The women in Britain are the unhappiest in Europe, and 14 years of Conservative party rule certainly hasn’t helped—in fact, the government’s policies have made our lives far worse. The impact of economic austerity has disproportionately fallen on women, while the rise of zero-hours contracts, which women are more likely to be on, has increased employment instability. The pay gap will take another 20 years to close at the current rate of progress. No woman I know raves about her work-life balance, with the rising cost of everything from groceries to housing to childcare piling on the pressure from all sides. Then you have Brexit, which makes it far harder for any of us to escape in order to build lives in more female-friendly countries.
So news of an impending election is cause for hope. Whichever government is incoming will need to speak to the country’s women and give us something to feel optimistic about. Labour has already pledged to abolish zero-hours contracts, but it needs to go further. Child benefits should be increased, and the two-child benefit cap abolished. The gender, ethnicity and disability pay gaps should be tackled head-on, with more provisions made for flexible, remote, and hybrid working, as well as better leave policies for carers, and those experiencing miscarriage or menopause or undergoing fertility treatment. Transgender people’s rights must be protected, and the Section 28-like proposals for sex education should be scrapped. Fertility education could also be improved, and the alarming rise of online misogyny and incel culture needs a targeted strategy.
Women need to feel that the government has their best interests—and the interests of their families—at heart. It’s not a mystery why the birth rate is falling; many women simply feel that, in the current economic climate, they cannot afford to have children, and we know that they are terminating wanted pregnancies as a result. The huge expansion of the childcare system under the Conservative government is one of the few things it has done that will benefit women, but it was not well thought-out, and a Labour government can and should go further while acknowledging and remedying the pressures on the sector as a whole.
The idea of free breakfast clubs in primary school is a good idea, but it would be great to see genuine steps made towards wraparound care. My mind still boggles when I think about how working parents are just expected to cope with no childcare help during school breaks. Council-funded play schemes are few and far between; how brilliant would it be to see them introduced nationwide? Sure Start Children’s Centres—most of which were closed under the Tory government—should be reopened.
Furthermore, our maternity and paternity leave systems need a complete overhaul; giving dads a mere two weeks of paternity leave not only entrenches the gendered imbalance of domestic labor, but it deprives them of time with their children in the early weeks and months of their lives. We know that women are happier when their partners share the load, and a more egalitarian leave system would likely lead to decreases in the numbers of women suffering from postnatal depression and anxiety.