Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid) 04 March 2021
Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. I refer members to my entry in the register of members’ interests, with regard to my Breastfeeding etc (Scotland) Bill and trade unions.
The theme for international women’s day this year is, as we know, #ChooseToChallenge—to celebrate women’s achievements, raise awareness of bias and take action for equality. Action is still needed, as we have not achieved sex equality in society, banished misogyny or elected a 50:50 chamber here.
I will reflect on that point as I open for Scottish Labour in my last speech after 22 years of service as an MSP and as one of the 99ers. I am pleased that my sisters Johann Lamont and Pauline McNeill will also speak in the debate.
More than two decades ago, Labour achieved significant women’s representation in the new Scottish Parliament by taking radical positive action in our selection procedures. In my original candidate interview, I noted that,
“In 1918 the suffragettes won votes for women, 80 years later, 82% of MPs are men.”
The number has improved a bit, but it is clear what difference having a critical mass of women representatives makes in tackling sex-based inequality and delivering legislation that would not be a priority for men, on issues such as breastfeeding, period poverty, childcare, domestic abuse and the whole spectrum of violence against women, including trafficking, prostitution and pornography.
Recent controversies around decisions on funding for Women’s Aid refuges and services remind us that women fought long and hard for specialist services for women and children who suffer from abuse at the hands of violent men. Sadly, those services are needed even more during this pandemic.
Violence and the threat of it continue at home and abroad, in war zones with brutal sexual violence against women who dare to defend their sex-based rights—such as the shocking hanging of an effigy of the Spanish Deputy Prime Minister and feminist Carmen Calvo—and online through threats and name calling, which feminists across all parties in the chamber experience. We must choose to challenge all of that.
On action for employment equality, I first saw what sex discrimination at work looked like as a young woman, when I was an equality trade union rep working for a council. At that time, the vast majority of women were employed in the low-paid clerical and admin grades, and there was an all-male cast of chief officers. I realised then what many feminist Labour and trade union women already knew—that women would have to fight relentlessly for every advance in their jobs, wages and conditions and to keep the sex-based rights that they had already achieved. It is an age-old story.
Coatbridge poet Janet Hamilton, a working-class woman who was born in 1795, did not learn to write until she was 50, and then she let rip. Here is an extract from her poem, “A Lay of the Tambour Frame”, on women’s work:
“Why quail, my sisters, why,
As ye were abjects vile,
When begging some haughty brother of earth
‘To give you leave to toil?’
It is tambour you must,
Naught else you have to do,
Though paupers’ dole be of higher amount
Than pay oft earned by you.”
Over the past year, much of the public engagement in this building, including bringing in community groups, supporting third sector projects, learning about campaigns, meeting trade unions and working with cross-party groups—which engagement has enriched our experience as MSPs and informed our decisions—has gone. The Scottish Parliament must get that engagement back.
At the women’s dinners that I have hosted in Parliament over many years, we have heard from a diverse range of women campaigners, including the young women who successfully tackled discrimination over bra size prices. We have also heard about the serious issue of the importance of women-only spaces, which was recently discussed with ex-Cornton Vale governor Rhona Hotchkiss. Women MSPs have attended the events on a cross-party basis, and I hope that my good friend from way back before we were MSPs, Rhoda Grant, will host the dinners in the future and might consider taking forward my right to food (Scotland) bill, if she is re-elected. No pressure.
Public services, on which women depend both as workers and service users, have been lost along with a collapsing community infrastructure. Building back better must mean fair work, including sustainable, flexible working policies and packages and meaningful equality impact assessments. In addition, as the cabinet secretary said, academic and statistical evidence confirms that women in Scotland have faced a disproportionate impact from Covid-19 in areas such as home schooling, unpaid caring, job losses and food insecurity, to name but a few.
We know that women remain underrepresented in public life, are paid less than men, endure violence at the hands of men and suffer disproportionately from the effects of poverty and the unequal distribution of wealth and power. However, we also know that women will come up with solutions, as we have always had to do.
The pandemic has imposed great challenges on our next generation, with UN Women estimating that the pandemic will set women’s equality back 25 years. Young women, including my niece Olivia and my son’s partner, Charlie, who are both nurses working at the front line, my niece Emilie, who is a young graduate adjusting to home working, and my wee goddaughter Kassi, who is in primary 7 and is being commended for her online school work, are Scotland’s future. It is important that they and our next generation of women know of the women who went before them, paving the way forward by fighting for women’s rights for equality and against sex discrimination. Those rights were hard won and must not be given up. Do we choose to challenge? We do not have a choice and nor does the next generation, because, if we do not challenge, our rights will disappear.
It is traditional in a last speech to place on record some thanks, so I will do so before I close. I will start by thanking all the people who work in the Parliament—in particular, the staff who supported me when I was Deputy Presiding Officer. I thank Adele Black and the staff who have been working with me recently as Labour’s business manager, my election agent Barbara Diamond, my local party, and all my own staff members and volunteers over the years. I thank my current staff, Chris Costello, Callum Jamieson and Katrina Faccenda. Katrina is the chair of the Campaign for Socialism, of which I was convener for many years. I also thank Ann Henderson, who has worked in the Scottish Parliament on and off since 1999. She challenged gender stereotypes as a young woman train driver and, more recently, was the second ever female rector of the University of Edinburgh. Lesley Dobbin must be one of the longest-serving MSP staff members, having worked with me for more than two decades and having supported me as a friend and colleague. Lesley deserves my thanks on the record for that.