SCOTLAND needs “completely new ideas” on ending inequality 50 years after the Equal Pay Bill was supposed to create parity for women, a charity claims.

Dundee-based Feisty Women will hold a conference in its home city today in a bid to “innovate” against inequality.

The sold-out Discovery Point event, which marks 50 years since the introduction by Barbara Castle of the Equal Pay Bill, will discuss “whether women are now treated equally, not just in terms of pay, but also opportunity and fair treatment”.

While the organisation initially focused on pensions justice, its scope has broadened over the past two years to take in a wide range of issues.

Co-founder Ann Porter said the “real problem” holding women back is “an equalities culture in the UK that is dysfunctional” due to competing needs and priorities of decision-makers and protected groups.

Addressing this, she says, will require “innovation and completely new ideas about the causes of inequality for women”.

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And it also needs leaders to pay heed, not just lip service, to women’s circumstances.

The group said: “The majority of women are unable to fulfil their potential in the workplace and society because they bear children. A wealth of data shows that pregnancy, childbirth and motherhood have a negative impact on women’s economic well-being and health. Women experience an earnings gap across their lives because they shoulder the double burden of paid work and unpaid domestic labour. This pushes them into fragmented working lives, poorer paid jobs, part-time jobs and long working hours detrimental to their health.

“By taking on this double burden, women make a huge contribution to the prosperity of the nation. Something has gone wrong, however. Increasingly, the default position of policy deciders, legislators and the judiciary is economic man.

“Their world view appears to be that equality is achieved through equal treatment, regardless of the economic participation or life experience of people with protected characteristics.”

Porter commented: “No-one knows how to navigate safely through the complex, tangled landscape of equalities legislation without being unfair to someone.

“Policy deciders in all sectors, at all levels, do not yet have the knowledge to to deal with this complexity fairly.

“There is an inherent tension in equalities legislation that says on the one hand equality means removing barriers, treating everyone the same and looking at commonalities.

“On the other hand, equalities legislation also states that policy deciders have to take differences into account because we will only achieve equalities outcomes if we acknowledge that people with protected characteristics start from different places and have different life experiences.

“This is causing so much conflict ... We have come to the conclusion that women are right to be angry but they are being angry at totally the wrong things – for example, proposed reforms to the GRA which will have a zero impact on society in real life.

“The problem is a messy, systemic one where different parts of a complex system, with a multiplicity of moving parts, are not meshing.”

Equalities Minister Christina McKelvie, who will speak at the event, said the Scottish Government is working to close the gap for women through changes to childcare and other policies, stating: “The Equal Pay Act of 1975 was designed to ensure that women receive equal pay for work of equal value. While it has closed considerably over the last 50 years, there continues to be a persistent and significant divide between men and women.

“We want to ensure that Scotland leads the way, that the generations of women and girls that come after us grow up with the best opportunities in a truly equal society.”