Women and Equality

I have always regarded international women's day as a time of celebration. Indeed, I used to work for Women's Aid in Scotland, and our celebration lasted a whole week, so I am comfortable with carrying it on as long as possible.

Legislation on equal treatment and the promotion of policies to ensure the participation of all citizens in our society—women and men alike—so that they are represented equally in the economy, in decision making and in social, cultural and civil life as part of their human rights, have made a great deal of progress domestically, at a European level and on an international basis through the United Nations. The Scottish Parliament, although in its infancy, is making significant progress on new ways of working that are more relevant to women in the community.

There is still a gap, however. Not all the progress has been translated on a daily basis to produce equal rights between men and women. Women often do not enjoy equal rights in various spheres. Structural gender inequalities remain in place, fundamentally for the same reasons as always—the issue of power, where it lies, and how it is exercised in society in the private and public sectors.

Many of the struggles for equality that women have pursued, as the Minister said, until recently led to an extension of rights and responsibilities to women as if they were the same as men. Other hon. Members alluded to the fact that that created the burden of the dual role of women being left largely unquestioned and taken for granted. Ironically, that approach recently created the image of the emancipated woman who can work, look after a home and children and participate in the public world all at the same time. Many of us can do that, but is the situation ideal and what pressures does it bring?

The Minister also mentioned the sexual division of labour. She suggested that more progress has been made than I would perhaps recognise. I do not see in my daily life or in the lives of many of my female constituents men doing anything like their fair share of caring or domestic responsibilities. Although things have improved, there is a long way to go.

I welcome gender mainstreaming, an approach by the Government to acknowledge that women's concerns, needs and aspirations are taken into account and assume the same importance as men's concerns in the design and implementation of policies. In parallel with bringing issues that have a direct and indirect impact on the lives of women into the heart of policy making, we also need to take specific actions in favour of women to address the particular problems that the Minister and others mentioned. They include low pay, the national child care strategy, equal pay, women's representation and violence against women. I spent 16 years working in the field of domestic violence before I was elected, and the subject is very close to my heart. Violence against women is at the extreme of a continuum of oppression of women that is world wide and no respecter of class, colour or creed, as the hon. Member for Meriden (Mrs. Spelman), who is not in her place, has said. It has its roots in the male abuse of power.

It is welcome that the Government have played such a prominent part in addressing domestic violence. My hon. Friend the Member for Crosby (Mrs. Curtis-Thomas) highlighted the possibility of keeping women in the home where they had been subjected to domestic violence. From my many years of experience, I believe that there is still a need, which will continue in the long term, for refuge provision as well. We cannot say that we are making real progress until we make sure that every woman and child escaping domestic violence has a refuge space to go to if that is required. We still have a long way to go in that respect.

It is not all down to Government or to mainstream political activity. Meaningful changes in women's lives are also dependent on social movements within civil society. Historically, women have relied on movements such as the women's movement—of which I am proud to regard myself as a member—to make advances and pressurise the Government to make advances for women, and I believe that that is still the case today.

There can be no more stark reminder of the difficulties that women have faced in trying to seek equality than in the lack, historically, of decent, affordable child care. The dearth of child care in this country, which was almost bottom of the European Union league table for many years, was an outrage and a disgrace. Cuts in public services over the years meant that nursery places were like gold and, when my children were young, people could not get a nursery place for love or money. At that stage, like many other women, I did not have the money.

The hon. Member for Meriden did not like to go over the history of her party in this regard, and who can blame her? However, I am old enough to remember the Tories' so-called "back to basics" campaign, which sought to dismantle the welfare state and create a welfare society based on women's unpaid labour. When we think of the effects of that policy on poor women and lone parents during that horrible time in our history, we may be cynical now about the Tories' new-found concerns about public services.

In those days, as the hon. Member for Upminster (Angela Watkinson) said, many women had to rely on state benefits or on partners who could be unreliable in supporting their partners and children. That is one of the reasons for the introduction of the Child Support Agency, although it turned out to be a disaster for a long time.

Child care has always been key to women's economic independence. That is why I particularly welcome the national child care strategy and the working families tax credit, which have benefited many in my constituency.

On low pay, again we have the worst record in the EU. I recognise that the Government are making progress and have plans to improve the situation. I do not think that a gender gap of 18 per cent. is good enough. There has been tremendous progress, but in this day and age such a gap should not exist.I support the recommendations of the equal pay taskforce in its report "Just Pay", commissioned by the Equal Opportunities Commission, for legislation to ensure that pay reviews are carried out. We will not get equal pay with voluntary arrangements. All the evidence shows that these things never happen in that way. I ask the Minister to comment on that.

I have strong views about women's representation and very much welcome the legislation that the Government have introduced with all-party support. I hope that, as the Minister stated, we will see real progress and specific measures to improve the situation. I have absolute disdain for the lost opportunity at the 2001 election in Scotland, when many former male Members of this House went to the Scottish Parliament and, with two exceptions, were replaced by men, when there was an ideal opportunity to make places for women.

I get frustrated about the amount of time that we must spend campaigning on this issue. I do not think that every woman wants to be a Member of Parliament. They are concerned about other issues and it would be good if we did not have to spend so much time dealing with it.

In conclusion, I mentioned the superwoman that we are all supposed to be in society now. I will treat the House to a part of my speech to the Scottish Labour group's Burns supper, which concerns the superwoman, whose typical day goes like this:

"She wakes up to her 2.6 children. They go downstairs and she gives them a nutritional breakfast which they eat, and they go off to school without once forgetting their lunch money. She goes upstairs and gets dressed in her £300 suit and goes off to her £100,000 job, which is both creative and socially useful. After work, she comes home and spends a wonderful hour relating to her children—because after all it's not the quantity but the quality of time that's important. She then prepares a gourmet dinner for her husband. They spend some time working on their meaningful relationship, after which they go upstairs where she has multiple orgasms until midnight."

I did not make that up—it was written by an American woman writer.

I prefer the words of Elaine C. Smith, a famous Scottish actress. Referring to the women curlers' success recently in winning a gold medal, she said:

"only Scottish women could be expert at brushing round a dead weight."