Sunday, September 09, 2012

A Very Bad Week for Equalities


It has often been said that a week is a long time in Politics – but last week was simply a very bad week for equalities.

Not only has David Cameron removed three women from the cabinet and added just one women, she is Maria Miller, now the new culture secretary and also responsible for Women and Equalities, an appointment that has immediately attracted significant criticism from equality campaigners . Gone is equalities champion LibDem Lynne Featherstone, off to a new role in the Department of International Development, but as far as I can see her role as Equalities Minister is not being replaced, signalling that the equalities agenda is being further marginalised by this government .

Instead the Women and Equalities role which had been part of the overall responsibilities of Home Secretary Theresa May is now part of the overall responsibility of the New Culture Secretary arguably because she is a working mum and will champion the cause for women.

Unfortunately other protected characteristics may not be as lucky.  Maris Miller has a long and questionable record when it comes to voting on LGBT issues. She has voted against gay adoption and fertility treatment for lesbian couples and has managed to be absent from every other vote regarding LGBT issues since she became an MP in 2005.

For trans people this is a sad time.  Lynne Featherstone has long been a champion of Trans rights helping to get the gender recognition proposals in to law and more recently publishing the transgender action plan.  I have to wonder what will now happen to that.  Will the Transgender Action plan simply get left on a shelf never to be revisited?

After the criticism for reducing the presence of women in cabinet by 20% last week, David Cameron has apparently now ordered Maria Miller to draw up plans to appeal to women voters – and with quite a lot of feminist pressure in the news I suspect that the trans issues will move to the back burner.  

At the same time with a huge campaign underway by the Catholic Church in Scotland opposing same sex marriage and a new minister responsible for equalities who has a record of opposing gay rights and seems opposed to same sex marriage, I suspect that much of the work that Lynne Featherstone had done to progress equal marriage will also be undone.

So what action can we take - On the Change.org site a petition has already started asking the Prime Minister to remove Maria Miller as Minister for Equality – I have signed it – Please consider doing the same - She is simply the wrong person for the equalities job.

Sign the petition to remove Maria Miller here




2 comments:

  1. On this occasion Rikki, I have to completely disagree. Equality is not about equal numbers of men and women, it is about equal opportunity. The criteria for doing a job have nothing to do with the gender of the individual, and everything to do with ability and performance, for which I have to say, thank goodness!

    The indulgent excesses of pseudo-equality as displayed by Harriet Harman and her ilk in the last government, have contributed significantly to the over-spending in the public sector, and the crippling of small business by legislation which fortunately, the present government is planning to dismantle.

    A vote for common sense over ideology, I think.

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  2. Hi Lee

    I don't think we disagree over the basic principle that equality is at least largely about equal opportunity, but when jobs consistently go to men in preference over well qualified women and people from minority groups I for one need to question why that is happening.

    In the USA research has shown that less than 15% of Americans are over 6ft tall yet over 50% of corporate CEO's are over 6ft tall. There is no proven correlation between height and ability as a CEO, yet still tall men are selected over shorter men and of course women, very few of whom are over 6 ft.

    If a teacher asks a question in a class they are consistently more likely to call on a boy who raises his hand rather than a girl. Women are still encouraged to work in jobs that pay less than the jobs boys are encouraged to work in. Boys and girls who choose to challenge gender norms are subjected to bullying and ridicule.

    The result of this hidden prejudice and unconscious bias is unfairness and equality is all about fairness rather than purely equality of opportunity.

    I realise that life is often not fair - but the past few years have seen the impact of rampant unfairness and whilst I am sure the Equalities Agenda of the last government contributed to the public sector overspending - I have seen first hand the decimation of thousands of community and voluntary sector organisations that were doing a great deal to make the world a fairer place, by the hugely unfair strategies currently being employed to solve a financial crisis that was in the main caused by irresponsible bankers.

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