2020health.org has today, on International Women's Day, published our Manifesto for Health. Called 'What Women Want' it features 17 female authors writing about their hopes for health from the next Government. They are all writing in personal capacities, but one GP who happens to be the President of the Royal College of GPs is featured in the Daily Mail today. Prue Leith writes about the importance of nutrition, Su-Anna Boddy writes as the fist ever mother on the council of the Royal College of Surgeons, Baroness Jill Pitkeathley writes about the importance of elderly care and physiotherapist of the year Nicola Hunter highlights what community based physio could deliver - to name but a few.
Publicly valuing the contribution of women is crucial to freedom and democracy. If freedom is to be sustainable it is not about having choice per se, but about making the right choices. And to make the right choices we need the full picture - which is partly enabled by having both male and female perspectives. Decisions then have an enhanced legitimacy and could well be more effective.
Some feminists have got feminism a bad name which is a real shame because who could disagree with the egalitarian principles of social, political and economic equality for women? Yet when it comes to policy, recent all-male or male dominated publications and events, inexcusable in a democracy, have demonstrated that women are still not being given enough opportunities to be heard. We hope this publication will go someway to redressing the balance.
