We’re still suffering for female suffrage
BY the end of the week the hullabaloo around the centenary of women getting the vote will have faded to a quiet hum.
The anniversary TV and radio shows will be slipping from memory, the purple rosettes worn yesterday by women MPs stuffed in a sock drawer, the suffragette statues gathering dust once more. And the male dominance of our politics will settle back down to normal.
For in the 100 years and one day since some women got the vote a lot has changed. But the essentials remain the same.
We have had two women prime ministers and now have more women MPs than ever before. But Parliament is still dominated by men.
In a global league for women politicians we limp home in a miserable 47th – the Wigan Athletic of gender equality.
Above us are El Salvador, Burundi, Mexico, Senegal… and quite a lot of other places.
The nature of politics in the House of Commons has much to answer for. Few women enjoy or thrive in the baying and buffoonery of our political chamber where carryings on often seem more suited to a football stadium at kick off.
And social media has brought a new viciousness and women-hating undercurrent to the mainstream.
It’s now almost impossible for any difference of opinion on twitter or a talk show not to descend into personal attacks. And when it comes to women, sooner or later that means vile abuse about how she looks and what sexual depravity she deserves to endure.
And so we reach a point where our politics is less attractive to women than at almost any time in history. It’s only 20 months since a British female MP – Jo Cox – was killed outside her local library. So, what’s to be done?
There has to be recognition that the fight the suffragettes fought is still a work in progress. In 1918 it was only women over 30 and owned property who got the vote. The fight went on for another 10 years until women like my grandmas got the same chance as men to vote.
The fight went on for another half century before the first woman prime minister. Then another quarter of a century before the second. And caretaker boss Harriet Harman aside, Labour still hasn’t managed a single female leader.
I imagine true political equality lies waiting patiently somewhere beyond my lifetime.
Progress has hardly been swift. And every pigeon step of that progress has been hard fought for. The only reason we have so many female MPs now is because Labour introduced the
It’s only 20 months since Jo Cox was killed
hotly contested women-only shortlists which changed the numbers and shifted culture. It’s the reason Labour now has 45% women MPs while the Tories remain on 21%.
And finally of course, the main point… Why on earth does any of this matter?
For the same reason as it mattered 100 years and a day ago... because until women are equally responsible for making the laws we live by and building the country we live in, true equality remains a mirage.