Women's Views on News |
| Posted: 11 Jun 2013 08:33 AM PDT
In a government-backed report published on 4 June, the Women's Business Council (WBC) has claimed that economic growth could be up ten per cent by 2030 if there were as many women working as men. The WBC, which the government set up in 2012 to maximise women's contribution to economic growth, also claims that over 2.4 million women want to join the labour force and 1.3 million would like to increase their hours. Ruby McGregor-Smith, chair of the WBC, urged the government to 'unblock this mismatch and optimise the potential for the UK's economic growth'. In the report, she writes that the financial crisis and recession in 2008-2009 has made action essential and urgent. 'The UK faces unprecedented challenges in the current financial climate, with businesses operating in one of the toughest economic situations the UK has ever seen. 'It has never been more important to fully capitalise on the skills and talents of all people, regardless of their gender,' McGregor-Smith continues. The WBC has recommended to the government that four key areas need to be improved. The first area concerns supporting girls at school. Since girls tend to outperform boys in exams but end up in lower paid and less skilled work, the WBC believes that schools need to broaden girls' aspirations and their understanding of career choices. This could be done through work experience, better career guidance services and encouraging girls to study science, technology, engineering and maths. The WBC says that greater support is also needed for women who are in the middle of their working lives. Seventy-six per cent of businesses said that flexible working has a positive effect on staff retention, proving that flexible working can help mothers stay in work and in the process aid the economy. Help with the cost of childcare would also boost the number of working mothers. The third area for improvement concerns women in the last phase of their working lives. The WBC said that boosting older women's skills and supporting those with caring responsibilities would enable them to find better paid work and work for longer. Creating opportunity for everyenel, raising aspirations and enabling people to maximise their talents, would mean stronger economic growth, McGregor-Smith explained. The WBC also encouraged the government to help women set up their own businesses, since with women half as likely as men to be entrepreneurs, meaning that the economy misses out on their input. At the launch of the report at the London Stock Exchange, Culture Secretary Maria Miller pledged her support for the WBC and its recommendations. “There is clearly much more that we need to be doing and today's report highlights that,” she said. "The priority now is to build that momentum of women's role in the workplace across the economy as a whole. "It's about unlocking that untapped potential of women in the workforce more widely, and supporting women moving up through the ranks, bringing sustained benefit to the British economy in the longer term," she said. Miller added that she was actively taking forward these recommendations by establishing a Ministerial Taskforce, to make sure that the very clear recommendations articulated in the report did not sit on the shelf, but “are translated into actions in government too." The Ministerial Taskforce will publish an action plan in August and the WBC will produce a second report next year to assess the progress that has been made since its recommendations were released.  |
| How to report issues to Facebook Posted: 11 Jun 2013 04:42 AM PDT
Many of you have been in touch since Facebook said it was committed to improving the way it responds to gender-based hate speech, to report content that you feel should be removed, or content that was removed for reasons you consider inappropriate. And we – both WAM! and the women’s groups who signed up supporting the campaign – are glad to hear from you. And both WAM! and Facebook are working hard to institute the agreed-upon changes. It is, however, important to note that the campaign and Facebook's commitment specifically address content that glorifies, promotes or makes light of rape, domestic violence or other forms of gendered violence. We, like you, are also concerned about Facebook's habit of removing non-sexual images of women's breasts while allowing sexualized images of women's naked bodies to remain. WAM! will be engaging with them on this issue as well as, but for now we need to collect examples of that separately from the violence-promoting content. So, depending on what you have to report, here's how to do it: For content that glorifies, promotes or makes light of gendered violence: first, report it to Facebook using their standard reporting system. If the content has been reported and Facebook has declined to remove it, email WAM!, and WAM! will take further action. Please include any information you have about when and how you reported the content, and what response(s) you've received from Facebook. For content that sexualizes women's naked bodies, or for content that has been removed that depicts non-sexualized images of women's breasts, again, report this to Facebook using their standard procedures if you haven't already. Then, if you're unsatisfied with their response, send your examples to WAM!, along with all the information you can provide about when and how you reported the content, and what response(s) you've received from Facebook. WAM! won't be taking further action on these examples immediately, but will be collecting them to show to Facebook as we all engage them on this issue. In the meantime: thank you for being part of ending gender-based hate speech on Facebook.  |
| In other cycling news, women ride bikes too Posted: 11 Jun 2013 01:09 AM PDT
The UK media support women's road cycling in theory, but are unwilling to provide coverage of women actually cycling. Criticism of the state of women's elite road cycling has been growing for some time. This week, Olympic team pursuit gold medallist Joanna Rowsell added her voice to the chorus. "In track cycling [women] get equal coverage to the men but the road has always been a massive imbalance," she told the BBC. "We need to showcase women's racing more and show how exciting it is because it's shorter than men's racing and faster. I think people can enjoy it when they get the opportunity." Speaking before the IG London Nocturne, Rowsell said that if equality is to be achieved, more events must run both men's and women's races. The London Nocturne is one of the few combined events on the elite road racing calendar. Since the Olympics, British cyclists have been outspoken in their criticism of the inequality in funding and sponsorship for men and women. Rowsell's voice now joins those of Emma Pooley, Nicole Cooke, Lizzie Armitstead and Bradley Wiggins, all of whom have explicitly called for change. But this is a problem on an international scale, and cyclists from other nations are having their say too. Kathryn Bertine, who rides for elite team Colavita/FineCooking Pro Cycling and represents St Kitts and Nevis, is working on a documentary exploring the challenges elite women face. Bertine previously competed as a triathlete and noticed a difference in the opportunities available to women when she switched to pro cycling. "Races were often shorter, prize money was lower, the female pros had no base salary and women's events were rarely linked to the major men's events," she said. "It's one thing if someone fails to make the Olympics but it's something completely else if an entire country or gender is held back because of red tape and flaws in [international governing body] the UCI." According the Bertine, change must come from the top. The attitude of the UCI (the International Cycling Union) towards improving women's cycling is apathetic, and as long as this remains the case, "nothing will change". But this does not absolve other interested parties from their responsibility, and the media should be doing a great deal more to encourage and support growth in women's cycling. Yet there is a strange paradox in media coverage. It seems that almost every week, a major newspaper prints comments from one of Team GB's Olympic cycling stars criticising the current state of affairs in women's cycling. To the casual observer, it would seem that the media in the UK are committed to supporting women's cycling. Yet the high-profile interviews and smug opinion pieces contrast with an utter lack of coverage of women's cycling races. A few weeks ago, I wrote about the coverage of the women's Tour de Languedoc-Roussillon. The race organisers intended the event to become the women's equivalent of the Tour de France, a position left vacant when the Tour de l'Aude disappeared in 2010 due to lack of sponsorship. But the Tour de Languedoc-Roussillon faced its own sponsorship problems, failing to find sufficient finance to go ahead until after the race was due to start. Naturally, this was reflected in the quality of the event, and led to a much depleted field, two teams having pulled out in protest. After winning the event, Emma Pooley described poor accommodation, and a lack of basic information for teams – including the addresses of the stage starts. I hardly need to say that in a men's race, this would cause outrage. But this is a women's race, so it was largely ignored by the media. The Guardian was the only newspaper to mention the race, and then only in passing in a live feed about the men's Giro d'Italia. (In other cycling news, women race too). I think the media must bear some responsibility for the catastrophe that was the Tour de Languedoc-Roussillon. Big money for women's races will not materialise until potential sponsors are confident that the fan base will make their investment worthwhile, but it is difficult for anyone to become a fan when they can't find out when there is a race. Good coverage does exist – Cycling Weekly, Velonation, and Sarah Connolly at Pro Women's Cycling, for example – but this caters more to committed cycling fans. Such small-circulation magazines and blogs, excellent though they are, cannot fill the gap left by national newspapers and TV. The UK media have made it clear that, in theory, they are in support of improving women's cycling, but in practice they are unwilling to make any investment in coverage, preferring to leave the responsibility for change to sponsors or the global governing body the UCI. For a few weeks last year, everyone in the country knew the names of our top women cyclists. Better – or simply any – coverage of women's races would go a long way towards transforming that spark of interest into an established fan base, which would be key in securing the funding and sponsorship needed. British Cycling should also take a greater lead. Britain leads the way in men's road racing, and in track cycling on both the men's and the women's side. Or rather, there are no gender sides in track cycling: both men and women train together, with the same access to coaches, facilities and support. The same is not true of road cycling. New team Wiggle Honda, launched in January with comparatively good funding and backing from Bradley Wiggins, is a step in the right direction. But the problems stem largely from the way the racing calendar is structured, and no single team can change this. There are few events with both men's and women's races, and the men's events have significantly more sponsorship, and better conditions and coverage. British Cycling cannot change the calendar, but as one of the top cycling nations, Britain should be putting more pressure on the UCI to do so. The time to do all this was directly after London 2012, when goodwill was at its highest. I fear it may already be too late to fully capitalise on the boom in interest, but with participation in cycling still increasing due to the Olympic effect, it is certainly not too late to try.  |
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