‘Leadership campaign needs a female voice’
Leader of Newport City Council Debbie Wilcox explains why it’s vital a woman’s name is among the candidates vying for the leadership of Welsh Labour
JUST IN case we hadn’t noticed: it’s the 21st Century. You might laugh at that, but it looks like a lot of people haven’t noticed. Though I’ve debated many times on the issues relevant to my work, I’ve never been one to mince my words when it comes to equality.
It’s been 100 years since some women got the vote. The Suffragettes fought hard for our rights. Our vote is our voice. Those women put their lives on the line so that we could enjoy our democratic rights.
In 2018, our leader Carwyn Jones honoured this by calling for a feminist government.
“We’ve said we want to be a truly feminist government - we now have to live up to that. If Sweden can lay claim to be the home of the first feminist government, then I want Wales to be the second.
This ambition befits the party that has delivered a gender balanced team in the National Assembly time after time. It’s those values of equality and of social justice that brought every one of us into the Labour Party in the first place.”
This same government is now running the risk of not even having a woman on the ballot for the election of our leader.
Imagine the scenario: September comes and the other parties in the Assembly have had their contests; Leanne Wood leads Plaid, Suzy Davies leads the Tories, and Caroline Jones leads Ukip, but Labour doesn’t even have a woman in the competition! Nightmare. A painful one, but a nightmare that’s looking all too real.
The centenary of partial suffrage serves as a reminder of how far we’ve come in improving legislation for women. Welsh Labour has made addressing women’s issues and ensuring women are given a proper voice central to our party and to our politics.
We are rightly proud of introducing The Violence Against Women, Domestic Abuse and Sexual Violence (Wales) Act; a huge leap forward in addressing the very real problem of genderbased violence in Wales. This legislation was the first of its kind in the UK and it remains the only law in Europe to focus on women.
We continue to support projects such as the Women’s Equality Network Wales (Wen) to empower women and to encourage them into public roles and we continue to champion the remarkable achievements of our leading female figures through the purple plaques campaign.
We’ve made huge strides over the last century in the fight for women’s rights and equality, but let’s be frank: many battles remain to be fought, both abroad and here in Wales.
In 2014, Baroness [Anita] Gale and Julie Morgan AM put forward a Charter for Women to shift public attitudes and to encourage women to stand for election.
Anita said, “Can you imagine if we had 50/50 (gender balance) in the House of Commons, how different it would look?”
...Well, can you? Can you imagine how much richer a leadership election would be with a female perspective?
Our vote is our voice and I always urge women throughout Wales to make sure they participate in the democratic process we need to make sure that we are heard, to make sure that women are heard.
The sad reality is that only 19 women MPs have been elected in Wales since 1918 compared to 267 men. 17 of those 19 were Welsh Labour women and many of those have gained their positions because of special measures such as twinning and all women shortlists.
The Assembly can largely attribute its success in achieving its 50/50 gender-split to these processes.
Without support mechanisms being made available to promote equal opportunities, we must ask ourselves how many great achievements made by our leading female representatives would have been lost? These provisions must continue if women are to remain equally represented in Welsh politics.
Jane Hutt AM, who campaigned within the Labour Party to enable more women to seek selection, commented: “If we hadn’t have had those mechanisms, we would have ended up with an Assembly that looked like local government in Wales or Westminster, which is entirely male-dominated. My experience of 12 years in local government was of not being able to contribute because of prejudice and discrimination.
“That system did not allow women to contribute in the way they do now, with confidence, in the Assembly.”
As the first woman Leader of Newport City Council and the first woman to lead the WLGA I am proud of the strides we have made to eliminate this view of local government but it’s a long, slow battle.
As women, we meet sexism at every juncture. I’m not saying that it’s present in the leadership election, but I am saying that something is wrong with the way we’re handling this.
If we want to truly become a feminist government, achieve equality, and ensure diverse representation, there must be a woman on the ballot paper. As this is not guaranteed under the current rules of the competition, the competition needs to change. We need a woman on the ballot and that woman is Eluned Morgan.
In the Lords, the EU Parliament, and the Assembly, Eluned has proven herself to be an ally, time and time again. Not just an ally to women, but to all underrepresented communities.
Women’s Officers are calling for a woman on the ballot and now so am I.
I’m calling on AMs to come forward and nominate Eluned so we can ensure a woman’s perspective feeds into the debate.
Let’s have a real competition and hear Eluned’s ideas.