Bold and ambitious national strategies to end violence against women and girls (VAWG), such as our own Equally Safe Strategy here in Scotland, invite us to imagine a world where women and girls are not disproportionately affected by violence, and where inequalities no longer exist. Visualising such a future for Scotland is not always easy, and recent global and local news serves as a sobering reminder of how far we still have to go.
How we talk about VAWG and gender equality plays a huge part in shaping the attitudes that individuals hold towards building that better future. Over the last few months we have busied ourselves with finding out a bit more about just how we communicate our core messages and how the public receive them. This research – led by our Equally Safe in Practice team, and the first of its kind in Scotland – has aimed to understand public views on gender equality in Scotland and the issues affecting women and girls – most specifically violence against women in its myriad forms. Part of this work has been a survey and focus groups with people from across Scotland to gather views.*
We know women’s inequality – the unequal power relations between men and women -is the root cause of VAWG. To prevent and eradicate VAWG we must transform gender norms and stereotypes, and address women’s inequality. We wanted to know to what extent people recognise these as the key causal factors of VAWG. The findings of our research suggest that only 47% of people believe the power dynamics between men and women are a key cause, and just 51% recognise gender norms as a causal factor. We still have a distance to go to communicate that women’s inequality and VAWG are inextricably linked. Scottish Women’s Aid, and our sister feminist organisations in Scotland, have been challenging these myths and misconceptions for decades, aiming to shift the focus onto the behaviours and actions of the perpetrator, and the attitudes and wider structural factors that underpin and sustain them.
So, how do we make progress? What can we do to encourage change or to shift attitudes?
Right now, we’re working with Equally Ours to explore effective and strategic communications for social change, and to understand more about our audiences, their attitudes and our messages. The strategic communications team at Equally Ours recently led a series of online workshops, bringing together a range of people from across the VAWG, women’s and equalities sectors to look at communications for change. These sessions have been a great opportunity to root some of our recent attitudinal research in discussions around values-based communications and audience insight – learning, discussing, and workshopping ideas for delivering some of our most crucial concepts and messages. In many ways, our discussions have been framed by current global events, which have given rise to new questions and considerations about the challenges ahead for equalities and social justice – and the ways that we can continue to shift attitudes and create change.
From the Coronavirus pandemic, to the Black Lives Matter movement, the way that individuals understand and relate to the world around them is in flux at the moment. Nothing will be – or should be – the same again. As individuals consider their place and actions in their communities, it presents those of us who want to see a better future for women and girls with an opportunity to shape that new way of understanding and relating to one another. Communication, and how people receive and understand our messages, will be more important than ever in that.
In the coming weeks we’ll share a series of blog posts to look more closely at the findings of our research – to unpick some of the results and responses and consider what this might mean for our practice and communications going forward. Please join us in considering how we keep moving towards a better Scotland for women and girls.
*YouGov surveyed 1989 Scottish adults aged 18+. Respondents were given the opportunity to answer / opt out of survey segments. The survey was carried out online in December 2019. Focus groups fieldwork carried out in February 2020. YouGov carried out four focus groups, two online and two face to face. Each focus group had 7-9 participants.
