Pregnant and Headless

Or: Pregnant, Headless, Thin, White and Definitely Middle Class. 
Or: (In the language of Stockphotoland) “Headless Person Holding On to Exposed Pregnant Belly While Wearing Tight Top.” 
Or: In which I investigate the rise of stock photography in online "news" and the made-for-marketing "society" it reflects. 
Or: How Click-Bait Narrows Our Horizons 
Or: My Adventures in Stockphotoland

Intro: A Festival of Torsos

I started thinking about stock photography representations in online news, and of women in particular, a couple of years ago after noticing how many articles about reproductive health issues on the two main commercial news web sites (nzherald.co.nz, owned by APN and stuff.co.nz, owned by Fairfax) were illustrated by stock images of very pregnant torsos – whether those torsos were relevant to the article or not. Some weeks, it seems like there was a pregnant-torso-worthy story almost every day. Here's a selection:

Feminist Event: Ladies in the House - Tues night, Wellington

Poster for Ladies in the House, black text
on grey background

Many thanks to Coley for sending this through.

What:  Ladies in the House - electoral forum on women's issues

When:  Tuesday 8th November, 6pm - 7.30pm for forum, nibbles and mingles after that

Where:  Level 1, mezzanine floor, Wellington Central Library

Message from the organisers (Wellington Young Feminists' Collective):
Come and hear what your candidates are planning to do for local women and ask them the questions that matter... like why there only two female Wellington Central candidates. Or why abortion is still in the Crimes Act. Or why after the 2008 election only 27% of electorate MPs were women.

Women’s issues are everyone’s issues. Let's make them election issues.

Featuring:

• Paul Foster-Bell (National Party Candidate for Wellington Central)
• Jordan Carter (Labour Party List Candidate)
• Stephen Whittington (ACT Party Candidate for Wellington Central)
• Holly Walker (Green Party Candidate for Hutt South)
• Jan Logie (Green Party Candidate for Mana)
• Brent Pierson (NZ First Candidate for Rongotai)
• Marise Bishop (NZ First Director, Chairperson for Mana Electorate)

Chaired by the amazing Bryony Skillington

Free entry, koha welcome for light refreshments.

Followed by drinks at 3C on Chews Lane.

All welcome!

Facebook event

I understand there may also be a live tweetstream?  Look for #ladiesinthehouse on Tuesday night (or even before, I've seen a few gems floating around with that attached).

Your morality is in the way of my rights.

One of the key arguments that are being thrown at me about abortion is that it "isn’t just about me".

No, it isn’t. However I cannot think of anyone other than me who should have the decision making ability in this situation. The choice to carry, birth and raise an entire human IS MY CHOICE and it should not be illegal, or unsafe to terminate, if I should choose to, just because YOU don’t like it.








I'm well aware that some of these comparisons will piss people from both sides of the debate off. It is meant to make you think.

Let it.

***


This is part of a week of Pro-Choice Postings hosted here at The Hand Mirror starting on Friday 28th October 2011.  For an index of all the posts, being updated as they go up, please check the Pro-Choice Postings index.  And if you'd like to submit a post for cross-posting, guest posting or linking to please email thehandmirror@gmail.com. 

the right to be me, the right to be free

this is a post of links to stuff by awesome women of colour. the first is a clip by rangimarie turuki rose peri, who speaks about being yourself & celebrating yourself. i particularly love the bit where she says:

in my world i'm perfect, i'm beautiful. so beautiful that all waters want to reflect my image.

wouldn't be so absolutely wonderful if we could all feel that way about ourselves all the time? there's absolutely no reason we shouldn't except for the constant messages around trying to convince us that we're lacking in some way. anyway, here's the whole clip, entitled "the right to be me":



second is a piece by diana abu-jaber, in response to author v s naipaul's comment "I read a piece of writing and within a paragraph or two I know whether it is by a woman or not. I think [it is] unequal to me." the response is pretty powerful & here's an excerpt:

But what worries me more is your comment that that women write with "sentimentality, the narrow view of the world," because, "inevitably for a woman, she is not a complete master of a house, so that comes over in her writing too."

Your use of the word "master," is chilling. My father's family is from a part of the world that has been colonized and conquered many times over. For many Jordanians, education and literacy has come in the form of British schools and the English language: but can anyone claim that the colonized subject is the master of his or her own home?

My Palestinian grandmother, who was most decidedly the master of her house, amassed a great library: She collected books, some written in Arabic, many in English. But she told me that one of the best authors she knew of was a poet, a Bedouin woman named Hanan.

Hanan recited her poetry: she didn't know how to read and write, but she knew how to observe, detail and describe her experience. She knew how to feel deeply and then how to convey those feelings so they kindled within the minds of the listeners.

Perhaps, Naipaul, that is what you mean when you said women write with "sentimentality." Though it seems to me that this kind of sentiment would not be such a terrible thing.

and finally, i just love this image from the facebook page supporting manal alsharif (the saudi woman who was jailed for almost two weeks for the act of filming herself driving & putting the clip up on you-tube):


the image has the tagline "“The secret of happiness is freedom. The secret of freedom is courage.” certainly plenty of courage being shown in this fight, and across the arab world as people continue to die for the right to be free.

The invisibility of rape in war

Trigger Warning for this post for rape & violence.

I found the three paragraphs below absolutely chilling when I read them last week.  So much is left unsaid, and yet to me the implications are clear.

Excerpt from Ask That Mountain:  The story of Parihaka, by Dick Scott - first published 1975, this is from the 2006 reprint:

The night raids were stepped up to find which houses to destroy and the women were frequently victims of drunken and diseased troopers.  Once the officers got their wires crossed and a unit raided where it was not expected.  The sequel, as the Auckland Herald delicately reported, was the discovery of 'a gentleman who has taken a very prominent part in the recent proceedings under circumstances that recall the earnest terms in which the West Coast Commission deplore the existence of semi-connubial relations between officials and natives.'

The reality behind the indulgent amusement was that syphilis was brought into the town once given a clean bill of health by Taranaki's medical officer, Dr. O'Carroll, and congenital cases, a direct result of the invasion, were reported through the province for years aftewarrds.*

*  Dr EP Ellison, of Manaia, told the writer:  'There was looting and debauchery.  Perhaps I speak too strongly but the truth must be told.  In my work as a young man I saw cases of congenital syphilis in Taranaki that were the result of the occupation of Parihaka.' Not all excesses were condoned.  At one stage of the Taranaki campaign some of the armed constabulary were court-martialled for copulating with dogs...

Even in 1975, and in more recent reprints, it seems that it was not acceptable to call terrible things by their true names.  This was rape.  It was repeated rape, systematic and used to demoralise and exercise power in a shameful exhibition of a piece with the unfair confiscation of the land.  There is mention of the syphilis that affected the population of Parihaka after these rapes, but no mention of the other effects that violence would have had - not only the physical and mental impact but also no doubt pregnancies and possibly children who resulted from these "semi-connubial" encounters, and then the potential shattering of adult relationships too.  Does the "semi" indicate the only the men consented?  

One of the things I find true about the way that George RR Martin portrays war in his A Song Of Ice And Fire series is how he doesn't make rape invisible.  He doesn't make it prurient either, or paint it as titillating - it is more told than shown, if that makes sense - but he acknowledges it as another form of the violence of war.

It's only by naming it, by acknowledging it, that we can fully recognise that rape is there, it is real, and it must be stopped. 

marie curie lecture series

thanx to stef for alerting us to the marie curie lecture series. from the blurb on their website:

Female Chemists from New Zealand reflect on how chemistry improves our lives and society

The Marie Curie Lecture Series is a year- long national tour of talks by female New Zealand chemists in honour of Curie’s Nobel Prize in Chemistry for her ground-breaking studies in radium and polonium.

looks like a fantastic line-up of women who will be speaking, as well as good geographical coverage around the country. the first one is in wellington at 6pm on 24 february, at te papa's marae. professor margaret brimble speaks on the followin topic:

The intricate chemistry of nature has evolved over millions of years and we are in the exciting position to be able to recreate and craft the compounds that already exist in the world, in the laboratory.

This lecture explores such possibilities and how we can best use these discoveries to create new medicines. It will showcase how natural products derived from microorganisms that live in extreme environments, and natural products produced by algal blooms, can be harnessed to develop novel anticancer, antibacterial and antiviral drugs and drugs to treat neurodegenerative diseases.

hope our wellington readers will try to get along.

Interesting cinema in the NZ International Film Festival

Or the Fillum Festival as Kim Hill would say.

Docos on women's issues:

• Love, Lust and Lies
• Salam Rugby
• His and Hers

Movies on women's stuff:

• Scheherazade, Tell Me a Story (I really want to see this!)
• Women Without Men

And heaps of other films made by women film-makers, including these ones made by/about New Zealanders:

• After the Waterfall
• Asylum Pieces
• From Poverty Bay to Broadway
• Gordon Crook
• The Free China Junk
• The Rainbow Warriors of Waiheke Island
• There Once Was An Island: Te Henua e Noho (produced by a friend of mine, I really want to see this too)

The NZFFl starts in Auckland on July 8th, and then travels around the country until late November. You can find out more at their website.

International Women's Day round-up

Happy International Women's Day!

Reminder links to events we've listed so far here and here.

Posts I've found so far, feel free to share links in comments, new content is italicised at the start:

• Red Rose Sisters shares pics of their Dunedin IWD Picnic over the weekend
• The Chch City Libraries blog asks if International Women's Day is a time to pause and reflect?
• Luddite Journo has written a blog post for the Reuters Great Debate series for IWD, hat tipped to here.
• Ele has her 8th March in history, including IWD and also, fun fact, the first broadcast of H2G2 on the radio.
• Jan Logie asks if this is a day to celebrate?
• Catherine Delahunty suggests the Minister look close to home for women's issues to address.
• The Standard blogs the NZCTU release (see below) which will no doubt create some discussion.
• PC seems to think IWD is about noticing women's bodies.
• Azlemed says thanks.
• meganwegan shares the first in a series of her Nana's speeches.

Here's a whole heap of media releases found on Scoop, again new content is italicised at the start:

• Helen Clark's IWD speech
• Labour calls Minister of Women's Affairs Pansy Wong's approach an embarrassment.
• The NZ Council of Trade Unions calls on Wong to deliver for women
• Two releases from the UN - one on role models, the other on peace
• The Coalition for the International Criminal Court seeks protection for women
• The Asian Human Rights Commission points out Pakistan has the worst gender-based disparities.
• National Council of Women asks NZers to reflect on the contribution of women.
• The National Collective of Independent Women's Refuges considers this a day for evaluation.
• The Minister of Women's Affairs announces that there is a graduate gender pay gap and the Ministry intends to do a longtitudinal study soon. (No explicit mention of IWD, but I'll give her the benefit of the doubt)
• NZUSA says women students demand action on the issue of pay equity.
  

Media coverage:

• Stuff - 'Significant' gender income gap found in study

That'll probably be the last update, unless there's some media coverage of events from today in the morning. Do let me know in comments if I've missed something.

Stinky stinky stinky

Melissa at Shakesville is one of many US feminist bloggers writing about the fish hooks for women in the Really Big Deal Healthcare Reform going on in Obamaland at the moment. She puts it like this:

Five years ago, progressive feminists were cast as hysterics for shouting that conceding ground on choice, that not requiring a strong pro-choice position among the party's elected ranks (no less the party's leadership), would eventually lead to compromises that even classic Democrats could not abide. And here we are.

And all I can do is watch in horror as the party tears itself in half because it prioritized winning over undiluted support for equality.

Depressing it certainly is. Because included in the package is what's being called the Stupak Amendment:

The amendment will prohibit federal funds for abortion services in the public option. It also prohibits individuals who receive affordability credits from purchasing a plan that provides elective abortions. However, it allows individuals, both who receive affordability credits and who do not, to separately purchase with their own funds plans that cover elective abortions. It also clarifies that private plans may still offer elective abortions.

Ann at Feministing points out that this fatally compromises the Great Victory of so-called comprehensive health care in the USA for the first time in history:

This isn't just about how the money is allocated or what workarounds exist. This has me so incredibly infuriated because it further segregates abortion as something different, off the menu of regular health care. It is a huge backward step in the battle to convey -- not just politically, but to women in their everyday lives -- that reproductive health care is normal and necessary, and must be there if (or, more accurately, when) you need it.

How can it be truly comprehensive health care if it so severely restricts women's choices about their own bodies? NOW sums up the impact succintly.

Feels like one step forward and two steps backwards tonight.

Quick hit: McLeod on the status of women

From Stuff today:

It never pays to be smug about the status of women, and to imagine that everywhere in the world they enjoy, as we do here, ceaseless admiration and awe. Such may not be the case.

There are countries where women are treated quite differently, as reports of the past week testify; countries where women's natural superiority has yet to be generally acknowledged, and where men still call the shots.

In these countries women still do the housework, bear the children, look after the old, rear the young, plant and harvest the crops, milk the cows, cook the dinner, help the kids with homework, nurse the sick, do the household washing and ironing, and provide erotic entertainment after lights out.

Luckily they have men to do the difficult work more suited to their gender, like enforcing religious observance and traditional customs, swanning about, and general supervising. Come to think of it, this has a familiar resonance.

Click through for the whole article.

McLeod has some disturbing examples, such as floggings for extramarital sex and man-consecrated communion. Go have a looksie.

fighting against silence

sophie foster, the associate editor of the fiji times, gave a speech recently at the fiji women's rights movement's "emerging leaders forum" graduation ceremomy. i thought i'd share some excerpts here:


There is no doubt that the media industry is facing a tremendous challenge trying to defend the right of people to freedom of expression....

It’s of vital importance that the truth be known, that the truth be reported widely and that there be free discussion around matters of community or national interest....

But it takes courage to be able to look real issues in the eye. It takes courage to be able to sustain threats, bullying, intimidation, and even firebombing.

So why do we do the job we do? Why do journalists continue to turn up to work every day? Why continue to report on stories as they always did – even if it means the stories could be crossed off with a cheap black pen every night? It’s because we cannot and must not stand silently or idly by. Our duty is to continue to uphold the right to freedom of expression, to gather a variety of views, to provide our people with information with which they can make informed choices.

And that’s where the good news comes in…

Across the world, women have over the decades developed very personal knowledge of the challenges that face us today… the culture of silence, the lack of a voice. And yet despite these challenges women continue to celebrate small victories every day. You may not know it, but the core of our news team – the reporters who go out every day and seek out the truth – are mostly women, and young women at that. We have seen these young women tackle issues that directly affect our readers with tenacity, courage and compassion....

In the words of one prominent female academic: “Are women better leaders than men? Not necessarily. Nor are men necessarily better leaders than women. But in many ways women bring experiences and capabilities that are unlike men when solving tough problems. And considering our current state, we could stand an infusion of this type of leader.”

It was Albert Einstein who said “Insanity consists of doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting different results.” Unless a wider set of views, opinions and approaches are taken into account, unless more young women are mentored into leadership, we may find that our future cannot be any different to what has always been.

hat tip to karlo mila-schaaf who posted this on the aotearoa ethnic network.

congratulations helen

i've just watched a replay of the parliamentary session recognising rt hon helen clark's appointment as head of the UNDP. it was an absolutely special session, one of the rare instances when there was harmony and nice words spoken across the board.

it was wonderful to see miss clark's political adversaries recognise her achievements, strengths and skills. people like rt hon john key, hon tariana turia, hon peter dunne. one of the better speakers was heather roy. it was especially appreciated (at least by me) after her having to endure one of the nastiest periods of sustained personal attack that i've ever seen. she was attacked at a personal level on her marriage, her personal traits, her sex, her sexuality, her childlessness, her voice, her looks, and more. all things that had absolutely no relevance to her ability to do the job.

so i think it was more than appropriate that her contributions to this country were fairly acknowledged and the two standing ovations were more than well-deserved.

Happy International Women's Day!

Here's a few links for you:

• The official International Women's Day 2009 site
• All about International Women's Day on Wikipedia
• A graphic and textual history of International Women's Day (links through to the next page are at the bottom of the page)
• I couldn't find many NZ events, but here's what I did discover.

Bright yellow hard hat tipped to Women in London for some of the links and the pic. (Although it is slightly disturbing that New Zealand falls outside the woman symbol!!11!)

in-laws

i've been hearing some awful stories about mothers-in-law lately. mothers of sons, that would be. no doubt there are plenty of wonderful mothers-in-law out there (of whom i do hear about), and no doubt there are some who are nasty to their daughter's spouses too (who somehow have thus far escaped my notice, but i know you're out there!).

but let me get back to the first category. mothers of sons, who give the wives of their sons all kinds of hell. i'm not talking about violence here (though i'm sure that happens), but more a kind of demanding attitude. it's like no matter how hard you try, no matter what you do, it's never enough for the prince they have given birth to.

some recent examples of expectations:
- "once my son comes home from work, he shouldn't even have to get a glass of water for himself"
- "so what if you're feeling too tired to go out; if he wants you to go, you should go"
- "those chapatis you made 10 minutes ago are stale now, make some fresh ones" (this to a working woman mother who gets no help with the housework)

there's plenty more where that came from. and i just don't get it. how can you stop seeing your daughter-in-law as a human being? how can you not care about her health and well-being, but only care about that of your own offspring? it's just bizarre. the funniest thing (well funny in a tragic sort of way) is that the mothers themselves had usually had horrendous treatment from their own mothers-in-law, and are thus devoid of sympathy. that's right. they think "oh she has it so easy compared to what i had to go through", so try to make it that much tougher.

whatever. there are, of course, daughters-in-law that fight back. which tends (in these cases) to lead to a pissed off husband, as well as the whole rest of his family, and so her life is more difficult rather than less. or she could leave. if she hasn't been conditioned from childhood against leaving and has been brought up to believe this is her cross to bear. she may just not want to break up her family, or she may not feel able to cope with trying to survive on her own. it's just ugly all around.

being a mother of daughters, i can never become this kind of person. though no doubt i could be an awful mother-in-law to the husbands of my girls, should i so choose. hopefully i won't so choose, but if they find misogynist husbands who won't help around the house & with the kids, it'll be very difficult. very difficult indeed!

as i said at the beginning, this post is a result of stories i've been told recently, and i'm wondering why i don't hear so much about awful fathers-in-law. in the situations i've outlined above, the mothers-in-law have either been widowed, or their husbands seem to be very much in the background. maybe fathers-in-law who have a nasty streak save it for their sons-in-law; and since i don't know any guys that would be confiding their family troubles to me, i don't get to hear about it.

but the things i have heard do disturb me, particularly when i see young mothers with shadows under their eyes and with little support. it shouldn't have to be this way.

Christmas musings

I spent the Christmas mornings of my childhood in Mass, somewhat resentfully, bursting to go back home and play with my new toys. At least my siblings and I were allowed to open our presents before we went. You could tell by the ants-in-their-pants behaviour of some children that they had to wait until after church to open theirs. Nowadays, I lure my own kids through the church doors with bribery, sneaking them clandestine chocolates and reading them stories while I assure them that it'll be finished soon.

Since I was a kid, I've been uneasy about the nativity story. Of course, in some ways it's quite lovely. Everyone likes precious new babies, after all. But I always felt that Mary was the true hero of the piece.

Mary is a powerful symbol in the church tradition, representing bravery, compassion, and the beauty of a mother's love for her child. She's also, in my mind at least, a figure representing particularly female kinds of suffering which we're still stuck with two millennia later.

For starters, Mary was fourteen and unwed at the time of Christ's conception, at a time when execution by stoning was the penalty for sex outside marriage. She got married to Joseph - whether she fancied him or not, probably. She was in labour while traveling on a donkey to the strange town of Bethlehem, where she was compelled to go to take part in a census. And there she gave birth, most likely in terror, in a dirty stable and surrounded by animals.

When I ponder the nativity story, I can't help but think of what it must be like to be a pregnant teenager, feeling scared and alone. I think about women in poor countries who give birth without medical help on hand, some of whom die. I can't help but think about women without homes over Christmas, living with their kids in Women's Refuges across the country.

Even though I've spent the last three decades giving the story of the nativity a perverse feminist reading, I can't help but like it. It's a story of suffering, but also a celebration - not just of the birth of a baby, but of the courage under incredible adversity of the woman who brought this baby into the world, and the women who continue to bear and raise children under sometimes terrible conditions. Kia kaha.

women's voices

some good news today: asoka basnayake who produces the "women's voices" programme has won an award at the Annual Micies awards by Planet FM for an election special programme she produced. they station appreciated her initiative of interviewing ethnic candidates from most parties and her show was apprently one of a kind during this election campaign. this is asoka's third award since she started broadcasting

it's great that the programme is now available on line via livestreaming, and there are some archived programmes on the site as well (click on the "support services" tab). it's always great to see ethnic women doing well, and knowing the work asoka puts into this programme, i know the award is very well deserved.

Phil Goff? Can't get excited.

Phil Goff has just been named the successor to Helen Clark, but has also been touted as a kind of antidote to her. To the right of Labour, Goff is also thought likely to be more popular with disgruntled conservative Labour voters than the outgoing PM.

Chris Trotter wrote an interesting piece about the demise of Clark and her government, blaming a 'feral' electorate for dumping her out of small-mindedness (http://www.stuff.co.nz/sundaystartimes/4754666a6005.html). Mostly, Trotter argues, a chunk of the NZ public simply had a problem with Helen's being a woman. I do and don't agree with him. Jenny Shipley wore a lot less misogynist crap than Helen Clark did. I think it was not just Clark's gender which got her offside with some - rather, it was the fact that she was a woman advocating socially progressive politics. Jenny was cut some slack because she was a mum - she fit the expected female career path better than the 'childless lesbo', as Young Nats called Clark - and advocated policies which did not challenge gender or family norms, as civil unions and the repeal of section 59 have done.

Goff appears to offer a return to a less threatening politics. But it's worth asking, if Labour moved to the right under Goff's stewardship and took its focus off socially progressive policy, in what way would it differ from the Nats? This would be curiously like the status quo before the fourth Labour government, when the major parties saw eye-to-eye on certain Keynesian institutions, including the welfare state. The Nats saw it as a safety net, and Labour as a means to redistribute wealth, but in practice, the welfare state stayed much the same under both.

It remains to be seen what form the rest of the backlash against the era of Helen will take. I have a suspicion that we will not see another female leader of either major party for a while. The ladies have had their turn. No one would be boorish enough to disagree that girls can do anything - but we don't want them doing it too often, and certainly not as often as men. So runs the logic of those who point out that we have had a female PM, Governor General and Speaker of the House simultaneously, overlooking the many decades in which all three posts were held simultaneously by men.

By choosing Goff, and somewhat disassociating itself (for now, at least) from Clark's more progressive politics, Labour has taken what will likely be a popular direction in the current climate. However, if Labour chooses not to differentiate itself from the Nats, it won't win the 2011 election - and wouldn't have much to offer if it did.

labour's womens' policy

the labour party women's policy is now up on their website (pdf file here). a couple of the issues have already been dealt with by legislation passed earlier in the year ie the flexible working hours, compulsory rest breaks and space for breastfeeding. but all the rest are still live.

also of interest to me was the family violence policy, which comes under justice rather than women's policy. i really like this proposal, which i've also included on my own blog:

Labour will fund an available and appropriate forensic evidential support service for victims of rape (for example the Sexual Assault Referral Centre model in the United Kingdom or Australia).

The aim of this initiative is to ensure that any evidence gathered by the support service can be stored and the evidence and reports from the service be admissible as evidence in any subsequent criminal or civil proceedings.

Not all victims of violence wish to make a complaint to the police immediately. Having Sexual Assault Referral Centres in place would ensure all victims of violence could easily access a service that can document any injuries and gather forensic evidence to support a prosecution in the future should the victim choose to make a complaint. This allows the evidence to be gathered outside of a police investigation but preserves the integrity of the evidence should it be required later.

one of the main issues we currently have is the lack of consistency in the collection of forensic evidence. having the referral centre means that evidence is collected in a sensitive manner, without the victim having to make a formal complaint.

madam speaker's final speech

i thought this part of hon margaret wilson's valedictory speech might be of interest, particularly as she has been one of the most effective campaigners for women in nz:

I noted in my maiden speech a concern for the rights of women. The struggle for equality has been a main thread throughout my life. It cannot be denied that progress has been made. It also cannot be denied that progress has come with women adapting to the system. There is still no fundamental recognition that equality means equality of difference, not equality for women to be like men. This will be the next major challenge. Can the experience of women be incorporated in such a way that they have real choices which extend beyond survival within a system still controlled by the male experience? A practical example is the way we organise the business of Parliament. We have made progress here by trying to accommodate school holidays and we now at last have a room for breast feeding and a child care centre. All good progress but we have not fundamentally looked at a work/life balance that would benefit both women and men. That is one of those big scary ideas we have yet to have the courage to face.

bird of peace?

after news of a female majority in the rwandan parliament, i thought it might be useful to look at another emerging woman leader. tzipi* livni has become the leader of the kadima party, and has just over a month to form a coalition government in israel.

i'd say that this is one of the more powerful leadership positions in the world, in terms of the impact her decisions will have on the whole region should she become prime minister. ms livni is known as a centrist (although she was involved in substantial privatisation of government organisations when part of a likud-led government), and the kadima party calls itself a centrist party. however, it will be the parties that it will bring into government via coalition arrangements that determine whether the new israeli government will be left, right or centre.

apparently ms livni doesn't identify as a feminist**, but:

... she is on the record saying that "guy issues" undermined Israel's prosecution of the 2006 Lebanon war and, "Not only in the war. In all kinds of discussions, I hear arguments between generals and admirals and such and I say: "Guys, stop it," she told The Times of London last year. This has occasionally earned her contemptuous treatment from the elite male Israeli punditocracy.

yes, the sexist put-downs are as common in israel as they are in every other part of the world:

“Livni proved that she was a good candidate for the chair of women’s organisations, at best,” the columnist Ben Caspit wrote...

but no doubt ms livni has the ability to rise above it. although she has only narrowly won the kadima leadership (by 431 votes or 1.1%, based on an approximately 55% turnout), she has done so on a platform of pushing the peace effort. if she succeeds in putting together a coalition, she will have been one of only three prime ministers in recent times to not have a military background (other than compulsory military service). true she did work for mossad, but apparently at a low-level position, "hired to live in a Paris apartment to maintain the appearance of a regular residential property".

what we know of ms livni is that she supports an israeli-syrian peace agreement (even though the bush and mccain do not) and is not keen on an israeli airstrike on iran. she has beaten shaul mofaz, who opposes both peace with the palestinians and with the syrians.

however, ms livni will have to deal with the extreme right in israel who continue to oppose any kind of concession. settlor groups will resist any dismantling of settlements on the west bank. she will face major obstacles even in trying to stop the new settlements that continue to be built on disputed land. any significant concessions made by her will surely result in bejamin netanyahu becoming prime minister at the next election and what kind of disaster that will be, we can only imagine.

in any case, here is a woman leader who appears to have some substance. whether or not she can translate that into substantial progress remains to be seen.

*tzipi is apparently short for tzipora, which means bird.
**these quotes and a couple of the links are from a piece by joel beinin, professor of middle east history, stanford university. it was sent to me by email and unfortunately i can't find a copy available on-line.