Women's Views on News |
| Not right in front of the children Posted: 24 May 2013 07:09 AM PDT
The ‘Child Eyes’ campaign began when a Local Mums Online blogger saw her three-year-old staring at a copy of the Daily Star which had a half-naked woman on the front. There was a huge response to her resulting post from mothers who were angry about such images being displayed at child height. Wandsworth mums are among those now demanding David Cameron protect children from pornographic images by forcing shop owners to move them to the top shelf. Kathy McGuinness, founder of Wandsworth Mums Online, said: “I would like him to listen to what parents are saying. This is a child protection issue and he should act.” “We are not talking about censorship or banning images, just moving them out of children's view when they’re in a public space.” Mother-of-two Alex Hughes, said she supported the Local Mums Online campaign “because my kids have to see sexualised images at toddler height in so many shops in Wandsworth. I’m really sick of it.” Following government recommendations, Local Mums Online asked mums to press shop owners 'to police themselves' and to move the offending material, but they were either laughed at or asked to leave the shop. The Department for Education said it was up to shopkeepers to police themselves. A disappointing response. Department spokesman David Tate said: “The Government believes that self-regulation is the best way forward, rather than Government intervention with legislation, unless there is a very strong case for doing so.” McGuinness, like so many women, was angered to hear David Cameron respond to the No More Page 3 campaign by saying it was the parent’s responsibility to shut the newspaper if children were around. She articulated everyone's astonishment at his attitude when she said: “How is it parent's responsibility when it's all over the shops? It’s everywhere they go.” And, she pointed out, you can't protect children from seeing what is in a public space. “We need leaders that have the guts to stand up for women and children,” she concluded. The government’s report ‘Letting Children Be Children’ recommended that magazines and newspapers with sexualised images on their covers are not in easy sight of children. The report also said that ‘publishers and distributors should provide such magazines in modesty sleeves, or make modesty boards available to all outlets they supply and strongly encourage the appropriate display of their publications. ‘Retailers should be open and transparent to show that they welcome and will act on customer feedback regarding magazine displays.’ Feedback shows this clearly isn’t happening And as for ‘welcome’ – the majority of Mums Online have reported being ‘laughed at’, ‘ignored’ or even ‘verbally abused’ by shop owners when they voiced concerns about the displays of these publications at child height. The Child's Eyes petition puts it succinctly. ‘How is it legal to display women bending over with barely a covered groin and naked breasts in public places where children can see?’ petitioner Kirsty Hopley wants to know. It would, she points out, ‘be a sexual offence if a parent or other person deliberately showed a child indecent pictures. Yet every day children see sexual covers on adult and lads mags. ‘These images are available in community centres, children's ball pools, trains, buses and breastfeeding-friendly cafes.’ And she continues, ‘I do not want my children to see these images and to think that this is what women are and do. ‘I do not want to have to explain to my baby daughter why there are women pulling their pants down on the front of the newspaper when I go to get milk. ‘I do not want my children to grow up in a culture where it is o.k. to have countless images of semi-clothed women next to clothed men. ‘In the Bailey review the Government made it clear that if satisfactory progress cannot be made on a voluntary basis, it will consider further legislation. ‘Satisfactory progress has not been made, sex is in every shop.’ Now is the time for change, she concludes. Tis indeed. Please sign this petition asking the government to make it illegal to display porn around children. What else you can do: Give this letter to the owner of the shop displaying pornographic material. Contact your local MP and explain how you feel and what you would like them to do about it. Share this article on Facebook and twitter and follow our campaign on twitter at #Childeyes and on our website. And please use ParentPort as much as possible and share it with other parents. This is a one stop shop to report inappropriate media. We really need to make it clear to our minister for children and families what children are seeing in the real world.  |
| Posted: 24 May 2013 05:23 AM PDT
Twenty years on, comedian and storyteller Rosie Wilby traces former colleagues from a feminist newspaper. Starting with her treasured old copies of Matrix – Greek for 'womb' – the newspaper that she and a collective of women set up at York University in 1990, Rosie Wilby peeks through a kaleidoscope of cultural history and personal activism including poll tax riots, Reclaim The Night rallies, political lesbianism and same sex wedding demos and wonders how on earth we ended up with 'Girl Power'. Was she partly to blame when she put a frivolous 'Celebrate Women' cartoon on the cover of Matrix instead of a Rape Crisis logo, in the vain hope that more people might pick up it and read their articles about body image, sexual harassment, domestic violence and eating disorders. Or when, during her tenure as Student's Union Women's Officer, she dressed up as Kylie Minogue for a publicity stunt. Channeling a riotgrrrl-like DIY energy, the Matrix collective would cut and glue an issue together each month – once daubing a wall with splendid green and purple 'Sisterhood is Powerful' graffiti on a guerilla midnight mission just for the cover photo. In this funny and moving show, part documentary, part detective story and part unrequited love story, Rosie Wilby traces this original collective and investigates what happened to feminism. And to the woman that everyone had a crush on. Twenty years on, the Matrix women have diversified into all kinds of work. Some have remained in journalism, others are authors, academics and playwright, poets, one is a clinical embryologist and another a former barrister now running a successful vintage hair company styling hair on film sets. "I started reading books and articles by some of the younger feminists coming through, like Kat Banyard, and started wondering again about Matrix – what our legacy had been, whether it was still going and what my fellow writers were doing these days,” Wilby explained. “I found my dusty old copies up at my Dad's among all my old stuff and, once I started reading them again, found myself on a detective mission to find out. “It turns out a later group of York students started up a new feminist zine, Matrix Reloaded, in 2006. “They were still featuring a lot of the same issues which, in some ways is frustrating as it demonstrates that we haven't come very far over the last decade, but it was great to meet them and know we'd inspired them to create something. “That meeting wouldn't have happened if I hadn't started making this show." Nineties Woman is award-winning comedian Rosie Wilby‘s brand new show, and uses live interactive storytelling interspersed with video interviews, music and photo archive to trace a journey through early 90s feminism, refracted through a very personal lens. Catch her on 30 May at Battersea Arts Centre, 6 June a the Royal Vauxhall Tavern, or on 2 July at the Face to Face festival of Solo Theatre, Lost Theatre, Wandsworth. Or if you can’t make those: click here. For further information, click here. And, in the meantime, if you want a giggle, click here.  |
| Art discrimination and resistance Posted: 24 May 2013 01:09 AM PDT
A year-long survey of the position of women in today’s art world, the ‘Great East London Art Audit’ was started by East London Fawcett (ELF), the East London branch of the Fawcett Society – the UK's leading campaign for equality between women and men – in the spring of 2012. The event on May 24 is to mark the culmination of a year's worth of work from a dedicated team of volunteer campaigners, researchers and statisticians. The intention of this campaign is to raise awareness of the gender imbalance that persists within London's galleries, and to celebrate those women who are defying the statistics and the galleries that support them. The body of up-to-date statistics generated by the team will reflect the representation of women in today's art world, and will hopefully provide an objective basis for future discourse on women in the arts. The launch will form part of Calvert 22's month-long exhibition and events programme comprising talks, workshops, screenings and new commissions. Founded in 2009, Calvert 22 is dedicated to building cultural bridges between Russia, Eastern Europe, the former Soviet republics and the rest of the world. Fostering conversations on subjects such as how histories are written and recorded in print and on screen '…how is it towards the east?' is partially an opportunity to critically examine modes of self-organisation within the arts. Over the past year, the audit campaign has demonstrated the power of self-motivation and campaigning that is both passionate and sensitive. The campaign is illustrative of the impact of positive feminist campaigning today. Following an introduction from ELF arts director Gemma Rolls-Bentley, the audit team will unveil and explain their results and offer a series of short presentations on what motivates ELF, how the campaign has been organised and what they hope to achieve by releasing these results. The informal structure of the evening will allow for an open dialogue around the findings of the Art Audit. The event is from 7 pm – 9pm, at 22 Calvert Avenue, London, E2 7JP and is free and open to all. The full audit results will be published on ELF’s Audit website.  |
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