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Labour party women: seen. But heard?

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Labour Party Conference 2014, women, women's rightsIn stark contrast to the Liberal Democrats and Conservative party conferences, women at the Labour Party Conference were visible from the word go.

Evidence can be found on the party’s “YouTube” channel which lists 29 speeches from the conference – of which 11 were made by women.

The conference was opened by a collaboration of refugee women performing a piece inspired by the Set Her Free campaign and by the Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, Harriet Harman.

Harman, fresh from Labour’s one-day Women’s Conference the day before the 3-day main party one started, promised a commitment to all-women shortlists and free childcare for women ‘because Britian’s women want something different’.

It was all looking very promising.

On came Ed Milliband.

What I find strucking was the fact that he appeared to be completely surrounded by diverse women.

His speech referenced women, he asked them to stand up, he celebrated a young woman for breaking through in a traditionally male environment… and his speech was laden with familiar political Labour values; internationalism, solidarity, the ordinary workers, Europe, the NHS.

It almost feels like a Billy Bragg song waiting to happen.

He was, in his own words, applying “historic values to modern situations”.

He talked a lot about young people and opening up politics and completing unfinished business.

This didn’t feel like an apologetic leader. It felt open and transparent and I almost believed it.

Though he was visibly surrounded by women and he actively mentioned them his first key national goal – to raise the minimum wage by 2020 – is referenced only as benefiting families and individuals.

He didn’t mention that the majority of people earning the minimum wage are women; a missed opportunity.

Nor did women specifically get a mention in his other key policy areas.

There was much reference to tackling the cost of living crisis, the need for better housing, green economics.

And the need to protect the future for the next generation in all areas, the need for apprentices and home ownership for younger people.

And lastly, a call to protect public services.

Women are close to the agenda in this keynote speech, they are watching and they are evidencing it but I don’t know that they are leading the influence.

Over to Yvette Cooper, Shadow Home Secretary.

She opened her speech with praise for black feminists fighting FGM practices.

In her first moments she announced a new law on violence against women and girls (VAWG) to protect girls from violence, and invoked the traditional Labour values of fighting for justice and against abuses of power.

She went on to talk a lot about different aspects of the home secretary’s brief, putting up a good argument on immigration, the PREVENT Agenda and counter terrorism and the role of communities.

This was a more apologetic Labour minister, contrite for their record on 90 days and promising evidence-backed policies in future.

And she didn’t stop on VAWG.

She drew attention to falling numbers of rape prosecutions and referenced the litany of failures in the protection of children and called for immediate action to make the abuse of children a higher political priority.

She redoubled her call for a national enquiry into institutional abuse and pledged stronger laws to put child protection first.

Cooper also talked about sex and relationship educatation (SRE) as the cornerstone in protecting young people from teenage relationship abuse, online exploitation and homophobic bullying – she makes a manifesto commitment to making the teaching of SRE compulsory in all schools.

Cooper also announced in her speech that Police and Crime Commissioners (PCCs) will be abolished the savngs put into frontline police services.

The PCCs have been interesting sites of local power for VAWG services and it will be interesting to see how this commitment is met by local domestic violence (DV) and sexual violence (SV) support services.

The lack of protection for frontline services may have been partially addressed by the announcement of a new DV and SV commissioner, not a VAWG commissioner – asubtle but important political difference – and a new national network of refuges to ensure that women fleeing violence are protected.

All of this will ensure that women fit into the key Labour message of keeping communities safe and strong.

It was powerful stuff.

It is a shame then that the speech appears to have been delivered to a half empty room. But in terms of policy commitments it is light years ahead of women’s education in prisons.

Gloria De Piero, Labour’s Minister for Women and Equalities, is an impressive figure at the podium.

She pointed to Labour’s record of bringing women in to politics, highlighting that Labour have more women MPs than the other parties combined and that there are more privately educated members of the government’s Cabinet than there are women.

Her speech crossed the equalities strands comprehensively and determinedly – possibly showing how far ahead Labour are on equalities issues.

In almost contrast to other key speeches from the conference she revoked traditional Labour language, talking negatively of “closed shops” and praising the Spectator magazine for ensuring access to opportunity.

Her speech asked for equality of opportunity and the “release of talent” to ensure that access is based on merit.

She called for the civil service to lead the way and committed the public services to monitoring social class alongside other equalities characteristics when recruiting.

Hers was a call not necessarily for women but to bring the working class back into politics and into British life.

It was an interesting perspective and one delivered with aplomb.

It was interesting to note that women are in the background of this speech and that other areas in the equalities brief are brought to the fore.

I don’t necessarily think this is a failure for women in Labour. It may well be a sign of how much further mainstreamed “women’s issues” are in their central party machine.

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