AS I sat in the House of Commons yesterday morning waiting for my opportunity to question the Foreign Secretary on David Cameron’s plans to hold a referendum on our membership of the European Union, I heard a strange sound.
It was a kind of muted braying, coming from the Tory backbenches opposite. A low, guttural sound that grew in volume and scope throughout the exchange between a female Labour MP and the ministers opposite. It stopped as soon as that question was over. For a few minutes the chamber continued in a more orderly and respectful manner.
When I rose to ask my question, the noise began again. As I completed my contribution, it dawned on me that this was clearly a special form of appreciation from the males on the Conservative benches reserved for women on the other side of the House. A huge amount of progress has been made for the better for women around the world in the 97 years that have passed since Nancy Astor took up her place on the green benches of the House of Commons, but routine sexism is still clearly apparent in parts of the Palace of Westminster.
In no other place of work would behaviour like this be tolerated, but it’s still fairly routine for female MPs.
It made me recall the story of when that first female MP tried to reach her usual place, which was in the middle of a row. Other MPs would move closer to leave no space for her to get past and then laughed and jeered as she was forced to squeeze by.
Winnie Ewing told another story in her autobiography of when she was stalked around the Houses of Parliament by a male Labour MP who followed her down corridors and accosted her in the Place of Westminster late at night.
As recently as 2011 a survey of Members of Parliament showed that only one out of 10 MPs sees Westminster as a family-friendly environment. Not only do we have to contend with unfriendly hours and late nights, Parliamentary recesses don’t align with school holidays, and breast-feeding is still banned within the House of Commons.
While the majority of modern workplaces have addressed these issues, there is a certain irony that workplace of our legislators still lagging behind.
The SNP and other parties have made huge strides to improve the representation of women in Parliament at both Westminster and Holyrood, but there’s still much more to do. It’s just as important now that we seek to modernise the practice and attitudes in politics to women in public life. We simply can’t stand still.
This is important, because it’s vital to our democracy that those who make our laws are representative of the country at large. But in doing this we need to be clear that achieving equality is a process and not an event. We must strive to keep pace with our ever-changing society.
For example, in May 2015 a record number of 32 LGBT MPs were elected.
This weekend saw the welcome publication of a photograph of 28 lesbian, gay and bisexual Parliamentarians in front of Big Ben, the largest number of publicly out parliamentarians photographed together at one time. It was an uplifting sight.
Also this weekend the cross-party One in Five campaign, led by Jamie Szymkowiak, held an event to celebrate the decision by the Scottish Government to launch the democratic participation fund, which will support disabled candidates in 2017’s Scottish council elections.
This will help meet transport and communications costs, pushing another boundary in helping to build a more inclusive politics.
Later this week I’ll be speaking to a group of students on the subject of Women in Politics. I want to impress on this group of tomorrow’s potential leaders that not only must we all learn the lessons of the pioneers of equality, but that we should continue to build on their legacy, and not be content to simply commemorate it.
On International Women’s Day next month Scotland will join the world in celebrating our achievements so far, including our female First Minister, her gender-balanced Scottish Cabinet, and the female leaders of Scotland’s other major parties.
We might not be able to completely silence the Neanderthal minority who rail against such progress, but by continuing our work to build an inclusive and representative civic Scotland, we can and we will consign these attitudes to history.
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