Meeting of the Parliament 12 March 2014
I, too, pay tribute to Ailsa McKay. I knew her when she was an adviser to the Equal Opportunities Committee, of which I was a member, and we were working on gender budgeting. She made an enormous contribution to work in that area and to feminist economics in general. We should all pay tribute to her work for Scotland in general, and for the Scottish Parliament in particular.
Today, as Johann Lamont emphasised, we are celebrating the progress that has been made while recognising that there is still a great deal more to do. Johann Lamont also emphasised the importance of women coming together to lead action in the area, and that is what has happened over the past three or four decades, with significant results. For example, I am aware of the importance of groups such as the Zero Tolerance Charitable Trust, Rape Crisis Scotland and Scottish Women’s Aid in the progress that has been made on highlighting the problem of violence against women and the need to take action against it. In my constituency, many years ago, I saw the importance of women coming together in the greater Pilton childcare action group. That group of women taught me most of what I know about the importance of childcare.
Now we have new campaigns from a younger generation of feminists, including the everyday sexism project and the no more page 3 campaign, which are beginning to have a significant influence. The role of men is to listen to those women, to learn from them and to support the necessary action. As a Labour MSP and as an MP before that, I am lucky to have known several Labour women who have been part of the various movements, including Harriet Harman when I was at Westminster and Johann Lamont in my early years in the Scottish Parliament. We now have a younger generation of feminists such as Kez Dugdale and Jenny Marra who are leading the charge. I have learned from those people and hope that I can go on supporting them on the issues that they have highlighted.
I also have a personal impetus that reinforces my determination to take action on gender inequality. I now have two young granddaughters and I do not want them to grow up in a world in which gender inequality persists, in which they are subjected to the misogyny of lad culture, in which they may have to face the horrors of violence against women and in which they are likely to face the economic disadvantage that women in general—although not all women—face relative to men.
Just this week, a European Union report on violence against women came out that gives the horrific figure of 44 per cent of women in the UK saying that they have experienced physical and/or sexual violence after the age of 15. We repeatedly see reports that cite similar figures. The EU report also states that, across Europe, one in 20 women has been raped. Prevention is, therefore, important in the violence agenda and I welcome the we can stop it campaign from the police that starts this week.