Why are there less Women in technology?

A strong desire to boost self esteem is one of many complex reasons why women go under the knife to boost their breast size. Unfortunately, the labour of love for silicon does not stretch beyond Silicon Valley. Women may be snapping up silicone implants but not jobs in technology. It is not earth shattering news that there is a severe shortage of women within the industry. The lure of a mega bucks income and the opportunity of undertaking innovative work is not enough, leaving a vacuum of female talent. So what is putting off them off?

REALITY OF THE WORKPLACE:

A study by womentechnology.co.uk uncovered statistics which confirmed the obstacles women face in the workplace. Forty one per cent said that being a woman was detrimental, 64% were not offered the opportunity to join a women’s network by their employer and 88% agreed that more should be done to encourage women to the workplace after maternity leave. One respondent commented: “It is a struggle to be taken seriously as a competent engineer, no matter what experience or qualifications are offered. It is presumed my interest is general and not technical.”

Lack of career progression was highlighted by 68% of respondents who had more than 5 years experience. But half of those had not climbed the ladder to a middle management experience.

GEEK STEREOTYPE:

The UK Resource Centre for Women in Science, engineering and technology (UKRC) unveiled research suggesting women scientists are stereotyped as frumpy, spectacle-wearing geeks versus the caricature of uber sexy Bond film glamour pusses. Even the iconic doll Barbie was given a technological makeover.

The 2010 edition saw Barbie transformed as a computer engineer armed with pink glasses and a pink laptop.

GIRLS CAN’T DO MATHS:

Girls make up more than half of GCSE science students but the numbers plummet when it comes to university applicants. They are outnumbered by boys by two to one.  At the peak of the academic ladder there are nine male professors compared to one from the fairer sex. In the US, the number of full time female science professors at elite universities has been stuck on ten per cent for the past half a century.

Even if women opt for an academic career in science or technology, they face the possibility of sexism while at university. Maths professor Charlotte Watts recalled one of her male peers at Oxford University saying: “I didn’t know girls could do maths.” The view that women’s brains aren’t wired for technology or hard sciences is a particular one floating around in scientific circles.

The myth resurfaced during a controversial speech by Lawrence H Summers at a conference in 2005. Summers, the former president of Harvard University, said that differences in “intrinsic aptitude” between men and women were more important than cultural factors and discrimination in explaining why fewer women succeeded in the sciences.

THE CHALLENGE OF MATERNITY LEAVE:

When women find their niche in the technological field, problems can arise if they decided to have children. Balancing a career with a family is a tricky one especially if an engineering job demands a long stint at an offshore oil rig. Family responsibilities is a major trigger for women leaving the IT sector as well as the potential knock on effect on diminishing chances of promotion.

With few women in the ranks acting as role models, it also means fewer opportunities for the issue of diversity to be pushed on to the agenda. Combined with harsh treatment by peers and less recognition for accomplishments, many women decide that the science and tech sector is not for them. Remote working could halt the decline due to its flexible working practices. But success relies on significant numbers of employees who are willing to implement the scheme.

FUTURE OUTLOOK:

By 2017, it is estimated that there will be a shortfall of 200,000 in the UK and Germany of skilled workers to satisfy demand for the aerospace, green and transport industry. As time marches on, the challenge on attracting female talent in the technology and science field is crucial in successfully making large in roads to end the disparities between the sexes.

Josephine Woode

Jo is a freelance writer living in London who specializes in writing book and movie reviews. She has recently spread her wings to write how to articles on Career Development. If she is not browsing through the shelves in bookshops, she will be power walking around parks to keep fit.
At Pinkvox, Jo writes about WorkLife. To read more articles by Jo, click here

 

Pinkvox - The Social Network Connecting Progressive Women

Pinkvox - The Social Network Connecting Progressive Women

Perfection is a weird word. It’s weird in that I don’t believe it is ever possible to be it. A meal can or a holiday can be it, as can a way of describing how a job interview or marriage proposal went. But people can’t be it which is a good thing. It’s good because once you start to accept it, things get better.

I was having a conversation, rather oddly, whilst on a date recently. I was describing how, once, when I was 16 during an episode of a hyper maternal nature whilst on holiday, I tried to rescue a cockroach. The insect in question had been found by me in our apartment and looked like it had broken it’s leg. So, obviously, I set about making it a kind of walking frame out of matchsticks. For a good hour or two, there it was, propped up and bewildered (or at least the insect equivalent of bewildered) and I was certain the little thing was showing signs of recovery. By this time, of course, I could tell exactly what the little man was thinking (I may have had heatstroke). Realising, after a while, that this was probably as far as our bond could go, I decided the best thing to do would be to put him back into his natural habitat and popped him just outside in the window box for the night. The next morning, I got a very nasty shock. My insect friend was being eaten alive by ants.

And it was my fault.

My date, perhaps more oddly, stayed in his seat. He said that even though he’s killed cockroach’s millions of times before, he felt really sorry for this one. Thinking about it, if the cockroach had been fit and well and lording it over us in our little self-catering apartment, helping itself to everything, I probably would have killed it. This realisation put me in a difficult psychological situation. It also made my date feel uneasy about his ethical and moral code too. I’ve never been a great one for first impressions.

This whole scenario made me think about the idea of perfection, of that definitively correct thing. There will always be things we want to improve, situations we’ll try to make better, insects we’ll try to save. We poke our well meaning noses into places they have no right to be all the time, it’s the most common thing in the world, we can’t always get it right, even if we mean well. More importantly, we do it to ourselves. We do it to ourselves on the instruction of others, we do it so much it’s second nature. I know now, though, that my date will think twice next time he raises a shoe to a cockroach on some Mediterranean jaunt. He’ll do it because of my story, because I made him. I have to say, this notion doesn’t sit all that well with me; if I was starting up a matchstick crutch company, however, I’d want everyone to intervene with the lifespan of an injured insect.

I wondered then about the massive money making make-up machine, in which we, the female race, are in the role of the ‘injured’ insect and big name players like Loreal, Clinique and botox promoting pharmaceutical companies are in the role of me. With all this striving to turn back the clock in order to capture that certain kind of ideal that we are sold, the kind you feel when you’re precisely the 16 year old teenager on holiday that I was. With all its clumsy interfering psychological strategy which pushes so many of us made to feel like we must conform, aren’t we all destined for the human equivalent of the window box when they’re done? Will they think ahead and do something to remove the threat of ants eating away at us?

I may be painting a little too gruesome an image to illustrate my point, but perhaps I’m trying to tell myself.

Apparently, when the economy began to free fall back in late 2008, the sale of lipsticks shot up. Little perks to give you temporary relief, temporary hope. Maybe Rimmel will save me, perhaps Kate will transfer some of her skilful confidence and earning ability while I wear it. That’ll get me the job.

Except it won’t.

But we must believe in the power of the lie, mustn’t we? If we don’t, what’s going to bring us up and out of our feeling of worthlessness, boost us when the winter folds thickly around our bodies and tells us to stay in bed, times when even those specially designed slim-line backlit mirrors in Boots can’t hide the bags under our eyes after three samples of Touch Eclait? The message is loud and clear, try harder.

They say that even when tests are done using placebo pills on people, and even when those people are told that they are being given a ‘fake pill’ that results can still be seen.  Perhaps that analogy goes some way to explaining the sudden, and very real popularity of the Scouse Brow, in the North of this fine country, because for the life of me, I can’t work that one out, worryingly though, the more I see them, the more I like them. Gulp.

Siobhan Fields

When Siobhan Fields was six she wanted to be either a lion or a shepherd girl. These days she enjoys writing about the things that move her, the things she observes in everyday life and those distant inner thoughts when they’re dusted off and all nicely polished and gleaming.
At Pinkvox, Siobhan writes about women’s life and its beautiful intricacies. To read more articles by Siobhan, click here

Pinkvox - The Social Network Connecting Progressive Women

In a recent article, I asked what David Cameron was doing to promote the position of women and equality in British society. Last week, following the Prime Minister’s comments at the Northern Future Forum conference in Stockholm, the question of gender once more crept into the news.  “Britain’s boardrooms need more women,” said Cameron at the summit which focused primarily on improving the position of women in the workplace. His comments come on the back of evidence which shows that economies improve with increased participation from women as entrepreneurs and in positions of power. But how does Cameron intend on implementing these changes in a sustainable and lasting way here in Britain?

Using the Nordic countries as a model is probably the best place to start. In 2008 quotas were brought into force on female presence in Norwegian boardrooms. Such enforced diversity in the boardroom has led to an undeniable growth of women holding positions of executive power. In 1993, only 3% of the boards of listed companies in Norway were comprised of women. By 2003 it had grown to 7% and now, less than ten years later as a result of quotas, the figure stands at 42% ^{(18/07/2011, The Guardian)}. Although I am often sceptical of the use of quotas in promoting gender equality, these figures show that the Norwegian model has undoubtedly improved the corporate female position of power.

It is probably as a result of these figures that David Cameron has turned north in search of advice on how to improve gender equality in the UK. The fact that the Prime Minister is taking the time to recognise the importance of the female presence in improving the British economy can only be seen as a positive move in the overall battle for female empowerment in Great Britain. “The drive for more women in business is not simply about equal opportunity,” Cameron said last week, “it’s about effectiveness” ^{(9/02/2012, The Guardian)}. It seems the prime minister has finally noticed that encouraging organizations to employ more women in high-powered positions, will probably lead to a more positive outcome for the country.

Unfortunately, it is not only in Britain that the huge discrepancies between male and female CEOs and executives exists. In my homeland just across the water, Ireland is also attempting to promote female participation in the workplace in an attempt to improve the overall economy. In a recent edition of the The Irish Times, the results of the Central Statistics Office showed that girls continue to outperform boys at school. 53% of young Irish women have a third-level qualification as opposed to only 39% of Irish men(1/02/2012). In an ideal world there would be no difference between the education level of the two sexes, but one must ask how it is that the gender to excel academically still holds a much weaker position professionally.

Sheryl Sandberg, chief operating officer of Facebook since 2008, recently said that women perhaps feel less inclined to seek out the most powerful positions in companies because of stigmas and stereotypes which exist. “Little girls are called bossy,” she said in January. “Success and likeability are positively correlated for men and negatively correlated for women.” ^{(30/01/2012, www.bloomberg.com)} What Sandberg has pointed out is completely true. Teenage girls are taught to feel ashamed for standing out and showing initiative, while their male counterparts are encouraged to be more proactive. Perhaps if David Cameron wants to improve the female presence in the running of the UK’s economy, he might have to go much further than implementing quotas on job counts.

For now, however, after his time in Stockholm Cameron is putting his energy into augmenting the numbers of women in power. In an article for The Guardian, Agnes Bolso wrote that Norwegian studies have found that the implementation of quotas which places women in a new position of power does influence the country’s decision-making process. “Greater female representation seems to make meetings a little more pleasant,” she wrote. “The preparation material is tidier and more comprehensive, and the processes more formal. Our respondents call it professionalization.” (18/07/2011) Even though Bolso is generalizing all women as tidy and organized, it does seem that Norway is proof of a gender-balanced model that works.

If Cameron is searching for more female entrepreneurs, and if what Bolso writes is true and we are more organized, it seems that a more feminine presence within the UK government and in high-powered corporate organizations is the way to boost our economy. Although Cameron may wave the flag of the female friendly Prime Minister, at the end of the day all he wants is to lead an economy which can move up and out of these times of austerity and cut backs. Cameron needs to improve his country’s financial situation and he needs to do it now.

Perhaps these times of high unemployment and fiscal instability are exactly what the British Primer Minister needed in order to open his eyes to the highly educated, motivated, female workforce that is sitting right under his nose. If quality is what he’s looking for, then it’s time to let the girls in.

 
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Sorcha Pollak

Sorcha currently lives in London and is pursuing her MSc in Media, Communication and Development at the LSE. Traveling is her passion in life – particularly through the energetic and lively countries of Latin America. Brought up bilingually through Irish (Gaelic) and English, she also speaks Spanish and French.
At Pinkvox, she writes about Global & Current Affairs and particularly their impact on women. To read more articles by Sorcha, click here

Pinkvox - The Social Network Connecting Progressive Women

Recently a well known contributor to Forbes.com, Gene Marks, wrote an interesting article about the dearth of female CEO’s in leading blue chip companies. Since Mr Marks is male he cited the obvious; that a woman’s lady parts and her allegiance to family would eventually compromise her career ambitions. He’s right of course…and wrong.

Men and women are from different planets – Mars and Venus – sometimes they are in harmonious orbit and sometimes not. Nature creates a divide. A woman ovulates each month in preparation for potential child-birth whilst the only thing a man can change each month is his mind! When a woman embarks upon pregnancy it is both a physical and psychological process of nesting and nurture. During the nine months that a man waits to be a father he plays pool, golf and never misses regular drinks with the guys!

A man’s life is an uninterrupted path of selfishness whilst a woman’s life is an unremitting schedule of career, family and household commitments. A man emits sperm and can walk way from his commitment. Men are emotional absentees and more so when they’re in relationships. Men are nothing more than glorified sperm donors and nowhere is this more acknowledged than in the family courts. Any judge worth his salt rarely grants custody to fathers since it’s a well known fact that emotional bonding is stronger between mother and child. To disturb that unique attachment is disastrous to a child’s healthy development and would instigate social discord.

A man is an introverted and egotistical animal. He does not form close relationships with ease and usually his mother is one of few people in the world who he’s truly close to. A recent news report advises that the male sex drive is to blame for world conflict such as hooliganism, religious disputes, domestic violence and wars. Men are programmed for aggression and their problem solving methods are anything but peaceful!

My ranting is not purely against men who, after reading this , may feel less than useful but they have to stop bleating about our lack of capability for senior positions. We need men to be supportive and assist in the process of encouraging more women into the board room. Just as every man is not an alpha male neither is every woman a submissive home maker or pushy bra burner!

A woman’s climb to the top is fraught with difficulties and involves juggling that would make a circus trapeze act look like a breeze. Even if she manages to smash through the glass ceiling her pathway is no less precarious. At the top she’ll need to manage the boardroom and keep the home fires burning. Fire-fighting on all fronts can leave even the most ambitious woman disillusioned and emotionally wrecked.

The truth is that Ms-almost-CEO is cash rich but time poor. Before she even steps into her plush office, she has a small, domestic army to manage – cook, cleaner, nanny, personal assistant, trainer and shopper. By comparison, men do not have such wide-ranging tasks and they are free to channel their energies into their work and also that cute blonde in the gym!

A woman has wider engagement with friends, family and colleagues. She is gregarious and driven by an altruistic urge to leave her mark in making the world a better place. Women have a “tend and befriend” attitude and they seek amicable resolutions in conflict management. Embracing our differences and allowing male/female strengths – emotional intelligence, lateral and rational thinking to converge in the work place is the way forward.

Civilised and ethical business principles coupled with passion, knowledge and smart work are what its all about now. The ability to connect with others on a personal level is critical to good deal-making. Learning from failure is also a strong feminine trait and when teams work together with confidence, whilst feeling the fear, they do their best work. Women work on trust and faith, that’s the cornerstone of their philosophy: “if you build it, they will come.”

A woman can uplevel, downshift and be cutting edge. She can hot desk, shoot emails, drill down, have back-to-back meetings, shift a paradigm, ring fence funds, grab low hanging fruit, leverage best practice, touch base, think outside of the box, be proactive and in the loop with blue sky thinking. Yes, all the corporate gobbledygook she can handle! A woman can change careers from fashion to farming, nuclear physicist to domestic goddess with relative ease and businesses depend on change managers for optimum growth.

A revolution is underway and gaining momentum. As girls outperform boys academically, Mr Marks will come to realise that writing nonsense like this is so last century! Female entrepreneurs are less likely to take risks, 20% less than their male counterparts, have a healthier approach to financial management and more likely to look after their staff in times of crisis. When hard times do hit, women in business shed less staff.

Women have a strong sense of social justice and are not in business purely for the money. The late Anita Roddick, creator of the Body Shop, wanted to produce a range of natural skincare and beauty products that would be kind to women and the environment. She sourced many of the raw ingredients from indigenous peoples in Brazil and Costa Rica. She learnt their secrets and shared them with the Western World.

Mrs Thatcher was a self-made woman. Her greatest triumph was being a woman in a man’s world. The iron lady was not for turning or suffering fools gladly. A grocer’s daughter, she was the small change in the big, bad world of politics. Not many women have been able to step into her shoes as women in parliament are still small in number.

The trend is for women to adopt a male approach to their political beliefs in order to succeed. Justine Greening, Secretary of State for Transport, is the latest victim to sacrifice common female sense on the altar of ambition. She is supporting a high speed rail link that will lead to destruction of the environment, noise pollution and de-valuation of property in the affected areas. At a time of financial austerity, this is no time to be rolling out a proposal that comes with a $32 billion price tag. US voters also did not show feminine solidarity when they came out in force to elect an unknown mixed race man, Barack Obama, to the Presidency rather than take a gamble on the known female, Mrs Clinton.

Men, on the other hand, are mostly in it for the money. They enjoy the scramble for power, the chase and the kill. Their path to the top is straight and unhindered as they leave their wives and partners managing the babies, laundry, music lessons and school runs. The simpler reasoning is that men don’t (and can’t) multi-task except when they order a round of drinks and lamb kebabs! Of course, they make important decisions too such as the much criticized war against terror in Iraq and the misguided strategies that led to the global, financial crisis.

A woman is her own worst enemy because she cares. She cares about her aging parents and stops off after work to get their shopping. She takes the children to the doctor’s, dentist’s and the dog to the vet’s. Her “to do” list is endless and she’ll squeeze an extra hour into her 24! A woman reaches burn-out but soldiers on whilst a man has a mid-life crisis and treats himself to a sports car.

A woman hires a housekeeper to lighten her load and a man sleeps with her. Maria Shriver learnt this fact all too painfully and under the media spotlight. A woman keeps herself trim and beautiful, even surgically enhanced, and her man still goes after younger women. Demi Moore now questions whether she was “lovable” in the first place!?

It’s not that a woman can’t climb to the top but its whether she wants to be a big fish in a pool full of piranhas? Women don’t do ego trips they know their worth but self-doubt is their enemy. As the tide turns, organizations will have to become more female friendly by offering flexible working arrangements and on site crèches to further engender power sharing. Mr Marks states that “women don’t want the headaches, the scrutiny or the responsibility of senior management” but he’s wrong; we’re no feather weights in the corporate world. We already have a heap of them at home and, on our shoulders, we carry the weight of the world!

A woman in charge looks at the details. She’ll be on first name terms with the cleaning staff as much as the Executive Management. If you don’t look after the little people in a company and secure the foundation its likely to crumble. Progressive people know that and humility will be an important business principle for the new age female CEO. The hand that rocks the cradle can equally rule in the board room but only if it’s a good fit.

It’s not that a woman can’t. It’s that she won’t. Other female CEO’s will play a key role in attracting young women to the corridors of power. I look forward to the change and anything a male CEO can do, I’ve no doubt that, a female CEO can do better….but only if she chooses to!

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Lucille Morgan

Lucille is a writer, activist and free spirit. Fiction and poetry are her mainstays. An area she is keen to explore is ‘Debt Solutions’.
Lucille is on the editorial team and assists in sourcing new talent for Pinkvox. To read more articles by Lucille click here

Pinkvox - The Social Network Connecting Progressive Women

At the end of November last year, following the release of its shortlist for the British Sports Personality Award, the BBC attracted huge controversy for the notable absence of sportswomen from the 10 strong list of nominees. As Rebecca Adlington, Kerri-Anne Payne, Chrissie Wellington and Gail Emms came forward along with high profile MP’s, celebrities and sportsmen to express their dismay, the BBC swiftly responded to express their commitment to taking on board what had happened. In a letter to those who registered their complaints they state that:

“We recognise that the all-male line-up has created much debate amongst viewers of the programme, sports-lovers in general and those that champion the cause of Women’s sport in this country. We have had many different points made in the reaction we receive which informs our editorial discussions and we do value it.”

The BBC go on to explain how they shortlist. “The shortlist of the ten British sports stars is determined by the combined votes of a panel of industry experts based on their assessment of relative sporting achievements during the year. The panel consists of the sport editors of the national newspapers, selected regionals and magazines. These are chosen because of their expertise in the area, their coverage of a wide range of sports throughout the year and the extent of their readership. In total, we received 27 responses from the 35 invitations that were issued this year. The panel included publications such as the Sunday Times, the Daily Mail, the Irish News, the Mirror, the Daily Telegraph, Sport Magazine and the Herald. It is worth noting that most of the publications did include at least one sportswoman in their shortlist.”

This may have been the case but many people were clearly disappointed about the final cut. Encouragingly, however, their voices have been heard by the corporation who have reassured them that it “will review the short-listing process for next year’s show. The BBC state that “it is too early to say what, if any changes will be made to the process” but assure viewers that they “will seek the opinions of people both within and outside of the BBC before deciding on the appropriate methodology for 2012.”

The BBC go on to say that it “…is committed to covering a broad range of sports and events and this includes a significant commitment to Women’s sport. The BBC is proud to have followed the achievements of many successful sportswomen through our coverage of events such as the Olympics, the Commonwealth Games, Wimbledon and the Women’s Football World Cup.” Although this has not been conveyed in this case, and inequality undeniably remains in the sporting world, with the BBC reviewing the process to make changes, it will be encouraging for females everywhere to see a less seemingly discriminatory shortlist next time. As it has also pointed out, although this is the first time in 5 years that no sportswomen have made the top ten, there should be some of them in there every year!

Perhaps the reason for the omission lies in a further statement the BBC makes. “The current focus on the shortlist for the Sports Personality of the Year Award has shone a bright light on the wider issues surrounding the media coverage and profile of Women’s sport in the UK.” The issue of media coverage was further highlighted at the recent BAFTA’s where despite there being a number of high profile new actresses who are constantly in the press, no females were short-listed for the notable Rising Star award either.

Given the UK’s current Obesity crisis, these issues need to be acknowledged and resolved if our children are to be encouraged by high profile, positive role models. How can girls be motivated if they become aware that our inspirational women are not regarded as highly or taken as seriously as men? Unless the shortlisting and media coverage for these types of awards becomes more balanced, I can’t see things improving. With the Olympics being held here during the summer and the Paralympics starting at the end of August, now is the time for encouraging and celebrating our country’s sports stars regardless of their sex.

Hopefully from now on more sportswomen will feature more prominently and positively in the media, making headlines and winning loads of awards – especially as this will be the first time women can compete in all the sports featured. We and the media also need to recognise that female competitors in sports are great role models and deserve to be widely recognised! Let’s hope that this time next year there will be some (or 10!) sportswomen featured on the BBC’s shortlist this year to redress 2011’s unsatisfactory, imbalance.

In the meantime, bring on the games and the best of luck to all the sportswomen competing!



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Manisa Kuinkel

Manisa currently works in the NHS and has written freelance for various publications. She believes ultimately empowerment equals women being their own best friends whilst always looking out for each other.

At Pinkvox, Manisa enjoys writing about everyday life. To read more articles by Manisa , click here

Pinkvox - The Social Network Connecting Progressive Women

Pinkvox - The Social Network Connecting Progressive Women

There is a time in a woman’s life when she is the bridesmaid and not the bride. Then follows another stage when she is the ‘Honorary Aunty’ to her child-full friends. I am at this latter stage. The three friends are Amber, the Gina Ford fanatic following the Contented Baby Book to the letter, Betty, who before giving birth to a genius of an 8lb baby (he can count to 19 and he’s only 17 months)suffered a hairline fracture which has all but ruled out breastfeeding and Camilla, who might be the only mother I know who uses all her baby gifts because she didn’t buy any( or if she did it was never ever at full price), whose crib and the cot were inherited, and whose child’s winter warmers were knitted by the ever resourceful mother- in- law. In case it wasn’t obvious, Camilla chose not to breastfeed, nor has she joined any of those mother- toddler groups popping up by the minute. As she puts it, she refuses ‘to talk about baby poo all morning.’

Camilla later admits the reason for her non-attendance at these groups. Reaching out for your formula and not whipping out your boobs like everyone else made her feel pressured. Being equally smart and strong, Camilla quickly separated herself from the group as soon as she felt she was being side lined. Doctors have always maintained that breast milk should be the first choice for healthy mothers feeding their babies but that those who can’t, or simply choose not to, are not terrible by comparison. Talking to these three friends, I know that ALL mothers make that initial attempt to breastfeed. It’s innate. But the Camillas of this world are made to feel like failures, as though they are not doing the best for their children. So for her the recent decision by the National Childbirth Trust to no longer promote the practice to all women in its antenatal classes is a welcome one. It means there is less pressure for women who now feel free to make up their own minds on which route to take with their child.

Meanwhile, a study has suggested that mothers who exclusively breastfeed for at least six months lower the risk of developing high blood pressure in later life. Amber is taking this study seriously, whipping out her breast in a café to attend to herself and her child. Now, I spent a fair bit of my youth in Africa so am not shocked by exposed boobs. The response of other clientele, however, in what seems to be a breast feeding friendly café on yummy- mummy Lordship Lane in South East London, differs quite significantly from mine. Some tut and give her an eyeful. Others move tables. After all, the sudden flash of a woman’s breast is not very British now is it? But what should Amber do, feed in the loo?

As I write, mothers who are angry at the way Facebook has taken down photos of women breastfeeding their children are staging a nurse-in demonstration. Facebook says that breastfeeding photos are taken down only when they are flagged as inappropriate and that sometimes errors happen. Globally, women from London, Amsterdam, Paris, Madrid, Dublin, Singapore, New York, Austin Texas, Seattle and Sydney want Facebook to ‘leave breastfeeding alone.’

This particular protest was sparked by Emma Kwasnica, a breastfeeding advocate from Vancouver British Colombia. In the five years she’s had an account, she says she’s had 30 photos flagged and her account has been shut four times-once for 30 days. In an interview, she said that breast feeding moms are treated as pornographers. But I ask why do they share it on Facebook? Then again why do we share anything on Facebook? Why would a mom feeding their child pasta be any different?

We’d argue that Facebook is an open forum so we can and should post away without fear of being censored. However, it also acts as a host to those of us who will look at those images and think that they are sexually explicit or gross or both. We are breastfeeding on a very tight rope.

In the UK, breastfeeding in public cannot be banned under the Equality Act which came into force last year, but owners, virtually or otherwise, have a legal right to eject anyone from their premises.

Things aren’t easier away from the public eye either. Amber’s home is the ultimate Ode to Breastfeeding. The Kitchen is full of odd shaped plastic cups, an industrial expressing machine that she hooks herself two twice a day-at least and a selection of bottles she says make it possible for her ‘to have a bath at some point in the day.’ She misses her spicy foods and fine wine (she had a collection going when we were in college). Perhaps as a result, she’s turned into a worrier. She frets over her milk supply, sleep, weight and her overall mental health. But, Amber has given birth to the ‘next big thing’. Surely the least we could do is congratulate, not abuse her.


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Annex Achieng

Annex Achieng is a freelance journalist and writer. Her Children’s book ‘Molly’s Vote’ is out now on Amazon.
To read more articles by Annex, click here

Pinkvox - The Social Network Connecting Progressive Women

As an atheist I have often wondered why I find myself alone as a woman in talking openly about atheism and criticising religion.
In recent years there has been an upsurge in the visibility of atheism in the public consciousness. The result of high profile books and discussion of religious extremism has lead to the development of ‘movement atheism’- whereby atheists determine to come ‘out of the atheist closet’, fight a public fight against de-secularisation and the evils of organised religion, and promote atheism. And I want to join in! But, if you are a woman shaped person, you will have noticed it looks as though the entire atheist world is populated by white males. Movement atheism is the face of atheism, and the face of atheism is Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, Carl Sagan etc etc.

This is a big neon warning sign if we are interested in social justice. We should always be suspicious of groups that get together and just happen to be comprised almost exclusively of white males. It’s not a coincidence, and it’s not because other groups aren’t interested or successful enough [in whatever way according to the parameters of the group] to ‘get in’ or join in. Why does it seem women constitute so few atheists and so many of those who are part of organised religion? And men the opposite? How do we account for this gap between the sexes?

As a feminist I utterly reject demeaning explanations that suggest that women naturally have a ‘different but equally valuable’ kind of rationality or thinking which predisposes them to be bad at logical reasoning [and therefore the questioning of superstition and blind belief that tends to lead to atheism/agnosticism] and instead have a brain spiked with a toxic mix of girl-hormones which make us nice to babies and kittens but predispose us to delusional experiences of the divine. There is no such thing as brain sex. I also reject as preposterous, arguments which suggest women are natural masochists who join the monotheisms because they crave being dominated in life and despised in scripture. There do however seem to be some good socio-cultural reasons to explain the atheism gap, which do not resort to evo-psycho-babble, and I will explore a few here.

The first is that, women and children are being aggressively targeted by monotheistic religion, especially the Christian church, for recruitment, as its numbers fall drastically. The Abrahamic religions- particularly Christianity- have tried hard to become ‘woman-friendly’ or ‘woman-inclusive’ just at that point where, in the secular west, their institutional and municipal power is almost completely eradicated. The Old Patriarchs of religion: priests and prophets, have all the credibility of a madman raving around in our collective attic. So, as a marketing strategy, the remaining Christian church has attempted to portray itself as concerned primarily with love, charity, sharing, self-sacrifice, service [traditionally feminine qualities] like any slick corporation desperate to appeal to women. The actual beliefs relating to women are still the same: inherent inferiority requiring subordinate place, inherent wickedness and impurity requiring male headship; but these ideas are re-branded to make them palatable, and the scriptures which contain them are de-emphasised as the church tries to address issues of concern for women. Particularly nauseating is the counterfeit ‘empowerment’ offered by virginity cults like The Silver Ring Thing; which is proposed to young women as a respite from the massive pressure put on us to sexualise ourselves, and feeds off the exploitation we often experience as a result. Who could blame young women for accepting such a respite, even if it is illusory? Is there any other option?

The New Patriarchs in the west are Oxbridge educated politicians and billionaire capitalists and economists, who no longer need religion as a tool of social and political control. Religious faith is anti-rational, which makes it an unpredictable tool of maintaining social dominance, and more importantly, religion’s not where the money is anymore. So men appear to have abandoned religion in favour of something else. What?

Men dominate [both in terms of numbers and through disproportionate influence] every aspect of our public life. They effectively have sole control of economics, politics, the scientific world, art, media, as well as a unique socio-sexual dominance built on gender-blind concepts of ‘sexual freedom’. In short, the non-religious secular world. These are much more efficient apparatuses than religion if you want to maintain the dominance of one group over another, men over women. While we are thinking: women are now allowed to be priests too! What a victory for us! They are thinking: Let some women be priests! Science trumps religion and we have majority control of scientific institutions. It seems to me, men are letting us wear the clothes they’ve grown out of. They are giving us a proxy of power, now that it has no power. And we’d better be damned grateful for it too. Women, perhaps desperate for recognition in places of importance and influence after so long, are taking them up on it.

The church’s refocus on community and ‘family values’ [which are a euphemism for patriarchal values] and getting women and children into youth initiatives, volunteering and church run community spaces, is really about getting access to relatively poor and powerless groups who can be manipulated and/or provide free labour. Now that it is mostly shut out of public life, orthodox religion and fundamentalisms of all flavours are busy consolidating their power in the private sphere- where most women also happen to be- easy pickings for indoctrination. In the private space of the home religious authority is out of reach of the law. Once rules are in force that keep women corralled in the private sphere and indoctrinated, and they, in turn, indoctrinate their daughters who are also confined to the private sphere; you begin a cycle of spreading religion through the female population, the effect of which can be seen in overall trends in religiosity.

Meanwhile, women are being coerced by gender roles [especially in relation to educational choices] to flee the sciences, maths and technologies, and not pursue careers in these areas. And as such are receiving a poorer scientific education- one thing which correlates strongly with atheism. Men are strongly encouraged by gender roles to enter these fields and to reject the flimsy ‘feminine’ arts and humanities.

A more controversial possibility for explaining the atheism gender gap, is that atheist communities and spaces are hostile to women. As an atheist woman I notice prominent atheists such as Christopher Hitchens are openly sexist- as in his now famous ‘Why Women Aren’t Funny’ article#, and can quote Sam Harris as saying ‘There is, after all, nothing more natural than rape… because it may have had evolutionary advantages for our ancestors’# and think why would I ally with a ‘movement’ whose most prominent advocates resemble any bishop or imam in their misogyny? Perhaps women correctly perceive that if organised religion and atheism contain the same negative attitudes about women they are, for us, the same old patriarchy, and the opposition between two groups of men [on topics besides women’s place] is an irrelevant distinction in terms of women’s freedom. We might as well stick with the church, which is at least offering us a crèche or coffee morning to two.

On the other hand there exists the patronising effort of male atheists to ‘get women into atheism’, an effort which contains the assumption that women are too confused or irrational to involve themselves and they need to be helped to see the truth that there is no god. There is denial that any woman ever experiences harassment in atheist spaces, which is connected with the wholesale denial that sexism still exists in the west. Male atheists I know have made jokes about ‘getting women in’ to atheism because they need to get girlfriends, wives, or just get laid. Perhaps atheist men are secretly anxious that the fervently religious [with their ban on contraception and abortion and polygynous setups] will out-breed them? I’ve heard nervous statements to that effect too: ‘We need to get women in because who is going to raise the next generation of scientists? Who is going to transmit empirical reasoning to the children?’ Sound familiar?

Why would any self-respecting woman stand up and be counted as an atheist when the pet projects of prominent male atheists like Steven Pinker and Simon Baron-Cohen [who are thought to represent atheism and/or scientific thinking] are to reinforce the status quo of male dominance by proving anew old mythologies about female inferiority, in the guise of ‘difference’?

Misogynist atheists and scientists stop short of imposing restrictive practices on women, but their search for empirical evidence to back up male domination in the social order is a tacit approval of women’s subordinate position in organised religion. They are just outsourcing the actual enforcement of the subordination to religious males, and then making empty statements about how awful it is that they stone adulteresses in ‘uncivilised’ countries. Any gal would think that all males are in league to support male supremacy as a foundational social order in the world. What’s that called again? Oh yeah, it’s called Patriarchy.

If atheist men really object to religious hatred of women then they should seek to understand and support Feminism- which has been doing the work of emancipating women from religious oppression for generations, rather than adding guiltily a chapter or paragraph in their book entitled ‘…and a secondary reason I dislike religion is that it’s not very nice to women’. Our continued sex oppression is not a minority issue, and any opposition to religion must contain at its root a thorough analysis of how extreme male dominance is in monotheism’s bones.

Women are a flag fought over by theism and atheism- each wants us to sign up and each is only offering us a second-rate membership. The answer is to leave the institutions of male power and put our effort to revolutionary use- to root out and challenge misogyny whichever side it’s on. This requires us to first and foremost be allied with other women and our interests before anything else. This requires Feminism.


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Emma-Rose Cornwall

Emma-Rose is a radical feminist writer and artist from East Anglia, who is part of the activist network Feminist Action Cambridge. She most enjoys hanging off the cliff edge of radical feminist analysis and dipping her toes in the river of theatrical solutions.
At Pinkvox, Emma-Rose is a features writer. To read more articles by Emma-Rose click here

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