Nicola: My online fears for niece, 11

NICOLA Sturgeon yesterday condemned the ‘dangerous and unacceptable’ power of social media to pressure girls into fretting about their looks – saying she fears its effects on her 11-year-old niece.

The First Minister told teenagers the online ‘bullying’ of young women was ‘one of the most challenging issues’ facing society.

‘It’s one of the issues where I think instead of going forwards we might have gone backwards a little bit,’ she told the Future AS5ET conference in Edinburgh, addressing an audience of girls aged 15 to 17.

‘I look at my niece, 11 years old, and I look and get quite horrified sometimes at the pressure that is on girls as young as that and it’s coming from social media – the comments they read, the pressure and often bullying that can be brought to bear on people through that.

‘I’ve been living with this in the media for 20 years or more so I’m quite inured to it, I don’t get upset personally any more, but I feel a real obligation to challenge it for the sake of younger women because we shouldn’t have, whether it’s in the traditional media or social media, that pressure to conform and to be something you’re not.’

Miss Sturgeon added: ‘There is a much greater focus on how you look, what you wear, what your hair looks like on any given day.

‘That’s not the kind of thing you would ever read or hear about a man in politics. So the way you are judged is very, very different to the way a man is judged and that can often lead to bias, unconscious or otherwise, of women in the workplace and what they are capable of.’

Miss Sturgeon also spoke about the sexism she faced when starting out in the male-dominated world of politics, adding: ‘What you start to do is emulate the behaviour of all of these middle-aged men that surround you because you think that’s what’s expected of you...

‘The behaviours that in men are considered to be attributes and positive behaviours, in a woman are considered completely differently.

‘If a woman behaves in that way, aggressively or adversarial, it’s not seen as strong leadership. Often it’s seen as being, and often described as being, bossy and strident.’