Women’s political participation and their legislative representation Max Stafford Introduction Women’s political participation and their legislative representation has long been a matter of public debate. This dissertation chooses one aspect of this debate; methods for increasing the proportion of women selected to contest parliamentary constituencies, and explores it within the context of the United Kingdom (UK). In particular, it focuses upon the method known as All-Women Shortlists (AWS), its ineffectiveness and its inappropriateness in tackling barriers to women’s representation and whether better alternatives exist. Shortlists are the list of people considered for selection by a political party within an individual parliamentary constituency. Therefore, AWS are lists which include only women for consideration by selection committees. They are a form of quota policy – whereby each party will seek to select women for a certain proportion of seats in attempting to ensure that a minimum number are elected, aiming to increase the proportion of women in parliament. The UK has been selected as the case study for this dissertation due to the controversial legacy generated by AWS’s introduction. The dissertation’s main conclusion is that AWS are not a suitable policy for tackling the low numbers of women selected for parliamentary seats. Through examination of the relatively low proportion of women within both the current and the previous House of Commons, it is clear that AWS have had a limited effect. AWS have not challenged prejudicial attitudes faced by prospective female candidates. It is thus this dissertation’s central hypothesis that AWS are not a wholly appropriate method for increasing the proportion of women in the modern Westminster parliament. Despite this conclusion, some acknowledgement is given to AWS for having, albeit minimally, increased the number of women in parliament more than alternative methods.
CHAPTER I: The Historical Context and Debates Today twenty-two per cent of MPs are women, contrasting with fifty per cent of permanent secretaries in the British Civil Service, nearly thirty-three per cent of public appointments and twelveand-a-half per cent of directorships of Financial Times and Stock Exchange 100 (FTSE 100) companies (Home Office, 2012). Clearly, in comparison to the proportion of women sitting on the boards of companies women have fared better in being elected to parliament. However in relation to other fields such as public appointments (which include the senior judiciary and appointments to public commissions) women’s representation in parliament is comparatively low. The UK is
ranked just forty-first for the total number of women in its main legislature – far behind Rwanda, which, at fifty-six per cent, is the world’s leading nation in terms of the proportion of women in parliament (Slattery, 2012, p. 86). Although other parties feature, it is with Labour, due to their strong advocacy of All-Women Shortlists (AWS), that this dissertation is primarily concerned and so the account, given later in the chapter, of the changes that occurred throughout the 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s is chiefly concerned with the Labour Party. The outcome of the long campaign for British suffrage was the granting of the franchise to women aged over thirty at the end of the First World War (1914-18) and to women aged over twenty-one ten years later (Walker, 2006, p. 191). Consequently, this landmark was succeeded by the election of the first female Members of Parliament (MPs). The first woman to take up her seat at Westminster was the Conservative MP Lady Nancy Astor, who gave her maiden speech to the House of Commons in February 1920 (May, 2004, p. 844). Although a parliamentary landmark, it did not result in the election of vast numbers of women MPs (May, 2004, p. 844). In the ninety-three years since her election the proportion of women parliamentarians has grown relatively slowly. It was not until the late 1970s, however, when conventional wisdom on women’s role as parliamentary candidates was challenged. Parties had previously believed women candidates often cost votes (Studlar and McAllister, 1998, p. 73). It is unclear from where this view originated. However, it transcended party politics. Ann Widdecombe, a former Conservative minister, has commented that campaigns by women’s movements to increase the proportion of women in politics damage the traditional family structure, saying: “‘You cannot be a good mother and be a good MP at the same time.’” (Widdecombe, cited in Kochan, 2000, p. 213). Whatever the reason for the view that women candidates were a major electoral risk, it was found to be erroneous in a number of different academic studies beginning in the late 1970s (Studlar and McAllister, 1998, p. 73). The surveys identified three obstacles to increasing the number of women selected: longterm incumbency in parliamentary seats (meaning the number of vacancies at each election was limited); the single seat plurality electoral system, and most significantly, the selection process itself (Studlar and McAllister, 1998, p. 73). Issues relating to the selection process are examined in Chapters II and III of this dissertation and are, of course, crucial to the concept of AWS. Incumbency is an obstacle as it means that the rate of supply of available seats can be low and, therefore, vacancies for women seeking selection are limited. The problems raised by the use of the single seat plurality system are examined in detail in Chapter III. It is sufficient to state here that more proportional systems, with their multi-member constituencies, provide greater opportunity for women to be selected through the use of list systems – whereby female and male candidates have
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