Gender Agenda - the EOC's last campaign

by Alyson Thomson EOCScotland Director of Communications and Parliamentary Affairs

The Equal Opportunities Commission Scotland has launched its last ever campaign before becoming part of the new CEHR in October with a warning that sex equality is still generations away.

The 'Gender Agenda' campaign calls for urgent action to close the stubborn gaps that persist in pay, family life, public services, justice, safety and power. The way we live our lives has transformed dramatically in the last 30 years but we are living with the consequences of an unfinished social revolution.

The roles of men and women have changed at a fast pace but life around us has not caught up. We are still faced with many workplaces, institutions and services designed for an age when women stayed at home, creating barriers to equality. In other areas of modern life, inequality underpins life and death issues - with one in five women in Scotland facing domestic abuse.

Rowena Arshad, EOC Scotland Commissioner, said, "At the current pace of change, it will take generations for the unfinished revolution to be completed and for equality for women and men to be achieved.

"That's why EOC Scotland has launched a campaign for concrete change in five key areas for women and men over the next 10 years, transforming our workplaces, services and communities. Join us by visiting www.gender-agenda.co.uk and help make Scotland a better place in which to work, learn and live."

'Completing the Revolution', EOC Scotland's final report sets out the most comprehensive ever measure of sex equality in Scotland. Drawing upon more than thirty years of experience. It finds:

· The "power gap" will take almost 200 years to close and it will take up to 45 years to have a better balance of senior judges

· The "part-time pay gap" will take 30 years to close and the "full time pay gap" 20 years. Women working part-time earn 34% percent less per hour than men working full time. Full time female employees earn on average 14% less per hour than men.

· The "flexible working gap" is unlikely ever to change unless further action is taken. Men are currently over half as likely (60%) to work flexibly as women, even though half of working men say they would like to work more flexibly.

· The rape conviction rate is currently at all time low of 3.9%

· At home, the "chores gap" - the difference in the amount of time women and men spend doing housework per day - will never close, with women still spending 78% more time than men doing housework.

UNISON's Glyn Hawker welcomed the campaign, "The EOC's report and this campaign comes at a very necessary time", she said. "In particular the long and painful progress towards equal pay in Scotland's essential public services must be resolved if we are to have a positive impact on both the pay and the status of women workers.

"It is 30 years since the Equal Pay Act became law, yet 'women's work' - cleaners, caterers and carers, classroom assistants and clerical staff - is still not fairly rewarded."

As well as a new series of posters and postcards that UNISON will assist in distributing to branches, the EOC has developed an interactive Gender Agenda website where you can measure whether sex inequality affects the quality of your life.

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