Radical change is needed for a gender equal Scotland

The referendum context has generated much thinking about alternative visions of society across civic Scotland, and the difference that constitutional change might make for marginalised groups. While Engender has not taken a position on a preferred outcome, we have been no exception in considering these questions from women’s rights and gender equality angles.

Policy change at UK level has undermined progress made on gender equality in recent decades

Our recent report Gender Equality and Scotland’s Constitutional Futures looks at the policy landscape since devolution and sets out where current power and responsibility lies across a spectrum of gender issues. It also draws on various events run for our members, with partners at community level, and in collaboration with other stakeholders over the past 18 months, including the discussion series Feminists talk Scotland’s futures, and our last two annual conferences. We have also looked at the gender content of the Scottish Government's white paper and Scottish Labour’s so-called red paper. All this discussion and thinking has supported two vital points:

• Constitutional arrangements do not dictate or guarantee particular outcomes for women or for gender equality.
• However, we cannot achieve a gender equal Scotland without radical change, including at institutional level, irrespective of the given governance context.

Radical change is needed, but the vision is straightforward. We want to see a Scotland where women and men have equal opportunities in life, equal access to resources and power, and are equally safe and secure from harm. We want to live and work in a country where women and men are represented as equals in the media and in public life, have an equal voice in shaping and making political decisions, and where gendered discrimination has been consigned to history. Yet, in 2014 we are still depressingly far from this. Indeed, policy change at UK level has undermined progress made on gender equality in recent decades. Meanwhile, there has been significant political attention on women voters in the referendum debate. We welcome the spotlight this casts on the alienation that many women feel from the political system and on the need for both campaigns to improve critical engagement with key gendered issues. For our part, we’ll continue to support informed debate around the implications for women in the run-up to the vote and to encourage women to cast their vote Our next event is on Thursday 5 June at Edinburgh University. If you are undecided and fancy a chinwag with campaigners about how gender equality, social justice and equalities play into the debate, or you have a broad interest in the issues, sign up and join us.