Newsletter Brighton & Hove High School GDSt
Issue 2 September 2015
Dear Parents and Girls,
Last year, some Sixth Form girls set up a Feminist Society at BHHS. Someone suggested to me that this was a little ‘old-fashioned’ and, perhaps, unnecessary. I wasted no time in putting them straight! Then, this week, the Upper Sixth asked me to speak on their FemSoc re-launch video and so I recounted the facts that I’d presented in argument to my friend: • Women account for two-thirds of all working hours and produce half the world’s food, but earn only 10% of global income and own 1% of property. • Though women make up half the global population, they represent 70% of the world’s poor. • Women and girls aged 15–44 are more at risk from rape and domestic violence than they are war, cancer, malaria and traffic accidents. • At least one in three women around the world has been beaten, coerced into sex or abused in her lifetime. • Between 1.5 million and 3 million girls and women die each year because of gender-based violence. • Between 700,000 and 4 million girls and women are sold into prostitution each year. • 99% of maternal deaths occur in developing countries, with women dying of pregnancy-related causes at the rate of one a minute. • Women account for nearly two-thirds of the world’s 780 million people who cannot read. • 41 million girls worldwide are still denied a primary education. • Globally, only one in five parliamentarians are women. Even if we only concern ourselves with matters closer to home, just this week Sam Smethers, chief executive of the Fawcett Society, called on the government to take action beyond simply publishing pay data in order to level the playing field between men and women in the workplace. Figures show that women still earn on average 19% less than men, more than 40 years after the introduction of the Equal Pay Act in the UK. While women earn 19% less than men on average that gap drops to 9.4% for women in full-time work. The gender pay gap has virtually been eliminated for women aged 18-39 who are in full-time work, but the gap in hourly earnings increases from 40 onwards as women leave the workplace to care for children. And, according to Fawcett, women are less likely to progress up the career ladder: although women make up 47% of the workforce, they account for only 34% of managers, directors and senior officials. So, yes, we still do need feminism (if you need further convincing, I’d encourage you to visit the Everyday Sexism Project : http://www.everydaysexism.com/ ) and I hope that many girls will join BHHS FemSoc to get involved in the debate. Have a good weekend. Jennifer Smith
dates
Monday 14 CRED applications in; Hullabaloo Choir 6:30-9:45pm; Tuesday 15th GDST Southern Rally th
(at BHHS); Wednesday 16th School Council meeting, 12:35pm (604); Thursday 17th Y8 Geography & Biology field trip (all day); PA AGM/Committee meeting, 7pm (Lib 2); Friday 18th Harvest Assembly; Jeans for Genes Day; Saturday 19th Italian for Beginners; Theatre Workshop 2015-16 Issue 2: 1