Harriet Harman's Equality Bill

Johann Hari writes about this. He gives interesting facts and figures, which I shall try to summarise later.

Is this feminine?

From an article in today's Independent -
World is 'effeminate' thanks to men's fashion, says President's daughter
By Raushan Nurshayeva

The influential daughter of Kazakhstan's President said that the world has become "increasingly effeminate" because of men's new interest in fashion and beauty.
"Men are now paying more attention to themselves and fashion," Dariga Nazarbayeva, 45, told a women's congress. "They have started going to beauty parlours and hair salons a lot more often. They have started doing manicure.
"Looking at the appearance of contemporary young men, one may notice how much their notions of masculinity have changed, how this masculinity is sometimes being replaced by femininity."
But, she added to the 400 women and the 10 or so men at the conference: "One cannot help but notice that the world of men has become increasingly effeminate... I don't know if we can see this as our gender's victory."

Why should these pursuits be categorised as essentially 'feminine' ? I'd prefer to ask whether it's not simply that the world in general has become more obsessed with trivia and keeping up appearances. At several stages in history similar phenomena have existed.

Rosie Swale-Pope

Rosie has run around the world and should arrive home in Tenby, Wales in a few weeks time.
She started the run in 2003, when she was 57, to raise money and awareness about prostate cancer, after her husband's death.

Now, while this is not strictly a feminist issue, I think she is a remarkable role-model to all women, and to older ones in particular.
I shall think of her next time I have doubts about trying something new or scary.

Naked old ladies of the world unite.

I bought a copy of the Big Issue this morning. It advertises today’s Naked Bike Ride ‘to protest against car culture and oil dependency’

I have no problem with that …, but then it adds ‘herds of naked cyclists will be scaring old ladies around Britain’.

My hackles rose – hang on folks, I bet some of those ‘old ladies’ will be joining in the ride! Less of the sexism and ageism in your 'humour', please.

Priceless and Sex in the City

I shall have to watch these films, not as I originally intended, in order to sneer comfortably, but in order to understand the motivation and how something that was once considered Bad has now become acceptable and desirable.

For an opinion on Priceless, this is worth reading. As for Sex and the City...I'm sure there's plenty to find. Is it all just harmless fun?

The abortion debate

I simply want to register my relief that the limit has not been lowered - not because I relish the thought of killing babies, or indeed of any abortions, but because women need this safety net.

Most late abortions come in one of three categories. It may be for medical reasons. The women may be teenagers who have either not realised they were pregnant or have tried to hide it from themselves. Thirdly, some of these are older women whose pregnancy symptoms could have been attributed to the onset of the menopause.

It has been said many times, but I shall repeat it - no woman undertakes abortion lightly.
Those who seem to are usually the ones whose lives are so messed up that one more mess doesn't make things a lot worse.

Overpopulation

One that I really want to believe.

Johann Hari in today's Independent discusses the threat to the world posed by overpopulation.
I reprint the final two paragraphs, in hope. The sentences in bold are the key ones, in my opinion.

'There is a far better way – and it is something we should be pursuing anyway. It is called feminism. Where women have control over their own bodies – through contraception, abortion and general independence – they choose not to be perpetually pregnant. The UN Fund For Population Activities has calculated that 350 million women in the poorest countries didn't want their last child, but didn't have the means to prevent it. We should be helping them by building a global anti-Vatican, distributing the pill and the words of Mary Wollstonecraft.

So after studying the evidence, I am left in a position I didn't expect. Yes, the argument about overpopulation is distasteful, often discussed inappropriately, and far from being a panacea-solution – but it can't be dismissed entirely. It will be easier for 6 billion people to cope on a heaving, boiling planet than for nine or 10 billion – and we will only get there by freeing women to make their own reproductive choices. To achieve this green goal, it's necessary to mix some oestrogen into the environmentalist palette.'

Girls and Crime

It seems that crimes committed by girls have risen by 25% in three years. The Youth Justice Board says girls committed 59,000 offences in 2006-07 - up 12,000 on 2003-4 but still far less crime than that committed by boys.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7401826.stm

But maybe girls aren't getting worse

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/may/15/ukcrime.youthjustice
and
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/may/16/ukcrime.gender

From the Independent - a very detailed article - I reprint the summary below:

Is there a crimewave among girls?
Yes...
* A 25 per cent rise in offences is objective proof of more lawlessness among girls.
* Female binge-drinking is growing, resulting in more violent crime offences.
* There has been a succession of reports about girl violence in all parts of the country.
No...
* Girls commit far fewer crimes than boys – only 20 per cent of the offences committed by children.
* They are being prosecuted for offences that would have previously received an informal warning.
* Drink-fuelled high spirits are hardly a pointer to criminal behaviour in later life.

Not sure how long this will be available as a link, but the comments on the BBC's Have Your Say are an interesting example of reactions to the headlines.

Women in politics in Spain and Italy

Another quick link to a BBC article. It would be mean-spirited of me to call them 'Berlusconi's Babes.'

Women and child poverty

I just caught the end of a discussion on Woman's Hour this morning:

Is targeting women a useful way to tackle child poverty?

The Government has said that it wants to eradicate child poverty by 2020, and today the Fawcett Society suggests, in a new report called “Keeping Mum”, that the problem can only be truly tackled by recognising the link between mothers’ and childrens’ poverty. They say that mothers are at greater risk of poverty in the UK than in any other western European country. Jane is joined by Katherine Rake, Director of the Fawcett Society, and Lisa Harker, Co-Director of the Institute for Public Policy Research, to discuss the new report and the issues it raises.

Brief notes about the content of the discussion.

In spite of legislation, it appears that 30 000 women leave work because they are pregnant. Employers can get away with dismissing women, since the likelihood of any woman challenging them is tiny. It costs too much financially and psychologically.

The speakers admit that the government has taken some action to help and that Tax Credits and Child Benefit are usually received by women.

They talked about 'embedded inequalities '– unequal pay for men and women, and limited opportunities for either sex to combine work and parenthood.

An important step would be to narrow the gender pay gap. Though they gave no figures, they did say that the gap is one of worst in Europe and that the UK has the worst rate of women’s poverty.

They would also like to see official encouragement for fathers to take up paternity leave. It is only recently that fathers have been asked in job interviews about arrangements for childcare - the assumption previously has been that this is the woman's responsibility.

Inevitably, higher taxes are needed to pay for this, but if money is spent to prevent child poverty, it will be saved in the long term. The children will be less likely to be a drain on the Education budget or tellingly, the criminal justice system.

Thinking Pink

Found another pile of Guardian articles yesterday, including this by Eleanor Bailey: The Tyranny of Pink.

Bailey discusses the increasing gender-segregation in toy shops, the predominance of pink clothes and girlie accessories for girls and the dangers for a future generation of women restricted to limited choices. Lyn Mikel Brown explains that these dangers include "depression, eating disorders and self-esteem issues."

Bailey suggests that, if pink is here to stay, perhaps we can "use it as a force for good," referring to the positive effects on mood and emotions associated with the colour pink.

Rosalyn Ball echoes such concerns with the stereotyping of toys. In her article, Dreaming of a Pink Christmas, Ball considers how toys are "still unbelievably segregated along strict gender lines" to the extent that 'femaleness' is seen as "humiliating for boys."

Such concerns are also echoed by a frustrated father in his consideration of gender stereotyping and toys: I’m tired of seeing pink. I’m tired of seeing blue. And I’m both pissed off and saddened deeply that at age three, my daughter and her friends, both girls and boys, have already learned to see those colors, and what they are supposed to mean, so well. And I know that this isn’t the last time I’m going to start a sentence with, "No, baby, both boys and girls can….?"

Another father, who often writes thoughtful considerations of gender and parenting, is (un)relaxeddad. In his post entitled 'Gendering' he makes some very interesting points about pink and pretty with reference to boys and girls, refers to Judith Butler and the ideas in her Gender Trouble, and finishes with a thought-provoking question: "How do we bring someone up to be comfortable with her own idea of what it means to be a 'she' without bricking her into a limiting corner of 'she-ness' designed by men for the benefit of men?"

In defence of poor maligned and feared pink, I spent ages trying to track down a reference to 'thinking pink' as a common concept in rock-climbing. I'm sure I read somehere that to 'think pink' is to remain 'in the zone' or incredibly focussed. But I couldn't find anything. Does anyone else know anything about it?

What I did find, was a piece about pink as the colour of love, joy and concentration.

I also found things about thinking pink in marketing:

At Acton Marketing, advice to "think twice before you think pink," because not only does pink tend to alienate men, it often makes women suspicious. There is also a quote from Don't Think Pink by Lisa Johnson and Andrea Learned: "As you can imagine, pink campaigns feel like a patronizing pat on the head for many women."

Andrea Learned has written a post on her blog, When Everyone's to Blame for Gender Stereotyping, arguing that regardless of our upbringing, as adults we choose our own perspectives on gender: "More men and women are realizing they've got their own work to do - whether that be to stop stereotyping the opposite sex or to stop perpetuating the stereotypes of their own sex."

I love pink! I think it's a feelgood colour. Like purple. And turquoise. And orange. When on earth did a single colour (or rather a combination of red and white) define an entire gender? When did pink become the colour that should be avoided by boys, and the colour that girls should (or shouldn't) wear?

Progress is All Relative

With thanks to DoshDosh on Twitter, for this one:

A BBC News Report about how Saudi women are being "kept in childhood" with severe restrictions limiting academic and professional lives and even limitations on their rights as parents.

A recent UN Report, calling for basic rights for women in Saudi, condemned the patriarchal society's record of violence against women and complained that Saudi men and women "do not have equal rights when it comes to marriage, divorce, child custody and inheritance and says female illiteracy is still high in the world's top oil exporter."

Pressure for reform (for men as well as women) is mounting in Saudi, leading to an increase in arrests of reformists.

So, relatively speaking, women in Western society (at least, those women who are white, middle class and straight - more about that in my next post!), have indeed come a long way. We have much to be thankful for. On fundamental issues like education and marriage, Western women have attained a position much more like equal.

And on the issue of parenting, women usually have more rights than men in our society (and that's a whole other post too!)

How far have we come?

With thanks to lovely folks on Twitter:

The 1943 Guide to Hiring Women, shared by Alyssa Royse at the Seattle PI Readers' Blog.

LOL! It seems more of a guide against hiring women:

... cantankerous and fussy?
... mentally or physically unfit for the job?
... service is likely to be slowed up?
... bothering the management for instructions every few minutes?

Silvio Berlusconi might agree with much on the list, having declared that the new Spanish government is "too pink" and warned that the Spanish Prime Minister will struggle to control the women in his cabinet: "He will have problems leading them. Now he's asked for it."

Indeed, as Emine Saner explains, the Berlusconi camp seem intent on undermining women at every turn, going as far as to suggest "that they are either too good looking or too ugly to be taken seriously." Media representation of women in politics encourages such a viewpoint; Emine gives a number of examples of women in politics who are often judged for the way they look rather than for their policies.

Catherine Bennett agrees that there is a good deal of inequality when it comes to men and women in politics; unlike male politicians, the criteria of a female politician's appearance is always included in "any thorough assessment of her achievements."

Hmmm. How far have we really come?

Another gem from Twitter:

The Fifties Woman: The Good Wives Guide:

A good wife always knows her place?

A generation of women fought hard for changes, for the right to live our own lives and make our own decisions, to leave the home and go out to work, to communicate with men in our lives on an equal footing, to raise our children as individuals rather than simply as "little teasures ... playing the part."

Yet here we are, a time when public life is more male than at any time since the 1970s, as Jackie Ashley explains: "Those of us interested in politics must reclaim our space."

And shouldn't we all be interested in politics? Surely politics have an effect on each and every one of us (irrelevant of gender) in one way or another?

And perhaps the real question is not, "How far have we come?"

But rather, "How far can we go?"

:o)

A comment on 'Women in Politics'

Well, I'm looking after 'the baby' while Aliqot has a well-deserved break. This is a response to her post about the newly elected Spanish government. I was going to leave a comment on Aliqot's post about how I was interested to note that three of the top four countries (in their levels of representation by women) were Scandinavian. Or rather, Nordic.

Being a curious type, I decided to see if I could find out why! And my comment turned into a post (thanks Aliqot!):

In their discussion of the politics of women in Northern Ireland, Anne Marie Gray and Deirdre Heenan suggest these countries have strived for increased female representation on three main principles:

First is democratic justice- that justice is an important principle, and that it is unjust that women are under-represented on decision-making bodies.

Second is resource utilisation - that valuable human resources are wasted when half the population is not involved in politics.

The third is interest representation - that because of the different experiences of women and men (in relation to economic and social structures) they have different political interests, implying that in politics women will employ a different set of values and pursue different interests from men.

Gray and Heenan also suggest that while women in the UK have the advantage of increased education, theoretically opening both political and professional doors, we remain at a disadvantage:

... entering the labour market has not resulted in a lessening of their domestic responsibilities. To many, the prospect of active involvement in politics must seem little more than a potential additional burden.

Furthermore:

... "those elected will be peculiarly skewed to a certain kind of woman who, like the generations of men who went before her, will be a well-educated professional, and devoted to politics full-time". [14] Even in the Nordic countries, greater proportionality has not resulted in equal access for all women. We need to think beyond the numerical and to grasp the wider issue of representation. We need to think about how to encourage a more diverse range of women to put themselves forward, which involves rethinking women's role within the family.

The Fawcett Society concurs on the positive example of Scandinavian (or Nordic) countries but points out that Rwanda have an even higher representation of women in the government:

Women held 48.8% of the seats after last year’s election compared with a world average of 16%

How did this happen? The better question is: How was this achieved? The women of Rwanda collectively used their powers of intelligence, experience and determination to create the world they wanted to live in:

Decide what kind of world you want to live in and act accordingly.

Playing the blame game only does harm to ourselves and society.

Richard L Franklin

Rwandan women lobbied heavily, helped to draft a new constitution and developed voting guidelines that guaranteed seats for women candidates.

There are in fact a growing number of governments in sub-Saharan Africa that are following in Rwandan footseps:

In South Africa and Mozambique, for example, women hold about 30% of the seats in parliament - matching the international target set at the Fourth World Conference on Women, held in Beijing, China, in 1995.

The UK government flounders at 19.5% although the women in Wales and Scotland have had more positive results:

In both Scotland and Wales, women took advantage of the emergent devolved institutions to achieve new heights of political representation, winning 40% of the seats in the Welsh Assembly and almost 39% of those in the Scottish Parliament in the 1999 elections (Brown, 1998; Edwards and McAllister, 2001).

Ian McAllister and Donley T. Studlar, in Women’s Representation in Anglo-American Systems (Journal of Representative Democracy), also consider the political systems of New Zealand, the United States, Canada and Australia.

:o)

Women in Politics

In Spain, there are now more women than men in the Cabinet - see article in today's Independent .
The article adds statistics about women MPs in Europe.

Women MPs in EU countries
Percentage of women MPs (equivalents) per member state:
Sweden 47.0
Finland 41.5
The Netherlands 39.3
Denmark 38.0
Spain 36.6
Belgium 35.3
Austria 32.8
Germany 31.6
Portugal 28.3
Luxembourg 23.3
Lithuania 22.7
Bulgaria 21.7
Estonia 20.8
Poland 20.4
Latvia 20.0
UK 19.5
Slovakia 19.3
France 18.2
Italy 17.3
Czech Republic 15.5

As of 31 December 2007. Source: Inter-Parliamentary Union

Hmm. Could do better?
Where is Ireland? any other missing countries?

Girlification, unequal pay and the F-word

Great article and discussion on girlification and pay gaps in today's Guardian. It also refers to an article from Saturday by Erica Jong lamenting the eclipse of feminism (yes, that F-word) in her own inimitable and witty way.

Virago Books

Virago Modern Classics is 30 years old in May. They are republishing eight of their most popular titles in hardback, with cover designs by textile designers such as Lucienne Day and Celia Birtwell, and with new introductions. Ali Smith has written an introduction to Muriel Spark's A Far Cry From Kensington, Alexander McCall Smith writes on Barbara Pym's Excellent Women, and Jilly Cooper introduces EM Delafield's Diary of a Provincial Lady.
This article by Rachel Cooke examines the history and importance of the imprint.

Me Me Me Feminism Versus Collectivity

The original print version of this caught my attention as I recently spent some time finally filing a huge pile of assorted articles into useful categories. It's from the Guardian Review dated (ahem!) 14th June, 2007:

Take Risks: An Interview with Michèle Roberts by Lucasta Miller

Roberts makes an interesting comment about feminism today: "My sort of feminism was defeated in the Thatcher years, as socialism was. I feel that the feminism that triumphed is the sort I don't like: what I call shoulderpads feminism. It's all about being an individual in a capitalist society. Put on your suit, go to the City, make a lot of money: it's all me, me, me. My sort of feminism is about collectivity."

Perhaps struggling for equality in a capitalist society has led to feminism being expressed in terms of 'things' because sadly (in our society) power, status and success are recognised in the things acquired by money. So a woman (or a man) is seen as successful by what she has: house, car, gadgets, holidays. If she has earned these things for herself, she may also be seen (and think of herself) as a successful feminist, fighting the good cause, proving we can do it for ourselves.

But the problem goes beyond feminism, because feminism today has been influenced not just by capitalism but increasingly by individualism, as has society in general. Huge demographic changes and increased geographic mobility have loosened community bonds, even family bonds in some cases, or at least put them under immense pressure. As women have strived for equality in the professional sphere while also maintaining a hugely important role in the domestic sphere, they have perhaps from necessity had to neglect the social sphere. Many women now go out to work all day, come home to care for loved ones (a partner and/or children and possibly even an elderly relative too), to do all the myriad of endless chores involved in raising a family ... is there any wonder they may have little time for building positive relationships with other, equally stretched women? Is there any wonder that feminism has become a case of, "I can do this on my own!"

Yet surely relationships between women are essential to feminism? Equally important is the fact that a network of female friends provides essential support for women as individuals ... who else will really understand (because they have personally experienced) the difficulties and challenges of being a woman today, or truly recognise the triumphs?

I fear Michèle Roberts may be right about the 'triumph' of "me me me" feminism, but am optimistic to note that collectivity still exists: the support and encouragement shared by the women in the blogging community is inspirational!

:o)

Women and Poetry

In the Guardian blogs there has been a long discussion about women and poetry in response to an article by Frances Leviston headed This great poets list has only one woman. About right, too .

So, how can women who write poetry raise their public profile? Would you accept publication in an anthology of ‘women poets’?

Yes, because...

• positive discrimination is still needed.
• women’s poetry is seen as less serious and tends to be left out.
• women fail to network as well as men .
• women still tend to minimise their own achievements.
• women still lack confidence in their own abilities.

No, because...

• the work should stand on its own merits as good poetry.Gender is irrelevant. Quality is the thing.
• positive discrimination is another way of ghettoising women so that their poetry doesn't become mainstream.
• separate anthologies imply that women’s interests differ from men’s.
• we should be fighting for equal representation in the anthologies that are being made. (Although, aren't quotas just positive discrimination with a different hat?)
  

Any thoughts about this?

IWD: Past and Present

Just a few links I didn't get chance to post yesterday:

You can find a brief history of the origins of IWD in an (unfortunately unnamed)article from 'Womankind' (March, 1972) which also tells the tale of courageous women in America, campaigning for "Bread and Roses":

The story of American working women is often tokenly recognized by referring to great heroines of the movement Mother Jones, Ella Reeve Bloor, Kate Mullaney, Sojourner Truth, and Elizabeth Gurley Flynn. These were remarkable women and so were their stories. A good cure for depression is to read a chapter of Flynn's autobiography or reread the account of Mother Jones terrorizing scabs and participating in the 1919 steel strike at the age of 90. But it should not be forgotten that these were individual women, and that the bulk of the' organizing, struggling, as well as succeeding and failing, was done by ordinary women whom we willnever know. These were women who, realized the tactical necessity of standing and working together lest they be destroyed individually, women who put to shame the ridiculous theories of "woman's place'," women who in the famous Lawrence textile strike carried picket signs reading "We want Bread and Roses, too", symbolizing their demands for not only a living wage but a decent and human life.

The BBC have some great pictures of women from around the world, taken on International Women's Day, this year (2008.)

Joyce Stevens has put together a History of International Women's Day in Words and Images.

The UN and International Women's Day:

"Increasingly, International Women's Day is a time to reflect on progress made, to call for change and to celebrate acts of courage and determination by ordinary women who have played an extraordinary role in the history of women's rights."

And this is exactly why I feel it's so important to talk about IWD ... wouldn't it be great if every woman in the world was able to celebrate International Women's Day!