2000 - 2009
Female Brain Drain the Lost Workforce
"Great leaders inspire others to achieve more" - Ann Daniels
Picture taken from the first female Poet Laureate's book Feminine Gospels by Carol Ann Duffey (reviewed in our "Must Reed List").
2004 Gender Recognition Act"
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In 2000 the all women team including Ann Daniels and Caroline Hamilton trek to the South Pole and in 2002 trek to the North Pole becoming the first all-female team to reach both poles. Ellen McArthur’s sails solo around the world and sets a new world record for fasted solo voyage. She is given a Damehood in recognition of her achievement upon return to the UK in 2005.
Writer JK Rowling, became the worlds best paid author and receives numerous literature awards and an OBE. Carol Ann Duffy receives a CBE in 2002 and was appointed the first female Poet Laureate ending over 400 years of male domination. Private Michelle Norris is awarded the Military Cross one of the highest honours for gallantry in combat.
2004 The "Gender Recognition act" &"Gender Recognition Certificates" came into force for the purpose of allowing men/women receive legal recognition that a person has or is starting the process of transitioning from male to female or female to male. Once a full gender recognition certificate is granted, trans people can obtain an updated birth certificate. In addition, they are legally recognised in the UK law as having become a man or a woman in terms of the 2004 Act, except in some limited circumstances. This legislation will ultimately have a devastating impact on women & girls sex based rights, something that was not clearly foreseen at the time by creating a legal fiction that men can be women & visa versa.
2005 allows single and same-sex couples to adopt children together for the first time and in 2006 the White Paper on Pensions starts to address sexual equality in old age.
Both Baroness Corston’s Vulnerable Women in Prison Report, highlighting treatment of women offenders and The Gender Equality Duty Act, placing a legal obligation on promoting equal opportunities and eliminate unlawful sex discrimination, are introduced in 2007, and in 2008 guidelines are brought in emphasising biological sex in asylum seekers and the particular issues affected women fleeing their countries and the Forced Marriage (Civil Protection) Act also came into force.
The London Stock Exchange appoints their first female Chief Executive Clara Furse, and Margaret Beckett became the first woman to be appointed as Foreign Secretary.
With the slow drip of the 1990’s woman into management and board positions, statistics for women’s promotion were still disappointing with women’s representation on the boards of FTSE 100 companies by 2009 only achieving 12.2% and FTSE 250 companies 7.3% respectively*.
* Data taken from: Women on boards (publishing.service.gov.uk)