Women's Views on News |
| Getting England’s women cycling Posted: 08 Oct 2013 08:56 AM PDT
While cycling is becoming more and more popular in the UK, the proportion of women getting involved is actually declining. Through their Breeze network a British Cycling initiative aims to help thousands of women feel confident and comfortable about going on a ride. Breeze has spoken to lots of women and done research to understand the reasons why more women aren't cycling and they include lack of time and confidence and not feeling safe riding a bike. So Breeze is going to try and provide as many cycling opportunities as they can in a nurturing and friendly environment. They currently run about 200 bike rides for women each week; their website shows women how to find their nearest ride and hook up with a local cycling buddy. Breeze currently has a network of over 1,000 volunteer champions – women who organise fun, social, local bike rides for women. Rides go at a speed that suits everyone, and they often start or finish at a cafe so everyone can have a drink and a chat. Breeze is looking for more Breeze champions across the country. They are looking for enthusiastic people to get involved in the Breeze network and inspire women to get more out of their bike, have fun with friends and get a recognised qualification at the same time. There is no need to be a cycling expert – just be confident on a bike and keen to help others. To become a Breeze champion you will take part in a fun one-day ride leadership course where you will have a chance to meet other Breeze champions and gain a certificate which qualifies you to independently plan, deliver and promote rides to groups of women,. Breeze will provide you with kit, British Cycling Ride membership and plenty of support. Furthermore, to ensure you are able to run safe bike rides, British Cycling will help you get a first aid qualification. In return they ask champions to deliver on average 12 rides over the year to local women in their area. A course will take place in Mansfield, Nottinghamshire, on 12 October; to apply, fill in this form and contact Breeze. Breeze has also been trying to make bikes more accessible to women, through hire schemes and female-friendly bike shops. And the sustrans website is still offering advice.  |
| Posted: 08 Oct 2013 04:09 AM PDT
BT sport, WTA tennis, John Inverdale, Women's Ashes, Women's Euros, Shelley Alexander, Women in Sport Magazine, Simon Barnes, FAWSL football, Clare Balding, The Independent, Tam Cowan, “Sportswomen” on Sky… It has been six months since I wrote criticising the situation of coverage of women's sport in the print and broadcast media. It was always my intention to revisit the subject when there was something to report. However, I didn't envisage that it would be a mere half-year on. Since my plea for a redressing of the balance, there have been some amazing developments. Sky Sports, accused by Gabby Logan of using women as "window dressing" in their sports programmes, is finally doing something about their sexist reputation by launching "Sportswomen", a weekly magazine programme about women's sport. It may smack of tokenism and is only a small amount in the grand scheme of things, but it is half an hour of serious news and analysis of women's sport. Mind you, I will be more impressed when it's 30 minutes a day, and is not stuck in the ridiculous slot of 10.30 in the morning. Sky has also signed a three-year deal with England Netball, and has partnered with The Sunday Times to cover the Sportswomen of the Year Awards. For an organisation long mired in the depths of laddishness (remember Keys and Gray?), this is considerable progress. There were fanfares all round when BT Sport finally launched on 1 August. Clare Balding fronts its main chat show, it has signed a deal with the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) to show live women's tennis from 21 tournaments, and it’s also showing FAWSL football. Its coverage of the final WSL title-decider between Liverpool Ladies and Bristol Academy was particularly good. The guests were knowledgeable, the commentary appropriate and the after-game analysis spot on. If only it could all be like this. If I had to be picky (and I will be), there still isn't enough women's sport covered and there still aren’t enough female presenters. The BT Sport website does, however, have a specific section on women in sport and I am hopeful more deals will be made for further coverage. If it could wrest some women's cricket away from Sky my joy would be almost complete. The BBC's sporting revolution has been gaining quiet, but significant, momentum over the summer. The website has come on in leaps and bounds, the coverage of the Women's Ashes and FAWSL being especially good. In Shelley Alexander, women's sport has an important advocate. As Editorial Lead on Women's Sport at the BBC she has a vital role to play in redressing the broadcasting balance. If you aren't yet following her on Twitter, then do – @shelleybbc. I think I know quite a bit about what is going on in women's sport, but I am a mere amateur compared to Shelley. Her personal tweets are informative and inspiring, but she also retweets a vast array of women's sports news and results from all over the world. I'm sure she felt she had an uphill task when she took on the role, but little by little she is obviously making a difference. The coverage of the Women's Ashes this summer was on a level not seen before. As I am not a subscriber to Sky I cannot comment on its broadcasting, but the Test Match Special commentaries, Cricinfo ball by ball text commentary, the ECB's own website coverage and the BBC's website were all exemplary. It was a stunning series, its quality rightly reflected in the coverage it received. And yes, your ears did not deceive you; the women's netball captain, Pamela Cookey, was indeed on the Today programme on Radio 4 last week. Of course, it's not all good news. John Inverdale committed a monumental gaffe during Wimbledon with his "not a looker" comments about Wimbledon Champion Marion Bartoli. He must be relieved she has since retired and will no longer be offending his eyes. In a similar vein, Scottish Daily Record columnist and BBC Radio Scotland presenter Tam Cowan sparked outrage last month with his column on women's football which began, "If I had my way, today's Premiership fixture between Motherwell and Ross County would have been cancelled. "That's because Fir Park should have been torched on Thursday in order to cleanse the stadium after it played host to women's football." The subsequent furore did nobody any credit. The abuse Cowan received was disproportionate and resulted in him being suspended from the airwaves by the BBC. He has since written an “apology“ which, to many, is possibly more offensive than the original article, insisting that his comments were "tongue-in-cheek". The only good things to come out of the whole sorry mess is that women's football is being talked about, its supporters are coming to its defence, and Cowan’s newspaper is making a monetary contribution to Scotland's women's football. Before it began, the Women's Euros in July was hailed as a breakthrough in women's sports broadcasting. The BBC had committed itself to showing all of England's games, plus the semi-finals and the final. Unfortunately, England's poor performance and subsequent exit at the group stage meant the BBC's interest waned and the schedule was trimmed. The final was still shown, but it was clear the BBC's heart wasn't in it. On the print media front, both the Independent and the Times seem to be vying for the title of "Best coverer of women's sport". In July the Independent acknowledged the current coverage imbalance and announced it was pledging to cover a great deal more women's sport in the future. The Independent on Sunday's Emily Duggan wrote, “we promise to make sure our pages highlight the best of women's sport, as well as men's." However, the best commentary on the place of women's sport in society is ironically from a man, albeit one of the most erudite writers in the business. You should read Simon Barnes' article in The Times, "Boy's own story that is no laughing matter" from 30 August. Unfortunately to access it you will need to subscribe, but if you don't want to clap and punch the air by the end of it, you're not the feminist sports-lover I thought you were. Most excitingly comes the news that a new magazine, Women in Sport, will be hitting our newsagents soon. Editor Jo Gunston told the Guardian, “We’re following the characters, the drama, the achievements; igniting thought-provoking debates; laughing together at sexist outlooks and supporting other women in sporting ventures and hoping that one day soon when someone says ‘you play like a girl’ the response will be ‘thank you’.” Could just be what we're looking for. Watch this space for further details. My article in March was largely concerned with how women's sport is covered in the media. It was born out of a frustration at "bouncing blonde ponytails" and women's sport as a filler, or even a comedy option. This time I have concentrated on how much women's sport is covered. Obviously the quality of coverage is vital, but not having sampled all on show, I cannot fully comment on it, but I do maintain that an increase in the volume of coverage must be an improvement. Just the fact that you hear much more about it, it's mentioned on the sports news bulletins on both radio and TV and it is appearing more in our newspapers represents a sea change in attitude. I'm not kidding myself that the hard work has been done, though. We still have to fight for every column inch and every minute of airtime. We have to fight for women's sport to be taken seriously, and most of all, we have to fight to see, hear and read what we want, how we want it and when we want it. Let's see how we're doing another six months down the line.  |
| Posted: 08 Oct 2013 01:27 AM PDT
Elle magazine has arranged for three feminist groups to team up with three leading advertising agencies to create marketing campaigns with the aim of persuading more women, and men, to realise that they are – and to call themselves – feminists. Make them Pay is a campaign to end the gender pay gap, and is one result of this Rebranding Feminism project. British women earn on average 15 per cent less than their male colleagues; Make Them Pay is asking women to talk to male colleagues who do the same job about how much they earn and, if they earn more, to ask their bosses for a pay rise. A website has been created where men and women can select from a list of broad occupational groups, and enter their pay and the level they are at. They then receive a message showing them how much more, or less, they earn compared to people of the opposite sex who are doing the same job. Women earning less than their male counterparts are encouraged to e-mail their bosses. Ad agency Mother worked with newly-launched Feminist Times to come up with Make Them Pay. Equality Minister Jo Swinson has backed the campaign, saying that if bosses refuse to co-operate she will force companies to publish data about how much they pay men and women. A second element of the project features a flow chart exploring the possible reasons why only one in seven women identify themselves as feminist 'feminism is too extreme' against ‘extreme’ facts like, for example, that 400,000 women are sexually assaulted each year in the UK, created by Jinan Younis, who was trolled for setting up a feminist society at her school, working with ad agency Brave. Vagenda‘s co-founders, Holly Baxter and Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett collaborated with Wieden + Kennedy (W+K) on a poster entitled 'Sod the Stereotypes'. It reads: 'I am not an apple shape nor a pair…'. and lists words and phrases commonly associated with women like 'mistress', 'princess' and 'have it all', before concluding, 'I'm a woman, the rest is up to you'. Any attempt to highlight the gender pay gap, or challenge stereotypes and discrimination against women must be a good thing and this campaign has certainly generated a lot of media attention. And it may reach women who would not normally identify with these issues. Some may even get a pay rise out of it. So why do I still feel a little queasy? And why is Elle suddenly so concerned about feminism? It may be that only one in seven women describe themselves as feminist, but you would have to be living on a different planet not to notice that feminist ideas are very popular at the moment. Campaigns like No More Page Three, Everyday Sexism, One Billion Women Rising and #TakebackTwitter have had massive support from women and men. Elle is a fashion magazine. Feminist ideas are fashionable. Elle is beginning to realise that, if you want to sell magazines to women in the 21st Century you have write about things that women are interested in, and that means offering more than just fashion, beauty, celebrity and horoscopes. It's not feminism that is being rebranded, it's Elle.  |
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