Engender blog

Tackling sexual and sexist harassment in the workplace

Engender is working to explore how we can prevent sexual and sexist harassment in the workplace and improve outcomes for victim-survivors as part of a project funded by grant-making charity Rosa. Here, our Policy Officer Mariah Kelly gives an overview of the scale of the issue and the work of the project:

GUEST POST: Racism - We reject #NotAll, We demand #NotAtAll

The (much delayed) report from the UK Government’s Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities (CRED) was released last week, and claimed that many of the racial disparities found in the UK do not have their origins in racism. The report was met with incredulity by people and organisations who witness the myriad ways in which racism and white supremacy still impact on all areas of our politics, economy and society. This guest blog from Dr Shridevi Gopi-Firth explores and rejects the idea presented in the report that because ‘not all’ people are racist, institutional racism cannot exist.

Dr Shridevi Gopi-Firth is a Speciality Doctor in Eating Disorders for NHS Scotland, a ChoosePsychiatry 2020 representative, and Board Director of @Saheliya. She has been invited as BAME expert and peer reviewer for various guidelines and organisations including the upcoming Scottish IGN guidelines for Eating Disorders. Follow her on Twitter @Tychitha.

Nearly every healing or therapy starts with acknowledging your illness. Why is it that we as a society are unable to stand up and say ‘yes, the illness of racism exists’? Why does the Government need to come up with whitewashed reports like the CRED in this day and age to convince the public that racism is a thing of the past? It feels like an insult to our collective intelligence, while we BAME people continue to face so many instances of different levels of racism in our day to day lives.

GUEST POST: Experiences of the pandemic for women with a disability

Engender is currently hosting a survey developed with People First (Scotland), collecting responses from women with a disability about their experiences during the Covid-19 pandemic. In this blog, members of People First (Scotland) discuss the work they do, and share some of the experiences and issues that have been highlighted so far in the survey responses.

GUEST POST: Gender representation within Local Authorities

Today we're publishing the second in a series of blogs from two student placements Engender is hosting from the University of Strathclyde Applied Gender Studies and Research Methods course. These blogs explore women's representation and decision-making around women's equality in local authorities across Scotland. You can see other blogs in the series here.

In 2020 Jennifer Robinson graduated with an honours degree in Society Politics and Policy from the University of the West of Scotland. She is now undertaking a Masters in Applied Gender Studies and Research Methods with a particular interest in feminist disability studies. She has previously written for the Glasgow Women’s Library and you can find her tweeting about feminism and disability on twitter @JenRobinson95.

I never imagined that I would be studying for a Master’s degree from the comfort of my own home in Paisley. One perk is being wrapped in a big cosy blanket and pouring myself endless cups of tea while I read about various feminist topics. I am also excited to be undertaking a placement with Engender as part of my degree.

The placement aims to build upon Engender’s Sex & Power report 2020 which showed an overrepresentation of men in positions of power. Particularly, the report found that women made up only 29% of elected councillors at the local authority level. Local councils make decisions which impact gender equality including areas such as social care, leisure, education and so on. However, men and women have diverse perspectives due to inequalities and differing gender roles. Therefore, if councils are dominated by men, they cannot provide diverse representation for their residents. The placement will include a gender audit of representation in local authorities and their policy areas. I will be investigating representation and policy within Renfrewshire Council (my own local authority) and Edinburgh council and documenting my findings through a series of blogs.

Firstly, I wanted to count the number of councillors who were women within Renfrewshire and Edinburgh and compare this to the numbers from the previous council election which took place in 2017. I then looked at the numbers of women in each party and each ward today. Gathering these numbers illustrates the lack of women’s representation within each local. I have broken down these numbers in the following sections.