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Ruth Wilkinson 💚🤍💜
@ruththerep
Foodbanks, feminism, Quakerism, with occasional reference to classical music and being an Anglo-Scot.
Glasgow
Joined April 2011
2.8K Following
1.7K Followers
6.3K Posts
After another depressing week of many, many politicians etc misrepresenting Equality law & guidance I have a modest proposal. All opining on this subject need to insert either a “the current law is ….” or a “my political opponents would argue that ……” and then an accurate
No, no, no, no, no.
🤦♀️🤦♀️🤦♀️🤦♀️🤦♀️
And that's before we note the phrase "criminals on benefits" - not all benefits claimants are criminals, Chris, but do you want people to conflate the two for some reason?
Should benefit claimants be given ration cards instead of cash?
Chris Philp says the Conservatives would give out ration cards to criminals on benefits to stop them from gambling and buying alcohol.
He said it's worth considering for all claimants.
What do you think?
A modest £1,717 tupperware storage box.
Find your Peter Murrell item by putting a pound sign against the number of X followers and the last thing you touched in your kitchen.
Mine is a £42600 pizza wheel.
I can't believe it is a year since @LucyHunterB and I published the first edition of The Frontline - but here we are issue 26. It's a bumper one with @DrPamGosal reflecting on her 5 years as an MSP; Maggie Banda, one of Africa's leading women's rights activists, writes about her work in Malawi and our Woman of the Week is Anna Lo, the first - and so far - only woman of colour to be elected to the Northern Ireland Assembly. Lucy and I hope you enjoy reading it as much as we loved pulling it together. https://t.co/EpVByjU7eB
Who to follow
It’s extraordinary that the BBC consistently platforms men upset they have to use gender neutral toilets instead of women’s toilets over the female rape survivors who have been unable to access a female-only support group, in relation to the EHRC guidance. It says it all, really.
Woman of the Day prison reformer and philanthropist Elizabeth Fry, born OTD in 1780 in Norwich, the first woman to give evidence to a Select Committee. It was instrumental in the passing of the Gaols Act 1823, which separated the sexes.
Caring responsibilities came early to her. Her mother died when she was 12 — she had twelve siblings — and as a Quaker, she took an interest in the impoverished, the sick and prisoners. A “plain Friend”, she dressed plainly, did not dance or sing, and took philanthropy very seriously.
In 1813 and at the suggestion of another Friend, Elizabeth visited Newgate Prison and found women and children in small overcrowded cells where they had to manage washing, cooking, toilet functions, and sleep on straw. Some hadn’t even been tried at court. She was horrified.
“All I tell thee is a faint picture of reality; the filth, the closeness of the rooms, the furious manner and expressions of the women towards each other, and the abandoned wickedness, which everything bespoke are really indescribable".
She returned the following day with food and clothing, but family finances prevented her from doing more until 1816. At first, she concentrated on the children by funding a school inside the prison for them, but she found it impossible to ignore the plight of the women. They were at the mercy of male inmates who raped and sexually exploited them. On release, the few occupations available to women were beyond their reach. Life was without hope.
Elizabeth founded the Association for the Reformation of the Female Prisoners in Newgate and encouraged other affluent women to set up classes for women prisoners, providing them with materials so they could learn to sew and knit. It calmed them — “Already, from being like wild beasts, they appear harmless and kind" — and meant they had employable skills on release.
When she gave evidence to a Select Committee on 27 February 1818, she pulled no punches. She told them in graphic terms of the rapes and sexual exploitation suffered by the women. Her powerful evidence helped to secure the Gaols Act 1823 which required prisons to separate the sexes.
Other provisions of the Act included paying gaolers (to combat corruption), requiring doctors and chaplains to visit prisoners (still an important statutory requirement today), and greater emphasis on reform and rehabilitation.
The Gaols Act was far-seeing and genuinely progressive, but other than separation of the sexes, toothless. Town gaols and debtors prisons were excluded and there was no means of checking that its provisions were being met.
Elizabeth returned once more to give evidence to a Select Committee of the House of Lords in 1835, pointing out that "in many instances their condition is melancholy...they may truly be called schools for crime", that some still had "no instruction, no employment, no classification [of inmates]...and they get into a most low and deplorable state of morals...I would not say that all are in that condition, but I fear many are".
In those days, many prisoners faced transportation to New South Wales even for the most minor of crimes (for more serious offences, hanging was the go-to sanction). They faced eight months in vermin-infested cramped holds, often flooded with bilge-water, and strictly rationed fresh water. The women transported by the First Fleet had only the clothing they were standing up in and when this became infected with lice and had to be burnt, they were given rice sacks to wear. Elizabeth campaigned for better care and provision for them too.
In 1825, she published "Observations of the Siting, Superintendence and Government of Female Prisoners", an influential book that laid out in clear detail how penal regimes should be run.
Somewhere along the way, Elizabeth established a "nightly shelter" for the homeless in London after seeing the body of a boy who had frozen in winter and set up a system of volunteers to visit the poor and homeless and provide help and comfort to them. She campaigned against the slave trade, and in 1840, opened a training school for nurses. Florence Nightingale took a team of Fry nurses to the Crimea.
Her abiding principles of kindness and fairness sprang from her Quaker faith and she was the first woman — other than the late Queen, of course — to be depicted on a British banknote.
Elizabeth Fry died in 1845 at the age of 65. I cannot tell you how much I admire this woman.
Less than a century later, Westminster and Holyrood subsequently ditched Elizabeth’s truly progressive approach to prison as a place for rehabilitation, not punishment, and decided that it would be even more “kind and inclusive” to hold men in women’s prisons, as long as they claimed to be women too.
In wartime and in war zones, that would be regarded as a war crime under the Geneva Convention, and those officials who allowed it would be classed as war criminals.
It’s peacetime, allegedly, but I’d still call it a human rights violation, and I have a few choice words for all of those politicians and civil servants who nodded along with it. I hope their complicity haunts them.
![TheAttagirls's tweet photo. Woman of the Day prison reformer and philanthropist Elizabeth Fry, born OTD in 1780 in Norwich, the first woman to give evidence to a Select Committee. It was instrumental in the passing of the Gaols Act 1823, which separated the sexes.
Caring responsibilities came early to her. Her mother died when she was 12 — she had twelve siblings — and as a Quaker, she took an interest in the impoverished, the sick and prisoners. A “plain Friend”, she dressed plainly, did not dance or sing, and took philanthropy very seriously.
In 1813 and at the suggestion of another Friend, Elizabeth visited Newgate Prison and found women and children in small overcrowded cells where they had to manage washing, cooking, toilet functions, and sleep on straw. Some hadn’t even been tried at court. She was horrified.
“All I tell thee is a faint picture of reality; the filth, the closeness of the rooms, the furious manner and expressions of the women towards each other, and the abandoned wickedness, which everything bespoke are really indescribable".
She returned the following day with food and clothing, but family finances prevented her from doing more until 1816. At first, she concentrated on the children by funding a school inside the prison for them, but she found it impossible to ignore the plight of the women. They were at the mercy of male inmates who raped and sexually exploited them. On release, the few occupations available to women were beyond their reach. Life was without hope.
Elizabeth founded the Association for the Reformation of the Female Prisoners in Newgate and encouraged other affluent women to set up classes for women prisoners, providing them with materials so they could learn to sew and knit. It calmed them — “Already, from being like wild beasts, they appear harmless and kind" — and meant they had employable skills on release.
When she gave evidence to a Select Committee on 27 February 1818, she pulled no punches. She told them in graphic terms of the rapes and sexual exploitation suffered by the women. Her powerful evidence helped to secure the Gaols Act 1823 which required prisons to separate the sexes.
Other provisions of the Act included paying gaolers (to combat corruption), requiring doctors and chaplains to visit prisoners (still an important statutory requirement today), and greater emphasis on reform and rehabilitation.
The Gaols Act was far-seeing and genuinely progressive, but other than separation of the sexes, toothless. Town gaols and debtors prisons were excluded and there was no means of checking that its provisions were being met.
Elizabeth returned once more to give evidence to a Select Committee of the House of Lords in 1835, pointing out that "in many instances their condition is melancholy...they may truly be called schools for crime", that some still had "no instruction, no employment, no classification [of inmates]...and they get into a most low and deplorable state of morals...I would not say that all are in that condition, but I fear many are".
In those days, many prisoners faced transportation to New South Wales even for the most minor of crimes (for more serious offences, hanging was the go-to sanction). They faced eight months in vermin-infested cramped holds, often flooded with bilge-water, and strictly rationed fresh water. The women transported by the First Fleet had only the clothing they were standing up in and when this became infected with lice and had to be burnt, they were given rice sacks to wear. Elizabeth campaigned for better care and provision for them too.
In 1825, she published "Observations of the Siting, Superintendence and Government of Female Prisoners", an influential book that laid out in clear detail how penal regimes should be run.
Somewhere along the way, Elizabeth established a "nightly shelter" for the homeless in London after seeing the body of a boy who had frozen in winter and set up a system of volunteers to visit the poor and homeless and provide help and comfort to them. She campaigned against the slave trade, and in 1840, opened a training school for nurses. Florence Nightingale took a team of Fry nurses to the Crimea.
Her abiding principles of kindness and fairness sprang from her Quaker faith and she was the first woman — other than the late Queen, of course — to be depicted on a British banknote.
Elizabeth Fry died in 1845 at the age of 65. I cannot tell you how much I admire this woman.
Less than a century later, Westminster and Holyrood subsequently ditched Elizabeth’s truly progressive approach to prison as a place for rehabilitation, not punishment, and decided that it would be even more “kind and inclusive” to hold men in women’s prisons, as long as they claimed to be women too.
In wartime and in war zones, that would be regarded as a war crime under the Geneva Convention, and those officials who allowed it would be classed as war criminals.
It’s peacetime, allegedly, but I’d still call it a human rights violation, and I have a few choice words for all of those politicians and civil servants who nodded along with it. I hope their complicity haunts them.](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/HI0fqw5WYAAMbp4.jpg)
Yes, we give people food - but that's not all we give them. This week we are celebrating the #MillionActsOfHope which bring people together all over the country, every single day.
📢📢#Election Guide! 📢📢
We have been through the manifestos of the 6 largest parties & have come up with our guide.
Tldr: @ScotTories & @ScottishLabour are way ahead of the pack!
Also remember Ash, Fergus & Jeremy who are standing as independents.
https://t.co/Q9H68LoDsc
I am sad to be missing this. If you can encourage my fab #foodbank colleagues on their way by donating a few quid, please do!
Food bank closed for the week, but we’re not finished yet!
Team Pure Fed Brilliant is ready for the Kiltwalk this Sunday after ceilidh practice in the sunshine ☀️
We might see some of you on the road to Loch Lomond.
Support our walkers 💚🥾
https://t.co/2aNNMtxMfW
Stop the BBC airing Eurovision content that normalises violence against women - Sign the Petition! https://t.co/bcbNYlMaKO via @UKChange
Let’s stop pretending this is complicated. It isn’t.
A male prisoner, convicted of a brutal murder, is being housed in the women’s estate. An allegation of sexual assault has now been made. And still we are expected to believe this is a “managed risk”.
It is not a managed risk. It is a foreseeable outcome.
You do not need hindsight to see this. You only need honesty. Women in custody are not a neutral population. They are among the most vulnerable in society. The vast majority have experienced physical or sexual abuse. Many carry long histories of trauma.
Addiction is endemic. In Scotland, the majority proportion of women in prison have drug or alcohol problems, and many have co-occurring mental health needs. These are not abstract statistics. They describe women who have already been harmed, often repeatedly, long before they ever entered a cell.
And into that environment, the state has chosen to introduce male-bodied prisoners.
That is not safeguarding. That is exposure.
What we are witnessing is not a failure of risk assessment. It is a failure of principle.
For years, the Scottish Prison Service has insisted it can assess individuals and safely place male prisoners in the female estate. That claim was always untenable. You cannot assess away biological reality. You cannot eliminate risk through forms and panels. And you cannot guarantee safety in an environment where the consequences of getting it wrong are this grave.
And now, predictably, we are here.
The most disturbing aspect is not the allegation itself, serious as it is. It is the inevitability of the response. There will be calls for calm. Assertions that the system works. Claims that this is an isolated incident.
It is not isolated. It is structural.
When policy elevates ideology above reality, harm stops being a failure and becomes the price paid to sustain the model. We know this only too well in Scotland’s addiction system, where harm reduction has shifted from a tool into an orthodoxy, and the consequences have followed accordingly.
And here, that cost is being paid by women who have no say in where they are housed, who they are housed with, or what risks they are expected to tolerate.
No civilised system should ask women, many of whom are already survivors of male violence, to accept that risk as the price of someone else’s identity claim.
This is not about prejudice. It is about duty of care. It is about safeguarding. It is about the most basic obligation of the state to protect those it holds in custody.
Until that principle is restored, cases like this will not be shocking.
They will be inevitable.
Only six days to go until our fantastic team of walkers PURE FED BRILLIANT - volunteers, staff and allies - set out on the Kiltwalk. Can you help us to help people who are struggling to afford the basics? Please sponsor us here:
https://t.co/PKnkCA1yfk
Grace Campbell ought to reflect on her language here, on the role people like her play in polarising and toxifying political discourse, and offer @ForWomenScot & others a heartfelt apology.
So, so good by @glosswitch
Can we all agree that in a world of influencers, Z-listers, TikToks, badly acted ads, brand collabs, people filming themselves crying…the Artemis livestream of 4 middle-aged scientists doing their jobs is genuinely the best most authentic content of the century? Thanks @NASA🌚
Hello, Moon. It’s great to be back.
Here’s a taste of what the Artemis II astronauts photographed during their flight around the Moon. Check out more photos from the mission: https://t.co/rzM1P0QbOl
Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there-on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot.
Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.
The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.
It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.
- Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space
We see our home planet as a whole, lit up in spectacular blues and browns. A green aurora even lights up the atmosphere. That's us, together, watching as our astronauts make their journey to the Moon.
4 people are in there with hopes, dreams, risk and the unknown.
It makes me breathless, knowing how they're feeling and what they're facing.
So exciting to see what we're capable of when we work together in common purpose, deciding to push back the edges of our collective ignorance.
Have a great voyage, crew of @NASAArtemis!
Nathan Newby will receive a George Medal for bravery today – the UK's second-highest civilian gallantry award – for his life-saving actions in 2023, which prevented an atrocity at a major British hospital.
Our story about that moment is now free to read: https://t.co/1Dl9KmL1ee
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