International Women’s Day — House of Commons, 2019-03-07
Topic: Civil Rights
Hannah Mary Bardell (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): It is a huge pleasure to follow such an esteemed list of female parliamentarians and, indeed, our esteemed colleague from Northern Ireland, the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon). The comments of the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips), who is not in her place, were incredibly powerful. We could have heard a penny drop in the Chamber as she read out the names of the women who have died as a result of domestic violence and abuse in the past year. I am proud that in Scotland the SNP Government have brought in world-leading domestic abuse legislation, but we still face a huge challenge Today is World Book Day, and one of my favourite books I have read recently is "Eve Was Shamed" by Helena Kennedy, who sits in the other place. She talks about structural inequalities in the justice system, which we must continue to focus on across all jurisdictions in the UK This year’s theme for International Women’s Day is "Balance for Better," and it is a great opportunity to talk about those structural inequalities for women, as well as intersectionality and discrimination against women from black and ethnic minority communities, from the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community, who are disabled or from any minority group I stress at the outset that it is essential to understand that women’s rights are not to be achieved at the cost of men. There is a huge role for men to play—husbands, fathers, sons, brothers and friends. I hasten to add that my own brother is an ardent feminist. He and I were brought up by a single mother, and he has a female partner and a female daughter, so he has been surrounded by women his whole life One of the things we have talked about recently—I raised it earlier at Digital, Culture, Media and Sport questions—is the scourge of online media, particularly social media and gaming. Much has been said about the abuse that female parliamentarians particularly receive, and about the creep of abuse online The streaming of the game "Rape Day," which was recently released by developer Desk Plant, has, thank goodness, been stopped on the Steam platform. I find it incredible that someone would sit behind a computer and create a game based on verbally harassing, killing and raping women, with content including violence, sexual assault, non-consensual sex, obscene language, necrophilia and incest. In any world, why would anyone play that game There has been a huge outcry, including from Shona Robison, my colleague in the Scottish Parliament, who raised it at First Minister’s questions today. The First Minister herself called it out. A game of this nature has no place in our society, and I am glad it has been pulled but, at a time when one in five women will experience sexual violence in their life and young teens are learning about sex from online porn, I question the morals of those behind the game A few weeks ago, the NSPCC published a report highlighting its research on social media and online harm, and I am sure the results will shock everyone in the Chamber and parents at home. Technology-facilitated grooming has become a major challenge. In 2017-18, across the UK, there were more than 3,500 police-recorded offences of sexual communication with a child. In England and Wales, 70% of offences, where the data was recorded, took place on Facebook, Snapchat or Instagram. We must do everything possible to challenge those online platforms to stop the scourge of online harm and abuse. An average of one child per primary school class has been sent or shown a naked or semi-naked image online by an adult, and more than one in seven children aged 11 to 18 has been asked to send self-generated images and sexual messages. Terrifyingly, the Home Office says that an estimated 80,000 adults in the UK pose a sexual threat to children online. I am sure that is shocking for all of us The Scottish Government have implemented a huge number of progressive and world-leading policies to better support women and young people across Scotland. We have introduced legislation that makes Scotland the only part of the UK with requirements for gender parity on public boards. The Gender Representation on Public Boards (Scotland) Bill was recently passed in our Parliament and it sets an objective for listed public authorities that 50% of the non-executive members of their boards should be women. I hope the Minister will take that into consideration. I know that her Government have done a significant amount, particularly on getting companies with more than 250 employees to register their gender pay gap, but more must be done. We must look at the position in companies with fewer than 250 employees, because some of the worst discrimination often lies in those companies The Minister will know that as soon as Nicola Sturgeon became Scotland’s First Minister she had a Cabinet with a 50:50 gender balance—one of only three in the world. Many Members have spoken of pioneering women, and I want to pay tribute to my colleagues in the constituency, Fiona Hyslop, the Cabinet Secretary for Culture, Tourism and External Affairs, and Angela Constance MSP, who was until recently the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning. Both women have represented West Lothian constituencies and both have been in the Cabinet. The Livingston constituency has fielded female candidates in the past six elections, including my mother in 2010 I was interested to hear the hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Liz Saville Roberts) say that International Women’s Day was started 110 years ago, by women who were garment workers. My grandmother was a garment worker during the second world war. She met my grandfather when working for Rolls-Royce. When she returned to work after marrying, she was told that her job was a job for men and that she should not be doing it, and she was given her books—in essence, she was dismissed. Married women were not eligible for employment of this sort—she was told that it was "men’s work". It took her until she was in her 80s to tell my mother and I: "And the three men they kept on to do my job weren’t worth a tenth of me." It has taken four generations of women in my family to get to a position of what could be called "power and influence", but we got there. In the words of Angela Davis: "I am no longer accepting the things I cannot change. I am changing the things I cannot accept."