The Gender Equality Checkpoint

[xoxoxoBruce]

Yes, I like those.

[xoxoxoBruce]

We've seen a number of girls shooting teams from colleges and high schools, but they are cheap to setup, a gun, target, and sturdy backstop. This flying club however is a much bigger commitment, those J-17 trainers can't be cheap to buy or operate. They might be from the Federal Government but this was two months before D-Day, when the war was hardly a given, and all materiel was part of the war effort, with no surplus yet. I suppose the Army Air Corps might have been training in this room and the club got time after hours.

[Sundae]

From here (BBC link) which is an article about a new film called Love You to Death by Vanessa Engle, detailing stories of women killed by partners in 2013.

In 2013, 164 women were murdered in Britain - 86 of whom (52%) were killed by their male partner or ex-partner. In that same year, 381 men were murdered in Britain, 12 of whom (3%) were killed by a female partner or ex-partner.

At least they were dealt with seriously by the Courts. There was a time when Judges routinely meted out lighter sentences for domestic murder, citing provocation.

[DanaC]

Yeah, I read an article about that. Very interesting.

This caught my attention today:

One of Britain’s biggest exam boards has changed its A-level music syllabus to include female composers after a student launched an online campaign calling for better female representation on the course.

Jessy McCabe, 17, noticed that Edexcel’s A-level music syllabus featured 63 male composers and no female ones.

She contacted Edexcel to make it aware of the situation, but despite the board’s insistence that the music course aims to let students “engage in and extend the appreciation of the diverse and dynamic heritage of music”, its head of music seemed reluctant to implement any changes.

In response to an email from Jessy, the head of music wrote: “Given that female composers were not prominent in the western classical tradition (or others for that matter), there would be very few female composers that could be included.”

*chuckles* so because there would be very few female composers, they figured they'd just not include a single one. I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest it was less about difficulties in finding examples of female composers (though I accept certain periods and musical traditions would prove a challenge) so much as it just never occurred to them to actively include female composers, because this is how music has always been taught.

Well done to the lass who got them to change. And kudos to the exam board for making a relatively swift and genuine change in response (despite some early, kneejerk defensiveness and heel digging).

Pearson, the organisation that offers the Edexcel qualifications, has now implemented changes to its 2016 A-level music specification to include five new set works by female composers. They include Clara Schumann, Rachel Portman, Kate Bush, Anoushka Shankar and Kaija Saariaho.

Additionally, Pearson has reviewed the wider listening recommendations and there are now 12 works by female composers listed.

Speaking about the changes, Anderson said: “We have updated our music AS and A-level specification to achieve a better balance of female and male composers. We took on board feedback from Jessy and a range of experts to ensure we found the right balance.

“We are keen to ensure diversity is reflected through the qualification and we hope schools and students are pleased with this outcome. Jessy deserves recognition and congratulations for her successful campaign.”

Read the rest here:

http://www.theguardian.com/education...mccabe-edexcel

[DanaC]

And then there's this:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/201...-draft-protest

A move by the UK government to drop feminism from the A-level politics syllabus has triggered outrage among campaigners and students.

The section on feminism in a revised version of the course put to consultation by the Department for Education has been removed, along with the topics of sex/gender, gender equality and patriarchy. Furthermore, only one woman, Mary Wollstonecraft, appears in a list of seven political thinkers in the draft.

Now, I am guessing socialism and liberalism will both still be on that syllabus - and no doubt there will be stuff about class and labour relations - but let's not teach feminism as ever having been part of our political landscape or having had any role, at any time in its two centuries of history and multiple iterations and evolutions in shaping our current political systems and institutions.

And poor old Mary Wollstonecraft - always the only chick at the gig. She must get so fucking lonely.

And I am so tired of hearing the excuse that, women weren't part of the public picture for much of history - there weren't many women composers, or writers, or thinkers of prominence, or culture makers, or scientists or political animals. It's a lazy excuse - because there were always a few. They made an impact in their day but historians let them slide away unseen. So we compound that travesty by accepting the analysis of academics who did not consider women worth recording or investigating as historical subjects. We look back through the eyes of historians and cannot see any women and so we say, look there were no women - therefore to say that there were would be to misrepresent our past - a well-meaning lie to assuage modern sensibilities.

And it is important. This stuff matters.

Student June Eric-Udorie has launched a petition to urge Nicky Morgan, the education secretary and women’s minister, against going ahead with the changes and urged her to add more female thinkers to the A-level politics syllabus.

She writes: “When women are underrepresented in society, the government should be working to address this problem. As a young woman and student, it is imperative that girls and boys get the full picture at school, or we are doing them a disservice. It has been said that you cannot be what you cannot see. Female role models are important.”

[xoxoxoBruce]

The A-level music syllabus was probably created when women knew their place, and now it's reused over each year and making money with no work. These meddling wimmin are rocking the boat, shameful behavior, anti-business, not cricket, anti-tradition, eroding foundations of the empire, what are the posh to do.

[DanaC]

All women, unless they have some serious medical condition, menstruate every month from the age of puberty until the menopause - so, if we say starting roughly from the age of 11 and going on roughly to the age of 50 that's around four decades. Every month for around forty years we have this thing to deal with. And yet, somehow our tax system in the UK continues to consider sanitary towels and tampons a 'luxury' item and therefore imposes sales tax. MPs recently voted to maintain that classification.

[xoxoxoBruce]

consider sanitary towels and tampons a 'luxury' item

Is "luxury item" how tax or not is determined? I think here they call it non-necessities, but amounts to the same thing I guess.


If they're not taxed, they become cheaper, and more women will buy them, then when women have them they'll get dressed, resulting in them wanting to leave the house, and clogging up traffic, and making TV dinners when the lord returns to the manor.

[DanaC]

There are different bands of VAT (value added tax). In fairness to the government, the VAT system is byzantine and partly a matter of EU regulation. We end up with some truly bizarre classification issues. Such as the great Jaffa Cake tax question. I don't know iof you guys have Jaffa Cakes over there, but they're like the bastard child of cake and biscuit. The base is a kind of dense, dry, either cakey biscuit, or biscuity cake. They call it sponge cake. Then there's a layer of orange jam then chocolate.

Biscuits and cakes are in different VAT categories -

In the United Kingdom, value added tax is payable on chocolate-covered biscuits, but not on chocolate-covered cakes.[12] McVities defended its classification of Jaffa Cakes as cakes at a VAT tribunal in 1991, against the ruling that Jaffa Cakes were biscuits due to their size and shape, and the fact that they were often eaten in place of biscuits.[13] McVities insisted that the product was a cake, and according to rumour produced a giant Jaffa Cake in court to illustrate its point.[13] The product was assessed on the following criteria:[14][15]
The product's name was regarded as a minor consideration.
The ingredients were regarded as similar to those of a cake, producing a thin cake-like batter rather than the thick dough of a biscuit.
The product's texture was regarded as being that of a sponge cake.
The product hardens when stale, in the manner of a cake.
A substantial part of the Jaffa Cake, in terms of bulk and texture, is sponge.
In size, the Jaffa Cake is more like a biscuit than a cake.
The product was generally displayed for sale alongside other biscuits, rather than with cakes.
The product is presented as a snack and eaten with the fingers, like a biscuit, rather than with a fork as a cake might be. The tribunal also considered that children would eat them in "a few mouthfuls", in the manner of a sweet.

The court found in favour of McVities and ruled that the product should be considered a cake, meaning that VAT is not paid on Jaffa Cakes in the United Kingdom.[12][16]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaffa_...iscuit_for_VAT


The argument against making menstrual products tax-exempt is that it is a problem under EU regulations (I'm not wholly sure why). The same is true of contraceptives. But - ya know - Cameron's currently going to the mat in Europe over the right to withhold in-work benefits from EU migrants, and they went to the mat to stop the EU enforcing limits on bankers' bonuses - and that's real fighting. That's not navigating a tricky bureacratic monolith and trying to iron out the quirks, that's the full-on drawing of lines in the sand and threats to leave the Union. But they vote, with barely a ripple, against any attempt to make these essential products, that all women, rich or poor will have to use for most of their adult lives, if they want to be able to fully and freely participate in the world outside their homes and not have to hide away one week in four, exempt.

We're not talking about staggering sums here - it's maybe a difference of around .30p per woman, per month. But that shit matters if you're already buying the super cheap 20p per tin spaghetti bolgnese, or 15p baked beans to survive. That extra 30p, is a fucking meal.


Anyways. I came in here to post this:

I remember the Everyday Sexism site launching and have read some of Laura Bates's articles -but I'd never seen her speak. This is an excellent talk:

[Clodfobble]

Is it all menstrual products, or is it like cake/biscuit where tampons are taxed but pads are not? I only ask because everyone keeps very distinctly talking about tampons and nothing else.

[DanaC]

It's all menstrual products. It just got christened the Tampon Tax because of our media's obsession with alliteration :p

[Sundae]

"Tampon Tax" is a media soundbite.
Towels are taxed too.

ETA - I was too slow - see above.

[Undertoad]

15p baked beans to survive

You have hunger in Britain?

[DanaC]

Aheh. Oh yes. Numbers of people having to resort to foodbanks on a regular basis (usually if they're referred to the foodbank they can get a food parcel once a month) are through the roof.

My monthly income, including wages, housing benefit assistance and council tax benefit is less than £800. My rent alone is £375. If I kept up with all the payments on all the stuff I'm supposed to pay - rather than juggling around and missing alternate months , falling into arrears or getting extensions etc etc - my outgoings outstrip my income by about £150 per month.

I count myself fairly fortunate. I know many are having even bigger struggles trying to raise families on not much more than I have for me and the dog. And through ythe miracle of lifts from mum I have easy access to the stores that sell beans so low. A lot of people make the choice between having enough to eat and keeping their houses warm. Fuel prices are ridiculously high here.

If you're a youngster, under 25 things are even harder.

[Sundae]

A family cannot live on beans alone.

An example of a request from a food bank for people donating suggests items such as:
Milk (UHT or powdered)
Fruit juice (carton)
Soup
Pasta sauces
Tomatoes (tinned)
Cereals
Tea Bags/instant coffee
Instant mash potato
Rice/pasta
Tinned meat/fish
Tinned fruit
Jam

There are other suggestions, but those are the basics. Protein, sugar, carbs, fibre. Items which don't require much preparation.
And how could we survive without hot drinks, especially tea (says me, who only gets tea in hospital)?

Things used to be worse of course.
My Dad grew up eating sugar sandwiches when the money ran out. But his Dad was a drinker.
My Grandad's parents (and subsequently Great Aunty Alice) could make a roast last four days. For a whole family.
And poor families these days are more likely to scrape up enough money to go to the local chippy than use that money to keep a goose or a rabbit in their backyard.

But times have changed.
You don't expect the super-rich to have their staff serve lukewarm food because of the trek from the kitchens to the table.
So why expect those who are struggling with poverty to keep and kill their own meat.
Probably illegal in most low-cost housing anyway.

Most people who use foodbanks use them temporarily. Often only once or twice. They get to fill their bellies - and those of their children - with cheap, bland food, but the money goes instead to keep the wolf from the door long enough to recover. An electricity or gas bill paid, power back on, bus fare to work that month until payday, a new pair of shoes for a schoolchild etc.
Some need longer term help, but in general a foodbank is a stop-gap.

Crikey me, when I was working I used to send shoeboxes to UK troops serving overseas. "Luxury" items like boiled sweets, decent razors, toothpaste that didn't taste of old socks.