Modest Fashion - Don’t judge me in your Sister Wife dress.

First off, women should be able to wear whatever they want without male input or consequences.

However.

So-called ‘modest fashion’ is not just a trend.

It’s a style that’s been around a little while that went viral over the summer with the Zara dress pictured above. My first thought when I saw it was that it looked pretty Amish but that’s just me.

One influencer says ‘"I feel like women are now dressing not to be sexy for men”. She’s being very optimistic/naive and also talking as if there is no history of women’s fashion.

What man would say this?: ‎"I feel confident and most importantly comfortable. I know no matter how much I ‎eat you'll never be able to see my food baby." Why would you want to hide a full belly? Who are you hiding it from? Men? – but women aren’t dressing for men now, I thought. Other women? Yay sisterhood. Not.

Back to the fashion history thing. A woman who runs a fashion agency dedicated to modest fashion says: "If we go back to Britain in about the 1950s ‎modest fashion was the norm. Everyone had longer hem lines and long sleeves”.

Nope. Fashion in the 1950s was about post-war austerity and came from a long tradition of women wearing longer skirts. It didn’t come out of nowhere. Mediaeval women were not prancing around in mini skirts and I don’t recall any Victorian boob tubes. The word ‘modest’ was not part of clothing vocabulary and fashion had strong elements of class and status signalling. There were plenty of sleeveless evening or summer dresses in the 1950s. Don’t just show someone wearing autumn/winter styles and extrapolate from that. Remember the iconic photo of Marilyn Monroe’s white dress blowing up over an air vent? That’s from 1955. Which is in the 50s.

What’s more, 50s underwear was uncomfortable and constricting, designed (by men) to create an hourglass figure (for men). See Marilyn, Jane Russell etc.

A quick debunk sidebar:

The Hemline Index suggests that when times are stable, hemlines get shorter (for example the 1960s) and when times are uncertain, they get longer (for example the 1970s) and there are more ‘comfort’ clothes. These are pretty uncertain times so it would follow that hemlines get longer – wouldn’t it? This may have been true in the past but fashion changes so fast now and is much more varied and accessible than it used to be so it’s much less of a reliable indicator. There is no one Look of the season. But it is true that when times are hard, we like to be comfortable and comforted. Sometimes. And other times we want to go out partying in something shiny and skimpy.

It’s not as if ‘non-modest’ clothes are uncomfortable and hard to move in, we’re not wearing corsets and crinolines. This is not some 1920s clothing revolution where women cast off the shackles of foundation garment hell.

There’s no mention of these larger clothes being better for larger women, that it’s a recognition of their needs. Nope. It’s skinny girls looking like they’re wearing big granny’s frocks.

There is an element of the fashion industry finally recognising that Muslim women have money and mainstreaming styles to cash in (the media is of course calling them Generation M). ASOS, H&M and M&S among others now sell ‘modest’ ranges. John Lewis says sales of midi dresses went up by 152% this year.

Fine, Muslim women who want to cover up now find it easier to shop and other women can get excited on social media about a new fashion trend without boring people like me raising the spectre of Cultural Appropriation.

But the language of ‘modesty’ and ‘hiding’ being parroted by non-Muslim women raises red flags of body shaming, fear of the male gaze and the implication that anyone not dressing like this is immodest and will face consequences. Yes, once again it’s women’s responsibility to cover themselves because men can’t be expected to control their urges and shouldn’t be distracted from doing important man things. While wearing whatever the hell they like.

The woman who said that women are no longer dressing to be sexy for men should remember that fashions come and go really quickly. Muslim women may continue to dress in a more covered way but the fashion world will count the money and move on - and the charity shops will be full of big shapeless clothes that no one wants any more. Women will still feel bad about their bodies and struggle with men’s behaviour. Freedom and comfort come from equal rights and equal treatment in a fair society. What's the dress to wear to get that?

Oh no, she’s gone all feminist-socialist over a bit of fashion. Here’s something from the modest 1950s to take the taste away.

Sisters are doing it for themselves

When I started going to the gym in the late eighties, weightlifting for women was fashionable. It fell out of fashion in favour of aerobics, spin classes and countless other fads. Now increasing numbers of younger women are lifting weights again and not just little tone-up weights. Serious heavy weights.

The gym I go to is mostly used by students and, in the last year or two, I've seen many more young women lifting a lot of weight. This is good to see. They're strong, fit, dedicated and smart. They don't use steroids or pose in competitions in bikinis. They're just naturally strong (naturally meaning they've worked bloody hard for it).

But, perhaps inevitably, the media has picked up on this and sees it slightly differently. There are countless articles ostensibly praising women who lift, some even trying (failing) to be inspirational. But many of them carry the message that Strong Is Sexy. These are just a few examples I found in about ten minutes. There are many, many more.

This video features powerful women. They have clearly worked very hard for a long time. Does the title respect their hard work, laud their achievements and encourage them? Does it hell. The title is Strong Is Sexy. The captions says 'What happens to women when they lift big weights? They get sexy as hell! The long-awaited 3rd female-only California Strength weightlifting video, the weights keep getting bigger, the action is more intense, and the girls are hotter than ever!'

They're not girls, they're women. Sexist, patronising and infantilising women - that's the hat trick, well done you. This is a girl lifting weights (bless her). See the difference?

There's no mention of how much they're lifting, as there would be with male lifters.

There is another 'inspirational' video here, called 'Strong is the new sexy'. No. Strong is the new strong.

The Huffington Post had an article called Bodybuilding Women Prove That Fit Is Sexy with photo captions like Those Shoulders Would Definitely Look Hot In A Strapless Dress. Or under a comfy warm jumper in the winter.

In December the Daily Mail ran the article 'Women who lift weights now seen as 'attractive' by men'. According to them, 63% of men would rather date a girl that weightlifts and 74% say watching a girl use the bench is their favourite spectator exercise.

Yes, this is the Mail and they don't even say who ran the survey the stats came from. But the message clearly reflects common currency that women should get strong for men's pleasure. Gyms have mirrors so that you can check your technique and posture but when women look in them, it's the male gaze they see reflected back according to the media. And why have they put 'attractive' in quote marks? Do they disagree?

Of course we all want to be attractive to whoever we find attractive but this is about more than that. It's about reframing women's strength in a way that's acceptable to men. We can't just be strong. We have to be sexy too. And wear cute little gym outfits. Our strength is for men to perve over. Otherwise the poor little things might be threatened by us, emasculated by our biceps, quads and general awesomeness.

Building muscle is bloody hard work. For women, building upper body muscle is harder than for men. It takes a long time. You don't just have to go to the gym many times a week, every week, you have to eat right, sleep plenty, give up other things, learn about how to do it properly. There's a lot of sweating, grunting, swearing (just me?) and farting. Yes, when you squat, everything inside gets compressed and something's gotta give. Better out than in.

Most of the men at my gym who are serious lifters are great, very supportive of the women. But then, they know exactly what it takes to get strong. They're not scared of a woman who knows how to deadlift. How many of the Mail's 74% who want to wank over women bench pressing ever been anywhere near a gym themselves?

Health and fitness are something everyone should invest in if they can but for women, an extra layer is added, the pressure to be sexy and feminine. This is more likely to put women off than encourage them.

There are also lots of articles on line addressing women's alleged concerns that lifting weights will make them too big and 'masculine', explaining how to keep your muscles small and feminine.

Mixed messages. Big is sexy, but not too big, but here are some really big strong women who are sexy. Huh? Make your minds up.

To be clear: women don't have enough testosterone to get bulky and 'masculine' naturally. That takes serious steroid abuse. Here's a more detailed explanation.

Yes, this is just yet another example of sexism, of men trying to control women's bodies. But sometimes you just have to heave a sigh and call it like it is rather than letting it go.

Women work hard to get strong, they shouldn't have to hand that strength over to men, they should be able to own it.


For my gym buddy, the mighty Syasi, and powerhouse Carmen - you rock!

26 February: I just found this brilliant video about a woman bodybuilder in her seventies. That's what I want to be like when I grow up.

12 July: After winning Wimbledon for the sixth time, and her 21st Grand Slam, Serena Williams is accused of looking like a man. She has that rare combination of good genes, talent and hard work that make a champion but she still needs to be put in her place by men. This is what she looked like when she left Wimbledon. Not like a man, like a heroine to many girls and young women.

Skeptical Women

This is for Ada Lovelace Day, celebrating women in science and technology.

When I started going to Skeptics in the Pub (SitP) in 2003, it was a small affair in a room over a pub near Borough, in London. I was sometimes the only woman there and even on a good night, we were really in the minority in a room full of men, some of whom were seriously lacking in social skills. I wanted to get more involved and, quite early on, I helped test a woman who wanted to claim James Randi's million dollars because she could find missing people with a pendulum and an A-Z. She couldn't.

Slowly, SitP changed. Sid Rodrigues took over from Nick Pullar; it grew and grew, its profile became much higher. Now there are SitPs all over the country and abroad. The London one moved to a much bigger pub in Holborn and is often so full we have to turn people away (or I do as I'm door bitch). There are still a few ubernerds but a lot of women now come every month. We're getting more female speakers now, too.

Women don't just turn up to the meetings, they take an active part in the skeptic movement. The hugely successful TAM London is run by Tracy King. The London 1023 event protesting against homeopathy was organised by Carmen D'Cruz. We now also have Rebecca Watson, the founder of Skepchick, in London (conveniently married to Sid in a brilliant skeptical double-act). And there are the very many women who help out behind the scenes. Skeptical women hold their own on science forums, in blogs, in debates and at meetings.

Some of the women who come to SitP work in science and technology but many don't. It's important for women to know that you don't have to be a scientist to promote scientific rationalism, that it's not 'thinking like a man' to want evidence, be logical and think critically. Science is not 'cold, rational and masculine'.

Women are the main purchasers of alternative medicine for themselves and their families, the biggest consumers of horoscopes and more prone to believe in some aspects of the supernatural but a growing number of us prefer facts to faith. We're well-versed in the need for evidence, for randomized, placebo-controlled, double-blind trials. We know about confirmation bias, anecdotal 'evidence', dodgy statistics and the whole gamut of skeptical weapons against bad thinking.

Celebrating these women is just as important as celebrating women on the front line of science. You can read, write, discuss, think and get the message out whether you're demolishing alt med claims, investigating MMR, knickers that claim to detox you, paranormal daftness, faith healing, witchcraft allegations, Intelligent Design - you name it, we can hold our own in challenging it.

We use this way of thinking in other areas too - law, policy, the media, healthcare and of course in every day life. It's the appliance of science. And we have a laugh while we're doing it.

Skeptics are not a bunch of beardie wierdies drinking real ale, wearing sci-fi T shirts and mumbling about conspiracy theories. Some of us have really nice shoes.

Sexual Abuse of Women in the Church

There has been widespread media coverage of the abuse of children by Catholic priests and few people are now unaware of it.

There has been almost no publicity about the abuse of women by male members of the clergy and, despite the evidence, the Church appears to have done nothing.

Some women do have fully consensual relationships with male clergy but they are a small minority. When their stories make the media, they are usually of the more lurid 'priest has mistress and secret children' variety.

There is some abuse of adult men but a 2008 survey in America found that 96% of the victims were female.

Abuse falls into two categories, congregants and nuns.

Research findings about the prevalence of this abuse vary. One American report states that 'although clergy of any denomination can sexually exploit children, teens, men or women, over 95% of victims of sexual exploitation by clergy are adult women'. Another study found that 3.1% of regular women congregants (women in the congregation) had suffered sexual abuse.

Although the figures vary, there is plenty of evidence that this is a major problem. There are many websites and organisations for the abused, for example SNAP, the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests. This and many other websites, like the MACSAS one (Ministry and Clergy Sexual Abuse Survivors) has first-hand testimonies.

One reason for the lack of media coverage is perhaps that child abuse makes for more shocking headlines. Another reason is that, while evidence for child abuse is increasingly being revealed and the churches are being forced to confront it, the abuse of women is still largely hidden by religious bodies. But the evidence is clear.

'There is no question that abuse of women [by priests] has been vastly under-reported' according to AW Richard Snipe, a former priest and psychotherapist who has studied priests' sex lives for over 30 years. 'There's a tremendous bias against women in the US - and the world - and a tremendous callousness about sexual abuse against women.'

Gary Schoener, a Minneapolis psychologist whose walk-in counselling centre has worked on more than 2000 cases of clerical sex abuse, says the majority of abusers that he and his staff deal with (from several denominations) victimize girls and women. Yet, he says, public perception is that far more males are abused, and that the harm they suffer is more serious than that experienced by females: 'Women and girls are every bit as much at risk as boys and men. But the sexual abuse of a boy is treated far more seriously, and is considered a far worse offence'.

In the early 1990s, an American researcher who was looking at previously published work on sexual victimisation and the clergy found two different studies on sexual harassment. One involved a survey of female rabbis, the other of women in the United Methodist Church.

73% of the women rabbis and 77% of the UMC women said they had been a victim of sexual harassment. (Abuse in other religions is beyond the remit of this article, but the figure is included for comparison).

This is not just an American problem. An article in the Observer in 2003 said that 'While the Church of England remains in turmoil over the sexuality of its bishops, some believe the mounting catalogue of sexual abuse against women is the real untold scandal of the Church. (...) Britain's leading investigator of sexual abuse in the Church is Margaret Kennedy, a former social worker who was a pioneer in raising the issue of child abuse in the Roman Catholic and other Christian churches (...) Kennedy believes the sexual abuse of adults by clergymen is just as serious as child abuse'.

The article continues: 'The evidence reveals a disturbing picture of how vulnerable women have turned to churchmen for pastoral help, only to be preyed upon. (...) Even a woman priest can be preyed on. A devastated Dr Tanya Jenkins, the vicar of Llangefni on Anglesey in North Wales, is still off work three years after she was sexually assaulted by Canon Geoffrey Hewitt of Bangor Cathedral'.

Another problem facing abused women is that religious leaders to whom they report abuse characterize it as 'an affair' and often blame the women for seducing the man. Women's sexuality has traditionally been seen as dangerous by some sections of the church (and other religions), dating right back to Eve.

Blaming the woman or downplaying the importance of the abuse are convenient tactics rooted in misogyny. The fact that misogyny still underlies many societies, albeit in disguised or watered-down form, makes this an easy excuse. The low rate of conviction for rape may make it even harder for women to speak out. More women are reporting rape in the UK but only about a quarter of suspects are charged. Around 12% of cases reach court and only about 6% result in conviction.

Many sections of the Church still cast women as second class citizens who must submit to men. There was a story recently about a Church of England vicar telling women that they should be silent and subservient to their men. Even when the sexism is not obvious, there is a sense that these are adults who can look after themselves and if they didn't - why not? They should have just said no.

Schoener (op cit) says: 'The church is so dominated by men that there's a tendency to portray girls as provoking the crimes against themselves. The depositions read like rape cases used to: Did you enjoy it? What were you wearing?'

Adult women who have been abused face the toughest fight of any, Schoener believes. Their abuse by priests - often during spiritual or marital counselling sessions - wins little public attention compared to abuse of children. In addition, they are often held responsible for the relationship.

Kennedy says: 'One of the major problems is that the perpetrator is a male member of the clergy who is seen as above reproach. The woman is often seen as the seductress who has tempted the priest into a sexual relationship.'

Great pressure is brought on the women to keep quiet about the abuse. Kennedy found that: 'The level of violence is surprising and the need to silence the women at all times was a universal story. Women told of the priest/minister getting angry if they dared to tell anyone anything about the 'relationship'. They were told time and again that they were special people and that the minister depended on them. The power and control exerted by the ministers over the women was multi-factored'.

When women do report the cases, the results are predictable. One Cardinal told a woman who had been abused and made pregnant by a priest that she should have an abortion. 'Bishops try to turn the discourse to one of boundary issues, that priests and ministers have just got their boundaries confused. It is not about boundaries, the stories these women told were of rape, assault and violence; these were crimes, not boundary issues,' said Kennedy.

Not surprisingly, 'The women reported complete confusions at what was happening. Some were told that rape was good for them.'

The consequences of abuse are many and devastating.

In America, NOW (National Organisation for Women) has called for the sexual exploitation of women by priests to be criminalized. Their statement includes: 'adult victims of clergy sexual exploitation are routinely blamed for this abuse and revictimized by the public, severely ostracized by their own congregations, and disbelieved by religious authority figures from whom they seek solace and protection, resulting in devastating social isolation and confusion'

and: 'in addition to coping with the physical and emotional impacts of sexual violation, victims of sexual exploitation by clergy often also suffer loss of faith, loss of religious tradition, loss of spouse, loss of employment within religious organizations or with faith-affiliated educational institutions, self- blame by the victim, and loss of support from family, congregation and community'.

Abuse of nuns by the clergy is even more concealed. Researcher Ann Wolf said: 'The bishops appear to be only looking at the issue of child sexual abuse, but the problem is bigger than that. Catholic sisters are being violated, in their ministries, at work, in pastoral counselling'.

One survey of nuns done in the US in 1996 was never publicized. It was paid for, in part, by several orders of Catholic nuns. The findings were published in two religious research journals in 1998 but have never been reported in the mainstream press.

The researchers believe the numbers are more likely to be an underestimate than an overestimate of the true prevalence of sexual victimization: 'The fear and pain of disclosure would be sufficient enough to discourage responding in some sisters'.

In 2001, the Catholic Church in Rome was forced to admit that it knew priests from at least 23 countries had been abusing nuns after confidential reports were obtained by an American Catholic newspaper. Some of the reports had been in circulation for at least seven years. The US article was based on documents some of which senior women in religious orders and priests had presented to the Vatican over a period of a decade.

Most of the abuse occurred in Africa where priests who had previously gone to prostitutes turned to nuns to avoid contracting AIDS. In some cases, nuns who became pregnant were pressured to have abortions. In one case, a nun died while having an abortion and her abuser led the funeral mass. Another case involved 29 nuns from one order who all became pregnant to priests in the diocese.

There were also cases of novices who applied to their local priest or bishop for certificates of good Catholic practice which they needed to carry out their vocation. In return, they were made to have sex.

Sister Maura O'Donahue, an AIDS co-ordinator for the charity Cafod quoted a case in 1991 of a community superior being approached by priests requesting that nuns be made available to them for sexual favours. 'When the superior refused, the priests explained that they would otherwise be obliged to go to the village to find women and might thus get AIDS.' She heard cases of priests encouraging nuns to take the pill, telling them it would prevent HIV. Others 'actually encouraged abortions for the sisters' and Catholic hospital and medical staff reported pressure from priests to carry out terminations for nuns and other young women.

When Sister Marie McDonald, mother superior of the Missionaries of Our Lady of Africa put together a paper and addressed bishops on the problem, many of them felt it was disloyal of the sisters to send reports. She said: 'The sisters claim they have done so time and time again. Sometimes they were not well received. In some instances they are blamed for what happened. Even when they are listened to sympathetically nothing much seems to be done.' While the offending priests are usually moved or sent away, the women are normally chased out of their religious order. Some end up as prostitutes.

In the same way that some Catholic apologists have tried to deflect attention from child abuse by pointing out that it happens in other religions and in families, Father Giulio Albanese said 'Missionaries are human beings, who are often under immense psychological pressure in situations of war and ongoing violence. On one hand it's important to condemn this horror and it's important to tell the truth, but we must not emphasize this at the expense of the work done by the majority, many of whom have laid down their lives for witness.'

The Pope's official spokesman at the time, Joaquin Navarro Valls said: 'The problem is known and involves a restricted geographical area. Certain negative situations must not overshadow the often heroic faith of the overwhelming majority of religious, nuns and priests.'

Sister O'Donohue has evidence of abuse not just in Africa but also in India, Ireland, Italy , the Philippines and the United States.

Even if it were just in Africa, this dismissal combines the usual misogyny with racism, implying that it happens in a more 'backward' culture and that these women are somehow less important than European nuns. While numbers of nuns are falling in most of the world, they are growing in Africa.

In 2001 the European parliament passed an unprecedented motion, blaming the Vatican for the rapes of African nuns in the 1990s. The motion:

• Calls for those responsible for these crimes to be arrested and brought to justice; calls on the judicial authorities of the 23 countries cited in the reports to ensure that all appropriate judicial action is taken to establish the truth about these cases of violence against women;
• Calls on the Holy See to take all allegations of sexual abuse within its organisations seriously, to co-operate with the judicial authorities and to remove the perpetrators from office;
• Calls on the Holy See to reinstate those female officials who have been removed from their posts for drawing their supervisors’ attention to these abuses and afford the victims the necessary protection from and compensation for any discrimination which might ensue.

Head of the Vatican Congregation for Religious Life, Cardinal Martinez Somalo, set up a committee to look into the problem. So far, nothing much seems to have changed.

Celibacy is regularly blamed for all clerical abuse, of both adults and children, but this is clearly a simplistic response. In the study (op cit) that found 3.1% of regular women congregants had suffered sexual abuse, 2.2% of women (the majority) were abused by married clergy. The evidence above of abuse by clergy in non-celibate religions and sects also shows this cannot be the whole story.

There are certain common patterns of abusive behaviour. It is commonly not a one-off opportunistic event. It often happens gradually, with the woman being desensitized to increasingly inappropriate behaviour while being rewarded for her tolerance of it. Offenders may use religious language, prayer and Bible quotations to justify and sanction their actions.

Research shows that, unlike men, women go to clergy for many reasons rather than to more suitably qualified professionals - 86% rather than 12% to professionals. Chaplains in the military and at colleges may particularly fulfil a more pastoral need. This is one factor making women easier prey than men.

The clergyman's position of power and the trust the woman has in him may cause her to doubt her own ability to interpret his intentions when she would have instantly understood in a relationship with someone else. Many women surveyed said that they were uncertain about what was happening; their trust of the abuser was stronger than their trust in their own judgement. This self-doubt can lead to fear of making public a situation that turns out to be harmless and being humiliated or ostracized. This is even more the case for nuns whose whole lives and identities rest on their faith. The cognitive dissonance can be massive, leading to denial and total inability to face the reality of the situation.

In some cases, women's partners and family encourage them to trust the religious leader and spend time alone with him, seeing it as a privilege both for her and the family to get his attention.

Many women are already in a vulnerable position, turning to religious leaders for counselling or support in a time of family crisis or loss. In some cases, he is also a father figure, increasing the level of trust.

He may use knowledge from the woman's confessions or private conversations about their personal lives to manipulate them, to keep a hold over them and force silence, effectively blackmailing and intimidating them.

The bottom line is that men in positions of authority have the motive, means and opportunity for abuse and some of them take advantage of that. Religious leaders may find abuse easier to get away with than men in some other professions because they do not have to account to anyone for how they spend their time. Their charisma and exalted position in the community divert suspicion, the woman's evidence is discredited, downplayed, denied and concealed. Even when the truth is revealed, it is often a Pyrrhic victory, with the woman still coming out the loser.

Until the abuse of women is treated as seriously as clerical child abuse by the media, the law, the churches and society in general it is unlikely that much will change.

Ada Lovelace Day March 24

From the Ada Lovelace website:

Ada Lovelace Day is an international day of blogging (videologging, podcasting, comic drawing etc.!) to draw attention to the achievements of women in technology and science.

Women’s contributions often go unacknowledged, their innovations seldom mentioned, their faces rarely recognised. We want you to tell the world about these unsung heroines, whatever they do. It doesn’t matter how new or old your blog is, what gender you are, what language you blog in, or what you normally blog about – everyone is invited. Just sign the pledge and publish your blog post any time on Wednesday 24th March 2010.

Ada, Countess of Lovelace, born on 10th December 1815, the only child of Lord Byron and his wife, Annabella was one of the world’s first computer programmers, and one of the first people to see computers as more than just a machine for doing sums. She wrote programmes for Charles Babbage’s Analytical Engine, a general-purpose computing machine, despite the fact that it was never built. She also wrote the very first description of a computer and of software. She died, aged only 36, on 27th November 1852, of cancer and bloodletting by her physicians.

The first Ada Lovelace Day was held on 24th march 2009 and was a huge success. It attracted nearly 2000 signatories to the pledge and 2000 more people who signed up on Facebook. Over 1200 people added their post URL to the Ada Lovelace Day 2009 mash-up. The day itself was covered by BBC News Channel, BBC.co.uk, Radio 5 Live, The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Metro, Computer Weekly, and VNUnet, as well as hundreds of blogs worldwide.

Women and AIDS

HIV/AIDS is now the leading cause of death worldwide in women of reproductive age. UNAids has launched a five year plan to deal with the gender inequality and human rights violations behind this epidemic.

The plan by the joint United Nations Programme is called Agenda for Accelerated Country Action for Women, Girls, Gender Equality and HIV (2010-2014).

One of the main drivers of the epidemic is violence against women. According to the factsheet, some 70% of women worldwide have experienced violence. Country studies indicate that women suffering it have a risk of becoming HIV positive three times higher than women who haven't. In South Africa, UNAids say, a woman is raped every minute. Forced sex increases the risk of infection through tears and lacerations. Too often, violent crimes against women and girls are committed with impunity. Violence against women is one of the clearest indicators of gender inequality and the status of women in a society.

There are many social and cultural factors that put women at risk. For example, in some countries it's common for men to have sex with much younger women. In some settings (for example Southern Africa) this contributes to a three times higher infection rate for women 15-24 than it does for men the same age. In the Caribbean, young women are around 2.5 times more likely to be HIV infected than young men. Men are expected to have multiple sexual partners and often refuse to use condoms.

Women are likely to have problems accessing HIV prevention, treatment and care services due to limited decision-making power, lack of control over financial resources, restricted mobility and child-care responsibilities.

When their partners die, many women lose their homes, inheritance, livelihoods and sometimes even their children. Many of them are forced to become sex workers to survive.

Lack of education can also be a barrier both to avoiding infection and to living with it. Two thirds of the children not in school worldwide are girls and two thirds of illiterate adults in the world are women. In Africa and Latin America, girls with more education tend to delay their first sexual experience and are more likely to insist that their partner uses a condom.

The Agenda contains plans to

• produce better, evidence-based, research and data on the specific needs of women and girls and the socio-cultural and economic factors that prevent them effectively protecting themselves
  


• push governments to act on their stated commitment


• work with key strategic partners


• support women's groups and networks


• encourage men's organizations to support the rights of women and girls.


• work with influential religious leaders to use their influence to support the rights and needs of women, to reduce the stigma of HIV and the right of women to live without violence

Many governments have made a commitment to improve human rights and gender equality for women but so far have done little or nothing about it. The Agenda will encourage them to reform and enact legislation to guarantee impartial, immediate and serious legal consequences for acts of violence against women - including rape both within and outside of marriage.

UNAids recognises that it's essential to work with women, using their experience, knowledge and expertise to help them take control of their own HIV prevention. A lot of these women are marginalised, living with HIV, sex workers, disabled women, women of diverse sexual orientation, migrants, refugees, drug users, racial and ethnic minorities, women in prison and so on.

Changing the attitudes and behaviour of men and boys is another essential part of prevention. This could prove difficult as ideas are so deeply entrenched in many cultures of gender roles, identity, status and rights. Any incentive to change needs to be framed in terms of improving men's health and other social benefits as well as improving women's lot. Strongly patriarchal societies are not going change easily.

Despite the intention to work with religious leaders, there is no mention in the Agenda that it will address the promotion of abstinence as the first and only defence against infection or the opposition of the Catholic church and some evangelical churches to condom use. This is a major problem in some parts of the world, denying information and even lying about the effectiveness of condoms. It also means that many people have to choose between their faith and their health. Religion in some areas also clearly casts women as second class citizens, worth less than men.

Although the Agenda focusses on the developing world, this is not a problem exclusive to those areas. For example, it is acceptable in most parts of the world - and even expected - that young men will have multiple sex partners, many men still refuse to use condoms, many young women are not well-informed about infection risks and sex education in some countries (including the UK) is patchy at best.

Violence against women is not limited to the third world either. Statistics for rape convictions are still depressing reading, date rape and marital rape are contentious areas, it is only comparatively recently that the law in the UK started paying serious attention to spousal abuse and some religious groups still promote the idea that women should be subservient to their men (the latest edition of The Freethinker carries a story about two vicars preaching that women should be subservient to their husbands and one of those stories is reported in The Guardian).

The UNAids Executive Director said: "Violence against women is unacceptable and must not be tolerated. By robbing them of their dignity we are losing the opportunity to tap half the potential of mankind. Women and girls are not victims, they are the driving force that brings about social transformation".

What's your star sign? Women and Woo.

Research shows that women are more likely to be religious, to believe in the supernatural and to buy into complementary/alternative medicine (CAM). Is this because we are more gullible or more child-like?

Men are of course not immune to these beliefs. Most religious leaders are male, as are many psychics, ghost hunters and practitioners of CAM. Unless they are all charlatans, at least some of them must practice what they preach.

The human brain looks for patterns, causes and connections, which is a very useful evolved survival mechanism and has got us this far. But a side-effect is that we also see them where there are none. Just as small children think they are the centre of everything, we can feel that we are, if not the centre, then strongly connected to others. And if to others, why not to the universe, to something 'bigger than ourselves'?

One reason for apparent female gullibility could be our psychology and evolution although this does of course apply to the average woman. As Simon Baron Cohen's book The Essential Difference describes, there are people who are system-based and people who are empathy-based in the way they relate to the world and other people. The systemizers tend to be male but are not exclusively so. For example, a quarter of women have better spatial skills than half of men even though this is generally considered a male trait. It's possible to have either sort of brain or, more precisely, to be more than averagely systemizing or empathizing whatever sex you are.

If the scale is systems at one and end empathy at the other, the people towards the extreme systems end are mostly male - which is why more men have autism/Asperger's. There are very few female train spotters. But there are she-nerds.

Given that most people are about average, then most women have more empathy than most men. This means that we value relationships, connections, communication and feelings more. We need to make emotional connections and look for them in relationships of all kinds.

This could also lead us to look for and make them in the wrong places. For example, imagining that certain phenomena are caused by an agent rather than by chance. If we have a certain feeling, or something happens, we may look for who caused it rather than what. We may feel a connection with dead people too, more readily seeing ghosts or believing the dead are communicating with us. Empathy leads us to ascribe emotional states to them just as we do to the living.

The Virgin Mary is popular with women who identify with her and feel an empathic connection. The Catholic Church promoted her mostly for the female half of the congregation, to replace the goddesses of earlier religions. Father, Son and Holy Mother are a family and women are interested in family matters (they are the real Trinity, most regular people have no relationship at all with the Holy Ghost or really understand what it is) . Obviously, this is far from the whole story with religion, but it's a contributing factor to the gender difference.

Women who are not religious may feel that there is 'something out there', some non-specific consciousness with which they can connect and have a relationship. It's much more comforting to believe that the universe has a personality than that it's just stuff floating around with no purpose or intention. But comfort is not the cause of the thinking, which is evolved, instinctive and mostly unconscious.

Being psychic is again about connections and communication. Tarot readers never tell you that you're a terrible person, which would create a distance between you and them, and make you feel socially unacceptable; they comfort and guide you. Mediums maintain emotional links with dead loved ones, often helping to restore broken connections. You pay them but you have a trust relationship with them. Horoscopes take a kind of cosmic parental interest in your life and give you guidance and warnings just like your mum did when you were a kid. They all show you patterns, ascribe causes and link things up to apparently give them meaning on a personal level, not a theoretical, abstract one.

In the past, for example in Victorian times, women had little power and were often restricted to the home and a narrow social circle. Becoming a medium was a way of meeting people and getting out of the house. It was also a good way of getting attention, being the centre of a network of connections, communicating and being listened to. In earlier times again, having religious visions made you the centre of attention (although not always in a good way, as Joan of Arc found out). This is often not a conscious, calculating activity.

Even though many men succumb to supernatural or irrational beliefs, some of the areas they buy into are different. For example, they are more likely to believe in UFOs and conspiracy theories than women - apparently fact-based phenomena that they can catalogue. The choice of fiction is different too, with women more likely to watch soaps, which are about 'real' people and men more likely to go for sci-fi/fantasy. Men's delusions, when they differ from ours, reflect their system-based thinking. Faulty input results in faulty output. Men are also more likely to think that a comb-over will fool everyone, which is strong evidence for a tendency towards belief based on no reality at all.

The main market for CAM is middle class, middle aged women who use it on themselves and their families. Two of the reasons cited for using it are that it is 'holistic' and 'natural'. Setting aside the fact that plenty of natural things are very unpleasant indeed, these responses are again about feeling connections. Science is perceived by these women as being cold and impersonal or arrogant and 'science doesn't know everything'. This is a real reflection on medical practice where doctors are often too busy (and sometimes too badly trained) to bring out the empathy with the stethoscope. CAM practitioners appear to relate to them as individuals, not a set of symptoms. It's also a way of bonding with Nature.

The average female brain has evolved to be interested in people as a survival mechanism, instinct bonds women to their families and close associates, helping them all to thrive. In social animals, the ability to relate to and bond with others is essential for group stability and the benefits that confers. A side effect of this is that some of us extend beyond what is strictly necessary, embracing the whole universe, seen and unseen, in our personal network. God, the dead and Nature are our close personal friends. If we didn't do this, the human race probably wouldn't be here now.

It's not always useful to buy into supernatural thinking, we may get ripped off, make bad decisions, risk our own health and our families' but it's also a way of being that has major advantages in the same way that being a systems thinker has advantages and disadvantages. There is no point in pretending that men and women work the same way; the problem comes when one way of relating to the world and other people is seen as better or more rational - or saner. This is also why gods may come and go but religion is not likely to go away any time soon.