Women's Views on News |
- Lobby and petition for further education
- Women’s football: a more honest game?
- Monica Ross – an act in memory
| Lobby and petition for further education Posted: 19 Jun 2015 05:04 AM PDT
As part of the ‘love further education’ – #lovefe – campaign to save adult education from the proposed 24 per cent cuts to the England lifelong learning budget, a lobby of parliament at Westminster was held on 16 June 2015. The government’s Skills Funding Agency has estimated that cuts could amount to 24 per cent for non-apprenticeship learning in the 2015-16 year. So at the lobby, which was organised by the University and College Union (UCU), newly elected MPs were asked to stop the cuts and commit to properly funded lifelong learning. UCU has estimated that the proposed cuts would lead to around 400,000 learners losing out on opportunities to improve their skills. Caroline Lucas, Green MP for Brighton, speaking at the #LoveFE lobby in the Houses of Parliament building, said: "The Conservatives are now going ahead with a massive 24 per cent cut to the English adult further education budget for 2015/16, once funding for apprenticeships is excluded. "It's no exaggeration to say that the very existence of adult education is in jeopardy. Further cuts could lead to the loss of over 400,000 students places this financial year alone. "For those of us who Love FE, this is a travesty." Lucas's contribution came as a further education college in her own constituency faces budget cuts. City College in Brighton is facing job losses and courses being axed. "In common with every single one of the Government's austerity measures, across the board, it’s the most vulnerable that bear the brunt. "At City College in my constituency, courses for adults with learning disabilities are at risk," she said. "So too are the services provided by the Intensive Support and Learning Support departments. "Both are a vital element in fulfilling the College’s safeguarding duties. We cannot let them be removed. "It's also the staff at City College who are losing out – teaching and non-teaching. And I want to thank UCU for their campaign to protect City College and other colleges like it." UCU's general secretary, Sally Hunt, said: 'For too long, further education has been underfunded and underappreciated. "The support for the campaign from across the sector and beyond is testament to how valuable adult learning is for people from all sorts of backgrounds. 'MPs now need to listen to the concerns of those working and studying in further education and take action to protect the future of the sector. "We should," she pointed out, "be expanding opportunities for people to retrain, not cutting vital resources." UCU represents more than 120,000 academics, lecturers, trainers, instructors, researchers, managers, administrators, computer staff, librarians and postgraduates in universities, colleges, prisons, adult education and training organisations throughout the UK. You can follow events and show your support for the campaign here. Please sign and circulate the petition. Thanks.  |
| Women’s football: a more honest game? Posted: 19 Jun 2015 04:37 AM PDT
But the game is in trouble. Premier League footballers command astronomical fees, fans are sidelined as ticket prices skyrocket, and recent corruption scandals have rocked FIFA to the core resulting in the (probable) resignation of President Sepp Blatter. And so we come to the FIFA Women's World Cup 2015 in Canada, which for many must come as a breath of fresh air after all the sleaze. It seems that in the UK, women's football – the Football Association Women's Super League (FA WSL) – is light years from the Premier League in many respects. No scandals, no arrogant, brattish players, no WAGs and no silly money. But the most obvious difference is payment. If any industry was to illustrate the gender pay gap, football is it. Last year Manchester City reportedly paid their – male – team members an average of £5,015,122; the players on the England women's team can expect to earn around £20,000 per year. Other women players receive much less. As well as competing at a national level, most women football players have day jobs – many in the sports arena, but there are doctors and lawyers in the league, too. Full-time female professional footballers are still comparatively rare. Of course, one could argue that supply and demand dictate the level of investment. Women's football simply isn't as good as the Premier League. But isn’t this a case of chicken and the egg? Would more investment not mean a better quality game? BBC Newsbeat recently published an interesting article on 'The Secret History of Women's Football'. During the First World War women's football was hugely popular in the UK, with some games attracting crowds of over 50,000. To put this into perspective Everton men’s highest attendance this season was 39,000. Sadly, at the time the Football Association (FA) deemed football 'unsuitable for women' and banned the game. The ban wasn't lifted until 1971. No wonder the FA WSL lags behind the Premier League today. However, perhaps this lack of investment has fostered a different environment on the pitch. The level of corruption associated with FIFA just isn't present in women's football. And you don't see spoiled, arrogant over-paid players who make headlines for all the wrong reasons. You do, however, have a group of successful, committed, skilled women who are excellent role models for girls and women. And there are significant investment inroads being made into women's football. Energy and communications firm SSE has agreed a four-year sponsorship deal with the Women's FA Cup, and more businesses are waking up to the growing popularity of women's football, and how much it makes sense to join in. Premiership football has made huge advances in cleaning up the game, drastically reducing football hooliganism and violence, making football much more family friendly. Racist and homophobic football chants are often met with club fines and vigilant responses. Football today is radically different to what it was in the 1980s. Let's hope the next step is to raise the women's game.  |
| Monica Ross – an act in memory Posted: 19 Jun 2015 03:38 AM PDT
'Anniversary—an act of memory' was as series of solo, collective and multi-lingual recitations from memory of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It was a performance series in 60 Acts led by Monica Ross and Co-Recitors and it ran from 2008-2013. Ross first challenged herself to memorise and publicly recite the Declaration as a response to the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes by police in London in July 2005 in the solo performance 'rights repeated—an act of memory' at Beaconsfield, London in 2005. Anniversary―an act of memory was a performance series in 60 acts of solo, collective and multi-lingual recitations from memory embodying a struggle for personal and public memory and the attainment of human rights as a continual process of individual and collective negotiation and re-iteration. The aim was to realise the 60 recitations in different communities and contexts, and since 2008 Acts have taken place in Madrid, Berlin and Galway and throughout the UK in settings such as the House of Commons, Southwark Cathedral, Art Festivals, Galleries, Theatres, Libraries, Community Fairs, Campaigns and Conferences. The recitations include stand-alone works and collaborations such as with Sheffield Socialist Choir, Mikhail Karikis's opera and film Xenon, Suzanne Treister's A World's Fair and an additional Act of Memory with Brighton Festival Choir celebrating Aung San Suu Kyi as Guest Director at the launch of Brighton Festival 2011. The recitations have been large and small, public and private and have marked anniversaries such as International Women's Day, Martin Luther King Day, International Human Rights Day, Holocaust Memorial Day and Act 42 a live streamed solo recitation on May Day 2012 from Lighthouse, Brighton. Act 1 of the Anniversary—an act of memory series was performed as a solo recitation in Ours By Right, an Equal Opportunities Commission event celebrating the 60th anniversary of the Declaration held during the exhibition Taking Liberties: the struggle for Britain's Rights and Freedoms, at the British Library, London, on 7 December 2008. Act 36, a recitation with Wunderbar Festival 2011, presented at the BALTIC, Gateshead, was recited primarily in British Sign Language (BSL). And in April 2013 Anniversary—an act of memory and Signworld were very pleased to be able to announce that Signworld's landmark translation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) into British Sign Language (BSL) was accepted for inclusion on the United Nations website alongside 400+ translations of spoken languages. This is beleived to be the first translation of the entire Preamble and 30 Articles of the UDHR into any sign language. The translation was presented by Tessa Padden and Nicholas Padden and was sponsored and produced by the Newcastle and Bristol-based company Signworld as a contribution to Anniversary—an act of memory. By June 2013 almost 1000 Co-Recitors of all ages and backgrounds had memorised and publicly recited articles of significance to them in 50+ languages, including endangered and indigenous languages and British and other Sign Languages. On 14 June 2013, the day of the sixtieth and concluding act of 'Anniversary—an act of memory' at the 23rd session of the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland, Monica Ross died of cancer. The sixty performances have reached their conclusion as a series, but it is a sincere hope that others may be encouraged and inspired to continue the endeavour to promote human rights throughout the world and if they do so using 'Anniversary—an act of memory' as a model or template, Monica Ross would be only too delighted. This year, for example, Monica Ross: An Act of Memory took place on 14 June at the British Library, to coincide with the opening of an exhibition there called Magna Carta: Law, Liberty, Legacy. Many Co-Recitors from earlier Anniversary—an act of memory events took part in this recitation which was led by Andrew Mitchelson; members of the British Library Youth Forum, many of the co-recitors from the first sixty, Natalie Bennet, leader of the Green Party; Chickenshed Theatre Chelsea & Kensington who have developed part of the recitation with a class of young people from the Kensington Aldridge Academy and Ross’s friends and family. Natalie Bennet recited Article 22 of the Declaration of Human Rights: 'Everyone, as a member of society, has the right to social security and is entitled to realization, through national effort and international co-operation and in accordance with the organization and resources of each State, of the economic, social and cultural rights indispensable for his dignity and the free development of his personality.' Ross taught at Central Saint Martins on the Fine Art and Critical Studies Course from 1985 and went on to lead the Critical Fine Art subject area there from 1990 –1998. A symposium held in November last year celebrated her life and work, and the acquisition of her digital archive by the British Library. The launch of www.monicaross.org marked the start of the acquisition of the Monica Ross Archive by the British Library. The British Library will hold the archive in a digitised format, but the physical archive resides with the Monica Ross Trustees. Monica Ross was one of the most significant feminist artists and distinguished educators of her generation. Artist Conrad Atkinson, writing an obituary for her in 2013, said of Ross, who studied at Reading University: '…She and other feminists in the early seventies were trying to insert themselves into a male oriented art world. ‘Their first show was at the ICA 1977 'Portrait of the Artist as A Housewife' and was amongst the explosion of consciousness of the work of women artists and associated groups such as the Women's Postal Art Collective which was such an inspiration to artists both male and female. "In the press release to that exhibition it says 'These women are fighting isolation inventing a women's art. The aim is communication not perfect aesthetics'. 'These were pioneering artists who arguably amongst others created the place in which the Tracey Emins and Sarah [Lucases] and the Guerilla Girls could comfortably exist and it is to my regret that that contribution has been largely unacknowledged.' Anniversary — an act of memory was developed from the solo performance ‘rightsrepeated — an act of memory’, a response to the shooting of Jean Charles De Menezes by police in London on 22 July 2005 and first performed in Hayley Newman's Woodshed in the exhibition Chronic Epoch Beaconsfield, London, in 2005. It was also presented by Live Art Development Agency in Performing Rights, at PSi 12, Queen Mary, University of London 2006 and the National Review of Live Art, Glasgow 2008; and by Leif Magne Tangen in Representations of the Artist as an Intellectual, D21 Kunstraum Leipzig 2008. On 10 June 2015, a hearing took place at the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), in front of seventeen judges, for a claim lodged by the family of Jean Charles de Menezes in January 2008. De Menezes, a Brazilian electrician working in London, was shot dead by police officers at Stockwell tube station on 22 July 2005 who mistook him for a suspected terrorist. The case challenges the Director of Public Prosecutions'/ Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) decision not to prosecute the police officers involved in his fatal shooting. The decision could take up to six months and could have major implications for other controversial deaths in custody cases where the CPS has refused to prosecute officers of the state involved in a death. You can read a briefing on the case by the family's solicitor, Harriet Wistrich of Birnberg Peirce, here, in which a section says: ‘The killing of Jean Charles de Menezes, a totally innocent man who was given no chance to surrender before being shot nine times in the head, caused great public concern, as has the fact that no officer was prosecuted or even disciplined for any offence arising from the tragic circumstances surrounding his death. ‘The failure to hold any individual to account in relation Jean Charles’ killing and the unlawful killings of other members of the public has arguably led to a crisis in confidence that state agents in the UK who abuse their power will not be held to account.’  |
| You are subscribed to email updates from Women's Views on News To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google Inc., 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043, United States | |