Frances Scott
Founder and Director, 50:50 ParliamentFrances Scott is the founder and director of 50:50 Parliament, an organisation working towards equal gender representation in elected office
For International Women’s Day 2023, it is important to understand each woman’s journey toward gender representation and equality. It is equally, if not more, necessary to understand how we as a society can shape the journey of future women, together, so that it is much easier lived and collectively travelled. Frances Scott, Founder and Director of 50:50 Parliament, writes on her journey to work towards equal representation in elected office.
The theme for this year’s International Women’s Day on 8th March is #EmbraceEquality. It reminds me of the day my nine-year-old daughter came running out of school, full of excitement and saying:
“Mum, Mum, I’ve been elected to school council.”
I gave her a big hug and we celebrated together. This was something she had been working towards for a few weeks.
“That’s fantastic,” I said, “are you representing the whole class?”
“No, of course not,” she replied, “there is always one girl and one boy from each class on the school council because our experiences are different. The boys don’t understand the dilemmas of whether girls should wear skirts or trousers to school, and we don’t understand why the boy’s toilets get so dirty.”
My daughter’s electoral success was my ‘lightbulb’ moment – they get it at primary school, girls and boys have different experiences, so they need equal representation.
Why are women in the UK in the minority in elected office?
It is curious that women account for more than 50% of our population but are a minority on most elected bodies throughout the UK. There is still twice the number of men than women in Parliament and on most elected bodies, which tells me that our democracy is either inaccessible or unattractive to women.
We are proud of our democracy but in the 104 years since women have had the right to vote and stand for elected office, well over 5000 MPs have been elected but fewer than 600 have been women. How can we build gender balance into our democracy and ensure that it is truly representative and draws upon the widest possible pool of talent?
It matters because representation shapes policy and, as Professor of Politics, Joni Lovenduski, at the University of London explains:
“Men can represent women but there is plenty of evidence to suggest that they tend to listen to women’s concerns better when there are more women in the room.”
Joni Lovendusk, Professor of Politics, University of London
Diversity leads to better decision making and if we are to build a well-balanced caring society, we need a well-balanced legislature.
Valuing women
As men currently dominate the legislature, it sometimes feels like women’s work and experiences don’t count as much as men’s. The Office of National Statistics (ONS) has recently started to quantify the value of informal unpaid work – a sector that is female heavy.
Published in 2016, an ONS report estimated the value of the UK’s unpaid household service work at £1.24 trillion – larger in size than the UK’s non-financial corporation sector. Overall, unpaid household service work was equivalent to 63% of gross domestic product (GDP).
In spite of women’s enormous contribution to society, our democratic and parliamentary processes are clearly not as accessible to them as they are to men.
Creating a more balanced legislature could also have a positive impact on how men get to interact with family life. In countries like Norway, Sweden, Iceland and Finland, where power is more gender-balanced, legislation allows men to participate more in family life and parenting from the early days.
A report from the Nordic Information on Gender says: “Men who go on long-term parental leave in the Nordic countries are more involved in the care of their children throughout their lives. They do more household work and domestic chores, communicate better with their partners about the needs of their children, and have a better understanding of their children and partners’ daily life.”
50:50 Parliament
Before having children, I had a successful international business career. On becoming a mother, I re-trained to be an antenatal teacher. In this role, I became increasingly concerned that policy surrounding maternity services, women’s health, women’s finances, family life, childcare and parenting, was not properly informed.
As a result, I launched 50:50 Parliament – a network that helps women progress in politics. Over the years, it has received support from all the main political party leaders, and it is now the leading non-partisan organisation helping women progress in politics.
Our activities include
- A programme of live and online events, collaborating with other organisations to recruit women to consider standing for elected office. So far, nearly 3000 women have registered with our #SignUpToStand programme.
- We guide and monitor women’s progress through interactive personal political profiles.
- We allocate 50:50 buddies – creating a network of peer support.
- We invite women to weekly party-specific BiteSize sessions. These online meetings are hosted by politically experienced women who offer expert advice.
- We host special bespoke sessions for women with protected characteristics or those from minority groups, recognising that some women face higher hurdles and intersecting layers of discrimination.
The great news is that what we do works. When 50:50 was launched ten years ago, only 147 of MPs were women. There are now 78 more women in the House of Commons, accounting for a third of MPs.
However, there is still much work to do. Another 100 women need to win seats in the Commons for women to have equal seats and an equal say in national policymaking. In the 2019 General Election, only 12 extra women were elected to the House of Commons.
At this rate, it will take half a century for women to have equal seats. I will be dead, and my daughters will be old. Fifty years is too long to wait.
#EmbraceEquality
As such, we are asking both men and women to #EmbraceEquality by encouraging women into public life. Please ask women who care about their communities and who want to make a difference to visit www.50:50Parliament.co.uk/sign-up-to-stand/
It took the First World War for social attitudes to move on sufficiently to recognise that women should have the vote. Maybe, one hundred years on, the current crisis will also be a catalyst. Perhaps in the future, it will be accepted that women should have equal representation and share in decision-making at the highest level.