Profile Jenny Watson Opportunity knocks

2 Mar 06
In a week when the Women and Work Commission found gender inequality to be very much alive, the EOC chair tells Sally Gainsbury about the equality challenges facing the public sector

03 March 2006

In a week when the Women and Work Commission found gender inequality to be very much alive, the EOC chair tells Sally Gainsbury about the equality challenges facing the public sector

Being meeted and greeted by a male receptionist still comes as a bit of a shock – a sure sign of how far we have yet to go when it comes to gender equality. But, of course, I should have expected the Equal Opportunities Commission to do things differently.

It's not even a Friday in the EOC's central London offices and yet, as Ben fetches the tea, I notice that most of the EOC's staff are 'dressing down' in jeans and casual clothes. Their new chair, Jenny Watson, is no exception. Perhaps she feels the cold, but she keeps her faded leather jacket on throughout our hour-long interview.

The look might be casual, but Watson takes her role as the last chair of the EOC very seriously. She has a lot to do and not much time to do it in. By the end of next year, the EOC is scheduled to merge with the commissions for racial equality and disability rights to create a new Commission for Equality and Human Rights.

Gender inequality at work was in the spotlight again this week as the Women and Work Commission published its report on tackling the unequal ambitions learnt in school and the treatment of mothers returning to work.

But the required action from the public sector will not be limited to the WWC's 40 recommendations. The EOC will also be very active in this area in its final 20 months. The main reason is the Gender Equality Duty, enshrined in the Equality Act, which received its royal assent last month and comes into force next year. For the first time, gender discrimination – for the public sector at least – will be put on an equal footing with race and disability discrimination.

'It's fabulous,' Watson tells me. 'It's the single most significant piece of sex equality legislation for 30 years. We're very happy about it. It will push public sector bodies to look at employment practices and to tackle the pay gap.' The EOC – and eventually the new commission – will take responsibility for policing the duty, and it has recently launched a consultation on a statutory code of practice.

Campaigners say the duty is long overdue. Only last month, the Commission for Racial Equality warned government departments that it might intervene to make them consider the impact their policies have on race equality. But no equivalent statutory weight can currently be brought to bear against public bodies that ignore gender issues.

Even Meg Munn, the women's minister charged with overseeing the duty, has the dubious honour of being the government's only unpaid minister: something Opposition MPs have gained much mileage from.

While the public sector scores better than the private on the full-time gender pay gap (18% compared with 27%), the 40% gap for part-time workers is equal across both sectors. The lack of enforceable duties has done little to shift public perceptions of the value of women's work, says Watson.

Nowhere is this more evident than in social care, she notes, the area where women in the lowest paid work tend to be. Occupational segregation – which often begins at school – means that one of the most important functions societies perform, caring, is also one of the most under-valued, she says.

The EOC was heavily involved in the WWC's report, and endorses its proposals. But Watson is quick to point out that the EOC is not just about women's issues: 'We're a sex equality body. We consider issues that affect women, men and transgender people.'

This wider equality perspective is clear when Watson talks about the deeper implications of the new Gender Equality Duty. Tackling the unfair gap between men's and women's pay is just the start of it, she explains. Like the race equality duty, the gender duty will oblige public bodies to think about the different needs of men and women when designing policies and services.

'It will fundamentally change the way that public services are provided,' says Watson. 'It will push public service providers to ask a completely new set of questions: Do men and women have different needs? Are we meeting those needs? Who's benefiting from these services and where's the money going?'

A photograph of men receiving blood pressure checks at a barber's adorns the EOC's literature on the new duty. Watson says that forcing the public sector to be proactive about men's reluctance to take up health screening will benefit everyone.

'Service providers need to start thinking: “Well, if they're not coming to us where we are, maybe we need to provide it in a different way”,' she says. 'It's about asking why the service currently being provided is so unfriendly to that group.'

Sex inequality is not just about pay and power, she adds, it's also about deeply ingrained prejudice and social attitudes. A recent poll found that one-third of people in the UK thought 'flirtatious' women only had themselves to blame if they were raped. The GED could do something about that, says Watson, as well as other issues such as domestic violence and pornography. Governments spend millions of pounds on campaigns to change public attitudes to drink-driving and seat belts; the new duty could oblige them to take attitudes to women just as seriously.

It's here that Watson's background as an equality and women's rights campaigner comes to the fore. Katherine Rake, director of the Fawcett Society, points out that Watson developed her political skills in campaigning groups such as Fawcett, Liberty and Charter 88. These credentials make her 'ideally placed to ensure that government commits to gender equality and delivers much-needed change', says Rake.

But Watson, 41, is no hothead. 'I am a feminist in as much as I refuse to be a door mat,' says the former secretary and union activist. Instead of the battle rhetoric of the 1970s, Watson talks of a 'new alliance' between men and women.

Just as women are demanding more opportunities to develop careers, men are seeking more balance between their family and caring roles, says Watson. That needs to be exploited by the government, she says, by making statutory parental leave 'gender neutral', for example.

People who have worked with Watson comment that one reason for her success is her ability to combine her undoubted passion (for singing as well as campaigning – she is a London Philharmonic chorister) with timely and strategic doses of pragmatism.

Her old colleagues in the unions and the Fawcett Society were vocal last week in criticising the WWC's reluctance to impose compulsory equal pay audits. But Watson warns against too much formal red tape. Instead, she urges self-regulation, flexibility and pay amnesties – giving employers with a problem time to sort it out.

'It's about being strategic and identifying the issues that are important in your organisation, and then working out how you're going to deliver that, rather than about having a standard form that you have to fill in,' she says. 'We don't want to have regulation for the sake of regulation.'

The former National Union of Students officer readily admits to taking a 'what works' approach to political reform. 'It would be possible in any kind of situation to spend a lot of time on having a good plan, but actually what's important is that things change.'

While the bookies' hot tip for the top job at the new Commission for Equality and Human Rights is current CRE head Trevor Phillips, they could be in for a surprise. Watson is diplomatically silent on the subject, but with the recent flurry of government activity on gender equality (even Meg Munn is rumoured to be due a Cabinet position and a pay rise), who knows? We might even get more men making the tea.

PFmar2006

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