Women's Views on News |
| Posted: 14 Mar 2013 09:00 AM PDT
Stanton, a computer programmer, founded Women in Data earlier this year after she saw that the conferences she attended were very male dominated. "You are lucky if you get three women," she said. "A lot of men are going into data, it was a realisation that history was repeating itself. "It's not that women aren't there, it's that they are not visible. “It's about getting them published, getting them speaking at conferences and getting change at a higher level." "Once an industry is established it is very difficult to change that, but If you catch it early it's easier to change things.” ‘Women in Data’ was launched ahead of Open Data day on 22 February. ‘Open data’ is about democratising decision-making like the internet democratised communication and information exchange. Stanton hopes that open data will change the structures and concentration of power from the few to the crowd and fundamentally change the dynamics of interaction between citizens and organisations. Stanton also hopes that Women in Data will give women more confidence to speak about their work, which, in turn, will help more women take senior roles in the industry and influence working patterns. "When you speak to men who organise conferences, they tend to recruit speakers from within their own social groups. They tend to go with the status quo so they don't have to think about it much. "Women are there at graduate level, but we need more decision makers," she said. Stanton believes that women bring their own experiences to bear when interpreting data, giving it added context and meaning. "When you are looking at population level data you can make a lot of assumptions based on your own perspective. "For example, there is a lot of talk about making better decisions about aid, but if you don't understand how families are structured it makes a massive difference to how data is interpreted and how decisions are made. "You get MIT educated men who are interpreting data, but you need to understand how everyday life is, because you can't make your own assumptions about it. Stanton has been amazed at how well the new organisation has been received. It has already held a networking event at the Open Data Institute, and is planning a training day for data specialists who want to set up their own businesses in partnership with NESTA. "We also want to get female engineers to talk about what they are working on, get people connected. "Lots of our members are working on very interesting projects, so hopefully they will share what they are doing, they will get the confidence to talk about what they are working on and share that with the wider world. “Hopefully they will be a bit more vocal about what they are doing." Stanton believes this is vital in overcoming what researchers from Yale called the subtle gender bias against women at all levels in science. "These are intellectual heavyweights, these are not dinosaurs, but they would rate candidates with male names higher than females, and there was a tendency to mentor them towards leadership. "It's an unconscious thing, but it's positive to know that there is this bias so we can overcome it. "My theory is that if we get more women out there and see them as leading then change will happen. People will see it as normal. "If more women are heads of companies and have more buying power they will make decisions that are beneficial to the company as well as themselves.” Stanton now works freelance, but she used to work for Leman Brothers. She had her first child around the time they went bust. "I faced a choice to work in the presenteeism culture of a bank and miss out on my child," she said. She now fits her work around her children. "My clients don't mind when I work. If you work in an organisation you are expected to be there nine to five. "Now I have set up my own company I have never been so skilled. I have the motivation to learn new skills I am managing my own career and I am able to meet new people. "I have never been so in demand, it's ironic really," she aid. Stanton is currently setting up a company called Atomic Data Labs, to develop computer programmes to process data. She intends to use her experiences to create a more flexible working environment for the people she employs. "We will have a loose structure that gives workers autonomy to choose their hours. We will not dictate, as long as we can work together and do the work. It doesn't matter how that is done. "We will see what difference that makes to productivity. “I find without the structures I am a lot more productive, I can work six hours instead of eight and walk away," she said.  |
| Chocolate, Oxfam and women’s rights Posted: 14 Mar 2013 06:58 AM PDT
I was hovering at the pud section in the supermarket; the woman next to me was searching for her favourite, so I helped, helpfully. We couldn't find it. Try something else, I suggested, and indicated my current craze in the chocolate pud section of the cooler. Ah no, she answered, wistfully, I have given up chocolate. I thought of waistlines, of Lent. But no, it wasn’t either of those. She asked if I had seen Oxfam's current campaign for women's rights. Nope. I have now. Oxfam America has set up a Behind the Brands scorecard – and it shows major gaps in the policies of the "Big 10" food and beverage companies when it comes to protecting and promoting women's rights. As far as Oxfam is concerned, substantial evidence shows that women get a raw deal in food and beverage company supply chains and companies are failing to adequately address the challenges. An Oxfam investigation into how women fare in cocoa supply chains in four countries revealed stories of neglect, inequality and unfair treatment. Although they do not directly employ or control them, Mars, Mondelez International (formerly Kraft) and Nestlé, three of the most powerful chocolate producers in the world, must help lead an effort to ring about equality for women cocoa producers and women workers throughout food and beverage company supply chains. In 2012, Snickers and M&Ms together generated an estimated USD7 billion in sales for Mars, and Nestlé's KitKat is today available to shoppers in 72 countries. Yet despite these successes, wealth has not trickled down to the millions of farmers and laborers who supply food and beverage companies with their most precious ingredients. And in spite of global progress in reducing the number of hungry people in the world today, most people who work along the cocoa supply chain continue to live in poverty, and malnutrition in cocoa producing areas of the world is rampant. Women are often the primary target of company marketing campaigns – yet women working in cocoa fields and processing plants suffer substantial discrimination and inequality. And while women increasingly occupy positions of power in food and beverage company headquarters, women working in company supply chains in developing countries continue to be denied anything in the way of advances in wealth, status or opportunity. Agnes Gabriel, a 37-year-old migrant worker living in Ayetoro-Ijesa, Nigeria, gets paid USD3 a day for her work on a cocoa farm. Her male counterparts make more than twice that amount. Arti, a laborer at a cocoa exporting factory in Makassar, Indonesia, says she is made to work without a contract so she does not receive the legal rights that workers should get under Indonesian law, such as Worker's Social Security. The money she does make is less than the minimum wage and does not stretch to cover the cost of food, water and her rent and that she is called "an animal" by her supervisor. And only men work at the cocoa processing factory in Makassar. All the female workers were laid off after a few demanded equal treatment and pay – such as wage increases and worker protections guaranteed under Indonesian employment law, such as menstruation leave. Menstruation leave gives women the option of two days leave per month, and is aimed at those doing physically demanding jobs where long hours and overtime is the norm, such as factory workers. Many of these women suffer from anaemia and especially during their periods they are particularly vulnerable and physically weak. Oxfam recently visited more than a dozen cocoa producing communities in the Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Indonesia and Brazil to interview women cocoa growers and hear first-hand accounts of the issues they face. Based on that information and the data gathered for Oxfam's Behind the Brands scorecard, along with Oxfam’s years of experience in cocoa supply chains, they are urging three of the world’s largest and most powerful food and beverage companies – Mars, Mondelez International and Nestlé – companies which control more than 40 per cent of global chocolate market share – to lead a more aggressive effort to support and protect the rights of the millions of women worldwide who grow the cocoa essential for their products. Investing in women is good for the chocolate companies and good for cocoa communities because it helps to increase yields and promote food security. It is also – simply – the right thing to do. More than 5.5 million small-scale farmers currently supply 90 per cent of the cocoa used by major food and beverage companies. Most smallholders and cocoa workers live below the poverty line And, sadly, the bad news does not end there. Millions of women cocoa farmers and laborers worldwide also face rampant inequality and discrimination. Women working on cocoa farms usually get paid less than men, if they get paid at all for their work. Women cocoa farmers rarely own the land they farm, even if they work the same plot their entire lives. Many women working on cocoa farms face problems like harassment or discrimination while at work have no way to complain or fight back. Women cocoa farmers don't have the same opportunities to attend agricultural or financial training as men. And because of a lack of capital and land, women cocoa farmers struggle to get loans or credit, no matter how hard they work. This severely limits women's ability to purchase fertilizers, better performing seeds, or irrigation systems which could help increase yields. Improving working conditions and pay along the cocoa supply chain could impact millions of women and their families around the world. But companies are not doing nearly enough to help address these issues, even though small changes like guaranteeing women a fair price for cocoa – while costing companies very little – could have a profound affect on global poverty and hunger. So Oxfam is also calling on Mars, Mondelez and Nestlé to lead the way in forging equality for women in the cocoa industry and the entire supply chain. Specifically that they should take three important steps to root out gender inequality in their supply chains. Step One: "Know and show" how women are treated in their value chains. Step Two: Commit to transparently adopt a "plan of action" to increase opportunities for women and address inequalities in women's pay and working conditions along the supply chain. Step Three: Engage with and influence other powerful and relevant public and private actors to address gender inequality. After Lent comes Easter, and it would nice to know we will be able to indulge our very spoilt selves with a nice clean clear conscience.  |
| Posted: 14 Mar 2013 02:09 AM PDT
The UK's coalition government brought female genital mutilation (FGM) to the fore of British politics last week as Prime Minister David Cameron pledged £35 million towards a global aid programme to end the barbaric practice of female circumcision. It is the largest ever international investment to end FGM and it is hoped it will be used to eradicate the procedure within a generation. With the UN's global ban on FGM last December, which two thirds of UN member states co-sponsored, this support from the British government is undoubtedly of vital importance, as the numbers of women and children who have been subjected to FGM is staggering. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), between 100 and 140 million girls and women worldwide have been subjected to some type of female genital mutilation. Their website says: 'Estimates based on the most recent prevalence data indicate that 91,5 million girls and women above 9 years old in Africa are currently living with the consequences of female genital mutilation.’ And ‘There are an estimated 3 million girls in Africa at risk of undergoing female genital mutilation every year.' That is 8000 girls at risk every single day of being violated, mutilated, scarred … scared and at risk of unimaginable pain and even death. The practice is also prevalent not only in Somalia, Egypt and Mali, Senegal, but even among some communities who have migrated to Europe and North America. And FGM is not something that can simply be considered in the abstract, as a problem of developing countries that affects the UK only in terms of providing foreign aid. Headlines this week also revealed that girls in the UK are more at risk of FGM that in any other European country. The practice of FGM was outlawed in Britain in 1995, and in 2003 the Female Genital Mutilation Act was introduced which also 'makes it illegal to take girls who are British nationals or permanent residents of the UK abroad for FGM whether or not it is lawful in that country’. However, the fear is that many families who have settled in the UK are still sending their daughters back to their home countries to have FGM procedures carried out. According to new research by the European Institute for Gender Equality, more than 65,000 women and girls in the UK have been subjected to FGM and a further 30,000 are thought to be at risk in the future. But although police have investigating 148 cases in the last three years, there have been no successful prosecutions. This is largely thought to be for cultural reasons, with taboos and fiercely upheld family traditions and controls firmly in place. Speaking about FGM and the government's £35 million pledge, UK International Development Minister Lynne Featherstone said, 'FGM has been considered too taboo and, frankly, too difficult to tackle. It is time to break the taboo. ‘Girls around the world have suffered a lifetime of damage, sometimes even death, as a result.' Campaigners and charities groups say that education around human rights, challenging cultural norms and tackling gender violence are the key. The Orchid Project and Tostan are two such groups, and Julia Lalla-Maharajh, founder of the Orchid Project, says that more than 6,000 communities around the world have already officially undertaken to end the barbaric mutilation of their women and girls. So what of the UK's multi-million pound pledge? How does the government turn pound signs into significant and meaningful action? Leyla Hussein, who runs the prevention charity Daughters of Eve, believes that the most crucial thing the government can do now is to make sure that there is no disconnect between legislative policy and the lived experience of FGM. She wants the government to work hand in hand with organisations and individuals who have frontline and first-hand experience of FGM. 'Speak to women like me', she says, 'I know what I've gone through.' 'Frequently victims of FGM are used just to tell the story, but not as part of the decision making process'. Given that most of us are fortunate enough to only ever experience FGM by reading about it, she has made perhaps the most valid point for the UK’s participation in eradicating this unimaginable violation.  |
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