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.

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.

Engender joins forces with over 85 civil society organisations to express concerns about no-deal

Today Engender has joined forces with over 85 organisations from across the UK in expressing our shared and serious concerns about the impacts a no-deal Brexit will have on civil society. Collectively, we have called on the Prime Minister to urgently engage with civil society to address the risks that leaving the EU without a deal on the 31st October presents.[1]

Signatories of the letter have serious concerns that a no-deal exit will be a direct threat to the peace process in Northern Ireland, result in regression of rights and standards, uncertainty about the future, and about the lack of adequate engagement and support from the Government.

Menopause Matters: Ending the stigma

Last week, we said goodbye to our intern Elena Rodriguez, who has been working with Engender to conduct research looking at women’s experiences of the menopause in Scotland as part of her studies at the University of Edinburgh. Elena has been collating the 371 responses we received to our Menopause Matters survey in June, and here she writes to thank all those who took part in survey and explains what the results have revealed so far.

Dear Participants,

Thank you so much for engaging with the survey and sharing it so widely. Today we have 371 different experiences from all over Scotland, and your stories, views and suggestions of what should be done to ending the stigma around the menopause are precious.

We know it is a tough topic to be open about, and that many of you have had painful experiences with health professionals, managers and even family and friends. As many of you told us, it can be a confusing, tiring, frustrating and embarrassing process. We all need to understand it, not just women. We all need to learn about it at a younger age. We all need to be capable of discussing it without minimising it or taking it as a joke. We all need to involve and recognise the people that are struggling with it because many of them are doing so or have done so in silence.