Swim that broke Cold War ice curtain

Diomede Islands: Little Diomede Island or Kruzenstern Island (left) and Big Diomede Island or Ratmanov Island in the Bering Sea. Photo is from the north. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

News for Wednesday 8 August is taken from BBC News

In the summer of 1987, the American swimmer Lynne Cox braved the frigid waters of the Bering Strait to swim from the United States to the Soviet Union. Twenty-five years on, now aged 55, she recalls how her actions in the waning days of the Cold War eased international tensions.

“I wanted to open the border so we could become friends,” says Cox. “The difficulty was that nobody believed it could happen.”

Her route between Little Diomede Island, in the US state of Alaska, and Big Diomede Island, in the Soviet Union, was just 4.3km (2.7 miles) but it crossed the maritime border of two countries still locked in Cold War opposition, and the water was cold, very cold.

“There was this instant loss of breath,” Cox recalls. “The cold was like a huge vampire pulling the heat from my body. I looked down at my fingers and they were totally grey, like the hands of a cadaver.”

With the water temperature at 3.3C, the only way for Cox, then 30 years old, to survive was to keep moving.

“I put my face in the water and started swimming as fast as I could. I was also looking at my shoulders to see if they were turning blue because that would be really dangerous.”

Cox first had the idea of the Bering Strait swim in 1976 and spent years lobbying Soviet officials for permission to enter their waters.

After being ignored at every turn, Cox finally decided to use “every last penny” of her savings to do her swim.

On the eve of the swim, there was still no word from Moscow, and the military on both sides of the Cold War were jittery.

“We knew something was happening because the Soviets moved two ships the size of football fields up into the Bering Strait,” Cox recalls.

“The (indigenous) Inuits freaked out so they called the (US) National Guard and they sent up jet fighters. Then the Soviets sent up MiGs to check out why the Americans were up there. And I was thinking that this was supposed to be about world peace.”

With 24 hours to go, permission came through from Moscow. President Gorbachev himself had seen a TV report about Cox’s swim and – with the world’s media watching – the Soviet leadership decided it would be too embarrassing to turn her back.

On the morning of 7 August, Cox woke up to find the Bering Strait completely calm. But there was no sign of the Inuit, who would guide her in their traditional kayaks.

“I’m all set to go and my crews are all set to go, but they’re not up and I’m freaking out,” says Cox.

It turned out that the Inuit had been up all night celebrating the prospect of seeing their relatives on Big Diomede for the first time in nearly 50 years. As they slept in, fog closed in and visibility dropped to 400m.

“We couldn’t see anything, we didn’t have radar, we had traditional canoes. Great Diomede is only 6.4km (4 miles) wide so everyone was really concerned that I might just miss the island.”

As Cox started swimming, she was worried to see her support boats making constant changes of course. None of the Inuit was old enough to remember the route to Great Diomede and their only navigational device was a rusty compass.

In the end, one of the American journalists accompanying Cox intervened to put the expedition on the right bearing.

Cox then heard the sound of a motor. And slowly, a Soviet launch appeared.

“I was elated when I saw the skiff emerge from the fog – finally the Russians are here,” she says.

On board was Vladimir McMillan, a half-American journalist for the Soviet news agency TASS, who was jumping up and down, shouting: “Lynne, don’t stop now!”

Cox was heading for a cliff about 50m ahead, but with the fog clearing slightly, she could make out a Soviet delegation waiting further away on a beach.

McMillan wanted Cox to swim to the welcoming committee, but the American medical team urged her to take the easy option and swim to the cliff.

“I kept thinking ‘I’m cold, I would like to finish this swim, but if I don’t touch somebody’s hand what have I done?’” she says. So she headed towards the Russians.

The last 800m (0.5 mile) was the hardest part of the swim because of strong off-shore currents.

“I really did wonder how far I could go. I really did see my fingers go grey. Inside I was evaluating ‘Am I OK? Can I keep going? Can I do it?’

“I had experts around me, but there’s always the risk that you could go into cardiac arrest from hypothermia and it can happen really fast, so I was on edge that whole time.”

The Soviet delegation came into view. Cox reached the shore, but it was so rocky she couldn’t get out on her own.

“I extended my arm and two Russians in military uniform grabbed me,” says Cox. “I instantly felt this heat from their warm hands. One guy was putting his arm underneath me to steady me. People were throwing blankets and coats on top of me. I didn’t understand anything at all, except they were saying ‘welcome’.”

At the last minute, the Soviets had sent a top-level delegation, including KGB officials and sports stars. They had even prepared a small beach party.

“They had set up tables on the beach for a picnic with samovars full of tea and little biscuits. They were ready to celebrate all afternoon, but I was standing there on the ice thinking, ‘Oh boy, this is getting cold.’”

Eventually, the Soviets let Cox go inside a tent to recover. A Soviet doctor, Rita Zakarova, covered Cox with hot-water bottles, put her in a sleeping bag, and then embraced her. For the American, the moment symbolised the entire trip.

“The whole idea was to have this human contact after so many years growing up afraid of the Soviets, and here was this person basically warming me up to get me back to life again,” she says.

The swim turned Cox into a Cold War celebrity in the United States and the Soviet Union.

When President Gorbachev travelled to Washington to sign a nuclear weapons treaty later that year, he and President Reagan raised a glass to toast the swimmer.

“She proved by her courage how close to each other our peoples live,” Gorbachev said.

Related articles

• Unraveling her father’s Cold War secrets (stripes.com)
• Olympics: Cold War rivalry could heat up in hoops finals (dawn.com)
• America Still Lags Behind the Soviet Union by Number of Planets Visited (theatlantic.com)

Summer reading list with a difference

Isabel Allende (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

News for Tuesday 7 August is taken from Women’s Views on News

Meg Kissack
WVoN co-editor 

Like many, I enjoy reading, but sometimes find it hard to track down a good book.

After a while, the book charts and the summer reading lists all start to look the same – murder mysteries, family dramas, sagas, chick lit and historical fiction, but not much else.

Unless you count the latest 50 Shades of Grey frenzy, but that rant is for another day!

So I’ve compiled a reading list of books that I think WVoN readers will enjoy. There is a mix of memoirs, autobiography and fiction, but with one thing in common – they are all about women who defy convention and have the boldness and audacity not to be afraid to stand out.

The Kabul Beauty School: The Art of Friendship and Freedom – Debbie Rodriguez

This book follows the journey of American Debbie Rodriguez as she travels to Kabul and sets up a beauty training school for Afghan women. Detailing the stories of the women she meets in Kabul, Rodriguez takes the reader into the lives of Afghan women post-Taliban. Hair dressing and beauty salons were banned under the regime. Today they are two of the few professions which give women independence and a real sense of freedom. In the most dangerous country in the world, Rodriguez’s account is inspirational and hopeful, and will leave part of your heart in Afghanistan.

The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox – Maggie O’Farrell

O’Farrell examines what it is to be an unconventional young woman in 1930s Edinburgh and the 21st century in this thought provoking read. Esme Lennox was sent to an asylum at the age of sixteen for being unruly; refuseing to participate in etiquette and behaviour which was expected of a young woman and daring to declare that she would like to stay on at school, and not get married. Sixty years after she was incarcerated, a young woman, Iris Lockheart, receives a letter stating that her great-aunt Esme (whom she had never heard of) was about to be released. In the midst of her busy life running a vintage clothes shop and having various affairs, the two women’s lives collide . O’Farrell’s novel is well-researched and paints a thought provoking picture of what it is to be a woman challenging the boundaries of her gender in 1930s Britain.

The Help –  Kathryn Stockett

Superbly written, Stockett’s novel The Help is set during the civil rights era in the southern states of the US, when racism was rife. It is told from the point of view of the three main characters – Skeeter, a white aspiring journalist; Abileen, a black maid who has spent  her life raising white children and who recently lost her only son; and Minny, a sassy- mouthed maid with a reputation. The novel is about female friendship, empowerment, and the importance of women telling their stories, in the face of discrimination and in the risk of losing it all. The book has been made into a movie which I strongly recommend, you can watch the trailer here (it does however give away a few spoilers).

The House of the Spirits – Isabel Allende

Allende’s novel follows the lives of three generations of headstrong Chilean women leading up to and during the Chilean revolution. Named as one of the most prolific female writers of the Latin American literary boom, Allende is an astounding storyteller and weaves magic into the various elements of this novel, from the way domestic space is transformed into a magical female space, and how women are treated in a period of political turmoil and violence. A great novel that will leave you wanting to read much more of Allende’s work.

If you have anything to add to our summer reads, we’d love to hear your suggestions so please comment and we will add them to this page.

Related articles

• Book Review: Island Beneath The Sea by Isabel Allende (chalkthesun.wordpress.com)
• Heartwarming and Controversial, Even Now (middayinspiration.wordpress.com)
• Book Review: The Help by Kathryn Stockett (eatchocolate.wordpress.com)

Larisa Latynina: An unbeaten Olympian for 48 years – until now

Larissa Latynina, Russian-Ukrainian and former Soviet gymnast (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

News for Sunday 29 July is taken from The Independent

As the legendary gymnast waits to see if her record will fall this time, she tells Emily Dugan about her life, struggle … and Nadia Comaneci

For 48 years Larisa Latynina has been untouchable. The former Soviet gymnast’s record haul of 18 Olympic medals put her far above the reach of any other Olympian.

But this week the 77-year-old is prepared to make way for a new all-time top medallist. Michael Phelps, the American swimmer who already has 16 medals, 14 of them gold, is expected to trump the record she has held on to for nearly half a century.

Pundits believe Phelps should do that comfortably by the middle of this week, because despite competition for gold from his team-mate Ryan Lochte, Phelps only needs to win a medal in three of his seven events during these Games to better Latynina’s record.

She is in London for the next fortnight as the International Gymnastics Federation’s guest of honour, and will be at the poolside for Phelps’s potential record-breaking swim. “I’ll be happy for him if he does it, because he deserves it,” she says, adding an aside that gives a glimpse of the old Cold War rivalries their countries held: “The only sad part is that he’s not from Russia.”

Latynina met Phelps for the first time earlier this year in New York, and proudly shows off a photo in which she is giving a Russian doll to the grinning swimmer. “He impressed me a lot because he was very smiley and charming. I think he’ll get it and I’ll cheer him on,” she says, pausing to consider further. “Of course, if [the Russian swimmer] Evgeny Korotyshkin and Phelps compete, then I’m sorry Michael, but I’ll cheer for Korotyshkin.”

She asked the International Olympic Committee if she could be the one to present his record-breaking medal, but was told it was unlikely. “It would be a real pleasure, really great to give him his 19th medal. I suggested it to the IOC, but I don’t think they want me to. The IOC has got many honoured people and everybody wants to do that.”

Born in 1934 in the Black Sea port of Kherson, when Ukraine was still under Soviet control, Latynina went on to make her Olympic debut in Melbourne in 1956, when she took home four gold medals, one silver and one bronze. The winning streak continued, with another six medals in Rome in 1960 and in Tokyo in 1964. She still wears her Olympic past with pride and is dressed in the Russian team tracksuit.

Latynina heralded an era of Soviet dominance in sport at a time when athletic prowess was used as a propaganda tool for the country’s Communist ideology. These days, her family’s lifestyle is more typical of a capitalist modern Russian elite. Ordinarily she lives on an estate in the countryside outside Moscow, but I meet her at her daughter Tatyana’s mansion in Sevenoaks, Kent. Tatyana moved to Britain two years ago with her husband, the Russian billionaire restaurateur Rostislav Ordovsky-Tanaevsky Blanco, to be closer to their son, at school nearby.

Sitting in her daughter’s opulent water garden – stocked with fat koi and tended by hired hands – she has come a long way from the struggle of her childhood. Resistance to Stalin’s collective farming had left widespread famine in Ukraine and things became even tougher when her father was killed at Stalingrad in 1943. Athletic success was one of the few ways to rise in society, and her mother did two jobs to scrape together the money to send her daughter to choreography school, to study ballet. It was only after the school closed that Latynina discovered gymnastics and transferred to Kiev for specialist training.

She was so dedicated to her sport that she even competed at the 1958 World Championships in Moscow while four months pregnant. She took home five gold medals. “I didn’t tell anyone. I didn’t even say to my coach, Alexander Mishakov, that I was pregnant,” she says. “Even now when I see those medals, I think they’re hers, too. When journalists used to come to our house and she was little, she’d take out the medals and say, ‘These are the ones I won with Mummy.’ “

Her success, she says, is partly down to the fact that she was always ruthlessly competitive. This was even evident as a small child running races in the playground. She recalls: “When I was about six, we wanted to find out who was the fastest runner, so the boys drew a finishing line on the pavement in chalk. We started to run and I realised about two seconds before the finish that I wasn’t going to be first. I decided to jump and dive forward with my hands outstretched, so they crossed the line first. There was glass on the pavement and I cut my hands to shreds,” she says, gesturing to a deep scar still on her finger. “My finger was bleeding, but I was jumping around shouting, ‘My hands were first, I’ve won, I’ve won.’ “

Despite giving Phelps her blessing, her competitive spirit has not gone away. In 1992, there was an award for the greatest gymnast of the 20th century, which went to the Romanian Nadia Comaneci, who in 1976 became the first gymnast to score a perfect 10 out of 10 in an Olympic event.

The rejection still smarts. “When they were deciding who it should go to, Comaneci had a very good PR. She only had four gold medals. Gymnastics is a very subjective sport. If a runner runs fastest, he gets the best time – that’s objective, but in gymnastics it’s just decided by judges. To be honest I was upset. These were the awards for the best gymnast and I was surprised because I was expecting it. The results were unfair, but at the time of the award I congratulated her.”

Now, though, she wants to let the medals do the talking. Pointing to a London 2012 brochure which has a picture of her at the top of a list of the biggest medal winners of all time, Latynina says mischievously: “See, there’s no Comaneci there.”

Related articles

• Nick Zaccardi, Gennady Fyodorov: With her all-time record set to fall, little-known Latynina looks back (sportsillustrated.cnn.com)
• Phelps having more fun this time around at Olympics (nypost.com)

London Games are first to include women from every country

Olympic Games Message (Photo credit: chooyutshing)

News for Friday 27 July is taken from Women’s Views on News

In the London 2012 Games there will be, for the first time in the history of the Olympics, a female athlete sent from every participant nation.

The last few nations to abstain from sending sportswomen were Qatar, Brunei and, the most publicised of the three, Saudi Arabia.

As has been pointed out on WVoN, however, the matter of Olympic equality is all but resolved. The IOC’s (International Olympic Committee) threat to ban Saudi Arabia from the Games entirely unless they included women has been mollified, but this does not mean that the state will now encourage women to participate, or work to diminish the stigma put upon women athletes.

Qatari swimmer Nada Arkaji has benefited from the use of Doha’s substantial sporting facilities. Qatar is seemingly now doing its utmost to include women, since establishing a Women’s National Sports Committee in 2001.

Saudi runner Sarah Attar, on the other hand, trains in California, where she lives and grew up, and covers her hair and limbs only while representing her country. She has spent only a small amount of time in Saudi Arabia.

She may be an example of an impending transitory phase in women’s sport in the country, where initial participants will hail from diasporic communities while the training infrastructure is established.

However this might be wishful thinking as there is still considerable resentment towards the idea of women’s sports within Saudi Arabia.

While the common conception is that Saudi Arabia’s reservations are down to religion, many Saudi commentators are keen to point out that it is less an issue of dogma and more so of cultural norms.

Often left unsaid by the media, the more extreme of these contentions are perhaps exemplified by Dr. Abdulrahman Al-Zuhayyan, an academic in Riyadh. His primary concern is the hymen.

“Saudi families equate a broken hymen with the loss of virginity, and a girl losing her virginity/hymen by any means other than legitimate marriage, such as participating in strenuous activity, damages the family’s honour. For this reason… saving girls’ virginity is deeply entrenched in their culture, and this tradition should be respected.”

Citing the claimes from various groups that human rights of Saudi women were being violated by their exclusion, Al-Zuhayyan offers a rebuttal.

“[The] Saudi government would not force its citizens, specifically, parents, to let their girls participate in the Olympics against their will. In fact, by doing so, it would be in clear violation of their human rights… Also, complete disregard of culture and tradition is a violation of human rights.”

He further claims that “cultural and structural conditions are not conducive for Saudi female athletes to present an impressive performance, or win an Olympic medallion,” therefore, by pressuring Saudi Arabia to include female athletes, international organisations such as the IOC are “intentionally and knowingly subjecting the entire Saudi population, particularly these female athletes and their families, to a degrading treatment in front of billions of people around the globe. This is also a violation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, article 5.”

“Thus,” he concludes, “one can easily discern that Saudi women’s participation in the Olympics is against human rights.”

Related articles

• Saudi Olympian told to ditch hijab (lfpress.com)
• Saudi Women’s Olympics Debut ‘Means Very Little’ for Gender Equality, Experts Say (usnews.com)
• Breaking the Olympic gender barrier in Muslim Qatar (cbc.ca)

Pregnant Malaysian shooter eyes Olympic gold

The Royal Artillery Barracks, where Nur Suryani Mohamed Taibi will compete.

News for Wednesday 25 July is taken from BBC News

It is one of the first events of the London Olympics on Saturday morning, but the 10-metre women’s air rifle could also be among the most sensational.

Nur Suryani Mohamed Taibi, a shooter from Malaysia, will compete at the Royal Artillery Barracks while eight months pregnant.

At least three expectant mothers have competed at the Olympics before, but Suryani, as she likes to be known, will easily be the most pregnant athlete to have taken part.

“Since I started shooting in 1997, I’ve been dreaming of going to the Olympics,” she said, after a morning training at Malaysia’s National Shooting Range on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur.

So when in January Suryani discovered that she was pregnant, her first thought was that her London ambitions were over.

But after talking to her husband and praying, she changed her mind. If “everything is in order”, she would still try, she told me.

Two days later, she qualified for the Games in the 10-metre air rifle, and has not looked back since.

Dressing ordeal

Despite an early period of morning sickness, Suryani’s now thinks that pregnancy might even give her a small advantage.

“Now I have balance at the front and the back,” she said, with a smile. “So the stability is there.”

With her stomach bulging, just getting in and out of the thick suit she uses for shooting is something of an ordeal. It is with a sigh of relief that she unbuckles her belt to allow herself to sit down and talk to me.

Not everyone in Malaysia is backing her decision to take part, but beneath the smiles, it is clear that there is steely determination to the 30-year-old naval officer.

“Some people say that I’m crazy. Some people say I’m too selfish. But I just ignore what others say. I just concentrate on what I want to do and what I dream of.”

And that dream currently involves picking up Malaysia’s first-ever gold medal at lunchtime on Saturday.

‘No kicking’

Currently ranked 47th in the world, it would be a considerable upset if Suryani did make it onto the podium. But to her credit, she already has a solid tournament record, with a gold at the Commonwealth Games in 2010, and a bronze at the Asian Games.

If she is to come out on top, she will need her unborn daughter to play her part and not kick at a crucial moment.

“On the morning of the competitions, normally, I will say to my baby, ‘Mummy’s going to compete today so I need you to calm down, and then afterwards if you want to be active and you want to kick a ball or something that’s OK!’”

Outside the indoor shooting range, JJ Raj, the secretary general of the National Shooting Association of Malaysia, and Muzli Mustakim, Suryani’s manager, joins us.

As they share a farewell drink by the swimming pool, JJ Raj says he knows that Malaysia’s prime minister will be taking a special interest in her event.

Luckily, Suryani is unflappable and shrugs it off.

If she happens to get a medal, she says she would share it with her daughter, but if not, she would settle for sharing the memories.

“When the baby is born, I will tell her you are very lucky,” she said. “You were not born yet, but you competed with me in the Olympic games.”

Related articles

• Olympics: Pregnancy No Barrier to Malaysian’s Olympic Journey (nytimes.com)
• Meet the Most Pregnant Woman to Ever Compete in the Olympics [Olympics] (jezebel.com)
• Women to Watch in London 2012: Nur Suryani Mohamed Taibi (persephonemagazine.com)

African Union chooses first female leader

Southern African Development Community headquarters building in Gaborone, Botswana. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

News for Monday 16th July was taken from The Guardian

A South African politician has become the first female leader of theAfrican Union (AU), ending months of bitter deadlock at the continental body.

Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, South Africa‘s home affairs minister, was elected chair of the African Union Commission on Sunday at a summit of heads of state and government in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

Cheering broke out at the AU’s headquarters as supporters of Dlamini-Zuma, 63, celebrated her victory over the incumbent Jean Ping ofGabon.

“We made it!” a grinning Zimbabwean delegate shouted, reflecting the strong support Dlamini-Zuma’s candidacy received from fellow members of the Southern African Development Community.

The South African president, Jacob Zuma, former husband of the winning candidate, emerged from the conference hall where the voting had taken place to announce that “Africa is happy!” Her victory would empower women, he added.

Dlamini-Zuma is the first woman to lead the continent since the Organisation of African Unity, later the AU, was founded in 1963. She is also the first from southern Africa. She faces the challenge of revitalising a body often criticised for its slow and ineffective response to crises such as those in Ivory Coast and Libya last year.

Dlamini-Zuma’s victory was far from certain. She had stood against Ping in elections in January, which ended in a stalemate that extended Ping’s term in office by a further six months until a fresh ballot could be held.

In this first contest, neither candidate managed to secure the two-thirds majority needed for an outright win but Ping garnered slightly more support than his opponent.

Many observers felt it would be difficult for Dlamini-Zuma to overcome thewidespread discontent with South Africa for breaking the unwritten convention that the five largest contributors to the AU budget – Nigeria, Egypt, Libya, Algeria and South Africa – should not contest the commission’s highest office.

Both Nigeria and Egypt, whose strategic interests would not have been served by a South African victory, were strongly in the Ping camp. There are concerns that South Africa, the continent’s biggest economy, will use its position as AU chair to further its efforts to secure a permanent African seat on an expanded UN security council.

There had also been widespread scepticism in the South African press, which branded the country’s campaign “quixotic”.

But hard lobbying from the South African government and its regional partners turned the tide for Dlamini-Zuma. The campaign became personal towards the end of the contest with tempers flaring on both sides. Ping made an angry riposte to allegations in the South African press regarding his candidacy and campaign financing last week that lost him critical support.

His chances of victory were further undermined by the absence of two of his key champions – the continued threat of attack from Islamist militants kept the Nigerian president, Goodluck Jonathan, at home, while Meles Zenawi, Ethiopia’s prime minister and the summit’s host, has yet to make an appearance at the meeting and is rumoured to be seriously ill and receiving treatment in Europe.

As in January, the election went the distance. In the first round, Dlamini-Zuma had a narrow advantage, beating Ping by 27 votes to 24. In the second she extended her lead, gaining two more votes. By the third she was just one vote short of the 34 needed to secure a two-thirds majority. She contested the fourth and final round alone and managed to succeed where Ping had failed, winning support from 37 out of the 51 eligible member states.

Yoweri Museveni, president of Uganda, welcomed the result, believing Dlamini-Zuma will be a strong advocate for the continent. “We are used to diplomats and bureaucrats,” he said. “Her background as a freedom fighter, this is value addition.”

He felt that the rifts exposed by the election had been healed “because we agreed” on Dlamini-Zuma.

Zuma concurred. “I think the AU has done the right thing,” he said. “Southern Africa is happy but the whole of Africa is happy.” The appointment of Zuma’s ex-wife removes her as a potential focal point for opposition to his candidacy before elections in South Africa in 2014.

Before the vote rumours spread of a compromise third candidate. Mohammed Ibn Chambas, a former president of the west African regional block Ecowas, and Joaquim Chissamo, the ex-president of Mozambique, were among those named.

Erastus Mwencha, a Kenyan, the vice-chairman of the AU commission, was re-elected to serve a second term. His support was almost unanimous, with 50 out of a possible 51 votes, and his victory breaks another unwritten convention that dictates that the chair and vice-chair are held by one francophone and one anglophone country. At a press conference before the election, Dlamini-Zuma said that if appointed chair she would assess “what is not working well and what can be strengthened”.

Related articles

• African Union chooses first female leader (guardian.co.uk)
• Dlamini-Zuma’s election elates Zambia (times.co.zm)
• South Africa’s Dlamini-Zuma Elected AU Commission Chairperson (voanews.com)
• South African elected first woman for top AU job (capitalfm.co.ke)

Girl Guides Australia drops oath of allegiance to Queen

Girl Guides Australia (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

News for Friday 6th July was taken from BBC News

Girl Guides in Australia will no longer have to pledge allegiance to the Queen and God and will instead promise to serve the community and Australia.

They will also pledge “to be true to myself and develop my beliefs”.

Leaders said the move, which follows a two-year survey of members, was designed to make Guiding more modern and relevant and boost membership.

Scouts Australia, which lets members pledge to do their duty to the Queen, says it has no plans to follow suit.

‘Long process’

Under the changes, unveiled this week, Girl Guides in Australia will continue to wear sashes with badges, but pledges of duty to God, the monarch and obedience have been dropped.

The updated pledge reads: “I promise that I will do my best; to be true to myself and develop my beliefs; to serve my community and Australia, and live by the Guide Law.”

Girl Guides Australia director Belinda Allen said the consultation had been “a long process” and that the decision to change the wording of the promise had not been taken lightly.

“The actual fundamental values and principles of our promise have not changed it is just the way we express them that has changed,” she said.

“Our community comes from about 200 different countries.

“We need to be able to reflect our community and have wording in our promise that’s meaningful and relevant to the girls of Australia in the 21st Century.”

But Philip Benwell, national chairman of the Australian Monarchist League, said Girl Guides Australia was wrong to believe it would attract more members by removing any reference to the Queen and God.

“It seems to be an oxymoron that this misguided organisation removes mention of the Queen at a time of her great popularity and when polls are showing an increasing majority of Australians wanting to remain a constitutional monarchy,” he said.

“If the Girl Guides think they will achieve greater numbers by removing the very essence of what they are, then I feel they are sadly mistaken.”

The Girl Guides movement has 10 million members worldwide and involves girls aged between four and 25.

Girl Guiding has existed in Australia for more than a century, and there are currently about 28,000 members in the country.

Related articles

• Australian Guides drop royal oath (bbc.co.uk)
• Girl Guides Australia Promoting Secular Values (martinspribble.com)
• Girl Guides in Australia drop reference to ‘God’ from oath [Culture Wars] (io9.com)

A new type of heroine is hitting our screens – and it’s progress

News for 26 June 2012 has been taken from The Guardian

(Original headline: From Snow White to Brave: the evolution of the Action Princess)

A new type of heroine is hitting our screens. It’s progress, but does a girl always have to be a princess to get the starring role?

When I was a little girl, I used to twirl around and around in my bedroom, stopping only to deflect imaginary bullets with my nonexistent indestructible cuffs. There was never any question about which kind of Underoos I wanted: I was a Wonder Woman girl. What I didn’t know then is that my first role model belonged to a very rare tribe: the princess who is also a bona fide action hero. Or, as I like to call her, the Action Princess. This month, their tiny ranks swell by two big-budget badasses: Snow White (of Snow White and the Huntsman), and Princess Merida (of Brave, which owned the US box office this past weekend).

Entire books have been written about the negative impact of the “princess ideal” on girls and young women. And for good reason: standard princess tropes teach girls that their value is in their beauty and femininity, and that the best thing they could possibly dream of is to be saved by a handsome prince. Dig deeper and the messages get worse: beauty and goodness are always young and almost always white-skinned. Older, “ugly” and/or darker-skinned women – especially ones with power – are out to get you. Queer people don’t exist. Men are sometimes clueless or poorly behaved, but never the enemy.

If you’re pretty and pure enough (and you’re not already a royal yourself), you can marry into the 1%. Which is inherently a good thing, never requiring soul-killing compromises or oppressing anyone else.

So, when a princess comes along with the potential to subvert all that, it’s worth a notice. When two arrive in the same month, it’s downright shocking. I can count only two-and-a-half Action Princesses ever to star in their own big-budget vehicles on US screens: my beloved Diana Prince, 1980s merchandising dream She-Ra, and (though only sort of) Xena: Warrior Princess. (For the record: Xena’s not actually a princess by birth or station. She’s a nasty warlord when we first meet her in the Hercules series, and only gets slapped with the “Princess” title card when she decides to repent for her ways by becoming a do-gooder. Because one thing princesses – even ones who aren’t really princesses – can never do is be bad, at all, in any way.)

How subversive are these new Action Princesses? Well, like Wonder Woman and She-Ra (but unlike more traditional princesses), our two newcomers both star in stories that refuse to make marriage any part of their happy ending. And both have it better than their elders in one key way: we never see their cleavage.

But full-coverage battle armor aside, the rebooted Snow White is hardly a feminist triumph. Even with all the girl-power trappings, it still bristles with nasty princess tropes. Snow White’s inherent “goodness” is completely equated with her “fairness” (of beauty, yes, but also inescapably of skin tone). Her life depends on being kissed by the right guy. And let’s not forget the girl-on-girl virgin/whore gagfest embodied by the Evil Witch Who’s Just Jealous.

Brave fares a lot better, replacing the catfight with a fairly nuanced exploration of the strains that can wear down a mother-daughter relationship as the daughter comes into her own and rejects her mother’s ambitions for her. The movie also passes the Bechdel test with flying colors, which should be a given for a movie with a female hero, but is more than can be said for Snow White. Also in the plus column: despite my temporary fear that Merida would be called upon to save the day by sewing, she is given ample opportunity to live up to the movie’s title, and she does so with smarts, strength, skill and unwavering gusto.

It’s also more than notable that no one in the entirety of Brave so much as comments on Merida’s looks. Not her suitors or their fathers, not her family, no one. (There is one moment that finds the Queen admiring how suitably princess-like Merida looks in her betrothal outfit, but even that comment is about her living up to the Queen’s standards and not her intrinsic attractiveness or lack thereof.)

What’s truly revolutionary about Merida as an Action Princess is our heroine’s cause: she’s not fighting to avenge anyone’s death, to save a kingdom, or defeat an evil power. She’s fighting for her own freedom, for her bodily autonomy and her happiness. She is her own cause. If there’s any Big Bad in Brave it’s princess-dom itself, with all its patriarchal trappings. And Merida’s not universally “good” either – she’s a stubborn daredevil, sometimes selfish and even spiteful. Hardly surprising for a teenager, but downright subversive for a Disney princess.

The tragedy of Brave, however, is that while it’s clear that our new Snow White is an actioned-up old-school princess, Merida is a princessed-out action hero. Brave producer Katherine Sarafian made no bones about this in a recent interview on NPR, saying: “We tried making her the blacksmith’s daughter and the milkmaid in various things … There’s no stakes in the story for us that way. We wanted to show real stakes in the story where, you know, the peace of the kingdom and the traditions are all at stake.”

Let’s take that in for a minute: the studio whose most iconic heroes include a toy cowboy, a rat, a fish, a boy scout, and a lonely trash compactor (all male-identified, of course), couldn’t figure out how to tell a story about a human girl without making her a princess. That’s the problem in a nutshell: if the sparkling minds at Pixar can’t imagine their way out of the princess paradigm, how can we expect girls to?

The past decade may have seen a welcome increase in on-screen female action heroes, but we’re still far from gender parity in the genre, and even when they’re not princesses, they’re nearly all trained assassins or Chosen Ones. Joseph Campbell wrote indelibly about the power of The Hero with a Thousand Faces – an ur-hero who’s living a mundane life when he’s faced with a challenge through which he can discover his greatness. It’s easy to see why this matters: everyman hero stories teach every boy that he can make himself great through his own actions, regardless of how dull or difficult the lot in life he’s been handed.

Princess stories – even Action Princess stories – inherently fail the Campbell test. That’s why, until we’ve got as many Mulans and (un-whitewashed) Katniss Everdeens as we do Frodos, Batmans, Kung Fu Pandas, Rangos, Shreks, Woodys – I could go on here … to infinity and beyond – even the most liberated of princesses will always be failing girls.

Related articles

• Finally, Some Subversive Action Princesses in New Films: “Snow White” and “Brave” (alternet.org)
• Today’s princesses demand more (toledoblade.com)
• 8 Year Old Girl: What Brave Means to Me (jennifershewmaker.com)
• ‘Brave’s Girl Power Problem: Empowering Girls at the Expense of Boys? (hollywood.com)

Title IX anniversary marked as women qualify for US Olympic athletics team

News for Monday 25th June was taken from The Guardian

Girls taking part in sports at school (Photo credit: dianecordell)

As the second day of the Olympic track and field trials in Eugene,Oregon, loped to a waterlogged conclusion Saturday, two highly anticipated women’s events wrapped their qualifying rounds.

Dawn Harper won in the 100m hurdles, with the perennially popular Lolo Jones squeaking her way to London having taken third. In the women’s 100m dash, Carmelita Jeter handily dominated the field.

The victories these – and so many other – women enjoyed this weekend can be traced in a direct line back to the passage of Title IX.

The 1972 law that is celebrating its 40th birthday this weekend mandated that “no person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance”.

Those 37 words had an incalculable impact on the lives of millions of girls and women. In the year that Title IX was passed, only one in every 27 high school girls participated in an organized sport. That number now stands at one in four.

“It’s easy to take for granted,” Amanda Smock, a professional triple jumper who secured a spot on the Olympic team Saturday, told the Guardian.

“When I was growing up I could jump at every opportunity that I came across. As I learned that the women that came before me didn’t have the same ability, I thought: ‘What the heck was that all about?’ How incredibly grateful I am for those who started to pave the way in women’s sports.”

One of those women is Ellen Schmidt-Devlin, a former University of Oregon runner who competed in the 1980 trials in the 1500m race on this very track in Eugene.

Schmidt-Devlin, who was mentored by the legendary track coach and Nike co-founder Bill Bowerman, is the producer of a new documentary that takes a dramatic look at the history of her alma mater’s women’s track and field teams of 1985 and 2011.

We Grew Wings is a small film that focuses on the women’s early track program at the University of Oregon, a school and region that has become synonymous with the sport. She is quick to credit Title IX with the successes she enjoyed at the school, and subsequently in life.

“We were the first wave,” she said of her trail-blazing classmates.

But looking back, she said she was surprised to learn that the current crop of young female athletes were unaware of the debt they owed to the landmark legislation.

“Men have learned to turn around and help the next generation,” she said. “We thought we made this big difference. But we turned back around and the women today don’t know their history. And they have a lot of the same problems. That surprised us.”

The documentary she produced, made by the Portland filmmakers Erich Lyttle and Sarah Henderson, focuses on two teams that took home national titles against great odds. In 1985, the Oregon women won the NCAA title in outdoor track. In 2011, the team took the NCAA indoor title.

Devlin-Schmidt, the mother of two grown daughters and a son, spent 27 years as a Nike executive after leaving her sport. But it was thanks to track – and thanks to Title IX – that she enjoyed success after school, she said.

“Leaders of teams, they learn leadership, they know teamwork, they know how to speak publicly,” she said. “They’re gaining all this confidence and they take that to the business world, to non-profits – or even raising families.”

Related articles

• Title IX anniversary marked as women qualify for US Olympic athletics team (guardian.co.uk)
• Title IX Is All About “Hope” (arizona.sbnation.com)
• Title IX Turns 40, Flaws and All (theroot.com)

Girls working for a better world send strong message to the G20 Summit

News for 20 June has been taken from Women’s News Network.

Currently there are 3.5 billion girls and women in the world. This actually means to global advocates that there are 3.5 billion ways to change the world. The G(irls)20 Summit, in its third session, brought together 22 young women as delegates representing the G20 countries, including the African Union, to discuss issues and solutions for economic growth.

Gathering before the official G20 conference kicked off in Mexico City’s ITAM University (Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México), only weeks ahead of the G20, girl delegates proposed specific actions for world leaders countering the shortage of food supply, the work for women in agriculture and the rising violence that faces girls and women today.

They came to Mexico City to send a strong message to the leaders who have gathered for the G20 Summit in Los Cabos, Mexico, opening a critical debate and dialogue on the influence of girls and women as drivers of economic improvement for their communities and beyond. One of the goals — to deliver a document to influence the international Heads of State at this year’s G20 Summit.

“Too often we see decisive economical opportunities get lost when girls and women are underestimated and undervalued”, says Farah Mohamed, President of the G(irls)20 Summit. “By recognizing the important role that girls and women play in building strong economies and stable communities, the G20 has the opportunity to make strategic investments and make decisions that will allow significant results all over the world”.

During the first phase of the G(irls)20 Summit, the delegates talked leadership, media and public relations and how to become politically engaged. They also learned the value of business planning and storytelling to reach the public. As they attended panels and side-conferences given by top specialists they learned how society is changed by women. And how the impacts facing women cause all of society to change. Two of the key discussions covered: “opportunity gained: investing in women in agriculture” and “opportunity lost as a result of gender based violence”.

The ultimate goal of the G(irls)20 Summit is to present their message to the Mexican government as well as the leaders of the G20.”While women comprise nearly half of the agricultural labour force [globally], their potential remains unleveraged. It has been shown that secure land rights [for women] can increase agricultural production by 60 per cent and income by 150 per cent”, outlines the ‘official communiqué’ from the G(irls) Summit.

It is hoped that all delegates will go back to their communities and put their new ideas into practice.

“I think the potential for change is enormous, in terms of bringing together fresh ideas”, said Jeni Klugman, Director of Gender and Development at the World Bank Group, recently to WNN. “The group of girls itself has a lot of credibility because of its diversity and their caliber -they’re very impressive and thoughtful- and by connecting them, by giving them a sense of possibilities, the potential for making significant difference in their lives, and them in turn making significant change in the lives of others, is quite high”.

Delegates for the G(irls)20 Summit have been chosen because of their ‘strong’ will to bring about innovative solutions to problems they see affecting their countries and the world. Magdaly Santillanez, a delegate from Mexico and a high-school student from the state of Sinaloa, currently working on issues of global poverty by applying scientific research to help pilot a new and innovative program for global microfinance.

“…today I write about what we perfectly know: the humankind and our actions to take care of our home, the Earth, where more than seven billion of us live and out of those seven billion, 3.5 billion are girls and women”, Santillanez shared in her recent blog release made to The Huffington Post.

By putting the data in place, Santillanez wants to understand how microcredits and business training together is useful to improve the economic and social situation for those suffering under highest degree of global poverty.

“We must not think that this event is feminist or for women only”, Santillanez emphasized recently in an interview with WNN. “We are half of the world’s population and by empowering a girl or a woman you will improve not only her life, but her family’s and all the people around her as well”, she added.

This same idea resonated among many keynote speakers during the G(irls) Summit. “Men are [also] part of the solution and they’re benefited from whatever we do for women”, said Isatou Jallow, Chief of Women, Children and Gender Policy for the United Nations World Food Programme.

Delivering a ‘heartfelt’ speech during the G(irls)20 Summit outlining the role men can take in preventing violence against women, Jimmie Briggs, former journalist and founder of the Man Up Campaign, recalled having what he calls a, “life-changing moment”. When he met a woman in the Congo region of Africa who confessed to him her tragic story his life changed immediately.

She told Briggs she was gang-raped by the militia during the conflict in Congo, and saw her children and father killed in front of her. The shock of making such close contact with a woman who’s traumatic experience under conflict was so overwhelming to Briggs, caused him to discontinue his work as a journalist. Deciding to start instead the Man Up Campaign, Briggs now aims to activate global youth to stop all violence against women and girls worldwide.

“Women’s rights are human rights”, he declared to all those attending the Mexico City based G(girls) ‘pre-summit’ to the G20 Summit meetings in Los Cabos. Describing itself as a “bold initiative and the first of its kind in that it is both youth led and informed,” the Man Up Campaign is changing lives, both men and women’s lives.

But how can women gain strength in the public sector? And how can this strength improve our world?

Securing women’s access to safety, nutrition and a job with equality standards, opportunities and access to education can make positive impacts on economic growth and social development, outlined the conference. This is an effort that has to be made by all the sectors of society though the conference stressed. It’s essential that the government as well as the private sector and civil society jumps in, stressed the G(irls) Summit.

As Jeni Klugman reminded, there has been progress. According to World Bank 2012 data on gender equality and development, gender gaps in primary education have lowered in almost all countries. Women are also more than half the world’s university students. Over half a billion women have also joined the work force over the last 30 years.

However other gaps persist in many areas reveals the girls summit. Women still have unequal access to education. They also face death more often because of their gender. through gender selective abortion; in early childhood as the ‘less valued girl-child’; and in their reproductive years as they face the ‘real’ dangers of maternal mortality.

“We live in a globalised world where a significant event occurring today in a given place has direct and immediate consequences in the rest of the world”, says Mexico’s Minister of Foreign Relations and G20 Ambassador Patricia Espinosa.

“Undoubtedly, we must either accept our shared future, or we will have none”, she continued.

Unequal access to economic opportunities can greatly limit a woman’s power as decision makers in their own households, as well as their own society. Although general household financial wealth has gone up 5.14 percent in Mexico since 2004, according to the Paris based OECD - Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, that works to help governments work together to solve problems that face women everywhere, “Women are still less likely than men to participate in the labour market”, outlines the OECD.

Jeni Klugman, from the World Bank, explains the issues of women and inequality more closely. “They’re a real drag on development, that’s why last year over 25 billion dollars were invested in gender-informed projects”, she said. One of the programs funded by the World Bank in Mexico is the GEM – Gender Equity Model, run by the National Institute for Women.

“Mexico has made substantial progress in recent years in reducing gender gaps in education, reducing the maternal
mortality rate, and increasing women’s participation in the labor force. Yet much remains to be done.Women in Mexico still represent only 35% of the labor force”, says a 2010 outline of the GEM program.

Working to bring equal opportunities for men and women to the table throughout the region, 300 Mexican organizations have already been certified as ‘gender equitable’.

According to their report: “Participating firms have eliminated pregnancy discrimination from recruitment practices, communication has improved, and 90% of participating organizations reported that workers’ performance and productivity have increased”.

Other sources are saying that women are seeing improvements in regions including Mexico. “Mexico continues to climb the rankings, gaining two positions this year because of an improvement in the wage gap”, says an October 2011 report by UNESCO.

“Things can change”, Klugman outlines. “Not by itself but with the work of civil society, political will and domestic policy and the private sector”.

Some of the most inspiring advice for the G(irls)20 Summit came from women in the private sector only days before the G20 Summit. The last panel,  called “Women in Mexico”, stressed “never giving up and being fearless”. The G20 ‘pre-summit’ was left with a simple idea: “If you don’t try, you have already failed”, reminded Nicole Reich from Scotiabank Mexico.

Related articles

• Farah Mohamed: The G(irls)20 Summit Meets the G20 Summit, Once Again (ismailimail.wordpress.com)
• G(irls)20 Summit 2012 (savethechildren.typepad.com)
• World Leaders Gather in Mexico for G20 Summit – Voice of America (voanews.com)
• G(irls)20 Summit: 3.5 Billion Ways to Change the World (thenextwomen.com)
• G20 summit: leaders pledge to increase efforts to revive growth and employment (telegraph.co.uk)
• Miliband: G20 summit made ‘no progress’ (itv.com)