Women MPs leaving the Commons
This week the Speaker, John Bercow, said that Parliament was
losing too many women MPs. Other people have claimed that the Conservative Party 'has a problem with women', and that Labour women are also leaving the Commons at the next election.
CFWD's latest piece of research looks at the facts of how many women (and men) are standing down, and how long they have served as MPs for. You can
read the full Factsheet here, but the headline figures are:
- retiring Conservative women MPs have served an average of 5 years;
- retiring Labour women MPs have served an average of 25 years;
- reteiring Conservative men have served an average of 26 years.
So it does indeed seem as though something interesting is happening with the 2010 intake of Conservative women, although until we get to the election and see the full picture it is not really possible to be definite about whether this is confined to women, and, if so, exactly what the cause of it is.
Whilst we were at it, we took a look at the answer to the often-asked question: 'whatever happened to all those women elected in 1997?'. We are sometimes led to believe that these women did not do well, that many of them left politics early, and that they were unlikely ever to be hreard of again. In fact, as our research showed, there is no real basis for those assumptions at all.
It is true that women were more likely than their male colleagues to retire, although only 2 actually did so after only one term, with most staying in Parliament until 2010 and many still in office. The 1997 intake of women were also proportinately more likely than the 1997 intake of men to achieve cabinet rank, and current members of both the Cabinet and the Shadow Cabinet were first elected in 1997.
At a time when the representaion and presence of women in Parliament has become a matter for allegation and counter-allegation between (male) politicians, it is useful to know what the facts actually are, if only so that we can make sure we address the right problem!
Women win in Tunisia
Tunisian campaigners have won a real victory in their battle to protect and promote women's rights as part of the new constitution. Following a bitter three-day long debate in the Parliament it was agreed to include clauses guaranteeing gender equality in legislative bodies and protecting women from domestic violence. This followed a campaign by women from across the political spectrum, bringing together women from the then-governing Islamist Ennahda and the secular Ettakattol parties. Tunisia is the first country in the Arab world to include such measures in its constitution, and although there was disagreement amongst women as well as men, the proposals were passed in January. 26.7 percent of Tunisian MPs are women, including 45 percent of Ennahda's MPs. However, women do not do so well in ministerial terms; the new technocratic and independent caretaker cabinet, which will oversee new elections, includes only three women, and structural changes mean that the women's ministry, which had been separate and had some success) is now submerged in a larger ministry headed by a man. As the most secular of the Arab countries, Tunisia offers a picture of both the opportunities and the challenges women face, and their progress over the coming years will be interesting.
PMQs: Tuned in or turned off?
A
new report from the Hansard Society has found that Prime Minister's Question Time makes just 12 percent of people proud of their Parliament. It looks in detail at why it is so disliked and makes some suggestions about what could be done about it. PMQs is often cited as exemplifying the kind of culture and atmosphere that turns women off politics and makes them less likely to think of standing for public office, and this report is a timely addition to the current debate about broadening the base from which politicians are drawn.
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