Women's Views on News |
| Guidelines to help trans people at work Posted: 21 Nov 2016 02:17 PM PST
The Transgender Day of Remembrance is held every year on 20 November and is when transgender people and their allies remember trans people who have lost their lives in the face of ignorance, oppression and violence. The event is held in November to honour Rita Hester, whose murder on 28 November 1998 kicked off the "Remembering Our Dead" web project and a San Francisco candlelight vigil in 1999. Rita Hester's murder – like most anti-transgender murder cases – has yet to be solved. One trans person is killed every 1.4 days internationally. There were 2,016 reported killings of trans people in 65 countries worldwide between 1 January 2008 and 31 December 2015, more than 100 of them were in Europe. On the Transgender Day of Remembrance this year the TUC published new guidance for union reps on how to better support trans people in the workplace, after a study found that transgender people are at risk of discrimination at work in the UK. A survey carried out by totaljobs for the International Transgender Day of Visibility (TDoV) on 31 March showed that three in five (60 per cent) of trans workers have experienced some form of discrimination in the workplace, 38 per cent from colleagues; 25 per cent from management; and 29 per cent during a job interview; and that more than half (53 per cent) have felt the need to hide their trans status from their colleagues. The TUC's new guidance, Transforming the Workplace, gives union reps the tools they need to ensure that workplaces are a supportive environment for trans people. The TUC suggest that union reps: Review current equal opportunities and bullying and harassment policies to make sure that they promote trans equality; Check other policies and procedures – such as recruitment policies, recordkeeping and dress codes – to make sure that they do not discriminate against trans people; Encourage employers to include trans issues in induction training; Make it clear that anti-trans behaviour or comments are unacceptable in the workplace; Negotiate specific policies to support employees who transition; and Support trans members experiencing problems at work, especially during transition. Debbie's story shows how union reps can be effective. A secondary school teacher who had been in the same school for nine years before coming out as a trans woman, Debbie told the school when she was going start the process of transitioning – that is, living in her acquired gender. The school got advice from an expert and Debbie went to her union, NASUWT. "The union was really helpful and supportive, explaining the practical things they could do as well as the legal issues," Debbie explained. "My union was involved in all the discussions which followed including about time off for medical appointments and when to tell parents and pupils. The process of telling colleagues, children and their parents was done at my pace and the response was overwhelmingly positive." "Following my transition, I continued to teach the same classes and there was no disruption to the life of the school. Having an open and constructive dialogue between my union and employer benefitted everyone including me and the school." You can watch Debbie's story on YouTube. The TUC is asking employers to: Work with their unions to make sure that workplaces have policies in place to support and protect trans members of staff; Run trans awareness sessions for staff; Adopt a zero-tolerance approach to bullying and harassment, including stopping jokes or "banter" about trans issues; and Consider appointing lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans champions in the workplace to support LGBT employees. And the TUC continues to demand the government ensure all working people have access to justice by scrapping the employment tribunal fees which prevent many workers taking discrimination claims to court. The TUC's General Secretary, Frances O'Grady, said: "Despite changes in the law and attitudes, far too many trans people still face discrimination at work. "Union reps can make a real difference to trans colleagues' experiences at work, supporting them through transition and helping make sure workplaces provide a safe and welcoming environment for everyone." To read ‘Transforming the Workplace’, click here.  |
| Guerrilla Girls ask a big art question Posted: 21 Nov 2016 01:48 PM PST
For over three decades now the Guerrilla Girls have been exposing and challenging sexism and racism in the visual arts, politics and culture at large, and now for the first time the anonymous feminist activist group revisit their 1986 campaign 'It's Even Worse in Europe'. The Guerrilla Girls, a group of anonymous, feminist activists, was founded in 1985. Each member takes the name of a woman artist from the past as a pseudonym and in public their identities are hidden under gorilla masks. Using facts, humour and fake fur, they have been producing posters, banners, stickers, billboards, projections and other public projects that expose sexism, racism and corruption in art, film, politics and culture at large. The artists, a shifting collective, have regularly named and shamed galleries that don't show enough women artists and critics who don't write enough about them, as the Guardian explained earlier this year. Their better-known posters have included, "Do women have to be naked to get into the Met Museum?" and, "It's Even Worse in Europe". The Guerrilla Girls are all individual working artists in their own right, but keep their identities secret when part of the collective. And they are not represented by any gallery and have always kicked out against institutions, so there is obvious irony, the Guardian pointed out, in museums such as the Getty and Tate having their artworks in their permanent collections. In the summer of 2016, the Guerrilla Girls wrote to 383 European museum directors, inviting them to respond to fourteen questions about diversity. The responses they received, or did not receive, have been revealed in their latest campaign 'Is it even worse in Europe?' which was launched at London’s Whitechapel Gallery on 1 October 2016. A new banner has been installed on the façade of the Gallery for the five months. It reveals that only a quarter of museums responded to their questionnaire, and invites visitors to go inside the Gallery to discover more. Copies of every completed questionnaire, some typed and others hand-written, cover a wall in the Archive Gallery for visitors to read. The questions and responses relate to the number of artists in recent exhibitions who are female, gender non conforming or from Africa, Asia, South Asia and South America. Ten new posters also feature in the Gallery, presenting the full list of museums that responded, plus thought provoking statistics, analysis, and comments from the directors offered as part of the returned questionnaires. On the floor of the Archive Gallery, a full list of the museums who did not respond to the questionnaire is published for all visitors to see. The Guerrilla Girls said: "With this project, we wanted to pose the question 'Are museums today presenting a diverse history of contemporary art or the history of money and power?' "We focus on the understory, the subtext, the overlooked and the downright unfair. "Art can't be reduced to the small number of artists who have won a popularity contest among bigtime dealers, curators and collectors. "Unless museums and Kunsthallen show art as diverse as the cultures they claim to represent, they're not showing the history of art, they're just preserving the history of wealth and power." ‘Is it even worse in Europe?’ runs until 5 March 2017.  |
| 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 | |