The very fact we still debate ‘What do women have to do to get taken seriously?’ shows that the work of feminism is not complete.
To become a leader, a Prospective Parliamentary Candidate, sit on a FTSE Board – or even be a stand-up comic – women face steeper hurdles than men and are judged on a harsher scale.
Only one in five MPs are women. Why? There is a 40% gender pay gap in the City of London. Why? There is only one job in the media for women for every two jobs for men. Why? Every time a leading political magazine calls for contributors, 50 or 60 men offer to write, but only one woman. Why?
The mantra which author Ellie Levenson so often hears, “I’m not a feminist, but…..” is a tribute to the array of new rights which feminism etched into the twentieth-century political landscape creating the perception of equality.
Until women discover the gender pay gap or have to care for someone.
Sexual and reproductive autonomy, the right to retain a job when pregnant and upon marriage, the right to vote and to stand for parliament, are momentous achievements but are not the end of the road. Divesting ourselves of the feminist label is like jumping out of a car before you reach home.
Speaking up for what we believe in, for ourselves and for each other, is the way to gain the next important goals – equal pay, affordable childcare and the equal sharing of childcare between women and men – which Jessica Asato from Progress placed at the top of the feminist wish list at Thursday’s seminar.
We need a continued commitment from Labour to equal representation through all-women shortlists to ensure that the critical mass of women in parliament, achieved for the first time in 1997, is not lost in future parliaments. We also need politicians committed to feminist goals and to spreading power.
Oona King paid tribute to the personal sacrifice and human cost in the struggle for the equal franchise – it is collectivism and solidarity that will deliver real change.
Dr Katherine Rake of Fawcett said that the self-blame – which sees women undervalue their achievements, which eats at their confidence and even contributes to the gender pay gap – is as an inner reflection of an external social misogyny.
The next big project for feminism is to reach out to men. Feminism is about the rights of men. To family life. To equally available healthcare. To liberation from traditional gender roles which enjoin men always to appear strong, not to admit to insecurity, not to show feelings. Women need to understand the norms and stereotypes which restrict men and to move away from defining a female way of doing things.
An interesting rider – on the train home, a colleague, just out of a British Library exhibition, argued that a certain head of government, not normally known for his softer side, deserves our sympathy too, due to his vulnerability.
Vulnerable? Him? I spluttered.
For I had never thought of Henry VIII in that light. But there, as I said, feminism is about giving men a sympathetic hearing too.
Hi
I thought this article was very interesting and informative. It demonstrates both how much the women’s movement has achieved, and rather dispiritingly, how former issues inhibiting women’s progress are still applicable to women’s lives today.
Much of the debate I think centres around women’s attitude to and experience of public life. Women need and desire to be part of the wider social and political world, and yet they have ambivalent feelings too as they encounter what is still a male dominated space and arena. Hence perhaps why more men than women respond to calls to contribute to political magazines, and why city firms are able to get away with offering lower salaries to women than their male employees. These issues, and others, were prominent and much debated in the 19th century (and before) and are still relevant today. We need to understand more clearly how progress was achieved, what hinders women still from fully engaging with public life and importantly their sense of identity in the political/social arena.
To achieve this, as Alex Kemp notes so well, the women’s movement has to consider notions and cultural ideas of masculinity too. If women and men are to find more satisfactory ways to combine their private and public lives and reach their full potential as different but connected human beings, both have to understand how cultural values and beliefs shape and influence their behaviour and expectations.
Not easy, but I think we are at the beginning of a new phase of feminism which realises that the social pressures on both men and women need to be taken far more into account if we are all to benefit. So, potentially exciting times!
I was sorry to miss the talk on 9th July, but look forward to others in the future.
Tessa Forbes