Engender blog
Guest Post: Will 2016 be a high point for women’s representation at Holyrood?
It's polling day today for the Scottish Parliament election. Juliet Swann, Associate Consultant at McNeill & Stone, predicts what this will mean for women's representation.
Will 2016 be a high point for women’s representation at Holyrood?
The Scottish Parliament won plaudits in 1999 for electing 48 women out of the 129 MSPs, (37.2%). Since then however that percentage has fallen, indicating that the stance Labour took to balance the winnable seats between men and women in that first election was neither replicated by the other parties nor was there a consistent application of the principle of gender balance in the subsequent elections and selection processes.
Of late this complacency has been challenged. The election of Nicola Sturgeon as Scotland’s first woman First Minister, and her making a strong commitment to gender equality from the outset, as well as two other women leading the opposition parties, and both SNP and Labour appointing a 50:50 cabinet has caused women’s representation to become a talking point.
Guest Post: Protection from harassment in the civil courts
Guest post by Jennifer Dalziel, solicitor for the Scottish Women's Rights Centre.
Guest Post: 2016 - A new opportunity for Scotland
With the upcoming Scottish parliament elections Carla McCormack, from The Poverty Alliance, examines what devolution for Scotland could mean in terms of improved social security.
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Guest Post: Gender Equality and the legal profession. What is being done in Scotland to create a balance?
Last month, our Executive Director Emma responded to an article written
by Rob Marrs, head of education for
The Law Society of Scotland, which looked at the gender-split within the legal
profession. You can read the original article here.
In this blog post, Rob expands on his article and discusses what The Law Society of Scotland is doing to promote gender equality within law.
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?
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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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