Women's Views on News

The Fawcett Society and Institute of Economic Affairs discuss the budget

On this morning's Today programme, Anna Bird, Head of Policy of the Fawcett Society and Director General of the Institute of Economic Affairs Mark Littlewood analyse whether the coalition's claim to be progressive is under threat from the IFS report that has criticised the budget as 'regressive' (read WVoN's coverage of the report here).

Listen to the programme on BBC Radio 4.

African women encouraged to preserve the environment and fight poverty

Women from across Africa have gathered in Johannesburg to discuss the role they can play in preserving the environment and fighting poverty.

The 4th Women and Environment Conference "Towards a green growth path: Women at the forefront of poverty eradication", has attracted women from across the continent.

Delivering the keynote address, Deputy Minister of Water and Environmental Affairs Rejoice Mabudafhasi, said one of the first tasks of the conference was to launch the National Forum for Women and Environment.

"The primary role for the forum will be to act as the mouthpiece for women, while also championing their empowerment needs within the portfolio of environmental affairs," she said.

The forum, which was launched at the start of the conference on Sunday, will also serve as the platform for women to inform policy and decision-making issues that affect them.

Read the full story on AllAfrica.com.

Women have the power to make the world a greener place

How can women help to make the world a greener place? By choosing environmentally friendly products, US entrepreneur Diane MacEachern told the Washington Post. 

Given that American women spend 85 cents of every dollar in the markeplace, they have a lot of power at their disposal. And it's right there in their purse. 

"Women can use that power in a way that can't be ignored," said MacEachern, who wrote a book, "Big Green Purse" and launched an accompanying web site to help women think about the way they spend money and the impact their spending has on the environment. 

She said consumers are used to being told what to buy instead of telling companies what to make. "We can use the marketplace to put a bright green carrot in front of companies" to spur them to make more environmentally friendly products.

While men and women are increasingly looking for healthier products, research shows that women are usually making the choices about what to feed their families and what kinds of detergents to use.

So she's started a campaign on her site encouraging women to join the "One in a Million" initiative by pledging to shift $1,000 of their household budgets to green products and services. To date, over 5,000 people have joined the programme.

Thanks to the Women's Media Center for this story. 

Fawcett updates WVoN about its legal challenge to the coalition budget

Three weeks ago, the Fawcett Society started unprecedented legal action against the UK's coalition government on the grounds that its emergency budget was unlawful. 

But the Treasury has failed to meet today's deadline for telling the charity which campaigns for equal rights between men and women whether it had carried out an assessment or not. 

Instead it asked on Friday for an extension of time. Anna Bird, Head of Policy and Campaigns at the Fawcett Society, was not impressed. 

“It has an air of game playing” says Ms Bird. “The new budget will be implemented quickly and effect people’s lives. These decisions need to be made swiftly for their sake.”

“Fawcett did not want litigation” she argues, “but three weeks on no evidence of any consideration of gender impact has been produced. It should be fairly simple: Either an assessment was conducted or it was not.”

Citing the 1975 Sex Discrimination Act, Fawcett argued that the government had a legal obligation to conduct an equality impact assessment of all proposed budgetary cuts, and that the budget as it stood was massively unfair to women, potentially putting back economic and social equality by a generation. You can read WVoN's coverage of the story here, here, and here.

Politicians from all sides of the divide weighed in, with the government’s own equalities minister Theresa May writing to David Cameron to warn him that the budget might well be unlawful because of its disproportionate effect on minority groups. 

An audit of the budget commissioned by Labour MP Yvette Cooper (and conducted by the House of Commons Library) suggested that more than 70% of the revenue to be raised by the cuts would come directly from the pockets of women. Other high profile political figures including deputy Labour leader Harriet Harman voiced their concerns.

Perhaps, under the circumstances, it's not surprising that the government would not engage with the challenge laid down by Fawcett. To do so would mean admitting it had made a mistake. 

So what does Fawcett want the government to do, assuming it ever gets an answer? "The fundamental issue is that if no assessment was conducted, the government didn’t fulfil its duties" says Anna Bird."We want recognition of that fact, followed by a strong commitment to conduct a robust gender equality assessment, the findings of which should be published. Most importantly, action should be taken to mitigate any inequalities that are uncovered.”

In the meantime, it’s not all doom and gloom. Although the outcome of the legal challenge cannot be predicted and the government response is thus far pretty underwhelming, there are already some positives emerging from the Fawcett move. 

In particular, membership of the charity has increased: “Masses of support has come our way. I think a lot of women, especially those dealing with poverty and other issues that make them particularly vulnerable to the cuts, really feel like someone is speaking up for them" Ms Bird added. 

In terms of getting involved and showing their support for Fawcett’s campaign, Anna Bird asks people to join Fawcett, follow them on Twitter, sign up for their e-bulletin and join the debate. She adds: “In the next week or so we will be publishing further action people can take to show their support, and also looking for women’s experiences to back up the points we are making.”

The bottom line here is that in a society where women still own less and earn less than men, it is hugely unfair to ask them to pay more for a crisis in which they played little, if any, part.

BA changes seat rule that adult males cannot sit beside unaccompanied minors

Mirko Fischer, a hedge fund manager living in Luxembourg, has won compensation from British Airways after it told him to move seats because of an internal rule that prevents adult males sitting next to unaccompanied children. 

Mr Fischer ended up sitting next to the boy on the BA flight from London to Luxembourg after switching seats with his pregnant wife so she could be by the window. He told staff that he thought the rule was contrary to the Sex Discrimination Act and that he felt as though he'd been treated as a potential "child molester". 

And Slough County Court agreed with him, ordering BA to pay him costs of £2,161 and £750 in damages. The airline, which admitted that the rule amounted to sex discrimination, has now carried out a review of its seating policy. 

Mr Fischer said he was delighted by the policy change and has donated the compensation money to Kidscape and Orphans in the Wild, two child protection charities. 

What do women newspaper readers want?

Journalist Peter Preston writes in today's Observer that although most national papers in the UK have more male readers than female, the gap is closing fast. 

A summer research study from ComScore, an authoritative digital analysis company, shows women worldwide are beginning to dominate social networking sites and to stay online longer than men. Preston says that some of that switch is having an impact on media fortunes as well. 

InPublishing magazine has found that, ten years ago, about 62% of American men read a newspaper compared with only 44% of women. By 2009, that had shrunk to 47% of men, compared with 44% of women. In Japan the difference was 25%, down to a mere 2% now. In Britain the gap has shrunk from 4% to 3%. 

So is this all good news for the potential, future readership of WVoN? Well, yes and no. The good news obviously is that more women are reading newspapers than before and more are going online for their news. The bad news is that in the UK, they seem to pick the Daily Mail which is about the only paper with more women readers than men. 

The million dollar question, of course, is what is it that women want? As Preston points out, the mostly male editors dictate that it's more health, more families, more fashion but adds that "ritual male prescriptions are made to be overcome". 

Here at WVoN that's exactly what we're going to do.

Highest earning female athlete made over $24 million last year

Forbes.com looks at the earning power of female athletes, but not in relation to their ability as athletes. This is all about their lucrative endorsement deals with clothing, shoes and racket companies. 

So although Serena Williams is the world's number one tennis player, she cannot match the earning power of Maria Sharapova who pulled in (I'm glad they didn't say "earned") a staggering $24.5 million dollars in the past year, making her the highest-paid female athlete in the world. 

Still, Serena can take comfort from the fact that she comes in at number two in the earnings top ten, having made $20.2 million last year while Venus earned a mere $15.4 million. 

How do they manage on these meagre sums?

Women who are in debt earn more than men until they get to 40

Further to the publication of research yesterday showing that it will take UK businesses about 57 years to pay men and women equally (see WVoN story), Jacqueline Cohen takes a gendered look at debt and pay on the Cleardebt blog. 

Using their own client data, she says that women who are in debt tend to earn more than men until they get to the age of 40.

She says: "According to our data, women in debt and under 30 earn, after tax, an average annual pay of £19,200. That means they take home nearly £1,600 more a year than men the same age who are also in debt". 

But why, she asks, do things change when women hit 40? Surprise, surprise, it's all to do with having children. Women take on most of the childcare and cut their hours to do most, if not all, of the necessary childcare which means their earning power decreases. 

Although what she says is undoubtedly true (that having children has a huge impact on a woman's earning power), it's not exactly new and doesn't really shed much light on things. Far more interesting to have stuck with her initial premise - taking a gendered look at debt - and tell us about the level of debt that women over 40 accumulate compared to men.

Now Hooters is threatening to open a branch in Bristol

Following efforts by UK feminists to stop US bar chain Hooters (better known for the skimpy outfits worn by its waitresses) coming to Cardiff in Wales (see WVoN stories here and here), the Bristol Feminist Network is gearing up to stop another branch from opening in the west country. 

One member, Sian Norris, has reproduced on UK Feminista the letter that the network wrote to Bristol City Council to object to the proposal. 

She argues that allowing it to open would have the same impact on the area as a sex entertainment venue, with women likely to feel unsafe because of the threat of verbal and physical harassment from customers who frequent places like Hooters. 

She also says that allowing a branch of Hooters to open would be in breach of equality laws and she asks the council, in her letter, whether the equalities team has been consulted with a view to assessing the impact on women and minority groups in the city.

If you want to write to the Council with your objections, you need to do so before 1 September. 

Women's taxi company is subject of BBC comedy drama

Next year the BBC will be showing a three-part comedy drama, Candy Cabs, based on the true story of a women's only cab company, charting the obstacles that were put in their way. 

In June 2005, Tina Dutton and Andrea Winders launched Pink Ladies, a taxi service (now a successful social enterprise) providing safe transport for women. The cars were driven by women, carried no cash and only women passengers. 

However, despite all the positive headlines that the women generated, local cab drivers weren't so chuffed. They claimed that the company was giving male drivers a bad name (now that is funny) and were poaching their customers. That, they said, was sex discrimination. 

So the two women set themselves up on the same legal basis as a "Working Men's Club", where members pay a fee to join and then pay fares that are comparable to conventional cabs. 

You can read more about it on Justmeans.com.

Thanks to @noamkos for this story.