Women's Views on News |
| We have local elections on May 2 Posted: 29 Apr 2013 05:31 AM PDT
That is very soon, so hunt out your poll card, find the polling station on the map, if you haven’t already… and then try not to forget to go and vote. Given what we know about what the ‘three main parties’ talk about, I had a look at two of the other runners. The Green Party of England and Wales is fielding 1,000 candidates in elections to 27 county councils and unitary authorities on 2 May. It will be Natalie Bennett‘s first campaign as party leader since she succeeded MP Caroline Lucas in the role in September. The Green Party had 17 councillors elected in 2009, and gained 40 seats in last year’s elections. This year they are making their opposition to government welfare cuts – including housing benefit caps dubbed by critics as the “bedroom tax” – a central theme of their campaign, and Green councillors up and down the country already are fighting to ensure people affected by the ‘bedroom tax’ do not face eviction. They say they will introduce a number of strong measures to promote gender equality and safeguard women's rights including equal pay audits, shared maternity and paternity leave and better support for women in need. They also support a “living wage” for low-paid workers. The Greens are also campaigning against the environmental damage done by the building of waste incinerators, which is a major local issue in some areas, and calling for housing developments on green belt land to be blocked and the money spent instead on the renovation of 720,000 currently empty properties and for 20mph speed limits on more roads, to tackle pollution, cut casualties and encourage cycling and walking. “We are speaking up for a different kind of economy,” Natalie Bennett told BBC Two’s Daily Politics recently. “We are saying globalisation and neo-liberalism has hit its limits. We are saying we need strong local economies built around small businesses and shops. “We are speaking up for a whole range of things and speaking against the government’s cuts and speaking up for proper services.” While the Greens are quite clear about stating their intentions, Ukip's manifesto only says councillors 'are expected to follow the best interests of their constituents', not just toe the party line 'as the other parties instruct theirs to do'. 'That’s why we don’t prescribe what they will do', the manifesto continues, although it does raise diverse issues. Ukip does, however, seem to support coal-fired power and oppose wind farms; want to stop funding the UN’s climate change panel and wants to ban schools from showing Al Gore’s film, An Inconvenient Truth. But Ukip, like many insurgent parties, is about grievances, as the Guardian reported recently. The politicians don’t listen to ordinary people, Farage said – and as Ukip supporters say frequently – when actually, the Guardian’s Michael White pointed out, ‘they listen all the time but struggle to reconcile what people “want” with the reality of hard choices in public policy’. ‘Immigration is a classic example, as you may notice next time you visit a hospital’. The only female MEPs ever elected by Ukip have both left the party, claiming there is a sexist attitude at the top of the organisation. Marta Andreasen, who has since joined the Conservatives, said Ukip leader Nigel Farage and others were “very dismissive and disrespectful” when discussing legislation that affects women. “The general attitude was that we would never support anything that was in favour of women. “He told me that his attitude was that women who are at the age of being able to give birth to children should not be employed because they are a burden to their companies. It is a very extreme position. “He does not discuss with you, because you are a lower-level human being,” she said. Nikki Sinclaire, MEP for the West Midlands said she had faced many years of sexism from the party. Ukip, she said, used to hold national executive meetings in men-only gentlemen’s clubs in central London such as the Caledonian Club. “I was allowed to attend the actual meeting but could not join the rest of the NEC in the bar, where the eventual decisions were actually made,” she added. She left Ukip and is now an Independent MEP. And Farage was asked recently if it was appropriate for Ukip to field a council candidate in Abingdon who owned a lapdancing club. His answer? He said: “Sounds to me like he is a free market entrepreneur. Providing he is operating properly within the law I am absolutely delighted we have real people, from the real world, running for Ukip rather than the cardboard cutouts.” Real world? Thought lapdancing was feeding fantasy. That is what it says about stag nights in the blurb. No, I am not linking to that. And after admitting to unwittingly going to a lapdancing club in Starbourg, he remarked that "back in the 1980s working in the City I might have been to one or two of these establishments.” As if the 'back' in the 1980s makes it any less sick.  |
| Posted: 29 Apr 2013 03:30 AM PDT
Athletics: Great Britain’s women claimed their first ever podium finish at the Penn Relays in Philadelphia on April 27. Christine Ohuruogu, Eilidh Child, Shana Cox and Perri Shakes-Drayton finished second behind the USA in the women’s 4x400m relay. This year’s event, which pitted US athletes against the rest of the world, featured a 4x800m women’s relay for the first time in its history. Tara Bird, Marilyn Okoro, Lynsey Sharp and Jemma Simpson came in fourth, behind two US teams and Kenya. Before the event, British Athletic coach Terrence Mahon described it as a chance to gauge progress before the start of the outdoor season. "I have no doubt that the team assembled have every chance of winning the first medal for Great at the event, but as with every year, the relays attract some strong opposition, so we'll have to be at our very best,” he said. Football: Arsenal Ladies recovered quickly from last week’s Champions League loss to secure a place in their thirteenth FA Women’s Cup final. Arsenal beat Liverpool 2-1 on April 26, with goals from Ellen White and Kim Little enough to take them through. Arsenal will face Bristol Academy in next month’s final, after a convincing semi-final victory for Bristol over Lincoln Ladies on April 28. Goals from Spanish strikers Natalia Sanchon and Laura Del Rio earned Bristol a spot in their second final in three years. Sailing: It has been a successful week for Britain’s sailors at the World Cup regatta in Hyeres, France, with a total haul of ten medals. Windsurfer Bryony Shaw continued her excellent season by taking gold on April 27, the day before her 30th birthday. Olympic bronze medal winner Shaw also won silver at this year’s world championships, followed by silver in the World Cup event in Palma earlier this month. Charlotte Dobson and Mary Rook began the final day of competition in silver medal position, and their performance was enough to clinch them the medal. Elsewhere, Sophie Weguelin and Eilidh McIntyre took bronze in the 470, with Alison Young rounding out the medal count with a bronze in the Laser Radial class. There was British success in the Paralympic event, too, with Helena Lucas taking silver in the 2.4mR class. Megan Pascoe was right behind her, finishing with a bronze medal to add to her gold from February’s Miami World Cup, and silver from Palma. Taekwondo: Sarah Stevenson, Britain’s most successful taekwondo player, announced her retirement from competition this week. The 30 year-old, who has competed in four Olympic games and is still the reigning -67kg world champion, will take up a coaching role at Britain’s World Class Performance Centre. After more than a decade competing at the top level, Stevenson admitted that retirement came as a relief. "I am relieved I've finally been able to make the announcement. I've known in my heart it's what I have wanted to do for a while," she said. "I am excited to finally say I am retiring but it doesn't mean I have lost my love for the sport. “I haven't lost my determination to be the best and to win. So, I am delighted I have been accepted onto the coaching team so I can help put that into the athletes we have now and the next generation,” she said.  |
| MPs say politics is anti-women Posted: 29 Apr 2013 01:09 AM PDT
David Blunkett, Ken Clarke and Sir Menzies Campbell joined Guardian columnist Polly Toynbee and writer Charles Moore for an episode devoted to the late former prime minister Margaret Thatcher recently. The panellists and Question Time presenter David Dimbleby were in Finchley, where Thatcher was elected as an MP at the age of 34 and later became Britain's first female prime minister. Ken Clarke, Conservative MP for Rushcliffe, said that Thatcher's success in a male-dominated field was "an extraordinary achievement" and that "for women she was a fantastic role model". The panellists agreed, however, that this achievement was very much down to the fact that Thatcher's ‘ruthless character’ meant she was well-suited to the male environment in which she worked. Clarke remarked that to be a woman in politics in Thatcher's time "you had to be tougher than any average woman" and suggested that this is why Thatcher proved ‘so domineering’. The MPs observed that women in politics today face the same problems as Thatcher once did. "People are always telling me, and I want it to be true, that women do things differently… they don't have to be tough and big-boots and all the rest of it, but the successful women in politics are," David Blunkett, Labour MP for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough, said. Sir Menzies Campbell, Liberal Democrat MP for North East Fife, said that women still met with obstacles when it comes to engaging in politics. "The difficulty for women in the House of Commons particularly is that a lot of local associations – and I don’t exempt [my party] from this criticism – simply won’t have women candidates." He added: "And they [the associations] often make quite extraordinary demands … which women candidates are unable to fulfil because of their other obligations." According to 'Sex and Power 2013: Who Runs Britain?', a recent report published by the Counting Women In coalition, women make up just 22.5 per cent of MPs and 17.4 per cent of the Cabinet. These statistics mean that since the millennium the percentage of female MPs has risen by only 3.9 per cent, and that the percentage of women in the Cabinet has in fact decreased by 4.3 per cent. Ceri Goddard, chief executive of the Fawcett Society, an organisation that campaigns for women's rights and also contributed to the report, believes this must change. "The number of women in the Cabinet is at a ten year low. “Failure to increase the number of women around the top table of politics sends a message to other walks of life and to the next generation for whom we hope for something different: that excluding women from positions of power is acceptable," she said. Campbell said the same when he spoke to the Guardian about his comments on Question Time. "During the period I was leader, I spent a great deal of time and effort trying to promote female candidates, particularly from ethnic minorities. "I became extremely frustrated when outstanding individuals who would have made a huge contribution to the party in parliament simply could not get anywhere. “I bumped into one of these women the other day and she had taken up another career in which she was rapidly rising to the top. "I don’t know about other parties, but I have the distinct impression many local associations want to play safe by selecting long servers and rewarding loyalty rather than recognising potential," he explained. Goddard agreed with Campbell's remarks about local party associations. "There is a lot of evidence that even when there is national-level commitment to change, local associations won’t necessarily toe the line," she said. "Asserting local association autonomy from the national leadership can act as convenient cloak to deeply entrenched, if not publicly expressed, sexism."  |
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