Wednesday 26th November 2008
"The Changing Role of Women in the 21st Century" - House of Commons, London
The title says it all really. Firstly, it was amazing bumping into Bremley again in the seminar and having him introduce me to people after the event.
Secondly, the seminar had a nice variety of speakers who came from different personal and professional backgrounds with prominent things to say. Here is a summary of what I had gathered from their speeches, which made me think... "Yes, that's true and I agree!"
Theresa Villiers (Conservative MP)
- Highlighted major pay gap between the sexes still exist and must be narrowed down
- Evolution of the 'modern man': giving women the chance to have careers while men raised the family
- Responsibility of looking after the elderly still fall on women
- Women are under represented in the parliament but numbers growing SLOWLY
- Women feel the need to prove themselves more to men at work to prove their equality/superiority
- Apparently, David Cameron pressed a cross-party consensus to encourage women into politics
- As a woman, Theresa feels like her life is dominated by her career and has no time to start or raise a family
Janette Faherty (CEO of Avanta)
- There are no gaps in jobs between men and women across industries
- 73% women of working age are at work
- 58% of women with kids under 5 are at work
- 82% women earn LESS than men
- Suggested we need groups to support women reach the top
- Women have a DOUBLE BURDEN: working and raising the family so now have even more work to juggle than ever before. No policies or group sessions to ease this are in place
- Equality need to start at home: men need to do their share to make things easier for women
Dr Husna Ahmed (Chief Executive of Faith Regen)
- In her point of view, women in faith can tackle social inequality -> Domestic Violence was highlighted pretty strongly
- Faith is a form of identity, pursue the dignity of difference
- The need to build cohesive society within communities and be in a society where one is judged on skills, competency and nothing on the surface (Obama is a clear example)
- Question raise: Are we moving into a post-gender century???
Pauline Crawford
- Can we be post-gender? Pauline believes it is human nature not to be
- Equality Responsibility: In the last 6 years, women's role has changed but look at how conflict-areas are like
- Example of how the Titanic went down after believing it was 'unsinkable'. Lesson here ism don't build the same boat...metaphor reflected upon today's political society
- Need to create conversation between all sectors
- Good to see that women are taking responsibility for who they are! (bravo)
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