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.
Guest Post: Why Reclaim the Night Still Matters, and Why You Should Come
Guest post from Anna Ritchie Allan, Chair of Glasgow Rape Crisis Board of Directors. This post first appeared on the Rape Crisis Glasgow blog as is published here with their permission.
Next year marks the 40th anniversary of Glasgow Rape Crisis Centre. Perhaps the women who came together in 1976 thought that this would all be sorted by now. That women and girls would be living their lives, free from sexual violence.
And yet here we are, still living with the everyday threat, or reality, of rape and sexual assault. Still fighting a culture which blames women for being raped, and which normalises violence against women. Still challenging the notion of ‘stranger danger’, when the vast majority of women are raped or sexually assaulted by someone they know. Still trying to change a criminal justice system that is failing to provide justice to survivors.
Guest Post: Challenge Poverty Week: Food for thought from EaRN’s consultation event, A Platform for Positive Change
Guest blog from Roseanna Macdonald, Equality and Rights Network (EaRN)
Well it’s over halfway through Challenge Poverty Week and we are fresh off the back of our consultation event to address poverty and inequality in Edinburgh and surrounding areas (read the first blog about it here). We had a mix of representatives from public services, third sector workers and interested individuals attend, as well as a guest speaker from Fairer Scotland to tell us about the initiatives the Scottish Government is taking to create more equal Scotland by 2030.
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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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