Gathering Momentum? Not in the UK | Women's Views on News

Women in UK politics are lagging behind the international community.

Last Friday, 8 March, marked, ostensibly, the 102nd celebration of International Women?s Day.

The theme this year was ?The Gender Agenda; Gathering Momentum?.

Sadly, according to the Guardian, UK women are not gathering momentum or having their day when it comes to politics.

The Guardian article examined the political standing of women in the UK and compared it to other countries around the world.

It was shocking, no ? more seriously depressing ? to see that the UK are ranked 57th in the world for female political representation; Bangladesh, Pakistan and Thailand have a far healthier ranking.

Many of the countries that are placed above the UK have far more serious economic, societal and political problems to deal with than we have.

Many of them face war, poverty, corruption and political unrest.

Some are also launching enormous battles against centuries of inequality and oppression of women.

Yet they are turning tides by opening the political doors to their women.

Brazil, Lithuania, South Korea and Argentina all have female presidents?and in Bangladesh, the prime minister, her opposition leader and the foreign minister are all women.

In India, the head of the governing party, the leader of the opposition and the chief minister of Delhi are women.

According to the Inter-Parliamentary Union, who compiles the international ranking tables for women in parliaments, Rwanda tops the league, with 56.3 per cent female representation.

At joint 57th position, the UK has only 22.5 per cent of women in elected parliament, or MPs.

Given that in 2001, the UK ranked 33rd, either the rest of the world is addressing their political gender gaps at a far greater pace than the UK, or we have ground to a miserable and pathetic halt.

So what exactly is going on in Westminster. And indeed the devolved parliaments?

The ?Counting Women In? coalition published a report recently entitled ?Sex and Power 2013 ? Who Runs Britain??

Well, we all know the short answer to that.

But the report also looked at the institutional stubbornness holding up progress in our political system.

Thirty years ago we were politically light years ahead of most other countries when we elected our first woman Prime Minister ? love her or loathe her.? Or loathe her.

Now, only 17.4 per cent of women occupy the Cabinet, a ten-year low.

In fact, and boy is this depressing, there are more millionaires in the Cabinet than women.

And exactly how is this representative of the country?s diverse demographic?

The ?Sex and Power? report also reveals that women make up just 13.3 per cent of elected mayors, so political gender gaps are not just a national problem, but a local one too.

The Counting Women In coalition describe the UK as being in ?a political crisis?, where, at the current rate of progress, ?a child born today will be drawing her pension before she has an equal voice in the government of her country.?

The report examines in detail the dearth of women at the top tables of public life and the impact this has, concluding that??excluding?them [that's us to you and me] from politics and other areas of public life means missing out on the substantial benefits greater involvement of women would bring, while also wasting the huge investment made in women and girls through the education system and beyond?.

It also says that ?a more diverse body politic with a wider spread of expertise and reflecting the life experience of both halves of the human race would be better placed to lead us through the complex times that face us.?

The report also goes on to make a series of recommendations based on its findings.

These include positive action measures, addressing old fashioned and sexist attitudes about the role of women in public life and changing the culture of parliament.

?The House of Commons,? it points out, ?routinely sits until 10 pm at night, there is no consistent agreed parental leave policy for MPs and little in the way of childcare support for Members.?

The bottom line is that a government needs to connect with its voters and understand who they are and what they need.

So how do a bunch of over privileged ya-ya blowhards think that they can possibly address the needs, requirements and problems of a society half of which is made up of women?

We are seriously going to have to address this problem if we are ever to have an elected government that is properly and demographically representative of the electorate they serve.

That?s right Cameron, serve.? You-all are there to serve us.

Let?s see if he keeps his promise to have one third of women on his Ministerial roll call by the end of his first term as Prime Minister.

Then let?s see if he can get realistic and up that number to an equal and demographically representative one.

Source: http://www.womensviewsonnews.org/2013/03/gathering-momentum-not-in-the-uk/

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