Engender blog

Scottish women and the vote

In this blog, Alys Mumford reflects on our podcast miniseries looking at Scottish Women and the Vote.

As with all things relating to the struggle for women’s liberation, the recording of a podcast series about women's suffrage has been in equal parts inspiring and disheartening.

We've celebrated the representation of the people act, while at the same time recognising the barriers which still exist for so many women in Scotland today. We've applauded the activities of women foiling the attempts of the 1911 census collectors (having an all-night party in a café with buns, games and fancy dress – I’m in), while at the same time witnessing arguments online about trans and non-binary inclusion in 2021.

On the Engender: Gender Matters Online

In our final episode examining gender and public space on On the Engender, our panel discusses the internet as a gendered space and why gender matters online with host Alys Mumford.

Here she shares some personal reflections on women's experiences of online abuse and the relationship between gender and the internet as a public space:

A few weeks ago, a friend of mine posted on facebook that she had been sexually harassed on the way home from work. As you might expect, we all rallied round to leave sympathetic messages and check she was ok. One of the comments on the original post used the phrase ‘men are trash etc’. My friend who posted this comment was bemused to receive, seconds later, a notification telling her that it had been deleted as it contained hate speech.

On the Engender: Gender Matters in Planning

As we continue to look at gender and public space on On the Engender, our podcast host Alys Mumford is joined by an panel of feminist voices to consider why gender matters in planning.

Here she writes on why it's so important that women are included at all levels of planning decisions:

We all have an opinion on planning. Whether we get frustrated at how far the nursery is from the residential home, feel smug at knowing a hidden cut-through which doesn’t appear on the maps, or have regular arguments with the local Starbucks about why we have to use their bathrooms because the local council shut down all the public toilets. And once you notice how bad some planning decisions are for women, you start seeing them everywhere.

On the Engender: Gender Matters in Public Transport

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.