Cameron rolls out more jobs for the boys

By Marie Birchall

“Eliminating gender inequality and achieving women’s empowerment are essential to the achievement of all the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the upholding of human rights”

Dare I say it, but taken from the 2007 Conservative Women’s Group Policy Paper, this sounded like a step in the right direction when it comes to the role of women in international development for the Tories.

For too long, women in the developing world have been denied agency and seen simply as the passive recipients of aid. After all, isn’t giving women a shiny new bucket in which to collect water a much simpler endeavour than challenging the power relations that ensure the toil of collecting water is the sole preserve of women and girls? Thankfully, this approach to aid is undergoing a much-needed overhaul and on the surface at least, it seemed like the Tories were keeping pace.

So, as someone with a passion for gender and development – and as a Labour activist proud of the giant leap that was Labour’s establishment of DfID – I awaited the recent Conservative Green Paper on International Development with mild interest. With the recognition of the central importance of women’s empowerment and firm commitments to gender equality as a crosscutting issue throughout Labour’s recent White Paper, the Green Paper certainly had a lot to live up to.

The result? Spectacular failure. Despite making up more that 70 per cent of the world’s poorest people, women and the particular challenges they face barely get a mention. Apart from when it comes to reproductive rights, of course (as a woman, perhaps I am unique in being interested in how other policy areas – the economy, justice or the distribution of resources, for example – might impact upon me?).

But then it got a little bit worse. Whilst advocating for longer overseas placements for DfID staff in fragile States, the somewhat blinkered Green Paper sees the main problem as being “no wives and children are allowed”.

With this one Freudian slip, the true extent of the Tories lack of commitment to gender equality is revealed. Not only does Dave welcome more Daves into his Shadow Cabinet than women, he also assumes – or maybe expects – that DfID’s leading ladies will step aside and leave the tougher development jobs to the boys. After all, these guys will of course be supported by their ever-obliging wives.

Note to the Conservatives – the world has changed and not only is this an insult to the countless female members of DfID staff who work in some of the world’s toughest environments, it is an affront to every woman who has overcome pervasive discrimination to prove her equality with men.

Harriet Harman has recently received a lot of flack on Labour blogs for her outspokenness on gender issues but I for one am proud to be a member of a Party whose leadership confronts gender stereotyping of this nature, not further entrenches it.