Was the spending review sexist?

This week I read the Fawcett society’s comments about the spending review with interest. I think it’s important to look at issues such as this from all sorts of perspectives, including a feminist one. But ultimately I found their arguments against the spending review and its impact on equality unconvincing. Their response states that

“The cuts are so deep and will hit women so hard that they risk more than women’s financial security – they threaten hard fought progress we’ve made on women’s equality. The Chancellor’s plans undermine the status of women as equal partners with men in the world of work, home and society as a whole”.

Their justification for this statement is, in part, that 65% of public sector workers are women, and more women than men work in the lower grade jobs which they assert are more likely to be hit. Whilst I am not sure where they have got their evidence for this assertion, there is a more fundamental problem I have with this statement.

The argument seems to go along these lines- more women than men work in the public sector, especially in low paid jobs- we want women to have equal job opportunities- therefore these jobs should not be cut. It seems to me that this is rather flawed analysis. What we should be asking is why do more women work in the public sector, and why are there more women in lower paid jobs? Then we need to take action to find ways for women to have equal ability to get jobs in all sectors, and at all levels.

In other words, a feminist campaign should, in my view, be about ensuring that women have equal opportunities alongside men in all aspects of life- and this means building resilience to the bad times as well as taking opportunities in the good. The Fawcett society’s statistics about the over-representation of women in public sector jobs highlights how far from equality we really are- it’s not spending cuts that cause inequality, but inequality that means that women and men may feel the impact of cuts differently. As a feminist, I do not want to be in a position where I argue for the maintenance of low paid jobs for women- I want to be in a position to argue that women should be equally represented in all employment types and levels.

The problem they are describing is not a reason to maintain high levels of public spending if this is not the right thing for the economy. A poor economy is going to hit everyone badly. The important factor here is not that public sector spending cuts cause inequality, but that inequality means that men and women are not in an equal position to respond to those cuts, and more needs to be done to improve equality.

As an aside- I am really pleased that currently all the top jobs at Hull City Council are held by women. Proof that women can get to the top given half a chance.

Inequality and Policing Reforms

The New Statesman and The Guardian this week have been reporting on a new report about inequality in Britain, which shows that black people make up less than 3% of the population but 15% of the people stopped by police. People of Afro-Caribbean and African descent are also imprisoned nearly 7 times more than their share of the population, compared with 4 times more in the US.

This indicates that there’s still a long way to go to improve problems of racism in the UK’s criminal justice system. This is an issue that I hope will be taken seriously in the government’s reform of policing. In the current consultation paper ‘Policing in the 21st Century: Reconnecting police and the people’, a prominent theme is to cut back on bureaucracy. The paper specifically refers to ending form-filling, including ‘stop’ forms.

I agree that in general we want the police to spend more time on the streets and less time on filling out paperwork. The principle that there should be more local accountability and less central bureaucratic control is certainly right. But the way that this is implemented needs to be VERY carefully thought through in order to ensure that controls remain to prevent racism and any potential inhibition of civil liberties.

The consultation paper highlights the need to allow the police to use their professionalism to do their job well. I agree with this, but we also need to recognise that the police have a great deal of power and this needs to be used wisely. We still need to have measures in place to ensure that policing powers are used in inappropriate ways, racism is tackled, and civil liberties are protected.
(If you’re interested, the Equality and Human Rights commission report ‘How Fair is Britain’ is available here, and the policing consultation document here).

Some thoughts about the meaning of terrorism

Currently, my university teaching centres on terrorism, and seeing as it is a very topical issue at the moment, I thought it might be worth a few comments here. So far this semester, we’ve been thinking about what we mean by ‘terrorism’. There are several questions that are really interesting to discuss when we talk about what we mean when we say terrorism. For example:

Do we only use the word to refer to actions or actors we approve of?

Once an actor has achieved their objectives, are we then less likely to refer to them as terrorists (after all, it would probably feel wrong to refer to someone now leading a state as a terrorist)?

More controversially- does terrorism actually exist outside our labelling it as such (if terrorism is about the spread of fear through violent acts, calling it terrorism is spreading the fear and creating the ‘terror’)?

And if the word terrorism did not exist, would we need to invent it (we could refer to acts by referring to the specific crimes such as hijacking, suicide bombs etc instead)?

With my academic head on, I like these questions. I like to challenge our preconceptions of what terrorism is. It seems to me that even though terrorism is a highly controversial and important subject, we need to challenge the way we think about it.

But I am also aware that questions like this can all too easily move to a position where the impact of terrorism is diminished. Recent terrorist acts have had incredibly damaging, horrific impacts on real people, real families. We need to recognise this.

However, I do think that the questions above can point to the importance of using the word terrorism carefully. I would not want to be responsible for helping the terrorist aim of spreading fear, and over-using the word terrorism may do that. I would also not want to see the fear of terrorism being over-stated by labelling acts of civil war, or ‘ordinary’ criminal acts as terrorism, or the fear of terrorism being manipulated to justify counter-terrorism measures that damage our civil liberties.

What Tim Farron needs to be the perfect candidate

Like many libdems at the moment, I have been thinking about who to vote for as our next party president. I think Ros Scott did a great job, and she will be missed a lot, so there’s a lot for the next president to live up to.

I think Tim Farron, one of the main contenders, is great. Ever since I’ve been a regular conference-goer, and seen him at rallies, on the conference stage, at fringe events and so on, I’ve been very impressed by him. He has all the qualities I am looking for in a candidate for president- he is great at motivating the party, he seems to have his feet firmly placed on the ground and looks after his constituency well. He is not a London-centric career politician, and he appears to understand the grass-roots of the party outside Westminster. Being an MP and a good media performer will allow him to speak out for the party which is important now we need to maintain our separate identity from the coalition, and yet, from what I know, he also works hard in his constituency, keeping in touch with ‘real’ people through regular campaigning etc.

However, he has one major disadvantage as far as I’m concerned—he’s not a woman. In a situation where we have cabinet ministers but no woman, a male leader and deputy leader, as a party we desperately need a woman in a position of leadership in the party. For me, this is a big and important issue.

However, Tim can hardly help the fact that he’s not a woman. And I genuinely believe he has the best qualities for being party president. So, I cannot bring myself to vote for someone just because they are a woman- we might need women in top posts, but it needs to be the right women, based on them being the best candidate for the job.

So, I’m going to vote for Tim, but with a heavy heart, and with a call for us to do more- much more- as a party to increase our diversity. This means we need to support and encourage women with the right skills to do more within the party, to gain experience, to go for positions they are able to do. And it means doing more to enable women to overcome (and remove) the structural barriers to gaining the experience and skills they need, and getting selected for positions. We also need to ensure that women candidates are not judged in strict comparison to men, but to recognise their individual skills and values for what they are.