impact of the spending cuts on women

[Sunshinetoast]

I am an occassional poster, mainly a lurker but thought you might be interested in am shamelessly plugging my new report which is reported here

God that's depressing!

On the plus side, it's nice to have some statistics to shore up what I've been saying about all the cuts so I am off to memorise them...

I think we just need to keep shouting out about it and getting the message out there.

Thanks.

The figures are from Coventry but I think the same would be found anywhere. Happy to help anyone who wants to do something similar in their city/town

sparky you've got nothing to be embarrassed about. It's the government that should be embarrassed for putting you in a situation where you are denied the opportunity to improve things.

Sparky that's terrible. I assume you are in touch with local disability organisations who can help you advocate for more supports

One of the worst things about the cuts - apart from the cuts themselves iyswim is the way that the government has demonised disabled people (very much as lone parents were demonised in the 80s)

My kids frequently have headlice and we are not poor . Headlice can't see your bank balance.

The squeeze on your lifestyle started before the new Govt and is a result of labour's years of overspend.
Instead of being angry at the need to save the country form bankruptcy, get angry at a system that actively encouraged a benefits culture by those perfectly able to work. That's where your money has gone, on the thousands of people who can work but won't

yep-i know headlice cant see bankbalances
but the people who are afraid of losing theyre jobs can!
what im trying to say is-llok back in time at how things were-
we are going backwards!

My kids had headlice more frequently under Labour [ grin]

See Peppa that's an example of what I mean - the government has convinced people that there is this vast army of people making false claims - when the evidence is that this is the minority.

When people meet or speak to a disabled person they may well say 'of course you should get benefits/social care, it's those other scroungers that are the problem' not realising that it is the disabled person in front of them who is the norm not the mythical scroungers.

At the moment for example we have a system for assessing people for disability benefits which everyone who has examined closely has concluded is unfairly assessing people with impairments as able to work - look at the CAB website for endless examples. But the government releases the figures for people refused benefit ;ignoring the vast number of cases overturned on appeal) as evidence of fraud.

Oh yes the mythical scroungers. Couldn't possibly be a structural problem that keeps some people rich and some people poor. Of course, that would just be silly. It's all individual 'choice', and people are to 'blame' for making the wrong 'choices'. The convenient bogeyman in the closet of the scrounger hiding any deeper analysis. Keep the people at the bottom scrapping amongst themselves.

I heard to other day that disabled people are experiencing more abuse the the streets currently. Thanks to that discourse.

Sparky I hear ya. We are going backwards. The Victorians liked to talk of the 'deserving' and 'undeserving' poor which is where we're at now. Thanks for sharing the experience of the people who end up living it - need to be heard.

[grins back at Peppa]
come on[holding hands up]im trying!

Excellent report sunshine. Thanks for sharing. Are you the author? I like that website. There's another post on there that links to a paper more broadly about the gender impact of the cuts nationally here not just in Coventry.

It's such a disgrace the way this government is trampling over women. Cuts to jobs, cuts to services, attacks on equality legislation, proposed changes to rape sentencing. It really is true that we're going backwards. Quickly.

Yes, I am one of the authors (Mary-Ann). We drew a lot on the work of Fawcett, Women's Budget Group plus lots of other voluntary organisations (disability, housing etc.) then put it together with Coventry numbers and interviews locally. The thing that I find scary is when you put it all together - women won't be hit by one cut but by a whole series all at once. So a lone parent might lose housing benefit and childcare tax credit at the same time as support services for a child with special needs are cut at the same time as she has to pay to get child support.

I agree re. the cumulative effect of the cuts. We're being bombarded from all angles! I know Women's Budget Group and unions have been doing loads of good work on how the cuts are affecting women. It's good to see a regional analysis.

yes-i think thats the word im looking for"cumulative"-
does this mean-"if a happens-then b happens-then c happens.......?
ifso-thats what im on about.
im not sitting here being pissed off aboutpeople poking sticks about headlice ect[well i am]but its cumulative isnt it.
the person poking the stick is in a posision where they are having to poke a stick or lose theyre job.
if they lose theyre job they might end up in the same posision as me.
its just as horrible for them as it is for me.
just pointing out this as i dont want anyone to think im taking digs at others-
im not-im just finding this scary!

Great report, and very important to share and publicize, does anyone think it would work for there to be 'reports and commentary' ( needs renaming) thread in the activism section where people could drop in reports like this into one section?

....so they don't get lost...

Exactly sparky. An example of the cumulative effect of the government's policies on women would be a woman who loses her job in the public sector because of cut backs, can't get good advice on her redundancy situation because her local citizen's advice bureau has been shut down, is being asked to take low paid, low skilled work by the job centre but can't find adequate child care because her local sure start centre is closing down and the cost of private childcare is rising steeply, she has to care for an elderly or disabled relative because her local authority has cut care budget etc, etc.

It's never one thing in isolation. It's about how all these things add up to make life really, really difficult for people.

You're spot on about "if they lose their job they might end up in the same position as me". I wish more people could see that it's not "them" (people who rely on state welfare) and "us" (the lucky ones with jobs and good health). Everyone is just one redundancy away from the dole queue. Or one serious accident or illness from being disabled.

thankyou rambling.
you know what-the rate things are going there will no longer be a "them and us"situation soon.
this is stupid-we need them and them need us!
we need to come together and fight together.
the big question is-how the hell do we do it?

I know it feels really depressing but there is a lot going on in terms of fighting back. Unions, women's groups, disability groups, etc are all busy trying to fight this. I don't know where you live but where I am in London every single borough seems to have its own really strong "fight the cuts" type campaign. There's a group called Disabled People Against the Cuts. There's another one called Women Against the Cuts. There are several groups campaigning to save Sure Start. Get involved...it makes it slightly less depressing!

yep-i have started to get involved.