Forward

Barbara Follett
Deputy Minister for Women

International Women’s Month celebrates the progress and achievements of women; socially, politically, and economically. But it also draws attention to where further action is needed – men are still paid more than women at work, two women are killed every week due to domestic violence, and four out of five MPs are male.

This country has come a long way in securing equality for women. We have reduced the gender pay gap in the last ten years from 17.4% to 12.6%, and now have a government commitment to narrow it even further.

We have helped to balance work and family, through better maternity and paternity leave. And we’ve backed up parents’ ability to make choices about their family life, by introducing the right to request flexible working and providing more childcare places than ever before.

And we now have record levels of women in the UK Parliament, but it’s still less than twenty percent – when women make up more than half of the population. This compares with women holding thirty percent of seats in the European Parliament, and more than forty percent in the Nordic countries.

We must encourage and support women from all walks of life - especially Black and Asian women - to get involved in public life at every level and make our democracy more representative, and reach that critical mass necessary to generate change.

2008 is a major year for equality and women in the UK. It’s the 90th anniversary of woman’s suffrage, and will see a new equality bill fit for the 21st century which will make a positive difference for women. For this, we are considering whether we can use the public sector’s huge buying power as a lever to eliminate discrimination; looking at how we could use equality representatives to help, for example, a lone parent to get the flexibility she needs to keep her job; and how we can increase transparency so gender pay gaps can be identified and tackled.

International Women’s Month is a celebration of what we have achieved, and a call to action for what we still need to do.