International Women’s Day

Baroness Fox of Buckley Excerpts

Thursday 11th March 2021 Grand Committee

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

In following on from the noble Lord, Lord Winston, I want to thank him on behalf of so many people for his work on IVF. Women everywhere are in his debt.

It has been stated here as though it is incontestable that Covid has hit women harder than men. However, despite a lifetime of fighting for women’s rights, I wonder how helpful it is to see every issue through the prism of gender. Earlier this week, I reflected on this question in a debate in the House on the women’s health strategy. The noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, said that although older men have a higher risk of death from Covid, this unfairly means that older women experience a “higher level of grief”, which affects their mental health. Concentrating on women grieving seems such a perverse way of viewing the issue of more men dying. Women’s rights campaigners must try to avoid putting too much emphasis on victimhood and grievance. I would prefer a more positive approach that emphasises women’s agency and what they can achieve, while avoiding a divisive agenda—particularly one that pits men and women against each other as competitors.

In that context, I was disappointed to read the House of Commons Women and Equalities Committee’s complaint that the Government’s

“priorities for recovery are heavily gendered in nature”.

It complained about the investment in

“science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) and construction”

and suggested a more women-friendly investment in the care sector instead. That seems far too fatalistic. I want women to be engineers and builders. We should invest in the care system but as a social priority, not just because women work there. If anything, I want the Government to get on and kick-start more productive economic growth, creating jobs for everyone. Focusing on gender can be a distraction in that instance.

I was disappointed to read some of the “build back better” literature that we were sent for this debate. Again, in the name of gendered employment opportunities, it argued that one silver lining of the pandemic is working from home, which could become normalised. I assume that it was written by researchers with big houses and gardens and the kind of broadband I can only dream of. Here is a warning: women have historically fought long and hard to escape the private sphere and gain the right to work in workplaces and join the public sphere. After all the work done by women and trade unionists to get women into a position of equality at work, I dread us coming out of this pandemic and people saying that being confined to the home is a victory.

Indeed, our coming together today recognises that we stand on the shoulders of those women—those giants—who fought for us in the past. I was really glad to be lobbied on the subject of the matchgirls’ strike. Sarah Chapman and Alice Francis were mentioned. These people in the past were dissident women. They were not victims; they were fighters, campaigners and trade unionists, and we owe so much to them. Long may the dissidents win.

Finally, it is important that we recognise that we are celebrating International Women’s Day as though there are no issues around the fact that you cannot say “I am a woman” without it causing problems. There needed to be a fight in this House to turn “pregnant person” into “mother” as a compromise because “woman” was too radical. If we do not want to look like we are just ticking boxes and going through the motions, we must recognise that the gender-critical debate needs to be had out. I know that many women—we have heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Nicholson, who has been wonderfully inspiring on this issue—have said that we should do something about this when you have to fight to get women or biological sex mentioned in the census. Let us lead on that rather than just ticking the International Women’s Day box.