Hansard

It is a pleasure to speak in the debate to celebrate international women’s day 2020. As we have heard, this year’s theme is each for equal, which highlights the fact that everyone—not just women—can play a part in taking action to create a more equal world. Individual actions make a difference.

The IWD website says:

“An equal world is an enabled world.

Individually, we’re all responsible for our own thoughts and actions—all day, every day.

We can actively choose to challenge stereotypes, fight bias, broaden perceptions, improve situations and celebrate women’s achievements.

Collectively, each one of us can help create a gender equal world.”

I find it incredible that, in 2020, we still have to fight for our equality.

I will make some general points before outlining the work of the Scottish Government on advancing gender equality. I really liked the word that the minister used in a recent tweet that described women as “sheroes”. If I recall correctly, she was referring to the wonderful Katherine Johnson, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration mathematician, who died last week at the grand old age of 101. Anyone who has seen the film “Hidden Figures”, which I highly recommend, will know who I mean. That amazing woman of colour guided the first manned space flights and the first moon landing through sheer mathematical genius, and overcame racial and gender prejudice to do so. To state her contribution to our world during her long lifetime would take a lot longer than six minutes.

Katherine was a shero, as are the three women scientists—Italian and Polish—of the fantastic team that isolated the Italian strain of coronavirus and the brave women who spoke out against Harvey Weinstein, sparking the #MeToo movement. Here at home, the amazing Scottish Women’s Aid workers, such as Dr Marsha Scott and her team, along with too many women support workers and third sector organisations to mention—they know who they are—are sheroes as well.

An article by Karen Boyle in The National, published this weekend, pointed out that

“Here in Scotland, the rape crisis movement predates #MeToo by 40 years.”

Every one of those women is a shero.

However, sheroes are not just the women who hit the headlines or change the world. They are the woman who works full time and gets her kids to school with clean uniforms and everything that they need; the single mum who puts food on the table and often goes hungry so that her kids can eat; and the woman who cares for her elderly parents, or her disabled children. The women who juggle every day to make a better life for themselves and their families are all exceptional, everyday heroes.

In November 2019, I led a member’s debate to highlight the amazing art installation, “GlassWalls”, which Dr Emma Forbes, a principal procurator fiscal, initiated. Anyone who saw the exhibition in Parliament or in the City Chambers will know how powerful its portrayal of women’s experiences of domestic violence was. Women from Glasgow’s daisy project—survivors of domestic abuse who bravely come together for support and to support women who are going through it—assisted with the installation. They are all heroes in my book.

Domestic violence is the scourge of society—not just in Scotland, but globally—and a fundamental violation of human rights. I congratulate Ricky Ross and Lorraine McIntosh on their work with the Scottish Catholic International Aid Fund to raise awareness of the desperate plight of women on the Congolese border. Sadly, that is just one of the many areas throughout the world where women are treated horrifically.

As co-convener of the cross-party group on men’s violence against women and children, our meetings focus on what we can do and on what is being done to tackle that outrage in Scotland. The Scottish Government has a range of policies to deal with violence against women and girls and to advance gender equality. Our record £30 million investment in equalities will help to create a Scotland where everyone is protected and where violence, discrimination and gender-based inequality are consigned to history. However, it is an uphill struggle and it must start with educating our boys as early as possible in order to help them to become the new generation that calls out men’s violence against women at every level.

As the minister outlined, the Scottish Government has recently announced the delivering equally safe fund of £13 million for services to protect women and girls from gender-based violence. The fund will give front-line services an extra £1 million a year and shows how seriously we take erasing the terror and damage of gender-based violence from our society.

We have already introduced ground-breaking legislation that criminalises psychological domestic abuse and launched a range of initiatives, some of which other speakers mentioned, to support gender equality in schools, universities, colleges and workplaces. We have come a long way, but there is much work to do. I hope that we can collectively deliver equality throughout the world for future generations of women and girls.