Women's Views on News |
- Shocking results of domestic violence inquiry
- The economic crisis was not caused by the disabled
- A community of hate?
| Shocking results of domestic violence inquiry Posted: 25 Feb 2015 03:06 AM PST
An analysis of ten separate domestic violence prevalence studies by the Council of Europe have showed consistent findings: 1 in 4 women experience domestic violence during their lifetime and between 6–10 per cent of women experience domestic violence in any given year. And now a cross-party group of MPs, releasng their findings from a recent inquiry, have concluded that the current funding systems for domestic and sexual violence services are 'not fit for purpose'. The All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Domestic and Sexual Violence, supported by Women's Aid and Rape Crisis, concluded in their report that the current approach to funding domestic and sexual violence services is too piecemeal, and is based on short-term risk management rather than responding to what women and girls need in order to recover. The report recommends that responses to domestic and sexual violence should focus on the needs of women and girls experiencing violence, and that a sustainable funding solution is essential to providing this. The report recommends: That the government adopts a needs led approach to tackling sexual violence and domestic violence and bolsters services that address women's and girls' needs; That the government develops sustainable funding models to make sure there are enough specialist services for women and girls experiencing domestic and sexual violence, especially BME women and girls; The creation of a cross-departmental Cabinet Office Minister with responsibility for tackling violence against women and girls; That relevant government departments work together to provide guidance to commissioners of domestic and sexual violence services on how to work together to make sure essential good services are provided; and That better data on violence against women and girls should be collected, and that the data that is collected should be broken down more to show the gender, ethnicity, and other relevant characteristics of those experiencing and perpetrating domestic and sexual violence Polly Neate, chief executive of Women's Aid, said: "This report recognises the serious issues women face in accessing domestic violence services given the unstable and unsustainable funding situation. "We cannot really tackle domestic violence unless we provide properly resourced, specialist services, geared to meeting women's needs. "This is the only way to reduce the impact of abuse on their lives and society. "We cannot provide these services properly unless we understand the problem and can direct resources where they are needed, so proper data collection is also essential. "We urge the government to implement the APPG's recommendations at the earliest possible opportunity." The chair of Rape Crisis England & Wales, Lee Eggleston, said: "By implementing the APPG's recommendations, the government will free Rape Crisis centres up to focus all their energies on their life-changing and life-saving work. "Rape Crisis organisations continuously face pressure to find the funds locally to survive year upon year and are all too familiar with tackling difficult decisions about the closure or reduction of services. "Long-lasting improvement can only come with a national funding strategy that puts an end to the piecemeal way that specialist services are commissioned and funded, and which allows for growth to fully meet the needs of sexual violence victims and survivors." To read the report, click here. It makes for shocking reading. Please forward this report and this post to your MP, and ask for their support in implementing the recommendations.  |
| The economic crisis was not caused by the disabled Posted: 25 Feb 2015 02:53 AM PST
Asks Mags Lewis, Green Candidate for Castle Ward, Leicester. If you are disabled in any way, the chances are that you have suffered disproportionately under the coalition's austerity measures. This deterioration in quality of life over the last 5 years has been felt in a number of ways: financially, increased uncertainty and worry, fuelled in party by a growth in intolerance towards people with disabilities. Reclaiming Our Futures Alliance (ROFA), have researched the financial impact of the cuts on disabled people publishing their findings in their report From Cuts… To Resistance, that came out in November 2014. ROFA is a user-led campaign and its report highlights the experiences of disabled people hit by the government's welfare reforms. It also encourages disabled people to vote in the general election. The report says disabled people have been hit nine times harder by the cuts than the average person in the UK, while disabled people with the highest support needs have been hit 19 times harder. Once again we see the most vulnerable in society being the most effected by austerity. Handing over of welfare assessments to private companies has added hugely to the uncertainty disabled people have over their financial security. There is plenty of evidence now of unfair reassessments leading to further cuts to benefits. This increases anxiety needlessly, with people suddenly being denied the support they are entitled to. The Green Party believes that government policy should not be based on the advice of private sector companies that profit from the advice they give and have a vested interest in cutting payments to claimants. People with disabilities are unavoidably regular users of the NHS. The gifting of NHS contracts to the private sector, means that very many disabled people have had their care compromised, and been left to the mercy of a dysfunctional market. I know this from personal experience. The medications I rely on to give me mobility are delivered to my home by a private provider who consistently provides a bad service. But the NHS simply cannot compete or deliver the drugs themselves, because the NHS has to pay VAT on drugs and private companies do not, so there is no level playing field. Deliveries are often late or never turn up, making daily life an anxious struggle for me and thousands like me. Then when we get sick as a result, the NHS picks up the pieces, shoulders the unnecessary cost and we all suffer. In short, this is bad economic planning by the Government. Since the austerity measures kicked in, the media has often featured stories about the work shy, and disability fraudsters, trying to scape-goat all people with disabilities for the Government's failure to properly manage our health service. The media fail to report how the vast majority of disabled people struggle on and contribute to society. It speaks volumes when a Welfare Minister suggests that disabled people might not "be worth" the minimum wage, this outrageous statement seeps into the national consciousness. When that Minister is not sacked, but is supported by the establishment and offers no more than a lukewarm apology, those attitudes become entrenched. This unhealthy and divisive attitude, unchallenged by Government Ministers, adds to the huge stress that disability brings to anyone. For people with disabilities this Coalition Government has been a disaster. We thought that things were looking up when years of campaigning lead to new laws from December 2006 that placed a duty on public bodies to accommodate disability. These laws were incorporated into the Equality Act 2010. This Act aims to protect disabled people and prevent disability discrimination of people in employment. The Green Party will campaign to enhance and strengthen these rights, as it recognises that ALL of society suffers when one group is marginalised or excluded, and that it makes financial sense to support disabled people to work if they so choose. It is costly to allow a fifth of the population to be excluded from society and employment, this costs us all in terms of benefits, health costs and lost talent. The Green Party recognises that disability is in part a result of the way we structure society and that the majority of disabled people live in poverty. It is not their fault that their world is full of steps, trip hazards, dangerous junctions and that the means to an independent life are made inaccessible and unaffordable. We will address these problems through our income policies designed to secure greater independence, through improving accessibility for all and most importantly by ensuring effective equality of opportunity in education, training and employment. A version of this post appeared on the East Midlands Green Party's blog on 24 February 2015.  |
| Posted: 25 Feb 2015 02:05 AM PST
American self-confessed ‘pick up artist‘ Julien Blanc may have been barred from entering the UK, but there are still men following in his footsteps, thanks to a growing number of ‘pick up artist’ communities online. Julian Blanc has described himself as an “international leader in dating advice”, and routinely tours the world giving seminars and boot-camps that cost around £1,250, courtesy of his employer, the US company Real Social Dynamics (RSD). The purpose of 25 year-old Blanc’s seminars is to educate men on how to successfully seduce women into sleeping with them – through any means possible, it seems. Blanc’s techniques, if one wishes to call them that, divert from the traditional chocolate and flowers method and instead are aggressively sexual; a chilling ‘take what is yours’ kind of attitude prevails, above all. In one seminar, Blanc, commenting about women in Japan, can be heard telling a group of students, “If you’re a white male, you can do what you want”. This. it seems, has been Blanc’s modus operandi. Women don’t deserve to be wined or dined or even, heaven forbid, treated like normal human beings. Perish the thought. No, gentlemen, women are yours for the taking, just as long as you follow the directions of this self-made pick up artist. You only need to trawl through recent online articles and internet history to see just how troubling Blanc’s pick-up artist persona is. Many of Blanc’s personal social networking sites have now been deleted – but the internet is for ever, and his troubling comments and posts can still be found online. On his Twitter, now privatised, Blanc posted images of his hands around various women’s necks, as well as a list of various techniques used by domestic abusers to intimidate and threaten their partners – which, disturbingly, Blanc commented “may as well be a checklist” to be used by men when seducing women. Blanc seemed to be of the opinion that women should be grateful for any attention from men and that when a man is threatening or coercive towards a woman, she should feel flattered, because at least he is paying attention to her. Never mind that Blanc, as a man, is very unlikely to ever experience domestic violence in his lifetime. Never mind that the vast majority of women have been in some sort of abusive relationship that has gone unreported, because of the normalisation of obsessive, controlling behaviour by men in society. Since a UK visa was denied him, Blanc has apologised for the various tweets, videos, and comments he made as part of Real Social Dynamics. He has said that his Twitter is just him being “obnoxious”, that the pictures of his hands around women’s necks were “playful” and consensual, and that he no longer considers himself to be a pick up artist. Various other employees of Real Social Dynamics have also commented on the situation, and his boss has argued that the sexist, disturbing videos and posts made on behalf of the company are purely for promotional purposes, and that they do not actually teach or condone such behaviour in their seminars, but use it to get the attention of potential subscribers. But what does this say about their business? What does this say about men in general, if the only way to pique their interest in women is by using violent, aggressive images and terminology? I don’t believe that Blanc’s boss is being truthful at all when he says that the terminology used to promote the company and the actual information discussed in the seminars differs. And if they do, then so what? Either way, the men who follow the pick-up artist school of seduction only become interested in relationships with women when they discover that they will have access to techniques that allow them to demean, to control, to abuse, to oppress. But whether or not Blanc has given up his career as a pick up artist does now seem unimportant, as there is apparently a large number of men who are following in his footsteps and continuing his legacy. Online forum Reddit came under fire in the press during the Isla Vista shootings perpetrated by Elliott Rodger, when it emerged that Rodgers frequently posted on the pick up artist ‘subreddit’ of the message board named Seduction. Seduction is not the only pick up artist forum that exists. On Reddit alone, there is also TheRedPill, a community that is founded on the belief that, in general, women have it better than men. Men who subscribe to this subreddit believe that feminism is a damaging ideology that contributes to the continued oppression of men in society. They are also often stringent followers of pick up artistry. They believe that all women are manipulative, and exist purely to belittle or demean them, but through pick up artistry, they can ‘beat’ women at their own game and use them before they, as men, are used. The hypocrisy is astounding. What these men really believe is not that they don’t have enough rights – it is that women have too many rights. They want to keep us in what they believe is our rightful place – beneath them. These are men who often believe they have been hurt or rejected by women – but this is only because women do not act in the stereotypical roles that they have been taught, by a patriarchal society, that we belong in. These men are angry and full of hate that they direct towards women because society has taught them that we are property, that we can be bought or sold, that if we don’t fulfill the specifications of being a woman that they except then we can be discarded or traded in. Or beaten and subdued into becoming the woman they want us to be – one who is seduced by pick up artistry and does not answer back. The pick-up artist world is the dark, bitter side of the internet, one that routinely encourages the hatred and objectification of women. And it shows no sign of slowing down. At the time of writing, the Reddit ‘seduction’ site has 196,569 subscribers.  |
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