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Posts tagged Women in politics
Now, more than ever, we must push for women’s rights | Letters
Mar 14th
During a week with women’s issues unusually high up the agenda, the lack of progress for millions is frustrating
During a week when women’s issues have featured unusually high on the agenda, culminating in Mother’s Day and encompassing both International Women’s Day and the 54th UN Commission on the Status of Women, we feel compelled to point out the lack of progress for millions of our sisters across the developing world who are denied basic human rights.
Two-thirds of all children denied school are girls. Of the world’s 876 million illiterate adults, 75% are women. Women earn only 10% of the world’s income, yet work two-thirds of the world’s working hours.
Domestic violence is the biggest cause of injury and death to women worldwide. Women hold only 14% of the world’s parliamentary seats.
While we join in the celebrations for Mother’s Day today we can’t forget the women dying needlessly in childbirth, or as the first and last victims of conflict, watching their daughters grow up without hope of change and suffering unpunished abuse at the hands of men who are charged to protect them.
We urge men and women for whom such circumstances are unimaginable to challenge their governments to make a priority of the lives of these silent millions, by linking development money with gender empowerment and holding leaders to account for denying 50% of their populations the basic rights we take for granted. It’s to our communal shame that the Beijing Platform for Action, Millennium Development Goal No 3, UN Security Council Resolution 1325 and the African Union Solemn Declaration on Gender Equality in Africa all remain largely unfulfilled. The AU has declared 2010-2020 “the African women’s decade”. Join us in our fight to ensure that in 10 years these aren’t more redundant slogans that leave suffering women’s lives untouched.
Without the liberation of women in the developing world there can be no end to the cycle of violence and extreme poverty. The greatest asset of emerging nations is its female workforce. Our mission is to ensure they are given the tools with which to achieve their ambitions.
Colin and Livia Firth; Samantha Cameron; Sandra Kamen; Emma Freud; Esther Freud; Rupert Friend; Miriam Gonzalez; Noreena Hertz; Damon Albarn; Beverley Knight; Richard and Ruth Rogers; Keira Knightley; Yasmin Alibhai-Brown; Mishal Hussein; Henry Porter; Mirella Ricciardi; Lucy Siegle; Melanie Chisolm; Dr Scilla Elworthy; Jendaye Frazer; Kate Allen, Amnesty; Hadeel Ibrahim Mo Ibrahim Foundation; Brigid McConville White Ribbon Alliance UK; Marie Louise Baricako; Vanessa Branson; Pilar Brennan; Naomi Campbell; Marc Carter; Jo Cox; Nathalie Delapalme; Bineta Diop; Mariella Frostrup; Glenys Kinnock; Annie Lennox; Jason McCue; Elle MacPherson; Angelique Kidjo; Brigitte Lacombe; Karen ‘Duff’ Lambros; Ticky Monekosso; Thandi Orleyn; Karen Ruimy; Daphne Trimble; Shriti Vadera; Jasmine Whitbread – all Femme Africa Solidarité Trust (Fast)
No, affairs do not help marriage
How can it be “acceptable” for people to have affairs behind their partner’s backs? (‘Is anyone faithful any more?’ Magazine, ). Esther Perel believes it makes people happier and it causes them to act differently towards their partners. She hasn’t considered the repercussions of a cheating partner on the innocent party. I can tell you from experience, it hurts. If you’re unable to commit to one person, you shouldn’t be in a relationship. Those who think they are being “nicer” to their partners (and even their children) due to cheating are being deceitful. Say the other party in the affair brings the cheating into the open. They tear apart a family. It will ruin relationships once the cheated partner learns the truth – then nobody will be happy, and there will be nobody to blame but the cheater.
Sarah Harding-Roberts
Cardiff
So wrong about Paul Scott
Robert McCrum writes that “Paul Scott did not even bother to come back from America to collect his cheque” for the Booker prize in 1977 (“Last year was sheer hell for the novelist Paul Bailey. Better times may be here“, In Focus). In fact, my father would have loved to do just that – but he was undergoing major and extensive surgery for the cancer that was to kill him barely four months later.
Winning the Booker was a major event for him, and not only would he have leapt at the chance to attend in person, had he been able, but the prize money, too (£5,000 – the last year at that rate before it went up to £10,000), would have been a godsend had he lived to benefit from it. His dire financial situation during most of his writing life, and especially the last years, had been the main reason for accepting the teaching post in the US. He simply could not afford to turn down the dollars on offer for two semesters there.
Sally Scott
Eye, Suffolk
Take it in the right spirit
I must defend Arthur Koestler from the various charges of entertaining increasingly “crackpot theories” that have recently been quoted in the press with the release of his latest biography. He and his wife visited some relatives of my husband’s who were experiencing “paranormal” events. During their short visit Arthur and Cynthia, (with Prof Arthur Ellison from City university) soon put the family at their ease. Because he had enough intellectual curiosity to travel to a northern town to investigate these phenomena, and then to bequeath money for a chair in parapsychology at Edinburgh university, he is to be admired rather than insulted. A few eminent scientists are now working in the field and I hope such studies will uncover the laws of physics which give rise to such rare phenomena.
name and address supplied
Oh, what a tangled web
Britain is the target of 300 significant cyber-attacks on government computer systems annually according to Lord West of Spithead, who fears that hackers could disable our infrastructure (“Britain fends off flood of foreign cyber-attacks”, News). Our government responds by setting up the “Office of Cyber Security”. Wouldn’t it be better to admit: “Come back, Gary McKinnon, your country needs you!”
Lesley Kay
London NW1
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How others see Mary Robinson – and how she sees herself
Mar 13th
New clothes, new hairdo – How others see Robinson
“She stood at the dangerous cross-roads of sex, politics and religion for two decades and emerged not merely unscathed but with the respect of even her most ferocious enemies.”
Irish Times columnist Fintan O’Toole, in 1996, when Robinson was briefly touted as a successor to Boutros Boutros-Ghali as UN secretary-general
“She has to have new clothes and her new look and her new hairdo, and she has the new interest in family, being a mother and all that kind of thing. But none of us, you know, none of us who knew Mary Robinson very well in previous incarnations, ever heard her claiming to be a great wife and mother.”
Pádraig Flynn, Fianna Fáil politician. He later apologised
“Robinson presided over little more than an intellectual pogrom against Jews and Israel.”
Academic Michael Rubin on the 2001 world conference against racism in South Africa, from which the US and Israel withdrew
I felt shamed, shamed, shamed’ – In her own words
“I was elected by the women of Ireland, who instead of rocking the cradle, rocked the system.”
Inaugural address as president of Ireland, 1990
“As president directly elected by the people of Ireland, I will have the most democratic job in the country. I’ll be able to look [the PM] in the eye and tell him to back off.”
“I felt shamed by what I saw, shamed, shamed. I have such a sense of what the world must take responsibility for.”
On visiting Somalia in 1992, when, uncharacteristically, she broke down in tears
“In a society where the rights and potential of women are constrained, no man can be truly free. He may have power, but he will not have freedom.”
“Mrs Robinson means something private to Nick and I.”
On deciding to take her husband’s name not because it was traditional, but because she had to fight to marry him
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A patronising Question Time | Libby Brooks
Mar 12th
If the calibre of panellists on the women-only Question Time said anything, it’s that the main parties aren’t bothered about women
Now seriously, David, where was the dry white wine? If last night’s women-only Question Time was genuinely supposed to appeal to those mainstream mums and West Lothian women persistently referenced by Gordon Brown, David Cameron – or is it Nick Griffin? My lady brain finds it hard to distinguish, they all wear such smart suits after all – then surely it would have been more appropriate to stage the whole exercise around a kitchen table. That way, it could have served a dual purpose by morphing with those similarly targeted public health ads that portray two girl pals chatting about after-school schedules over a bottle of chardonnay while rendering themselves significantly more at risk of a stroke.
In many ways, Question Time with an audience solely comprised of women was just the same as Question Time with an audience solely comprised of people who want to be in the audience of Question Time. There was precisely the same proportion of people reading out their queries from notes in a shaky voice, shouty Daily Mail platitudes and comments that sank like a stone. (I always feel bad for those folk – wouldn’t it be friendlier to clap everyone?) And there was, inevitably, a panellist who found it taxing to speak in sentences, but at least this week – for the sisterhood – it wasn’t Carol Vorderman.
The audience certainly appeared diverse, if you’re happy to take the quotient of headscarves as a measure. Though, notably, it was never declared how many had logged on to Mumsnet in the past 24 hours. And the panel was, much as I love Jo Swinson, exceedingly low-rent. Surely they could have drafted in Harriet Harman at the very least? Or is this evidence that when push comes to panellist, the main parties aren’t so concerned about women after all, while Kelvin MacKenzie exists as a placatory cipher for all that’s wrong with the known universe?
My initial concern about a women-only audience was that it would ringfence certain discussions as purely pertinent to ladies. In the end, I wound up frustrated that the debate that could have been had – about the numbers of women in parliament, the ethics of women-only shortlists – was squeezed into the final 10 minutes.
David Dimbleby, clearly channelling Alastair Sim in Blue Murder at St Trinian’s, spent most of the evening baiting Caroline Flint about her window-dressing critique of Brown’s premiership. But Flint, whose copious hair begs for a L’Oréal contract, wouldn’t play, which was annoying – because if there was anything that merited discussion in a women-only space it was surely that.
The final questioner, who testified to the difficulty of any ethnic minority or working-class woman reaching parliament, was greeted with a neuralgic rah-rah from Swinson, who seems to believe that shouting at the telly is a serious qualification for selection. Monty Don, otherwise impenetrable in his artfully crumpled jerkin, said he’d like to see an all-woman parliament, while MacKenzie insisted this was the hardest and most lively Question Time he’d ever experienced. Patronising? Yup. Significant? I don’t think so. All the political ladies, all the political ladies, put your hands up – Beyoncé-style. But the most I learned from the experience was that a structured jacket looks better on the telly than a single-note top (thanks Caroline!).
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The battle for women’s votes | Yvonne Roberts
Mar 12th
With working-class women abandoning Labour and political apathy on the rise, who will win women over in the election?
Thirteen years ago, many working-class women with a couple of children, a husband in a poorly paid full-time job, and a need to earn some extra money were wooed and won over by New Labour. During Blair’s reign, their bounty included a minimum wage, a national childcare strategy and better parental and part-time workers’ rights. Now we’re heading for another election, why are those same working-class women deserting Labour in droves?
The sociologist Geoff Dench, in a Centre for Policy Studies report published next week, believes he has the answer. Working-class woman have deserted Labourbecause their views, as mothers who “prioritise family life”, have been marginalised by a sisterhood of sharp-suited middle-class career women, whose outlook can apparently best be summed up in two words: Harriet Harman.
Anyone who lobs a stink bomb at the sisterhood has a certain audience on side immediately. However, when you look at Dench’s argument, drawing on statistics from the British Social Attitudes study, an alternative interpretation is that it’s not gender but class that’s at issue – and money, or rather the lack of it, not middle-class madams that might be causing many women to walk away from the charms of Gordon Brown.
Dench argues that over the past 20 years there has been a steady growth in the proportion of people who support no political party. Among men, the rate of support for “no party” has nearly doubled from 8% in 1986 to 15% in 2006 . (They have presumably been betrayed by the brotherhood). Among women who describe their occupation as looking after the home, the proportion describing themselves as “no party” has tripled from 8% in 1986 to 24% in 2006. Among working-age single mothers, the increase for the same period has been from 7% to 25%.
In 1986, 52% of working age working-class housewives said they supported Labour. This support had dropped to 27% in 2008. And they haven’t drifted to the Tories. Dench then leaps to the following conclusion:
“Women who value home and family life are becoming disenfranchised. The feminist ’sisterhood’ has clearly failed them, and the result is that they are withdrawing their support from the mainstream parties. Politicians of all parties should be concerned about this… because… the proportion of young women who prioritise home and family has been growing steadily in recent years, and so their votes matter.”
Home and hearth and women in pinnies gently rocking the cradle with one hand while they stir the pot with the other while their man does the “real” work in the outside world is an image that has long fuelled nationalist propaganda – as has a particular choice of language. Take, for instance, Dench’s “disenfranchised”. We are living in the age of the consumer and politics isn’t immune. Describing oneself as “no party” does not necessarily mean disenfranchisement – the deprivation of choice – on the contrary, it could be read as a signal that choice rules supreme. These voters intend to “shop around”.
“No party” could also mean that no party conveys the values, goals and vision of a society in which these voters can believe. This isn’t about the sisterhood. It’s about neglect of the white working class and the death of a clear Labour ideology. Or, to put it another way, perhaps some of those 52% of working class women who voted for Labour during a bad case of the blues under Margaret Thatcher now believe the party has become too posh for its own good – reflected in a House of Commons stuffed with white male bankers, lecturers and management consultants.
In this scenario, the small band of Labour women, including Harman, who could have done more have at least done something, including achieving a reduction in child poverty, changes to women’s pensions and improved rights for carers, all impacting on women who are full-time mothers (who have increasingly powerful voices via the classless Mumsnet, Netmums and the Women’s Institute).
Dench’s arguments patronise women at home, insult women in paid work and do no service to men. Once there is equality in earning power, more men can opt out of the straitjacket of being the main breadwinner and play a greater role in care. Once care is given its proper value, inside and outside the home (and research tells us that more involved the dad, the better the child), and paid work ceases to be the only coin with currency, the whole of society benefits.
A recent paper by the TUC gives a further set of reasons for working-class women’s disillusionment with Labour – that underline that far from wishing to stay at home full time, many women are frustrated in their inability to get a secure full-time or part-time job – and once the cuts in the public sector hit home (the public sector accounts for 40% of all jobs held by women), the situation will get very much tougher.
The latest YouGov poll says that women are split 37% to 29% in favour of the Tories, and that’s before Sam Cam, the Conservatives’ secret weapon, and the classic working mother, has been fully launched. Labour’s election strategy will apparently be underpinned by claims that “middle-class mainstream” mums will suffer most if the Tories win and launch spending cuts. That’s how far the party has drifted from its roots. And ironically, what there is of the sisterhood in the House is probably trying to tell it so.
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Is Question Time’s all-women audience a good idea? | Ceri Goddard
Mar 11th
Critics complain that it’s unfair, but an all-women audience on Question Time will redress an imbalance in our political arena
The BBC’s decision to run with a women-only audience on tonight’s Question Time should be commended for many reasons. The show will give ordinary women, whose all-important vote the parties have been falling over themselves to court, the chance to question if there’s any policy substance behind their “female-friendly” spin.
The Fawcett Society, which this week challenged all parties to answer the question “what about women?”, is not yet convinced that there is. With the parties’ leadership and key policymakers still overwhelmingly male and in a week when polls showed 49% of women don’t feel politicians are listening to their views on the economy, this programme can only be a good thing. Of course, women are not all the same – but I’m sure nearly all of us, women and men, can agree it’s not good for anyone that we still have such an unequal position in the media and politics.
Despite this there have been some grumbles about the programme.First, there’s the accusation that it’s unbalanced to hear more from women as this is not reflective of the make-up of the population. I couldn’t agree more. Public debates that are skewed towards one group or another have less general value. Unless, of course, it’s about redressing an imbalance – in this case, by creating an exception to the usual rule of men’s dominance in political broadcasts as guests or contributors.
Although you can just turn on the TV and observe this phenomenon, there is more formal evidence. A study released earlier this week highlighted that women are only used as major contributors on factually based programmes on 34% of occasions and when it comes to general vox pops, women are canvassed for their opinion only a third as frequently as men. The same research showed that men were much more likely to discuss so-called “harder” items, such as politics, international affairs, science and the economy on our screens, while women were more likely to be asked to give their views on education, environment, cooking, health and culture. Which brings me to the next critique I have heard: that it’s wrong that the show should be skewed towards a prescribed set of “women’s issues”.
If this were true, there would be cause for complaint. But as the Question Time producers have pointed out, apart from the composition of the audience it will be an “ordinary” episode in every way. In other words, it will involve hearing women’s questions and perspectives on the big issues of the day or the week. These will be as diverse as the women who take part. Of course, it’s entirely possible that, just as happened in parliament when women’s numbers increased, there might be more questions asked on issues that tend to impact more on women’s lives and equality, such as childcare, public services funding cuts and low and unequal pay.
And that wouldn’t be a bad thing. Question Time plays a key role in shaping debates and supporting participation in our democracy. You only have to look at the recent furore over Nick Griffin’s appearance to see its influence on public and political opinion. As such, it is as important that women are equally heard and have equal chance to hold politicians to account on its platform as it is in the wider political arena. And because both female and male politicians need to be held to account by women, I also think it’s right that men will be on the panel tonight – though the rationale behind asking Monty Don – though he seems very nice – evades me.
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India’s unequal political landscape | Suhasini Sakhare
Mar 10th
The women’s reservation bill, guaranteeing 33% female representation in the Indian parliament, is the right measure
The chequered history of the 108th amendment to the Indian constitution, also known as the “women’s reservation bill”, slams home the gender-based conflict bubbling under the smooth and suave bubble of India’s economic growth.
After repeated foiled attempts, the bill was tabled in the upper house of the Indian parliament and passed with a thumping majority of 186 to one yesterday. It still has a way to go before it is approved by the lower house of the parliament and receives presidential approval.
India is not the first country to reserve seats for women in the legislature, but it is among the most unexpected of places for this damn-the-torpedoes measure to be taken. Affirmative action in general provokes as much opposition as it does support and seat reservations in India have a history of not trickling down to the neediest intended beneficiaries. Caste-based reservations create castes within castes; reservations based on religious affiliation create smaller religious groups.
Nonetheless, reservations are an integral part of the Indian political landscape. The fight for gender-based reservations in parliament was long overdue, as reservations for women were first implemented at local government level in 1992. This experiment enjoyed widespread political support, but at stake were lowly local government seats and the reservations were adjusted for gender but also for caste. It also provoked much opposition, surprisingly, from within the progressive media in India.
A peculiar dimension of patriarchy in India spills out on the political stage, where the political “estate” of a patriarch is often “inherited” by either his wife, or his daughter, or his daughter-in-law, if no suitable male heir is present. This was starkly visible when the chief minister of the Indian state of Bihar, Lalu Prasad Yadav, “bequeathed” his chief ministership to his wife Rabri Devi when he was incarcerated in relation to a corruption scandal in 1997. She remained chief minister until 2005 – most critics say as his surrogate. This jaw-dropping example is by no means exceptional.
It was feared that the 1992 experiment of giving reservations to women in local government would simply open the floodgates for female surrogates. To some extent, this did happen. But by 1998 a different reality started emerging. In rural camps, in awareness-raising events, one would come across a different breed of female politician. She might be a middle-school teacher in her day job, or a farmer, or a homemaker, but she ran local government on the side. Most of these elected women were without family affiliations to the old political estates: patriarchy has lapsed to a certain extent.
A similar debate swirls around this reservation bill. But as an added twist, the current bill does not provide caste-based reservations within gender-based reservations. In a memorable soundbite, Yadav, a vehement critic of this bill, ranted that it will allow women with “short haircuts” into the parliament, and into power. He is by no means alone in holding this quaint, though distinctly non-charming, view.
Arguably, gender supersedes all other bases of discrimination, particularly in India. Divided psyches and wide gulfs both affect women the most; they truly have nowhere to hide. I look around me and I do not see a single woman who will feel safe 100% of the time. Insecurity, exclusion and unfairness will persist, no matter what our life circumstances are.
I firmly believe that the parliament reservation amendment of 2010, if it becomes law, will play out similar to the local government reservation amendment of 1992, and will propel the cause of women worldwide many steps ahead. The question remains though: in its many years of life, why was the bill not redrafted to adjust for caste and religion?
• This article’s author contacted us after reading our call for suggestions in a You tell us thread
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Indian parliament approves plan for women’s quota
Mar 9th
Bill to reserve one-third of legislative seats for women clears first hurdle
After two days of acrimonious and chaotic scenes, India’s upper house of parliament voted overwhelmingly today to pass a historic bill that would reserve a third of legislative seats for women.
Manmohan Singh, the prime minister, described the 186-1 vote as a “historic step forward toward emancipation of Indian womanhood”. Sonia Gandhi, the president of the Indian National Congress party and chair of the ruling coalition, said that it was “a happy day”.
“The first step has been taken … the next step will also have to be taken,” she told reporters. The bill now goes to the lower house, where it is considered likely to pass, despite substantial opposition.
Seven members of the upper house, the Rajya Sabha, were suspended after staging a sit-in protest against the proposed law. Indian media ran headlines about “the seven who blocked 1.2 billion people”.
The bill to reserve one-third of legislative seats for women in national and state parliaments has faced strong opposition since it was first proposed in 1996. Many political leaders have worried that their male-dominated parties would lose seats in favour of those parties counting more women in their ranks.
The principal objection of those blocking proceedings this week was that the bill does not go far enough and that a number of the women’s seats should be reserved for ethnic and religious minorities and people from low castes.
The bill is expected to be taken up in the powerful lower house of parliament, the Lok Sabha, next week. It will also have to be approved by 15 of India’s 28 states before it becomes law.
The proposal is an attempt to correct some of the deep gender disparities in India, where women suffer disproportionately from illiteracy, poverty and low social status. If signed into law it would raise the number of female representatives in the 545-seat lower house to 181 from the current 59. It would nearly quadruple the number of women in the 250-seat upper house.
“This is legislation that ensures that the slogan of inclusion is transformed from slogans to legislative and constitutional guarantees,” Brinda Karat of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) argued during today’s debate. “In the name of tradition, stereotypes are imposed and we have to fight these every day.”
Though the ruling coalition government retains a comfortable overall majority, the controversy over the women’s bill comes amid broad discontent over issues such as food inflation and a proposed hike in fuel prices.
One key player in the forthcoming parliamentary battle will be maverick populist Mamata Banerjee of the All India Trinamool Congress, who did a last minute U-turn and voted against the bill today. However, Banerjee’s 19 Lok Sabha members will be outweighed by opposition and Communist groups who have already announced their support for the legislation.
Arun Jaitley, a senior leader of the opposition Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata party, said the party “unequivocally” supported the bill, telling parliament it was unfortunate that 63 years after India’s independence, women had only 10% representation in the lower house of parliament.
Though India has a number of prominent and powerful female politicians, measures to increase women’s political participation at all levels have proved difficult to enforce. Male politicians disqualified from politics have often exploited anti-discrimination legislation to have wives or relatives elected. However, recent Indian government studies have shown that the reservation of seats has been a powerful incentive for women at grassroots level.
With 10% of its parliamentary seats held by women, India has lagged behind regional neighbours such as Bangladesh, where the proportion is 15%, and Pakistan, where it is 30%.
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US congress awards medals to female pilots of second world war
Mar 9th
• First American women to fly military aircraft remembered
• Gold medals for 300 still alive, and relatives of deceased
During the second world war, as American and British pilots were dying over Europe and the Pacific, hundreds of American women flew the skies over the US in support roles, testing military aircraft, training fighter pilots and ferrying planes about the continent.
Thirty-eight died in the line of duty, but their service was soon forgotten, their records buried in the archives even though they had paved the way for the integration of women into the armed services.
Tomorrow the women airforce service pilots, or Wasps, will be honoured by the US Congress when it awards them gold medals for their service.
They were the first American women to fly military aircraft. The idea came from Jacqueline Cochran, an accomplished pilot, who convinced top brass in the US army air force that if women took on flying duties at home, they would make more men available for combat duty.
In 1943 the Wasp programme was created. Eager to join up, more than 25,000 women applied, and more than 1,000 completed the six-month programme. They were stationed at 120 airbases across America. They did flight testing and instruction, towed targets for air-to-air gunnery practice and ferried personnel and cargo, including components for the atomic bombs. They flew more than 60 million miles in every type of military aircraft and on every kind of assignment that men flew – bar combat.
“I’d fly them over their targets,” said Carol Brinton Selfridge, who was a 24-year old mother of two when she joined the Wasps. “The boys went down in the nose of the plane and dropped those bombs on the desert floor. Then I’d go back up to about 15,000 feet and fly back.”
The bodies of the 38 women who died were shipped home for burial at their families’ expense, with no flags flown nor military honours, because they were officially civilians. When the programme dissolved in December 1944 the Wasps were forced to pay their way home. Unit records were sealed and classified until 1980‚ effectively writing the women out of the early drafts of the war history, according to supporters in the US Senate.
In 1977 Congress granted the Wasps veteran status. Today the women will finally get the recognition their supporters say they deserve — medals awarded to surviving Wasps and families of the deceased by the US Congress. Republican Kay Bailey Hutchinson of Texas, who is sponsoring the awards in the Senate, warns that Congress has little time to lose. The women are all in the 80s and 90s, and more than a dozen died in the year the award was pending. Roughly 300 of the original corps survive.
“Today women fly every type of aircraft, from combat fighter aircraft to the space shuttle,” Hutchinson said. .
Although women are officially barred from ground combat in the US military, female pilots routinely fly missions in Iraq and Afghanistan that blur the lines between support and fighting roles. Tammy Duckworth, a top official in the US veterans affairs department, was a Black Hawk helicopter pilot in Iraq. She lost both her legs and partial use of an arm when she was shot down in a rocket-propelled grenade attack.
Last month General George Casey, the army chief of staff, said “women are an integral part of the force”. He and John McHugh, the army secretary, said the military would review policies that bar women from ground combat units.
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Sarah Brown visits Daily Mirror to guest edit supplement
Mar 5th
Sarah Brown has guest edited a special edition of the Daily Mirror’s supplement Your Life.
The prime minister’s wife popped in to the Daily Mirror yesterday to guest edit a supplement to mark the 100th International Women’s Day.
The eight page pullout appears on Monday and will include a feature celebrating Britain’s unsung heroines with the winners being invited to special day out at 10 Downing Street.
Brown has previously guest edited Fabulous magazine in the News of the World.
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Why I’ve gone from porn to politics | Anna Arrowsmith
Mar 14th
Posted by Politics news, UK and world political comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk in Politics
No comments
I started making pornography for women because there was a need. And now I want to do something about the need for more female MPs
I’m Anna Arrowsmith, the Liberal Democrat PPC for Gravesend or, as many will know me, Anna Span, the UK’s first female porn director. Take your pick.
Since news of my selection broke on Thursday, many people have asked me why I want to be an MP. The answer is: for exactly the same reason I decided to start making pornography for women more than 12 years ago. Someone had to do it and it didn’t look like anyone else was going to – at least not with the drive, enthusiasm and determination that I could offer. The unfortunate truth is that there are far too few female MPs in this country compared to the rest of the world.
Did you know that Rwanda has the highest number of female MPs of all countries at 53%? Imagine living in a country with a female majority! Well, here I am again thinking that another male-dominated field needs challenging.
Back in 1998 I was in the final year of my degree, studying film at Central St Martin’s College of Art & Design. I had decided to write my dissertation on what fundamental changes would need to be made to mainstream pornography in order for it to be enjoyed by women. I called it Towards a New Pornography, intending it to sound like a manifesto, more for my own amusement than anything else. Then came lesson one in the British psyche. Even the so-called experimental filmmaker lecturers at this outstanding college were actually conservative with a small ‘c’.
My adverts for performers to appear in my graduation film were defaced and torn down by members of staff and my final film was refused a public airing “for fear of upsetting people’s grandparents”, according to the head of the department. All this for a film where the sex was actually simulated due to lead actor issues.
Twelve years later I have won many awards, including Indie Porn Pioneer at the international Feminist Porn Awards in Toronto and best director for two years in the UK.
I have fought long and hard for women’s right to sexual expression and consumption, as well as for freedom of speech. I have long since felt vindicated about my choices back at college and know my pro-sex feminist argument is based on sound principles and logic.
So why don’t I stay in my industry and continue to reap the rewards of my efforts? Because I am the type of person who needs a challenge. I achieved much in my last career and now I want to broaden my campaign to other pressing issues such as why this or previous governments don’t think they have a responsibility to give young people something productive and engaging to do with their spare time. I lived on a council estate in Bermondsey and saw first hand why the kids were taking drugs, fighting and committing crimes.
They are simply bored. I want to campaign to give young people in Gravesham the help they deserve.
To do this I have to fight yet another old man’s club – only this time without the dirty raincoats. Some won’t like it; they’ll assume that my selection means the world is going to hell. I’ve been here before; last time I changed my industry for ever.
That, among other issues, is why I am making the transition from porn to Parliament.
Watch this space; I’ve got a lot of – for want of a better word – balls.