Women marching against the cuts
Posted in March logistics on March 22, 2011
Bring your banners, pots and pans, and wear suffragette colours!
As well of the tens of thousands of women who will be marching with their unions on Saturday, there will also be lots of women’s groups and organisations and individual women coming along to make their voices heard and to highlight the unfair and disproportionate impact that the government’s cuts are having on women.
From cuts to child benefit and tax credits, to cuts to Sure Start children’s centres, to cuts to sexual and reproductive health services, to cuts to women’s jobs, the bottom line is that the cuts are having a disastrous and deeply unfair effect on women and families.
Many unions will bring their women’s committee banners and some unions have produced t-shirts and sashes for women members on the march.
Women Against the Cuts, the Fawcett Society, Million Women Rise, Southall Black Sisters, London Feminist Network, Eaves and Women Against Fundamentalism will be leading a large women’s contingent on the march, and will be joined by Labour women MPs, including Harriet Harman. They will be convening at 10am outside the Royal Courts of Justice on the Strand, WC2A 2LL, and departing at 10.30am.
For more details visit the Women Against the Cuts website.
Whether marching with their union, with friends and family or with a women’s organisation, women are being encouraged to wear suffragette colours (green and purple). Women Against the Cuts are also asking women to bring pots and pans for a very noisy protest!
I am confused. I am going on the March tomorrow, but what do cuts have to do with sufragettes. I agree that the cuts are effecting women (and men, and elderly and young…. every demographic) but dont see the point in associating it with womens rights… how can you link that when its relevant to everyone???
Because the cuts are having a disproportionate effect of women. In case you weren’t aware, women still earn significantly less than men, are the ones that bear the children and still (sigh), tend to be the main childcarers and are more likely therefore to work part time – oh, and with an increasing number of single parents, it’s worth noting that a massive 92% of single parents are…women. So cuts to benefits & services, not to mention maternity rights, impact disproportionately upon women, especially cuts to child benefit. The ending of the final salary pension will disproportionately impact on women because our average salaries will be less than men’s due to more women working part time during their careers to care for children. I could go on…I for one am relieved that this is being acknowledged. As a reluctant single working mum, life’s hard enough as it is!
“Bring your pots and pans”??!
I’ll be with all protesting women in spirit.
I wish I could be there supporting you all. Our government have sold students and women down the toilet and it is so nice to see others marching. Even if I cannot physically get there in person I am marching in my mind.
Hello. I am a student doing some work for The Independent and we are looking for people willing to have their photo taken (or send us one) and answer some questions for us. You will likely be in an article in The Independent on Sunday. We are looking for sufragettes and those wearing purple and green, anyone who is disabled and joining in the protest from home, a first-time protestor, someone who is newly redundant, someone very anti-war and perhaps a child. Please feel free to contact me: hollycm1@yahoo.co.uk if you are interested in being in the paper. Thank you.
Great to see so many different parts of our society coming foeward and voicing their opposition to the cuts. I am increasingly optimistic that it’ll be a great turn out.
Is it true that there will be a lot more than the 600 coaches quoted in the press? I really hope so