Women pledge to fight Tories

Louise Nousratpour
Sunday October 30, 2011
The Morning Star

Women's Charter activists vowed at their annual conference on Saturday to "agitate, educate, organise and litigate" against the government's assault on their jobs, services and rights.

Charter for Women chairwoman Mary Davies told delegates in London that massive public-sector job cuts and attacks on the welfare system threatened turn the clock back on gender equality.

David Cameron's Big Society idea would inevitably rely on a swelling army of unemployed women doing unpaid caring work, she warned.

But speakers hailed the looming co-ordinated pension strike by state workers on November 30 as a first step towards wider action to bring the Con-Dem to its knees.

Gloria Mills of the Unison union, which boasts more than a million women members in the public sector, said that her union was working "round the clock" to deliver a Yes vote.

She complained: "The government has decided to protect the pension of the male-dominated uniform professions - the fire brigade, the armed forces and the police - while penalising the female-dominated sector such as nurses and teachers.

"So if you're aiming a hose or a gun, you're fine."

Southall Black Sisters speaker Pragna Patel explained how her organisation "help women who were completely invisible in society, with the state turning a blind eye to domestic violence in minority communities in the name of 'cultural sensitivity'."

She told delegates how the organisation had used equality impact assessments to force authorities to rethink local cuts and closure decisions.

Both the government and local authorities have been caught flaunting equality laws and bypassing impact assessments when making decisions about where the austerity axe should fall.

She recalled the London-based group's major victory in 2008 against the Ealing Council's plans to cut its funding.

Ms Patel also urged delegates to remain vigilant to a shift in funding from progressive organisations to reactionary faith groups as happened in the case of the Poppy Project, which lost its government funding to the Salvation Army.

"The Salvation Army is now in charge of dealing with highly traumatised sex-trafficked women and girls," she said.

The Charter for Women is a set of key demands launched in 2004 to bring gender equality back into sharp focus.

It has the backing of the TUC, among other organisations.