Women's representation bill for the UK?

As Gordon Brown walks out of the Queen's Buckingham Palace and rushes with his motorcade to Downing street to announce May 6 as the date for the General Elections 2010, the irony could not be more blatant. A woman monarch needed to dissolve the Parliament which has such a measly representation of women!

Although the last general elections were historic for women as 128 of them were elected as Members of Parliament, this also meant that a mere 1 in 5 MPs was a woman. 

  

(Pics courtesy Boni Sones, Women's Parliamentary Radio: Labour, Conservatives, Liberal Democrats.  2008: Reuters photographer, Kieran Doherty, was invited by Women's Parliamentary Radio to record the female representatives of each party to mark the 90th anniversary of women winning the vote.)

While recession, immigration, public spending and taxes are some of the biggest debates that determine the result of the forthcoming elections, another very important issue which has taken a back seat once again this election is the appalling low number of women MPs in Parliament.

Experts in the UK believe that the only way to encourage more women representation in the House of Commons would be through the quota system.  

Lets just look at the dismal figures:  

Of the 128 women MPs in 2005, Labour had the most with 94 women MPs followed by Conservative at 18 and Liberal Democrats at 9. This number fell to 126 after the by-elections making women representation in Parliament (WRP) even less than 20%. 

 

Compare this to Rwanda, a country embroiled in conflict and deprivation, yet 56.3% women made it into Parliament making it the only country in the world with more women than men in Parliament! 

The other top ranking countries include Sweden, South Africa, Cuba and Iceland. Most of the African and Scandenavian countries also ranked high.

Even Afghanistan known for its 'suppression' of women's rights ranks 31 on the world list while United Kingdom follows way behind at 61 and United States at 78. 

India, with around 10% representation, ranks at 97 (superseded by Nepal-16, Pakistan- 48 & China- 54). 

But India has looked at a possible solution to this problem- introduction of the quota system for WRP. While there is enough movement to push this 'controversial' bill through a majority in Parliament in India, UK is still in the very nascent debating stage on the use of quotas for WRP.

But UK has come along way since the women's suffrage movement began in the late nineteenth century. The first election with women candidates was in 1918 but out of 1,623 candidates, only 17 were women. A drop in the ocean but considered a huge acheivement back then.

Most of those women had been active campaigners in the suffrage movement. Countess Constance Markievicz, the first and only woman elected to the House of Commons in 1918, refused her seat. Ironically, the first woman in the House of Commons, was Viscountess Astor who had never campaigned for women's rights. 

The Plymouth seat literally fell into Lady Nancy Astor's lap in the bye-elections of 1919 caused by her husband's accession to his late father's peerage. But to her credit, she later also became the first woman MP to introduce a bill that resulted in an act in 1923 - the Intoxicating Liquor (Sale to Persons under Eighteen) Act.  (pic: Lady Astor Campaign Leaflet, 1919)

Over the years, the rise in number of women MPs resulted primarily because of the Labour Party adopting a policy of women-only shortlists. David Cameron too promised more women representation in these elections and has indulged in several campaigns to highlight the inclusion of the new 'ordinary' women in his 2010 election list.

Today's The Sun carried a spread on the 2010 Tory Women and a great deal of effort has been put to break the Stepford Wives mould that Tory reps subscribed to earlier and position them as the Plain Janes. Wonder why is Westminster North candidate Joanne Cash (in pic right), a successful lawyer and wife of a millionaire, not in The Sun's picture. Afraid she'd ruin your image makeover, Dave?!

So will anything change for WRP in UK Election 2010? 

The Centre for Women and Democracy (CFWD), which promotes women representation at all levels of public life in the UK, strongly believes that it is impossible for UK to achieve even a 30% women's representation this election. It predicts a maximum of 24% WRP but even less if the Tories win. Although the women representation  may increase in the Tory party, there is really no reason to rejoice much considering its high time the Tories shed their 'elitist, over 40s, white male' image.

The CFWD predicts it will take at least another 15 years for UK to achieve 30% WRP, perhaps it will get a 40% by 2045 and a 50% by 2065.

So is the introduction of quotas a better option to speed the WRP? 

The Quota Project, an extensive global research project on the implementation and effectiveness of quotas, has found quotas are in use in 97 out of 189 countries reviewed. The reports says, '... because of its relative efficiency, the hope for a dramatic increase in women's representation by using the quota system is strong'.

One such example of the new trend to use electoral gender quotas as a fast track to gender balance in politics is Rwanda which superseded Sweden as the number one in the world in terms of WRP -56.3 % against Sweden’s 47.3%.

Even the Speakers Conference strongly recommends that political parties in the UK should have mandatory quotas on the number of women parliamentary candidates, if there is no 'significant' increase in the number of women MPs after elections 2010.

Personally, I am all for an increase in WRP in both India and UK, but I also refuse to turn a blind eye to the many cons associated with it. There are definite flaws in the system which need to be tackled at the grassrooot level.

I am quite vary of WRP changing to PWIP (Politician's wives representation in parliament) when quotas are used to reserve particular constituencies for women. This would lead to an influx of PWs contesting from seats now earmarked for women but previously held by their husbands. Most of them would then be puppets in their more veteran politician husband's hand, so we may get a greater number of WRP but even lesser of qualified and inspirational women leaders.

What worries me with quotas within parties is whether the quota system will then turn out to be more notional than realistic. Say for example a quota of 40% for women candidates within parties may not result in any women elected, if all women candidates are placed in the weaker constituency. 

For example Tories fielding women candidates from unwinanable seats may not result in many women MPs. So David Cameron has kept his promise of more women representation in elections and also 'abided' by the Tories 'old boys' tradition. 

I do believe that David Cameron is perhaps a fresh ray of hope to influx more WRP under the Conservatives, yet I am also aware that the results would be just marginal, perhaps a little more for Tories if he enters No. 10. Labour has consistently proved themselves 'more open' to WRP with fielding women candidates from at least half the winnable seats.  (pic courtesy: conservativehome.blogs.com)

So the crucial question is, whether the nominated women are placed in a position with a chance of a real election. Then, whether they form a part of the cabinet, are entrusted with serious portfolios and are given a real chance to bring in new policies and legislations; and not just turn into some numbers that make a political party's spreadsheet look more women-friendly.

WRP is probably like a car that doesn't start, the quotas can be used to give it a shove but the only way to drive it to speed would be if all the mechanisms of the car perform their functions to perfection. 

Election 2010 is just the first bend in this long winding road but will be crucial to determine which path to take to see more 'real' representation of women in the UK Parliament.