Mastrogiacomo freed at too high a price

Italian opposition MPs have criticised the government for arranging with the Afghan government to free five Taliban prisoners in exchange for an Italian journalist who was kidnapped in southern Afghanistan on March 5, as reported on the FT.
When I first heard about Daniele Mastrogiacomo, I thought of the destiny of many journalists and even tourists who are abducted by terrorists across the globe. I therefore added the appeal to my blog. I'm glad he's free, however, I find difficult to justify this 'trading' of captured terrorists for his release. I'm also appalled that the Italian Left (Government and press) has hardly spared any thoughts for the 'driver', Sayed Agha, who was beheaded by the Talibans. They are 'celebrating' Mastrogiacomo's release. However, his freedom has cost Italy dearly. Will Italian tourists be kidnapped knowing that the government will give in to terrorists? Mastrogiacomo was in Afghanistan looking for an interview with a Taliban. He should have known about the risks. Should the government be responsible for someone who puts his life at risk so willingly? I do not think so.

Mastrogiacomo

Fighting honourably

An article on today's Guardian by Dr Victoria Basham highlights the problems with "the all-too-familiar tale that the presence of women in the military causes boys to be boys". Following an article reporting of the court case where a service man was convicted of the rape of a female colleague, Basham criticises the reporting slant, which "reinforces the notion that problems with servicemen are an outcome of allowing women to serve in the armed forces". Quite. This is a timely reminder that we have stopped scrutinising society's misogynistic assumptions. In the belief that equality has been achieved, we often forget about our psychologies, which evolve over longer stretches of time than those required to change the law.
However, it leaves untouched the problem of our 'psychologies at war'. I believe there is a strong link between sex and aggression. In conflict situations, soldiers have always sexualised violence which was perpetrated on men and women alike. The enemy becomes the Other, the (sex) object, onto which one projects one's misogynistic fantasies. The rape of Nanking is but one such example. Do men engage in war in a different way from women? Is there such a thing as a 'positive' aggression or is it necessarily fed by prejudice and hatred? War is changing as combatants engage less and less in physical combat and 90% of victims are civilians. What are the consequences on our service men and women? I cannot help but think that violence is always destructive and affects one’s psychology deeply. Can one really fight honourably?
I believe it is possible to channel aggression positively (although I'm not a psychologist so I have no idea how), just as I believe that sex needs to be dissociated from violence. Somehow, I don't think I'll see the end of violence though!

Artificial Equality

As reported in Reuters, the government aims to give students from poorer backgrounds more chance of entering university, by letting admissions officers see family occupations and whether their parents have a degree themselves.
And once they know that the parents have degrees, what happens? Do applicants whose parents have no degrees get points? The government’s initiative aims to widen the social mix in universities, presently skewed heavily towards middle class students. Presumably ‘widening participation’ means that Universities will give precedence to candidates from ‘disadvantaged backgrounds’.
I wholly agree that selection should not be solely based on candidate’s performance at A-levels. There is a need for a more complete picture in order to assess one’s attitude and abilities. I think there should be exams and interviews, and maybe CVs.
There are people who have had fewer opportunities than others, whose social background has affected one’s learning. There are those who have suffered from a mental or physical illness and so on. There is also discrimination within the educational system. However, these are separate issues that should be tackled separately instead of being labelled ‘disadvantage’ or made to fall under an equality strand. I’m not convinced that one’s intellectual abilities are seriously jeopardised by one’s social-economic background, unlike learning. Social background affects one’s opportunities to learn and acquire knowledge. People whose parents speak various languages are more likely to speak more than one language. In my childhood, I was traumatised when taught maths, so I don’t ‘do’ maths, however I can still understand the concepts and I have a strange liking for local government finance. 'Social determinism' is just as flawed as 'biological/genetic determinism'.

This initiative is an example of the essentialisation of ‘disadvantage’. It also means that ethnicity or some parents’ occupations end up being considered a disadvantage.
A parallel issue is the low number of women MPs, which is a real concern, however the reasons behind this are discrimination, the lack of support women receive and the prejudices they endure within their party. I’d like to see a political party offer training on gender equality (to men in particular) rather than patronise the women with segregated training on how to campaign. I’d like to see a more open and inclusive mentality within political parties.
Instead of labelling people, the Government should have the guts to tackle discrimination, poverty, the widening gap between rich and poor with an adequate politics of redistribution and civic education (including gender, racial stereotypes etc.).
The ‘equality strands’ agenda paints a simplistic picture of people’s diversity. It essentialises strands leaving no room for complexity, for different interpretation, for overlapping identities. It divides society into groups competing for the same resources instead of creating a society where the common good is paramount and to which each one of us has the duty to contribute.

Mastrogiacomo

According to the International News Safety Institute:

One thousand news media personnel around the world have been killed trying to report the news over the past 10 years - that's almost two deaths every week, according to a new report released today (Tuesday, March 6 2007).

Daniele Mastrogiacomo, a journalist from the Italian newpaper La Repubblica, was kidnapped in Afghanistan. Over 65,000 people have signed an appeal in support of his release.

Alliance gains extra seat

Well done to the Alliance Party in Northern Ireland (the sister party of the Liberal Democrats) for gaining an extra seat!

Babies do better with fathers

Err... Told you so!

Acoording to a report by the Equal Opportunities Commission reported today in the Guardian:

Children are more likely to suffer development problems if their fathers do not take paternity leave or spend enough time with them when they are very young, according to an analysis of thousands of babies born around the turn of the millennium.
...

Children are more likely to suffer development problems if their fathers do not take paternity leave or spend enough time with them when they are very young, according to an analysis of thousands of babies born around the turn of the millennium.
A report published today by the Equal Opportunities Commission and based on research tracking 19,000 children born in 2000 and 2001 found emotional and behavioural problems were more common by the time youngsters reached the age of three if their fathers had not taken time off work when they were born, or had not used flexible working to have a more positive role in their upbringing.

Previous research has highlighted the importance of a mother's involvement when a child is small, but the EOC says this is the first study to confirm that the close involvement of a father also has a significant impact on a child's future.

However, it also warns that British families face an income divide, with poorer families less able to afford the time away from work and the access to good quality childcare that will benefit their children.

The findings come as the issue of parenting, and fatherhood in particular, has shifted decisively from the private sphere to the political agenda, with Conservative leader, David Cameron, stressing the need to support families and proposing tax incentives to boost marriage. Meanwhile the chancellor, Gordon Brown, will tomorrow discuss children and parenting with a group of 70 parents at an event hosted by the EOC and the Fawcett Society.

The EOC research, The State of the Modern Family, shows how the once standard model of homemaker mother and breadwinner father is firmly in retreat. By the time children reach the age of three, just 29% of families tracked in the Millennium Cohort Study featured a working father and stay-at-home mother.

The most common pattern now, at 35% of families, is a full-time working father and part-time working mother, while in 11% of families both parents are in full-time work.

The analysis finds no evidence that mothers' employment influences the extent of development problems in three-year-old children - in contrast to research published in 2005 by the childcare expert Penelope Leach which suggested young children looked after by their mothers did better than those cared for in nurseries or by relatives.

Indeed, it suggests that children who, at nine to 10 months, received formal childcare while their mothers worked had a lower likelihood of development problems at age three than those who were cared for by a parent or in other informal childcare such as by grandparents.

For fathers, though, early involvement is linked to positive development once a child is three. The EOC points to a "social revolution in fatherhood", in which fathers are increasingly involved with their children's upbringing and feel confident as carers, yet 63% felt they did not spend enough time with their new baby.

Flexible working, my dear, flexible working!

(for articles where 'I told you so' click on feminism or economy)

The reluctant feminist

So what's feminism all about? God knows! There are various types but I can't see feminism being prominent, in fact I believe there's been a backlash which has not brought about a new direction, only negative reactions, especially from women wanting to be 'women', which for them equates to making babies and baking. Am I being dismissive? I hope so!
I don't generally call myself a feminist and when I do I feel no pride, no self-confidence, rather a melancholic and powerless feeling. I call myself a feminist when I hear people talking about the essential differences between men and women, the ‘natural’, biological or genetic characteristics of male and female. Most of these differences are in their heads and that’s the problem. Joe’s post on women’s social fear of men is quite insightful. If I were a man I wouldn’t want to be feared, if I were a man I would like to be with a human being, equal to me, not a ‘woman’ identified with a set of ‘natural’ characteristics. I often hear men saying that they cannot understand how some men can ‘hate’ women and that they ‘love’ women. That’s the perfect example of misogyny. It starts by categorising a gender and objectifying it. You stop being a human being and become a woman, whose essence has been shaped and decided by a male society (and a male society’s interpretation of genes). The problem is that misogyny has been around for a very long time and we have internalised it. It is not just hatred and often it’s expressed in its ‘benign’ form such as stereotypes that, however, ‘disable’ women. Men are still the ‘I’, the ‘Self’ and women the ‘Other’, the ‘Second Sex’.
Women’s bodies still belong to society: from what they should wear, how they should look, how they should give birth (regardless of the woman’s choice or safety), how many months they should breastfeed etc. We live in a society that has a seriously unhealthy relationship with the body, where being ‘fat’ (or not skinny) is the ultimate sin. And the body is still primarily that of women.
Nevertheless, feminism for me is partnership. It’s about recognising men and women as human beings and going beyond societal structures and ideology. It’s about going beyond our fears and desires, it’s about belonging to the same oneness.