Yvette Cooper and the Fawcett society takes the cuts to court

[EricNorthmansMistress]

fascinating, and fucking brilliant

Yvette Cooper is more than a touch disturbed/disturbing and rather deluded.
The good old 'mad publicity is better than none' trick.

She didn't stand for leader because she didn't want to stand on hubby's toes. And this is someone we are supposed to look to as a champion of women's rights?

The nub is the way the Tories, particularly the men, see women and what role they see them in.

redundancies are evenly split proportionately to men/women are they though badgerspaw? for example, in my field of work, the significant cuts which will see many more women than the ratio suggest leave, like me. I have been on maternity leave, a legal entitlement, and since my return found the training processes all changed and many of my colleagues excelling past me in their skills, knowledge and understanding. It will take me around a year or so to catch up, and when they make redundancies, they will match skills vs need. And the need changed while I was on ML so unable to develop those skills in time.

This applies to lots of women, especially part time women. More so that the figures allow.

Good for her and the fawcett society, not sure how much it will achieve, but why sit back and do nothing?

"redundancies are evenly split proportionately to men/women are they though badgerspaw?"

Well they should be.....

That just means that if an employer has a disproportionate number of women, call it 60%, then it isn't a problem if 60% of the people they make redundant.

Trying to kick up a noise because the sackings haven't been split 50:50 between men and women is ridiculous.

However employers trying to use the excuse to do mass sackings to do a cull of women is what does need to be watched for.

And to me that's hurt by the use of anti-discrimination law for flagrantly self-serving and self-publicising goals.

That legislation is bl**dy important and trying to influence the country when you get voted out by misusing it and putting it in danger is a really bad thing to be doing.

You can just about imagine a Tory coming out with "We're going to cancel this piece of legislation. When we're trying to save every penny that we can the opposition are trying to get us to waste money by conducting an impact study which can only conclude that the redundancies are fair, because for it not to do so means we can't sack anybody or we have to sack men for being men, which is clear discrimination and opens us to further legal action. As if trying to waste taxpayers money isn't bad enough this is quite clearly an attempt by politicians who were kicked out of Government by the voters of this country to control the nature of public spending."

I feel quite dirty trying to think and talk like a Tory, shudder...

that should have read 'aren't evenly split' not are oh well, if literacy is a criteria, i am definitely gone!

i don't mind 50/50 split if that is fair, but women are going to be disproportionately culled. of course they are. it happens all the time without government backing, so it will happen now, for sure.

"i don't mind 50/50 split if that is fair, but women are going to be disproportionately culled."

When there are more women in the work place than men, as happens in the public sector, then then women are going to be disproportionately culled. And that's too be expected.

However if the split in the work place is 60/40 and we then see the sackings being split 70/30 then there's a problem.

thats exactly what I am getting at, sorry, you explained it much better than me! It is highly likely that we would see say 70/30 workforce split and 80/20 redundancy split.

"The headline and standfirst of this article were amended on 22 October 2010. The original headline suggested that Yvette Cooper was involved in the legal challenge to the budget, which is not the case."

:)

Really quite shocked by some responses here. So has Cooper said 'she didn't want to tread on her husbands toes'? And because she didn't go for the leadership she has failed all women? oh please. besides which if read carefully, it's her figures, not her. she was the one politician who bothered to work it out and prove it. It is the Fawcett soc.

The fact they didn't bother with the equality impact when they were drawing up their policies is outrageous and wrong. Thick, arrogant, sexist or women haters?
or all of the above? The fact they have hardley any women in their cabinet is wrong, the fact they have got rid of the Womens national commision is wrong and so on and so on.

The reality is it is impossible to make cuts that affect men and women equally, one gender is always going to be affected worse than the other. Women will be hurt more because we are more reliant on the state and make up a majority of the public sector workforce so we have benefitted from the Governments overspend so now we are going to bear the brunt of the cuts.

I think the fact that this has been picked up on in the way it has is very encouraging.

Yertile: I think the reality is that the government had a legal obligation to carry out the test to see if their budget was fair. And they didn't do it. Laziness? Deliberate? Either way, illegal, unethical, extremely bad practice and bad example for the rest of the country who quite like bending rules to save money...

Good quote in the guardian 'just because times are hard doesn't mean the law can take a walk'.

I am very tempted by the Fawcett Society's 'This is what a feminist looks like' t-shirt. Do you think it would be outrageous to put them on my sons as well?

no! do it!!

The emergency budget by its very nature was done quickly so maybe they didn't look at everything but it needed be done quickly to stop the NI rise

...sigh... but it just comes down to the same old thing, doesn't it? oh we can always abide by the rules except when it's too difficult to?

it's like the bankers: we deserve million-pound bonuses because we are the most vital, hard-working and clever people in the world - oops but we couldn't predict or stop the financial crash, could you just lend us some money.

if the government can't get equal opportunities legislation right, then nobody can. so we might as well give up, is that the answer? i think the famous quote is something about human rights being MOST important at times of trouble, not less?

and my final point (i promise) is that it's absolutely clear from very early on in the budget doc that all these cuts are likely to hit women hardest, even without doing the calculations. so either they didn't care, or didn't notice. so they're either deliberately rolling back sexual equality by decades or stupid - either of which problems i think should be addressed publically, in court as it appears to be necessary.

Fuck me: 72%? Really?

I hadn't seen this but like others, I knew of course it would affect women disproportionately (as all disadvantaged groups...) but not by how bloody much.

Where do I sign up to support the legal challenge?

I think we all join the Fawcett Society to support this?

yes i think you're right - does it cost?

This is fiddling whilst Rome burns

Rome may be burning but that doesn't mean we suspend all democratic rights and duties and allow anything to happen. Give them an inch and they will take a mile. Equality and rights have been hard won, I, for one, am not prepared to just give them up because the going is rough. They tell us we are all in this together and we all need to make sacrifices, but what is coming out is women and children will bear the brunt.