Engender blog

Guest Post: I care about……

Guest blog from Claire Cairns, coordinator of Coalition of Carers in Scotland

With the Scottish elections being held on the 5^th of May, Scotland will soon be gripped by election fever.

Guest Post: Social Care and Gender Equality: Independent Living in Scotland’s Dialogue on the Future Funding of Social Care

Guest blog by William Pinkney-Baird of Independent Living in Scotland (ILiS)

Scotland's social care system is in crisis. It's underfunded, the support being given to disabled people is narrowing dangerously, it penalises users with expensive charges, it increasingly relies on family kinship caring (usually women). Furthermore, it's staffed by people on permanently low wages (again usually women), both of whom are expected to deliver minor miracles. All of this creates a system which undermines the human rights of disabled people to society, democracy, the economy and their families and communities – as well as presents issues to gender equality. Women carers are more likely than men carers to be working part time, and thus more likely to be reliant on social security and experience poverty. Disabled women also experience economic gender inequality: the employment rate for non-disabled men is nearly 90%, but for disabled women it is 40%.

Guest Post: Gender Inequality in Old Age

Guest Post by Becky Young of Lilac James, an all-female PR and marketing agency

Older women often live in poverty. They have no one to care for them, after spending their lives providing unpaid care for friends and family. Ageing is inevitable of course, but its gendered injustices shouldn’t be. It’s time to make ending pensioner poverty a priority and providing decent elderly care services for all.

Why we need a Women's Employment and Enterprise Challenge Fund

Last week I wrote here about the ways that the next Scottish Government could enable businesses to make progress on women’s equality. This would not only be beneficial to women in Scotland, but also to their own reputation and profits.

Engender Calls for a Gender Equality in Business Scheme to promote women’s equality in the workplace

Engender is calling for political parties to commit to introducing an accrediting gender equality in business scheme to incentivise employment practices which ensure women’s equality. This is of of the two asks relating to 'employment and the labour market' in our 20 for 2016 Manifesto.

Gender Matters in Media and Culture

For many people, popular culture and the media is the first indication that maybe, just maybe, we don’t have women’s equality yet. The women we see on screen and in print are often stereotyped or tokenistic, or we don’t see them at all. And of course the situation is worse for older women, women of colour, disabled women, lesbian and trans women. One thing women across Scotland have told Engender is that the media, both in print and on screen, can play a huge role in perpetuating women’s inequality.

Time to drive gender equality home with robust legislation

This blog first appeared in The National

We need a #GenderEqualityBill because...

Roosh V, and how we respond to hatred towards women

This has been a good week for self-promoting controversialists who boast about the rapes they have perpetrated. It’s been an exciting week for the million plus followers of their grooming how-to sites, who have found themselves the focus of the global and Scottish media. It’s been less of a good week for the women with experience of the rape, sexual harassment, and everyday sexism that flow from their toxic notions of women’s place in the world.

Celebrating the past year and welcoming the new

It’s been a great year for Engender, with fantastic events, projects, and research work happening throughout 2015. We’ve supported our amazing #FeministFest bloggers, held inspiring conferences with sister organisations, and chatted to folk around Scotland about why gender matters. We’ve seen increased public interest and political will for women’s equality, recognition of the importance of gender mainstreaming, and our work on women and welfare reform has ensured that decision makers know that women bear the brunt of cuts. You can see details of these things and more in our annual report, along with some pictures from the past year (see if you can spot yourself!)

The call for a just, transformative & gender-responsive climate agreement

As world leaders and activists descent on Paris for COP21, the latest set of talks to agree solutions to the climate crisis, the European Women's Lobby have created a list of demands for those taking part in the discussions.

5 Things You Should Know About The Scotland Bill

As the House of Lords begins to debate the Scotland Bill, this seems as good a moment as any to pause and provide an update on our thoughts about what happens next. The press coverage of the Lords’ reflections over the past couple of days has principally focused on the fiscal framework. The Lords is almost palpably frustrated at being asked to debate some of the detail around the transfer of powers without sorting out the money stuff first.

Scottish Green Party Elections - Female Co-Convener Q&A

On the eve of the close-of-poll for the Scottish Green Party internal elections, Engender put some questions around women's equality to the two contenders for the post of Female Co-Convener.

Guest Post: Why Reclaim the Night Still Matters, and Why You Should Come

Guest post from Anna Ritchie Allan, Chair of Glasgow Rape Crisis Board of Directors. This post first appeared on the Rape Crisis Glasgow blog as is published here with their permission.

Challenge Poverty Week: Gender Matters in Care

Last week, Engender and the Centre on Constitutional Change held a conference in Glasgow. Called 'Gender Matters: Equality and Inclusion through Care', it explored the issues of both childcare and long-term care, and examined how progressive care policy could help Scotland towards achieving gender equality. Becca, a participant from the Information Service has put together this great infographic of what was discussed.

Guest Post: Challenge Poverty Week: Food for thought from EaRN’s consultation event, A Platform for Positive Change

Guest blog from Roseanna Macdonald, Equality and Rights Network (EaRN)

Challenge Poverty Week: Women's employment support

This week is challenge poverty week, so it’s a great chance to look at a whole host of issues which affect women. One huge factor which pushes and keeps women in poverty is access to jobs, and the employment services which support women into work.

Guest Post: Challenge Povery Week: Women’s poverty and ‘austerity’ in the UK

Guest post by Professor Kirstein Rummery, University of Stirling and Engender board member. This post first appeared at www.challengepoverty.wordpress.com

Policies in the post 2010 Coalition government were dominated by the spectre of the 2008 private sector financial crisis, which by 2010 had turned into a global recession reducing economic production and seeing rises in unemployment. The UK in common with other G20 countries initially adopted a fiscal stimulus approach (quantitative easing) which slowed the recession but led to a sharp rise in the budget deficit to 11.6 % in 2009-10 the highest since 1945.

Guest Post: Challenge Poverty Week: Tackling Poverty and Inequality with Edinburgh’s new Equality and Rights Network (EaRN)

Guest blog from Roseanna Macdonald, Equality and Rights Network (EaRN)