Thursday, July 18, 2013

Women's Views on News

Women's Views on News

Women’s football: a national event?

Posted: 17 Jul 2013 07:00 AM PDT

women's football championships Have we reached a tipping point for women’s football? 

Women's football has been reaching new heights of popularity, and the Women’s European Championship will get an unprecedented amount of coverage.

Last year's Olympics saw the first ever sold-out stadium for a women's match as Team GB beat Brazil in the quarter finals. The stadium was packed again for the final just over a week later.

The current European championship looks to be the biggest yet for women's football in Great Britain.

England's football team will be getting their most extensive coverage ever, as the BBC will, for the first time, be broadcasting every England match on television, as well as on radio.

In addition to regular coverage on the BBC’s morning show, England manager Hope Powell has been featured on children’s news show Newsround.

The BBC has been working to boost the coverage of women's football all-round, not just for the championships. Last May, the Women's FA Cup Final was back on the BBC after three years at Sky.

After the championship, the BBC will broadcast four FA Women's Super League programmes, with round-ups and highlights of the games, as well as building up to England's world cup qualifiers.

And throughout the women's season, BBC Sport online will also feature a weekly goal round-up which will be included in Friday's Sportsday programme.

However, elsewhere in Europe the quality of the Championship’s coverage has been somewhat haphazard.

The German public broadcaster ZDF scored an own goal with their advertisement promoting the championship, which featured a woman kicking a football not into a goal but into a washing machine, before setting on a cycle and waiting for the wash to finish.

A voiceover then makes a pun on expecting magic, and cleaning, on the pitch; in German the words for ‘clean’ and ‘magic’ are almost homophones.

The advertisement met with many complaints, from viewers as well as the mainstream press.

There is certainly still progress to be made, particularly in terms of sponsorship and funding opportunities, but women’s football is here to stay.

Scotland has already expressed an interest in hosting the next women's European Championship in 2017. If successful, the bid will surely boost coverage of and interest in women's football in the UK.

Something else which would boost the sport further would be an England win.

Nothing encourages new fans to a sport quite like national success.

It would also make a pleasant change for England fans to be, for once, backing a winning team.

It isn't so outlandish a thought – while England are in a tough group, they did reach the final of the last Eurocup and the semi-final of last year's Olympic championship.

England suffered a setback in their unexpected defeat in their opening match against Spain, and could only manage a disappointing draw with Russia. But they still have everything to play for, and will now have nothing to lose when they play favourites France later this week.

If it came to an England championship victory, would people still be disparaging and claim that this is 'only' women's football?

Or would a nation of football fans come together to celebrate England's first international tournament win in almost half a century?

Questionable behaviour in sportsmen

Posted: 17 Jul 2013 03:00 AM PDT

golf, discrimination, women's rights“This is not only about golf – it's about women's place in society.”

Every two or three years one of Scotland’s notorious cadre of sexist golf clubs hosts the Open championship, diminishing the country’s commitment to equality and fairness.

And sportsmen become clearly unsporting.

On Thursday, the 142nd Open gets under way at Muirfield, at Gullane, near Edinburgh.

Women are not permitted to be members of this club.

And so it does look as if Scotland is telling the golf-watching world – and passers-by like myself – that women are second-class citizens.

Alex Salmond, Scotland’s first minister, refused his annual invitation this year.

Salmond told STV News he had turned down his invitation as a sign of his disapproval of the policy, which he described as indefensible.

He said: “We have to send a message about Scotland and golf. We are the tradition, we are the home of golf, we are the history and the heritage of this game.

“To be the future of the game we’ve got to open up to everyone. It has to be a game based on equality.”

Muirfield is more formally known as the 'Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers'. It allows women to pay and play as visitors or guests, but it does not permit them to become members.

“If Muirfield had the Honourable Company of Women Golfers as well and had a women’s company who played the course … some clubs do that and that’s pretty acceptable,” Salmond told the BBC.

“But to have the message that women are not welcome as members, can’t be members, can’t have playing rights over the course on the same basis as men, seems to send out entirely the wrong message about the future of golf.”

Responding to the First Minister’s comments, a club spokesman said: "As a club we conform to the Equality Act 2010 and any change in the membership would be for the members to decide.

“The club welcomes women to play either as visitors or guests year round with full use of the facilities, as will be the case throughout the championship.”

Britain’s equality laws do permit private clubs to practise discrimination such as this, and two other Open venues – Royal St George's in Kent and Royal Troon in Ayrshire – are also all male. Muirfield has hosted many women's events, including the Curtis Cup.

But why this discrimination against women?

While some people may consider that the be all and end all of the argument is that a club has a right to chose to be all male or all female, for a club at this level in the public eye or even in the world of golf and press coverage is not quite the same thing – it clearly reinforces a fairly despicable line of discrimination.

To no purpose either, except to show it can and it wants to.

The Royal and Ancient, the game’s ruling body, which does not have an explicit gender policy but has never admitted a female member in its 250-year history, has said it will not remove Muirfield from its list of Open venues because it does not want to take a “bullying position”.

Gag. Vomit.

And for the sponsors to support such a view, and the Royal and Ancient to demonstrate that it hasn't quite got the point is one thing; for Visit Scotland and any Scottish politicians to go is quite another.

Salmond’s refusal to attend was a private choice; the government he leads will still be represented at Muirfield.

The Scottish Government will be represented at the event by tourism minister Fergus Ewing. Not the minister for sports, though, a woman called Shona Robison.

Salmond said he wrote to Muirfield with sport minister Shona Robison, suggesting the club take on women, or perhaps establish a "ladies' club".

But as Liberal Democrat MSP Alison McInnes said earlier this year: "This is not only about golf – it's about women's place in society.

“Golf clubs are still very powerful informal networks and excluding women from joining excludes them from some important circles of influence.

“Muirfield calls itself The Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers but I can see nothing honourable in their continued exclusion of women.”

For of course, the question has to be that if the members of these all-male clubs are content to continue to discriminate like this, where else in their lives, in their professional lives, does this prejudice spill over?

In April Shona Robison called for an end to all single sex golf clubs.

"The Scottish Government is committed to equality of opportunity for all people living in Scotland and I believe that all golf clubs should be open to men and to women,” she said.

"While membership is a matter for clubs, the direction of travel now is clearly to admit both men and women members and I hope it won't be too long before we see an end to single sex clubs."

Labour's shadow sport minister Patricia Ferguson said that as the birth nation of golf, Scotland should lead by example.

For, as Salmond said, "in the 21st century, it's not a good message for golf to suggest that women are second-class citizens."

"I don't think it helps the game to have the suggestion of a bias against women, and the greatest tournament on this planet, played on arguably the greatest golf course, should have this impression that somehow ladies, women, girls, should be second-class citizens.

"I don't think that's right."

Police tricks: victims call for people’s inquiry

Posted: 17 Jul 2013 01:09 AM PDT

police dirty tricksCall for an end to police infiltration of protest groups – and defending the right to protest.

Anti-racist campaigners, whose organisation was infiltrated by under-cover officers in the 1990s believe a Hillsborough-style panel is the only way to uncover the truth.

Last week members of Youth Against Racism in Europe (YRE),  held a protest outside Scotland Yard to defend the right to protest and an end to police infiltration of protest groups.

The protest followed revelations on Channel 4's Dispatches programme last month that officers from the Metropolitan Police's Special Demonstration Squad (SDS) infiltrated Youth Against Racism in Europe while they campaigned against racist attacks and murders in South East London around the time of the killing of Stephen Lawrence in 1993.

Former SDS officer Peter Francis revealed that he and other officers were instructed to gather evidence against Stephen Lawrence's family and friends.

Doreen Lawrence, Stephen’s mother, made it plain last week that there should be an independent inquiry into Francis’s claims.

Lois Austin, former chair of Youth Against Racism in Europe, said: "Rather than vital police resources being spent finding Stephen Lawrence's murderers resources were spent spying on those people trying to stop racist attacks and murders and on the Lawrence family.  And we think this is outrageous and unacceptable."

Youth Against Racism in Europe is calling for the establishment of a panel consisting of campaigners, trade unionists and democratically elected community representatives, similar to the Hillsborough Independent Panel set up to uncover the truth about 96 Liverpool football fans killed at the FA Cup semi-final in 1989.

They say that secret files should be made available to the panel, so it can go through the evidence and make recommendations.

"We are calling for any under-cover secret police units that aren't involved in crime to be disbanded.

"We want all the Special Branch files on peaceful protesters made available, so they can be put under public scrutiny, and we want justice for the Lawrence family," said Austin.

She added that there were currently 16 different inquiries into allegations of police infiltration of protest organisations.

"There are two main inquires. Firstly there is one being carried out by a judge in secret courts. No-one knows about the evidence, it is not under public scrutiny what is discussed or disclosed.

"The other public inquiry is by the police themselves, so it's the police investigating the police.

"That is unacceptable. When we talk about a public inquiry what we mean is one that is run by people who are elected from communities, from protest organisations and trade unions, who form a panel," she said.

And Austin rejected calls for a judge-led inquiry.

"Neville Lawrence is calling for that and I can understand why. He doesn't want the police investigating the police.

"We have had judges making terrible decisions where protesters are concerned, [and] we don't trust them to deal with this either," she said.

"I think the Hillsborough panel did a fantastic job. They organised an inquiry, they took a legal route, but they also took a campaigning route and that's what we intend to do.

"We are also going to be campaigning for the right to protest, an end to the infiltration of protest groups and an end to the criminalisation of protesters.

"In the last 20 years it has been accepted by the police and political establishment that it is alright to kettle protesters for hours and hours on end, so effectively taking away their right to democratic protest.

"We are going to be doing lots of protests against austerity and cuts, and we want to know that we can go out and protest without being kettled and suffering police brutality, and we also want to know that we won't be spied upon by secret police."

The programme also revealed – confirmed – that under-cover officers duped female activists from other campaigns into having relationships. One even fathered a child, and later disappeared. Several of these women are now taking legal action against the police.