SMALL ACTS OF RESISTANCE: AUSTERITY IS A FEMINIST ISSUE
Academic Elaine Craddock announced in 2017 that 'Austerity is a feminist issue' (2017, p. 69). Austerity, with the financialization and marketization of the social and cultural aspects of our lives has led to the dismantling of the welfare state and crumbling health and social care and local service provision, the consequences of which have predominantly affected women (Cooper and Whyte, 2017, Karamessini and Rubery, 2014, Mendoza, 2015, Seymour, 2014). It is a political policy inflicted upon the UK by the coalition and subsequently current Conservative government since 2010, and has had, according to Philip Alston, (2019) the UN’s Special Rapporteur on Human Rights, ‘tragic social consequences’ (2019, p. 2) and continues to have a devastating effect on the most vulnerable in our society, with women being disproportionately affected (Craddock, 2010, Cooper and Whyte, 2017, Women’s Budget Group, 2018,).
Additionally, with the after-effects of the recent Covid-19 pandemic, now being felt across the world, and Brexit in the UK, thirteen years of austerity measures are further compounded, with women once again being most negatively affected by the outcomes of increasing unemployment, higher poverty levels and escalating gender inequality (Fawcett Society, 2021, JRF, 2022, WBG, 2022, WRC, 2020,). Women have been disproportionately affected by austerity.
IPT's next project #SmallActsOfResistance looks to find ways to respond to the violence of austerity using non-violent creative methodologies. Watch this space...
Happy May Day Comrades!
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