I’ve wrote about the issue a few times already and still haven’t quite settled my position. Still, I won’t deny the rush of pleasure I felt when hearing that France’s lower house has passed a bill banning the burqa.

In a near-unanimous decision, the National Assembly voted 335-1 to ban the Islamic face coverings in public.

The legislation imposed a $185 fine or citizenship lessons — or both — on women caught outside their homes wearing the full-face coverings known as a burqa in Afghanistan and a niqab in North Africa. It set a fine of $38,000 and a one-year prison term for anyone convicted of forcing women and girls to wear such veils, reflecting a widely shared conviction here that Muslim women are forced to cover their faces by their fathers or husbands.

The bill is supposed to also pass easily through the upper house, but before being enacted into law, the bill will also be submitted to the Constitutional Council to ensure it meets commitments to human rights outlined in France’s constitution.

Surveys have shown overwhelming support for the ban, as well. A survey by the Pew Research Center conducted in April and May showed 82 percent of those questioned support the prohibition. In addition, the survey found that 71 percent of Germans, 62 percent of Britons and 59 percent of Spaniards would back similar bans in their own countries.

While I think that law can have an important educational effect on changing norms in a society, there will be enforcement issues, as noted by a BBC article on the ban:

Initially there will be a six-month period where women who wear the full-face veil are stopped and told about French laws and the reasons behind them. But after that period a police officer could tell her to remove the veil or risk a fine.

Clearly, in some suburbs of Paris with strong Muslim communities it would be very sensitive to order a woman to remove her veil. It will also be hard to prove that a woman is wearing a veil against her wishes.

Another risk is that the ban will create martyrs. Frederic Lagache of the police union said to me today: “Our concern is that some people will be manipulated by extremists and cause trouble on the streets when we stop them.”

Already a businessman has offered to set up a fund to pay any fines incurred by women.

There are also likely to be a series of legal challenges.

In far less controversial legislation, Ottawa may soon consider adding honour killings to its Criminal Code. Yesterday, Canada’s federal government affirmed its position against the practice, declaring such “barbaric cultural practices” as “heinous abuses” with “no place in Canadian society.”

Rona Ambrose, Minister of Public Works and Government Services and Minister for the Status of Women referred to:

“honour crimes and to the subjugation, oppression and repression of women and girls wherever it happens.

“Repression, oppression and violence to maintain a family’s honour may even happen because a girl wants to wear westernized clothing, date a boy who may not be from her own religion or culture or simply wanting to wear make-up.”

These comments come on the heels of a report by the Frontier Centre for Public Policy, which documented at least 15 honour killings in Canada since 2002, and issued 14 policy recommendations to the Canadian government to stop the crime.

Here’s hoping.

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This morning, Australian news was abuzz with excitement over a caucus meeting of the Australian Labor Party that was set to vote on ousting current Prime Minister Kevin Rudd in favour of his Deputy PM, Julia Gillard. And in a piece of Australian political history, Rudd did indeed step down, leaving Gillard Australia’s first female prime minister.

Everyone seems pretty excited about it – the morning ‘news’ broadcasts aired into overtime in order to cover the meeting and change of leadership. However, without missing a beat, wouldn’t you know, Sunrise anchor Melissa Doyle announces that tomorrow we’ll discuss whether or not Australia “is ready for a female prime minister”?

I’m going to set my outrage aside for a moment. I accept that these sorts of sensationalist morning programs require “provocation,” if you want to call it that, to engage viewers in their thirty-second discussions of salient news issues. But it’s cheap media. It’s a cheap trick, and a tired one. Worst of all, though, it’s insidious for two reasons. Firstly, by questioning whether or not Australia is ready for a female prime minister, Sunrise implies that the country is not, that a female leader is something to be feared or approached cautiously, or as anything but what it really is, which is LONG OVERDUE. The question legitimizes chauvenism by opening the door to arguments that women shouldn’t be Prime Minister. Secondly, the question represents exactly the barriers faced by women in politics. Were it a male challenger, no one would be asking if Australia were ready for him. The media is notoriously bad for getting stuck in the gender angle when reporting on female politicians, so all we ever hear about is their childbearing/rearing capabilities, their fashion sense, or their bitchiness (which is very interesting to contrast with the forms of confrontation expressed by their male counterparts).

I suppose, Mel, you’ll be asking your “expert” guests to comment on whether Gillard’s ascension to Prime Minister means the end of the feminist struggle, or somehow proves that Australia isn’t a sexist country. You’ll be wrong.

That Gillard was ever made deputy was probably the biggest step for women in Australian politics. Honestly, there was no alternative for leadership if the party had decided Rudd couldn’t win them another election. And before we applaud ourselves too much, by my count, Australia is now the 54th country in the world to elect a female leader. Surely, Mel, we deserve our spot among the ranks of:

• Trinidad and Tobago
• Lithuania
• Moldova
• South Korea
• Liberia
• Ukraine
• Sao Tome and Principe
• Senegal
• Latvia
• Mongolia
• Guyana

Surely we won’t suggest that there’s something particularly progressive about the 53 other countries in the world who have had female leaders that Australia may yet be lacking. In terms of Australia’s representation of women, just 13 per cent of the current ministry are female, putting us in the company of countries such as Oman, Qatar. Bahrain, Angola and the Democratic Republic of Congo – all of whom have less than 20 per cent women in ministerial positions. Only Australia, Israel and the US among the developed democracies have such small numbers of women political leaders.

I think the media plays an important role in maintaining negative perceptions of female politicians. Voters have shown themselves to be willing to vote for a female representative, with women comprising 25-35% of seats in parliaments across the country. It is not from the public that the majority of criticisms of female politicians come – it is from the media. Journalists trivialise women publicly, focusing narrowly on their hair and clothes, assessing her worth by her maternal and domestic prowess. Gillard has been criticised in the media not only for lacking children, but for having a kitchen that is “too clean.”

What more would it take for Australia to be “ready” for Gillard? She already wears the standard uniform of dark suits, and has appropriated the required mimicking of men to speak in ‘polliespeak’. She demurs from confrontation lest she be called a ‘bitch.’ She knows not to show any originality and difference, because the media will make her pay if she does otherwise.

No, it’s rather unhelpful to question the ‘readiness’ of Australia for a female prime minister. As twitterer benpobjie so accurately responded to the question: “if not, a pro-Gillard vote may well tear the space-time continuum.”

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In 1995, Sweden passed a law requiring fathers to take parental leave following the birth of their child. While the law did not actually force the father to stay home, the family lost one month of subsidies if he did not. What Sweden found from this social experiment was that very soon afterward, more than 8 in 10 men took leave. In 2002, a second nontransferable month was assigned to the fathers, which only marginally increased the number of men taking leave, but more than doubled the amount of time men did take off to parent. Now 85 percent of Swedish men take parental leave.

An interesting NYT piece from a couple of weeks ago discusses this law and the amazing social impact it had on the country, including: lower rates of divorce, higher likeliness of joint custody in the case of divorce, and men reprioritizing their lives to work/life balance as opposed to being focused primarily on their career.

Companies have come to expect employees to take leave irrespective of gender, and not to penalize fathers at promotion time. Women’s paychecks are benefiting and the shift in fathers’ roles is perceived as playing a part in lower divorce rates and increasing joint custody of children.

In perhaps the most striking example of social engineering, a new definition of masculinity is emerging.

“Many men no longer want to be identified just by their jobs,” said Bengt Westerberg, who long opposed quotas but as deputy prime minister phased in a first month of paternity leave in 1995. “Many women now expect their husbands to take at least some time off with the children.”

What is more, a study published by the Swedish Institute of Labor Market Policy Evaluation in March showed a direct link between the gender pay gap and mandatory parental leave. The study indicated that a mother’s future earnings increase on average 7 percent for every month the father takes leave.

Not only is the paternity leave making families happier (or at least appear to be happier on what indicators are available), it also appears to be challenging hegemonic masculinity:

Birgitta Ohlsson, European affairs minister, put it this way: “Machos with dinosaur values don’t make the top-10 lists of attractive men in women’s magazines anymore.”
…
In Sodermalm, Stockholm’s trendy south island, the days of fathers taking only two months are clearly over. Men with strollers walk in the park, chat in cafes, stock up at the supermarket or weigh their babies at walk-in daycare centers.

Claes Boklund, a 35-year-old Web designer taking 10 months off with 19-month-old Harry, admits he was scared at first: the baby, the cooking, the cleaning, the sleepless nights. Six months into his leave, he says, he is confident around Harry (and cuts his nails).

“It’s both harder and easier than you think,” he said.

Another father talked of how few men cut their own children’s fingernails, as one of the many parenting duties most often left to the mother by default because women are usually the primary caregiver. If men are forced into the role (or at least strongly encouraged), there seems to be benefit for all. I’d now like a study done relating the development of children whose fathers took a significant amount of leave to stereotypical views held of gender roles and maybe even to misogyny. But I’m no psychologist… will have to wait to see what the next several decades mean for Sweden’s social development.

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Now I know sub-Saharan African countries aren’t really known for their respect of human rights, but I was shocked out of hibernation by this story. Apparently doctors in Namibia are forcing HIV-positive women to be sterilized after they receive the positive diagnosis.

While the ‘forced’ part of that description may conjur images of the women being pinned down, kicking and screaming, but the allegations are actually that the doctors are not seeking informed consent for the procedure. According to the rights group representing three of the women who claim to have been sterilized against their wishes, at least 15 cases of forced sterilization have been reported in Namibian hospitals since 2008.

“We want a health system based on human rights which promotes equality for all,” the LAC’s Amon Ngavetene told the BBC News website.

He explained that when HIV-positive women go to hospital they are sometimes, at the discretion of the doctors, advised to undergo a sterilisation operation.

Mr Ngavetene said these women are not always given a clear idea of what the procedure involves and dangerous pre-existing conditions are not always taken into account.

There may also be a language barrier in a country where there are 11 indigenous languages, he said.

Deplorable. That’s about all I have to say on the topic.

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Well, that’s what the headline should say. Instead, we’re choosing to call this man’s paying $100,000 for a 13 year old girl “marriage”. Did I mention he’s 49?

Ahmad Sani Yerima, former governor of the state of Zamfara, is responsible for the introduction of Sharia law into the state. Though he denies that the girl is 13, he also refuses to disclose her actual age, claiming:

“I consider all those complaining about this issue as detractors, because since 1999… many people have been waging different kind of wars against me,” he told the BBC’s Hausa Service by telephone from Egypt.

The senator said he had followed “standard rules for marriage in Islam”.

“I don’t care about the issue of age since I have not violated any rule as far as Islam is concerned,” he said.

“History tells us that Prophet Muhammad did marry a young girl as well. Therefore I have not contravened any law. Even if she is 13, as it is being falsely peddled around.

“If I state the age, they will still use it to smear Islam,” he said.

Luckily, some women’s groups in Nigeria are protesting the marriage and demanding to see Sani taken to court to face a jail sentence for contravening the 2003 Child Right’s Act.

But apparently this politician does not believe in the laws of men and his peers, preferring the self-selected “laws” of his fanatical version of spiritual beliefs that somehow justify buying and raping children. In his own defense, Sani claims:

“As a Muslim, as I always say, I consider God’s law and that of his prophet above any other law,” Mr Sani said.

“I will not respect any law that contradicts that and whoever wants to sanction me for that is free to do that.”

Apparently this one was not his first child “bride.”

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In a near-unanimous vote in the lower house yesterday, the Belgian parliament voted in favour of a ban on face veils, and any other item of clothing that conceals the identity of a person, being worn in public places. Though the law must still go through the Senate, the law is expected to pass within a month or two, which will make it the first of its kind in Europe. The vote saw 134 parliamentarians voting in favour, with two abstentions.

The law may seem unnecessary and even deliberately targeting, as apparently only 30 women in all of Belgium’s 500,000 or so Muslim population wear the full niqab.

The Muslim Executive of Belgium has criticised the move, saying it would lead to women who do wear the full veil to be trapped in their homes.

Amnesty International said a ban would set a “dangerous precedent”.

In a statement, the human rights group said it would “violate the rights to freedom of expression and religion of those women who wear the burqa or niqab as an expression of their identity and beliefs”.

The ban would be imposed in all buildings or grounds that are “meant for public use or to provide services”, including streets, parks and sports grounds.

Exceptions could be made for certain festivals.

It seems unlikely that the government means this law to be anything more than a statement against the full veiling of women mandated by Islamists, as the fine for wearing face-obscuring garments is 15-25 Euros.

Many people oppose the veil as an oppressive means of subjugating women, and legislation like this are meant both as a statement denouncing this subjugation and as a means of ‘liberating’ women from being forced by their families to cover themselves. However, as Amnesty International points out, it is unlikely to be the repressive political element in European Muslim societies that suffers from this legislation, and it will take more effort to educate women about their rights and social services available to them if they do feel forced.

My own feelings are split on the bill. On the one hand, I applaud any measures taken to combat the extremism of religious fanaticism that has been on the rise over the past decade. I applaud any attempts to ensure the full realization of one’s rights in the face of political and social oppression. But on the otherhand, I worry about unintended effects arising from such legislation, such as warned about by Amnesty International.

I guess we’ll have to wait and see what happens.

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The host of my preferred morning show was, this morning, rather pleased with himself for being part of a group of men who apparently do more domestic work than others: Australians. This is, of course, only in comparison with a very small and not-sure-how-they-were-selected cross section of Western countries – namely, Italy, Denmark and France. And by “others,” I of course am referring to “other men.” This is big news in Australia today, though I’m not sure why as I can’t seem to find any recent publication made by the study author Lyn Craig.

Here’s what she has to say about Australian men and domestic work:

Australian fathers, her study shows, are run off their feet. Their long hours in paid work combined with their domestic labours means they work harder than Danish, French or Italian fathers and the same as Americans. For example, they spend 10 to 11 hours a day in paid and domestic work compared to eight hours for Danish men.
…
The French, in particular, are sanguine about time spent with their children. French fathers spend on average 20 minutes a day in routine physical care of their children aged under five, and in accompanying them places, compared to 40 minutes by Australian fathers. They also spend much less time reading to them and playing with them.

Well, thanks for that, news service, but I think something important is being overlooked, and something that Dr. Craig emphasizes herself in her interviews with these media outlets:

”They do less than Australian women but they compare favourably to men in some other countries,”

…
Dr Craig points out in her study, Work and Family Time: Australia in Comparative Perspectives, that the gender division of labour is much more unequal here – not because fathers do less childcare than fathers overseas, but because their wives do less paid work, and much more housework and childcare than elsewhere.

Dr Craig believes it is pointless for Australian policymakers to exhort hard-pressed men to pitch in more at home. ”Perhaps rather than looking at what households should do to share the load more equally,” she says, ”we need to look at what workplaces should do to limit demands on workers’ time.”

What Dr. Craig is actually discovering about Australian culture is not that it is more egalitarian in terms of gender, but rather that Australians as a whole are overworked compared to their European counterparts.

And regardless of the amount of work that Australian men are doing in terms of childcare, Australian mothers are doing more work than fathers.

So quit congratulating yourselves and give your partner a hand with the cooking, already.

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A friend recently asked me to watch the ridiculously long “Telephone” video by Lady Gaga and Beyoncé as she wanted my feminist opinion on it. She described it thusly: lady gaga is thrown in prison, has explicit lesbian relations, gets telephone call for the sole purpose of showing a virgin mobile shot, gets out of prison, goes to a restaurant and poisons Beyoncé’s boyfriend and everyone else, dresses in an American flag and dances around in the dead bodies before driving off Thelma & Louise style in a vehicle labeled “pussy wagon.”

It’s a pretty accurate description:

And here’s Fox News’ conservative reaction to the clip:

But the objections of feminists, while similarly concerned for the representation of women and the sexualization of violence in this clip, are inherently different than those expressed at Fox News. Sean Macaulay at the Daily Beast sums it up when he says the video is all about “lezploitation”:

The women-in-prison genus has been in steady use since the 1920s, and its rules and clichés are among the most strictly observed of exploitation fare. “Telephone” is no exception, and reverently starts with a New Fish (Lady Gaga) arriving at a jail to Run the Gauntlet of Leering Inmates before being Sexually Assaulted by pair of strapping Lesbian Guards.

Sadly, the video epic doesn’t have time to include other staples of the category, such as the Sadistic Warden; the Queen Bee; the Inmate on the Edge, usually carrying a pet mouse; the Wise Old Lifer, who generally works in the library; and the aforementioned Shower Scene. This last one is a glaring omission, rather like reviving Oklahoma! without “The Surrey With the Fringe on Top.”

But “Telephone”—directed by Jonas Åkerlund—makes up for these omissions with a vicious catfight, a mass murder, and a deadpan Beyoncé doing a Kill Bill homage as the “butch top” in this criminal partnership. “You’ve been a very bad girl,” she tells her wayward lover. “A very, very, bad, bad, girl, Gaga.”

I found this last quote interesting as it’s followed up with both women putting a very phallic object in their mouths. You see, unfortunately Sean Macaulay isn’t critical of lezploitation as a genre that sexualizes violence and constructs a fantasy ideal of women as secretly loving abuse and as always ravenous for sex (from men, btw).

But besides the obvious gender issues of the clip, what I find much more subversive and dangerous is the advertising in a way that I can only really compare to the 2001 film Josie and the Pussycats:

Upon a little further investigation, I realized that Virgin Mobile was getting so many shots because they’re sponsoring Gaga’s world tour and she has multiple deals with them in the works. But then, I came across this really interesting list in The Moderate Voice, from which I learned that a lot of the labels were unpaid spots:

* Wonder Bread: Unpaid. Used in a sequence showing Gaga poisoning diner customers, because Gaga wanted to contrast the poisoning with an all-American brand.

* Miracle Whip: Paid. Used in the same scene-and for the same reason-as Wonder Bread; seems to be part of the spread’s new, edgier campaign.

* Diet Coke: Unpaid. It was Gaga’s idea to curl her hair with Diet Coke cans in the video as an homage to her mother.

* Virgin Mobile: The cell phone in the video is a nod to the company, a mobile sponsor of Gaga’s Monster Ball tour.

* Polaroid: Camera and photo booth featured acknowledge Gaga’s role as Polaroid’s creative director.

* Heartbeats headphones and Beats laptop : Unpaid. An extension of her partnerships with Interscope Music and Hewlett Packard.

* PlentyofFish.com: Unclear. Possibly the weirdest deal of the bunch; result of the dating site’s partnership with Interscope.

And of course, the sponsors of the video knew what they were getting into – this video wasn’t meant for regular airplay. It’s allegedly been banned from MTV. This video was made to be viral, so people like me and my friends would discuss it and then look for it online, post it on our blogs, and discuss more. All to benefit Virgin-fucking-mobile and Miracle Whip (though I really love the latter…). As Feministe points out:

It was not designed to be shown on television, ever! It is ten minutes long, and it has more dialogue than music, and it has the “fuck” word and naked breasts and vaginas and girl-on-girl action and basically everybody gets murdered. At no point did anyone making this video think, “I’m still pretty sure we could get this on television, though.” No. It was made to be on the Internet. And you can tell because this affects the form itself, like the actual decisions of how to shoot and edit the damn thing. You can tell this video was meant to be turned into nine million animated GIFs, for example, because there are several parts of it that are shot to look like animated GIFs: you know that thing where there’s like two seconds of movement that loops back around on itself in a weird, jerky, headache-inducing way? That’s what this video looks like, a lot of the time. Gaga has now apparently incorporated not just an analysis of gender and sexuality into her work, she has apparently decided to take on the issue of new media.

Advertisers are getting smarter. We’re all becoming more susceptible. Damn them.

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What a buffoon! According to a Sydney-based researcher, the Australian Prime Minister, at an event in January, told her that her PhD was an excuse commonly used by young women “to avoid starting a family”.

Deputy PM Julia Gillard better get on the clean up trail after that one. Apparently Mr. Rudd doesn’t recall making such a comment. I’m sure he did – he’s such a useless goon. I’m also sure he’s not a total misogynist like his rival, Tony Abbott. He’s just an indoctrinated, socialized, mostly-misogynist like most other men. He may not really believe she’s avoiding having babies, but his comment does imply a belief that education is somehow lost on women.

And I don’t fully believe that Rudd wants to see women get a fair go. Otherwise his government would not have just denied any possibility of a quota system for women’s employment. According to a newly released KPMG report, only 54 per cent of employed women are full-time, compared to 84 per cent of men. The findings didn’t seem to phase Minister for the Status of Women, Tanya Plibersek, who sluffed off the suggestion that the government should address this disparity with an appeal to the fact that the report included no formal recommendations to government.

Riiiight, so governments are incapable of analysing data and finding their own solutions, but must rely on recommendations from the private or NFP sector for action?

Bullshit, Ruddy, you just think women have stolen enough rights and should be happy with where they’ve gotten to, right?

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Gosh, on the heels of that disturbing study on the attitudes of children yesterday comes another figure out of the UK, this time from an online poll of over 1000 respondents, that more than 50% of women believe rape victims bear some responsibility for their attack.

The poll was administered by Haven, a safe refuge for female survivors of abuse, and called ‘Wake Up to Rape.’ The responses were startling:

A fifth of the women said the victim was partly responsible if they went back to the assailant’s house and a 10th said taking a drink from a stranger had unforeseen consequences.

Twenty per cent of women surveyed said they would not report a rape to police, with half of those citing shame or embarrassment as a reason.

Furthermore:

One in eight thought a victim who danced in a provocative manner on a night out was also to blame for any consequences.

In a more striking finding, 14 per cent of the women told the surveyors that 14 per cent of women believe most rape accusations were cooked up.

More than a third of women thought that rape victims who’d gone back to a man’s place for a drink were partly to blame for the attack, compared to less than a fifth of the male respondents.

Interestingly, it was mostly women aged 18-24 who espoused these opinions. This is a really frightening social regression after the lengths feminists have gone to to get courts to recognize any form of non-consensual sexual activity to be rape. It’s a bizarre form of self-denial that women put themeselves through to think that it won’t happen to them if they behave in a certain way. The issue is not that women look or act a certain way and put themselves in vulnerable situations. It’s that men choose to rape. It’s that rape, in the words of Susan Brownmiller, is a tool of intimidation by which all men keep all women in a state of fear for the purposes of maintaining male dominance.

This wasn’t something I truly grasped until I read the title of Andrea Dworkin’s speech to the Midwest Regional Conference of the National Organization for Changing Men: “I Want a Twenty-Four Hour Truce During Which There Is No Rape.” Read it! It’s incredibly moving. Here’s an excerpt:

We women. We don’t have forever. Some of us don’t have another week or another day to take time for you to discuss whatever it is that will enable you to go out into those streets and do something. We are very close to death. All women are. And we are very close to rape and we are very close to beating. And we are inside a system of humiliation from which there is no escape for us. We use statistics not to try to quantify the injuries, but to convince the world that those injuries even exist. Those statistics are not abstractions. It is easy to say, “Ah, the statistics, somebody writes them up one way and somebody writes them up another way.” That’s true. But I hear about the rapes one by one by one by one by one, which is also how they happen. Those statistics are not abstract to me. Every three minutes a woman is being raped. Every eighteen seconds a woman is being beaten. There is nothing abstract about it. It is happening right now as I am speaking.

And it is happening for a simple reason. There is nothing complex and difficult about the reason. Men are doing it, because of the kind of power that men have over women. That power is real, concrete, exercised from one body to another body, exercised by someone who feels he has a right to exercise it, exercised in public and exercised in private. It is the sum and substance of women’s oppression.

It is not done 5000 miles away or 3000 miles away. It is done here and it is done now and it is done by the people in this room as well as by other contemporaries: our friends, our neighbors, people that we know. Women don’t have to go to school to learn about power. We just have to be women, walking down the street or trying to get the housework done after having given one’s body in marriage and then having no rights over it.

The power exercised by men day to day in life is power that is institutionalized. It is protected by law. It is protected by religion and religious practice. It is protected by universities, which are strongholds of male supremacy. It is protected by a police force. It is protected by those whom Shelley called “the unacknowledged legislators of the world”: the poets, the artists. Against that power, we have silence.

I would argue it’s also institutionalised by the socialisation of women to believe in the system. To believe that we play a role in our own abuse. To believe that men have this right – this male sex right – over our bodies, over our actions, over us. Systems naturally want to reproduce themselves and the shit we are fed in the media is for this purpose – the maintenance of patriarchy and women’s subordination. Somehow, somewhere we’re being told we’re to blame for men’s violence and that voice is so pervasive it’s reaching children, who are parroting this belief.

Again… dangerous. Dangerous stuff.

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