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: Racism - We reject #NotAll, We demand #NotAtAll

The (much delayed) report from the UK Government’s Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities (CRED) was released last week, and claimed that many of the racial disparities found in the UK do not have their origins in racism. The report was met with incredulity by people and organisations who witness the myriad ways in which racism and white supremacy still impact on all areas of our politics, economy and society. This guest blog from Dr Shridevi Gopi-Firth explores and rejects the idea presented in the report that because ‘not all’ people are racist, institutional racism cannot exist.

Dr Shridevi Gopi-Firth is a Speciality Doctor in Eating Disorders for NHS Scotland, a ChoosePsychiatry 2020 representative, and Board Director of @Saheliya. She has been invited as BAME expert and peer reviewer for various guidelines and organisations including the upcoming Scottish IGN guidelines for Eating Disorders. Follow her on Twitter @Tychitha.

GUEST POST: Experiences of the pandemic for women with a disability

Engender is currently hosting a survey developed with People First (Scotland), collecting responses from women with a disability about their experiences during the Covid-19 pandemic. In this blog, members of People First (Scotland) discuss the work they do, and share some of the experiences and issues that have been highlighted so far in the survey responses.

GUEST POST: Gender representation within Local Authorities

Today we're publishing the second in a series of blogs from two student placements Engender is hosting from the University of Strathclyde Applied Gender Studies and Research Methods course. These blogs explore women's representation and decision-making around women's equality in local authorities across Scotland. You can see other blogs in the series here.

In 2020 Jennifer Robinson graduated with an honours degree in Society Politics and Policy from the University of the West of Scotland. She is now undertaking a Masters in Applied Gender Studies and Research Methods with a particular interest in feminist disability studies. She has previously written for the Glasgow Women’s Library and you can find her tweeting about feminism and disability on twitter @JenRobinson95.

GUEST POST: Women and decision-making in local authorities

Today we're publishing the first in a series of blogs from two student placements Engender is hosting from the University of Strathclyde Applied Gender Studies and Research Methods course. These blogs explore women's representation and decision-making around women's equality in local authorities across Scotland. You can see other blogs in the series here.

Katie Young graduated from the University of Glasgow with a degree in English Literature in Summer 2020, and is now studying a Master’s degree in Applied Gender Studies and Research Methods at the University of Strathclyde. She is passionate about women’s fiction and empowering girls and young women to fight for gender equality in Scotland through volunteering with Girlguiding, and tweets under @katieeey.

Our Bodies Our Rights in Lockdown

In this blog, Engender's Policy and Parliamentary Manager Eilidh Dickson, discusses the Our Bodies Our Rights report, the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on disabled women, and our new survey developed with People First Scotland.

Our Bodies Our Rights showed that failure to act on disabled women’s reproductive rights and health has and continues to have severe consequences.

Engender recommends 2020

Over the past years we've had to privilege of chatting to some brilliant women for our On the Engender podcast. This year, we asked guests to leave us with a recommendation - from further policy reading, to must-follow twitter accounts.

Guest Post: Mainstreaming Spotlight - Close the Gap

To mark the release of Engender's new report, What Works for Women: Improving gender mainstreaming in Scotland, we're sharing how mainstreaming is important to the work of some of Scotland's equalities organisations. Here, Lindsey Millen from Close the Gap talks about how mainstreaming is essential for their work on women's labour market participation. What Works for Women: Improving Gender Mainstreaming in Scotland Spotlight: Close the Gap "Policy that responds to the specific experiences of women is also better quality and better value for money – put simply, it delivers for everyone."Why is gender mainstreaming important to your organisation?

Gender mainstreaming is critical to delivering women’s labour market equality and, in doing so, tackle wider gender inequality. Many of the causes of the gender pay gap are not unlawful, e.g. the lack of quality flexible working at senior levels and a lack of affordable wraparound childcare. In order to tackle these issues, gender must be at the heart of policymaking. Policy that responds to the specific experiences of women is also better quality and better value for money – put simply, it delivers for everyone. Gender mainstreaming is such a valuable tool for policymakers and we need to see it being used effectively.

Guest Post: Mainstreaming Spotlight - Scottish Women's Budget Group

To mark the release of Engender's new report, What Works for Women: Improving gender mainstreaming in Scotland, we're sharing how mainstreaming is important to the work of some of Scotland's equalities organisations. Here, Sara Cowan from the Scottish Women's Budget Group talks about how mainstreaming is a vital component of creating a gender equal economy. What Works for Women: Improving Gender Mainstreaming in Scotland Spotlight: Scottish Women's Budget Group "Gender mainstreaming through government and local authority budget decisions across all areas of public funding is a vital component to building a gender equal economy."Why is gender mainstreaming important to your organisation?

Women and men use public services differently – they have different life experiences and face different economic realities and challenges. Women are often disadvantaged by policies that do not recognise these different experiences. Gender mainstreaming is important to us to redress this balance when decisions are made across a range of public services.

Guest Post: Mainstreaming Spotlight - CRER

To mark the release of Engender's new report, What Works for Women: Improving gender mainstreaming in Scotland, we're sharing how mainstreaming is important to the work of some of Scotland's equalities organisations. Here, Carol Young from the Centre for Racial Equality and Rights (CRER) talks about how they use an intersectional approach in their mainstreaming work.Why is gender mainstreaming important to your organisation?

While CRER is an anti-racist organisation and our work is primarily focused on race equality, we adopt an intersectional approach where possible. People’s identities are multifaceted, and everyone has multiple protected characteristics, so it's not feasible to get mainstreaming right for one characteristic without considering the others.

GUEST POST: Mainstreaming ambition

Louise Macdonald, OBE, is the co-chair of the First Minister's National Advisory Council on Women and Girls. The focus of the Council this year is 'gender architecture', a key part of mainstreaming gender. To mark the launch of our report What Works for Women: improving gender mainstreaming in Scotland, we asked Louise to blog for us on the work of the council during 2020.

Making gender inequality a historical curiosity is an ambitious vision – but sadly a necessary one.

F-words: Finn McKay on gender ideology

Dr Finn Mackay is a sociology lecturer at the University of the West of England in Bristol and author of Radical Feminism: Feminist Activism in Movement. Here, ahead of the release of her new book 'Female masculinities & the gender wars’, Dr Mackay explores the term ‘gender ideology’ and what it means for feminism in the UK.

"Activism against “gender ideology” has become a shorthand, and successfully unites many who are against abortion, women’s rights, equal marriage, LGBTQI+ rights, divorce rights or immigration for example." Dr Finn McKay

GUEST POST: Food for thought

Dr Shridevi Gopi-Firth is a Speciality Doctor in Eating Disorders working in Scotland. Her international education and career, including third sector work across India, Russia and the UK have given Shri a wide exposure to diverse cultural, social, educational and healthcare settings, thus successfully complementing her lived experience and clinical skills to develop a holistic understanding of the person. Here, she explores how stigma around eating disorders can affect women in BAME communities.

"While mental health issues themselves are a stigma in most BAME societies, eating disorders are less well known and more shunned as a 'westernised problem'."

F-words: Emojis can be feminist too

Amy King is a PhD researcher at Edinburgh Napier University and Digital Officer at YWCA Scotland - The Young Women’s Movement. Her PhD investigation into online violence and the mechanisms of harm in language often take her research to weird and wonderful places, including contemplating the harm - and hope - of the humble emoji. "Of course equity, diversity and inclusion cannot be achieved through emojis alone, but the age-old adage “You can’t be what you can’t see” applies to emojis too." Amy King

Do you remember the first time you used an emoji? I have to admit, I don’t. But I do remember the first time my Mum sent me one, about 7 years after they had become a mainstream element in digital communication. Now I’m priming her for the GIF library on WhatsApp. I’m lucky, though - my Mum has never sent me the wrong emoji before, like a crying laughing emoji in a sombre context, or an awkward emoji shoehorned into a sentence to prove she’s ~down with the kids~. And that’s important because emojis carry specific meaning, have acceptable and unacceptable uses, and they often hold crucial extralinguistic detail that we rely on to ensure we’re understood properly.

F-words: The Many Languages of Transfeminism

Harry Josephine Giles is from Orkney and lives in Leith. Their latest book is The Games (Out-Spoken Press), shortlisted for the 2019 Saltire Prize for Best Collection. They have a PhD in Creative Writing from Stirling, co-direct the performance platform Anatomy, and are touring the poetry-music-video show Drone internationally. Here, they write about the history of 'transfeminism' as a word, and as a movement. Find out more about Harry Josephine at www.harryjosephine.com.

‘Knowing Me; Knowing You: Is this the best we can do for cohabiting couples?

Engender has responded to the Scottish Law Commission's consultation on reforms to the law governing cohabitation in Scotland. This blog, from Engender's Policy and Parliamentary Manager Eilidh Dickson, sets out why equality in cohabitation is a feminist issue.

The state has always had an interest in marriage... It has historically marked out families as one single unit while governing social hierarchy and social order between the sexes - man as the economic provider and women as caregiver and keepers of the home.

F-words: Gendered language - the Maker movement and its technology narrative

Dr Elisabeth Loose has just finished her PhD thesis on the amateur technology Maker movement, its gender balance and connection to environmental sustainability at the University of Glasgow’s School of Interdisciplinary Studies. She has recently become self-employed to support charities and social causes with their communications. Follow Elli on Instagram at @elli.ellixir where she advocates for inclusive social impact marketing.

"Narratives around tinkering and DIY have, traditionally, been associated with male activities – just think about how we talk about sheds,workshops and 'man caves' - and now Making is following their example." Dr Elisabeth Loose

F-words: Language and gender in board games

Jenny Lester is a feminist writer and performer. She currently works at Equate Scotland, and has previously worked in women’s rights organisations and mental health charities. She completed an MA in Women’s Studies researching sex education, pleasure, and faking orgasms. She is a board game and TTRPG enthusiast and is passionate about bringing feminism into these spaces.

"Board games are a piece of media that I hold close to my heart.[...] But, like all media, they exist within our culture so, in turn, display our culture back to us. This means they often show back sexism and inequality." Jenny Lester

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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