Women's Views on News |
- Rebuilding shattered lives
- Teaching union backs No More Page 3
- Return for the women’s Tour de France?
- A cross-cultural look at breastfeeding
- Reviews to look into outsourcing chaos
| Posted: 02 Aug 2013 09:09 AM PDT
St Mungo's run accommodation and support projects for homeless people. ‘Rebuilding Shattered Lives’ is its current national 18-month campaign to raise awareness of women's homelessness, to showcase good practice and innovation and, ultimately, to improve services and policy for the future. The idea is for the campaign to help create a comprehensive showcase of innovative and successful practice and policy in order to drive lasting change for women in need. St Mungo's are focussing on women because over 1 in 10 rough sleepers in London are women; over half of those living in temporary accommodation are women; women make up a quarter of St Mungo's clients, and a third of those supported by homelessness services in England. In addition, many homeless women are 'hidden' – trapped in abusive relationships, living in crack-houses, squatting or sofa-surfing with friends and family. Over one third of St Mungo’s female clients who have slept rough say that their experience of domestic violence directly led to their homelessness. Despite their needs, women are not always well served by existing homelessness provision, as much of this has traditionally been designed for, and focussed on supporting, men. For this campaign St Mungo's have identified nine key areas which are often significant issues for homeless women and where a lack of access to appropriate services can have a real impact on their ability to recover from homelessness. These are housing and homelessness – services for women with complex needs; domestic abuse; families and children, including relationships; childhood trauma, including being in care or childhood abuse; employment and skills; being involved in prostitution; mental health and wellbeing; substance use; women involved in the criminal justice system And these issues form the nine inquiry themes for the Rebuilding Shattered Lives campaign. Each theme will be investigated over a two-month period and individuals, statutory and voluntary organisations from throughout the UK will be invited to submit their examples of effective services and promising new ideas. As Charles Fraser chief executive of St Mungo's explained: ‘We have known for a long time that men and women respond differently to the threat of homelessness, and differently too when it becomes a reality. ‘It has struck us as questionable, therefore, that we seem to treat them the same when it comes to offering them support and helping them on the path to recovery. ‘Whether it be from the perspective of health, work or family, homeless women have specific needs which we as a sector do not seem particularly good at meeting. ‘We want to see this change. Within St Mungo's we have been doing some work to improve our responsiveness and relevance, but we know we do not have all the answers. That is why we want to harness the insights and experience of others, from a range of sectors, in order to build up a body of good practice about what really works for women who become, or are at risk of becoming, homeless. ‘It is important that we are all willing to learn from each other – and crucially, from women who have direct experience of homelessness. ‘Our new 18-month campaign, Rebuilding Shattered Lives, will, we hope, distil these lessons and energise policy and practice’. St Mungo's need your help to make this campaign a success; they want to hear from you – from organisations, front-line workers and especially women themselves, about how best to prevent women's homelessness and support their recovery. To find out more about Rebuilding Shattered Lives click here. St Mungo's has been opening doors for homeless people for over 40 years. With over 100 projects across London and the South, St Mungo's support thousands of homeless people with housing, health and work opportunities.
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| Teaching union backs No More Page 3 Posted: 02 Aug 2013 06:33 AM PDT
The UK's biggest teaching union, the National Union of Teachers (NUT), has thrown its backing behind the campaign calling on David Dinsmore, Editor of the Sun, to drop page 3. The support comes as the Sun revealed its "vision of Britain" which, to the disappointment of campaigners, still includes topless models. NUT General Secretary Christine Blower said: “The National Union of Teachers is pleased to be supporting the No More Page 3 campaign. “The consequences of gender stereotyping and the sexualisation of girls in the media are very real. “Portraying women as nothing more than objects to be looked at, is entirely unacceptable for the 21st century.” Recent reports had suggested that Sun bosses were considering doing away with the feature, which was brought in to boost sales in the 1970s. "Not only can such images impact on the self-respect and confidence of young girls it could also have a detrimental influence on boys as they develop views of women. “It is high time that we accepted it is simply wrong for a national family newspaper to be carrying such images.” Lucy-Anne Holmes, founder of No More Page 3 said: “We're thrilled to have the support of the NUT. “So many teachers have signed the petition, they really see the impact these pictures have on the way boys treat girls at school and the way girls see themselves. “We had really hoped that the Sun's vision of 'Our Britain' would include respectful representation of women. “The NUT joins the calls of the National Association of Head Teachers, the Girl Guides, the British Youth Council and many organisations which are committed to fighting violence against women, it makes you wonder how long the Sun can continue defending page 3.” To sign the No More Page 3 petition click here.  |
| Return for the women’s Tour de France? Posted: 02 Aug 2013 05:00 AM PDT
You may not know this but the Tour de France has a reigning women's champion in the shape of British cyclist Emma Pooley. She won the race in 2009, and since it hasn't been staged since, technically she still holds the title. Having been run sporadically since 1984, the women's version of the race ended ostensibly due to lack of sponsorship and funding, but now Pooley, with the backing of Harriet Harman MP and around 80,000 other petitioners, has called for its return. Pooley, along with female cycling champions Kathryn Bertine and Marianne Vos, and triathlon world champion Chrissie Wellington, has launched a petition to reinstate the women's race and put it on an equal footing with the men's event. “Having a women’s pro field at the Tour de France will also create an equal opportunity to debunk the myths of physical ‘limitations’ placed upon female athletes,” Pooley said recently. “In the late 1960s people assumed that women couldn’t run the marathon. 30 years on we can look back and see how erroneous this was. Hopefully 30 years from now, we will see 2014 as the year that opened people’s eyes to true equality in the sport of cycling.” The four women have taken their fight to the sport's governing body, the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI). They want to challenge the UCI's rule limiting the distance women cyclists can ride in a single stage, which is far less than the distance the men can ride. This makes running a women's event alongside the existing Tour de France extremely difficult. Pooley said, “I think that’s based on old-fashioned sexism, to be honest. “For the spectators it would be great. They wait around for hours and the riders are gone in a flash, so instead they’d get to see two races.” Fellow petitioner and cyclist Kathryn Bertine said, '”We’re sick of talking. Women are treated like second-class citizens and valued nowhere near as highly as men. “For me, the root of sexism is ignorance. If you look at society, whether it’s sport or business or education, when you exclude women then that’s half of the world you’re ignoring.” Like many sports, distinctions between male and female professional cyclists can also be seen in the prize money. The winner of the men's Tour de France earns over half a million dollars. The longest race for women cyclists last year, the Giro Rosa, which covers 778.5 kilometers over eight days, had a prize pot of just over six hundred dollars. That would be laughable if it weren't so glaringly insulting; it’s little wonder that women competitors are frustrated that their sport is barely paid lip service. Thankfully, the petition is continuing to gather momentum and also has the support of Shadow Culture Secretary Harriet Harman, who has written an open letter to the director of the Tour de France, Christian Prudhomme. In it, she asked that he consider staging a women's event next year, alongside the Grand Depart, which is being held in England for the first time in seven years. She also said, "Britain has some of the best women cyclists in the world – but for years they had to compete for foreign teams as there was no investment in an elite women's team. "Overall, women's sport misses out compared to men's sport: women's sport only receives 0.5 per cent of total sports sponsorship in the UK and only 4 per cent of sports coverage in national and local newspapers is dedicated to women's sport. "After the success of the Olympics, women's cycling should not be allowed to slip back into the shadows." Unfortunately, Mr Prudhomme seems to have made up his mind to the contrary, calling the Deputy Labour Leader's proposal ill-conceived. He said, somewhat petulantly, “It would have been better for [Harman] to talk to us at the end of one of the stages or after another race. We are not the only organisers of cycling in the world. Also, it would have been much easier to talk to us directly instead of a petition and [finding out by] opening your mailbox one morning and you don’t know what has happened. “We are open to everything. Having women’s races is very important for sure. [But] the Tour is huge and you cannot have it bigger and bigger and bigger down the road – it is impossible.” Not quite open to everything, then. It is absurd that we still live in a society where women are told that they can't do something simply because of their gender. The Tour de France is the biggest and most exciting bike race in the world, but once again women are being treated as second class citizens, held back by outdated patriarchal traditions and pen pushing men in suits. It's time we told them – and their rules – to get on their bikes.  |
| A cross-cultural look at breastfeeding Posted: 02 Aug 2013 03:15 AM PDT
When the government released statistics last month revealing the first fall in UK mothers initiating breastfeeding since the collection of data started in 2004, a number of news agencies reported the development as evidence that further policy is required to promote breastfeeding. Last year's fall, a mere 0.1 per cent, amounts to 5,700 fewer infants being breastfed over the course of the year. Is this really cause for concern, or have we got caught up in a numbers game? Despite a few notable exceptions, there is little debate about the health benefits associated with breastfeeding for both mother and child, but breastfeeding is not a “one size fits all” practice and for some it is simply not the right fit. In 2012/13 approximately 73.9 per cent of women initiated breastfeeding in the UK, but by 6-8 weeks after delivery that figure had dropped to just under half (48.6 per cent). Such a sudden decline would seem to suggest that while many mothers are keen to breastfeed, once they return to their homes and daily stresses, they find that the practice becomes challenging and, in some cases, untenable. Rather than attaching huge significance to the numbers for initiating breastfeeding around the country, would it not be more productive to find out why some women cease breastfeeding in those early stages, and develop strategies and public policy which will actually help them. Maybe then, the numbers will take care of themselves? Looking at policy and cultural norms elsewhere provides a jumping-off point for this kind of approach, not just revealing systems that seem to be working elsewhere but also confirming where we are already making the right decisions. Statistics released from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in 2005 revealed that the lowest incidence of breastfeeding in Europe is recorded in France. With this in mind, surely there's nothing we can learn from the French? Well… Parental leave in France is 6 weeks prenatal and 10 weeks postnatal for the births of the first two children, but the country offers subsidised or free (depending on income) full-day childcare centres beginning at 2 or 3 years of age. This points to the importance attached to work in the country, and an article by philosopher Elisabeth Badineter in part attributes the country's low incidence of breastfeeding as a corollary of the primacy French women place upon their professional activity. With 50 per cent of French mothers continuing to work full time after the birth of their first child, the statistics seem to bear this out. In contrast only 30 per cent of UK women with dependent children work full time. So with a UK government backed report finding that getting mothers back into work could boost the country's economic growth by 0.5 per cent a year, perhaps we can look to France to see how this might impact on breastfeeding and vice versa? Too often the rhetoric around breastfeeding in the UK emphasises the "natural" practice of breastfeeding and carries with it assumed maternal-sacrifice or personal abnegation for the benefit of your child. France, claims Elisabeth Badnineter, is free from the social pressures associated with being a "natural" mother and, "most mothers balk at the idea of giving up work, even in the first year of their child's life, and most of them bottle feed." The infant feeding culture in France is arguably borne out of a feminist history which advocates the enfranchisement of women, and rightly or wrongly sees breastfeeding as a form of "slavery" which inextricably ties women to their position as mother. Parenting forums and blogs reveal that perhaps the culture in France has swung too far against breastfeeding and assumptive formula feeding leaves those that want to breastfeed feeling unsupported both medically and socially. Let’s look further afield. In the Middle East, given the emphasis on modest dressing in public, one might expect the laws surrounding breastfeeding in public to be rigidly opposed to the practice. Perhaps as a result of the Qur’an's recommendation that breastfeeding should continue for the first two years of an infant's life, in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) there are no formal rules against breastfeeding in public as long as mothers refrain from "unnecessary exposure". Maternity leave in the country, however, is a mere 45 days for those not working in governmental organisations, but women are permitted one hour in their working day to either express or return home and feed their infants. Private nurseries abound in the country and accept infants from as young as 4 months. While breastfeeding initiation rates in the country are high, only a third are exclusively breastfeeding at six months – something attributed to a lack of training among healthcare professionals, as well as, perhaps surprising given the Qur’an’s recommendation, limited peer support networks in the area. I gave birth to both of my sons in the UAE. The hospital promoted breastfeeding and I have done so publicly in cafes and restaurants with never a hint of the kind of vitriol that breastfeeding mothers receive in more "liberal" countries. So while the culture is certainly in favour of breastfeeding, with at least some policy provision to back it up, when feeding problems arise, as they so often do, my experience is that women abandon the practice because they can find nowhere to turn for advice. The Middle East is by no means unique in this; a similar situation occurs in the United States. In 1956, as Dubai founded its first police force, a group of seven mothers from Illinois were motivated to provide other mothers with a friendly and reliable breastfeeding advisory service which was available at any time of the day or night. Such was the success of La Leche League that it now has a presence in 67 countries around the world. In 1956 the breastfeeding rate in the USA was just 20 per cent, and while the current breastfeeding initiation rate is just under 75 per cent, this drops to 15 per cent for those exclusively breastfeeding at six months. This steep decline is often blamed on current federal legislation and, despite Obama's 2010 amendment which requires employers to "provide reasonable break time for an employee to express breast milk for her nursing child for one year after the child's birth", US women are still only guaranteed a miserly 12 weeks of unpaid maternity leave. With over half of US mothers with infants under six months old returning to work, is it really any wonder that they turn to synthetic alternatives to feed their children? Like the UK, the US has a culture of disapproval when it comes to breastfeeding in public. Despite having laws in 45 of the USA’s 50 states which specifically allow women to breastfeed in any public or private location, stories about lactivist protests being triggered by narrow-minded and downright illegal restrictions being placed on breastfeeding in public are depressingly common. A country's breastfeeding rate is clearly tied to a number of wider cultural issues, as well as matters of government policy. A mother's milk supply often takes several months to stabilise, so employment legislation should ensure adequate paid parental leave and provision needs to be made for women to express in the course of their working day, so that those who are keen to return to work can do so without needing to abandon breastfeeding. Since the health benefits of breastfeeding for both mother and infant are widely recognised , it is unsurprising that most countries in the developed world extoll breastfeeding as the best option. But support must be available, above and beyond the obligatory visit from the lactation consultant before being discharged from hospital. Support at flexible times and in a variety of different forms, so that when problems arise women have the necessary networks to support them through such a physically arduous and emotionally draining time. While the French medical approach can hardly be heralded as the best option for new mothers who want to breastfeed, perhaps there is something to be said for supporting those that are keen to return to work and recognising that the "natural" mother is not so "natural" for everyone. Surely the most complicated issue surrounding breastfeeding, however, is society's reaction to breastfeeding in public. At a time when women often already feel cut off from their former life, the prospect of being confined to the house so that they can feed their baby "on demand" can be a step too far for many. In the Middle East, children are celebrated as a blessing, and as a result, there are no restrictions on their presence, in even the most up-market of establishments – even if they need to feed. How can we breed this kind of acceptance in the UK? Honestly, I'm not sure, but more open and frank discussion must be a move in the right direction.  |
| Reviews to look into outsourcing chaos Posted: 02 Aug 2013 01:09 AM PDT
Margaret Hodge, MP, chair of the UK government’s public accounts committee, has confirmed that there will be two new reviews into the UK Border Agency’s COMPASS contract and into private sector delivery of public services. This news follows lobbying from housing social enterprise Kazuri over allegations of G4S’s failures in managing the Commercial and Operational Managers Procuring Asylum Support Services (COMPASS) project for asylum seeker housing after the eviction of three female asylum seekers. Responding to Kazuri’s allegations in a letter, Margaret Hodge said: “As you will know, the former UK Border Agency (now part of the Home Office) recently tendered for new asylum housing contracts, which began operating in May 2012, each covering a region of the UK. “You raised a concern that asylum seekers have been evicted from properties because of rent arrears that had arisen because G4S’s subcontractors were not paying landlords. “I have forwarded your letter to the National Audit Office (NAO), as the issues you raise regarding asylum accommodation are of interest in the context of the NAO’s work in this area. “The NAO plans to look at COMPASS and the arrangements for asylum accommodation. “This work will feed into a wider review which the NAO is undertaking looking at the delivery of public services by private sector contractors (including G4S) to support a Public Accounts Committee hearing with the contractors in the Autumn. “I understand that the Home Office is aware of general concerns around the contracts in operation, although it was not aware of the specific details around G4S and rent arrears and will look into this further.” In a recent interview with the Guardian, Hodge countered the common criticism that select committees ‘lack teeth’, saying: “The Institute for Public Policy Research once did a study on select committees and one anonymous civil servant told them that they don’t change the price of fish. I’ve always remembered that. I do want to change the price of fish.” Question are being been asked after reports of the failure of several outsourcing giants – including G4S, A4E, Atos, Serco and Capita – to deliver lucrative public service contracts. The contracts up for tender this year related to public sector services are estimated to be worth £4.2bn – so there is a lot of potential profit at stake. Currently two of those companies stand accused by the Justice Secretary of overcharging the government by tens of millions of pounds, having been caught out charging for tagging people who turned out to be still in prison, dead or not in the UK. This tagging scandal highlights an almost complete disregard for the government’s challenges to private sector failures, failures committed at the expense of - and in many cases, to the detriment of – UK taxpayers. But speaking to the Financial Times recently, the chief executive of Capita, Paul Pindar, referred to the fraud investigation into Serco and G4S’s electronic tagging as a ‘distraction’, pointing to the ‘keeness’ of the ‘guys in central government’ (including Chief Procurement Officer, Bill Crothers and Cabinet Office Minister, Francis Maude) for the private sector to deliver public service contracts. The Justice Secretary, Chris Grayling, now has to attempt to legally exclude G4S from bidding for further contracts – and has referred the fraud allegations to the Serious Fraud Office. He too, will have his work cut out for him, as G4S has been consulting international legal firm Linklaters for the last few months. Linklaters is the firm recently criticised by Sun journalists for allegations of its role in their arrests, and which ‘helped’ to deal with G4S’s failure over the Olympic contract last year. In the meantime, both the public and the voluntary sector look on aghast as appalling news of rapes, deaths and investigations connected with G4S contracts hit national and international headlines nigh on daily. Worse still is the continuing puzzle of why such failures too often go unpunished. We watch with interest, along with Margaret Hodge MP, to see if a select committee can change the ‘price of fish’ and finally hold the private sector to account. A version of this article appeared in The Huffington Post on 30 July.  |
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