I will be honouring International Women’s Day today by attending an event in the 
House of Lords entitled, “Achieving Equality in Parliament.â€
It is organised by WAFE – Women worldwide Advancing Freedom and Equality and I shall be interested to hear their speakers; this is one of my pet subjects at the moment as Westminster is represented by only 19.8% women.
I had particularly been looking forward to a Swedish speaker, who is now unable to make it. Agneta Stark is co-founder of Stödstrumporna, a Swedish feminist Network which made a big impact on the 1994 election with the threat of a ‘Women´s Party’. And Sweden has the second highest of women in parliament across the world (47%) with the highest being Rawanda (56.3%).
Her spot has been taken by Monique Auguste, an authority on gender equality in Canadian Politics, and she will explain how this works over there. Other speakers are Peter Facey, director of Unlock Democracy; Kate Growcutt, former chair of the Young Fabians; and Julie Smith, (pic) deputy director of the Centre of International Studies, Department of Politics and International Studies, Cambridge University, who will ask the question so many of us would like an answer to:
“Why are there so many middle-class white men in parliament?â€
*Read Lesley Abdela’s blog, she blames “cowardly and insufficient ongoing committment from men in political power to make it a priority to radically update and reform British politics whether on women’s equality, electoral reform or MPs’ expenses.â€
“Why are there so many middle-class white men in parliament?â€
They read PPE at Oxford and go on from there?
Women are grossly under-represented in parliament. As you rightly stated only one in five of our MPs are female, hardly a representative parliament is it?! In my opinion the best way of getting more women into parliament is by implementing proportional representation http://www.tinyurl.com/Proportional-Rep
The way we vote can and does influence the number of women elected into parliament. First past the post lets down women hugely, it offers very few chances for women to break into national politics and gives huge advantages to its incumbrents. It lets down voters and constituencies by limiting their choices and fosters negative and agressive political culture. Under proportional representation an average of 10% more women would be elected. There is already proof that PR works in making a more representative parliament. Sweden uses PR and as you pointed out 47.3% of their parliament are women and Rwanda has 56.3% women. We need to change our voting system now if we want to see a parliament that represents the people!
I’ll be interested in hearing your views and comments, Ellee…
Perhaps one answer to why there are so many white middle-class men in Parliament was in Daniel Zeichner’s introductory remarks in the Cambridge B-Bar hustings – “so here we are, typical, four white middle class men”! Was he criticising his party for electing him instead of, say, a woman, and if so…
Sarah, thanks for your comment. Electoral reform and PR certainly was discussed as a positive way forward for this, as well as twinning and zipping.
I liked the link on your twitter about a third of women MPs for India too, that’s what I call real progress:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/global/article7053250.ece
Regarding last night, I fired off a question asking who the panel which of our female parliamentarians could be the next woman prime minister – and there was a stunned silence.
The only reply came from the only man on the panel – Peter Facey was a superb speaker and really on the ball – and he mentioned Harriet Harman and Theresa May as the most likely, if the opportunity ever arose. That’s the dilemma we are in, where are our inspirational women to lead this country again?
Good to know about Agneta Stark during this years Women’s day and facts about Women’s role in Sweden. Thanks for sharing these facts. Also you have a great blog.
It sounds like it would have been an interesting evening 🙂
Those white middle class men are there because they were elected. Quotas shouldn’t be important, and the mosr suitable candidate should be selected by the party to represent the seat.
Did you see that India’s trying to pass legislation to ensure that 33% of lower house seats are held by women?
Sarah Pollard said: “We need to change our voting system now if we want to see a parliament that represents the people!”
I’m genuinely interested in what changes people would make to the voting system and, might I suggest, to the selection procedures?
I have read Lesley Abdela’s blog, she blames “cowardly and insufficient” ongoing committment from men in political power to make it a priority to radically update and reform British politics. Huh..
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