- Conference
- 2017 National Women's Conference
- Date
- 12 October 2016
- Decision
- Carried
Conference notes that each year the attendance at national women’s conference is monitored and reported to the committee and in the annual report.
There is little significant change in the pattern of women attending, with disabled, LGBT and part time workers well represented amongst the delegation.
However, Black, young and low paid women are still under-represented, and many branches send no delegates or visitors at all to women’s conference.
Conference acknowledges that there may be many reasons for this situation:
• Information may not reach women in branches who would be interested in attending;
• Women may “gatekeep”, and opportunities to attend may not be offered to other women in the branch;
• Branches may choose not to prioritise attendance at women’s (and other Self organised Group) conferences;
• Facility time may be an issue for women who might be interested in attending, but do not have leave or paid time off to attend;
• Women may be concerned about the cost of attending, particularly if branches limit subsistence or refuse to pay in advance;
• Where a branch is entitled to send one delegate, there may be issues with lack of confidence for that potential lone delegate;
• Branches in financial difficulty may choose not to send delegates, when there is no financial penalty for not doing so (unlike delegations to national delegate conference).
Conference further acknowledges that there may be many more reasons, and therefore calls upon the national women’s committee to:
1) Conduct a survey of women activists and women’s networks to establish why more women, and particularly women from under-represented groups, do not attend women’s conference;
2) Work with the other self organised groups and young members’ forum to identify particular barriers to attendance;
3) Report back to conference 2018 on the results and, based on these, develop an action plan to increase attendance and greater diversity at national women’s conference.
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