Bibliography

student strike wallpaper photo accessed on 14/04/2021 courtesy of: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_United_Kingdom_student_protests#/media/File:London_Protest_2010_-_5164008987.jpg

Youth Turnout 2019 Election accessed on 14/04/2021 courtesy of: https://89initiative.com/youth-turnout-uk-europe/

How to get young people to vote, Rick Edwards TedX Houses of Parliament accessed on 15/04/2021 courtesy of: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nlYpMGI6iNQ&t=1s

Why are young people disengaged with politics?, Laurence Hayward, TedX Sherbourne accessed on 15/04/2021 courtesy of: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g82tiTQ_01E

Youth Turnout at Election accessed 15/04/2021 courtesy of: https://www.ipsos.com/ipsos-mori/en-uk/how-britain-voted-2019-election

voting by age picture accessed 15/04/2021 courtesy of: https://www.ipsos.com/sites/default/files/ct/news/documents/2019-12/general-election-2019-poll-aggregate-v8.pdf

labour manifesto accessed 15/04/2021 courtesy of: https://labour.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Real-Change-Labour-Manifesto-2019.pdf

Women in politics courtesy of:https://blogs.prio.org/2020/10/prios-state-feminist-helga-hernes-interviewed-by-kristian-berg-harpviken/

Do you feel that women are represented enough through the political system?

Lets talk about women and their political engagement. We can see that women are politically engaged, as, when looking at the 2019 turnout for the general election, we can see that “59%” of all women that could vote did so. This is relatively high when looking at the male vote which in comparison was not much higher, at only “63%” of all men who could vote at the 2019 election. Could this mean that women are starting to gain a higher political role in society? My answer to this would be unfortunately, no.

Even though we can tell that women are becoming politically engaged, this has not in turn helped women out within politics especially those working within politics. From the image below we can see the percentage of women who were elected into parliament at each general election from 1979 until the 2019 election, even though the numbers have risen and risen steeply since the 1990s by the 2019 election, only 34% of MPs within parliament are women, which would suggest that  women are not being represented accordingly within parliament, considering that over half of the UK population is female, yet only a third of MPs are women meaning most MP’s are men who I believe would not be able to appropriately deal with women’s issues as well as women themselves, due to this i would say that more is now needed to get women better represented within parliament. This I feel is shown when Duflo et.al. says that “Men less often think about rape, domestic violence, women’s health, and child care. Women, in turn, have demonstrably different policy priorities than men (Chattopadhyay and Duflo 2004; Gerrity, Osborn, and Mendez 2007; Schwindt-Bayer 2006; Swers 1998).” showing how women’s issues within society are being marginalised and forgotten about as they do not directly affect the men who are more likely to be in power, and more likely to be dealing with these issues, therefore I believe these issues are not adequately discussed nor do I believe they are acted upon to enforce change by MPs.

Do you feel that the male MPs are listening and acting for women’s problems within society?

% of women elected at general elections, courtesy of: https://moodle.roehampton.ac.uk/pluginfile.php/1806038/mod_resource/content/1/Women%20in%20parliament.pdf

One way that I believe the gender gap within politics could change is through diversity quotas, this is as it would enforce that intersectionality would happen throughout the political system. Meaning that all peoples views and issue’s would be taken care of and have an equal voice within society. However, this is not always supported as some sociologists say “gender quotas will increase minority women’s representation in national legislature, but to a lesser extent than for the majority of women.” This helps me to understand that even if quotas were introduced and enforced they would only employ those that shared the beliefs and ideas of the dominant group, in this case middle class men. However I believe that this would be a first small step to helping and ensuring that women’s issues within society were dealt with by those who can understand and sympathise with the people who the issues effect. Do you feel that a diversity quota would help to ensure women’s issues are dealt with appropriately by politicians within society?

Do you feel that women are influenced by men on how to vote?

Even though we know that women are politically engaged and over half of all women in the UK voted in the last election, how do they vote and is their vote influenced by men. My belief is that yes they are influenced by men, by looking at the image below we can see the percentage of votes by both men and women in the 2019 general election by class. I believe that from looking at this we can see how women are influenced on how they vote. This is as if you look at the votes for men and compare them to women, in each different social grade, they are very similar in some cases identical. Could this be that as men may be more educated on politics, women listen to what they say and vote based on the knowledge they have gained from men within society. I believe that this is the case and so I feel that a way to stop this and give women their own voice which they can choose for themselves, starts within the education system, like many other things, I believe that women’s opportunities within schools and subject choice for them should empower them to become politically involved and give them knowledge on the political system, which men have had for years.

women and mens votes in the 2019 general election based on class, courtesy of: https://www.ipsos.com/ipsos-mori/en-uk/how-britain-voted-2019-election

Final Thought

Overall I believe that women’s issues are being marginalised and “pushed to one side within society”, I feel that there are many ways that this can stop. The ways i feel that would help to put women’s issues at a prominent place within society, comes through many different parts of society, firstly education, women should be better educated and encouraged to learn about the political system and how they can effect change within society, this would help women to enforce change by becoming more politically engaged, and also make better informed decisions on voting, and may also encourage more women to see power within the political system, in turn helping the effort with women’s issues within society.

Do you feel that if better education was offered to women to encourage political participation it would help to solve women’s issues within society?

Bibliography

women and men’s votes in the 2019 general election based on class, courtesy of: https://www.ipsos.com/ipsos-mori/en-uk/how-britain-voted-2019-election

% of women elected at general elections, courtesy of: https://moodle.roehampton.ac.uk/pluginfile.php/1806038/mod_resource/content/1/Women%20in%20parliament.pdf

Women in politics courtesy of:https://blogs.prio.org/2020/10/prios-state-feminist-helga-hernes-interviewed-by-kristian-berg-harpviken/

HUGHES, M. “Intersectionality, Quotas, and Minority Women’s Political Representation Worldwide.” The American Political Science Review 105, no. 3 (2011): 604-20. Accessed March 24, 2021. available at: doi:10.2307/41480860.

Paxton, P., & Hughes, M. M. (2014). Introduction to women in politics. In Women, politics, and power: A global perspective (pp. 1-30). SAGE Publications, Inc., available at:  https://www-doi-org.roe.idm.oclc.org/10.4135/9781452275482.n1

why are those from lower socioeconomic backgrounds less likely to become politically engaged?

When we look at political engagement amongst different socioeconomic backgrounds we will tend to find that those who are from higher socioeconomic backgrounds are more likely to become politically engaged when they move into adulthood. why is this?

Lets take a look at schooling as a factor to why those from lower socioeconomic backgrounds may feel less inclined to become politically active. I myself come from a very proud working class background, and at school I was never taught about politics, voting or being politically engaged and how I would be able to accomplish this task. my political knowledge when I left school was extremely limited and only started to grow by going to university where those from middle class backgrounds and I would engage in political conversations, however I feel for many people from my background would not favour a university education, and so their political knowledge would stay limited as they would struggle to know where to find the knowledge or would not be interested in learning, as they do not feel that they would gain anything from containing this knowledge.

We can see that students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds are less likely to gain political knowledge from their schooling, we can see this as, “Middaugh (2008) found that in the US, disadvantaged youth had significantly less access to service learning opportunities and debates than students from more privileged groups.” this helps us to make an assumption that those students from working class backgrounds are less likely to become politically engaged, due to a lack of education about the political system compared to students who are from a middle class background. this I believe is further proved when looking at voter turnout in the 2019 election, where those aged 18-34 from the lowest socioeconomic background had a turnout rate off only 43% this is compared to 59% from the highest socioeconomic background for the same age. I believe that this shows how those from two different forms of teaching have had dramatically different experiences from school, as we can see how one group feel that it is their duty to vote compared to working class who haven’t had the knowledge to be able to make an informed decision on voting.

2019 voter turnout for 18-34 year olds by class courtesy of : https://www.ipsos.com/ipsos-mori/en-uk/how-britain-voted-2019-election

But why don’t working class students take in the knowledge for their own future, I feel that it is explained best by what Hoskins and Janmaat say that “Schools can further exacerbate these inequalities by providing learning opportunities from which middle-class children benefit more than working-class ones.” I believe that this again is why those from working class backgrounds wont get politically engaged, as if they cannot understand and comprehend what is being taught to them then eventually they are going to stop trying to learn which i feel is being done in schools, which will keep this class divide, especially through politics. But why do schools do this I hear you ask? It is I believe because most teachers come from a middle class background and so are trying to reproduce middle class individuals, however this in turn alienates those from working class backgrounds within school.

were you taught about politics at school?

Lets look at voter turn out, we can see from data that turnout for those who are skilled and unskilled in manual labour jobs, usually represented mainly by the working class population, have the lowest voter turn out. when looking at the image below we can see the voter turnout by class of the last three general election and the EU referendum. as you can see the two lowest turnouts across all four of the votes are the C2 and DE, the working class, with the lowest turn out being only 51% compared to 64% being the lowest turnout for the middle class over the last 4 elections.

voter turnout by social class for last three general elections and the EU referendum. Courtesy of: ipos accessed:https://www.ipsos.com/sites/default/files/ct/news/documents/2019-12/general-election-2019-poll-aggregate-v8.pdf

By looking at these graphs we can see how social class is a big contributing factor in to people voting however I feel that the easiest and best way that we can change this is through schools and educating young people especially those from low socioeconomic backgrounds about politics and actively engaging them and encouraging them to become politically engaged within society no matter how small. As Converse states “Having a high level of education is associated not with a higher capacity for searching for information and gaining political knowledge” I believe that this shows that if all students can attain the same level of education then no matter what socioeconomic background they are from they will be motivated to become politically engaged.

one final question do you feel that if you had a higher quality of education in school would you be more inclined to become politically engaged?

Bibliography

Castillio, J, et al, Mitigating the political participation gap from the school: the roles of civic knowledge and classroom climate, 2014, available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/13676261.2014.933199

Hoskins,B, Janmaat, J, Education, Democracy and Inequality : Political Engagement and Citizenship Education in Europe : Political Engagement and Citizenship Education in Europe, 2019, available at: https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/roehampton-ebooks/reader.action?docID=5802349&ppg=81

2019 voter turnout for 18-34 year olds by class available at : https://www.ipsos.com/ipsos-mori/en-uk/how-britain-voted-2019-election

voter turnout by social class for last three general elections and the EU referendum. available at: ipos accessed:https://www.ipsos.com/sites/default/files/ct/news/documents/2019-12/general-election-2019-poll-aggregate-v8.pdf

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