Jun

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Signs of the times

June 21, 2009 | Leave a Comment

art.sonia.sotomayor.giIN THE US Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor has resigned from a women’s club to avoid controversy and accusations of participating in behaviour which encourages discrimination of any kind.

“I believe that the Belizean Grove does not practice invidious discrimination and my membership did not violate the Judicial Code of Ethics, but I do not want questions about this to distract anyone from my qualifications and record,” the 54-year-old New York federal appeals judge wrote.

The American Bar Association’s judicial code says that a judge’s extrajudicial activities “must not be conducted in connection or affiliation with an organization that practices invidious discrimination.”

Read the full CNN story

The Belizean Grove is an elite women’s social club for influential personages from the military, financial, and diplomatic sectors. It is invitation-only and is the female equivalent of the male-only social group, the Bohemian Club.

It’s a shame Sotomayor felt she had to resign to stay on the right side of vanilla, pun intended, especially since some of the most vocal opponents to her appointment are most likely members of equally exclusive clubs: white, moneyed and male.

Discriminating safely

Juxtapose that with Cabs for Women — part of a burgeoning trend — launched in South Africa. Women are driven by women and can feel safe. But apparently male customers can be catered to as well:

cfw_logoThuli Ndaba, my taxi driver for the night, negotiates the road smoothly through the suburban streets towards Rosebank. She talks about make-up, hair and miniskirts, while my friend applies last-minute touches to her own look. Ndaba looks crisply professional in her uniform — a black skirt and a white blouse — as she enthuses about how fulfilling it is to excel in a job that is male-dominated. Male customers who want to propose love or refuse to pay should think twice.

“I stand firm when they start misbehaving; I’m always ready to call the police,” Ndaba says. To ensure their safety, Cabs for Women drivers are equipped with panic buttons and their cars are under 24-hour surveillance. [...]

Taxis for the female market now operate in Russia, Iran, India and the United Arab Republic. Nigeria introduced lemon-yellow motorised rickshaws for women, fitted with pull-around shades to thwart prying male eyes in the streets of Kano in the country’s Muslim-dominated north. Women there had been banned from riding on motorcycle taxis, where they pressed against male drivers.

Read the full Mail & Guardian story

Woman’s world

B wrote about the London initiative in 2006, but even then it wasn’t just London experiencing the demand for transportation that would guarantee women a ride home without harassment of any kind.

The demand is still growing, from Japan, the Philippines and Korea where some train services offer passenger cars exclusive to women to the Iranian cab company which enlisted women to drive only women and insodoing went seriously against the cultural grain:

Iran372The taxi driver who tried to molest passenger Marzieh Khatoon Shariati did not know what he was starting.

Assuming her to be easy prey as she travelled with her infant son in the back of his cab, he pulled up at an isolated spot and suggested sex. Instead, he was overpowered as Mrs Shariati, deploying skills honed as a karate instructor, put him in a stranglehold and ordered him to drive to her destination.

The experience inspired Mrs Shariati, 48, to become one of Iran’s first female taxi drivers in a pioneering scheme allowing women entry to an exclusively male preserve, while paradoxically reinforcing the country’s official bias towards gender segregation.

She is one of 20 full-time women drivers recruited for a new service dedicated to female passengers.

Read the full Guardian story


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