Category Archives: Women

Breaking taboos about birth

Helen Knowles, "Birth with Orgasm" (image courtesy of the artist and GV Art gallery)
Helen Knowles, “Birth with Orgasm” (image courtesy of the artist and GV Art gallery)

Hyper-real images that question cultural attitudes towards women and childbirth form part of a new exhibition opening today.

The show at the GV Art gallery by Helen Knowles, Private View: Public Birth, features both figurative and abstract images of women “in the transcendental state of birth”; Knowles founded the Birth Rites Collection in 2008, the first collection of contemporary art dedicated to the subject.

Knowles has used screen grabs from YouTube videos to show women at the crowning stage of birth, when the baby’s head beings to emerge. By using footage from social media platforms – films usually reserved for private viewing – Knowles hopes to question the discomfort some audiences have with certain images.

The Birthing of Azheyo Aeoro (Image courtesy of artist and GV Art)
The Birthing of Azheyo Aeoro (Image courtesy of artist and GV Art)

The concept is a refreshing and thought-provoking one. Most public perceptions of new mothers involve images of immaculately groomed famous women whose bodies magically snap back into place and while “beautiful” is a word often used to describe babies, it’s rarely associated with birth itself (and certainly not linked to images of the birth process).

Yet the pieces of work on display in today’s exhibition are intriguing and often ethereal, reflecting notions of female strength.

Knowles has also recently been researching Native American and British contemporary perspectives on public birth. The Birth Rites Collection itself is on permanent public display in the midwifery department, University of Salford and the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists in London.

* Private View: Public Birth, a curatorial collaboration between Poppy Bowers and Helen Knowles, runs from 16-22 September at the
 GV Art gallery, Marylebone, London.

Teens teach peers about respect and relationships

Oii My Size, a web-based project to raise awareness about respect in teen relationships
Oii My Size, a web-based project to raise awareness about respect in teen relationships

Late night on the estate, London. Two hooded and capped teen boys hang out, waiting for a couple of teen girls. Nervously the girls approach. Tiana used to go out with Stigz, but she’s not sure about this new guy he’s brought along. She thought they were going out to a party, but the boys lead them to this new guy’s place. His parents are out. Tiana fights her instincts to run. The door shuts. The boys start to grab them. The girls resist but they won’t stop. Everything happens so fast…

Thankfully these events are just part of an awareness-raising film for Oii My Size, a youth-led project targeting teens. The Oii My Size project. For those not down with the kids, “my size” means “my kind of girl”. The project is based on a colourful website full of videos and pictures to help teens understand what makes relations between teen boys and girls appropriate and respectful.

Storyboard-2b

The scenario described above is, however, based on a true story and reflects the reality of life for many teen girls. From serious assault like this, to sharing naked pictures of them (sexting) and being spoken to disrespectfully, life can be a minefield for girls when it comes to teen boys. A recent study by the NSPCC reported up to 40 per cent of young people had been involved in sexting, mainly under pressure from other schoolchildren while a conference in Manchester run by the area’s Safeguarding Children Board heard reports from schools that sexting had become a “daily problem” affecting girls as young as 11 years old.

No one knows this better than the group of 12 teen girls who have shaped Oii My Size.

The girls, aged 16, from Pimlico, London, met to socialise until becoming involved in a Peabody Staying Safe campaign. The girls had previously worked with youth arts company Dream Arts to produce a warning video about staying safe around boys and jumped at the chance to spread the message about safe relationships and the dangers of sexting (sending indecent images to an under-18 is illegal). The video, which starred the girls themselves, is now on the Oii My Size site.

All of the girls had some kind of personal experience with the topic – whether affected directly, like the events in the video, or having friends who had to move schools due to sexting, or being exposed to abuse such as a Blackberry Messenger “slags list” – where girls are publicly named and shamed.

The girls were supported by Peabody, Dream Arts and youth-led media social enterprise Mediorite, which I volunteer with. Peabody worked with the girls under its Staying Safe campaign, Dream Arts supported them to work together and provided them with a specialist support worker for two hours each week after school.

As well as tackling issues such as sexting , Oii My Size focuses on disrespectful chat-up lines (or “churpz”) and when to say no in teen relationships. The magazine-style website also has light-hearted videos of teen boys trying out their best (read:worst) churpz on the unimpressed girls, like “Do you work at Subway? Cos you got me on a foot-long” and invites users to “rate my churpz”. This cleverly avoids preaching by demonstrating that the disrespectful churpz just make girls feel embarrassed, intimidated and degraded. In other words –boys- they do not work.

oimysize_screengrab

The website also contains a video of Althia Legal-Miller, a doctoral research student at King’s College, London, and an expert in female adolescence and violence. She explains the dangers of sexting, promoting the key message of “trust your instincts” to teenage girls in relationships.

The girls behind the project say they “have chosen this topic as we have realized that we feel intimidated and disrespected due to our gender.” Team member Shanice George explains that “hopefully the website will educate young girls and boys that sexting is illegal, cos we didn’t even know it was illegal until we started the project, and if we didn’t know how were other people to know? Also we wanted to educate boys on how they talk to girls… and we are now working with a domestic violence woman from Peabody and we would like to make girls aware about domestic violence too.”

Lucy Ferguson from Mediorite adds that the girls felt the topic “was a real, urgent issue that just wasn’t being tackled at school, and that no one was tackling it…The project was a success because the girls really challenged themselves to think about the audience.”

The girls not only gained new skills from the project but also won a Silver Arts Award, an Open College Network accreditation in project management via Peabody and a Nominet internet safety award. The website got 2000 hits in 24 hours the day after they won the award, and has been promoted at school assemblies by the girls to over 3000 people.

The project’s audience will undoubtedly grow, as Lucy Ferguson explains: “Most youth groups don’t really explore what someone who doesn’t know them is going to think of their project, they don’t think about how to sell and engage the audience, but these girls really got that. So ‘rate my churpz’ – as a traffic-driver is a really sophisticated idea. It shows they understood the need to engage boys too, and draw people in with a sense of humour, and then engage them with the harder content. Most youth groups are completely unforgiving to the audience. This was a much more sophisticated approach.”

Older, wiser..and off the radar?

How old does a woman have to be to be categorized as “older”? 50? 70? And if we push females deemed to be “older women”, in “late adulthood” or in “advanced years” into the same group, what common concerns do they share, if any? More importantly, does anyone outside of that demographic notice or care about ageing women? And if they do – what’s being done about the issues they’re concerned about?

While Britain as an ageing society is a constant source of political and public debate, the specific issue of women and ageing isn’t afforded the focus it should, given that women tend to live longer than men. The 2011 census suggests there are about 11 million women over the age of 50 years, about 4 million of which are over 70 years. By 2035 there will be 4 million more females aged 65+ than under 16s.

Like most people, my personal experience – and I speak from the start of my fourth decade – is that the older you get, the younger so-called “older people” seem. As you age, your perceptions of old and young clearly shift. I don’t, for example, class my friends in their 50s as “old” and my own 81-year-old mother-in-law defies stereotypes and expected patterns of behaviour with her far flung travels to South America and her energetic role as a breeder of rare sheep.

The youth/age picture becomes confused still when you think that childhood apparently ends at 12, younger girls are presented (and sometimes present themselves) as much older while older women – think Madonna, Helen Mirren – are variously praised or mocked. And more often than not, the kind of articles I’m thinking of include a particular kind of faux-praise for a woman’s age-defying antics and appearances…you know what I mean – the pieces that comment on a woman’s “confidence” (ie delusion) in “flaunting” (as in “she’s too old to dress/act like that”) her “mature” (read: “wrinkly, untoned”) figure.

A provocative series of essays published today, coinciding with International Women’s Day, highlights policy issues about ageing women, underlining how the contribution to and role of older women in society is overlooked.

The think tank the International Centre for Longevity (ILC-UK) publication Has the sisterhood forgotten older women? contains 38 essays – everything from personal recollections about the role of women in family and society, to thoughts on intimacy and relationships, the invisibility of older women in international development and opinions about the low media profile of older women (see the words of an older female MP on how she is treated by political parties in relation to media work).

The authors include politicians, policy makers, academics and campaigners such as Jane Ashcroft, chief executive of housing and care group Anchor, Sheila Gilmore MP, Michelle Mitchell, chief executive of Age UK, Heléna Herklots from Carers UK and Marina Yannakoudakis MEP.

As well as discussions about how far women in their 50s 60s 70s think of themselves as “old” (answer: they don’t), the collection of writing stresses the dilemma facing older women – while longevity is to be celebrated “there is a risk that women, who often live longer than men, do so at the risk of being caught in the metaphorical mouse trap: alive but with little quality of life”.

The ILC-UK has also today announced it is establishing an Older Women’s Policy and Research Action Alliance to create “a roadmap for future research and policy priorities”. The organisation hopes today’s compedium will spark a new debate on women in an ageing society.

The issue of the challenge for ageing women in care is a particularly strong theme in today’s collection of essays. In the UK, women account for two thirds of community care users over the age of 65, and three quarters of people in residential care.

Baroness Sally Greengross, chief executive of the ILC-UK added: “Women must engage in the debate on social care funding if we are to get a solution which works for all. It is also essential that the caring contributions of older women are not ignored. Future care reform must take account of and not disincentivise the informal care contribution of older women.”

Here are just three edited highlights from among the pieces in today’s publication:

Oh, I didn’t see you there!
Jane Ashcroft, chief executive, Anchor
:
“For several years I have been irritated by the propensity of print journalists to tell us the age of any woman in the news, regardless of any relevance to the story, while rarely applying the same approach to men. Why is age a defining characteristic of women?

In 2010, research conducted on behalf of Anchor, the housing and care provider which I lead, analysed one week of TV programmes on the 5 major UK channels (Older Faces Audit, March 2010, Anchor). We found a dramatic under-representation of older people, and especially older women. Across all channels, people over 50 were under–represented. Despite making up 34% of the UK population, representation on the major channels was as low as 12%, with only BBC2 achieving a realistic level of 38%. And amongst TV presenters appearing in the week under review, only 1 in 5 was an older woman.

This supports my view that ageing in men is often seen more positively than in women – many older men are described as wise and experienced, whereas the expression “don’t be such an old woman” is used to convey entirely negative characteristics.

This picture is so different from the reality that I see in my everyday life, that it is tempting to wonder if I live in a parallel universe! Of my 9,000 or so colleagues in Anchor, over 500 are continuing to enjoy their work well past the official “retirement age”.

Behind the scenes, many older women are leading change in communities, organisations and families, contributing their resources and multitude of skills, and leading interesting and rewarding lives. Some older women, like older men, are facing loneliness, loss and poor health. As a society, and for ourselves, don’t we need to recognise every older woman as an individual, and to enable us to do that we need to improve visibility – instead of “oh, I didn’t see you there” can we say “ah, I’ve been looking for you”?

Older women and care: are they invisible to the sisterhood?
Michelle Mitchell, Age UK:

“Despite care having been on the feminist agenda for years, the issue of it in later life has remained shrouded from our viewpoint, as millions struggle in quiet crisis. Yet nowhere are the compound challenges of class, gender and age more evident and nowhere are older women more in need of a voice.”

Older women carers – invisible and ignored?
Heléna Herklots, chief executive, Carers UK:

“Many older women carers grew up during a time when women’s contribution to society was far less recognised than it is today. They now live in a society which too often ignores their contribution as older women carers. We need to challenge this; guard against any prejudices and assumptions we may ourselves have; and work to ensure that older women carers are recognised, respected, and valued – no longer invisible and ignored.”

*Download ILC-UK’s Has the sisterhood forgotten older women? here

The project that helps you “be” something

By Liz Naylor of the  charity Addaction
By Liz Naylor of the charity Addaction
When I first met Linda, she told me: “When I was growing up I couldn’t imagine being anything”.

I met Linda when I was delivering a training course aimed at former substance misusers who wanted to become “recovery champions” and better support their peers engage in that service.

Although Linda didn’t speak with any great volume, there was something so utterly powerful and authentic in her statement that for a second the room stopped and focussed upon her. It was not a statement of self-pity, or an attempt to claim the title of the bleakest life experience; it was simply a statement of fact – here was a 48-year-old woman who had never thought she would “be” anything.

I would later learn that Linda had “been” sexually abused from an early age by a string of boyfriends that her mother, working as a street sex worker, had brought into the home. She herself had “been” a street sex worker for most of her life. She had “been” trapped in misuse of heroin and crack on and off for the last 25 years. She had “been” the mother of a small child who died due to swallowing Linda’s methadone prescription.

At some point during the day, we were discussing recovery capital and specifically, the idea of people holding different levels of cultural capital. Many participants talked about how when they were young what they had imagined their lives might be – and the kinds of things that had got in the way of these ordinary dreams. I recall that none of the participants had held any particularly grand or unrealistic hopes, just the usual – jobs, children, and a place to call home.

I guess the power of Linda’s statement was that although she had been many things she had never imagined what she might be.

I am proud to work as part of Addaction’s London training team. It’s a small team of three full time workers and one part time volunteer. The major part of our job is delivering something called the Next Project.

This is a 12-week training course providing the necessary skills and training to people who have been affected by substance misuse and, since August 2010, carers or those affected by the substance misuse of someone close to them.

Some might call it a back to employment scheme that really works (imagine that!), which is fine, except quite a lot of the people who do the course have never even officially had a job. We call it a personal development course that supports the participants to make the kind of changes needed to move their lives forward so they can enjoy the kind of lives that meets their human potential.

Rather than work from the assumption that our trainees are “addicts” or “victims” or “burdened with care” – we work from the belief that our trainees are smart enough to be interested in examining their own behavioural patterns. It is, if you like, a psychology course based upon study of self and the personal changes made possible with this knowledge.

We know this works because since 2005 when the Project started to April 2012, 338 people have attended it and 261 have completed it, a success rate of 77%. This has increased to 87% in the last four years as the project has evolved. 9 out of 10 people finishing Next in the last four years have completed qualifications and gone on to further education/training and volunteering. 31% of those that have finished since 2008 are now in full-time employment. This figure increases steadily over time as Next graduates gain experience and confidence from volunteering and further study that enables them to start applying for jobs

The course is purposefully demanding and intense – giving the participants a real sense of achievement when they complete the course. Next is a proven success story, and is heavily oversubscribed, with waiting lists of up to six months. Referral is from the London boroughs (Islington, Greenwich, Wandsworth and Southwalk funding through Terra Firma) that currently fund places, and a place isn’t cheap at £2,500 but the impact of successful completion reaches much further than the individual (Addaction estimates that each person dependent on illegal drugs costs the country around £44,000 a year, compared to £2,500 for each trainee, for a nine month period). In fact the benefits will extend as far as their children, families and the wider community.

Linda secured funding to do the Project. She completed the course. She did not miss one single session. I don’t think she missed a single minute.

We watched Linda transform – her physical presence, body language, voice projection, intellectual reasoning, confidence, self awareness. It was a transformation that Linda initiated within herself, we provided the right kind of knowledge, support, (the occasional) challenge and encouragement. It was as if she understood the importance of the moment. The moment when she finally could see who she deserved to be.

* For more on the effectiveness of the Next Project and its employment outcomes, see this recent piece in the Guardian.

Unemployed to enterprising

Maria Ellingham had not worked full-time for a decade after having children. She then became a single parent who had the will to work but lacked the way. She was a qualified reflexologist and wanted to set up her own business, but she needed to find the confidence and to learn the skills of self-employment.

Yet in July, two months after taking part in a council-commissioned scheme, Ellingham launched her own reflexology business. A former account manager at a cosmetics company, she is among 54 people helped into employment or self-employment through Central Bedfordshire and Bedford borough councils’ building enterprising communities scheme.

Read more about the scheme to help people off benefits and into self-employment offers lessons for all service contracts on the Guardian local government network.

Maria with her children in her treatment room

I never imagined I’d be selling my body for drugs

Vulnerable women are the focus of charity St Mungo's new campaign

“I never imagined in a million years I’d be selling my body for drugs…I’m still doing it now… I’ve nearly been killed three times doing [prostitution]. I’ve been raped doing it.. as a result of that I got HIV doing it. But it’s easy money.”

These words belong to Angela (not her real name), 38, speaking to homelessness charity St Mungo’s (you can hear more from her on the St Mungo’s website here).

Her story highlights some of the particular issues homeless women are known to face more than their vulnerable male counterparts – prostitution and domestic violence, for example – which the charity is focusing on during its action week this week.

The week kick starts St Mungo’s new campaign, Rebuilding Shattered Lives, the aim of which is to give a platform to best practice and innovation relating to supporting homeless and vulnerable women.

Traditionally, homelessness services were designed with men in mind but in England over half of those living in temporary accommodation are women and a quarter of St Mungo’s 1,700 residents are women. Until just three years ago, women fleeing an abusive relationship were deemed intentionally homeless (and so didn’t have housing rights) and encouraged to return home.

Housing and homelessness campaigners have long argued for more attention to be paid to women and homelessness (a 2006 report from housing charity Crisis still makes for stark reading) given there can be additional factors in their lives which might push them into homelessness – domestic violence and abuse, for example. The true nature of women’s housing need can also be hidden as they opt to stay with friends or sofa surf between spells of rough sleeping. While they can access mixed housing, as opposed to female-only hostels, for example, there is an argument to say that that more widespread female-specifc, housing-related support would make recovery easier.

St Mungo’s 18 month-long campaign invites organisations, frontline staff and female service users themselves to contribute ideas on preventing women’s homelessness and supporting recovery. Campaign themes including childhood trauma and domestic violence, as well as educational and employment opportunities, and restoring links with families and children.

A recent survey of St Mungo’s female residents concluded that more than a third who slept rough say their experience of domestic violence directly led to their homelessness while almost half are mothers. More than one in 10 have a history of being in care.

It’s worth noting that, as well as the stories like Angela, there are other examples in the St Mungo’s campaign of how, with the right support, women have started to turn their lives around.

“Mel”, for example, was living and working on the streets for two and a half years before coming in. She told St Mungo’s staff: “I’ve never had any stability. I don’t get on with my family, I’ve always been around drugs and getting clean when you are around other users is difficult. But I’m getting there, slowly…When I moved in here a year and a half ago I was a mess and I just slept, catching up you know. Then I turned things around, turned daytime into time for ‘doing stuff’ and nighttimes for sleeping.”

She added: “To get your benefits and all that you need to get to appointments, you have to get out of bed and you need the right help. That’s what I got here, though it took me a while to adjust, to get my head stable. What you need is people taking you seriously, people listening to what you want. What people need to understand is that just because you don’t comply with their ‘rules’, don’t turn up or whatever doesn’t mean ‘give up on them’.”

As the campaign develops, it will be interesting to see what ideas and services for women like Angela and Mel are showcased and what changes, if any, the charity’s follow up surveys reveal about an issue that has only comparatively recently been given a specific focus.

Painting, prisons and penal reform

Some thoughtful and attention-grabbing images on display this week at The Big Issues exhibition, a project that forms part of prison outreach work at Surrey’s recently restored Watts Gallery.

Peace on Earth, Louise HMP Send

The exhibition is the result of the Compton-based gallery’s Art for All project. The outreach scheme involves artist-led workshops with inmates in prisons including Send and Coldingly in Surrey and Bronzefield in Middlesex – the pieces featured here are by female offenders at Send and Bronzefield.

Everyone Deserves A Chance, Amanda HMP Bronzefield

The inclusive arts project is in keeping with the beliefs of the gallery’s namesake, Victorian artist George Frederic Watts. Watts and his artist wife Mary Watts supported penal and social reform, believing in widening access to art, using the medium to benefit individuals and the community and arguing against prejudice towards ex-offenders. The couple’s aim of transforming lives through encouraging the socially excluded to engage with art underlines the gallery’s current outreach work.

Mother and Child, Juliet HMP Bronzefield

Art for All aims to build confidence and self-worth in people usually deemed socially excluded – prisoners, young offenders, addicts, and those with mental health issues or experiencing homelessness housing. One former prisoner at HMP Send, for example, was released before Christmas and been accepted on a foundation course at Brighton University. Another participant described the project as “some light in the dull, grey prison world”.

Rehabilitation through art can provoke controversy and the Watts gallery scheme is by no means unique, but with prison numbers at a record high and a proven reoffending rate of 26%, the value of projects like this is clear.

The exhibition is on until Sunday.

12 days of Christmas, Social Issue-style

Season’s greetings from The Social Issue – to mark the jollities, here’s a snapshot of some of the upbeat posts and pictures about people, projects and places featured over the last 12 months. This festive pick is by no means the best of the bunch – the inspiring stories below are included as they’re accompanied by some interestin and images and almost fit with a festive carol, if you allow for a little the poetic and numerical licence…

Very huge thanks to the Social Issue’s small band of regular and guest bloggers, all contributors, supporters, readers and everyone who’s got in touch with story ideas and feedback. See you in January.

On the first day of Christmas, the blogosphere brought to me:

A tiger in an art show

Batik Tiger created by a student at specialist autism college, Beechwood

Two JCBs

The Miller Road project, Banbury, where agencies are tackling youth housing and training. Pic: John Alexander

Three fab grans

Hermi, 85: “I don’t really feel like an older woman.”

Four working teens

From antisocial behaviour to force for social good; Buzz Bikes, Wales.

Five(ish) eco tips

Eco hero Phil uses a “smart plug” to monitor domestic energy use

Six(ty) volunteers

Young volunteer with City Corps, Rodney WIlliams

Seven(teen) pairs of wellies

Abandoned festival rubbish, Wales, gets recycled for the homeless, pic credit: Graham Williams

Eight(een-years-old and over) people campaigning

Participants in the Homeless Games, Liverpool

1950s hall revamping

"The kid who talked of burning down the place is now volunteering to paint it."

10 lads a leaping

11-year-olds integrating

Children's al fresco activiites at the Big Life group summer scheme

12(+) painters painting

View from the Southbank of Tower Bridge, Aaron Pilgrim, CoolTan Arts

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

The cuts: the worst is yet to come

An authoritative analysis in today’s Society Guardian of the deepest spending cuts in a generation, which start from Friday. The special issue inludes some sector by sector breakdowns of savings and job losses, including pieces I contributed to the in-depth coverage.

The cuts – an alternative

For those who’ve not already seen it, this powerful film presents an alternative to the government’s devastating cuts agenda. It features community groups and anti-cuts campaigners along with Bill Nighy, Radiohead’s Ed O’Brien and Zac Goldsmith MP. Worth watching ahead of this weekend’s demo in London against the cuts.

It Cuts Both Ways…The Alternatives from Oonagh Cousins on Vimeo.