Posts Tagged ‘Chauvinism’
“Defence is a boys’ game”: An interview with Rosemary Hollis
Rosemary Hollis, former Head of Research at Chatham House, freely admits that it was “pure accident” that led her to become a world-authority on the Middle East.
As a student during the Vietnam War, she became fascinated with war and conflict. Later, inspired by her work as a researcher for a Lebanese academic, she decided to focus her studies on relations between Britain and the Middle East and the Israel-Palestine conflict.
But Ms Hollis, wearing a garishly bright pink top under her immaculately tailored suit, cuts an unusual figure in the foreign policy establishment.
“Defence is a boys’ game”, she said, describing meetings at the Ministry of Defence where she has been the only woman present. “You have to speak the technical jargon of the military, and you have to be incredibly resilient. Sometimes it only hits me later that someone has made a sexist remark.”
But being a woman did give her certain advantages when she was working in Tel Aviv and East Jerusalem. “Arab men feel less challenged by me than by Western men,” she said.
And, she says, many women who succeed in politics use their sex to their advantage. “People used to joke that Margaret Thatcher’s Cabinet respected her because she was a ‘strong nanny’ figure.”
Chauvinism in Westminster
Interviewing Emily Thornberry (Labour MP for Islington South and Finsbury) last week was an interesting insight into the problems faced by women in positions of power.
It is a common preconception that Britain is more open-minded about gender equality than other countries because we have had a female Prime Minister, but according to the World League of Women in Parliament, Britain lags behind many developing nations when it comes to equal representation in Parliament. Britain is ranked in a shocking 69th place in this league, with only 19% of female MPs, and is beaten by Pakistan, Afghanistan and Rwanda, to name but a few.
To break this down further, of a total of 646 MPs in Britain, only 125 are women – 94 Labour, 17 Conservatives and nine Liberal Democrats.
Ms. Thornberry hinted that female MPs face more challenges because of the prevalence of a chauvinistic culture in Westminster. Female politicians, she said, are more likely to be judged based upon their life choices, their family lives and their appearance than male politicians.
Worryingly, a study by the Electoral Reform Society in June 2008 shows that women are still being passed over by local parties when they choose candidates for winnable seats. The report says: “If, as expected, the Conservatives increase their share of the vote at the next election, the number of women MPs will at best remain the same – and most likely fall.”
Lesley Abdela suggests in this article on the guardian website that a quota system may be the only way to increase the number of women in Parliament.
Some sort of quota may help, but it will do nothing to tackle the root of the problem: attitudes. We need to stop scrutinising the wardrobes of female politicians and questioning whether they are up to the job, and just let them get on with it. And, if they are competent, they should be able to run for winnable seats without facing the extra hurdle of Westminster’s misogynist mind-set.
