Guest post: Sandi Toksvig - "The time is right for the Women's Equality Party"

[MumsnetGuestPosts]

I'm rather old fashioned in my beliefs. I always thought that when Parliament passed a law, people were supposed to take notice. So how is it that 45 years ago an Equal Pay Act was introduced, and yet no one has really acted to make sure we get it? When I mentioned the gender pay gap to the environment minister, Liz Truss, she said "It's smaller than it's ever been." It's at 19%. How big was it before?

Much of the world baffles me. How does the UK tolerate the fact that so many women because they are women still live in poverty, suffer harassment and violence, and abandon careers they enjoy because of the exorbitant costs of childcare? I've come to the sad conclusion that in its current form our political system can't be trusted to deal with any of this. There are twice as many men as women in the House of Commons, and they seem to spend most of their time shouting and jeering at one another. Frankly, like many of you, I'm embarrassed by it. Seven months ago, in conversation with my friend Catherine Mayer, I realised it was time for us to take matters into our own hands.

So in March 2015 we founded the Women's Equality Party, a new political force that (we hoped) would unite people of all genders, ages, backgrounds, ethnicities, beliefs and experiences in the shared determination to see women enjoy the same rights and opportunities as men. It would be something new. Non-partisan. Attracting people from the left, from the right, from the centre. People who have had enough of waiting for equality. I have to say even at my most ambitious and optimistic, I could not have predicted the flood of support that soon washed over us. Within seven months WE have more than 50,000 members and supporters, ably led by Sophie Walker, 65 branches across the country and will be standing candidates in the spring elections.

This is not some dreamy group wistfully hoping for change. Late last month, just six months after that initial conversation, I found myself sitting in a hall packed with cheering activists and supporters, clutching a book of wonderfully pragmatic policy proposals. Policies developed through close consultation with experts and our members, and representing the experiences and concerns of thousands of women and men across the country.

WE heard from mothers who want to go back to work but can't, because of crippling childcare costs, and because so few workplaces have actually embraced flexible working.

WE heard from mothers who choose to stay at home, but feel dismissed by society for doing so because, despite its immense value, caring labour is still not recognised, respected and supported.

WE heard from fathers who desperately want to share the joys and responsibilities of parenthood, but are stigmatised for wanting to balance work and home life.

All these experiences reinforced our awareness that care is not taken seriously in our society, nor are the people who care.

WE want to change that.

That's why we propose a dramatic overhaul of parental leave policy. We would guarantee both parents six weeks of non-transferable leave on 90% pay, with an additional 10 months of shared parental leave at statutory pay. This policy would, of course, encompass same-sex couples and adoptive parents, while single parents would be entitled to nominate a second caregiver.

Once this period of leave has passed, WE believe that families should immediately have access to affordable, high-quality childcare. The educational benefits of childcare are clearest in the first 15 hours a week, so those hours should be entirely state funded, with the rest payable at one pound per hour by parents.

These policies are good for women, who have greater freedom to balance work and home life (which will, of course, mean different things to different people). But they're also excellent for men who, for too long, have been excluded from participating fully in family life because care is seen as unmanly, and paternity leave as unprofessional.

Of course, all of our policies require a blend of legislative and cultural change. The reason the Equal Pay Act still isn't working properly is because back in 1970 we changed the law without changing the way people think.

And that's where education comes in.

Many people think equality in education has already been achieved, since girls consistently outperform boys academically. But education is about more than grades, it's about learning how to live, and work, and build relationships. And at present, our children are learning to live according to ludicrous, outdated notions of 'masculine' and 'feminine' behaviour.

So WE want more diverse role models for both boys and girls, starting with encouraging more men to enter primary school teaching and other caring roles. And WE want careers guidance that pays no heed to gender when helping young people to map their futures. And WE want proper, honest sex and relationships education to finally become a reality.

It all sounds very obvious and straightforward, doesn't it? Sadly, enacting these policies will be a lot harder than formulating them. And that's why WE need you. Join us, share your ideas. The time is right for this movement, and WE want you to be part of it.

Photo: Fiona Hanson

Since women aren't yet treated fairly, promoting women's rights at the expense of men's rights is necessary. We need to ask the billionaire to give a pound to the beggar, as it were. Patriarchy is unfair to men as well, and feminism does win improvements for them too. But men's rights can never be the focus of a women's equality movement. They're pretty good at promoting their own rights, as it goes.

I agree with what people have said about protecting women's spaces.

That aside, carers get mentioned a lot, but all the actual policies are about paid employment. Unless that changes, the party does not represent women.

So WE want more diverse role models for both boys and girls, starting with encouraging more men to enter primary school teaching and other caring roles. - Good. We need more men in the early years. 2% in childcare isn't enough. And generally they say they believe in good quality childcare and are willing to subsidise it. Also good, but it depends how it's done. I'm sure the government would also say they're doing the same thing. but they've somehow managed to make things worse while they're doing it.

I would be optimistic and hope that a Women's Equality party would do a bit better of a job at managing childcare.

You know, kind of like I put more trust in the Green party when it comes to ecological issues than in a government that just reacts to people's fears about recent nuclear power plant accidents, etc.

I don't really care how many men work in childcare, but I suspect if the wages in that sector were raised to approach the wages men usually make, then you'd automatically get more men there. (And if not, women would get decently paid for a change.)

Do you not think that if children only see women looking after children that they will feel childcare is women's work Vesta?

I would expect that if more men go into childcare they will be disproportionately represented in management positions as they are in teaching and nursing.

So you don't want more men in childcare Flora?

It's not a priority for me. I don't believe it would aid women's liberation.

"I really don't understand how people can be informed of what is going on and not see that it is the single biggest issue that women are facing today."

Are you serious? We've got women suffering increasing levels of poverty, worsening work conditions due to zero hours contracts and their ilk, maternity units that are having to close due to underfunding, metal health services crumbling, police numbers being slashed (which will have a huge effect on preventing and tackling VAWG, particularly domestic violence), mass numbers of women fleeing war and having very little support...

but all that is unimportant, apparently.

All capital "F" feminists, seem to be fixated with the trans issue, to the benefit of precisely no one, while actual issues affecting women en mass are ignored.

The reason for the fixation is that your second paragraph will become meaningless if the women you mention can't be distinguished from non-female individuals identified as women. Those things - and worse - happen to women because of our biological bodies, either directly or by way of social pressure.

Some people are worried that, for instance, poverty among women could show improvement due to inclusion in the data of women who forged their careers as men. That VAWG will be seen to be perpetrated more often by women, disregarding that they were previously men. That women's reproductive health services will suffer more when not all women have the same reproductive configuration. All this, and more, seems unlikely until you look at how quickly things have already changed.

Hence the concern about "how we define women". It's a very big issue to my mind.

How will we deal with domestic violence when vulnerable, traumatised women are too scared to go to a refuge because there might be men staying/working there?

That's because capital f feminists are the ones whose activism on all the OTHER issues has been targeted by transactivists /allies over the last few years.
Radical feminist conferences that were largely concerned with violence against women and girls (and with nothing at all about Trans) have had venues cancelled on the grounds that women who don't hold the right beliefs about gender should not be allowed to talk to each other at all. Julie Bindel, who was trying to get the media to take notice of the Rotherham child abuse long before it became widely known, gets no platformed.

I think most of us began where you are - it's a side issue for most of us, why should we let it dominate? - But when young feminists are told they can't have Germaine Greer visiting their campus, and you have to admit she is an important feminist thinker no matter what you think of most of what she says, it is more than a side issue.

Would "WEP will include trans women and lobby for their rights alongside women's rights unless these are against the interest of women" work? We could then move on to other issues.

How exactly will trans people stop you campaigning against austerity? Fairer working practices? Maternity services?

I know you all think the trans threads are the zenith of activism, but I see absolutely nothing they achieve, aside from giving people a brand new bogeyman to fear.

If you told someone in the real world, not on Twitter, who was scraping by via food banks, or harmed by underfunded health services, or fleeing war, that the trans issue and what is a woman was the most important and must be sorted first, they would laugh in your face.

Thankfully, people are still campaigning for and supporting those in the situations I've listed, instead of waiting for an debate to be settled.

but all that is unimportant, apparently

Not unimportant to me, IPityThePontipines, and I haven't seen anyone else argue that they are unimportant, either.

Take one of those issues: domestic violence. If the statistics are skewed (because violence committed by trans women, whose rate of violent crime is the same as men, is logged as women's crime) then it's difficult to determine where the issues lie. If the women who have done the hard, thankless, badly-paid and unpaid work to create and maintain domestic violence services are hounded out of public service and crushed for being horrible old second-wavers, then who will keep shelters open so women and children have somewhere to run? If the shelters are kept open, but become inaccessible to traumatised women and girls because people with working male bodies have free access to them, what's the point in the shelters? If a man who is jailed for committing domestic violence or murdering his wife and kids then identifies as a woman and gets unfettered access to more vulnerable women when he's transferred to a women's jail, what women have been protected by sending him to jail at all? And so on and so forth.

I never wanted to spend my time on trans issues. I never expected to spend my time on trans issues. I certainly never expected to be having to take the position I am now on trans issues. I'm being forced to take a position on trans issues in order to hang on to all the small advances in women's liberation we've gained over the years.

Maternity services aren't a women's issue because not all women can get pregnant.
Access to health services isn't a problem because transwomen get lots of NHS money spent on them thus masking the issue.
Austerity isn't a problem for women because lots of transwomen have well paid IT jobs and no dependants to worry about.

So - Sandi not coming back, then? Poor show.

She's too busy doing QI!

Archery - there are a shedload of "ifs" in your post. We're meant to stop focusing on all issues today, to focus on one that might happen in the future. The number of trans people is tiny, yet you think they will massively skew loads of statistics. It wasn't trans people who defunded Eaves, forcing it to close, that was the government.

Queen - that's just nonsense.

Well, no, IPityThePontyPines, all those things have already happened. Stats are being skewed now (which happens because the male rate of crime and prisoners is so far above women's, that any shift makes little difference in the male stats but can cause a shift in the women's). Women who have worked for years on women's services are now getting trashed, and their vital work for women put under risk. Trans activists are targetting shelters and services to shut down or remove funding from unless they include non-transitioned female-identifying people with male bodies (and thus exclude vulnerable women). Men who have committed violent crimes as men are saying they want to transition after conviction, and are put in women's prisons.

There's no "if" about it. It's here.

Can someone please tell me the number of trans and show me the skewed statistics wrt women and poverty, violence and healthcare.

Thank you.

Dione Trying to find stats for those that identify as trans females is not that easy as there is no standard.

Not at all, Crazygirl. I will (and do) fully support trans people who are working to create services they need, just as women have done for years. What I will not tolerate is them taken women's services and space away.