November

The No More Page Three Campaign are releasing a Christmas single on the 15th December. the track is up on Youtube but currently it doesn't have a video. They are asking for submissions for a video for it. The best one will be released with the single on the 15th Dec. 

We also love their video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZOqGycB6GU&feature=youtu.be 

This is an important campaign, not only because it is combating the normalised the objectification of women, but it can easily be linked up and help with the "Child's Eyes" campaign, where children are also being exposed to these images on an everyday basis. 

Listen to the track, read more, sign the petition, submit your video, and/or join the campaign.

November 2014

ITV's Tonight program is to feature the 50:50 Parliament campaign on “A Fair Deal For Women” being broadcast on 13 Nov at 7.30. So tune in and tell your friends.  

We agree with Frances Scott the head campaigner of 50:50 when she said "Representation shapes policy and policy affects women. So please keep asking people to sign our petition for a debate and action to get better gender equality of representation in Parliament. The current 77:23 ratio just is not good enough!"

Read more and sign the patition.. >

10th March 2014

First's for our Olympic Paralympics. Congratulations to partially sited Kelly Gallagher and guide Charlotte Evan who have won the first gold medal ever by a British team in skiing at either the Winter Olympic or Paralympic Games.

This win comes on top of the stunning victory of Jade Etherington and Caroline Powell who won their silver medal on day one becomming the first British women ever to win a Paralympic skiing medal, and the first British Paralympic medal on snow in 20 years, they also achieved a bronze medal at the super-G.

With our women achieving three medals, Britian's Paralympic team have already exceeded their UK Sport target.  All we need now is for our men to match these amazing achievements and continue our historic Paralympics.

27th February 2014

The Guardian-backed petition on Change.org attracted nearly 250,000 signatures calling for more awareness and age appropriate female genital mutilation (FGM) education in schools and for Ofsted to be involved.

The education secretary Michael Gove has agreed to write to primary and secondary head-teachers drawing their attention to guidelines around the issue and reminding them of their duty to protect schoolgirls.

With around 24,000 girls at risk of FGM in this country each and every year what has to be asked is why has there never been a prosecution in the UK?

It is no longer acceptable to say that checking a girl could be considered child abuse in itself. We check boys and girls all the time for one thing or another, our lack of commitment to this issue is currently allowing this real form of abuse to continue.​

We need to stand up, tell the doctors, nurses, health professionals, police and education establishments that this is not acceptable in this country or indeed anywhere in the world and that we will stop it where possible, educate the communities involved and that we will prosecute when this crime has been committed, no matter how difficult the family dynamic (FGM is not a cultural issue it is child abuse, plane and simple!).

Get involved: http://www.channel4.com/programmes/the-cruel-cut/articles/all/about-fgm-and-what-you-can-do-to-stopfgm

24th February 2014

Gold medal winner Lizzy Yarnold was awarded and carried the British flag into the closing ceremony at the end of a record-breaking Games for British athletes in Sochi. Out of the 56 athletes in 10 sports the 21 women competed in 8 events, it was a great achievement for British women in sport. The women’s team achieved 1 gold and 2 bronzes, the men’s team only attained 1 silver in the curling.

It is interesting to note that whilst talking about the medal haul, most of the British press ignored the mainly female achievement and associated the record-breaking triumph for team GB as a whole, adding insult to injury by having their headline photo’s of the men’s curling team. There was no mention of the disparity between the male/female achievements. If we took our women out of the equation we would have had 35 athletes and 1 silver medal, not quite the record-breaking games for British athletes that it is currently hailed as, and not the 4 medals needed to equal the inaugural Winter Olympics in Chamonix 1924.

Maybe, it would have been nicer for these newspapers to put the credit for the achievements squarely where they belong, with our talented British female athletes.

http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/olympics/winter-olympics-2014-we-can-do-even-better-at-the-next-games-says-team-gb-chief-mike-hay-9146930.html

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/winter-olympics/26271753

13 February 2014

Finally Danny Cohen The BBC Director of television in an interview with the Observer has addressed the problem. He was reported to say “We're not going to have panel shows on any more with no women on them. You can't do that. It's not acceptable.“

In December, BBC producers were told to address the issue of not having enough women on screen after the BBC Trust told executives there was "no excuse" for not having more female panellists and set new sex-representation objectives in July.

The Trust also told the BBC that it must do something about its image among older female viewers who'd like to see more of their peers on screen in light of a report compiled by the Older Women's Commission last year, which was set up by Labour's shadow culture secretary Harriet Harman.  

The report found that that 30% of TV presenters are over 50, which roughly corresponds to the 34% of the UK population aged 50 and above. Of the TV presenters aged over 50, however, 82% were men. When it came to the TV workforce both on and off screen, only 7% are women over the age of 50.

Ms Harman said the perception for women in broadcasting “is that they get worse with age, as they get older they have to start looking younger and younger and many, many years below their age, and then when they get to about 50, somehow the viewers need to be protected from them. I don’t think that is acceptable and I don’t think women in the country think that just when they are past 50 that they have to be airbrushed off our screens”.

Ms Harman concluded that the figures showed "a combination of ageism and sexism... that doesn't apply to men“

Hear her full BBC interview: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-22554217

5th February 2014

Historical win for Le Tour Entire (LTE)’s campaign and 97,000 petitioners at change.org.  The Tour de France organisers met with LTE with the outcome that women will be included in the competition this year, 2014.

Women will be allowed to compete in La Course, a shorter stage of the race on July 27th.

This is a huge step toward including women in the full race.  Well done also to Current Olympic and world road champion Marianne Vos, Olympic silver medalist Emma Pooley and Four-time world ironman champion Chrissie Wellington for their support to the campaign.

1st February 2014

The first FTSE-100 company to establish a formal gender diversity target for its most senior management positions, pledging that 40% of its top 5,000 jobs will be occupied by women within six years.  This will lead to an additional 600 women at senior level 2020. 

Lets hope they get the diversity right and don’t just fill up on non-executive directors. A great first step though and maybe they can try for 50% in the coming years.

13 January 2014

Englands Women's Cricket team win the Ashes

Englands Women's Cricket team retain the Ashes.  Australia needed to win 5 of the remaining 6 games to take the urn, after rallying for a couple of games they finally buckled with England winning the multi-format series 10-8.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Women's_Ashes

http://www.womenscrickethistory.org/Merger/merger_part2.html

January 2014

Landmark year for the New Years Honours List with 51% of awards going to women, the first time since its creation.  There is still an unbalance at the top though with only 40% of those at CBE level or higher have been given to women. 

In total 1,195 people have received an award:

1,038 candidates have been selected at BEM, MBE and OBE level: 329 at BEM, 468 at MBE and 241 at OBE

74% of the recipients are people who have undertaken outstanding work in their communities either in a voluntary or paid capacity

there are 610 successful women candidates in the list, representing 51% of the total; women candidates include 16 Dames and 39 CBEs

This is the first time that more women have received honours than men; previously the highest proportion of female recipients was 47%. In the 2004 New Year’s honours list 34% of recipients were women, in 1994 the percentage was 28% and in 1974 it was 17%.

5% of the successful candidates come from ethnic minority communities