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Political Thinking with Nick Robinson
“Inequalities don’t happen by accident” Dr Mary-Ann Stephenson on trans rights, Islamophobia, and why equality still matters
00:36:04
Chair of the equalities watchdog, Dr Mary-Ann Stephenson.
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Matthew Taylor
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Marianne Stevenson
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Matthew Taylor
Hello and welcome to Political Thinking. We're all in favor of equality, right? We're wrong. Actually. The principle of equality is what many people say they support. But what the idea means in practice is increasingly contentious. My guest on Political Thinking this week is the woman who has the extremely sensitive job of enforcing the law on equality. She is Marianne Stevenson, the the new chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission. She's just published advice on one of the most divisive of issues, how to ensure equality for trans people without trampling on the hard fought rights of women. It's just one of the many difficult debates in which she's expected to intervene in a society in which, for example, some want to ban what they call Islamophobia, but others insist on the freedom to criticize not just Islam, but any religion. Some argue women are still not treated equally to men. Others insist that equality has gone too far, not to mention the rights of migrants and refugees as against those born here. That is just part of her very packed agenda. Mary Ann Stevenson, welcome to Political Thinking.
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Marianne Stevenson
Thank you.
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Matthew Taylor
Let's talk about what your job is.
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Marianne Stevenson
Yes.
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Matthew Taylor
Do you see yourself as a sort of police officer policing equality laws? Or are you a change maker? Are you an advocate, someone pushing, pushing for driving for equality and diversity?
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Marianne Stevenson
I think one of the important things about the EHRC is that it does have more than one mandate. So we are a regulator and it is our duty and responsibility to make sure people understand the law and the law is upheld and properly followed. And the best way to do that is often not through policing. It's often through providing guidance or working with organisations on a voluntary basis to help them improve their practice. But we are also a champion, you know, our role is to promote as well as Uphold equality and human rights. And so that means making the case, explaining to people why it's important, and not assuming that we live in a little bubble where everyone agrees with us, but actually going out there and showing how this makes a real difference to people's lives.
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Matthew Taylor
Trevor Phillips, who used to do your job, chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, says it's the fourth hardest job in public life.
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Marianne Stevenson
He said that to me too.
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Matthew Taylor
Yeah.
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Marianne Stevenson
Yes. After, was it Prime Minister, Chancellor of the Exchequer, Home Secretary.
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Matthew Taylor
In fact, he had Home Secretary in the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police.
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Marianne Stevenson
Metropolitan Police.
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Matthew Taylor
So your job is even harder than the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
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Marianne Stevenson
I mean, I don't know if that's true. I think, you know, these jobs can be difficult and, you know, there are difficult and complex situations which are not straightforward. And we are in a world increasingly which likes to reduce those issues to straightforward. Yes, no answers. You're with us are against us, you're a goody or a baddie. And I don't think that's the case. And so that does make it hard
- [04:08]
Matthew Taylor
because it seems to me that sometimes people want to see you, if they're change makers, as being on the barricades with them. Hold on, you're the equalities woman. Come on, fight with us now. The problem is you then expected to fight for two sides at the same time, or maybe in conflict.
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Marianne Stevenson
I think that is one of the issues. You know, the role of the Equality and Human Rights Commission is to uphold and protect everyone's rights and make sure that everyone is treated, you know, without discrimination, harassment or victimization. And that's really about making sure that we can all live with dignity and respect. Right. And that does mean that there are tensions because what one group wants will sometimes conflict with what another group wants. So if you are permanently on the barricades, then it's very difficult to do that. More kind of complex stepping back role and saying, how do we balance these tensions? How do we find a way through these difficult issues?
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Matthew Taylor
What's changed, do you think? You've had, what, 30 odd years working in equality and diversity and yet it seems to me only quite recently has it become as controversial as it has. Why?
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Marianne Stevenson
I think some of these issues have always been contested. I think there's always been, you know, when I was first involved at the National Council for Civil Liberties, it was when the Criminal justice and Public Order bill was going through in 1994, and that was around rave culture and squatting and road protesters. And if you remember that time, you know, there was a Lot of controversy. Then there was a lot of argument,
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Matthew Taylor
forgive me, interrupting controversy, yes, but it wasn't possible.
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Marianne Stevenson
But the level of vitriol. I think you hate me.
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Matthew Taylor
I hate you.
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Marianne Stevenson
I think that is something that has changed. And I think one of the problems has been the idea that equality or human rights legislation is a sword which can be used to attack another group, you know, to make your case. And actually it is something that protects all of us. So if, for example, you want to protect your own right to protest or to freedom of expression, you also have to recognize that the legislation that does that protects the rights of people, people you disagree with. And you have to respect that.
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Matthew Taylor
And you have to respect them. Yes, don't you?
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Marianne Stevenson
You don't necessarily have to respect their views, but you have to assume, I think you have to. When you're dealing with the complicated and difficult issues, you have to recognize that people of goodwill can disagree, that not everybody who disagrees with you is doing so because they're ignorant, they're ill informed, they're malign. I think that all too often when you get into these really difficult and complicated debates, you can set up a situation which is bas. If you don't absolutely agree with my position over here, that must mean you're either stupid or you're a bad actor. And that's not true. It's also tactically really stupid. No one is ever persuaded to change their mind by being told that they're stupid. I mean, all it does is make them angry. If you want to convince people, if you profoundly disagree with somebody and think they're wrong, the way to do that is through dialogue. It's not through shutting people down or mocking them for stupidity. And I think, you know, some of what we saw was the kind of after effects, for example, of the Brexit referendum, where there was a tendency on some sides to think, well, if you, you know, if you voted a particular way, that's obviously because you're stupid or because you're evil, because you don't care. And so people get into a habit of thinking about really kind of difficult and complicated issues as though they were very simple black and white goodies and baddies.
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Matthew Taylor
You're in a tribe, yeah, you're a
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Marianne Stevenson
tribe, you stick up for your tribe. And even when you might be slightly uncomfortable about what some members of your tribe are doing, you don't criticise that publicly because that's letting the side down. But you're very, very aware of the flaws of the other side.
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Matthew Taylor
What's interesting, as I read up about you is, you got this with your mother's mill, didn't you? This idea that rights matter but dialogue matters. You were named after another Mary Ann.
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Marianne Stevenson
So I was named after my great grandmother, Mary Ann Steven, who was a suffragist and supporter of women's right to vote. I mean, obviously she died before I was born, but, you know, I grew up hearing about her, but also hearing about the struggle for the vote. Not just the suffragists and the suffragettes, but the Chartists. I still bored my children with that when they were little. On the way to polling stations, I always used to tell them the story of how the vote was won, every single time.
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Matthew Taylor
But part of that story, and I don't think that's part of it, is particularly well known, is that there was this divide in the women's movement between the suffragettes, more famous, and the suffragists who resisted the tactics being used by the suffragettes.
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Marianne Stevenson
Tell us more about what you mean. So the campaign for votes for women really took off. You know, 1865 was when there was a petition presented to Parliament by John Stuart Mill asking for votes for women. And Millicent Fawcett, who the Fawcett Society now is named after, was one of the people who collected for that petition. And that was a movement that involved, you know, writing letters, organizing public meetings, organizing big public demonstrations. I mean, women went on marches. But the suffragettes felt that things weren't happening fast enough. So the slogan, Deeds not words was about direct action. It was about disobedience, it was about breaking things, chaining yourself to railings, blowing up post boxes, all of these sorts of actions. My feeling has always been that most social movements need a combination of approaches. You know, whenever you look at a movement, there will often be people who are more involved in direct action and other people who are more involved in sort of more classic political activity. The marching, the writing, the petitions and so on. And the people taking part in the direct action often help get the issues on the agenda. But finding the solutions also involves those people who maybe don't take part in direct action, who can also take part in the negotiations, how to find solutions.
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Matthew Taylor
And you had a fascinating political heritage, which involves a bit of both. Because your grandfather was on Cable Street.
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Marianne Stevenson
Yes, so my mother's father was at Cable street stopping the British Union of Fascists trying to march through a predominantly Jewish area.
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Matthew Taylor
So for those who don't know the history, this is about the trade unions and others getting together to stand up for the rights of Jews. Against Mosley's fascists.
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Marianne Stevenson
Fascists, yes. And I think for me, you know, there's some important things there. I mean, one of the things is there is a right to protest. You have these two groups protesting. The other thing is that there are limits on those rights. And the way human rights thinking works is those limits come in when it's about protecting the rights and freedoms of others. So when you're dealing with actual fascists who are wanting to, you know, to take away people's rights, there are limits on those human rights there, there are limits on the right to protest. If you're inciting violence, for example, this
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Matthew Taylor
is one of the things that you're exploring at the moment.
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Marianne Stevenson
Yes.
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Matthew Taylor
This debate about free speech versus hate speech.
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Marianne Stevenson
Yes.
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Matthew Taylor
When we see on the one hand Tommy Robinson leading a march and on the other the so called Nakba march the other day celebrating the fight for Palestinian rights, what are the issues that you in the Commission now need to wrestle with?
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Marianne Stevenson
Well, I think again, you know, these are issues where you have got a. You've got a conflict of rights and people have the right to freedom of expression. They have the right to protest, the right to freedom of assembly. People also have the right to live without harassment, without threats of violence and so on. So generally our role at the EHRC is often to talk about the importance of the right to protest and the fact that that may include, or the right to freedom of expression may include the expression of views that people find offensive, but there is a limit to that. I think all too often people think, you know, there is this expression rights are not a pie. And I've never understood that because, you know, some rights are not a pie. You know, the right to same sex marriage, for example, one person's marriage doesn't affect another's marriage, but the right to protest will affect other people.
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Matthew Taylor
And on that example is what matters the perception of those people who feel threatened, as it often is in the law. In other words, if many but not all British Jews think from the river to the sea means a single Palestinian state, the abolition of the state of Israel, is that what matters? That's what they hear, that's what they think, that's what they fear, and therefore the law should be on their side.
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Marianne Stevenson
Well, there is a complexity here, right, because our hate speech framework has tended to be based on the perception of the person at the receiving end. The freedom of expression protections in the Human Rights act are generally based on the idea that there's quite a high level of protection for political speech, quite rightly. And that does include speech that people find offensive. And the limitations are around incitement, you know, incitement to violence, for example. And so how you negotiate that in practice is a tricky one. And it is something that we are looking at. And it's also something that Lord MacDonald is looking at at the moment with his review of the right to protest and hate speech.
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Matthew Taylor
The detail will come out later. But are you inclined to say the balance isn't right at the moment? People are hearing things on the street.
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Marianne Stevenson
I think what we have, we have a problem with legislation around protest, which is that it is very complicated and has been developed over a number of years and in some cases, I think does unreasonably restrict the right to protest. I think when we're thinking about that, we also have to think about protection against people, for people, against, you know, hate speech and incitement to violence. And I think how you deal with that is often quite context specific. And it's often specific to the particular situation, the particular march. And so we are asking, you know, we're asking the police to make some quite difficult decisions on the day. And that's one of the things where I think we, we do need to look at the legislative framework so it's clear to the police as much as everybody else, so they know what, what they're responsible for policing.
- [14:28]
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Matthew Taylor
Let's go back to this issue of competing rights that you've just been dealing with. Not everybody accepts that this is the best way to describe it, but many see it as a battle between those arguing for rights for trans people and those who are arguing to preserve women's rights fought for over decades before we talk about the detail of the guidance you've just issued. How did it come to this? Did other countries end up in this sort of harassment?
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Marianne Stevenson
I think one of the things that is important to say is this is not a fundamental clash between the rights of women and the rights of trans people per se. It is a clash between the rights claims of different people groups.
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Matthew Taylor
Claims being the important word.
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Marianne Stevenson
So basically you have a human rights framework, for example, that gives the right to privacy. What does that mean in practice? Different groups will say, in order to uphold my right to privacy, I need X, Y and Z. And other people might say, well, that affects my right to privacy in these ways. And that's where the conflict comes. So it's not that you can't uphold the rights of both women and trans people, because I think you can. And that's what we've tried to do in our code of practice. I mean, if you look at where some of the tensions first arose, it was around proposals to both liberalise the Gender Recognition act, which at the moment doesn't require people to have surgery, for example, but does require a diagnosis of gender dysphoria to make it easier, in effect, to make it easier to change. Well, no, to change your legal sex, because you can be a trans woman. Most trans women and trans men don't have gender recognition certificates. They are still protected under the Equality
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Matthew Taylor
act and many, many don't have search
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Marianne Stevenson
for and many don't have surgery and they are still protected under the Equality Act. So the protection in the Equality act is not for people with gender recognition certificates, it's for anybody who is undergoing, proposing to undergo or has undergone a process and the process isn't specified. So the proposal was both to change the, the way the Gender Recognition act worked, to introduce a form of self id, but also to remove the single sex exemptions in the Equality act. And, and that obviously generated a huge concern among Large numbers of women and women's organisations, particularly those working in the violence against women sector, because they rely on those provisions to be able to offer single sex services.
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Matthew Taylor
So let's step back from the guidance. You don't make the law, you implement the law. But just so people understand in law now, thanks to the judgment of the Supreme Court, it is fair to say, is it that a trans woman is not a woman for the purposes of the law, regardless of what individuals.
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Marianne Stevenson
For the purposes of the Equality Act? One of the reasons, I think, why people can get themselves caught in a mess when they're asked that question is because there is a complexity. So for the purposes of the Equality act, the Supreme Court ruled that sex is defined by biological sex and that the terms women and men are defined by biological sexual. But under the Gender Recognition act, if you have a gender recognition certificate, you legally become for most, but not all purposes, the sex that you, you wish to be. Obviously, how people treat people in their day to day life can be a third thing altogether. And I think, you know, very many people would want to treat people as they would want to be treated.
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Matthew Taylor
So there's the legal basis then that at least for the Equality act, if not necessarily in day to day behavior and other parts of the law, a trans woman is not a woman. So then you have to come up with guidance. And this was particularly around, although not exclusively, was it bathrooms, toilets, changing rooms and critically single sex spaces, rape crisis centers and the rest. You've been really clear, haven't you, if you're a large enough organization or have a large enough building, easy have cubicles, you know, they're unisex cubicles, anybody can go them, problem solved. In many ways, the contention comes if that isn't the easy solution when we narrow it down to bathrooms and toilets. And the question that is sometimes asked of you, Baroness Kennedy. Yes, raised it, of course, is if a woman has been a trans woman and lived as such, she said, For 20 or 30 years, are we really saying that if she goes to Waterloo Station and gets caught short because she's a woman of certain age, that she can't use the woman's toilet, which she's been using for decades?
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Marianne Stevenson
I mean, I think, you know, one of the, the things about the, the station example, for example, is, is that there are unisex toilets available not just
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Matthew Taylor
at Waterloo, but elsewhere.
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Marianne Stevenson
Yeah, not just at Waterloo, but elsewhere. And obviously the policing of this has to be proportionate. So it would not be proportionate, I don't think, for a, a train station to put somebody on guard on outside toilets checking who's going in and out. That, you know, that wouldn't be a proportionate response.
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Matthew Taylor
But do you fear that there may be campaigners on either side of this who either try and prove that the law is an ass by saying, well, I'm going to make my way into the women's toilets or standing outside the women's toilets to take photographs in order to have this fight to keep it going.
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Marianne Stevenson
I, I am sure, unfortunately that that will happen with a small number of people. I think by and large, you know, what we expect with this, as in most other areas of the law, is that people follow it and that we don't. You know, we don't, for example, have police officers standing out underneath every traffic light to check whether or not people stop. What you do is where there is evidence of a regular and systematic problem, you then might take action.
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Matthew Taylor
Why on the other hand, to put a question from the other perspective, did it take campaigners, often funded by the money from J.K. rowling to persuade people that a rape crisis centre should only be open to people born as women? How on earth did it come to that?
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Marianne Stevenson
I think what happened was there was a long period where there was sustained misinformation about what the law required and allowed and people were told that it would not be lawful to do that. And that was never the case.
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Matthew Taylor
Told that they had to allow in trans women to women's only spaces and
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Marianne Stevenson
told that they weren't allowed to offer, you know, provide single sex spaces. And that was never the case because the exemptions in the Equality act were always there. In 2022 it was made clear that those exemptions didn't allow for self ID into the category of women. So the case that that came to the Supreme Court last year was about trans women with a gender and men with a gender recognition certificate.
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Matthew Taylor
But doesn't this go to the core of a problem in this whole area, which is many people simply don't trust public bodies to make these judgments interpretations because what they think is middle class educated progressives, as they define themselves, will always define it in the direction of that they sympathize with. If the law is unclear, if the judgment's unclear, they'll always define it in favor of what they see as progress.
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Marianne Stevenson
I mean, I think, I think in this case the law is very clear. I mean the Supreme Court judgment is, is a model of clarity and I, you know, I would recommend anybody interested in this area to actually go ahead and read it. There is an issue here because we know that the majority of women do prefer single sex services. I mean, there's been endless polling in this area and particularly in situations like, you know, rape crime crisis centers, women's refuges, but also places where they're like, might be changing or sleeping and, and might be vulnerable. At the same time, we also need to make sure that we have services available for people who can't or don't want to use the services for their sex. And the only way to get there is through dialogue. And I think one of the problems was that there was, you know, there was a closing down of discussion in this area. It was treated as too difficult to handle by a lot of people. And what that meant was kind of increasing polarization of positions and, and it has become very, very difficult for a lot of people and very painful for a lot of people.
- [24:22]
Matthew Taylor
Now plenty of people listening will say, ah, well, trans men and women can use unisex toilets or single cubicles, but many of them will not think that they want the dignity of being confirmed in their, their sex. Call it an adopted sex if you like, but that is what they will think. They don't want separate, they want to be who they are and in many cases who they've been for many, many years.
- [24:53]
Marianne Stevenson
I mean, I can understand that, but at the same time it is very clear that a, women do really value single sex spaces. It is really important to them for their dignity and, and safety. And the law in this area is very clear. So what we're, you know, what the code is doing is basically setting out how you can ensure that you're properly following the law in a way that protects the rights of everybody.
- [25:26]
Matthew Taylor
So if anybody wants that, there's no use trying to lobby you or the Equality and Human Rights Commission. They have to win political power.
- [25:35]
Marianne Stevenson
I mean, this is about, you know, people would have to change the law. And I think, you know, it's one of the things that comes up in the discussion about the code because the code has to be laid before parliament for 40 days and so on before it becomes statutory. Some people have got the impression that somehow if they can stop the code passing, then they will change the law, but the law will remain the same whether or not the code becomes statutory. The law is the Equality act and then as clarified by the Supreme Court judgment. So if people don't like that, that the, the answer for them is to, to lobby to change the Equality Act.
- [26:10]
Matthew Taylor
But you know what some of your critics say, because there were critics even before you got the Job, they say, hold on. Dr. Mary Ann Stevenson of the Equalities and Human Rights Commission, she's a women's campaigner. She has been all her life. She was named after a suffragist. She ended up running the Fawcett Society, named after a famous suffragist, Millicent Fawcett. This is who she is. You, you even showed us when you came in, a lovely photograph of you smiling in the garden wearing a T shirt saying, I'm a new feminine. What they say of you is you're a women's rights campaigner, you're not an equalities campaigner.
- [26:41]
Marianne Stevenson
Well, I mean, I've worked across equality and human rights all my life. A lot of that time has been in the women's sector. Obviously, women are half the population. So that also involves looking at the issues for disabled women, the issues for black women, issues for Muslim women. I do have a track record in the women's sector. This has been a difficult issue in the women's sector. It has meant that I have had to spend quite a lot of time thinking about it because it has come up, up a lot. And my position is, as it, you know, has always been, which is in line with, with what the Equality act says, which is, as I say, where it's a proportionate means of meeting a legitimate aim. There should be provision of single sex services. That's what's needed. You also need provision for people who don't want to use those. That is about trying to find a way forward that's not about taking sides.
- [27:28]
Matthew Taylor
You sound ever so slightly weary of all this.
- [27:32]
Marianne Stevenson
Well, it comes up a lot. And I do think the fact that, for example, you know, I signed letters defending people's rights to freedom of expression, that seems to me completely in line with what you would expect with someone who's chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission. Of course, I believe in freedom of expression.
- [27:51]
Matthew Taylor
Which brings us rather interestingly to one of the other minds, which you're trying not to tread on as you step through the minefield of equality in human rights. There's been a debate for some time over whether there should be a law to ban what some people call Islamophobia. Is there going to be such a law?
- [28:11]
Marianne Stevenson
We already have legislation which is the Equality act, which protects people on the grounds of religion and belief. And that's against kind of discrimination, it's against harassment and it's against victimization. So a lot of the harassment that people are talking about is covered by the Equality Act. I think the problem has been around implications, implementation, and particularly previous governments have promised better training for the police, for example, better guidance. That hasn't happened. There is a problem of Islamophobia in this country, but we come down, don't
- [28:44]
Matthew Taylor
we, again, to the problem of definition. And your predecessor as chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commissioner, Baroness Kishwa Fortner, she wrote it was impossible to define and potentially dangerous. She thinks it's a free speech and thought control problem.
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Marianne Stevenson
Problem. There are concerns in terms of definitions and what it covers and what it doesn't cover. And there needs to be protection for freedom of expression. There is now this non statutory definition which you know, has been, has been produced and the government has published.
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Matthew Taylor
And I think, forgive me, it talks about anti Muslim hostility rather than Islamophobia.
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Marianne Stevenson
It talks about anti Muslim hostility. And I think the key thing now is to think, how can we, you know, we have this definition, we have a legal framework, how can we make sure that Muslim people in this country, Muslim citizens of this country are protected against hatred and discrimination and harassment, which we know is far too widespread.
- [29:40]
Matthew Taylor
And yet we come back to free speech versus hate speech, don't we?
- [29:43]
Marianne Stevenson
And there is tension there.
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Matthew Taylor
Let's take the grooming gangs example. You will know that the reporter at the Times who exposed this was himself the target of hatred.
- [29:56]
Marianne Stevenson
Yes.
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Matthew Taylor
Simply for pointing out that Pakistani heritage men had groomed white girls for sex. Even to utter that sentence was regarded as unsayable or an act of hatred or an act of bigotry. How on earth do you legislate against anti Muslim hospitality when that sort of description is so contentious?
- [30:18]
Marianne Stevenson
Well, I think. I mean, I think one of the things that was really good about Baroness Casey's report in this area was, which was, I mean, really, really hard reading, but really significant in that she said, you know, there are issues here that we have to be able to engage with and we have to be able to talk about. There always has to be that balance between having difficult questions and having questions, having conversations that may raise things that people find offensive and protecting people against violence and harassment. And I think we can find a way of doing both.
- [30:50]
Matthew Taylor
Another contentious area will be, for example, after the election of so many reform councillors that as a party, Nigel Farage's party has promised to roll back DEI diversity, equality and inclusion. And they might say, well, who knows the commission? They're not directly elected. Who are they to tell us not to do it?
- [31:09]
Marianne Stevenson
There is a difference between, for example, the Equality act as a piece of legislation and different forms of DEI training and programs, some of which have been really successful and important and some of which have not been so successful and have actually been counterproductive. And I think what we have to kind of think about in this area is what works, you know, how do you actually persuade people? How do you bring about workplaces and services where everybody is treated with dignity and respect? What's the best way to do that?
- [31:41]
Matthew Taylor
If they've run on for election saying, we're getting rid of all this, they can't ignore the law.
- [31:46]
Marianne Stevenson
You can't ignore the law if you're a local authority, obviously you've got to follow the law. Law. How you follow the law may vary depending on the political complexion of the local authority.
- [31:54]
Matthew Taylor
To bring it down to specifics, you may, as a potentially new reform UK council, say, we can abolish the pride flag on the town hall or we can not fund the local pride march. But if you say we're going to scrap all these DEI targets, you may
- [32:09]
Commercial Announcer
be in breach of the law.
- [32:09]
Marianne Stevenson
If you're going to say, you know, we're no longer going to meet our legal obligations under the Equality act, then obviously you're in breach of the law. Discussions about flags and so on are probably more political discussions that are, you know, for local councils to decide.
- [32:24]
Matthew Taylor
Now, you said at the beginning of this conversation that you thought there was not enough focus on persuasion.
- [32:28]
Marianne Stevenson
Yes.
- [32:28]
Matthew Taylor
Is part of the difficulty that there's been an assumption of educated middle class people that progress was unidirectional, that just over time things carried on moving in the direction they should? And there were lots of people who went, hold on. Just because I'm in favour of gay rights doesn't necessarily mean I'm in favour of gay marriage or trans rights. Just because I'm in favour of race equality doesn't necessarily mean I'm in favour of full rights for refugees and so on. There is not a single linear thing.
- [33:05]
Marianne Stevenson
No. And I think you have to carry on making the case. I think there is sometimes an assumption like, okay, we made the case for the Human Rights act, we got the Human Rights Rights act job done, tick, move on to the next business. And actually, I think it's like the importance of democracy. You have to constantly make the case for the importance of democracy. You have to constantly make the case for the importance of kind of basic democratic values and standards, because you can't assume that people who grew up with, you know, a particular set of beliefs taken for granted will automatically share those beliefs. I mean, I find it interesting because, you know, I had grandparents who lived through the war. So I had stories from them about what had happened during the war, about the horrors of the Holocaust, about why we needed this framework in order to protect people, you know, why we had the un, why we had all these other institutions. A younger generation, you know, the generation of my children, children didn't grow up with that first hand experience. And so they don't necessarily always think, well, there's a reason why we have this and there's a reason why we have that, and this is why it's important.
- [34:14]
Matthew Taylor
We barely discussed women's rights, which has been the focus of your life really since that picture of you, age 3. Some fear there's a fight coming about that again as well. If you look over the pond, look at the United States, there are even people challenging women's right to vote in some areas. Do you feel that this is a fight that is far from over?
- [34:36]
Marianne Stevenson
I think, you know, this is never a fight that is over and won because inequalities between women and men don't just happen by accident. They happen because they advantage one group over another group. And so women having greater autonomy, greater choices, greater equality does disadvantage those people who've been used to being able to tell women what to do.
- [35:02]
Matthew Taylor
Men.
- [35:03]
Marianne Stevenson
Yes. And that is something, you know, so there, there will be pushback. I also think that there is often a tendency when things are hard economically, which they are for a lot of people, to look for different groups of people to blame. So, you know, whether that's blaming, you know, immigrants or asylum seekers or whether, as you see more increasingly in the US blaming women. So the argument in parts of kind of us sort of manosphere thinking seems to be that, you know, if women weren't allowed to vote and kept out of the labour market, then all of us would be able to get wives and all of us would be able to get jobs and the world would be a better place. And obviously I profoundly disagree with that. And I also think there's a sort of fantasy built up that somehow life was better for women. It's always some period in the distant past, say the 1950s. I mean, you have to look at the numbers of women who are on antidepressants, you know, the levels of domestic violence. The reason why the feminist movement emerged in the first place was because that was not a happy time for very many women. I'm always somebody who tries to kind of be positive and look forward. And I think ultimately better equality is better for everybody. You know, men get to spend more time with their kids than their fathers or their grandfather's generation did. That is a good thing.
- [36:25]
Matthew Taylor
I think there'll be some young people listening, maybe young people, you know, maybe your own kids, who will say it's going backwards, Are they wrong?
- [36:34]
Marianne Stevenson
I don't think it's going backwards. I think we are in a difficult place and time globally at the moment. I think there is, there are, you know, attacks on the principle of equality. There are attacks on the principles of human rights. There are within social media a way in which views which were seen as very, very marginal have become to be seen as more mainstream because they are amplified by social media. I think when you actually talk to people, most people want to live in a country where people are able to live with dignity and respect and want to be able to get on with their neighbors. And most people have, have a very kind of live and let live attitude with the assumption that, you know, there are limits on that in order to ensure that other people can live and let live.
- [37:28]
Matthew Taylor
Dr. Mary Ann Stevenson, chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, thank you very much for joining me on Political Thinking.
- [37:34]
Marianne Stevenson
Thank you.
- [37:34]
Matthew Taylor
Thanks for listening to this episode of Political Thinking. The producers were Hannah Wilkinson and Flora Murray. The editor is Giles Edwards. There are hundreds of previous conversations like this on BBC Sound in a week where former leaders are sticking their oar enthusiastically into the national conversation. Try going back to January 2024, when I spoke to Tony Blair and William Hague together about a new sense of national purpose. And if you hit subscribe, every new episode of Political Thinking will drop into your feed as soon as they're released. Hello, I'm David Baddiel and from Radio 4 and the History Podcast, I'm hosting 60 Years of Hurt, a series about football and Eng, which we try and define what Englishness actually is via the roller coaster history of the England men's football team. It includes contributions from various English gentlemen and women, Stephen Fry, David Seaman, England sports psychologist Pippa Grange, and many others. England may or may not win the World cup in 2026, but maybe you'll find out why it means so much to us as a country that they might do. Listen to 60 Years of Hurt on BBC Sound.
- [38:47]
Commercial Announcer
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