Sorry it's late

International Women's Day event with Glenys Kinnock (Jan Royall, Sue Bertwistle and Alice Jolly)

On March 9^th I, along with at least 150 others, attended an event that was empowering, very moving and at times utterly depressing. We gathered for soup, tea and a conversation about women and their place in the world.

The glorious Glenys Kinnock spoke about the horrendous situation that women find themselves in around the world. The statistics speak for themselves. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, 12% of the female population has been raped at least once. That is 48 women being raped every hour. Rape continues to be used as a weapon in these war-torn countries.

The problems do not only lie in the developing world though. In the UK women still find themselves discriminated against in a systematic manner.

Approximately 30,000 women lose their jobs each year as a result of being pregnant

The British Crime Survey of 2005 showed that 45% of women have experienced

some form of domestic violence, sexual assault or stalking .

Approximately 10,000 women are sexually assaulted and 2,000 women are raped every week .

Female graduates earn 15% less than their male counterparts at the age of 24 – this increases to a massive 40.5% by the age of 45.

The list goes on, and on, and on.

Then we began our conversation, and what we spoke about was not these huge, insurmountable imbalances. It was the individual situations in which we find ourselves everyday that remind us that, despite years of hard work and legislative change we are still not equal in society; we still do not have equal rights; we still do not have equal opportunities; we still do not have equal pay; and we are still not treated as equal under the law.

We spoke about the incredible hard work that individuals have done – to improve the chances of cared-for children, to improve the domestic violence refuges in the county (that have now been slashed and demolished; did you know there is only one refuge for victims of domestic violence in the whole county of Gloucestershire?).

Ex-Labour Group leader on Gloucestershire County Council, Maureen Rutter, spoke passionately about the guilt that she felt at not speaking up when she saw a typical example of the ways careers are split between male and female.

A group of scientist in a local school play were all played by boys. Seemingly a small event, not worthy of note. But it is these unconscious stereotypes that perpetuate the attitudes that continue to hold us back.

If a young girl sees that, even in a fictional school play, scientists are all male, she will be less likely to view that as a possible career path. It is a small thing, but add all of those events that you have witnessed that are similar to this and it is not hard to see why these attitudes still remain. And why the ratio of male to female scientists is massively unbalanced.

We all understood exactly what Maureen had seen, and the guilt that she felt at not speaking up, at not attempting to break that cycle.

The work that Maureen, Glenys, Jan, and others like them have done over the years has broken that cycle though, and it is our responsibility to continue that. To educate each other and our girls that they can do anything, be anything, that they want. To pave the way and do the hard work so that those women that come after us do not have to face the systematic inequality and abuse that we and the generations before us have experienced.

Education is absolutely key, here and across the world. Educating females – especially to secondary school level – is one of the most effective way to reduce poverty, to reduce child marriages, to reduce child mortality and family sizes. An educated women knows her rights and how to claim them. An educated women knows the importance of educating all of her children, not just the male ones. An educated woman is powerful. And we need powerful women.

(Please feel free to contact me regarding any of the statistics that I have used)