Working for women's organisations can be a challenging and rewarding experience. There are a wide range of roles in the women's sector, from counsellors and mentors, fundraisers and administrators, managers, policy officers, researchers and much more.
Why work in the women's sector?
A career in the women’s sector can be challenging and rewarding. Here Darlene Corry, Policy Officer at WRC, gives her view about why the sector is so important, and what working in the women’s voluntary and community sector means to her.The other day I heard a woman talking about the importance of the Sex Discrimination Act (1975). It meant that, for example, a woman could open a bank account in her own name. As a (relatively) young woman, I still find it hard to imagine living in a world where I couldn’t even access my own money.
Throughout the seventies, the women’s liberation movement campaigned and lobbied for changes to the law and against practices that discriminated against women. Women organised collectively to take action and got the Equal Pay Act, making it illegal to pay women lower rates than men for the same work. At the Miss World Competition feminist protestors declared the contest a ‘cattle market’. They pushed for free contraception, set up refuges and rape crisis centres and lobbied for the Sex Discrimination Act and the Employment Protection Act, which introduced statutory maternity provision and made it illegal to sack a woman because she is pregnant.
Historically, the women’s sector of today has its roots in the women’s liberation movement. It was only in 1991 that rape in marriage was made a criminal act, after 15 years of serious campaigning by Women Against Rape and Legal Action for Women. And the EU only passed the Human Rights Act, guaranteeing basic rights, in 1998. The women’s sector is still at the cutting edge of challenging discrimination against women.
The women’s sector has become ‘legitimate’, in that it now has an organised infrastructure and services are being delivered by paid professionals. However, the sector still relies heavily on volunteers and faces ongoing challenges – funding is not sustainable, secure or sufficient.
- “The women’s sector is an important voice for fifty percent of our population. Women united can bring about change to outdated stereotypical perceptions.” Yvonne Traynor, Rape and Sexual Abuse Support Centre.
Women’s collective organising has brought about monumental changes to everyday women’s lives. And this is why I work in the women’s sector.
I first learnt about feminism in high school, during history, and it completely changed my life. For the first time I had a framework to understand the world in a way that made sense to me, an analysis of the power structures still at play that determined the social and cultural restraints impacting on me, and on so many women’s lives. Reading feminist theory gave me access to a whole other world, one of possibilities, in which women could claim their strength, their full choices, without being limited by convention or law or social attitudes.
I first learnt about the women’s sector as a service user and for quite a few years I used the services provided by my local rape and incest crisis centre. I learnt how empowering it is to access professional support from a woman-centred framework.
Getting involved in feminist political activism just seemed to follow quite naturally. In ‘93 I joined the Reclaim the Night (RTN) collective in Brisbane, and found it such a powerful experience that I kept working on the collective for years. (RTN is an annual international protest).
- “I’ve been part of the women’s movement in my country, and this is a carry on of my political activity. Working in the women’s sector gives me satisfaction, it’s empowering, it enables women to raise their voices. To be part of this movement gives me energy, and it makes me a part of challenging inequality.” Elaheh Rambarzini, Refugee Council.
My first paid job in the women’s sector was at my local rape and incest crisis centre, where I did support work and community education – both reactive, and preventative. The work was hard, but ultimately incredibly rewarding. I was in the privileged position of witnessing the strength that women have to survive and heal from abuse. I was very supported by women that I worked with. I saw first hand how powerful critical analysis skills are for young women making sense of why and how (and how often) rape happens, and I got to be part of supporting those young women to challenge sexist attitudes that support and condone a rape culture. And I got to give something back.
- “My reason for working in the women's voluntary sector is to provide support whether that is directly or indirectly on improving the lives of women who are less fortunate.” Tasneem Miah, Consortium of Bengali Associations.
What do you think would happen if the women’s sector didn’t exist? The voluntary and community sector is very good at identifying need – and women’s groups work with some of the most marginalised and discriminated women in the country. The value of the women’s sector is not highlighted often enough, yet if it didn’t exist the cost would be phenomenal. Women’s groups in London provide services to tens of thousands of women each year and the preventative cost alone, in terms of the impact on mental health, childcare, police, criminal justice system and general health has never been measured. If it was, I believe it would be a very telling picture.
Women who work in the women’s sector have a political commitment to bring about change, for real equality, for a world where insidious and institutional sexism is exposed and stopped and for new ways of being, built upon mutual respect and freedom. It’s a legitimate career choice for women who want to use their skills and their experience to make lives better for women.
Working for a women’s organisation is a way for me to take a stand against injustice. I feel a real sense of privilege to be in the position where I get to meet and support women in organisations doing amazing, hard, ground-breaking, challenging work that makes a difference to women’s lives .
- “It is the passion for a positive change in women’s circumstances that is the driving force for me to work in the women's sector.” Isatu Sillah, BME Women's Network, SAVO.
More about working in the voluntary and community sector