Women's Views on News |
| Posted: 29 Oct 2013 05:02 AM PDT Celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay has been bragging about spying on his 15 year-old teenage daughter Megan while she was in her bedroom with her boyfriend, revising. Obviously viewing it as a laddish joke, Ramsay explained to TV chat host Jonathan Ross that he got his son to put a hidden camera in her room – ostensibly to see if she was revising. "I've been a bit naughty over the last couple of weeks because I got Jack a little Go-Pro. One of those little secret cameras. "So I said to him: 'Look mate, here's twenty quid, go and target your big sister's room and put that camera right at the top left-hand side of the wardrobe.' "So, Megan, I'd like to talk to you about your revising." he said. It’s indicative that the father of four enlisted his only son, who is 13, to take part in this jape – a boy’s joke, lads together, embarrassing their girl and her friend. But in the language that Ramsay understands: what kind of effing freak covertly spies on his daughter? Even just giving him leeway that he may have been joking, it is still so skewed and unforgivable to joke about this – not least because other immature dads and impressionable brothers might just take the idea seriously and start snooping on their female family members. As Kate Gilbert of handbag.com said: "There is so much wrong with this, we just don’t even know where to begin." Judith Woods of The Telegraph waded in saying what goes on in a teenager’s bedroom is non-negotiable. "Spying on a teenager in her bedroom is weird and creepy and wrong under any circumstances," said Woods. Perhaps Ramsay is really only concerned with his daughter’s revision and nothing else. In this case he is guilty of being a helicopter parent – that is parents who interfere too much in their children’s lives, trying to direct them and pushing them to succeed, instead of giving their child the freedom to make mistakes and work out their own way in life. Barbara Ellen in The Guardian admitted she put a camera in her daughter’s room, with her knowledge – and it was a disaster. She is more forgiving towards Ramsay and doesn’t see it as creepy but caring. "As far as I’m concerned, getting a child through the teenage years is like driving a Ferrari through a pea-souper – you can be forgiven the odd prang. "If he was telling the truth, Ramsay was wrong not to tell his daughter about the camera – the rest just showed he cared." Caring or control-freakery? Last year, US college student Aubrey Ireland was granted a civil stalking order against her parents because of their overprotective behaviour that included installing monitoring software on her electronics. For hundreds and thousands of years, women have managed to grow up and live lives which are already curtailed by a patriarchal society which tries to control their movements, their dress, their experiences. Having fathers covertly spying on daughters just continues the curtailing of their freedoms. Ramsay may or may not have convinced his daughter he was only joking, but will she really have true peace and freedom of mind in her own home again?  |
| Sports round-up: 21-27 October Posted: 29 Oct 2013 03:00 AM PDT
Tennis: Heather Watson is attempting to end her miserable season on a high by dropping down a level of competition. Watson, whose ranking has fallen to 133, from a career-high of 39 in February, competed last week at the ITF tournament in Poitiers, France. The ITF is the second-tier of professional tennis. Something drastic was needed to break the Brit's poor run of form, which has seen her exit in the first round of several WTA tournaments in recent months. The move proved a good one; she reached the semi-finals before losing 6-4, 2-6, 6-2 to Sweden's Sofia Arvidsson on October 20. Before last week, Watson had not won back to back matches since January. Cricket: England lost a dramatic last round robin match to the West Indies in the Twenty20 Tri-Series in Barbados on October 25. Both sides had already qualified for the final thanks to wins over New Zealand, so the match was effective a dead rubber. But neither team let this affect the quality of their play. The Windies won the toss and chose to bat, reaching 118-7. England then made exactly the same score, prompting a super-over eliminator. England's Dani Wyatt was run out, giving the tourists 6-1 in the super over, before the West Indies' Deandra Dottin made two fours to give the side the win with balls to spare. Football: England won their third consecutive world cup qualifier on October 26, dispatching Wales 2-0. Jordan Nobbs and Toni Duggan both scored early in the second half, giving England a comfortable lead at the top of group six. Wales put up a strong defence, particularly from keeper Nicola Davies, but were unable to make an impact on a confident England team. Cycling: Following last week's strong showing at the European Track Championships, British Cycling have confirmed the line-up for the Track World Cup in Manchester next week. Becky James, Jess Varnish and Vicky Williamson are to compete in the sprint events, while the world record breaking dream team of Elinor Barker, Dani King, Joanna Rowsell and Laura Trott will take on the endurance events.  |
| Sexual harassment: not just a bit of fun Posted: 29 Oct 2013 02:09 AM PDT
Employment law specialists Slater & Gordon's recently commissioned research found sexual harassment to be commonplace at work, with six in ten working women in the UK experiencing inappropriate behaviour from a male colleague. And after having polled 1,036 women, the research found that many clichés hold true. More than two-thirds of the women surveyed said that the inappropriate behaviour came from a married man. Nearly half of the women surveyed had endured comments about their breasts. More than a third said that a senior male colleague had made inappropriate comments about their bum, clothes, sex life or breasts. But of the 60 per cent of women who had experienced harassment, only 27 per cent had reported the incident or behaviour to someone senior. Claire Dawson, employment lawyer at Slater & Gordon, said, “It's frustrating to hear these stories. 'Women shouldn't feel like this behaviour is acceptable and that it is something that comes with the job.” Such results are unfortunately too easily corroborated and replicated, with a different, ongoing survey into sexual harassment in the fund management industry finding much the same. Run by the Financial Times, of the 100 asset management staff so far surveyed, 54 per cent of the women said they had experienced inappropriate behaviour in the workplace. Harassment is about power, and although men may also be sexually harassed, the structure and dynamics of a workplace are more likely to reflect the current status quo of more men than women in positions of power. Such inequity obviously works against the recipient of harassment, as the low percentage of reports of such behaviour indicates. A disparity between incidences of harassment and rates of reporting shouldn't exist; legal protection is in place, in the form of the 2010 Equalities Act. The Act states that it is the reaction of the recipient that determines whether any behaviour has crossed the line from being a ‘bit of fun’ to becoming intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating, offensive or a violation of dignity. Writing in the Guardian recently, Laura Bates, from the Everyday Sexism Project, said that 'almost every one of the thousands of incidents reported to us would fall under these categories. 'Workplace harassment is one of the most common issues reported to the Project – in fact, we have collected nearly 10,000 entries on this topic alone.' Compounding the problem of legal protection that apparently isn't enough of a deterrent is the cultural problem of victim blaming, which even extends to cases of abuse and rape. The consequences of victim blaming are broad and long ranging, from experiencing further harassment to losing out on promotion and losing jobs. Of the many reports of harassment the Everyday Sexism Project receives, Bates said that 'again and again victims say they feel unable to speak up for fear of not being taken seriously or of losing their jobs'. Dawson agreed, saying, 'We see clients who have been blamed for bringing the treatment on themselves because of what they wear or how they are perceived by others, and clients who have been bullied, denied promotion or even physically assaulted when they refuse a colleague's advances or make it clear that the harassment is not welcome.' The Slater & Gordon research shows that of the 24 per cent of women who experienced harassment from a superior, five per cent lost their job and more than one in ten were then turned down for promotion. Economic studies consistently show that getting women into the workplace is key to global recovery and growth, yet behaviour that is swept under the carpet as just a bit of fun has created a silent problem of 'endemic proportions', said Bates. Writing in the Guardian, Vanessa James, partner and head of employment at SA Law, disagreed with the idea that the solution lies in more discussion of and increased reporting of sexual harassment incidents. Instead, she said that 'the formal route should be seen by women seeking career progression as a last resort,' since 'a successful court case does not give you back the career you lost.' She appeared to lay responsibility for harassment with the recipient of the behaviour by saying 'If you do not define your boundaries then you cannot expect others to be able to either.' That sounds like a differently-worded way of saying something like, 'You shouldn't have worn such a short skirt.' To reiterate: sexual harassment is unwanted behaviour of a sexual nature that the recipient deems to be intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating, offensive or a violation of dignity. Unwanted. It should be the norm that women are treated respectfully, as equal human beings, in every arena of life, without having to navigate the burden of considering how every aspect of their appearance and behaviour may contribute to or encourage sexual harassment. As one anonymous respondent to the Financial Times’s survey said: 'I find it distressing if I am perceived sexually in the work environment. So for my own protection, I never wear make-up, always have my hair tied up, and wear glasses and a cardigan'. As Bates concluded in her response to the research, 'It's time to start taking workplace harassment seriously, listening to victims, and, above all, placing blame firmly where it belongs: with the perpetrator'.  |
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