Good work from Labour here. From the press release,
Labour will advance women’s health, careers, and legal protections
A re-elected Labour Government will continue its proud tradition of advancing women’s health, employment, and legal rights Spokesperson for Women Jan Tinetti said.
- Extend the age of free breast cancer screening from 69 to 74
- Implement a national endometriosis action plan
- Make cervical screening services free between the ages of 25 to 69 years, saving up to $100 in co-payments.
- Establish an innovation and entrepreneurship scholarship programme for low-middle income women
- Modernised consent law
- Introduce gender pay gap reporting
Full manifesto here. The document covers both what Labour have been doing for women in the past two terms, and what they intend in the next term.
Of note for those following women’s sex based rights this election, the policy document is replete with women’s language.
We also introduced safe areas around
abortion service providers, prohibiting
behaviours that are distressing to the people
accessing or providing these services.
Labour will implement the women’s health
strategy to ensure quality care is provided
for all women. The strategy sets out the long-
term priorities that will guide health entities
towards equity and healthy futures for all
groups of women.One in ten women of childbearing age have
endometriosis. Our health system has not
listened to women when they’ve asked for
help. On average, women visit the doctor
five times over eight years from the start
of their symptoms before they receive a
diagnosis. Throughout this, women endure
pain, reduced quality of life, mental health
challenges, and fertility issues. Labour will put
this right.
We should be supporting Labour on this for a number of reasons.
Women-specific policy matters
It’s a good thing to have a major party producing a policy manifesto specific for women. The more we have women’s issues visible in a proactive way, the more likely we are to get progress.
Women’s language matters
The wide use of women’s language in the document suggests there are quite a number of people in Labour involved in policy development who are not inclined to the extremes of gender identity ideology that insist on removing women’s language and making neutral our existence.
This is good in and of itself, but it also suggests that there are enough people in Labour who can make the necessary changes to legislation and policy going forward to protect women’s sex based rights. We can see how this might work with the shift in UK Labour from hard core genderism to now taking a position that women’s rights matter. That’s thanks to long, hard mahi by women working from a progressive platform within and outside UK Labour.
To get effective protections for women’s rights we need progressives on board because they will write progressive rather than regressive laws and policy. And to get progressives on board, we need progressive arguments and responses.
The right will harm women
National and Act will do immeasurable damage to women even in one term. Act’s welfare policy would put Paula Bennett’s to shame, and both parties want the housing market to pick up again. Women will be disproportionately affected by both. Punitive welfare reform would affect the large numbers of women on the DPB, and those with disabilities. Low income women are disproportionately affected by the housing crisis because of the numbers of women in poverty, they are the main caregivers of children, and women leaving relationships generally do worse off then men. Women on the DPB get hammered from all directions.
NZ First’s list of bullet points for this election contains zero priorities for women apart from a late entry at #31 on sports and single sex spaces. If we want to get up in arms about women’s language (and we should), NZ First’s priorities page contains the word ‘women’ once. Their 2020 election page, still promoted, has no mention of women. They don’t have actual policy, so we have no way of knowing what they will do on issues that affect women in particular. Their late to the game support for women’s sex based rights looks not so much like support for women, as jumping on a vote generating band wagon.
Every vote counts for women
It’s been disappointing to see some gender critical women not even acknowledge these pressing issues for women. Those of us that understand women’s sex based rights in a broader context can take heart from this policy suite from Labour.
For women generally and men who support us, as always, the election isn’t over. Please consider donating time, money, support to the left bloc. Every support matters, every vote counts.
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