Women's Views on News |
- Questions about women’s pension reforms
- “Sexism is endemic in Westminster”
- The Met fail rape victims – again
| Questions about women’s pension reforms Posted: 06 Mar 2013 08:21 AM PST
The committee met on 27 February to hear evidence from experts about plans to introduce a flat-rate state pension of £144 a week from April 2017. Ahead of the meeting, many women asked the committee to address the fact that they will miss out on the more generous flat-rate pension as they are due to retire before April 2017. As Women's Views on News recently reported, this is a further blow for the women who have been forced to work for longer because the government is gradually increasing the female retirement age. Jill Klee, who wrote to the Committee and is one of the women affected, labelled the situation an 'exceptional and arbitrary discrimination' that will have life-long financial implications. Like many at the meeting, pensions expert Baroness Hollis of Heigham responded sympathetically. She said: "There are ways, I think, in which we could, absolutely rightly, help these women who have been hit twice over – not just once, but twice over. "I do think it is not decent that we should leave them exposed in this way." Various methods were suggested to rectify the situation, including allowing the women to join the new system and increasing their pension if they were on course to receive a higher amount. Dr Ros Altmann, a pensions expert, highlighted the fact that many women had expected to be on the new system and would be if the government introduced it in April 2016 as originally planned. "The implication was given that, although they will have to accept a second increase in their state pension age beyond the 1995 changes at very short notice, they would at least get the single-tier state pension when it came in," she explained. Altmann also warned the Committee about the possibility of further delays. She said: "Although at the moment we are talking a certain number of people, the number could increase significantly if the introduction date is delayed." Sally West, a strategy adviser for Age UK, expressed her concern about plans to increase the number of National Insurance contributions that recipients need to receive the state pension in full. She pointed out that this may prove difficult for women who work part-time because National Insurance contributions are not granted when people earn below the Lower Earnings Limit. In response, Altmann said that the government should find "some way of crediting people who are still working and earning, but below the National Insurance limit". Attendees did praise the significant change made so that the number of years spent raising a family will count towards the state pension. This will enable more women to get the state pension in their own right instead of relying on their husband's National Insurance contributions. Hollis said: "Women's working lives are infinitely more volatile than men's, and, as a result, it gives them some sort of security at, I hope, a decent enough level when they retire." However, everyone agreed that this change must be exercised with caution. Hollis stressed that "adequate and appropriate credits and buy-backs" must be available to women, while West said it is "really important" to ensure that women who planned to use their husband's contributions do not "suddenly find that they are left without a pension at all". Dame Anne Begg, the chair of the Committee, added that "there is a big education job to be done with younger women" to prevent such scenarios and enable women to plan better for the future. The Committee will make recommendations to the government about the proposed pension reforms before a finalised bill is issued.  |
| “Sexism is endemic in Westminster” Posted: 06 Mar 2013 06:21 AM PST
But as accusations abound about the alleged improper behaviour of Lord Rennard, so more women come forward to reveal their experiences of the sexism they faced, representing their electorate in the UK’s Houses of Parliament. “Sexism is endemic in Westminster”, Cathy Newman, Channel 4 news presenter and former political correspondent remarked recently. It is a story that is sadly very familiar to many women in the workplace. At the present time, up to five women are understood to being speaking to officers from Scotland Yard in connection with complaints against Rennard, the former Liberal Democrat chief executive. But many more have now come forward to recount incidents of sexism that Bridget Harris, former special advisor to the deputy prime minister, describes as 'depressingly familiar'. In an extended feature by the Guardian, which details experiences from a number of female politicians past and present, Labour MP Joan Ruddock described the routine sexual objectification of women. "When I was speaking in an army debate about Northern Ireland, one Tory said, in a voice that could be heard across the chamber, "I would strip search you any day”. No one pulled him up,” she said. ” That's how they were used to behaving." Labour's Oona King recalled similarly sexualised comments being openly shouted in the House of Commons. "When we arrived in 1997, it was institutionally sexist. When women would stand up in the chamber, men on the other side would be shouting "Melons! Melons!" while making hand gestures." However unacceptable this kind of sexualised catcalling is, a more insidious and sinister side is revealed by former Observer political editor Gaby Hinsliff: “Women MPs would swap notes like “don’t get stuck late in an office with so and so”, and warn women off working with certain MPs – known as “not safe in cabs”. Similarly, Edwina Currie explained: “There were always two or three men who were notorious. “You would see them getting into a lift and you would wait for the next lift. “You didn’t want an argument and you didn’t want to find that when you got to your floor, you were pushing their hand from under your skirt.” When Blair's Labour government came to power in 1997, 120 women entered Westminster and it had been hoped that this would be a tipping point ending to the commonplace misogynistic sexism. The nickname "Blair's Babes", however, is indicative of the way they were actually greeted when they arrived. An academic study which has recorded the experiences of 83 of those MPs from the day that they entered Parliament has revealed a bleak picture of widespread vulgar abuse combined with patronising hostility. When female MPs weren't being ‘mistaken’ for secretaries, they were expected to stick to ‘traditionally female’ issues, such as health and education and stay away from the "big guns" both literally and metaphorically speaking. Glenda Jackson recalled being told by a Conservative MP to "stick to what you know" after speaking on the issue of defence – a subject that only men are qualified to debate on, right? There were high hopes that “Blair's Babes” would lead the way for a modernisation of the patriarchal orthodoxies operating within Parliament, but the numbers of women MPs have steadily dropped since then. In Westminster, only 144 of the 648 Members of Parliament are women. Of those, the Liberal Democrats can claim just seven. And the Counting Women In 2013 Sex and Power report found that Britain has fallen behind Iran to 60th in the league table of female political power. We were 33rd in 2001. But who can blame women for being reticent about entering this kind of domain when sexist comments have even emanated from the highest echelons of the House? David Cameron, of course, notoriously described Nadine Dorries MP as “frustrated” and told Angela Eagles MP to “calm down dear“. Yet while sexism in this workplace should not be a greater surprise than that in the media or the legal system, it is. Jacqui Hunt, London director of the international human rights organisation Equality Now, pointed out: “As elected public representatives, it is essential that MPs communicate with respect and dignity at all times. “It is their responsibility to help eliminate rather than reflect harmful gender stereotypes.” Sadly, however, this is something that many of our “elected public representatives” need reminding about.  |
| The Met fail rape victims – again Posted: 06 Mar 2013 03:21 AM PST
An investigation by the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) has exposed shocking failings by Scotland Yard's specialist sex crime units. Police officers are reported to have pressurised victims into dropping allegations of rape and to have failed to properly investigate sex attacks, even when evidence was available to them. These appalling tactics were employed in an attempt to boost crime detection rates and meet performance targets in a number of London boroughs. The IPCC report focused on the activities of the Southwark Sapphire team in London between 2008 – 2009, but according to the Guardian, similar practices took place in five other boroughs during the investigation period. The Sapphire teams are tasked with investigating rapes and cases of serious sexual violence, but the report revealed the disgraceful treatment of many victims at the hands of the people appointed to protect them. Women were repeatedly questioned by different officers, in breach of standard procedure, and encouraged to confirm they had given consent to their attacker. Deborah Glass, Deputy Chair of the IPCC, said: “The approach of failing to believe victims in the first instance was wholly inappropriate. “The pressure to meet targets as a measure of success, rather than focusing on the outcome for the victim, resulted in the police losing sight of what policing is about – protecting the public and deterring and detecting crime.” One case in Southwark ended in even greater tragedy when Jean Say, a man who should have been investigated for rape, went on to murder his two children. The detective in question decided the woman who made the rape allegation against him had consented to sex, so no forensics were taken and the police failed to question him. Such an investigation may not have saved his children, but it would have at least flagged up his violent tendencies and put him on the police radar. Vivienne Hayes, CEO of the Women's Resource Centre (WRC), said this was "Yet another catastrophic outcome for women and children as a result of serious and endemic institutionalised failings within the police, and even more worryingly within a specific unit of the police set up to deal with rape and sexual violence. "They are obviously not fit for purpose! When will the institutionalised sexism obviously rife across the country be properly and satisfactorily addressed?" This is the fifth time Southwark's Sapphire unit has been under investigation by the IPCC, and the ninth investigation into the Met's handling of victims of sex crimes in London. In 2010, the IPCC revealed 'sustained failure' in the Met's investigation of serial sex offender Kirk Reid. Reid is believed to have gone on to commit between 80 and 100 sex attacks after the Met failed to take DNA when he first came to their attention in 2004. In 2009 he was convicted of 28 sexual offences over a 12-year period and jailed for life. Another IPCC report in 2010 suggested that serial rapist John Warboys could have been stopped two years before he was convicted, had it not been for a culture which failed to take women's allegations seriously if they had been on a night out. John Warboys, an ex-porn star and up until his arrest a taxi driver, is suspected of drugging and sexually assaulting up to 200 women passengers over six years. In response to the most recent IPCC report the Metropolitan Police said: “We have for some time acknowledged that previous investigation of rape and serious sexual assault in the MPS was below standard. "The activities identified in this report came during that era and highlight specific issues within Southwark which resulted in unacceptable actions by local officers. “It is as a result of such failings that we have made substantial changes to the investigation of rape and serious sexual assault, both in terms of structure and revised working practices.” Writing on the Independent Voices blog, chief executive of Rape Crisis South London, Yvonne Traynor, said the police's handling of rape cases has improved since 2009. "[We] are working a lot closer with the police, it's a completely different story. “We are being taken seriously, we are on strategy groups with the Met, they are trying to get it right. “It's an all-round concerted effort to bring bad guys to justice,” she said. "The training is better. They have a psychologist who trains the officers to help them understand how women react to being raped. “They no longer believe the stereotypical myths: if someone isn't crawling into a police station sobbing, but standing upright and being coherent, it could mean she has been raped as well." However as recently as 2011, one woman reported police at Southwark Sapphire Unit failed to collect evidence and subsequently dropped her case. Rape convictions in the UK remain disgracefully low, as this infographic from Left Foot Forward illustrates. Disgracefully low: the UK has the worst conviction rate in Europe. An estimated 79 per cent of rapes are not reported, with reasons including distrust of the police and courts, and the fear of being blamed. It is disturbing – well, sick really – how entrenched sexist attitudes prevail in institutions such as the police, and the impact this continues to have on the way victims of sex crimes are treated. In the meantime, as far as Sapphire goes, a total of 19 police officers from London have been disciplined, including three who have been sacked and one convicted of malpractice. But several others have escaped any serious repercussions – and two have even been promoted.  |
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