We are a new feminist group, setting up in June 2010.

We have been concerned about how the children of the internet generation are dealing with all the spoken and unspoken messages out there about how women should be. If children come to internalise the sexist assumptions which most of these messages are based on, this will only serve to perpetuate inequality down the generations. But the more of us who speak out to challenge sexism, the more of a chance there is that things will change for the better.

We are starting with a campaign to encourage Harrogate Borough Council to adopt the new licensing laws that allow better local regulation of lap-dancing venues.

In the longer term, we would like to stimulate discussion of all issues relating to equality between women and men.

Please see our website for further details www.harrogatefeminists.org.uk

The crisis in DR Congo has raged for over 15 years, with citizens victimized by armed groups and their own military. This conflict has particularly affected women and girls as they are raped as a combat strategy to terrorise and humiliate. Tens-of-thousands of women and girls have experienced sexual violence - some raped whilst on the way to school, others while fetching water, and many are kept as sex slaves for soldiers. The situation is so extreme that Margot Wallström, the UN's special representative on sexual violence in conflict, has recently called DR Congo the “rape capital of the world.”

Learning about this dire situation, women from around the world have come together to protect and support Congolese women. In 2006, Run for Congo was started to benefit Women for Women International’s Congo programmes. Since then over £420,000 has been raised internationally.

The global success of this event has brought the Run for Congo to London. Women (and men) can get involved by emailing runforcongouk@womenforwomen.org

The Run for Congo will kick off a week-long advocacy campaign for Congolese women. If you’d like more information about the run or supporting Women for Women International, please email khughes@womenforwomen.org

Details

Event: 10K Run for Congo to benefit Women for Women International
Where: Regents Park
Date: Saturday, 3 July
Time: 8:30am registration
Cost: £10 and sponsorships (target £150+)

For the uninitiated, Ladyfest is a non-profit international festival which presents and supports the creative talents of professional and amateur female acts in the local community, including performances and workshops. The aim of the festival is to celebrate women’s creative talents and to raise awareness of the under-represented and marginalized nature of women’s creative efforts. The first ever Ladyfest began in Olympia , Washington in 2000 and it's still going strong around the world. The third Ladyfest Oxford is taking place this weekend in a number of venues around the city and all are welcome! Proceeds from all events are going to Oxford Sexual Abuse and Rape Crisis Centre. Events include:

Friday 14th May
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Gig at the Jericho Tavern

Featuring: Madam, Baby Gravy, Avanti Maria, Martha Rose. Tickets £5 from We Got Tickets http://www.wegottickets.com/event/77372 or on the door
Venue: Jericho Tavern, 56 Walton St , Oxford , OX2 6AE .
Time: 20:00-Late

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48-hour Film Challenge
First Meeting 18:00-21:00.
Venue: Oriel College , Oriel Square , Oxford , OX1 4EW .
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Saturday 15th May
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Crafternoon
Zines, knitting, banner making and cake…
Venue: The Star, 21 Rectory Rd , Oxford , OX4 1BU
Time: 14:00-17:00
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Talks: Deborah Cameron & Hester Tingey
Deborah Cameron speaking on women’s language (14:00) and Hester Tingey on self-publishing her book “A Breast of the Times” (15:00).
Venue: Exeter College , Turl St , Oxford , OX1 3DP .
Time: 14:00-16:00
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Young Women’s Music Project Workshop
The aim of the project is to provide a safe and encouraging environment for young women to develop musical skills. For more information see Y. W. M. P. on Facebook.
Veune: Ark T Centre, Crowell Rd , Oxford , OX4 3LN .
Time: 17:00-19:00
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FREE! Disco Benefit
London ’s Girl Germs and other female DJs playing indie-pop, riot grrrl, 60s girl groups and much more.
Venue: Baby Simple, 213 Cowley Rd , Oxford , OX4 1XF .
Time: 20:00-Late
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Sunday 16th May
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Feminist Films Plus 48-hour Film Screening
Come and see: Times Square (13:00), Daisies (15:30), Wasp (17:15) and the results of the 48-hour Film Challenge (18:00).
Venue: Ruskin College , Walton Street , Oxford , OX1 2HE .
Time: 13:00
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Sunday Roast Ladyfest Special
More zines, cakes and bands, plus charity raffle draw.
Venue: The Cellar, Frewin Court (behind Lush), Oxford , OX1 3HZ.
Time: 20:30 (Doors Open)

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For more details see the Ladyfest Oxford 2010 Website.

We hope to see you there!

Dita von Teese, with her white skin, large breasts and tiny waist, conforms to the mainstream stereotype of the sexual woman, the dominant cultural image that leaves ordinary women with low self-esteem and anxiety, reaching for the cosmetic surgeon’s knife. The burlesque performance at the gallery’s opening becomes an explicit celebration of this porn culture that will overshadow the critique presented in the art itself.

Perhaps in a female-dominated burlesque venue, with a woman compèring an event featuring performances from a range of women with varying body types, then Von Teese’s skillfully exaggerated performance would read differently. But this performance is taking place in a male-dominated context. The majority of the artists are men, the headline promotional material for the show is male dominated, and Dita would be the only person using and revealing her own body. In this context her act inevitably locks back into the old, objectified 'sexual performance for men.

Even the title of the show raises questions about cultural sensitivity and makes one question whether this was taken into account when the BCC approved the exhibition. Calling an exhibition "art from the New World" would maintain the myth that the Americas were 'discovered' by Europeans as an empty space waiting to be populated. Referring to the exhibition as the 'New World' effectively renders invisible the presence of the Native American people in the Americas before colonisation.

O, BCMAG, surely you can do better than this? Why bring in this audience if all you do is replicate the dangerous stereotypes that so much research has demonstrated is deeply damaging to our culture; damaging to women and also the psyches of young men; damaging to the possibility of genuinely equal and mutual sexual relationships.

Bristol feminists want to celebrate the real beauty and excitement of female sexuality. But this repetition of the stereotyped view of female sexuality perpetuates the endless stream of sterilised, blank and repetitive sexual representation that permeates our every day cultural experience and that diminishes us all.

Signed, Bristol Feminists

A few weeks ago Bidisha wrote an article for The Guardian under the headline "I'm tired of being the token woman", in which she discussed what she called "a cultural femicide", the huge underrepresentation of women in the arts. This low visibility resonates with my own experiences as a playwright. Despite the fact that women outnumber men in theatre courses at university, the theatre industry, in particular writing still remains male dominated. Only 17% of produced playwrights are women and only 38% of stage roles are for women. An industry in which you are disadvantaged before you even pick up a pen (or open a word document) is hardly conducive to creativity. As a reaction, fellow playwright Hana MacKechnie and I have decided to start a group with two aims: women's writing and women writers.

Based in Edinburgh, the women writers group has been created in order to support and facilitate the work of women writers. Hana and I have found that having people who you trust to read your work, to offer feedback, ideas and encouragement is invaluable. We also found that these people were overwhelming other women writers. Although every woman writer's experiences and creative process are different, we have a common ground in our marginal position in writing. We understand the difficulty in creating in a culture which does not seem to value what you create. Hana and I hope that the group will become a space for women to come to when they need creative support or want to offer it. As the group expands we also hope to be able to offer workshops with successful women writers and arrange opportunities to work with professional actors.

Our other aim is to create a space where women writers are taken seriously. Underrepresentation is too often excused as a lack of interest from women or put down to intrinsic differences. We must make women writers more visible in order to expose the underlying inequality at work. We are making our voices heard. We are here, we are creating, we just aren't being listened to.

The first meeting of the women writers group will take place on Wednesday 19 May, 7pm at Holyrood 9a, Holyrood road. Whether you write plays, poetry, novels, articles or haikus, or just want to support the work of women writers we would love to see you there.

If you have any questions please contact us on our facebook group.

Photo of pens and scrawl by pigpogm, shared on Flickr under a Creative Commons license

Five actions you can take to halt Bita's deportation

Shreen is a volunteer for the Iranian and Kurdish Women's Rights Organisation (IKWRO), who support Bita's case. Her personal website is www.shreen-distracted.com.

The tragic plane crash that killed the Polish president Lech Kaczyński and 95 other prominent Polish leaders included several women who defined for many what it meant to be a successful woman in politics. They were leaders for all Poles, whose input into the rebuilding of the nation over the last 20 years cannot be underestimated. They will be missed.

Maria Kaczyńska, the First Lady
An economist, Maria Kaczyńska gave up a professional career to build the family, while her husband worked full time on the rebuilding of Poland. As the First Lady, she shone a bright light of independence, often publicly disagreeing with her right wing husband and his party over issues important for women, like in-vitro fertilization, which she supported, and by speaking out against a right wing move to forbid abortion in all forms through the constitution. Her powerful stance was in contrast to her soft spoken nature.

Jolanta Szymanek-Deresz, Member of Parliament and former Presidential Secretary of State
While most shine in one category, like career, family, or moral values, Ms Szymanek-Deresz was a leader in more ways than one. In 2006, she was recognized to be among 12 of the best MPs in a ranking by “Polityka” a politics magazine. She was recognized for her diligence, knowledge, competence, and political style. She was the initiator and member of the Polish Women’s Congress, a society promoting the role of women in Poland.

She was a politician and an attorney, who fought hard for her causes. She was known for her professionalism and resistance to resorting to personal attacks in her work.

Her successful career, first as the one who organized the previous President’s successful election campaign, then as his Secretary of State, and finally as an MP, always left room for the family, which was the most important thing to her. She was known as an optimist, both in front of the cameras, and as a private person.

Izabela Jaruga-Nowacka, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Social Policy (2004-2006), Member of Parliament
An accomplished equal rights advocate, Izabela Jaruga-Nowacka was instrumental in pushing through Parliament several initiatives that were key to aiding the poor and women. She believed that equality of women is a fundamental value of a modern democracy and state.

From 2001-2004, Ms Jaruga-Nowacka was charged with promoting equality between the status of women and men. As part of her role, she successfully introduced several important laws against violence in the home, and against mobbing in the workplace.

For her work in promoting women’s rights, she was among the 1000 women nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Thanks to Ms Jaruga-Nowacka, Poland ratified the Revised European Social Charter.

Krystyna Bochenek, Senator and Deputy Speaker of the Senate
Best known as the organizer of the National Spelling Bee - a difficult competition, and a unique celebration of the Polish language - Krystyna Bochenek started her career as a radio journalist where she focused on the promotion of the Polish language. She was also a co-creator of the National Blood Donation initiative, which partnered with several non-profit organizations including for those living with disabilities.

At the time of the crash, Krystyna Bochenek was the Deputy Speaker of the Senate in which she was a member of the Culture and Media commission. She was not politically affiliated.

Grażyna Gęsicka, Member of Parliament and leader of the Opposition Parliamentary Club (Law and Justice Party)
A politician ever since the first days of post-communist Poland, Grażyna Gęsicka participated in the Round Table negotiations, which brought about the fall of communism in Poland in 1989. Throughout her career, she held numerous government positions in the area of employment and social policy. In 2005, she became the Minister of Regional Development.

She was the author and co-author of over 10 books and over 30 dissertations for local and international publications.

I found feminism when it came shooting out of my uterus.

I'd been 'equality-minded' before that, certainly, but the harsh, cold reality of deeply-ingrained and omnipresent sexism didn't hit me full in the face until I became a mother. Having a baby changed my life in a practical sense in that my lifestyle was drastically altered, but it also altered my view of the world and gave me a new understanding of just how conscripted my role in it was. None of the pregnancy or parenting books had prepared me for that. The antipathy I'd felt towards 'badly behaved' children in public, all of the judgement and scorn I'd heaped on mothers I felt weren't 'doing it right', my grand proclamations that I would do things a certain way and that my kids would be different...well, let's just say that hindsight is an incredibly humbling (and embarrassing) thing. The rose tinted glasses came off and what I saw and experienced shocked me.

I couldn't get a part-time job that would pay the bills and full-time work was out of the question with the astronomical cost of childcare compared to my salary level. I was suddenly thrown into the role of stay-at-home mum, a 'luxury' that I was meant to be thrilled with but which felt more like a mandate than a choice. That's not to say I wasn't very privileged because I was (and am), but it made me realise that if I wasn't happy with the lack of choices available to me, how few did women of lesser socio-economic status have? I came to realise that class is inexorably and completely woven into and around mothering, constricting it to fit a certain mould of societal expectation, often to the detriment of individuals and their families.

My growing involvement with feminist activism and interest in mothering as an important intersection of that ideology has lit a fire in my belly for revolution, but a feeling of exclusion from the 'mainstream' ranks of feminism is sometimes strong. Many mothers I have spoken to (both self-proclaimed feminists and otherwise) feel the same way. When an entire conference on reproductive rights doesn't include a single workshop on birth; when stay-at-home mothers are denigrated for wasting their skills and educations; when so many resources are directed towards fighting strip clubs and lads' mags but so little towards child poverty; when public spaces and services are made inaccessible and unwelcoming to families; when feminist books devote many more pages to the evils of pornography than the fact that mothers are disproportionately the ones suffering the monumental and adverse effects of the gender pay gap...it's enough to make many mothers feel they've been forgotten by feminism, that their struggles are unimportant or inevitable.

To help give parents a place to discuss feminist issues important to them and strategise our role in the women's rights movement, I've started a new website called Fertile Feminism. Its goal is to not only give voice and venue to discourse among parents, but non-parents as well. Without open and honest dialogue between us, divides (whether real or imagined) will continue to dominate at a time when feminism needs, more than ever, some cohesion. Imagine what it would mean to our movement if thousands and millions of mothers, many of whom hold feminist principles, were engaged with and included in a real, meaningful way; where meetings and marches are not always held at our children's bedtimes or in places where our pushchairs won't fit, our children can't play and there's nowhere to change a nappy. I've noticed a recent improvement in considering these things in some groups and organisations and applaud their efforts, but there's plenty of room for improvement. Parents can be activists too, but only if our caretaking responsibilities are being met concurrently. Could helping mothers be proud to use 'the f word' be the key to riding the third wave, our wave, to the crest of something meaningful, something that our granddaughters will read about in their history books? I think it just might be.

I hope you'll visit Fertile Feminism and join the discussion.

Image by Emery Co Photo, shared under a Creative Commons License.

Women, know your limits! Fancy winning an Oscar? Sure, it might have been your dream since you were a little girl, you might have practised your speech in the bathroom mirror with a shampoo bottle a la Kate Winslet, but be careful what you wish for, because the break up of the Winslet-Mendes union, and the current rumours about Sandra Bullock, prove - yes prove - that if you win an Oscar for best actress you are condemning yourself to romantic misery.

Oh, except, aren't Sandra Bullock's current troubles due to a rumour about an affair that happened last year, when she won her Oscar just last week? So, what, curse fans, he guessed that she was going to bag the statuette (read: castration device) and did whatever it turns out he actually did, in advance? How strangely, um, prescient! And how come no one mentions the fact that last year's best actor winner, Sean Penn, also headed for splitsville not long after? Or the fact that Oscar-bait Meryl Streep has been married to the same man since 1978? Or that Hollywood's most loveless ever woman - Jennifer Aniston - has never even been nominated? Or the fact that Charlize Theron's relationship breakdown didn't happen until 6 years after her win? Reminds me of the line in the Tooth and Claw episode of Doctor Who where Queen Victoria proclaims of the Koh-i-Noor, "It is said that anyone who owns it will surely die!" And The Doctor tosses back, "Well that's true of anything if you wait long enough."

'Cause everyone knows that Hollywood romances are notoriously fleeting. Add to that mix the fact that, this century, the average best actress winner has been nearly a decade younger than the average best actor recipient, and thus probably in a more transient relationship to begin with, and this looks more like a case of people seeing what they want to see. Seeing that no man would want to be with a successful woman? That women should stop trying to 'have it all'?

Isn't the Oscar curse yet another way of telling women that too much success (i.e. being more successful than your man) is unladylike? And of course the punishment for being unladylike is losing you man. Oh noes!

Image by Ho0n, shared under a Creative Commons license.

As a transsexual woman I feel strongly that Gender Studies academics objectify transsexual people like lab rats.

A year or two ago I considered doing Gender Studies at the local Uni department. As I got more into preparation I was concerned that there was a complete lack of interest in the physical and neurological side of it; VS Ramachandran for instance has investigated neurological mapping, the phenomenon of phantom penis in ftm trans guys and the converse of this in mtf women.

Another example of the importance of physical and neurological aspects of gender identity is the tragic David Reimer case. David was accidentally mutilated as a baby being circumcised in the sixties and surgically and socially reassigned as a girl on the advice of John Money, a so-called 'expert' in the field. For a long time the follow up research claimed that he was adapting well to being raised as a girl, this had a big influence on me as a young trans undergraduate in the '70s and contributed to persuading me that I could condition myself to accept my body.

The truth is different. As a teenager David Reimer rebelled against his assignment as a girl, his mother was unhappy with the way things were going and told David what had happened. David retransitioned to being a boy, took male hormones and eventually had some reconstructive surgeries. He actually had an identical twin who was uninjured and grew up naturally. Tragically they both committed suicide some years ago.

The moral of this story has to be that we are born with some sense of bodily identity.

The GS department seem completely uninterested in lynchpin cases such as this. The turning point for me was having a conversation with one of their students who attempted to deconstruct me to my face, asserting that I must have acquired my gender identity by identifying with my mother as a role model, imagining that ‘role’ was more important than my body. This kind of condescending attitude is totally unacceptable.

So not long after, I decided that GS was not for me because I didn't want to go to a department where I would be some kind of specimen to be deconstructed, and become part of some zeitgeist which completely ignored and denied my own sense of bodily identity as who I am, as well as the medical and scientific evidence which supports that.

Anyone who has taken hormones will know that they affect the way that you feel, and so to a degree male and female bodies have certain characteristics, feelings etc. However, of course this is greatly modified by social example. I am with those who really want to get away from social 'role' models of gender as there is so much potential for variation. For me it is about morphology.

One interesting thing I have observed about people in the GS department is that most (not all) are actually quite conventional in appearance and gender expression, totally cis one might say. This adds to my feeling that they have something of a lab rat attitude towards us. They seem to be totally committed to an absolute deconstruction of gender for us, based on Butler, while themselves conforming. In Julia Serrano's book she says there are no ‘essential differences between women and men’. If so, why would transsexuals feel such dysphoria and such a strong drive to change our bodies? We have to acknowledge the biological need for a two sex system for reproduction however 'politically unacceptable' some people might find that.

More recently as my views have become known, I have noticed that the lecturers are touchy about me, don't like me to ask questions at public events and even students act like I am ignorant on the subject of gender, when I had transitioned while most of them were still children.

In my view they seem to be acting in such a way that indicates they feel threatened by the fact that I have so much life experience and they only have theory.

It is twenty five years since I transitioned and I have come to realise my empowerment about this. I don't need academics to interpret me for myself, they should listen to my experience rather than ignore and condescend.

In September 2010, a colleague and I will be hosting a conference at the University of Manchester on female werewolves in art, literature, folklore and film. While this might seem like a remarkably specialised subject, the response we’ve had so far has been overwhelming. It seems like 2010 is going to be the year of the she-wolf.

My own interest in female werewolves - and the original idea for the conference - came about almost by accident. I wrote my PhD thesis on monsters in medieval literature and two of my central texts featured male werewolves. As I was looking at the ways in which monsters are gendered, I put a neat little footnote to the effect that werewolves are usually male, though there are sometimes exceptions. I think I originally mentioned the film Ginger Snaps and Buffy the Vampire Slayer as examples of notable female werewolves. Not long after that, a friend mentioned that there is a female werewolf in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series. Then someone else recommended I read Suzy McKee Charnas’s short story ‘Boobs’. I watched The Curse, Cursed and An American Werewolf in Paris; I found an entire anthology of female werewolf stories published by Cleis Press; I saw work by Australian visual artists that does amazing things with the motif of the female werewolf. Everywhere I looked, I found more examples of fascinating and disturbing she-wolves, and I realized that a footnote was not going to be enough to do them justice. Around the time my own ideas were starting to develop, I was introduced to Carys Crossen, a PhD student at Manchester. Carys is currently writing her thesis on post-1800 werewolves, with a focus on gender and sexuality. We pooled our knowledge, and the conference began to come to life.

Carys and I are not the only researchers working on werewolves. As we’ve been marketing the conference, I’ve been struck by the growing interest in this subject. Female werewolves are a hot topic in current scholarship and a number of recent PhD theses and articles have grappled with the problem of what exactly a female werewolf is or why there are fewer she-wolves than he-wolves. But these questions are not just the preserve of the academic community. In 2010, a number of new books and TV shows will feature female werewolves in some form or another - including (and I still don’t know if this is a joke) a Sex and the City-style show about four werewolves, produced by the Fox Network. It’s pretty difficult not to conclude that werewolves are indeed the new vampires.

But is there a reason why werewolves are usually male? I’m afraid I don’t have an absolute answer to that. Some of the speakers at the Manchester conference will be putting forward their own views on this tricky question, and drawing on folklore, mythology, psychoanalysis and historical evidence to shed some light on it. But the incredible response we’ve had to our call for submissions, from people working in diverse areas - from witchcraft trials to self-help books, from visual art to Scottish folk tales - makes me wonder if there even is a definitive answer. All I know for sure is that female werewolves continue to have a strong hold on the imagination. They’re alluring, certainly, but also challenging and threatening. And they definitely don’t belong in a footnote.

The She-Wolf conference will be held at the University of Manchester, 9-10 September 2010. The submission deadline is 31 March 2010. For more information, contact Dr. Hannah Priest at hannah.priest@manchester.ac.uk.

Linocut by Jazmina Cininas, 'Angela prefers the company of wolves', used with permission

Each year, International Women’s Day provides a welcome opportunity to assess the progress which has - or has not - been made toward gender equality and the advancement of women’s rights around the world. This past year has seen the 30th anniversary of CEDAW, the UN’s international bill of rights for women, which defines discrimination and lays out an agenda for the 186 countries who are party to the treaty to put into action. Though we are still a long way from global gender equality, some important steps have been made in the right direction.

The UN General Assembly’s resolution, passed in October, to create a new ‘super agency’ combining the work of the UN’s four disparate bodies working to end discrimination against women, was the result of years of campaigning to create an organisation whose resources and status reflect the importance of the cause at hand.

The UN Security Council has reaffirmed its commitment to promoting women’s participation in decision-making in matters of peace and security around the world, and created a new Special Representative post to take forward its important work to address sexual violence in armed conflict.

But for all these resolutions and statements of good intent, progress is slow when it comes to actually improving women’s lives. A new report by Action Aid reveals the extent of continued inequality across the world; 60 million girls are assaulted at or on their way to school each year; 41 million girls do not receive a primary school education and two thirds of illiterate young people are women. As many as 1 in 3 women are sexually abused in their lifetime, and women make up less than 20% of MPs in national Parliaments.

The conference rooms and negotiating tables where lofty ideals become international treaties are far removed from the realities in which the majority of women live; indeed, often these two worlds seem to have little impact on each other. But those of us who have the privilege of being citizens in a democracy (however imperfect), can at least make our voices heard, to try to hold our own government to account and force it to play its part in the global campaign for gender equality.

The British Government’s record on promoting women’s rights internationally is mixed - perhaps not surprisingly, given that our own Parliament is just 19.5% women. Selling the invasion of Afghanistan as a mission to liberate women was a terrible blunder which may well have done more harm than good to efforts to promote women’s rights abroad, confirming for many their suspicions that gender equality is a concept used for advancing an imperialist agenda. But for all its faults, when compared with other governments around the world, ours deserves some praise for its efforts. The British Government was one of the leading advocates for bringing the women’s movement to the table at the UN Security Council, and remains one of only 14 UN member states to have developed a National Action Plan for incorporating gender analysis into all our foreign policy.

However, in the 30 years of CEDAW’s existence, the UK has not once put forward a candidate for election to any of its 23 committee seats, nor is it fielding a candidate in this year’s elections. The UK will not nominate a candidate for the position of Under Secretary General to head up the new UN Agency for Women, or for the post of Special Representative Against Sexual Violence in Armed Conflict.

While the Obama administration has appointed an Ambassador at Large for Global Women’s Issues, Gordon Brown has no such plans - and I’ll be more than a little surprised if the next government does.

This has caused considerable upset among activists and campaigners in the UK. “Surely,” asks gender expert Lesley Abdela, “the Government cannot be suggesting that there is no one in the UK who is qualified for any of these posts?”

I suspect the reasons have far more to do with political calculation and horse-trading, to which Baroness Kinnock almost alludes in her explanation of this omission. It is not that the Government doesn’t care, but that it has only so many funds, and so much political capital with other UN member states, and it is not prepared to use up those resources on rights for women.

For all the lip service it has paid to this issue, our Government has decided that women’s rights are not a high priority in this country’s relations with the wider world.

It has been almost 100 years since the declaration of IWD and we still have some way to go in securing the human rights of all women, both here in the UK and across the globe.

The current economic climate is another additional excuse for the systematic failure of decision makers to effectively address and tackle the continued and shameful discrimination and oppression millions of women experience all over the world.

Our women’s sector is diminishing before our eyes. In particular, women’s organisations that support ethnic minorities, refugees and other long neglected groups in our society are taking a considerable hit, with reports of their services being de-commissioned at an alarming rate.

Unfortunately, we know that with a reduced women's sector comes increased inequality for women. So it is more vital than ever that the organisations and services we provide do not completely disappear.

During increasingly difficult times women as individuals and as organisations are renowned for their creativity and resilience and survival. So what should be our collective creative responses to this crisis? What choices do we have and what remedies should we be adopting? What kind of leadership should we be demonstrating?

I believe it is absolutely essential for us as women to work differently and better. In working towards the liberation of women and towards the liberation of mother nature (environmental sustainability), the choices we make at this time will inform the legacy we leave our children and future generations.

One of the crucial things we must do is maintain the diversity and number of women's organisations and services, and let me be clear; I mean women’s organisations and services led by and for women and women only.

In a hostile commissioning environment, during an economic downturn and with a potential change in government, our unity and solidarity is more crucial than ever. We must rise to this challenge and respond with sisterly concern, constantly asking ourselves - how do we make choices which promote our own organisations and those of our sisters?

One of the things which saddens me the most is the excuse I sometimes hear that because of commissioning processes we must compete. We don’t, we can form partnerships and we can collaborate.

We always say to decision makers - we want to see political will in support for our sector. We also need to see that will within our own sector. Leadership is either about about power and control or liberation. We have choices - we don’t have to follow the herd - we can be so much better than that.

So for this year, and in honour and celebration of the sisters, mothers and grandmothers who fought and died (and who continue to do so) for the rights we do enjoy, let’s be the best we can be. We are different - but equal - to men, so let’s celebrate and showcase that difference and lead the way as an example of another possibility … a better world for all.

Photo by gaelx, shared under a Creative Commons License.

The Association for Improvements in the Maternity Services (AIMS), along with the National Childbirth Trust and many midwifery organisations, are Reclaiming Birth by organising a march to Whitehall via Westminster Bridge this Sunday, 7 March, with a rally and speeches afterwards on the importance of real options in maternity care. The gathering point is Geraldine Mary Harmsworth Park, Lambeth Road, London SE1 4EQ from 13:00 with the march setting off at 13:30. A march guide and poster promoting the event can be found on the AIMS website.

I've written before on the sometimes horrifying consequences of a poor maternity service and have asked you to speak out against the closure of units known to provide pregnant women with excellent care and real options, regardless of their income level or postcode. Unfortunately, despite many organisations' best efforts, these things are still happening with alarming regularity. Promise after governmental promise to reform maternity care in the UK has gone unfulfilled. Since 1993, we have been told that major changes are needed to provide an adequate service to all women, yet change has not come. As with many 'women's issues', it has been put on the back burner, waiting for some mythical, opportune time in which it can be properly addressed.

And now, a growing number of women are dissatisfied with and even harmed by their maternal care. An October 2009 survey conducted by Netmums in association with the Royal College of Midwives found that 30 per cent were not offered free antenatal classes, 13 per cent were offered no choice in where they could have their baby, 35 per cent reported being left alone during labour at a worrying time, 22 per cent did not feel involved in decisions about their care and 43 per cent of mothers did not have sufficient access to a midwife on the postnatal ward. Things obviously need to change and the Reclaiming Birth march hopes to help bring those changes about.

If you are unable to attend (and even if you are!), please consider signing the petition and writing to the Minister of Health and your MP. Contact details and sample letters can be found here. Monetary donations to help cover the costs of the rally are also appreciated.

It’s never easy for the women’s sector!

At the best of times, funding for organisations supporting and lobbying for women can be scant and unreliable, but with the current economic climate these already tenuous links are becoming even more fragile.

Despite this often precarious existence, women’s groups have responded with impressive resilience and resourcefulness, whether by harnessing social media as a lobbying tool, or by developing enterprising methods of raising their own income in order to stay afloat.

Nonetheless, at the moment funding from public bodies is likely to decrease because of the recession, and we need more than ever to demonstrate the power and importance of the women's sector.

To do this, the Women’s Resource Centre is planning to produce a landmark report to demonstrate to the government and funders the vital role women’s organisations play and the need for such groups and to help compile it we have a questionnaire we need members of women’s organisations to complete.

We want to make sure that we are collecting information on a number of issues:

• the impact of the recession on the work of women’s groups
• bidding for public service contracts
• the work you do to make change in your local area
• the support you get from the WRC

By completing this questionnaire you will play a vital role in our research. And what’s more, all completed questionnaires - where full contact details are provided - will be entered into our prize draw! There will be two £100 prizes for your organisation or another not-for-profit or social enterprise of your choice.

The WRC aims to be accessible and inclusive. If you would prefer, this questionnaire can be completed over the phone. To arrange this, please contact Sue Christoforou on: Email: suechristoforou[at]wrc.org.uk, Ph: 020 7324 3030.

The survey should take about 15 minutes to complete. All responses will be anonymous, so there will be no way for your answers to be traced back to you.

The survey closes 28 February 2010. If you would like to respond to the survey but think you may have problems meeting the deadline, please contact us.

Maura points out the lack of 'alone time' given to women in other articles in the piece, saying that actress Ingrid Pitt is the only woman with any time in the spotlight - half a page in a 'My Life In Horror' section.

Maura told me: "I really do not enjoy bringing up this matter. Equally, someone has to say something. I'm not being over-dramatic, or asking for anything outrageous. What I want is that women get a fair representation."

Presumably, SFX will issue some sort of apology, as the story has now been picked up by The Guardian and Maura is in contact with the editors. One might think, however, that the industry should have learned its lesson five months ago, when the British Fantasy Society had to issue an apology for their anthology In Conversation: A Writer's Perspective, Volume One: Horror, which interviewed solely male writers in the genre.

The most ironic thing about all this, is that it has happened during the 'Women in Horror' month, an event created because female creators in this genre get so little recognition.

Here in Wales, a new charity, Beat Cymru launches at the National Assembly for Wales today. It is part of the UK charity Beat, the re-branded Eating Disorders Association.

As part of the launch process, the new charity carried out research with the company Beaufort to establish people's view on eating disorders in Wales. Very little research on perceptions of eating disorders in Wales exists, therefore this research is to be welcomed. It is an attempt to gather information towards setting up an anti-stigma campaign, and in establishing who the charity should target support services to, and self help groups.

The research was shocking indeed. Of the 1,000 people surveyed across the country, one in five said that they did not think of eating disorders as a mental health issue. Only one third think people with eating disorders are more likely to die than people with other psychiatric disorders, and a significant proportion believe eating disorders are a lifestyle choice, are brought on by sufferers themselves - particularly older respondents and (older) men.

It's clear that an anti-stigma campaign is essential, especially given that more than three quarters agreed in the survey that "talking about eating disorders is often a taboo subject", and that many thought that an eating disorder was brought about by a diet gone wrong.

An estimated 56,000 people suffer from eating disorders in Wales, and we know that there is a rise in men who are suffering from eating disorders - many showing symptoms of compulsive exercising. But despite the gloomy findings from the statistics, Wales is moving forward on this agenda.

In conjunction with the launch of the new charity, the cross-party group on eating disorders which I founded and chair at the National Assembly - a group which provides a voice for those with eating disorders in Wales, has successfully lobbied the Welsh government for change (health is devolved to Wales).

We have secured a framework on eating disorders in Wales from the Health Minister, with ￡1m of funding for community services for the next three years. We are also campaigning for self esteem and confidence lessons to be a main part of the National curriculum in Wales as a way of seeking to stop young people from developing eating disorders later in life. We are dedicated to calling for a national in-patient treatment unit in Wales, as currently people who need specialised treatment must apply for private treatment in England.

I have met many people who suffer from eating disorders since my involvement with this campaign, and this evening at the Senedd we will hear the story of Sarah Perrot from Swansea, a young ice skater who had an eating disorder.

Young women I have met are pressurised to be thin, to look attractive, and we need to educated them to believe in themselves, and to recognise that the images on their screens and the airbrushed pictures in their magazines do not reflect the normality of the people we see every day on our streets.

I look forward to working with Beat Cymru in the future, and to tackling the stigma associated with eating disorders.

On 28th January the government announced changes to the parental leave system, which currently allocates the birth mother up to twelve months, of which nine months can be partly paid. Her partner (male or female) gets up to two weeks at minimal pay. The government’s new plans allow the mother to allocate all or part of the final three months’ unpaid and three months’ paid leave to her partner should they wish. The Conservatives wish to allow couples to take 38 weeks of a total twelve months’ leave in any combination they want. As someone who looks after children when his partner is working, earns roughly what she does, whose partner is currently feeling much like this about maternity leave, and who only managed by luck to have an extended period of time with my first son, I should be jumping for joy at these moves to allow us choice. Both, however, are deeply flawed.

There can be no real reason for allocating the early part of leave only to women and the later part, potentially, to their partners. Women often need less than six months to recover after birth, and that time should be for their own physical or emotional wellbeing and treated as ‘sick’ leave, not incorporated into leave for childcare. The Conservatives’ proposal comes close to what has been argued for by Jennifer Gray on this site, but ignores one key piece of reasoning behind an EHRC leave proposal. By allowing leave to be taken simultaneously, male partners may indeed get to ‘help out’. Regardless of the time spent actually caring for children, ‘helping out’ and ‘assuming responsibility’ are not the same, and it is notable that more men think they take ‘responsibility’ than women think their partners do. The sphere in which responsibility is taken also needs examining. I know many men who undertake a fair share of the childcare at home, but rarely take the baby out of the home, something which would be impossible if they actually looked after children on their own. Allowing men to act as societally invisible subsidised domestic sidekicks in a supposedly woman’s world does not promote the idea that childcare should be their responsibility too.

My key objection is that ‘choice’ is not sufficient to change the idea that this leave, and childcare, are primarily intended for women, and may make the situation worse by suggesting the current status quo is desired rather than enforced. Gendered inequalities in existing pay and welfare structures mean that choice is so constrained by external circumstance that what ‘makes sense’ can hardly be seen as choice at all, so that two in five men do not take even what leave they are currently allowed . The problem goes much deeper than economics. From the children’s centre staff who refer to me as ‘’babysitting’; to the women at baby group whose discussions about childcare never consider their men staying at home; to a barrage of media coverage, the world outside of the feminist blogsphere is one in which the assumption of female caring is so strong it makes choice and criticism of that choice about when and if a woman returns to work, not whether her male partner should be involved. The law needs to change this, not work within it.

Meaningful reform of parental leave is critical to parents and non-parents. The initial period of leave influences which partner does what for the rest of their children’s childhood, and the way their children and other adults perceive gender roles. The image of women alone as child carers constrains all adults, and women especially. We don’t need a law which states that men can do childcare if they want, but one which states that they should. Its basic components must be a separation of the recovery period of the mother from leave given for childcare, and leave periods for both partners which allow some flexibility but which cannot be taken largely simultaneously. The government claims these ideas offer ‘radically more choice’; it would be better for us all if they simply offered a more radical choice.

In 1973 the United States Supreme Court decided the case of Roe v Wade. The court held that "a woman has the right to choose abortion care until fetal viability" which meant the restrictions on abortion that two thirds of US states had previously enacted became illegal.

In the UK, the 1967 Abortion Act had legalised abortion in England, Scotland and Wales. Northern Ireland's legislation still blocks this act.

Naral Pro-Choice America are marking the anniversary of Roe v Wade in a way that we can all join in this coming Friday:

Blog for Choice Day 2010

Join us on Friday, January 22, 2010 - the 37th anniversary of Roe v. Wade - for the fifth annual Blog for Choice Day!

What is Blog for Choice Day?

Each year, NARAL Pro-Choice America poses a question to pro-choice bloggers before the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, and then asks them to blog their answer on January 22.

Blog for Choice Day provides us with an opportunity to raise the profile of reproductive rights in the blogosphere, all the while celebrating Roe's 37th anniversary. Plus, it's a great way to let your readers and the mainstream media know that a woman's right to choose is a core progressive value that must be protected and advanced.

Last year more than 500 people participated in this effort. We hope you will join us this year!

If you don't have a blog, you can still participate! You can post your response in a Note on Facebook, or tweet your response on Twitter and use the hashtag #bfcd.

This year's topic

In honor of Dr. George Tiller, who often wore a button that simply read, "Trust Women," this year's Blog for Choice question is:

What does Trust Women mean to you?

Let us know that you'll be participating by filling out the form below. We'll publish a list of everyone who's blogging. Be sure to tag your posts with "Blog for Choice" to show all your readers that you're joining in.

There is a sign up form on the link above if you would like your blog post to be linked to the Naral website. I would suggest however, that you only sign up after you have a URL address for your blog post, as last year's page links to the blogs involved but not many are links to the specific post.

Every single woman from Asylum Aid on Vimeo.

(Transcript coming soon.)

In her latest inspection report, the HM Chief Inspector of Prisons, Anne Owers, expresses serious concern at the plight of a small number of scared and isolated single women asylum seekers held in the largely male establishment of Tinsley House. In the criminal justice system, if women are to be detained in prison, they would never be placed in a men’s prison.

This issue was raised in a report published at the start of December by the Women’s Asylum Charter - supported by over 200 organisations. Every Single Woman reported that at Tinsley House a woman can regularly be the only female detainee surrounded by 116 males. With such a disproportionate number of females to males, women feel intimidated, scared and isolated.

In Every Single Woman we made reference to the findings of an earlier investigation into Tinsley House by the Chief Inspector held in March 2008, where she reported: “We were particularly troubled by the plight of single women. At one point during the inspection there was only one and she lay in bed most of the day avoiding the communal accommodation. The amount and quality of accommodation now afforded to single women had been reduced, and they appeared marginalised and almost forgotten. They were left to share facilities within a mainly male establishment and this could be both embarrassing and intimidating. Their situation should be addressed as a matter of urgency.”

More recently, women in Tinsley House told the Chief Inspector they felt unsafe and uncomfortable mixing in communal areas with male detainees. This meant not only leisure facilities, such as they exist, including the gym but in areas such as the dining room. The Chief Inspector noticed piecemeal improvements, such as in the clinic there were notices explaining that female detainees could see female staff, including doctors and nurses. But her latest report, released on 18th December, more than 18 months after the previous report into the same centre, states: “On our return for this unannounced follow-up inspection, conditions had generally deteriorated and the arrangements for children and single women were now wholly unacceptable.”

The limited nature of any improvements at Tinsley House, such as they are, which take place alongside worsening conditions in other areas, expose the lack of a strategic approach both within the centre and within the wider asylum system for ensuring women seeking asylum receive gender-sensitive treatment.

The Chief Inspector’s report states “there were no specific policies or strategic initiatives to address their needs … There was no clear time-limited strategy with an accompanying action plan to show progress. There was no oversight from any management committee.”

Supporters of the Women’s Asylum Charter believe that people who come to the UK to claim asylum should not be detained but if they are, “Women asylum seekers detained in Immigration Removal Centres should receive, at a minimum, a comparable standard of treatment and facilities to women in prisons in the UK.”

And following such a damning report from the Chief Inspector of the UK Border Agency needs to take action. Firstly in the instance of Tinsley House it must conclude women can no longer be housed there or, as the Chief Inspector suggests, that the opening of Brook House nearby might allow Tinsley House to be refurbished to hold only families and single women. But more importantly the UK Border Agency needs a change of culture designed to produce a genuinely gender-sensitive asylum system to ensure that women asylum seekers receive a comparable standard of treatment to women in similar situations who are settled in the UK, and so that situations such as those that have arisen in Tinsley House cannot do so in future.

To read the Every Single Woman report and watch the short film, visit www.asylumaid.org.uk/charter

Anne Owers' report into Tinsley House can be read here.