A Discussion on Gender Disparities in Leicester

A Leicestershire charity supporting disadvantaged communities says that women are more likely to ask for help than men.

Zinthiya Ganeshpanchan, Chief Executive Officer of Zinthiya Trust, believes many households still follow traditional rules, with women being the ones that often have to try and resolve domestic issues including problems with energy bills.

Zinthiya Trust is one of many organisations funded by British Gas Energy Trust to deliver much-needed help to people needing support with their energy bills.

In October, the issues around women and families will be the topics of conversation at the British Gas Energy Trust’s latest roundtable event, organised to commemorate the charity funder’s 20th anniversary.

Over two decades the Trust has been supporting people in or at risk of fuel poverty with community-based money and energy advice and guidance, energy debt grants and emergency fuel vouchers, and other much needed support.

In 2024, it has organised a series of roundtables across the country looking at ‘alleviating the detrimental impact of poverty’.

Looking ahead to the event, Zinthiya said: “We see more women seeking help, but that may be down to the wider services we offer. But woman are definitely more likely to ask for help – as it’s often seen as their role in households, particularly in Leicestershire where we have a lot of people from ethnically diverse backgrounds. Within these communities, women tend to play multiple roles within households – even though they are not recognised for these roles.
“They do housekeeping, childcare, shopping and manage most budgets. That’s quite typical in patriarchal households. And sometimes, when women do not go out to work, they may have the flexibility and time to come in and ask for help.”

Zinthiya also said that as well as women being more likely to ask for help, the type of enquiry is also different.

She added: “When men do ask for help, they usually get straight down to talking about finance or a particular bill. But with women, when they’ve come for help, they are asking for help about a much wider range of topics – for example, school uniforms or white goods.
“The situation is a bit more complex, though. It could be down to the policies around Universal Credit, for example, or maybe the situation at home where they could be being financially exploited. Their name could be on bills, but they might not know anything about it.”

Zinthiya is looking ahead to discussing the topics further at the roundtable, with benefits being high on the agenda.

Zinthiya said: “I’m looking forward to the roundtable as there’ll be plenty of things to discuss.
“We need to make our benefits system more simplified. When people are applying for benefits, the authorities look at joint income – but that doesn’t take into account the full situation at hand, when financial abuse could be happening.
“We’re expecting more trouble this month with the energy price cap increase. And I think it will affect the elderly a lot more, following changes to benefits. We’re not in winter yet, and we’re nowhere close to being out of the cost-of-living crisis, and we’re still really busy. There may be another budget coming and if we see any tax rises coming, this is going to have a massive impact.”