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.
Speak out even though your voice shakes
Our Communications and Engagement Manager Alys Mumford blogs about the importance of bystander action in preventing inequality.
Since I saw the video of Elin Ersson preventing the deportation of a man to Afghanistan from Sweden a few days ago, I just haven’t been able to get it out of my head. When I tell people about it I get goosebumps. It gives me hope in a world where hope seems naïve.
As young women, we are told not to take up space. To sit down and shut up, and never, never to inconvenience others. Elin does none of these things.
Just imagine the bravery that takes. You know that people on the flight are keen to get home, to start their holidays, to visit loved ones. You know that flight attendants are just doing their jobs, and have enough to deal with without this. You know that there are children on the flight who are scared (more by the shouting man who just stole your phone, than by your calm act of bravery). You know that you are drawing attention to yourself online, with all of the dangers that poses for women.
And still you stay standing, voice shaking, to save a life.
Four things you need to know about CEDAW
This week, Engender's Executive Director Emma Ritch is in Geneva at the pre-sessional working group of the CEDAW Committee. To help you get your head around the mystery that UN Committees can appear to be, here are four things you need to know about CEDAW.
If you had between two and three minutes to tell the UN's women's rights committee which issues for women in Scotland they should be focusing on, what would you say? It's one of the odder tasks in women's rights advocacy, and one that we'll be taking on in Geneva in Monday.
1. CEDAW is the Bill of Rights for Women
The Convention for the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) is a UN Convention that was developed at the tail end of the 1970s, and was ratified by the UK Government in 1986. Known as the international bill of rights for women, its articles include equal protection for women and equality of access to education, the law, political power and representation, economic resources and social security, and a whole raft of other areas of life. Like other international obligations, its legal status is somewhat murky when it comes to individuals. You can't go along to a Sheriff court in Scotland and assert your CEDAW rights, but courts can consider it when they're making some types of decision (for more info on how CEDAW could help women's rights be realised in Scotland, see our report here.)
The UN CEDAW Committee itself can also sit as a court of inquiry when systemic breaches of rights are taking place, or a kind of court of last resort when individuals have exhausted every legal remedy in their own state. There are some examples of this below.
On the Engender: Gender Matters in Public Transport
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This month's episode of On the Engender, Scotland's feminist policy podcast, our host Alys Mumford is joined by some excellent feminist voices to take a deep dive into why gender matters in public transport.
Here she writes on her passion for public transport and why it's so important, even if it's not always the first gendered issue to come to mind:
Whenever my sister in law visits me, she brings a copy of 'the Buzzer', Vancouver's public transport pamphlet. When the Borders' Railway reopened, a friend and I made use of it on the first weekend it was running. When I travelled to Dublin to campaign for #Repealthe8th, I chose a 10 hour bus and boat journey over flying. And I still proudly carry my platinum ticket from the first day of the Edinburgh trams. So it's probably fair to say that I fall fairly firmly into the category of public transport geek.
European Women's Forum: For a feminist Europe
Earlier this summer our Executive Director Emma Ritch attended the General Assembly of the European Women's Lobby in Brussels. Here she writes on the role and structure of the Lobby, and how Engender works with our sisters in Europe.
In June, I spent most of a week at the European Women's Lobby general assembly in Brussels, where I was elected to its board of administration.
The Lobby is the largest European umbrella of women's organisations, and its general assembly is an annual gathering of all of the national co-ordinations. Engender represents Scotland within the Lobby.
Some of you who follow European feminism or institutional feminist politics will have seen the Lobby pop up on Twitter, in our Friday Feminist Five mailers, but their work is much less familiar to other feminists in Scotland.
I thought I'd share five things about the Lobby (and Engender's involvement with it) that might be of interest.
Disabled Women: Our Bodies Our Rights
Last year, Engender received funding from the Tampon Tax Fund for a project researching disabled women's experiences of parenting and reproductive health services in Scotland. Disabled Women: Our Bodies, Our Rights (previously called Disabled Women's Reproductive Journeys) has been operating for over a year now, and we're pleased to give you an update on how it's going from Chris Belous our project intern.
The project also has a Twitter account now, which is the best way to find out the latest updates on the project.
Follow it at Disabled Women: Our Bodies Our Rights
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.
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