Two important questions to ask this week

Why do the Panana papers matter?

Should (could) the new UN Secretary General be a woman?

I couldn’t decide which of these headlines to write about this morning. The former is currently dominating our media in the UK whilst the latter is something very close to my heart. It was as I weighed up these options that I realised the two aren’t so very far apart. Both reveal and challenge the lingering international male elite. As a cynical student, the Panama papers did not surprise me: the fact that Western neo-liberalism in the twenty-first century makes the rich richer and at the expense of everyone else is hardly a revelation. Unfortunately, what also did not surprise me was that every single prominent figure and head of state implicated in the Panama papers so far has been a man. The papers demonstrate that the global elite is still constituted overwhelmingly by middle class, middle aged, straight men. Whether it be men in charge of whole countries or men in charge of large global corporations the powerful global elite who make the decisions that affect everyone else remain completely unrepresentative of the rich diversity of the international population.

Many people in the UK have argued that the scandal with our own prime minister’s involvement in the tax evasion has distracted from the real debate that needs to be had. I do to some extend agree but I think it matters that Cameron lied about his tax affairs because it is emblematic of everything that is wrong with this government and our political system in the UK. How can Cameron say he hasn’t benefitted from his fathers tax evasion when it likely paid for his fees at Eaton without which he would not have got into Oxbridge or met the people he needed to meet to get into the upper echelons of the British conservative elite. More significantly, this government tenuously balances on a rhetoric of victimising ‘benefit scroungers’ and ‘benefit tourists’ who supposedly ‘steal’ from the British economy. It is that narrative that they have thrived off by creating fear and hatred in British society. It is this hypocrisy that really gets to me: this government line their pockets while they rip apart the pockets of our most vulnerable including women, disabled people and refugees.

We’ve come some way from the selection of a new United Nations Secretary General! The UN ostensibly exists at the other end of the moral spectrum from the likes of Vladamir Putin but in reality it is a deeply troubled, bureaucratic, corrupt and paralysed organisation in need of reform. That is not to say that UN does not do good work but, unfortunately, I’m sure one would not have to bust a gut to join the dots between those implicated in the Panana papers and the UN organisation. So what does this have to do with the SG? A woman SG would take step towards challenging this global male elite as well as having all other cited benefits of equal representation. That is not to say that a woman would absolve corruption and not be at risk of corruption herself but can we at least have equality in the corrupt global elite! (I joke.) I’d like to think that a woman SG would also heighten the work of UN Women on the UN’s agenda particularly in development and conflict arenas as well as tackling the hideous problem of sexual violence perpetrated by ‘peacekeepers.’ What these two prominent headlines have in common this week is that gender still matters, patriarchy still matters and feminism still matters in global politics. The power and money remain in the hand of one set of people who do not represent the rest of us.

Jeremy Hunt's Assault on the Junior Doctors is also an Assault on Women and Gender Equality in Medicine

In the UK, where the National Health Service has since the mid twentieth century provided free health care to UK citizens, there is a currently a nationwide uproar about the enforcement of a new contract on our Junior Doctors. Or there should be. Jeremy Hunt (our aptly named Health Minister) wants to force a new contract on Junior Doctors that will see them being paid just under £23,000 salary including all anti-social hours. Yesterday the Junior Doctors walked out on strike to protest. This is yet another money-saving measure being enforced by our austerity government while they go and hide their money in Daddy’s Panamanian tax haven! I have said it before and I will say it again: austerity is sexist. Poverty is sexist. The Junior Doctors scandal is an attack on some of Britain’s hardest-working, most selfless young people who dedicate their youths to saving people’s lives. It is the deconstruction of British society and it will demotivate young people to becoming doctors leaving us with an undersupplied health service under strain. When doctors work too hard, they make mistakes. This is something I’m sure Jeremy Hunt does not worry about when he visits his private health care provider who is paid triple to work sociable hours. Junior Doctors are emblematic of the way this government views young people generally: as unimportant creatures to bear the brunt of austerity.

The Junior Doctors crisis is also yet another attack on women. Just in case sexism in medicine wasn’t bad enough with the gendered division of labour casting women as nurses and men as doctors or surgeons. Working antisocial hours for less money will absolutely disproportionately affect female junior doctors. First of all there are simply more junior doctors with 77% of NHS staff being female. Secondly, how are single parents (of which there are overwhelmingly more women) and all mothers expected to take the primary care role meant to cope with raising children and working night shifts? Who cares for the children during a 36 hour weekend shift? The childcare afforded with a £22,000 salary?! I think not. The worst thing about this is the Department of Health explicitly admitted this in their evaluation of the Junior Doctor contract:

This government is turning back the clock on gender equality. It is forcing women out of public spaces and silencing their voices. The Junior Doctors crisis is just another example to add to the pile. The Junior Doctors will strike today and then it will be the steel workers, the teachers, the nurses and the police officers. Cutting public services at the expense of the majority whilst lining the pockets of the minority will not work and will not be tolerated. Support the Junior Doctors strike, for the NHS, for young people, for women and for the preservation of what we have to proud of in this country.

UK General Election TV Debates: Why the women won but we're still yet to mention gender, feminism or sexism in national politics.

Last night, in the UK, the leaders of the 7 main parties (Miliband for Labour, Cameron for the Conservatives, Clegg for the Liberal Democrats, Bennett for the Greens, Farage for UKIP, Sturgeon for SNP and Wood for Plaid Cymru) congregated live on national television to win the votes of the British public. This election has already made political history in the UK as we’ve watched the so-called party system be destroyed and replaced with a infiltrations into the mainstream by extreme parties such as UKIP, the Greens and SNP. However, it will also make history as a result of the almost gender balance of candidates: last night 3 of the 7 hopefuls standing behind their podiums were women and this is a success that cannot be understated. Nevertheless, sexism in British politics was proved to be alive and well last night. Not only were the three women candidates and the woman host all consistently and aggressively interrupted by the men throughout the debate but this morning we have all arisen to some outrageous sexism in the pages of our national newspapers. Whilst the Metro reported on Leanne Wood’s ‘sexy’ accent, Sturgeon’s ‘new look’ has been reported on and all the papers commented on the women’s shoes as opposed to their views. The Everyday Sexism project tweeted a ‘bingo card’ of their expectations for the debate and they were not wrong: 

There were four questions asked by the (gender balanced) audience last night. All of them are inherently gendered in both theory and reality and yet there was not a single mention of women or feminism by any of the women or men.

1. The Economy and Austerity 

Whilst Farage made a fool out of himself by continuing his scare-mongering, one-trick-pony rhetoric, the other 3 men stood up to defend austerity. What a surprise the three, white, middle class, able bodied, heterosexual MEN stood up to defend austerity as the solution to economic growth. As I have previously mentioned austerity fundamentally affects women disproportionately to men and this is something that needs to be tackled by any government planning to continue with cuts of public services. Whilst Bennett, Wood and Sturgeon all came out against austerity they did not mention the disproportionate ramifications for women or how they would fight such inequality. While the phrase ‘balance the books’ seemed to be on the lips of particularly Clegg, Cameron and Miliband there was no reference to said books being fundamentally gendered. 

2. The National Health Service

Similarly, none of the leaders mentioned the gendered dynamics of the cuts and ‘tide of privatisation’ forced upon the National Health Service. There are two crucial aspects I’d like to pick up on here: the first was Clegg’s continual reference to mental health as a key Lib Dem manifesto promise. Mental health is an absolutely gendered problem in that it effects men more than women and yet men struggle to reach out for help as a result of the socialised enforcement of stoic masculinity. Secondly, there was continual reference to the segregated nature of health and social care. Health and social care staff is absolutely dominated by women in both the formal and informal sense as a result of the care burden associated with femininity. Nigel Farage’s hideous comments about the burden on the NHS due to immigrants and ‘foreign’ HIV victims had were outrageously racist and had underlying homophobic tones. This only goes to show his desire for the bigotry vote. 

3. Immigration 

Once again here the women served to call out racism, scape goating and fear mongering in the other 4 leaders. Whilst Farage, Milliband, Clegg and Cameron all made vague (or not so vague in Farage’s case) allusions to cutting back on immigration, Wood, Sturgeon and Bennett all made clear assertions of the dangerous discourse surrounding immigration and their desire to subvert said discourse and emphasis the positive contribution of immigration to the UK. 

4. Young People & Students 

Here, there was zero mention of the challenges young women and men face in their daily lives, young people cannot grouped as a collective. What with the rise in tutition fees, young unemployment and the impossibility for young people to buy their own house there is no doubt that young people have heeded the majority of the burden of the austerity package. Labour seem to be after the young persons vote but the lowest voting category is young women and it is extremely significant that our voices are heard as much as our male counterparts. 

What seemed to be the overwhelming outcome from this debate was not who deserved to be the rightful leader of Britain but instead that more women are fundamentally needed in British politics. As an English citizen I cannot vote for either Sturgeon or Wood and yet I was more grateful for their presence than I could ever have predicted. They smashed through the rhetoric that austerity is the only way, they called out racism, sexism and the general lack of compassion in all of the other 5 leaders. As this election continues I wait eagerly for the party who will engage with feminism and combat sexism in Westminster. Labour's pink bus isn't enough for me I'm afraid! For more on this follow the fantastic UK Feminista campaign #VoteFeminist. In the meantime I will continue to deliberate moving to Scotland simply so I can vote for Nicola Sturgeon!