can even lose your life during this process. "It is considered appropriate to mine women's bodies in order to get raw material for research. "To me, that is an almost non-negotiable ethical problem because what it does is cast women in the Victorian angel-in-the-house [role], [as] the self-sacrificing woman who gets all her meaning in life as sacrificing herself for others. "I find this quite unacceptable." As a senior female scientist wrote (anonymously) in the Guardian, "I think… discrimination occurs against women at the outset of their careers, and that it is systemic. "Without a proactive approach to address the problem, we will be stuck at the current numbers for the next 100 years."  |
| Changes for women’s ice hockey Posted: 15 Feb 2013 04:00 AM PST
Great Britain Women's ice hockey team manager Anna Walters has announced she is stepping down from her position as team manager of the national team. She has been involved with GB Women for seven years. Most recently, she managed the team in the Olympic pre-qualifying event in China in November 2012. Walters spent much of the trip to China, which now counts as her final official role, keeping forward Saffron Allen company after a serious lower back injury, and bringing her safely home to her family. One of Walters’ most memorable moments came in 2008, when GB won the gold medal and promotion in the Division 3 tournament in Hungary after a dramatic sudden death penalty shoot-out. “I will never forget standing arm-in-arm on the bench with Sarah and Geri,” she said. “We could barely look as the penalty shots were taken. “That gold medal is something I will treasure for ever, along with our 2007 silver and 2009 bronze." With women's ice hockey continuing its unprecedented growth worldwide, the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) took a further step towards realising the full potential of the women's game when it signed a declaration promising to develop a culture which enables and values the involvement of women in every aspect of the sport. The Brighton Declaration, signed at the Annual Congress in Helsinki last September, was a result of the first International Conference on Women and Sport, which brought together policy and decision makers in sport at both the national and international level. It was organised by the British Sports Council and supported by the International Olympic Committee, and held in 1994 in Brighton, UK. The declaration encompasses everything from high-level to school and junior women's sports, facility and participation development, education, research, as well as domestic and international cooperation. It is meant to complement all sporting, local, national and international charters, laws, codes, rules and regulations relating to women or sport. Where the IIHF is concerned, this means a more concerted effort to encourage national federations to provide the same level of support for women's ice hockey programs as for men's. While the signing has not yet resulting in any concrete events or proposals, the IIHF’s track record over the last decade shows increasing support for women’s ice hockey, leading to much greater interest and participation worldwide. And the association between the IIHF and other declaration signatories could well lead to new and creative development opportunities for women and hockey. GB Women’s next international challenge is in France from 8 – 14 April.  |
| Posted: 15 Feb 2013 01:31 AM PST The Gender Agenda: Gaining Momentum is the official theme for International Women's Day on 8 March. The rape and death of a trainee physiotherapist in Delhi, and the Taliban shooting of Malala Yousafzai have focused global attention, but thousands more stories of gender violence and discrimination affecting the daily lives of women remain unreported. A CNN report spotlights how discrimination begins in the womb; in an interview a woman describes the pressure she resisted to abort her four daughters. This week also saw the 10th anniversary of the International Day of Zero Tolerance For Female Genital Mutilation; up to 140 million women have undergone this procedure throughout the world. As the Brighton and Hove group of International Women's Day (IWD) say on their website: ‘Gender-based violence causes more deaths and disabilities among women worldwide, aged 15-44, than cancer, malaria, traffic accidents and war, and three million women across the UK experience rape, domestic violence, trafficking, forced marriage or other violence each year’. Britain is placed 57th in the world for political gender equality, according to the Inter-Parliamentary Union, with Rwanda topping the league for having the highest percentage of female politicians. On Twitter, UK politicians openly joke about wives obeying their 'master' – as Jane Martinson pointed out: “It would be nice if women coping with rape and sexual assault didn’t have to see their elected political representative going to such lengths to publicly declare, “Not everybody needs to be asked prior to each insertion,” as Galloway did.” The aim of International Women's Day (IWD), which has been running annually for more than 100 years, is to mark the economic, political and social achievements of women and highlight issues affecting them. A spokesperson for IWD said more details about the Gender Agenda: Gaining Momentum will be released in the days leading up to March 8, but that groups are free to choose their own theme as well with the IWD website collating them all together. Among several activities organised by Brighton and Hove group is Pink Ribbons Inc, a seminar on Breast Cancer Awareness as well as a grand finale of a day devoted to workshops and socializing. Over in Cardiff there is Birkenstomp which includes a poetry slam, live art, still art, and music. A week of events is planned in Manchester by 3MT and Other Voices, including a clothes swap, plays, film and a poetry night. The WomenCentre in Kirklees is hosting Sound Women, an evening of entertainment from women performers, and at the National Trust's Workhouse in Southwell, Nottinghamshire, a ‘women in the workhouse’ exhibition will run until November. These are just a selection of the 130 plus events listed for the UK so far, and more is going on in other countries. Click here to see what’s on where. As the quote by Gloria Steinem says on IWD: "The story of women's struggle for equality belongs to no single feminist not to any one organisation but to the collective efforts of all who care about human rights".  |
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