Women's Views on News

Welcome Baby Cameron - but what about Britain's other babies?

Following our coverage of the birth of Baby Cameron yesterday, Laurie Penny at the New Statesman (yes, I am her number one fan) asks if David Cameron will be moved to reconsider his party's budget in light of the devastating impact it will have on babies, children, families and communities across the country.

Laurie particularly highlights the impact of the coalition budget on the 700 babies born into poverty every day in Britain.

"The austerity cuts imposed by Cameron's coalition government will hit these newborns' families hard," writes Laurie Penney. "Their parents may not be able to afford to feed them a healthy, balanced diet... they will attend whichever local school can afford to take them, including some two hundred state schools whose promised funding for badly needed building restoration has just been withdrawn by the Coalition. After the signalled cuts to housing benefit come into force, many of them will grow up in cramped, unhealthy, sub-standard accommodation far from local amenities..."

She continues, "they will be less likely to achieve their potential at school, less likely to be able to afford to attend university or further education, and more likely to suffer from mental health problems such as depression, anxiety and panic disorder than those born to wealthy families. Before the 24th of August 2012, these poorer babies will already be significantly more likely to exhibit lower levels of attainment and wellbeing than children from better-off families; by 2016, less able children from families like the Camerons will have overtaken more able children from lower-income families...The children who were born today in inner Manchester are already likely to die six years earlier than babies born to families in the Camerons' London district of Notting Hill."

"Child poverty and inequality were not eradicated under Labour, but the austerity cuts imposed by David Cameron's government could spell disaster for the hundreds of children born today into less fortunate households - particularly those born to single parents, over whom the axe of economic judgement is casting a long shadow."

I would pay a substantial amount of money to trap David Cameron in a lift with Laurie Penny and a film crew, and firmly believe that this would be one of the best YouTube videos, ever.

Mark Steel: Is Sarah Palin 'militant jihadist'?

Writing in today's Independent, Mark Steel posits that the opposition to an Islamic Centre (it's not a mosque, though it does contain space for prayer) being built 2 blocks from Ground Zero is based on anti-Islamic fears and prejudices, and has nothing to do with protecting the memory of those who died in 9/11.

The centre will include a swimming pool, gym, performing arts centre and will host a range of interfaith and secular programmes. It will be open to everyone and is part-funded by the Cordoba Initiative, an organisation that aims to improve relations between Muslims and western cultures by creating programmes of active engagement between individuals and communities. Surely this is exactly the spirit that should be promoted in the years following 9/11?

The centre has been opposed most vociferously by Sarah Palin, who has called upon 'peaceful Muslims' to oppose the centre.

"So, as she's asking Muslims to oppose a centre open to everyone," writes Mark Steel, "That commemorates the victims of 9/11, it seems likely she's a militant Jihadist who thinks the building will be a betrayal of true radical Islam. She's certainly got experience of being filmed with rifles so she's probably sat by one while making a video up a mountain right now, leaning into the camera and booming 'The front crawl is the agenda of the infidel, my friends.'"

Critics have also stated that the centre would breach the 'sombre tranquility' of the Ground Zero and Mark makes an interesting point:

"So instead of this centre there should be more buildings such as The Pussycat Club," he asks, "Which is next door to where the towers were, and boasts of being the area's premier strip joint. But that must be in keeping with the sombreness, presumably because the girls start their slide down the pole in a fireman's uniform in honour of the heroic firefighters of that fateful day."

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.

Caster Semenya's victory in Berlin unleashes gender storm

Caster Semenya's 800 metres victory in Berlin has created new waves  of tension at the World Challenge meet on Sunday, with one opponent claiming that she was 'literally running against a man'.

Semenya breezed past effortlessly to win with several strides to spare in a world-class time of 1min 59.90sec. Given that she has only been training seriously for a month and has, by her own admission, done no speed work whatsoever, it is highly possible that by the time she competes in the Commonwealth Games in October, she could be back to the form of a year ago when she ran away from the field in Berlin to win in a world-leading 1-55.45sec.

However her win has caused friction amongst her fellow athletes with many speaking of their frustration that their own rights have been brushed aside by the decision of the International Association of Athletics Federations to allow the 19 year-old to return so early.

"It's obviously a human rights issue but human rights affect everyone in the race, not just one person," said Britain's Jemma Simpson, who finished fourth in 2min 0.57sec. "The rest of the field just gets ignored. No way is it a personal issue but it's a debate about what is right and fair for everyone. It's a really tough subject and a lot of people are very careful about what they say. You have to be".

According to Canada's Diane Cummins, who was eighth in Sunday's race: "Unfortunately for Caster, she's grown up in an environment that is complicated not just for her but for human science. Basically, is she man, is she lady? What constitutes male, what constitutes female?"

More on this story from The Telegraph.

Wendy Lewis is not the forces' favourite, but the veterans went too far

The Guardian's Barbara Ellen discusses the behaviour of Wendy Lewis and why her apology should have been enough. 

Lewis was arrested in June for drunkenly urinating on a war memorial in Blackpool, then moving to a nearby bench to perform oral sex on a man. Lewis, 32, appeared at Blackpool magistrates' court but ran away before she was sentenced. On her arrival, she'd been surrounded by more than a dozen war veterans, who berated her as "disgusting" and slow hand clapped her into court.

Whilst in full agreement with the disrespectful nature of this incident, Ellen questions whether the reaction was justified given her evident remorse after the incident and the fact that alcohol was clearly a factor. Ellen also adds that the veterans response was intimidating and an unseemly form of heckling and harassment.

More on this from The Guardian.

Millions of men are attracted to older women, the head of Cougar Events argues

Following the publication of research last week that, celebrities aside, the "cougar" phenomenon is a myth (see WVoN story), Rich Gosse, the executive producer of Cougar Events, refuted the evidence saying that millions of men are attracted to older women. 

And he should know - he's spent the last 15 years of his life trying to prove it, according to this story in the Independent. He is also the author of the modestly entitled: "The Cougar Imperative - Why Midlife Women MUST Choose Younger Men". 

Although the research by Michael Dunn at the University of Wales showed that the cougar phenomenon was a "myth and a media construct", Mr Gosse was unrepentant. 

He argued that:  "Dr Dunn correctly concluded that women prefer older men. Nothing new there. Women have consistently preferred older men for thousands of years. But his study only covered preferences, not who these women actually are dating. If his study had analysed who women are actually dating, he would have found that many are breaking out of the younger woman/older man stereotype and dating younger men."

Thanks to Emine Dilek for this story. 

The gender pay gap - finally the truth

For those of consistently bemused at the strange persistence of inequality in wages for men and women, the answers have finally been supplied by Michael White of the Guardian, who you might remember for enlightening us all previously on the issue of why we have quite enough women in the Cabinet, thank you very much (see WVoN story).

To save you the effort (and frustration) of going through his article yourself, we've summarised Michael's main reasons for the continuing pay gap here:

It's the nature of the job: "investment banking must be a very testosterone-driven activity which requires relaxation in lap-dancing clubs, expensive motors and other toys for boys – a lifestyle that can't have much appeal for sensible women."

It's the hours needed to earn big money: "Men tend to put in more hours at work, a detail that leads to the old familiar core issue – women are both inclined and/or obliged to make their families a greater priority in the work/life balance equation."

And this last one really seems to be the crux of it - it's the fact that women keep on choosing family over a decent career, silly little things that we are, and Michael White has the answer to that one, too:

"Women aren't obliged to make that choice any more, either by society's dictates or by lack of control over their own fertility. They can work and use childminders, and they can let their partner stay at home while they become the No 1 breadwinner – an increasingly visible choice."

So that's it, all your gender pay gap questions answered. And in case you weren't sure about why women choose family over career, Michael White tells us that the answer's all in the genes, which is where women really have the advantage:

"(Women) still live significantly longer than their menfolk, a fact that would cause a lot more media outrage if the high-heeled boot were on the other foot."

Astounding.

'Don't retreat, reload' says Palin

Ah, the madness continues. Sarah Palin has hit the news again offering her support to Dr Laura, the US radio show host who resigned recently following her use of racist remarks to a caller on her show, reports the Huffington Post.

Sarah Palin sent two messages about Dr. Laura on Twitter yesterday:

Dr.Laura:don't retreat...reload! (Steps aside bc her 1st Amend.rights ceased 2exist thx 2activists trying 2silence"isn't American,not fair")

Followed by:

Dr.Laura=even more powerful & effective w/out the shackles, so watch out Constitutional obstructionists. And b thankful 4 her voice,America!

What disturbs me more, the use of text speak (Twitter is an art form, it requires less language, not a new one) or the general insanity of extreme Republican politics? No, it's too difficult - I'll get back to you on that.

You can find the background to this story, as well as two hilarious related features outlining all the offensive, inappropriate and downright idiotic things both Sarah Palin and Dr Laura have said over the years, both of which I would thoroughly recommend and which you'll find at the bottom of the page.

And I thought the Daily Mail winds me up. If I was living in the States, these two alone would have me apoplectic in seconds.

Why women compete for the same men (allegedly)

Have you ever wondered why you and all your friends end up fighting desperately over the same man? Or why so many of your friendships dissolved when your friend stole the man of your dreams out from under your nose? No, neither have I. But if you have, then the University of Cardiff can tell you why this allegedly 'common' phenomena has its roots in hard science, reports WalesOnline.

Apparently the research shows that women are influenced by other females’ attraction to men when arriving at their own “attractiveness judgements”. But the same cannot be said for males, who experts claim are more individual in their selection.

“These findings cannot be simply due to females being more conforming than males," said Dr Dunn, who led the study, "As another experiment we conducted showed that, when males and females were presented with fictitious rating scores, there was no difference between the sexes in their attractiveness ratings.

“Men’s indifference to other men’s judgements of attractiveness may be related to their exclusive focus on physical attractiveness,” said Dr Dunn. “Although it is not fully clear as to why women are influenced by other women’s attractiveness judgements, evidence suggests that women take into account a wide variety of non-physical factors when evaluating male attractiveness."

I can't say I've ever noticed this particular phenomenon myself. In fact, quite the opposite, most of my best friends have shown a spontaneous aversion to the men I've loved, and vice versa, which has been quite reassuring as they always take my side in an argument and comfort me after the break up by pointing out 'I never liked him anyway,' and calmly and accurately listing all his faults.

But the research is a great weight off my mind, because for a second there I had an awful feeling that once again human time, money and resources were going into the scientific discovery and justification of gender differences when there are so many better things we could all be focusing on. Like saving the planet and world peace, just off the top of my head.

Judge says Muslim woman cannot wear full face veil when giving evidence in court

The woman who wanted to give evidence in an Australian court wearing the full-face veil (see WVoN story) has said she accepts the judge's decision to ban the niqab, the Sydney Morning Herald reports. 

The woman, known as Tasneem, is a witness in a fraud case in which a man is accused of stealing up to Australian $750,000 (about US $674,600) in public funds by artificially inflating student numbers at his school. 

She said in a statement that she had not demanded to wear the niqab in court, but had merely asked to dress in the way she would usually dress in front of people she did not know. It was not a religious statement, she added, but a personal choice on her part to dress in this way. 

She went on: "This is my personal choice and rather than oppressing me, it liberates me. Like many Australians I believe in God and for me wearing the niqab serves as a constant reminder that I am accountable for my actions."

Tasneem also acknowledged that not everyone shared her belief and that interpretations surrounding Islamic dress differed. "Therefore I understand this can be confusing for non-Muslims as they witness varying degrees of cover and I accept the full cover I chose to wear can be confronting to some."