Engender blog

Constitutions work wrap-up

The referendum and subsequent invigorating deadlines set down by the Smith Commission have been keeping us policy types busy these past few months.

Tomorrow we will be publishing our submission to the Smith Commission on further devolution and, although we will continue to engage with latter stages of the process, this will draw a close to our Scotland’s Futures advocacy and engagement work. Here, then, is a quick look at what the final stages of the project have entailed and how this links to future plans.

Women and the referendum (Indyref Thursday #6)

In the run-up to our event on 'gender equality, the referendum and beyond', we'll be publishing a weekly blog to correspond with our 'Scotland's futures' briefing papers series. This week, Engender policy manager Jill Wood writes on the implications of the referendum for the women's movement .

The referendum context has generated much thinking about alternative visions of society across civic Scotland, and the difference that constitutional change might make for marginalised groups. Engender has not taken a position on a preferred outcome, but we have been analysing the implications from women’s rights and gender equality angles, providing platforms for debate and consulting with our membership and wider stakeholders for over two years.

Refugee Women's Strategy Group, Umoja Inc, and Engender launch reports on gender and asylum

In June 2014 Engender, Umoja Inc and the Refugee Women’s Strategy Group (RWSG) held an event as part of Refugee Week in Glasgow. The aim of this event was to come together to celebrate refugee women in Scotland and launch two pieces of work that seek to capture the experience of asylum seeking women: the RWSG’s Speak for Yourself report and Engender’s briefing paper on gender and the asylum system.

Speak for Yourself is the product of 100 interviews with asylum seeking women. It identifies some of the critical issues that asylum seeking women face, including access to work, education, housing, and health. Women also spoke about the challenge of the asylum process itself.

Indyref, women and the labour market (Indyref Thursday #1)

In the run-up to our event on 'gender equality, the referendum and beyond', we'll be publishing a weekly blog to correspond with our 'Scotland's futures' briefing papers series. First up is women and the labour market by Engender's Director, Emma Ritch.

Women in Scotland experience a vastly different workplace from men. Women work in different jobs, earn lower wages, experience the bulk of sexual harassment, have a precarious place in male-dominated organisations and sectors, and are vanishingly unlikely to end their careers around a boardroom table.

The scale of the differences is so enormous as to be almost invisible: it fills the vision of women as they grapple with the everyday ordinariness of balancing work, friends, and family life. The inequalities have developed a different veneer since the 1950s, but many of the changes have been superficial. Some of the key indicators of inequality, like who works part-time, have barely flickered in generations. In some places in Scotland, we’re even recreating the typing pool, as public bodies make ‘efficiency savings’.

Getting to grips with women and work can be a technical minefield, with overlapping policies, sets of statistics, and legal structures in play. So what should we all be thinking about when we cast our ballots on 18 September?