Why aren’t enough women participating in British politics?

If we go back years ago, women did not have enough rights in Britain because of the way society viewed them as less valued and unimportant. This meant they did not have enough power to try and fight for their rights because consciously they knew society will knock them back down. However things started to change in the 19th century and British women were finally starting to see a light at the end of the tunnel because of the gradual improvement in women’s rights.

There are many reasons for why there not enough women in politics and this is still continued because women have fewer resources of money, time and skills to help them get into politics or to gain an interest. Women are not inspired enough to go in to the field of working for the government or to be a part of a political party because they have other duties that they feel is more important than politics. One example of this is women have the responsibility of looking after the family and staying home to complete housework and take care of the children. They are juggling through the responsibilities at home and workplace because working women with children have a lot of duties they face every day so they lack interest and knowledge to understand politics.

It is also the case of that some women are not as educated as men especially the older generation because of the way they were represented in society. The representation of women in the past has led to fewer women in British politics because most of them did not go into education because they either had to marry at a young age or take care of their family. In addition to this, many of these women grew up holding the same traditional views and would pass it on to their daughters. This had an impact on them due to the lack of education they were not able to open their eyes and explore politics because it was seen unacceptable for them in the past.

Has Britain made progress towards more women in politics?

Yes! Progress is made towards British politics and women have helped make that progress!           In figure 1, you can evidently see that there has been an increase of women MP’s in the labour party due to the change of social values and people are now accepting women in the government. The figure indicates that in 2001 there was under 100 female MP’s in the labour party whereas, in 2017 it shows the number of woman MP’s to increase over 100 because society is taking into consideration gender inequalities. Therefore, allowing more woman MP’s can have an impact on how females are perceived in society and gives woman more opportunities to gain power and climb up the social hierarchy. In addition to this, Campbell and Wolbrecht (2006) focus on the importance of women politicians ‘visibility in the news media for empowering women’s participation’ (Kittilson and Schwindt-Bayer, 2012). If more empowering woman are participating it can have a symbolic effect because there are more female politician role models to inspire young women to participate and become more active in politics.

 

Figure 2:

However, Figure  2 indicates that conservatives has a lower percentage of female candidates when compared to Labour. Vast majority of women of these women voted for labour because the labour party came up with manifesto’s that was ideal and very beneficial for women in Britain. Atkeson (2003) indicated that women candidtates should be visible and ‘competitive to significantly affect women’s engagement in the election’ (Kittilson and Schwindt-Bayer, 2012).

 

 

 

 

Figure 3:

However, amongst gender it is apparent between male and female that there is a lower percentage of women in parliament in Britain when compared to other countries. In figure 3, it shows that the UK has a percentage of 22.3 of women in parliament and countries such as Germany, Sweden and Rwanda have a much higher percentage of women in politics. Who would of thought a country such as Rwanda would have a major high percentage of women in parliament when compared to the UK. Half of the population in Rwanda are in poverty and most areas are highly deprived. Statistics show “39 percent of Rwandans are below the nation’s poverty rate and 16 percent live in extreme poverty. Sixty percent of Rwandans are living on less than $1.90 per day”. This makes you question why an economically developed country such as the UK is still facing issues such as gender inequalities in politics. When you have a country like Rwanda who are experiencing humanitarian issues but they have allowed women to be a part of parliament and do not have to face no barriers because there is no gender discrimination.

Overall, as a women I feel as though there has been an increased improvement for women over the years this is because giving females the chance to vote has allowed to open up the barriers for more voices to be heard in order to make UK a better place. I highly respect all the females who have raised awareness for women in politics because without them I would not be the person I am today! However, there is still gender inequalities in UK politics but that can not stop us from fighting and empowering ourselves. We need to hold our heads high because nothing and no one can knock us down.