A Fate Worse Than Debt

By Heather Downs

The Coalition government offers nothing but more propaganda about ‘paying-off the national debt’, giving the perfect excuse to cut public spending and destroy the Welfare State. Around 70% of Coalition cuts so far have come from women. The cause of women’s equality is being pushed back 50 years.

Public sector cuts hit women the hardest.  The public sector has a better record on equality in pay and opportunities. Women make up most public sector workers, so cuts in jobs, pensions, and the pay-freeze, affect women more.  Services specifically for women, such as Women’s Aid and Rape Crisis, are being cut.  Refuges are turning away 230 women every day in Britain. Domestic Violence affects one-in-four women; 19 thousand women flee their homes every year.  Every week two women are killed by current or ex-partners in Britain.  That’s more deaths than soldiers killed in Afghanistan.   Women’s Aid estimate1 in 4 women are subjected to domestic violence in their lifetime and 1 in 4 are victims of sexual violence. If you know more than 4 women, you know someone who has experienced either sexual or domestic violence or will do so at some time in their lives.  Rape Crisis say only 1 in 10 rapes are reported.  Most victims know their attacker - less than 1% see them convicted.

Women of all classes and races are affected, but those who have least money of their own, are the least able to escape the violence.  They depend on refuges and free counselling to help them escape.  These services are under threat from government cuts.  Although Rape Crisis and Women’s Aid remain the most frequently used sources of support, funding is a constant challenge. Coalition cuts threaten the survival of these vital services.  The Condems pay hypocritical lip service to women’s equality but their cuts fall most heavily on women’s jobs, services and pensions. Cuts affect council housing and housing benefit making it more difficult to rebuild and heal disrupted, damaged lives. 

Women do the caring for free when services to the elderly, disabled, children and other vulnerable groups are cut and women’s jobs are lost. Sure Start children’s centres have been cut despite government promises.  Day centres for adults are under threat.  The childcare allowance of Tax Credits has been cut from 80% to 70%, making work unaffordable for many women if there is any paid employment available.  Child Benefit was a universal benefit paid to mothers as a way our whole society could support families with children. New means-testing only affects the middle class earning over £50,000 now – but an important principle has been broken.  Raising the tax threshold will not help low-paid people who don’t pay income-tax.  Raising the qualifying limit for Working Tax Credits will cost £1000’s to people unable to increase their hours.

Disabled women are at increased risk of domestic and sexual violence.  Given what we know about financial abuse and economic dependence being features of domestic violence, it is disturbing to learn that disabled people with partners earning over £7,500 will not receive any benefits once the one year time limit on ESA (Employment Support Allowance) is reached.  As Social Care becomes means tested, more people will depend on family members, including 'Young Carers' as the unpaid chidren of disabled parents ae euphemistically described.  All the worst aspects of the institution of the nuclear family, amplified.  If you don't like that institution, they'll put you in the other kind; cheaper, more efficient decimation of the rights and independence of disabled people

The original plan for Universal Credit would have closed all women’s refuges – that cut was defeated and women’s refuges are now exempt.  We achieved that by effective campaigning.  But now we face a new threat. Women’s Aid says the Welfare Reform Act and the introduction of Universal Credit is a huge step backwards for equality; it will deprive a woman of independent income including tax credits paid to her as a mother. As a result, women will have less control over household income.  Financial abuse is a common feature of domestic violence.  Women’s Aid has serious concerns about plans to pay Universal Credit to one member of the household.  It is estimated that in 80% of cases, it will be paid to the man of the house. Women will be left  dependent, with no money or support to escape violent men.

So what can we do?  Of course, we can get educated about what is actually happening.  We can use resources like False Economy, The Fawcett Society, Spartacus Report.   We can resist the propaganda war against benefits, public spending, the ‘all in this together’ lies of those who will never be ‘in’ anything with us.  Their real aim is to get back to the natural order of life before the Welfare State, the NHS, social security, equal pay,  the minimum wage. 

We can support others in their efforts to defend our living standards.  Public sector strikes are inconvenient, but not as inconvenient as the result of the race to the bottom in pension provision - led by non-unionised private sector employers whose own tax-free pensions are supplemented by obscene bonuses.  We can join with others in our community anti-cuts groups defending hospitals, libraries, day centres.  Coalition of Resistance, Keep our NHS Public and Campaign against Fees and Cuts have local branches.

This is a fight between two visions of society – one ruled by the free market, where atomised individuals take sole responsibility for themselves alone, competing for scarce resources, where the Welfare State is reduced to a safety net for the desperate; and the other based on social cohesion, and shared provision for the vicissitudes of life.  Aneurin Bevan on his creation of the NHS said it would only last as long as people were prepared to fight for it.  That fight is here.