International Women’s Day

Baroness Morrissey Excerpts

Thursday 6th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Morrissey (Con)]

My Lords, I thank this House for its tradition of having an International Women’s Day debate. This year it feels especially important to keep the spotlight on the contributions so many women make if we are to continue to make progress towards gender equality around the world. I agree that it is vital that women and girls are given every opportunity to study sciences and technology if that is what they dream of, as my noble friend Lady Stedman-Scott expressed so eloquently. It is clear that there are very many women who do, as we can see from today’s news that there are now more female than male doctors for the first time ever in this country.

As colleagues—noble Baronesses—have already shared, there are many examples of the amazing contributions that women have made and, I am confident, will continue to make in the fields of technology, science and medicine. As has already been pointed out, we need more women at the technology table, which may well be a virtual one these days, to help avoid bias and bring women’s perspectives to the fore as the digital revolution gathers pace.

I want to add a further point to today’s discussion: while we must continue to enable and encourage girls to study STEM subjects, we must also encourage those very many girls who want to study the humanities to pursue their interests. For a start, real progress for women and girls is surely about having more choice, and not about being channelled down a certain path. I also believe that the role of humanities is more important than ever in an AI world. As AI continues to develop rapidly and take on many of the tasks currently done by human beings, including many of those done by people now working in technology, we will need good judgment, strong ethics and high emotional intelligence to ensure that AI is a positive force. We will need the perspective that comes from studying mistakes made in history, the sensitivity found in the finest literature, the empathy gained through understanding psychology, a strong ethical compass that might be helped by a study of theology and the creativity that many arts and humanities disciplines foster.

I studied maths, further maths, physics and English at A-level, and then philosophy at university. Of all those, the philosophy has been the most useful in my long City career—yes, even in finance. Maths has of course been helpful, but in helping me manage money successfully or run a business well it has not been as critical as being able to analyse logically, challenge conventional wisdom, apply ethical judgments and have some understanding of the frailties of the human psyche, which are the enemies of successful investing. Those were all things that my philosophy degree taught me. My degree choice has also helped me to lead, largely because it showed me clearly that I do not have, and could not have, all the answers; in fact, when studying philosophy, you quickly learn that you do not really know anything at all. I was acutely aware that, as Her late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II put it so beautifully, leadership is often about finding ways of encouraging people to combine their talents to work together. I suggest that a history degree and a study of current affairs would also bear that out.

For decades, as has been noted, boys have dominated computer science, physics, and further maths at A-level, while girls have dominated many arts subjects, including psychology, sociology and English literature. The world, our country and many industries need both, and they do not need girls to feel that they need to emulate the boys to succeed. Women bring our own skills to the table. I always tell young women that they are not second-class men; they are first-class women. It would be ironic if, just as the world desperately needs more “soft skills”, as we say, we asked girls to become more like the boys by taking STEM subjects, and so they missed their moment, both to shine and to change the world for the better.

As others have already stressed, we now face a very significant threat. We cannot assume that we will have ongoing progress for women and girls, but we do have agency. Surely, one of our strongest arguments to convince the naysayers is that we bring additional talents and different perspectives to the table which can improve diversity of thought and business performance and help solve today’s complex problems, which perhaps require empathy and emotional intelligence. In short, women should be able to succeed as women.

Huge kudos should go to the brilliant women scientists, technologists and doctors, but let us also encourage STEAM—adding an “A” for the arts to STEM; celebrate the achievements of women in every field; press on for progress with huge determination that no one can take away from us; and look forward with hope. I wish everyone, men and women, a very happy International Women’s Day.