BE SISTERLY... AND STYLISH
Anya Hindmarch, Alice Temperley, Aspinal — British designers are joining forces to support women, and here’s how you can too
1 GIRL POWER
THIS month’s fashion trend is shopping for a good cause, as brands come out in force to mark International Women’s Day on Monday, March 8. The event, recognised by the United Nations, celebrates women’s progress in society, and this year it promises to be bigger than ever before.
You’ll be helping to change the lives of young women everywhere by giving them the skills they need to live, earn and learn when you buy gorgeous goodies from labels including Anya Hindmarch, Elemis, Baukjen and Phase Eight (main picture), in aid of the Women Supporting Women initiative at The Prince’s Trust.
Charity patron and founder of The White Company Chrissie Rucker is leading the charge on its Change A Girl’s Life campaign.
For more information, visit princes-trust.org.uk
Kiss bracelet and earrings, £65 (£20 donation), thewhitecompany.com; Sonny T-shirt, £45 (£20 donation March 2 to 8), baukjen.com; Elemis x Olivia Rubin Pro-Collagen Rose & Relax Duo, £55 (£5 donation March 1 to 9), elemis.com
2 BLOOMING GOOD!
BRITISH brand Aspinal of London has partnered with online florist Bloom & Wild to invite the public to nominate women who inspire them. Ten winners will receive a three-month subscription to Bloom & Wild and limited-edition gifts from Aspinal of London’s new gardening capsule collection (pictured). Know someone who makes a difference to the lives of those around them and is due a little treat? Nominate them at bloomandwild. com/aspinal between March 8 and 14. Just in time for Mother’s Day!
3 HELPING HANDS
THE countdown to International Women’s Day has begun, and to celebrate, watch brand Fossil is teaming up with female-owned businesses around the world, including Bristol-based artist Naomi Wilkinson, and giving them a space to showcase their products across its social media platforms throughout March. It has also launched an updated version of its Gabby watch in honour of the day (right, £99, fossil.com).
4 BEAUTY OF KINDNESS
EVERY year since 2013, Bobbi Brown Cosmetics has launched a Pretty Powerful product for International Women’s Day. This year it’s releasing an embroidered make-up pouch (£52, bobbibrown.co.uk) in partnership with British womenswear brand Needle & Thread. It contains some bestsellers, including a mini Smokey Eye mascara and Pot Rouge in Powder Pink. The full RRP (minus VAT) will be donated to the charity Smart Works, which provides interview clothes and training for unemployed women in need.
5 SPARKLING SYMBOL
Featuring the female symbol and crafted from recycled 14-karat gold and labgrown diamonds, sustainable brand Matilde’s Deusa ring (£450, matildejewellery.com) has been specially designed for March 8.
ten per cent of all sales of this ring will go towards supporting Plan international uK, which supports the rights of girls around the world.
6 WRITING FOR RIGHTS
FASHION meets lifestyle in a chic collaboration between womenswear label Lily And Lionel and luxury card and stationery brand Katie Leamon. This month, both female-owned businesses are donating 15 per cent of sales from the Heirloom stationery collection, featuring floral-print notebooks (£24.95, katieleamon.com/c/heirloom), to mark both International Women’s Day and Mothers’ Day. Proceeds go to gender equal rights charity Equality Now.
7 WINNING STATEMENT
the Dare Knit Jumper by temperley London, with its ‘she who dares wins’ slogan, has been relaunched for March 8. the iconic knit (£185, temperleylondon. com), from British designer alice temperley, is an ‘homage to strong, powerful, intellectual and passionate women’, and has been worn by celebrities such as Jodie Kidd and Jennifer Lopez.
8 STYLE AID
VALLE & Vik will donate 10 per cent of all proceeds from sales of its chic separates (from £35, valleandvik. com) throughout March to Women’s Aid, a domestic violence charity which provides life-saving services for victims of abuse. The luxury Norwegian brand is sustainable, too, so you’ll know you’re being kind to the planet while doing good.
9 Merino jumper, £165, and stretch skinny trousers, £175, thefold london.com CAREER GOALS
British brand the Fold is launching an exclusive fashion edit, curated by commercial lawyer thandi Maqubela, as part of its mission to inspire women to achieve their goals. in addition, through its Pay it Forward campaign you can refer a friend to the label during March and both receive 15 per cent off, and a £5 donation will be made to the charity smart Works, which helps unemployed women get back into work (thefoldlondon.com/refer-a-friend).
LET me take you back to a younger, less jaded, far less saggy version of me. The year was 2013, and I was working on a year-long project for a children’s charity in the North-East, something I took great pride in. About a month in, I discovered I was expecting my first child and informed my employer.
The following day, they sacked me by voicemail. No reason was given. My manager, a woman, simply said my contract was being pulled and I needed to hand everything over immediately.
The shock was unfathomable. Then the terror kicked in; I had my share of the rent and bills to pay and not working meant I wouldn’t even qualify for the measly statutory maternity pay of £151 a week. I found a lawyer and sent them a letter — at a cost of £250 — demanding compensation, which they duly binned.
The only option remaining was to start legal proceedings for a tribunal, which would cost £9,000 — money I didn’t have.
The following day, at a routine hospital appointment, I discovered my cervix had almost vanished and my tiny, four-month-old baby was hanging on by a thread. After surgery, they urged me to take things easy to save my son, saying: ‘Whatever you do, don’t get stressed.’
FORCEd to choose between the health of my unborn child and accessing the justice I deserved, I dropped the case. Luckily, Theodore, now seven, was born perfectly healthy two days after his due date, but my rage at being paralysed by an unfair system grew.
Hearing the stories of other mothers who had experienced discrimination, I launched my website Pregnant Then Screwed in 2015.
There was the woman whose employer forced her to do a shot of vodka every morning to prove she wasn’t pregnant, the pregnant woman asked by her boss if she had considered an abortion. And I heard from one mum on maternity leave who received an email sent to her by mistake which said: ‘Sack her, she won’t cause a fuss, she’ll be too exhausted from caring for a newborn.’
Perhaps worst of all, I spoke to one woman who was bullied so viciously by her colleagues that she went into labour prematurely; when she was in the neonatal clinic with her baby, who could have died, her boss called and made her redundant.
I wrote my new book to highlight this shocking treatment and the price women pay throughout their career the second they decide to have a child.
Not only are 54,000 women a year pushed out of their job for daring to have a baby, but 77 per cent of working mothers experience discrimination in the workplace. Only 1 per cent of women who face this type of discrimination even raise a tribunal claim since, just like me, they find accessing any form of justice almost impossible.
For those who kick up a fuss and threaten legal action, the majority are forced to sign a non-disclosure agreement in return for a small payout. They are gagged from ever speaking publicly about the discrimination they faced. This crisis could have been averted if Conservative MP Maria Miller’s recommendations had been adopted by the Government. She campaigned for a mother’s legal right to have her job protected for six months after her maternity leave but has been largely ignored. At Pregnant Then Screwed, we have given legal advice to nearly 32,000 working mums who have faced discrimination since the pandemic began. The ‘motherhood penalty’ is a term used by sociologists to describe the disadvantages mothers face in the workplace. We’ve all heard of the gender pay gap, but the pay gap between mothers and childless women is more than that between men and women without children. Research by the International Labour Office found that in the UK, the pay gap between mothers with two children and nonmothers is 25 per cent across their lifetime. As for the gender pay gap, by the time a woman’s first child is 12 years old, her hourly pay rate is 33 per cent behind a man’s, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies.
We have the second most expensive childcare system in the world resulting in one in three mums paying to go to work. Understandably, many feel forced to walk away from their career. The system is rigged to drive women back to the kitchen sink.
Speaking of which, women do so much more housework and childcare than men that many take on part-time work — paid on average £5 less an hour — to cope. And then we wonder why a married woman’s pension pot is, on average, £186,000 lower than a man’s.
But it’s not as if dads are just shirking their responsibilities. Shared parental leave is so badly cobbled together, only 2 per cent of dads use it; and even when dads ask for flexible working, it is much more likely their employer will refuse. One dad I spoke to was told by his boss: ‘So you’re going to be playing mum for three months? Shall I buy you a dress?’
None of this makes sense morally or economically. The cost of living largely requires two salaries for the average family household. In 2015–16, 43 per cent of children living with one working parent and one non-working parent were in relative income poverty, compared with 11 per cent of children in twoearner households.
Women deserve to have children and a career, just as men do. Men deserve to spend more time with their children. Isn’t it time we created a society where both parents are enabled to share in the challenges and rewards of raising children and developing a career?
The pandemic gives us the chance to reset, to reflect on what is important. Let’s seize this chance to truly level up the playing field of parenthood.
Pregnant then Screwed by Joeli Brearley is published by Simon & Schuster Ltd, £14.99. © Joeli Brearley 2021. to order a copy for £13.19, go to mailshop. co.uk/books or call 020 3308 9193. Delivery charges may apply. Free UK delivery on orders over £20. Offer price valid until March 11, 2021.
‘The system is rigged to push mums out of work