Basingstoke MP Maria Miller has called on the Government for a commitment to ‘level up’ for women across the UK and across the world for a fairer society for everyone during the House of Commons debate on International Women’s Day 2021.
International Women’s Day takes place every year on 8 March to celebrate the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women, and to call for gender parity.
Maria Miller said, “It’s a privilege to lead this International Women’s Day debate on behalf of the APPG for Women in Parliament who put forward the application and I would like to thank the Back Bench Business Committee for their continued strong support for this debate as an annual event.
I want to send my thoughts and prayers to the family and friends of Sarah Everard at this painful time. Her abduction has sent shockwaves across the UK. Sarah did everything to avoid danger. Let’s be very clear women are not the ‘problem’ here. But for many women this news story will bring back memories of threatening situations they have found themselves in through no fault of their own, being sexually harassed on the street walking home from meeting friends, anonymous threats of physical violence on social media, sexually assaulted in plain sight in rush hour on public transport on the way to work. Many choose not to talk about it, choose not to report it for fear of not being believed, not being taken seriously and the research shows these sorts of events are part of women’s everyday life, that’s why what happened to Sarah Everard feels very close to home.
The shocking findings of the APPG on UN Women report published yesterday, shows virtually all young women have experienced the threat of violence in public spaces and indeed 3 in 4 women of all ages have experienced sexual harassment. So, while the raw facts may show it’s rare for a woman to be abducted, the experience of young women is that the fear of sexual harassment or worse is ever in their mind, on a night out at the pub, threats to their physical safety on social media, or for 1 in 6 women who will be stalked in their lifetimes, the fear of attack is very real. So rather than telling women not to worry, listen to our experience understand why so many women in this chamber relentlessly campaign for change to make women feel safer by stopping the harassment and threats of violence in the first place. We should not accept a culture of violence towards women and we should not be complicit in covering it up. We need to give women effective mechanisms to report what happens to expose the scale of the problem, to call it out publicly and to punish those who perpetuate this culture of fear.
Reflecting on the past 12 months women have gone above and beyond in response to the challenges presented by Coronavirus; at home women have been prominent delivering on the frontline of health and social care; with two women Professors Sarah Gilbert and Catherine Green have both been part of pioneering a global solution to the pandemic.
In the US, Kamala Harris became the first woman elected Vice President of the United States shattering another glass ceiling in the political world. Even closer to home you Madam Dep Speaker became the first women to ever hold the role of Chairman of Ways and Means in this place bringing your wit and wisdom to the role.
While acknowledging these significant milestones, the pandemic has also brought existing inequalities into sharp focus: the pressures women have faced balancing work with home-schooling and childcare; domestic abuse cases have spiralled, up 83%; and when it comes to job losses women have faced a heavy toll, with those aged 25-34 facing the highest unemployment rise.
The Government’s mission of ‘levelling up’ is very relevant for women and to mark International Woman’s Day 2021, my message is that a focus on ‘levelling up’ for women is needed now more than ever, here in the UK and across the world.
We have record numbers for female MPs yet men still outnumber women two to one in positions of power. A 50/50 cabinet would help ensure women’s voices are heard where they need to be, at the heart of Government. This week as part of the IWD celebrations we heard from Parliamentary Archivist Mari Takiangi about the remarkable contributions of the early women MPs and the huge impacts they had on law-making -how they spoke out a hundred years ago about the most sensitive of crimes against women such as FGM.
These stories of courage can be seen in the work of women elected to the house today-Women like my Rt Honourable Friend the Member for Maidenhead whose tenacity and courage means we have world leading domestic abuse legislation and the Modern Day Slavery Act a blueprint for others around the world.
Becoming a Member of Parliament is something we need more women to aspire to. I warmly welcome that the Women and Equalities Committee are conducting an inquiry looking at actions taken on gender-equality in the house, and I hope that we can conduct a second gender-sensitive audit as soon as possible with a body identified for being responsible for putting its’ recommendations into practice.
Above all we need 2021 to be the year that we finally grasp the nettle of online abuse which so badly affects women, particularly those in Public life. We need the forthcoming online harms bill to be more than a set of regulatory guidelines, we need laws that make it clear online abuse is a crime particularly with regard to the posting of intimate images online without consent. A safer, more respectful online environment will also lead to a kinder politics too. In the meantime, let’s stand up to those who gratuitously abuse women online, particularly women MPs, to help ensure more women choose to stand for election.
Women face barriers in Westminster, but the same is still true of other sectors. In healthcare for instance, where women account for 77% of the workforce, fewer than half (44.7%) of executive and non-executive roles across NHS trusts are held by women. An out of date workplace with a presenteeism culture does little to support women particularly once they have children.
So, it was helpful to see Birmingham Business School conduct research through the pandemic to show flexible working can improve productivity. We need as a nation to adopt flexible working as standard, as part of ’Levelling up’ for women and delivering a truly modern British workplace shaped around the whole workforce including women. And we need to look closely at what Parliament should retain from the last 12 months changed ways of working so that we can play our part in modernising our workplace too.
In levelling up we need to provide pregnant women and new mothers better protections to stop them being pushed out of work for simply for being pregnant. The IFS showed that 1 in 4 pregnant women felt discriminated against in the past year. Outlawing pregnant women being made redundant, as in Germany, would help stop so many women falling out of the labour market, into low paid part time work when they have children.
And in this mission of ‘levelling up’ for women, our voice on the global stage is just as important. The Prime Minister has been a long time advocate for girls education as central to ‘levelling up’ for women across the globe. As the Foreign Office considers its’ new role, including championing international development through ‘Open Societies’ we need to continue to take forward this principled commitment to girls’ education, alongside the UKs internationally acknowledged work outlawing the other inequalities and abuse women face, such as abuse in conflict zones, forced marriage and the lack of a host of other basic human rights.
With the UK leading the G7 this year there is a unique opportunity for our country to show leadership on the global stage in promoting gender equality. Having the UK Government ratify the ILO Violence and Harassment Convention, the first international labour instrument which recognises the right of everyone to work free from violence and harassment, would be an act of leadership and an appropriate start.
Challenging these persisting inequalities is the duty of us all, so that the society we pass on to younger generations is fairer for all.
Let’s celebrate an astonishing year from women and call for a commitment to ‘level up’ for women across the UK and across the world for a fairer society for everyone.”