News and events
Letter to First Minister Candidates 1/3/2023
We wrote to the candidates for Scotland's next First Minister, Humza Yousaf, Kate Forbes, and Ash Regan, calling them to support work to end all forms of men's violence against women and girls.
The full letter is below.
Dear [candidate name],
We are writing to you regarding your intention to become Scotland’s next First Minister, and to implore you to continue existing work on intersectional gender equality and primary prevention of men’s violence against women and girls.
Zero Tolerance is Scotland’s charity working to end all forms of men’s violence against women and girls (VAWG) by tackling its root cause: gender inequality. For 30 years, we have campaigned to end VAWG and provided expertise on feminist primary prevention approaches to decision makers across the Scottish Government and Parliament.
During our 30 years, we have seen significant progress, including the development of the Equally Safe strategy and the work of the First Minister’s National Advisory Council on Women and Girls. However, we are not there yet. In 2021 – 2022 Police Scotland recorded 2,498 crimes of rape and attempted rape, and 5,359 crimes of sexual assault, and 64,807 incidents of domestic abuse.
To end men’s violence against women, our next First Minister must further existing work and commit to do more to realise equality for all women and girls in Scotland. We ask that each of you make a public commitment to:
- Continue and expand the work of Equally Safe, including committing to sustainable and long-term funding for the prevention of violence against women and services to achieve all the aims of Equally Safe.
- Work to embed gender mainstreaming across all policy and budget decisions in Scotland to ensure all Scottish Government work promotes gender equality.
- Be accountable to the recommendations and scrutiny of the First Minister’s National Advisory Council on Women and Girls.
It is imperative that Scotland have a feminist First Minister who supports equality for all women and girls and is committed to progressive social justice. Anything less would represent a regression on women and girls’ rights.
With all best wishes,
Rachel Adamson, on behalf of Zero Tolerance
Gender Friendly Nurseries Update
We learn a lot about how to behave and what is expected from us before the age of 5. One thing we learn is a difference between how boys and girls behave. We learn gender stereotypes.
Rigid gender stereotypes that give rules on ‘how to be’ a girl or boy can harm all children and further the inequality been men and women.
To support children to fulfil their potential, and be who they are, they need to learn and play in a gender equal way. The Gender Friendly Nursery project aimed to support nurseries in Glasgow to provide this.
What is the Gender Friendly Nursery project?
The project provided training to Early Learning and Childcare settings on understanding and addressing gender inequality. The project gave nurseries the opportunity to become an accredited ‘Gender Friendly Nursery’. This process involved an audit of the nurseries policies and practices.
The project ran in the Greater Glasgow and Clyde area nurseries. By May 2019, 25 nurseries and 35 staff had engaged in the programme.
The training supported workers to:
- Define gender, gender equality, and gender stereotypes.
- Identify gender stereotypes and understand the harm they cause.
- Understand the role of Early Learning and Childcare settings for under-fives in challenging gender stereotypes and securing gender equality.
- Learn how to challenge gender stereotypes.
- Know how to become a Gender Friendly Nursey and the support available.
The training followed a whole school approach, asking nurseries to consider how their leadership, management, resources, and communication with families can nurture gender equality.
What were the successes of the project?
- The training gave people a good understanding of gender stereotyping, its consequences, and how to embed gender equal play into practice.
- The two biggest impacts were the audit tool for book and play activities, and the dedicated time and support for staff to discuss stereotypes.
- Most of the feedback was positive with few suggested changes to the training materials.
What were the challenges?
- Communicating with parents and persuading them of the benefits of gender equal play.
- Few nurseries completed the audit and gained accreditation due staff turnover and high demands on staff time.
- Not all staff saw the need to be more gender equal or understood the benefits.
- Staff struggled to find the time to complete the training and the audit due to their workplaces being under-resourced and understaffed.
- There is a gap between national policy on gender equality and its implementation on the ground.
What did we learn?
- The audit impacted nursery practice but needs to be more flexible so more settings can follow the process.
- Practitioners would benefit from a group for discussing issues and supporting one another.
- Staff need supporting materials to engage effectively with parents on the reason for and benefits of the project.
- The project would benefit from working with partners to build in an intersectional lens, meaning the training would cover different and overlapping inequalities. This would increase Early Learning and Childcare staff’s understanding of gender inequality and other inequalities efficiently.
What happens now?
Early Learning and Childcare environments would benefit from training on gender equality as well as access to mentoring, peer discussions and relevant resources. However, significant resourcing is required to amend and run the programme. You can read further detail and recommendations in the full Gender Friendly Nursery Evaluation.
Glasgow City Health and Social Care Partnership Health Improvement are discussing with Glasgow City Council Education Services the next steps of the Gender Friendly Nurseries programme.
At Zero Tolerance we are exploring how to get the recommendations of the Gender Friendly Nurseries project embedded in Early Learning and Childcare environments across Scotland.
What can you do?
If you live in Glasgow, you can ask your local councillor to support the project.
If you live in Glasgow and would like your nursery to get involved with the project, ask them to contact Ann Logan, Glasgow City HCSP, Health Improvement at Ann.logan@ggc.scot.nhs.uk
If you live elsewhere in Scotland, you can contact your local councillor and let them know you’d support the project being run in your area.
Who was involved in developing the project?
Glasgow City Health and Social Care Partnership (HSCP) Health Improvement developed the Gender Friendly Nurseries Project in partnership with ourselves and:
- Respectme – Scotland’s anti-bullying service
- LGBT Youth Scotland – Scotland’s national charity for LGBTI young people
- Men in Childcare – deliver childcare training for men
- Fathers Network Scotland – aims to improve children's lives through the positive involvement of dads, father-figures & whole families
- Dr Nancy Lombard – Professor in Sociology and Social Policy at Glasgow Caledonian University
A statement from Scottish civil society organisations on the UK Government’s intervention on the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill - 17th January 2023
This week, the UK government announced their intention to block the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill, which was recently passed overwhelmingly in the Scottish Parliament, from becoming law. We, the undersigned, wish to make clear our strong opposition to this intervention and to any suggestion that these reforms would have an adverse effect on the Equality Act or women’s rights.
Too much of the debate around the Bill has been shaped by misinformation on what the bill will actually mean in practice. The majority of human rights, women’s and equalities organisations in Scotland have shown clear, consistent and unified support for this legislation throughout its seven years in development.
Years of detailed analysis by expert organisations in Scotland has considered the impact of the Bill in detail. This work has shown that the legislation will significantly improve the experiences of trans people, protecting them from the harms of a stigmatising and unnecessarily difficult process to access legal paperwork, while having no impact on women’s services, the operation of the Equality Act, or single sex spaces. These findings have been echoed by the Scottish Parliament’s Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee’s own indepth considerations of the Bill.
Specifically, the Equality Act has allowed for protection from discrimination of trans people on the basis of self-identification since its passage into law in 2010. This was the case before the Gender Recognition Reform Bill and will be the case after. Contrary to arguments made during the passage of the Scottish Bill, this legislation makes no changes to whether and when trans women can access women’s spaces. If it is legitimate and proportionate, trans women can already be excluded from single sex services irrespective of whether they have a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC) or not.
The legislation will have no impact on the experience or requirements of rape victims in court.
Violence Against Women (VAW) services in Scotland already operate on the basis of self-ID. Individuals are not required to provide their birth certificates to access services, something that would be hugely harmful. Instead, services have robust safeguarding processes that allow for individuals to be excluded where there are legitimate concerns. Rape crisis services in Scotland have been providing trans inclusive services for 15 years without incident.
It is demoralising to see how trusted and highly experienced experts on equality and providers of services to women — many of whom have provided world-leading services in Scotland for decades — have been drowned out in this debate and denigrated for standing against misinformation.
There are currently a number of very real threats to women’s rights in Scotland and the UK including but not limited to poverty, the cost of living crisis, cuts to services, rape conviction rates, and the experiences of immigrant and refugee women. We find it particularly concerning that so much political and media attention has been devoted to the debate around this Bill in place of tackling these genuine barriers to women’s equality.
Trans people across Scotland have endured seven years of being dangerously misrepresented in public discourse. We are deeply concerned about the impact of misinformation around what this Bill actually does, and the perception that it creates that women’s rights and the rights of trans people are in conflict. They are not.
Our organisations see the paths to equality for women and trans people as being deeply interconnected and dependent on our shared efforts to dismantle patriarchal systems that impose barriers to full equality for us all.
Signed,
Amnesty International
Close the Gap
Engender
Human Rights Consortium Scotland
JustRight Scotland
National Union of Students Scotland
One Parent Families Scotland
Rape Crisis Scotland
Scottish Trades Union Congress
Scottish Refugee Council
Scottish Women’s Aid
Scottish Women’s Convention
Scottish Women’s Rights Centre
Young Women’s Movement
Zero Tolerance
Write to End Violence Against Women Awards 2020 Winners
Thursday 8 December 2022 we hosted our Write to End Violence Against Women Awards in partnership with EVAW. The awards recognise and reward journalists, writers, and content creators across the UK who raise awareness of gender inequality and Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG).
We were delighted to have domestic abuse advocate Luke Hart speak on the night speak in relation to this year's Wooden Spoon Award: reporting that is sympathetic to the perpetrator and fails to name the crime committed. We were also joined by our 2022 judges Jane Dubois, Lexie Kirkconnell-Kawana, Laura Bates. Unfortunately, Samira Ahmed was unable to join us on the night but sent words of congratulations.
A big thank you to everyone who submitted articles for consideration and our steering group for their support and shortlisting.
Winners
Congratulations to all the 2022 winners!
Best Piece - News
Author: Marion Scott
Publication: The Sunday Post
Date: 27.03.2022
Best Piece - Features
Author: Dania Akkad
Title:After #WhereisNoof, Qatari women question how safe they really are
Publication: Middle East Eye
Date: 02.02.2022
Best Piece - Opinion and Comment
Author: Anna Moore
Title: Frank Mullane: how the murder of his sister and nephew changed his life and purpose
Publication: The Guardian
Date: 27.10.2021
Best Piece - Blog and Self-Published
Author: Winnie M Li
Title: The Emotional Labour of Dealing with the Media
Publication: On Road Media
Date: 05.07.2022
Wooden Spoon
Reporting that is sympathetic to the perpetrator and fails to name the crime committed.
We’ve all seen countless examples:
- Describing child sexual assault and abuse as ‘sex’
- Describing perpetrators of violent offences as ‘admirers’ or ‘jilted lovers’
- Reporting neighbours’ descriptions of violent perpetrators as ‘a nice chap’ or ‘family man’
- Framing crimes as perpetrated by men ‘pushed to the edge’ or left with no choice but to commit violence against women due to her words, actions or beliefs
Reporting like this doesn’t just harm the individuals involved in the piece, but promotes and reinforces victim-blaming narratives and beliefs and actively shapes the attitudes and behaviours of society as a whole.
Statement on our 30th Anniversary Event - 1/12/22
On Tuesday, 29th of November 2022, we marked our 30th anniversary with an event to imagine ‘a Scotland free from men’s violence against all women and girls’. We created space to envision this Scotland through the artwork and words of marginalised women, and asked delegates to consider how we can work together to create this Scotland for all women and girls.
We were disappointed by efforts to remove focus from marginalised women’s voices and deeply saddened that following the event our partners representing minority ethnic women have been abused online.
We were heartened by the support in the room to create a safe space for all women. There was a shared commitment to focus on the need for prevention work to recognise compounding inequalities, be inclusive, and consist of mutually beneficial partnership work. We thank these attendees and speakers for their contributions.
We know that to end men’s violence against women and girls we need to be better at centering the experiences of marginalised women. We need to share more of our platform with ‘by and for’ organisations representing women from different communities. We need to develop our understanding of the many forms of violence women of different nationalities, ethnicities, sexualities, as well as disabled, and trans women experience. And we must ensure these experiences are at the centre of prevention work so that it’s effective for all women.
That is what we are focusing on as we work towards a Scotland free of violence against all women and girls. We look forward to working with all who share our vision.
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Zero Tolerance IWD22 Press Release