Lee's random blog

I was recently contacted by Dr Catriona Burness, a researcher in the field of women in politics. She has published a report on Women and Parliaments in the UK.  She says:

The report presents a factual snapshot of the current position in each elected parliamentary chamber in the UK. All elected women are listed alongside tables showing representation by party. The positions of the parties represented in the chambers in relation to candidate selection for Westminster and the devolved chambers have been summarised in essays on each parliament/assembly. It brings together information that is otherwise available but dispersed.

An independent writer/researcher and consultant on politics, I produced the handbook with the support of the JRSST Charitable Trust (endowed by The Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust Ltd).  The work is timely now as the UK is at a political crossroads, contemplating constitutional and electoral reform, and with elections due in the devolved chambers in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales in 2011. There are fears that women’s representation will fall at the next elections for the devolved chambers whilst equal representation remains elusive.

Please feel free to download the entire document.

Burness Women and Parliaments in the UK

There have been a couple of articles in the press recently which have prompted me to write about a curious tale alive in our midst. It’s this: There is such a thing as the ‘womens vote’ and politicians are attending to it.

Recently David Milliband announced that he’ll “be a leader for women”.  There is an letter in the Guardian today where various people declare that in fact it’s Ed Milliband that has the concerns of women at heart.  But what on earth are they talking about?

There is a fallacy in their thinking and a dangerous one at that.

Women account for 51% of the British population.  At the last census they numbered somewhere in the region of 30.4 million compared to 29.7 million men. Yes, that’s right, women outnumber men in our fair land.

But you wouldn’t think it because the popular narrative is that ‘women’ are a special interest group with special interest needs.  Hence the reason for the Labour leaders to appeal to them, to adjust their approach for them.  Hence the need for Womens pages in the national papers, for there to be a Minister for Women in the cabinet.

These are all total nonsense.

How can the majority of the population be a special interest group? Surely it’s only minorities that qualify as such. Men are the minority.  Why not have articles on how the leaders will attract the mens vote? Why not have a Minister for Men? Mens pages in the papers?  Because we would see this as ridiculous.  We would recognise that within the group 29,700,000 men there are a multitude of interests, a thoroughly dazzling interweaving set of complexities, needs, wants, backgrounds, income levels, shoe size, viewpoints etc. We’d know that to speak of the ‘mens vote’ was facile.

So why do our media and elected representatives make this facile ascription to women, when they constitute the larger group? And why do we let them away with it?

I’ve just started watching the first series of Mad Men. In the second episode Draper asks his boss, ‘What do women want?”. The reply, “Who cares.” I almost spat my drink out, such was the honesty of this response.  Though we would never hear that being said in public nowadays, that doesn’t mean it’s not being thought.

We apply this grouping tag to women, we lump them all together because frankly we can’t be bothered investigating the complexity. Women are not wholly relevant to public life, they are a mystery that will never be solved because nobody is interested in solving it. They are tolerated in business, patronised in politics. Things work as they are, right?  There is no need to change anything. And so it rolls on and on.

In actual fact, the reason we will never get an answer to this question is because there isn’t one. The very question sits inside the fallacy itself.

Pic by daveynin

The new Liberal Democrat/Conservative coalition government has four women in its cabinet.  This is a very small number and does not compare well with other countries. But, much as the commentary would have you believe, this is not a simple issue to fix. Broadly, there are three areas that need to be looked at in order to increase the number of female MP’s.

1. Encouraging more women to come forward to stand as MP’s.

There is research from the US (applicable here) that shows that women need to be encouraged to run for public office rather than going for it themselves. There are several reasons for this, confidence being one, culture being another. (Yes I know there are examples of women who come forward but this research shows a tendency).  Addressing this would require a campaign not unlike an election campaign, reaching women in their homes and social lives.  We would need to expand the scope of  the political parties campaigns for increasing the numbers of female MP’s and empower them with budget to get out and about, round the country to encourage women to stand.  Now that the Lib Dems are in government we might find money for increasing the work that the Campaign for Gender Balance does.

2. Changing the perception of women as leaders in the party, in politics and in society.

This is even trickier.  Research shows that people automatically  think of a man when you use the word ‘leader’.  Our concept of leadership is masculine, which obviously makes it harder for a women to get elected, promoted within a company etc.  They have to work a lot harder to prove that they can lead, rather than it being assumed they can, the position men find themselves in.  (Yes I know there are examples of the opposite… etc)  The solution here is, paradoxically, to create role models of female leaders.  We need to develop and promote the female MP’s we have to be seen more obviously as leaders.  We need to actively encourage local parties to do the same and we need to encourage the media to run stories that portray female leaders in a positive light.  Less of the shoes and handbags stories about female MP’s and more about what they actually achieve in their roles.    This will make it easier for women to come forward to stand because they can see they will get recognition and will decrease the numbers of female MP’s leaving due to being constantly harangued by the press.

3. We need to change the nature of the job of MP.

It’s currently set up for a man.  Well, really for a person who has someone else at home looking after the kids and house full time. That tends to still be men. If a woman wants to be an MP, currently she has to fit into this mould. Hence the data showing that there are few mothers in parliament.  If we are serious about making room for women, then we need to understand that women bear the burden of raising our future generations.  We need to make it possible for them to do this (and dare I say for men to be able to do this too) and still become MPs.  We need to work out what parliament would need to look like for women to be able to contribute their thinking and their time, as well as taking care of community and family.  This is not a simple task and yes, is the redefinition of gender roles in society but it is basically what needs to happen.

So, you see, we should not moan about the numbers of women we currently have in parliament without a recognition of the deep systemic issues affecting a women’s chances of being successful at the job.  I’m up for changing this and will be making an offer to the Lib Dem/Conservative government to that effect.

Photo by Mike Baird on Creative Commons