The current electoral system is a huge barrier to seat access for female MPs
With less than a quarter of MPs currently women, a 50:50 parliament seems like a distant hope.
But there are grounds for optimism. Based on polling trends and an analysis of every party’s candidate for the upcoming election, the Electoral Reform Society has predicted that 192 MPs are likely to be elected this May – up 44 on the current 148. It would mean three in ten MPs would be women, the highest ever figure.
Parties are putting forward more female candidates than before, too, with every party except UKIP fielding a higher proportion of female candidates than parliament’s current make-up (see Table 1). And in target seats, Labour and the Conservatives are actually fielding a higher proportion of female candidates than their overall number, meaning they are clearly trying hard to get more women into the House.
This is good news. The predicted boost this May would see us rising up the world ranking for female representation in lower chambers from 56th to 36th. We’d finally be ahead of Afghanistan and other countries with less-than-positive track records on gender equality.
But we’d still not be world leaders, by any means. And while moving from 23 per cent women to nearly 30 per cent is a welcome rise, there’s one big barrier that’s blocking future progress: our electoral system.
Under First Past the Post, there are hundreds of effectively uncontested seats where parties have a big enough lead not to worry about opposition. That means many MPs can act as ‘seat-blockers’, occupying their seats for decade after decade.
Here’s the catch: the longer an MP has been in situ, the more likely he is to be a man.
As you can see in Table 2, there are 67 MPs first elected in 1992 or before who are standing again this May. 59 of them are men. Having held their seats for over two decades, we can guess that most of these men will keep their positions effectively unchallenged.
This is a major barrier in terms of increasing women’s representation in the future. We can’t allow the existence of safe seats to act as a block on reaching a 50:50 parliament. We need to reform our voting system.
Proportional representation isn’t a silver bullet, of course. It can only facilitate – rather than guarantee – more diversity in politics. But experience from other countries shows that nearly all of those with a high proportion of women in parliament use some form of PR. Moreover, larger multi-member constituencies would increase the likelihood that more women would be able to win seats, as voters would have a greater choice of winnable candidates. Under our current broken electoral system, less ‘traditional’ and ‘safe-looking’ candidates lose out.
Nonetheless, it’s good news that nearly 200 women will be elected in two months’ time. Let’s just make sure it doesn’t become a new ‘glass ceiling’.
Josiah Mortimer is Communications assistant at the Electoral Reform Society. Follow him on Twitter
Read the ‘Women in Westminster’ report here
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21 Responses to “This May will be a boost for female representation – but there’s a catch”
Leon Wolfeson
No, it’s highly relevant. STV is practically designed (among PR systems) for tactical voting, your claim is an outright lie – top-up and several other systems are far more resistant to it.
You’ve not bothered, it’s clear, to look at the systems and the mathematics behind them to make the sort of conclusions you’ve been coming to! You’re also trying to conflate, entirely dishonesty, AMS and MMP, which differ in several important respects.
MMP in Germany…you mean people voting for the party of their choice, and getting what they voted for. Then the FDP lost popularity because of their political choices. That’s called “democracy”, and is not flaw in a voting system!
Italy’s problem was one with several clear-cut and simple solutions (to stop fake lists like that), and in any case is a problem with the *specific* form of AMS used in Italy. Under MMP overhang seats eliminate the effects (and it would be harmful to the seats of the party using it, anyway!)
You’re knowingly pushing propaganda supporting *the* single version of PR which would let the major parties maintain their chokehold. There’s plenty of valid criticisms of MMP, but you’ve not gone near them and instead gone with what amounts to “It’s bad because “.
keithunder
Rather than insulting me I think you need to explain in practical terms how STV is more prone to tactical voting.than AMS or MMP.
MMP is basically the same as AMS you have two votes one for a FPTP seat and another for a party list.
In Germany many CDU voters were encouraged to vote FDP on the second vote to make sure they got past the 5% block so the FDP got elected. In the last 2 elections they stopped doing that and the FDP lost all it’s seats.
In fact the German the overhang seats were a flaw in the system and made it less fair. They have recently changed the law so that overhangs are now abolished (by giving the other parties extra seats to make up for them) If you think overhang seats were a good thing then you do not understand how the Germans system used to work.
The Italian exploit still exists! In Scotland or New Zealand for example it would work very well. In all of these systems if the FPTP seat elects a party supporter as an independent or a fake party then they keep these seats and the lists seats are added as additional seats. In Italy the fake lists were not the problem!
These systems boil down to a horrible combination of two tactical voting prone systems.
In my example under STV I can vote Pirate number one without bothering to work out if they have a chance .. Under FPTP or a list system I have to consider tactically whether the pirate has a chance before I risk wasting my vote. This is the same in AMS or MMP or whatever you call it and then I have to make the tactical calculation twice!
Guest
Calling you out on lies is an “insult” now. Sad.
You then do it again, conflating AMS and MMP. As you talk about a key principle which has been shifted around to make things even fairer, as you lie about what happened in Italy.
You make up nonsense about tactical voting which STV is more prone to.
You have no idea of the math of this, as you spout off propaganda.
Facts, not insults.
(And you need to do *detailed* calculation to see if voting pirate will help or hinder the candidate who you actually want to get elected under STV. The ONLY truly safe option for your primary candidate is to only vote for him!)
You’re defending the best PR electoral system for Labour and the Tories. Not a coincidence.
keithunder
What is the fundamental difference between AMS and MMP?
I am not lying about what happened in Italy
ABOLIZIONE SCORPORO is the description of the FPTP candidates of the right wing parties (SCORPORO was the name of the AMS/MMP system in Italy)
The individual parties stood as themselves in the top up lists. You can see this for yourself if you actually look at the results rather than accusing people of lying
http://web.archive.org/web/20041118064027/http://politiche.interno.it/dati/camera/13maggio2001/volume.pdf
If you think that only voting for one candidate and no other is the best strategy for STV then you clearly do not understand how The Single Transferable Vote works. You seem to have locked on to some right wing anti STV website and are just repeating stuff you have read without actually understanding it.
Your vote is transferable if your first preference is not elected. Anyone who has used STV understands this. If I vote pirate in STV I do not need to do any calculations if they get eliminated my vote transfers to the next preference.
Under MMP or AMS or any other list system if the pirates in my example get below the threshold my vote is not transferred it is wasted!
Leon Wolfeson
You’re making up things I didn’t say now. What happened in Italy is *easily* fixable and ONLY applies to that particular version of AMS, not MMP.
STV is, again, all about detailed gaming of the system because of the terms I used and which you’ve not looked up. I am a left winger, and I am supporting a decent system of MMP – you’re accusing me of your sins, it seems.
The reality is that MMP is far closer to proportional in practice than STV. Again, especially due to the way votes are reallocated in the UK which is very hostile to smaller parties.