The formation of Pussy Riot in Moscow last September was not a culmination of long-harboured musical ambition, songcraft or that strange alchemy of notes, lyrics, personalities and desire that sometimes spawns a rock ‘n’ roll band; rather it was reactionary – a furious two-fingered salute to Vladimir Putin’s decision to return to the presidency, a protest writ large in music and femininity.

Pussy Riot are an all-female punk band. More, they are part of an increasingly vocal young-and-disgruntled generation in Russia, railing against political corruption, the state’s monopoly on the media and the culture of illegal protest (to name but three sizeable gripes) and finding novel ways to display their dissent: the Blue Buckets group have run over official cars while wearing buckets on their heads; the art collective Voina painted a 65-metre phallus on the drawbridge opposite the Federal Security Service headquarters in St Petersburg, and activists in the Siberian city of Barnaul circumnavigated the protest laws by assembling a crowd of small placard-wielding toys.

In the months since their formation, the eight members of Pussy Riot have perfected their own form of protest: their songs are pithy, angry missives, largely directed at Putin, and they remain beguilingly anonymous – the band wear neon balaclavas to conceal their identities and perform flash gigs in unexpected places: on public transport, for example, and, once, on a prison roof. In mid-January, they pulled off their most audacious show to date: performing on a platform in front of St Basil’s Cathedral in Red Square, opposite the Kremlin: “Revolt in Russia – the charisma of protest,” they sang. “Revolt in Russia, Putin’s got scared!” It was the shortest of performances, only minutes before the authorities hauled the group away, but the point had been made.

The fact that Pussy Riot are all female and proudly feminist brings an interesting dimension to their protest: “The revolution should be done by women,” one of its members told the Guardian this week. “For now, they don’t beat us or jail us as much. There’s a deep tradition in Russia of gender and revolution – we’ve had amazing women revolutionaries.”

Certainly their actions continue the great enterprising tradition of female protest – from suffragettes to slut walks, the furious crowds gathered outside the Miss America pageant in 1968 and the Ladies’ Home Journal sit-in of 1970, not to mention the Take Back the Night movement and the Million Mom March. For the band themselves, however, inspiration came most strongly from the riot grrrl movement of the 90s; indeed they cite the band Bikini Kill as their poster girls.

Kathi Wilcox of Bikini Kill at Wetlands in 1994. Photograph: Steve Eichner/WireImage

The riot grrrl movement began in America’s Pacific north-west in the early 90s. Similarly underground, staunchly feminist and fired by punk rock music, it was propelled by a number of innovative and revolutionary female-led bands, among them Bratmobile, Bikini Kill, Sleater-Kinney, Heavens to Betsy and Huggy Bear.

Huggy Bear

The movement really caught flame in 1991, spurred by the Christian Coalition’s Right to Life campaign against legal abortion, and the case of Anita Hill, who accused Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment and was duly mocked widely in the media. Outraged, incensed, in need of a voice, young women made their anger known through a series of self-made publications and public gatherings, including the band L7′s riposte to Right to Life, Rock for Choice. They raged against rape, domestic violence, the patriarchy, they promoted female empowerment, the force of a sisterhood.

“The culture of protest needs to develop,” one of the members of Pussy Riot said last month, and indeed as much as the band represent a form of protest in Russia, they also embody a shift in culture that echoes the DIY culture that flourished in the Seattle and Olympia areas of Washington in the early 90s – fanzines, garage punk bands, a tone of wild irreverence and a wish to question tradition.

Janet Weiss, Corin Tucker, Carrie Brownstein of Sleater-Kinney. Photograph: Sarah Lee for the Guardian

It was this cultural shift in the early 90s that underpinned the riot grrrl movement and enabled an alternative female voice to rise up and be heard; women who had long sat silent, who saw no way into politics, the media, the music industry, now had a way to express themselves and an audience eager to hear what they had to say.

As a new generation in Russia seeks its own voice in the face of repression, it is easy to see why the riot grrrl movement of 20 years ago offers inspiration – a way to communicate, to rabble-rouse and empower, through unconventional, nontraditional and frequently joyous methods, from fanzines and pro-choice festivals to toy placards, phalluses and punk rock.

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Article source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/feb/03/pussy-riot-kremlin-protest-riot-grrrl

The Italian supreme court has caused outrage after ruling that those convicted of gang rape do not have to be sentenced to jail.

Late on Thursday the court upheld a constitutional court decision to annul the jail sentence of two 19-year-old men found guilty of gang raping a 16-year-old near Rome. A lower court had ruled that jail was the only sentencing option, but the supreme court disagreed, saying judges could apply alternatives.

Critics said the ruling that prison was not automatic for group rape convictions could allow some rapists to go free. Two former equal opportunities ministers – Barbara Pollastrini from the Democratic party of the left and Mara Carfagna, a minister under the former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi – both spoke out against the decision. “This sends the wrong message,” Carfagna said.

The courts appear to be struggling with a tough decree passed by the Berlusconi government in 2009 mandating prison sentences for sex offenders.

The conservative parliamentarian Alessandra Mussolini, granddaughter of Benito Mussolini, called the ruling “a time bomb waiting to explode”. A long-time advocate for tougher anti-rape laws, Mussolini in 1999 donned jeans to protest inside parliament over another controversial supreme court rape decision, the so-called “denim defence”. In that case, the court overturned a 34-month rape sentence in southern Italy, suggesting a woman could not be raped while wearing jeans since they were impossible to remove unless she helped.

In Italy, sexual assault was changed from a moral offence to a criminal felony in the 1990s. The former interior minister Roberto Maroni, who helped push through the 2009 decree, urged the government to make the law enforceable by the courts. “This sentence is not just a bad sentence. It is worse – it is dangerous,” Maroni told the Corriere della Sera newspaper. “If we don’t propose another law we are going to end up with Cain winning over Abel.”

Article source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/feb/03/italian-court-gang-rape-jailed

Spain‘s opposition Socialist party may set the former defence minister Carme Chacón on the path to becoming the country’s first female prime minister at a nail-bitingly close contest for a new leader .

Chacón is in a two-way contest with the former deputy prime minister Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba to take over a party in tatters after a rout at elections in November.

Although both candidates worked closely with the former prime minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, Chacón is seen as closest to the man who governed Spain for eight years until December.

Zapatero has publicly declared himself neutral in the fight between the two career politicians, but is privately reported to back Chacón.

Rubalcaba, 60, has the open support of Felipe González, who was prime minister from 1982 to 1996. The wily veteran also has the backing of Patxi López, the popular Basque regional prime minister, and of many party veterans.

Chacón, a 40-year-old Catalan who studied part of her law degree at Manchester University, has called on the party’s women to back her and appears to have the support of a younger generation of Socialists.

Her team are sure they have won enough pledged votes from delegates who have started gathering in the southern city of Seville for her to win. “She is going to get it,” one of her team said.

But Rubalcaba’s side also claims to be narrowly ahead in the battle for a majority of the 956 votes at the conference, with a block of up to 100 undecided delegates set to be key.

There is little difference, politically, between the two candidates. Both have veered further left since they were ejected from government in November, but neither belongs to the more rebellious wing of a party that competes for leftwing votes with the communist-led United Left coalition.

Higher taxes on the wealthy and support for the Tobin tax on financial transactions is mixed with a call for Spain to slow its austerity drive to prevent an even deeper fall into recession.

Spain’s political system is mostly a two-party affair, with either the Socialists or the conservative People’s party (PP) of the current prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, running the government since 1982.

Whoever wins the post of secretary general can expect to challenge Rajoy for the prime minister’s job at the next elections, which are due in late 2015 or early 2016.

They can also expect to preside over a fractious party that is bitter about losing power in Madrid as well as in many regional government and town halls.

The first major electoral challenge will be a vote for the regional parliament in the traditional socialist stronghold of southern Andalucía in March. Opinion polls there show the party in danger of losing to Rajoy’s PP.

The task of turning around the Socialist vote is immense. It received its lowest overall vote since 1977 at the November general election, with just 110 MPs in the 350-seat parliament. Voters punished it for the economic crisis, massive unemployment and for Zapatero’s 2010 U-turn on the economy. Rubalcaba was the candidate for prime minister at that election and Chacón campaigners point to his inability to stave off disaster.

Zapatero imposed austerity, raised the retirement age, froze pensions and cut civil service pay in May 2010 as bond markets put massive pressure on Spain’s sovereign debt after the collapse of Greece and neighbouring Portugal.

It is still unclear how much the two candidates can distance themselves from Zapatero – especially as both were cabinet ministers when he performed his policy turnabout.

As opposition leader, they will shadow Rajoy, who has already performed his own U-turn by raising taxes as part of his attempt to cut back a budget deficit of more than 8% last year. With unemployment at 23% and still growing, many Socialists believe Rajoy will soon become vulnerable.

Spain has just entered the second phase of a double-dip recession, with the International Monetary Fund predicting the economy will shrink 1.7% this year. Many economists see the recession stretching into 2013, and Rajoy’s embrace of greater austerity will also see more job losses.

The prime minister was recently caught on camera privately admitting that his planned reforms to the labour market, to be announced next week, would provoke a general strike.

Chacón’s popularity leapt in 2008 when, aged 37 and seven months pregnant, she was appointed as Spain’s first female defence minister by Zapatero. His second-term cabinet, with nine women to eight men, was Europe’s first majority-female cabinet.

Article source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/feb/03/spain-socialists-carme-chacon

So at last a key report into the undercover policing controversy was published this week. Dennis O’Connor, the head of the body inspecting the police, finally produced his delayed report yesterday after cancelling its publication at the last minute in the autumn.

Here was our take on O’Connor’s report – we wrote that the clandestine operation that secretly deployed police spies in political groups for 40 years was severely criticised by the inspectorate which recommended a tightening up of the controls on such undercover operations.

We also reported on how Mark Kennedy, the spy at the centre of the controversy, was beaten up by his own police colleagues and how he was criticised by O’Connor.

The report has been written by an establishment figure, but given that, it is striking how he criticises the covert operation to infiltrate political campaigns. O’Connor concluded, for instance, that the undercover deployments were weakly controlled and led to “disproportionate intrusion” into the lives of the activists.

History tells us that any state operation which is hidden behind years of secrecy will almost inevitably lead to abuses. The controversy which has erupted over the past 12 months was probably a disaster waiting to happen for some years. As it happened, it was Kennedy who brought it to a head, but we understand that he was not the first of these undercover police officers to go out of control or awol.

O’Connor says that in future, these undercover deployments should be approved beforehand by an outside organisation, the Office of the Surveillance Commissioners.

Potentially this could mean that there will be fewer deployments in protest groups as police chiefs will have to justify them to some-one outside their cosy circle. Only time will tell.

O’Connor’s report had little to say on one of the most explosive aspects of the controversy – undercover officers sleeping with, and even having children, with the activists they have been sent to spy on.

This was criticised by the eight women who have started legal action against police chiefs. They say that they were duped into forming long-term loving relationships with undercover policemen and suffered intense emotional trauma and pain.

In a statement, the eight said : “This report misses an opportunity to clearly and unequivocally outlaw any undercover operative from entering into and maintaining a long term intimate relationships whilst undercover”.

“It is of concern that whilst the report recognises the psychological harm that may be caused to the police officer,

no mention is made of the harm they cause to the women with whom they enter such a relationship which is potentially far more serious. There can be no justification for such relationships and for the outrageous state intrusion on the privacy of those concerned nor for the serious emotional and psychological damage caused”.

O’Connor criticised Kennedy on a series of counts, particularly for defying his instructions from his supervisors. Kennedy rejected the criticism, telling the BBC that he was “outraged” at the claim that he had not obeyed orders.

Article source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/undercover-with-paul-lewis-and-rob-evans/2012/feb/03/undercover-operation-criticised-by-watchdog

David Cameron’s mini-reshuffle following the resignation of Chris Huhne as energy secretary represents a missed opportunity to improve the gender profile at cabinet level.

Though the shakeup sees an additional woman entering the government in the shape of Jenny Willott as assistant government whip, the decision to promote Ed Davey to the vacancy left by Huhne, and in turn hand over Davey’s previous job in the department of Business, Innovation and Skills to Norman Lamb, means the gender gap remains a sore at senior ministerial level, with just five women – all Conservative – in the 23-strong cabinet.

When the Conservative defence secretary Liam Fox resigned last October, amid polling suggesting the Tories had a problem with female voters, Cameron used the mini-reshuffle to promote Justine Greening to the role of transport secretary, raising the tally of female cabinet ministers to five.

This time, the fact that the third cabinet minister to resign since the coalition government was formed was a Liberal Democrat meant Nick Clegg, the deputy prime minister, had the say in who would fill the seat – albeit a decision that Cameron would have signed off.

To date, the five Lib Dem cabinet seats have all been taken by men, despite their occupants being reshuffled twice following the resignations of David Laws and now Huhne.

Fifty of the 57 Lib Dem MPs are male, giving Clegg the lowest proportion (12%) of women of the main three parties, compared with the Conservatives (16%), and Labour (32%).

Until Friday, just two Lib Dem ministers were women: Sarah Teather, the schools minister, and Lynne Featherstone, the Home Office minister for equalities. This has risen with the appointment of Willott, 14 months after she resigned as parliamentary private secretary to Huhne to vote against the rise in tuition fees.

Jo Swinson, the MP for East Dunbartonshire, is also on the rise after assuming the parliamentary private secretary (PPS) post previously held by Lamb alongside his other responsibilities. As bag-carrier positions go, being PPS to the Lib Dem deputy prime minister is the most sought-after. But party activists may nonetheless wonder how the absence of a female Lib Dem at the top level sits with the leadership programme recently launched by Clegg to encourage women and black and minority ethnic candidates to get ahead in politics. Role models at the top, after all, offer aspiration to others. For the coalition government overall, critics will argue it’s a case of “plus ça change” in terms of the scarcity of women at the top.

Anna Bird, acting chief executive of the Fawcett Society, said: “Men outnumber women in parliament four to one, and the 2010 election saw a paltry 2.5% increase in the number of women MPs.

“Today’s changes see more women pushed up the ladder, but no new women join the cabinet. Men continue to outnumber women 18 to five, meaning British politics’ top table is almost 80% male.

“Women have a right to an equal say in politics, but there are more millionaires than women in the cabinet. Decisions of national importance – about everything from whether to go to war to what to teach in our schools – are being made without women round the table. The different experiences and perspectives of one half of the country are not being heard.

“David Cameron must honour his pledge to make a third of his ministers women by 2015, and we believe this must involve more women getting a seat at the top table.”

Article source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/feb/03/chris-huhne-reshuffle-opportunity-women

A winner of Holland’s Next Top Model is suing her agency for refusing to give her the prize money she claims she is due because they say she is “too fat”.

Ananda Marchildon said she only received €10,000 (£8,300) of the €75,000 contract she was promised after winning the competition in 2008, aged 21. She was also stripped of her title.

The 1.83m (6ft) model claims she was sacked by Elite Model Management two years into the three-year agreement because her hip measurement exceeded their maximum limit of 90cm. The average European woman has 102.9cm hips. At the time of her dismissal, Marchildon claims her hips were 92cm.

Marchildon says her hips were 92cm (36in) when she was sacked. The European average is 102.9cm

Her lawyers claim she lost rather than gained weight after winning the show. They argue the agency is obliged to work with Marchildon “as she looked in the final”, rather than retrospectively forcing her to conform to their rules. The case has started a debate in the Netherlands about the extent to which young women are expected to adhere to near-impossible physical standards.

Dieuwke Levinson-Arps, who is representing Marchildon, claims her client was told by a lawyer working for Elite that she was sacked because “although she has a nice face, she has a fat arse” and that “she never had it in her to become a top model because she was unsuitable for catwalk work”. She said Marchildon’s physiology meant she had “no chance” of having 90cm hips, even with a strict diet and exercise regime. “Already she was very skinny, almost anorexically skinny,” said Levinson-Arps.

In the two years after winning the show, Marchildon received around 20 assignments for Elite, mostly in print advertisements. She did not get any catwalk offers.

Marchildon is suing Elite for unfair dismissal. She wants them to pay out the remaining €65,000 she says she was promised for winning the show. Elite is contesting the claim.

Wikke Kootstra, a lawyer for Elite, said: “It was impossible for Elite to find [Marchildon] modelling jobs since she wasn’t in the required shape.”

Asked about the reason for a preferred hip measurement of 90cm, Kootstra said in an email: “Elite models model couture. Couture clothing is made in one size only: (très très) petite. This is not something modelling agencies can change. (I imagine they would welcome such a change since it would make their job so much easier … but it is not in their power to change what the market dictates.)

“Hip measurements are not the only criterium for the possibility to find suitable jobs for a model; they have to be in excellent trim and take extremely good care of their appearances, eat right, sleep well, exercise etc. It’s not for everybody.”

Kootstra said Elite never signed a contract with Marchildon. After winning the show she was given a contract with another modelling agency, MTA. She was then placed with the higher-profile Elite agency, said Kootstra, “as is customary in the modelling world, to obtain maximal exposure”.

To support their case, Marchildon’s legal team wrote to Tyra Banks, the American supermodel who owns the rights to the Next Top Model brand, saying the incident “exploits” and “grossly neglects” the character of Banks’s original format. Banks does not appear to have received the letter as it was subsequently returned unopened.

Banks has been outspoken about her own weight fluctuations since tabloids ran an unflattering photograph of her in a bathing suit under headlines such as: “America’s Next Top Waddle” and “Tyra Porkchop”.

In March last year a beauty queen in Texas won a case against the pageant’s organisers who stripped her of her crown after she allegedly put on weight.

A court judgment in Marchildon’s case is expected on 7 March in Amsterdam.

Article source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/fashion/2012/feb/03/next-top-model-too-fat-ananda-marchildon

I was sitting on my friend Maggie’s couch last January, watching, slack-jawed, as the first order of business in the new Republican-controlled Congress was not to create jobs, restructure the tax code or reform a corrupt banking system that crippled our nation.

No, the first order of business was trying to defund Planned Parenthood, an American institution that for 90 years has tirelessly provided affordable healthcare services to women, children and men. One in five women in America have used the services of Planned Parenthood.

I am one of those women. And 97% of what Planned Parenthood provides is low-cost, preventative healthcare and treatment like pap smears, birth control dispensing, HIV/Aids testing and breast cancer screenings.

Three percent of what they do is provide abortion services. Abortions that are 100% paid for by the woman who elects to have the procedure. A procedure that is legal in this country as of the publication date of this article.

The defunding legislation failed, but lit a fire in the belly of zealots in statehouses across America, resulting in a record number of states attempting to or actually imposing draconian laws leaving low-income women at risk of having no access to affordable healthcare.

It was personal for me. At 17, I found myself pregnant and alone; and after going to anti-choice zealots for guidance, I found only scorn and shame. It was Planned Parenthood that listened to me, which allowed me to make the choice I needed to make, which was to have an abortion.

I wanted to give back, so together with my friend Maggie, we formed a two-woman fundraising machine, reached out to Planned Parenthood and organized a tour to raise money and awareness for local affiliates. I piled my two dogs in a van. My pal Matt took 10 days off of work to protect me from hate-mongers like this, and do some filming, and the wonderful photographer Mindy Tucker volunteered her time to do a photo essay of the trip.

I did 16 fundraisers between April and December, bringing my comedy act into towns doing shows to raise money and share my story with hundreds of people each night who also wanted to preserve the quality care Planned Parenthood provides.

A lot of people shared their stories with me. People who had similar experience to mine and kept it a secret. Wonderful stories of appreciation for quality prenatal care they received, and equally appreciative stories of being able to have a safe haven where they could make that very personal decision to terminate a pregnancy.

I heard stories, too, from women and men whose lives were saved because they were able to get all kinds of cancer screenings; from cervical to testicular to thyroid. And many stories of breast cancer detection.

There were women who were able to get annual mammograms, catching it early so they could get treated and go on to live healthy lives. Heartbreaking and triumphant stories from women who had lost their jobs and the healthcare that went along with it, women working three part-time jobs that didn’t provide healthcare, students who relied on Planned Parenthood because every extra penny went to books and tuition. Single moms who didn’t have to choose between a mammogram and buying baby formula.

My dear friend Shannyn Moore lights up my life everyday because Planned Parenthood detected her breast cancer and helped her with the costs of her treatment.

For years, the Susan G Komen Foundation helped Planned Parenthood by providing funding to help them continue their efforts to provide breast cancer screening to women in need. Until this week.

The foundation has chosen to defunded Planned Parenthood because it claims it cannot fund an organization that is under congressional investigation. An unwarranted investigation led by Representative Cliff Sterns, a zealous Florida congressman who is more concerned about controlling women’s bodies than keeping said bodies healthy.

It is stunning but not surprising. Anti-choice activists credit Karen Handel, the new vice-president of the Komen Foundation for the defunding, celebrating her fierce anti-women stance as a catalyst for the action. I can’t help but wonder was the legislation proposed in order for Komen to be able to pull funding; I hope the media will look further into whether there is a relationship between the two events.

This is not the first time SGK has come under fire. They have been under attack for threatening legal action against non-profits for using “Race for the Cure” as a trademark. And oh, for using the color pink.

In fact, Thursday, Pink Ribbons Inc, a documentary film showcasing Komen’s business model will only add fuel to the anger-pyre women’s health advocates are stoking in light of the foundation’s latest move.

It is unconscionable that SGK would pull the healthcare rug out from under thousands of women who have no place to go but Planned Parenthood for breast exams and breast cancer-related treatment. It’s even more unconscionable that the winners of this decision are the corporate shills who will have that much more money to slap pink ribbons on yogurt and mixers in the name of “Breast cancer awareness”.

Mission accomplished, Komen. We are now aware of breast cancer. And now we are also aware that the Susan G Komen Foundation is more about bringing awareness to Susan G Komen and its corporate benefactors than it is about “Racing for a Cure”. Last I checked, a pink breast cancer awareness toaster isn’t a substitute for affordable chemotherapy.

I am a proud advocate for the work Planned Parenthood does and proudly stand with them, and for them. I will be a voice for them so they can continue to do the work they do.

And as for the Susan G Komen Foundation? I will no longer support your “Race for the Cure”. In fact, maybe I’ll just “Listen to The Cure for the Cure.®”It will probably have about as much impact. You don’t own that trademark.

Article source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2012/feb/02/planned-parenthood-susan-g-komen-foundation-betrayal

Have the Tories finally managed to identify what women want? Latest polling (pdf) has found that 43% of female voters say they will vote for the Conservatives at the next election, compared with the 37% who put their trust in Labour.

Twice as many women than men have yet to make up their mind how to vote, which still leaves a lot for the parties to play for. But it’s an amazing turnaround for the Conservatives who, just a few months ago, were so anxious about their poor polling among women that they designed a secret charm offensive aimed at winning back female voters.

It would be interesting to know what you thought had changed. Prior to the YouGov poll, the Relationships Foundation commissioned and published Ipsos Mori research which concluded that support for the coalition government among female voters in the C2 socioeconomic group (mostly low-skilled workers) had fallen sharply.

This chimes with Labour’s claims that the government’s economic strategy has hit women, and working women, hardest as they bear the brunt of the reforms to welfare and benefits, as well as job cuts in the public sector.

Women’s votes are increasingly seen as crucial for the next election. So it’s interesting to hear your views on why the coalition’s promise to be the “most family-friendly government ever” is now, apparently, being given credence?

Why has the tide turned – and why now?

Article source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/blog/2012/feb/02/why-women-trust-tories

Jean Dujardin in one of the controversial posters for Les Infidèles

He’s the charming hearthrob in the award-winning silent film The Artist and tipped to be the first Frenchman to win a best actor Oscar this month. But Jean Dujardin is at the centre of a row over what are seen as sexist posters for his latest film in France, which pundits worry could offend the American awards jury and harm his Oscar chances.

For the past few days, Paris has been plastered with posters for Dujardin’s latest film, Les Infidèles (The Players), a series of interlaced, mostly comic, short films in which some of France’s top actors and directors dissect the thorny topic of male adultery.

In one poster, Dujardin in a black suit and rumpled tie leers at the camera as he grips a pair of naked female legs under the caption: “I’m going into another meeting.” In another poster, his co-star Gilles Lelouche, in a similarly smart suit, shouts into his mobile: “It’s going to cut out, I’m going into a tunnel” while a woman has her head in his crotch and runs her manicured hands over his shirt.

After several complaints to France’s advertising regulators, the adverts – which one regulator called “an attack on the dignity of women” – are to be taken down on Friday. In a post-Dominique Strauss-Kahn era in France, feelings run high over potentially retrograde depictions of women.

After the New York arrest of the former Socialist party presidential hopeful and ex-International Monetary Fund boss last year, accused of allegedly attempting to rape a hotel maid, France was gripped by soul-searching about the sexism that pervades society, from female politicians afraid to wear skirts in parliament to the belittling of sexual violence.

Criminal charges against Strauss-Kahn were dropped, though a civil case is pending, but the dismissive reaction to the case by some in Paris’s political elite infuriated feminists.

Dujardin, France’s most bankable actor, made his name a decade ago in a hit French TV sketch show satirising the sexism, prejudices and foibles of an ordinary Frenchman towards his girlfriend. Lelouche told Premiere magazine before the poster controversy that the film about male adultery was the opposite of misogyny.

The daily Le Parisien warned that America “doesn’t joke about this kind of saucy picture” and The Artist could suffer “collateral damage” from the film poster row.

The magazine L’Express said the poster controversy threatened to harm Dujardin “in the final straight” of the Oscar race, which it said was like a political campaign where “everyone is ready to exploit the slightest weakness of their adversary”, real or imaginary.

The magazine recalled how the French star Gerard Depardieu’s hopes for a best actor Oscar for Cyrano de Bergerac were dashed when just before the ceremony Time magazine ran a profile mistakenly suggesting, due to a mistranslation, that he had “participated” in a rape at the age of nine.

Article source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2012/feb/02/jean-dujardin-poster-artist-oscar

The woman speaking admiringly of French quotas for women in the boardroom looks like Katie from the Apprentice – all insufferable smugness and weird back-combing – while her male boardroom colleagues perfectly undermine her, yet it’s hard not to smile at this Alex cartoon in the Telegraph.

Once again, the cartoon character seems to perfectly capture a world in which powerful men listen politely to the point about lack of women in senior positions before moving on to the real business at hand. The strides being made to convince the world that investing in poor women makes good business sense (look at World Food Programme research here) just don’t seem to be having the same sway when it comes to women in senior positions.

This is chiefly because the topic is seen as cultural and even perhaps genetic rather than simply a matter of good economics. Any discussion of women and advancement is just as likely to veer off into one about child-rearing and personal choice as it is to discuss whether there really is a “diversity dividend” in having a more mixed decision-making team.

There’s a host of data on both issues, much of which I’ve already shared in the past week or so, but here are two personal anecdotes which perhaps sum up how marginal the issue is, despite the efforts being made to change the status quo (those quotas in France and Norway, for example).

I’ve been to Davos twice and was struck last week by how many people were more surprised by my presence reporting on the low numbers of women (which make up 50% of the world’s population) than they were when I interviewed a head of a large corporation for the business pages.

Then when I went into the school playground on my first day back, one mum, having asked where I’d been, pointed out that not all women wanted to head businesses. Difficult to disagree with that, of course, but my answer was that not all men want to run businesses or sit on boards either. We’re not so different that our sex determines our ambition rather than our personalities, are we?

Roger Carr, the chairman of Centrica who is also leading efforts for 30% of boardroom seats to be filled by women, was among supporters who believe that diversity is simply good practice. He also pointed out the need for an holistic approach, recognising that women who are mothers needed “support” if they were to be able to, for example, fly to South Africa at short notice to manage a problem.

The problem is so few supporters talk about the need for fathers to get the same kind of support.

No one has the answers. In a world where leadership is seen as more of a male attribute (Sheryl Sandberg at Facebook has been brilliant on how this belief starts very young) perhaps it is less surprising that just 15% of all FTSE 100 boards are now female, or that there are still 10 all-male FTSE 100 boards.

But does change have to be so slow? Why are five of the 23 cabinet posts (22%) in David Cameron’s government held by women? Why is the pay gap between men and women in full-time work still stubbornly stuck at 15.5%?

We thought we’d discuss some of these issues at a special session of the Guardian’s Open Weekend, a two-day event during women’s history month to open up the newspaper and its practises to the people who make it work – you. It promises to be a lively weekend and the aim is to make it fun as well as informative. Have a look at everything else that’s on offer here. And if you do come, come and say hello.

Article source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/the-womens-blog-with-jane-martinson/2012/feb/02/boardroom-equality-guardian-open-weekend

There’s an old joke: four women are throwing dinner parties. The French woman presents her main course with a gusty: “Bon appétit.” The Italian woman invites her guests to tuck in with a buoyant: “Buon appetito.” The Spanish woman raises a glass and says: “Buen provecho.” And the British woman slips the dishes apologetically onto the table and whispers: “I’m terribly sorry but the beef is overcooked, the potatoes are underdone, and the carrots don’t have enough salt.”

If last night’s debate, The Media: A Female Politician’s Worst Enemy? is anything to go by, British women no longer apologise in a whisper: they blame themselves and each other in loud and strident voices, refusing to admit or allow any vulnerability, and advocating nothing more to counter misogyny, sexism and gender discrimination than an upper lip so stiff even Brief Encounter’s Celia Johnson would have balked.

“Have you all finished whingeing?” Janet Street-Porter shouted at the rest of the panel of female politicians and leading journalists. “What you lot have to get your heads around is that we’re our own worst enemies. That you get the press you deserve. And that this stuff you hate, is bought by other women.

“If you’re going to have your picture in GQ, you’re going to invite a certain amount of comment,” she continued, grinding any notion of sisterhood under her booted-heel to make a sideswipe at her fellow panellist, Tory backbencher Louise Mensch. “I’d rather have my fingernails pulled out than have my photo in GQ,” she added, virtuously.

Street-Porter, it transpired, was once asked to sit on the Equality Committee by the BBC – “back in the Year Dot” – and refused. Extending her swipe from Mensch to the entire evening, she explained why: “I said ‘stuff it’ [to the BBC] because I am superior to that and it would have been a backward step: these committees achieve so little.”

And so the first meeting of the All-Party Women’s Group in Parliament was born: with what George Pascoe-Watson, chair and former Sun political editor, valiantly managed not to call a cat-fight. “I don’t want there to be a, ummm, punch-up between Janet and Louise,” he stumbled. Above, a screen flashed headlines to describe female politicians en masse: Cameron’s Cuties, Gordon’s Girls, Davie’s Dolls, Nick’s Nymphets, and Millie’s Filllies.

Back on the floor, there was more women-blaming to be done. Lady Gillian Shephard, a former secretary of state for the environment, transport and the regions, berated speakers who had dared to admit being upset and intimidated by things the media wrote about them and other women.”One really should not get hung up on the stuff you read about yourself in the papers or be enticed into victimhood,” she snapped.

“Women today are, I have to say it, inclined towards victimhood. [When I was younger] I didn’t know about feminism, I just thought I would get on with it.”

Columnist Anne McElvoy, one-time parliamentary sketch writer for the Evening Standard and public policy editor at the Economist, agreed. “Just put your cleavage away if you don’t want it commented on.”

And there you have it. No matter that the media’s laceration of women might have something to do with the fact that just 17% of David Cameron’s 121 ministers are women; that women make up just 15% of UK board members; or that contributions from women on Radio 4′s Today are so few and far between that, on any one day, listeners can go two hours without hearing a female voice.

No matter that this environment enables us to remain a nation of teenage boys who, confronted by a clever, eloquent woman prepared to put her head above the parapet of public life, will stare at her shoes, giggle at her cleavage and gossip about her waistline before we listen – if we ever do – to the words coming out of her mouth.

And no matter that this all culminates in a media climate in which, as the Leveson inquiry heard this week, newspapers routinely engage in inaccurate, prejudicial and victim-blaming when reporting violence towards women, as evidenced by the headline in which a gang rape is called an “orgy in the park”.

No matter to all of that. According to the first all-party group set up to tackle these issues, the answer is almost too simple for words: if you can’t stand the heat, just get your kitten-heels out of the kitchen.

Article source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/feb/02/badly-treated-female-politicians-media

New forms of digital technology and social networking sites such as Facebook are increasingly putting people at risk of stalking, according to a report published on Wednesday.

The study, from Women’s Aid and the Network for Surviving Stalking, warns that mobile phones, particularly smartphones, are increasingly being targeted. Spyware could be installed on the phone in “less than five minutes”, allowing a stalker to listen remotely to the phone’s surroundings, intercept calls, track text messages and the location of a device if it has GPS hardware.

Computer spyware could be installed remotely, via an email attachment, and then remain hidden on the computer, warned the report. “It’s cheap, easy to use and very powerful,” it said.

Other methods of tracking can be more simple. One woman detailed in the report failed to change her eBay password after separating from an abusive partner. He tracked her use of the site online and when she bought something he contacted the seller claiming the item had not arrived and asking the seller to verify the address. Armed with his ex-partner’s new address, he found her and targeted her in an attack that left her blind in one eye.

“Online stalking is definitely happening more often because there is such an array of powerful tools at stalkers’ disposal making it easier to do,” said Jennifer Perry, author of Digital Stalking: A Guide to Technology Risks for Victims. Technology firms and social networking sites needed to do “much more” to protect potential victims, she added. “Software companies are absolutely not doing enough to mitigate this risk. The only way we will change things is by making the public aware of the dangers.”

Alexis Bowater, chief executive of the Network for Surviving Stalking, who was followed online for four years before her stalker was jailed, said the rapid rise of mobile phone and internet use meant cyberstalking was on the increase. “It is an old crime in a new, technological world,” she said.

“The internet gives stalkers a new weapon in their armoury, a new way to find people, to follow them, to research them, sometimes to be them.”

The extent of internet users’ “digital footprint” – their use of social networks, work websites, forums and directories, could all leave clues that could enable a stalker to track their victim.

Social networks are particularly risky, according to the report. “You can never make social networks ‘safe’ for victims to use, you can only make them ‘safer’,” it said. “Their commercial success depends upon encouraging users to exchange information with the widest network possible, which compromises the privacy and security of their users. Indeed, you could argue that it is in their interest not to encourage good privacy practices.”

Perry, an internet safety expert and consumer advocate, said the advice Facebook provided to victims of domestic violence was “wholly inadequate and was putting victims at risk”. She called on the site to change their abuse and help pages and provide a privacy setting specifically for vulnerable people. “The problem is social networking sites like Facebook make money the more data people expose. For the majority of people that does not put them at risk, but in the case of domestic violence or stalking victims it can be very dangerous.”

She added that new features, such as a location button that let users inform their friends on Facebook of their exact whereabouts, were often presented entirely positively, with not enough emphasis given to the risks involved.

A spokeswoman for Facebook said choosing to share a location was always “entirely optional” and that privacy setting enabled users to share what they wanted and block unwanted attention. Users could report abuse via links on the site or through the contact forms in its help centre. She added that the site had “systems to prioritise” the most serious reports and acted on most within 24 hours. “The safety of our users is our top priority. Facebook works with a diverse set of experts and organisations devoted to online safety in order to bring the best safety resources, including the National Network to End Domestic Violence, who also sit on our safety advisory board,” she said.Perry said she advised stalking victims to assume their computer had been infected. “It is safer to assume that everything you do or say online, all your emails, contacts photos and instant messages as well as passwords and contacts can be seen,” she said. Stalkers could use this information to lock victims out of their accounts, buy goods or transfer money, go online and pretend to be the victim, add or delete files and block websites so victims were unable to access support sites.

Bowater called for more awareness of the dangers of new technology. “We are calling for better police training on all types of stalking and particularly digital stalking. We are asking the internet industry to engage with us to make their customers’ lives safer,” she said.

Article source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/feb/01/social-media-smartphones-stalking

Three members of an Afghan family living in Canada have been sentenced to life in prison for the murders of three teenage sisters and the ex-wife of one of the defendants Link to this video

On Sunday a Canadian court found three members of an Afghan family, the father, mother and son, guilty of killing three teenage sisters and another woman. The judge described the crimes as “cold-blooded, shameful murders” resulting from a “twisted concept of honour”. The prosecution argued that for father Mohammad Shafia, honour was everything – quoting him as saying “even if they hoist me up on to the gallows … nothing is more dear to me than my honour”.

This was undoubtedly a brutal and heinous crime. Yet is there a danger in simply condemning it as an “honour killing”, as so many in the mainstream media and government have?

The concept of “honour” is notoriously difficult to define. At its most basic level, it refers to a person’s righteousness in the eyes of their community. It is often employed to ensure that people act morally. In this respect, if people follow what is considered socially good, they are honoured. If not, they are shamed. This most recent case in Canada is just one of many tragic examples that reveal its continuing influence. In the UK there was the recent, well-publicised murder of teenager Heshu Yones by her father for becoming “westernised”. The family had migrated to Britain to escape persecution by Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraqi Kurdistan, and Heshu had developed a relationship with a Lebanese Christian man.

Yet, by focusing on the subject of honour, such violence is too often explained away by cultural stereotypes – allowing society to dismiss these cases as something that only happens in minority communities with their “outdated” notions of justice. This allows us to completely overlook that, first and foremost, these cases are of violence against women, and the concept of honour is being used to legitimate the continued oppression of women.

There is a tendency in the west to see so-called honour killings as exclusively related to specific cultural traditions. They are often depicted as culturally specific to Muslim communities although they are not, in fact, restricted to any particular religion, culture, type of society or social stratum. In its report on harmful practices, for instance, the charity Imkaan reported a case of a Traveller woman forced to leave her community due to “honour-based violence”.

Yet there is a widespread belief that honour is no longer as important in western societies, what with their emphasis on individual rights and legality. However, the modern-day importance of “honour” should not be so quickly cast aside. In the UK data from the British Crime Survey 2009/2010 suggests that nearly a million women experience at least one incident of domestic abuse each year, while close to 10,000 women are sexually assaulted every week – how many of these cases relate to the “honour” of the perpetrators being allegedly besmirched by victims and survivors?

Feminists have been instrumental in showing how such violence is part of a broader pattern of domination and control of women by men. In 2002 the UN general assembly adopted the resolution “Working towards the elimination of crimes against women committed in the name of honour“, urging states to “raise awareness of the need to prevent and eliminate crimes against women committed in the name of honour, with the aim of changing the attitudes and behaviour that allow such crimes to be committed”. To make this happen nations must comply with their obligations regarding eliminating violence against women.

Tackling “honour” killings requires a shift in political thinking. Instead of regarding them as a cultural tradition common to a range of “backward” societies, the issue needs to be seen in the context of violence against women and the inequality found throughout society. Arguing that gender is the most significant factor does not imply that “honour” crimes only afflict women, but acknowledges the fact that the vast majority of victims of this crime are female.

We need to bring robust strategies to tackle “honour”-based violence into all the services which address violence against women in Britain. Police, the courts, the health service and schools all need to put protection of women and girls at the top of their agenda. There is a need for better working relationships between the police and specialist “violence against women” organisations in all communities. Research from women’s group End Violence Against Women shows that there is an urgent need to address inconsistencies in police responses through further training to counteract “postcode lottery” effects and ensure consistency across the UK.

Yet as domestic violence resources are cut, victims of “honour-based violence” continue to suffer – and so do all women who are victims of violence. Currently the lack of specialist services, including safe shelter for victims, and the general underfunding of support services, especially specialist services for black and minority ethnic communities, needs urgent attention so that women’s and children safety in terms of exiting domestic violence is not compromised. The government should heed the warning signs in Professor Sylvia Walby’s research this week of the damaging impact of the cuts on essential women’s services. Women are particularly vulnerable to abuse and victimisation in harsh economic times; their safety must not be compromised by austerity measures. If we truly want to protect the honour of women we must ensure their rights and safety at all times, and in all places.

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Article source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/feb/01/honour-based-violence-deep-wide