Real Women and Real Cultural Change

I'm down in Bournemouth for the conference and have just spent the morning perfecting a speech in the Real Women Policy Debate this afternoon.

It looks like it's going to be a debate over subscribed with speakers and there's at least 3 amendments and a separate vote!

Here are links to the policy paper itself and conference extra which has the amendment 2 to I speaking against.

I'm definitely in favour of the motion, and hoping to speak against Amendment 2 in particular - so here is my speech, just in case I don't get to give it!

Friends,

I am delighted to support this innovative and practical policy paper, because it re affirms our commitment to freedom, choice and true liberal values.

But Amendment Two would undermine that commitment.

If we pass this amendment, we’ll be saying :

‘We see there’s a problem with media images, body image and eating disorders but we don’t want to do anything about it, except to cross our fingers and hope that the problem will go away all by itself’.

What sort of policy is that?

Let’s be clear: images of women are manipulated in advertising in order to make more sales and revenue for large corporations.

Where that harms people, liberals must take positive action.

Time and time again over the past decade, research has shown that from as early as age 5 young girls feel under pressure to be slim and have a perfect body.

The publication ‘Under ten and Under Pressure’ , put out by the Girl Guides Association – that bastion of radical feminism! - found that ‘Girls Between Seven and Ten Believe being Slim and Pretty Makes you Clever, Happy and Popular’

In research by Field et al in 1999, nearly 2 in 3 of 500 girls aged between 9 and 17 agreed with the statement “pictures of women in magazines influence what you think is the perfect shape”

And 1 in 2 of the girls agreed that “Pictures of women in magazines make you want to lose weight.

The policy paper addresses this harm in a thoroughly liberal way, by providing consumers with information on how much images have been digitally manipulated; so that people can know how real or fake they are.

We’ve supported this kind of consumer empowerment before.

To help mitigate the harm of climate change we have laws requiring manufacturers to provide us with information about how energy efficient their fridges are.

Yes, the issues are complicated but now there is a simple set of categories.

So we are all empowered to make an informed choice about energy efficiency.

Yes, the process of airbrushing may also be complex.

Yet, it is entirely possible to come up with some useful guidelines.

Commonsense would ensure that what was being regulated was the manipulation of body images, not the benign change of lighting or removal of shadows.

And, just as the labelling of fridges has changed the behaviour of fridge manufacturers, so the labelling of digitally manipulated images will change the behaviour of advertisers.

What we’re talking about here is cultural change ; changing behaviours.

One reason digital manipulation works is that we don’t always know when it's been done.

If we make sure that advertisers are open and honest about it, what company will want to admit that the only way it can sell it’s products is by using fake pictures?

But if you don’t require advertisers to provide the information in the first place, you don’t get the cultural change we need.

They will have no incentive to change.

As advertising drives the profitability of magazines, newspapers and television, where they go, editorial will follow.

We didn’t cross our fingers and hope for cultural change when it came to energy efficiency of fridges, why should we do it about the well-being and self-esteem of young women and girls?

Conference, this is a liberal approach to achieving cultural change!

Yes, if a five year old is reading Cosmo then she will see digitally manipulated photos.

but if her parents choose to protect her, they will know where the safe places are.

So, Cosmo Girl, aimed directly at the teen market should help young women feel good about themselves; they shouldn’t decide they’re fat at the age of 12!

Conference, let’s make a real difference to young girls and women’s lives:

Support the motion and reject amendment two.

A Liberal Democrat Women's Policy? What do we need one of those for?

The Liberal Democrats Women's Policy Consultation Paper is up here.

From a quick first glance it looks pretty good and is seeking to address some of the issues that I've been writing about on this blog over the last 2 years; but I shall report back later when I've had a chance to read it properly.

Please go and have a look at it; and that includes men as well as women - any policy on women is going to affect men as well, so better you get your say now and ensure that the policy (whatever that's going to be) has a better chance of getting passed at Conference.

Oh, and if you're wondering why we, as Liberals, need a Women's Policy then click on the link above and have a read - they've anticipated the question!

The wrath of Linda...

Yesterday was the big Make it Happen debate. But as The Yorkshire Guidon asks: Where were all the women?

As Jeremy pointed out in one of his blogs ahead of conference chairs are supposed to take great care to ensure a balanced debate. In fact they are trained in such issues. But yesterday, on the big debate only one women was called to speak on the platform, with only two women allowed interventions, and one of those an MP.

Well, I hear you cry! If women will continue not to put in cards for debates then what can they expect? The Chair told us at the beginning that in the interests of balance in the 'argument' other balance would have to be forfeited. I immediately realised that would mean that it was probably going to be an all male debate.

But why would balance have to be sacrificed? I could not believe in 100 cards there would only be one woman or that all the women who put in cards would be arguing on one side of the debate. That would be just weird, wouldn't it?

Well, this afternoon after lunchtime fringe I bumped into Meral Ece and Linda Jack chatting at the bottom of the escalator in the Conference centre. And Linda, the star, had proof of the imbalance in the cards being called in the Make it Happen Debate. It would seem that yes, there were far more men that put in cards but of those men around 30% got to speak and of the women who put in cards only 11% got to speak.

This makes me very cross; very cross.

But I'm not the only one.

By luck, Linda had put in an advance question on the Federal Executive Report on the lack of information around Ethnic Minority diversity. On her follow up question she let rip! She was fantastic and thankfully Simon Hughes was in complete agreement with her. Duncan Brack, Chair of the Federal Conference Committee has been asked to provide an explanation a report at the next Federal Executive.

Good; because we cannot go on like this as a party. We cannot keep making excuses about our lack of diversity.

Arguments best left for down the pub not conference…

I was very frustrated not to get called in the Conference debate on Transport today; my speech, which I've published below, was a good few hours of effort, not to mention the effort putting into looking presentable for the conference goers. I even put my contact lenses in!

I was arguing in favour of the WLD amendment to take into account the experiences of women and vulnerable people when creating transport policy. Two people spoke against the amendment but only the mover and summator got to speak for.

It was pretty frustrating, as the vote was close enough for the show of hands to be made twice, so it missed getting passed . I am disappointed not to have been called but otherwise the debate was reasonably well balanced.

I suspect that I was just one too many female Londoners who wanted to speak and I was neither elected to the London Assembly, nor was it my first time, like some others. Still, given the closeness of the vote I can't help feeling that just one argument from the floor in favour of the amendment might have been enough to get it passed.

This was the amendment:

d) Improving the safety of local transport for women and vulnerable individuals by requiring all

Local Transport Authorities and local councils with responsibility for transport services to:

i) Undertake an audit of public spaces and transport networks with a view to designing

and modifying them with the safety of women and vulnerable individuals specifically in

mind.

ii) Ensure the availability of emergency telephones at transport stations and stops.

iii) Review the position and design of bus stops to ensure they are visible and well lit.

iv) Pilot schemes which allow women and vulnerable individuals off the bus between stops

at night.

And this was my speech in support of the motion:

The motion says that the Liberal Democrats are the champions of the passenger.

It also says that freedom should be one of the guiding principles of our transport policy.

That we should try to minimise danger to public safety.

I agree with all of that.

But this motion does not explain how we would make people safer.

And it does not recognise how men and women have different experiences of using transport services.

The champions of the passenger?

The Institute for Transport Studies at the University of Leeds has found that women and men travel by different means, at different times, to different patterns of locations over different distances, with different people, for different purposes and journeys take on different meanings.

Women are slightly more likely than men to travel by public transport, especially to work, and they use buses more than men.

It also found that these differences in travel are not addressed systematically by current transport policy and provision.

I fear this motion as drafted falls into the same trap.

Professor Julian Hine has found that women are one of the most transport disadvantaged groups in the UK.

That 's especially women with children, Lone parents, older women, who use buses more, and women in public sector housing.

Younger and older women experience exclusion as a result of poor public transport .

And what about freedom?

Women perceive they are at risk of personal danger.

That fear can curtail our freedom.

Women are more likely than men to have worries about their own safety on buses, trains and trams.

The Fawcett Society has found that around four in ten women have some fears when using public transport.

Personal safety is a key concern amongst the types of women I talked about before.

They fear walking in the dark.

They avoid making trips.

They fear using bus and train stations at off-peak periods.

Other people have fears on behalf of women too.

I wonder how many times women in this hall have been told that it is 'common sense' or 'for their own good 'not to go out late at night or take a particular way home?

I know that's happened to me. And more than once.

A few months ago, Labour's home secretary Jacqui Smith said that that walking on streets at night wasn't "a thing that people do"

As liberals we cannot stand for any of that.

Why should we curtail our freedoms to accommodate those who indulge in criminal or anti social behaviour?

Why should we be invisible in society, just because transport links and infrastructure have not been planned with people in mind?

I support the measures set out in Amendment Two

An audit of public spaces and transport networks or reviewing the position and design of bus stops are key to making sure that our transport policies champion all passengers and protect all citizens from personal danger.

But the most irritating aspect was the argument from a young woman from the Wirral (or at least I think it was the Wirral), whose name I can't remember (which is very rude of me but I was more interested in what she was saying). She spoke well and with passion but she was completely wrong headed in everything she said – the Lib Dems are clearly a very 'broad church' if both she and I are in the same organisation. When the conference website publishes that she spoke I will tell you her name but they haven't yet.

She used to devastating effect the two frames that the amendment was bureaucratic and discriminatory.

She first of all made the argument that undertaking audits of public spaces and transport interchanges to see if there were improvements that could be made would be overly bureaucratic and expensive. She's wrong in fact but also wrong in principle. Because something is hard is not a reason to do it…providing for minority, under represented and vulnerable groups is often hard. If it were easy, it would probably already been done but it is not a good enough reason to not to bother.

Then she went on to make what she called an ideological argument, which is fine if you base your ideology on the sort of conversation that is more suitable to be had in the pub than a conference debating hall.

Her argument was that because she had never been mugged but that a couple of male friends of hers were mugged in Hackney (when she had lived there) that what the amendment was doing was unfairly stereotyping women. Because it is young men that actually are the most likely to be victims of crime (which is true) then we don't need to do anything about making women feel safer. That, because she herself felt fine, the 4 out of 10 women who do feel unsafe should be ignored. They are not a stereotype, they are a fact.

I like my policy and my arguments to be based on evidence and not just on the basis of my own experience.

Many, many of the things that I write about and campaign for are not dear to my heart because of my own personal experience. Some are, but I would say most are not. I too have never been attacked in a public place, I have never been raped, I run my own business and am probably in the top 1-2% of earners in the UK. But that doesn't mean I rubbish the experiences or feelings of others, or ignore the work of academics and researchers who actually gather evidence of what is happening.

Which is why when I hear, that social inequality is rising I vote to give tax back to those on the lowest incomes, or that only 5% of reported rapes end in am conviction I campaign for something to be done. And, when I know that four out of 10 women have some fears when using public transport, even if that is not my own experience, I use that evidence as the basis of how to make up my mind what to do.

Norman Baker was happy for the amendment to be included but the conference hall was just swayed by an effective but intellectually vapid speech from the Wirral. My suspicions are that it will make it into the manifesto anyway.

Still: this, together with the lack of female speakers in the Make it Happen debate yesterday, tells me that we still have a long way to go as a party when it comes to gender issues.

And you will find details and sometimes even me on the PCA (Parliamentary Candidates Association) stand.  It’s opposite Lib Dem Image, I believe.

There’s going to be a laptop on the stand where you can come and register and all sorts of help.  If you want to question me about something (related to either who’s Who or being a Parliamentary Candidate), I do tend to spend a lot of my time on the stand in any case, persuading people to stand for our various parliaments and assemblies, BUT I will also be getting people to sign up and register there and then for Whs Who in the Lib Dems.

If I’m not there (apparently if you want to be taken seriously in this party then you have to speak at least once in a debate) then I will be leaving a ‘book’ where if you write down your contact details I will do my best to link up with you during the conference.

Things to remember:

We check the membership database to make sure you are a real Liberal Democrat Member and therefore the details that you enter have to be exactly the same as those on the membership database; if you are having problems you can email the membership department at membership@libdems.org.uk.  This might be particularly the case if you live overseas. 

Be really, really careful with the email address you send us and make sure you spell it correctly.  We send you a link to activate your registration to that email address and if it bounces you will never receive it!  It should come through pretty quickly so if it doesn’t then try looking at your spam filter!

If you register successfully and are told you’re going to receive an email then you should receive that email within a few minutes to your email account.  If it doesn’t arrive then drop me a line.

Once you’re in please, please cast your eyes of ‘Completing your entry’ as you may think you know what should be put in each field but you might be wrong!!

If you had an entry in the 2006 version then you will not find it already there.  Alas, I am forced to earn a living and therefore was unable to spend the preceding 5 weeks writing in everybody’s entries in for them seven days a week.  Instead I will have sent you a copy of your 2006 entry in word and you can cut and paste the relevant sections into the relevant fields on the online form.  You have to do it one section at a time, though.

If you have any questions or queries please pop by the PCA stand at conference where I can hopefully answer your questions.  Alternatively you can email me at editor@whowholibdems.org.uk.

Some of these things are already in the FAQs but I will be updating them; not that anybody seems to be reading any of the FAQs….or am I just whinging?

 

 

London Conference getting it right on Gender Balance

I went to one of the best London Spring Conference's in years on Tuesday night. Let's face it, it was a great line up with both Brian Paddick and Nick Clegg speaking. As Jonathan Fryer says on his blog, Nick is doing really well in endearing himself to the membership with humour and just a general feeling of accessibility, like he did at the federal Spring Conference in Liverpool.

Many people say that whilst David Cameron may come across well on TV and Radio, in the flesh he is completely lacking in charisma. Well, Nick comes across well on TV and is even better in the flesh!!! I may not currently be a cat owner, but I used to be!

But, what was really good to see at the London Spring Conference were the number of women being elected or on candidate lists, or otherwise involved in the Lib Dems in London, including myself! In fact, you could almost say there was a lack of gender balance at Hamilton House last night; in favour of women for once!

First we had four recent council by election winners from across London, all women; the Baroness Sally Hamwee chairing a session; Jill Fraser, a Lib Dem councillor in Camden introduced Baroness Sarah Ludford MP and then during the policy consultation session, myself, Chamali Fernando and Caroline Pigeon were all involved in facilitating what was an excellent discussion.

So, we have a had a good year, getting in more diverse councillors, getting great women like Dinti Batstone to number 3 on the Euro List, and getting 2 out of the top five places in the GLA list.

This truly was a celebration of the fantastic female talent that we have in London; surely nobody can suggest that there aren't enough women who are 'good enough' in London?

Were the BBC at the same conference as me?

Just had the speediest of browses of Lib Dem Blogs to see loads of people saying 'I wasn't at conference but I don't like what the BBC said Ming said in his speech...' etc, etc.

Well, I was at conference, was in the audience of the speech and don't recognise anything in it that said we wanted to go into coalition with Labour and would be prepared to drop PR as a pre-condition!

Go and read Lynne's blog, where you get a rather succinct take about what the BBC are on about!

Seriously, I think the BBC were watching a different speech from the one I was did. I went for a post conference lunch with a few colleagues and nobody there took anything like that away from the speech, conversation s with other colleagues on the train back home didn't highlight anything about a Labour coalition either: so it's not just me that can't see it. The BBC probably couldn't find anything to criticise so had to create a furore that just wasn't there!