Engender blog
Guest Post: I care about……
Guest blog from Claire Cairns, coordinator of Coalition of Carers in Scotland
With the Scottish elections being held on the 5th of May, Scotland will soon be gripped by election fever.
Party manifestos will be unveiled and candidates and campaigners will aim to convince us that their party holds the solutions to the issues that matter most to us.
We know that health, education, the economy and employment will all feature at the top of the agenda. People will weigh up what each party has to say and inevitable ask themselves the question ‘How will this effect me’
But I hope that with this election people will also be asking themselves – ‘What sort of society do I want to live in?’ ‘How does it respond to people when they need support? What happens when someone develops a serious health issue, gives birth to a child with a disability or becomes a carer for a loved one? What happens when you get older and need help with everyday living?
Guest Post: Social Care and Gender Equality: Independent Living in Scotland’s Dialogue on the Future Funding of Social Care
Guest blog by William Pinkney-Baird of Independent Living in Scotland (ILiS)
Scotland's social care system is in crisis. It's underfunded, the support being given to disabled people is narrowing dangerously, it penalises users with expensive charges, it increasingly relies on family kinship caring (usually women). Furthermore, it's staffed by people on permanently low wages (again usually women), both of whom are expected to deliver minor miracles. All of this creates a system which undermines the human rights of disabled people to society, democracy, the economy and their families and communities – as well as presents issues to gender equality. Women carers are more likely than men carers to be working part time, and thus more likely to be reliant on social security and experience poverty. Disabled women also experience economic gender inequality: the employment rate for non-disabled men is nearly 90%, but for disabled women it is 40%.
Guest Post: Gender Inequality in Old Age
Guest Post by Becky Young of Lilac James, an all-female PR and marketing agency
Older women often live in poverty. They have no one to care for them, after spending their lives providing unpaid care for friends and family. Ageing is inevitable of course, but its gendered injustices shouldn’t be. It’s time to make ending pensioner poverty a priority and providing decent elderly care services for all.
Challenge Poverty Week: Gender Matters in Care
Last week, Engender and the Centre on Constitutional Change held a conference in Glasgow. Called 'Gender Matters: Equality and Inclusion through Care', it explored the issues of both childcare and long-term care, and examined how progressive care policy could help Scotland towards achieving gender equality. Becca, a participant from the Information Service has put together this great infographic of what was discussed.
Guest Post: Scotland, a fairer and healthier nation?
Guest post by Pam Duncan-Glancy, Policy Officer for the Independent Living in Scotland project
There’s no doubt that social justice is the buzz term of the moment, and about time too! For disabled women like me, social justice means a lot of things, but a crucial part of it is about having access to enough, good quality and fairly funded social care. Without social care, I couldn’t get out of bed in the morning, go to work, see friends, play my part in our society, put quite simply, I wouldn’t be healthy, and I wouldn’t have fair and equal access to society – and that’s not very socially just, is it?
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:
