Let’s uplift
Oops. Plot twist.
Opinion: This International Women’s Day, let’s uplift the rights and dignity of all women
Sad, isn’t it, that we know that “all” doesn’t mean “all” but “including some who are not women.”
It starts well enough.
International Women’s Day is this Sunday. Every lesson I’ve learned, every battle I’ve been part of, has taught me one truth: when working class women organise, nothing can stop us.
Women make up the majority of the public service workforce, yet you bear the brunt of unsafe staffing levels, low pay, discrimination, and impossible workloads.
But it doesn’t continue well enough.
There are signs of things getting better – the Employment Rights Act is an important step on the road to pay parity – but the steps are far too small and far too slow.
For a start the government should increase access to paid parental leave so mums and dads can share care more fairly.
And as we demand better, we have to demand better for all women. I want to be absolutely clear: I stand proudly and unequivocally in defence of LGBT+ rights. I am proud to be a trans ally. Equality is not negotiable. And discrimination in any form has no place in our workplaces.
Nobody should have their dignity taken away because of the sex they were deemed to be at birth. Too many countries have moved forward on gender recognition while the UK has slipped backwards. That must change — and UNISON will be at the front leading to make that change happen.
So this International Women’s Day, let’s stand together as proud UNISON women for a transformation of society that uplifts the rights and dignity of all women.
Including the ones who are men.
Unless, of course, you are an adult human female (or for that matter, a pre-adult human female).
That’s what we’ve been saying! But the trans lobby refuses to recognize the reality of sex-based discrimination, pretending instead that it is ‘gender’. (As if gender itself was not a form of sex-based discrimination.)
No one could have invented a better psy-op to keep women separated and isolated. A few years ago I’d have jumped at the chance to participate in local International Women’s Day events – now I literally refuse to go to ‘women’s’ anything, because I’m sure there will be at least one creepy man there. No one could have devised a better way to keep me from being in solidarity with other women than making it socially acceptable for any event for women to be a magnet for creepy men.