Engender blog

Gender Matters: Twenty for 2016

Introducing our Gender Matters Manifesto: Twenty for 2016.

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

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

Wednesday’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

With 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.

The Scotland Bill or How Not To Do Devolution

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 22^nd 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

What are your plans for women and children?

This General Election, ask your candidates what their plans are for women and children.

We know that women, children and young people have been disproportionately impacted on by recent changes to public spending. What happens at Westminster hugely affects us all. We'd like your support in asking candidates how they will protect and support women and children from discrimination, poverty and harm.

Guest Post: Women at the heart of decision making: How women’s goals and ambitions can shape and create better public policy

by Lynn Williams, SCVO. Lynn is also an unpaid carer.

I left university some 20 years ago (how did that happen?!) with real fire in my belly, angry at the injustice of poverty and how those in poverty were treated.