Women's Views on News |
- Major attempt to help women be engineers
- Scottish women launch 50:50 campaign
- BBC uses rape to promote soap
Major attempt to help women be engineers Posted: 01 Oct 2014 06:14 AM PDT Industry-led campaign to address shortage of women engineers launched. As newly released statistics illustrate the continuing imbalance of women in science and engineering professions, leaders of 20 of the UK's top science, technology, engineering and manufacturing companies have written to the Prime Minister, David Cameron, seeking his support for a new industry-led campaign to boost the retention and development of women employees. Data published today by WISE (Women into Science, Engineering and Construction) show that, although the number of women engineering professionals has doubled since 2012, they continue to represent less than 10 per cent of the workforce – the lowest proportion in Europe. To reach even a modest target of 30 per cent, WISE calculates that the UK would need 1 million additional women in the science, technology and engineering workforce. To address this challenge, 20 major UK companies have committed to a ten point plan, based on actions which have proved to make the most difference within a science, technology or engineering environment. The ten steps have been developed by industry members and partners of the Royal Academy of Engineering and the WISE Campaign. Trudy Norris-Grey, chair of the WISE Campaign, said: "Our economy needs more women in science, technology and engineering to propel the competitiveness of UK industry on the world stage. "To make a real difference, we need the commitment of industry at the highest level to ensure the working environment gives women the same opportunities to succeed as their male colleagues. "I am delighted that 20 top companies have shown leadership in being the first to commit to implement the ten point plan. "We hope that, with the Prime Minister's support, many more companies will join them in the future." Allan Cook, chair of the Academy's Diversity Leadership Group and chairman of Atkins, said: "UK industry needs to recruit, retain and inspire the best talent available to build and retain a competitive position in the STEM business sector. "As long as women represent such a small proportion of our workforce, especially at senior levels, we know that we are missing out on a rich pool of talent. "It is widely recognised that a diverse workforce offers real advantages in terms of increased innovation and effectiveness. "This is a business imperative as we look to maintain and enhance the UK's competitive edge in our engineering sector which is such a vital part of our national economy." The 20 initial signatories are: Robin Southwell – President, Airbus Group UK; Uwe Krueger – Chief Executive, Atkins; Alan Belfield – Regional Director, Arup; Peter Rogers – Chief Executive, Babcock; Ian King – Chief Executive, BAE Systems; Christine Hodgson – Chair, Cap Gemini; Bob Joyce – Director Product Creation and Delivery, Jaguar Land Rover; John Lazar – Chief Executive, Metaswitch; Grant Rumbles – Chief Executive, Mouchel Group; Steve Holliday – Chief Executive, National Grid; Mark Carne – Chief Executive, Network Rail; Colin Lawther – Senior Vice President, Nissan; Steve Reffitt – Chief Operating Officer, Parsons Brinckerhoff; Ian Powell – Chairman, PWC; Leo Quinn – Chief Executive, Qinetiq; Ian Davis – Chairman, Rolls-Royce; Liv Garfield – Chief Executive, Severn Trent; Erik Bonino – Chairman, Shell UK Ltd; Victor Chavez – Chief Executive, Thales UK and John Neill – Chair and Group Chief Executive, Unipart. To see the ten point plan pledge, click here. |
Scottish women launch 50:50 campaign Posted: 01 Oct 2014 02:39 AM PDT ‘We believe the only way to achieve a balance in public life is by legal quotas’. A cross-party group of MSPs has called for legal quotas to ensure 50:50 representation of women at Holyrood, Westminster and in all of Scotland's public life. From the women who joined Mary Barbour's army to fight against rent rises, to the women who campaigned to secure fair representation in the first Scottish Parliament, women have been at the forefront of the fight for social and economic justice But at the moment only 35 per cent of Scotland's 129 MSPs are women – down from a high of nearly 40 per cent in 1999. And less than a quarter of wards in Scotland's 32 local authorities are represented by women. There are currently also just 297 female councillors, compared with 1,232 men. And while there are still 59 Scottish MPs at Westminster, only 13 – or 22 per cent – are women. The 2014 independence referendum saw women on both sides of the debate bringing a fresh energy and new talent to Scottish public life. So we now want to maintain that energy by bringing women together, whether they voted yes or no, to fight for 50 per cent quotas for women representatives in the Scottish Parliament, in local council chambers and on public boards. Because despite some progress, the governance of our country – in our council chambers, on public boards, and in our parliament – is still dominated by men. We believe the only way to achieve a balance in public life, so that our elected representatives reflect our society as it really and actually is, is through legal quotas. Institutionalised inequality and sexist attitudes stop most women from reaching their full potential in public life. If these inequalities didn’t exist we would already be at 50:50. Legal quotas improve democracy, by giving the electorate the widest possible choice of candidates, and ensuring that our elected institutions reflect society as it is, not a closed shop. At the moment, eight EU member states have legal quotas; Sweden has had them since the 1970s. The campaign for 50:50 representation began when the Scottish Parliament was first created, and this regeneration of it comes from women heavily involved in the independence referendum. We watched the two year long debate with a critical eye, and proudly saw women from all background and all walks of life become politically engaged. There was noticeably more effort to have women speakers on debate panels and have comment pieces from women in newspapers. All over Scotland we attended, spoke at and publicised events specifically organised for women and by women and we saw a wealth of talent; women who clearly have the potential and capabilities to be representatives. This makes us even more adamant that we need to tackle inequality and push for measures to give women access to the positions that are currently – unfairly and structurally – dominated by men. This 50:50 campaign was launched by Kezia Dugdale, Lothians MSP for Scottish Labour, and Alison Johnstone, Lothians MSP for the Scottish Green Party. It welcomes the support of individuals whether from political parties and not. Its key supporters include Jackie Baillie MSP, Labour MSP for Dumbarton, and Marco Biagi, SNP MSP for Edinburgh Central, Jean Urquhart, Independent MSP for Highland and Islands, and Alison McInnes, MSP for North East Scotland – and we have a lovely wall of 'others'. This is a call for sisters from across the independence referendum; whether you voted yes or no, to come together as a movement and push for the representation women of Scotland deserve. To join us. |
Posted: 01 Oct 2014 01:09 AM PDT East Enders’ strong female characters shown as victims and uses rape to promote the soap. Warning: Spoilers. Something has been bothering me, and I can't quite put my finger on it, since the BBC released a promotional trailer for their award winning soap, EastEnders which hinted at the story lines for this autumn. In it, actors Jessie Wallace (Kat Slater), Kellie Bright (Linda Carter) and Letitia Dean (Sharon Rickman) sing along to a cover of REM's Everybody Hurts while clearly in distress themselves. These three characters, who are usually presented as sharing qualities of strength, entrepreneurship and feisty wit, are subverted in this one minute trailer and are instead presented as sharing the one same feature, that of 'victim'. The trailer opened with Bright in a bathtub, wearing a torn dress, hugging herself, and with mascara running down her face. It then cuts to Dean looking up, almost pleading, in a wedding dress – which appears to be blood-stained – and shedding a tear. Finally it turned to Wallace, who was sitting on a set of fire escape stairs, all ash covered, and crying, complete with quivering bottom lip. The storylines are Linda being raped by her nephew, Kat being trapped in a house fire which was started by her husband Alfie, and Sharon being involved in a fight with her fiancĂ©, hard-man Phil Mitchell – which possibly involves gunfire – on her wedding day. For regular viewers of the soap, misery and wretched unhappiness are a recognisable part of the show, and as any keen EastEnd-a-holic would let you know, no character is safe from despair. So, as a devoted Enders fan, it is not the desolation of the storylines which I found to be troublesome, it was something else. Depictions of these particular characters victimised in such close proximity to each other, outside the normal framework of the show, appeared misogynistic and woman hating. The trailer reduced the characters to solely sufferers. So much so that a tabloid has recently described them, in a very condescending fashion, as the "Walford weepers". The trailer explicitly used the suffering of these women to entice new viewers. Which leaves me feeling just a little bit grubby. There is something of the torture porn aesthetic about this trailer. That is usually, I admit, a term given to horror flicks which gratuitously and nonsensically have women tortured – hence the name – and then brutally killed. Think Saw and Hostel. Then what is worse is that here they are using rape in order to advertise the show. Roll up, roll up, come and see the weeping women of the EastEnd who have been raped, deserted and burnt. It is like a cross between a Victorian freak show and those horrid execution videos. I know that there is nothing new in using the image of a distressed woman in a commercial or trailer – do not forget the screaming blondes of the 1930s and King Kong's bride – and I know I may be at risk of coming across a bit Mary Whitehouse, but surely rape and domestic violence are not something which should be capitalised on? Are we to find violence against women so normal that it can now appear on an trailer created by the BBC to be shown before the watershed? If so, then, BBC, count me – and my licence money – out. |
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