Women's Views on News |
| Posted: 31 Jul 2015 04:10 AM PDT
Nipples have been on the tip of people's tongues in recent weeks in more ways than one, as women around the world have joined together in the fight against censorship in social media. Currently neither Facebook nor Instagram allow photographs of female nipples to be displayed. Men's nipples are just fine though apparently. Although there are some concessions; both channels allow photos of women actively engaged in breastfeeding or with post-mastectomy scarring. Well that clears that up. Unhappy with this situation, artist Micol Hebron produced a cheeky image of a man’s nipple for women to plant on their photos instead. The close-up photo of a male nipple comes with the caption '’If you are going to post pictures of topless women, please use this acceptable male nipple template to cover over the unacceptable female nipples." This has now gone viral, with thousands of women covering their own naked torsos with male nipples in defiance of social media nipple censorship. News of this story has been reported in the Guardian, the Huffington Post and countless other outlets. Hebron's idea follows a highly successful ongoing US campaign #freethenipple which came about in response to the fact that it is illegal for women to be topless in 37 states in the USA. Many celebrities, including Lena Dunham, Liv Tyler and Miley Cyrus have supported this campaign, and now it seems Facebook and Instagram have got themselves mixed up in the battle. Protestors deem it is unfair that Facebook and Instagram have decided that women’s breasts are pornographic instruments to be concealed from the public gaze – even when the person freely wishes to share the image by their own volition. The question is, are these social media channels really stopping freedom of expression or are they simply trying to protect women? I'll be honest, this is a tough one for me and my thoughts on this may not strike a popular chord. The truth is, I have no desire to see lots of nipples plastered across my Facebook newsfeed, male or female. Just like I don't want to see a practically naked woman when I open a newspaper. Thousands of people joined together against topless women being featured on Page 3 of The Sun newspaper, in a campaign that has grown from strength to strength. The idea behind it was that it conditioned readers to view women as sex objects, providing a few moments of titillation for blokes on their tea break at 10am. Fingers crossed we could be edging closer and closer to achieving our goal and witnessing the end of bare-breasted women in our daily newspapers. So why do we need to see bare-breasted women in social media? One argument is that if people choose to post photographs of themselves topless then they should be allowed. Another is that if it's okay for men, then why isn't it okay for women? The problem I find is that images of topless women are easily sexualised and so closely linked with pornography that it can be hard to differentiate between what can be used as porn and what can not. Clearly Facebook and Instagram have decided that a blanket ban is the best solution, to cover their own backs at any rate. It is obvious from the highly visible online protest that many women do wish to proudly display themselves naked and are angry that the giants of social media are not letting them. But I can't help but wonder how many people are secretly very glad about the current rules? The reality is I can't imagine wanting to post a picture of myself topless on Facebook any more than I would want to post a picture of myself on the toilet. My body (most of it at any rate) is private, in its totality. It is not for sharing online. And I don't want to see other people's naked bodies on Facebook or Instagram either if I can help it. Or anything resembling porn. Yes, I can appreciate it is unfair that men's nipples are deemed as acceptable when women's aren't – perhaps the solution is to ban all nipples? Replacing them with something else? Perhaps, a smiley face?! Ban all the flesh! Perhaps from now on arms and leg should be covered too, and faces… Okay, okay, I can see that won't work. Perhaps the problem is that where social media falls down is that it cannot cope with the vast intricacies of difference and contrast that are involved in creating the seething mass of people we call the human race. People want different things. They like different things. They connect in different ways. Ultimately, they want to share different things online – including different body parts. Facebook and Instagram are trying to figure out how to please the majority of people, and to ensure no one experiences harm in their space. And yes, the harm I am referring to is the harm that comes about when people who don't want to be, or shouldn't be, are exposed to pornography – namely children. On their community standards page Facebook says: ‘People sometimes share content containing nudity for reasons such as awareness campaigns or artistic projects. ‘We restrict the display of nudity because some audiences within our global community may be sensitive to this type of content – particularly because of their cultural background or age. ‘In order to treat people fairly and respond to reports quickly, it is essential that we have policies in place that our global teams can apply uniformly and easily when reviewing content. ‘As a result, our policies can sometimes be more blunt than we would like and restrict content shared for legitimate purposes. ‘We are always working to get better at evaluating this content and enforcing our standards.’ Is this really such a terrible stance? I suppose – I have always suspected – I am one of the boring ones. And fortunately for me, Facebook and Instagram are catering for my whims, not those of my more exhibitionistical contemporaries.  |
| Posted: 31 Jul 2015 02:00 AM PDT
Both Muslims and non-Muslims see women in most Muslim communities as suffering from social, economic and political discrimination, treated by law and in society as second-class citizens subject to male authority. This discrimination is attributed to Islam and Islamic law, though it varies considerably in its impact, and according to both class and region. Since the early twentieth century there has been a mass of literature tackling this issue, some from a feminist or human rights perspective, some taking the form of an apology for Islamic law. But recently, exciting new feminist research has been challenging gender discrimination and male authority from within Islamic legal tradition. This book presents some important results from that research. The contributors all engage critically with two central juristic concepts, derived from Qur'anic interpretations that they consider to lie at the basis of this discrimination. Qiwamah and wilayah, as understood and translated into legal rulings by Muslim scholars, place women under male authority. Qiwamah refers to a husband's authority over his wife, his financial responsibility towards her, and his superior status and rights. Wilayah is male family members' right and duty of guardianship over female members (e.g., fathers over daughters when entering into marriage contracts) and the privileging of fathers over mothers in guardianship rights over their children. The contributors, scholars from different disciplines and backgrounds, revisit and problematise dominant understandings of Qiwamah and wilayah. They unearth alternative and empowering interpretations of the two concepts using the Qur'an and the Sunnah, and propose a Sufi corrective to juristic constructions of gender relations and rights; They also reveal how contemporary Muslim family codes are premised on these two concepts, and the different ways in which states have reformed their codes. And they explore the interplay between contemporary religious discourses and the lived experiences of Muslim gender relations in Europe; and seek to understand how Muslim women in selected countries experience and negotiate the religious interpretations and socio-legal norms that shape their lives and are informed by the two juristic concepts in question. The contributors, brought together by Musawah, a global movement for equality and justice in the Muslim family, include Omaima Abou-Bakr, Asma Lamrabet, Ayesha Chaudhry, Sa'diyya Shaikh, Lynn Welchman, Marwa Sharefeldin, Lena Larsen and Amina Wadud. The editors are Ziba Mir-Hosseini, Mulki Al-Sharmani and Jana Rumminger. Mir-Hosseini is a legal anthropologist. A professorial research associate at the Centre for Islamic and Middle Eastern Law, SOAS, University of London, she is founding member of Musawah and the convenor of its knowledge-building initiative to rethink the notion of male authority in Muslim family laws. Al-Sharmani is Academy of Finland research fellow and lecturer, Faculty of Theology, University of Helsinki, and research coordinator of the Musawah knowledge-building initiative to rethink the notion of male authority in Muslim family laws. And Rumminger is currently based in Southeast Asia – and works with Musawah. Her focus is on issues related to reform of Muslim family laws and implementation of the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW).  |
| Women’s football joins FIFA computer game Posted: 31 Jul 2015 01:09 AM PDT
Women's football has had a big increase in popularity in recent months. This is in part thanks to the success of England's women's team in the World Cup, which had reasonably prominent television coverage on the BBC and was widely reported in the media. The increased exposure has led to more young women throughout the country wanting to take up football. Girls who perhaps already played football in the park or the school playground can now get excited about having the possibility of joining a football team and taking part in a league. Young women such as those who play for the Newark Town Vixens. As reported in the Newark Advertiser, one player on the team, Peggy Riley, 14, explained: "I come from a family where everyone seems to play football, but no one takes the women's game very seriously. "That's pushed me to succeed, and I hope we can show people what we are capable of," she said. All of this is great news for women's footballers who for too long have endured barely concealed contempt about their lack of ability and the absence of viewer interest in comparison to men. And the growing interest and support for women's football has been demonstrated by the inclusion of a new female league in FIFA 16 – an association football simulation video game published by EA Sports for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360, Xbox One, Android and iOS. But it's not quite time to get the celebratory flags out just yet. The announcement that FIFA 16 is to include women has caused outcry and controversy online. This is all before the game is even released – its distribution date is September 2015. Women footballers, including Alex Morgan, the USA’s captain and highest paid female footballer in the world, have been subjected to sexist comments. Following the announcement that she had been chosen to join Argentinian footballing superstar Lionel Messi on the US cover of the game, comments directed at Morgan’s twitter feed included: "Buying it to just nut on your face" and "Boobs better bounce". As always, the best thing to do with Twitter trolls is ignore them. But it is still depressing that so many people have reacted to positive news for the women’s game in such a disgusting way. Interestingly, while the US and Canadian versions of the game are to feature a woman on the cover alongside Messi, the UK version won't. No, instead the UK cover will feature Liverpool’s captain, Jordan Henderson – very much a man. Henderson is there after he won a public vote to appear. A vote that had no women in the running. This perhaps demonstrates how far the UK still has to go to catch up with the USA in terms of how women's football is perceived, recognised and indeed valued. Fortunately for young girls, in 2015 things are changing. While more girls are playing football there is also evidence of an increase in fans attending some women’s football matches. Most importantly of all perhaps is the change in attitude. The inclusion of female footballers in a popular computer game like FIFA would have been inconceivable twenty years ago. As would primetime coverage of women's football matches. But here we are, it is actually happening.  |
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