Saturday 17 December 2011

Victim of vicious long-term sexual violence failed by Pakistan justice system

Campaigning group Equality Now has issued an urgent alert after the brother of a teenager gang-raped by police has been shot dead outside a courthouse in Pakistan. The organisation is calling on government officials to protect 16-year-old Uzma Ayub and her family and to ensure justice in her case .

Equality Now is challenging the government of Pakistan to ensure justice in the case of this 16 year old gang rape victim. She was held captive for almost a year during which she was gang raped by a number of men including police officers. The rapes have resulted in her becoming pregnant. She has been fighting for justice with the support of her family and in particular her brother who was tragically shot dead outside the court house earlier this week by relatives of some of the accused police officers.

Equality Now is an international human rights advocacy charity working on issues of violence and discrimination against women and girls around the world. They work with grassroots women’s organisations in country in order to determine the best responses to women’s rights abuses. They have over 35,000 organisational and individual members in 160 countries. Their main areas of work are sex trafficking and prostitution, sexual violence, discrimination in law and practice and FGM.

More details of the case are as follows:

Uzma Ayub is from the Karak district in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan. She was abducted by police and held hostage for nearly a year, during which time she was repeatedly gang-raped by men whom allegedly included police officers and a civilian member of the Pakistani Army. On 9 December 2011, Equality Now learned that Uzma’s 25-year-old brother, Alamzeb Marwat, who had been supporting her pursuit of justice, was hit by a car and shot dead outside of a Karak court house while picking up legal documents with Uzma. 

Following pressure from the media and local human rights groups, five men have now been arrested, though one is still at large. In light of this murder and ongoing threats against Uzma and her family, Equality Now is deeply concerned for their safety and has issued an Urgent Alert calling on Pakistani officials to ensure the family’s immediate protection; make certain that Uzma’s case is properly investigated and that all the perpetrators are prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law; protect local human rights organizations that are being threatened; and to bring Alamzeb’s killers to justice without delay. 
“This case epitomizes all the problems with Pakistan’s justice system – a system that repeatedly fails victims of sexual violence,” says Equality Now’s Global Director Yasmeen Hassan. “First and foremost, police officers who perpetrate sexual violence enjoy widespread impunity for the crimes they commit, using terror tactics to intimidate victims who dare to bring such violations to the justice system.” 
The abuse of women by police in Pakistan has been well documented and was the subject of a 106 page report released by Asia Watch and the Women’s Rights Project in the 1990s.  Uzma’s horrific situation, which has left her eight months pregnant, is yet another example of this ongoing epidemic. Uzma’s family is continuing to try and fight for justice despite grave threats being made against them, rampant police corruption and a district court that has been slow to act. Equality Now has further learned that police officers have been putting pressure on members of the local community and encouraging fundamentalists in the area to demonstrate against the arrests of the accused. 

Fundamentalist groups have also carried out protests against Uzma, accusing her of dishonoring her community and carrying an illegitimate child which they say should be aborted, and three local human rights organizations which have been assisting her.  Currently the case is adjourned as some of the accused requested an out of court settlement with Uzma and her family – a settlement which the family has repeatedly refused.  In fact, the murder occurred while Uzma and her brother attempted to get away from relatives and staff of the accused officers, who approached Alamzeb in an attempt to pressure him to accept a settlement.  Though today the Peshawar High Court issued a notice that a high-level committee will investigate the case, Equality Now and local groups do not put much faith in this as a similar decree was made prior to Alamzeb’s murder.

Equality Now’s goal is to mobilize global public pressure so that  Pakistani officials will properly and immediately address the violations committed against Uzma and her family, including those aimed at stalling her quest for justice.  Pakistan is a signatory of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights which states that “all persons are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to the equal protection of the law.”  Additionally, under their own Constitution, all citizens are considered equal before the law and are equally entitled to its protection.  However as this case clearly demonstrates, this equality will never be achieved if the very people who are sworn to uphold its mandates are the very ones who are violating it. Says Hassan,
“Pakistan has just passed two important laws aimed at the protection of women from harmful practices, including acid throwing and forced marriages, demonstrating that there is political will to further women’s rights.  But as a preliminary matter, the Government has to ensure that women are not violated by its own agents and that all perpetrators, starting with police officers, are brought to justice.” 
To learn more visit http://www.equalitynow.org/
text (c) Equality Now from their press release

Thursday 15 December 2011

Refugee women and the power of words

The writer, campaigner and broadcaster Natasha Walter is the founder of an amazing organisation called Women for Refugee Women. Among many other activities and initiatives, they provide free English classes to women who have sought asylum. The women who come to the classes have all fled persecution and abuse of one kind or another, from imprisonment to trafficking for forced prostitution to honour crimes. These classes are taught by volunteers to about 40 women every week. The women who come to learn are desperate for education and since they are all living destitute or on benefits it's very hard for them to find classes that they can access.
 
Because these classes are unfunded the students and volunteer teachers are desperately in need of books. So we've made a wishlist on Amazon of books that they would love to be able to use; from dictionaries to graded readers. If you care about books and the power of words, you might like to buy a gift that would really make a difference to someone's life this Christmas. Please click on this link to view the list and feel free to flag up this notice to anyone you know who would be interested in participating and helping.
 
 
 
text (c) Women for Refugee Women

Sunday 11 December 2011

Kymiy soaps: too too cute

I love all design, fashion, style and aesthetics but don't usually plug specific items on this site. I'm breaking my rule for a friend, Paris-based Nazanine Nayeri, an IT entrepreneur who has (as a side project) produced a line of pure, olive-oil-based soaps that are exquisitely wrapped in Liberty fabrics. They are presented in lovely box sets, and can be ordered from the web site. They are gorgeous, they work and I wouldn't say it if it wasn't true. If you love them, let Nazanine know: nn@kymiy.com



Tuesday 6 December 2011

We want to hear ourselves think: a call to action against cultural femicide

NEWSFLASH, ON 21ST DECEMBER: CERI THOMAS FROM THE TODAY PROGRAMME HAS NOW ISSUED A STATEMENT IN RESPONSE TO THE GUARDIAN'S RESEARCH. Please skim down until about halfway, to where it says UPDATED. I have added excerpts of women's complaint letters and done some fresh research about Today's lineup over the last 9 days and there is now a Mumsnet reaction thread here with more than 70 responses.

Last month I received a letter from a dismayed radio listener, who has noticed the ignoring of women at all levels of the media and public life. She mentions her many complaints to the producers of various shows and the way they have largely been ignored. At major speaking events at The Women's Library in London last year and at The Arnolfini in Bristol this year - a sold out event called Where Are The Women? - countless women approached me and said that they had complained to major media shows and organisations and were dismissed, patronisingly rebuffed or ignored.

While the ignoring of women is a problem across all public platforms, whether it be radio, TV, policy debates, panel events or festivals and conferences about everything from pop to politics, Radio 4's flagship current affairs programme Today has received particular criticism for having 4 men and just 1 woman presenter, a persistently low number of female reporters, guests, subjects and interviewees and a management team who seem to think this is not a problem despite enormous media pressure to change.

On this morning's show on Tuesday 6th December, aside from the presenters, Today had 20 male voices and just 5 female lady-women. Yesterday it had 14 men and 7 women. On Friday 2nd December it had 18 men and 6 women. On Thursday 1st December it had 18 men and 3 women. On Wednesday 30th November it had 17 men and 6 women. On Tuesday 29th November it was 18 men and 6 women. Notice, ladies, we never get above 7, and the men never get below 14 - usually much higher actually - and that's not even counting the presenters, who are 80% male.

In an article I wrote in May this year, Shut Up Ladies, Can't You See We're Trying To Talk?, I made a survey of representation across various networks (not just the BBC and not just talk radio) and all viewing times. It makes for very depressing reading, especially for any woman, like me, who is an experienced broadcaster and an avid radio-lover, who wishes to have a career. I know, how very dare we? Here are the stats for Today:
On Friday 20th March 2011, Radio 4’s Today programme featured 28 men, including the 2 male presenters, and 1 woman. The previous day they had gone completely mad ...and gave us Ladies’ Day: 7 whole women spoke, including presenter Sue Macgregor, alongside 21 men. The day before that it was a much more acceptable 4 women and 19 men. I have no idea what that spike on Thursday 19th was about. 7 women! Using up the space that men could have occupied! By Friday, thank Patriarchus, He That Knoweth, natural order had been restored.
Nothing has changed since then. In Kira Cochrane's shocking and unmissable article about cultural femicide this week she revealed, after months of primary research, that 84% of reporters and guests on Today  are men and 16% are women. Cochrane's piece presents a terrifying vision of an entire culture which sidelines women across all media and all outlets/networks/institutions, but Today's stats are the worst of an already-dreadful bunch. Cochrane writes, "On 5 July you had to wait from 6.15am until 8.20am to hear the one female contributor who appeared alongside the 27 male contributors on the programme." There is currently a raging thread about this on Mumsnet, started when Kira's piece came out. There was also an instant and very interesting response in the Guardian letters page, here.

What could be behind the femicide, I ask myself? What on earth could it possibly be? Back in March 2010, speaking on Radio 4's Feedback programme, Today's editor Ceri Thomas said about this issue:
It's quite hard to have a formula that helps you decide who should be the new presenter. I can say quite honestly that it would not be, was not and will never be the case that being a woman will be the overriding criteria
When asked why more women were being seen on the BBC News channel but not heard on Today, Thomas said,
Because I think those are slightly easier jobs. They are difficult jobs but the skillset that you need to work on the Today programme and the hide that you need, the thickness of that, is something else. It's an incredibly difficult place to work.
and
...what you can't expect is that the Today programme is the first place you'll see those changes [ie. more women] because it's just too tough an environment for novices, frankly.
But I don't think the public furore is really about the presenters as much as it is about the guests. Today is honoured among listeners for a good reason. It is serious, quality broadcasting. Every day there are more than 20 expert guests, usually live, talking about more than a dozen different subjects, in dozens of different ways. Today is able to tackle any issue, in any area, about any country or culture, in any discipline. Its producers can (seemingly) access any speaker, craft any item and set up any discussion, interview or debate. It is capable of excellence in everything, except including women. Day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, only 16% of its guests or reporters are women, and 84% are men. That is why listeners are angry.

I have addressed the issue of the under-representation of women in a series of articles with statistics and anecdotes, many of which blow the whistle on the day-to-day misogyny of some of the producers, editors and commissioners I have worked with at broadcasting, media, arts and culture institutions: Tired of being the token woman. - The subtle art of misogyny. - So Today is a boys' club - what's new? - It's simple - just invite more women on air. - 30 seconds of misogyny in the lifts at Broadcasting House  - Thank you, Radio 1 DJ Greg James, for today's edition of 30 Seconds of Misogyny - I hit the glass ceiling. It really hurts. - On despair.

Do we care? Yes we do! Everywhere I go, in public or private, in every in-depth conversation I have, with friends or near-strangers, this issue comes up. Countless women tell me they have written in to events organisers, editors, producers, impresarios, governors, MPs, whoever - and been brushed off. Countless extremely able women tell me they would love to be involved in these events as speakers, experts, advocates, artists, performers, debaters, subjects and commentators. They ask me to put their names forward, which I do, only for them to be ignored, talked down, frozen out.

What to do? Does complaining help? Cochrane spoke to Ceri Thomas on Friday 11th November, when only two female contributors appeared on the Today programme. The previous day there was just one. Thomas told her (three times, as Cochrane reports) that the issue of female representation "almost never comes up as an issue from the audience...  I suppose it might be two letters a year, or something of that nature."

Only two? Check your Spam box. Oh - and perpetrators, please stop victim blaming. We are not your secretaries or subordinates and it is not our job to write you a memo to remind you that we are human beings, that we exist and are worth listening to. We are not going to beg you submissively to recognise our worth. You should recognise it anyway, if you are decent human beings yourselves and do not have some kind of misogynistic, man-worshipping superiority complex. We are not shy, unwilling, thick, boring, absent or too busy cooking and cleaning to attend. We expect and demand fair, unsneering and equal treatment and representation and you must supply this. You must change your behaviour.

If any programme, event or venture keeps its number of women guests at a steady 16%  or invites 26 men and just 2 women to talk at an industry-wide conference, as happened at this year's Next Radio event, it is because it chooses to, not because women are too lax, amidst all the other oppression we constantly witness and experience, to write in and plead for basic recognition and humane treatment. Are perpetrators really so passive, hate-filled and unwilling that they need serious prompting to acknowledge and reflect the fact that we are 50% of the audience and half the world? Do they so despise the thought of contacting women, inviting women, being in women's presence and hearing women speak as experts, endorsers, analysts and subjects of celebratory discussion as writers/artists/thinkers/innovators? As ever, perpetrators make their hatred clear by their behaviour. They do not like women so they do not have any near them, except those used behind the scenes as exploited labour in a system which promotes and celebrates men as geniuses, on any topic, in any manner, in any field.

Those non-media outsiders who victim-blamingly say that women 'should' push themselves forward have not understood how events, conferences or shows are organised. Guests are cast, invited and briefed by producers in advance; potential guests are not supposed to psychically intuit that an unannounced and unpublicised event is in its early stages of organisation, and somehow get in there. It does not work like that - and indeed, confident women who do put themselves forward are, according to the double standard, slandered and punished for shrillness/loudness/bolshiness/aggression/whatever. The responsibility, the agency, the decision and the fault is on the perpetrators and the issue is one of sexism. As I wrote way back in late spring of last year:
We no longer live in an age where female thinkers, writers, philosophers, academics, artists, theorists, activists or politicians are rare. The discrimination is obvious. All you have to do is count. It's all the more galling given that women equal or outnumber men as attendees of arts festivals, concerts, readings, discussions and debates, and as arts and humanities students at university. Women write, read, edit and publicise more fiction than men. Women make up the majority of executive, PR and organisational staff in arts and cultural institutions. Women's ticket revenue, licence fees, book purchases and entrance fees are being used to fund events at which women artists and thinkers are marginalised with breathtaking obviousness.
Regarding the issue of women and broadcasting, I want to celebrate Sound Women, a coalition of amazing professional women in radio who are sick of institutional sexism, discrimination, marginalisation and cultural femicide. All the women in Sound Women are known, seen, heard in public and cannot be ignored or sidelined. They include Fi Glover, Margherita Taylor, Miranda Sawyer and many, many others. Sound Women maintains a hundreds-strong (and ever growing) list of willing women speakers in all fields so that when programme producers and editors lie that no women are available or able, they can easily be disproved. See the Guardian feature here. Read Jane Garvey advocating for more women here. Feel our rage that of the 14-strong Sony Awards committee, only 1 is a woman (and she is an absolute radio heroine, R4 controller Gwyneth Williams) and that at this year's Next Radio conference there were 26 male speakers and just 2 women. The conference website claimed, "We promise no panels, no suits, and no waiting forever for a rubbish session to end" - and a sexism so deep that women were not even allowed to speak, although we could sit passively and listen to 26 men.

This issue, prompted by Kira's article, has truly opened Chauvin's Box.

This is what Sound Women suggest regarding the Today programme specifically: that people write to BBC Trust Chairman Chris Patten - ah, Lord Patten, a posh man who will never have to worry about these issues or be affected by them - and get our friends to write too. For a bit of encouragement, there's already a growing Mumsnet thread on this, based on a shortened version of this article. No ranting, please, and no abuse when you write in. Just concern, stats and a fervent desire for the glory of radio to reflect the intelligence, interest and intellect of its 50% of loyal women listeners. Send it to Chris Patten at chris.patten@bbc.co.uk and cc in his assistant june.prunty@bbc.co.uk - because, of course, the best partiarchal prop for a powerful man is a subordinate female assistant who does all the real work and has now been placed in the awkward and unfair position of fielding these messages. 

Sound Women have drafted the letter below, but please feel free to adapt and change it, especially if you are a Today listener but do not work in the media and have additional points you’d like to make.

Dear Lord Patten
The Today Programme on BBC Radio 4 has four male presenters and just one woman, Sarah Montague.  In addition to this, today it’s been revealed that on average 84% of its guests and reporters are male, and just 16% female. 

As [a woman working in the radio industry, and] an avid radio listener, I am deeply disappointed by these figures.  If the Today audience is made up of 50-50 men and women, as Today Editor Ceri Thomas claims, then this means that the women in that audience are being under-represented and badly served.
Ceri Thomas also says he receives only two letters of complaint a year, and seems to think this means the audience don’t care about the issue.  Well we do care.  We don’t always write letters of complaint – sometimes we change to another station or shout at our radio instead – but if it will make a difference then please accept this as a letter of complaint, to which I would greatly appreciate a response. 
I know the representation of women on air is an issue you feel strongly about, and have spoken about before.  I hope you can encourage the BBC to bring about the change that is needed, and look forward to hearing a more balanced version of the Today programme, with many more female contributors, reporters and presenters very soon.

Thank you for reading this email. 

Etc.
Fingers crossed. And if anyone wants to start up a (paid) women's radio station, I'm 100% in on the arts and culture side. Just contact me and it's a yes.

UPDATED at the end of the working day on Wednesday 21st December 2011: After the enormous reaction created by Kira Cochrane's article, which has (my sources tell me) prompted fervent debate in many major arts and cultural institutions, many women contacted me attaching copies of their own complaint letters. A very senior woman and former London bureau chief at a major international news and reporting agency told me that she was "at a 'Gender Agenda' event discussing this last week and was struck by how internally focused it was and that barely a single man was present to discuss the issue." In her letter to the BBC she wrote the following:

I am writing to address the perception that appears to be prevalent at the BBC: namely, that a failure to deluge the inbox of BBC executives with complaint about female representation on news and current affairs programmes is evidence that this is not an issue. On the contrary, it is a most pressing and serious concern and one that needs to be addressed urgently.

As [COMPANY] London Bureau Chief from 2007 to 2011, and a former financial and foreign correspondent, I personally put myself forward on numerous occasions to talk on serious business and political topics relating to the UK. Instead, I was invited on (just twice) to review newspapers during the general election.

Busy, professional women like me have full-time, executive jobs that rarely give them time to write letters of complaint – but if it will make a difference then please accept this as a letter of complaint, to which I would greatly appreciate a response.

 ...I hope you can encourage the BBC to bring about the change that is needed, and look forward to hearing a more balanced version of the Today programme, and other news and current affairs programmes, with many more female contributors, reporters and presenters very soon.
Another woman, a radio lover and longtime Today listener, wrote to the BBC:

I noticed in that article that Ceri Thomas, Editor of Today said that he received hardly any letters about the lack of women presenters and contributors to Today and concluded that the audience didn’t care very much. 
I grew up with Today and still listen to it briefly most mornings. I do care about the lack of women on the programme, and think it effects the way in which stories are covered and the way in which some issues are largely ignored. I’ve never written to complain – I just turn off the radio and get my news on-line instead. 
I think the Guardian research should be a wakeup call to the BBC (and print media, which doesn’t come out of it well either, including the Guardian). Please can you tell me what you intend to do to ensure that we get something a bit closer to gender balance on our airwaves?
Another woman, a very prominent journalist, wrote the following:
I am writing to complain about the under-representation, nay near invisibility, of women on the Today programme.

...Specifically, I find it hard to believe that Ceri Thomas says he only receives two letters of complaint about this woeful under-representation of women on the Today show per year. I question this figure and would like it confirmed.

As as writer for [COMPANY] I would welcome your comments on how the BBC is going to address this situation.

In the letter sent to me before the Guardian article a listener wrote,
My friend and I share regular tallies of the low numbers of any women’s voices on the Today programme. Lots of rage and gnashing of teeth. I have written to the producers/editors/ complaints departments in vain.

My point is that not only is there a dearth of women presenters – women are routinely not invited on to the Today programme to discuss the topics presented, women’s names are not even referred to in discussions. The words “her”and “she” are not heard. Education controversy – let’s wheel out Chris Woodhead, Anthony Seldon – because clearly there has never been a notable women headteacher or schools inspector. It’s not just laziness, a question of the usual suspects invited on the programme over and over again - it’s a powerful bias that ensures that women’s voices simply don’t matter, that women don’t matter. I sit and listen and watch the minutes tick by as we are not only marginalised, but are inaudible, invisible, non-existent.

You could land here from Mars, tune in to the Today programme and - on some days - I kid you not – up to an hour later not have a clue that women exist at all.

I’m 60 in December – all that struggle in the 1970’s - and I cannot bear it. How many other young women are going to protest?

Another point - if Woman's Hour can respond at 10am to a breaking news story and get women on the show - academic/politician/vox pop/historian/scientist/other worker or professional/whatever - to interview, just why can't the Today programme do the same?!
I have now received messages from the BBC Trust and also from Ceri Thomas of Today. See the below:

from: Trust Enquiries TrustEnquiries@bbc.co.uk
date: Wed, Dec 21, 2011 at 5:47 PM
subject: : Today programme
Dear Bidisha

Thank you for your recent email to Lord Patten, Chairman of the BBC Trust. I am responding on Lord Patten’s behalf as a member of the Trust Unit which advises and supports the Chairman and Trustees. I understand your concerns about the number of women presenters and contributors on Radio 4’s Today Programme.

As Lord Patten received a number of emails expressing similar concerns, we are responding to them all in these terms.  I can assure you that equality is an issue that the BBC Executive and the Trust takes very seriously and, as you may be aware, it’s the Chairman’s view that there should be more women both on radio and television.

However, the role of the Chairman, and of the Trust, is distinct from that of the BBC Executive and day-to-day editorial decisions - such as selection of presenters and contributors to the Today programme, for example - are rightly the responsibility of the BBC Executive and ultimately the Director General as Editor-in-Chief. 

Reflecting that distinction, the BBC complaints process requires that complaints are handled by the BBC Executive in the first instance. The Trust’s role in the process is to consider appeals from complainants should they be dissatisfied with the responses that they have received from the BBC’s management. I have therefore forwarded your email to the editor of the Today programme, Ceri Thomas, and he has provided the attached response.

Should you remain unhappy and would like to progress your complaint further, you can do so using the BBC complaints process via BBC Audience Services, details of which are available on the BBC complaints website www.bbc.co.uk/complaints. Following this route means we can deal with complaints in a logical progression from BBC management to the Trust and those most closely involved with the complaint have an opportunity to respond first. I hope this is helpful and thank you again for bringing your concerns to our attention.

Yours sincerely,
John Hamer
BBC Trust Unit 

And this is is from Ceri Thomas, the editor of Today, exactly as sent to me, unedited, uncut and complete. It was sent  from the man above as an attached Word document. It is aggressive, cold, arrogant, patronising, immature, punitive, derailing and defensive in tone, with no greeting, politeness, sign-off, contact details, introduction, tail-off or anything else. It personally singles out Kira Cochrane in a bullying and sneering way, when in fact the negative critique of Today has been made, rightly, by many people of both sexes across the media for nearly 18 months. As is obvious from the tone and style, Thomas cannot even pretend to be respectful of women or to take this seriously. It is written as a short school essay. The title in bold is original too:
Response from Ceri Thomas:
Your complaint springs from an article in the Guardian which contained extracts from an interview with me. Your letter quotes rather selectively from that article so, for the sake of completeness, I think it is worth bearing in mind the fuller context. In addition to noting the relatively small number of complaints which have come directly to the programme each year about the numbers of women on Today, the article contained the following exchange between me and the Guardian journalist, Kira Cochrane:

‘I asked if there was a strong enough female presence on the show at the moment. "I think nearly every day there is not," he said. "And within the programme it's a very active discussion. And not just a discussion – it's pursued actively, too. Every producer on the programme is aware we're trying to increase the representation of women on air. People such as the planning editor, who is in a position to do a bit more about it, have it as a specific objective." He adds that the show's listenership is about 50/50 men and women.’

It is difficult, on the basis of that exchange, to characterise the representation of women on air as an issue about which Today does not care.

The broader question raised by your complaint is what the 'correct' proportion of male and female guests on Today should be. The figures quoted in the Guardian article are inaccurate, even on the specific days which are mentioned, but there is no argument about the fact that the programme has more male guests than female. This is a programme, however, which deals largely in areas of public life in which it is a simple statement of fact to say that, at senior levels, men outnumber women. To give just two examples, about 75% of MPs are men, as are over 80% of board members of FTSE 100 companies. The same skew exists in virtually every corner of the public arena which listeners expect Today to cover. It is inevitable, to a large extent, that the male-female balance within organisations in the wider world will be reflected on air.

Having said that, the programme clearly acknowledges the need to achieve the best possible representation of women on air consistent with listeners' expectations of Today's editorial agenda, and it is actively working to do that.
Thomas claims that "the figures quoted in the Guardian article are inaccurate, even on the specific days which are mentioned." This is not true. Cochrane's article links to the specific programme line-ups mentioned, which anyone can check. The team at the Guardian rechecked the data multiple times to ensure accuracy. The Guardian has an extremely prompt and rigorous complaints, corrections and clarifications desk which deals with specific inaccuracies and Thomas has not contacted them with any objection. The furore over Today's extreme marginalisation of women began long before the Kira Cochrane article, as far back as March 2010 when Thomas gave his interview to Feedback. The data I have supplied in this piece, all of it accurate, is from March 2011 and November - early December 2011. The Guardian's research took place over the entire summer of 2011 and is accurate.

I have now done even more research over the last 9 programmes, analysing every line-up and every item. Here it is:

The Today programme has 4 male presenters and 1 woman. Aside from the presenters, on Saturday 10th December there were 19 male speakers and 2 women. On Monday 12 December there were 17 male speakers and 2 women.  On Tuesday 13th December there were 17 men and 6 women. On Wednesday 14th December there were 18 men and 4 women, of whom 3 were speaking on one item about domestic violence. On Thursday 15th December there were 18 men and 7 women. On Saturday 17th December there were 19 men and 3 women. On Monday 19th December there were 22 men and 6 women. On Tuesday 20th December there were 19 men and 4 women. On Wednesday 21st December - today - there were 18 men and 6 women.

In the last 9 shows the general Thought For The Day, which is specially commissioned and not so closely pegged to the news agenda, had 6 men and 2 women. One of these women, Canon Angela Tilby, was used twice, probably because the producers could not stomach having another whole entire female she-creature stinking up the place. Across the last 9 shows, again, the number of men did not go below 17 and the number of women did not go above 7. These figures vary only minutely from those mentioned earlier in this piece for summer of this year (counted by Kira Cochrane's team) and spring 2011 and spring 2010, counted by me. Across something like 100 items the only one featuring all women was one about male violence against women. Because we are just victims, aren't we, of male femicide - both physical and cultural.

The Today programme does not just cover Parliamentary affairs or big business, nor does it only feature heads of major FTSE companies, political parties, conglomerates, major organisations, firms or any other endemically sexist institutions. Over the last 9 shows, these are just some of the topics Today have covered: the production of frankincense; Russian parliament; UK planning reforms; homelessness; found recordings of writers reading their own short stories (in which 3 white male writers were named, and 0 women); children testifying in court; pensions for council workers, NHS staff, teachers and civil servants (an item in which 2 men were invited to debate despite the overwhelming majority of public sector workers being women); commission on foreign currency bought on credit cards; large companies' tax liability; ambulance journeys; high street revenues; chronic fatigue syndrome; Syrian human rights; birdsong, the age of criminal responsibility; child poverty; London's social history; illegal immigration; wind turbines; the Zimbabwe elections; the greatest invention of all time; interviewing children in court; job seeking; the cost of green energy; homeowning and negative equity; a newly discovered Charlotte Bronte manuscript (in which a male trustee of the Bronte society was interviewed - yes, where there is female genius, be sure to dilute its power and remember, female genius must be dead); land rights in Southern China, the Egyptian elections; badger culling; diabetes; children in care and adoption; funding for care for the elderly; cholera in Haiti; violence in film; UK Uncut; foster care; maths on the curriculum; Ealing studios' films; teaching history in schools; Jamaican patois and Bible translation; Kinks singer Ray Davies and his new musical; tax breaks for married couples.

The most random item was the author Alexander McCall Smith [no diss to him - his books actually have excellent women characters and plenty of 'em, and they speak, too] getting an entire 3 minute slot of his own after Tweeting that it was "painful" to chuck away old books. He authored an item on 14th December revealing some of the responses to his Tweet and "gives his own tips on bookshelf management."

Over the last 9 shows the vast and overwhelming majority of named editors and correspondents (in politics, the environment, Moscow, parliamentary affairs, sports, the Middle East, home affairs, business, Scotland, Scotland business, North America, politics, health, science, world affairs, Beijing and religious affairs) are white men. There are 2 named women as correspondents on defence (Caroline Wyatt) and in the arts and one female sports newsreader. These 3 women are used very sporadically, unlike the main sports (Garry Richardson and Rob Bonnet) and business (Simon Jack) guys.

I will now give just a selection of the job titles of speakers on the last 9 shows. They are not all heads of companies, heads of political parties, major institutions, banks, companies, government bodies, quangos, thinktanks or heads of anything else. In fact the vast majority of speakers are just reasonably-ranked, broadly experienced and capable professionals who know what they're talking about. Here goes: archaeologist, farmer, zoologist, Pentagon official, green campaigner, classical music promoter, magistrate; climate change science analyst, diabetes expert, historian, academic in journalism and screen violence, maths teacher, academic in planning and local governance, varied museum experts and curators, drama and literature curator at arts institution, professor of psychology, member of Criminal Bar Association, pensions analyst, economist, music magazine editor, music journalist, management consultant, evolutionary biologist, science writer, researcher in animal behaviour, novelist, songwriter, UN human rights worker, consultant paediatrician, Conservative, Labour and Lib Dem MPs across all areas, contributing editor of current affairs publication, sleep researcher.

In the last 9 days Today has featured 167 male guests and 40 women. That's 19%. There's something else: of the 19% of women in the last 9 shows, women are massively over-represented as victims, subjects and case studies rather than experts, academics, influencers, analysts or endorsers. So, one is speaking about black students' experience at Cambridge, one was an evacuee from the Basque country to the UK in 1937, one fled Burma after the Japanese army invasion 69 years ago, one (on Wednesday 14th December)  is named as a domestic violence survivor who "lived in an abusive relationship for a decade", one is a case study of homelessness, one is a foster carer and one is a Bangladeshi woman giving an interview about her abusive husband, who cut off her fingers.

So, can we only speak when we have been brutalised, abused, victimised and forced to flee?

Yes we can! But remember, even then, you are only allowed to be 19% of the total number of speakers, absolute max, last year, last season, yesterday, tomorrow and Today. Got it? They do not like us. They are not going to change. We have been told, good and proper.

There is now a Mumsnet comment and reaction thread on this, with some very interesting additional observations, some of which I have excerpted below. Each set of quotes if from a different contributor:

One woman wrote:
"What Ceri Thomas' response basically says is: You are only interested in this issue because of the Guardian article. And anyway there aren't enough women in prominent roles, so it's your problem. Well, I am interested, Guardian article or no. And I intend to let them know regularly. Is one email a month too many? (And another one from my mum and my sister, who I will get to write in as well)

The stuff about women in prominent roles is just there to confuse the issue. Firstly, you could always try inviting the women that are there in prominent roles instead of more or less ignoring them, and secondly, as Bidisha points out on her blog, the guests are frequently not in those roles in any case. I am just as capable of analysing the economy/ literature/ various random topics as all those random men!"
Another woman wrote:
"Great to see the highlighting of the fact that it isn't just reflecting who is high up as that isn't who the guests are.

A specific example, the other day they had men talking about town planning reforms. Now this is indeed male dominated profession. However the head of the professional body, the RTPI, is a woman. So if it's that they need the 'heads' then it would have been a woman. But of course they didn't, they had people much lower down the 'food chain'. Who could have been women or men. They were talking about basic general interest stuff so they had many many people to pick from. And so the cycle continues with the profession being represented as male.

Bidisha did you see my spot that they had someone from Seoul women's university the other day and it was a man?"
Another woman wrote:

"OH MY GOD WHAT A DICK HEAD!

Is he really, genuinely saying that as 75% of MPs are men, women don't need to be represented? Women don't mind hearing mostly from the men who dominate business? MPs are there to represent everyone including women!! Oh my god I hate getting this angry. Bullshit bullshit bullshit. He's making excuses and expecting us to buy it."
Another woman wrote:
"I actually can't write anything articulate or thoughtful here because the noise in my mind is just "RAGE RAGE RAGE RAGE!"

ugh. UGH. RAGE!"
Another woman wrote:
"I am a regular listener to the Today programme (and a relatively recent "convert" to feminism in a conscious sense) and I think a nerve has been hit. Ceri Thomas's reply suggests that the Today programme are trying really hard to balance things more. I'd like to know how they are trying to do this. I suggest one method would be retiral of the adverserial John Humphries. I find his attempts to turn any interview into a battle tiresome and inappropriate.

I almost wonder if the calibre of men on the show (presumably educated, intelligent and ostensibly egalitarian) belies the continued sexism. No-one there would probably either see themselves as sexist nor consciously wish to push women out of the programme. (I am making assumptions here). I'd be surprised if the representation of the genders isn't more balanced further down the chain (i.e. researchers) and so would guess that this is problem (like many) requires a mindquake. I know that until I'd read Mary Daly (Gyn/Ecology - my first foray into feminist literature) I hadn't considered sexism and the importance of feminism to a great extent. If it took an educated woman like me until I was 25 to really get it, how can we expect the men of our society to even attempt to understand when they are the group benefiting from the inherent inequality.

Gah. Merry Christmas everyone."

Monday 5 December 2011

Are you quite a frothing beserker? Then jolly well join in!

I wanted to write in support of the already very marked critique of the current government's cuts, which will disproportionately affect women. I have been alerted, via the ever-excellent Mumsnet, to a group of  "ordinary people, mainly women, who feel the government has gone too far with the cuts." The group wants to be "a focus for all the groups protesting against the cuts and provide an outlet for people who are worried or scared and feel they need to do something. We are hoping to be accessible whether people want to just read and be better informed or sign petitions, write or be part of more direct activism."

The inspiration behind the group was a Mumsnet thread, I'm Not Quite A Frothing Beserker But I Am Getting Rather Cross With Our Government Messing With The Good Stuff. That thread was so full of passionate writers who know exactly how the cuts are affecting ordinary people that a new thread has begun to catch the overflow: Frothers Unite, Time for Change. Now, I think a frothing beserker is a rather excellent thing to be, so I want to stand by this group, which has a blog, Too Many Cuts, a Facebook page and a Twitter stream, using the #frothers hashtag. Join in if you want to protest against economic measures which will see this country's women - and with them, our children, partners, friends, relatives and parents - thrown to the dogs.

Shocking, stunning, horrifying, unmissable.

The Guardian's Kira Cochrane has produced an exhaustive, serious and very informative, though devastating, study about the representation of women in all walks of life, from politics and the media to comedy. Here it is. Full disclosure: I am quoted in it briefly. The article is the result of several months' study by a diverse group of researchers and gives a complete picture of just how strongly women are pushed out of the public frame - and how this impacts on girls and young women's sense of their own voices and possibilities. There is currently a very strong thread on Mumsnet about this issue, here.

I would urge anyone who cares about this to get onto the Guardian comment thread and talk, give your own experiences, encourage other women, participate positively and in solidarity. This is a hugely important article and it's all about us and our place and space. Don't let the derailers and trolls dominate!

Thursday 1 December 2011

Place your bets for the inaugural William Hill Sportswoman of the Year Award

Out of its longstanding commitment to women's rights, female emancipation, the elimination of cultural femicide and human rights issues generally, betmakers William Hill have created a female alternative to the BBC's Sports Personality of the Year, which this year features a 10 man, 0 woman line-up despite many women athlete's great achievements in 2011. To compile its list, the BBC asked 27 sports editors, the overhwelming majority of whom are men, for their nominations. Despite women's excellence this year, all the editors (which included sexist mags Nuts and Zoo) submitted lists in which women were heavily outnumbered; more than a third (10) gave all male lists. The Guardian has covered this extensively and excellently here, here, herehere - in a great piece by Andy Bull, here by Jane Martinson and here, where the BBC defends itself against formal complaints by women MPs and points out that in the past, "at least two women have always previously been shortlisted for the main award." Yes! At least 20%. Be thankful for that ladies (and quit yo' moaning). Anyone interested in institutional misogyny in the world of sport and sports media should read the horribly funny, genuinely enthusiastic, honest and wideranging Get Her Off The Pitch! by Lynne Truss. The link will take you to her own website, which is as hilarious and observant as all her other work.

 
Thank you, William Hill, for standing up for women. I know your heart is where our wallet is. Here are the details, taken from the press release. All the breathless punctuation, erratic quality of tone and random capitalisation remains. It is well classy. When the final shortlist is agreed you can vote for your favourite online or act like a lady and pick up one of the coupons which will be available in all William Hill outlets - yes, I am talking about that notoriously female-heavy and woman-positive cultural space, the betmaker's shop. Now I am off to watched looped re-runs of all of Boots's Here Come The Girls adverts. Enjoy:

 
The inaugural William Hill Sportswoman Of The Year Award will be decided on the 21st of December, the winner of which will gain a VIP trip to the William Hill King George on boxing day as well as £1000 Charity bet on the big race & a Trophy for the mantelpiece. To Nominate Your forgotten female: Go to the William Hill Facebook page. The shortlist will consist of the ten sportswomen with the most nominations. The final shortlist will be confirmed on Monday, you can then vote for your favourite at http://news.williamhill.com/ or pick up one of the 240,000 coupons which will be available in all William Hill shops from mid week. “The award is designed to give members of the public the opportunity to choose both the shortlist, as well as the winner. It has been a good year for Women’s sport, let’s celebrate it,” said Hill’s spokesman Rupert Adams. Further Information….0208 918 3858……0784 1011 584

UPDATE: As at 14th December 2-11 , the shortlist is now up. Here's the press release I was sent:

The shortlist for the inaugural William Hill Sports Woman Of The Year Award has been announced and it is time to vote for your favourite. Hills are accepting votes online at http://bit.ly/SWOTY2011 or you can pick up a coupon in any of the 2350 William Hill shops. The Shortlist For The William Hill Sports Woman Of The Year, as voted for by William Hill customers:        
  • Rebecca Adlington: Won a gold and silver medal at the World Aquatics Championship in Shanghai.
  • Charlotte Edwards: Captain of the all conquering England Women’s Cricket Team.
  • Jessica Ennis: UK No.1 Heptathlete, won silver at World Championships.    
  • Tamsin Greenway: captain Of The Surrey Storm, bronze medal winner at the netball World Championships.       
  • Helen Jenkins: British No.1 Triathlete, qualified for Olympics after winning the Hyde Park Event.        
  • Sarah Stevenson: Won gold at the 2011 Tae Kwon Do World Championships.      
  • Kelly Smith: England Striker who competed in the Women’s Football World Cup earlier this year.        
  • Hayley Turner: Rode 83 winners in 2011, including two Group One wins.    
  • Beth Tweddle: Grabbed gold at European Gymnastics in Berlin.       
  • Chrissie Wellington: Added a fourth Ironman World Championship title in 2011.                                                                                                                                                                                            
Vote Online until Midday 20th December
Vote In Shop until 9.30pm on the 18th December
Winner Announced on 21st December 2011

Um, William Hill, I know you have better things to do than work on basic literacy skills, like betting on sport, but perhaps you could hire a new person to write your press releases? Capital Letters Do Not Go Everywhere.