Equality and diversity news from last week: record number of women representatives elected in US elections, risk of gender pay gap widening for the first time in UK, representation of disability and disfigurement in cinema and Lambeth Council caught in race row.
Perhaps the biggest news of last week was the re-election of Obama as President of the United States. His previous election made him America’s first black President but that is not to say that this election doesn’t have its own significance – this time a historic number of women representatives have been elected, including the first openly gay senator (Tammy Baldwin, Wisconsin), the first Asian-American female senator (Mazie Hirono, Hawaii) and the first female military veteran wounded in combat (Representative Tammy Duckworth, Illinois). Women are said to have played an important role in voting as well, breaking in Obama’s favour by 11 percentage points.
With this comes the unfortunate news that the pay gap between men and women is at risk of widening for the first time on record in the UK. The Fawcett Society, a leading organisation campaigning for gender equality, says that women still earn 14.9% less on average than men for the same job. And as public sector cuts push women into the private sector, we risk the gap being widened. Concerns were also raised about women’s career progression. While Jo Swinson, Minister for Women and Equalities, said that making pay secrecy unlawful (through the Equality Act 2010) and giving Tribunals power to order pay audits are positive steps, she acknowledged that more needs to be done.
An interesting article in the Independent asks – ‘Why do Bond villains need facial scars?’ The article raises important questions about representation of disability and disfigurement in cinema. Disfigurement, especially facial disfigurement, is often used to portray a character as ‘evil’. The author of the article comments, “It’s disappointing that Skyfall, acclaimed for (slightly) improving the sexist portrayal of women, is still using facial disfigurement to provoke revulsion and promote the stereotype that disfigurement makes a person morally abnormal.”
Lambeth Council is caught in a race row over its plans for job cuts. An equality impact assessment into the restructure of the authority’s housing division reported around three quarters (73%) of BME workers are at risk of redundancy, compared with less than half (45%) of white staff. The Council’s own equality impact assessment admits that the impact on black staff is ‘extremely statistically significant’. According to the trade union Unison officials, Lambeth’s redundancy proposals are in breach of the public sector equality duty and represent probable unlawful indirect race discrimination against black and minority ethnic (BME) staff.
Did you come across any interesting news, article or feature? Do let us know – Equality.and.Diversity@lse.ac.uk.
