What do women need to be free?

Recorded at the Battle of Ideas festival 2024 on Saturday 19 October at Church House, Westminster.

ORIGINAL INTRODUCTION

The fight for women’s freedom has taken many forms – legal battles, policy wars, grassroots campaigns, stunts and setbacks. The difference in women’s experiences and opportunities from the postwar generation to today’s Gen Zers is stark. Women’s equality with men is now almost totally enshrined in law, but social norms regarding a woman’s place in public life have also become much more liberal. And yet, after all the waves of feminism – complete with allies and t-shirts – many argue that women still aren’t free in 2024.

Some point to remaining issues with women’s legal position in society. It might be formally illegal to pay women different wages to men for the same work, but expectations around motherhood, and eye-watering childcare costs, mean that many women don’t get the opportunity to reach as high or earn as much as their male peers. Pro-choice campaigners point to centuries-old law relating to abortion, which forbids women from making decisions about their own bodies, or restrictive healthcare policy relating to contraception, which likewise hampers women’s independence.

For others, the barriers to women’s freedom are more visceral – relating to fears about women’s safety in the face of male violence. Poor rates of rape convictions, high numbers of sexual-assault complaints and many women reporting everyday general harassment – from catcalling to flashing – all paint a picture of fear and uncertainty for women’s safety. Campaigners say the solution to this is greater state protections, from criminalising misogyny to tougher jail sentences for sexist crimes. Others point to old arguments from past women’s liberation movements, which rejected state paternalism as a solution to male violence.

And then there are some who make a more existential point about women’s freedom – that the experiences and expectations of the two sexes remain unequal. The idea that men aren’t as good as women at cooking, cleaning and watching the kids might seem cliché, but for many it remains true. Likewise, from beauty standards and teenage girls’ obsession with their weight to yummy mummies, trad wives and girl bosses, many women say they feel they’re constantly being held to a higher standard than their male friends.

What do women need to be free, and why does it seem so hard to achieve? Should we accept that the remaining hurdles will simply take time to iron out naturally? Is a new feminism, often focused on women’s feelings, getting in the way of talking about the nuts and bolts of women’s liberation? Is there a difference between women’s safety and women’s freedom – is one impossible without the other? And what changes could be made, from free childcare to decriminalising abortion, that might cement a future of freedom for women?

SPEAKERS
Felice Basbøll
project assistant, Ideas Matter; student, Trinity College Dublin

Julie Bindel
journalist; author, Feminism for Women: the real route to liberation; feminist campaigner; podcast host, Julie in Genderland

Heather Binning
founding director, Women’s Rights Network

Dr Ashley Frawley
sociologist; author, Significant Emotions and Semiotics of Happiness

David Goodhart
head of demography unit, Policy Exchange; author The Care Dilemma: Caring enough in the age of sex equality and The Road to Somewhere

CHAIR
Ella Whelan
co-convenor, Battle of Ideas festival; journalist; author, What Women Want