The majority felt that with the failure of local area agreements to promote women's issues, and concern that Tory and poorer boroughs / local councils would see women's services as easy targets for cuts that the only viable method of providing appropriate services to women who are victims of sexual and domestic violence was a national policy backed up by national funding.

By contrast, in light of recently published research that shows that “women’s charities” receive less donations than animal charities, no women supported the idea of women’s primary services, such as rape crisis, being funded through trust giving and subscriptions.

In fact it raises the question as to why it has been implied that women’s services, such as rape crisis, should be taken out of core local services and become something that only exists should individuals or trusts decide to donate to them.

Thirty years after the founding of the first rape crisis centre in London, the real issue is why after three decades, rape crisis and other sexual and domestic violence services are not automatically part of local and central government funding.

This apparent downgrading of women’s issues seems to suggest that the practice of gender mainstreaming results in negating women’s right to appropriate women’s services.

Local Election Voting Intentions

99% of those who responded are registered to vote
85% of those who responded intended to vote

In both the local and mayoral elections, women (particularly older women) are switching back to Labour to the cost of the Lib Dems, to stop the Tories gaining seats.

Many women are considering this vote for Labour with reluctance because of continued anger about the war in Iraq (and Afghanistan) and more recently the cut in the 10p tax rate and would have preferred to vote for a more left candidate.

However in the Mayoral elections national policies are less likely to influence how women will vote, although the Green Party policy on prostitution is a factor against them and the war in Iraq continues to be a negative influence on voting Labour along with “Ken’s vanity and anti Semitism” though women seem to be prepared to put these aside to stop a Tory becoming London’s Mayor.

Full Results

If you would like to see the full results you can download a word document from http://www.womeninlondon.org.uk/download/WomensAgenda2008SurveyResults.doc

In most instances we have included women's "other comments" in full, partly because of lack of time to edit, but also because we hope women will want to read the opinions and concerns of women who are part of a "common community" (?) of women working, volunteering or active on women's issues.

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