International Women’s Day

Baroness Owen of Alderley Edge Excerpts

Thursday 6th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Owen of Alderley Edge (Con)]

My Lords, I am delighted to take part in today’s International Women’s Day debate. I congratulate all the noble Lords who made their maiden speeches.

Artificial intelligence represents one of the greatest opportunities for growth and advancement since the industrial revolution. We should rightly be very excited about its potential. It is reshaping the world as we know it: powering our industries, aiding our scientific discoveries, and redefining how we live and work. However, as noble Baronesses have highlighted today, the people shaping AI do not reflect the diversity of those it serves. As of 2024, women are significantly underrepresented in the UK AI workforce, making up only 21% of its employees. The Alan Turing Institute warned:

“This is not only a fundamental issue of economic equality, but also about how the world is designed and for whom.”


Multiple studies have raised concerns that, without a diverse set of voices shaping the AI models we build, we risk creating an inbuilt bias. AI systems trained on biased data can replicate and amplify discrimination.

I am concerned that a recent Answer from the Department for Education said that, in 2023-24, just under 18% of STEM apprenticeship starts were by women. We must encourage girls from an early age to take up STEM subjects in school so that not only can we improve the diversity of those in AI but the UK will have the skills and talent necessary for an AI future.

It is incumbent on us to ensure that the social biases that are currently being inflamed and entrenched by misogynistic influencers do not become embedded in the systems that look to be so intrinsic to our future. We have the responsibility to do everything in our power to help remove the obstacles faced by our next generation of young women to allow them to flourish and reach their full potential. Sadly, I fear that they are now facing greater barriers than ever before, due to the increasing prevalence and acceptance of misogyny in our society.

The poison of misogyny undermines our values and fuels harassment, discrimination and violence. The agenda is aided by algorithms that are pushing content to young boys at an alarming rate. A UCL study set up sample accounts on TikTok representing typologies of teenage boys with varying interests. It found that, while the content initially suggested to the boys was in line with their stated interests, it increasingly focused on anger and blame directed at women. After five days, the TikTok algorithm was presenting four times as many videos recommending misogynistic content on sexual harassment, and discrediting and objectifying women.

The study found that social media algorithms that amplified extreme misogynistic content were normalising harmful ideologies for young people. This is having hugely damaging repercussions on real-life social interactions. A University of York study found that 76% of secondary school teachers and, even more shockingly, 60% of primary school teachers were strongly concerned about the influence of online misogyny on their pupils. The study highlighted shocking examples of secondary school pupils espousing the views that women should not be in leadership roles and that they were too big for their boots. When teachers questioned where they got these ideas, they informed them that they liked to watch Andrew Tate.

Even more disturbingly, teachers in primary schools cited examples of where girls as young as primary age were told that women should not have careers and that they belonged in the kitchen. One informed his teacher that it is

“ok to hurt women because Andrew Tate does it”.

I am sure that many noble Lords will agree that, unless we tackle this appalling rise in misogyny in schools, these attitudes present a very real threat to the progress of young girls, who should not have to run the gauntlet of this abuse, especially during their formative years. If we do not take action, we risk creating a future where discrimination is automated and prejudice is coded into the very systems that are supposed to aid our advancement, not hinder it. We must not allow our future to be shaped by those who seek to do us harm.

We owe it to the next generation of young women—who may be aspiring scientists, doctors or engineers—to stamp out this vile form of abuse and give them every opportunity to flourish. In doing so, we are not only helping them but safeguarding the future of our society. The future of AI must be built by all of us, for all of us. Let us ensure that women are at the heart of this progress.