Polish women discuss their lives in the UK

The first major conference of Polish women living in the UK took place last weekend.  

Rachel Salmon spoke to some of the women who took part.

“The main goal is to show that Polish women living in the UK are the ambitious ones, the passionate ones. 

They are hard working and can achieve great success,” said Alexandra Musial, a student from London,  and one of the organisers of the conference, called the United Kingdom of Polish Women.

This event was put together by volunteers, government bodies and community organisations,  and 

Saturday's opening session attracted over 200 women.

The conference was run on similar lines to the Women’s Congress, an annual event which has brought women together to discuss gender equality in Poland for the last five years.

Polish people now make up Britain's second largest migrant community, so the organisers wanted to explore how the diaspora had affected women.

There were workshops on women's rights, arts, science, health and personal development as well as a Woman of the Year award ceremony, to celebrate the contribution Polish women are making to British life.

All of the women I spoke to enjoyed living in the UK.  They appreciated the multiculturalism and opportunities available, especially in London.

“I can meet lots of different people.  Britain has more opportunities to spread your wings,” Alexandra Musial said.

Kinga Goodwin, a cultural psychologist, and one of the panelists in the discussion about women in science at the conference, agreed.

Goodwin has lived in the UK for eight years with her British husband. She believes that British culture is quite similar to that of Poland, and any prejudices are more to do with class than race.

“People assume that migrants are working class because they tend to do working class jobs.

“People have a patronising attitude, ‘you must be a cleaner’.  It may have been the case several years ago but now it is completely different.

“I have heard about discrimination because of some vague economic reasons rather than nationalism,” she said.

Olivia Kapchia, who runs an estate agency in west London, believes you need to be a very hard worker to survive, especially in the capital.

“But you can develop in any areas you want, personal as well as business, which you could not do outside London,” she said.

The conference also featured a Polish Woman of the Year competition.

One of the finalists, Eva Sadowska, runs Barka UK, the British branch of a charity established by her parents in Poland in the wake of the fall of communism.

Barka UK supports vulnerable people from across Eastern Europe. It has offices in Hackney and the Elephant and Castle. Most of its staff do outreach work with street homeless people.

The charity also runs a national helpline.

Sadowska said fewer Eastern Europeans are coming to this country now, and those who do face huge problems.

“Even people with Masters Degrees are cleaning toilets in bars and hotels. Their potential is being devalued.

“Well educated people who lose their jobs sometimes lose their flats and are finding themselves on the streets.

“This is a very difficult time for migrants,” she said

Sadowska believes that older migrants, who spent most of their time living under communism, can find life in the UK particularly difficult.

“They find it very challenging to deal with the free market economy, not having the state having a monopoly over everything,” she said.

Barka has helped over 3,000 Eastern Europeans to return to their home countries, where they can access a range of services, from vocational training to detoxing.

Some return to Britain, and a number of Barca’s 15 UK-based staff are former clients.

“If you take overall migration into Britain it is only a small minority who fail, but we must do what we can to support them,” said Sadowska.

Story published on Women's Views on News, April 25, 2013

Campaigners plan to 'Occupy Barbie'

Protests planned if massive Barbie Dreamhouse goes up in central Berlin.

Franziska Sedlak a 24-year-old student and left-wing activist first heard of Austrian businessman 

Christoph Rahofer’s plans to erect a lifesize pink Barbie doll's house when she attended a debate about sexism at the end of last year.

Sediak and her friends in the Left Party's youth organisation and Socialist Alternative decided to organise a campaign against it.

The doll's house, to be situated on a 26,000 square-foot site in Berlin’s central Alexander Square, was due to open on 26 March, but this was put back to 16 May.

Sediak and her friends are using the time to organise a broad-based campaign.

They have set up the ‘Occupy Barbie’ Facebook page, which already has over 700 followers and are organising leafleting sessions and meetings to talk about role models, sexism and the economic situation faced by women.

They plan to organise a demonstration in the run-up to the opening in May.

Sediak said the Barbie Dreamhouse would consist of ten rooms full of clichés.

Young girls will be offered catwalk training, styling advice and a photoshoot.  The highlight of their visit will be to choose whether they want to be a superstar or a top model.

“Barbie is pushing a completely unnatural beauty.  If she were a human she would not survive, she would break in two.

“What is being suggested is that the only role of the woman is to be beautiful, to wear high-heels and at the same time have a fresh cake in the oven.

“These childhood role models will shape their whole lives,” she said.

“The Barbie Dreamhouse is a symbol of women’s oppression. Women are paid less than men, women must always be beautiful and well made up, as well as working and cleaning.

“It’s about sexism, and the Barbie Dreamhouse is a symbol of this,” said Sediak.

Rahofer plans touring the house round Europe when it has finished its stint in Berlin.

Sediak is clear that if the house comes to the UK, feminists and political activists should use it as an opportunity to educate society.

“Start a campaign against sexism and use it as an opportunity to engage people in a conversation,” she said.

Review, Lean In

New book by Facebook CEO Sheryl Sandberg asks why so few women are choosing to become leaders.

Sheryl Sandberg started college in 1987 and graduated in 1991, and has an excellent academic record.

She graduated from Harvard and was appointed Chief of Staff at the US Treasury at age 30.

In 2001 she joined Google as vice president for online global sales.

She took up her current job at Facebook in 2007.

Sandberg admits that in her younger years she did not want much to do with feminism or women’s rights, assuming that all the battles had been won.

She admits that she and her friends ‘lowered their voices’, worked hard and tried to fit in.

But as she got older Sandburg noticed that fewer and fewer of her peers were still in the workplace, and she frequently found she was the only woman in the room.

The reason for this, she argues in her recently published book 'Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead', is that women too readily withdraw from the world of work because of the pressures and obstacles they face, either from employers with inflexible working patterns, husbands who refuse to do their fair share of housework and childcare, or because of their own self-doubt and lack of confidence, which is often the product of social stereotypes.

“Self doubt becomes a form of self-defence,” writes Sandberg.

She says that women start scaling back on their ambitions long before they even have children, scared off by horror stories of what it is like to be a working mother peddled in films like 'I don’t know how she does it' and 'Working Girl'.

It all becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Women fail to take risks and end up in unfulfilling jobs, which they are more likely to want to quit - and are even encouraged to give up.

But Sandberg urges them not to heed to these voices and argues that they are better off hanging in there, despite the high cost of childcare, as they will be rewarded with higher pay in the long run.

Sandberg encourages women to seek out men who will support them in their careers and urges men to ‘lean in’ to family life and do more childcare and housework.

“Having it all is a myth,” writes Sandberg. "It is impossible to do everything perfectly.  We need to learn to identify what is important and what isn’t at home and at work."

She quotes American feminist and political activist Gloria Steinem: “Perfection is the enemy.

“Superwoman is the adversary of the women’s movement.”

Sandberg also says we need to promote a culture of candour and honesty at work and that women need to be more prepared to ask for what they want.

And she offers some helpful practical advice on dealing with difficult discussions and raising concerns at work.

She also feels that some statutory measures to protect women and minorities ‘can have a chilling effect on discourse’.

While  this may be a reaction to the more litigious culture of the US, it is disappointing that she is so lukewarm when it comes to providing women with more statutory protection.

How else does she think we will attain paid parental leave and more flexible working, which she rightly calls for in the book?

Just leaving it up to individual businesses to implement does not seem to be working, because one of the things that struck me about this book is how tough life must be for women in the USA.

According to Sandberg only five states have any form of statutory maternity pay.  

The Family and Medical Leave Act enables women who work for public organisations or employers with over 50 workers to take three months off after having a child, but employers do not have to pay them.

Only 16 per cent of employers in the US offer any paid maternity leave, and a report by the US Census 

Bureau in 2011 found that only 6 per cent of working women in the US received support from government, an employer or their partner to meet the cost of childcare.  Women living below the poverty line spent a third of their income on childcare.

No wonder women drop out of  the workforce.

It is easy for highly paid and highly educated women like Sandburg  to tell women to 'lean in', grit their teeth and plough on, despite the obstacles, but they are not faced with the prospect of  having to get into debt just to pay for childcare.

Much of the book is devoted to measures that women themselves can take to improve their working lives, but even Sandberg concludes that individual action will only take us so far and, to make real progress, women and men need to work together and support each other.

And she quotes Stamford professor Deborah Gruenfeld; “As individuals we have relatively low levels of power.

“Working together we are fifty per cent of the population and therefore have real power.”

Domestic violence refuges face closure under benefit changes

Women’s Aid fears it will lose money when new benefit changes are introduced.

Half of all  refuges run by Women's Aid, a leading UK charity supporting victims of domestic and  sexual violence could lose money under Universal Credit being launched next month.

From April the Government will impose a £500 weekly cap on the amount of benefits a family can claim, and £350 for single people, excluding some disability benefits.

If benefits, including housing benefit, exceed this level councils will be required to reduce the amount of housing benefit in line with the new limits.

The government will also start to introduce Universal Credit.  Most benefits, including housing benefit, will be made in a single monthly payment directly to the claimant.

Women’s Aid is concerned that the Benefit Cap will hit survivors of domestic violence who receive benefits for two rents, one for the refuge service they are living in and rent for the home which they have fled but intend to return to.

Entitlement to Universal Credit will be assessed on the woman’s circumstances at the end of each monthly assessment period, so the refuge may receive no payment for a short stay of less than a month. Also, the 

Government have decided not to pay housing benefit directly to refuges like Women's Aid, which will leave them chasing money from their vulnerable clients.

Both these changes could mean Women's Aid refuges are under threat of survival.

And the new benefits may not cover charges for services like personal safety alarms and adjustments for disabled residents.

Women’s Aid owns around half of its refuges and the Government has announced that these will be exempted from the new arrangements for the time being.

But it will be up to local authorities to decide if refuges not owned by the charity will be exempt.

Women’s Aid fears this will lead to a two-tier system in which some residents and services face a cap whilst others don't.

Scottish Women’s Aid has reported that women their support will be hit by the 'bedroom tax'. This means victims of violence placed in larger homes on an emergency basis will be expected to pay for spare bedrooms out of their own benefits.

Women’s Aid is still in negotiations with the Government to try and make sure their refuges are exempt from benefit cuts that would threaten their survival.  They are urging its supporters to sign its petition and write to their MPs.

A template letter is available on their website.

Data needs diversity too

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Rachel Salmon spoke to Yodit Stanton, founder of a new organisation supporting women who work with numbers.

Stanton, a computer programmer, founded Women in Data earlier this year after she saw that the conferences she attended were very male dominated.

“You are lucky if you get three women,” she said.

“A lot of men are going into data, it was a realisation that history was repeating itself.

“It’s not that women aren’t there, it’s that they are not visible.

"It’s about getting them published, getting them speaking at conferences and getting change at a higher level.”

“Once an industry is established it is very difficult to change that, but If you catch it early it’s easier to change things."

'Women in Data' was launched ahead of Open Data day on 22 February.

'Open data' is about democratising decision-making like the internet democratised communication and information exchange.

Stanton hopes that open data will change the structures and concentration of power from the few to the crowd and fundamentally change the dynamics of interaction between citizens and organisations.

Stanton also hopes that Women in Data will give women more confidence to speak about their work, which, in turn, will help more women take senior roles in the industry and influence working patterns.

“When you speak to men who organise conferences, they tend to recruit speakers from within their own social groups.  They tend to go with the status quo so they don’t have to think about it much.

“Women are there at graduate level, but we need more decision makers,” she said.

Stanton believes that women bring their own experiences to bear when interpreting data, giving it added context and meaning.

“When you are looking at population level data you can make a lot of assumptions based on your own perspective.

“For example, there is a lot of talk about making better decisions about aid, but if you don’t understand how families are structured it makes a massive difference to how data is interpreted and how decisions are made.

“You get MIT educated men who are interpreting data, but you need to understand how everyday life is, because you can’t make your own assumptions about it.

Stanton has been amazed at how well the new organisation has been received.

It has already held a networking event at the Open Data Institute, and is planning a training day for data specialists who want to set up their own businesses in partnership with NESTA.

“We also want to get female engineers to talk about what they are working on, get people connected.

“Lots of our members are working on very interesting projects, so hopefully they will share what they are doing, they will get the confidence to talk about what they are working on and share that with the wider world.

"Hopefully they will be a bit more vocal about what they are doing.”

Stanton believes this is vital in overcoming what researchers from Yale called the subtle gender bias against women at all levels in science.

“These are intellectual heavyweights, these are not dinosaurs, but they would rate candidates with male names higher than females, and there was a tendency to mentor them towards leadership.

“It’s an unconscious thing, but it’s positive to know that there is this bias so we can overcome it.

“My theory is that if we get more women out there and see them as leading then change will happen.  People will see it as normal.

“If more women are heads of companies and have more buying power they will make decisions that are beneficial to the company as well as themselves."

Stanton now works freelance, but she used to work for Leman Brothers.

She had her first child around the time they went bust.

“I faced a choice to work in the presenteeism culture of a bank and miss out on my child,” she said.

She now fits her work around her children.

“My clients don’t mind when I work.  If you work in an organisation you are expected to be there nine to five.

“Now I have set up my own company I have never been so skilled. I have the motivation to learn new skills I am managing my own career and I am able to meet new people.

“I have never been so in demand, it’s ironic really,” she aid.

Stanton is currently setting up a company called Atomic Data Labs, to develop computer programmes to process data.

She intends to use her experiences to create a more flexible working environment for the people she employs.

“We will have a loose structure that gives workers autonomy to choose their hours. We will not dictate, as long as we can work together and do the work. It doesn’t matter how that is done.

“We will see what difference that makes to productivity.

"I find without the structures I am a lot more productive, I can work six hours instead of eight and walk away,” she said.

Story published on Women's Views on News, Thursday, 14 March, 2013. 

What has the EU done for women?

Debate concluded that the EU has improved women’s rights in the UK over the last 40 years.  But the future may not be so bright, reports Rachel Salmon, who was in the audience.

The European Parliament Information Office in the UK and the National Alliance of Women's Organisations hosted a debate on 7 March called 'What has the EU done for Gender Equality' to coincide with International Women's Day.

It was also one of the events organised to mark the 40th anniversary of Britain joining the EU.

One of the speakers, Dr Roberta Guerrina, Senior Lecturer and Head of the School of Politics at the University of Surrey believed the EU had been very instrumental in establishing employment rights for women.

“The introduction of the Equal Pay Act in 1970 was influenced by the prospect of accession, in that the UK would have had to implement it.

“The 1992 Pregnant Worker Directive and the 1996 Parental Leave Directive, which also included fathers, allows six months, albeit unpaid, and three months for the woman, which was non-transferrable.

"The UK has gone beyond these basic measures, but positive employment rights have consolidated women’s positions as workers.”

Justine Roberts, founder and CEO of Mumsnet, said she believed the EU needed to do more to publicise the good work it has done for women.

“Most are aware of maternity and part-time workers rights, but we can’t get away from the fact that even graduates have less pay.  There is still a lot to be done.

“It is important, given that we may have a referendum coming up.

"Women are delighted that they have time off to go to ante-natal clinic, but they don’t join the dots,” she said.

Marina Yannakoudakis, Conservative MEP for London, who was instrumental in blocking EU plans to give women 20 weeks maternity leave, said the EU did most for women’s rights when it worked together to prevent Female Genital Mutilation, sex trafficking and enforced marriage.

“I wouldn’t like the EU to push more legislation, particularly on small and medium sized businesses,” she said.

Labour MEP Mary Honeyball said she believed that some of the EU’s recent work to promote equal access to goods and services was breaking new ground for women.

She said that new EU regulations were forcing the insurance industry to take a close look at the way it worked so that women received the same pensions as men.

“If you get EU legislation it filters down and makes people look at what they are doing,” she pointed out.

Jacqueline Minor, head of the European Commission Representation in London, said that half of the staff employed by EU institutions were now women, but women make up only 28 per cent of the top three grades. When she joined it was just 10 per cent.

“We tend to find women in HR or coordinating jobs rather than hard policy jobs,” she said.

The EU was addressing this by encouraging more women to apply and taking measures to stop ‘cloning’, the tendency for managers to replace an employee with someone with similar skills and characteristics, which would work against women in a male-dominated workplace.

But there was concern that, in future, the EU may not be such a force for good for women.

“The accession of Central and Eastern European states has led to retrenchment.  There are a large number of socially conservative states sending Justices to the European Court of Justice.

“It has become much less an advocate for women’s rights, it is sitting on the fence, it is more conservative, especially when it comes to issues relating to care,” said Guerrina.

“In the southern states of the EU, women are actively discriminated against for having children.  Italy now has the lowest birth rate in the world.  Women have gone on strike because of the impact of non-equality,” she added.

“A lot of the impetus for change in the past came from the UK.

"The Equal Opportunities Commission and the Trades Unions were very clever at picking cases that would advance rights.

"This has slowed down of late,” she said.

There was also concern about David Cameron’s intention to renegotiate Britain’s EU membership if he wins the next UK election and plans to transfer powers, currently governed by the EU, back to the British parliament.

The TUC's General Secretary Frances O’Grady, was unable to attend. But in a written statement to the meeting, she said she did not believe repatriating powers from the EU would lead to improved social protection.

“As inequality grows and living standards fall I hope we will win the case for keeping Europe social for men and especially for women,” she wrote.

Honeyball believed Cameron’s talk of repatriation was wishful thinking.

“The UK won’t be in a position to put together a qualified majority which this will need.  I am not convinced by the negotiating skills of George Osborne or David Cameron,” she said.

Yannakoudakis said that Angela Merkel had welcomed Cameron’s latest speech about reshaping the EU.

“If we repatriate these powers, it doesn’t mean that all maternity rights will go away tomorrow,” she said.

But Roberts sounded a note of caution.

“Fifty one per cent of the voting population are female.

"It is unlikely that David Cameron would start messing with the gender equality rules. The women’s vote is important.

And she continued, "The Leader of the Conservative Party is not ranking as well as he once was."

“We know UKIP is doing well with some ex Tory voters,” she said.

And she said that when Mumsnet hosted a discussion with UKIP leader Nigel Farage he repeated Alan Sugar’s mantra that ‘no employer in his right mind would employ a women of child-bearing age’.

Story published in Women's Views on News, Friday, 15 March, 2013.

Film festival to celebrate Arab women

The Birds Eye View film festival promises spectacular line up of creative voices from the Arab world.

The 2013 Bird's Eye View film festival, an annual event celebrating women filmmakers, opens in London next month, and this year features the work of women from across the Arab world.

There will be an International Women’s Day gala screening of 'Wadija', Saudi Arabia’s first feature film, from breakthrough female director Haifaa Al Mansour, which tells the story of a rebellious schoolgirl who wants a bicycle, and when her parents refuse, determines to raise the money herself.

Wadjda won multiple awards at the Venice Film Festival for its inspiring, sharply humorous and gently subversive look at a life in modern-day Riyadh.

On 3 April the main film festival, Celebrating Arab Women Filmmakers, will have an Opening Night Gala featuring 'When I Saw You' from Palestine's first female feature director, Annemarie Jacir,  following a free-spirited young boy escaping from a refugee camp in Jordan in 1967.

Other features include 'Coming Forth by Day', which follows an unmarried woman dutifully caring for her sick father as she tries to escape to a life of her own, and 'On the Edge', which depicts two young women as they plunge into the underside of Moroccan life.

The festival will also feature documentaries such as 'In the Shadow of a Man' exploring recent events in Egypt from a woman’s perspective and 'A Tale of Two Syrias', which looks at the country’s mounting unrest from two very different perspectives.

There will also be a series of short films and special events like Sound and Silents, where modern composers perform their own scores to silent movies, and Fashion Loves Film, this year exploring Middle Eastern fashion past and present.

Birds Eye View founder-director Rachel Millward said: ‘I’m thrilled that in 2013 Birds Eye View will celebrate the work of Arab women filmmakers.

"Now, when Arab women are dominating the headlines at the world's most established film festivals, is the perfect time to shine a light on this increasingly important and diverse range of cinematic voices.’

Bird’s Eye View 2013 takes place on International Women's Week, 7 and 8 March 2013, at the Southbank Centre and BFI Southbank.

The main film festival, Celebrating Arab Women Filmmakers, runs from 3-10 April 2013 at the BFI Southbank, the Barbican, the ICA and at Hackney Picturehouse.

Tickets are on sale now.

Story published in Women's Views on News, February 25, 2013.