Engender blog
All of Engender’s latest news. Reports, reviews, books, articles, and information from across Scotland’s women’s sector.
We would love to hear from other feminists around Scotland. Check out our guidelines for more information on how you can blog for us.
GUEST POST: Food for thought
Dr Shridevi Gopi-Firth is a Speciality Doctor in Eating Disorders working in Scotland. Her international education and career, including third sector work across India, Russia and the UK have given Shri a wide exposure to diverse cultural, social, educational and healthcare settings, thus successfully complementing her lived experience and clinical skills to develop a holistic understanding of the person. Here, she explores how stigma around eating disorders can affect women in BAME communities.
Eating – the most basic need of all things living, from the prokaryotic amoeba to the Dalai Lama. So when this signal in the brain gets scrambled and the eating becomes disordered, the inevitable reaction of the general populace is confusion, indignation, frustration and pity – empathy is a far way off since one cannot truly understand what causes a person to turn away from this basic need. This is never more pronounced than in Asian and African cultures where food brings people together and is the centre of every festival and get-together, big and small. Food is serious business in these cultures – I mean, in Asia alone, there are several deities devoted to food, the growing of it, the eating of it, the digesting of it, the gifting of it – one does not mess around with the concept of food!
F-words: Emojis can be feminist too
Amy King is a PhD researcher at Edinburgh Napier University and Digital Officer at YWCA Scotland - The Young Women’s Movement. Her PhD investigation into online violence and the mechanisms of harm in language often take her research to weird and wonderful places, including contemplating the harm - and hope - of the humble emoji.
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Do you remember the first time you used an emoji? I have to admit, I don’t. But I do remember the first time my Mum sent me one, about 7 years after they had become a mainstream element in digital communication. Now I’m priming her for the GIF library on WhatsApp. I’m lucky, though - my Mum has never sent me the wrong emoji before, like a crying laughing emoji in a sombre context, or an awkward emoji shoehorned into a sentence to prove she’s ~down with the kids~. And that’s important because emojis carry specific meaning, have acceptable and unacceptable uses, and they often hold crucial extralinguistic detail that we rely on to ensure we’re understood properly.
F-words: The Many Languages of Transfeminism
Harry Josephine Giles is from Orkney and lives in Leith. Their latest book is The Games (Out-Spoken Press), shortlisted for the 2019 Saltire Prize for Best Collection. They have a PhD in Creative Writing from Stirling, co-direct the performance platform Anatomy, and are touring the poetry-music-video show Drone internationally. Here, they write about the history of 'transfeminism' as a word, and as a movement. Find out more about Harry Josephine at www.harryjosephine.com.
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Like so many of the best things, there’s no definite answer as to when the term “transfeminism” was first coined, and it’s gone by many names before and since. After all, transness — the experience and politics of deviating from social gender norms — has long been part of feminism, since before either “trans” or “feminism” had a name. Emi Koyama’s Transfeminist Manifesto, which was published in 2001 and did much to popularise the term, argues that transfeminism’s primary principle is bodily autonomy, the idea that each of us has the right to make decisions regarding our own bodies, identities and expressions. Through this, Koyama says, “transfeminism embodies feminist coalition politics in which women from different backgrounds stand up for each other, because if we do not stand for each other, nobody will”.
‘Knowing Me; Knowing You: Is this the best we can do for cohabiting couples?
Engender has responded to the Scottish Law Commission's consultation on reforms to the law governing cohabitation in Scotland. This blog, from Engender's Policy and Parliamentary Manager Eilidh Dickson, sets out why equality in cohabitation is a feminist issue.
Earlier this year, the Scottish Parliament passed into law the Civil Partnerships (Scotland) Act 2020, which equalised the laws governing civil partnerships in Scotland, meaning that both marriage and civil partnership is an option for mixed and same sex couples. For many couples in mixed-sex relationships this new right to choose between forms of legal recognition for their relationship is a radical positive, offering an alternative to marriage with less ‘baggage’.
The state has always had an interest in marriage. Marriage has been and continues to be described as the ‘gold standard’ of relationships. It has historically marked out families as one single unit while governing social hierarchy and social order between the sexes - men as the economic providers and women as caregiver and keepers of the home.
F-words: Reporting violence against women
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Iris Pase is an Italian freelance journalist based in Glasgow. Passionate about feminism, human rights and postcolonialism, she worked on Newsmavens’ feminist debunking and fact-checking project “Femfacts”. She's currently one of the blog editors at YWCA Scotland, where she’s created Femtorial, an Instagram project which aims at making feminist discourse accessible. You can find her work in The Independent, HUCK Magazine, and Culture Trip, among others.
According to the World Health Organisation, about 35% of women worldwide have experienced either physical and/or sexual violence in their lifetime. This means that one in every three women will experience violence at least once in her life and just on the basis of gender. As a consequence, she might have mental and physical health problems afterwards.
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Engender Briefing: Pension Credit Entitlement Changes
From 15 May 2019, new changes will be introduced which will require couples where one partner has reached state pension age and one has not (‘mixed age couples’) to claim universal credit (UC) instead of Pension Credit.
Engender Parliamentary Briefing: Condemnation of Misogyny, Racism, Harassment and Sexism
Engender welcomes this Scottish Parliament Debate on Condemnation of Misogyny, Racism, Harassment and Sexism and the opportunity to raise awareness of the ways in which women in Scotland’s inequality contributes to gender-based violence.
Gender Matters in Social Security: Individual Payments of Universal Credit
A paper calling on the Scottish Government to automatically split payments of Universal Credit between couples, once this power is devolved to the Scottish Parliament.
Gender Matters Manifesto: Twenty for 2016
This manifesto sets out measures that, with political will, can be taken over the next parliamentary term in pursuit of these goals.
Scottish NGO Briefing for UN Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women
Joint briefing paper for the UN Rapporteur on Violence Against Women.
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