MANY WOMEN had high hopes from May 1 1997 that the election of a Labour government after the long years of the Tory nightmare.
That optimism was based not only on the same feelings that arove orner working class people to deliver such a landslide victory for Tony Blair, but also at least partly on the fact that there were an increased number of women in Parliament and that Labour had taken some steps to target women in its election material.
It was not that they expected the earth - but surely things couldn't get worse and hopefully they would slowly improved.
But yet again over the subsequent months it has been women that have been at the sharp end of the attacks that have continuer -the pace of which seems to be escalating now on an almost daily basis.
Women always suffer most from attacks on the Welfare State. More of us work for it - often in the lowest paid and least well treated jobs. Many of us are losing our jobs -others are being hived off to private contractors who will treat us and pay us even worse.
Then we are also more affected as users of services, whether through cuts and closures of the resources we depend on or by other changes such as the imposition of contracts on parents of school age children. Even in two parent families it will most often be the mothers who will have to take the responsibility - and the worry for all this.
The announcement by Frank Dobson that he is in favour of improved access to abortion is good news for all women. though the battle over that is far from won.
But there was other disturbing news before Christmas that New Labour is considering plans to charge women for the pill. Such a tax on fertile women would be a disgrace, and would undoubtedly increase the numbers of women needing abortions. This would cause deep distress to those directly affected, and cost the NHS more in the long term.
Women are poorer than men. We earn lower wages when we work. So more of us are dependent on benefits and will be affected disproportionately by the new assault on the benefit svstem - even on benefits that are claimed by both sexes.
We have been long prey to DHSS snoopers under the cohabitation rule. While the rule can be applied to both women and men there is still an assumption - even in areas of the country where male unemployment is higher than female - that if a man is having a sexual relationship with a woman he will take financial responsibility for her too. The converse is less likely to be assumed.
Then there was the introduction of the Child Support Agency which has increased surveillance into women's lives.
The agency poses particular problems from women fleeing violent partners or to lesbians or other women who have chosen to have children without having men around who will lose benefit if they fail to pass on the details of the man.
But for any woman caught in its snares it is intrusive - and as it un. likely to come up with any money from the father, there is no compensation for most.
The disgraceful decision to target lone parent benefit will obviously impact more on women than men. The change will push more and more women into poverty.
The proportion of one income that you spend providing for a child is clearly higher than the proportion of two. The idea that this tiny amount of money was an incentive to women to become pregnant without a man to support them is moralistic nonsense of the most outrageous kind. In the end, though, the drive was not for moral reasons but Treasury- driven.
Lone parents
The government hoped that its attacks on lone parents - and the mooted ones on disabled people -would go through quietly. They expected that attacking people they saw as marginalised and unorganised they could slash their budgets easily. Fortunately they have been proved wrong.
One of the glosses they have tried to put on their overall project to slash the benefits budget in recent weeks is that unlike the Tories they are not in favour of means testing but of "affluence testing" instead. This way they say they can ensure that resources go to the people who really need it.
This is nonsense which ever Low paid - and angry. Women are ready to fight back against New Labour's attacks way you look at it. First it is clear that if benefits are not universal it is the most vulnerable who will not claim even where they are entitled to it.
For example at the minute many pensioners who are entitled to income support to top up their pension do not claim. This is not at all because they don't need the money but for a variety of reasons from lack of information to a feeling-and a justified one - that they should have a decent income as of right.
One of the areas in which the government is talking about introducing affluence testing is in maternity benefits.
Harriet Harman has tried to use ludicrous and rare examples of a handful of extremely wealthy women who currently are entitled to high levels of maternity benefits as she tries to get others onside for this change.
Of course Harman has a point that it is obscene that some women - and rather more men - have huge incomes while others live in poverty. The way to deal with this however is not through affluence testing but through higher taxes. That way there would be more in the kitty for those that need it.
Extra costs
One of the key arguments used by disabled people not only in campaigning against the recent threatened changes in their benefits but in fighting for a decent inComme for all people with disabilities is that there should be payment on the basis of additional costs incurred - in their case as the result of disability.
The same holds true for women who become pregnant and give birth.
Women have not just been on the sharp end of the attacks - we have been in the fore front of resistance. We won't take these new threats lying down - we can't afford
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