T H E
DAILY
MIND THE
GAP
Is the system sexist? How to empower yourself against the gap. BY ASHLEY MINSHALL
CONTENTS WEEK 3 SEPTEMBER 2016
THE GUIDE ART PAGE 3 >>See the amazing entries from the art competition
GAMING PAGES 4 >>Get a peak at the world of females & Video Games
Moviezone PAGES 5-6
Exclusive Interview With Serena Williams (PG.08)
>>Reviewing Suicide Squad & More
Sports PAGES 7-9 >> Digging Deeper on women’s sports.
ON THE COVER 11 Is the wage gap a myth?
ALSO INSIDE: 02 EDITOR’S NOTE 04 QNA WITH JULIA ROBSON 10 TOP MUSIC
EDITORS NOTE
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n this edition of The Daily, we explore gender in the media. We have written extensibly on topics ranging from gender in sport, all the way to the Burqa ban, as well as interviewed two influential authors: JK Rowling and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. I am pleased to say that our team has learnt a great deal from this issue and are mindful of the impact that the media has on gender. I hope that you enjoy reading as much as we did writing Editor-in-Chief Ashley Minshall
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THE BEAUTY OF GENDER ART COMPETITION al By D
Last week we had reached out to you to submit pieces of artwork that you feel show the beauty of gender. the results were purely amazing. You can see them below:
ossou R e en
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Gender In Media A lot of people think media is fair, But it just makes me want to swear. It is focused all around men, But i feel it should show some hens. Women are seen as small and inferior, But they should be seen as big and superior. They get paid so much less in sport, Especially on the tennis court. Women are seen to just work in the house, And to be seen as just the spouse. Where men are seen to just work all day, And when they get the bill, just to pay. I think this discrimination should not be allowed, Girls should not feel like they just get ploughed. Gender abuse just needs to stop, The media is just being such a chop.
urgh b y on M r a A By
By Candice Swart
Speak UP Be the voice for those who cant speak And don’t wait for the abuse to reach its peak. Be that hero they so optimistically crave, They need someone, now to give them a save. Someone that is loud and brave By Grace Sparrow 3
JULIA ‘BISH’ ROBSON Who is Julia Robson? Julia ‘Bish’ Robson is a South African ambassador for females video game players. We have interviewed her to get her perspective on the effect of gender roles in the video game and e-sports industries.
In the world of Online games, are you treated differently because you are a girl ? if so, does this affect you ? I can admit, I definitely get more attention when talking in-game. I don’t think I get treated much differently, but there is the odd case of harassment and inappropriate comments. Anyone that knows me as a player knows that I fuel off stuff like that. I definitely don't let it get to myself and just play better than anyone in my team, that way, there is nothing mean to say. As a gamer, you need to have a thick skin to some sly comments every once in awhile. I don’t come across too many cyber bullies these days.
How do you feel about the way females are portrayed in video games, do you feel they show a very one dimensional side ? Would you change the way they are portrayed at all ? I think game developers put their own twist of fantasy in female characters. I know some people don't like that females are deemed as weak, slow and vulnerable; but in my opinion - it's only a game. Tomb Raider, for example, is a great game with a strong and independent female character. I would definitely like to see more games follow that lead.
In an industry so heavily dominated by males, are
What Was it that inspired you to begin playing video games ? I wouldn't call it an inspiration, but my younger brother and I had a console for as long as I can remember. Since then getting my first computer, LAN networks got setup at home and it's been history ever since!
Do you have any advice for Girls that want to get into
there any females that you look up to ?
Gaming, but are afraid of being labeled off ?
I would have to admit, I don't look up to someone based on their gender, but rather the good qualities that they inspire me with. I look up to alot of people and mainly they are male. I have met some great people in the gaming industry, who have taught me to never define someone based on their gender, but rather their skill.
Firstly, I want all girls to know that there is no “label”. Being a girl who plays eSports is possibly the best thing that has happened to me. It made me someone who can stand up to other people, it made me realize that I am talented to be great at gaming, it made me confident and most of all, it made me very proud. I hope that all girls that really want to pursue gaming and become a part of the community knows that the most important thing is to have fun and make new friends!
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Star Trek Beyond the Patriarchy.
e n o Z e i v o M
Reviewed by: Dylan Rees Directed by: Justin Lin RATED : 6.9/10 STYLE AND SETTING: The pacing of the movie begins a tad slow to serve as an introduction for inexperienced viewers and to build some extra emotions into Captain Kirk, portrayed by Chris Pine. Once the action gets rolling however, the robust and well-choreographed scenes leave little to be desired, as one would expect from the star-studded cast. When it comes to performances, Zachary Quinto hits another one out of the park with a stellar Spock delivery flexing his acting chops as both a cold, calculating genius and, at times, an emotional, relatable character showing solid character progression throughout his misadventures.  GENDER ROLES IN THE MOVIE: Beyond does do one thing that its two predecessors fell short of, introducing a female character that doesn’t serve as a love interest and has as little objectification as possible despite an otherwise male heavy cast. Jaylah, depicted by Sofia Boutella, breathes fresh air into the testosterone-stacked roster with an extremely active role in all of her scenes. She is immediately established as a powerful, independent being who can easily hold her own among the familiar faces. Not only does she have the potential to bring in a stronger female audience into the franchise, she does it in an unconventional way that could inspire more filmmakers to follow suit. RECOMMENDATION: Despite not keeping the plot-pacing perfect at times, the action and cast are enough to make this a worthy member of the Trek series.
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“Suicide Squad” Starring: Will Smith, Margot Robbie, Viola Davis The original “Suicide Squad” was a DC comic book series released in 1987 and the 2016 movie was based loosely on Batman: Assault on Arkham. Both movies were produced by Warner Bros. Set in modern day Washington DC, Amanda Waller, a secret government agent, crafts her ‘Task Force X’ team, which consisted of villains that are incarcerated at Belle Reeve Prison including, Deadshot, Harley Quinn and El Diablo. She plans to control the criminals with nano-bombs implanted in their necks threatening to kill them remotely if they disobey orders. Their mission is to dispel Enchantress, a possessive ancient being, that is wreaking havoc and in control of the city. Their assignment is made complicated when the Joker interferes to rescue Harley Quinn. My favourite character in the film was Amanda Waller. I was truly terrified of her, more than the antagonist of the film, which brings me to my next point – Enchantress was horrible. From the beginning of the film, she was described to be an invincible goddess, which had a brother with similar qualities. She was simply too strong and for that reason, watered down the plot and dwarfed the other characters’ abilities. Rating: ★★★★★3 out of 5)
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Our Women’s Sevens team have won this title many times before in 2006, 2007, 2008, 2011, and 2014. They were also nominated for GSport Team of the year in 2016. Even with these amazing achievements the media still gives no information to the public about the team. The media doesn’t broadcast their games, announce their achievements and they don’t even inform us when they play. They rather show what is happening with the male sports. Why is that? The reason is simple. The viewers and readers are the reason. When the majority of viewers show a lack of interest in female sport it encourages the media to focus on others things. Encourages the media to show male sports because of better ratings. This is unfair for the sportswomen of various teams.
Underappreciated Sports Female Sports are given little to no attention in the media. How does this lack of coverage affect our future sportswomen?
SPORT F
Thousands of sportswomen have worked hard to get to the professional level but they still don’t get the same recognition as the male sports players. For example the captain of the Women’s Sevens Team going to the Championship, Lorinda Brown, who has been playing rugby since 2004 and has been a mother for 2 years. She has had to juggle the struggles of being a mom and being an international rugby player. The lack of media coverage of her sport is really discouraging after all the work.
emale sports have always been disadvantaged The lack of media coverage is discouraging to future and underappreciated. They are especially unsportswomen as well. How can the young girls of this derappreciated in the media. All forms of megeneration find role models in the various sports? How dia keep neglecting the activities and achievecan they be inspired to reach their sporting dreams? ments of female sports teams. For example, The only way is to encourage media to cover more femany people didn’t know that the South Afrimale sports. And the only way to do that is by the viewcan Women’s rugby sevens team is going to Zimbabwe ers and readers showing your interest in the various very soon to defend their title at the Rugby Africa sports. Women’s Sevens Championship. If they win it would be their sixth time holding the trophy. 7
Tennis’ Greatest Feminist Boks Hop Under The Radar. We all know that Serena Williams is a legend on the court, but it is not only match point that she fights for... Serena is also fighting for equality between male and female tennis players. Is this the right direction? We have interviewed her to find out about her struggles as a female in the sport.:
Lorinda brown is the Captain of South Africa’s female rugby sevens team. Due to the lack of media coverage barely anybody knows of the ladies team’s great success.
Afternoon Lorinda Brown, Thank you for joining us. It’s my pleasure Okay, the first question that everyone is wondering about, do you think the team is ready for upcoming
Hello, how are you Mrs Williams?
championship?
I am doing alright, thanks.
Yes we are ready. We know we only been back for two weeks after two month break back, the team is as good as it was before and even better now that we have three of our more experienced players back from injury.
So what inspired you to play tennis? I have always been interested in sport from such a young age and it just seemed like a fun game to play. Did you encounter any specific challenges that occurred because of your gender? To get out there and be seen by a talent scout is a lot harder. I struggled for a while to get a sponsorship deal, whereas males I was able to beat in tennis matches found them a lot easier. I always felt like I was inferior because the media made me feel like this. All the advertisements for tennis always had men in them, I only recently felt like they started to include me in the whole scene now, which is a good change, but I feel as if it took too long! What advice would you give to females trying to get into sport, particularly tennis? I would tell them to follow their heart, do not listen to the media and outsiders. Keep on practicing and through determination and hard work, you will make it!
Good. Now for something more personal. Why did you start playing rugby? My first practice was actually a dare from my teacher. My teacher in high school dared my whole class to come to one rugby practice and after we finished I was hooked on the game. This was reinforced from knowing my father played club rugby himself. Since then I’ve dedicated myself to the sport. Last question. Did the lack of media coverage on Women’s Rugby discourage you at all as a kid? It did at first. I didn’t have many female rugby role models to look up to since we never saw any of them in the news. The reason I kept going was because of two reasons. Firstly knowing how proud my dad was and that I was following in his footsteps and later on surpassing him. Second reason was my love for the game.
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Females in sport : Has the ball been dropped?
In March 2016, Novak Djokovic addressed the media following his remarks regarding equal prize money in major tennis tournaments between male and female players:
“Stats are showing that we have much more spectators on the men’s tennis matches,” he said. “I think that’s one of the reasons why maybe we should get awarded more.” This statement appears to provide a reason as to why female tennis players get paid less, but how true is it? During the finals of Wimbledon 2016:
So according to ESPN and BBC, the statistics do favour Djokovic’s argument, however, are players paid based on viewership and if they are, should they be paid based on viewership? To answer the first question, we must consider the ATP and WTA to be separate entities, businesses if you will, who both provide a similar product. They sell their product to the consumers (fans) who consume it, through buying tickets to watch games and by selling tv rights which are then sold to more consumers. The businesses then remunerate their employees based on how well they performed in their matches as well as how much money they have made (revenue). While the specifics of the prize money for both organizations is not known, we can deduce that viewership is proportional to revenue and revenue is proportional to the payment to tennis players. While the second question challenges morales and is thought-provoking, it is actually quite simple to answer: If a business has found a way to make profit, it will continue to do so until it becomes un-profitable or illegal. With these facts in mind, Djokovic’s comment is rational, logical and shine light on the actual reasons why women get paid less. So why at the press conference at Miami, did he apologise for offending people? And why is it that when Andy Murray and Serena Williams rebutt his argument, they refer back to Moore and his comments and never challenge the economics behind the topic? If we never consider the real reasons why women get paid less, there will never be real equality. -Ashley Minshall
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TOP 4 SONGS A study done by ABC showed that ,through a survey performed by 7000 participants, even when
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for a job by 4 times, men were still far more likely to submit their applications after being told that their bonus will be based on their performance compared to other colleagues. Studies by huffingtonpost.com say that men priorities earnings where women value friendships etc. Also women retire generally alot earlier than men.
MIND THE GAP The wage gap is a well known concept that has existed since the beginning of the working world. A wage gap is the divide between median average male and female salaries. Although the wage gap has drastically decreased over the last 20 or so years, this is becoming a more outspoken issue recently and this article will try to explain the reason for this gap.
In conclusion, the wage gap may be seen as unfair and sexist, but these staIn 2000, 19% of men worked 50 or more tistics clearly show the real reason behours a week whereas only 7% of women hind the wage gap and prove that we did. Also, according to research done by cannot simply argue it to be based NPR.org, men are 4 times more likely to ask solely on gender. for a raise and are also, on average, more likely to ask for higher starting salaries than -CONNAR SWART women. Also, on average, women take vacation every 10 months whereas men take vacation every 12 months. Another study showed that women are more likely to take sick leave, not due to them being less healthy, but as men are more likely to go to work sick than women.
The comparison people have been using is to compare salaries without actually A study done by ABC showed that ,through factoring in the variables that are the rea- a survey performed by 7000 participants, son for this gap. even when women out prospected men
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Some people have made it their mission to act against the ban one of which is Rachid Nekkaz. Mr. Nekkaz has paid on behalf of burqa-clad women who have been fined over 1000 times totally a sum well over €200,000.
Dropping the bomb on the Burqa Ban The French Senate passed a law on the 14th September 2010, which banned the use of head covering apparel in public. This included masks, helmets and, most controversially, burqas. This isn’t the first time that France passed laws against religious items. In 2004, it became illegal to wear any visible religious symbols in schools.
Another advocator for removing the ban is Agnes De Feo, a filmmaker and sociologist, who argued, “It’s to divide the people”. He also brings up, “These women receive a lot of insults in the streets” and “Normal people always want to make jusThis has of course sparked immense uproar tice themselves”. from Muslims and non-Muslims alike. The case was brought to the European Court of It’s hard to determine the future of this Human Rights by an unnamed source who law or Muslim women in France and other claimed it was “inhumane and degrading”. European countries who are torn between However, the ECHR upheld the burqa ban as following suit or not. There have already the French government countered by implor- been protests against the ban in multiple ing that their aim was to ease the already tedi-countries and this could escalate if no comous task of a diverse nation of people living promises are made. It’s probable that the together. law in place now will be altered multiple times before a final version is drafted. This ban has received the support of other nations. A poll by YouGov displayed that 57 % Whatever becomes of the burqa this will of voters believed that the burqa ban was nec-no doubt be a long and tedious time for essary. Muslims in Europe. 12
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