Women's Views on News |
| Boycotting the Sochi Winter Olympics Posted: 15 Aug 2013 08:06 AM PDT
Green MP Caroline Lucas has written to Foreign Office Minister David Lidington expressing her "deep concerns" at Russia's anti-gay legislation and says Britain should boycott the 2014 Winter Olympics – unless it is moved from Russia. Russia's treatment of gay people is not just historically disgraceful, as Philip Hensher pointed out in The Independent recently, but, unlike almost everywhere else in the world, it is getting considerably worse. A new law, passed in June, made it illegal to speak well of homosexuality in public. Violence against homosexuals and lesbians is commonplace, and horrifying in its scale, and visitors to the Sochi-based Olympics have been warned that they must act in accordance with Russia's laws, or face the consequences. Lucas is one of several liberal activists supporting the idea of a boycott of the Sochi Winter Olympics. In an open letter to the UK Prime Minister David Cameron, the head of the Olympic Committee, Jacques Rogge, and other members of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), including Sebastian Coe, Stephen Fry compared the position of gay people in Russia to the position of Jews in Germany in 1936. In both cases, laws limited their freedom, and concerted acts of violence mounted – with the connivance of the state – against their persons and their property. And given the stories coming out of Russia over the last few months, organised violence a la Reichskristallnacht against gay bars in Moscow does not seem a completely implausible prospect. Every time, wrote Fry, ‘a gay teenager is forced into suicide, a lesbian "correctively" raped, gay men and women beaten to death by neo-Nazi thugs while the Russian police stand idly by, the world is diminished and I for one, weep anew at seeing history repeat itself’. Needless to say, Hensher points out, the sports establishment is, on the whole, against a boycott. Part of this, said Hensher, is the usual response, that ‘it would be a terrible shame, after all, for all those boys and girls who have practised so long and so hard if they were to miss out on their chance of a bronze medal’. And attendance at Sochi will be promoted with talk of the Olympics "bringing people together". Lamine Diack, the President of the International Association of Athletes Federation (IAAF) and member of the IOC has said that he thinks there is "no problem whatsoever" with Russia's anti-gay laws. Possibly a view influenced by the fact that it is illegal to be gay in Diack's home country of Senegal where gay people face prison terms of up to five years. David Cameron has tweeted that it would not be appropriate to boycott the 2014 Russian Winter Olympics – but that he ‘had great sympathy’ for the plight of the country's LGBT community. But as human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell told PinkNews: "David Cameron says he opposes a boycott of the Sochi Winter Olympics, I want to know what he is going to do to challenge homophobia in Russia. "So far he hasn't given any answers and if he doesn't come up with a plan he will in affect be colluding with the Putin regime." Puzzled here. How can it be considered right to go to a country that, in recent years, and with deliberation, has taken steps to prevent any expression of the rights of its gay and lesbian citizens? A country where appalling anti-gay violence is not only commonplace, but in many instances not prevented by the forces of law and order? In August 2012, Russian feminist punk band Pussy Riot were jailed for two years for staging an anti-Vladimir Putin protest in a Moscow cathedral on 21 February 2012, with a song that mentioned the country's persecuted LGBT citizens. And in July this year, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill of Moscow, condemned the advance of marriage equality in the West, calling it a symptom of the apocalypse, although he cautioned against punishing people for their sexuality. On the other hand, speaking in an interview with the Associated Press last week, senior IOC member, Gerhard Heiberg of Norway, suggested that Russia could lose the games if it did not adhere to the Olympic Charter, which the country signed upon agreeing to host the event. "They have accepted the words of the Olympic Charter and the host city contract, so either they respect it or we have to say goodbye to them," he said. Meanwhile, as Hensher pointed out in The Independent, gay people will go on being prosecuted and violently assaulted and murdered. And going to Sochi will be a stain on the reputation of those who make a living from sport. But, as Hensher says, the stain will not be a new one. In July an organisation representing LGBT people in Russia announced it was opposed to any boycott of the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics – because they say participation is an important way of highlighting injustice. Maybe it is time for a bit more solidarity, and each and every Olympian should stand up wearing rainbow colours and shout “I am Spartacus!” However, a petition calling for the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics to be relocated to Vancouver, has gathered almost 158,000 signatures. Feel free to add yours.  |
| Female students hit by austerity Posted: 15 Aug 2013 04:25 AM PDT A new report by the National Union of Students (NUS) called Cut to the Quick has outlined the impact of government cuts and reforms on female students. The report quotes research from the House of Commons Library which concluded that 73 per cent of the savings identified in the 2011 Autumn Financial Statement came from women’s pockets, and that subsequent budgets and policies have failed to redress this imbalance. The report also outlines the way cuts to wider services such as benefits and Surestart Children's Centres will stop women from entering and staying in further and higher education. It quotes the chief executive of the National Institute of Adult Continuing Education, NIACE, who describes the situation as a 'car crash' for lone parents and mothers at home with children who do not receive active benefits and who will be priced out of a return to the labour market through education. In further education anyone over 24 taking a Level 3 qualification, equivalent to ‘A’ Level, or above will have to pay fees and take out a loan to cover them if they can't afford to pay from 2013. The NUS believes this measure will hit women returning to education after having children, or those who missed out at school. Over 70 per cent of those taking access to higher education courses for example, are women. But students taking the Access Course at Bournemouth and Poole College, for example, have been warned that fees will rise from £750 to £3,750 in 2013, following the removal of a £3,000 government subsidy. In 2010 the majority of students in higher education – 57 per cent – were women And in 2010 the government announced that from 2012, it would lift the cap on tuition fees so they could increase from £3,000 to as much as £9,000. The average fee for a higher education course was £8,354 in the academic year 2012-13, according to the report. Cut to the Quick quotes the Equality and Human Rights Commission report Sex and Power, which claims that women take longer to pay their loans back due to the gender pay gap. Women are also likely to be more wary about taking on large amounts of debt than men, according to research from Universities UK. Student parents are also one of the most debt averse groups. And despite leaving education with better qualifications, women's incomes tend to dip after they have children. And female apprentices are more likely to be taking courses that lead to low paying jobs than their male counterparts; nine out of ten childcare and hairdressing apprentices are women, only one in 30 in construction and engineering are women. Female apprentices earn on average 21 per cent less than males. This is greater than the overall gender pay gap. The report points out that the government is choosing to invest heavily in large physical infrastructure projects, rather than social initiatives, as a way of getting out of the recession, but which will provide highly paid jobs for men rather than women. According to the report, the government has tended to cut funding for arts and social science studies courses, where over two thirds of the students are women, and protect subjects like engineering and computer science, where over four fifths of the students are male. These cuts may lead to larger class sizes and a declining in quality of the arts courses. And even when women do graduate in science and technology-related subjects, they find it harder to gain employment in their chosen field. Under a third of female science and technology graduates of working age are employed in science, engineering and technology related jobs, compared with a half of men, according to figures from WISE, which promotes women's participation in science, engineering and technology jobs. The NUS warns that in a bid to save money some educational institutions may try to cut student services. The report contains an account of a successful campaign by Goldsmiths Student Union against the closure of the college nursery. Cuts to police services may affect street safety and cuts to women's refuges may curtail a woman's ability to seek help after a violence attack. The NUS cites the Ministry of Justice’s own Equality Impact Assessment for the Legal Aid Bill which found the removal of Legal Aid will affect over 350,000 women, who will lose their right to financial support, particularly in cases relating to housing, benefits, debt and family. The report points out that under the Public Sector Equality Duty public institutions are required to consider the impact of cuts on equality, and that campaigners have successfully challenged organisations that have failed to carry out these assessments thoroughly enough. But the NUS is now concerned that the government's recent announcement that there will be a review of the Equality Duty will limit women's ability to fight cuts and defend services. Cut to the Quick not only provides a wealth of data and concrete examples of the disproportionate impact of the cuts on female students and women generally, but it is a useful campaigning tool, providing case studies and examples of successes, such as the NUS's successful campaign against cuts to the Care to Learn funding. It also lists useful organisations and resources. Well worth a read.  |
| Posted: 15 Aug 2013 01:09 AM PDT
According to the BBC, just one-third of the UK’s science undergraduates are female – and only 9 per cent of professors. And with inequality in science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) costing the UK £2 billion, and with equality 70 years away at current rates of growth, Professor Polly Arnold, the Crum Brown Chair of Chemistry at Edinburgh University, thinks not enough is being done for women. Her solution is the use of four actions she formulated as part of a project called A Chemical Imbalance. If all institutions, businesses and professionals put them into use, 'they won't solve everything, but they're a start', she says. And these four points? Monitor our numbers; mentor our people and make sure the best are applying; create a workplace that supports everyone and allows flexibility and reclaim the meaning of feminism. As winner of the 2012 Royal Society's Rosalind Franklin Award, Professor Arnold was required to spend part of the prize – a £30,000 grant – on a project to raise the profile of women in STEM. Her ensuing project, A Chemical Imbalance, has a film, a book and a website that uses the long history of successful women scientists at Edinburgh University as inspiration for finding ways to help more women rise to and through the ranks of senior positions in STEM. Edinburgh University has a long history of leadership in supporting women in STEM, starting with teaching the first seven women to attend university in the UK. And the university's vice principal, for example, Professor Lesley Yellowlees, was previously the university's first female head of chemistry. But even in 2012, when Professor Yellowlees became the first female president in its 172-year history of the Royal Society of Chemistry she was told at her awards ceremony by a member of the audience that it was a disgrace to have her as president of the Society, “Because,” she said, “as a female I should be at home bringing up my children.” The real disgrace, of course, other than the persistence of such sexist views, is that with women making up nearly half of all undergraduates and 33 per cent of STEM undergraduates, this figure that only nine per cent of STEM professors are women. Previous research by the Royal Society of Edinburgh found that 'increasing women's participation in the UK labour market could be worth as much as £23 billion, with STEM accounting for at least £2 billion of that amount'. Much has been written about bias in STEM fields, with a 2012 study by Yale University uncovering an unambiguous bias against female scientists from managers of both genders. While the slow pace of progress is frustrating, Professor Arnold points to continued improvements, including the growing numbers of institutions, such as Athena SWAN, a charter for women in science; government bodies that are studying discrimination in STEM and the increased numbers and strength of advocacy groups, such as Women in Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (WiSE).  |
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