Women's Views on News |
- Clarify Tory position re women in public life
- University union rejects SWP event
- UK fail at gender equality in work
| Clarify Tory position re women in public life Posted: 18 Mar 2014 07:08 AM PDT
No More Page 3 supporter Lizzy Woodfield wrote this amazing letter to her local Conservative MP, to send to him on International Women's Day. If your local MP is a Tory who still hasn't signed the MPs’ Letter of Support, please, please copy and paste this template letter and send it to her or him. Thanks. Dear MP, I'm writing to update you on some troubling and exciting developments for the No More Page 3 campaign – which, you will remember, is asking editor David Dinsmore to drop topless models from the newspaper (rather than asking government to support a ban or press censorship). You may be aware that on the Sun has launched a joint 6-month-long campaign with the breast cancer charity 'CoppaFeel!' The campaign aims to raise awareness of the importance of detecting the early signs of cancer, especially for young women (and men) through self-checking. This would have been a very welcome shift in the Sun's attitude towards women, and representation of them. Unfortunately, as you may have seen, the Sun has strongly linked the campaign to its topless Page 3 feature. As you can imagine, this has been hugely upsetting for many women, in particular survivors of breast cancer, those who have undergone mastectomies or reconstructive surgeries, and their family and friends. Many commentators have noted that the headline on the front page (alongside a full page image of topless model wearing just her knickers) 'Page 3 vs Cancer' was highly provocative, unnecessarily confrontational, and an attempt to reframe the public debate to suggest that if you are anti-Page 3, you must be pro-breast cancer. Clearly this is not the case. Indeed, some breast cancer charities have released statements condemning the insensitivity of the campaign, and the sexualisation of breast cancer. You may also have noticed the overwhelming negative response to the Sun's campaign from both national media, including the Telegraph, the Independent, the Guardian and the New Statesman, and social media platforms such as Mumsnet (who have recently announced public support for the No More Page 3 campaign), as well as across local and national TV and radio. If you have a spare moment I would urge you to read No More Page 3's statement on the Sun's 'Page 3 vs Cancer' campaign. I suspect the Sun's motives – unlike CoppaFeel's which I am convinced, though perhaps misguided, were nothing but altruistic – were not entirely noble! It seems to me that they are attempting to leverage public support for the ailing Page 3 feature by co-opting breast cancer awareness. Unfortunately for David Dinsmore this has backfired rather spectacularly. - Since 'check 'em Tuesday' the No More Page 3 campaign has seen an unprecedented and sharp rise in signatures – over 19,000 signatures have been added since Tuesday. You may be able to confirm this, but I understand No More Page 3 supporters now outnumber the Conservative Party membership. Several Conservative MPs have signed a letter of support for the No More Page 3 campaign: Amber Rudd, Conservative MP for Hastings and Rye While this is great, you may be interested to know that of all the main parties, Conservatives lag behind in their support of the NMP3 campaign. 13 Conservative MPs have signed the letter of support, compared to 112 Labour MPs. The decision to voice support for No More Page 3 is of course a personal one, and I wouldn't want any of your Conservative colleagues to sign the petition if they didn't agree that Page 3 is sexist and Britain would be better off without it. I do wonder, though, if there is a connection between the Tories' 'women problem' and their apparent relative lack of interest in campaigns such as No More Page 3. I'm concerned that you have underestimated the strength of feeling on this particular issue. I hope you don't mind me saying that I'm afraid I probably won't be voting for you come election day. I feel incredibly disconnected from your party, and although I think you've achieved some good things for equality during this government, it comes across to me that the Conservatives don't care all that much about women. I'd be interested to hear more about your position on the fair representation of women in public life, and I hope to see a stronger commitment from your party about what it will be doing to address its own problem of women's underrepresentation. Kind regards, Constituent. If you would like to sign the No More Page 3 petition you can find it here. If you would like to add your support by signing the letter, you can find details here.  |
| University union rejects SWP event Posted: 18 Mar 2014 04:30 AM PDT
The University of London Union (ULU) has refused to host an event run by the Socialist Workers Party (SWP). The event, Marxism Festival 2014, is the annual summer school event of the Socialist Workers' Party In a public statement also signed by many other university representatives, ULU said that the SWP has “proven itself to be a corrupt, rape apologist organisation which prides itself in creating an unsafe space for young women.” They reached this conclusion after the appalling sexism displayed last year when a senior member of the SWP was accused of rape. Instead of taking the matter to the police, the SWP chose to investigate the matter themselves – and inevitably dismissed the case. The woman who first complained was then harassed, ostracised and insulted, and she eventually left the SWP; and she is not the only one who left. Other members of the SWP have also broken away, including an opposition faction of 500 members and several student groups. ULU have made the right decision in taking a stand against a party that, as they say, is a “disgrace to the left” and which creates an unsafe space for women. Many w0uld argue that the entire point of far left politics is to band together in solidarity against the oppression inherent in capitalism and the kyriarchy that helps to support it, which prioritises mainly the rich, white, male upper classes over all others. To act in the sexist and unethical way that the SWP has done actively goes against its own principles of comradeship and equality – but it seems that some comrades are more equal than others. ULU has a clear policy which outlines a zero tolerance stance against sexual harassment and violence, and has managed to put it into practise. If you would like to support ULU’s stand, click here and add your name to their statement on Facebook.  |
| UK fail at gender equality in work Posted: 18 Mar 2014 02:09 AM PDT
The PwC Women in Work Index has ranked the UK 18 out of 27 nations based on women's participation in the labour market. Having shown improvement by reducing the wage gap from 26 per cent in 2000 to 18 per cent in 2012, the UK's rate of change remains slower than most other member states in the international Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). This latest report from PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) found that while the UK's 'absolute performance' has improved, other countries are improving faster and more significantly. This was PwC's second Women in Work Index, and the analysis covered five indicators of female economic involvement: the equality of earnings with men; the proportion of women in work, both in absolute terms and relative to men; the female employment rate; and the proportion of women in full-time employment. The Index is a weighted average of those five measures using OECD and ONS data. And PwC said that the UK performs above the OECD average on female participation in the labour force and female unemployment levels, but its performance 'is negatively impacted due to the low proportion of women in full-time employment.' ‘The UK ranks well below the OECD average on this measure and is in 25 place out of 27 countries.’ Gaenor Bagley, head of people at PwC, said that 'despite the perception that flexible working helps women, our Index and wider research suggest that it could instead be holding them back. 'The reality on the ground is that people who work flexibly feel they don't progress as quickly. 'The decision to go part-time is often made for short-term reasons, but unfortunately for women it often seems to have a wider, long-term negative impact.' Bagley goes on to say that the solution lies in culture change. 'Women need a workplace and society that [gets] the basics, such as how people are assessed and rewarded at work, right.' Which is what Timewise Jobs campaigns for, saying on its website, 'It's our belief that quality part-time jobs, and the high calibre candidates needed to fill them, are invisible in the traditional recruitment market. 'Our aim is to change that.' PwC is shortly planning to publish a detailed analysis of the reasons behind such continued workplace inequality in a partnership with Opportunity Now. Scheduled for release in April 2014, their study, as WVoN reported earlier this year, has involved interviews with 25,000 women and has high aspirations – 'getting to the root of the problem and coming up with actions that will make a difference.' The Office for National Statistics (ONS) published earnings data in December 2013 that showed the wage gap widening, albeit with figures differing slightly from those from the OECD. And the Fawcett Society reported recently that ‘the gender pay difference for full-time employees widened to 15.7 per cent [in 2013] from 14.8 per cent in 2012 ‘. Remarking on this, Charlie Woodworth, from Fawcett, said, “The gap in pay between women and men is a key measure of economic inequality between the sexes. “News that the gap has begun to widen, after years of slow but steady progress, is a damning indictment of the government's record when it comes to women's standing in the economy.”  |
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