NPC Women’s Working Party Calls on Others to Join Them
Women’s video talks sexism at work in 1970s
- but ‘still more to do for full equality’
Women members of the UK’S largest campaign group for older people have recorded remarkable video testimonies of the often-shocking workplace challenges they faced half a century ago.
The Women’s Working Party (WP) of the National Pensioners’ Convention (NPC) made the video to mark International Women’s Day last month, Their stories, often told with great humour, will no doubt shock but also inspire those who didn’t have to start work as young women in the 1960’s, 70’s and 80’s.
They relate the casual sexism of the era – the newspaper Page 3 nudes plastered on workplace walls, the sexual harassment and general attitude that women would ‘just get married and have kids’ and not need a career.
But the women, now aged mainly in their 70s and 80s, tell how they fought to overcome these obstacles to have careers, often while raising families and fighting for better pay, conditions and opportunities for women. And they are still fighting for women – old and young – today through the NPC.
Women’s WP Chair, Rosie McGregor said: “I was very proud to be part of this video project, which we hope will inspire other women to join the NPC - because, while things have improved for women since we were young, there is still much more do before women achieve full equality.
“The gender pension gap between retired men and women is 40% - largely due to the fact that women did, and still do take time off to have their families, and don’t or can’t afford to invest in a better pension. This means pensioner poverty is much greater today for women than men.
“The picture is sadly not hugely improved for young women today, and we know that women, and working mums, suffered most financially during the pandemic, because they tend to be in lower paid jobs, often due to family commitments.
“The NPC Women’s WP is campaigning on all issues affecting older and younger women – tomorrow’s pensioners – on everything from pensions to childcare, and housing to the scourge of violence against women which is a huge blight on our society.”
*To view the Women’s Working Party video visit: see above
*To read more about the work of the WP and the issues they are concerned about read the latest issue of their monthly newsletter Exchange:
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Download the press release below
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