Women's Views on News |
- Did women swing it for UKIP?
- The WTA: serving women’s tennis for 40 years
- Freedom to run – the eternal issue
| Posted: 16 May 2013 08:24 AM PDT
In the wake of the local elections at the start of the month, the topic on mouths of most political commentators has not just been the gains made by UKIP, but the implication of those gains on a future general election, as well as what those gains say about UK voters. Is UKIP simply benefiting from a large protest vote by those that are frustrated with a stagnating economy/disillusioned by the three main parties/mistrustful of the current political modus operandi (delete as applicable)? Is it Nigel Farage's "blokey friendliness", as one Conservative MP put it, or simply that he is "on telly more often". Certainly a large proportion of UKIP voters want a curb on immigration to the UK. But I am not the only one who thinks that is an inevitable consequence of the right-wing media's scapegoating of our current economic turmoil on migrants and benefit claimants. But is that really it? The answer, I suspect, is ‘all of the above’ and more. Perhaps surprisingly though, recent research from YouGov suggests that increased support from women has also had a part to play in UKIP's recent rise in popularity. Stephan Shakespeare, chief executive of YouGov, said, "It used to be heavily more male than female. Recent gains have been among the females – that's where the surge is from." This particular "surge" must, of course, be viewed in context. The number of seats that UKIP now holds puts them on a par – at a local level anyway – with the Green party, still without overall control but recognised as the official opposition on a few councils around the country. Still, as WVoN explored earlier in the week, UKIP's supporters have a history of being a far from female-friendly bunch, so why the support from women? This is a tough nut to crack. A party which would make maternity pay discretionary for small to medium sized businesses, and the very public defections of both of its female MEPs after accusations of sexism within the party makes it far from an obvious choice for most women, I would suggest. However, one constituency where UKIP has made significant gains is in Boston, Lincolnshire. The mainstream media rechristened the town "Little Poland" because it has the highest eastern European population outside London, and UKIP have no doubt capitalised on very public local concerns about immigration. Indeed, the victory speech of one newly elected UKIP councillor, Tiggs Keywood-Wainwright, speaks volumes. She said: "I think the British people feel like they are second best. "People are not against immigration [if] it is for the rights reasons. I think a lot of people feel that if they say anything they are classed as racist but it is not about racism. "A lot of people feel they are in the minority." Nine male and 7 female UKIP councillors were elected in Lincolnshire. The 7 were a cross-section of women of different ages including a Conservative defector, as well as two twenty-something sisters and their mother. And this ratio of male to female UKIP councillors in Lincolnshire puts the other parties to shame. To put that in context, the Sex and Power report published earlier this year, found that only 1 in 3 councillors were women. This strong female presence in Boston is not representative of UKIP's incumbents around the rest of country; indeed, of the 147 UKIP councillors elected, only 16 of those were women, which falls far below the national average. Still, with a country disenchanted with the current situation, of a government perceived as a self-serving, Oxbridge, boys club, don't female candidates provide the perfect foil? Labour MP Sarah Champion, claimed that voters "feel more encouraged to vote when there is a woman standing. “They feel that women, as outsiders in the political process, are more trustworthy and more in touch with everyday matters." While electioneering for the Rotherham by-election that she went on to win, Champion said: "The women I met were genuinely surprised and delighted that I was standing and felt a shared sense of pride that I could become the first female MP of their town. “Often daughters were brought to meet me and they were told "look, you could do this when you grow up". “Almost without exception, women told me we needed more women in politics and I could definitely count on their vote. And vote they did!" And so they did in Boston, too. In light of UKIP's marginal successes, that David Cameron is having to make drastic changes to appease a right-wing contingent of the Conservative party is of little consequence to many. As Zoe Williams wrote in the Guardian: "I do not think, if UKIP looks set to divide the Tory core, that that is cause for anyone's concern except the Conservatives." What is a concern, however, is the continued under representation of women in politics, and it is here that drastic changes do need to be made, irrespective of political ideologies.  |
| The WTA: serving women’s tennis for 40 years Posted: 16 May 2013 05:47 AM PDT
By and large, women’s sport has not been able to completely break away from the question of gender. In many cases, gender-based disputes catch the attention of the media, overshadowing the women actually playing sport. Golf is besieged by the row over the admission of women into prestigious clubs; women’s cycling remains woefully underfunded; England’s women footballers recently had to battle for a pay rise to £20,000. But there is one notable exception: tennis. While many people would struggle to name a single female footballer, everyone knows of Maria Sharapova, the Williams sisters, and Laura Robson. Top-level women’s tennis is not plagued by the half-empty stadiums which are a frequent sight at women’s football matches. Instead, fans clamour to see women play. Television and newspaper coverage is accordingly excellent. Sponsors and tournament organisers, too, display a level of support unheard of in most other women’s sports. According to Forbes, an astonishing seven of the world’s ten highest paid female athletes are tennis players. Number one on that list, Maria Sharapova, reportedly earned USD27.1 million in 2011. Since 2007, all four Grand Slam tournaments have offered equal prize money for men and women. Things are not perfect; there are still those who are willing to suggest that women are less capable than men, but they find themselves increasingly on the wrong side of public opinion. When French player Gilles Simon declared last year that women did not deserve equal prize money, he faced withering criticism in the press. Sharapova and Serena Williams spoke out strongly against him. "No matter what anyone says, or the criticisms that we get, I'm sure there are a few more people that watch my matches than his," said Sharapova. This was not always the case. At the beginning of the Open Era in 1968, when the Grand Slam tournaments allowed professionals to compete alongside amateurs for the first time, men earned more than twice as much as women. At the first open Wimbledon, Rod Laver took home £2000 with his trophy; Billie Jean King received £750. At one 1970 tournament, the ratio was 12:1 in favour of the men. Nine female players boycotted the event in protest. The turning point came in 1973. A week before the Wimbledon Championships, the now legendary Billie Jean King organised a meeting of top female players and founded the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA). The WTA brought a new level of organisation to the women’s game, securing sponsorship and television coverage deals, and with them, increases in prize money. As the WTA approaches its 40th anniversary next month, tennis is arguably the most commercially successful women’s sport in the world. More than 5.4 million people attended women’s tennis tournaments in 2012, and millions more watched on television. Increasing tournament revenues have led to a 70 per cent increase in prize money since 2009. The total prize money for the 2013 season was USD100 million. And women’s tennis shows no sign of slowing down. From next year, the WTA’s prestigious end of season championship tournament will be held in Singapore, as part of a drive to expand the sport in Asia. The WTA has also secured another long term broadcasting deal, with telecommunications group BT agreeing to show up to 800 hours per year of live women’s tennis in the UK. BT will broadcast from 21 WTA tournaments worldwide on two dedicated sports channels to be launched in July. At a time when many women’s sports are struggling to gain the support and funding they need, the WTA serves as a reminder that it can be done. And that the results are well worth the struggle.  |
| Freedom to run – the eternal issue Posted: 16 May 2013 01:21 AM PDT
Washington DC resident Sara Alcid was appalled and outraged when she went to cheer on friends at the Nike Women's Marathon in DC recently and saw groups of men holding sexist signs commenting on the women runner's looks and clothing. The signs read stuff like "You look beautiful sweaty" and "Cute running shoes!" If what they wanted was to be encouraging, Alcid pointed out in Everyday Feminism, they could have chosen slogans that didn't focus on how the runners looked. Especially, she wrote, since "You look beautiful sweaty" ‘totally sounds like some creepy comment a dude would make catcalling you’. ‘Getting people to cheer on runners would have been a sweet idea’, she continued, ‘but "frat boys" telling you how attractive you look while running a marathon?’ Running a half marathon is, as Alcid pointed out, an empowering act of strength and motivation and has absolutely nothing to do with how you look. And that includes how "beautiful" a group of random fraternity brothers on the sidelines think you look when you're "all sweaty." Or any other male. Women do not run for male approval of their sweatiness. The signs, it turned out, were a part of BareMinerals by Bare Escentuals' "Go Bare" campaign and tour, and DC was the tour's first stop. Alcid then joined up with Collective Action for Safe Spaces (CASS) and Holly Kearl, of Stop Street Harassment (SSH), and launched a petition to get BareMinerals to stop promoting street harassment and objectifying women runners. According to research conducted by Kearl, 99 per cent of women experience street harassment in the form of sexually explicit comments, sexist remarks, groping, leering, stalking, public masturbation and assault. And Kearl found that 46 per cent of women said they exercised at a gym because of fear of harassment and assault while outdoors. Street harassment is a real and scary part of many women's daily runs, commutes to work and trips to the grocery store. It is hard enough for women to feel safe, secure and comfortable running in their own neighbourhoods so they can train for half marathons in the first place. Shortly after the petition was set up BareMinerals notified the petitioners that they would no longer use the sexist, pro-street harassment signs on their #GoBare Tour of America. But they did not say that they are sorry they objectified women, they just said they are sorry they caused offence. And on May 2 – after the apology – they still had photos up on their #GoBare Instagram site. So it is not over yet. We want a formal apology and them to promise not to degrade women runners or support street harassment and objectification on the rest of their tour too. So, everyone, please keep petitioning, Tweeting and sharing! And in England, Sarah Ditum, remarking on the Go Bare campaign, said it for us all when, writing in the Guardian recently, she said that one thing she has never been struck by while running is a shortage of volunteers to critique her ‘hotness’. From the beepers and leerers hanging out of car windows to the ‘moped-riding little tit who took time out from his pizza delivery round to bark at her (because it was important for her to know that he considered her a dog), her journey from couch to 42K has been punctuated by all too many men who’ve been all too willing to let her know whether they’d put her on the do or do-not list.’ Been there… So as she said, ‘making a special effort to bring this stuff to race day seems an unusual way to hawk foundation’. Because, she continued, 'if I’m running a race, it’s not so I can get an index of my bangability'. 'It’s because I want to run 13.1 miles or 26.2 or however many it takes to push me over the finish line, and during that time I will be gross. ‘I will sniff and spit and sweat and grunt and piss in chemical toilets fouled by hundreds of nervous runners ahead of me. 'I will hurt, with the dull lactic ache of constant propulsion and the flayed sting of blistered feet. ‘If things go really well, I might be sick. 'And I won’t care about how any of it looks, because all I want is to get to the end.” And at no point during any of this, as she points out, should anything remotely resembling the question “Does a frat boy want to prod me?” be invited into anyone's brain. In conclusion, and Sarah Ditum puts it so well I will quote her, ‘it is not a welcome development when some powder shark drags up a horndog army to tell women that the real race isn’t for your personal best, but for the position of Most Desirable Ambulant Vagina 2013.’  |
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