This article is from the source 'guardian' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.

You can find the current article at its original source at http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jul/23/david-cameron-fgm-women

The article has changed 2 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.

Version 0 Version 1
David Cameron’s FGM drive cannot obscure his dismal record on vulnerable women David Cameron’s FGM drive cannot obscure his dismal record on vulnerable women
(about 20 hours later)
On Tuesday, at the Girl Summit in London, David Cameron spoke of ending forced marriage and female genital mutilation (FGM) within a generation and throughout the world. This ambition is noble, as he himself said. Even so, we can recall what the prime minister’s pledges – noble and ignoble – have been worth before. In 2008 he promised to lift 300,000 children out of poverty, should his party be elected to govern; instead he plunged hundreds of thousands right back into it.On Tuesday, at the Girl Summit in London, David Cameron spoke of ending forced marriage and female genital mutilation (FGM) within a generation and throughout the world. This ambition is noble, as he himself said. Even so, we can recall what the prime minister’s pledges – noble and ignoble – have been worth before. In 2008 he promised to lift 300,000 children out of poverty, should his party be elected to govern; instead he plunged hundreds of thousands right back into it.
From child benefit to the educational maintenance allowance to the future jobs fund, and on and on, his government has delivered a series of retractions, reversals and, during the last election campaign particularly, explicit lies, including this: “What I can tell you is,” he said, “any cabinet minister, if I win the election, who comes to me and says, ‘Here are my plans,’ and they involve frontline reductions, they’ll be sent straight back to their department to go away and think again.” Incompetence, design, bad grammar or all three? What does it matter now?From child benefit to the educational maintenance allowance to the future jobs fund, and on and on, his government has delivered a series of retractions, reversals and, during the last election campaign particularly, explicit lies, including this: “What I can tell you is,” he said, “any cabinet minister, if I win the election, who comes to me and says, ‘Here are my plans,’ and they involve frontline reductions, they’ll be sent straight back to their department to go away and think again.” Incompetence, design, bad grammar or all three? What does it matter now?
But now, a neat nine months before the general election – a gestational period, if you will – Cameron moves in one great bound to solve his agonising “woman problem”. That is, he has impoverished many women with his cuts, and, in his darkest moments with pollsters, fears they may have noticed.But now, a neat nine months before the general election – a gestational period, if you will – Cameron moves in one great bound to solve his agonising “woman problem”. That is, he has impoverished many women with his cuts, and, in his darkest moments with pollsters, fears they may have noticed.
What to do? Change his policies on austerity? Not so – that would be contrary to his most cherished ideals. What is needed, instead, is pyrotechnics. First he elevates females to the cabinet, in homage to his long-delayed – or forgotten – promise to have a cabinet that is one-third female. It’s now almost one-quarter female – and don’t we know it, thanks to the Daily Mail’s Downing Street “catwalk” feature. It was done with the mania of a man realising he had the wrong colour crockery, sweeping it on to the floor and looking around crazily for more. So bald was this tokenism, so swift and grandiose, it was meaningless – and, quite possibly, to a dazed and uninterested electorate, effective.What to do? Change his policies on austerity? Not so – that would be contrary to his most cherished ideals. What is needed, instead, is pyrotechnics. First he elevates females to the cabinet, in homage to his long-delayed – or forgotten – promise to have a cabinet that is one-third female. It’s now almost one-quarter female – and don’t we know it, thanks to the Daily Mail’s Downing Street “catwalk” feature. It was done with the mania of a man realising he had the wrong colour crockery, sweeping it on to the floor and looking around crazily for more. So bald was this tokenism, so swift and grandiose, it was meaningless – and, quite possibly, to a dazed and uninterested electorate, effective.
Who could fail to note the elevation of three entire women dressed in actual women’s clothing? Does it matter if it is bogus feminism made by men; that the policy, not the gender of the minister who delivers it, is what matters? Cameron would do better to deal with the institutional misogyny in his party and beyond – exposed again this week when a newspaper columnist said she was called a “slut” by an unnamed MP, now a cabinet minister – and perhaps address the inequalities his cuts have delivered?Who could fail to note the elevation of three entire women dressed in actual women’s clothing? Does it matter if it is bogus feminism made by men; that the policy, not the gender of the minister who delivers it, is what matters? Cameron would do better to deal with the institutional misogyny in his party and beyond – exposed again this week when a newspaper columnist said she was called a “slut” by an unnamed MP, now a cabinet minister – and perhaps address the inequalities his cuts have delivered?
Instead, we have the politics of the photogenic gesture, not politics made in the dull and tedious earth of policy. Cameron is, above all things, a TV PR man, a composite of hateful acronyms, a smiling frontman for the death of the state. Who cares how good the product is, so long as it sells?Instead, we have the politics of the photogenic gesture, not politics made in the dull and tedious earth of policy. Cameron is, above all things, a TV PR man, a composite of hateful acronyms, a smiling frontman for the death of the state. Who cares how good the product is, so long as it sells?
And now FGM and forced marriage have their uses too. I do not deny that the prime minister probably thinks FGM and forced marriage are bad things. But, like the recent spectacle of William Hague and the actress Angelina Jolie scheming to end war rape, it is a kind gesture disguising a thousand prosaic wrongs. Rape counselling and domestic violence services, for instance, have been decimated by this government on British soil. On this matter, where he truly has agency, should he wish to exercise it, Hague was silent. Did Jolie know this, as she accepted her damehood as thanks for good PR? I doubt it.And now FGM and forced marriage have their uses too. I do not deny that the prime minister probably thinks FGM and forced marriage are bad things. But, like the recent spectacle of William Hague and the actress Angelina Jolie scheming to end war rape, it is a kind gesture disguising a thousand prosaic wrongs. Rape counselling and domestic violence services, for instance, have been decimated by this government on British soil. On this matter, where he truly has agency, should he wish to exercise it, Hague was silent. Did Jolie know this, as she accepted her damehood as thanks for good PR? I doubt it.
The vast majority of forced marriages and FGM take place in countries where Cameron has no authority and never will; will he soon be legislating in the Arctic to a pile of polar bears? Consciousness raising, you may say: it is essential. Indeed – but not if it lowers consciousness elsewhere.The vast majority of forced marriages and FGM take place in countries where Cameron has no authority and never will; will he soon be legislating in the Arctic to a pile of polar bears? Consciousness raising, you may say: it is essential. Indeed – but not if it lowers consciousness elsewhere.
But this, it seems, is both the fashion and the plan. We live in a resurgent era of bread and circuses – the London Olympics, the golden jubilee – and the grand and trite international political gesture. Cameron’s changes to the law regarding FGM may bear fruit. But it is too late to name this a government with the needs of the vulnerable close to its heart. But this, it seems, is both the fashion and the plan. We live in a resurgent era of bread and circuses – the London Olympics, the Queen's diamond jubilee – and the grand and trite international political gesture. Cameron’s changes to the law regarding FGM may bear fruit. But it is too late to name this a government with the needs of the vulnerable close to its heart.
• This article was amended on 24 July 2014. An earlier version referred to the Queen's golden rather than diamond jubilee.