Women's Views on News |
- ‘I Dream of Congo’ exhibition to tour UK
- BBC plans further Expert Women events
- New York, pay equity and you
| ‘I Dream of Congo’ exhibition to tour UK Posted: 19 Feb 2013 08:57 AM PST
Guest post from Women for Women International. Photographs by Anna Wabiwa a graduate of the Women for Women International programme in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) will be going on show in London this month before touring the UK. Wabiwa recently took part in the Panzi Camera Project where she documented her life and community using a single-use camera and reflected on the phrase ‘I Dream of Congo’. “I always dream of living in a multicultural community giving equal opportunity to each tribe and social class’, Wabiwa explained, adding: “We need everyone’s contribution to build our country of peace.” She grew up as part of a family of subsistence farmers in Mwenga, in DRC, and never attended school. Her husband did not work and she struggled to provide for her six children, working so hard that she fell ill. When she joined the Women for Women International programme, she was the poorest member of her group. But she soon learned how she could start a small business with little money. And she got 19 of her class mates to form a savings circle. Today, she is the president of a women’s cooperative producing and selling bread. They have even opened a bank account in a local microfinance institution and are planning to grow their business. Her photographs are currently being exhibited as part of the ‘I Dream of Congo’ exhibition at the Conway Hall in London. 'I Dream of Congo: Narratives from The Great Lakes' combines words and images from renowned international creatives alongside a groundbreaking exhibition of photos taken by women in eastern Congo. The exhibition and accompanying events aim to celebrate the hope and optimism that pervades in the region despite years of war. It will also pose hard questions about the international community's inaction in the face of the conflict, the continuing illicit trade in minerals from Congo and the failure to stem the tide of sexual violence. The exhibition is open to the public on Saturday, 23 February, from 9:30 to 16:00 at the Conway Hall, 25 Red Lion Square, London, WC1R 4RL, and entrance it free. It will be moving on to further venues in the UK and the USA throughout 2013.
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| BBC plans further Expert Women events Posted: 19 Feb 2013 04:46 AM PST
The BBC Academy will host four further training days in Cardiff, Glasgow, London and Salford to help women who are experts in their respective fields become specialist media presenters or spokespeople. On 7 February Tim Davie, acting BBC director general, said: "The first Expert Women day was such a big success and the response so overwhelmingly positive that we didn't want to wait before setting up more sessions. "It is clear that there are many women out there with all the knowledge and experience we are looking for so we have to do all we can to get them on the air." Over 2,000 women applied for the first training day, which was held on 18 January in London. Through a rigorous selection process the BBC Academy chose 30 women to take part. These included specialists in architecture, business, engineering, history, politics, science and technology. The attendees were coached by media professionals on how best to present themselves and succeed in the industry. They were also given practical interview experience for radio and television and the valuable opportunity to meet over 50 key industry figures at a networking lunch. Jassel Majevadia, a theoretical physicist and expert in materials science, praised the training as 'an invaluable experience which offered an insight into the media that isn't often available'. Dr Emily Sidonie Grossman, who also attended and specialises in cell biology and genetics, wrote: 'I hope other women will be encouraged to believe in their abilities and to step forward as experts and role-models for the next generation.' A lack of confidence is one reason why expert women are under-represented in the media. BBC Academy director Anne Morrison explained that expert women often 'turn the offer down or recommend a male colleague instead when contacted by programmes'. Morrison hopes that boosting the women's skills will 'give them the confidence to put themselves forward more readily to media outlets as potential contributors, interviewees and presenters'. A further reason why men are so often ‘the expert’ is the difficulty of finding expert women in male-dominated fields. The BBC Academy has now created and circulated a database containing the contact details of 230 applicants in order to make this ‘finding’ easier. They will also upload footage of the applicants to YouTube. Many of the women have since become involved in leading radio and television programmes. Sally Marlow, an alcohol and addiction expert, is now a reporter for BBC Radio 4's Today programme, and Katherine Woolf, a lecturer in medical education, has appeared on BBC World News’s show GMT. Expert Women's Day was jointly initiated by the BBC Academy and Broadcast magazine after the latter began a campaign to address the gender imbalance in news and current affairs programming. According to research, the number of women who appear on programmes as expert contributors is below 20 per cent. Moreover, in 2011 the Guardian found that in a typical month women make up just 28 per cent of the contributors on Question Time and only 16 per cent of the contributors and reporters on BBC Radio 4's Today show. Lisa Campbell, editor of Broadcast magazine, stressed that the industry must take action 'to speed up the process of achieving gender parity, which, if left to natural forces, would take decades'. Details on how to apply for the latest training days will be published on the BBC Academy's website in the coming weeks.  |
| Posted: 19 Feb 2013 01:00 AM PST
New York’s governor Andrew Cuomo has renewed his commitment to women voters, and ending the gender discrimination they face, by announcing his plan to progress a 10 -point Women’s Equality Act. The Act, of which equal pay is a key component, has received widespread support from over 280 groups, including reproductive rights organisation Planned Parenthood and working family advocacy group A Better Balance. The proposed legislation is also proving popular with the electorate. A recent poll found that nearly 9 out of 10 New Yorkers want to see equal pay for women become a reality in 2013. All this is unsurprising when you consider that the most recent data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that a full-time salaried woman earns on average only 82 per cent of the amount earned by a man in a comparable position. Research from the Center for American Progress Action Fund found that the accumulation of those lost earnings reaches, on average, 434,000 dollars over the course of a woman’s career, and rises to a staggering 713,000 dollars for women who have achieved college degrees. ‘Women in all occupations suffer from the career wage gap, but women with the most education lose the most in earnings’ the report says, and continues; ‘the larger a woman’s earning potential, the more she may lose in terms of real dollars over a lifetime of work.’ It is not, however, just the highest earners who benefit from pay equity. As Dina Bakst, co-founder and co-president of A Better Balance, rightly points out: “More than ever, New York families are relying on the salaries of working mothers to make ends meet. “Combating workplace discrimination – including pay equity – is imperative for women, families and overall economic growth.” Women are more likely to live in poverty and less likely to make savings towards their retirement and, as the Fawcett Society has revealed, women in the UK face similarly deep-rooted economic inequalities. A first glance at the 2012 figures issued by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) may give grounds for optimism, showing that the gender pay gap in the UK has fallen under 10 per cent for the first time since the Equal Pay Act became law in the 1970s. However, upon further scrutiny, this statistic seems to be little more than a misleading sound bite to reassure us that the battle for pay equity is moving in the right direction. Little more than propaganda, giving the government reason to deny there is a need for public policy which addresses the issue that, even after 40 years, women are still not getting equal pay for equal work. Based on data from the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE), the gender pay gap is calculated as ‘the difference between men’s and women’s median hourly pay excluding overtime for full-time employees.’ Note ‘overtime’ and ‘full-time’. That a disproportionate number of women occupy part-time positions means that they are not even represented by this figure. The burden of caring for their family often forces women into part-time employment. And not only are rates of pay for part-time work often lower than those for full-time hours, but career progression and access to training are limited. Already undervalued – and underpaid = by working part-time, this economic inequality is compounded by society’s devaluation of those industries dominated by women. You need only compare the rates of pay between those in Early Years education and those in skilled trades. Therefore, if we afford those women working part-time the representation they deserve in assessing the gender pay gap, then the headline grabbing, single-figure percentage more than doubles to a median gender pay gap of 19.7 per cent. In real terms, for every 1 pound a man in the UK earns, a woman earns just 83.5 pence; or, as WVoN reported earlier from November 7 until the end of 2012, women in the UK were effectively working for free. This figure, however, is still not an accurate reflection of the problem. A study commissioned by the Equality and Human Rights Commission found that weekly overtime payments were three times higher for men than for women. So while the ONS claims that their measures are not sophisticated enough to take account of overtime as a representation of the different working patterns of men and women, by excluding overtime from the calculation entirely, how can we scrutinise how much money is actually received by men and women to determine whether women really are getting equal pay for equal work? The answer is, quite simply, we can’t. What we can do, however, is view statistics relating to the gender pay gap in the UK with caution. The government’s commitment to reducing inequality in the workplace is, arguably, best exemplified by its objection to EU quotas for women on boards, as well as its decision to abandon compulsory gender pay audits. And this is why we absolutely must support groups – like the Fawcett Society – which lobby the UK government to get it to show the same commitment to pay equity as Andrew Cuomo has shown in New York.  |
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