YES parties have significantly more female candidates standing for election than Unionist parties and could take the nation closer to a gender-balanced parliament.
In both the last two parliamentary sessions at Holyrood only 45 female MSPs (34.9%) were elected to the chamber. Women make up 51.5% of the country’s population and some parties are addressing the issue by making a concerted effort to try to make Holyrood a true reflection of Scottish society.
This election campaign is a bumper year for women’s representation in Yes parties, with both the SNP and Greens having more women than men bidding for a constituency seat.
Meanwhile, the Tories and other Unionist party’s candidate lists are heavily dominated by men.
The National took a look at the candidates on both the constituency and regional list to see if the upcoming Scottish Parliament is likely to be more illustrative of the country’s gender make-up than in previous years.
Overall, on the constituency list there are 357 candidates, 227 (63.58%) of which are men and 130 (36.41%) are women.
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However, when you look at each of the parties in isolation, a different picture emerges.
The SNP and Greens are miles ahead in female representation. The SNP have 37 women (50.6%) and 36 men, while the Greens have eight women (66%) and four men standing.
Labour comes close with 35 female candidates (47.9%) but the numbers dramatically fall when it comes to the Tories and LibDems.
The Tories have only 17 women (23.28%) standing for constituency seats, and 56 men, while the LibDems have 27 female candidates (36.9%) and 46 men.
It’s clear that Yes parties have put women to the front of this campaign, but it should still be noted that there are currently nine constituency seats where the candidate list is entirely men and only two (Dumbarton and Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley) that are filled exclusively by women.
The regional list paints a more complicated picture, but overall shows a similar trend to the breakdown of those standing for constituency seats – with 263 female candidates (37.78%), 432 male (62.06%) and one non-binary (0.14%).
The Greens have a full gender split, with 38 male, 38 female and one non-binary candidate, while Alba have 18 women and 14 men standing.
The SNP have 39 female candidates (44.3%) and 49 male on the regional list but are still miles ahead of the Unionist parties.
The Tories again sit at the bottom of the pile with the lowest representation, with 24 female candidates (28.9%) and 59 male (71.1%).
Labour and the LibDems are broadly similar, with Labour standing 27 female candidates (41.53%) and 38 male, and the LibDems with 25 female candidates (41.6%) and 35 male.
But the regional list system uses the D’Hondt method to allow for proportional representation and parties rank their representatives with those at the top more likely to bag a seat.
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So, if we take a look at who the main five parties, and Alba, have placed at the top of their lists in each of the eight regions, it’s clear that Yes parties are putting women first while Unionist parties are favouring men.
The SNP have women topping the list in five regions, including Roza Salih (Glasgow) who is bidding to become the first former refugee elected to Holyrood, and men in three, as do the Greens and Scottish Labour.
Alba have a 50-50 split, with four women and four men topping the list in their respective regions.
However, the Tories have seven men topping the list and the only female is Annie Wells in the Glasgow list. The LibDems are standing five men and three women across the respective areas.
It’s clear that there is a lot more to be done in Scotland to get us close to a true gender-balanced parliament, and that the only way to get close to this in the upcoming parliamentary session is to back Yes parties who have given women a better chance of getting a foot in the door.
If Scotland is to flourish as an independent nation, then it has to be on the basis of real equality, and that’s something that the Unionist parties can’t and won’t deliver.
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