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CONFERENCE


SPEAKING OUT

Women Teachers’ Consultation Conference

Women teachers were urged to ‘find their voice’ and speak up to champion the needs of women in the workplace and wider society.

Empowerment was on the agenda as over 200 women members gathered for the NASUWT’s Women Teachers’ Consultation Conference.

With research suggesting that women stand to bear three quarters of the brunt of the spending cuts, the Conference aimed to encourage and support women teachers to become active within the Union and lead the fight against the Coalition’s economic plans, which, delegates were told, risk increasing inequality.

The NASUWT is fighting to advance gender equality and protect the rights of women workers in the face of this assault.

Chris Keates, NASUWT General Secretary, highlighted the work being undertaken on violence against women and the sexualisation of women and girls.

Ms Keates said: “Young girls are being sexualised through clothes, television, music videos, music lyrics, magazines, video games, and advertising that portrays women as being primarily sex objects. These sexualised images and products give girls the idea that looks are paramount and they are under pressure to appear sexually available at an increasingly younger age.”

Pointing to the findings of NASUWT research into women teachers’ careers, age discrimination and the sexual bullying of teachers, she added: “Discrimination is still hampering the lives of too many women teachers.”

The studies highlighted the discrimination and barriers facing women teachers who aspire to leadership positions in schools, she explained, and the prejudice often experienced by older teachers of both genders who felt their knowledge and experience was often not valued by managers, with the result that they were pushed out of the profession or sidelined.

“Worryingly,” she added, “the Union’s study into prejudicerelated bullying revealed that one in five women teachers had suffered sexist bullying at work over a two-year period.

“We still have a lot to do to ensure that girls and women can work and learn in a place of safety and dignity,” Ms Keates concluded, calling on delegates to form a public coalition to protect the public services on which women disproportionately rely and without which discrimination and prejudice is likely to flourish.

“Public services are essential to the fabric of our society,” she said. “They are being dismantled and once they are gone it will be too late to act. But, working together, I believe we can win this battle.”

In keeping with the ethos of ‘finding your voice’, two members of the NASUWT’s Women’s Advisory Committee, Charlotte Jeavons and Kathy Wallis, shared their stories of becoming active within the Union and encouraged delegates who have not already done so to contact their Local Association and get involved.

Ms Jeavons said: “I feel really proud to be part of our Union at school, local and national level and I hope it is the start of a long and remarkable journey for me.

“In the current political environment, it is critical that we all find and use our voices.”

A series of workshops allowed delegates to explore specific issues affecting women in more depth. These included sessions on wellbeing in the workplace, the new Equality Act, know your rights, flexible working and financial planning.

Highlights from these sessions and the whole event can be found on the NASUWT website at www.nasuwt.org.uk/WomenTeachers along with the research reports referred to at the event and a host of resources on issues affecting women members.