IT IS easy to feel overwhelmed by the cumulative impact of a decade of austerity on women, and to restrict our vision of what could be possible.  

The scale is staggering — as Dawn Butler MP has highlighted, 86 per cent of the government’s spending cuts have fallen on women.

The results are more and more visible: street homelessness is rising disproportionately rapidly among women, the majority of foodbank users are women, and the gender pay gap is over 18 per cent, with women making up almost three-quarters of part-time workers.

Some effects are less publicly obvious — women forced to remain in violent and abusive relationships due to a lack of anywhere else to go; migrant women denied any recourse to public funds, and women working in non-unionised exploitative conditions.

Yet International Women’s Day is a reminder that women have a proud history of fighting against oppression and for our rights, and winning real victories.   

The tasks in front of us today demand that we support each other in ensuring the election of a left Labour government with a radical manifesto to improve the lives of women and transform society.

Of course we face barriers to making our aspirations a reality — we are often struggling to manage multiple demands; some men in the movement can be reluctant to make space for women’s priorities, and we have to struggle to shape agendas.  

There are constant attempts to divide us and to divert us away from the transformative change that our communities need.

However, there are encouraging signs that more and more left women are being elected to roles in their trade unions, the Labour Party and a range of community roles.  

We need to ensure that we support progressive women from a range of backgrounds (including those who have faced multiple impacts of austerity such as working-class, BAME and disabled women) and to listen to the voices of communities who have been marginalised and under-represented for decades. 

The Labour Party’s online National Policy Forum is one opportunity to ensure that women’s experience shapes policy.

While there are many Tory laws which we need to overturn if we are to ensure that all women are able to reach their full potential, the following would make a huge difference.

Social security system

Universal credit is the latest in a range of changes which have destroyed any vestiges of a safety net. Paying the income to one adult in the household directly undermines the economic independence of women, reversing decades of social policy.

The hated work capability assessment uses massive levels of public funds to make the lives of disabled people worse rather than better. Numerous other changes have served to make women’s lives poorer and more precarious, and we urgently need a system which supports women at key points in their lives — ensuring security from cradle to grave.

Housing

The housing crisis has a huge impact on women. Multi-generational families are often living in homes designed for far smaller households. Younger women with children are forced to move far from family and friends and to live with no community support. Single women are regularly now flat-sharing into middle life, trying to manage the responsibilities of work with expensive short-term private-sector tenancies and regular moves. Ending right to buy and investing in a new generation of council housing would result in new security and improved quality of life for large numbers of women.

Rights at work

It is inspiring to see the actions being taken by a number of young women in disputes at companies such as TGI Friday’s, Wetherspoon and McDonald’s. We need to overturn the Tory attacks and create a new framework of rights from day one, including sectoral pay bargaining and improved rights to organise in trade unions.

Education

We have seen our schools starved of funding by the Tories, and teachers leaving the profession, unable to be creative or meet the real needs of their students. A lifelong education service would not only improve the lives of parents and children now, but create opportunities for women to increase their knowledge and skills throughout their lives. 

Health

The privatisation of the health service is syphoning money out of front-line services, and the pressures on mental health provision are acute. The NHS is particularly important to women, and we need it to be an accessible service run for the public good. 

Community sector

Cuts to local government and to direct funding for the voluntary sector have affected women disproportionately. A wide range of provision from refuges, Esol classes, after school clubs, law centres and advice services, counselling and social and cultural opportunities have disappeared. These locally controlled community-based agencies often ensure that women’s voices are heard and that they can exercise their rights.

This is a time when there is a real openness on the left to new ideas and creative solutions. Let us take the opportunity this Women’s Day to intensify the fight not just for bread, but roses too.