Engender blog
All of Engender’s latest news. Reports, reviews, books, articles, and information from across Scotland’s women’s sector.
We would love to hear from other feminists around Scotland. Check out our guidelines for more information on how you can blog for us.
F-words: Virginity and Foreplay
Jenny Lester is a feminist writer and performer. She currently works at Equate Scotland, and has previously worked in women’s rights organisations and mental health charities. She completed an MA in Women’s Studies researching sex education, pleasure, and faking orgasms. In this 'F-words' blog, she'll be discussing the terms ‘virginity’ and ‘foreplay’ and offering some suggestions for less patriarchal alternatives.
Content Note: this blog contains terminology around anatomy and sexual acts, and one instance of a censored swear-word.
(Losing Your) Virginity
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A virgin is something you are, but virginity is something you have. Your virginity is a possession that you save, give, or take. But as a possession, it is strange, because it is a possession of lacking something - that something being sexual experience. Normally understood to be having not had penetrative sex.
F-words: introducing our new blog series on feminist language
Language matters. The words we use, and the contexts in which we use them, come with baggage, preconceptions, cultural implications, and potential for misunderstandings. Used well, language can uplift – bringing nuance to conversations, enabling accuracy in policy discussions, and ensuring that people feel welcome and included. At its worst, language can be used to obfuscate, exclude, and offend.
GUEST POST: A recovery plan which works for women also works for the planet
Claire Duncanson is a Senior Lecturer in International Relations at the University of Edinburgh. She has published widely on issues relating to gender, peace and security, with a particular focus on gender and peacebuilding. Her current work aims to bring a feminist analysis to the political economy of building peace, and she's an active member of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF). You can follow Claire on Twitter @cpduncanson, read more blogs at GenderED, and find out about her academic research here.
Engender and Close the Gap’s new paper outlining nine principles for economic recovery provides a valuable roadmap for Scotland to emerge from Covid-19 in ways that address the pandemic’s alarming gendered impacts. However, as important as its ideas are, it fails to make a critical connection, one at the heart of our country’s future. While the paper’s nine principles are offered as a path to a fairer, more just, more equal and inclusive Scotland, they can and must also be understood as providing a strong foundation for addressing and arresting the climate and biodiversity crises. This is an increasingly urgent task given Scotland’s recent rise in carbon emissions and its damaged and depleted ecosystems, but mention of this potential benefit of their approach is surprisingly absent from the paper.
COVID-19: why women’s equality must be at the heart of our response
This blog from our Communications and Engagement Manager, Alys Mumford, sets out why we've released a paper on women and COVID-19, and why we must never stop talking about women's equality.
The world is a new and confusing place for many of us. A rollercoaster of changes to work, school and care schedules, getting to grips with online meetings and digital lessons, fear for our friends, families and neighbours.
It will come as no surprise to any woman reading this that when crises like the one we are facing right now hit, women are disproportionately affected. More likely to be in precarious and low-paid work, more likely to shoulder additional caring responsibilities, and more likely to be the one worrying about food shopping, dentist trips, and prescriptions.
Our Bodies Our Rights - speech from Christina McKelvie MSP
Today Engender was planning on hosting a Parliamentary reception to mark the anniversary of our report Our Bodies Our Rights: Identifying and removing barriers to disabled women's reproductive rights in Scotland. Given the developing situation around COVID 19 (also known as Coronavirus), and as the needs of disabled women and carers are at the heart of our work on Our Bodies Our Rights, we took the the difficult decision to cancel this event.
While we were incredibly disappointed not to be able to hold the event as planned, we're pleased to be able to share the speech which would have been given by Christina McKelvie, Minister for Equalities and Older People.
I am truly delighted to be here to hear and discuss the progress made since the launch of this incredibly enlightening and important report published just over a year ago.
We’re just past International Women's Day, a day to celebrate the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women. The theme for this year is #EachforEqual, recognising the ways in which individual actions can challenge stereotypes and fight bias to collectively enable wider change as we build a more gender equal world. Seems apt!
Since the publication of Our Bodies, Our Rights, the Scottish Government has taken steps and made commitments which I hope you will be pleased to hear about tonight, and which I suspect some of your in this room were involved in making come about!
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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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