Yes, I have a problem with the Desperate G20 wives

Another year, another G-20.

What caught my eye this year was the reportage on the leaders’ spouses . The Guardian ran a 13- picture report asking the questions on apparently many peoples’ minds; ‘What is everyone reading? Who gets to go to the Ladies with Michelle Obama? What are the G20 spouses doing while the leaders are tied up in meetings about the economy’.

CNNs headline was shouting: ‘forget the G-20, what are the spouses wearing?’

BBC News’ ‘7 Questions on G20 spouses’ (‘They stand and smile for the cameras at these global bashes, but how much do you know about the spouses of the G20 leaders?’) asked questions like ‘how many of the G20 spouses are men?’ (answer: 2).

The question on my mind is if this is supposed to be somehow funny?

Politics Daily reported how Michelle Obama planned carefully for her presents for the leaders,’ wives, which included products from her White House garden and porcelain tea- set. How wonderfully stepfordish! There she is, this Harvard- educated woman with huge potential, taking on her womanly duties in socializing!

Whilst No10 also lists their achievements on their website and sometimes newspaper reports remember to mention the careers these women have had themselves (http://www.number10.gov.uk/Page18878), the fact of the matter is that they are still, first and foremost, representing themselves as spouses during the G20, and must do their spousal duties.

Of course the wives were not just showing up in the latest designer creations, but they got to take part in meetings. In picture 2 of the Guardian’s reportage, Carla Bruni is sitting next to Ban- Ki Moon in a meeting about aids in the UN head quarters. Traditionally the questions around children, womens’ rights and sexual health have been ‘wives’’ territory. Now, it is very admirable when people take time and invest effort into working on this issues, but what I don’t understand how this inclusion of women based on their marital status in the UN summit tables, fits into 21st Century thinking.

Don’t you think it’s downright insulting that some women in the ‘important womens’’ events are there because they have successful husbands?

Sure we have seemingly random male celebrities like Bonos and Bob Geldofs present in major meetings, but the important difference is that these people are also actual campaigners and there for their own right, not for whom they married.

Isn’t it just right that women demand recognition based on their own achievements rather than their husbands’?

Are women supposed to feel flattered when the attention turns to their outfits instead of their husbands’ policies? Not only is it sad that the majority of the worlds’ leading countries are run by men with very few women in the past having done that, but to make the women some sort of accessory of the event is just disgusting. If I was Angela Merkel, I would feel insulted as one of the few female leaders in the crowd, if, in the same room, the guys also took their respective WAGs to the UN summit table.

You don’t see men in the spouses’ photographs either. The role of the pretty side- kick is reserved for women. The husbands of Argentinian president Kirchner and Chancellor Merkel of Germany ducked out of the meeting. Men would feel insulted being asked for a spouses’ photograph, and so should every self- respecting woman. After all, Michelle Obama and Sarah Brown are intelligent career women in their own right. What justified their primary role as some sort of school- touring 50s housewife roadshow- hosts?

Dana Goldstein puts it very well on prospect.org:

Who's missing from the g-20 photo op?

The male spouses, that's who. Conspicuously absent are Néstor Kirchner, the former president of Argentina and husband of that nation's current leader, Cristina Kirchner, as well as Joachim Sauer, the chemist who is married to German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

You know, it's perfectly okay if Kirchner and Sauer have better things to do than pose for silly pictures and be props for their politician wives. I wish more female political spouses had the same convictions, and that the public could accept that. But it would still be pretty rad to see some male faces at the spouse table from time to time. Things are changing -- but sometimes the world can't see it.

Readers of the Daily beast were asking ‘what is this, the Cosmo?’ and ‘can we PLEASE start talking about womens’ accomplishments instead of their dresses?’ under their report on the ‘sizzling G-20 wives’.

Penelope Trunk (who recently rejected a nomination as one of the top 100 female bloggers on the account that no corresponding title exists for men) is just as insulted. In her blog she reminds that ‘The G-20 Wives’ Club photos are particularly insulting because these women are being associated not by their special interests, or particular education, or common background, but merely by who they are sleeping with. Seriously. When, other than when rounding up prostitutes for jail, has this approach to grouping women been acceptable to society?’ (read the rest of it at http://blog.penelopetrunk.com/2009/04/05/the-g-20-is-complete-bs-for-women/ )

It’s time women stood up and asked not to be invited if it is only for their husbands. This is how we also make way for those women whose careers actually are in politics, and promote substantial participation of those women who want to do politics, not a frocky- horror- show from women willing to pose as pretty prop for their husbands every time the G20 meets.

Nokia, spying on people

Nokia, the pride and joy of Finland, supposedly one of the most advanced liberal democracies, has pushed through a bill famously dubbed as “snooping law” or Lex Nokia in the Finnish parliament.

The bill is an amendment of the Finnish data protection law, which in its current form grants employers the right to see employees’ IP traffic data. It means that although employers are unable to read the content of the emails, they have access to the information of how large sent and received emails were, to whom they were sent/ from whom they came from and when. This, according to trade unions and campaigners for privacy law, is a dire violation of employers’ rights, but industry claims it is a necessary step to protect companies from industrial espionage.

The discussion on the bill started a while ago and Nokia was reportedly strongly advocating for it, and, some argue, threatened to leave Finland if it didn’t go through. Nokia has long dominated the Finnish economy and has a market share and a share of the GDP which is unheard of for one single company in most of the industrialised world. It is obvious that Finland can not really risk losing the giant, who has been generating revenue larger than the state budget recently and accounts for around a quarter of Finland’s exports.

Critics argue that the law provides an opportunity for employers to view which websites employers visit and that no clever spy would ever even use their work email to send classified information out. The communications minister Ms Suvi Linden screwed up properly by defending the law and even arguing that employers have the right to even strip search employees should they wish to do so. Her party had to apologise for the seasoned politician, whose previous misadventures include sacking from the post of Minister for Culture after alleged corruption related to extensive financial support for a certain golf club she owned shares of herself.

Furthermore the Finance Minister Jyrki Katainen, from the same party, declared his support for the bill after admitting he was not familiar with the content.

Finland does not have a Constitutional Court, usually a cornerstone of a democracy with a strong separation of powers, but instead a parliamentary constitutional committee investigates the laws, and this has left constitutional matters largely at the mercy of political bargaining. Various legal experts have criticised Lex Nokia as contradictory to the Finnish constitution but the chairman of the committee (also from the same party with Ms Linden and Mr Katainen) supported it nevertheless and the bill was cleared.

It is certain that this law grants companies wider rights for investigation than the police forces have and is too vague to prevent others than those genuinely worried about industrial espionage from going through people’s IP traffic data. The “corporate subscriber” the law applies to covers institutions like universities, libraries and even residential building blocks, if they are providing people with an internet connection. The right to confidential information is codified into the Finnish constitution and the European treaty on human rights, and many have argued Lex Nokia unnecessarily weakens this provision while allowing companies to intrude extensively in their employees' privacy.

It seems not all is fine in the least corrupted country in the world.