Women's Views on News |
- Justice report and survivors’ charter now out
- Sculptor Phyllida Barlow at the Tate
- Labour and dropping page 3
| Justice report and survivors’ charter now out Posted: 10 Apr 2014 07:39 AM PDT
Women’s Aid, together with the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Domestic and Sexual Violence, a cross-party group of MPs and peers working to combat domestic and sexual violence, highlight arising issues and contribute to the development of policies, recently published a report titled ‘Women’s Access to Justice: from reporting to sentencing’. The report aims to highlight key issues related to access to justice for women survivors of domestic and sexual violence in the United Kingdom, and to provide recommendations for change. Methodology involved an online questionnaire; a call for written evidence was launched by the APPG in October 2013. It asked respondents about their experiences, or their service users’ experience, with police and the criminal justice agencies – from reporting to sentencing. The report is based on the results of 90 questionnaires from a cross section of specialist organisations and individuals and nearly 50 survivors of domestic violence. They included the Minister of State for Crime Prevention Norman Baker MP, Dan Jarvis MP, Shadow Minister for Victims, numerous specialist domestic violence services, Independent Domestic Violence Advocates (IDVAs), representatives from various police forces, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS). The publication includes a chapter on survivors’ experiences with the police, including information on ‘survivor and professional experience with police action in domestic violence cases’, ‘police response and investigation’, ‘risk assessments’ and ‘evidence handling’, among others. A ‘Survivor’s Charter’ is included at the end of the publication. That explains exactly what women in the UK should expect from the justice system as a very minimum, and that if anyone feels that their experience does not reflect these principles then they can complain, as their right to justice is not being met. You can find out more about the report and its content from the Women’s Aid website. To read the 64-page report, click here. To read the Survivor’s Charter, click here. Please share the Charter and sign it.  |
| Sculptor Phyllida Barlow at the Tate Posted: 10 Apr 2014 06:43 AM PDT Artist contradicts and questions power, creating dual identities through size and material. Titled ‘dock’, very specifically with a lower-case d, the inspiration for Phyllida Barlow's latest work came from the River Thames running outside the Tate Britain. And what better place to showcase sculptures made out of refuse than the huge, empty, echoing hall of Tate Britain's Duveen Galleries? The space of the hall and its grandiose building style of pillars and arches create an ideal backdrop for Barlow's huge sculptures, made from scaffolding, staples, tape, cardboard, polystyrene, fabric scraps, bin bags and more. She has a great sense of balance and space, filling the high-ceilinged hall with sculptures made entirely from materials more likely to be found in a dump, on a wharf or in a building site. Viewed at various angles, the hall can appear to be filled with nonsensical piles of stuff. It is only after walking into the middle of the hall and concentrating on a piece from a distance that viewers are able to see the symmetry and possible references each piece could be making. One beautifully intricate piece is made entirely from skeletal wooden crates, rearing up reminiscent of the way a huge container ship's prow looms over a dock, the full size and shape only appreciable from a distance, not from directly next to or underneath. Barlow has often described her work as 'anti-monumental', a direct contrast between the size of her sculptures and the materials she uses to construct them. She has also spoken about her love of the hidden aspects of sculpture, the supports and the undercladding, and she shows that through her use of fluorescent tape, staples and industrial straps. dock is the 2014 Tate Britain Commission, an annual invitation that asks artists to respond to the Tate's collection and history. Barlow said her inspiration for dock came when she walked out of the Tate on to the riverbank and saw 'this black, shiny coiling surface of water with quasi-industrial riverside stuff on the other side and… the boats and barges with big containers on them.' 'I'm very excited by the opportunity to work in the Duveen Galleries,' she said. 'Considering a new body of work, I was very conscious of two particular contradictory aspects: the tomb-like interior galleries against the ever-present aspect of the river beyond.' Born in 1944 in Newcastle upon Tyne, Barlow studied at the Chelsea College of Arts from 1960 to 1963 and then the Slade School of Fine Art from 1963 to 1966, where she focused on sculpture and later became Professor of Fine Art. She taught for more than 40 years. Barlow has said that it was her professor at Slade, George Fullard, who introduced her to the possibility of using alternative materials in sculpture. Her students included a number of future award-winners, including Rachel Whiteread, Douglas Gordon, Tacita Dean, Steven Pippin and Tomoko Takahashi. She retired from teaching in 2009 in order to concentrate more on her own work. There is an interesting parallel between Barlow's sculpture and the traditional need for women to scavenge time from their all-consuming caring duties to create their own work. In the 40 years that Barlow taught at art schools and raised five children, she created beauty out of scavenged items. Her work is often huge in scale, yet made entirely out of tiny, broken and or found objects. She has said that she is both attracted and repelled by the 'heroic, macho thing' of many of her artistic peers, a feeling that may be felt within her work. In the Duveen Galleries, a pillar she made out of taped-together cardboard reaching nearly to the ceiling echoes the size, but not the strength, of the marble pillars that support the hall. It is also interesting to note that Barlow is an older woman being recognised for her work in the latter half of her life. Last year, the Tate Modern held the world's first major museum exhibition of the work of Saloua Raouda Choucair, a 98 year-old Lebanese artist. Is being recognised later in life, rather than posthumously, an improvement on previous eras when women artists were, at most, recognised as the muse for whichever male artist(s) they were involved with? It would be great if this is part of a growing movement to better recognise the talents of women artists within their lifetime. The all-male lists of the most expensive paintings and sculptures and wealthiest artists indicate how much work is needed to help women artists achieve an equal level of success.  |
| Posted: 10 Apr 2014 01:51 AM PDT
The Welsh National Assembly added its voice to the campaign for No More Page 3 and called upon the Sun newspaper to drop the feature in July last year, in an Individual Members Debate (IMD). The debate was put forward by Labour AM Rebecca Evans – with cross-party support from Aled Roberts AM, Suzy Davies AM and Lindsay Whittle AM – and the Assembly to formally agreed to support the campaign. Speaking at the time, Evans, who has long been a strong supporter of the campaign said: "The continued presence of Page Three in a national, daily, unrestricted newspaper only serves to undermine the good work that government, the third sector, trade unions, teachers, parents, and many others are trying to do every day to build a country where we are all treated equally and with respect, and where young people grow up with healthy expectations of themselves and of others. "Page Three normalises the trivial objectification of women, entrenches inequality and sexist attitudes, and, well, quite simply, half-naked women just aren't news! "I am proud of the work we are doing in Wales to tackle discrimination in all its forms – including gender discrimination." The Labour MP for West Bromwich East, Tom Watson, has now called on the Labour Party to support the No More Page 3 campaign asking the Sun's editor to take the topless women out of his so-called 'family newspaper'. Writing in Labour List, he said, 'As a Dad, I worry about the message that Page 3 gives to my children, namely that it's ok to objectify women. 'This outdated feature belongs to a sexist era and it's extraordinary that it still exists at all. ‘How can we talk about equality when the UK's highest circulation national newspaper is filled with pictures of men in suits, and yet one of the few images of women is a Page 3 picture? ‘In 2014, women are still fighting for the right to be both mothers and workers – what does the existence of Page 3 teach our kids about women's place in society?’ And he has called upon the Labour Party to adopt the leadership position set by Gloria De Piero, along with every other female member of the shadow cabinet – and numerous UK-wide organisations and hundreds of thousands of individuals and officially support the No More Page 3 campaign. So do we. If you'd like to show your support for the No More Page 3 campaign, sign up here.  |
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