Women's Views on News |
- UK women given false abortion information
- What the Lean In stock photos say about us
- International Women’s Week: more events
- Number of women in work at record high
| UK women given false abortion information Posted: 27 Feb 2014 08:10 AM PST
Reports published this month say that false information about abortion is being given to women seeking impartial pregnancy counselling at independent Crisis Pregnancy Centres (CPCs) in the UK. CPCs are supposed to offer counselling on pregnancy choices, and sometimes free testing and other services. Of the five main CPCs, four are either outwardly set up by religious groups or have religious roots. And unlike the government-registered Pregnancy Advice Bureaux (PABx), CPCs are unregulated. An undercover Daily Telegraph investigation filmed counsellors at two Crisis Pregnancy Centres falsely linking abortion with subsequent miscarriages, infertility or cancer and even telling women that they risked becoming child sex abusers after having an abortion. Dr Kate Guthrie, a spokesperson for the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG), responding to the investigation footage, said that there no scientific evidence to suggest having an abortion puts women at higher risk of cancer or of abusing a child. Dr Guthrie also pointed out that the risk of being left infertile after an abortion in Britain is "very, very low" and that counsellors talking about “sharp instruments” used during abortion were not up to date with modern techniques. In addition to the Telegraph investigation, a report was published on 10 February by Brook, a national sexual health charity, highlighting that misinformation issued by CPCs is a national problem. The report studied the websites and materials of CPCs throughout the country and found that 38 out of 135 CPCs gave some form of misinformation about the physical health outcomes of abortion, and 53 centres mentioned 'post-abortion syndrome', which is a mental health disorder unrecognised by medical authorities. In addition, Brook sent 'mystery shoppers' to 33 CPCs, and found that the quality of counselling varied extensively between CPCs but that many provided misinformation. Approximately a third of the CPCs visited linked abortion to infertility, despite there being no proven link between the two. Some 'mystery shoppers' were falsely told there was an increased risk of breast cancer associated with abortion, some were given misleading information on mental health outcomes following an abortion and others were shown images of foetal development and offered ultrasounds in a bid to prevent them going ahead with an abortion. The Brook report also revealed that a number of CPCs have established links with the NHS and that some even claim to receive referrals from local GPs and hospitals. This is not the first time CPCs have been found falling short of national standards: another undercover reporter in 2011 also found evidence of inaccurate information being given to women seeking counselling on abortion. Following the recent reports, MPs have pressed the Secretary of State for Health, Jeremy Hunt, to act to review abortion counselling and regulate CPCs. Dr Sarah Wollaston, a former GP who is now the Conservative MP for Totnes and a member of the current government’s Health Select Committee, said: “There has to be transparency about who is funding these organisations and whether they are anti-abortion.” “If a ‘clinic’ is giving medical advice it should come under the remit of the Care Quality Commission which should then have the powers to close it if it is giving out completely false information”. And she added: "Now is the time for the Secretary of State to order a review of the whole abortion counselling process." The Secretary of State for Health has so far refused to comment.  |
| What the Lean In stock photos say about us Posted: 27 Feb 2014 04:09 AM PST
The Getty Images/Lean In stock photos reveal more about our gender ideals than anything else. Facebook's Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg is on a mission: her Lean In campaign wants women to ask for equal pay, take promotions and reach positions of leadership. Sandberg wants attitudes to change and she has a wide audience – her 2010 TED talk alone has had nearly four million views. Her Lean In brand has become synonymous with promoting female empowerment, especially in corporate America. On 10 February, Lean In announced it was partnering with Getty Images to tackle what, to many, was an unexpected foe: stock photos. The two organisations have launched a collection of stock photos in an attempt to challenge the gender stereotypes that have reigned in the stock photo world for decades, including the 'harried mum', 'photogenic secretary' and the much ridiculed 'woman laughing alone with salad' stereotypes. The resulting images are diverse; depicting women of different generations and occupations carrying out tasks from the everyday to the extreme. The collection has received a mixed response. Many have pointed out that the photos are still 'cheesy' or 'bland'. Some believe the collection is well-intentioned but in vain, because the same editors are still ultimately making the decisions about which photos will sell products. Some argue that representation of women's diverse roles in society should be the norm rather than newsworthy. Others take issue with Lean In's priorities: they see the collection as a 'cosmetic fix' to structural gender inequality. A backlash against the campaign came to a head when the Twitter hashtag #notyourstockwoman encouraged people to send in their own photos of working women to be part of the collection, leading to arguments of exploitation as the freely given photos could then be sold on. But the debate caused by the collection is healthy and contributes to the wider debate about the representation of women and women's bodies that we have seen follow initiatives such as The Shape of a Mother blog, the time-lapse video highlighting the falsifying effects of photoshopping, the A Beautiful Body Project, or David Jay's The Scar Project. However the debate misses one key point: what the Lean In collection says about its audience. In 1979, Canadian-American sociologist Erving Goffman published an important book called Gender Advertising which discussed how the depiction of men and women in advertising expresses the purest form of a society's gender ideals, providing subtle social cues to regulate the performance of gender in the real world. Goffman studied adverts and came to the conclusion that women are often presented at the mercy of their environment: caressing objects rather than grasping them; dreamy rather than engaged; off-balance and passive, leaning or lying down with tilted heads or one dropped hip, rather than standing and active. In contrast, Goffman noted that almost all men in advertising are positioned in active control of their environment: standing, engaging with their setting, gripping objects, ready for action. Thirty-five years after Goffman's book was published, his observations still ring true. A cursory glance at the advertisements for women's clothing by American Apparel for example shows that imagery of women as passive is still in demand. Where mainstream advertising still focuses on representing women in this way, the Lean In collection shows imagery of women leading planning meetings, weight lifting, operating heavy machinery, or teaching their sons to sew. It shows girls learning to skateboard and men in active childcare roles. There is both audience and appetite for these images, as Claire Cain Miller wrote in the New York Times: Getty Images serves 2.4 million customers and the three most-searched terms in Getty's image database are 'women', 'business' and 'family'. In an interview in Businessweek, Pam Grossman, Getty Images' director of visual trends, explained that even before the Lean In collaboration she had noticed a shift in the types of female stock images companies were buying: from passive, naked women lying on tables to fully-clothed, freckle-faced women travelling by train. In an interview with the Washington Post Grossman made another good observation: "Women are the primary users of social media, in control of the images they put out of themselves on Instagram, Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, Pinterest. "They are conveying from the bottom up what the standards of beauty should be. The old model was very top down. "Now women are demanding to be seen, and they want authentic images of their own lives reflected back to them in advertising". Therein lies the real story: today, there is growing demand for imagery of women who are active and in control of their environments. That is, as Goffman might say, the purest expression of change afoot in our society's gender ideals.  |
| International Women’s Week: more events Posted: 27 Feb 2014 01:54 AM PST
Details of two more interesting events celebrating IWD.
Cambridge: EVENT: Book Launch The Meaning of Success: Insights from Women at Cambridge, hosted by Professor Sir Leszek Borysiewicz, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge. The Meaning of Success profiles 26 women at Cambridge – from world-leading academics, to key administrative staff – and features contributions from another 100. It seeks to understand how women in academia value success, and concludes that the University of Cambridge, and the higher education sector more generally, would benefit from a wider, more inclusive definition of success; one that benefited women as much as it did men. The current, quite rigid criteria for advancement in universities (an up-to-date publication record, the award of a research grant) make it easier for men to progress than women, the book argues. DATE: Wednesday, 5, March 2014 TIME: 5.30-7pm VENUE: West Road Concert Hall, Cambridge CB3 9DP
Coventry: FWT A Centre for Women
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| Number of women in work at record high Posted: 27 Feb 2014 01:09 AM PST
According to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), the rate of female employment hit 67.2 per cent last year, which means that women now make up a record-breaking 46 per cent of the UK workforce. Over 190,000 men and women entered into employment between October and December of last year, bringing the number of women in work to 14 million and the total workforce to 30.15 million. The data, released on 19 February, also revealed that 122,000 more women are working full time, while the number of women with part-time jobs fell. Reflecting on these statistics, Employment Minister Esther McVey said: "With employment continuing to increase, it's clear that the government's long-term plan to build a stronger, more secure economy is helping businesses create jobs and get people into work. "Record numbers of women are in work and youth unemployment continues to fall, which means more people have the security of a regular wage and can plan for their future." However, others have said that the statistics are not as positive as they appear. Professor Diane Elson, who, as chair of the Women's Budget Group, campaigns for gender equality and for the UK government to develop a gender budget, warned: "While it's good to see women's employment rate increasing, we have to look at the quality of employment. "There are two things in the latest statistics that the government is not highlighting: median wages and self-employment." As Professor Elson pointed out, while the number of women in employment has increased, the median weekly earnings for women has decreased from £413 to £411. Conversely, the median weekly earnings for men rose from £502 to £508, meaning that the gender pay gap has widened from £89 to £97 a week. It is believed that the increase in the gender pay gap is attributable to more women being self-employed – over five per cent more – and therefore earning a low wage. Frances O'Grady, General Secretary of the Trades Union Congress (TUC), said: "While we have a record proportion of women in employment the widening gender pay gap means many women are not getting the fair pay they deserve." The TUC is set to release the details of a study that has found that the rise in female employment is linked to women over the age of 50 seeking work. Of the 2,278,000 more women that are working now than in 1992, 72 per cent are aged 50 or over. For these older women, the gender pay gap is even worse. On average, the full-time hourly earnings for women in their 50s is nearly 19 per cent less than those of their male counterparts. “Women in their 50s are effectively still paying the price for having taken time out of the labour market and having worked part time. "Many of these women now find themselves still juggling low-paid, part-time work with caring responsibilities – those that no longer have dependent children may be doing regular care for their grandchildren, elderly parents or a sick or disabled partner," O’Grady explained. She added: "The living standards crisis, the increase in the state pension age and the decline in workplace pensions all put pressure on older women."  |
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