Jane Haile

Mantelgate. It all began at the British Museum. The two-time Booker prize winner, reflecting on her favourite historical period…the time of Henry VIII and Cromwell… began a very amusing riff on royal wombs and vaginas; a shocking juxtaposition of noun and adjective which may have led Big Dave to charge to the defence of ‘Princess’ Kate. http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/feb/19/david-cameron-hilary-mantel-duchess-cambridge Hilary was rightly pointing out the important role of those organs in the history of the monarchy & as she might have added of the Church of England too. Her speech was reproduced in full in the London Review of Books: http://www.lrb.co.uk/v35/n04/hilary-mantel/royal-bodies . Whilst she examines new evidence to show that Henry VIII’s story might have been a biological rather than a moral tragedy… given a possible rare blood-type of Kell’s positive… some of the best parts of her lecture describe the current monarch roaming the carpeted acres of a reception at Buckingham Palace stalking her guests, who ‘as if swept by the tide’, parted before her or surged ahead into the next room. The canapés were the Queen’s Revenge; small chunks of gristly meat on sticks… with no obvious disposal place for the latter; ‘as the guests ebbed away and the rooms emptied…what I saw placed at the base of every pillar, was a forest of little sticks: gnawed and abandoned’. Mantel magic. Mantel sees similarities between Marie-Antoinette, Diana and Kate noting that the French Queen was ‘eaten alive by her frocks’. Parallels between the Marie-Antoinette and Diana seem particularly apt in the week that Diana’s dresses are sold … again. http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/mar/19/princess-diana-dress-anonymous-bidder The parallel between Diana and Kate seems less sure-footed for a number of reasons. Kate was not the ideal royal womb & had to wait for that ring for a long time (‘Waity Katie’). She has already shown everyone including the media that she knows how to play a long game. Cleverly she has already tweaked our expectations by shopping on the High Street … making the fortunes of Reiss & L.K.Bennett… and swapping clothes with her mother. The Middleton women seem to be thin because they want to be & can. Not because of media scrutiny and criticism or pressure from the Great British Public (GBP). Whatever Hilary says, and as she recognizes, one thing is sure: nothing will stop us looking. After all one cannot be a National Symbol in private; and the GBP and others need some return on their investment. Where royals are not symbols… as in Belgium or Holland perhaps… and they don’t cost so much, very few people care or even know what they look like. However there is a balance to be struck. Complaints that Kate is just a ‘machine-made plastic princess’ & we don’t know if she has opinions seem beside the point. http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/03/11/kate-middletons-opinions-quotes-duchess-_n_2853012.html . Does anyone seek out the Queen’s opinions at her own receptions? Do we really want a repetition of Diana’s mawkish revelations to Panorama http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/special/politics97/diana/panorama.html or Charles’s absurd tampongate with Camilla? In this light the frequently rehearsed ‘hatred of the media’ by (those symbols) William & Harry, because of what the media did to their mother, seems a little forced (and wasn’t her chauffeur over the limits); but no doubt it’s an easier narrative to deal with than hating their father? There’s a delicate balance to be achieved. We don’t want too much revelation from our Symbols but we do appreciate it if they rattle the cage from time to time. The Duke of Edinburgh has a sure hand here.
As has the Queen… with one famous miss-step after Diana’s death… let’s hope that she is mentoring her grand-daughter -in-law as they trudge gamely round Baker Street Tube Station, or attend a fashion show in some remote northern outpost. The Queen’s Olympic outing as a Bond Girl was a bold and very successful pushing of the symbolic envelope. And maybe she has got a taste for impersonation now… perhaps she is impersonating Helen Mirren even as we speak. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/theatre/theatre-news/9557607/Helen-Mirren-to-play-the-Queen-again-in-theatre-production-The-Audience.html *** Tenniel’s famous drawing of the Duchess for Lewis Caroll’s Alice in Wonderland

Empress. And the “ Empress Dowager Cixi : the Concubine Who Launched Modern China” seems likely to garner plaudits not only from students of China but from anyone interested in world affairs and China’s role therein. Indeed the reader is frequently prompted to compare and contrast the relations between China and the West, as well as between China and Japan then and now. Jung Chang charts against a detailed canvas of national and international events and intrigues the tumultuous story of Empress Dowager Cixi from her relatively humble beginnings as an imperial concubine through four decades of power behind the throne first of her son, Emperor Tongzhi (1861-75) and then of her adoptive son Emperor Guangxu (1875-94) whose death by poisoning she deemed politically expedient and oversaw. Whilst the author overtly aims to correct the impression conveyed by other historians and scholars that Cixi was on the one hand “tyrannical and vicious” or on the other “hopelessly incompetent” this is much more than just an attempt at feminist revisionism. Chang recognizes that whilst Cixi was a “giant” she was certainly not a “saint” either in her public or her personal life. Despite her extraordinary statesmanship which enabled her to amass and mobilize formidable power for good both at home and in international relationships she made many serious errors probably chief amongst them her failed attempt to use the Boxer movement in 1900 as a way to ward off the incursions of European powers. She was also accused of diverting massive amounts of funds intended for the navy to restore her Summer Palace, and of dealing ruthlessly with opponents or those whose existence became inconvenient. But as Chang reminds in terms of love of luxury or revenge she was not alone and indeed her behavior could be regarded as moderate for the time she lived in. From today’s perspective the most interesting aspect of the book as the subtitle suggests is the depiction of her role as a modernizer and her opening of essentially feudal China to the West. Thanks to her initiatives railways, the telegraph, a modern army and a navy, trade, a modern education system, press freedom and the right to vote were all introduced into China.Interestingly given China’s current economic might commerce and banking acquired respectability for the first time, merchants having been traditionally regarded as the lowliest of professions. Opium consumption introduced by the British was outlawed through a Ten Point Plan; and foot-binding for women, a Han rather than Manchu practice, was made illegal.Chinese students were sent abroad for the first time in 1866 and other officials were dispatched to the West on the equivalent of the European Grand Tour. In 1867 the outgoing US Minister to Beijing was appointed China’s Ambassador Extraordinary to Europe and America on account of his “always having the interests of China at heart”. How many modern Americans are aware of that extraordinary fact? Cixi had her portrait painted from life by an American painter, Katherine Carl– a notable departure from the normal practice of painting only dead ancestors – and became affectionate friend of the painter. She posed for photographs amongst her eunuchs in stage costume which gave rise to unfavorable comment. Earlier in her reign her love for a eunuch, Little An, had led her into serious misjudgment for which she and the eunuch paid heavily, Little An with his life. We see her views of some of her Western contemporaries notably Queen Victoria and theirs of her. Most tellingly Cixi reflected that China was unable to thrive as well as Western countries did because of the lack of connection between rulers and ruled and that the connection could only be created by the introduction of the right to vote. Comparing herself with Queen Victoria whom she admired Cixi noted however that Victoria had parliamentary democracy to support and guide her whilst she had “’400,000,000 people all dependent on my judgement. Although I have the Grand Council to consult with…. Anything of an important nature I must decided myself’”. And indeed throughout the book with a few exceptions the toiling masses are notable only by their absence. Chang provides glimpses of off-duty Cixi ; her enormous and sumptuous wardrobe and lavish gift-giving ; her skillful kicking of a shuttlecock well into her fifties; her remarkable training and taming of birds to come to her hand, though her fish-charming seems to have been less successful.As striking as these intimate vignettes of her habits and preferences is the list of things that Cixi could not do; despite four decades in power she never entered the Forbidden City through the front door which was a privilege allowed only to men; although she had a splendid car given to her by one of her advisors, General Yuan, she was never driven in it as this would involve the chauffeur sitting down in her presence, an intractable problem. With rare exceptions her male interlocutors never saw her face-to- face except towards the end of her life and for very brief periods. This is a rich and fascinating book which never relaxes its hold on the reader despite the marshalling of a mass of complex historical details seen through the prism of Cixi. It would however be interesting to know more as to how Jung Chang has been able to present a more rounded and empathetic picture than has hitherto been the case (with some few exceptions which she does not mention). Has she had access to new data or has her analysis of data available to everyone simply been more empathetic .One cannot help but feel there are still many more books waiting to be written about this fascinating period of Chinese history. See also review at http://www.nyjournalofbooks.com/review/empress-dowager-cixi-concubine-who-launched-modern-china

Sex Disaggregated. Those of us working in gender and international development can remember the good old days…. which are still with us…. when governments and development agencies…..could pat themselves on the back for producing data disaggregated by sex……..to show how many people in Country X in Sector Y were male and how many female. Curiously these lists and categories are often presented in the reverse of alphabetical order. The next time you fill in a visa or immigration form you might also want to notice whether M still comes before F?Usually the softer social sectors….. especially Health & Education….. have been the first to “disaggregate” – presumably for practical reasons. Women and men have different health requirements especially as concerns Reproductive Health; and girls and boys have traditionally been educated separately and into different disciplines to fit them for different lives – according to presumed gender appropriateness. Domains considered more “serious”- as being obviously the domain of men and therefore not requiring change or development…. primarily Economics and Politics…. have been slower to come to disaggregation, and even now it is not unusual to encounter pages of “gender neutral” information in these fields; the unemployed, the farmers, the voters, the cabinet….. all of which terms may disguise either enormous variety, or its total absence.The UN’s Fourth World Conference on Women which took place in Beijing in 1995(2) was a high water mark in the promotion of sex-disaggregated data (SDD for short here)and succeeded in creating a much broader realization that disaggregated data is needed for proper planning as well as for “balancing the books” in any field you can name. It has become somehow more genteel to refer now to “gender-disaggregated” data and there are some attempts to distinguish between data disaggregated by sex and by gender on the grounds that gender-disaggregated data refers to “qualitative” differences of a higher and more abstract order…. and sex is simply…… sex. Western cultures are in general of course still deeply committed to the Noah’s Ark idea of two sexes with the appropriate behavioural gender frills added on. And most state and legal systems require this two- party system …most newborns are required to be registered as male or female. …..there we go again…or female or male. We have seen in 2014 some very encouraging signs of a break down or break up in the binary system:legalization of same sex marriage in a number of countries; ballot papers which provide a third box for Male, Female, And…; a school in rural Thailand installing toilets for its estimated 10% of transgender students(3) ; the first woman bishop ordained in the Church of England(4) ; outing and self-outing of sporting heroes and heroines continued and the heavens did not fall. Requiring further and forthcoming gendercentric attention are the facts that the authorities in Manchester, U.K. have established a school exclusively for LGBT children(5) ; that the Head of the IMF Christine Lagarde paid tribute to the late Saudi King as “a feminist” (would he have considered that a compliment?)(6) ; and bowing and then un-bowing to pressure the Sun newspaper removed the Page 3 Girls and then put them back(7). In 2014 there have also of course been many negative events from gender and other perspectives and no-one is likely to forget Boko Haram in a hurry…. nor the fact that Saudi women may own but not drive cars.However and staying on the bright side… democratization of the discussion on gender and sex is leading to a broader realization that there may be more than two of each and that sex, gender, and sexual preference may not be linked together in any pre-ordained or permanent way(8). This is sometimes because thanks to the ongoing media revolution often existing knowledge becomes more widely known and less exclusive… this applies particularly perhaps to the knowledge that embryologists, endocrinologists,urologits, biochemists and surgeons have been hugging to themselves(9) … and also as part of the same process because now people actually talk more freely …particularly through social media… about their own sex and gender experience. So we’d like to begin the year 2015 – even a little tardily – by noting some non-binary terms….not all of them new by any means…. which are coming soon to a screen near you if they are not already there.Cisgender, transgender,transwoman, transman (10) Women-born women; women-born men (11)Women- identified women; men-identified women (12)Intersex – a catch-all term for three major subgroups: herms, merms and ferms(13)Pansexual, polysexual, questioning, fluid, proto-gay, gender non-conforming, gender dysphoria, queer (not as meaning “gay” and/ or as a slur but meaning seeing the world askance and afresh -sometimes genderqueer)Genderqueer pronouns in common use- ze, hir, zir, ey, em (14) In recognition of the diversity masked by the terms women and men we may have to start putting these terms in quotation marks – “women” and “men”.Where do these dissolving boundaries and terminologies leave the old certainties of sex- disaggregated data. Sex-disaggregated data will continue to be useful as long as societies feel a need for individuals at birth to be assigned naturally or medically to one of the two parties. SDD will continue to have a strong promotional purpose where fields of activity are irrationally dominated by one sex -usually men. It is striking that most of the discussion on the statistical level use SDD to demonstrate …for example…that there are too few women in the cabinet, that the BBC only shows young women, that there are too few parts for female actors over 40, too few women CEOs, bank directors etc. SDD is often linked with data disaggregated by age and ethnicity to show where discriminations converge. What are the fields where there are too few men? Primary school teachers? Stay- at -home -parents? Certainly not “chefs” though perhaps “cooks”In certain fields such as reproductive Health where anatomical makeup is important for planning and practical purposes it will continue to be important to have data disaggregated by sex though two columns may not be enough. And there

Iraq. Fatma Khafagy is women’s rights activist in the Arab region. She worked with the United Nations on gender issues for 15 years. She established and presided over the first Ombudsperson office on gender equality in Egypt. For the past four years she has been assisting the UN agencies in developing gender equality strategies in Arab countries such as Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Iraq, Bahrain, Kuwait and Libya. Gendercentric: Fatma, thank you very much for agreeing to share some of your experience on working with gender equality issues in Iraq. It is sometimes the case that situations of political upheaval provide an opportunity for women to take on new and more dynamic roles in society. Has that happened for Iraqi women? Fatma: To some extent. There has been an interest from the Iraqi government and the American occupation to increase women’spolitical participation and this has happened with several limitations. Women were also encouraged to participate in putting together the new constitution. Women have had also to take care of their families when they became heads of the families as a result of losing their husbands. Because of the large amounts of development aid also, several new women’s NGOs were established and many of them managed to administer new projects in Iraq. However, gains that Iraqi women have achieved since 1970 under a constitution that granted women equal rights in education, employment, and political participation have been lost since the Iraq-Iran war followed by the Gulf war and ending with the US invasion. Gendercentric: Could you perhaps say a bit more about women’s rights efforts pre-Constitution which resulted in relatively favourable conditions under the Constitution? Fatma: Yes, well there are still serious barriers against equality in the context of women’s participation in public life. Iraqi women continue to be underrepresented at the legislative, judicial, ministerial, and sub-ministerial levels, as well as at the economic and social institutions. Women from the local councils were interested in running for election, but only a few were elected during the first local election. Women were only able to increase their political participation through the gender quota system. However, the gender quota of 30% in the parliament was not reached and therefore was reduced. Only 25% of women were able to become parliamentarians as a result of enlisting women on voting lists of political parties. Gendercentric: I suppose looking at the global picture 25% is not too bad, though of course it would be better to have more. How does this figure compare with some of the neighbouring countries in the region? Are there many women’s organizations actively working to reduce this or other gender gaps? I guess an equally important question would be ‘Are there Iraqi men who actively support greater gender equality?’ Fatma: Iraq fairs better than Arab countries. Women have to occupy 25% of parliament seats. But many women are elected for religious or tribal reasons. There is much influence of religious parties on women in parliament. Also many of the women parliamentarians are relatives of male conservative leaders and they have no experience or expertise in politics. Very few though are secular women’s activists. The Americans were very much concerned to show that the change in Iraq is so positive for women and that is why they insisted on the 25% gender quota. However, it is only a matter of quantitative representation and not of quality representation. Iraqi women are also very much less represented than men in ministerial positions and in decision -making positions. There are several women’s organizations now but they much more involved in administering large developmental projects than in work to reduce gender gaps. I mean that they work as consulting firms more than popular organizations with constituencies of women Some of government men officials support greater gender equality but the majority needs to be gender sensitized. Gendercentric: What are some of the other striking inequalities in Iraqi society that you have noticed? Fatma: Well in terms of women’s personal status law it is important to note that despite the establishment of the1970 Constitution the old Personal Status Code (1958) is the one implemented in all Iraq except in Kurdistan which has a much more gender equitable law. The 1958 law permits polygamy upon the husband’s obtaining permission from the court and demonstrating his ability to support more than one wife. The husband has the right to divorce and the wife has a right to petition for divorce in case of the husband’s imprisonment, desertion for two years, is impotent or infertile or refuses to provide maintenance. Rape, sexual assault, kidnapping, honour crimes, female genital cutting, domestic violence, trafficking and prostitution are types of violence women are suffering from in Iraq today. Many women live under constant fear of being abducted, raped or murdered. In the early 1990s, legal restrictions were placed on women’s freedom of movement and women had to be accompanied by a male relative if they were to travel outside the country Freedom of movement is still limited due to the ongoing conflict and many women are not able to leave their homes without male escort. Kurdish women generally enjoy a greater degree of freedom and more rights than the rest. The majority of women wear a veil in public. It is a religious practice for many but also due to social pressure and there is a risk of being harassed if they do not. Gendercentric: if women’s movements are so restricted presumably their economic participation is also rather limited? Fatma: Women’s labour force participation rate is around 13% only. It is higher in rural areas due to the fact that women are engaged in family agricultural unpaid work. The number of widows in Iraq varies according to source of data. Some sources estimate it to be 2 million widows. The number of female headed households is estimated sometimes to be 10% of total households. The level of poverty of female headed households is very high with no means to make ends meet and many

Hiding. In a week when Osama bin Laden is found ‘hiding’ next door to a Pakistani military academy & a website is dedicated to the rear view of Pippa the royal bridesmaid…. the domestic goddess in her burkini on Bondi beach perfectly captures the zeitgeist.   So what is Nigella actually saying to us… is this a plea for multiculturalism or a specific protest against the burka- , niqab- and presumably also burkini-banning of President Sarkozy. Will she wear this in St Tropez? More likely this is a protest against the tyranny of female swimwear and the general body- fascism which saw the wisteria sisters and their mother reduced to shadows of their former selves in order to slip through the gates of Buckingham Palace. But body-fascism is good for burkini sales. The company – Modestly Active – which sells ‘modest swimwear’ (including Nigella’s) reports that 15% of its customers are non-Muslim….. and that was before Nigella took to the waves or the demise of Osama.

Having it All !. Does the phrase ‘Having It All!’ now deserve to be purged from public discourse – along with other speech crimes such as ‘an emotional roller coaster’, and ‘at the end of the day’? And was such a hubristic expression ever the rallying call for feminism as seems to be implied by the debate provoked by Anne-Marie Slaughter’s splash in Atlantic magazine 01 July 2012. http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/ where she shares her heartbreaking decision ‘as I sipped champagne, greeted foreign dignitaries and mingled’ to leave a top job as ‘first women director of planning at the State Department’ for a return to Princeton University (‘after two years of leave you lose your tenure’) in order to spend more time with her children ages 12 and 14 for whom her husband has been doing the ‘lion’s share’ of care. We don’t know whether Mr. Slaughter felt that he ‘Had it All’. He is one of the few people we may not have heard from, along with Ms. Hillary Clinton, A-MS’s erstwhile boss, who was deemed to be very understanding. It has been very hard to source a photo of them together.Ms Slaughter has received an enormous volume of comments on her article one of which has now convinced her that the phrase ‘Having It All’ makes women who use it sound ‘piggy’ and elitist. ‘Piggy’? And there have been more trenchant criticism. The Women’s Media Centre for example in an article entitled ‘Having It All? – the Wrong Question for Most Women’ http://www.womensmediacenter.com counters with the thought that the majority of working mothers in the US are more worried about ‘losing it all’ because of the regular conflicts that arise between being a good employee and a responsible parent if they are less than Superwomen. At the risk of stating the obvious- work-life balance cannot be achieved by any one individual alone either man or woman. At the level of a domestic relationship clearly the division of labour between career and child care has to be negotiated and a decision or truce arrived at, and renegotiated from time to time according to career and reproductive patterns. Some women’s/men’s idea of having it all may actually be to dedicate their life to their families and have their material needs taken care of by their spouse in the monetary economy. And that is fine if the both agree pace Cherie Blair/Booth QC who at Fortune magazine’s Most Powerful Women Event has criticized ‘career- shunning Yummy Mummies’ who seek rich husbands and put children before career as setting a bad example. Ms Blair/Booth noted wittily that even a good man could have an accident or die and leave you holding the baby. http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/jun/20/cherie-blair-criticises-career-yummy-mummies So there we are again, poor old women, not only having to do and have it all but also to ‘set an example’. Does anyone ask this of men……Bob Diamond, Alan Sugar, Simon Cowell ?But – and again at the risk of stating the obvious- rearing the next generation is the responsibility of the larger society. Governments need to establish a regime of appropriate parental leave, and a tax system which ensures that entitlement to parental leave is not used as a reason not to hire women or men. The current debate on maternity and paternity leave in the UK is set apparently to run and run. The proposal has been made that after 18 weeks of maternity leave it would become parental leave to be taken by either parent .This is supported by the Fatherhood Institute but opposed by many women’s organizations like the Fawcett Society who want 26 weeks ‘of ring-fenced paid maternity leave’ before men muscle in. (See http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jun/13/cutting-maternity-leave-britains-parents Are we seeing a re-think of ‘Having it All’ after all? Underlying much of this debate seems to be a sub-text which reads that, taking care of the little blighters is best avoided if a more interesting financial opportunity occurs. Perhaps as we are ‘thinking outside the box’ (another phrase due for demolition) ‘care work’ not only for children, but for the sick and the elderly, could be valued so that it was not the option that no-one wanted to take. Can someone do for ‘care’ what Jamie, Gordon, Nigella and others have done for ‘cooking’? Could Selma James,founder of the International Wages for Housework Campaign have the answershttp://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/selma-james However everything is about something else and gendercentric finds it hard to believe that Ms. Slaughter and those who publish her really think that her complaining about her not too uncomfortable lot really constitutes a contribution to feminist thinking. Is this focus on ‘feminism’ part of an inept Bigger Plot aimed at distracting us from the Economy, or the Middle East; gender issues have often been used as a distraction from ‘harder’ agendas though this may actually be the hardest agenda of all? Or – and giving the last word to Ms Slaughter in this election year – maybe this was her real message: ‘The best hope for improving the lot of all women—is to close the leadership gap: to elect a woman president and 50 women senators; to ensure that women are equally represented in the ranks of corporate executives and judicial leaders. Only when women wield power in sufficient numbers will we create a society that genuinely works for all women. That will be a society that works for everyone’. Maybe she forgot already that it was Hillary who kept her at the office for 16 hours a day!

Cross Dressed. As Dame Edna herself might say – a curious noise on cross-dressing has been emitted by a great seat of learning. The gist of the message which was wrapped in terminological confusion… was that Oxford University, following a motion put forward by the university’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Queer Society which was passed by the student union, has rewritten the laws governing its strict academic dress code, considered by some as unfair towards transgender students.Under the new regulations, students taking exams or attending formal occasions will no longer have to wear ceremonial clothing that is specific to their gender. This means men will be able to sit tests in skirts and stockings and women will have the option of wearing suits and bow ties.Under the old laws on academic clothing – known as subfusc – male students were required to wear a dark suit and socks, black shoes, a white bow tie and a plain white shirt and collar under their black gowns. Female students had to wear a dark skirt or trousers, a white blouse, black stockings and shoes and a black ribbon tied in a bow at the neck.The law comes into force next week and it will be interesting to see who takes advantage of it and why.Women of course have been ‘cross-dressing’ for centuries… and not just equestriennes… and for relatively few of them is it an expression of gender. Donning formal academic dress – which already includes trousers- can be an opportunity to dress up and mark the solemnity of the occasion. Will the new law result in an epidemic of Marlene Dietrich impersonators – female & male?There are of course some men who already wear skirts and ‘dresses’ as a mark of nationality, or ethnicity rather than as a gender statement. Have kilts and Arab dress…or women in full Muslim dress…. been forbidden under the old subfusc rules? More information please, Oxford. Dress can of course result in mis- or Miss- representation; hijab has notoriously provided camouflage for men fleeing the law or trying to penetrate some other man’s harem…though in both cases the feet can give the game away.It will be interesting to see how many men avail themselves of the new freedom to ‘cross –dress’ by wearing skirts and stockings….. and female trousers? And to see for how many of them this will be a sincere expression of LGBTQ affiliation or – for the notoriously irreverent undergraduates – a bit of a lark, or even a fashion statement There are many reasons to cross-dress as Grayson Perryhttp://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/artists/grayson_perry.htm/ and Dame Edna Everage http://www.dame-edna.com/ demonstrate in their different ways.Let us hope that this underwhelming legislative reform may lead to deeper reflection on the meaning of dresshttps://www.gendercentric.org/sex-a-gender/communicating-gender/dressed-to-impress and result in some further clarifications to the trans- vocabulary http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transgender

Beige. So much has already been written about E.L. James’ Fifty Shades of Grey & its sequels that you (even you, women) may never have to read it, even on your Kindle. In line with its usual customer-care gendercentric is providing a review of the reviews and a few pointers as to how to talk interestingly about it without ever having read it.
Perhaps the first point to note is that the book properly belongs in the domain of ‘fan fiction’ or ‘fanfic’, that is to say an internet space where fans of a particular genre or production…in this case the Twilight franchise…themselves write, circulate and critique new works starring the characters from their fave fictional universe. Twilight…starring Robert Pattinson…. targets pre- and early teens and this would perhaps account for the youth of the hero, billionaire captain of industry, Christian Grey (27) as well as of the virgin heroine, Anastasia Steele(21); and the latter’s breathless and unsophisticated style. A typical Anastasia comment is ‘holy cow’ and ‘jeez this is hot’. Christian, who has good hair, has a ‘direct line to Anastasia’s hidden goddess’.
The fan fiction origins may also explain the trilogy’s taking off in such a dramatic way after publication as there was already a broad fan base which had bought in to, and contributed to this soft porn saga, though it appeals also to older women (‘mummy porn’?). http://www.condenaststore.com/-sp/Put-down-that-sad-soft-porn-for-middle-aged-women-and-come-to-bed-New-Yorker-Cartoon-Prints_i9080566_.htm
A second point to note is that anyone expecting heavy sado-masochistic action will be sadly disappointed, in fact Anastasia’s prudish attitude to spanking could be regarded by any member of the S&M community as offensive even discriminatory. With the possible exception of a couple of scenes this is all about candles, bubble-baths and product placement (Audi, Black Amex, Calvin Kleins, Converse, Pinot Grigio , Ray-Bans) Christian’s life mission ‘is to spoil you ,Mrs Grey. And keep you safe because I love you’. Hardly the Marquis de Sade.
Thirdly, in terms of treatment and subject matter this piece of ‘fanfic’ has more in common with ‘bonk busters’ produced by Jackie Collins or Jilly Cooper than with the ur-texts of Chick Lit such as Bridget Jones’s Diary https://www.gendercentric.org/sex-a-gender/communicating-gender/chic-lit .Although also written from the heroine’s perspective this heroine has no sense of humour and it seems unlikely that Colin Firth – despite his good hair- will be starring in the movie of the book.
For more views and reviews both negative and positive please visit:
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v34/n14/andrew-ohagan/travelling-southwards
http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/culture/2012/07/stop-being-mean-fifty-shades-grey

Effortlessly maintaining its status as a cool country, Nepal has hosted the first LGBT games in South Asia… and perhaps globally? 

Feminist, but… The Mumsnet Poll on Feminism scorned by many as being unscientific and unrepresentative….suggested inter alia that ‘feminism’ has an image problem. This perhaps unsurprising insight has nonetheless renewed the debate on what is modern feminism about. The Mumsnet Poll also revealed that only one in seven among those 1,300 polled self-identified as a feminist despite espousing the causes of feminism. The reasons for rejecting the feminist label, many proposed with tongues-in-cheeks, were, again, not totally unexpected. Feminists were stereotypically; ‘shouty’, hairy-legged, man-haters; dungaree-clad, cat-loving & Saphist. And despite some interviewees & commentators saying all of that sounded perfectly fine to them, there seemed to be an underlying concern that to call oneself a feminist was to seriously threaten claims to sexual attractiveness and social viability. 
Independently, in another recent study fear of being seen as ‘feminist’ (or alternatively ‘gay’) was raised as the reason why few men take gender studies courses in university.  http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/the-womens-blog-with-jane-martinson/2012/nov/19/so-few-men-gender-studies
 However, UK Feminista http://ukfeminista.org.uk/ established in 2010 as the ‘leading national voice for feminism in the UK’ dismisses the discussion on decline of feminism and claims that there is an amazing resurgence in the UK with new ‘grassroots’ groups popping up like mushrooms.

UK Feminista’s lobby of Parliament (24 October 2012)
Throughout its evolution there have been many criticisms of ‘feminism’ other than the sartorial and social concerns expressed through the Mumsnet poll, the most notable being that feminism is a white, educated woman’s concern which has little to say to women of other ethnicities, non-Western cultures or the less well-off, or according to many.. to women who love women. The press coverage of UK Feminista would suggest that it may fall into a somewhat privileged mode (despite the sub-title ‘ a movement of ordinary women and men campaigning for gender equality’) with its march on Parliament led by the great-grand-daughter of the most famous suffragette – Emmeline Pankhurst – though we’ll try not to pre-judge. An important area where we do agree with UK Feminista is in the absolute necessity to engage with men to bring about gender equality. It sounds obvious we know. We’ll be watching their space to see how they get on. It’s difficult not to be concerned that products whose name includes the syllable ‘fem’ are normally exclusively designed for women?
Although it would seem unreasonable for any one group to take on the special issues of all women – and many different brands of feminism have evolved – it would also seem a pre-requisite that groups working against gender discrimination do not discriminate against each other? Nevertheless collaboration for the common cause seems rather rare, not helped of course by competition for funding. Overall there is a tendency to parse the minutest of differences to demonstrate why ‘we’ are ‘us’ and not ‘them’.
gendercentric spotted earlier a rare example of enhanced inclusiveness in ‘Going South’ described as the first Feminist LesBiTransInter Gathering bringing together ‘creative, pleasure-oriented, hetero-dissident feminisms ‘. However, though they have added ‘lesbian feminist trans women’ to the mix in the meeting this time… in addition to ‘female-born lesbian feminists’ (and bisexual, transsexual, transgender, travesty, trans, transmen, lesboflexible, bigender, pansexual, agendered, androgynous )… we can’t help noticing that the G has been dropped from the acronym LBTI though maybe they are covered elsewhere? http://www.awid.org/News-Analysis/Friday-Files/Going-South-Creating-New-Gathering-Spaces-for-Feminists-in-all-their-Diversity
In any conversation about feminism sooner or later someone will say ‘but men can be feminists too’ though this is an insight which remains very little operationalized. In general men are still not considered to be fellow soldiers in the same trench, even though Hannah Rosin assures us that they too are an endangered species http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/oct/03/end-of-men-hanna-rosin-review .
We have discussed elsewhere on this page some European feminist examples of confrontation which seem to defy historical and common sense and perpetuate the impression that men are (always) the enemy https://www.gendercentric.org/16-newsflash/67-prostitutionpoints-to-ponder
There are many areas where feminists of all stripes need to make more common cause with men and men’s groups in order to achieve the changes they seek. The most obvious of these would be in terms of work life balance and the sharing of child care…this being one of the key issues underlying the gender gap in wages and the continuing under-representation of women in the higher echelons of all institutions. Even in some of the most potentially ‘shouty’ issues such as reducing the incidence of Female Genital Mutilation, the positive involvement of men has been the key to making any progress.https://www.gendercentric.org/sex-a-gender/gender-a-violence/female-genital-mutilation
Interestingly enough the term feminism is not much used in development cooperation – perhaps because of some of the connotations noted earlier… white, western, well-off etc. And it is not clear to what extent the Third Wave Feminism thinking on ‘intersectionality’ i.e.the recognition of the convergence of multiple discriminations (gender,ethnicity,ability,age) has been operationalized http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intersectionality
Development workers tend to talk more about gender equality… a term which embraces in principle all issues of gender discrimination. And although the majority of development programmes may still be directed to women’s concerns increasingly programmes of development cooperation are involving LGBT constituents, and involving men as partners particularly in activities to reduce sexual violence.
Don’t say: A rose by any other name might smell even sweeter
Do say: if we are all working for ‘gender equality’ and against discrimination on account of gender maybe we should just say so
And finally, will the real feminists or gender egalitarians please stand up. This non – exhaustive list of actors and issues under the egalitarian umbrella shows just how difficult it is to get it right.
Birmingham City Council Employees:

Birmingham city council employees are after winning a fight for equal pay
These Birmingham city council employees are our unsung heroines. We don’t know whether or not they call themselves feminists or whether they are supported by UK Feminista but both seem unlikely. Their story exposes how easy it has been (so far) for the UK government and employers not to implement their Equal Pay legislation which has been in place for forty years. You grant long grace periods to employers to implement equal pay legislation; short periods to workers to