Is it really just the cuts? Neoliberal tales from the women’s voluntary and community sector in London (original) (raw)

Stepping Up: Investing in Women and Women's Organisations in post-recession UK

2014

This report highlights 10 myths of women's equality today and the impact of funding cuts on the women's voluntary sector. Drawing on a survey of 72 women's organisations and in-depth interviews with 10 of these, it finds that these organisations are struggling to survive at a time when they are most needed. The report was commissioned and published by Rosa, the UK fund for women and girls.

Between opportunities and challenges: women's community and voluntary organisations in London

initiates and supports high quality research of national and international standing. Its researchers use innovative methodologies to undertake research on new and emerging topics within the social sciences, in particular with neglected and marginalised communities, at a local, national and international level. The Centre actively promotes interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary research. Staff are involved in a wide range of projects funded by research councils, the EU, government departments and the major charities.

Neoliberal Feminised Governmentality: The Role and Function of A Post Corston Report (2007) Women’s Centre In The North-West Of England

British journal of community justice, 2021

The article examines the role and function of one voluntary sector gender specific service, The Women's Centre (TWC), 1 which opened following the publication of the highly influential Corston Report (2007) in the NorthWest of England, for 'offending' women and those at risk of offending. The analysis presented in this article is derived from qualitative data,2 from 16 semi-structured interviews with TWC staff, and from participant observation of procedures and interactions within the centre. 3 It therefore adopts a case study approach. 4 Drawing on the work of Foucauldian feminist and governmentality scholars (

Gender Equality and 'Austerity': Vulnerabilities, Resistance and Change

F eminist challenges to austerity and the wider crisis have been much underestimated. The documentation and analysis of the variety of forms in which feminist projects have been 'working the spaces of power' (Newman, 2012) is the purpose of this special issue. The focus here is on gendered challenges to austerity situated within critical analyses of wider neoliberal regimes of gender and of capitalism. In their contributions to this special issue, authors investigate the challenges and characteristics of these emergent forms of organised resistance to gendered austerity in a variety of political, discursive and organisational contexts. They analyse the ways in which collective political agency critically engages with but are not limited by neoliberal discourses and practices. Authors explore the challenges of sustaining a gendered focus within coalitions of intersecting projects that challenge class divisions, gendered and raced inequalities and those concerning migrant communities. They raise timely questions about how equality machinery and public service institutions developed over the previous decades within government have responded in times of neoliberal austerity. The new forms of collective agency that have emerged, both within and independent of the state, trade unions, and anti-austerity campaigns, are subject to investigation. The papers examine the myriad of ways in which feminist researchers and activists are engaging with the political forces promoting austerity, the constructs of gender that underpin their engagement, the forms of organised resistance that are emerging, and how these are shaped in specific institutional contexts. Thus the special issue challenges the suggestion (Fraser, 2009; Eisenstein, 2009) that feminism has disappeared and been incorporated into neoliberalism. Since 2008, the impact of the neoliberal politics of austerity has deepened and extended, widening class, gender and raced inequalities and opening divisions between and within communities (Walby, 2015). The migrant crises, failure to engage with climate change, tensions in the European Union (EU), illustrate the failure of state institutions to engage with these issues. In response, new forms of organisation in civil societies and social movements continue to emerge, offering scope for new forms of struggle and challenging the shape and concept of democracy. Feminist social scientists and social movements have effectively exposed the gendered dimensions of austerity politics and proposed alternative strategies, and subjected neoliberal economic policy to substantial critique. Despite their success in introducing the gendered dimensions of neoliberal austerity measures into public discourse, neoliberal austerity politics continue to predominate within western democracies. Despite government claims that 'we are all in it together', there is evidence that vulnerable demographic groups, vulnerable geographies and vulnerable organizations are bearing the brunt of national and international austerity measures (Leschke and Jepsen, 2012; Pearson and Sweetman, 2011). The groups most vulnerable to the impact of austerity are not homogeneous due to multiple intersections of gender with inequalities based on class, ethnicity, nationality, citizenship and migra

Gender Equality in Public Services: Chasing the Dream

The provision of state funded and democratically accountable care services represents one of the most potentially transformative advances in gendered social relations and equality for women by ‘defamilizing’ care and providing paid work. But the cost of providing these services, which women have access to them and how they should be provided are always at the forefront of debate, especially during economic crises. Socially funded and publicly accountable care services are therefore a key site of feminist activity, but also the frontline for spending cuts and 'reform' during times of austerity. Gender Equality in Public Services analyses how gender equality work in British public services is changing in response to factors including: equality legislation; the erosion of local democracy, privatisation of public services and new forms of feminist activism and leadership. It also assesses the challenges and opportunities for promoting women’s equality in producing and using publ...

‘Neoliberal feminism’: Legitimising the gendered moral project of austerity

The Sociological Review, 2020

This article focuses on how middle-class women identify with ‘neoliberal feminism’ within the context of UK austerity by drawing on interviews with 17 women in Leeds, London and Brighton during 2014 and 2015. The article argues that the way in which these women identify with, understand and discuss whom feminism is important for, converges with a range of values present in the austerity discourse. In line with the principles of ‘late modernity’, feminism is spoken through an individualised lifestyle discourse, with an emphasis on the need to be resilient and have a positive mental attitude to deal with forms of inequality. Due to the particularity of the context, women create distance, and classed and racialised distinctions away from women who are suffering in the current context. This distancing is crucial to the maintenance of the austerity project, since, instead of helping to put an end to gender inequality, this form of feminism aids the legitimation of hierarchical relationsh...

Women and Austerity: Beyond 'Make Do and Mend'.

Psychology of Women Section Review, 2013

Extract: "This year the POWS conference examined women and austerity. It denaturalised austerity by highlighting that it is a discourse and a practice, and one that not everyone is subject to; the rich continue to get richer. Building on these discussions, Erica posed four questions for contributors to consider: - In what ways is austerity a psychological issue? - In what way is it a gender(ed) or feminist issue? - What might a POWS arena contribute to the analysis of austerity? - What might POWS do about current conditions of austerity?" Acknowledgements: This paper has recorded the discussion as closely to the participant’s original contributions as possible. Contributors to the roundtable: Erica Burman (Manchester Metropolitan University), Sharlene Hesse-Biber (Boston College), Suriya Nayak (University of Salford) and Liz Sayce (Disability Rights UK).

Feminist, Grassroots and Transformative Visions of Change in Neoliberal Re-structuring

PhiLab Blog, 2019

When I was a volunteer peer support worker on a sexual assault peer support phone line, we would receive calls from women and gender diverse individuals who would connect with us because we were one of the few free services that provide alternative, survivor-centred, anti-oppressive and feminist support. Even though the demand kept increasing for these community supports, new, stable or core funding was not the norm. Across different community- organizations I worked with, a significant amount of time, capacity and roles would need to be dedicated to fundraising, grant-writing and partnership development.

Revisiting Jewson and Mason: The Politics of Gender Equality in UK Local Government in a Cold Climate

This paper revisits Jewson and Mason's seminal theoretical framework on liberal and radical approaches to equal opportunity policy and practice by applying it to our research on the implementation of the Gender Equality Duty in UK local government. Conducted at the height of Thatcherism, Jewson and Mason's research offers a useful platform for assessing equality initiatives in local government during periods of political hostility to equality underpinned by cuts to public services, which in more recent time is ascribed to austerity. Drawing on qualitative research in five case study local authorities, this paper assesses strategies for protecting and promoting gender equality practices and policies in the face of change within public services. We analyse three types of politics of equality (political philosophy, organizational politics and party politics) that feature in Jewson and Mason's analysis. In line with recent feminist research, our data indicate that equality specialists continue to use both liberal and radical discourses in instrumental ways to promote equality and resist change as described by Jewson and Mason, but these were more clearly framed within business case arguments influenced by the modernization agenda of the 1990s. Our data indicate that even business case arguments have been unable to protect equality initiatives from the 2010 coalition government's austerity and cuts agenda.