Anne-Marie Rice in Lawyers Weekly writes:
I am tired because I am 44 years old, self-employed and the mother of two primary school aged children. Tired goes with the territory.
I am tired because I am a lawyer and the law is a jealous mistress.
But, most of all, I am tired from 20 years of doing a job through a prism that is inconsistent with who I am. A lens that I find fundamentally one dimensional and inherently aggressive. It is inherently masculine. The way the law is, largely, practised invites lawyers to solve problems by first making them bigger and by then aggressively holding a position until a decision is imposed or a compromised based on brinkmanship is reached.
I am exhausted from walking that walk. It affects who I am. It dims my light. And, looking around this room, I know I am not the only one who feels it.
But it also affects those who are NOT in this room tonight. The women who have left the profession. Not having retired after a full and fulfilling career but who have opted out. Early.
The responsibility for the change to make professional life sustainable for women, is mine. It’s ours. The responsibility to stop pretending that a flourishing legal career and committed parenting (or other) role is at all easy, realistic, healthy or sustainable, is mine. It’s ours.
We all know that Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did, but that she did it backwards and in high heels. But puzzle me this: what might have happened if Ginger Rogers had been invited to turn around?
https://www.lawyersweekly.com.au/biglaw/24349-law-is-inherently-masculine-but-women-can-help-change-it?
Category: Inequity
Women-Only Craft Beer Forum Shut Down By Men’s Rights Activist
Beth Demmon for Munchies writes:
The Women’s Beer Forum, hosted by Los Angeles-based Eagle Rock Brewery, is the latest victim in a long line of so-called “gender-based discrimination” lawsuits initiated by various men’s rights activists (MRAs), who are lashing out events and promotions designed for women.
The group’s overall goal was “to serve as an educational platform for more women interested in learning about beer, tasting through different beer styles, and being with a community of other women who enjoy good beer.” In short, it was a group created to serve as a counterbalance to a culture in which roughly 70 percent of craft beer drinkers are men.
Aggressive exclusionary tactics to keep men out were never used, Su says. In fact, men often participated and even presented at the meetups in the past. But in November 2017, a self-described MRA contacted Eagle Rock Brewery regarding the upcoming forum and was told it was for women only. That’s when the threats began.
After several months of limbo, the DFEH decided there was “reasonable cause” for a lawsuit and that the case would be pursued in the courts. Su’s only other option? Pay a settlement.
“We would have lost the company otherwise,” Su says in a phone call with MUNCHIES. “But I’m not OK settling and walking away.”
This type of targeted extortion is more common than one might think. There are men who fashion themselves into “career plaintiffs” who specifically seek out women-only events and groups in order to threaten and blackmail them for financial gain. One San Diego man has singlehandedly filed over 25 lawsuits claiming gender discrimination, and there are a number of men’s-rights-focused law firms who solely focus on these types of cases.
https://munchies.vice.com/en_us/article/bj44zq/women-only-craft-beer-forum-shut-down-by-mens-rights-activist
Is sport a law unto itself?
Jerome Doraisamy for Lawyers Weekly writes:
Speaking to Lawyers Weekly in the wake of her appearance at the Victoria Law Foundation’s forum on sport and the law, Monash University Associate Professor Kate Seaar said sport can shape how we understand the value of men and women and what they are capable of.
“Where women are not treated equally or afforded the same opportunities as men, and where sport is culturally valorised, women may come to be understood as inferior to men,” she argued.
“Research from Our Watch also suggests there could be important links between sport and violence against women, and that offering women equal opportunities to play sport (including being paid equally) may help erode attitudes supportive of/linked to violence against women.”
fhttps://www.lawyersweekly.com.au/politics/24332-is-sport-a-law-unto-itself?
Leyonhjelm asks if we need an 'Office for Men'. Larissa Waters' response?
Women’s Agenda reports:
The presence of Senator Larissa Waters was very much being felt back in senate estimates earlier this week, as Senator David Leyonhjelm was questioning the Office for Women on whether their work would be undermined if there was an ‘Office for Men’.
“It’s called Parliament,” Waters immediately responded to the question.
https://womensagenda.com.au/latest/leyonhjelm-asks-if-we-need-an-office-for-men-larissa-waters-responds-its-called-parliament/
Tax reform is pushed by rich males, for rich males
Ross Gittins for the Sydney Morning Herald writes:
She didn’t put it this way, but the truth that tax “reform” has long been pushed by well-off men for their own benefit – and at the expense of less well-paid women – was demonstrated in a paper given at a tax conference last week by one of our leading tax economists, Professor Patricia Apps, of the University of Sydney Law School.
She showed how the Productivity Commission’s recent report finding there’d been no increase in inequality in recent decades rested on lumping couples’ incomes together, ignoring the difference in contributions by each partner and, in particularly, assuming that “home produced goods and services” – such as childcare, cooking or cleaning – make no contribution to the family’s standard of living, so can be ignored when they have to be bought in because both partners are working.
To be fair, the commission did its analysis the way it’s usually done. But that’s because such analysis is mainly done by men, to whom it never occurs to take account of home production.
The various tax changes we’ve had – which aren’t nearly enough to satisfy the tax reformers – have favoured (mainly male) high income-earners, without any sign it’s made them work more.
The people whose decisions about whether to leave the home to do paid work, or to move from part-time to full-time, are those most likely to be affected by the tax they have to pay, but are no better off and probably worse off.
No prize for guessing these are mainly women with children. All this is long known by true tax experts – but just as long ignored. Tax reform is a game for well-off men on the make. Wake me when the women take over.
https://www.smh.com.au/business/the-economy/tax-reform-is-pushed-by-rich-males-for-rich-males-20181023-p50bcz.html
'It is time': Afghanistan's female candidates promise change
Hamza Mohamed for Al Jazeera writes:
Arabzai is among the 118 women candidates trying to secure one of the nine seats in the city reserved for women. Kabul has a total of 33 seats.
A record 417 female candidates are campaigning for a seat in the 250-member parliament.
The country’s constitution reserves 27 percent of the seats for women, making the Afghan parliament one of the most representative as far as women are concerned.
Arabzai and Karokhel say the reason why more women are now deciding to take part in politics is simple: to fight corruption.
“Women are less corrupt than men in our country. We are the first victims of corruption. More women in places of power means less corruption and more development,” Karokhel said.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/10/time-women-candidates-afghanistan-promise-change-181019091831158.html
Modi’s temple protest turns to riot after India revokes ban on women
Hugh Tomlinson for The Times writes:
Women attempting to enter one of India’s holiest Hindu temples for the first time thanks to a court order were driven back by a mob this morning while hardliners pelted police with stones as tensions continued to rise over the judicial decision.
“We are ready to die . . . Come what may, we will not allow women to enter Sabarimala,” said P Ratnamma, a woman leading a group of female protestors. Like many at the site, she has threatened to kill herself at the temple gates if women are allowed inside.
Hindus consider menstruating women “unclean” and they are commonly barred from religious sites and rituals. The ban on women entering Sabarimala is cherished because the ruling deity there, Lord Ayyappa, is considered to be celibate.
The Supreme Court removed the ban last month. “Religion cannot be the cover to deny women right to worship,” Chief Justice Dipak Misra said in his last major judgment before retiring. “To treat women as children of a lesser god is to blink at constitutional morality.”
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/world/riots-outside-temple-after-india-revokes-ban-on-women-vr3wtz8gn
Societal prejudice restricts girls’ access to mobile, global study finds
Today, non-profit Girl Effect and Vodafone Foundation publish findings of the first comprehensive global study into how adolescent girls access and use mobile technology. The research reveals that boys are 1.5 times more likely to own a phone than girls as societal prejudice and other barriers disproportionately restrict girls’ access and usage of mobile.
[T]he research – a qualitative and quantitative study across 25 countries – found that girls’ access and use is dramatically restricted by negative social norms that prevent them from having the same freedoms as boys. More than two-thirds (67%) of boys surveyed reported owning a phone (compared to 44% of girls) and 28% borrowed – compared to more than half (52%) for girls.
In countries like India and Bangladesh, girls seen using phones often face negative judgement from community members, meaning parents are more likely to ban access to a device. Girls who break rules around phones are also more likely to be punished by scolding, beatings, being kept out of school or even early marriage.
https://www.vodafone.com/content/index/media/vodafone-group-releases/2018/societal-prejudice-restricts-girls-access-to-mobile.html#https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/international-day-girl-un-technology-phones-sexism-report-girl-effect-feminism-a8578746.html
Patriarchy paradox: how equality reinforces stereotypes
Tom Whipple for The Times writes:
“It seems that as gender equality increases, as countries become more progressive, men and women gravitate towards traditional gender norms,” Dr Mac Giolla said. “Why is this happening? I really don’t know.”
Steve Stewart-Williams, from the University of Nottingham, said that there was now too much evidence of this effect to consider it a fluke. “It’s not just personality,” he said. “The same counterintuitive pattern has been found in many other areas, including attachment styles, choice of academic speciality, choice of occupation, crying frequency, depression, happiness and interest in casual sex.
“It’s definitely a challenge to one prominent stream of feminist theory, according to which almost all the differences between the sexes come from cultural training and social roles.”
Dr Stewart-Williams, author of The Ape That Understood the Universe, said an explanation could be that those living in wealthier and more gender-equal societies had greater freedom to pursue their own interests and behave more individually, so magnifying natural differences.
“Treating men and women the same makes them different, and treating them differently makes then the same. I don’t think anyone predicted that. It’s bizarre.”
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/patriarchy-paradox-how-equality-reinforces-stereotypes-96cx2bsrp?
Women Are Not 'Chattel,' Says India's Supreme Court In Striking Down Adultery Law
npr reports:
India’s Supreme Court has struck down a colonial-era law that made adultery illegal, calling it arbitrary and saying it is unconstitutional because it “treats a husband as the master.”
Section 497 of the Indian Penal Code makes it a crime for a man to have intercourse with another man’s wife “without the consent or connivance of that man.”
The law gives a husband exclusive right to prosecute his wife’s lover — and does not grant a wife power to do the same. It does not penalize the woman, nor any married man who has sex with an unmarried woman.
https://www.npr.org/2018/09/27/652075778/women-are-not-chattel-says-india-s-supreme-court-in-striking-down-adultery-law
