X Marks the Box by Daniel Blythe

Author:Daniel Blythe [Blythe, Daniel]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Campaigns & Elections, Political Parties, Political Science, Political Process, General
ISBN: 9781848311800
Google: IaLuGrjHgg0C
Goodreads: 23139696
Publisher: Icon Books Company
Published: 2009-04-02T00:00:00+00:00

PolFax: Women in Parliament

Women were first allowed to stand as MPs at Westminster in 1918.

The first woman to be elected to the UK Parliament was the Anglo-Irish Countess de Markievicz, who, as a member of Sinn Féin, stood for election while in prison and did not take her seat. The first woman to sit in Parliament was Nancy Astor, in 1919.

Most women over 30 gained the right to vote in 1918, but it was not until 1928 that women gained the same voting rights as men, with the passing of the Equal Franchise Act.

Before 1997, there were more male MPs called John than there were female MPs.

The number of female MPs went up from 63 to 120 in 1997, mainly thanks to Labour candidates – the so-called ‘Blair’s Babes’.

In 2006, research by the Equal Opportunities Commission and equality campaigners the Fawcett Society revealed that voter turnout went up in seats where a female candidate was on offer.[17]

Between 1918 and 2001, a total of 4,500 MPs sat in Westminster – and 240 of them, just 5 per cent, were women.

The Electoral Reform Society gave a gloomy forecast for the future of female MPs in 2008, predicting that, at best, 22.9 per cent of MPs would be women at the next election – and that figure hangs on the increasingly unlikely outcome of a swing to Labour. The worst case scenario for future female parliamentarians is a Conservative working majority, which would give them only 18.5 per cent representation. Ken Ritchie, the Society’s chief executive, said: ‘The modest numbers of women in Parliament have been taken as a permanent breakthrough. In place of an upward curve we have seen a plateau, in what remains a male dominated institution.’[18]

The cabinet chosen by Spain’s prime minister José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero in April 2008 contained nine female ministers – making it the first Spanish cabinet in which women outnumbered men. These included Carme Chacón, Spain’s first ever female defence minister.

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