feminist blogs

To see part 1, press here.

It is pleasing to see the EU taking women’s representation more seriously, especially when considering:

“in the 2009 European elections women made up 35% of candidates, 34% in the top 3rd of party lists (Greece and Denmark being the exception), 34% of MEPs elected, but got 19% of media coverage, falling to single figures in some countries” (figures provided by University of Exeter).

I think it is important to consider different countries’ attitudes towards women and politics when looking at what evidence the EU have cited in support of their view that women’s under representation results in women becoming less interested in politics and thus in turn reinforces their under representation. Due to this, they naturally support the need for quota systems, which I have argued before are based on paternalistic and passive notions of providing women ’special’ care. Instead, there is a need for structural and cultural changes so that women’s rights and opportunities improve and consequently their participation in politics.

For example, you can have as many quota systems as you like, however, without structural changes such as improving childcare policies then you are only going to get the same types of women applying. Improvements to women’s representation requires a consideration of different countries’ social, economic and political conditions. Redistribution is key to improving women’s rights, as well as men’s. More redistributive polices would help reduce the high levels of poverty women often suffer from, and through this provide them greater financial stability to pursue a career in politcs.

The need to consider the varying position of women within different European countries to help provide a more specific strategy to improve women’s representation within the EU is highlighted when considering the position of women within Italian politics. An article only last year, reports that the Council of Europe found:

“The most worrying figure was the level of female representation in local municipal councils, where women made up just 2.2% of councillors compared to a European average of 24.5%. The only country with a worse record in this sector was Azerbaijan.

Italy fared better at a regional government level, where female representation climbed to 17.2%, although still below Europe’s average of 21.4% and less than half of Spain’s 39.7%.”

Therefore different countries have more problems around women’s representation in politics, and instead of just saying, as the EU seem to be suggesting, this under representation is due to women’s lack of visibility in politics, there needs to be a closer systematic consideration of why women are differently represented in different countries. For example, the article referred to how:

“Italy has also has a dismal record in terms of female employment, ranking second to bottom of all European Union countries, according to a report by EU statistics bureau Eurostat.”

This highlights how there are wider systematic issues within the country and these will help us account for the varying levels of under representation of women within European politics and politics more generally. It is simple for EU to attribute the lack of representation in Europe as a problem of visibility, but with more careful analysis it is clear the problem requires a more in-depth solution.

Jill in a mosque, originally uploaded by JillNic83.

I’ve written before about attempts to outlaw the burqa in France. Summary: I think it’s silly, an affront to basic freedoms, and ultimately more damaging to the women it claims to protect. Now France is at it again, trying to ban the wearing in public of any item of clothing that covers your face. The law is clearly targeted at French Muslims and Muslim immigrants.

I understand that many people perceive the burqa, or any full-body covering, as a symbol of female submission. Heck, I perceive the stereotypical conservative Christian floor-length denim or flowery dress the same way, so I get it. I don’t have much love lost for any religious tradition that insists the female body is inherently sinful and must be covered.

But my personal opinions on fashion and the female form, and which religious (or irreligious) path I choose to follow? Not great foundations for legally limiting the rights of others. Especially when the outcome of this legislation won’t be the stripping off of burqas everywhere, but rather a larger number of women staying inside. That’s not exactly a great gain for women’s rights.

The Times: BBC bows to age rage and brings back mature women. Three women over fifty, Fiona Armstrong, 53, Julia Somerville, 62 and Zeinab Badawi, 50, have been hired as presenters on the BBC News Channel. This is a pleasant change in a world in which older women mysteriously disappear from news programs, when women are allowed to report/present “hard news” at all. Related: here’s a good article from a few years back on women in the news by BBC news presenter and feminist Fiona Bruce. She’s commonly asked ‘What do you wear under the desk?’ and ‘What is your favourite recipe?’ Also check out the Global Media Monitoring Project, which follows trends in gender in the media around the world.

AP: Serena Williams is 2009 AP Female Athlete of Year. Would you like to know the runner up? It was a horse.

Times of India: Bangalore police want ban on women bartenders. This follows the abduction (and rescue, don’t worry!) of twelve bartenders on their way home on Saturday. As interviewee K.S. Vimala says, ‘Sexual harassment of women is happening in other work places. That does not mean, we’ll stop them from working altogether. What is needed is proper safety and security for women at their work places’. The Bar and Restaurant Owners’ Association is stepping up security.

LA Times: In Iran, a blind musician leads the way for a women’s orchestra.

DailyCamera.com: Healing Nepal: All-female guide company empowering women one trek at a time. ‘After hearing from several disgruntled female tourists, complaining of male guides disrespecting them, the sisters — armed with basic mountaineering skills — opened the country’s first female-owned trekking company, run by and for women.’ The three Chhetri sisters have also opened a children’s home for girls age 7 to 16 who have been rescued from child labor. And 3 Sisters Adventure Trekking has a non-profit arm called Empowering Women of Nepal, which has a number of programs that sound amazing.

Here’s an article from the BBC entitled “Police team up for rape campaign”. I am doubtless not the only one to have read enough articles with similar titles to now be approaching this one with trepidation.

One would hope that an article with such a title would be about police putting together an anti-sexual violence squad, educating police about treating survivors appropriately or something of that nature. (And, according to the West Mercia police website, they are improving services with dedicated specialist officers and such.) Instead, all we learn from the article is that several police forces (Cleveland, Durham and Northumbria) in England’s North East are running a campaign that ‘reminds people how alcohol can affect judgement’. Det Supt Steve Wade wants ‘men and women to think about how much they are drinking before they put themselves at risk’. Right, because it’s not rapists that put people at risk of rape, and it’s not problematic to put the focus on the actions of potential victims rather than that of rapists…?

The victim blaming vibe seems to be more intense in the article than in the campaign itself – that’s the dynamic in a couple of media reports I’ve found – which emphasises support and services for survivors as well as self-protection measures. The Short word, long sentence campaign website (the videos may be triggering) features an outline of police procedure and has ‘You did not ask to be raped. The blame is entirely the perpetrators’ right on the front page. That said, it would be nice to have a rape prevention campaign with a primary focus on changing the behaviour of rapists and potential rapists in conjunction with an excellent support system for survivors.

Moving back to the article, we get this: ‘Police also stress that rape is more likely to happen between people who know each other.’ As best I can tell, from taking a look at the Northumbria police website, that’s taken from a quote by Durham Detective Superintendent Andy Reddick: ‘it is much more likely to happen between people who know each other, either in a domestic situation or between people who’ve met socialising’. I’m hoping the former quote was just ambiguous reportage from BBC Writer Without a Byline rather than an indication that multiple people in these police forces term rape something that happens ‘between people’. Because that phrasing disturbs me. To me, it makes rape sound like something each participant has an active role in bringing about, some kind of equitability. Rape does not happen ‘between people,’ like an argument or a misunderstanding, something for which the blame might be shared; rape is violence committed by one person against another. And this just serves to take the focus off the substance of the sentence, which is knocking down the myth that stranger rape is the most common type of rape. It’s not so much the ‘clear message that if someone does not consent to sex then it is rape’ the campaign is aiming for.

The campaign is running for six weeks, over the holiday period. I hope it does a lot of good, even with the mixed messages as furthered by the BBC article and those like it. And campaigns against sexual violence, as well as the media getting the messages out there, ought to do better than mixed messages, as there’s enough of that in the world already.

Shorter Ross Douthat: Europe wasn’t racist enough, and so now they should be worried about the brown hordes. After arguing that European nations should have done more to restrict Muslim immigration, he concludes that while the end of the West is not near, there is still much to be fearful of:

This is cold comfort, though, if you have to live under the shadow of violence. Just ask the Swiss, who spent last week worrying about the possibility that the minaret vote might make them a target for Islamist terrorism.

They’re right to worry. And all of Europe has to worry as well, thanks to the folly of its leaders — now, and for many years to come.

The Swiss outlaw the building of new minarets — for no reason other than that they want to be hostile towards Muslims — and then they’re right to worry about Swiss Muslims’ hostility?

Trigger warning.

A Danish advocacy group encourages you to “hit the bitch” as a way to end domestic violence. Basically, you go online and take a swing at a woman speaking. There are ratings for how “pussy” or “gangsta” you are — every time you slap the woman, you get more “gangsta.” The harder you hit, the more gangsta you are. The woman gets increasingly bruised as your “gangsta” rating creeps toward 100 percent.

I was curious as to what the end message was going to be, so I kept “hitting the bitch” thinking after one or two times there would be some sort of lesson in all of this. But… no. You have to hit the woman like 15 times as she cries and touches her face and staggers backward and is bruised and bloody. It’s horrific. When you finally reach “100% Gangsta,” she falls over.

And that’s where the big lesson comes in. A message flashes on the screen: “100% GANGSTA.” Then “gangsta” is taken out and replaced with “idiot” — so you’re “100% IDIOT!”

…and that’s it. You’re then taken to a graphic of the woman laying on the floor sobbing, and some words in Danish which I assume are domestic violence statistics and resources. But in order to get there, you have to spend ten minutes “hitting the bitch” and being told you’re a total pussy if you’re not hitting her hard enough or often enough. But then – gotcha! – you’re actually an idiot! This, somehow, is supposed to convey to everyone that hitting women is bad. After you’ve played a game that rewards you for hitting a woman.

Color me unconvinced.

Thanks to Michael and Mike for the link.

Up until recently, I lived in Jordan. I worked. I played. I was in love. I had two cats named Fanty & Mingo. I also got sexually harassed. I got sexually harassed so much that I’d sometimes sit in my apartment after dark and seriously consider not doing an emergency tampon run, because I knew that inevitably, some dudes would wander into my path and have a field-day. Trying to prevent said harassment, I wore hijab for a while. The results of that little experiment were recently published in JO Magazine.

I tried to go for nuance. Hijab, for me, wasn’t a “wonderful cultural experience.” Neither did I emerge from that particular episode screaming about how it’s time to “liberate” Muslims from their headscarves. I tried to apply similar logic to the proposal to ban the burqa in France. I felt I could draw some parallels there, or maybe I was wrong to have done so. You guys can draw your own conclusions.

The saddest part for me today is that while that article hints at a happy ending, the reality is different. I had to leave. I let my ex keep Fanty & Mingo.

Having dealt with assault, I found I wasn’t coping with the aggression too well. It caused too much self-doubt. Like, “wait a minute, for years now, I’ve been telling myself – Natalia, you’re a human being and not a lump of meat, you deserve to breathe the same air as everyone else and walk on the same sidewalks and stuff – but the things in your head that you were running from, they’re now coming out of the mouths of the little kids outside. In the immortal words of Armageddon: ‘Wow, this is a goddamn Greek tragedy.’ ”

I’m in Ukraine right now, and I do miss Jordan. I miss what we had with my ex, I miss my Jordanian friends, I miss the kind of weather that doesn’t give me a hacking cough. I miss the way the people at the mini-market knew me by name. I miss the ancient history beneath my flip-flops. I don’t miss being a fake hijabi – in the end, I simply hated having to pretend to be someone else for a scrap of respect – though I must acknowledge that in Kiev, in the doldrums, it would keep the ears warm.