Why aren’t there more women at the top?

Last week, Diane Abbott's entering the Labour leadership race made me very happy.

She is adding diversity and an extra dimension to a tedious collection of white middle-class men. But she is just one out of five. In the Cabinet, there are more Lib Dems than women and the proportion of female MPs is shockingly low.

Many people don’t care. Libby Purves’s article in the Times had the crushing headline: “Too few women? Read my lips: I don’t care.”

When Daily Mail columnist Melanie Phillips was asked on BBC Question Time to stick up for the ‘sisterhood’, she laughed (“I’ve never been much of a sister”) and said: “Frankly, when has anyone who’s NOT male, white and public school-educated ever wanted to be a politician?”

(An Asian man promptly stood up and said: “I do.” I shouted at iplayer from my sofa: “I do.”)

Comments of nonchalance break my heart. Why do I care? I care very much that there aren’t more women in parliament and government. I care because I think it’s very important that our government represents the electorate, and we are half female. I care because there are many issues that affect women more than men, and these do not get the attention. I care because I know there are many outstanding and talented women who are just not getting a look in. And I know that women are equally as intelligent and capable of leadership as men and that no scientific research has conclusively shown otherwise.

The views of Purves and Phillips are unhelpful because they are expressed out of context, which is this: it is all very well stating that women have equal opportunities (they do) but, with the wrong sort of attitudes, the situation is not equal.

Attitudes come from both men and women. As I’ve mentioned here, two eminent female journalists do not care that women aren’t getting there. Cameron and Clegg have a limited choice if there are fewer women available in the party and all but one of the potential women have stepped out of the leadership race. The powerful men will be heavily criticised if they choose women who are perceived not to be up to the job (although this perception is biased against women – see later). I think the leaders should try harder to find good women, but they can’t be solely to blame.

So what’s going wrong?

What’s interesting is that Libby Purves alludes to part of the reason, but doesn’t seem to realise she’s hit on the answer. She mentions that more attention is paid to the fashion sense rather than the policies of female politicians. She refers to the ‘caricaturing of females as objects or witches’ but she fails make the crucial link.

And yet this is the nub of the issue.

Opportunities may exist for women, in theory. But in practice there are many obstacles, all of them subtle and often overlooked. If women talk about them, they are criticised (yet more) for seeing problems where they don’t exist and deliberately being belligerent. Or they are made to be guilty. Or they stand aside for their husbands, because that is what traditionally women have always done.

(For example, Ed Balls and his wife Yvette Cooper reportedly agreed that she should give way her leadership ambitions in favour of his - see Tinkety Tonk's blog. I seem to remember this also happened with Tony and Cherie Blair when they were deciding who should enter politics.)

So it’s not that women don’t want the top jobs – many women do. But if they do, they face a bumpy ride, and – as Pinkstinks also points out – many simply don’t want to go through with it. It’s easier not to – after all, that’s what society is pressurising us to do. Women are constantly told that men are naturally more aggressive, with the implication that men are innate leaders and women are not. If women are as assertive as men, they are often labeled ‘trouble makers’.

Successful women are also treated brutishly as sex objects – their dominant status triggers a deluge of abuse and bullying which comes from people determined to see them as things to be looked at, sexually used and – at worst – raped. If you can bear it, read these horrific comments about Victoria Coren, top poker player, for classic examples of the treatment that successful women face.

And it’s not just women at the top. It’s women at every step of the way, working their way up from the bottom. In one of my writing jobs soon after I gained my doctorate, my Dr title wasn't acknowledged on the articles that I wrote, and yet my male colleague's was. If this happened to me now, I would openly protest, but in those days I didn’t want to appear to be a ‘trouble maker’.

If a woman wants to stand for an MP, be selected for Cabinet and become Prime Minister, there is no law stopping her. But she faces more criticism, scrutiny and discouragement at every step of the way.

And there are very few women – indeed, very few human beings – who are willing to put themselves through that.

Dangerous mannequins

Look at these photos. Female and male figures in the FCUK window in Oxford Street.

At first glance, innocuous. But look again.

The words associated with females are either related to appearance or to ‘knowingness’. 

“Woman, light, dark, knowing.”

So far, so relatively harmless.

But now look at the men.

“Man, strong, virile, a brute.”

Physical strength, strong sex drive and violent.

• In the UK, at least 47,000 adult women are raped every year and, since the age of 16, 5% of women in the UK have been raped (British Crime Survey).

• Data from the World Health Organization indicate that one in four women worldwide may experience sexual violence by an intimate partner in their lifetime.

• In 2004, the conviction rate for rape was 5.3% (Office for Criminal Justice Reform).

Widespread stereotypes – such as these FCUK images – depict woman existing purely to look pretty, and men to be aggressive with a sex drive they can’t control.

These stereotypes are untruths, but are ingrained so deeply into our culture that society expects men and women to conform to them. Men feel they have to be ‘macho’ and some need to demonstrate this – resulting in violence against women.

Look again at the female mannequins. Initially, you think ‘knowing’ is a positive attribute, don’t you? But in this context it’s not.

The conviction rate for rape is so low because there is a general expectation from society that women are responsible for being raped, and men ‘can’t help themselves’. Women are supposed to know what’s going on.

It’s complete rubbish. But as long as people believe in these stereotypes, we will have a huge problem of violence against women, and many men and women will think that it’s ‘only natural’ that men act in this way.

Baking for boys

The other day I heard a man remark: “I am doing some baking tonight.”

A woman responded: “So who’s the gay around here?”

He visibly crumbled. I bet he won’t be saying that again in a hurry.

Why is this significant?

Stereotypes are dangerous because they inhibit people expressing their individuality and pursuing their chosen interests and goals.

In this case, a man is ridiculed for liking a ‘feminine’ activity – presumably because it is associated with the home.

As well including a hint of homophobia, this comment is damaging to both men and women. Restrictive to the individual man in this situation, but also damning of any other person who dares to express themselves outside of traditional, boxed-in stereotypes.

The fiction writer’s predicament

I’ll make a confession. Some of the richest material for my fiction comes from my own real life experiences. But there’s a problem.

Read about it in my article in ‘The View from Here’ magazine.

A skewed Cabinet

On the way home from work, I picked up the Evening Standard. The image staring up at me, taking up a third of the front page, was Theresa May’s feet and ankles.

‘Spot the minister,’ said the headline. ‘Home Secretary on the beat in leopard-print shoes.’

May’s shoes and appearance are totally irrelevant to the job, or her competence at it, but you’d think they were her most important attributes, after seeing the media coverage.

This lack of respect and recognition of women’s abilities is reflected in Cameron’s new Cabinet. Only four out of 29 are women: Home Secretary Theresa May, Environment chief Caroline Spelman, Wales Secretary Cheryl Gillan and Conservative Party chairman Baroness Warsi.

Look at the photo. Did they place Warsi at the front to show off that they had a token, non-white woman – two boxes ticked in one? (She is the only non-white member.)

Alas for them, she is not a lesbian, because that would have ticked another box. The lineup has no openly gay members for the first time in 13 years.

Analyse the data and you will find that more than half went to private school – three from Eton and two from Westminster.

Comment policy

Order, order, as they say in Parliamentary Select Committee meetings.

Delilah used to be unmoderated, but the time has come (as with most of the other blogs I read) for some kind of order to be introduced.

I welcome people's opinions and debate. But every debate needs a chair.

Here are the Chair’s Rules:

• Be constructive.
• Respond to the issues in the blog post.
• Do not deliberately post inflammatory or patronising comments designed to upset the whole group.
• No bullying of other commenters to get attention.
• No trolls.
• No bigotry, which includes misogyny, misandry, homophobia, racism, xenophobia, class prejudice or intellectualphobia.
• Use facts and back up with evidence, if you can. If you cite the Daily Mail, you have to work extra hard to do that (as it’s the epitome of all isms and phobias mentioned above).

In other words, be reasonable. If you do that (it’s easy!), I will publish your comment.

Note: I welcome irony (especially about the Daily Mail), wit and sense of humour.

If you don’t like these rules, start your own blog!

Thanks.

Proportion of female MPs still pitifully low

The election – if not the outcome – is over.

It’s been a campaign devoid of female voices, during which a great deal more attention has been paid to the shoes and dresses of leaders' wives than the views and policies of female politicians.

So, as I watched the results coming in on Thursday night, I was excited see the first few seats taken by women.

But it didn’t last. The outcome for women is miserable, and the numbers (from the Centre for Women and Democracy) speak for themselves. 142 female MPs were elected, which is only 22 percent of the total 649. 

At the dissolution of parliament in April, there were 126 women MPs – 19.5 percent of the total. There are significantly more women on the Conservative benches, and fewer on the Labour and Liberal Democrat benches.

The number of Conservative women MPs has risen from 18 to 48 (an increase from 9 to 16 percent). The number of Labour women MPs has fallen from 94 to 81, but the fall in the overall number of Labour MPs means that there is a percentage increase of 4 percent (from 27 to 31 percent). The number of Liberal Democrat women MPs has fallen from 9 to 7; a decrease from 15 to 12 percent.

The women who lost their seats included Susan Kramer, formerly a London mayoral candidate for the Liberal Democrats, Jacqui Smith, the first female home secretary, and Vera Baird (pictured), the solicitor general. Both Smith and Baird have worked hard to campaign for women's issues.

But there is some positive news. The first three Muslim female MPs were elected, all of them for Labour: Rushanara Ali in Bethnal Green and Bow, in east London; Yasmin Qureshi in Bolton South-East; and Shabana Mahmood in Birmingham Ladywood.

Other notable winners were Chinyelu Onwurah, an engineer, businesswoman and anti-apartheid campaigner, who won in Newcastle Central, businesswoman Margot James, the first openly lesbian Tory MP (Stourbridge in the West Midlands), and the bestselling novelist Louise Bagshawe, who now represents Corby and Northamptonshire East.

The John Lewis ad is unfair to men

I was in John Lewis yesterday. As I was making my way on the escalators up to the technology and gadgets floor, I passed the sewing department; a colourful array of pin cushions, needles and fabrics.

And I remembered that someone told me, not long ago, that the only place in the shop where you could buy tampons was in haberdashery.

How things have changed, I thought.

But that’s before I saw the advert. The YouTube clip, which is to the soundtrack of a Billy Joel song, has become an instant success, with women all over the nation weeping into their computer keyboards (see thread on Mumsnet) and an avalanche of internet comment praising its genius.

According to its fans, the ad is poignant and heartwarming (see article on Mumsrock) which I don’t contest. But I’d like to offer an alternative explanation as to why it works so well, and also propose why the whole phenomenon of John-Lewis-ad-philia is just a little bit sinister.

With the cadences of Billy Joel, John Lewis has struck a chord.

But at what expense? The first thought is women. This is a stereotypical tale of a woman’s life journey: from birth to childhood to first kiss, marriage, children, home life and grandparenthood. There is no glimpse of her life outside the home. And John Lewis home products and furniture feature throughout.

John Lewis sells office clothes, it sells iphones, it sells suitcases – but the advert makers chose to depict the woman as the perfect homemaker, not the perfect career person and not someone who does both.

So why do women like it? Why does it stir up so much sentimental emotion? I suggest that the reason is that it represents the perfect, traditional stereotype. If a woman were to be a housewife, bringing up kids, then she would probably like a house filled with expensive, tasteful furniture and a longlasting marriage during which the only hiccups are her child throwing flour in the air while she’s on the phone, and her parents-in-law bickering while she’s trying to surf the net.

But of course it’s completely unrealistic. Women go out to work, have careers, get divorced, marry again, have relationships with other women, become widows, have affairs, never get married. Families take many different forms these days – you only have to read yesterday’s Guardian article by Evan Harris on the backlash campaign against the Tory marriage tax allowance to realise that.

But I would guess that the ad is popular precisely because it is unrealistic. The ad conveys an alien world, but one which resonates with what women are expected to be like. After all, that’s what all women were forced to do only a few decades ago.

For women who do have children, the ad is (perhaps) a lifestyle to aspire to – at least as far as it sketches a picture of a life with no worries, impeccable taste, love and happiness and belonging.

For women with no children, and who work, it offers a snapshot of what life could be like if they made a different choice, or if circumstances were different. Working fulltime is hard. It’s only natural that every careerwoman wonders fleetingly what it would be like to be the ‘perfect housewife’, as the ad portrays. The ad makes it look easy! (Of course it isn’t easy at all.)

No wonder, then, that the ad has triumphed. It gives the impression that women – if they want it – have an ‘escape route’ from a challenging job. They have chosen not to, but it’s there just in case.

Men don’t have the same choice. Or, rather they do, but it is not considered as acceptable to be a house husband. They are considered ‘less of man’. This is tragic, because many men want to do it. They may not want to be the breadwinner. They may want to stay at home with their children and host children’s birthday parties and do some baking, but this work (which is equally as challenging as a fulltime job) is viewed as less worthy.

Men like homemaking and childcare too. The John Lewis ad is sexist. It shuts men out and doesn’t let them do what they want to do.