Cultural sensitivity

According to this article, the "fixation on cultural sensitivity is changing the debate around female genital mutilation, with a growing number of professors and women's rights activists becoming hesitant to condemn the practice".

My response to this has to be, would they have been, are they still, equally hesitant to condemn slavery? (it still exists, it is a well established tradition in some areas). Would they have had difficulty in condemning foot-binding in Chinese culture?

There is an interesting post on Global Voices about the tradition of over-feeding women in Mauritania where it is sexy for women to be fat. A commenter on an earlier post had said "but it is not their fault, this is how they were educated". Similar arguments apply.

Being aware of cultural issues and sensitivities cannot mean that harmful practices should be condoned. And I notice that the majority of these issues are harm caused to women.

Perpetuating stereotypes

On Friday I was reading a post on NHS Blog Doctor, all about a new system whereby patients book their own hospital appointments. While he complains about the system, which is dubious I grant you, he uses as illustration a fictitious patient called Doris, aged 70. And then comes up with this:

"An intelligent middle class, middle aged patient will make light work of the letter. An old, not so clever widow in her seventies does not understand it. "

Then I read the comments, the first of which was:

"I can barely make sense of that form, so I'm not sure how your patient was supposed to! : Nurse 11.05.07 - 9:45 pm "

I'm not sure whether the nurse making the comment has superior form-interpretation skills by virtue of the fact that he is male or purely because of his/her occupation.

I left a comment objecting to the use of an "old, not so clever widow" as an example but it seems that nobody can see how it perpetuates stereotypes. Repeating that sort of thing just reinforces preconceptions, and I am heartily sick of being assumed to be some sort of an idiot by professions. The excuse eventually given seems to be that he has large numbers of female patients:

"Like most GPs, I have a large number of elderly women with medical problems. A lot of them are widows. Some of them could do battle with Germaine Greer and Beryl Bainbridge. Some of them could not. Even a lot of the highly intelligent competent ones struggle with paperwork as they have never done it in their lives. Some of my male widower patients struggle with cooking - their wives always did it and now they cannot boil an egg. They struggle even more if they are not too intelligent."

Is he saying, he is certainly implying, that all the males could cope with paperwork? Was it necessary to single out a section of his patients as likely not to be able to manage?

Life's Gifts 1890

by Olive Schreiner.

I came across this at Equiano’s Lost in Translation, a largely African orientated book blog. It comes from Dreams by Olive Schreiner (1855-1920) which is available for download from Project Gutenberg amongst other places.

I saw a woman sleeping. In her sleep she dreamt Life stood before her, and held in each hand a gift--in the one Love, in the other Freedom. And she said to the woman, "Choose!"

And the woman waited long: and she said, "Freedom!"

And Life said, "Thou hast well chosen. If thou hadst said, 'Love,' I would have given thee that thou didst ask for; and I would have gone from thee, and returned to thee no more. Now, the day will come when I shall return. In that day I shall bear both gifts in one hand."

I heard the woman laugh in her sleep.

A timeless piece.

Blogging against sexism

I work in IT. I’ve been in IT in some shape or form all my working life, a long time now. I started as a programmer for a large engineering firm in an industrial area and found myself almost alone in a man’s world.

I worked for seven years before stopping (had to stop in those days) to have my first child. By then I was far from the only woman though we were very much the tiny minority. However I remember thinking that progress was being made and that no doubt, things would even out. After all there is nothing about IT that need in any way be perceived as “unsuitable” for a woman. The usual excuse for many careers is that they are physically hard or that they are “dirty”. Debatable anyway, but IT just doesn't fit into those categories.

Indeed later on in my career, things did seem to even out. I had a good number of female colleagues and things seemed stable.

So what has happened?!!

I started working at my sons’ secondary school, helping out with computer studies lessons. Very few girls took it as an option and not one wanted to take it any further. Very few took maths. One mother came up to me and told me her son had said to her “Mrs {} knows an awful lot about computers considering she’s a housewife”. This was related to me with all seriousness, as a compliment.

What way are we educating our young people that these situations arise - that young women don’t feel a career in IT is attractive or suitable or relevant, or that young men can have these perceptions of a woman's place?

Of course now I'm getting the ageism. Powerful stuff when combined with sexism!

International Women's Day 2007

You can find out about International Womens' Day here. It dates from the early 1900s, and apparently is a national holiday in some countries.

Sexism in advertising

I found a great French site, La Meute, which holds an annual prize for the most sexist and the least sexist advertising. The voting is closed for the 2007 prizes but had I realised earlier I could have voted on line.

My favourite out of the finalists for least sexist prize (Prix Femino) is the insurance company which ran a series with text such as:

~Sorry, man's superiority does exist. All you have to do is compare retirement~
~You struggle to be an independent woman. Only up to the age of 60?~
~What good is it to have a longer life expectancy than men if you don't have a retirement?~

The last has this illustration:



It brings to attention the fact that millions of women reach retirement age without adequate pension provisions, largely because of inequalities of earnings throughout working life.

Another I like:



An advertisement for a mineral water, showing an older model with a t-shirt reading n'eau (no) fatigue n'eau stress. I like the play on words but particularly that the model is not young and yet is very attractive. And as La Meurte says: a miracle that a model over the age of 22 and a half can still work!

There aren't as many illustrated examples of the prize for the most sexist advertising (Prix Macho), but one of them is this one looking for bus drivers



which says that (if you're a man) you will be able to work hours that allow you to go to football, the cinema, the restaurant, and whatever you like. If you're a woman on the other hand, it gives you the chance to pick up the children from school after work.

No comment.

There are apparently La Meute Suisse and La Meute Québecoise and I've just come across Gender Ads which is rather hard on the eye but apparently being revamped.