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Olympics Will the 2012 Olympics be remembered as having provided a platform for women’s rights and gender equality. – amongst all the other expectations hope and dreams attached to it? For the first time all competing countries will send female athletes https://www.gendercentric.org/16-newsflash/55-olympic-game-changers; and women will be able to compete in all events. As already noted on gendercentric -male synchronized swimmers still cannot compete; and ‘some women’ might be re-classified before or after they win. https://www.gendercentric.org/16-newsflash/49-olympian-confusionsex-a-the-ioc And there’s a little whiff of second –classism in the treatment of some women and some women’s events. As is widely reported the Japanese women athletes flew by Coach rather than Business Class. http://msmagazine.com/blog/blog/2012/07/19/we-spleen-japanese-women-fly-coach-to-olympics-while-men-get-business-class/ And today the first event of the games is women’s football between Great Britain and New Zealand but its taking place not in London but Cardiff (sorry, Cardiff)… & of course before the much-awaited Opening Ceremony which has already achieved the status of myth. I’m sure there are very good scheduling reasons to explain this but could this have happened to men’s football teams? Let’s just hope this treatment doesn’t provoke any unseemly exchanges on the pitchhttps://www.gendercentric.org/16-newsflash/56-hndbags-anyone-or-just-a-bit-of-brifcase . On a more purely positive note we learn that Fifa has relaxed its ban on women playing football with their heads covered following similar rulings by the International Weightlifting Federation and other international bodies who have relaxed clothing rules which prevented Muslim women from competing  http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/the-womens-blog-with-jane-martinson/2012/jul/23/sports-hijabs-muslim-women-olympics .  Some people will of course object to women being allowed to wear the hijab, but isn’t it time to acknowledge that Islamic sportswear can be elegant as well as extremely streamlined? Pretty soon they’ll be banned again for unfair advantage!! But as far as Olympic ‘firsts’ go Nur Suryani Mohamed Taibi from Malaysia who will be competing in the 10-meter air rifle event at eight months pregnant has to be a major contender; she is proud owner of the most advanced pregnancy ever to compete and the first ever of a summer Olympics www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-18970859 We wish mother & baby the best of luck. A great deal of sartorial anxiety has also focused on the Women’s Beach Volleyball; will the weather oblige them also to cover? Currently meteorologists seem to suggest that this anxiety is unfounded.

Honour Killing The recent killing of Shafilea Ahmed by her parents has put the issues of honour killing and multi-culturalism in the UK squarely back on the front burner, with some commentators calling for the abandonment of the term ‘honour killing’ on the grounds that ‘honour killings are just (sic) murder – it’s as simple as that’ http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/lifestyle/2012/08/honour-killings-are-just-murder-its-simple It is true that the term ‘honour’ may be used in defence by the accused, and has been used by police forces as an excuse not to interfere out of respect for ‘their’ culture. To this extent these commentators have a point; but their point reflects a specific culture-centric understanding of the term ‘honour’. In the English-speaking world the term is almost exclusively applied to individuals who experience or create honour….or sometimes lose it … as in ‘he died defending his honour’ or sometimes ‘hers’. http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/honour. The term ‘honour’ in the context of honour killing references the integrity of the family group or community, which is perceived to be threatened by an individual’s behaviour and which can be restored by the removal of that individual. What do societies where honour killing occurs with some frequency have in common? The first thing to be said that it is not religion: whilst honour killing is often mistakenly believed to be an Islamic practice or a practice condoned by Islam in actual fact honour killing is forbidden in Islam. There is also little evidence of the practice in several Muslim-majority countries such as Indonesia or Malaysia, and conversely it occurs in non-Islamic countries in the southern Mediterranean, and South Asia. The common characteristic of societies where honour killing occurs is that they are strongly patriarchal and women are precious assets for their family group. The persistence and continuity of that structure depends upon the ability of the women of the family to bear legitimate children, hence the emphasis on control by the family of women’s sexual and reproductive powers. In such societies the rights and status of the individual are subordinate to those of the family group. In strongly patriarchal societies women are often legally minors throughout their lives, merely changing from being the property of their father’s family to being the property of their husband’s family, without acquiring any political or economic voice, and with no possibility of independent action as an individual. Honour killing is one extreme manifestation of woman’s commodification in patriarchal, honour-based societies; some others are honour suicide whereby members of the family force the perceived transgressor to take her own life; Female Genital Mutilation designed to control sexuality; widow inheritance by the deceased’s male relative; widow-burning, virginity testing and female foeticide as well as less dramatic manifestations such as payment of brideprice and dowry. Of course men also may dishonor the family group and have to be removed though this aspect has received little attention. (We trust that Prince Harry’s recent transgressions will not result in such sanctions, but had it been William who knows?) History is replete with heirs who were found wanting physically, mentally or morally and who met convenient ends. The term ‘honour’ tells us about motivation, and probable perpetrators …with emphasis on the plural. This information should inform not only punishment meted out but also preventative activities. Honour killing can be triggered by a woman or girl talking with an unrelated male, consenting to sexual relations outside marriage, being the victim of rape, or refusing to marry a man chosen by the family. Even a suspicion of the woman’s committing any of these transgressions can be sufficient trigger. Most often the woman is killed by her father, brother or uncle, though other women of the family are usually also complicit in the action. The actual perpetrators of these crimes may be praised for having restored the family honour and if brought to justice usually receive a reduced sentence on the grounds that “honour” is regarded as an extenuating circumstance. Very often to ensure judicial leniency an under-age male is selected to commit the crime. In some societies committing an honour killing may be regarded as a “rite de passage” indicating and guaranteeing social maturity. Typically honour killings are premeditated and long- planned, rather than being impulsive and because of the relationship of victim and perpetrators frequently do not involve sexual violence. In most countries honour killings usually fall under laws dealing with murder but in many instances rules of defense relating to provocation and extenuating circumstances can be found in their penal codes. These provisions usually originate from old colonial penal codes Spanish, French or Ottoman where honour killings are accorded similar treatment as are “crimes of passion”, in that sentencing is based not on the act itself but on the feelings of the perpetrator. If defense of family honour is regarded as an extenuating circumstance, killing in the name of honour may incur a sentence of a few months only. Although honour killings are sometimes treated as “crimes of passion” they are very different. The latter are usually committed by a husband or sexual partner against a woman and possibly the man with whom she is thought to be having an affair. Crimes of passion are usually committed by an individual against his/her sexual partner, and relate to individual sexual access rather than to group ownership of reproductive potential. A 2005 decision of a Danish court in dealing with an incident of honour killing is regarded as an important milestone as both the person who committed the murder and the accomplices were punished.In September 2005 18-year-old Pakistani girl, Ghazala, was shot dead by her brother in the middle of a street in a small town near Copenhagen. She had married a young Afghan man without notifying her family. Her spouse was also injured in the attack. Those found guilty in this case, and their sentences are as follows:Brother: 16 years imprisonment for murder of his sister and for causing injury to her spouseFather: life-long imprisonment for provocation and coordination of murderAunt: 14 years imprisonment

Peace not War A call to have more women taking part in peace-making missions, in line with UN Security Council Resolution 1325 Women, Peace and Security (2000) is not being received with the acclaim that was probably expected. See comments to the Guardian article http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/2012/sep/20/harmony-women-peace-deals which also criticize the sainted Guardian itself for publishing the article without critical commentary. The reason presented for including more women in peace-keeping and conflict resolution is that women make peace in their homes and communities on a daily basis but when it comes to peace-building and peace-keeping at international levels they are excluded. It is encouraging to see that this kind of argument based on the supposed essentially warm and cuddly nature of women is coming under fire from women and from men. Of course there is a very strong argument for making peacekeeping teams balanced and representative. Peace negotiators are usually chosen from the upper echelons…. and retired upper echelons… of governments and international organizations where few women and other ‘minorities’ have yet to climb. Hence their inadequate representation on peacekeeping missions. We can have very little idea at the moment whether all women will automatically be ‘better’ than all men and will bring a new element to the table at this level. Just as we don’t know whether women are inherently less corrupt… as is often asserted…… when they have so much less opportunity of abusing power. Certainly peace-keeping missions need to be balanced in term of gender, and also in terms of ethnicity, religion, class, recent direct experience of conflict and any other dimensions relevant to a particular conflict situation. So simply adding more of those loving and empathetic women may not be enough. The Associated Press in New York last week announced that during a meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative a 2 million dollar pledge to support UNSCR 1325 was made by the Institute for Inclusive Security in order to have women included in decision-making positions ‘at all levels of peacemaking and peace-building’. The new funding will be used ‘to deploy experts to work with government officials, legislators and civic leaders on issues including strategic planning and adding women to negotiating teams’. It would be interesting also to see a review of the current selection process and some analysis of which missions have been effective and why. Let’s hope that this intiative results in teams which are truly balanced and representative, and not just because they have equal numbers of senior and/or retiree members of both genders.

Quotas Interestingly enough this comes at the same time as the European Commission postponed its own proposal that would oblige companies to allot 40% of their board seats to women by 2020. http://awid.org/News-Analysis/Women-s-Rights-in-the-News2/EU-parliament-vetoes-Mersch-wants-woman-for-ECB ECB ‘s 23-member governing council is made up of six executive board members and 17 national central bank chiefs of euro zone states , all of whom are men. The next board vacancy if Mersch is eventually appointed will be in 2018. Without full understanding of the ECB selection process one might tentatively suggest that perhaps there could have been an earlier European Parliament reaction to the all male short-lists submitted by member states? It is hard to imagine…with a woman now as head of the IMF…that there are no other women working in this field who could at least have made a short-list? The issue of quotas generates a lot of heat with only the very bold daring to support this apparently shocking mechanism. Without wishing to appear pedantic or naïve gendercentric would just like to point out that any of the 187 countries which has ratified the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/cedaw/index.htm (and only the USA, Sudan, Somalia, Iran, Palau & Tonga have not) has already signed up to the principle of establishing quotas aka one of the ‘temporary special measures aimed at accelerating de facto equality between men and women which shall not be considered discrimination as defined in the present Convention……these measures shall be discontinued when the objectives of equality of opportunity and treatment have been achieved’(Article 4). It is widely recognized that left to themselves people will choose people like themselves with whom they feel most comfortable doing business. The argument for quotas relates to the need for balanced representation in the decision-making and selection process. Most top tables are composed of individuals of varying merit who have also been assisted by some other factors; a hand reaching down to haul them up or a boost from the bottom .Both women and men oppose quotas in the apparent belief that selection processes are neutral and unbiased with regards to gender (and other bases for discrimination) and that merit will always be rewarded and seen to be so.  http://www.todayonline.com/Business/EDC121108-0000103/Boardroom-gender-quotas-are-dangerous,-says-Burberry-bossEnemies of quotas insist that it is patronizing to think that women cannot make it on ‘merit’ alone and therefore need ‘help’. This position is frequently expressed by women who would claim to have made it on merit alone though closer examination of their biographies suggests that it is merit +++ as with their male colleagues. In political life also it is clear that if women don’t vote for or seek votes from other women then they have to rely on additional means to boost their inherent merit: support from powerful men (Margaret Thatcher), marital or family connections, Gandhi, Banda, Bhutto, Clinton. Only Gillard seems to have been a serious plotter! Then of course some male leaders have also had help from family and friends; Bush, Gandhi, Mr Bhutto (aka Asif Ali Zardari) a few Kennedys etc. etc. The other objection to the use of gender quotas frequently expressed is that it will result in dragging up any old sub-standard rubbish as long as it’s female. Well we have seen already that a lot of substandard rubbish can appear on top tables without the imposition of quotas so let’s at least have a broader range and variety of rubbish before discrediting the mechanism. It is important not to underestimate the insidious power of stereotyping which buttresses many of the objections to quotas from both men and women. Very few of us are free from biases which amongst other things colour our views on capability and appropriateness of candidates. A growing number of experiments show that if gender is not visible on a CV or written application the results can be very different. http://www.womensmediacenter.com/feature/entry/default-assumptionsthe-science-behind-the-bias Malcom Gladwell’s book ‘Blink: the power of Thinking without Thinking (2005) devotes a chapter to describing how ‘blind’ audition of musicians for some of the world’s greatest classical orchestras has resulted in many more women being admitted, and a change of mind-set as to who can play which instruments. Sadly, women who have achieved leadership positions are still frequently shooting themselves in the foot by failing to analyze and speak up for the difficulties they experienced and to make suggestions as to how those difficulties can be addressed. The most striking recent example in the UK being Dame Helen Ghosh who allegedly complained at a public meeting about the upper class male exclusivity of the Cameron cabinet (hardly a bold or original insight) and then retracted her words when they were made more public, leaving Cameron crowing. She made the perfect case for implementation of quotas though could perhaps have made the case in a less personal fashion and then stuck by it! http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2226307/Dame-Helen-Ghosh-said-David-Camerons-Britain-run-Old-Etonian-clique-excludes-women-old-pals.html Meanwhile over there in Africa we can’t help noticing they’re doing rather better without dithering over quotas http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/the-womens-blog-with-jane-martinson/2012/nov/05/africa-leading-the-way-for-women Don’t say: Hillary made it all on her own Do say: Temporary special measures may change the paradigm so that eventually a leader is just a leader; or maybe it’s time to learn how it’s done in Africa. Other interesting reading: Why the US hasn’t signed CEDAW: http://www.cedaw2012.org/index.php/whats-in-it-for-us Dame Helen Ghosh shoots herself in the foot: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/nov/01/david-cameron-etonian-clique-women Julia Gillard: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/oct/15/julia-gillard-no-feminist-heroHillary Clinton: http://www.womensagenda.com.au/talking-about/world-of-women/no-hillary-16-as-clinton-insists-women-need-to-stop-whining-about-choices/20121018919

Titanic Will the Titanic provide equality & diversity experts with much-needed new case-studies for training on ‘intersectionality’ – roughly to be translated as the point where different discriminations…gender, race, class, religion, nationality… intersect, or maybe collide…like ships and ice-bergs ? Read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intersectionality if you dare. Intersectionality tells us that individuals discriminated against on one parameter….such as gender … are often similarly discriminated against on other dimensions , such as race and class. The example normally given is that of a poor black woman abused by her black male partner seeking justice from a system where upper class white males pre-dominate. She is assumed to face double or even triple discrimination. How does an individual negotiate such a situation? Will her solidarity with the black community, or her well-founded pessimism as to the outcome stop her complaining to the white establishment about gender-based violence inflicted by a person of her own community? Feminism… often assumed to be a white middle class occupation …has long been accused of ignoring the interests of ‘minority’ women though now ‘intersectionality’ issues are part of the platform of most feminist groups in their efforts to become more inclusive https://www.gendercentric.org/16-newsflash/73-im-a-feminist-butAnyway, let us get back to the Titanic. The rogue element here is male chivalry.A recent article in the London Review of Books http://www.lrb.co.uk/v35/n02/thomas-laqueur/why-name-a-ship-after-a-defeated-race which considers a series of new Titanic publications …whilst giving due weight to the impact of lack of preparedness (there was no evacuation plan & the crew had not been trained to lower the life-boats); to class (some passages from the third class decks to the life-boats were blocked) thinks that gender is the real breaking story.First class passengers were 37% more likely to survive than those in third class. But men in all classes were 58% more likely to die than women. Since there were three times as many women as men in Third Class and more or less even numbers in First, sexual selection took its greatest toll there. Or rather women in Third survived at a higher rate than men in First. And First Class male survivors often lived a life of shame for having made it to the life-boat.The gender differential in survivors is judged to be largely due to the operation of that old code of chivalry… women and children first.On both sides of the Atlantic this fact was used against feminism, and especially the suffragette movement to demonstrate and illustrate the deep error of their ways. No less a person than Winston Churchill writing to his wife expressed the thought that ‘the strict observation of the great traditions of the sea towards women and children reflects nothing but honour on our civilisation’ and hoped that this would enable ‘some of the young unmarried teachers (aka suffragettes)…..who are so bitter in their sex antagonism and think men so base and vile’ to see the light. Some commentators thought that women arguing for women’s rights should be answered with just one word… ‘Titanic’ and considered that men’s behaviour on the ship had dealt the suffragette movement a mortal blow. Even among the crew chivalry ruled with 87% of women crew surviving compared with 22% men.We mustn’t overlook nationality and contractual issues also in our search to pin down the elusive intersectionality: the male foreign staff of the first class restaurant suffered the highest proportion of deaths because they weren’t British and worked for a sub-contractor: 3 out of 66 survived compared with 22% of men in the engine room who were hired by the White Star Line directly.The Edwardian code of chivalry. ..that men defer to women in times of extreme danger… was assumed by many…men and women… to be a natural law. The great suffragette, Emmeline Pankhurst claimed that ‘women and children first’ was a rule known to everyone. And one officer zealot, Second Officer Charles Lightoller forced boys as young as 11 out of life-boats (as being neither women nor children) though some men escaped his vigilance by sneaking onto boats when he turned away.A challenging collision of prejudice and discrimination occurred when the corpulent Dr Henry Frauenthal launched himself on a life-boat and another first class passenger, Mrs. Annie Stengel; this incident was subsequently widely and snidely circulated by Mr Stengel in New York high society circles. However Edwardian anti-semitism suffered a serious blow from the examples of Ben Guggenheim who stayed behind after ushering his young mistress to safety; and of Isidor Strauss (co-owner of Macey’s department store) and his wife of 41 years who chose to die side by side in their First Class deckchairsSo far 2013 has been a good year for promoting the understanding of ‘intersectionality’!In addition to the Titanic data we have the landmark rulings from the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg who had to rule in a face-off between Christian beliefs and sexual orientation. In one case a civil registrar in the UK claimed that her Christian beliefs obliged her to refuse to officiate at ceremonies for civil partnerships of same-sex couples. The Court in Strasbourg upheld her dismissal. In a similar case a counsellor providing psycho-sexual therapy refused to work with same-sex couples arguing that it was incompatible with his Christian beliefs. He also lost his case on the grounds that freedom of individual beliefs could not justify discrimination on grounds of gender. A great victory for secularism and for gender issues across the spectrum.The court also ruled on two other issues related to wearing a cross which in both cases had resulted in the wearer’s dismissal http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-19472438. The tiny cross worn by BA employee Nadia Eweida, was deemed to have no detrimental effect on her ability to perform her job and her dismissal was not upheld. Not so lucky was Devon-based nurse Shirley Chaplin, whose larger cross was considered a possible health and safety hazard on the wards whence she was relegated to a desk job.Don’t say: got to see that movie one more timeDo say: intersectionality is a tricky concept to work with but definitely

Childbirth We can say that the ability to conceive and bear children is the last frontier of gender equality; it is possibly the least contested arena & the best illustration of the words of the Edward Koren cartoon in the New Yorker ‘Despite my best efforts you’re still the man and I’m still the woman’. Senior women can notoriously be deaf and blind to gender equality issues once they have crashed or soared through the glass ceiling themselves (you know who you are);and both men and women can be equally gender-sensitive. A quick review of the recent UK political landscape however suggests that we still need to talk up the numbers. A few month’s ago David Cameron’s advice to Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Angela Eagle, to ‘Calm down, dear’ http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-13207256 launched him down a slippery slope of progressive misogyny of which he hardly seems aware. With the glow of UK Olympic and Para-Olympic success still blanketing the UK, the Prime Minister has done a(nother) U-turn on his election promise to have at least a third of government jobs in women’s hands by the end of this parliament. After the latest re-shuffle the score would appear to be about one in six overall. Still a way to go? And leaving the UK rather far down the league tables in Europe and globally http://www.ipu.org/wmn-e/arc/classif310512.htm gendercentric has commented on http://www.facebook.com/gendercentric the continuing lack of gender balance in the re-shuffled Cabinet -five out of thirty-one – and no senior women at all at the Treasury at a time of economic crisis which most people believe will hit women especially hard http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/sep/05/new-cabinet-treasury-lady-warsi A further gaffe was to award honours to male victims of the cabinet re-shuffle but not to the women shufflees http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/09/06/downing-street-criticised-honours-women-cheryl-gillan-caroline-spelman_n_1860505.html We’re sure he must have told those pesky women who complained to ‘calm down’. The new title of the official bearing the gender equality torch speaks for itself – Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport; and Minister for Women and Equalities- though only time will tell whether the new incumbent,Maria Miller (against gay marriage and abortion counselling) will do the position justice! Across the Atlantic even Ms Magazine has taken note of the PM’s behaviour…… probably they haven’t had his ‘calm down’ message yet? http://msmagazine.com/blog/blog/2012/09/05/bad-news-for-brit-women-government-brings-in-more-anti-choice-ministers/ It seems unlikely on the whole that UK women will calm down; is Labour in opposition in a position to capitalize on this discontent?

UK Slips It can of course be argued that the actual numbers of men and of women in political decision-making do not matter. Senior women can notoriously be deaf and blind to gender equality issues once they have crashed or soared through the glass ceiling themselves (you know who you are);and both men and women can be equally gender-sensitive. A quick review of the recent UK political landscape however suggests that we still need to talk up the numbers. A few month’s ago David Cameron’s advice to Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Angela Eagle, to ‘Calm down, dear’ http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-13207256 launched him down a slippery slope of progressive misogyny of which he hardly seems aware. With the glow of UK Olympic and Para-Olympic success still blanketing the UK, the Prime Minister has done a(nother) U-turn on his election promise to have at least a third of government jobs in women’s hands by the end of this parliament. After the latest re-shuffle the score would appear to be about one in six overall. Still a way to go? And leaving the UK rather far down the league tables in Europe and globally http://www.ipu.org/wmn-e/arc/classif310512.htm gendercentric has commented on http://www.facebook.com/gendercentric the continuing lack of gender balance in the re-shuffled Cabinet -five out of thirty-one – and no senior women at all at the Treasury at a time of economic crisis which most people believe will hit women especially hard http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/sep/05/new-cabinet-treasury-lady-warsi A further gaffe was to award honours to male victims of the cabinet re-shuffle but not to the women shufflees http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/09/06/downing-street-criticised-honours-women-cheryl-gillan-caroline-spelman_n_1860505.html We’re sure he must have told those pesky women who complained to ‘calm down’. The new title of the official bearing the gender equality torch speaks for itself – Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport; and Minister for Women and Equalities- though only time will tell whether the new incumbent,Maria Miller (against gay marriage and abortion counselling) will do the position justice! Across the Atlantic even Ms Magazine has taken note of the PM’s behaviour…… probably they haven’t had his ‘calm down’ message yet? http://msmagazine.com/blog/blog/2012/09/05/bad-news-for-brit-women-government-brings-in-more-anti-choice-ministers/ It seems unlikely on the whole that UK women will calm down; is Labour in opposition in a position to capitalize on this discontent?

DSK The European Women’s Lobby (EWL) which is spearheading this renewed initiative (http://www.womenlobby.org/spip.php?article4084&lang=en) takes as inspiration going forward the ‘Swedish model’. The 1999 Swedish law on violence against women qualified prostitution as a form of male violence against women and attacked the demand side of this relationship by criminalizing the purchase of sex through the ‘sex purchase’ law, whilst the sale of sexual services is legal. The Swedish Women’s Lobby and the EWL have proposed the extension of the Swedish sex -purchase law to apply to Swedish citizens/residents abroad (following the Norwegian model) to convey ‘to all Swedish prostitute –users that they can’t buy sex wherever they are on the planet’. It will be interesting to see how such legislation would play out with – for example – the Bangkok police force. In Thailand, it should come as no surprise, it is illegal to sell sex. This provides law enforcers with a nice line in protection income; perhaps new European legislation along the lines proposed above could prove very lucrative for the police in Thailand and similar tourist destinations if they can also extract ‘protection’ from the illegal ‘prostitute-users’ ? This EU initiative raises a number of other questions: Is there any society in world history where prostitution has not existed? History seems to suggest that in all societies at all times there has always been a demand for paid-for non-contractual sexual services; and therefore always a supply. Nature, direction and volume of demand and supply may shift but it is always there. It is not surprising for example that the already flourishing Thai sex-service industry received a boost from the US government’s selection of Thailand and Bangkok in particular as a Rest & Recreation (R&R) destination during the Vietnam war. Smaller social forces are also at work; one of the sex-workers interviewed in her camper van in the Bois de Boulogne named fathers of new babies as stereotypical clients. http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/sep/24/prostitution-france-hottest-social-issue?newsfeed=true With the term ‘prostitution’ literal easily elides into figurative: many relationships which are not regarded as prostitution feature sexual and material exchange, such as arranged marriages or indeed many other perfectly ordinary marriages. (Perhaps we won’t deconstruct the Charles/Diana/Camilla triangle quite yet). And it is not uncommon for anyone especially in hard times to put material gain ahead of (some) values; an act which is often referred to is prostitution though sex is not involved. Is making something criminal the same as abolishing it? Countries have struggled with what and whom to criminalize but no amount of criminalization has resulted in abolition. Criminalizing prostitution (buyer and/or seller) simply drives it under ground which makes conditions less safe and only benefits intermediaries such as pimps, traffickers and people charging for ‘protection’ against the law. In France which has been prominent in the current round of debates.  http://www.womensmediacenter.com/feature/entry/abolishing-prostitution-a-feminist-human-rights-treaty It is currently not a crime to provide or pay for sex though the range of activities surrounding that exchange are regarded as criminal – pimping, human trafficking, soliciting in public, buying sex from a minor etc. In France … unlike in, conveniently across the border, Spain…. brothels are outlawed. In France selling sex inside a vehicle is beyond the reach of the prostitution law, but does risk a parking ticket. Abolition of prostitution as an aspiration appears to confound historical and common sense and would at a minimum require understanding and addressing root causes in any given country situation, rather than simple application of legal sticking plaster. Attempts to abolish drugs and alcohol do not provide encouraging models. Does it make senses to equate prostitution with violence against women? Gendercentric does not believe it is useful to consider prostitution itself as violence against women, though of course violence may be involved through trafficking, or in the encounter itself. Arguably if prostitution is driven underground by being ‘abolished’ it may be harder to bring perpetrators of violence to justice. Labelling prostitution as ‘violence against women’ ignores the fact that not all prostitutes are women, and not all clients, pimps and traffickers are men. Violence against women is usually regarded as an expression of imbalance of power. Although the majority of sex-workers probably come from sections of society who are marginalized for some combination of gender, political, economic, ethnic and age reasons some service-providers may also see prostitution as a preferred career choice for a longer or shorter period with ‘No pimp, no boss’ as their motto. http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/sep/24/prostitution-france-hottest-social-issue?newsfeed=trueThe highly educated and expensive call-girls catering to expensive clients much covered in the media are one example of sex-workers on a chosen career track. Several sex-workers interviewed have called for the authorities to focus on ‘real’ abuses such as trafficking, and sex with minors and to leave legitimate workers to get on with their jobs. Is it possible to talk about prostitution without moral and religious attitudes creeping in? Evidence suggests that moralizing and/or idealizing are both hard to resist. Sympathy amongst thinking people these days is squarely with the sex-workers. The great novelist Charles Dickens was an early reformer of social attitudes towards ‘fallen women’ http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2008/dec/20/charles-dickens-fallen-women-review . Some of the most sensible words on this issue come from prostitutes themselves from whom we usually hear too little. French sex workers are accusing their government of ‘moralistic paternalism’ saying that they are using this abolition crusade to distance themselves from their former presidential hopeful Dominique Strauss-Kahn ,currently on trial for pimping and sexual violence. http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/sep/24/prostitution-france-hottest-social-issue?newsfeed=true Normally of course we hear very little from the ‘perps’ with the exception indeed of DSK who has defended himself against the charges made, saying that it is very difficult at his soirées to tell who is a sex-worker and who isn’t when the women don’t have any clothes on. He could be making a larger philosophical point relative to the need to ‘normalize’ prostitution, but probably not. Are there interesting questions which need to be asked in a more scientific and less anecdotal way in order to take a rational position on prostitution and improve the situation? As noted

Vicar. Perhaps it’s time for a flash-back to happier times; Dawn French, Richard Curtis -where are you? The BBC sitcom created by Curtis was explicitly designed to open hearts and minds to the prospect of women vicars. We can do no better on this occasion than to cite wikipedia in full: The Vicar of Dibley is a British sitcom created by Richard Curtis and written for its lead actress, Dawn French, by Curtis and Paul Mayhew-Archer, with contributions from Kit Hesketh-Harvey. It aired from 1994 to 2007. The Vicar of Dibley is set in a fictional small Oxfordshire village called Dibley, which is assigned a female vicar following the 1992 changes in the Church of England that permitted the ordination of women. The main character was an invention of Richard Curtis, but he and Dawn French extensively consulted the Revd Joy Carroll, one of the first female priests]and garnered many character traits and much information.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Vicar_of_Dibley Let’s not also forget there are already women bishops in the Anglican Communion in Australia, Canada, Africa and among the Episcopalians in the US. And…oh yes… the Head of the Church is a woman. (ERII) May be time to bring back Richard Curtis and to recognize the power of the media… even of the BBC? Read all about who voted and how : http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2012/nov/20/women-bishops-debate-suicide-note And an analysis of why women voters might have lost the vote for women bishops: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/nov/27/why-women-fight-women And why it is significant that Prince Charles as and when he becomes King will describe himself as Defender of Faiths not of ‘the Faith’. http://www.newstatesman.com/religion/2012/11/disestablishment-church-england-may-be-closer-we-think

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