Women's Views on News |
- Veiled out of discourse #AllWhitePage3
- Women overtake men in tablet ownership
- Why is keeping your maiden name an issue?
- Women struggling to get top NHS jobs
| Veiled out of discourse #AllWhitePage3 Posted: 25 Jul 2013 10:12 AM PDT
Guest post by Amna Germanotta Riaz I have been following the nomorepage3 campaign and am happy to see the progress made over the past few months. The campaigners quote The Independent on their About Us page: "The page 3 image is there for no other reason than the sexual gratification of men. She's a sex object. But when figures range from 300,000 women being sexually assaulted and 60,000 raped each year, to 1 in 4 who have been sexually assaulted, is it wise to be repeatedly perpetuating a notion that women are sexual objects?" Though the Independent is most probably referring to what they think of as 'all women' here, The Sun's Page 3 has a profound affect on British Asian women* in even more ways. Newspapers and the media are insistent on reproducing one type of discourse on British Asian women, which ironically veils them out of the debates they are associated with, such as patriarchy, sexism and violence. The majority of Page 3 models are not women of colour, in fact British models of Asian origin are less 'mainstream', so ethnic minority girls' concept of beauty is for the most part shaped by white centric ideals, mass produced by the media for great profit. That is not to say that I want more women of colour featured in The Sun, absolutely not. The Sun is bullish in its portrayal of ethnic minorities and women of colour have no need to be further insulted by featuring inside. The message given to British Asians (both women and men) is that women of colour are still a) less attractive than Caucasian women and b) women of colour are still treated as an ‘other’ and therefore are barred from the issues they are involved in. Only white women are attractive – During the British colonial period Indian women were either presented as mysterious or as cheap sex without pay. When pitted against the European white women, there were purposefully made to feel sexually unattractive and less pure as this kept them in the lowly, inferior position need to keep colonial rule afloat – White Supremacy. This colonial legacy is still evident for example in the skin-lightening creams that are widely available. Racism and sexism is still prevalent and these experiences are upsetting and deeply damaging for the development of young British Asian girls. It is made worse by the fact that it is rampant amongst ethnic minority groups. White skin or lighter skin is preferred over darker skin in some British Asian communities. I often heard 'the lighter skin, the better', or 'she's too dark' in my secondary school! Who by? Young British Asian boys when 'rating' girls according to their attractiveness. Migrant Asian parents have not been shy to show their preference to lighter skin colour, skin lightening creams that are highly damaging are extremely popular in countries like Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh and this type of colour discrimination has no doubt carried over into Britain. One whitening cream is literally called 'fair and lovely' is reproduced and packaged by none other than Unilever! Just do a Google search for' skin lightening creams' and there are endless lists of products that will 'brighten up your complexion'. It was not uncommon for me to hear and see British Asian girls stay indoors at school during intense summer periods to stop themselves from tanning. And yes Asians do tan. Sexism and racism is a cruel cocktail for British Asian girls, since this pressure for lighter skin is only applied to Asian girls, because of course the brown boy can still marry, the brown girl however risks her chances of a marriage proposal the browner she gets. Sexism and racism, a double whammy for brown girls of Britain. The current shortage of ethnic minority women to act as role models in careers such as the Civil Service, Government, sports, politics, big businesses, the media, academia and Arts is currently is somewhat of a self fulfilling prophecy. The less there are, the less there will be until that double whammy is dissipated and unreasonable beauty standards stop and respect from others flourishes. The veiling of the British Asian woman – Success stories of the Asian woman are rarely published in the news. And so British Asian women are silenced and theoretically and physically veiled out of discourse. And when she is on the news, it is another case of oppression by her aggressive father and brothers or another forced-to-marry-underage story. That is not to say that this problem doesn't exist, it certainly does, but the volume of coverage is unequal, and the unequal balance of positive and negative news on Asian women is unfair. Even debates on whether the Muslim veil/burkha should be banned often have a Muslim male cleric rather than a Muslim woman involved in the debate. Ironically therefore, while these papers rampantly criticise British Asians' and their inherently patriarchal culture, they also refuse to give these women a platform to voice their concerns. And so most of the time, they are simply exploiting these tragic cases of violence and oppression against women, to continue to depict racist and bigoted views concerning Britain's ethnic minorities. Minorities are constantly made to feel alien and ugly in this way. Even outside of tabloids, in British films the leading lady is almost always white. In Harry Potter they have only have two ethnic minority girls, the Patel twins, as far as I can remember. Also WOW JK Rowling, stereotyping much with Asian names? Could have been a little more creative perhaps? What is needed is a shift in attitude and thought; minorities need to be accepted as mainstream and not that 'spicy' story that will sell. At the moment any portrayal of minorities are almost always a charade, oriental perhaps, immersed in homophobia (see Eastenders), wife beaters and violent men (see The Sun, Daily Mail etc), terrorists (see the latter again). 'Britain is not the same as it was 60 years ago', actually there were black and Asian people in Britain well before the 'Empire Windrush', thank you very much. So the more people know this, then the faster we can move forward and improve Britain's 'race relations'. *When using the term British Asians, I refer to second and third generation Indians, Pakistanis and Bengalis. This article is from on Media Diversity UK, a site set up to tackle the lack of diversity in UK media and the ubiquity of whiteness.  |
| Women overtake men in tablet ownership Posted: 25 Jul 2013 05:53 AM PDT
YouGov, the UK-based international online market research agency, has reported that not only is tablet ownership growing fast, but, for the first time, the majority of tablet owners in the UK are women. Twenty-two per cent of the adult population and 26 per cent of UK households now possess one, but women now form the majority, owning 52 per cent of the total tablets purchased – up 9 percentage points in the past year. However, YouGov’s Tablet Tracker report suggests that women are acquiring older tablets, owning 60 per cent of the iPad 1′s and 2′s and 58 per cent of the iPad Minis, whereas well-off men are more likely to own iPad3′s, 4′s and Samsung devices. John Gilbert, lead director at YouGov Technology and Telecoms said: "The early adopters of tablets have typically been affluent males. As they buy the latest models, they have placed their old devices on to the secondary market or given them to other members of their household.” But why are women adopting tablets so enthusiastically? The report suggests the increase is driven by both the release of smaller tablets and by women getting hold of second-hand devices. Tablets make an excellent half-way house between a mobile phone and a desktop PC as they are a lot cheaper than a laptop but possess a similar amount of utility. They are also, conceptually, more user friendly than PCs or laptops. They are easy to customise with a flick of a finger and adding new software and programmes is just a matter of 'plug and play'. Crucially, they are portable, which means they can be used if away from a work or home computer. This is something that may well appeal to busy, multi-tasking women who need to be able to snatch time on the word processor, surf the web or communicate via Skype on the fly. Tony Cripps, an analyst at telecoms research firm Ovum, was unsurprised by the findings, saying: “Tablets clearly have considerable appeal outside of the geek community – due to their utility and ease of use." Whatever the reasons, women's interest in tablets is expected to be a growing trend. The research also identified almost a fifth of non-tablet owners as 'hot prospects' for future purchasers – and a third of these are women. Tablet manufacturers don't see a lot of return from the second-hand market other than through the sales of apps and accessories, so, in the short term, female usage of the older models may only lead to an increase in 'female-focused' apps and tablet peripherals. However, in the medium term, there may well be a surge in the – usually depressing – female-oriented (read pink) tech marketing as manufacturers scramble to encourage us to buy the latest products. Bill Fisher, a senior analyst at eMarketer, another research firm, certainly believes that this data could signify a future increase in the purchase of cutting edge tablets as women begin to want more from their tech, especially if prices continue to fall. He told the BBC: “We saw something similar in the smartphone market where a lot of the people who received hand-me-downs perceived them as being useful and then wanted higher specs to be able to do more.”  |
| Why is keeping your maiden name an issue? Posted: 25 Jul 2013 04:30 AM PDT
According to Facebook, a third of married women in their 20s have opted to keep their surname. Good for them, I say, but that still leaves a massive sixty-something per cent who haven’t. For women in my generation, in their 30s, the figure drops to 20 per cent, and for my mother’s generation, now in their 60s, it’s a meagre nine per cent. Marriage experts claim the resurgence of this keeping of the maiden name can be put down to feminism, and that the increasing number of young women retaining their own surname is a marker for equality. Which is all well and good, but why – in 2013 – is it still such an issue? For me, it was a no-brainer. Why would I, after nearly 30 years of correcting people’s pronunciation and having to spell it out loud (pronounced ‘bat’, by the way), want to change my name? This name has been my name, my identity, my marker, for so long, I couldn’t imagine being called anything else. No matter how much grief it’s given me (Ms Battle, Ms Batty…), and no matter how much I love my husband, this one’s a keeper. It’s not been plain sailing since, either. To begin with, everyone assumes you’ve taken your husband’s name. Year after year I’d get birthday cards and Christmas cards addressed to my ‘new’ married name, even from my own family. And don’t even get me started on the people who insisted on prefixing my supposed married name by my husband’s first name, as if I’d somehow lost my entire identity and become the female version of him. One of my (male) friends insisted on having me listed in his phone under my ‘married’ surname. He retains it to this day just to wind me up, but had automatically assumed that would be my name. What is more, new acquaintances assume your name is your husband’s, and you always end up having to justify why it is not. Really, it’s quite simple; I don’t see men giving up that one thing that defines them so clearly – their name – so why should women? I’ve only known one man to change his name to his wife’s, and he was absolutely derided for it, by both men and women. Other men would look down at him, tell him he was ‘under the thumb’ and imply he was somehow less of a man. Women called him weak-willed. These attitudes tell me there is an incredibly long way to go before we approach anything resembling equality on this issue. Given that changing your name, in my book, is a pretty big deal, I’m astounded that so many women don’t seem to think twice about it. Some claim to have made the choice, but others just blindly do as generations before have done, and once that marriage certificate is signed, they’re clamouring to erase their previous identity from bank accounts, passports and any other documentation they can get their diamond-decorated fingers on. I have heard many different explanations for making the ‘choice’ to take your husband’s name; one that is frequently cited being ‘his surname was better than mine’. Really? My name isn’t cool, or quirky, but it’s mine. Unless you’ve been tormented by a really awful surname for decades, in which case you may have already resorted to a change by deed poll, you are admitting that somehow your name was inferior. Another reason is because they want to be part of a partnership, or a team, which goes under the same name. If this is the case, why is it always the husband’s name? Why does it never seem to be the wife’s name? Some couples have opted for a double-barrelled name, but the more families we see with different names, the more normal it will become. People tell me its easier, especially with kids, when you don’t have to explain it to the doctor or the teacher, but by accepting the status quo, nothing will ever change. I’m not anti-marriage at all, I got married myself, but I am anti anything that defines gendered roles within marriage. A marriage should be a partnership of equals, and if it starts with one person capitulating to the other, I’d have to question where else imbalances may lie.  |
| Women struggling to get top NHS jobs Posted: 25 Jul 2013 01:09 AM PDT
One of the most comprehensive analyses of the health service's gender make-up since the Health and Social Care Act 2012 reforms has been carried out by the Heath Service Journal (HSJ) and the King's Fund, an independent charity working to improve health and health care in England. Their survey found that women account for just 37 per cent of senior roles on clinical commissioning group governing bodies and the National Health Service’s (NHS) provider boards. This is despite women making up three quarters of the NHS workforce. Likewise, while women make up 81 per cent of the non-medical NHS workforce, three quarters of NHS finance directors are male and men constitute the majority of most leadership teams. Nicola Hartley, director of leadership development at the King's Fund, said: "These survey results, which chime with what we are told by the women we work with, show that they face serious obstacles in gaining senior roles. "There are some great women leaders in healthcare but the pace of change has been incredibly slow. "These findings should act as a prompt to examine why we have too few women in the most senior roles and what we can do to change that." Alastair McLellan, editor of HSJ, agreed that the rate of change is far too slow. He said: "Despite the huge advances in equality over recent decades, women are still under-represented among healthcare leaders. "Last year's HSJ 100 ranking of the most powerful people in health contained just 20 women – and that was an eight year high. Six women have appeared in the top ten since 2006 – but none of them have ever managed it twice." The results of the survey, which were published on 17 July, also show that many female NHS employees are unhappy in the workplace. More than a third of the women who took part in the survey said they had encountered sexual discrimination and over half said they had been bullied. Furthermore, two thirds of female respondents felt they had to prove themselves more than men and many complained about a masculine environment and a prejudice towards women leaders. McLellan spoke out about these difficult working conditions, saying: "Women healthcare leaders often have it tough. "As well as the challenges of juggling family and career and the overt sexism that still lurks in parts of the service, they face the hypocritical attitudes which limit their progress. "Too often successful female leaders are deemed to be aping men, while those that fail are judged to have done so because they displayed a surfeit of supposedly female characteristics." Indeed, a large proportion of women surveyed, 49 per cent, believe that having children disadvantaged their career and a third have difficulties juggling work and caring for their children. The female respondents suggested that flexible working opportunities could help them cope with family commitments. They also said that an enabling culture, female mentors, good managers and peer support could help them gain confidence and be happier in the workplace. The South Tees Hospitals Foundation Trust is one of only 17 provider trusts in the UK to have a female chair and a female chief executive. Tricia Hart, chief executive at South Tees, is positive about women's place in the NHS. "The fact that more people are having coaching and mentors can support them to look at the opportunities that are certainly out there," she said. It remains to be seen if a woman will succeed Sir David Nicholson, the current chief executive of the NHS, when he retires in March 2014.  |
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