International Women's Day - Why Do We Still Not Have More Female MPs?

Today is international women's day and so I thought it would be apt to kick off our blog with a discussion of female representation in politics today.
I was asked today by a boy in my politics class why I'm a feminist, because 'surely that is saying women are better than men, and what you want is equality.' This is a common misconception, my point is not that women are better than men (although they are) my point is that they can be just as intelligent/make just as good decisions/lead the country just as well as men and therefore deserve to make up more than the 22% of parliament than they currently do. He followed this up by saying that we are equal in law so it doesn't matter. This is true and obviously the situation for women in Britain is far superior than in many countries, but the idea that because of this we should sit back in complacent gratitude is a little insulting.
There is continuing need for change and nowhere is this more publicly obvious than in our parliament. The need for more female MPs is widely accepted and it is a good thing that efforts are being made to change this, but it is the manner in which politicians take up this task which I find irritating. It is as if female MPs have become statistics - a certain number of them are required in order to fill up the quotas and to make the party look better on paper, and this is made out to be a chore. It shows the state of our political system that all women short lists or A-lists should have had to be introduced. Why in a society as modernised and apparently equal as ours should local parties have to be cajoled into choosing a woman to represent them; I recognise the need for these mechanisms but that need should not exist.
Fundamentally all it comes down to is a power struggle between the two, still heavily male dominated, main parties. Miliband recently asked Cameron in PMQs about the lack of women on his front bench, rightly so as there were none. But he did this with a front bench packed unusually full of women, clearly in preparation for the question so that he could make a favourable comparison. It is this - when women are used by the male leaders of the parties merely as a method of political point scoring against their male opponents - that angers me more than the lack of women, because it shows no genuine desire for change or further equality but just the need to win a few more votes. A more cynical person would say that that is just how politics works, but I don't think that should be the case, or at least not where gender equality is concerned, and international women's day should be taken as a chance to start to try and change some of these long entrenched prejudices which are stopping women from entering parliament, but the question is how.

Caitlin