‘This could be the moment to create change for women’
Post-pandemic world must address gender gap, Sam Smethers tells Margarette Driscoll Equality Check
Imagining a post-pandemic world isn’t easy in the midst of endless Zoom calls and darkness at 4pm. Most of us just want to reclaim the life we had before Covid – but perhaps we should be more ambitious.
Crisis brings opportunity: the Second World War gave birth to a more socially mobile Britain and welfare reforms. The pandemic has the potential to bring similarly seismic social change, says Sam Smethers, outgoing chief executive of the Fawcett Society, the UK’S leading gender equality charity.
Smethers, 51, believes we are at a “coronavirus crossroads”, a crucial point at which we should be deciding what sort of world we want to live in.
“We must not assume everything is going to get worse: we do have a choice,” she says.
The pandemic has had disastrous consequences for the economy – disproportionately affecting women, who are more likely to work in badly hit industries like hospitality and retail. At the same time, statistics show that they have shouldered the majority of the domestic burdens of housekeeping and childcare. This fallout on women’s lives, and a lack of government policy to help mitigate the effects, is the subject of The Telegraph’s Equality Check campaign.
In her job, Smethers has seen much of this up close. But she also thinks the upheaval has fast-forwarded positive change – for men as well as women.
“We have struggled over the years to persuade employers and the Government that flexible working should be the default, and now the crisis has done it for us,” she says. “We have shown that it is possible to succeed while working in a different way. And while women have taken on most of the domestic strain, the time fathers spend caring for their children doubled during lockdown and many want to play a greater role in parenting. This could be the moment to create change.”
Today is Equal Pay Day, usually the most important fixture on the Fawcett Society’s calendar. The charity tracks the gender pay gap each year and marks the day after which women effectively work for free until the end of the year, as they are still (on average) paid less than men – around 83p in every £1. Equal Pay Day 2020 comes six days later than last year, which should be a cause for celebration. Doesn’t it indicate that the pay gap is diminishing?
Smethers shakes her head. Calculations for 2020 have – like so many things – been complicated by the pandemic. The ONS data it relies on were incomplete and she fears the missing figures might include the women worst hit by Covid.
“Women are more likely to be furloughed than men,” she explains. “And many women work in sectors like beauty, which have really been hit hard by both lockdowns. So we don’t feel that we have a true picture.”
So rejoice, but cautiously. Indeed, the society’s “Coronavirus Crossroads” report, published today, sets out some of the dangers we face if the pandemic continues to exacerbate existing inequalities.
The pay gap could widen and take at least 90 years to close, rather than the 60 estimated pre-covid. Without support, the childcare sector could collapse (many nurseries have already had to cut the number of children they can accept to enable social distancing). Jobs in female-dominated sectors could be lost under repeated lockdowns.
Despite that gloomy assessment, though, there are reasons to be hopeful – and Smethers has solutions.
Firstly, she says, flexible working should become the norm. The Fawcett report recommends the Government legislate to make all jobs flexible, unless there is a business requirement not to. Fathers doubling the time they spend on childcare provides another opportunity, and the Government should create paid periods of leave for fathers or second carers.
The requirement for big companies to publish their gender pay gap every April should be extended to include smaller enterprises (and be reinstated for 2021, after it was put on hold during the pandemic).
Lastly, we should pay carers better, not just clap for them.
“We have to have a sustainable solution for the social care sector and that can’t happen when you have a very insecure workforce on very low pay,” she says.
Smethers has been working on women’s issues for 15 years, first at the Equal Opportunities Commission and for five years at Fawcett – from which she will step down in December.
When she started, it was hard to interest anyone in fighting for equal pay. “The narrative was all about women’s choices: that women choose to have children and choose to work part-time and so [of course] they get paid less.”
That attitude has shifted, particularly with the exposure of high-profile inequalities between men and women at organisations like the BBC. “The appetite for change is much stronger. Young women are much more ambitious for equality,” she says. “They expect to be heard.”
Another issue that has come to the fore is that of transgender rights. On this, Smethers treads carefully.
“It’s really important that our starting point is inclusion, not exclusion,” she says. “But we do have to recognise there is a fundamental conflict he here, that we have to consider t the importance of single-se single-sex spaces and preservin preserving those.
“Som “Sometimes sex as an iden identity characteristic has to trump tr gender identity, it ju just does, when it co comes to the privacy and a safety of women. But our starting point is inclusivity, so we h have quite a complex a and nuanced stance tha that makes us unpopular some sometimes. People want us to make mak a choice. ‘Which side are you on?’ is the question
I’m constantly asked and actually, I’m on the side of everyone’s rights being respected.
“But that means it’s a balancing act and you have to responsibly achieve that balance, not in defending one interest [and] excluding or dismissing another. And unfortunately, that’s what happens.
“I think this whole issue has been so polarised, and what I’m careful to do is be responsible in what I say because I don’t want it to be used to beat the head of the other side. There are rights on both sides that have to be recognised.”
She is leaving, having had a pandemic epiphany of her own, after decades of balancing demanding jobs with bringing up four children: Rachel, 29, Jack, 24, Grace, 12 and Alex, nine.
“It’s been a year of change, and a personal year of change for me. I literally haven’t had a period without that juggle [of work and family]. So I am at the point where I want to stop doing that for a while and have a bit more control. I’m privileged enough and fortunate enough to be able to do that, when a lot of people can’t.”
The pandemic, for all its stresses, has proved a time for re-evaluation. “It is a period of reflection – as a society we have to decide which direction we want to go in from here,” she adds. “We can’t ‘build back better’ if we leave women behind.”
Smethers has chosen her own path, now it’s time to choose ours.