Engender blog
GUEST POST: WHT the ****
During this 16 Days of Activism On Violence Against Women - and with high profile #metoo stories appearing in the courts and the media - we continue to hear stories of harassment and abuse of women and girls. This guest post, from an author who wishes to remain anonymous, explores the issues of power, privilege, and 'wandering hand trouble'.
-400.png)
Back when I was a young woman, when it
was described as ‘wandering hand trouble’ (WHT) for short, we were
taught that sexual assault and harassment were just what happened.
It would happen more if you were to pluck your eyebrows, wear a choker, or hoik your skirt up above your knees. If you wore American Tan 60 denier tights, you was ‘asking for it’. We didn’t really know what we were supposed to be asking for, especially when we wore knee-length cotton socks on top of the tights.
It was just another of the great mysteries when my mother would say, ‘don’t let your father see you wearing that,’ and which made me feel funny inside because I didn’t know why not.
Making women safer in Scotland: the case for a standalone misogyny offence
Today Engender has released a report calling for misogyny to be considered as a criminal offence in Scotland in order to challenge the epidemic of harassment and abuse facing women and girls.
The Scottish Government is currently reviewing the law around hate crime in Scotland, and is deciding between introducing a ‘gender hostility’ aggravation - adding gender or sex to the list of characteristics already covered by hate crime legislation- and the creation of a standalone offence. Our report shows that a ‘gender hostility’ aggravation will not solve the problem of misogyny, and may in fact undermine existing policy designed to tackle domestic abuse and other forms of violence against women.
For example, a gender aggravation
might be applied to one incidence of domestic abuse, but not another,
meaning that one would be treated more seriously by the court. This is
inconsistent with feminist analysis, echoed in Equally Safe, Scotland’s violence against women strategy, which says that gender inequality is inextricably linked with violence.
Guest Post: Equally Safe at Work
Women’s labour market participation experts, Close the Gap, are running an exciting employer accreditation programme called Equally Safe at Work. We asked Programme Officer Kelsey Smith to give us an update on the project so far.
Violence against women (VAW) occurs at epidemic levels. It affects all aspects of women’s lives and the workplace is no exception.
Over 70% of women reported having experienced or witnessed sexual harassment in the workplace in Scotland. However, the vast majority (80%) of women who experience sexual harassment in the workplace will never report it due to fear of being blamed, not being believed or losing their job. Other forms of VAW, such as rape and sexual assault, can significantly impact on women's ability to hold down a job, as a result of needing to take extended periods off because of the emotional and physical impact. Victim-survivors often experience trauma which can make it increasing difficult to be in work situations which involve groups of men or being alone with men.
GUEST POST: Notes from the classroom - Prevention work in the Highlands
Lindsay Linning is the campaigns and sexual violence prevention worker at Rape and Sexual Abuse Service Highland (RASASH). Through the national Rape Crisis prevention programme she leads workshops in senior schools in the Highlands on topics such as consent, pornography and gender. She also is coordinating the roll out of a new educational prevention resource for use with learning disabled young people called No More! and works with young feminist ambassadors in different parts of the Highlands. Here, she writes on her prevention work in the classroom.
The cards lie face up on the classroom tables and I wander the room while students in small groups confer with one another in hushed tones.
True or false? Women often lie about being raped.
True or false? If a woman is wearing revealing clothing and is raped, she’s partly to blame.
True or false? Sometimes girls say ‘no’ when they mean ‘yes’.Media, power and violence against women
It's been a difficult few weeks (months? years?) for everyone who cares about speaking truth to power, and ending violence against women. We know it can be tough to wade through so much coverage about the stories which have been dominating the press recently, so we've pulled together some of the writing we've found.
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:
