The F-Word Blog
UK survey: 1 In 7 women students have been subjected to sexual assault or violence
By Helen G | 21 March 2010, 07:03
A recent UK survey of 2000 women by the National Union of Students is summarised in a report titled Hidden Marks (direct link to PDF).
1 in 7 women students (14%) has been the victim of serious sexual assault or serious physical violence while at university or college, according to the results of a survey conducted by NUS today.
Here are some of the findings of this survey from the NUS Women’s Campaign:
- 12% have been stalked while at university or college
- In 60% of these cases of sexual assault or stalking, the perpetrator was also a student
- Only 4% of women students who have been seriously sexually assaulted have reported it to their institution
- Only 10% of women students who have been seriously sexually assaulted have reported it to the police
- Of those who did not report serious sexual assault to the police, 50% said it was because they felt ashamed or embarrassed, and 43% because thought they would be blamed for what happened
NUS Women’s Officer, Olivia Bailey, said:
“It is extremely disturbing that so many women students are assaulted and harassed while at university or college, and it is particularly worrying that the perpetrators in many of these cases are fellow students.”“Women students can be left feeling like they are to blame for the violence committed against them. Clearly, not enough is being done to encourage women students to report all instances of assault or harassment to their institutions or to the police.”
“This report is a wake-up call. Universities and colleges must work more closely with local police, victim support services and health services in order to give victims the security and confidence to come forward. Institutions must also deal with all reported instances of assault or harassment with the utmost seriousness, so that no students are left in any doubt that such behaviour will not be tolerated.”
Kate Allen, director of Amnesty International UK added:
“With research showing that a third of the UK population habitually blame a woman who’s raped if she’s been ‘flirtatious’ or worn sexy’ clothing, it’s sadly not that surprising that so few students report sexual violence.”“We’re never going to break a vicious cycle of low levels of reporting meaning few perpetrators being brought to justice if we don’t tackle this issue of women feeling they may be disbelieved or even blamed.”
“We need a public information campaign to challenge this ‘blame culture’ and university campuses should be a key location for this.”
A PDF copy of Hidden Marks: A study of women students’ experiences of harassment, stalking, violence and sexual assault can be downloaded here.
Are you a Bad Girl? Mama Says Good Girls Marry Doctors
By Josephine Tsui | 20 March 2010, 00:25
MAMA SAYS GOOD GIRLS MARRY DOCTORS
Retaining Control, Negotiating Roles: Diasporic Women and their Parents
Part 2 of 4. Are you a bad girl?
Are you a good girl? You know what we mean: you listen to your parents, there’s no gossip about you in the “community.” Or are you a bad girl? Were you caught smoking in high school? Did you marry that white boy against your parents’ wishes? This is part one of a four part series about “Mama Says Good Girls Marry Doctors”.
Post #2; Clarifying what we’re NOT saying.
Now that we’ve clarified what this blog is about, let’s clarify what this blog is NOT about. We are NOT about rebelling against culture, religion, parents or heritage. I think this surprises many people. Often people fear that as different immigrant cultures move to multicultural societies that the culture would be diluted. This results in a large fear that the clash of values between women and their families emphasizes this dilution and the disappearance of our heritage.
The two values which clash are both equally important and valuable but people may be forced to choose one over the other. These situations frequently come up in immigrant cultures as families often need to renegotiate their values in a new setting. For example, the Chinese culture have certain favourite types of food which may be seen as strange or unappetizing from outsiders and as a result they may be harder to find these types of food or may not be accessible. The clashing of these two values also can come up in a more intense situation when daughters are at important parts of their lives such as career choices and partner choices.
On one side represents the value of heritage. Cultures are deemed having the right to practice their religion and cultural heritage. Often in diaspora cultures, practicing these cultural heritages are an important symbol of keeping the community together and remembering a set of values which may be unique. Frequently as diaspora cultures may feel under attack from the host cultures, these values are more important than ever to keep alive, for fear of them being swept away and diluted.
On the other hand, sometimes the responsibilities for these cultural values are largely held on women and they may influence her decisions for a career, and future partners. Though understanding that these responsibilities are also held by men, there are differences between men and women in this respect.
The clashing of these values is a regular occurrence in every young person’s life, only it can be emphasized within immigrant cultures. There is no right path or decision. The problem is that EVERYONE has an opinion about it. For example, France is contemplating banning the Niqab. The Islamic culture has an opinion of women wearing the traditional dress but it is opposed by the French government as it makes people feel uncomfortable.
What’s your opinion? On one hand, young women of coloured are considered spoiled brats for wanting things that may not be culturally appropriate, on the other can we really justify a culture which oppresses women from being an active part in moulding their own values?
Stay tune next week for Part 3 where we go through one woman’s story.
Women’s Liberation Movement @ 40 - Reflections
By Catherine Redfern | 18 March 2010, 21:14
Photo of the Women Against Fundamentalism panel by helen.2006 used with a creative commons licence
On 12-13th March I attended the Women’s Liberation Movement @ 40 conference held at Ruskin College, Oxford; the site of the original conference in 1970 at which several of the WLM’s original demands were developed.
It was a really interesting couple of days. Along with wearing my fingers down to stubs by obsessively live tweeting the conference for those who couldn’t make it, I enjoyed listening to various thought-provoking and challenging talks by various academic and activist feminists (although of course the two aren’t mutually exclusive!).
There was a good mix of ages and a pretty positive atmosphere, although many attendees were concerned that some people couldn’t attend as they couldn’t afford the conference fee; a problem not just for this conference but all similar events held in Universities nowadays. Whilst subsidised childcare was offered, some were worried that mothers would not be able to attend, although others raised their hands and said “we’re here!”.
Whilst there would be a lot of interesting points to pick up on and so much to report, I’m not going to attempt to review every session. Instead I’ll just mention a few general points and impressions from my personal perspective.
Comments have been left open on this blog post. Did you attend? Feel free to share your thoughts on this conference.
What is feminism? First survey results
By Catherine Redfern | 17 March 2010, 23:44
How do feminists explain what feminism is? These images might give you a clue.
[Image shows a ‘cloud’ of 50 words (e.g. women, equality, men, belief); the words are different sizes based on how frequently they were mentioned]
They are produced from the answers given to our survey of 1265 UK feminists (for the scope and limitations of the survey, see more information here), as part of the research for my book with Kristin Aune Reclaiming The F Word (more of the survey results will be published over the next few months and I may cross-post some of them to The F Word, as I’ve done here.).
So, one of our survey questions was “What do you understand the term feminism to mean?”
These images represent the free text of the responses pasted into Wordle (above) and Tag Crowd (below).
I’m hoping to publish more detail about the actual responses to this question in due course. (One of my favourites was the person who wrote: “you’re pulling my leg? i haven’t the time to write this answer!”)
Important points to note: The images represent the most frequent 50 words from the 824 respondents who answered this question online (we had 1265 survey responses in total and about two-thirds completed the survey online). Unfortunately we don’t currently have the funding to type up all of the free text responses that were submitted on paper, but the paper responses were counted in our main (statistical) survey results which are in our book.
I removed the word ‘feminism’ from the responses before processing it, since that’s what they were asked to define.
[Image shows a ‘cloud’ of 50 words (e.g. women, equality, gender, belief); the words are different sizes based on how frequently they were mentioned]
I’ve included both clouds as they look slightly different: the one above, for example, doesn’t have the word ‘men’ in it. I’m not sure why that is, but it’s interesting to see how it gives a slightly different impression.
Both of these make me very happy! More of this sort of thing to come, I hope!
(I’m concerned that these are probably not accessible to all readers, and I’m going to investigate if there is a way of fixing that. Advice very much welcome.)
New feature: In conversation with Senzeni Marasela
By Jess McCabe | 17 March 2010, 23:09
Last year Senzeni Marasela created an art installation called Jonga: the Museum of Women, Dolls & Memories, in a shop-front in Huntly, Scotland. Here Marasela talks to Claudia Zeiske about Barbie and the ways that beauty standards and pressures impose differently on women of colour and white women
Claudia Zeiske: Senzeni, we invited you to come to Scotland to address issues of women’s self-perception, which are high on the agenda at the moment. You initially came up with a proposal to work with a group of women here. Can you remind us of your ideas before you came here?
Senzeni Marasela: I have been doing work on my mother’s dresses for a very long time. I use her dresses as a canvas and tell the story of her life. My mother was a woman of her generation. She was never expected to work or have ambitions that went beyond the gate of her home. Essentially she never had a voice, in a way I speak for her and myself.
I wanted to work with Scottish women and look at creating narratives on dresses. I was interested in their silences. Many obviously were silent through the circumstances of their lives. They were far from the independent women we see on television. They were dependent on someone, often either a social worker or the social services. My culture also encourages dependency amongst women. We were going to take their stories and weave them into dresses. The idea was they could wear them and people could look at their lives.
CZ: … dependency amongst women. Do you mean a network of support and friendship?
SM: I mean the dependency on men and the idea that you only have worth once you are married to a reputable man. After that you are forced into silence. Also because we are so gendered that we are groomed for specific roles, we see very few strong and powerful women. Women are not authors of their own experiences.
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