Just looking at point number 1, why not campaign to end violence (domestic and otherwise) against all genders instead of just women. I know that the problem of violence to women is larger than the problem of violence to men, however, it is precisely because so many campaigns against violence ignore male victims all together that the problem of violence against men is so often ignored or forgotten about.

In general this is admirable, but a couple of points rather weaken this manifesto. Firstly, the role of the Ministry of Defence is to fight wars, not promote gender equality, so not sure why they are included here. The Ministry of Defence do not come up with the political solution.

Also, Climate-change? If there is climate change, is this not an equal-opportunities disaster (yes, I know there is findings that women may suffer more, but that is because of existing social structures not because of their gender per se).

However, does this really go far enough. Should not equality of all sorts be tied to UK development funding?

Rather a sad list really.

Gender equality tends to come as a result of development. So concentrate on doing the development, not the gender equality. The second will come naturally as a result of the first.

Chicken/egg situation Tim, you need both to be occuring at the same time. Example; development tends to occur in democratic countries more than dictatorships. Therefore as extending the vote to women improves the democratic creditionals of a nation, it also improves the prospects for development.

Planeshift,

Other than possibly Saudi Arabia is there any country where women do not have the vote when men do?

I tend to agree with your key point mind you, in that (non-corrupt) democracy is better for development. Bascially capitalism works best without corruption (which by definition involves keeping information from consumers), and therefore a system where vested elements (religion, patriarchical power structures, labour union bosses, monopolists etc) cannot wield unfair power is far more likely to lead to development and more chances for women. But a key point here is that the systems that support all these ‘old men with beards’ is often male head of family working, woman at home, and by empowering women you bring in new dynamics which challenge existing corrupting interests and increase the chance of democracy. Hence the importance of microbanks and the like in promoting equality, economic development and democracy. But the statement itself ignores such things in favour of talk of defence and climate change – too much focus on big issues (where the big men in situ can take their cut) and not enough on forcing real change through perhaps?