In footsteps of the suffragettes

FEMALE MSPs gathered at Holyrood yesterday to pay tribute to the suffragettes who had paved their way.

On the centenary of women first being given the vote, it was an opportunity to reflect on how far equality has come – and the distance yet to travel.

When the suffragettes took to Britain’s streets, it was inconceivable the UK would have a female prime minister and Scotland would be led by a woman.

The civil war waged for women, by women, was a bloody fight of incarceration, hunger strikes, force-feeding and violence.

Women sacrificed their lives, were beaten and maimed, lost their jobs and their children and were ostracised by society.

One postcard from the anti-suffragette movement showed women with their tongues being severed or nailed to tables with the caption: “Peace at last.”

Women are no longer willing to hold their tongues but their voice too often remains unheeded.

There has been enormous progress, much of it in the last three decades.

When Nicola Sturgeon began her political career, she was surrounded by middle-aged men in suits. Today, she is not quite so outnumbered.

Abortion, birth control, financial independence and a shift in societal attitudes did much to emancipate women from the box of the little wife at home.

But we have a gender pay gap and women remain marginalised in the workplace by motherhood.

Only 35 per cent, or 45, of our 129 MSPs are women and in Westminster it’s worse, with just 32 per cent of 650 MPs being women.

Our population may have a 50-50 gender balance but certainly not our boardrooms or parliaments. Men still hold power in business, media and in the political arena.

Sturgeon has announced a £500,000 fund to drive greater representation of women in Scottish politics in “tribute” to the suffragettes.

It will take not just cash but a culture shift to realise the dream of the suffragettes. Those heroic women won the battle and now it is for us to win the war.