UK General Election 2015 – Good for Gender Equality?

MakeEmLaugh

With Harriet Harman as acting leader of Labour, and Suzanne Evans as acting leader of UKIP, 5 of the 8 highest polling political parties in Britain are now led by women (and it could end up 6 out of 8, depending on who replaces Nick Clegg in the Liberal Democrats).

In case you're wondering, here's the breakdown

PARTY........................LEADER.....................GENDER
Conservative Party.......David Cameron...........Male
Labour.......................Harriet Harman...........Female
UKIP..........................Suzanne Harman.........Female
Liberal Democrats........VACANT.....................VACANT
SNP...........................Nicola Sturgeon..........Female
Green Party................Natalie Bennett...........Female
DUP...........................Peter Robinson...........Male
Plaid Cymru................Leanne Wood..............Female

And with 191 woman MPs elected (just under 30% of the total number of 650), they have more woman MPs than ever before.

Does this mean the UK General Election was a good day for Gender Equality?

mrkiscool2

MakeEmLaugh wrote: »

With Harriet Harman as acting leader of Labour, and Suzanne Evans as acting leader of UKIP, 5 of the 8 highest polling political parties in Britain are now led by women (and it could end up 6 out of 8, depending on who replaces Nick Clegg in the Liberal Democrats).

In case you're wondering, here's the breakdown

PARTY........................LEADER.....................GENDER
Conservative Party.......David Cameron...........Male
Labour.......................Harriet Harman...........Female
UKIP..........................Suzanne Harman.........Female
Liberal Democrats........VACANT.....................VACANT
SNP...........................Nicola Sturgeon..........Female
Green Party................Natalie Bennett...........Female
DUP...........................Peter Robinson...........Male
Plaid Cymru................Leanne Wood..............Female

And with 191 woman MPs elected (just under 30% of the total number of 650), they have more woman MPs than ever before.

Does this mean the UK General Election was a good day for Gender Equality?

While it is great to see so many female party political leaders it comes down once again to the amount of women candidates. There is a direct proportion between the number of female candidates and the number of elected female politicians. So around 30% of all candidates were female and surprise, surprise 30% of all elected MPs were female.

So it's not a question of the general population becoming more "gender equality" aware, it's a case of parties finally put forward more female candidates. By the way, gender equality already exists. Just saying.

MakeEmLaugh

mrkiscool2 wrote: »

Gender equality already exists. Just saying.

Really? I was under the impression that there were several areas in which women are not treated as well as men.

Colinf1212

Serious question- why not just move to the UK rather than constantly talking about the place on an Irish forum?

mrkiscool2

MakeEmLaugh wrote: »

Really? I was under the impression that there were several areas in which women are not treated as well as men.

Not even going to argue with you on the matter on this thread to be honest. If that's all you can take from my post fair enough and if you want to debate my PM box is open. But to summarise my post the % of female candidates is roughly equal to the % of females elected. It will be even more obvious here next year as 30% of all candidates have to be of one gender (so at least 30% men and 30% women).

MakeEmLaugh

Colinf1212 wrote: »

Serious question- why not just move to the UK rather than constantly talking about the place on an Irish forum?

OK, I'll give you a serious answer.

(1) Firstly, I think you misunderstand what a forum is. The Ladies Lounge is not specifically an Irish forum, it is a forum to discuss issues, to quote the charter, “from a woman's point of view”. In no part of the charter is the word “Irish” or “Ireland” used.

(2) Secondly, there are 584,118 Irish people living in Great Britain (excluding Northern Ireland). That's more than the entire population of Connaught (542,547). So even if this forum had to relate to Irish issues, the UK General Election is one which affects many, many Irish people.

(3) Even if I were living in the UK, I don't see why that should prevent me from using Boards.ie. This website has users from North America, Australia, continental Europe and Asia. The UK is hardly more further afield than those places.

(4) If you are tired of reading posts and threads about the UK General Election, I suggest you stop reading them. I don't read 99% of the threads on Boards.ie, because they do not interest me.

Colinf1212

MakeEmLaugh wrote: »

OK, I'll give you a serious answer.

(1) Firstly, I think you misunderstand what a forum is. The Ladies Lounge is not specifically an Irish forum, it is a forum to discuss issues, to quote the charter, “from a woman's point of view”. In no part of the charter is the word “Irish” or “Ireland” used.

(2) Secondly, there are 584,118 Irish people living in Great Britain (excluding Northern Ireland). That's more than the entire population of Connaught (542,547). So even if this forum had to relate to Irish issues, the UK General Election is one which affects many, many Irish people.

(3) Even if I were living in the UK, I don't see why that should prevent me from using Boards.ie. This website has users from North America, Australia, continental Europe and Asia. The UK is hardly more further afield than those places.

(4) If you are tired of reading posts and threads about the UK General Election, I suggest you stop reading them. I don't read 99% of the threads on Boards.ie, because they do not interest me.

There are 39.6 million people who claim to be Irish in America, why not focus on them instead? That's multiple times higher than the population of the island of Ireland. Never see a thread about it.

MakeEmLaugh

Colinf1212 wrote: »

There are 39.6 million people who claim to be Irish in America, why not focus on them instead? That's multiple times higher than the population of the island of Ireland. Never see a thread about it.

Firstly, I don't know where you got that figure from, but the actual number of Irish people living in America is 143,500 - significantly less than in Great Britain or Ireland.

Secondly, there have been many threads on Boards.ie about the Irish in America.

Colinf1212

MakeEmLaugh wrote: »

Firstly, I don't know where you got that figure from, but the actual number of Irish people living in America is 143,500 - significantly less than in Great Britain or Ireland.

Secondly, there have been many threads on Boards.ie about the Irish in America.

That's the number of people who said they had Irish heritage in the demographics. Or do you only count Irish people as those born in the 26 counties, completely disregarding the fact Ireland is one of the most homogenous countries in Europe?

meeeeh

Colinf1212 wrote: »

That's the number of people who said they had Irish heritage in the demographics. Or do you only count Irish people as those born in the 26 counties, completely disregarding the fact Ireland is one of the most homogenous countries in Europe?

SF losing that seat must hurt.

Anyway I am not Irish and would like to discuss UK elections on irish forum. Oh the heresy!!!

Anyway increasing numbers of female MP's is way more significant for me than who is temporarily in charge in major parties to steady the ship till next election. SNP is the only party where a female head of the party made significant impact. The rest was more or less old boys club and it remains to be seen how many will be in top positions after the leadership elections.

Colinf1212

meeeeh wrote: »

SF losing that seat must hurt.

Anyway I am not Irish and would like to discuss UK elections on irish forum. Oh the heresy!!!

Anyway increasing numbers of female MP's is way more significant for me than who is temporarily in charge in major parties to steady the ship till next election. SNP is the only party where a female head of the party made significant impact. The rest was more or less old boys club and it remains to be seen how many will be in top positions after the leadership elections.

Like SF care about a seat when the North will be independent in less than 20 years with or without it.

Lucyfur

MOD

Colin's taking a breather from boards so no more quoting his posts, please and thank you

ancapailldorcha

While I'm not a fan of such things as women-only shortlists and gender quotas, it certainly is nice to see more female politicians. A glance at the amount of female party leaders and MPs would indicate that there's been significant progress though there's still more to be done.

mrkiscool2

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

While I'm not a fan of such things as women-only shortlists and gender quotas, it certainly is nice to see more female politicians. A glance at the amount of female party leaders and MPs would indicate that there's been significant progress though there's still more to be done.

I think gender quotas for candidates is actually fair and with respect to the UK parties, everyone but UKIP(12%) had around 35% of their candidates being female. Again, I feel like this is being made into a gender equality issue when it isn't. The % of female candidates is extremely close to the % of females elected to office. That's been the way for the last 25 or so years.

If it was a gender equality thing then that relationship would a. have not existed for the past quarter of a century b. Would be higher now than it was in previous years or c. Only have gotten to parity now. The fact it hasn't shows that, in general, people elect the person based on both party lines and who they feel is best for the role. Not that they are voting for someone based on gender.

EDIT: Just to clarify I don't think the public is discriminatory towards women but I still feel that a lot of parties still have the "old boys" mentality. Meaning they are less likely to put forward female candidates so seeing the amount of female candidates going up is a good sign! Just thought I'd post that so people don't think I am ignoring that fact.

rainbow kirby

It doesn't really matter how many female politicians there are, if their policies impact the lives of a large number of women negatively then it is not good for gender equality.