The Day the Tories said Goodbye to the Women's Vote

(This blog was also posted on LabourList today)

The attacks on Harriet Harman at Business Questions were the most vicious and sexist I have heard for a long time. She was right to not dignify their questions with an answer.
It is beyond me why valuable time in Parliament, at a time of recession and a need for hope and confidence in our country, that the Tory frontbench finds it is more productive to talk about the shoes that women MPs are wearing.

If the Tories want to talk about their record on women in political life, then yes, let’s have that debate.

They talk about having had the first woman Prime Minister. So what was her record?
At which point did Margaret Thatcher have six or more women in her Cabinet, which we have seen almost consistently under both Tony Blair and Gordon Brown? At which point, under and since Margaret Thatcher, did the Tories have the majority of women in the House of Commons? Currently women make up more than 50% of the population, but 19.4% of MPs. After the 2005 election, the Tories had 17 women MPs, and the Labour Party had 98. Even the Liberal Democrats are hot on their tails with 10 women MPs.
So maybe we should take a look at local councillors. At 2008, we had 30.8% of women councillors. 0.8% of councillors (149) are ethnic minority women. Of these 149 heroines of our nation, 20% are in the Tory councillors, and 64% are Labour councillors.

Perhaps we should move to the positive action measures the Tories have in place. The A list? Say no more.

No, yesterday was truly the day that Cameron’s Conservatives showed themselves to be what they really are – and how stuck in the past they are. And the point is that individual Tory women MPs may want to see things change, but they will never have the critical mass of numbers of women at the top in the Tory Party that research shows any organisation, public or private, needs in order to turn things around and shake up the deeper cultural issues that hold back progress.

The demonstration of the Tories at Business Questions of the kind of Yah Boo politics that turns women off politics. Their performance was about playing to their schoolboy chums on the back benches, not about playing a public role in the nation’s political life.
Politics should be about principles and about debate. Not a debate about women’s attire that would be more appropriate for the sort of debate Parliament might have expected 200 years ago. If there is such disrespect for women politicians on the side of the Tories, how can women ever expect that they will be defenders of their needs and rights in Parliament.

Yesterday was truly the day that the Tories said goodbye to women’s votes. Every woman (and principled man) should listen to the debate and spread the word

Let a Million Women Rise

(This post was also posted on LabourList this week)

A shocking news story this morning about the murder of Katie Summers, stabbed to death last year in a frenzied attack by her ex-partner is a stark reminder of the risk to their lives that many women, often unsuspecting, come to face in their own homes. The IPCC are launching an investigation into the police handling of Katie’s murder. Just 24 years old and with two young children, she had called them in the days leading up to her death, following multiple incidents of domestic violence.

It is also an important reminder about the relevance and symbolism of International Women’s Day. I spent Saturday marching with 6,000 other women, on the Million Women Rise march through the heart of London. The aim was to make a simple statement: it is time to end violence against women.

I hadn’t had any particular expectations of the day, but by the end of the march, I became convinced that those I had walked with were some of the bravest women in Britain. Many not just victims, but now fighters for change. One woman I talked to had been a rape victim. She said that violence against women needed not just a political response, but a change in social attitudes – a much greater awareness of its prevalence and of its impact. A second was a woman who as a child had witnessed violence at home – and grew up thinking it was normal. She wanted to stop children also being the hidden victims of domestic violence. A third recounted the sexual attack on her by a stranger when young; now much older, of course she coped but the trauma left her unable to walk in woods for ten years, and in many ways the crime still lived with her every day.
We can become quite immune to some of the numbers. Up to 600,000 incidents of domestic violence reported each year in the UK. Around 5% of rape claims ending in conviction. Two people a week murdered, just like Katie, by their partner or ex-partner. But the Million Women Rise march was not just about British women, and the violence that so many face behind closed doors. Gender has a relevance across class and across countries.

The march was also to remind us about how violence is used against women as a weapon of war, and how Britain, and British women, can offer support to women victims in other nations. And the feedback from the international speakers was a huge reminder of how significant such solidarity can be.

The march organisers (all volunteers) have a simple aim – that the march grows each year, and as it does so, awareness grows of violence against women, and what needs to be done about it. They hope that soon One Million Women will be marching together – as a statement of support for the victims of the on average 1500-2000 known incidents every day in the UK, and the millions more across the world. As Sabrina, the founder, said to me “There are 30 million women in the UK – why can’t we get one million to join us?”

One big takeaway from the march, particularly in the new Age of Obama, the king of grassroots connection, was the absence of politicians with the exception of Margaret Moran MP. A stark reminder that politicians with hard power need to do much more to connect to passion power – as part of staying relevant to people and the issues they campaign on. And in doing so, they will also learn a great deal.