On the Agenda: Gender Making News

Naomi Wynter-Vincent

National News

• Babyfather - A new survey by the Equal Opportunities Commission has found that a majority of fathers in the UK are still failing to pull their weight in the home. EOC chairwoman Julie Mellor said: "Until we have equal pay, decent childcare and more opportunities to work flexible hours, many fathers will continue to find it hard to be there for their children; and many women will continue to lose out at work. This is not necessarily the best solution for parents, children or employers." The study identified four 'styles' of fathering: from the 'Enforcer' dads who spend little time with their children but see themselves as the final arbiter of rules in the household; the 'Entertainer' dad, who gets involved in the 'fun' aspects of parenting, like playing with the children, but rarely helps to help with cooking and cleaning; the 'Useful' father, who is happy to help with household and parental tasks, but still takes his cues from the mother, and the 'fully involved' dad, who is equally involved in household tasks and raising the children. The EOC found that most men in the UK fall into the middle two categories.

• Designer babies - The UK moved one step closer to parents being allowed to choose the sex of their baby. The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority has produced a consultation paper this month making the case for a relaxation of the rules surrounding sex-selection techniques, following medical advances in fertility treatments. Currently, reproductive sex-selection may be made only where there is a clear medical case, for example where there is a high risk of a sex-specific hereditary illness being passed to the foetus, but changes to legislation might mean that couples could choose the sex of their baby on 'family balancing' grounds as well.

• Date rape - The revelation that TV presenter Ulrika Jonsson was date-raped when she was 19 has put date-rape firmly back on the agenda. The Home Office is set to tighten up the 'honest belief' defence, in which defendants are able to say that they believed the woman had consented to sex. Men accused of rape will now have to convince the court that they took all reasonable attempts to gain explicit consent at the time. Currently only one in ten reports of rape ever result in a conviction and thousands of attacks go unreported each year.

• Smooth criminals - It has been interesting again to note the way in which the press responds to women associated with violent crimes against children. Whilst the tabloid press still can't countenance the release of jailed Moors murderer, Myra Hindley, many years after finishing her original sentence, Maxine Carr, charged with seeking to pervert the course of justice in the Soham murder case, has been the subject of frenzied media interest. Amidst speculation that she may have attempted suicide a couple of weeks ago, it is interesting to consider her treatment by the press compared to that of her partner, Ian Hunter. Unlike him, Maxine Carr has not been accused of murder but she has suffered as much if not more vilification in the press, and was the subject of the serious crowd incident which happened outside Peterborough Magistrates Court, when hundreds of people gathered to shout abuse (such as 'Kill her! Kill her!), despite her case not yet having reached trial.

International News

• Indians with attitude - The results of a survey in India suggest that Indian women are becoming more sexually assertive and less willing to put up with abusive or uncaring husbands. It found that Indian women valued sensitivity and honesty over good looks or money, and preferred to marry a man who was sexually inexperienced. Nearly half of the 2000 women interviewed declared that they were happy to take the initiative in sex and tell their husbands about former boyfriends. The survey also found a marked unwillingness to put up with domestic violence, with a third of those questioned saying they would fight back or leave their husbands. The survey has gone some way to reflect the changing attitudes of women in a country widely thought to be still traditionally patriarchal.

• Lipstick liberation? - There are plans to open a western-style beauty school in Afghanistan, funded by American companies, in January 2003. The school, which will be based inside the Afghan Ministry of Women's Affairs in Kabul, will provide courses on hairdressing and beauty therapy, as well as advice on setting up and running a business. Companies such as Revlon and MAC will be donating make-up and beauty products. The idea was devised by American Aid worker Mary MacMakin, who sees the school as a way to encourage financial independence as well as a boost to the confidence of Afghan women who are only now emerging from their burkhas after the demise of the Taliban. Critics say that instruction in beauty techniques should be low on the list of development priorities: "Women in Afghanistan need midwives, then mascara," said a spokesperson for the Women's Alliance for Peace and Human Rights in Afghanistan. Supporters point out that there were underground beauty parlours during the Taliban regime, and that this is one way to help Afghan women to support themselves, re-establish themselves in the workforce and feel more confident about their future.

• Sex trade in the Middle East - A conference in Dhaka has highlighted the problem of migrant Bangladeshi women being forced into the sex trade in India and the Middle East. Thousands of young women, some as young as 12, travel abroad to India, Kuwait, Dubai, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, looking to escape a life of poverty. The Bangladesh government has banned young, unskilled women from travelling overseas by themselves, ostensibly to protect them from being sucked into the sex trade, but in practice women continue to travel abroad through the black market by paying large sums of money to unscrupulous black-market dealers who subsequently force the women to repay the money through prostitution.

• Women's gun club in US - the Second Amendment Sisters (SAS), a women's pro-gun lobby, has opened its first college group at Mount Holyoke, a prestigious and historically left-wing women's college in Massachusetts. Reacting against women's groups in the US who oppose the gun-lobby, SAS see themselves as an empowered and even feminist group of women who do not need to rely on men to defend them: "I feel like self-defence is a natural part of empowerment, and I really question those who say they're feminists... usually they turn to men for defence, and depend on them. That's not what I was taught taking care of yourself meant."