At the start of the election we started to play ‘spot the women‘ – keeping on eye on campaign and media appearances by politicians to see how many of them were women. Each party has several high-profile female figures and you could reasonably expect, especially as the parties went after women’s votes, that they would have a key public role during the campaign.
Sadly this was not the case and we weren’t the only people to notice. The Observer looks here at why the high profile women were missing and The Independent also looks at the way the broadcast networks treated female political commentators. Where was the female chair of one of the leadership debates? Why did Jeremy Paxman spend so many Newsnights arguing with three white male guests? Why were so many of the big political interviews on Today carried out by men interviewing men?
The election result itself did see a very small increase in the number of women elected to Parliament, up 16 to 142, around 22% of the oveall total of MPs, and a significant increase in the number of Conservative women elected to Parliament, up 30 from 18 to 48. Parliament also sees its first female Muslim MPs (Rushanara Ali in Bethnal Green and Bow; Yasmin Qureshi in Bolton South-East; and Shabana Mahmood in Birmingham Ladywood) and the first black woman (Helen Grant in Maidstone and The Weald) and Asian woman (Priti Patel in Witham) elected as Conservative MPs.
Yet, for all that this is progress, it is very slow and incremental progress. The Centre for Women and Democracy (whose figures we’ve quoted above) described the increase as “derisory” and we’d find it very difficult to disagree.
So let me repeat what we said at the start: If you think that more women in politics is a good thing, if you think you could do a better job, and let me assure you, you can, pick a party, get involved and stand for election. You can do it, you’ll be great and we really want you to.
Several women who have spoken at Progressive Women events over the past 18 months were standing for re-election or election to Parliament. Our warmest congratulations to Roberta Blackman-Woods and Jo Swinson who were re-elected, and to Mary MacLeod who was elected for the first time. Our deepest commiserations to Caroline Pidgeon and Natalie Bennett who weren’t elected but who we hope to see in Parliament in the years to come.
Don’t forget: Our Summer Party is on June 9th - we hope to see you there!
Thank goodness for Emily Maitlis on election night! A refreshing female commentator in a sea of largely old white men. On that note if you google Emily Maitlis the second thing listed in ‘Emily Maitlis legs’.
Another obeservation I also noticed today is that the FT’s line up of potential Lib Dem Cabinet Minister’s were unsurprisingly all men.
This is all evidence to show that there is a long way to go for women to be equally represented and taken as seriously as men in politics.