Women's Views on News |
Check your would-be MP’s views on abortion Posted: 20 Apr 2015 06:55 AM PDT Over the past five years, we have been reminded on several occasions to remain vigilant on a woman's right to choose. In the run up to the General Election, the pro-choice campaigners Abortion Rights have created a questionnaire so you can easily find out what your local Parliamentary candidates think about abortion and women’s health. The aim of the questionnaire is to ask candidates for their views on abortion rights, and the respeonses will then be gathered together to provide a broad picture about who the pro-choice candidates are. Please contact your local candidates to ask them to fill in the questionnaire to help with this. To find them, click here. While we recognise that individuals vote for candidates for many reasons, electing pro-choice champions who will work with us to defend and extend a woman’s right to abortion is more important than ever. Over the past five years, we have been reminded on several occasions why we must remain vigilant on a woman's right to choose. We have seen MP Nadine Dorries on about counselling for women having an abortion and former health minister Jeremy Hunt vote in favour of lowering the time limit for abortions. Then, earlier this year, backbencher Fiona Bruce attempted to bring an amendment to the UK’s current abortion bill that would have seriously threatened a woman’s right to choose. "Women voters are really important in this election," Kerry Abel, the chair of Abortion Rights, said. "1 in 3 women will have an abortion in their lifetime, so we want to know that we’ve got our rights covered. "These questions from Abortion Rights will help voters decide where their candidates stand on free, safe, legal abortion protected from harassment." Since MPs are generally allowed a free whip to vote on this issue, the views of individuals are particularly important. You can find the webtool here. Please send the replies to us here with the subject heading: ‘PPC’s questionnaire reply’. Thanks. |
Stop fighting over ‘the women’s vote’ Posted: 20 Apr 2015 06:37 AM PDT Instead of fighting over ‘the women’s vote’, politicians should be promoting policies to address gender inequality. Election coverage is torn about ‘the women’s vote’. Some decry the homogenising act of identifying a 'women's vote' at all, while others point out the evidenced differences between female and male voters, such as their different priorities. “If you ask people … the most important issue facing Britain, women are more likely to say health and education, whereas men are more likely to say taxation, the economy and Europe,” said Dr Rosie Campbell, a gender and politics expert at Birkbeck University of London. Still others highlight the upcoming centenary of women's suffrage in the UK and lament the apathy of the modern, female, could-be voter. “Suffragists fought long and hard to gain voting rights for women, but … women are increasingly turning away from the polling booths,” Sophie Bennett, co-director of UK Feminista, told the International Business Times UK recently. But why are politcians so concerned about the 'women's vote' when they seem unconcerned about the lack of gender equality in parliament? Women were underrepresented in the outgoing parliament – something unlikely to change much in the next parliament – while women make up 52 per cent of the electorate. “At the moment just one in five parliamentarians are female, leaving over half of the population woefully under-represented. “It’s hard for Parliament to do its job of giving voice to the population when it looks so little like the people it is there to represent,” Katie Ghose, chief executive of the Electoral Reform Society, said. “It’s hardly surprising that so many women are feeling alienated from politics.” Others point at the 'boys' club' of Westminster politics as the dissuading factor for both female politicians and the female electorate. 'In May,' Yvonne Roberts wrote in the Guardian, 'female politicians, whether on the backbenches or in cabinet, will continue as visitors in an old boys' club.' “Of course politics is sexist,” Labour MP Sarah Champion said earlier this year; “It seems utterly hypocritical that politicians put legislation in place around these discriminatory practices or around employment law – and then we don’t follow them ourselves [in Parliament]. "It’s absolutely mad.” But ignore the state of female representation in parliament for the moment. Because 9 million women did not vote in 2010, combined with the fact that female voters are more likely to be undecided voters, the so-called 'women's vote' is of increasing interest to the political party strategists in the run up to 7 May. Unfortunately political parties 'targeting the women's vote' tend to look like Labour's questionably patronising pink minibus or as attempts to divert attention from a history of dodgy stances on breast feeding, and attitudes to sexism in the workplace, maternity leave, and FGM by announcing a plan to scrap the 'tampon tax', as UKIP have done. The language around the 'women's vote' also often has sexist and patronising overtones, as historian David Jarvis from the University of Cambridge explained to the BBC recently. “Phrases like ‘wooing’ or ‘courting’ women, romantic language, the type of language girls’ mothers warn their children that bad men will seduce vulnerable women with, is regularly employed,” he said. Such blatantly token attempts to 'woo' women arguably drive more women away from politics. And then there is the assumption that women are a homogenous group with homogenous needs. After all, as Vanessa Barford wrote for the BBC, no one talks about ‘the men’s vote’. So while strategists wrack their brains for (preferably pink) solutions to the 'women problem', perhaps we should really be talking about breaking down the issues that people who value equality (women and men) really care about. Despite some small progress under the Con-Dem coalition, such as the introduction of shared maternity-paternity leave and promises to demand big businesses publish their gender pay gaps, and miniscule progress on closing the gender pay gap, huge barriers still stand in the way of gender equality. Debbie Ashford, of the Fawcett Society, has pointed out: “[Since the last election] Three quarters of austerity savings have come from women’s pockets, women make up the majority of low paid workers and the gap in earnings between men and women has increased." Women earn an average of 19.1 per cent less than their male counterparts and two-thirds of women earn less than the living wage. Women have suffered what feminist economists in the Women's Budget Group have called 'triple jeopardy': hit hardest by the bedroom tax and other benefit changes, they have also been most affected by the axing of thousands of public sector jobs and by the disintegration of public services, including care for the elderly. About one million women are missing entirely from the workplace because of a lack of flexible work opportunities and the support needed to balance work and caring commitments. Or they could start with actually having enough women in politics. In this election, only one third of the candidates in winnable Conservative seats and only 36 per cent of candidates in winnable Labour seats are women. And although it has been nearly a century since women won suffrage, most constituencies in Britain have never seen female representation. Sophie Bennett, co-director of UK Feminista, speaking to the International Business Times UK, said: “Whoever is elected in May will have a critical role to play in closing the inequality gap between women and men. "Women’s inequality is not a side issue; it should be at the heart of this general election campaign. And it’s up to us to hold parties to account at the ballot box on 7 May.” There are a wealth of opportunities there for politicians to take on: real, tangible issues women and men care about – and none of them involve a pink bus or add-on 'placation' policies. And as Polly Toynbee pointed out in the Guardian: 'a last-minute battle for our votes by every party would be a fine thing'. But only if it ditches the focus on the ‘women’s vote’ in favour of pledging real policies to promote gender equality. |
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