Are Women Represented in UK Politics?

Women, particularly Black women, are largely underrepresented in UK politics.

Women in the UK only began getting the right to vote in 1918, thanks to the dedication and resilience of the Suffragettes. The Representation of the People Act 1918 gave ‘women over the age of 30 who met a property qualification’ (UK Parliament, no date) the right to vote. It was not 10 years later that women were finally given the same voting rights as men under the Equal Franchise Act 1928 which mean that men and women ‘over the age of 21’ (UK Parliament, no date) were able to vote in elections. Since 1918, the UK has only has 3 female prime ministers: Baroness Thatcher (1979-1990), Theresa May (2016-2019) and Liz Truss MP (2022) who was the shortest serving Prime Minister. Most people on the internet would have seen the videos about Liz Truss vs. the lettuce or the public poll on who would last longer: the lettuce in a wig or the prime minister. Unfortunately, the lettuce was victorious as Truss quit after 49 days.

All of three women are white women, the UK has never had a Black female prime minister. Currently, women are outnumbered in both the House of Commons and the House of Lords as visible in Figure 1 below. Figure 1 is a visual representation of the composition of UK Parliament. According to Baker et al. (2023) women account for 35% of the House of Commons and 29% of the House of Lords with 31% of parliamentarians being women. Women account for ‘51.0%’ (Roskams, 2022) of the population of England and Wales following the 2021 census. This means that women are underrepresented in Parliament by a shocking 20% 95 years after women first won the right to vote.

 

Figure 1. Parliamentarian Representation by Gender

Why is underrepresentation a problem?

The lack of representation of Women in UK politics is problematic because the very issues that affect women are being decided on predominantly by men. For example, childcare reforms are a big issue for women who are still largely responsible for childcare across the UK. How are women supposed to have their voices heard properly if they are not adequately represented in the memberships of the houses that make the decisions for the entire country. It is easy for female MPs opinions on national issues to be minimised if there are less of them. There is definitely strength in numbers. This is why we need more women in Parliament.

Traditional explanations as to why women were less active in politics were that ‘women tended to be less involved and interested in most conventional forms of political life, whether in terms of elected office, party membership, interest group activity, or campaign work, and, to a lesser extent, in voting’ (Norris, 1991: 56). This is arguably due to gender stereotypes in the 1950s that placed women at home taking care of their families and homes and men working. Being a politician would not have been seen as suitable job for a woman but perfect for a man because women were considered too emotional to make logical and rational decisions about the future of a country. Funny, seeing as many women in the 50s were solely or mostly incharge or raising children while their husbands worked, which is one of the hardest roles a person can ever have. Later, more radical perspectives have argued that ‘women do not participate less than men, but rather participate differently’ (Norris, 1991: 56). For example, protesting which was the case with the 2022 March of the Mummies. Thousands of people marched through London on Sunday 29th October to protest against the current childcare structure in the UK. Here is a short channel 4 clip about the protest.

 

Black Women and Political Alienation

According to Baker, et al. (2023), there are ‘225 female MPs in the House of Commons’ and only ’12’ (Aworo, 2020) are black. This means that black women make up a shocking 1.85% of the MPs in the UK. For Black women, the lack of representation is not as simple as gender stereotypes as they also have to contend with racial stereotypes and abuse. Amnesty International (2023) ‘analysed tweets mentioning 117 women MPs active on Twitter in the run up to the 2017 general election’. The ethnic minority MPs received ‘41%'(Amnesty International, 2023) of the abuse despite their being 8x more white MPs in the study which shows the abuse is largely aimed at Black female MPs. This sexist, racist abuse is called ‘misogynoir’ (Bailey and Trudy, 2018). The study concluded that Diane Abbott MP is the most victimised.

When discussing how to improve the representation of women in UK Parliament, particularly Black women it is important to look at the concept of Intersectionality. It is a term that describes ‘how the differential situatedness of social agents influences the ways they affect and are affected by various social, economic, and political projects’ (Scott, 2014). It was first used by Critical Race Feminist Kimberle Crenshaw. Below is a video of Crenshaw explaining the term, please watch.

If we do not frst comprehend how racism and sexism work together to oppress Black women in politics, how can we develop adequate solutions to improve representation.

The Solution

Many arguments have been considered as to the best way to get more ethnic minority women, especially Black women, into representative politics in the UK. I believe the most effective solution is better Citizenship Education rather than quotas. Quotas can be useful to improve the representation of women in politics but they unfairly benefit white women and further alienate ethnic minority women, particularly Black Women. Citizenship education is an invaluable tool in educating and encouraging participation in more formal politics. It has been part of the National Curriculum since 2002 and is ‘underpinned by the three principle aims to develop: social and moral responsibility, political literacy and community involvement’ (Association for Citizenship Teaching, 2023). I spoke about active citizenship in my first post: Young People and Political Engagement. Follow the link for a definition and a short We The People clip that illustrates how citizenship can contribute to change, check it out if you have a few minutes. Not only should the teaching of citizenship be standardised to improve students knowledge of responsibilities, politics and community but it should also encourage more girls, in particular Black girls to participate in representative politics. I know that if my school did not have an emphasis on active citizenship and political participation I would not participate in politics. As Black women it is important that we make the jump form alternative forms of participation to representative politics. Seeing more Black female MPs will also inspire young Black girls to get more involved in politics themselves.

Bibliography

Amnesty International UK (2023) Black and Asian women MPs abused more online. Available at: https://www.amnesty.org.uk/online-violence-women-mps (Accessed: 20/03/2023)

Association for Citizenship Teaching (2023) What is Citizenship Education?. Available at: https://www.teachingcitizenship.org.uk/what-is-citizenship-education/ (Accessed: 10/03/2023)

Aworo, E. (2020) We need more black women in British politics. Available at: https://www.kcl.ac.uk/news/we-need-more-black-women-in-british-politics (Accessed: 20/03/2023)

Bailey, M., Trudy (2018) On misogynoir: citation, erasure, and plagiarism, Feminist Media Studies, 18:4, 762-768, DOI: 10.1080/14680777.2018.1447395

Baker, et al. (2023) Women in Politics and Public Life. Available at: https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn01250/ (Accessed: 20/03/2023)

Channel 4 News (2022) March of the Mummies: thousands protest ‘nightmare’ UK childcare. [YouTube]. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0z5beyHQuW8 (Accessed: 05//04/2023)

Nation Association of Independent Schools (2019) Kimberlé Crenshaw: What is Intersectionality? [YouTube]. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ViDtnfQ9FHc (Accessed: 05/04/2023)

Norris, P. (1991) Gender Differences in Political Participation in Britain: Traditional, Radical and Revisionist Models. Government and Opposition, 26(1), 56–74. http://www.jstor.org/stable/44482555

Roskams, M. (2022) Population and household estimates, England and Wales: Census 2021. Available at: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/populationestimates/bulletins/populationandhouseholdestimatesenglandandwales/census2021 (Accessed: 20/03/2023)

Scott, J. (2014) Oxford Dictionary of Sociology. (4^th edn.) New York City, USA: Oxford University Press

UK Parliament (no date) Women get the vote. Available at: https://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/transformingsociety/electionsvoting/womenvote/overview/thevote/ (Accessed: 20/03/2023)

Wikimedia (2023) File:Liz Truss VS Daily Star Lettuce.png. Available at: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Liz_Truss_VS_Daily_Star_Lettuce.png (Accessed: 05/04/2023)

Wikimedia (2023) File:Official portrait of Ms Diane Abbott crop 2.jpg. Available at: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Official_portrait_of_Ms_Diane_Abbott_crop_2.jpg (Accessed: 05/04/2023)