International Women’s Day: Why it’s clear fight for gender equality has long way to go – Christine Jardine

Christine Jardine is trying to live up to the inspirational example set by her mum, Nessie Jardine, who instilled confidence in her daughters.

Wendy Chamberlain MP has introduced a Bill to commit to UK Government to tackling period poverty across the globe (Picture: Lisa Ferguson)

Several times this week I have been asked to name an inspirational woman for International Women’s Day. But it’s fair to say that I have not been entirely honest in my answer.

Oh, there is a long list of women from Billie Jean King to Marie Curie and Victoria Wood whose personal stories and contributions to history fit that description for me. And I have happily explained why to those who had requested the choice.

But in truth my inspiration is in a name etched onto the bright shiny steel memorial in Clydebank to those who lost their lives to asbestos poisoning. Nessie Jardine. My Mum.

And while my sisters and I were deeply touched that she is included in that heart-breaking roll of honour, I believe she deserves the recognition for an entirely different reason.

My mum was typical of a generation of women whose early childhood was spent in the blitzed cities of Second World War Britain.

She and I were both born in the same bedroom of my grandparents’ tenement flat in Glasgow and christened in the same church where she also married my dad.

But she had something special, something in common with so many women of her generation, that we, their daughters, have been the beneficiaries of.

There was little remarkable about the working-class life her family lived in post-war Glasgow.

My grandad was a shipwright carpenter on the Clyde and my gran was the central figure to whom we all clung, with her personality as big as the ships my grandfather built and the God-given ability to make everyone around her feel loved.

As a child, I thought life was easy, progressing as we did from a rented flat, to a larger rented house and finally to the recently built “home of their own” that my parents had purchased in the new development on the outskirts of town.

It makes me smile when I think of how typical they were of an aspirational generation and how little I appreciated what it had cost.

Looking back now I recognise the signs of how difficult times were when my dad was made redundant. Those were the days when the arrival of the first child put an end to a woman’s career.

Things have, of course, changed dramatically for women since my mum’s day. But there is so much more to be done. And that’s what yesterday’s International Women’s Day (IWD) was all about.

Celebrating female empowerment, but also providing an opportunity to tackle the inequality women and girls everywhere are still facing. The theme this year was “I am generation equality: realising women’s rights”.

As a proudly progressive nation and the word’s fifth biggest economy, the UK should be leading the way when it comes to putting these words into action.

Together, we can mobilise to end gender-based violence, introduce economic justice and rights for all, and give every woman autonomy over her own body.

Personally, I’m proud to be a part of the Lib Dems’ most diverse parliamentary team ever.

And to mark IWD this year, my women colleagues and I have each introduced a Bill to Parliament aimed at tackling some of the inequalities that still exist for women and girls in the UK and abroad.

For my own part, I’ve renewed my call on the Government to end the so-called ‘Pink Tax’.

It’s totally unacceptable that in 2020 women and girls continue to pay more than men for basic and essential products, like toiletries, clothes and haircuts.

Women on average pay £200 more a year than men for the same every-day goods. That is £200 women would not have had to pay in the last year had the Conservatives adopted the Bill that I originally tabled in the previous Parliament.

This injustice is only made worse by the gender pay gap, which sees eight out of ten companies still paying more to their male employees.

Women are being hit by a double whammy: they’re earning less and paying more, and they deserve better.

Wendy Chamberlain from North East Fife has introduced a Bill to commit the Government to tackling period poverty across the globe. Wera Hobhouse is calling for misogyny to be made a hate crime, and Layla Moran has put forward legislation to introduce protected break time in schools for girls on their period.

As a party, we already have a proud track-record in the fight for gender equality: from introducing pay-gap reporting, to improving parental leave for families across the country, and introducing free sanitary products to schools in Wales.

And two years ago, we brought forward the Bill that eventually made the appalling practice of upskirting a criminal offence. All of those things and more I hope will make a difference for the next generation.

But the one thing we cannot afford to do is to assume that the work is done.

Growing up my mother instilled in me and my sisters the belief that we could do, and be, whatever we wanted. I took that to heart and have spent much of my life trying to live up to her example. Like so many women of her generation she gave us the confidence to make a difference for all women.

Christine Jardine is the Scottish Liberal Democrat MP for Edinburgh West