Engender blog

Towards a New Common Chapter

Since spring this year, Engender has been involved in the 'Towards a New Common Chapter' project coordinated by the Centre for Cross Border Studies. Here, our policy and parliamentary manager Eilidh Dickson looks at our international work and our work on the project so far.

Engender’s work across the UK, Europe and internationally is a vitally important aspect of the feminist policy and advocacy work that we do.

Progressing women’s rights and equality in Scotland often depends on the learning and experience we can gather from our sisters across the women’s sector, both nationally and through international networks such as the UK Joint Committee on Women and the European Women’s Lobby (EWL), the largest umbrella body of feminist organisations in Europe. So often, challenging the root causes of gender inequality demands the same or similar actions wherever we are, and being able to rely on and show solidarity as women’s organisations is crucial in amplifying our work.

Smash the Patriarchy, Save the Planet

As people around the world prepare to go on #ClimateStrike tomorrow, Engender's Communications and Engagement Manager, Alys Mumford, writes about why feminists should take action on climate change.

Climate change is a feminist issue. Just as we strive to include intersectional analysis in all of our work for women’s equality, we must recognise that climate change is an issue which disproportionately affects women around the world. Within this, as with so many issues of women’s inequality, it is poorer women, women of colour, carers, disabled women, and other marginalised women who are easier to ignore by decision-makers, and who will bear the brunt of the extreme weather, conflict, forced migration, increased illness, and resource shortages.

Can foreign policy ever be truly feminist?

Margot Wallström certainly believes it can, and proudly declared she was setting Sweden on the path to a ‘feminist foreign policy’ in 2014.

Despite this, her resignation announcement last week, after 5 years as Sweden’s foreign minister, didn’t mention her feminism and instead described her role as ‘promoting Sweden's security and prosperity in the world’. In reality this has meant a focus on arms exports and a regressive migration policy. Both things you would be hard-pressed to describe as feminist, but her description misses out her other work on sexual violence, on nuclear disarmament, and in defence of women’s rights.

Surrogacy in Scotland

Unless you have personal experience of it, surrogacy may well be something you've not thought much about outwith Kim Kardashian-West, Tom Daley, and season 5 of Friends.

In Scotland, surrogacy is legal but cannot be advertised or paid for (although expenses can be offered). The woman who gives birth automatically becomes the legal parent of the child and, if they are married, their spouse becomes the other legal parent. If surrogacy isn't an issue you've given much attention to before, just reading those two sentences have probably sparked questions in your head - what counts as expenses? What happens if someone changes their minds? What are the legal rights of everyone involved?

Then there are broader questions to consider. Should women be able to charge for reproductive labour? Does anyone have the right to have a child? How do we balance bodily autonomy with protection from exploitation?