Assisted Dignity

*This post is not a feminist issue, but rather a more personal issue.*

I recently lost a family member following a lengthy battle with cancer. This relative suffered from a cancerous tumour that wrapped itself around the top of the spine. It started off several years ago as a small growth that showed itself through pain and loss of sensation in one arm. Concerned about this, having already defeated another form of cancer twenty years earlier, my relative pushed for an MRI scan. A scan revealed a growth at the top of the spine. My relative was told that this was a difficult place, due to the proximity to the spinal cord.

After much discussion and many more appointments it was decided that they would try to operate and remove some/all/as much as they could of the tumour. Following the operation regular scans were arranged to check on the progress of this tumour, as unfortunately due to the location they could not remove it all. Over time the tumour grew. With this there was increasing pain, discomfort and loss of feeling.

Just over a year ago this relative lost all use of their hands and arms. The prognosis was not good, they were facing losing increasing use of their body below the neck as the tumour grew and wrapped around the spinal cord. As time went on this was indeed the case, until my relative could no longer feed, wash, toilet, move or even scratch an itch unaided. They grew increasingly frustrated at the lack of independence. Careers were drafted in, in shifts, to help this relative toilet etc. The pain however, was gradually increasing as the tumour pressed down.

The reason I include all of this detail is to give some idea of the journey this relative went down. This relative spent the last year of their live bed-bound and on constant pain relief. Towards the end they could no longer even feed through the tube that had supplied them before. Essentially they were in waiting for the end.

Their weight plummeted and the skin was taut as it sunk into hollows and sinews. It is not my intention to be macabre but to try and paint the human picture of those that suffer and spend their last days/weeks/months/years in such pain and unable to do anything that they had previously been able. Unable to speak or move my relative could not indicate their needs or wants. Visiting them it was horrifying to see how the once strong and vibrant individual had been reduced.
With very little experience of this I was shocked to see the position we put people in, the way we force them to go until 'the bitter end'. Prior to losing speech, mobility or any sense of autonomy over their life this relative had stated they never wanted to end up unable to do anything and being forced to onto high dose pain relief 24/7. However, there is very little within the law that can be done in such circumstances in this country.

It was watching this relative suffer in frustrated silence that prompted me to look further into the issue of dignity and assisted suicide, whilst far too late for them and illegal I wanted to understand the issue further. I had felt a hot impotent rage watching them forced to continue with their life against all that they had wanted, forced to endure the indignities that their circumstances brought and the pain they were in. I could scarcely understand how in this country vets will recommend to caring owners that sometimes to end the suffering the kindest thing was to put an animal to sleep. But with people we ignore their wishes and their suffering and force them to go until their body gives up.

As I said this journey has led me, over recent weeks, into a frustrated rage at a system that insist someone must go until it is their time. Until the body finally gives up. Upon looking into the arguments against allowing someone the dignity AND power to request assistance in ending their life if they are unable I feel they can be split into two groups:

• Arguments relating to the 'sanctity' of life
• Arguments relating to the view that relatives or individuals may seek to abuse this power.

Taking the first viewpoint, which seems to be a view held by many faiths, examples can be found here, here and here the 'sanctity' or god given gift of life is mentioned by many. There are a couple of responses that could be made: what if the person suffering is an atheist, should a deity that they do not believe in have a hold over their life through the law? The other response that I find myself increasingly making at the moment is how we can call someone suffering as a shell, in considerable pain, of what they once were protecting the sanctity of life.

I will leave that here for now, as it is still a very raw issue. I intend to contact my MP and urge them to raise the issue of dignity and choice in death in the Commons. I would ask that if you read this and live in the UK that you please do the same. I will follow this post in the near future with a less personal and fully reference piece about the nature and arguments in favour of dignity in death.

Feminism and Fairytales

I came across an interesting article on the Guardian's website today. It was a piece about an art installation in which women signed their consent to be kissed and married by a visitor to the gallery. And like sleeping beauty these women would lie with their eyes closed and wait to be kissed. They did not have to open their eyes upon being kissed, but if they did they were to marry the man who kissed them. The man in question having also signed consent agreeing to this process, and having confirmed that they were not already married. The piece is very interesting and well worth a read, you can find it here.

However, it got me thinking about some of the child-friendly fairy-tales that I had been told as a child. (Ignoring the fact that many fairy-tales have their roots in much darker and possibly scarier tales!) Many of the fairy-tales that we tell to our children and market as toys, characters etc have perhaps undergone a re-make to make them less scary for their audiences. With this in mind we should then think about the message that is retained, added or underlying in the tales that we tell our children.

I am sure many readers can think of several straight away....
As referenced by the tale in the article, Sleeping Beauty the young, unmarried and beautiful maiden who is put to sleep by a wicked fairy awaiting her handsome and brave prince to kiss her and awaken her. What message does this give young readers?! Innocence and success are tied up in beauty, while plainness or unattractiveness is evil or up to no good! That the woman must wait helpless and lost, her life in stasis until the man comes along to awaken her and give her purpose. Her life literally was on-hold until he came along. Perhaps I am being miserable and it is simply a tale for small children...

Cinderella is another such tale. Beautiful and hard-working because her jealous and crucially here, ugly (whatever happened to everyone is beautiful or beauty is in the eye of the beholder?) step-sisters spend their time taunting her and providing her with work. The sisters attend a ball where their ugliness is once again highlighted, portrayed as miserable spinsters. The beautiful Cinderella finds herself at the ball and captures the attention of the handsome prince (notice a theme here). Fleeing as she is out of time, leaving only a shoe for the prince to use to track her down. Once again, the beautiful woman who has no hope or future is rescued by the prince.

Too many modern fairy-tales (or the adaptations that we know in modern books and films) have removed the stronger cautionary messages of traditional tales and have instead created a world where helpless but beautiful princesses await their prince. These women lack the means or ability to escape the situations that they have been placed in. A value is put upon their looks, that is not healthy, all that is good is always labelled beautiful or fair and all that is evil is lonely and ugly. The message that seems to run throughout is that these women need a man to save them. And, in the 21st century is that really a message that we want to be reinforcing every evening in bedtime reading for young children? Traditional tales with humorous messages, cautionary fables or adventurous yarns...but leave out the gender stereotyping.

Lifestyle in the supermarket

I have tweeted about this before, as have numerous people that I follow, it really isn't anything new. When you walk into the supermarket next time check out the magazines.

Many magazine stands seem to have slipped through a timewarp and are stuck in the 1950s. My most recent trip to a large supermarket (this morning - and shall remain nameless) showed 'men's lifestyle' and 'women's lifestyle'.

Men's lifestyle contained:

• magazines with naked women, examples such as Loaded
• magazines about science, examples such as New Scientist
• magazines about political satire and current affairs, examples such as Private Eye

The women's lifestyle section contained:

• Baby magazines, no examples I'm afraid as in my outrage I didn't pay enough attention!
• House and home type maagzines
• Bridal and wedding magazines
• Cooking magazines
• Fashion and gossip magazines have a whole other section!

I'm not suggesting that women can not stray into the men's lifestyle section to buy a magazine, that is not the issue. There isn't a barrier checking to see if you are male or not before your hand is allowed to browse the shelf. It is the fact that hobbies and interests are being clearly divided along gender lines. In the 21st century is there really any need to split these magazines down gender lines? Is the human race that clear cut? Whilst I imagine that the target market for many baby and pregnancy magazines is the female market, that does not mean a husband, partner, brother, father etc might not want to know what is going on!

The other issue is that as a woman if you want to buy New Scientist or the Private Eye for example is that you have to stand amongst the magazines that have semi-naked women on the cover. You might not feel comfortable in standing in front of a large sign that says Men's Lifestyle and trying to glance between the breasts to find what you want!

So, to conclude what became a much longer rant than I expected, no-one is saying you can not buy from either section it might just be nice to remove the gendered lines. Not all women are interested in babies and good housekeeping, just as not all men want to buy magazines with semi-naked women. Magazines should be shelved simply along the lines of common interest: babies and housekeeping, cooking, sports, Science, the economy and politics and so on. Not such a huge ask is it?

The Olympics

The Guardian published an interesting piece about claims of sexism in the upcoming Olympics. It can be found here and concerns the travel arrangements of teams to London.

It focuses on the fact that men were to travel in business class whereas the women's teams were to travel in economy. In the case of the Japanese women's football team, they highlighted the fact that they were the seniors, in more than just age. The response was that the allocations were made based upon the fact that the male team had 'professional' status. Australia was also highlighted in this article as they flew their basketball teams in different classes. Here however, there was an attempt to provide detail and evidence that could explain the decision to treat professional athletes differently. It was to be based upon.......height.

The Guardian piece points out that one female member of the basketball team was 6ft8 (spokeswoman had said the average height for the women was 183cm and for men 200.2cm) or 203cm. Whereas several men who were mentioned in the article fall below the average height for male basketball players and are nearer to the average height quoted for female players.

There was also a challenge at the High Court regarding women's canoeing, as this is not included at the Games. Locog responded by pointing out that it was not a government body but a private body. However, Wikipedia in listing the role of the IOC shows in point 12 that sports should be encouraged and developed for all. This seems fairly self-explanatory.

I am sure that the upcoming Olympics will be a fantastic celebration of the incredible power and strength of the human body, but it is a shame that in the run up there are these issues that in 2012 should not exist.

Women in politics

In looking at the Arab Spring and articles discussing the involvement of women I came across a piece in the Guardian about the involvement of women in recent Egyptian elections. It painted a depressing image about the options open to women. With no female presidential candidates and representation in the newly elected house standing at only 2.4% where is the female voice?

The spokeswoman for one of the leading parties, Dr Hassan, said that she saw no problem with low female involvement. Arguing that it should be left to the men to protest for their rights on behalf of the women. How can Egyptian women and female bloggers there, hope to improve their position in society if one of their key representatives does not see a problem with low involvement from half of the population?

The article also states that the UN average for the percentage of women within political bodies (houses/senates etc) within countries stands at 19%. Considerably less than 50%.
This Unicef link provides a good point of comparison. The figures are based on data from 1994. The IPU (Inter-Parliamentary Union) link shows current 2012 figures. This shows that Rwanda is top of the 'league' table with women constituting over 50% of the seats in Parliament. There are however, several nations at the bottom of the table with 0% representation for women. These not surprisingly include nations where women can not currently vote such as Saudi Arabia. The UK shares joint 54th with Malawi with just over 22% of MPs being female. Again, still considerably under 50%.

How can we hope to improve women's lives and their position within society if they do not have close to equal representation within their political systems? The next question must surely be, how can we boost and encourage greater involvement from and for women?


*The IPU link is excellent for seeing exactly where and how much representation women have in politics across the world. It provides some shocking examples that can not be ignored.

Women in computer games

Women in computer games, that age old discussion. In fact there is so much it is hard to even know where to begin. Do we start with the lack of female programmers (despite female gamers being on the rise)? Do we start with the way in which women are portrayed in many games? Do we start with the way in which for many young women computers and computer programming is seen as a male activity?

Before I start with women in games I want to look at those within the industry. There is a brilliant piece from Dev8D, which is a developer event, that looked at sexism in gaming. It identifies many of the frustrations, barriers and attitudes that women come across both at school and in the workplace. It is well worth a read as a starting point.

From there perhaps it makes sense to think about the way women are portrayed in games. I'm sure anyone reading this has seen or played Tomb Raider. With the main character being female n.b people automatically jump on feminists who talk about women in games and say 'but you've got Lara Croft, what more do you want?' Well perhaps we would like a strong female character (which Lara is) who did not have to conform to 'jiggle physics'. The piece on wikipedia in the previous link explores some fantastic examples of where women have been hugely let down by the gaming industry. The following Wikipedia (trigger link) link mentions a game called 'RapeLay' and I would urge you not to click this link lightly as the content and game description is distressing, unsettling and unpleasant. It has since been banned in many countries and on-line stores removed links to buying it. The game centres around a character(s) with the only purpose, seeming to be to stalk/hurt and then rape young women. I have not linked to this lightly and questioned whether I should but I was horrified to come across this game having never heard of it. But, I felt that people should be aware that there are people producing/who have produced this violent and vile material. We need to look at how games like this were ever produced and then how we can stop this from happening again.

It is games and stories like this that only further serve to explain why women make up 12% of the game programmers, the Guardian piece explores different reasons for this as women now make up 49% of gamers. This article also highlights the controversial Feminist Whore skill that could be picked up in a game to make a female character stronger. When the errant piece of labelling in released code was noticed it was removed but this does not remove the fact that a programmer placed it there. Perhaps this helps explain why game programming is an environment where only 12% of women feel comfortable or able to work. We risk missing a huge skill set and alienating half the population if we do not look at redressing the balance.

The Jubilee

Today marks the start of the four day weekend celebrations of 60 years on the throne. The reason I am choosing to blog about this event is not just from a feminist point of view, it is also from a frustrated Republican point of view. Walking down our local high street for the last couple of weeks every shop window has been slowly taken over by flag/monarchy related items. Including some unusual choices such as an accountants!

From a frustrated Republican point of view it marks another barrier to true equality in Britain, it also marks the fact that the church will never be separate from power as our head of state is also the head of the church. How then can we work towards a true secular society in which all are free to practice what they believe? Republic put it so much better than I could ever hope to and their site is well worth a read. In particular the information about how schools should be expected to behave during this period. An article in The TES also points out that schools would be violating sections 406 and 407 of the Education act 1996 if they do not present a balanced view about the monarchy.

This is where it gets interesting as you could argue that language such as 'glorious 60 years' as seen in many news articles (and no doubt on tea-towels and heard in conversations across the country) such as this one in the Daily Mail is not presenting a balanced view. Why should they? Much in the same way that I blog from my point of view, they write from theirs. But, what schools and educationalists will need to have thought about is how they use language to present this event. If you delivered material about the 60 glorious years it could be argued that you were presenting only one way to view the reign of the queen. If you read the earlier TES linked article you will note that this is an issue that seems to divide teachers.

Finally, to get to the feminist point of view perhaps. It took until late 2011 to end primogeniture in Great Britain, see here for a piece about this, that is 59 years in which our monarch reigned under a system that discriminated against first-borns within the royal lineage if they were female. A bizarre rule that perhaps harks back to a period in which women could not inherit property or have power over divorce. As a Republican I find myself questioning whether our monarch could have done more to end this sooner.

Beauty Pageants and the young mind

Interesting piece today about a new beauty pageant coming to the UK. Called Miss Mini Princess UK. The site can be found here, as to be expected pink and super sparkly all the way.

What is perhaps more frustrating is the nature of this competition. Rounds that focus on clothing and appearance with just 90 seconds, yes 90 seconds, given to talent. A ratio of 3:1 in terms of appearance to skill. Press reports, as linked on the @NrthntsFeminist twitter page show that parents talk of it boosting confidence. But as a feminist I find it odd that you would believe that by having to parade and perform and be judged on your appearance, and your appearance conforming to a socially accepted norm of 'beauty', would boost a child's confidence. If you don't win your age group would you be forever wondering how you could look better or whether you should have worn a different outfit? Where then do you go next for the next pageant? Does it begin a cycle of possible body loathing or negative self-image? Do you feel the need to spend more on clothes, make-up, treatments etc?

If you don't win a tennis match or an art competition you know that you can brush up (no pun intended!) on your skills or work on your talent. There is something to practice and perfect. But if we are entering a competition based solely on our looks then what at the end are we left to work on? As a 'loser' are we left feeling we need to change something? As a 'winner' are we left with the knowledge that this is perfect and we must work to maintain this? Either way it doesn't sound like a fun mindset to be getting in to.

Will post in further depth about this topic later with greater research, just some musings while I remember them!

Interesting events recently regarding equal pay; the first being @Cosmopolitan UK's campaign and e-petition to create equal pay auditing in the UK for businesses with more than 250 employees. A slow step in the right direction.

The second development, being less positive, was the move in Wisconsin to end equal pay for men and women as men need to earn more. Several articles have talked about the need for men to earn more as they will be the breadwinners. Even if not at that time!

What is more concerning is that this seems to have happened so quietly.

The most important thing to take from this is the importance of equal pay in the UK and the need to show your support: here.