Many Roles, Many Barriers – call for joint work across equality groups

Sally George
Sally George

The STUC Women’s Conference has called for more joint work across STUC equalities committees to tackle gender discrimination.

The Women’s Committee motion, backed by UNISON’s Sally George – a first time delegate – stressed the importance of keeping a focus on gender-specific issues, but also argued that, if we are to truly tackle gender discrimination, there must be a greater effort at cross equalities work.

The motion said: “The lives of women are multi-dimensional and complex and the barriers and experiences we face cannot be explained simply by taking into account single categories, such as gender, race, sexual orientation, age or socio-economic status.”

Women have multiple identities, which will change as they move through the different stages of life as will the roles they play in the workplace, society and at home.

“This means that, while gender discrimination will touch on the lives of every woman, actual everyday sexism is a personal experience that is shaped by the identity of the woman”, adds the motion.

The Conference called on the STUC Women’s Committee to:

• support and contribute to the STUC Equalities Committees’ Chairs’ group to promote joint work; and
• explore the possibility of developing a mentoring and leadership course specifically targeting experienced trade union women activists, who identify with more than one of the Equalities groups.

More information can be found at https://www.facebook.com/STUCWomen/

And the STUC website http://www.stuc.org.uk/about/equalities/women

STUC Womens Conference Home