Making the Gender Equality Duty Real

1
Making the Gender Equality Duty Real

• Dr Katrina Allen, Policy Officer
• Children in Scotland
• Project Making the Gender Equality Duty Real
  for Children, Young People and their Fathers
• Aberdeen 9 March 2010

2
Introduction

• Children in Scotland interest in gender equality
  issues
• Gender Equality Duty
• How project fits within broader gender equality
  picture
• Survey background and results
• Key issues to consider today
• Next steps for project

3
Children in Scotland gender equality lens

• Safeguarding
• Physical, emotional development
• Education, skills
• Career paths
• Preparation for parenting/caring

• Safeguarding
• Recognising influence fathers
• engagement with fathers
• Valuing caring roles

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Making the GED Real project

• Making the GED Real for Children, Young
• People and their Fathers is a 3 year project,
• funded by the Scottish Government Equality
• Unit (2008-2011)
• Broad project objectives
• Monitor and report on the implementation of the
  GED in Scotland
• Identify share good practice examples

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Project focus on challenging

• Gender stereotyping particularly associated
  with caring roles
• Occupational segregation in professions serving
  children and young people

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Project focus on promoting

• Opportunities support for fathers to engage in
  positive parenting
• Support for fathers (as well as mothers) in the
  workplace
• Support for children young people to choose
  from full range of education career paths
  without reference to gender

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Fathers definition

• Term father(s) includes
• biological and de facto fathers/male carers
• (e.g. stepdads, foster fathers, non-resident
  fathers and grandfathers)

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The Gender Equality Duty

• Equality Act 2006 introduced the GED
• ? general duty on public bodies to promote
  equality of opportunity eliminate unlawful
  discrimination
• ? specific duties for listed Scottish public
  bodies include
• - Publish gender equality scheme (2007)
• - Assess impact of policies and practices on
  both women and men
• - Set gender equality objectives, plan take
  action to achieve
• - Report annually review progress every 3yrs
  (due 2010)

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The GED does not mean

• Single sex services should be cut
• New single sex services should not be funded
• Services must be provided on an equal basis for
  women men
• Does mean
• Different needs should be assessed

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Gender Equality jigsaw

• How do we achieve equality?

Equal Pay for equal work!
Tackle gender-based violence!
Value and support both women and men in every
workplace political arena
Value and support both men and women as carers
End occupational segregation!
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Project within the bigger GE picture other
aspects of Gender Equality

• National GED focus so far on
• - Equal Pay (Equal Pay Statements a requirement
  of specific public sector duties Scotland)
• - Occupational Segregation
• - Violence against Women
• Important not to lose sight of the connections
  between the different aspects of GE when focusing
  on specific areas!
• Key link how we define feminine/masculine
  identity appropriate roles/attitudes/
  behaviours

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Project within the bigger GE picture changing
social context

• Men increasingly want to be more actively
  involved in childrens education development
  benefits recognised
• Increasingly fathers expected to fulfill caring
  roles and women to develop careers
• Increasing emphasis on work-life balance and
  shift towards cooperative shared parenting
  ideal
• Job market shift from male-dominated industries
  to service sector jobs which are more open to
  women

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Project within the bigger GE picture policy and
services context

• Historical association of Gender Equality with
  womens rights challenge to engage men
  constructively with gender equality issues
• Historical legacy of focus on mothers provides
  support but also reinforces traditional roles
• Current positive parenting, early years focus
  recognition fathers role

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Survey overview

• Focus 4 key areas little attention GES/
  reporting
• Engagement of fathers with services for children
  families
• Recruiting men to childrens sector workforce
• Challenging stereotypes in educational and career
  choices of children young people
• Supporting fathers in the workplace
• Aims
• Collate base-line data to track national progress
• Increase understanding of opportunities
  barriers
• Systematically identify good practice examples

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Survey methods

• Combination qualitative quantitative questions
• Invited all 32 LAs 14 NHS Boards to respond
• 2 tailored questionnaires (LA, NHS)
• Balance between strategic perspectives
  experiences of frontline staff
• 131 responses from 30 LAs across education,
  childrens services, social work, human resources
  corporate services
• 30 responses from 9 NHS Boards clinical staff,
  managers, policy equalities officers

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Responses overview

• Broadly positive about the GED its potential
  impacts
• Highlighted a no. of weaknesses obstacles to
  effective implementation
• Diversity of priorities in line with wide range
  of respondents
• Disconnect between GES priorities and objectives
  activities within specific service areas
• missed opportunity?

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Strengths weaknesses

• Key strengths
• Effective systems in place
• Training staff
• Focused leadership
• And appointing dedicated equalities officers
• Key weaknesses
• Delivering change in practice no. 1
• Lack of management leadership coordination
• Low levels awareness understanding gender
  equality issues

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Obstacles to implementation

• Lack of time capacity
• Lack of staff buy-in to gender equality agenda
  (including managers)
• Competing priorities equalities for service
  delivery
• Perceived administrative burden
• Gender equality treated as bolt-on not a core
  value in service delivery

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3 tiers of engagement
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Key messages

• Targeting men/fathers requires thought to issues
  such as
• Timing
• Language
• Images
• Hooks to engage
• Ongoing support

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Key messages

• Gender neutral gender blind if different
  needs missed
• Gender issues in day-to-day practice can be a
  hard concept for people to understand when the
  system traditionally feels it should treat
  everybody the same
• Lack of understanding from some quarters about
  why there is so much focus on equality when
  patients are treated as individuals

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Key messages

• Cultural change is not an easy or fast process
• I was explaining local authority work to a P7
  class. I asked the pupils why we had so few
  women councillors. One girl said I think men
  are better at that sort of thing I did not hear
  any opposition from her fellow pupils
• Consultation with a gender focus has been
  difficult There wasnt the interest in gender
  issues from either employees or community groups
  that there were for the other two equality
  strands of race and disability

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In summary

• GED Schemes Reports not capturing breadth of
  gender equality related activities approaches
  nor impacts
• Substantial professional engagement with range of
  interconnected gender equality issues
• Potential for gender equality initiatives with
  much wider benefits for children families as
  service users
• High demand for info. opportunities to share
  practice examples

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Questions for today

• How can GED schemes reporting be better linked
  to wider, gender equality related practice?
• How can we build coherent strategies that support
  long term cultural change complementary
  measures across service areas?
• How can we get people more interested in gender
  equality issues?
• How can we find the right balance between routine
  involvement of men in mainstream services
  tailored, men-only initiatives/services?
• How do we target specific groups (e.g. men in
  childcare work, young fathers) without
  reinforcing stereotypes?

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Next steps

• Summary report of 2 events
• Website development
• case studies
• links to other sites/info. sources
• Follow-up survey 2011
• And finally

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• Contact
• Kat Allen, Policy Officer, Children in Scotland
• Email kallen_at_childreninscotland.org.uk
• Tel [phone]
• http//makinggenderequalityreal.org.uk
• Thank you!