It’s been just over 100 years since the Women’s Suffrage Movement in the UK finally broke through the barrier of inequality between men and women. 1918 saw 8.4 million women (Roberts, 2001) finally regaining the right to vote since being barred from voting after the reform act 1832 was passed. November 1918 saw the Parliament (Qualification of Women) Act 1918 being passed allowing women to be elected in to the House of Commons (Fawcett, 2011). For generations before this women have been housekeepers, the property of their husband and not seen as capable of making decisions themselves. In recent times there is such a significant change in this backwards mentality in the west, and increasingly so in the east. This progress means that rather than a select few, now at least in the UK all women have the right to vote.

Figure 1- Graph showing number of female MPs elected at General Elections

However although there have been vast improvements in gender equality in the ability to vote there is still so much inequality in political representation. What’s stopping us ladies from coming out and taking up a position of leadership within Parliament? 32% of those elected into the House of Commons are women (Figure 1). This is an all-time high which is a little baffling considering women make up more of the population of the country at the moment, compared to men, making up 50.8% of the United Kingdom’s population (Countrymeters.info, 2019). Other parts of the world have significantly higher levels of female representation in parliaments such as Rwanda with women having a majority of 61% in the parliament (House of Commons Library, 2019). However this is not entirely due to societal changing, rather because a country fell into severe turmoil, and one man, Paul Kagame, realising that he could not rebuild his country without the women who made up 60-70% of the Rwandan population after the ’94 hundred days of slaughter (Warner, 2016).

President of Rwanda, Paul Kagame (centre): a proponent of putting women in power (Warner, 2016).

We are privileged here in the UK. I say privileged, but I mean only in contrast to other women around the world. Although we still live in a patriarchal society, it is somewhat hidden. It manifests itself in the form of unrealistic beauty standards, objectification of women or a pay gap between men and women. In other parts of the world this same patriarchal society is celebrated, with women still not given any ability to vote up to this day in the Vatican City, and Saudi Arabia only giving women voting rights in 2015! In countries such as Pakistan and Afghanistan women can be strongly reprimanded for going to vote without the permission of their husbands or “guardians” (Aspinall, 2018). In countries where women are denied their basic rights, it is understandable that it is not exactly possible for them to engage politically, but what about countries such as the United Kingdom where we turn out to vote just as much as men do (Figure 2). So what could be the reason that women still aren’t coming forward into parliamentary positions as much as their male counterparts?

 

Figure2- A graph to show turnout based on gender in the 2015 and 2017 general elections. (Green and Prosser, 2017)

Firstly, the House of Commons is absolutely dominated by men. With currently only 5 members of the cabinet being women including the Prime Minister, the face of politics in the UK is 78% men! (House of Commons Library, 2019). With such little representation from women it is no surprise that hardly any of the policies are made with women’s best interest in mind. With women of the general public seeing no care or benefit for them it is no surprise that many give up trying to make a change. Why is it that public groups such as students for example have policies made for their benefit but the same is not the case for more than half of the country’s population! Furthermore, female politicians are painted in a derogatory and negative manner by the media, so much emphasis is put on the way they look and act, traditional objectification, rather than what they represent and are; that is strong and bold women who are out there trying to make a difference for the rest of us! The sad part is that this negative portrayal by the media is leading young girls away from politics and destroying their confidence and their beliefs on how things should be, because they lose hope (Bullman, 2017).

With all these things in mind, there is still only one solution to all these problems. That is to stand up. Stand up like the women who were before us and take the fight into our own hands! We’ve come this far already, what’s stopping us from going further. We have to not lose hope and take initiative because realistically at the moment the only thing that is stopping us in this country at least is us losing confidence of how powerful a woman really can be. Change takes time, we’ve already come so far, and I believe that soon we will cover the rest of the distance too; the distance to true equality. If man can go to the moon, then why can’t we?

Bibliography

Aspinall, G. (2018). Here Are The Countries Where It’s Still Really Difficult For Women To Vote. [online] Grazia. Available at: https://graziadaily.co.uk/life/real-life/countries-where-women-can-t-vote/ [Accessed 23 Apr. 2019].

Bullman, M. (2017). Media obsession with politicians’ appearance putting young women off going into politics, study finds. [online] The Independent. Available at: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/the-medias-obsession-with-appearance-is-putting-women-off-politics-a7717141.html [Accessed 23 Apr. 2019].

Countrymeters.info. (2019). Live United Kingdom (UK) population (2019) — Countrymeters. [online] Available at: https://countrymeters.info/en/United_Kingdom_(UK) [Accessed 23 Apr. 2019].

Fawcett, M. (2011). The women’s victory–and after. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p.170.

Green, J. and Prosser, C. (2017) British Election Study: Women, Men and the 2017 General Electionavailable at http://www.britishelectionstudy.com/bes-findings/women-men-and-the-2017-general-election-by-jane-green-and-chris-prosser/#.WsfNOS_MwdU [Accessed 23 Apr. 2019].

House of Commons Library (2019), Women in Parliament and Government available at https://researchbriefings.parliament.uk/ResearchBriefing/Summary/SN01250 [Accessed 23 Apr. 2019].

Roberts, M. (2001). Britain, 1846-1964: The Challenge of Change. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Warner, G. (2016). NPR Choice page. [online] Npr.org. Available at: https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2016/07/29/487360094/invisibilia-no-one-thought-this-all-womans-debate-team-could-crush-it?t=1556057870063 [Accessed 23 Apr. 2019].