What a fascinating time for debating equality, discrimination and feminism across a range of sites. On the one hand, we’ve got crucial new legislative reform happening, but on the other hand there’s a mainstream cultural perception that we have equality now; discrimination against women just happens in other countries and feminism is old-hat and outdated. Alongside the government and press are less high profile movers – women’s organisations and grass roots feminist activists – with their own views on where the equality debate lies today. There is a lot of work being done by the government right now: the Equalities Review, the new Commission for Equalities and Human Rights, the Discrimination Law Review and more. The biggest legislative reform on gender equality is the Gender Duty, which will come into force in April 2007, which means all public bodies will have to promote equality of opportunity between men and women.

Violence is a gender issue
But women’s organisations raise two key concerns about how the government id framing the equality debate: they fail to acknowledge violence against women, namely sexual violence, domestic violence, honour killings, and female genital mutilation, as a gender equality issue – despite the fact that violence impacts upon so many women and is a key factor in women’s continuing inequality. The government also fails to acknowledge systematic discrimination against women. Beatrix Campbell, feminist activist, researcher and journalist, spoke recently about how the ‘long march through the institutions’ has been tried elsewhere, most notably in Northern Ireland, and the results show that if institutions can get away with not changing, they will: “We’ve had the Women and Work Commission Report, and we’ve had airings and outings of the Equalities Review, and the thing that is striking about both these documents and the way they’re formulating the problem is that they are about women … but they are not about gender, they’re not about the sexual division of labour and they’re not about discrimination.” Women’s organisations work with the sharp end of discrimination against women, providing essential and often life-saving services to the most forgotten and isolated women. Yet there is currently a funding crisis facing women’s organisations. How does this fit with the government’s agenda on equality and diversity? “We receive almost no funding for the work we do. Yet there is nowhere else for Zimbabwean women to go, to get the support they need from a woman’s space that has a clear understanding of the needs of women from this community,” said Yvonne Marimo from the Zimbabwe Women’s Network.

Put gender back on the agenda
The Women’s Resource Centre, the umbrella body for women’s groups in London, recently launched the ‘why women?’ campaign which calls on government to put gender back on the agenda, and sustainably fund the women’s sector – over 170,000 postcards highlighting the achievements of women’s organisations are currently in cinemas and bars across London.
Tania Pouwhare, Policy Officer from the Women’s Resource Centre, highlighted that “without women’s organisations fighting for change, women wouldn’t be able to vote or open a bank account.”

Money, money, money
Based on in-depth interviews with a diverse range of women’s organisations, the ‘why women?’ report found that the deep-rooted issues women’s organisations work on rarely appear on funder’s criteria or government targets – and this will only get worse as funding moves from grants to more prescriptive, competitive tendering to deliver public services.
“It’s very difficult now to find funders who prioritise women, so we are constantly struggling to find the next pot of money to keep doing our work”, said Liz Sutton from the Women’s Environmental Network. Women’s organisations are constantly being asked to justify why they work for women, despite the expertise and experience held by the women’s sector in meeting women’s need, and in challenging discriminatory laws and practices – marital rape was only made a criminal act in 1991 after decades of campaigning by women’s organisations. “In our experience, we think gender specific services are vital”, said Lee Eggleston of the South Essex Rape and Incest Crisis Centre. “Women have very specific needs which are different to men’s, so services need to be tailored to both”.

Making headlines
The press has shown renewed interest in feminism – recent articles entitled ‘Young, successful, well paid: are they killing feminism?’ ‘Who are you calling a feminist?’ and ‘A traitor to the sisterhood?’ in the Observer, and ‘Feminism, fashion and the rising tide of the raunch’ from the Guardian have tended not to explore what feminism actually means, so much as allude to negative and outdated perceptions. “Because of course you wouldn’t want to think you were marginalised, oppressed and discriminated against, would you?” said Campbell. “Because it’s horrible. It’s expensive, it’s exhausting, it sometimes costs you your life – you wouldn’t want to think that thought.” Yet feminist grassroots activism is taking off in a huge way. Many women and men are appalled by the high levels of violence against women, by the increasingly blatant sexualised and objectifying images of women in the media, by the loss of an analysis of gender in any public forum. These articulate voices are joining together to make some noise, building a feminist resurgence through everything from online forums to Reclaim the Night marches and radical cheerleading. “Women have had enough of attitudes which blame us if we are raped or abused, of people who tell us they have it all, while they whittle away our hard won rights day by day” said Finn Mackay from the activist group London Feminist Network. “We aren’t on the verge of equality, but we might be on the verge of revolution.”

The WRC asked Londoners about equality for a film to support the ‘why women?’ campaign:

Are women still discriminated against?
“Of course”
“I think they are, because someone told me the other day that women still get paid less than men”
“Well, I’ve never been discriminated against personally …”

What do you think of feminism?
“Feminism? What’s that?”
“Yeah … its good isn’t it. But I don’t think we know what it is anymore”
“Well, I’ve never been discriminated against, so I don’t have an opinion on feminism”
“Feminism is beautiful”
“Feminist are dodgy people”