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| @Rosa UK |
Written by Emily Stephens (she/her) for The Rising Womxn Zine
Rosa is a grant-making charity that funds grassroots women’s organisations helping to make the UK fairer and safer for women. We pool funds from companies, individuals, trusts and foundations, and invest in women’s organisations who are working to tackle the issues of our time. These organisations provide a huge breadth of specialist services for women across the UK – including emergency help for victims of domestic and sexual violence, employment training, legal advice, and specialised support for marginalised women. Since 2008, Rosa has awarded more than £4 million to more than 350 women’s organisations across the UK. Rosa UK told us the reason why the charity was created was, ‘the fact that, in 2008, there were no grant-making charities dedicated to investing in the women’s sector, supporting organisations aiming to make the UK fairer and safer for women and girls.’
Specialist women’s organisations are vital because inequality is still everywhere. Examples of the intersectional issues affecting women and girls in the UK include:
- Nearly two-thirds of women aged 18 to 24 have experienced sexual harassment at work. Black and other minoritised women face specific problems in making their complaints about sexual victimisation heard, because racialisation adds to the trauma of sexual harassment and violence
- Women are the majority (66%) of low-paid workers, and Black and other minoritised workers are over a third more likely to be on temporary or zero-hours contracts
- During the pandemic, a lack of childcare has played a role in almost half of women’s layoffs
- There’s no region in England where the average home to rent is affordable for a woman on median earnings
- BME women are more likely to be living in poor households. In 2015/16, 50% of Bangladeshi households, 46% of Pakistani households and 40% of Black African/Caribbean households were living in poverty compared to 19% of White British households
- Migrant women face a triple threat of reporting, detention, and deportation under the No Recourse to Public Funds (NRPF) rule that prevents them from accessing public services
- Black women are five times more likely to die during childbirth
- Violence against women and girls (VAWG) is already recognised as a pandemic by the WHO. But during major health pandemics such as Covid-19, VAWG becomes more severe as women’s insecurities and the vulnerabilities increase. For Black and minoritised women and girls, the risk of violence is also a matter of race.
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| @Rosa UK |
Cuts to public services have led to more women turning to voluntary organisations for help. At the same time, funding cuts to the women’s sector are forcing those specialist organisations to shut down. When they do receive money, it’s often short-term – making it difficult to sustain the work and ultimately slowing down progress.
At the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, a joint survey conducted by Rosa, Women’s Resource Centre and Women’s Fund Scotland found that 70% of specialist women’s organisations are worried about surviving the crisis. 37% of those surveyed were organisations led ‘by and for’ Black and other minoritised women, and more than half of the respondents have an income of less than £100,000.
These specialist organisations led ‘by and for’ Black and other minoritised women are experiencing particularly high demand due to the disproportionate impact of Covid-19 on these communities. Rosa UK said, ‘For many survivors of abuse accessing these specialist services, for example, the abuse intersects with a range of other areas of disadvantage: the threat of deportation, racial discrimination, poverty, forced marriage, trafficking, language and cultural barriers. Many of these women can’t get the support they need from mainstream services.’
Meaningful social change requires working from the margin to the centre. ‘Our grantees are the ones working directly in communities to support women and girls who need it most. It’s only by listening, and sharing knowledge and stories, that we can understand the experiences of women living in the UK today. When we understand the lived experiences of all women, and in turn all people, we have a clearer perspective of what needs to change to benefit society as a whole.’
Rosa’s role as a feminist funder is to recognise women’s organisations are the experts, and amplify their knowledge and voices. ‘In turn, this moves forward our collective effort to influence the hearts and minds of the public and people in power. We hope encouraging people to challenge their beliefs and understand the experiences of a cross-section of people will help to influence policy, dismantle structural inequality, and ultimately create a fairer and more equal society.’
Gender equality is always a topic of debate not only in the UK, but globally. ‘Intersecting inequalities around gender, race, disability, sexuality, gender identity and age are the root causes of the issues affecting women and girls in the UK. VAWG, for example, is intimately linked to women’s persistent inequality, so ending it requires improving women’s economic and social equality – via equal pay, fair housing and welfare policies, and better employment, education and training.’
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| @Rosa UK |
Women’s voices are often forgotten when it comes to decision-making in society. Research from the Fawcett Society’s Sex and Power report reveals the stark inequalities that exist in the UK today. Women now make up 34% of MPs and 30% of Cabinet Ministers – but progress is still too slow. There are no women of colour in the Scottish Parliament, National Assembly for Wales or Northern Ireland Assembly. Only a fifth of senior civil servants participating in the Civil Service Board are women (21%) and just over a third of permanent secretaries (35%). In business, women make up just over one in 20 CEOs of FTSE 100 companies (6%). None of these CEOs are women of colour. Those are just a handful of the report’s findings.
Rosa UK said, ‘Without direct intervention – including quotas, targets, greater flexible working, the collection of intersectional data and improved pay gap reporting – progress will remain far too slow. Campaign groups like The Fawcett Society are the ones pushing for this change. Smaller specialist women’s organisations are also providing support directly into the communities they serve. BelEve, for example, supports young women and girls in Lewisham with mentoring, workshops, and events designed to get more girls to achieve their potential.’
With Black Lives Matter being a focal point for many of us in society at the moment, it is important for us all to support marginalised women and charities that work directly with this community. Rosa UK said, ‘we can’t deal with gender inequality and women’s rights without dealing with race, class, ability, identity, and immigration status, as well as gender. Until we stand in solidarity with all women, no woman will be free from inequality. We know, for example, that structural inequality reproduces disproportionately across diverse communities and worsens existing racial inequalities. We know that right now, specialist organisations run ‘by and for’ Black and other minoritised women are experiencing particularly high demand.’
‘We know that funding cuts over the last 12 years have had a particularly detrimental effect on these often small and community-focused organisations. CHARITYSOWHITE reports that ‘65% of the 9,000 -10,000 BAME charities and community groups operating nationally have an average turnover of less than £10,000 annually’. These services are lifelines for some of society’s most vulnerable women and girls. Supporting them changes and saves the lives of women and girls who often have nowhere else to turn.’
As the topic of gender equality is huge, Rosa are focusing on ‘work’ and asking specifically what does ‘women’s work’ (paid and unpaid) look like now and what could or should it look like in the next decade. ‘This is not because Rosa is planning on shifting its focus to the world of work, but more because we feel this is an area where all women have experience and ideas to contribute.’
Across the UK, there are now more women in paid employment than at any time since records began. The latest figures show the overall employment rate for women was 71%, compared with 80% for men. This translates as 14.8 million women (aged 16 and over) in paid employment, compared to 16.5 million men. (Rosa UK)
Rosa UK is considering what the UK could look like in ten years’ time if there was greater attention paid to tackling gender inequality. ‘We are doing this as part of our work marking ten years of Rosa and looking ahead at how and where we might focus out work supporting women and girls in the future.’
Rosa UK helps to create a supportive network of experts across the women's sector to strengthen grassroots organisations. 'We connect them with donors to discuss ways to tackle emerging issues and enable more effective leadership. By connecting the women's movement, we can increase future sustainability and accelerate the pace of change.' The charity shares their knowledge and that of their grantees with wider society to influence change for women and girls and promote investment in women's organisations. 'We root our support in the women's organisations who are closest to the context, and help them to meet the needs of the women and girls they work with. Whether they need access to resources and training to increase skills or funding to campaign for a specific issue, our application process is simple and acknowledges our applicants as experts.'
To find out more about the work that Rosa UK does, visit https://rosauk.org or their Twitter account, @RosaForWomen
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