UK has got ‘fat’ on decades of free labour by women - Jess Phillips

[IwantToRetire]

The minister for safeguarding and violence against women and girls said the country has relied on women providing charity, adding it was a “fundamentally sexist” practice that meant the government was less willing to provide the service itself.

She said she “hated” the title of her role and added that safeguarding against gender-based violence should be “business as usual in every single government department”.

“Do you know what it is? Free labour of women is where it comes from.

“It comes from a fundamentally sexist place in that women didn’t have these services, so a load of women across the country got together and made these services and offered them to other women for free, and they didn’t get paid for their labour.

“So they put down a mattress and made a refuge. They set up counselling services and got people who were trained to be therapists and got their voluntary hours and set it up for free.”

Phillips said people do not recognise how heavily the UK has relied on women providing support that previously did not exist.

“That is what the women in our country did in the 1960s and 1970s and 1980s and we got fat on that expectation that that service will be provided for free.

“And we also belittled it as an issue that wasn’t absolutely, fundamentally mainstream to the safety and security of our nation.

“Undoing that is really hard and it’s going to take a long time.”

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/aug/02/uk-has-got-fat-on-decades-of-free-labour-by-women-says-mp-jess-phillips

She's not wrong.

She doesn't seem to care about young working class girls being raped though does she? She is a hypocrite.

My Gran did paid and unpaid work from the 1940s to the 1980s, mostly service industry jobs or to help others. My mum did quite a bit of volunteering in schools & with the Scout movement in the 1980s. So, yeah I agree with her. I also agree that JPs title is sh*t. Why should she be the sole point of call for safeguarding women and girls? Surely everyone is?

I don't agree with JP on a lot of things, but on this she's correct.

I don’t see her role as being the sole point of contact for these issues. It should be front and centre in all government departments. I see her title as a reminder that this is still an issue in 2025. I see part of her role as identifying failings in other government departments and holding them to account.

On the subject of free labour from women and the good that it has done I can remember in the 80’s when my children were growing up being able to access lots of facilities/groups (play groups, toy libraries, clothes and equipment swaps) that were set up and run by women on a voluntary basis - they were a real help to women with children who didn’t have a lot of money but still wanted things to do with their children. A very fond memory for me and a real lifeline for those in need.

But if government then effectively takes over these services (I'm thinking of the financing of rape crisis services) they fix things so men are allowed in and we have to raise loads of money to fight to keep them out.

And that's shit.

It’s her title because there’s a high risk that when something is everyone’s responsibility it’s so diffuse and distributed that it’s no-ones.

There are certainly no accountability mechanisms.

I agree with her although I'd extend the point across the whole of society, not just refuges. So much of care falls to women and is free and hugely undervalued. And if a woman chooses to outsource that labour it is often to another woman who is paid barely enough to survive.

She's right.

Sometimes its assumed, sometimes more explicit. I remember some pointing out a few years back that the Big Society initiative was essentially about trying to get more unpaid labour out of women.

She’s absolutely right on this score.

‘Toddlers’ was run by volunteer mums in church halls. Coffee and biscuits and friendship for mums. To be able to get out the house and let your child play in a safe environment with other little ones and different toys. There may have been a nominal charge to pay the rent has but the milk but the time was given freely and with love.

What is the point of this article. Another 'Jess friendly' profile piece.
I think she's out of her depth, grooming gangs have sunk her.

'The Home Office minister Jess Phillips has apologised for the delay to the publication of a report on grooming gangs, adding that while parliament must wait another month, she had waited “14 years for anyone to do anything”.'

All she does is blame others, she's got the power now so let's see something more than excuses.

“Undoing that is really hard and it’s going to take a long time.”

It was.

The problem, I think, is there's essentially now an expectation of both. But you can't be working and paying in at the same time as you're volunteering.

I was thinking about this the other day as I took DC to a paid for summer club, in the same building as I used to attend a volunteer led free one in the 90s.

I used to volunteer at playgroup and at school. I don't volunteer any more anywhere. I got tired of female volunteers being taken for granted, there was not a single man volunteering and if a dad so much as helped stack some chairs away after an event he was thanked profusely.

Women are even the majority when donating blood, even though male donors are more useful practically, as they have bigger, more easily accessible veins, can donate more frequently and are less likely to be anaemic. But fewer volunteer than women.

If I'm working, I want to be paid. I am done with providing labour for free.

It is good that she is talking about free labour, the fact this is disproportionally supplied by women and the role this plays in propping up society but this is the thin end of the wedge. It’s not just safeguarding its providing care to the young and disabled in our own families. The disability benefit cuts may mean that unpaid carers no longer receive carers allowance. The payment is a pittance to begin with but the loss of daily living allowance plus carers allowance is devastating to those already on a low income. What’s the end plan? Not that disabled people will end up in social care at great expense leaving carers to rejoin the workforce. More likely that the disabled will be left to cope alone whilst their carers are forced into minimum wage jobs whilst also providing free labour to make ends meet.

While i appreciate this argument, it's a shame that things are brought down to money (which is what we're talking about here).
When I was a sah mother, and now that i'm retired, I enjoy giving something back and helping, when I could.
Imo that's how Society should work.
And, as far as i'm concerned, JP can take a running jump. She's been utterly useless in Gender matters, and facing up to militant Islam in her constituency.
Perhaps she should call out misogyny closer to home.

Part of the problem was in fact created by Labour under Blair.

Just as he thought nurses wouldn't be respected if they didn't have university degrees, he assumed that voluntary and community groups wouldn't be offer services of a "professional" level if they were voluntary so brought in funding. ie bring in university graduates with no real skills to tell women what they could and couldn't do and made to be seen to be the equivilent to private companies. (this elitist attitude also turned social housing providers into corporate hostile exploiters)

And I suspect that for Blair, and no doubt many others, a lot of this attitude is based on complete disregard for women and not seeing them as competent human beings.

Although it was women as volunteers who set the standards for support for a number of services, not just service for women who have suffered male violence.

And of course once you are the funder you are more able to set the agenda of a group.

Not quite the same, but just as the National Lottery that was specifically set up to allow small groups to apply for money based on quite niche requirements (eg we are a small rural community with little public transport and want a mini bus, mobile library, whatever that cost would be £xxxx) The intent being that small groups whould be enabled to carry out the work that was important to them.

Now the Lottery money is basically allocated on a politically approved list of projects that meet political targets. Or replace public services that cuts to councils have resulted in closures.

Sorry if previous post seemed a bit off topic. And it doesn't bother me that someone who I have no particular support for, is provoked into speaking the truth. The problem is the political system that requires party members to only utter the approved line on any number of issues.

It amazes me for any number of reasons, why so many remain loyal to the Labour Party.

But as they are the current Government we have to work with what the voters have imposed on us.

She’s right but it’s not decades: it’s centuries.

And as women withdraw from some of that free labour (such as elder care and child care) and society does not want to fund it, we start to have issues of affordability and availability.

I don't think she's wrong, although her point becomes somewhat (rightly) obscured by the wider issue of violence against women and girls.

So many significant social goods have come out of unpaid female labour. Referring mostly to the history of England, as I am less sure how things developed in the rest of the UK:

18th and 19th Century: Before the Education Acts, primary schools often grew from Sunday schools, which were often taught - unpaid - by the wives and/or daughters of clergymen. 'Teaching in the school' is often alluded to in 19th Century novels as a suitable activity for middle class women.

Clergymen's wives were expected to perform social-care functions in their local community, such as visiting the sick and providing meals for people in need.

Nursing was often undertaken by volunteers.

Health visiting initially grew out of voluntary activity by middle-class women, who then employed female workers to visit the homes of poor families. History of Health Visiting - IHV

20th Century:

Women volunteered to serve in WW1 and WW2. I am not sure how many women served on a voluntary or paid basis, but there was certainly substantial, informal female labour involved in both war efforts.

The playgroups movement was a initially a volunteer-led movement, with mothers getting together to establish pre-school education for their children: Who we are | early years alliance

All the non-medical support services around birth originally began with volunteers: NCT, La Leche League, Breastfeeding Network...

Girlguiding, which for years was one of the few extra-curricular activities for girls.

Where should I stop? 😀

I have found volunteering hugely rewarding, but have also had huge issues with it at times!

Breastfeeding peer support is a big one for me. If it was a male health issue, would male volunteers be there propping up the NHS by providing the support that health professionals don't have time to provide? Somehow I don't think so!

She's right. The world relies on women's unpaid labour.

She'll lose her seat next time around to a Muslim candidate.
She's desperate to get some relevence, while ignoring two of the major things to effect women.
Nice try Jess

Elder care in particular I think.

She is right but she is also a massive hypocrite. This makes it difficult for me to respect her.