Engender blog

June 2022 - Policy Round Up

Abortion Rights Round-Up

What's been happening with reproductive rights over the past month? Engender members are kept up-to-date with this news through our weekly Friday Feminist Five newsletter, but in this post we've collated an update for non-members too. If you'd like to receive the weekly newsletter you can join Engender as a member here.

News from the US continues to cause alarm for defenders of women’s reproductive rights, as we wait for the decision on whether or not Roe v Wade will be effectively overturned by the Supreme Court. While it’s been heartening to see protests, rallies and other actions to defend the right to choose (we particularly liked the New York Magazine’s state-by-state guide to accessing abortions, and the creative legislation in Austin, Texas), the reality of what may happen across the US in a couple of months is really scary.

Why the proposed Scottish Carer's Assistance must do more to value unpaid care

This week marks Carers Week, and it comes after two years which have shown, more clearly than ever, the vital role that unpaid carers play. The Covid-19 pandemic highlighted what half of the population already knew – that women take on the vast majority of unpaid care work, and that without them our society and economy could not function.

The Scottish Government has been consulting on their proposals to replace Carer's Allowance with a Scottish Carer's Assistance, as part of the devolution of some social security payments to Scotland. The provision of unpaid care, and its interactions with social care, are closely interlinked with systemic and harmful gender roles that constrain women’s lives, with women’s access to paid work, leisure time and power remaining heavily constrained by the provision of care and gendered expectations around its value and delivery.

May 2022 - Policy Round Up

GUEST POST: “Warning” versus “claiming”: the subtle misogyny in media discourse

GUEST POST: Who says what? A breakdown of gender bias in news topics and reporting

Today we're publishing the next in a series of blogs from the current student placements Engender is hosting from the University of Strathclyde Applied Gender Studies and Research Methods course.In the second of three posts, Kirsty Rorrison continues research into gender bias in political news reporting during the COVID-19 pandemic. Here, she looks specifically at the breakdown of bias in topics and authors, as well as whose voices are missing in the reporting of the pandemic. You can read Kirsty's first post here.

As my placement with Engender is nearing its end, I have finally completed my research on gender, COVID-19 and media. In this blog post, I’m going to discuss what I found out in my investigation and why it was crucial that I delved a bit deeper into this topic. As I mentioned in my previous post, my main area of interest in this research has always been the ways in which women in politics are represented. However, I also wanted to look at how other women, and more broadly gender, appeared in news coverage of coronavirus. For this research, I ended up coding 108 news stories. I took note of the topic, the gender of the journalist, and the identity markers of every person mentioned in each article. I wanted to see where gender appeared in news coverage, whether this related to the kinds of topics being discussed, the journalists who wrote about them or the people mentioned in articles. In this blog post, I will outline what my analysis revealed about journalists and news topics - in other words, who is writing, and what are they writing about?

What do women need from a Scottish Carer’s Assistance?

In this post, we're sharing Engender's guide to filling out the Scottish Government's consultation on Carer's Assistance. You can also access this information as a PDF document here.The Scottish Government is consulting with people in Scotland about a Scottish Carer’s Assistance, which will replace Carer’s Allowance in Scotland.

Care is a key issue of women’s equality:

GUEST POST: Looking Deeper: Black and Minority Ethnic Women in the Scottish Parliament

Today we're publishing the next blog in a series from the current student placements Engender is hosting from the University of Strathclyde Applied Gender Studies and Research Methods course.Mary Galloway concludes her blog series in this third post, which focuses more deeply on the discussions of Black and minority ethnic women in the Scottish Parliament, and the importance of Parliament understanding the distinct ways that racialised and gendered oppression take shape for different communities. You can read Mary's first post here and second post here.

In this final blog, I will carry out a more focused analysis of the results produced by my research into the representation of women facing multiple discriminations in the Scottish Parliament. I have so far talked about 'women with multiple protected characteristics' quite abstractly. It is important to think about who these women actually are and why it matters that the multiplicity of their marginalisation is acknowledged. Black and minority ethnic (BME) women face both gendered and racial oppression, providing them with experiences that are distinct from white women and Black men. For example, Black and minority ethnic women were some of the worst affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. For this reason, it is crucial that the Scottish Parliament is attentive to the specific needs of this group.

GUEST POST: Who are the conversation starters in the Scottish Parliament when it comes to marginalised women?

GUEST POST: Which women are visible in the Scottish Parliament?

Today we're publishing the next blog in a series from the current student placements Engender is hosting from the University of Strathclyde Applied Gender Studies and Research Methods course.Following the local elections last week, it is clear that diverse representation is needed at all levels. Mary Galloway's research focuses on representation in the Scottish Parliament, and for her first post Mary maps out her research into the visibility of women with multiple marginalised identities, as well as discussing gender audits, and why an intersectional approach is needed in order to fully assess the representation and participation of all women in the Scottish Parliament. You can read Mary's second post here and third post here.

In February 2022, it was announced that the Scottish Parliament will undergo a gender audit, something for which Engender, along with other organisations and campaigns, has long advocated. This audit will assess the extent to which women participate in and are represented by the Scottish Parliament, following the guide created by the Inter-Parliamentary Union. While a great start towards a gender-sensitive Parliament, there are clear limitations in what an audit can do to bring an intersectional lens to women’s representation. It is crucial that to truly explore gender equality, we need to uncover the experiences and positions of all women in Holyrood, including those of the most marginalised. The project I am carrying out here aims to provide a snapshot of the representation of the women in Scotland whose lives are structured and limited not just by their gender but by their race, physical and mental abilities, and sexuality too.

Why we need data to achieve equal representation in politics

GUEST POST: Women’s Representation in the Scottish Local Council Elections 2022: What We Know So Far

GUEST POST: Supporting women to stand for political office

April 2022 - Policy Round Up

GUEST POST: Why we need diverse representation now

Between now and the local elections on May 5^th, we will be publishing a series of blogs from the Equal Representation Coalition. They’ll be taking a look at the state of equality in our politics at the moment, discussing their work in tackle barriers to participation, and will be exploring the crucial role that accurate data plays in achieving equal representation in our councils and parliaments and why we need more of it. Here, Junaid Ashraf, Community Engagement Officer at CEMVO Scotland takes a look at some of the barriers faced by ethnic minority people entering politics, how these contribute to persistent underrepresentation in our councils and parliaments, and why it’s high time for change. In the year 2022, CEMVO Scotland believes that society has accepted the argument that a democracy which is representative of the nation we live in is a good thing. We no longer subscribe to the idea that politics should be a career for the elite and those with aspirations to rub shoulders with the rich white men traditionally found in those circles.

We understand now that creating a diverse representative body can have a net positive impact on our lives as we seek to ensure that all experiences of Scotland are represented where the levers of power lie. Unfortunately, while we as a society might understand this, achieving it in reality is a much more difficult task, requiring decisive action from those already in power - including from councils, parliament and political parties.

GUEST POST: Precedented inequalities in unprecedented times

Here we've published the next in a series of blogs from the current student placements Engender is hosting from the University of Strathclyde Applied Gender Studies and Research Methods course.In this post, Kirsty Rorrison discusses the COVID-19 pandemic, from it's impact on women and minoritised communities to it's representation in the media, and introduces research specifically focusing on how gender bias in political news reporting has operated during the pandemic. You can read Kirsty's second post here.

With the COVID-19 pandemic recently passing its two year anniversary, I’m sure many of us have been reflecting on the ways in which life has changed since the coronavirus first became a mainstream issue. We have all been impacted by the pandemic in one way or another - circumstances have changed personally, socially, politically and economically all across the world. However, while it may seem like everything in our society has fundamentally shifted, its underlying social structures have remained practically untouched. In fact, the COVID-19 pandemic can be seen as something of a magnifying glass for the oppressive social institutions forming the bedrock of modern society. In these "unprecedented times,” some things have reflected the precedent more than ever.

Scottish charities ‘seriously concerned’ about ‘light-touch’ Scottish Government plans to reform equality rules for public bodies

GUEST POST: Young women's political representation

March 2022 - Policy Round Up