women in london

After concerted efforts to woo women voters, the parties’ manifestos hardly mention those same women, and the policies they do propose range from disappointing to downright disturbing.

Women are dealt with in piecemeal fashion with no party providing coherent explanations of how their policies will impact on women lives or how they will address persistent gender inequality.

Ceri Goddard, Fawcett’s Chief Executive, said:

“After some progress in power Labour seems to have stagnated, some Conservatives policies could actually be a backward step for women’s equality, and the Liberal Democrats are contradictory. The manifestos are a depressing read for anyone concerned about women’s equality, particularly given the energy the Party campaigning machines have invested in targeting women voters on sofas, on the internet and from the pages of the glossies.”

“Perhaps the most backward of the Conservative policies is their proposal to recognise some marriages in the tax system. Their marriage tax allowance could well push lower paid women from low paid families back into the home – but are the Conservatives being honest about this? It’s well rehearsed that this policy discriminates against widows/widowers, single parents and people who leave abusive relationships. But this policy also discriminates against married couples where both partners choose to or need to work – the reality for most people. From the party that advocates the small state this is state-sponsored social engineering writ large.”

“This worrying theme is continued elsewhere. Despite the premise of the ‘Couple Penalty’ being debunked by our campaign partner Gingerbread , the Conservatives have said they will press ahead with benefit reform that will disproportionately reward couples. This will have the disastrous effect of leaving single parents, 90 per cent of whom are women, in far greater relative poverty.

Criticising Labour’s and the Liberal Democrats’ Manifestos Ceri Goddard continued:

“It’s a shame that Labour has failed to follow up on some of the progress of the last 13 years. There seems to be no vision to build on steps like the minimum wage, all women short-lists and flexible working to take the next step towards equality. Particularly disappointing is their commitment to freeze income tax. This will give them little financial wriggle room when it comes to cutting public spending which will disproportionately disadvantage women .

“The Liberal Democrats, who claim to be the party of democratic reform, have failed even to mention the woeful underrepresentation of women in our democratic institutions – much less actually suggest steps that might deal with getting a parliament that is more like the country that it represents. Until this happens, we’re unlikely to make further significant progress on other issues.”

Fawcett does support some measures that the parties are proposing. The Liberal Democrats’ move to expand equal pay audits to more companies are very welcome. Labour’s commitment to implement the Speaker’s recommendations to address underrepresentation are welcome and the Conservatives proposal to exclude the lowest paid workers from public sector pay freezes and better fund Rape Crisis centres for women are all positive steps.

But a crucial omission from the parties’ manifestos is a commitment to both assess and publish the impact that their deficit cutting proposals will have on women as opposed to men. This will leave women voters unclear how policies will affect what they own and what they earn.

Summing up, Ceri Goddard said:

“As painful as the economic crisis and expenses scandal have been for this country, they present a real opportunity to build new kind of economy and democracy that does not rest on women’s inequality. More than this, repeated polls show there is real voter appetite for change. The parties preach fairness and radical change, but these manifestos are anything but, for women at least.”

Below are our overarching assessment of the manifestos against our What About Women? campaign themes

On the economy

None of the parties has committed to conducting and publishing a gender impact assessment of their deficit cutting plans or future budgets. None of the parties has given enough acknowledgement to the fact that public spending cuts are likely to impact more women more negatively both as employees of the public sector and as users of services. None of the parties has acknowledged that tax increases as *opposed to public spending cuts are a much better way of cutting the deficit, and would better insulate the poorest in our society, most likely women, from bearing the main burden of reducing the deficit.

On work and family

We welcome the nod to shifting from maternity leave to parental leave but only the Liberal Democrats have thought this through and made the transition from parental leave in to funded early years child care. Labour’s new toddler tax credit and guarantee that work pays at least £40 per week more than benefits is welcome. All three parties are now committed to the minimum wage, but the Conservatives are not committed to raising it. We welcome Labour’s efforts to go further by committing Whitehall to a living wage. All parties have claimed to want to value work, but none has properly recognised the need to provide high quality affordable childcare, or that caring responsibilities are largely delivered by women for free – contributing a massive £89bn to the UK economy.

On democratic renewal and rebuilding trust in politics

Only Labour is committed to implementing the Speaker’s Conference recommendations to ensure our parliament is properly representative of our population. The Conservatives and Liberal Democrats have failed to even acknowledge that underrepresentation of women and other groups is an issue.

On crime

The Liberal Democrats have completely failed to acknowledge the differing needs of women as victims, as offenders or as employees of the criminal justice system. The commitments from Labour and the Conservatives on rape crisis centres are welcome but the funding source is not explained by Labour and the ‘up to fifteen’ centres from the Conservatives will mean many women simply have no access. All parties fail to give enough recognition to forms other violence against women such as domestic violence – that kills 3 women a week, as a major crime issue to be tackled.

On equality and human rights

We welcome Labour and the Liberal Democrats commitment to the Human Rights Act. Labour’s proposal for a written constitution is interesting but women need to be involved in the process from the beginning, likewise for the Conservative proposals for a ‘Bill of Rights’.

Labour has committed to double core funding to the UN Women’s Agency is welcome. The Conservatives also place emphasis on using overseas aid to tackle issues particularly affecting women and children. None of the parties has committed to developing and delivering a cross government UK women’s strategy to tackle persistent inequality and unequal rights, a step which would ensure the UK meets its international obligations as well as domestic equality law.

On media and culture

There is very little from the parties on what they will do to tackle representations of women in the media but we do welcome both Labour and the Liberal Democrats moves to tackle sexualised marketing and negative body images respectively, and the Conservative proposals to teach consent in sex education, although all three parties could and should go much further.