Speech by Kate Green to Labour's National Women’s Conference
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Kate Green MP, Shadow Minister for Women and Equalities, in a speech to Labour’s National Women’s Conference in Brighton, said:
I have never felt more strongly than I do today about the importance of gender to our politics.
Today we as women have talked the language of the new politics. We’ve shown what the new way of doing things looks like.
The way you, we, have come together today, the issues we’ve discussed, the way the conversation has been held, match the appeal that Jeremy has right across the party - a commitment to an outspoken, authentic and inclusive politics.
You’ve spoken with the same ambition, the same urgency for change that has excited Labour members, affiliates and registered supporters - the thousands that joined our movement over the summer and have continued to join in the past fortnight.
Of course, we shouldn’t be surprised that women are embracing the new politics. After all, the status quo has rarely advanced the cause of women.
The way politics has been conducted, both in public and behind the scenes, has too often been male dominated, macho, too command and control. Women have had to contort themselves to fit inside this masculine political framework. We’ve had to fight our way to the heart of power.
Nowhere is that more true than in Parliament by the way, an environment designed by men for men. I walk into rooms in parliament and count the number of women in the paintings on the walls – there aren’t many - we’re easily outnumbered by paintings of horses.
But now the new politics presents an opportunity to ensure that women can come in, enter politics and be themselves in a way that is a break from the old style of doing things.
And if we are to take on the Tories, challenge their divisive ideology, and win back votes for Labour, what we must learn from the scale of our defeat in May is that what’s needed is something new, a different approach.
Something that engages and listens to the voices that have struggled to be heard.
Something much more inclusive.
Something that empowers women everywhere, in and beyond our movement.
Up and down the country there are examples of women organising and securing change for themselves and their colleagues, in their work place, in their communities, as business women and in their unions.
The Unite Hotel Workers branch, bringing representation and support to one of the lowest paid sectors in the UK.
The 300 Camden school-catering workers who came together to demand and secure a Living Wage.
Business Women’s Link, set up by local women to support women in business across the East Midlands.
Labour must be a natural home for these women. We must celebrate them, engage with them, join them, and learn from their successes.
Of course, as women, we will all have different perspectives, bringing different priorities based on our own life experiences.
But we share a common experience. We know the destruction that is being inflicted by this Tory government, and we know that it is women that have felt the pain the most.
Women are bearing the brunt of the austerity agenda.
Trapped in insecure, low paid jobs.
Women are most affected by the tory government’s ferocious attack on workplace rights - the Trade Union Bill, the introduction of tribunal fees that remove for many women the ability to seek redress and the law’s protection.
Since the introduction of tribunal fees, we have seen a shocking fall in the number of sex discrimination cases, including pregnancy-related discrimination.
It is women too who have been hit the hardest by Tory cuts to family benefits.
85 per cent of total Treasury revenue raised from tax and benefit reforms since 2010 has been taken from women.
And it is women who fill the yawning gap that’s left when our public services – health, social care, support for older or disabled people, services for women fleeing violence, especially services for young or BME women – are under such pressure and collapsing as a result of unprecedented cuts to local authority budgets.
John McDonnell has spoken just this morning about a review of the discrimination faced by women in the economy.
But as women in the Labour movement we have to be doing more than reviewing policy, we have to be fighting these vicious Tory policies head on.
We have to be out of Westminster and out of our town halls, fighting, campaigning with women in our communities, our workplaces and our trade unions.
Sharing our experiences, standing up together, speaking out – campaigning for a different, better, bolder future for women everywhere.
Jeremy has said that the time for timid measures is over.
He’s right. Equality and Justice for women will be achieved by thinking bigger and bolder.
Working for the changes that will transform women’s lives
Like universal childcare.
An education system routeing young women into the jobs and careers that deliver economically for our country and prosperity and success for women.
78 per cent of those working in health and social care, one of the lowest-paid sectors, are women.
88 per cent of those working in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) industries, a high-paying sector, are men.
And we must fight for strong rights at work - from equal pay, to the protection of pregnant workers, to the right to work flexibly at every level in an organisation, and the right to organise.
We must have zero tolerance of physical violence, of abuse of women on social media, highlighted by Yvette Cooper this morning, of the failure of our justice system to deliver effective protection for women and to pursue and prosecute offenders.
We’ll fight till every woman is safe everywhere - because the public realm belongs to us just as much as it belongs to men and we have the right to feel free and safe in it.
And we will insist that we teach every young person about respect and dignity for all - including through compulsory sex and relationship education.
These are the things we’ve talked of today.
The changes you’re insisting on.
In government, we made progress towards them.
But the Tories have moved swiftly and fiercely to undo that progress.
So we’ve also learnt that radical change, change that lasts, needs to be built on solid foundations.
It needs to be built with women up and down the country who are organising and leading in business, in the workplace and in their communities, changing the way we do politics.
And that means changing the way our party does business.
Labour already hold power across many Local Authorities.
Yet only 12.3 per cent of local authority leaders in England are women (2014), compared to 16.6 per cent in 2004.
There are only 19 Labour Women Council leaders across the whole of the country.
Who raises the impact of policy on women and other groups at the council when so few of us are present at the top?
And we must look at the way our party operates.
Evening meetings, weekend canvassing sessions, early morning starts, time away from home, are the norm not the exception in party politics.
That needs to change if more women are to succeed in our movement, particularly those women for whom engagement and participation is more difficult – the low waged forced to work longer, often unsociable hours, single parents and mothers who are students, having to work as well as study.
We need to change our decision-making processes, within our party and the wider Labour movement. We must ensure women’s representation at every level, in the party leadership, at the top of our unions, and among our senior party officers.
Our politicians and leaders right across public life must ask themselves – whose voices do you listen to? Who do you surround yourself with? Who do you take most seriously? Who is missing from your discussions, both in the advice that you take and in decision making? Who is affected by these decisions? Why aren’t they in the room?
These are the challenges you’ve been posing today.
But our job isn’t just to ask questions and highlight problems.
Women have done enough asking and waiting.
Now is the time for action.
For the change that puts women centre stage, invigorates our party, makes us resilient and stronger.
And I tell you something, our party, with powerful women at its heart - it might be scary for some - it will definitely scare the Tories.
We will be stronger, tougher, rooted in our communities, working with our sisters everywhere
This is women’s time in our movement.
So everything we have insisted today – let us make it happen.
It’s our time, it’s time for change - as women, let’s seize the moment.
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