Role of Women

Wednesday 26th November 2008

Written by Talyn Rahman

"The Changing Role of Women in the 21st Century" - House of Commons, London

The title says it all really. 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!