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.
Our Bodies Our Rights in Lockdown
In this blog, Engender's Policy and Parliamentary Manager Eilidh Dickson, discusses the Our Bodies Our Rights report, the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on disabled women, and our new survey developed with People First Scotland.
-400.png)
This month represents an anniversary nobody could have previously imagined as we mark a year since the first Covid-19 cases in Scotland and the transition into the first national lockdown on the 23rd March 2020. Even in those early weeks, Engender highlighted how Covid-19 and the public health measures necessary to save lives would impact on women, from access to decision-making to mental health of unpaid carers and frontline workers in health and social care and to increased childcare and home-schooling making it even harder for women to combine paid and reproductive work.
Women have shared their diverse but often deeply distressing stories with us through our Women Covid Scot page, all too often describing the risks of working on the frontlines; fear of careers disrupted or derailed and the toll of balancing paid work, mounting domestic work and home-schooling with limited support from employers or partners, cut off from their external support networks. UN Women has estimated that the pandemic could set back global progress on women’s rights back by 25 years.
In March 2020 Engender was also preparing to host an event at the Scottish Parliament reflecting on a year since the launch of our Our Bodies Our Rights Report which examined the barriers to disabled women's reproductive rights in Scotland. This project saw us speak with disabled women across Scotland to hear about their experiences of puberty, sex education, relationships, family planning, maternity services, parenting support and the menopause. Policy and practice across healthcare, education, justice and social care, among many other public services, was found to ignore disabled women’s needs.
Engender recommends 2020
Over the past years we've had to privilege of chatting to some brilliant women for our On the Engender podcast. This year, we asked guests to leave us with a recommendation - from further policy reading, to must-follow twitter accounts.
Here's what's been recommended in 2020:
Have your say on the future of remote abortion care in Scotland
One of the (very) few positives from this year has been seeing how, when pushed, changes can be made to make people's lives easier. Workplace flexibility which disabled people's organisations have been demanding for years, priority shopping times for older people or those who experience sensory overload, and massive efforts to provide accommodation for those in need.
One of those changes has been a shift in how women (as well as trans men and non-binary people) have been able to access abortion care. We saw the start of this change back in 2017 when the Scottish Government enabled women to take one of the two pills needed to have an abortion (mifepristone and misoprostol) at home. This was already a big improvement for women, meaning they didn't need to travel to a clinic twice in a few days, with all of the childcare, work arrangements, travel costs and other inconveniences that created.
Guest Post: Mainstreaming Spotlight - Close the Gap
To mark the release of Engender's new report, What Works for Women: Improving gender mainstreaming in Scotland, we're sharing how mainstreaming is important to the work of some of Scotland's equalities organisations. Here, Lindsey Millen from Close the Gap talks about how mainstreaming is essential for their work on women's labour market participation.
Why is gender mainstreaming important to your organisation?
Gender mainstreaming is critical to delivering women’s labour market equality and, in doing so, tackle wider gender inequality. Many of the causes of the gender pay gap are not unlawful, e.g. the lack of quality flexible working at senior levels and a lack of affordable wraparound childcare. In order to tackle these issues, gender must be at the heart of policymaking. Policy that responds to the specific experiences of women is also better quality and better value for money – put simply, it delivers for everyone. Gender mainstreaming is such a valuable tool for policymakers and we need to see it being used effectively.
What area(s) of mainstreaming are you focused on?
Close the Gap works on women’s labour market inequality, which includes policy advocacy and employer engagement. The Scottish-specific duties of the public sector equality duty (PSED) are a big focus for us as they require public bodies to mainstream gender across all of their functions. We are interested in how public bodies are using their gender pay gap, occupational segregation and employment data to do gender mainstreaming. This supports our work to advocate for a duty that delivers for women and has formed the basis for our employer guidance on PSED and the work we do to support individual public bodies to improve their compliance.
If you could snap your fingers and change one thing to make gender mainstreaming happen, what would it be?
It is difficult to pick just one thing and there are really three things that have to work in concert in order for gender mainstreaming to happen. Firstly, public bodies need support to develop their understanding of gender inequality and how this relates to the work they do. Without this it’s difficult to develop good quality solutions. Secondly, we need to see real accountability for public bodies to ensure gender mainstreaming is done – and done well. Thirdly, we need leadership at the most senior levels of public bodies that makes clear gender mainstreaming is a core part of their work as public service providers, employers, and in their other roles.
Where can people find out more about your work on mainstreaming?
A good place to start would be our assessments of public bodies’ performance of the duties – here and here. Public sector employers (and PSED geeks) will find our guidance helpful in developing their work on gender mainstreaming and the duties in general – this can be found here. Gender mainstreaming is woven throughout our work – there’s plenty of other content to be found on our website.Guest Post: Mainstreaming Spotlight - Scottish Women's Budget Group
To mark the release of Engender's new report, What Works for Women: Improving gender mainstreaming in Scotland, we're sharing how mainstreaming is important to the work of some of Scotland's equalities organisations. Here, Sara Cowan from the Scottish Women's Budget Group talks about how mainstreaming is a vital component of creating a gender equal economy.
Why is gender mainstreaming important to your organisation?
Women and men use public services differently – they have different life experiences and face different economic realities and challenges. Women are often disadvantaged by policies that do not recognise these different experiences. Gender mainstreaming is important to us to redress this balance when decisions are made across a range of public services.
What area(s) of mainstreaming are you focused on?
We’re concerned with how public finances are spent and how budgetary decisions can work to reduce gender inequality. Gender mainstreaming through government and local authority budget decisions across all areas of public funding is a vital component to building a gender equal economy.
If you could snap your fingers and change one thing to make gender mainstreaming happen, what would it be?
Comprehensive equality impact assessments would be conducted for all budgetary decisions by local and national Government.
Where can people find out more about your work on mainstreaming?
Find out more about our work and become a member online here. We're also hosting two 'Introduction to Gender Budgeting' webinar sessions, one on 10th December from 9.30am-11.30am, and another on 15th December from 7pm-9pm - you can sign up for whichever session works best for you here.
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:
