Women’s issues are often front and centre of political discourse, so it may be surprising to see that women are generally less interested in politics than their male counterparts. as recently as last year the US Supreme Court voted to upend Roe v Wade, meaning the constitutional right to abortion was no more. Closer to home in the UK, childcare is becoming increasing unaffordable which will inevitably keep many women out of work which in turn likely to cause women problems further down the line in terms of career progression or even having to choose between a career and motherhood.

a key factor of women disengagement with politics may be down to their being underrepresented. despite the general election of 2019 being the most successful for women in terms of number of female MPs being voted for, women are still massively underrepresented in the House of Commons. According to the Commons library , “The 2019 General Election returned the highest number and proportion of female MPs ever recorded: 220 (34%) of 650 MPs are women”. There does seem to be want for fresh faces in parliament by the electorate as 57 of the 140 new MPs (41%) were women, a higher proportion than there are female MPs. So there definitely seems to be progress being made towards a more equal playing field between men and women in British politics. The number of female MPs has steadily grown for a number of decades now, with female MPs only exceeding 5% of al MPs in in 1987 and a decade later in 1997, the percentage of women in the House of Commons double from 9% to 18%. see (fig.1)

(FIG.2 )

Figure 1 shows the difference in political engagement and interest amongst men and women based on age as well as their academic qualifications. according to the two graphs the difference in political engagement gets bigger with age and academic qualifications, to understand these differences its important to look at some wider sociological context.

Socialisation of the sexes:

the gender socialisation of children plays a key role in the development of children social and cognitive skills (Cherney and Dempsey, 2010)  and so in some of even the most ‘progressive’ societies such as the UK, boys and girls are socialised differently based on the gender norms of British society. for example girls are generally socialised to perform some sort of care giving, through for example toys. girls are often gifted doll to look after or mini kitchen sets, preparing them for motherhood and how to look after a home, as is expected from a (British) woman. on the other hand, boys are often gifted cars or guns and action figure etc. stressing the importance of strength and aggression, again traits that are expected of the (British) man. women generally are painted as irrational, emotional beings with men being painted as the opposite, logical calm beings. this is often used to to justify the lack female heads of state around the world.

these ideas that children are socialised with seep into our thinking as they’re subtly fed to us throughout childhood and thus women political engagement (or lack thereof) may have roots in societal norms.

the socialisation of girls to perform some sort of caregiving and the nurturing of young girls into caring young women may also be the driving force as to why women generally vote more liberally than men. similarly the socialisation of young boys t be aggressive, assertive may also be the driving force behind their voting generally more conservatively.

women’s inclination to vote more liberally and thus hold more liberal, left leaning views is evident in the make up of the major political parties in the UK. for example, the graph below shows the proportion of each major political party’s female MPs. it is arguably of no surprise that Labour has the highest percentage of female MPs as it the primary left-leaning political party in the UK.

What can we change?

we appreciate we cannot tackle harmful social norms in a handful of years between now and the next election however we can take steps to level the playing field slightly. for example, we could push for (through petitions and protest) symmetry and adequate representation for women in the House of Commons e.g a 50/50 split between male and female MPs. Government ran schemes could also prove incredibly important. for example the governments ‘Sure Start’ scheme was put into place to close the gap between working class children and their middle/upper class counterparts in order to tackle institutional classism. a similar approach by the government that aims to bridge the gap between male and female engagement in politics could prove to be invaluable in truly levelling the playing field.

What’s being done in government to help female MPs?

one of the ways in which government is trying to close the gap on gender inequality in politics is by allowing MPs to vote whilst on parental leave, this will undoubtedly prove instrumental in ensuring female MPs won’t have to choose between their careers or their families by allowing them to complete one of their most important duties from home.

changes have also been made to the sitting hours in parliament in the years 2005 and 2012 meaning 2018 sitting days have only continued past midnight on three occasions.