Women's Views on News

Indian women rent out their wombs to Western couples to make ends meet

Since the practice of surrogacy was legalised in India since 2002, the country has become a world centre of "surrogacy tourism". Or perhaps surrogacy colonialism might be a better description. 

Take Shabnum Nur Mohammed Sheikh as a good example. She is having another woman's child because the 60 rupees (80p) her husband earns from his food stall each day buys dinner but little else.

Shabnum's first surrogate pregnancy got her out of a shared shack in a slum and into a small flat. Her second will pay for uniforms, books, bags and eventually, she hopes, university fees for her three young daughters.

Pushpa Pandiya, 33, also left the slums after buying a small apartment with money earned from, in her case, two surrogate pregnancies. She too has a bright young daughter. She is about to embark on her third pregnancy for some "very nice" foreigners.

A relative lack of red tape and prices that are a quarter of those in the US or Europe have brought thousands of childless couples to Indian clinics to be matched with women like Shabnum and Pushpa.

The Confederation of Indian Industry predicts the business will generate $2.3bn (£1.5bn) annually by 2012. And rather grotesquely, a recent report by the Indian Law Commission described it as a "pot of gold".

Whatever next for women's bodies as commodities?

If work is the answer for women, what was the question?

Nina Power keeps the red flag flying with her article (originally published in the Guardian) about women and work over at the Monthly Review. The article is inspired by the new trade-union backed campaign 'Right to Work', which aims to "build resistance to unemployment, cuts and austerity" being imposed by the new coalition government.

Power asks the question: "In the middle of a recession in which jobs are being slashed with alacrity, should we be clinging on to employment at any cost, or should we instead be reconsidering what it means to work at all?"

The issue of women and our relationship to work has always been at the heart of the feminist movement, especially for socialist feminists, and I remember my own teenage shock at realising that women's unpaid (and now low paid) labour was the fundamental basis for our capitalist economy, not to mention my futile in-house campaigns against my family on how women's work should be paid work ("You'll not get any argument from me, love," my mother told me, after patiently listening to another of my diatribes whilst getting on with the ironing).

"The mass entry of women into the workforce has corresponded with an overall stagnation or diminution of wages," argues Power. "It is as if employers have taken the very worst aspects of women's work in the past -- poorly paid, precarious, without benefits -- and applied it to almost everyone, except those at the very top, who remain overwhelmingly male and incomprehensibly rich."

In the throes of the current economic crisis, with society arguably more unequal than it has ever been, and with everyone waiting with bated breath to see just how bad the Coalition's cuts are about to make our lives, perhaps its never been more important to ask these questions about the importance of work. What's more frightening to me is that alternatives to a life dominated by work, or the quality of life controlled by the lack of it, have never seemed so remote from the public consciousness.

I posted a while back here on WVON about Claudia Medina's documentary on alternatives to growth. But how high on the agenda of the average woman on the street are debates around alternatives to work right now? And how do we expand the terms of our debate beyond the current agenda of cuts, cuts, cuts? Answers in the comments box, please.

Half the Sky: A case of western posturing or an expose of global misogyny (or both)?

Germaine Greer exercises her controversy-generating muscles with a review of bestseller 'Half the Sky' by Nicholas D Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn in today's Guardian.

At first glance you might be forgiven for wondering how a book that sets out to expose the problems facing the women of the world's poorer nations could be possibly be contentious with one of the world's most infamous feminists. However, when that feminist is Germaine Greer, notorious for her ability to spark debate, you might feel somewhat less surprised.

The review is long and takes some absorbing, and although Greer doesn't write off the book altogether (there are some parts she actually likes),I felt her conclusions could be summed up in just two of her points:

"Nothing in Half the Sky: How to Change the World is new or news...(and) the developed world gets off scot-free."

Now I haven't read the book, so I have no way of knowing if Greer is right. However, even if she is, I don't think that's reason enough not to write the book, or to attack people for finding their way to the truths outlined within it, just because they're late to the debate. Particularly where women's rights are concerned, we've been using different words to say the same things for centuries and I see no reason to stop now - we may have come a long way (baby), but we're not there yet. Having said that, I've worked for a local authority, so I know how frustrating it is to find yourself making the same case for the same (self-evident) reasons, year after year. Greer has been in the world of feminism for decades and reading her review, I can relate to the feeling of frustration that the global experience of inequality amongst the world's women is news.

But I was more interested in Greer's point about the Western world (sorry, the terms 'developed' and 'developing' worlds just leave a bad taste in my mouth) throwing stones from within glass houses, not only because we have not achieved women's rights here in the West (and like it or not, our ability to see the extent of our own cultural misogyny is often severely limited), but also because our relative wealth depends on the relative poverty of many other parts of the world.

"Nothing in this book would suggest to young Americans that their lifestyle perpetuates the poverty that lies at the root of developing-world brutality towards women" writes Greer, "Do they know who made their jeans? Do they realise that they haven't the option of buying American-made, because if they do the Asian sweatshop worker will be thrown out of work? International aid programmes are infested with people seeking their own salvation at other people's expense; if Kristof and WuDunn have their way there will be a whole lot more of them."

Greer has a knack for giving out backhanders, and today's review is no exception. I'll still be buying a copy of 'Half the Sky', but I'll be keeping Greer's central point in mind: "The only really enviable privilege that the privileged have is the chance to do good. It's practically impossible, but Half the Sky does make you want to try." And that's got to be a result.

Women told not to wear "min-skirts" to work

Council bosses in Southampton have banned some women workers from wearing mini-skirts and could send them home if they flout the rules, according to the Daily Mail. 

Four-hundred staff in the children’s services department received a memo telling them they should dress respectfully.

Men are advised to wear collared or polo shirts, cotton trousers such as khakis or chinos with a belt, and ‘dress shoes’.

Women can wear trousers, informal dresses or skirts of ‘reasonable’ length, but ‘not mini-skirts’.

Unions have threatened to fight the ban at Southampton City Council and one outraged worker, who did not want to be named, said: ‘Are they going to come around with a tape measure?’

The leaked email warned social workers, youth workers, educational welfare officers and others in the department to ‘carefully consider their work attire’.

The memo added: ‘Please try to dress smartly and thoughtfully, in line with other professionals you come across in your day-to-day work, and in a way that shows respect to children and families.’

Festival promoter to give safety advice to young women after alleged rapes

The UK's leading music festival promoter is to give extra safety advice after two alleged rapes at this month's Latitude Festival.

Festival Republic, which runs Latitude, is staging the Reading, Leeds and Big Chill events in August.

Managing director Melvin Benn told BBC News: "We will provide additional information, guidelines [and] support, particularly for young women under 18."

But he stressed that music festivals are "a safe place to be".

"Festivals are made up of an incredible amount of like minded people who offer great support to each other," said Mr Benn, who also oversees security at Glastonbury.

That's great, Melvin, that you're giving support to young women. But can I suggest that you also hand out information to young men, telling them that violence against women will not be tolerated. 

Iranian "stoning" woman convicted on the basis of "judge's knowledge"

Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, the Iranian woman whose sentence of death by stoning was commuted to hanging after an international campaign, has sent a message from inside Tabriz prison calling for further support so that she might be reunited with her children.

The 43-year-old mother of two said she thinks of nothing other than hugging her children and that she was mentally broken when authorities flogged her 99 times in front of her then 17-year-old son, Sajad.

The message was read by Mina Ahadi, of the Iran Committee against Stoning (ICAS), at a press conference in Conway Hall, in London, yesterday morning, according to the Guardian. 

At the conference, ICAS presented a document showing Mohammadi Ashtiani had in fact been convicted of adultery. She was originally sentenced to 99 lashes, but her case was reopened when a court in Tabriz suspected her of murdering her husband. She was acquitted, but the adultery charge was reviewed and the death by stoning sentence handed down on the basis of "judge's knowledge".

The documents provided by ICAS show that two of five judges who investigated Mohammadi Ashtiani's case concluded that there was no forensic evidence of adultery. "It's shocking, she's sentenced to death by stoning because three judges think, just think, that you had an illicit relationship outside marriage," said Maryam Namazie of the ICAS.

Shocking is hardly the word for it. It's nothing short of barbaric. 

Palestinian women "break new ground" by digging ditches

A group of Palestinian women is breaking new ground (excuse the pun) in the Gaza Strip by working as ditch-diggers to support their families, according to the Washington Post. 

Some 300 women have signed up to dig reservoirs on Gaza farms in a project organized by the internationally funded Union of Agriculture Work Committees (UAWC).

Although Gaza women have traditionally worked on family farms, picking fruit and vegetables, this is the first time they have hoisted shovels for a job usually reserved for men in the conservative enclave, where unemployment is 60 per cent.

Mohammed Al-Bakri, the UAWC's executive director, said the organization aimed to give women equal opportunity in job creation projects in the Gaza Strip, territory controlled by Hamas Islamists.

"We were anxious at the beginning but the women proved to be good at the job," he said about the ditch-diggers.

Thanks to womense-news for this story. 

Indian lecturer not allowed to teach because she refuses to wear a veil

A female Indian lecturer - Sirin Middya - has been prevented from teaching at a Muslim university by students who demanded that she wear a full veil, according to a report by asiaonenews. 

Aliah University in Kolkata is the first Muslim university in West Bengal state and has no formal dress code, but its student union has demanded that female teachers cover themselves in class.

"Most of the teachers do not like the diktat of the students to wear the burqa, but they have no option but to accept it," Ms Middya told the Indian Express newspaper. "This is the Talibanisation of educational premises and there is no one to come to our rescue."

Siamat Ali, secretary of West Bengal Madrasah Students' Union, was unrepentant.

"There are eight women teachers at the university. It was decided through consultation that the women will observe purdah (wearing the veil), and most teachers agreed," he said. "Only this lady has a problem."

This is such a threatening and intimidating statement. Even if Ms Middya was the only one to object (which she herself doubts), she is still surely entitled to choose whether to cover herself or not. Well, isn't she?

Thanks to the Feminist Majority Foundation for this story. 

Balding complains about "dyke on bike" jibe to press commission

BBC presenter Clare Balding has written to the Press Complaints Commission to complain about a review of her new programme, Britain by Bike, by the Sunday Times TV and restaurant critic AA Gill and the paper's editor, John Witherow. 

Balding, who is gay, initially complained to Witherow about the tone of Gill's article in which he had written that she was a "big lesbian". After a mock apology he continued "Now back to the dyke on a bike ..."

Witherow replied that she should just accept that occasionally she would be the butt of jokes. He compared her to Jeremy Clarkson who puts up with constantly being jeered at for his lack of dress sense, adolescent mindset and hairstyle. 

Balding replied: ""When the day comes that people stop resigning from high office, being disowned by their families, getting beaten up and in some instances committing suicide because of their sexuality, you may have a point.

"This is not about me putting up with having the piss taken out of me, something I have been quite able to withstand, it is about you legitimising name calling. 'Dyke' is not shouted out in school playgrounds (or as I've had it at an airport) as a compliment, believe me."

She added: "I am happy to be described as a lesbian, as and when relevant, but 'dyke' is too often used as a pejorative and insulting term".

You can read the story in the Guardian. 

Good on you, Clare.

Burka wearing is a "sexual fetish" according to an Israeli rabbinical authority

A few years ago, a small group of ultra-orthodox Jews in the town of Beit Shemesh decided to wear the burka in a bid to protect their modesty. The habit then spread to five other Israeli towns. 

The practice has caused so much alarm among ultra-orthodox religious leaders (who once saw it as a relatively harmless eccentricity) that a leading rabbinical authority is to issue an edict declaring burka wearing "a sexual fetish" as promiscuous as wearing too little, according to the Telegraph. 

"There is a real danger that by exaggerating, you are doing the opposite of what is intended [resulting in] severe transgressions in sexual matters,” Shlomo Pappenheim, a member of the rabbinical authority preparing to make the edict, was quoted as saying.

Thanks to ABluePearl on Twitter for this story.