Engender blog

Cost of Living Crisis: Another Catastrophe, The Same Shoulders

As part of our blog series on the cost of living, unpaid carer Lynn Williams reflects on the crisis and why government responses bake in further inequality and marginalization. The same shoulders bear the burdens of economic and public policy failures and we cannot allow this to continue, she writes.

It’s hard to know where to start when everything seems so devastatingly awful and overwhelming.

Covid is not over – despite what you might be hearing. And running alongside that ongoing, hellish crisis, there’s another public health and societal disaster in the making.

The “cost of living crisis” is such a misnomer – it’s not a crisis, it’s catastrophic. It’s not a future event – it’s ripping lives apart now.

As I write this, I’m trying not to hyperventilate at the prospect of five figure energy bills; as you read this, you’re probably working out what the heck you cut or stop doing as price rises continue to annihilate your monthly budget. You’re wondering how to keep your disabled child safe and warm; you’re wondering what you can cut back on to ensure that the person you care for has food and the care they need to stay at home.

The cost of living crisis is a crisis for women's equality

The cost of living crisis is an issue which is profoundedly gendered. This blog, containing extracts taken from our submissions to the Scottish Government sets out some of the ways that the cost of living crisis is also a crisis for women's equality.

Women in Scotland are and will be disproportionately impacted by the cost of living crisis, with acute ramifications in terms of economic and physical security, health and wellbeing. This is the result of existing economic inequality that repeatedly sees women, and especially minoritised groups of women, at the sharp end of economic and other crises.

The disastrous forecast for the rate of inflation cannot be divorced from the egregious impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on equality, which has already placed women at greater risk of economic insecurity. A rollback on women’s rights and equality is widely recognised, with specific issues and their ongoing implications manifesting for Black and minority ethnic women, young women, disabled women, unpaid carers, mothers, pregnant women, LGBT women, and women with insecure immigration status, amongst other groups. Against this baseline, the current cost of living crisis will further exacerbate women’s economic inequality, pushing many into poverty. The harm this will cause will resound throughout the course of women’s lives and those of their children.

What does the Programme for Government mean for women's equality?

With everything else happening at the moment, you might be forgiven if the Programme for Government has slipped your mind. But as the main document which sets out the actions the Scottish Government will take, and the legislative programme for the next parliamentary year, it’s worth paying attention to.

Engender’s shadow report to CESCR: a key tool for promoting a gender-sensitive incorporation of ICESCR and improving women’s lives in Scotland

For many years women's equality advocates have been campaigning for the incorporation of CEDAW into Scots Law, but that isn't the only UN Convention which is key for the protection of women's equality and rights. This final blog from student Beatriz Morganti Brandão‎ sums up her work to explore how the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights can be used to protect women in Scotland.

For my final post, I want to share the main findings from the research report I prepared as part of my placement with Engender. Broadly speaking, the report aims to support Engender’s mission of enabling women’s rights in Scotland. Specifically, given the Scottish Government’s recent commitment to incorporate the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR or the Covenant) into Scots Law, the report focused on preparing a draft of Engender’s shadow report for the upcoming review by the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) of the UK Government’s seventh periodic report on measures taken to implement ICESCR, which includes Scotland-specific information. The idea is that, through this shadow report, Engender attracts international scrutiny over the economic, social and cultural rights-situation for women in Scotland, and influences a gender-sensitive incorporation of ICESCR that actually improves women’s lives in the country.