Women and equality: in light of recent events, the Suffragette motto ‘deeds not words’ is highly relevant

A woman dressed as a suffragette at March4Women 2018 - Image credit: PA Inages

“If I may be so honoured to have all the female nominees in every category stand with me in this room: the actors, the filmmakers, the producers, the directors, the writers, the cinematographers, the composers, the songwriters.

“OK, look around, everybody. Look around, ladies and gentlemen. Because we all have stories to tell and projects we need financed,” said Frances McDormand, as she picked up her Oscar for best actress in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri at the recent film industry awards.

It was a telling moment as female nominees around the room got to their feet, while McDormand placed her Oscar on the stage in front of her and proceeded to challenge executives on their support for projects led by women.

She ended by referring to an ‘inclusion rider’, a clause an actor can put in their contract demanding the production company meets a certain level of equality and diversity.

Meanwhile in London in the same weekend, Helen Pankhurst, the granddaughter of suffragette leader Emmeline Pankhurst, and thousands of others took part in the sixth annual March4Women ahead of International Women’s Day demanding equal pay.

That too was a potent moment.

One hundred years ago, some women got the vote in this country for the first time. But while it was a significant milestone, progress was slow.

While all men over 21 then got the vote, only women over 30 who had property worth £5, or whose husbands did, were allowed to cast their ballot. Others were still disenfranchised.

It wasn’t for another decade that suffrage was extended to all women over 21.

And that balance, between progress on the one hand and continuing structural inequality, has formed the pattern of the century since.

Some of the campaigners in the recent London march referenced the suffragettes directly.

They wore the purple, white and green colours of the movement, along with sashes bearing suffragette slogans, while others simply channelled the spirit of the movement – that a large group campaigning together could bring about change.

As Helen Pankhurst put it, “right across the board, in every sphere, there’s work to be done” to bring about gender equality.

We have been long aware of the gender pay gap in terms of pay inequality, both overall and across industries and working patterns that are more dominated by men than women.

The full-time gender pay gap in Scotland has narrowed to six per cent, but the overall pay gap remains at 16 per cent, since more women are working part time or in lower paid industries.

In terms of crime, again, women bear the brunt of gender and relationship-based crime and abuse.

One in 10 women has been raped, one in five has experienced someone trying to persuade them to have sex against their will and domestic violence is most often inflicted on women.

In other spheres, efforts to tackle inequality include women-only shortlists and encouraging more girls into disciplines traditionally dominated by men, such as science, technology, engineering and maths.

In the public arena, a recent Scottish parliamentary bill makes gender equality on public boards mandatory, but overall, progress is still slow.

These issues are longstanding and have been consistently on the agenda.

However, in an odd confluence of contemporary events and history, women’s equality has been given an unprecedented platform in recent weeks given the media furore about the series of scandals and crises over the abuse that women have had to endure across many sectors.

This has made the events of 100 years ago current and lent the anniversary a heightened contemporary relevance.

Much like the recent snowstorms, the Weinstein scandal seems to have unleashed a sudden storm around women’s issues that has changed the landscape in which everyone is operating.

by Mandy Rhodes

The new post-#metoo puritanism must focus on justice and equality

However, far from melting away, it has snowballed, taking in other industries, as first the political arena, then the BBC, then the charity sector came under the spotlight.

It has broadened out, too, from women talking openly about the abuse they have endured to what is going to be done to redress inequality and misconduct.

Many high-profile figures in the film industry have had allegations of abuse levelled at them in the wake of the Weinstein scandal.

The #metoo and Time’s Up movements have gained momentum, with actresses wearing black to recent award ceremonies in solidarity, while several, including Ashley Judd, Salma Hayek and Annabella Sciorra, who have all accused Weinstein of sexual misconduct, have spearheaded a movement for more openness and an end to tolerance of abuse and harassment.

Horrifying revelations that Oxfam staff, and staff of other international aid charities, had used their positions to buy prostitutes or coerce women, and possibly children, into sex in return for aid in disaster-stricken regions such as Haiti have also led to demands for change and a shake-up in that sector.

And when BBC China editor Carrie Gracie resigned her post in January after finding out that she was being paid less than two male international editors, it set off a bizarre period where the BBC was reporting on itself and its own problems, with senior leaders having to account for the way they’d handled the situation in front of Westminster’s culture committee.

But while the national broadcaster has been the focus recently over its pay structures, this issue is far-reaching and cross-sectoral.

In the political domain, several senior politicians, including former defence secretary Michael Fallon and former first secretary of state Damian Green, were accused of inappropriate behaviour and have had to resign, and many parliamentary employees have reported misconduct.

A recent survey found that one in five people working in the UK Parliament had experienced or witnessed sexual harassment or inappropriate behaviour in the past 12 months.

Nineteen per cent of parliamentary workers had experienced or seen sexual harassment, while 39 per cent had experienced non-sexual harassment or bullying, with more women than men reporting bullying and harassment.

Proposals to deal with the problem include everything from a simple apology to deselection or recall of MPs found guilty of abuse.

A recent survey within the Labour Party also found harassment and abuse “at all levels”.

The anonymous survey by the LabourToo group uncovered claims of “the routine abuse of women by senior people in positions of trust”, with allegations that included incidents of rape and sexual assault by MPs, councillors and other male party staff and alleged victims including female staff, activists, candidates and politicians at a local and national level.

More unexpected, perhaps, at least initially, was the extent of the issue in the Scottish Parliament.

Early indications were that it was not widespread as there had been a very low incidence of reported problems.

While former children’s minister Mark McDonald has now resigned from both his ministerial post and the SNP after being accused of inappropriate behaviour – although nothing criminal – following an internal party inquiry, the Scottish Parliament had only had complaints in low single figures over the past five years and it was generally thought to be a modern and family-friendly workplace, very different from Westminster.

Even when a confidential phoneline was set up in case the low incidence of reporting reflected a lack of opportunity or awareness of how to report an issue, there were only nine calls in the first couple of months.

That is why the results of a survey of all users of the parliament – MSPs, their staff, parliamentary staff and other workers such as journalists working in the building – published a few weeks ago, came as a shock.

The survey found that 20 per cent of workers in the parliament who responded had experienced either sexism or sexual harassment.

When split by gender, that was 30 per cent of women and six per cent of men.

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said she was “shocked, saddened and disappointed” by the results, while Presiding Officer Ken Macintosh said the report made for “difficult reading” and he has vowed to work on tackling the problem.

Macintosh said: “I am sorry that people have experienced this type of behaviour while working here. I am determined to address this.

“The party leaders and SPCB [Scottish Parliament Corporate Body] members have seen the results and all accept the report findings in full.

“All have reiterated their strong commitment to tackling these issues and to ensuring a zero-tolerance approach is not simply a policy statement but is a daily reality for those who work here. With that in mind, the joint working group which was set up earlier this year has been considering the findings and has already started to identity the key strands of work it will take forward to address the issues raised by the report.”

Nicola Sturgeon said: “The most significant change that can be made in response to these results is a change in behaviour by the perpetrators.

“People across the parliament, from MSPs to staff to members of the media, should be considering how they use the power they hold and whether their behaviour lives up to the high standards that we should all expect.”

This is at the heart of the issue.

While the initial response to the harassment scandal in politics has been, rightly, to find out the extent of the problem and ensure that those that have experienced something can report it, how to deal with it appropriately and how to change the culture and prevent it happening at all is a much bigger and more complex issue.

The most recent crime figures show that while there was a 16 per cent rise in cases of rape over the last year, suggesting that there had been an increase in reporting, there had been a seven per cent reduction in convictions, so simply reporting is not everything.

Scottish Conservative justice spokesperson Liam Kerr said: “It’s clear more work has to be done across the board to achieve better conviction rates, particularly for the sake of victims, and to send out a message to those who think they can get away with this sort of thing.”

And new legislation was recently passed by the Scottish Parliament broadening out the definition of domestic violence to include coercion and control, but only time will tell whether it is possible to convict for these crimes.

Scots law around corroboration for essentially private crimes remains an issue.

How to deal with non-criminal issues of harassment and abuse also remain a real issue, particularly within politics, given that political parties are left investigating their own members and MSPs’ staff are employed directly by the MSP they work for.

These difficult matters have still to be resolved and they are issues that the group of MSPs, parliamentary staff and third sector experts devising actions as a follow-up to the Scottish Parliament survey are looking at, as is the parliament’s Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee.

Another issue is transgender equality. A Scottish Government consultation on changes to the age limits and rules around gender recognition has just closed, with legislation due later in this parliamentary year.

Transgender equality, then, will continue to be debated in Scotland vis-a-vis legislation, the use of women-only rape crisis facilities and refuges, women-only shortlists and how best to treat children who feel they are a different gender to that they were assigned at birth.

Even discussing this is sensitive and volatile. A couple of weeks ago, the Women’s Equality Party dismissed their violence against women and girls spokeswoman, Dr Heather Brunskell-Evans, after she suggested that treating children as being transgender could be “abusive”, the science behind it was spurious and she called for a public debate on the issue.

That debate is likely to occur in Scotland when the Scottish Government publishes its final proposals.

While having a debate is all well and good, gender inequality, sexism and harassment are already endemic, systemic and we have a plethora of research data about the extent of the problems, but not enough has changed in the last 100 years.

Now, more than ever, hopefully, the suffragette motto ‘deeds not words’, in chiming with recent events, will help to marshal arguments that achieve change that is finally sustainable and equitable.