Women in Society

Baroness Oppenheim-Barnes Excerpts

Wednesday 21st July 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Oppenheim-Barnes]

My Lords, your Lordships' House is probably unique in the world—it is a repository for so many noble Baronesses of such calibre. Some of their achievements have been so great and we have the benefit of their knowledge and experience. I think of heads of judiciary and MI5, and a former Prime Minister. All those ladies succeeded before there was any move against discrimination against women. I think not only of them, but many before them. The late Lady Frank certainly had a role in plotting the D-day advances. Others were engineers in Royal Navy vessels before the last world war. To be able to say that we have made huge strides since then is something that we can congratulate ourselves on.

In the early 1970s, I was the sponsor of two anti-discrimination Bills with my noble friend Lady Fookes. In those early days, we were concerned with educating attitudes and overcoming prejudices. That was as far as we intended to go. We were not looking for positive discrimination in favour of women. What has happened since then has been a wonderful thing for a great many women. Obviously, there is further to go.

I echo the words of my noble friend Lord Deben in his excellent maiden speech and say that, above all, we must never denigrate those women who find it fulfilling to look after their children and be good wives and mothers. It is not always an easy role. It is often lonely and very demanding. When we talk about the women who are trapped in marriages where there is violence, we must also think of those women who are trapped in unhappy but not violent marriages—those who do not have the personal capital to leave those homes and continue to look after their children without having to leave them in crèches. Those women often remain trapped for their whole lives.

Happily, because things have moved fast in the right direction, by the time their children have grown up, those women are no longer tied to those unhappy marriages. They are able—at those ages, when they never would have been able to before—to look for careers in which they can advance their own lives. It is important that we consider those women, possibly between 40 and 50. Many of them are successful. We must not forget them and we must not forget the sort of plight in which they found themselves during their early married lives.

When one hears some of the more strident, feminist demands, I think of one lady who said to me: “I had no idea there was a glass ceiling until I heard it crunching beneath my feet”. That is a wonderful attitude and something that we should all emulate. We should be careful about describing the pitfalls.

We often hear that women can have it all or cannot have it all—they cannot have a career and a home. As so many noble Baronesses in your Lordships' House have shown, you can. You are fit for purpose but you are not necessarily designed for purpose. It is much more difficult and it is a much greater achievement on the part of those women who are able to rise to these great heights.

On the point of discrimination, and I do not think it breaches the 30-year rule, I remember my noble friend Lady Thatcher saying in Cabinet that she did not care if someone was a man or woman, or if they were black, white or whatever colour. She only wanted to know that they could do the job. Those sentiments would be widely shared. When one is demanding extra seats in the Cabinet or more Members of Parliament, it is important to remember that we want people to be there because they can do the job not because they are women. That is patronising and not in the interests of the advancement of women.

What has been notable in this debate is that there has hardly been a single word from any noble Baroness or noble Lord with which I would quarrel. A lot has been said against a broad spectrum of opinions and experience. In later years, women will benefit from what has been done, what can be done and what we are trying to do, in some cases abroad, where there are horrific examples, particularly those mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Desai. It sometimes puzzles me that we talk about cases in Afghanistan and other countries of the world, but we never mention the plight of women in Saudi Arabia. That is something to which we should turn our attention.

I congratulate my noble friend Lady Verma on the way in which she introduced this debate. She did not miss a single thing that I would have wished her to say. Our House and, I hope, the future of women, will have been enhanced by the attitude that she has shown and by the attitude of noble Baronesses who have spoken in this debate.

Finally, I will say a word of caution. I would be very concerned if I were running a small business and faced with employing a woman of an age at which they could have children. It would be very expensive for a small company and difficult. That is a problem that will not go away. There is also often the problem of sexual harassment in the workplace. Big companies with big names are involved and big funds of money are being brought in the way of damages. I can only say that throughout my career I never experienced such a thing. Probably, in retrospect, I am slightly offended. Nevertheless, the problem remains. Such things are in people's minds when they employ women, and they go across a number of these problems. They need to be refuted and dealt with, but they do not need to be overdone; that will not be in the interests of women. With caution, on these and other matters, I hope that we will plough on in the next 10 years in getting as far as we have got at the very least in the last 40 years.