Engender blog

GUEST POST: Why we need diverse representation now

Between now and the local elections on May 5^th, we will be publishing a series of blogs from the Equal Representation Coalition. They’ll be taking a look at the state of equality in our politics at the moment, discussing their work in tackle barriers to participation, and will be exploring the crucial role that accurate data plays in achieving equal representation in our councils and parliaments and why we need more of it.

Here, Junaid Ashraf, Community Engagement Officer at CEMVO Scotland takes a look at some of the barriers faced by ethnic minority people entering politics, how these contribute to persistent underrepresentation in our councils and parliaments, and why it’s high time for change.

GUEST POST: Precedented inequalities in unprecedented times

Here we've published the next in a series of blogs from the current student placements Engender is hosting from the University of Strathclyde Applied Gender Studies and Research Methods course.

In this post, Kirsty Rorrison discusses the COVID-19 pandemic, from it's impact on women and minoritised communities to it's representation in the media, and introduces research specifically focusing on how gender bias in political news reporting has operated during the pandemic. You can read Kirsty's second post here.

With the COVID-19 pandemic recently passing its two year anniversary, I’m sure many of us have been reflecting on the ways in which life has changed since the coronavirus first became a mainstream issue. We have all been impacted by the pandemic in one way or another - circumstances have changed personally, socially, politically and economically all across the world. However, while it may seem like everything in our society has fundamentally shifted, its underlying social structures have remained practically untouched. In fact, the COVID-19 pandemic can be seen as something of a magnifying glass for the oppressive social institutions forming the bedrock of modern society. In these "unprecedented times,” some things have reflected the precedent more than ever.

As a poem written at the height of the pandemic says, “we are in the same storm, but not in the same boat.” Far from being an equaliser, COVID-19 has instead emphasised the multitude of divisions within our society. For instance, those within ethnic minority groups were met with a much higher risk of infection and death from the virus than their white counterparts. Racism against people of East and Southeast Asian descent became particularly prominent in response to the hypothesised origins of the novel virus. Women have faced unique challenges balancing increased caring responsibilities with the rest of their lives, and were also put at risk by skyrocketing rates of domestic abuse during the pandemic. Low income children often struggled to access online learning, while wealthier pupils made the transition to remote education relatively easily. While we have all been living through a public health crisis, our situations have been very different; hardship has been discriminatory and disproportionate, often impacting those who were already struggling before COVID-19. The pandemic has been front page news for over two years now, and in a time where the public has relied so heavily on news reporting, and so much has been written about the pandemic, the oppressive structures which have compounded the hardships of COVID-19 were bound to be reflected in news coverage itself.

As a placement student with Engender, I have been given the opportunity to investigate the gendered dimensions of the pandemic, specifically in relation to its coverage in the media. COVID-19 has dominated the news cycle for the past two years, and this massive quantity of reporting offers extremely valuable insights into what life has been like during the pandemic. Work has already been undertaken which exposes biases in news coverage; for instance, it has been shown that reporting on the pandemic tends to over-represent the voices and interests of people who are white, middle class, and often male. I have been carrying out a content analysis on COVID-19 news coverage from some of Scotland’s most popular newspapers, hoping to understand how gender is manifested in reporting on the coronavirus. While I expect to encounter a huge amount of data regarding gender, media and COVID-19, I intend to primarily focus on the ways in which representations of politicians in the news have been gendered.

It has already been established that the pandemic has amplified existing inequalities in Scotland. It has also been proven that women in politics faced gender bias in news coverage prior to the pandemic. I am hoping to find the convergence in these two facts by investigating how gender bias in political news reporting has functioned during the COVID-19 pandemic. In other words, I will be considering how the precedent of gender bias in political news reporting has persisted despite these unprecedented times. My next two blog posts will detail my findings and consider the implications of the data this project produces. For now, I ask what the magnifying glass of COVID-19 may reveal about politics, gender and media.

Scottish charities ‘seriously concerned’ about ‘light-touch’ Scottish Government plans to reform equality rules for public bodies

Today, Engender joined organisations working for equality and human rights in Scotland, including specialist gender ,race and LGBTI equality organisations, in calling for a rethink in Scottish Government plans to change public bodies’ equality obligations.

The Scottish specific duties of the Public Sector Equality Duty, which is meant to ensure that all public bodies take action to proactively advance equality and eliminate discrimination, has been under review for several years. In the joint submission, we state that our concerns about the failures of the existing system are not reflected in the current consultation, despite many of us repeatedly raising these with Scottish Government.

GUEST POST: Young women's political representation

Between now and the local elections on May 5^th, we will be publishing a series of blogs from members of the Equal Representation Coalition. They’ll be taking a look at the state of equality in our politics at the moment, discussing their work in tackling barriers to participation, and will be exploring the crucial role that accurate data plays in achieving equal representation in our councils and parliaments and why we need more of it.

Here, Elena Soper, National Programmes Manager, and Rhianna Mallia, Research and Impact Manager for YWCA Scotland - The Young Women's Movement, explore the importance of ensuring our elected representatives are truly reflective of Scottish society, and their work to empower young women to make their voices heard.

YWCA Scotland is a national women’s rights organisation and part of the biggest worldwide movement of young women leading change. We work with self-identifying girls and women experiencing multiple disadvantages, but our work is not designed for crisis intervention. Our focus is on personal growth and development of life skills that build self-efficacy and tackle the root causes of underrepresentation of women in leadership. We are deeply passionate about bringing women’s voices and perspectives into the forefront, and we do this through all of our programmes, our campaigns and our research.

There is not much evidence that gender-sensitive data is gathered and published in Scotland, or used to inform decision making, policy, or to create programmes and projects that respond to the needs of women (Engender 2020. ‘Sex/gender: Gathering and using data to advance women’s equality and rights in Scotland’). We want to work to change that at YWCA Scotland, ensuring women's voices are included, amplified, listened to, and that change happens as a result.

We want young women to influence change. We do annual research, the Status of Young Women in Scotland, into an issue that affects young women and then use the evidence generated to influence decision makers and create programmes to address the gaps in support highlighted. Our approach to designing programmes and research projects depends on the participation of the groups that we are working with; strategic planning is guided by our Advisory Panel, made up of a diverse group of young women under the age of 30. Our research projects have been co-designed with young women; they gain skills and experience in designing and carrying out research, and offer essential contributions to the design of our research.

Our Young Women Lead programme which has been running since 2017 supports young women and non-binary people to become politically empowered and engaged. Originally run as a partnership with the Scottish Parliament, 3 cohorts came together to produce research and recommendations to Government on big issues such as sexual harassment in school and the transition from education to employment for ethnic minority young women. Now evolved to work within local communities, we have groups in Dundee, East Renfrewshire and Renfrewshire who are tackling issues from community perspectives.

This programme is designed to empower young people to become influencers and citizen advocates in their own community and act as role models to others. Graduates from previous programmes have been supported to take up leadership positions in the third and public sector, become community councillors and we are very excited to have one graduate standing for election in Glasgow in the upcoming Council elections.

It is so important that our elected representatives are truly reflective of Scottish society. Young women in Scotland need visible role models who look like them, have the same values as them, and come from the same background as them.

Our Status of Young Women in Scotland research in 2018 found that 64% of survey participants did not feel their voices and views are sufficiently represented in Scotland’s politics and policies and that 75% of participants who stated they considered themselves to be “politically engaged” would not run for public office.

There is a clear desire from young women to be involved in politics and activism, yet standing in an election is something that is rarely considered. The reasons given for this included fear about the current toxic political climate, worries about online abuse and structural issues within our political institutions making them not accommodating for women.

We are becoming increasingly aware of the gaps in representation in our councils and our Parliament, and we need to understand the root causes behind this to tackle it. That’s why it is crucial to gather gender disaggregated data on those who are standing for office.

We must have an awareness of the barriers preventing those from the most marginalised groups of our society from being elected so we can break them down.

It is an undisputable fact that changes in legislation and policy, product development and urban planning, often do not consider the specific needs and experiences of women. This is because of a lack of data but also because decision makers and leaders have not considered the inclusion of these experiences to be important.

We’re working to challenge that perspective, to provide gender disaggregated data to address this data gap, and to encourage young women to make their voices heard.

If you’d like to get involved with any of our programmes, please visit www.ywcascotland.org. We’re currently recruiting for Young Women Lead in Fife and we’ll be coming to the Highlands and Aberdeen next!