During any election campaign, candidates receive questions from constituents and campaigners, asking for clarification of policies or to sign pledges. We print a question and response below:
Dear Mr Williams,
As a voter in the General Election in the constituency in which you are a parliamentary candidate, I am writing to ascertain your position on women’s rights.
Girls and women’s rights are a vital responsibility of any government. Can I rely on you to ensure that my rights and those of my family are protected in:
◦ Single sex toilets and changing facilities
◦ Single sex protection for women in prison and refuges
◦ Single sex sports
◦ Same sex care in hospital, home and care settings
The provision of factual, age-appropriate sex education that does not confuse children
Like many women, I have watched with dismay as public institutions and local authorities have dismantled basic safeguarding principles in the name of an ill-defined concept of inclusivity. Gender ideology has been introduced unchecked into the civil service, the NHS, schools and other services, without proper scrutiny or equality impact assessments being undertaken. Data collected by the police and the judiciary records gender rather than biological sex. Women and girls expecting single-sex services are confronted by men in their changing rooms, refuges and hospital wards.
The privacy, dignity and safety of women and girls is at risk in the prevailing climate, and I hope I can trust in your support to ensure those rights will be safeguarded. I write to ask how you, as my elected representative, would do that, and I hope I can rely on your support. Should you choose not to respond, I will assume that this is not a priority for you, and I will cast my vote accordingly.
I look forward to hearing from you.
Many thanks for getting in touch. Without doubt the last 14 years of Tory rule and austerity have taken a huge toll on women and girls and it is correct that issues relating to them are addressed during this general election.
When Rishi Sunak talks about protecting women he lies. And the division he seeks to open up is a threat to our ability to defend the services, facilities and rights of women and girls.
I have gone into some detail to answer you as I believe discussion on these questions is important not only for the election, but for the struggle that will need to continue after to transform the situation facing women and girls, and society as a whole.
That’s because Keir Starmer’s Labour cannot be trusted to transform this situation. He is committed to continuing Tory policies not the socialist policies like nationalisation, trade union rights and opposition to war that we need.
Without doubt, many of the services and facilities you mention have been dismantled and the Socialist Party, of which I’m a member, is fighting against that and for an end to sexism and misogyny.
Toilets
You rightly identify access to single-sex toilets as an issue. We have lost nearly 60% of public toilets in just over a decade, according to the British Toilet Association.
This is a huge issue for women – especially menstruating, pregnant and menopausal women, disabled women, and elderly women. But also for everyone.
The fight for access to well-maintained public toilets of all the different types we need – single-sex, non-gendered, accessible – is a battle that will require a challenge to those parties who have overseen this destruction of public services.
Local authority expenditure on public loos has halved since 2010. Access to public toilets is under huge attack from Tory spending cuts – and the Labour-led councils who have failed to defend these and all vital services. They would prefer we fight each other over what kind of toilets we want instead of uniting to campaign for funding all the toilets everyone needs.
Prisons
With regards women in prison, it is a disaster. In 2022, there were 1,343 recorded assaults in women’s prisons in England and Wales – and that was up a fifth on the previous year. There were also 16,140 incidents of self-harm in women’s jails – equivalent to five incidents for every woman in custody.
What measures could help with protecting women prisoners from themselves and others? Robust screening processes, with democratic and accountable committees that include prison trade unions and prisoners’ unions, could reduce the chances of placing perpetrators of violence where they can harm others, whatever their gender. Prisoners who may be a risk to others or themselves could then be referred to support services.
But this all requires resources – staff, secure and ongoing funding, the expansion of public services – and an end to the austerity policies which are feeding the social conditions behind the rising prison population.
The court system is also a factor that the working class cannot leave in the hands of the capitalist politicians. This all requires the working class in struggle to secure these changes. They won’t be given voluntarily.
Refuges
I agree that we must talk about women’s refuges. They are sadly very much needed. About 1.5 million women are victims of domestic abuse each year in England and Wales. Two women a week are killed by a current or former partner. But again, Tory local government funding cuts and commissioning practices, unchallenged by Labour, mean in 2022-23 more than 10,000 women escaping domestic abuse were refused safe housing.
The single biggest threat to women’s safety in relation to refuges, is the fact that they have been closed. One in six refuges closed between 2010 and 2017. The second, is that the services are so reduced that even women who are granted refuge are forced back into the violent situation they are fleeing from. Expanding and improving refuge provision has got to be linked with the fight for council homes – so women and their families have somewhere to live. Actually a fifth of women leaving prison also have no secure accommodation – making them more vulnerable to homelessness and abuse.
In standing for election, Socialist Party members call for the building of a movement to fight for refuges and support for women. We also stand for changing society in a socialist direction to end the sexism and misogyny that lies behind the violence women face in society.
Sports
You mention also access to single-sex sports. This discussion requires us to start with the basic question of women and girls’ access to and participation in sports. The obstacles are not only the lack of free and affordable facilities – for which the Socialist Party fights. Women are still the primary caregivers in the home – and make up the majority of low-paid overworked workers – so time is also a factor pointing to the need for a £15-an-hour minimum wage, trade union rights and expansion of public services, all of which would increase women’s leisure time.
A 2022 Sports England survey found that the other major factors include “fear of judgement, a lack of confidence and…fears for their own safety”. A Women in Sport 2023 survey also found that “invisibility has long been a problem”. What the research does not list as an obstacle to participation is the inclusion of trans women.
How sports facilities are run should be on an inclusive basis – ie that they are run in a way that encourages all women and everyone to participate. That can include things like individual changing rooms, women-only sessions, inclusive sessions, etc. These questions should be worked out democratically through negotiation including users and workers and not on the basis of cost or profit.
Health and social care
Care in hospitals, the home and in care settings should also be organised in the best way to suit people’s needs. The most pressing issue is the end of cuts and privatisation of health and care services – as well as the low pay that is widespread within them. For example, in 2021 NHS trusts spent close to a half a billion pounds on interest charges from private companies for private finance initiative (PFI) contracts – equivalent to the salaries of 15,000 newly qualified nurses!
These are just the first steps needed to end the waiting lists that millions of women are suffering on, and start to organise these vital public services on the basis of need.
You mention privacy and dignity.
Dignity is impossible when you are receiving care in a hospital corridor or relying on a 15-minute care visit. Full public funding of health and care is the first prerequisite for dignity.
The question of the gender of your caregiver is important but poses the question of who controls our public services and in whose interests are they run. Only on the basis of democratic control, can the different needs of different sections of society be addressed.
Privacy is impossible when you are living in overcrowded homes. Rent control and a mass programme of council-home building must therefore be fought for to end the housing crisis.
Education
When it comes to sex education, like all our public services, it is necessary to fight for genuine democratic control. In schools, this would mean through elected representatives of the local community, parents, staff and their trade unions, and school students’ unions. Those kinds of committees would provide the forum for discussing and arriving at decisions on areas of controversy, feeding into national policy. That would need to include policies on relationships, sex and health education, as well as provision for students and staff of all faiths.
I hope you can see that the Socialist Party shares your concerns on these hugely important issues. But we do not accept that, in fighting against having a name and gender imposed on them, trans people pose a threat to women or anyone. Limited resources – services and facilities – do pose a threat though. The cuts listed here are often made by Labour-led councils carrying through Tory policies, not by trans people.
And who benefits? Not trans or non-binary people. These cuts are part of the transfer of wealth from the working-class majority to the super-rich elite, of which austerity is an important part.
How are the restoration and improvements to these services and facilities to be achieved? Women must get organised to fight for them – but not alone. Working-class women are vital to the building of a mass movement to end austerity and capitalism. There is no movement that can change the world without their mass involvement.
That includes the building of a campaigning trade union movement – but also the building of a new mass workers’ party that can unite us in the fight for all our rights. The Socialist Party stands for the rights of trans and non-binary to self-identify and for all the public services, resources and rights necessary for everyone to not just survive but to thrive. That’s what a socialist programme means. This election represents an opportunity to take steps towards the kind of party we will need under a Starmer government. It is positive that Jeremy Corbyn will stand as an independent.
The potential exists for a bloc of workers’ MPs being elected, who could, from 5 July, articulate the demands of the working class in parliament, including women’s rights. If Jeremy Corbyn and others are elected, it will immediately pose the need for the trade union movement to start discussing how to build a party that fights in workers’ interests. The Socialist Party is fighting for every possible step towards this.
This includes standing candidates as part of the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition, an electoral coalition which aims to enable trade unionists, community campaigners and socialists who are fighting for a new mass workers’ party to stand candidates against pro-austerity establishment politicians under a clear banner.
We believe that the struggle for women’s liberation, of fighting for a non-sexist society, is part and parcel of building mass working-class struggle to end the capitalist system and replace it with socialism. Fighting for maximum unity of the working class in struggle around a socialist programme is central to ending gender oppression.
- ‘Debate: how to fight sexism and change the world’ at socialismtoday.org for a contribution to a debate with WPUK, that was never answered
