One year after Serbia passed the Gender Equality Law, there are still fewer women than men in the workforce. The number of women representatives in state institutions is also unsatisfactory, it was concluded on Monday at a round table dubbed The Law on Gender Equality – Implementation Possibilities and Challenges.
Posts Tagged ‘Gender’
Gender arbitrage in South Korea: Profiting from sexism
October 21st, 2010 |
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If South Korean firms won’t make use of female talent, foreigners will
“DO YOU know you have to give everything to become a TV announcer?” These words cost Kang Yong-seok, a member of South Korea’s parliament, his membership of the ruling Grand National Party in July. His insinuation that a woman must sleep her way to the top to work in television embarrassed his colleagues and set off a national debate about sexism.
Working women in South Korea earn 63% of what men do. Not all of this is the result of discrimination, but some must be. South Korean women face social pressure to quit when they have children, making it hard to stay on the career fast track. Many large companies have no women at all in senior jobs. …
Peggy Drexler: Gender and the Judge: Sotomayor encounters a familiar bias
July 16th, 2009 |
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I’ve been following the Sotomayor hearings, and I’ve come to some conclusions. Her “wise Latina” comment was just an observation about the importance of life…
Chaz Bono Steps Out With Girlfriend Jennifer Elia (PHOTOS)
July 11th, 2009 |
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Cher’s son Chaz Bono made his first public appearance since announcing his female-male gender transition. Thursday he and girlfriend Jennifer Elia came to the 2009 Outfest film festival’s opening night gala of ‘La Mission’ in LA.
Also there w…
Are men a new market for Tampax?
July 6th, 2009 |
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Over the years, advertisers of sanitary protection have tried, repeatedly, to convince us that a woman’s period is a glorious time. A hallowed time. A time to ice skate, bungee jump and rollerblade. A time to leak blue liquid and listen to soft rock. And a time when we feel compelled to wear our tightest, whitest shorts.
Such ads obviously do nothing to prepare girls for the painful reality, so it’s interesting to see a different approach. Over the past few months, a viral campaign has been running online – complete with blog, videos and Twitter feed – which features no bungee jumping at all. It also stars a man. Well, a 16-year-old boy anyway. And one day said boy, Zack, wakes up with a vagina.
The campaign follows his struggle to cope. In some ways, it pops with sexist stereotypes: he starts baking brownies, eating yoghurt and snapping at his best friend, Bryan. Overall though, the story unfolds skilfully, exploring what it’s really like to have your first period, including the shock of cramps and water retention. Zack invites commenters to write about when they had their first period, opening up a public discussion that’s rarely mooted. And it’s only towards the end of the video sequence that he’s shown using a Tampax slot machine.
The campaign is intriguing partly because it’s so difficult to tell who Tampax is targeting. Is it young women in general? (Zack is good looking.) Is it female athletes? (As a footballer, Zack asks sporty women how they cope with their periods.) Or could it be men? Are they the secret, untapped market for sanitary products? Would Tampax sales shoot up if they could convince bashful blokes to buy tampons for their girlfriends? So many questions.
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Anglican dissidents protest at CofE ‘liberalism’
July 6th, 2009 |
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• Coalition against same-sex unions and gay priests
• Critics say move will lead to Church of England split
Thousands of Anglicans will gather in London tomorrow to support the launch of a UK movement opposing liberalism in the Church of England, with critics claiming it will undermine the church and the authority of the archbishop of Canterbury.
The Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans (FCA), which counts five homegrown bishops among its backers, is aimed at congregations and clergy unhappy with the Church of England’s position on the blessing of same-sex unions, the ordination of women and homosexuals as priests.
One of the English churchmen supporting the FCA is Michael Nazir-Ali, bishop of Rochester, who continues to draw criticism for his views on homosexuality.
In an interview with the Sunday Telegraph, and then today from the pulpit of the Church of St Peter in Bushey Heath, Hertfordshire, he said homosexuality was a threat to the Christian way of life and that it had divided the Anglican communion.
In his sermon he said: “When we ignore what the Bible tells us we do so at our peril, as we continually discover.
“If we continue in God’s way then we will flourish as persons. Marriage will be strong, family will be strong and society will be strong. It’s not rocket science.”
The other danger to Christians and the Church of England was “syncretism” ‑ the attempted reconciliation of opposing principles or beliefs, he said. “It happens daily when we capitulate to the forces around us,” he warned. “The values of culture are not necessarily values of the Christian faith.”
The tendency among traditionalists was to “keep the peace, not rock the boat and compromise with the world”, he told churchgoers. He said the FCA would change that, adding: “We will resist compromise … We need to make sure that God’s will for human beings and their flourishing is set forth clearly.”
After the service he said there had been meetings with the archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, about the movement and that he had sent a message for delegates. Asked if it was a message of support, Nazir-Ali replied: “I’ve only seen one line of it, but it looked good to me.”
Human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell accused Nazir-Ali of prejudice. “As an Asian man, the bishop knows the pain of racial prejudice,” he said. “I am shocked he wants to inflict similar prejudice on gay people. Bigotry, even in the guise of religion, has no place in a compassionate, caring society. His prejudice goes against Christ’s gospel of love and compassion.”
The bishop, who retires in September, was one of several high-profile clergymen to address congregations in the Greater London area today to rally support. Others included the archbishop of Sydney, Peter Jensen.
Organisers of the event claim it does not represent a schism and that the group is not an organisation, with structures and a constitution, but simply a spiritual network of like-minded Christians.
Some are unconvinced, noting that the FCA allies itself with groups that have snubbed the archbishop of Canterbury or established parallel churches that are more conservative.
The Rev Andrew Goddard, a tutor in Christian ethics at Trinity College, Bristol, said the FCA was “self-consciously” distancing itself from the Church of the England and aligning itself with conservative churches in Africa and North America, and that it included and was supportive of some who had already separated.
“These people would want the FCA to distance itself from at least parts of the Church of England and would seek to move the FCA in a more separatist direction. The danger is that even if it as a whole does not officially follow a ‘separatist’ path, [it] will give legitimacy and provide cover for members who do separate.
“The concern is that it will simply support those who sign up to it.
“However they conduct themselves in relation to the authority structures of the Church of England, the separatist tail will end up wagging the officially non-separatist dog.”
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Sex sells to women too
Black Lace had a reputation for producing edgy, well-written erotica for women. The demand is there, so why is it closing?
The suspension of Black Lace, the UK erotica imprint “by women, for women”, brings to an end 16 years of female-penned smut due to “declining sales”. Sex sells – but apparently not to women.
As authors, we’re dismayed. In erotic fiction, you’ll probably find truer expressions of female desire than in the popular memoirs from strippers and sex workers, whose job it is to please men. But we’re also unsurprised. Women’s erotic fiction authors are often regarded as randy Barbara Cartlands writing purple porn for the sex-starved, their prose replete with throbbing manhoods, dungeon dynamics and swoon-inducing bastards: “Mills and Bonk”.
But in the last 16 years, Black Lace has acquired a strong reputation for producing edgy, well-written erotica. When readers get past their prejudices, they’re often very pleased to see us.
The internet has also transformed erotica. Women who felt uncomfortable purchasing dirty books in person can now buy at their blush-free leisure. But the wide availability of free content online has led many to conclude books can’t compete. Many authors have felt, in the face of this, the imprint’s marketing and brand-identity have been neglected, that the line has released too many reprints, or that its women-only author policy is outmoded.
With every industry feeling the pinch, many will view Black Lace’s fall as inevitable. But it has recently felt as if the genre was on the cusp of mainstream acceptance. Magazines such as Scarlet and Filament are targeting women with sexy words and pictures. The high sales of Kathy Lette’s In Bed With… collection of anonymous erotica, suggests woman are eager to read clit-lit. Sex memoirs are popular in the US; erotica, in particular, erotic romance, sells massively, with ebooks flying off the digital shelves. Why not over here? Are we just too British? Are the books not reaching the consumer? Is there something unseemly about our fiction? When it comes to genre credibilty, it often feels we’re in the gutter, looking up at the sci-fi writers.
Rival UK erotica publisher, Xcite, look set to gain new ground in the space vacated by Black Lace. Alas for BL authors, Xcite is short story led and novel-length manuscripts may struggle to find a home. Several popular BL authors already writing erotic romance are likely to flourish with American publishers instead. However, some fear they won’t fit in. Is there still a problem of double standards? After all, when Black Lace began many commentators refused to believe the authors of these books could be women.
With more investment the Black Lace story could have ended happily. For a line of groundbreaking women’s fiction to vanish – after that broken ground was so hard won – is a tragedy. When Random House bought Virgin Books, owners of Black Lace, they declared erotica “the jewel in the crown” – a tiny, insignificant jewel, it seems, which can be picked off their conglomerate crown and flicked away.