Westminster has a lot to learn from Michelle Obama

In her latest YF Women Perspective column, Young Fabian Membership Ambassador Anna Bage reflects on Michelle Obama’s visit to the UK.

During Barack Obama’s state visit to the UK last week, the focus was on Anglo-American relations and the furthering of the ‘special/essential relationship’ between America and the UK.

In the same week, Michelle Obama visited the University of Oxford, addressing the girls of the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson School. Using her own background as a starting point, she outlined what she believed to be the key to accomplishment.

“Success,” she stated, “is not about the background you’re from…it’s about the confidence you have and the effort you’re willing to invest.”

In a motivating speech, Michelle outlined that regardless of background, experience or ability, having the confidence in your own ideas and striving for achievement was the way in which young women could progress, without limits, into whatever career paths they choose.

At the Fabian Women’s mentoring scheme on Monday 23 May, Ed Miliband took the same stance as the First Lady on the aspirations and opportunities for young women that the Labour party can endeavour to provide. Although it has a record on gender equality that surpasses that of both the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats, he argued, the Labour party still has a long way to go in promoting equality and fairness for its female members.

Much like Michelle Obama, Miliband recognised the potential of success that young women could make the most of, if given the support and confidence.

It is not only this, though, that would improve the way in which the political machine of Westminster operated. It seems evident that with more women in politics, ideas would evolve differently, with varying outcomes driven by diverse reasoning.

As Catherine Macleod, former Special Advisor to Alasdair Darling, said at the same event: not only do women have to work harder than men in the political sphere to get what they want, but they have to work harder in creating opportunities for themselves as well.

When Michelle Obama told the young women of the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson School that they could work hard and achieve whatever they wanted, wherever they were from, she played upon her own background as an example of hard graft overcoming a disadvantaged start in life. She reminded them that neither of her parents had attended University, and that she herself grew up in a poor and underprivileged part of Chicago.

It’s clearly important to improve diversity in Westminster by increasing the number of women. What’s equally important though, and what Michelle Obama highlighted in Oxford and Ed Miliband at the Fabian Women’s Mentoring Scheme, is that Westminster needs to become a better representation of society as a whole.

The Obama, ‘whatever your background’ motif, doesn’t yet ring true of Westminster: as well as being unrepresentative of gender, it fails to deliver on providing a variety of people from different social backgrounds. Providing opportunities for women outside of the Westminster bubble is essential. Those who have taken a less traditional route in education, perhaps, or whose degree status doesn’t reflect an obvious interest in politics can surely only contribute to the diversification of the House of Commons.

This in turn could improve policy.

By actively encouraging such diversity, and by taking a lead from Michelle Obama’s motivating speech, the Labour Party could find itself providing a strong model which all those in the political arena should aspire to.

Women on Boards: The Roundtable

In the UK today, women are significantly under-represented at company board level despite making up half of the national population. On Thursday 16 December the Young Fabians hosted a “Women on Boards” roundtable discussion in conjunction with BIS to explore this issue and support the Lord Davies Review. The event was hosted at the ICAEW and was attended by around 30 people. Our panel of distinguished speakers included Helen Whitehead from BIS, Baroness Goudie, Rhonda Martin from ICAEW, Averil Leimon from White Water Strategies and Arpita Dutt from Russell, Jones & Walker who were able to share their experiences and work in this area.

The discussion was aimed at presenting the views of young, up and coming women in business and covered a range of topics from personal aspiration and perceived barriers in corporate culture to business led strategies to address under-representation of women at senior management level. 

While the efficacy of introducing quotas was disputed, there was wide agreement that in order to progress the equality agenda men should be involved in the debate and that top down engagement from Boards was necessary to recognise the disparity.  Mentor and sponsor systems that challenge and promote women were supported as well as extra support and engagement with women who have chosen to leave work to have children.

One issue that became apparent was that there seems to be a point somewhere around the age of 30 at which women begin to feel disadvantaged in comparison to male colleagues whether they have decided to have children or not. Addressing this issue will require additional effort from women themselves and the organisations that employ them to proactively address career development and aspiration.

There was no clarity from the table as to whether the women present actually wanted to be on a Board, but it became apparent that transparency and monitoring of board selection would remove barriers to lack of aspiration by providing essential information as to what senior level roles entail.  

We would like to thank our sponsors ICAEW and White Water Strategies for supporting the event.

Lord Davies’ review will be published February 2011.

GUEST POST: Three cheers for YF Women

Rt Hon Patricia Hewitt is the MP for Leicester West and the former Secretary of State for Health. Here she writes about the launch of YF Women.

Last week I was in the Commons to hear Harriet Harman open the (now traditional) International Women’s Debate. She made the point that when our generation started campaigning for women’s rights in the 1970s, we were regarded as some kind of fringe group of politically correct lefties. Today, all those issues we campaigned on – equal pay and sex discrimination laws, paid maternity leave, childcare and flexible working, domestic and sexual violence – are part of the mainstream political agenda. And a new survey commissioned by the Equalities Unit shows that the majority of people want an end to all-male decision-making.

But the battle isn’t over. With 95 women MPs, Labour is far ahead of the other parties. We have changed the face of Parliament – and we have changed the agenda. Ann Cryer, for instance, bravely confronted the problem of ‘honour’ killings – something her male Tory predecessor probably never even knew about. But we are still a small minority of the Commons and a long way from a Parliament where every part of the community can see themselves represented.

My daughter’s generation would be horrified if anyone suggested that a married woman’s income should be taxed as if it belonged to her husband. But that’s what used to happen – and it only changed because women made it change. So three cheers for the launch of YF Women. You are in the long line of women’s struggles, from Mary Wollstonecraft onwards … and your daughters and grand-daughters will thank you for it.

The fight is not over: 50 years of fighting for equality and still more to do

It is fitting that in the year the Young Fabians celebrates its 50^th anniversary, that we hold our first ever ‘Equalities Month’. Issues of equality have been of prime concern to Fabians, young and ‘older’, throughout the society’s history; as seen in the Fabian Equality Project and reflected in the 2010 Young Fabian members survey, where equalities policy was amongst the top five interests of today’s young thinkers on the left.

Numerous legislative changes and cultural shifts, have taken place in the last 50 years which have moved towards (though not realised) an equalisation of experiences of life in Britain. I want to look all the way back though to two events in 1960 – the year the Young Fabians were founded – with impact both sides of the Atlantic, and indeed around the world.

1960 brought the death of tireless activist, Sylvia Pankhurst. The Pankhurst family (Fabianism was part of their DNA too, you know), as leaders of the women’s suffrage movement, had international reach and their determination and work is felt today, and will be forever. Whilst women are free to participate in the electoral process, we still see a deficit in involvement in political, business and civic leadership. In crude numbers, we’re talking 32% of board seats on public bodies occupied by women, just 12% on FTSE 100 boards, and 20% of seats in the Commons and Lords. (The only parliamentary figure vaguely representative is the 47% of the Welsh Assembly that are female.) Whilst these figures must change, we shouldn’t dismiss improvement – which has happened, and is happening, as a result of action by the Labour Party and this Labour Government.

Fifty years ago, Harper Lee’s novel To Kill a Mockingbird was first published. Ahead of civil rights legislation in the United States, the story took as its main theme racial inequality and injustice. It has been a focus of classroom study from the early 60s to the present day and in 2006 Britain’s librarians named it as the one book everyone should read. For me, Lee’s skill in using a child narrator – rather than her lawyer father, Atticus Finch – exposes the simple views and flawed arguments of prejudiced individuals and an unequal society. Despite the election, to increasingly significant positions, of BNP politicians in the last couple of years, Britain has moved on, not least due to the work of the Equalities and Human Rights Commission and its predecessor. But we as Young Fabians should take responsibility for preventing BNP ideas further permeating our society.

So, March 2010 is marked by the Young Fabians as Equalities Month. It is likely to be the last full month of this parliament. A month that will see the launch of Young Fabian Women, a new section of the society aimed at encouraging young women to become active in politics. And royal assent should be given to a single Equality Act.

We know these issues are important to Young Fabians, the wider labour movement, and Britain as a whole. And we shouldn’t forget – as we approach the general election – the threat that the right poses to the causes fought so passionately and adeptly by the Pankhurst family, Harper Lee, and millions of other campaigners for equality ever since.