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: 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)

Engender calls for a progressive law for Scotland.

With the news that control over abortion law is due to be devolved to the Scottish Parliament, Engender is calling for a progressive approach to abortion that reflects the fact that it a health issue that also underpins women’s autonomy and equality with men.

Guest Post: Scotland, a fairer and healthier nation?

Guest post by Pam Duncan-Glancy, Policy Officer for the Independent Living in Scotland project

AGORA Summer School 2015

AGORA - refugees welcome

Guest Post: A Citizen’s Income for Scotland?

Guest Post by Annie Miller, Chair of the Citizens' Income Trust

In this post Annie talks about why we need a Citizen's Income, and how it could work in Scotland.

Women lose in Summer Budget 2015

Lego figure holding the red Budget briefcaseWednesday’s budget made for extremely grim listening and reading. Low-income women and their children will be pushed into poverty at the expense of increased spending on defence and tax breaks for the affluent. Women were always going to be penalised by this budget, not least because of the well-trailed £12 billion worth of cuts to the ‘welfare’ budget, but some of the detail and framing language is even worse than predicted.

5 things you need to know about equality and today's Scotland Bill debate

Scottish Parliament debating chamberWith amendments to the Scotland Bill falling like leaves, it doesn't seem likely that any of the positive equality amendments being debated on Monday are likely to make it into the statute books.

Write to End Violence Against Women Awards Now Open!

Engender is delighted to be joining with women’s charities, led by Zero Tolerance, and the National Union of Journalists Scotland on the 2015 Write to End Violence Against Women Awards.

There’s more to Scottish sectarianism than the dominant narrative of ‘men behaving badly’

By Emma Ritch. This article first appeared in The National on May 26th 2015.

There's a strange tension at the heart of sectarianism in Scotland, in that we talk about it a great deal but actually know very little about it. It appears to sit at a particularly slippery intersection between race and sect, and takes on a different shape across geographical areas and class identities. Surprisingly, we have only had even a tentative definition for sectarianism in Scotland since 2013. This lack of clarity about what sectarianism is and how it functions to marginalise, exclude, and discriminate against individuals only becomes fuzzier when we throw gender into the mix.

Guest Post: Women’s Access to Employment Tribunal

Guest post by Jillian Merchant of Thompsons Solicitors

Sex discrimination, sexual harassment and the fight for equal pay are, sadly, still the reality of many working women’s lives.

Guest Post: Women, Westminster, and the media

Guest post by Juliet Swann, Campaigns and Research Officer at the Electoral Reform Society in Scotland.

A Widening Gap - new report shows women bear the brunt of welfare reform

Since 2010, £26 billion worth of cuts have been made to benefits, tax credits, pay and pensions. 85% of this has fallen on women’s incomes.

Guest Post: To succeed we must achieve equality

Guest post by Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh, SNP candidate for Ochil and South Perthshire.

Guest Post: A politics by and for women

Guest post by Sarah Beattie-Smith, Westminster Candidate for the Scottish Green Party in Edinburgh North and Leith

Scottish Women’s Rights Centre launched

The Scottish Women’s Rights Centre was launched on 22nd April at the University of Strathclyde. The event was a great success and resulted in many agencies contacting regarding the new service.

Guest Post: “Leanne Wood, I would!” (Helpful Twitter Guy, 2015)

Guest post by Harriet Protheroe-Davis, student activist and Women 50:50 Edinburgh branch organiser

Guest Post: Sexism is societal problem that every party must tackle

Guest blog by Kezia Dugdale, MSP and deputy leader of the Scottish Labour Party

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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