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.

GUEST POST: Do we need diversity quotas in film?

Engender and the Equal Media and Culture Centre for Scotland have hosted student placements from the MSc in Social Research at the University of Edinburgh and the University of Strathclyde Applied Gender Studies and Research Methods course. As part of their research outputs, the students have produced a series of blogs.

In this post, Alex looks at why there's still work to do to ensure diversity behind the camera in Scotland's film industry.

The graphic shows a dark blue background with white left-aligned text quote that reads "Despite efforts to include women directors, women in other behind-the-camera roles and especially women of colour, were overlooked, suggesting attention to diversity targets for production and crew members are still very much necessary.". The quote is attributed to Alex Davies, Student Placement, Univsity of Strathclyde. In the top right-hand corner of the graphic there is the Equal Media and Culture Centre for Scotland logo.

The Glasgow Film Festival (GFF) is the UK’s third-largest film festival and one of Scotland’s biggest annual cultural events.

The UK Government has recognised its “significant contribution” to Scottish culture and to the careers of new filmmakers through its Audience Award. The festival’s organisers pick the nominees, but the winner is democratically elected by film-goers. Since the nominees are specifically chosen to nurture the careers of first or second-time directors, the award is a great site to foster a more diverse film industry in Scotland.

In recent years, criticism of the Oscars and BAFTA nominations drew attention to the underrepresentation of women and people of colour in the film sector. Research has demonstrated stark gender and racial disparities behind the scenes of the UK’s film industry. The Calling the Shots project studied British films produced between 2003 and 2015, finding that only 13% of their directors, 20% of their screenwriters and 27% of their producers were women. Statistics for women of colour were even worse, as 90% of the films examined did not employ any women of colour at all.

The Glasgow Film Festival’s director, Allison Gardner, has overseen GFF to go from strength to strength in terms of inclusivity, especially in its recognition of women filmmakers. In 2020, films directed by women opened and closed the festival for the first time and in 2022, 40% of all the films at GFF 2022 were directed by women.

Cinema for All?

Gardner has publicly voiced support for greater inclusivity in film, and has acknowledged that “We need to change those structures,”. Yet she has also asserted that the festival’s inclusive programming is not the result of quotas or targets but of a desire to maintain the “broadest possible appeal” to audiences. In fact, the Audience Award has consistently featured as many (if not more) women directors as men in almost every year of its history (see below), even before developments like 2017’s “Me Too” movement drew attention to gender inequality in the industry.

Call for expert working group on decriminalisation of abortion accepted by Scottish Government

Abortion care in Scotland is in urgent need of modernisation, with the current framework acting as a drag on services and as a barrier to timely access. In June we wrote to the First Minister on abortion rights, alongside 16 other equalities, abortion and health organisations. In the letter, we welcomed the commitments made on the leadership campaign trail and called for creation of an expert working group on decriminalisation of abortion.

We are delighted that this suggestion has been accepted by Scottish Government. We now look forward to sharing how women in Scotland can feed into the review of current structures, and to Humza Yousaf’s commitment on decriminalisation being set out in this year’s Programme for Government. Read the letter and see a list of signatories below.

The graphic shows a light grey background with black left-aligned text quote that reads "Abortion care in Scotland is in urgent need of modernisation, with the current framework acting as a drag on services and as a barrier to timely access."

Dear First Minister,

We hope this letter finds you well and congratulate you on your appointment as First Minister of Scotland.

During your leadership campaign, we welcomed your commitments to protecting and advancing abortion rights. The implementation of nationwide buffer zones, consistent provision of abortion care for all that need it, and removal of abortion from the criminal justice system are vital elements of modern abortion healthcare in Scotland. We also need action to tackle growing capacity gaps across services, to ensure equality of access to person-centred abortion care, and to ensure that NHS staff are working in fully equipped and well-resourced services.

Steady progress has been made regarding abortion in recent years. The NHS Scottish Abortion Care Providers Group has worked closely with Scottish Government to advance commitments set out in the Women’s Health Plan, including early medical abortion at home, telemedical care, and improved provision of mid-term abortions across the country.

We now look forward to further progress under your leadership, and to working with the Scottish Government and Women’s Health Champion towards delivery of your commitments. We are aware that Scottish Government already has regular engagement with the NHS Scottish Abortion Care Providers Group, which will, of course, continue to be invaluable. Building on your commitment to move forward decriminalisation of abortion, we believe that an expert working group would be of assistance to Scottish Government Ministers on this topic, and would welcome the opportunity to discuss this further.

Cost of Living: Fight Against Poverty is a Fight for Gender Equality

Lucy Hughes, Engender's Policy and Parliamentary Manager, recently published an article about the ongoing crisis of women’s poverty, as part of the Poverty Alliance’s Scottish Anti-Poverty Review. The article argues that intersectional gender analysis is essential when developing policy that tackles poverty in Scotland. In this blog Lucy has pulled out some of the key headlines from the article, which is available to read in full here.

The first half of 2023 has seen changes in political leadership for Scotland, with Humza Yousaf taking over as First Minister. This has led to the Scottish Government creating three new ‘critical missions', including: ‘Equality - tackling poverty and protecting people from harm.’ As a result, anti-poverty work is high on the political agenda, which presents a vital opportunity to share work that has been done to show the gendered nature of poverty in Scotland.

Engender has already been working alongside many others in the women’s sector and beyond, to show how the Cost of Living crisis is a crisis for women’s equality because our economy is structured in a way which systemically financially disadvantages women. We have advocated at an international level to highlight how women’s human rights under ICESCR are being failed in Scotland. Ultimately, we know that women’s poverty is a result of long-standing, deep-rooted, and systemic fault lines in our society.

As anti-poverty campaigners, if we are to build solutions that will eradicate poverty in Scotland, we need to start by understanding how poverty is driven by intersectional gender inequality and design our solutions around this. The lives of women, especially if faced with intersecting marginalisation, are continually shaped by having less access to well-paid secure work, a vastly higher likelihood of reliance on shrinking social security, and lesser access to resources within the household.

Women’s incomes are lower than men’s, which means women are more likely to experience financial precarity, high levels of debt and arrears, a lack of long-term savings and access to adequate pensions. Black and minority ethnic women and disabled women are more likely to be in in-work poverty than white women and non-disabled women. Women are the majority of primary caregivers for children and are more likely to be unpaid carers for disabled and older people. The widespread nature of men’s violence against women has a significant impact on access to resources, incomes, and financial security – and often includes financial abuse. These factors see women, particularly minoritised women, as the household managers and shock absorbers of poverty, fully exposed to the sharp end of economic or other crises.

To tackle the gendered nature of poverty, we must first recognise these gendered issues around care, gender-based violence, and the linked existing structural inequality that exists across the labour market.

Deep-rooted occupational segregation, alongside systemic issues with returning to work after providing unpaid care for children, substantially diminishes women’s lifetime earnings and results in women being clustered into undervalued roles. This is largely due to harmful assumptions and stereotypes about women’s and men’s capabilities, gender roles and what constitutes ‘work.’

Women are also twice as likely as men to rely on social security, and therefore on a system that fuels poverty. Analysis from the House of Commons Library in 2016 found that up to 86% of net ‘savings’ carved from social security payments and public services between 2010 and 2020 will have come from women’s incomes. This leaves disabled, Black and minority ethnic women, refugee and migrant women, lone parents, care experienced women, unpaid carers and women experiencing domestic abuse at even greater risk of poverty and destitution.

Despite the wealth of qualitative research on women’s experiences, this is rarely reflected in official data that is used to shape and determine policy decisions. Scotland is still not capturing enough high quality, intersectional data about women’s experiences of poverty.


For example, the use of household measures of poverty in Scotland assumes that household income is equally distributed and accessible to women and men. There are significant evidence gaps about the experiences of women from different marginalised communities, which actively obscures the specific discrimination and pressures many women are subject to, and as such, the true extent of women’s poverty and, therefore, child poverty.

Anti-poverty work which looks at reforming social security at devolved and UK levels must understand the gendered nature of the reliance of women on the welfare safety net and the discrimination that is built into its delivery. As we see innovation in Scotland of new economic solutions to tackle poverty, such as the development of the Minimum Income Guarantee, we must work together to ensure such anti-poverty policies do not further entrench women’s inequality but actively seek to address it as a core goal.

In practice, this means lobbying for intersectional gender analysis to shape policies that explicitly address the inequality baked into the fabric of our social security systems and the structure of our economy. It starts by making visible how poverty and economic inequality are experienced at higher rates by women and marginalised groups across our society, in large part due to the way our economy and welfare systems are designed and shaped by decision-makers.

GUEST POST: Digital safety and women in politics

The graphic shows a light blue background with white left-aligned text quote that reads "The impacts of the online abuse female politicians face are multi-varied and far-reaching, affecting not only the individual receiving the abuse, but the democratic process and wider society.". The quote is attributed to Yoke Baeyens Student Placement, University of Strathclyde. In the top right-hand corner of the graphic there is the Equal Media and Culture Centre for Scotland logo.

Engender and the Equal Media and Culture Centre for Scotland have hosted student placements from the MSc in Social Research at the University of Edinburgh and the University of Strathclyde Applied Gender Studies and Research Methods course. As part of their research outputs, the students have produced a series of blogs.

In this post, Yoke explores abuse online in the UK and beyond – with a focus on the experiences of women politicians.

In January 2023, the First Minister of the Scottish National Party, Nicola Sturgeon, resigned from her role. In her speech announcing her resignation, she described the “brutality” of public life as a politician, specifically referring to it as “hostile” for female politicians, highlighting the role that social media plays in the abuse that women politicians receive.

February 2022 - Policy Round Up

The graphic shows a light green background with bright green and dark green left-aligned text that reads "Last month in feminist policy". In the top right-hand corner of the graphic there is Engender's logo, which is an equals sign in a bright green circle. In the bottom right-hand corner of the graphic there is an icon of an open book in bright green and dark green.

Each month we share a summary of the policy work Engender has been doing . You can find all of our latest briefings and publications here, or in the links below.

A Gender Audit for the Scottish Parliament

We're excited to welcome the recent announcement that the Presiding Officer, Alison Johnstone MSP, will be leading a Gender Audit of the Scottish Parliament. We've been calling for such an audit - as advocated for by the Interparliamentary Union and the European Institute for Gender Equality - for a long time, and so we're really pleased to be invited to sit on the advisory group for the audit.

Achieving women’s equal representation in politics is about more than just looking at the numbers of elected representatives (important though this is). By examining the make-up of committees, gathering data on who is being invited to give evidence, and understanding where gender mainstreaming is being ignored, a Gender Audit can help us work towards a Scottish Parliament which creates better legislation and leads policy change across Scotland for women.

Read more about Gender Audits and what this means for women in Scotland in this blog from our Policy and Parliamentary Manager Eilidh Dickson.

#NotInOurName - Rejecting the Nationality and Borders Bill

"We must act – in Scotland – to use the powers we have to object in the strongest possible terms, to push back and stand with our fellow human beings through practical action, and to say loudly and clearly: not in our name."

Last week we joined over 60 Scottish organisations, including Rape Crisis Scotland, Scottish Refugee Council and JustRight Scotland, to unite against the UK Government's Nationality and Borders Bill to say #NotInOurName, urging MSPs to vote against the bill in Holyrood on Tuesday evening. You can read the full statement here.

The Scottish Parliament voted 94 Yes to 29 No - in favour of the motion to reject the Nationality and Borders Bill, sending a clear message that refugees are welcome here in Scotland. This follows the Welsh Parliament rejecting the Westminster legislation earlier this month. Read about why the bill is so dangerous and why this vote matters from Scottish Refugee Council here, as well as coverage in The National here.

Response from John Swinney MSP to our letter on the Covid-19 Inquiry Terms of Reference

Last month we co-ordinated a letter to John Swinney from 27 organisations working for equality and human rights in Scotland expressing our “dismay” and “deep concerns” following the publication of the Scottish Government’s Terms of Reference for a public inquiry into the handling of the COVID-19 pandemic in Scotland.

We've received a response to this letter, which you can access here. Needless to say, we're disappointed in this response, which seems to completely miss the point of taking an equalities response. While we are pleased to hear that "the Inquiry will be undertaken in a way that ensures human rights and equality considerations are at the heart of it", if this does not appear directly in the Terms of Reference, there is no guarantee this will actually happen.

We'll continue to challenge the Scottish Government on this.

Downloads

Engender Briefing: Pension Credit Entitlement ChangesEngender 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 SexismEngender 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 CreditGender 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 2016Gender 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 WomenScottish 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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