Women's Views on News |
- It’s not ‘complicated’, it’s sexism
- Committee supports women’s rights at work
- Victory in battle for equal pay
| It’s not ‘complicated’, it’s sexism Posted: 03 Jul 2013 08:05 AM PDT
Sadly, March 2013 wasn't a bad month; it wasn't a blip or an anomaly or one of those months where they simply forgot women can be as talented and culturally relevant as men. In 2012, the gender split at the The London Review of Books (LRB) was just as egregious. Of an annual total of 276 published reviews, 66 were written by women. There were 74 female authors deemed worthy of reviewing in 2012, a figure dwarfed by the 203 male authors afforded scrutiny and prominence. Although these stats rankle, placed against just about every other sphere of arts, culture and the media, such female underrepresentation is unsurprising, if not expected. Expected, not accepted. And so it was that, inspired by the Guardian's recent infographic "The Gender Balance of UK Literary Culture' and informed by her own experiences as a subscriber, author Kathryn Heyman emailed the LRB to express her concerns. In a searing exchange, reproduced on her blog, Heyman informed the publication that she had deliberately neglected to renew her subscription because ‘based on the tedious regularity with which you ignore female writers and female reviewers, I have to assume that my lady-money is not welcome in the man-cave of the LRB’. Heyman concluded her email with this entreaty: ‘If at some point you choose to step into the terrifying world of gender equality, do let us know’. 'Paul' of the LRB responded to Heyman's witty excoriation in terms so blandly evasive he seemed to disprove the theory implicit in his employer's publishing practices: that women don't write as well, or have as much of worth to say, as men. Paul suggested the reasons for the underrepresentation of women were 'complicated; actually, as complicated as it gets….despite the distress it causes us…the efforts we've made to change the situation have so far been unsuccessful". This response was depressingly reminiscent of the Today programme, whose assertion that they were unable to find any female experts to discuss breast cancer was swiftly countered and led to the creation of the expert database, The Women's Room. Similarly, what amounted to a linguistic shrug of the shoulders from the LRB, led Kathryn Heyman and others to consider just how hard the publication was trying to redress its cavernous gender disparity and whether its 'complicated' reasons for this disparity held any weight. The LRB's defence, such as it was, seemed to hinge on a fallacy: that 'more men actively seek to be published'. A moot point when the journal goes on to admit to Heyman that 'the vast majority of pieces that we carry are commissioned by the editors’. The suggestion that more men seek to be published, and aggressively pitch their work, is a regular facet of the conversations and arguments concerning representation in literary journals. The argument that men get on in life and are better represented by virtue of the fact they are emboldened to come right out and ask for it is essentialising nonsense. This 'masculine overconfidence' – pitching reviews, asking for pay rises and snaffling all the promotions – is presumably taking place while women are tittering behind their fans and squeaking 'I couldn't possibly'. The LRB seem fully on board with the excuse that women's innate meekness is to blame for their underrepresentation, tweeting to some vocal detractors ‘why not email us your writing samples? Men do all the time’. Sure they do. That's definitely the only reason you regularly ignore half the population. It's obviously nothing to do with systemic sexism and the privileging of masculinity. And even if women did start emailing writing samples in their thousands, the LRB would still continue, presumably, to commission most of its articles. Which brings us back round nicely to the role of the LRB. As Danielle Pafunda of Vida explains ’historically, an editor’s job has been to actively engage writers, to search out the new, bring the under-acknowledged into the light’. Surely then, the logic goes, the LRB just need to commission more women. They're not actually hard to find. Indeed, Heyman gave the journal a good starting point when she published a list of 'eminent, established [female] writers and academics' which was, by her own admission, 'incomplete' and 'drawn together from a five minute conversation'. For Books' Sake also waded in, emailing the LRB with offers of assistance in finding these elusive female writers, while making the astute point that ‘to us, the issue doesn't seem that complicated at all. We feature women writers on a daily basis, unpaid, alongside our full-time jobs. Surely LRB, with all its influence and resources, should be able to do the same?’ This statement, perhaps more than anything, exposes the half-heartedness of the LRB's alleged commitment to the issue of gender equality. It seems as if the English Literature students' vision of the whisky-soaked, middle class, university educated and hugely masculine literary 'establishment' has not changed all that much. These types of writers are all still here, writing novels, winning awards, representing the 'art' of fiction. Yet although women write and read the majority of fiction, female writing is much less likely to be canonised, to be reviewed and to be celebrated. And, actually, it matters little how many women novelists and reviewers there are if women are not publicised or treated with rigour and as capable of producing culturally relevant discourse. Until this happens, and while the horribly gendered and diminishing marketing of female writers as some kind of ‘genre’ such as 'chick-lit' or ‘aga saga’ remains, credence will continue to be given to the lie that only men can write well, and write importantly. Writer and critic Bidisha called the erasure and obfuscation of women from public life in this manner 'cultural femicide'. She’s right, so please stop waving Hilary Mantel in our faces as if the anomaly is enough to placate us. Perhaps Paul and the LRB need a binder, or at least someone more practised in defending the indefensible.  |
| Committee supports women’s rights at work Posted: 03 Jul 2013 05:15 AM PDT
The Parliamentary Committee on Business Innovation and Skills recently published the findings of its review into women and in the workplace, following widespread concerns that women are falling behind in the career stakes. The committee looked at all aspects of women's work and career development from careers advice, to training, progression and protection against discrimination. They were concerned at the lack of careers advice offered to boys and girls, and called for a cultural change in education, especially at the point when pupils choose subjects. Girls in particular can find themselves discouraged from studying science and technology. The committee believes the government should set targets for women in technical apprenticeships and use its funding to force higher education institutions to improve the proportion of women studying science and technology-related (STEM) subjects. The government should use its buying power to promote private-sector firms with a good track record of employing and promoting women. The committee was concerned that the Women in Work programme, which helps women get back into work, could be under threat now that Sector Skills Councils have to bid for funding, rather than receiving grants. It recommended that large private companies should be forced to undertake and publish equal pay audits, and if necessary, compelled to publish data on the number of women in senior positions. And the Public Sector Equality Duty, which requires public bodies to consider equality when employing staff and providing services, should be left intact. The committee recommended that employees should be able to ask for flexible working from day one, rather than after six months, and the Equality and Human Rights Commission should be offered more resources to support small and medium-sized businesses to introduce flexible employment. It urged the government to fund more research into maternity discrimination and recommended that women should not be charged the £1,200 fee when claiming maternity discrimination at an Employment Tribunal. Valuing Maternity, a consortium of groups campaigning for better maternity rights for working women, said it would be pushing the government to implement the report’s findings. It welcomed a judicial review launched by public sector union UNISON, against the introduction of the employment tribunal fees. Vital reading. Click here to see the whole paper.  |
| Victory in battle for equal pay Posted: 03 Jul 2013 01:08 AM PDT
Forty-three years after the Equal Pay Act in the UK, women are still fighting to make equal pay a reality. An important victory in that fight was won this week for female council workers in Scotland, which could have implications for women throughout the country. Female council staff in Dumfries and Galloway, including nursery workers and classroom assistants, have been paid under different terms and conditions than male council workers such as groundsmen and refuse drivers. Specifically, male staff are awarded substantial bonuses and pay supplements which female workers are not eligible for. The councils had argued that because staff worked in different locations, in this case schools and depots, different rules could apply. However, the female council workers maintained that despite working in different establishments they were 'in the same employment' as male council workers. This means that, under the Equal Pay Act, they are entitled to be paid according to the same terms and conditions as men. In short, the female council staff wanted to have their jobs recognised as equal to those of the male workers. The Supreme Court decided in favour of the 251 female workers, ruling that the Scottish councils had discriminated against women in refusing to award them the same bonuses as male employees. The five judges, who were unanimous in their decision, ruled that the equal pay law does apply in this case, where a woman works in a different establishment but 'in the same employment'. The case has been sent back to the employment tribunal which had originally heard and dismissed it. Karen Korus, one of the appellants, described the process as 'a long fight'. The case has indeed been making its way through the courts for seven years. She said, ‘We knew all along that we should be able to compare our work with the men, who sometimes did work in schools, but were not based there like the rest of us'. This decision has implications for thousands of other female council worker in similar situations. There are already almost 2,000 similar cases waiting in the wings, which will now go ahead following this decision, and across the UK there are currently 50,000 live equal pay cases in local government. A similar case, won in Birmingham in October 2012, prompted an increasing number of claimants to step forward. In that case, female workers employed by the council had been excluded from the substantial bonuses male workers received. This, in practice, meant that a male worker on the same pay grade as a female worker could take home four times more money. The ruling in favour of those 174 female workers also extended the time limit for equal pay claims from six months to six years, encouraging other appellants to come forward for compensation. As of last March, the payout bill for Birmingham City Council stood at £890 million. Perhaps the Dumfries and Galloway case will have a similar ripple effect, so that more female workers can receive the pay they are owed? Because the pay gap between men and women stubbornly persists. According to the Fawcett Society, in 2012 women across all sectors earned 18.6 per cent less than men. Even if we only look at full-time work, where the difference is less, women still take home only 85p to a man's pound. The overall picture in terms of women's equality in the work place, of which pay equality is only one angle, is not looking rosy. The UK dropped four places in the 'Women in Work index', which measures a country’s performance in five areas of 'female economic empowerment', and currently ranks 18th out of 27 OECD countries. Every autumn, the Fawcett society 'celebrates' Equal Pay Day, which marks the point of the year from which women, compared to men, effectively start working for free. In 2012, this day was 7 November. Let us hope that cases like the one in Dumfries and Galloway continue to be fought and won, so that 'Equal Pay Day' is be pushed later and later in the year, until we no longer have to mark it at all.  |
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