Tuesday, June 3, 2014

Women's Views on News

Women's Views on News

Events 2 June – 8 June

Posted: 02 Jun 2014 04:07 AM PDT

women centric events in the UK for your diaryHere are some dates for your diary of woman-centric events going on around the UK this week.

Bristol:

5-14 June: Blue Stockings by Jessica Swale at the Tobacco Factory Theatre, Raleigh Road, Bristol

In 1896 at Cambridge University, something deeply unsettling and utterly baffling is happening. The women are revolting.

A fast paced mini-epic, centred around a key battleground on the march towards equal rights.

Girton College, Cambridge 1896 – knowledge is power.

With the feminist and suffragette movement building momentum, a small group of determined educationalists and aspiring students are campaigning for young women to have the right to graduate. What they come up against is the prevailing wind of the day; science that tells them too much education could whither their wombs, and a social stigma that academic achievement leads to loss of femininity, along with any chance of marriage, a family or any normal life.

This is a story of young women, ordinary in their desires, but extraordinary in their place in history. It shows us where we have come from, and challenges us to look at where we are now.

Originally produced at the Globe Theatre London, Blue Stockings is a shocking and stirring play, which will send you out of the theatre feeling elated, appalled, and thoroughly educated.

Tickets £15/£10

Canterbury:

5 June: Feminism and the Language Problem: a conversation with Jennifer Coates and Heidi Conroy at Grimond Lecture Theatre 1, University of Kent, Canterbury, from 1pm.

A discussion with renowned language and gender expert, Jennifer Coates and Heidi Conroy, an award winning lecturer in English Language and Linguistics.

Coates’ recent coverage in the news will be one of the main centres for attention during the event, but also we will discuss the portrayal of feminism in the media, the way our language is unbalanced in its presentation of gender, and much, much more!

There will be a Q&A at the end.

Edinburgh:

5 June: Constitutions Café: Gender equality and the referendum at the Scottish Centre on Constitutional Change, Edinburgh, from 6pm.

Engender and the Scottish Centre on Constitutional Change are hosting a 'constitution café' on gender equality and the independence referendum.

Put your questions to activists from Better Together and Women for Independence, on gender, equality, women’s rights and social justice issues, over a cup of tea.

We hope this will primarily be an evening for 'undecided' women and men to reflect on their vote from these perspectives. We want this to be more than just another platform for heated debate between those with firm existing views. However, all with an interest in gender issues are welcome to join us.

Materials on the current gender policy landscape, across economic, cultural and political life in Scotland will be available, but this will be an informal event driven by the participants.

Light refreshments will be provided.

London:

2 June: Young Fabians' Ideas Series: Feminism project launch at Room 130 Foster Court, Torrington Place, Gower Street, London WC1E, from 6.30pm.

A discussion forum.

We will be joined by Reni Eddo-Lodge (contributing editor to Feminist Times) and Kirsty McNeill (consultant and former special adviser in Number 10) who will share their thoughts on a 'One Nation' feminism for the 21st Century.

Over the coming months we’ll be exploring the big questions confronting women on the left, with a series of events, articles and blog posts, and a contribution to a Fabian Society pamphlet ahead of the general election setting out a vision for the future of feminism.

We hope as many Young Fabians as possible will join us to discuss the key issues for women today – equal pay, violence against women, multiculturalism, women's portrayal in the media and many more.

There will be opportunities for members to shape Labour's philosophy and develop their skills by taking ownership of various areas of the project. We hope to hear from members of all ethnicities, nationalities, cultures, religions, genders and sexualities.

3 – 7 June: Heart by Zendeh at the Ovalhouse, 52-54 Kennington Oval, London SE11, at 7.30pm.

Inspired by the tragic love poem Leili and Majnoun, HEART demands a feminist outcome for the star-crossed lovers.

Set in Tehran over 4 days in August 1953 against the backdrop of the 28 Mordad Coup d'etat, the play excavates obsession, madness and betrayal on a personal and global level.

Imagine the perfect husband and wife. Together in the dark violence lingers, touch is forbidden.

Now imagine the same woman playfully practicing the art of kissing in broad daylight with her soul mate.

The action moves between the monochrome studios of BBC Radio Persian Service, a Tehrani tearoom and the imposing British Embassy buildings.

The characters, an Iranian woman, her English husband and her Syrian beau, tell their stories amid the insistent urgency of newsreel and the rhythmic wit of poetry.

Tickets £10/£6

Until 13 July: Cherchez la Femme at Space, 129-131 Mare Street, London E8.

There is a rich history of radical, pioneering feminist video collectives in France that is largely unknown to Anglophone audiences and is still to be recognised in the Western canon of visual studies and activist history.

In France in the early 1970s, several activist collectives such as Vidéa (1974, Anne-Marie Faure, Isabelle Fraisse, Syn Guerin and Catherine Lahourcade) and Insoumuses (1975, Carole Roussopoulos, Delphine Seyrig and Iona Wieder) composed almost entirely of women took up the new portable video camera as an immediate and accessible tool to promote feminism, class and gender consciousness, direct democracy, and political action – all central ideals during the May '68 student movements in France and within second-wave feminism.

They collectively produced videos (explicitly not artworks) that exploited the medium for their own sociopolitical agendas and self-representation at a time when society did not expect women to embrace technology.

When the Sony Portapak became the first portable video camera on the market in France in 1967, it was considerably cheaper than film, had an immediate turn-around production time, and had no history or social formalities yet, which enabled the tool to be taken up by these collectives simultaneous to the emerging feminist movement.

Still rarely addressed even in France, the history of these videos and their political content suggest an alternative narrative departing from well-known Anglo-American male-dominated collectives such as Ant Farm and TVTV or individuals such as Nam June Paik, Vito Acconci, Joan Jonas, Martha Rosler and others.

In The Second Sex (1947) Simone de Beauvoir calls for solidarity and self-organisation among women.

Evidently echoing this call, these collectives began sharing sources, equipment, technical skills, common goals and interests to create new representations of female behavior and resist segregation and discrimination.

The videos in this presentation are just a small selection of the hundreds in the collection of the Centre Audiovisuel Simone de Beauvoir in Paris and even more which have been lost over the years.

Translated into English in 2012, for an American premiere at the Kitchen, by Alaina Claire Feldman and Stephanie Jeanjean, they are meant to introduce marginalised forms of feminist organisation in France and to look for the women who resisted normativity by creating their own identities.

Oxford:

2 June: Deborah Cameron on "Straight talking: language and heterosexuality" at Ruskin College, Dunstan Road, Oxford, from 6.30pm.

Part of the Ruskin Gender Platforms series.

Deborah Cameron is Professor of Language and Communication at Worcester College, University of Oxford.  For many years, she helped produce and write the feminist magazine Trouble & Strife (edited The Trouble & Strife Reader in 2009) and she continues to contribute to the Trouble & Strife blog.

She has also contributed to BBC radio programmes ranging from Woman's Hour through Thinking Allowed to Fry's English Delight and has written a variety of books including The Myth of Mars and Venus; On Language and Sexual Politics; Good To Talk: Living and Working in a Communication Culture and Verbal Hygiene.

Tickets free.

Trowbridge:

6 June: Austen's Women at Trowbridge Town Hall, Market Street, Trowbridge, from 7.30pm.

Thirteen of Jane Austen’s heroines come to life in this bold revisiting of literature’s most celebrated works in this much loved Edinburgh Festival sell-out hit…

Using only Austen’s words, Rebecca Vaughan becomes Emma Woodhouse, Lizzy Bennet, Mrs Norris, Miss Bates and nine other beautifully observed women in critical moments from Austen’s major novels (including Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility and Emma) and lesser known or unfinished works.  Directed by Olivier Award winner, Guy Masterson (Morecombe)

Tickets  £10/ £9

 

Temporary reprieve for FGM risk girls

Posted: 02 Jun 2014 02:31 AM PDT

Is the Home Office’s behaviour over this case indicative of the government's true commitment to fighting FGM? 

A woman who seeking asylum in the UK because she believes her two daughters are at risk of FGM in their native Nigeria has been given a temporary reprieve from a recent attempt at deportation.

But her campaign must continue.

Afusat Saliu believes her daughters will be forcibly subjected to female genital mutilation (FGM) by their family if they return to Nigeria.

She also fears she herself will be forced into an arranged marriage.

However, the Home Office does not think the girls are at risk, and has refused to grant the three asylum, and so Afusat Saliu and her two young daughters were taken from their home in Leeds on 28 May ahead of a planned deportation the next day.

They were taken to Sheffield and then to Cayley House, a temporary facility at Heathrow, on the night of 28 May.

"It was terrible," Afusat said, "We had to sleep on the floor. There was no privacy – if you went to the toilet, you went in front of everyone."

"Some of the crew at Cayley House were nice, but it was not a good environment for a child."

However, in a last-minute reprieve, a letter from the Treasury Solicitor was issued which cancelled their removal.

Temporarily.

Since the reprieve the family have been moved again, to Cedars Detention Centre near Gatwick.

Saliu's lawyer, Bhumika Parmar, said she was not sure why the government decided to take the step, but speculated that it may have something to do with recent calls for Virgin Atlantic, the airline due to transport the family back to Nigeria, to intervene.

Over the last few weeks more than one thousand tweets have called upon Virgin Atlantic’s Sir Richard Branson to personally address the issue, particularly since Branson and his daughter Holly have both spoken out about female genital mutilation in the past.

'If Afusat Saliu and her family are deported to Nigeria, we call upon the UK and Nigerian governments to do all they can to protect the family and ensure they are not put at risk of female genital mutilation,' Sir Richard and his daughter Holly wrote in a joint statement on the evening of 29 May.

'As we have previously stated, FGM is a horrendous practice and a serious violation of internationally recognised human rights.

‘The authorities must ensure the Saliu family are given all support and protection possible,' they added.

However the pair sat on the fence about the Home Office's decision to deport Saliu and her two girls, saying they did not to know the full details of the case.

Over 120,000 people have signed a petition asking the Home Office to reconsider its decision to deport Saliu and her children; those close to Saliu say the evidence put before the Home Office has not been assessed thoroughly enough.

The petition describes how Saliu was subjected to FGM as a baby and how she fled Nigeria, heavily pregnant with her second daughter, when her step-mother said she wanted to have the eldest daughter, Bassy, cut.

Saliu also fled the prospect of an arranged marriage between herself and a man forty years her senior to whom her family are financially in debt.

A close friend of the family, Anj Handa, claims that the last minute reprieve was only due to the Home Office's eventual acknowledgement that Saliu was entitled to 72 hours' notice of any deportation order.

“She has been given an overnight reprieve, but the campaign is still very much ongoing and the lawyers are still working on her judicial review," Anj Handa said.

"We are still urging people to keep up the pressure to help her stay in this country while the case is reviewed.”

In light of the mounting anti-FGM campaigns underway in the UK, including the Department of International Development's campaigns to try and end FGM in a generation, the reaction of the Home Office to this case could be seen as indicative of the government's true commitment to fighting FGM in the UK and abroad.

To sign the petition, click here.

Five things I learnt at the NUS LGBT conference

Posted: 02 Jun 2014 01:09 AM PDT

WU copyAnd that everyone needs to know.

By Cat Turhan, Welfare and Campaigns Officer, University of Warwick.

I'm a big fan of NUS conferences. I like being able to see what's going on at a national level, influence what's happening, then bring ideas back to campus. Between 9th-11th May, I attended the NUS LGBT conference: to hold the officers to account, choose the new ones and decide on policies which will steer the movement next year. Now that I'm home, I want to tell you about my experiences, and how everyone can hopefully benefit from what I learnt.

By writing this post, I'm essentially 'coming out'.
You see, the only way you actually get to go to conference is if you identify as LGBT, and are voted to attend by other people who do likewise. So, here goes. I am a bisexual woman. I will be a bisexual President. I talk about being a woman a lot: primarily, its significance given that we have not had a President who identifies as a woman in eight years, its implications for how I will represent the SU next year, and how the experiences I have had as a woman have impacted on my current role. I haven't, however, dwelled on what it has meant to be bisexual, and how this has influenced who I am.

I came out to my mum and some friends when I was 13, and have carried on coming out to others ever since. I had my first kiss with my first girlfriend when I was 14. Although I have had amazing support, it hasn't always been easy. I have been heckled in clubs, countlessly dismissed as being as 'slutty', 'indecisive' or (a personal favourite) 'straight really'. I kept myself pretty closeted at Uni because I was (needlessly) scared of being shunned by my friends. However, I want to share these experiences now to show to LGBTUA+ students that the Union should be your home on campus, and that anyone can be a part of it – or even lead it.

2. You can't tell someone's gender just by looking at them.
We make assumptions about gender all the time. However, to look out of a window onto a street and play a game of 'Is that person a man or a woman?' is not only hugely insensitive – it's deeply problematic. You don't get to decide someone's gender, and there certainly aren't just two. If we happen to identify as the gender we were born into, that can be merely a coincidence – many people don't, and when we make those decisions for other people, we take away their right to live as the person they really are.

I'm saying this as a cis-gendered [someone who identifies as the gender which was assigned to them at birth] person who makes similar mistakes in assumption. Society conditions us to make a choice, but we should make a conscious effort to move away from that. People who identify themselves outside of a fixed or immovable 'gender binary' (i.e. consider themselves neither a man nor a woman) might use the pronouns them/they, but ultimately it's up to you to find out and stick to the pronouns that person uses.

3. The significance of Eurovision goes beyond pop music and foreign policy.
I love Eurovision. It's camp, it's kitsch, it's an opportunity to revel in some truly flamboyant pieces of music, and everyone can find out who each respective European country holds some sort of grudge against during the voting (as if we didn't know already). However, this year was different. This year, I watched Conchita Wurst not only win Eurovision, but win for every single person around me. Her victory proved that attitudes are changing for the better: people aren't just 'tolerating' other genders and sexualities any more – they are actually celebrating them.

I also had a Twitter conversation with a senior member of staff about Eurovision, which turned into one about being LGBT. It was wonderful to talk about it so openly and honestly, and I was so proud of how progressive people can be at Universities.

4. Warwick are better at being inclusive than the NUS.
On the Sunday, tired from the previous night's Conchita-winning-related revelry, we trooped back into the conference hall to vote on the remaining motions – one of which was to change the name of the NUS's LGBT campaign to LGBT+. This is to ensure that a wide range of sexualities and gender identities feel included in the campaign. Inclusivity has always been at the heart of Warwick Students' Union: our liberation officer is called LGBTUA+, and Warwick Pride is a space for LGBTUA+ students so that people who identify as lesbian, gay, bi, trans*, unidentified, asexual, or any other non-straight/non-cis orientation can feel at home. To me, the girl who cried during the conference because it was the first time she was in a room full of people just like her, that concept seems not only non-controversial – it's vital.

I was pretty surprised then to see that this motion was not only controversial, but voted down.

I couldn't believe that the National Union of Students voted NOT to make more people who really need the support of this community feel a part of it. Arguments against suggested that the '+' sign was tokenistic, and this was insulting to people who identified as a part of the movement but not as L, G, B or T. Of course, it's always going to be a tricky balance, but watching the face of the fresher sitting next to me who identified as 'none of the above' when the motion failed made it painfully clear: solving the problem of making people feel at home within this community may not be easy to do, but it has to start somewhere. As it stands, many people are being forced to define themselves under a banner which they feel doesn't include them.

5. Liberation isn't liberation unless it's truly intersectional. 
This last point is almost certainly my most important. Before the conference, a few of us rifled through the motions to have a look at what was on the agenda. To our surprise, we noticed that none of the motions mentioned people from ethnic minority backgrounds. One particularly disappointing example was a motion on remembering the involvement of the trans* community during the Stonewall riots – particularly Sylvia Rivera, a trans* woman whose actions were instrumental at the time. The motion completely neglected the fact that Sylvia Rivera was also a person of colour, working class and bisexual. Things got even worse when the reports from the committee came and no one mentioned a single thing they had done for students of colour – except the student from the committee who was from an ethnic minority background and felt wholly unsupported.

"Why does this matter? After all, it's an LGBT conference, not an ethnic minorities conference" Unfortunately, this neglects the fresher from an ethnic minority background who came to that conference and felt ignored. It neglects those who weren't able to be there and continually live with the homophobia and racism on our campuses and LGBTUA+ communities themselves. When we forget to talk about race, or gender, or sexuality, or disability when we talk about oppression, we aren't having a proper conversation. When we forget all the other factors that made Silvia Rivera's contribution to Stonewall so amazing, we are forgetting a crucial part of history (which was bravely argued by one Warwick delegate).

Ultimately, racism affects everyone – as does homophobia, transphobia, misogyny and ableism. Our society is worse off for these things, and it is all of our responsibilities to make them stop, not just pigeon-holing responsibility to a person in a committee who identifies with these issues. I said at the beginning that everyone can benefit from what I experienced that weekend. If you take one message away, I hope it's that actually, issues affecting 'minorities' of any type aren't just 'their' problem. They're yours, too.

Cross-posted from WarwickSU with permission.