Dr Laura Favaro is Lecturer in Social Science at Bournemouth University, and member of the research team for the FiLiA Legacy Project – Campaigns & Policy.

A few months ago, I was presented with an exciting challenge: to identify the knowledge base on the concerns and priorities of women in the UK. This was part of the FiLiA Legacy Project, which, among other things, aims to bring women’s voices to the national and local policy stage. I was overjoyed by the clarity of the aims and intended outcomes of the project, in refreshing contrast to much academic work, where obscure language is all too often used to render a sense of importance to what are in fact vacuous undertakings with questionable benefits. It was equally exciting to see the coming together of women with different backgrounds and skills to produce knowledge on what women across the country, particularly those who are most marginalised, think, want and need.

As a first step, I searched for evidence and discussion around women’s concerns and priorities in the last few years, prioritising sources reporting on primary research. This led me to collect over a hundred documents, mostly from the third sector and government. These consisted of reports in particular, but also other materials such as briefings, submissions to government inquiries, press releases, blogs and more. I then reviewed the documents to identify the broad areas of concern or priority for women, which include: violence and safety; health and wellbeing; finances and the cost-of-living; paid work and the workplace; childcare and other unpaid work; media and technology; and services, institutions and the justice system. Many of the collected documents highlight how insufficient data, attention or action in these areas affects certain groups of women in particular, such as young women, women with disabilities, and minoritised ethnic women.

The next stage of the document review, currently underway, is producing summaries for each of these areas and issues, and supplementing with additional evidence when required or available. Still, we are conscious that this will not necessarily provide us with an accurate or comprehensive picture of the concerns and priorities of women in the UK today, for reasons that include the ways in which ‘some voices may not be sought out or listened to’, as Professor Francesca Gains notes when discussing challenges to what she describes as the ‘equality equation’: the bringing together of ‘women’s voices and robust evidence in policy planning and implementation’. However, this review of the existing evidence and discussion, including the substantial contributions across the women’s sector, will provide a solid base for future phases of research and campaigning at FiLiA.

FiLiA will be sharing insights and news from this groundbreaking project as we continue to progress ‒ watch this space!