Women's financial security and human rights are under attack on a scale not seen in "living memory" due to the coalition's austerity measures, according to a report released today.

Backed by more than 20 charities, unions and academics, the report by the Fawcett Society shows how the cuts are pushing women out of the workforce, driving down their income and undermining hard-won access to justice and protection from violence.

The report, A Life Raft for Women's Equality, offers key policy recommendations to reverse the impact the cuts will have on women's jobs, benefits and key services as state services are withdrawn.

Anna Bird, acting chief executive of the Fawcett Society, said: "Our report identifies a series of targeted and achievable policy measures that could be adopted by, or at, the 2012 budget, which together offer a life raft for women's equality – and never has the need been so great.

"Women have not faced a greater threat to their financial security and rights in living memory. Decades of steady, albeit slow, progress on equality is being dismantled, as cuts to women's jobs and the benefits and services they rely on, turn back time on women's equality."

The number of women out of work is at a 23-year high, with cutbacks in the public sector hitting women particularly hard: two-thirds of the 130,000 jobs lost in local authorities since the first quarter of 2010 were held by women.

"Women up and down the country are experiencing greater hardship. For those families affected, the cuts to women's jobs, services and benefits will represent a personal loss," said Bird. "But we must add to this the cost to wider society as women's opportunities are scaled back.

"Fewer women working, a widening gap in pay between women and men, entrenchment of outdated gender roles at work and at home, and women being forced into a position where they must increasingly rely on a main breadwinner or the state for financial subsidy – this is the picture that emerges when the many policies of economic austerity are stitched together."

The Fawcett Society is in the business of talking up inequality.

Domestic violence has nothing to do with equality, nor has any other type of violence. That's just morality - of the simplest kind for most humans.

I don't get a gold medal for running the 100m in 14.8 seconds, nor would I want it in the the name of "equality" due to my particular circumstance of not being good enough.

When a company is demanded to employ a certain amount of Asians, blacks, women, etc. to satisfy "political correctness", the talent pool then becomes somewhat limited.

An illusion is never worth fighting for.

the white male caucasian becomes a victim of it's own generosity.

Can you imagine any other grounds where it would be acceptable, or even celebrated for half of the population to lobby to promote themselves, thus by extension, demote the other half?

I don't much care for the tone or content of the article, as it is exclusive to women, as though men are doing great while women are the only ones to suffer.

Men and women should not be adversaries - We are all in this together.