Writing as I do about life of females in England, it is clear that there is no such thing as magic wishes. However there is one aspect of these three ideals, rather than wishes that are achievable. Yesterday I took a short journey in Canada to a small town near Lake Ontario. I was looking for a bus timetable for a friend who collects them from across the globe. As I parked I walked to the town hall. I entered to ask for directions. There I found a female working on the security desk. This may not seem unusual, excepting there were no males on the security desk just her alone. Given the nature of the male dominance in that particular career in England, it is rare to see a female alone on a security desk of any sort. Usually there may be a female with a male colleague. I was struck that this to me was worthy of note. As though in fifty years in England, Women working alone in security was something that I rarely saw. The female, smartly dressed and sat at the station desk, answered my request for direction to the bus station and I mentioned that I was looking for a bus timetable as a gift. She produced a crisp timetable from her uninform jacket pocket and handed it to me. ‘Here you case have mine I shall pick one up from the station later !’ I smiled and thanked her. Having located the gift I decided to find a coffee shop, there in the Main Street the cutest independent coffee store with its distinctive heritage Wooden painted store front. As I went inside the cafe was owned and run by a group of females. The selection of coffee and foods and deli counter were artfully presented, the clients lovely mixture of local people, all enjoying their coffees, snacks, chat, papers. As I drank my single espresso and butter tart, I wondered what the country did to make towns places for women to work so successfully and independently as entrepreneurs and security and likely other professions, more usually associated with male dominance.
I realise that the country is the meeting of two counties in its history, England and France. It is the perfect combination, of the egalitarian traditions of the republic, with the entrepreneurial spirt of England the creative Island. I had noticed also in America on my stopover that the staffing balance at the airport was very gender equal. At the border control, security and across the airport! The constitutional nature of America and the gender balance that has developed from that across the the country, both in entrepreneurial and governance spaces.
In England I too see that there is a real move to encourage women into these areas, yet there seems to be a real difference. Women have to be living in a statutory framework that is safe. They cannot live within family structures where abuse and Rape is legal or effectively legalised, due to Police and governance turning a blind eye, or worse still employing perpetrators. When women are safe they flourish ! I am sure that this also makes society safer for men too. In these snapshots I see that in England, the extreme focus on state security, has not been balanced with the improvements to case law for the safety of women and children. These improvements are essential in my view to encourage functioning, flourishing communities, economies and famillies. The idea that rape in marriage, such an archaic law is still in existence in England, along with Murder rates of males killing women, that are so high they rarely make headlines anymore, I believe make are directly correlated to the lack of equity between males and females in the country. Both in terms of pay and career progression. It is also of course reflected in the health and longevity of males and females. Males who are free to abuse in such ways without legal consequence, often have issues with guilt and shame and the associated risks of suicide. Women suffer high rates of post traumatic stress, anxiety, depression and the loss of income and negative health effects from self medicating or psychiatric medicating that both have very real dangerous physical health outcomes.
I would like to see such improvements in England, they are truly possible, yet there is one barrier. Iran and England are two states in the world that religion is integral in state rather than constitution. This simple fact means that such changes to bring equity to the country are much more difficult to deliver. Both Canada, America and France have Christianity within the countries, yet it is not part of their state. This simple fact is the underlying problem for women in England. Until marriage holds the same protections from abuse that non married women have, there is going to be very significant inequality. That is not to say that anywhere in the Bible it suggests that raping and attacking wives is acceptable. Rather that in patriarchal societies it is more likely to occur and when structural state religions are patriarchal in nature, as both Iran and England are. There are very severe issues for women and children living within those societies. Shining a light on these difficult subjects is really the only way to improve matters. Yet sometimes there has to be an acceptance that change for some states, in the same way that change in abusers, is just not possible. That chances for that change are over. Sadly for me that chance for England is over. The very significant changes required to bring about meaningful developments, are likely unachievable for the state…? Facilities for males are now widely advertised for refuge, Yet before I arrived in Canada there was not one refuge place during the run up to the second court case for a English woman in the entire country. As usual the services are about gender violence from a male lense, before addressing the huge numbers of women, beaten raped and murdered every year.