14. Gender equality in Turkey? Not in our lifetime...

I thought I'd better post something, otherwise Beri might catch up with me and I'll have to buy him a Coke. :)

This week we've begun the transition from media to gender by examining the film Tough Guise. Many interesting points about gender have already arisen in our class discussions, and I'll blog more about these a bit later. But first, I thought you might be interested in some information on the status of women in Turkish society.

In the recent Global Gender Gap Report (2009), published by the World Economic Forum, Turkey was ranked 129 out of 134 countries surveyed - in other words, Turkey is at the bottom of the world league table when it comes to promoting and protecting women's rights. To make matters worse, its position has fallen over the years - it ranked 123 out of 130 in 2008, 121 out of 128 in 2007 and 105 out of 115 in 2006. As you can see, its position has changed only relative to the bottom. You can see the country profile by clicking on Turkey here. Can you guess which country was ranked first? Have a look at its country profile and compare.

The report looks at equality in terms of economic participation, education, health and political empowerment. You can read Gila Benmayor's opinion piece in the Hürriyet Daily News here. The HDN also lays claim to being "Turkey's most feminine newspaper."

Once you've had a look at the report, I hope you'll start trying to answer the obvious question: Why? I look forward to reading your analyses...

13. New bloggers and new blogging ideas welcome

Embryonic Journey by onkel_wart, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Non-commercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic License

This week, for the first time, I gave you a blogging task to complete in class. This resulted in two students posting for the first time, so welcome to Erman Ece and Egemen Kaftancıoğlu. We look forward to reading more posts from you.

Two students have also come up with a great idea: Hasan Can Saral and Beri Pardo have devised a blog 'race'. Why not visit their posts to see what that's all about, and consider trying it yourself? This would be particularly useful for those students who find self-motivation to be a problem; when you race, your friends help you stay motivated. I think it's absolutely brilliant; I never would have thought of it in a million years.

This week in class I introduced you to the idea of Creative Commons materials. Hasan Can Saral and Beri Pardo have expressed strong views on the issue of copyright, and I encourage you to debate them in order to make them think a bit more deeply. :) I was absolutely amazed to see that Onur Olgaç immediately applied his new knowledge of Creative Commons images to his blog, flawlessly citing his most recent image. I would strongly encourage you to follow his example and cite all blog images you use in future.

This week you've all left a lot of great comments on my and other students' blogs. Let's keep this momentum going. Interacting with other blogs is part of your overall blogging grade, and of course from a human perspective, we all love to know what people think of our work.

12. (Photo)journalists and the conscience of a nation

Photo of John Pilger by Maggie Hannan, licensed under Creative Commons attribution licence

I wanted to share with you a recent article by Australian whistle-blowing journalist John Pilger (I've blogged about him before) about the aftermath of the destruction of Cambodia in the 1970s by the Americans and then the Khmer Rouge. Pilger was one of the first journalists to enter this poverty-stricken country, where 2 million people had been murdered. He describes what he witnessed in haunting imagery. But what really caught my eye was when he mentioned that his news reports, along with the photos taken by Eric Piper, prompted readers of the British newspaper the Daily Mirror to send aid to 70,000 children in the first aid convoy from the western world.

In 1979, Pilger made a documentary about Cambodia, Year Zero: The Silent Death of Cambodia. The ordinary British public donated £20 million to the Cambodians. Not the government - the people. This is a lot of money, but it was a HELL of a lot of money in 1979. The support helped to end the American/British blockade of Cambodia.

What I'm seeing in some of your blog posts is that you think a photographer has an ethical duty to publicise suffering so that people will act. I personally feel the same, and I think this amazing story provides outstanding support for that thesis.

I highly recommend reading this article - I think you will see why I admire Pilger so much.