International Women’s Day Q&A with Penny Mordaunt MP, Secretary of State for International Development NOW CLOSED TO NEW QUESTIONS

[JustineMumsnet]

[EDITED BY MNHQ: Questions have now been collated and sent over - new questions may not be answered]

Hello all,

We’re very pleased to announce a Q&A with Penny Mordaunt MP, Secretary of State for International Development and Minister for Women and Equalities.

Please post your questions on this thread by lunchtime on Wednesday March 6. We’ll send on a selection to the Minister and we will post up written answers from Penny on this thread this coming Friday (March 8), International Women’s Day.

In her role as Secretary of State for International Development, Penny Mordaunt oversees DFID’s work ending extreme poverty overseas, including programmes focused on girls’ education and women’s health. DFID has been in the news recently, facing calls for its budget to be spent partly on encouraging projects that would aid British business overseas, and for it to be folded into the Foreign Office instead of being a standalone department.

In her role as Minister for Women and Equalities, Penny is also responsible for work including gender pay gap reporting and possible changes to the law concerning gender recognition.

Penny campaigned for Brexit in the run-up to the 2016 EU referendum and is a Royal Naval Reservist. She has previously been Minister of State for Disabled People and Minister of State for the Armed Forces.

Please add your questions for Penny here by Wednesday lunchtime. And although it’s not a live webchat please stick to the spirit of our webchat guidelines and keep it civil.

If one topic is overwhelmingly dominating responses we might request that people don't continue to post what's effectively the same question or point. Rest assured we will ALWAYS make the recipient aware that it's an area of concern to multiple users and will encourage them to engage with those questions.

Thanks
Justine

Nb existing members will be able to post on this thread. Thanks.

Hello Penny,

I have 2 questions.

1)What do you think about the gender reforms in the Irish Republic that have exceptions - based upon biological sex - for prisons, healthcare facilities and other places where women need safe spaces?

2. When there are laudable attempts to encourage girls to consider STEM careers, would it be possible to do this without using pink fonts ?

@Lumene

Penny Mordaunt promised to do a mumsnet webchat about the GRA reform proposals specifically. Why didn’t this happen?

I don't think this is true. Am not aware of any such promise tbh.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/site_stuff/3297067-Mumsnet-moderation-response-to-yesterdays-feedback?msgid=79169574

Justine, on the above thread on 4th July 2018, you stated:

"You should also know that I’m due to meet soon with Penny Mordaunt to discuss “any ideas you may have on the women and equalities agenda’' and I will of course reflect the strong opinion of many Mumsnetters wrt to this issue and ask her to do a webchat too".

Did you meet with Penny Mordaunt?

Can you tell us any of what was said?

popchyk on it like a car bonnet

Hi Penny,
In your role as Secretary of State for International Development, you ‘oversee DFID’s work ending extreme poverty overseas, including programmes focused on girls’ education and women’s health’. Surely it would be more cost effective to get all these girls and women to self-identify as men? Bingo - no more issues to pay for. Or is it not that simple BECAUSE REAL WOMEN CAN’T IDENTIFY OUT OF POVERTY AND SEX DISCRIMINATION? Please explain thanks.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission say "There is evidence that practical guidance is required to help trans people, single-sex and separate-sex service providers understand and navigate the complexities of sex-based exceptions in the Equality Act 2010, without compromising the service provided to women in difficult and vulnerable situations."

In fact women and girls would also like practical guidance as to what the Equality Act says about our rights in everyday situations like school and sports centre changing rooms, hospital wards and youth hostels, as well as in vulnerable situations like women's refuges.

What will the government do to provide clear guidance for all?

Hi Penny,

Why do you think that we and our daughters have no right to privacy, dignity and safety by having single sex spaces?

Why are you giving away our safe spaces to men?

Are teenage worries about period shaming and other toileting embarrassment in school mixed sex toilets worth listening to and should we be teaching our daughters that they have a right to be listened to when they try to voice this kind of discomfort?

Should article 12 in the UNCRC be scrapped?

Thanks for replying @Justinemumsnet

I must have got confused with the point about her coming to meet you guys at HQ.

I will think of a better question!

Dear Penny
Last year, in the wake of the Oxfam Haiti sexual exploitation scandal, you said that "moral leadership" was important, and that allegations should be reported. Ordinary women in Britain have tried to blow the whistle on the potentially disastrous effects of medicalising children who are questioning their gender roles. How can these women more effectively exercise their moral leadership, and where should they report their allegations?

What is the Government doing to reduce violence towards women? Too many women are dying at the hands of violent partners and we're also seeing in the news that murderers are using 'rough sex' as a defence. How can it be argued that anyone can give consent to sex that results in serious injuries or death?

Great question Beamur

Was the decision to steal womens pensions a blow for equality?

What are the advantages of Brexit for women? And why did you not answer Jane Garvey on Woman's Hour?

But of course what I also want to know is why and how she believes me can become woman, and why women should accept this?

Candidpeel beat me to it.
Will the govt please ring fence women's single sex spaces and services.
They are life saving, and many women cannot use them if they are mixed sex, for a variety of reasons including coercive control, abusive relationships, and being from a conservative religious background.

I'd also like to ask about the Tampon Tax. Women are at a disadvantage compared to men in paying a tax on these essentials, and originally George Osborne promised the tax would be used to fund Womens Aid, D.V. and Rape Crisis. That hasn't happened.

Why is the Tampon Tax being spread around so many different groups that aren't for the benefit of women?

''Women-only charities lose out in funding from tampon tax''
www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2018/may/03/women-only-charities-lose-out-in-funding-from-tampon-tax

Hi Penny

With regard to girls education and safeguarding: do you agree that safeguarding and materials such as the NSPCC's excellent PANTS campaign is important for young girls considering the fast increasing numbers suffering rape, sexual assault and harassment at their schools, and growing pressure from porn to accept painful, violent or even dangerous sexual experiences as normal?

Do you also agree that it is therefore confusing and highly counterproductive to teach as the PANTS campaign does to girls that they should never be expected to show their body or do things that make them embarrassed and uncomfortable, and that they have the right to say no in those situations, while also following policies that state if they say no or share feeing uncomfortable about having to undress, shower or sleep alongside a boy who identifies as a girl, they should be reminded to be kind and inclusive, and 're educated'? In other words their right to sexual boundaries and safety must come second to considering the preferences and feelings of a male person?

Thank you.

I understand that some institutions and services, such as prisons and women’s refuges, may be able to conduct a case-by-case analysis of which transwomen, even those with a GRC, should be allowed into women only spaces and which should not.

But do you understand that this is not something ordinary women can do, and there are very many situations where our dignity and privacy is compromised by the presense of people with XY chromosomes?

Do you have suggestions for how we ensure the dignity, privacy and safety of women and girls in everyday life, if the number of men legally changing their legal sex to female increses drastically, as it looks like it will?

I haven't a question as I live overseas but just wanted to say all the questions are incisive, thoughtful and intelligent. It will be interesting to see how they are answered. I hope with the same intelligence as the women on this thread.

Rest assured we will ALWAYS make the recipient aware that it's an area of concern to multiple users and will encourage them to engage with those questions.

Many of us have been raising awareness on social media, handing out leaflets, writing to papers & our MPs, raising funds & attending meetings for years now to defend women’s sex-based rights.

I hope Penny Mordaunt will appreciate that this concern needs more than a brief soundbite.

@Popchyk

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/site_stuff/3297067-Mumsnet-moderation-response-to-yesterdays-feedback?msgid=79169574

Justine, on the above thread on 4th July 2018, you stated:

"You should also know that I’m due to meet soon with Penny Mordaunt to discuss “any ideas you may have on the women and equalities agenda’' and I will of course reflect the strong opinion of many Mumsnetters wrt to this issue and ask her to do a webchat too".

Did you meet with Penny Mordaunt?

Can you tell us any of what was said?

Hi Popchyk,
The meeting was cancelled a few times because of things like emergency cabinet meetings over Brexit and the like. So it didn't actually happen until January this year and this Q&A resulted directly from the meeting.

I brought up 3 main things:

1. The Gender Recognition Act and the strength of feeling on Mumsnet about it
2. An idea about extending NI tax break for apprentices to returners
3. An idea about compelling companies to publish maternity/paternity benefits as part of gender pay reporting (we've recently launched a campaign on that).

Penny Mordaunt and team were also keen to discuss how they might use Mumsnet to better keep in touch with the concerns of Britain's women using Mumsnet insight and we're currently working on some suggestions in that regard.

There are many excellent questions on this thread, I think they cover quite comprehensively what I'd like to know.

Thanks for setting this up MNHQ, it will be fascinating - I'll be glued to my screen when you release the responses.

Given one of her job titles, and the fact that this has been hotly debated recently, I'm particularly interested to read Penny's definition of a woman.

Do you agree that the GRA is no longer fit for purpose as it creates a legal fiction that a person can change their biological sex. We all know that this is not possible.

The current situation is a mess. If those wishing to transition gender had it more clearly explained to them that they were not in fact changing their underlying biological sex but merely their outer gender appearance this might help.

Do you agree we should repeal the GRA, that it should not be possible to change the sex marker on your birth certificate, passport etc from male to female as these people are not in fact changing sex.

For medical reasons alone surely it is essential to know whether a human body is male or female.

Can you please update us on the plans to investigate the serious allegations regarding WWF directly funding paramilitary groups who imprison, beat and torture local people, including raping indigenous women? Are there plans to widen the scope to include other charities that receive DFID funding?

Particularly given previous revelations involving high profile charities such as Oxfam, I am concerned there have been no lessons learned and our government are continuing to indirectly fund the sexual exploitation of women and other human rights abuses. Clearly there is not enough due diligence being done to vet these funding recipients, are there plans to change policies to tighten up scruitiny in the future?