# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The physical and mental health of women in the UK is compromised every day by a healthcare system that discriminates against them twice over. Diagnosis and treatment is based on male-centred research that ignores females' different biology; and gender stereotypes and biased medical textbooks lead to women's ill health being disbelieved and taken less seriously than men's. For the first time WE are putting sex and gender at the centre of healthcare policy to support healthier outcomes all round - from access and provision to treatment and support.

WE stand for:

Transforming medical research and treatment

Women are disbelieved and dismissed by the health system - females are rarely used in biomedical research and trials because of "hormonal interference", therefore we don't understand the effect of drugs on women, who are 60% more likely to react to prescription drugs than men. Public health programmes and diagnostic criteria for heart disease and attacks emphasise symptoms experienced by men, despite this being one of the leading causes of death of women in Britain.

WE will establish a health research institute for women and girls to invest in careful research and medical testing on females, and spearhead research on reproductive health throughout women's lives. The institute will investigate any conditions or symptoms disproportionately experienced by women. WE will update regulations and standards for the approval of clinical and pre-clinical trials to require them to systematically account for sex differences. For all existing medication, WE will require labelling to make it clear if testing and analysis has taken account of sex differences. WE will review and reform medical curricula so that medical students learn to identify and treat diseases and conditions as they present in women, including gender bias and how that intersects with other inequalities including race, age, social class and disability. WE will introduce quotas for commissioners of research (such as NICE, universities and government representatives) to have 50% women on their decision-making boards.

A new approach to mental health services

Mental health is framed as a biomedical issue yet inequality and discrimination play a big role in mental ill-health. Women are more likely to experience violence, to live in poverty, to live alone (particularly in older age) and to be carers for other people, all of which contribute to poorer mental health. Almost twice as many women as men are likely to be diagnosed with anxiety disorders and 75% of those diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder are women.

WE will update the Mental Health Act to comply with international human rights legislation and ensure that people are not harmed or abused within services. WE will prioritise trauma-informed therapies, focusing on the causes of mental health issues rather than symptoms. WE will work towards having a mental health lead in every GP practice and ensure access to non-medical crisis housing as an alternative to mental health acute wards. In line with our Equal Education policies, WE will address early gender stereotyping that damages everyone. WE will ensure every school has a mental health nurse and ring-fence funding for Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) specialist services.

Gynaecological, reproductive and sexual health

Gynaecological research has focused on female bodies as reproductive vessels rather than for health or pleasure. Little is understood about vaginal conditions and there are medical textbooks that omit the clitoris entirely. WE will reverse cuts to specialist sexual and reproductive health (SRH) services, immediately suspend vaginal mesh surgeries in all parts of the UK and follow up on the Westminster Government's investigation. WE will invest in research into effective and pain-free solutions to pelvic organ prolapse and investigate the prevalence of the so called "husband stitch".

WE will require every GP practice to have at least one woman GP and will educate health professionals to ensure that cervical screening is offered to all women, trans men and intersex people. WE support a fully-funded NHS-provided fertility treatment service that is equitable and non discriminatory. Pre-menopausal women will be offered egg freezing before beginning damaging cancer treatments and WE will ask women engineers and designers to review medical equipment. WE will review regulations for 'feminine hygiene products' and bring in legislation to protect women taking sick leave resulting from menstruation or menopause.

Human rights and consent in childbirth and maternity care

Having a baby is the most common reason for admission to hospital in England, but maternity care represent only around three percent of health spending. Suicide is the biggest killer of women between six weeks and one year after giving birth. The need for woman-centered care, reduced medical interventions, increased support for breastfeeding and continuity of midwifery care is well-evidenced.

WE will make sure all women and their partners have access to perinatal mental health services. WE will develop family-integrated care models in neonatal services so that mothers are not separated from their premature or sick babies. As pregnant women are at an increased risk of domestic abuse (which also increases the risk premature and underweight babies) the model must incorporate prioritisation of mothers' agency and wellbeing. Black, Asian and ethnic minority women, working class and poor women are more likely to die in childbirth than white wealthier women; WE call for urgent investigation and for outreach programmes to ensure early access to maternity services. WE will end the relocation of asylum-seeking women by the UK Border Agency during and shortly after pregnancy and create parity of care for women in the criminal justice system.

WE will put the International Code Against Marketing of Breast Milk Substitutes into UK law and require employers to provide breastfeeding breaks (and safe, private and clean areas for feeding, expressing and storing milk) to support the 80% of women who give up breastfeeding before they want to.

Equality in health to end violence against women

Survivors of gender-based violence are more likely to have poor physical and mental health.

Working with professional health bodies and specialist violence against women (VAWG) services, WE will incorporate training, information and support for GP practices and healthcare workers to improve identification and signposting of different forms of VAWG, including inspection criteria on best practice monitoring and intervention.

WE will guarantee refugees and immigrants the right to an interpreter to support their access to all health care services. Yarl's Wood detention centre should be closed down, adequate physical and mental health care must be immediately provided to the women detained.

Equality in aging and end of life care

Women live longer than men and make up a larger portion of the older age population, and are more likely to spend more time in ill health. The care commitments that women disproportionately take on over their lifetime is a risk factor for developing dementia, the leading cause of death for British women. In heterosexual couples, men are less likely to take on domestic work which makes it more difficult for women to access support services.

WE will review health, care and equalities legislation to ensure that the rights of those living with dementia are upheld. WE will ensure that people who opt to die at home are given properly funded support to avoid end-of-life care falling to women. WE will support community-based approaches to end of life care, such as "compassionate cities", which join up services including hospices, churches and charities. Working with organisations like Changing Places, WE will install a national network of accessible public toilets, so disabled and older people are not forced to use catheters or risk dehydrating in order to use public spaces.

Building a workforce for the future

Women are the backbone of our National Health Service (NHS), making up around three quarters of the workforce in each of the nations of the UK. But only 15 to 16% of Chairs of Clinical Commissioning Groups in England, which make local health service funding decisions, are women; and only 15 out of the 100 highest paid consultants in Scotland are women. In order to create an equitable workplace for women it is vital to tackle the gender pay gap, lack of flexible working, and the bullying and harassment reported by 24% of NHS England staff.

WE will end pay restraint, reinstate the bursary for student nurses and midwives, and negotiate with the British Medical Association (BMA) and junior doctors for a fair and equitable contract that does not discriminate against women, who are more likely to have caring responsibilities. WE will introduce quotas for women as senior managers and directors, consultants, surgeons and specialists, and introduce criteria in the relevant national inspectorates to report on the progress of trusts and quotas for male nurses and caring assistants, to improve balance at all levels. WE will work with professional bodies and the workforce to make the NHS a leader in flexible and part-time working, including training opportunities, and to attract staff back from agencies. WE will adopt a migration policy that allows the NHS to recruit and retain European staff.

Giving women equal access to sterilisation as a permanent contraception

Men have the freedom of choice to have a vasectomy, yet women are restricted regarding tubal occlusion. Women need permission of their husband and GP and will only be considered after all other avenues (including discussing vasectomy) have been tried and resulted in clinical contraindications. Women who wish to remain childless are forced to take hormone-affecting medication, use intrusive barrier methods, abstain, or run the risk of unwanted pregnancy.

WE will treat women's choices in terms of permanent contraception through sterilisation on the same terms as men's choices.

Protecting the long-term sustainability of the NHS

The sustainability of the NHS is a deeply gendered political issue as women make up 89% of nurses and 90% of support staff; the NHS relies on 97,000 women from overseas (of whom 47,000 come from the EU and EEA). The NHS is underfunded because the UK does not value care - which is primarily the work of women, who most often provide this unpaid.

WE will adopt the recommendations of Lord Patel's cross-party committee, including creating an independent Office for Health and Care Sustainability to identify the healthcare needs of a changing and ageing population - including a long-term staffing and funding plan. This will address salaries of low-paid staff; morale and retention, a bureaucracy and regulation review that includes a strategy for technology and innovation (in order to promote best practice and administration), whilst maintaining a tax-funded, free-at-the-point-of-use model to deliver health services now and in the future.

Developing Social care policies

The impact of funding cuts on essential local services (supporting disabled children, adults and carers in the community) disproportionately affected women because a greater proportion of disabled people are women (54.4%), more family carers are women (72%), and most professionals working in the care sector are women (80% plus). Public spending on adult social care is set to fall to less than 1% of GDP. We have to find a way to plug the estimated £2.6 billion funding gap and stop critical frontline services from being withdrawn along with the professionals leaving and the impact upon vulnerable families.

Long term these cuts do not save money, requiring more expensive care and/or hospital admission later. We must agree a longer-term investment plan that recognises our pledge to spend equally on social infrastructure as on physical infrastructure because WE understand that spending on social infrastructure is an investment in women and in our national economy.

WE are developing social care policies to incorporate into our Equality in Health policies.
Read our policies on healthcare in full >>

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The physical and mental health of women in the UK is compromised every day by a healthcare system that discriminates against them twice over. Diagnosis and treatment is based on male-centred research that ignores females' different biology; and gender stereotypes and biased medical textbooks lead to women's ill health being disbelieved and taken less seriously than men's.

# data[].attributes.body
Here I gathered some research on the women's equality rights and read up on their aims and objectives on how they're standing up for equality within the medical industry. This was an interesting read to find out what other people are doing about the topic and also how they're targeting/ debating the issues.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The conversation surrounding 'gender equality' is ongoing and important-but there's something missing.

In , in the , in classrooms and in boardrooms, important and historic conversations are taking place. The narrative surrounding gender equality, a conversation seemingly as old as time itself, has taken center stage in the global consciousness bringing new eyes and a new generation of leaders and advocates to the fore.

There is however an important distinction that needs to be understood-gender equality and gender equity are related terms but have different meanings. While the words sound similar, the definitions and practical usage are different.

At Pipeline™, the word 'equity' is dual-purpose. Related to gender and the workplace, equity sets the stage for equality, as it refers to the "fairness of treatment for both women and men, according to the their respective needs." If equality is the end goal, equity is the means to get there.

"Gender equality, equality between men and women...does not mean that women and men have to become the same, but that their rights, responsibilities and opportunities will not depend on whether they were born male or female. Gender equity means fairness of treatment for men and women according to their respective needs. This may include equal treatment or treatment that is different but which is considered equivalent in terms of rights, benefits, obligations, and opportunities." -United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization ()

The word 'equity' also has deep financial implications. In the world of business, a broad definition of equity is the financial value of an asset after subtracting the value of liabilities. At Pipeline™, we tie an increase in financial performance for companies to closing the gender equity gap. In an era where increasing of women are exiting the workforce, and where there is a $2 Trillion GDP gap in the United States, there is money to be made on both sides of the fence-for female employees and for the enterprise.

SIGN UP: Get your company's free Equity Baseline™ report. Find out where you score on five DEI KPIs.

The dual meaning of the word equity presents both a challenge and an opportunity for business. A challenge because the distinction between gender equity and gender equality is unclear to most people, and bringing clarity and purpose to this conversation is an important step along the path to eliminating the gender equity gap. An opportunity because we now have the insights to open the eyes of individuals and business leaders as to this distinction, thereby making it possible to move forward along the journey to gender equality in the workplace.

Once there is broad awareness of the opportunity, we can work together to take positive steps toward its realization.

The goal at Pipeline™ has always been to address and solve the issues surrounding gender equity and to monetize its impact on business. Clarifying the subtle but important distinction between the terms gender equity and gender equality is a small, first step toward realizing this economic opportunity.
RELATED: Is the Labor Force Shortage Affecting Your Company? If It's Not Now, It Will Soon
Shedding light on these differences, bringing men into the conversation, and opening up space for intelligent dialogue and healthy tension will bring us closer to the objective of closing the gender equity gap in our lifetime.
Schedule Your Demo: Click Here
© 2018 Pipeline Equity, Inc.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Gender Equity Vs. Gender Equality: What's the Distinction?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Understand the subtle but important distinction between gender equity and gender equality. It is an integral step toward closing the gender equity gap.

# data[].attributes.body
I then decided to go and do some research into the difference between equity and equality.

I feel this helped me understand the difference between the two words and how they effect society as we often get the two mixed up.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Many parents are tired of the pink and blue divide in the toy aisles. Just last month, the White House held a conference on gender stereotypes in toys and media, with many toy manufacturers and experts attending. After feedback, Target announced in 2015 that it would get rid of signs labeling toys for boys or for girls. A UK campaign called Let Toys Be Toys seeks to get retailers to stop categorizing toys and books for one gender only.

Developmental psychologists and sociologists are happy to finally see pushback from parents. Researchers have worried about the impact of having toys that were so segregated by gender for some time, says Lisa Dinella, associate professor at Monmouth University and Principal Investigator of the Gender Development Laboratory.

Clearly divided pink and blue aisles with dolls and tea sets on one side and trucks and building blocks on the other is actually a pretty recent development. As recently as the 1970s, toys sold in the US were not always marketed with clear gender distinctions.
Could sourdough bread be the answer to the gluten sensitivity epidemic?
"Marketers recognized that it was not a good time to use gender stereotypes to sell products because of the greater conversation at the time around gender," explains Elizabeth Sweet, a lecturer in sociology at the University of California, Davis.

Advertisements from the 1970s showed kids playing with a variety of toys in bright, happy colors like red, green or yellow. By the 1980s and 1990s however, there was a backlash against feminism, says Sweet, and toys started to become more gender segregated, though it was still not like the sharply divided pink and blue aisles of today.

While it may seem like a trivial issue, toys help children to learn new skills and develop intellectually, says Dinella. Dolls and pretend kitchens are good at teachings kids cognitive sequencing of events and early language skills. Building blocks like Lego and puzzles teach spatial skills, which help set the groundwork for learning math principals down the line. "Both genders lose out if we put kids on one track and they can't explore," says Dinella.

Dolls also teach kids empathy and how to take care of another person, says Christia Spears Brown, an associate professor at the University of Kentucky and author of Parenting Beyond Pink and Blue: How to Raise Your Kids Free of Gender Stereotypes.

Gender preferences for toys only show up after children learn about their gender. Babies show no preference, Brown says.

In fact, when it comes to the actual toys kids like to play with, there is more variability within a gender than there is between genders, says Sweet. For example, she points out that studies of young children have shown that boys are no more likely than girls to enjoy playing with a toy with wheels, something traditionally given to boys.

Between ages three to five, gender is very important to children, says Brown. So when children see clearly divided aisles with reinforced gender cues like pink or blue toys, they pay careful attention. Children also take a lot of cues from each other.

In experiments, if you take a truck and show a girl a group of other girls playing with the truck, that girl will be more likely to play with it and see it as a girl's toy, according to Brown.

Little kids also tend to think in a "black and white way" and try to be "very typical for their gender", explains Brown.

For example, in one experiment, researchers took toys that kids had not seen before and put them in stereotypical girl boxes or stereotypical boy boxes and gave them to a group of children. Girls played with the toys in the girl boxes and boys gravitated to the toys in the boy boxes. Both genders focused on the toys in the boxes meant for their gender and did not pay much attention to toys marked for the opposite gender.
Continuing to limit access to birth control would wreak economic havoc
Around ages four to five, children learn that their gender is constant and become more flexible with what types of toys they will play with, says Brown. Some parents try to introduce other types of toys and get away from the strictly pink and blue divide.

But it's hard for parents to ignore the marketing and get their kids toys or costumes meant for the other gender, says Dinella. While some parents try to broaden the toys their children are exposed to, there is often a social cost to the child for crossing gender boundaries, Dinella explains.

"Every decision that is made about a kid's birthday theme, clothing you chose - each decision ... comes with a social cost that the child will pay," she says. " So it is hard for parents to throw out the rules."

Creating co-ed toys has gone in the wrong direction, says Brown, citing the Little People School Bus: "Now there is a pink version of the school bus," asking incredulously why a toy company would give something without a gender, like a school bus, a gender signifier.

It may seem counterintuitive to see toys become so dramatically gender segregated at a time when, for example, women make up the majority of college students. Brown hypothesizes that whenever there are a lot of cultural changes in one direction, there is a backlash in another direction.

It's not just the pink and blue boxes that have invaded toy marketing in recent years: it's also the proliferation of princesses and superheroes.

Dolls for girls in the 1960s had traditional women's roles at the time - like homemaker and mother - while boys' action figures had professions like scientist, engineer or cowboy.

In recent years, as women have become a major part of the workforce, you might expect that girls' dolls would predominantly have professions that mirror those of the working mothers who buy them for their kids. Instead, says Sweet, there has been a move to fantasy roles, with many dolls becoming princesses and popstars and action figures becoming superheroes.

While kids enjoy playing princess and superhero, the roles are "adult ideas of what kids want", says Sweet. They are "exaggerations of masculinity and femininity".

For both boys and girls, the occupations of their dolls have become unrealistic, says Sweet, which is unfortunate as dolls give children a chance to try on professions. Unless you are Kate Middleton, the odds are you didn't grow up to be a princess.

As tastes evolve, all three researchers hope that one day, toys will stop being broken up by gender and will instead be categorized by type, like puzzle toys, dolls or children's bikes. There would still be dress-up dolls and monster toy trucks in that world, but instead of being just pink or blue and segregated to different aisles, they would come in every color of the rainbow and be marketed to all kids.

Toy choices, Sweet says, should be based on kids' personal interests, and not on their gender.

"All toys are gender neutral," says Brown. "What is not neutral is the way toys are marketed."
Topics

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Are gendered toys harming childhood development?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Many parents are tired of the pink and blue divide in the toy aisles. Just last month, the White House held a conference on gender stereotypes in toys and media, with many toy manufacturers and experts attending. After feedback, Target announced in 2015 that it would get rid of signs labeling toys for boys or for girls.

# data[].attributes.body
I wanted to start looking into how gendered toys may effect society and how they could effect how we grow and take preferences into things as adults.

I'm not too sure if i'm going to take this into my work or writing however, i feel it could benefit the writing in some way.