Hansard

Presiding Officer,

“Cultures of domination rely on the cultivation of fear as a way to ensure obedience. In our society we make much of love and say little about fear. Yet we are all terribly afraid most of the time. As a culture we are obsessed with the notion of safety. Yet we do not question why we live in states of extreme anxiety and dread. Fear is the primary force upholding structures of domination. It promotes the desire for separation, the desire not to be known. When we are taught that safety lies always with sameness, then difference, of any kind, will appear as a threat. When we choose to love, we choose to move against fear—against alienation and separation. The choice to love is a choice to connect—to find ourselves in the other.”

Those are the words of Gloria Jean Watkins—better known to us by her pen name, bell hooks—who sadly died in December last year. Her fine words provide us with an important reminder of how the structures that we live within are used to constrain, oppress and dominate.

Today is international women’s day and, perhaps more than ever, I would like to associate myself with the comments of the First Minister and many others about standing in solidarity, love and peace with the women and girls in Ukraine and those who have already fled their country. We stand in solidarity, love and peace, too, with the women and girls in Belarus, in Russia and elsewhere who have stood up, and continue to stand up, to oppressive regimes and institutionalised violence. War is an extreme form of the domination and oppression that society’s patriarchal system relies upon and sustains.

At its inception 111 years ago, international women’s day was international working women’s day—a socialist holiday that was established by the Socialist International. It is now recognised by the United Nations and celebrated around the world—in some countries as a holiday—to mark women’s contributions to society, because women have contributed and will continue to contribute to every aspect of our society and our lives. Others have spoken very eloquently about many of the different types of contributions that are made daily by women.

Today, outside the Parliament building, women have come together for a climate vigil and rally. They have gathered together because women bear the brunt of the weight of the world’s climate inaction. Incidentally, as I was talking to some of the women at lunch time, two men yelled from their vehicle, “Get back into the kitchen.”

Part of that vigil marks women who have been murdered for their community activism. Blanca Jeannette Kawas Fernández was killed for protecting the land that her community relied on. Margarita Murillo was murdered for protecting lands and rivers. Fikile Ntshangase was murdered for protesting against coal mining destroying her community’s environment. María Enriqueta Matute was killed for campaigning against logging and mining. Many more have been murdered. Today, we remember them all, and we acknowledge all those whose names we do not know.

This year, we are focusing on the theme of “break the bias” because bias—conscious and unconscious—is deeply rooted in our patriarchal society. It is systemic and deeply ingrained in each and every one of us. How many of us choose to surround ourselves with people who are just like us? How many of us judge others negatively because we have heard something unpleasant about them? How many of us value the opinion of someone more because of their age or skin colour? How many of us ignore something that a woman says only to acknowledge it when it is repeated by a man?

All of us must confront our biases. That requires active thought to challenge and break down. We must recognise how one bias can be compounded by another. Intersections of difference make for a very complex landscape of oppressions and inequalities. I thank Engender in particular for the detailed briefing that it sent for this debate, in which it clearly outlined the overlapping intersections that compound the inequalities that many women in Scotland and around the world experience on a daily basis.

We women know the consequences of those biases. We women live the consequences of those biases every day. We women die because of the consequences of those biases.

It is not for us women to address those biases alone. Everyone in the chamber and everyone in every workplace, community and home across Scotland has a responsibility to act, to change, and to challenge themselves and others to be better.

There remains a wide chasm between the aspirations that we have heard for decades about the eradication of biases that women face and the reality that affects women and girls around the world. I thank the First Minister and others for acknowledging the work and recommendations of the misogyny and criminal justice in Scotland working group. We must now act. We need real gender mainstreaming and genuine engagement with, and realisation of, the rights held within the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, as well as engagement with, and realisation of, the rights of other minority groups. Equality is for everyone.

I hope that, on this day next year, we will all be here to say that we are much further along in our struggle for a different kind of culture—one where we have broken the bias.