Feminist policies

[aliceliddell]

What policies should a political party adopt to represent the interests of women?
This is a genuine attempt to include more than 'the usual suspects' in forming policy. Obviously it is inadequate in the way it cannot be properly democratic as this forum can't be accountable, but still....better than nothing. As a Trade Union and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) candidate I think our policy on gender equality is very weak. "Ensure women have genuinely equal rights and pay." www.tusc.org.uk/policy.php

Maternity leave and childcare are important.

Id suggest:
All workplaces with more than x number of people must provide/make available affordable local childcare.

and minimise cuts to surestart,EMA etc.

Ensure at least 30% of the parties representation are women at each level.

I think we have all the legal basics in place for equality thanks, in part, to the EU. In the workplace and in education I think the next step has to be positive discrimination.

However, mentally, culturally & traditionally, we have a long way to go. No amount of legislation will change fundamental attitudes. Just reading MN pages, for example, you still see a lot of evidence of women deferring to male partners and even complicit in believing that 'their place is in the home'. Self-deprecatingly they speak about their wages 'only paying for the childcare' and ask things like 'Am I being unreasonable... to expect my husband to clear up after himself?' It's this aspect we have to work on and, whilst women still believe themselves to be second-class sacrificial lambs on the altar of motherhood, no amount of policy or legislation will correct it.

"they speak about their wages 'only paying for the childcare' " Thats because childcare is so expensive that 1 persons wage barely covers it. . As long as mothers cannot afford to work, they will be seen as 'the mother'/'the childcare' etc, and inequality will remain ingrained.
A policy that All workplaces with more than x number of people must provide/make available affordable local childcare. will address this directly.

Women are poorly represented in government. This means there is an intrinsic bias in policy making. Legislating for representation of at least 30% will address this directly and straightforwardly. An easy win for greater equality there.

I think the only way men and women can get equal opps at work is to bring in more family friendly policies - which apply equally to single people or carers for elderly parents etc.

Here are a couple of ideas. Possibly a bit wacky, but you get the idea.

Make it normal for people to take a year (unpaid) out of their job from time to time if they want to, which could be used for anything: to cope with difficult family circumstances, or to travel the world or to take a different job, get a qualification - whatever they want. Someone else gets their job for a year, then they come back and that other person, who wouldn't have had a job at all, possibly, at least gets that job on their CV, plus a new set of contacts. Meanwhile, the employee who came back might have an added qualification or experience that could be helpful to the company.

Some people need more time off a year than others. If everyone had a 'bank' of 5 days a year, say, they could either take the days, or if they didn't need them, they could sell them to a colleague for an agreed rate. Then colleagues wouldn't resent covering for each other so much, as they would be getting paid for it. You could save your days and get a cash refund at the end of the year, or spend them. Bearing in mind that at different stages in your working life you might need more or less time off, it would probably even itself out over your working life. In this way single people who never take time off and have to cover for people who have kids will feel less resentment.

The thing that both these ideas have in common is that no-one is treating women who have kids differently from anyone else in the workplace. And that is the key to changing things, I think. We've come a long way as Chil says, but women still earn less than men. Until we understand why that is, this will continue.

Why do women need childcare?

Children need childcare. Perhaps if we could simply alter the language we use and way that the arguement is framed we could say that famillies need affordable and flexible child care.

If childcare availablity and cost was a pre-condition to men being able to work then I am quite sure it would have been a viable option already, available and affordable to all.

Why should employers have to provide childcare for their employees. The care of your children is your responsibility not your employers.

"Make it normal for people to take a year (unpaid) out of their job from time to time if they want to,..." is a great idea in theory but my feeling is that it wouldn't be men taking it up. We have a lot of debates at the moment about extended paternity leave rights but I don't see a huge demand for it from men. Queenbathsheba is quite right. As long as women, reinforced by men, see the responsibility for raising children (and paying for childcare) as being solely their responsibility, they will continue to be at a disadvantage.

BTW... one of the main reasons that women still earn less than men is because they are happier to settle for less challenging and therefore less well-paid roles 'because it fits with looking after the children'.

byrel - the company chooses where/how it operates, so they should take some responsibility.

An additional idea is for all schools to provide/make available after school care, and to run summer programs.

That way, the burden of childcare during working hours is shared by the employers and the school, allowing all adults to contribute normal working hours (rather than lumping it all on the individual parent, usually mum).

Mellowfruitfulness - great ideas, esp the 'saleable' 5 days.

Agree with others that positive discrimination in parliament needs to be the first step - I hate the idea in practice but it will take hundreds of years if we wait for incremental change, and without the lawmakers understanding women's experience, nothing else will change.

Also agree that any changes need to be made to help all society not just women, or they'll be seen as special pleading, employers will avoid employing women any more etc.

I think a proper 2 year period of maternity/paternity pay (to be used by either partner or shared) plus good quality cheap or free nursery care - as is the norm in Scandinavia - is what we need to be moving towards - but to me that is not a 'woman's ' isssue - that is a family/children's issue, which impacts on the men/children as much as the women. Men as well as women need to move away from the long hours culture of presenteeism for its own sake and towards a greater work-life balance - after all, men miss spending time with their kids and vice versa in the current set-up. Modern technology should make that so much easier too, as so much more work can be done from home now.

I also think we need to change attitudes about children being just a woman's responsibility - we need far stronger legislation to ensure men who create babies continue to support them throughout their lives - with very strong penalties - social as well as legal/financial - for those who fail to do so.

We need much stronger sentencing against violent crimes against women, better education re acceptability of violence against women for both boys and girls, so kids learn early on what is and is not acceptable.

I'd also like to see porn and sexualised imagery of women in adverts etc esp aimed at kids vasty reduced, though I know this is a harder genie to put back in the bottle, but it saddens me to see the expectations put upon both girls and boys by an industry that ultimately aims to commercialise something that should be (sorry if I sound corny here) one of the most profound things anyone can experience.

Thanks, OP, for bothering to ask! Like the crowd-sourcing policies idea! Focus group on the cheap? Not complaing! Still nice to ask those you would represent...

Thanks, sisterhood! Really appreciate you taking the time to respond. I'll try to feed back to The Comrades. Not sure if you've had any dealings with left groups; they're (wrongly IMO) resistant to ideas of positive action re. representation, because of long tradition of 'formal' democracy, democratic centralism, etc though that's not always the case. TUSC is very 'top down' with little in regular policy making meetings at present. Hope that will change....I'm in it as part of anti-cuts movement, it's one of the few electoral groups with a firm no cuts agenda. Of course, the cuts have massive implications for women and gender equality. Need to consider your comments, then get back.

Alice, I'm off to look at the TUSC.

I feel that the cuts will disproportionately effect women and that Dave's Big Society is actually a way of devaluing women's labour.

Feminist social scientists and researchers of the 60's, 70's and 80's did a lot to further the interests of women and remove the overwhelming responsibility of caring for relatives and communities from women. Where women have "worked" it has become a state sponsored activity paid for through taxation. In this way the care of the family and others who are vulnerable has become the responsibility of all. Quite rightly so.

The conservative plans to replicate a time in history where "communities" worked together and relied very little on state support, is naive and doesn't take account of the fact that it was mainly women who undertook this work.

Queen - yes, I totally agree with that analysis; only by socialising domestic labour & childcare can women have any choices apart from housework. Why people believe you can be a low tax Tory and a feminist is beyond me, so Byrel, your views are inevitably anti-women. Most responses here and on Feminism talk about childcare/work balance. I think we need to move to changing the idea of what a job is; it's evolved from an idea that never fully existed of male breadwinner, family wage + female housewife, maybe p/t job; we're left with the f/t job where you work your way up the ladder to get your final salary pension with no breaks for babies etc. A 'job' should be what the daughter of a parent with Alzheimers who has 2 schoolage kids can do. All parental leave should be shared or lost, to ensure men participate so women aren't picked out like in Guardian today page 24. (Boss says women are too risky to employ because we get pg!) Also sex industry and violence. Don't think decriminalisation of si will help. 60% refuges and Poppy Project (trafficking) lost funding due to cuts. So public spending is essential; charities etc not reliable enough. Thanks to all for your replies, seems to be a consensus(ish) except Byrel, see how I get on....will let you know.

Please let us know how you get on Alice, good luck [busmile]

Wacky idea...you could actually pay people for looking after other people. One of the main problems for women is that they are expected to provide a lot of "free" work. If they got paid for looking after kids/older rellies/ any dependent then the work has value and will be perceived as such.

Also we do need to work on how society views a functional relationship. I'm the higher earner in my household (by about $4k/yr), my husband and I agreed a long time ago that after my maternity leave if there was a need for part time working we would either share it or he would do it as it make most sense financially and my career path is more rigid than his. This makes me a "ball breaker" in the eyes of most men we encounter who don't know us, and my husband "weak". This is one of the things that needs to change dramatically if the status of women in industry and society in general is going to change. I don't know how to do that though...short of getting out there and getting on with it!

How do we make childcare more affordable when the main cost of childcare is salaries?

Doesn't making childcare more affordable automatically imply that paid childcare (which is mainly done by women) has to be badly paid?

Agree re: carers. I'm disabled, dp is f/t carer. Thats 24/7, 52 wks per year. Carers Allowance? £55 p/w. If he earns over £100 net then he loses the lot. There can be no doubt this was originally seen as 'women's work' because it begins with C (caring) and is incredibly poorly paid. The idea of paying carers is good in some ways; there is maybe the danger that biology becomes destiny if women's natural career path is looking after immediate biological family for money? Child and other care outside of the home can be provided free by the State; it already is for over 5s at school and in day centres for elders/disabled. Also home helps, personal assistants etc in the home.

Hi Alice. The carers' allowance situation is shocking and a national disgrace.

We are a long way away from providing a solution to the problem of care, because care itself is so undervalued and associated with women. Whilst the Tories perhaps have the right idea in putting care back where it belongs - in the community- they are naive to think that this will happen without funding, and we as citizens are naive to think that it will happen without us, the workers, having to pay higher taxes. I haven't read all of this thread, but isn't it the case that childcare works best in countries with high taxation?

Election now over thank god. I beat the Lib Dems! Terrible night for Nick Clegg...all my fault.

well done Alice

Cheers Jenny! Now for that bastard Cameron...