This is No Victory for Britain's Women

@GendertheNews

The left are shocked and in mourning, not even the most faithful of Conservative voters could not have predicted the Conservative majority of 331/650 seats at Thursday’s UK general election. As well as a Conservative majority, Scotland revolted against Westminster and Scottish Labour to vote in 56/59 SNP MPs and 3 of the party leaders, Nick Clegg, Nigel Farage (who failed to win his seat) and Ed Miliband resigned within an hour. It was a historic and dramatic election that left many wondering how the polls could have been so drastically wrong. When I awoke on Friday morning to the knowledge that the Conservative party, who’s coalition has already done enough damage to this country and its women, were on course for an overall majority the despair and helplessness I felt was as unprecedented as the result. As a young woman, a ‘lefty’, a student and a first time voter it was so easy to spend the entire day staring at my ceiling, subduing waves of misery, wondering why I had even bothered. It was a stark reminder of the danger of political bubbles: bubbles of friends and family all voting to the left, bubbles of social media where I follow people I agree with and bubbles of university lecturers and role models. Nevertheless, it is now time to stop mourning, celebrate silver linings, analyse and most importantly organise.

For liberal feminists and Conservative women alike this election can be heralded as a victory for feminism: 20 of the 23 Conservative swing seats were won by women and overall there is now a third more women in the House of Commons than there was in 2010. Similarly, on Friday David Cameron announced that Theresa May will remain his home secretary, meaning that there will be a woman in his inner circle. She is also tipped for leadership in 2020. At this level, the silver lining is that women are only becoming more represented at Westminster with every election that goes by. Furthermore, personally I don’t believe that the SNP votes were for independence or Scotland would have become independent last year in the referendum, they were protest votes against Westminster but first and foremost they were votes for the incredible anti-austerity, leftist campaign led by the best women politician (with the possible exception of Barbara Castle) this country has ever seen: Nicola Sturgeon. Her loyalty, her dedication and passion alongside her pragmatic policy and enviable orator skills won those seats for the SNP. She has combatted sexism and shown the electorate just how powerful a strong woman can be. The resignation of the 3 leaders has also paved the way for some (perhaps temporary) feminist progress: this morning we’ve awoken to the news that currently 6 of the 7 main party leaders (excluding the ‘newly single’ Prime Minister) are women interims. Harriet Harman for Labour, Nicola Sturgeon for SNP, Leanne Wood for Plaid Cymru, Sal Brinton for the Liberal Democrats and Suzanne Evans for UKIP. Could  we be faced with an all women election in 2020? All of this progress denotes significantly more representation for women in the Westminster that should translate into real policy progress for women.

Nevertheless, this election was no victory for your average British woman. Without being lumbered with the Liberal Democrats widespread if questionable morality the newly absolute Conservative government will progress and augment their brutal austerity plan. As aforementioned by myself and others, said austerity budgets have never undergone mandatory Equality Impact Assessments (EIA) and already from 2010-2015 the burden of austerity was taken by up to 65% by women. Cameron’s austerity targets women. It targets women public sector workers, women immigrants, women part time workers, women on zero hour contracts, women refugees, women feeding their children from food banks or going without food to feed their children, women in the care sector, pregnant or ill women in need of healthcare and many more. Shelter and legal aid to women who have been domestically abused, sexually assaulted or raped will continue to be considered an ‘unaffordable luxury’ whilst tampons will remain taxed VAT for their ‘luxury status.’ Maternity leave will be cut, the Human Rights act replaced with Gove’s British Rights Bill which I highly doubt will be as comprehensive for gender rights and LGBT progress shelved and regressed. Sex education is no longer a mandatory requirement in primary schools. Just in case consent education wasn’t already such a widespread problem. Beyond these policies, the Eton Boys club will continue to make decisions about our bodies and minds, they will continue to educate our children and dominate our universities, they will continue to victim blame, scape goat and exploit those most vulnerable for their own gains. And this is just what we already know, who knows what David Cameron and George Osborne have in store for the women of this country.

Under its progressive ‘add women and stir’ guise, this is a regressive government for women’s rights. Of course I acknowledge the damage this new government will do to all those most vunerable but it is so important to remember just how much of the brunt falls on women’s shoulders as primary caregivers. For these reasons I encourage all readers to block cuts wherever we can, join women’s unions, call out sexual harassment on the streets and sexism in the office, give to food banks, get out on the streets on 20 June to end austerity but most importantly combat this with compassion. Be compassionate to everyone but particularly women. It is now more important than ever that for the next five years we stand together to stand up for the politics of hope that got out-played this time by the politics of fear and hatred.

Labour's Manifesto for Women & Positive Discrimination: A Necessary Evil

I’m pretty sure everyone in Britain is so utterly fed up with the General Election that no one wants to read yet another opinion piece on yet another campaign trick especially on an international blog attempting to gender otherwise gender-blind headlines. However, this site also seeks to explore specifically gendered headlines when they (once in a blue moon) hit the headlines. This week the ‘women’s vote’ has been the political football of choice for the UK general election candidates. In particular for the Labour Party who announced this week that they were issuing a separate manifesto entitled: Labour’s Manifesto for Women. You can find the full detail of said manifesto here: but for those of you with lives let me summarise. If elected, Labour will do the following ‘for women:’

1. Raise the minimum wage to £8 an hour by 2019 and therefore stop the disproportionate exploitation of women’s labour under the current government.

2.    Reverse cuts to childcare therefore making free childcare available for up to 15-25 hours a week and for primary aged children from 8-6 every weekday.

3.    Double paid paternity leave from 2 to 4 weeks and increase parental leave pay to at least national minimum wage.

4.    More stable funding to rape crisis centres and legal aid for rape victims. As well as a new commissioner to monitor domestic abuse and sexual assault.

5.    Introduce age appropriate sex and relationships education in schools.

6.  Continue using all women shortlists and quotas in Westminister that has already resulted in them having the largest number of women MPs.

Do not get me wrong there are many things wrong with this which I will move onto subsequently but firstly let me highlight why I think this is ultimately a necessary evil, much like other positive discrimination agendas. Ultimately, this manifesto highlights that a Labour led coalition will be better for women than the Conservative alternative that has allowed women to take 85% of the austerity burden. All of these measures are fundamental steps in the right direction. They are in no way the destination but they pave the way for significant progress in the crisis of gender inequality brought about my the current government. Free childcare and better-paid, fairer parental leave will potentially emancipate women from some of their care burdens whilst providing the desperately needed aid and education in the area of sexual politics is also a positive step. Much like their policies detailed under point number six and earlier this year at pink bus gate, this is just another act of positive discrimination that, whilst patronising and somewhat unfair, does try to make women’s voices heard. It is because women’s voices are being heard that issues that unfortunately affect women more than men are, for the first time, being voiced in this election debate. It is no coincidence that Labour is the party with the most women MPs and the only party to have pointed out their deliberately gendered manifesto promises. At the end of the day, in the system we live, whilst it is not right, women and men experience their lives differently and often disproportionately and if positive discrimination is the way to progressive change and in the mean time proper representation this I am all for it. Perhaps it is what some might call a peaceful and gradual revolution that will bring more women into politics, making their issues heard and therefore make progressive changes towards the emancipation from gender roles. In 2010 only 39% of British women between the ages of 18 and 25 voted, the lowest turnout category, therefore anything politicians can do to engage with women who feel their voices are not being heard is great. We are taught to actively disengage with formal politics as it is a ‘man’s world’ and this has the dual damage of reifying the patriarchal nature of politics and ensuring unequal representation of issues. If we do not vote we will be an unrepresented majority and the system will be maintained. Women must vote for representation and equality and this manifesto seeks them out and encourages them to do so.

Now let’s get one thing clear positive discrimination is in no way positive. It shouldn’t be necessary but it is. The reason its necessary is what political parties should really be trying to tackle but in a way this does attempt to do so, in a circular kind of way. My biggest peeve with is that it is not a Manifesto for ‘Women’ because this perpetuates gender roles associated with women being in charge of all childcare and only women being affected by sexual violence and domestic abuse. It should be entitled Labour’s Manifesto for Gender Equality and every party should have to write one and have their manifesto’s checked by the Equality Impact Assessments. This should not be a campaign tactic and a political football but a basic, instrumental part of writing a manifesto. Or a budget (cough cough George Osborne.) The idea that only women care about childcare is at the very root of the problem: institutionalised and patriarchal gender roles that subordinate women’s agency by conflating them to the private sphere are the problem. This is what we should be tackling not emphasising! Equally, sexual abuse and domestic violence affects men too. It is not a women's issue. In fact, gender equality is not a ‘women’s issue’ it is a humanitarian issue that affects all people in their everyday lives and yes, much like everything else, most of the blow is taken on women’s shoulders but everyone should be voting for gender equality. Not just women. One of the policies is about paternity leave: paternity leave FOR FATHERS is not a women’s issue. It is a gender equality issue and this tendency to box off feminism in to ‘women’s issues’ is detrimental to ultimate feminist aims.

Furthermore, this manifesto directed solely at women is patronising and implies that the rest of the manifesto is for men. Equally, much of it is fabricated and tokenistic: raising the minimum wage for everyone should not be considered a ‘women’s issue.’ Rather, taking direct action against those who exploit women’s labour and perpetuate the pay gap by paying part time workers less and discriminating against women should be detailed here. Raising the minimum wage does not tackle that sneaky little 17% pay gap. Also, Labour will continue with austerity and women’s disproportionate burdens will undoubtedly abound here. Teaching sex and relationship education in schools is of course fundamental but here a mention of teaching children about the fundamentality of consent should be included. Overall, there are many holes in all of the above policies and a lot of problems with the root ideas and implications of all positive discrimination of this kind. The problem is not that positive discrimination exists, but that it has to exist. That we live in a world, a country, where in order to employ women or encourage them to vote we have to treat them as incompetent secondary citizens! I like to think that these measures put Labour’s feet in the right direction but whether or not they will have the opportunity to follow through is another issue. For me, any deliberate action taken to ensure women’s voices are heard and their problems accounted for is a good thing.

P.S. If you haven’t registered to vote PLEASE DO. Even if you don’t agree with any of them, spoil your ballot! Tell people you’re unhappy. A non-vote does nothing, a vote, even a spoiled one, could change everything and will make a difference in the closest election we’ve had for years. (but also don’t bother if you’re gonna vote UKIP.)