Women's Views on News |
- Volunteer media watch co-editor wanted
- Woman in landmark zero hours case
- Is the anti-porn filter only a band-aid?
- Texas passes restrictive abortion law
- No More Shame: a video project
| Volunteer media watch co-editor wanted Posted: 13 Aug 2013 11:34 AM PDT
This new section will act as a watchdog on media representation of women in the UK. It will feature photos and videos with short comments, and will be visual and interactive, grabbing people’s attention when they haven’t got time to read a full article. Populated on an ad-hoc basis, it will highlight ‘the best’ and ‘the worst’ of media representations of women as a regular weekly feature on the WVoN site. We are looking for a co-editor to gather and write content for ‘Media Spotlight’. This opportunity would be ideal for a media junky who frequently finds themselves outraged by the treatment of women in the media. Responsibilities: Source good and bad examples of media representation of women from TV, film, digital media, music, adverts, newspapers, magazines, etc and write accompanying comments. Upload video, pictures and content onto the site. Write and respond to reader comments. Help select the best and worst for the weekly feature and write copy for this feature. Work with other writers to arrange interviews, attend screenings and events and produce longer feature articles where necessary. Skills and experience required: Ability to write well researched, incisive, witty media comment. IT and digital communication skills including using content management and social media software. Knowledge of using video, scanning and photo software. Excellent knowledge of relevant media platforms to source good and bad representations of women. Excellent desk top research skills. As this position will require you to work from home, you’ll need internet access. Time commitment: We ask that the Co-Editor has seven hours a week to dedicate to ‘Media Spotlight’. This can be flexible but they will need to be available to publish the weekly feature of the best and worst from the section. Other members of WVoN will also work on the media watch section. Interested? If you’d like to apply for this position, please email Heather Kennedy: volunteerswvon@gmail.com  |
| Woman in landmark zero hours case Posted: 13 Aug 2013 08:13 AM PDT
Last month the Sports Direct group announced that it was awarding its staff an average of 12,000 shares each. But the part-time staff, the majority of the workforce, were – and are – not eligible for this Bonus Share Scheme. Part-time staff at SportsDirect.com are also denied paid annual leave, sick pay and other bonuses available to full-time staff. The campaigning organisation 38 Degrees is seeking donations to enable a former shop worker to take her ex-employer, SportsDirect.com, to an industrial tribunal over claims of less favourable treatment of part time staff. Zahera Gabriel-Abraham, 30, from South-West London, started working at the Croydon Sportsdirect.com store in October 2012 as a part-time sales assistant. Ms Gabriel-Abraham claims she should have been treated no less favourably than the full-time staff. Sportsdirect.com employs 23,000 staff, 20,000 of whom are part-time, and termed 'casual' workers, so they have no guaranteed working hours. These contracts have become known as zero hours contracts. And this case follows mounting concern over the growing use of zero hours contracts. WVoN recently reported that zero hours contracts were increasingly being used in female-dominated industries like care and retail. Under zero hours contracts workers receive no guaranteed paid working hours, and there have been reports of workers on zero hours contracts being sent home during slack periods and receiving no payment for expenses like work-related travel, training and uniforms. Elizabeth George, a barrister in the employment team of law firm Leigh Day, who is acting for Ms Gabriel-Abraham, said: "We are not arguing that employers cannot have genuine flexible contracts, but the contract under which Ms Gabriel-Abraham worked, and which all SportDirect.com’s 20,000 part-time employees appear to be working, has no flexibility at all for those people who sign them. "There was no practical difference between the obligations put on my client by the company and those placed on full-time staff. "Casual workers traditionally supplement an employer's salaried staff, to be called upon when cover is needed or demand is high. “In return for not having the security of knowing when you might work you have the benefit of being able to choose when you work. “Without that choice you are not a casual worker you are just a worker with no job security." "The "casual" part-time employees in this case are employees in the conventional sense and denying them their paid holidays, sick pay and bonuses is unlawful.” David Babbs, executive director of 38 Degrees, said: "Big businesses must be held to account and zero hours contracts must not be used as a justification to abuse employees' rights. "We want to help make sure employees' rights are respected, and these contracts are not used as another means to maximise profit at the expense of hard-working people.” To donate, click here.  |
| Is the anti-porn filter only a band-aid? Posted: 13 Aug 2013 06:18 AM PDT
On 24 July, Prime Minister David Cameron made a speech on 'internet and pornography' outlining a series of new policies. One of these new policies in particular has elicited debate and no small amount of controversy: the decision to make porn filters opt-out rather than opt-in. Currently, those wishing to apply a filter on their systems so that pornographic content cannot be accessed have to opt in to apply this filter. Under Cameron's new policy, the filter will be on by default; Internet Service Providers will contact their customers asking them if they want the filters turned off. The rationale behind this move is that it will prevent children from accessing pornographic material. According to Cameron, it will solve one of the cultural challenges thrown up by the internet which is 'the fact that many children are viewing online pornography and other damaging material at a very early age and that the nature of that pornography is so extreme it is distorting their view of sex and relationships'. There is a huge, and often divisive, debate about pornography and its effects within the feminist movement. Leaving that debate temporarily aside, as well as the censorship and technology issues that others have written about, Cameron's policy remains problematic. The crux of the problem is that the filter does little to address the stated problem, which is that children are exposed, or given access, to materials which give them unrealistic and sometimes dangerous information and ideas about sex, relationships and sexuality. In fact, it seems that the filter would change little at all. It isn't a new, more sophisticated filter that children and teenagers would struggle to circumvent. It doesn't create an extra layer of protection for children whose families already have the filter switched on. It's a way of doing little while seemingly taking action. The Observer's editorial described it as 'a no-lose mini crusade'. This interpretation is strengthened by a leaked letter from the department of education to internet service providers. The letter reveals that, 'Without changing what you will be offering (ie active-choice +), the prime minister would like to be able to refer to your solutions are “default-on”'. In short, it's a semantic rather than seismic shift. If the government were indeed serious about the negative messages being sent to children about sex and sexuality, why does Cameron continue to support the Sun's page 3? Page 3 sends and reinforces the message that women are objects rather than human beings, and that our boobs matter more than our brains. The argument that it is a 'consumer choice' is spurious – children are exposed to it on public transport, in the newsagents and elsewhere. Why isn't the government focussing on providing decent sex education? Let's not forget that Conservative MP Nadine Dorries tabled a bill for teenage girls to be given compulsory lessons in sexual abstinence. In June 2013, Tory MPs voted against a bill to make sex and relationship education compulsory in schools. A tangential issue is the way that Cameron couched this question in terms of the 'corrosion of children's innocence'. While the sexualisation of children is a problem for our society, hammering home the idea of the 'innocence' of children and linking it to sexuality is problematic. Children who display sexual behaviour or sexual curiosity do not lose their innocence, they are innocent because they are too young to make informed decisions. This dichotomy between 'innocent' and 'sexualised' is as false as it is dangerous, and contributes to a climate where a judge can describe a thirteen-year-old girl a 'sexual predator' and let the man who had sex with her walk free. Children and teenagers are negotiating their sexual awakening in a difficult environment. If we are serious about changing the messages we send to children and teenagers about sex, it needs to be done across the board and not just online. After all, there's no better protection than knowledge and education.  |
| Texas passes restrictive abortion law Posted: 13 Aug 2013 03:37 AM PDT
Called 'The Republicans back door abortion ban' by critics, House Bill 2 (HB2) has caused a thunderstorm of controversy in a United States-wide debate concerning abortion services. HB2 was largely brought to the attention of diverse media, including in WVoN, after an impressive display by Texas Senator Wendy Davis who blocked the bill's passage on June 25 2013 by speaking for over 10 hours in the Texas Senate, a technique called a filibuster. Unfortunately, dashing the hopes of Davis and pro-choice campaigners across Texas, the Bill was nevertheless passed on 12 July in the Texas Senate by a majority of 19 to 11, after being passed by the House earlier in the week . Republican Rick Perry, the current governor of Texas, signed HB2 in to law shortly afterwards, on 18 July. NARAL Pro Choice Texas criticised Perry's decision to sign the Bill as 'signalling his disregard for the reproductive lives of Texas women'. In a press release on 18 July NARAL's executive director Heather Busby explained that nothing in this law would improve women's health and safety, but if it were allowed to go into effect, it would create a public health crisis. Busby was referring to stipulations in the legislation, under section 2, that say: 'A physician performing or inducing an abortion: [...] must, on the date the abortion is performed or induced, have active admitting privileges at a hospital that [...] is located not further than 30 miles from the location at which the abortion is performed'. In addition the hospital must be able to provide 'obstetrical or gynaecological health services'. It is evident that this would force women in rural communities to travel long distances to access abortions. Delays in access to abortion services are likely to mean that some women who could have received chemical induced abortions will have to undergo abortive operations instead, increasing potential trauma and medical risk. The legislation also says that women may not access legal abortions after 20 weeks, saying 'the state has a compelling state interest in protecting the lives of unborn children from the stage at which substantial medical evidence indicates that these children are capable of feeling pain'. And it goes on to declare that 'the woman has adequate time to decide whether to have an abortion in the first 20 weeks after fertilization'. However Abortion Rights UK points out that only a small proportion of women tend to have abortions after 20 weeks, and those that do are 'often the most vulnerable women in difficult situations'. Abortion Rights UK explains that 'they include young women concealing or in denial about their pregnancies, women unaware they were pregnant because they had been using contraception, and women whose personal circumstances change dramatically after conceiving due to bereavement, family illness or domestic violence'. And both Abortion Rights and Dr Kate Guthrie, spokesperson for the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists UK, say that: 'all the UK's major professional medical bodies continue to back the current 24-week limit' which is still in operation in the United Kingdom. Most damagingly, various sources assert that the impact of the law will be the closure of all but five of the state's 42 abortion clinics. This claim is backed up by report on American news network CBS which said: 'a woman along the Mexico border or in West Texas [will] have to drive hundreds of miles to obtain an abortion'. Texas state senator, Democrat Judith Zaffirini, a self-proclaimed pro lifer, voted against HB2. Damningly she said: 'This is NOT a pro-life bill, [it] reduces women's access to health care; does nothing to reduce unintended pregnancies; does nothing to reduce the number of abortions; intrudes upon the doctor-patient relationship; and is opposed strongly by the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists and the Texas Hospital Association, whose priorities certainly include the health care of women'. HB2 is anticipated to take effect in as little as 91 days after being signed off by the House, Senate and Texas Governor, in accordance with Article 39 of Texas’s constitution. The Bill is being challenged, with an expectation that HB2 will be debated at the federal level. But NARAL Pro Choice Texas said that huge, committed campaigns have emerged in backlash against the passing of HB2. Heather Busby said: 'Gov. Perry and anti-choice lawmakers have awakened a strong pro-choice movement in Texas that will only continue to grow, "what we saw at the state capitol over the last month is a clear indication that Texans have had enough"'. A Stand with Texas Women tumblr encourages individuals in sympathy with those against the passing of HB2 to post pictures of themselves declaring their solidarity with Texan Women. It is with conviction that I express that I stand with you Texas Women, because, as is often said but rarely listened to: access to legal abortion is a right and not a privilege.  |
| No More Shame: a video project Posted: 13 Aug 2013 01:09 AM PDT
Twelve women’s stories will be told in a new film made in response to the Irish government’s recent and limited change to Ireland's abortion law. The new legislation, passed last month, excludes any provision of abortion rights for the victims of rape and incest, or for women whose babies will be born dead owing to fatal foetal abnormalities. The video – No More Shame – broadcasts testimony from Irish women who have been forced to travel to Britain for terminations. The video was launched in Cork – and worldwide via Facebook and YouTube – on 8 August. Put together by Laura Kinsella and Liz Dunphy, one aim is to break the silence around the 12 women who leave Ireland daily to terminate their pregnancies. It also aims to to tackle the social stigma surrounding abortion in Ireland, and set up an open space for dialogue, to enable women who have gone through an abortion to have their voices heard while, nonetheless, still protecting their identity. For according to the Republic of Ireland’s department of health, about 4,000 Irish women travelled to British hospitals and clinics to terminate their pregnancies last year. Claire’s story, for example, is about terminating a non-viable pregnancy. Irish law (still) prohibits couples terminating pregnancies where a foetus is incompatible with life. This exposes women to the intense psychological and physical burden of bearing a dead child, unless they can access the procedure abroad. Sinead was forced to give one baby up for adoption at 16. When she became pregnant again at 19, she arranged an abortion. Her story shows the conflicted emotions, confusion and the perils of growing up in a society where sex is taboo, and sexual education does not adequately inform youth. Widowed at 34 with four children to raise alone, Lorraine was raped after her husband’s death by a family friend. Choosing an abortion was the only thing she could control in ‘a nightmare situation’, but she was unable to legally terminate in her own country. Dr Sandra McAvoy, from the women’s studies department at University College Cork, told the Guardian that No More Shame explored some of the many complexities of crisis pregnancy that remain taboo, and that it aims to humanise the debate and re-establish the importance of respect for a woman’s life, beyond her reproductive capacity. McAvoy also pointed out that the changes in the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Act 2013 would probably not have saved Savita Halapannavar – the dentist who died in a Galway hospital last autumn after being refused an emergency termination. The No More Shame video campaign is an open ongoing project, and invites people to upload their own videos on the issue to the YouTube site.  |
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