Engender blog

Guest post: Scottish Women in Sport

The statistics are damning. While 70% of boys participate in regular exercise, reports suggest that the figure for girls could be as low as 31%, with only 12% of 14-year-old girls taking the recommended amount of activity.

The knock-on effect on long-term health, self-esteem, education, and success in the workplace suggest that something has to be done to ensure there are more opportunities for females of all ages in Scotland to embark on a more active lifestyle.

That was why the Scottish Women in Sport charity was launched at the end of 2013, with the aim of educating young girls on positive life choices, breaking down media stereotypes, creating a strong voice to lobby and raise awareness, highlight positive role models, influence decision makers and encourage increased commercial investment into all sports that include women.

Referendum resources

Last Thursday, I was at a very interesting roundtable hosted by the Equality and Human Rights Commission on human rights and the independence referendum.

There were a number of equalities organisations there, including fellow gender equality advocates Close the Gap, Rape Crisis Scotland, and Scottish Women's Aid.

All of us were struggling in different ways to identify ways that we could use our scarce resources to empower people across Scotland with information about indyref, details of how to vote, and clarity on what the choices of independence or staying part of the UK might mean to the groups that we work with.

Scottish Labour's 'red paper'

The Scottish Labour party launched Together We Can at its conference in Perth last weekend. The document sets out its case for a ‘no vote’ in the referendum and the bones of its manifesto for the Scottish parliamentary elections in 2016.

References to gender touch on a range of issues: fair procurement, the care sector, childcare, equal access to sport in education, political representation and international development. In the main these are made in passing and are not linked to barriers to women’s equality or proposed solutions, however there are a number of noteworthy inclusions. Full extracts are pulled out in our 'gender edit' of the paper.

Gender equality and Scottish Labour's plans for more devolution

Many of the women that have been part of our independence referendum discussions, Feminists talk Scotland's Futures, have wanted to hear more from the Better Together political parties about their vision for the future of Scotland.

Following a two-year deliberative process, Scottish Labour has now brought forward its proposals for additional devolution. Powers for a Purpose* describes the changes to the devolution settlement that a UK Government would deliver if Labour wins the 2015 Westminster elections.