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.
COVID-19: why women’s equality must be at the heart of our response
This blog from our Communications and Engagement Manager, Alys Mumford, sets out why we've released a paper on women and COVID-19, and why we must never stop talking about women's equality.
The world is a new and confusing place for many of us. A rollercoaster of changes to work, school and care schedules, getting to grips with online meetings and digital lessons, fear for our friends, families and neighbours.
It will come as no surprise to any woman reading this that when crises like the one we are facing right now hit, women are disproportionately affected. More likely to be in precarious and low-paid work, more likely to shoulder additional caring responsibilities, and more likely to be the one worrying about food shopping, dentist trips, and prescriptions.
Gender Matters in Health: Inequalities in Childbirth
Earlier this month, our Head of Development Catriona Kirkpatrick attended an International Women’s Day event ‘We Need to Talk about Race’, at the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG) exploring racial inequalities in childbirth in the UK. Here, she writes about the event and how this issue is reflected in Scotland.
A recent report from MBRRACE, Saving Lives, Improving Mothers’ Care, which shows that black women are five times more likely to die in childbirth than white women, was the impetus for the event at the RCOG. The report shows that women with mixed ethnicity are also three times as likely to die in childbirth and Asian women are twice as likely to die in childbirth. To date, no research has been conducted into why this is and the MBRRACE report states ‘At present we don’t have enough information to explain the complex and multiple factors at play. Understanding these disparities needs urgent research and action’.
Engender's response to the Gender Recognition Act Reform Bill consultation
This week, Engender has responded to the Scottish Government’s consultation on the draft Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill. Although the actual consultation is very short, comprising just 5 questions focusing on technical details of the Bill, we took the opportunity to set out some of our broader thoughts about the Gender Recognition Act.
Our headline finding is that the proposed reforms to the Gender Recognition Act will not negatively impact on women’s equality and rights.
GUEST POST: Some thoughts on issues BAME women, including immigrants, face in the UK
Azita Jabbari-Arabzadeh is a BAME migrant women with an extensive background working with BAME women, including migrants and refugees. In this guest blog, Azita explores some of the issues which face migrant women in the UK, with a particular focus on health inequality.
I came across some shocking news regarding the health and the high rate of death of pregnant black women recently, which I believe, together with the news of a higher rate of mental health issues among South Asian women in the UK is at least worthy of some thoughts by the population and certainly worth sharing worth sharing with readers of the On the Engender blog.
Our Bodies Our Rights - speech from Christina McKelvie MSP
Today Engender was planning on hosting a Parliamentary reception to mark the anniversary of our report Our Bodies Our Rights: Identifying and removing barriers to disabled women's reproductive rights in Scotland. Given the developing situation around COVID 19 (also known as Coronavirus), and as the needs of disabled women and carers are at the heart of our work on Our Bodies Our Rights, we took the the difficult decision to cancel this event.
While we were incredibly disappointed not to be able to hold the event as planned, we're pleased to be able to share the speech which would have been given by Christina McKelvie, Minister for Equalities and Older People.
I am truly delighted to be here to hear and discuss the progress made since the launch of this incredibly enlightening and important report published just over a year ago.
We’re just past International Women's Day, a day to celebrate the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women. The theme for this year is #EachforEqual, recognising the ways in which individual actions can challenge stereotypes and fight bias to collectively enable wider change as we build a more gender equal world. Seems apt!
Since the publication of Our Bodies, Our Rights, the Scottish Government has taken steps and made commitments which I hope you will be pleased to hear about tonight, and which I suspect some of your in this room were involved in making come about!
RSSDownloads
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.
Newsletter
Sign up to receive our newsletter here:
Sign up to our mailing list
Receive key feminist updates direct to your inbox:
