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Forum Home  →  Discussion  →  Work capability issues and ESA  →  Thread

Its just wimin’s work!

NeverSayNo
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Welfare rights department - Northumberland County Council

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Joined: 21 December 2011

From DWP appeal submission tackling a piece of evidence from client’s wife:

“[the document] lists the following caring responsibilities being carried out by the appellant’s wife in order to provide physical support to her husband: bathing, cooking, ironing, support during the night, dressing, laundry….

It cannot be disputed, and scientific evidence exists to support this, that many of the listed tasks would, in most cases, be carried out by female members of a household. This is not a political statement, but a reflection of reality.

For this reason the report’s usefulness as evidence regarding the appellant’s capability of work related activity is limited”

There are other reasons why this evidence could be legitimately challenged, but I would never have thought the DWP would have said its just what women do….....

Jon (CANY)
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Welfare benefits - Craven CAB, North Yorkshire

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Hm .. the next time I have a case where the claimant’s husband happens to do the housework, I’m sure DWP will agree that this alone is irrefutable scientific proof that her ability to do her womanly duties must surely have been impaired…

BC Welfare Rights
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The Brunswick Centre, Kirklees & Calderdale

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I particularly like the way that the DWP uses “scientific evidence” to silence the doubters.

It’s Einstein’s other law of relativity, the one that talks about the speed of light relative to a vacuum cleaner.

XX chromosome + free time + gravity = housework
XY chromosome + free time + gravity = pub

nevip
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Welfare rights adviser - Sefton Council, Liverpool

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Andyp4 - 19 May 2015 10:01 AM

I might have imagined this (sure i read it in one of the CPAG handbook intro’s around 2000/01), but didn’t SDA (scrapped in 2001), come about as a result of a case in the early to mid 1980’s regarding the then benefit housewife’s invalidity benefit, i.e. women had to show they couldn’t do housework cos of ‘incapacity’ as well as demonstrate they were erm ‘incapacitated’, but blokes didn’t cos…....................................etc etc etc

I remember it well.  It was known as the Household Duties Test.

http://www.blogs.hss.ed.ac.uk/constructingincapacity/2014/10/28/mod-cons/