International Women’s Day: Progress on Global Gender Equality

Baroness Wyld Excerpts

Thursday 8th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Wyld (Con)]

My Lords, I have three young daughters aged seven, five and two. When I made my maiden speech last year, my seven year-old, Anna, wished me luck and asked whether the men Lords were allowed to make speeches as well, or whether they just had to sit there. Imagine my delight when I came in today to see that I was nearly at the end of the list but surrounded by male noble Lords. It has been a joy to hear their speeches and all the other brilliant speeches by noble Baronesses. My then four year-old asked whether men were allowed to be Prime Minister and I assured her that we have had a few.

There is indeed much to celebrate about the world today. Yet I find myself sad that as my daughters’ innocence slips away, so too will the notion that women are equally represented in Parliament and wider public life. But there is an even harder story to tell them, one of violence and abuse faced by women and girls around the world, as we have heard. In many ways this is a world I want instinctively to shield my girls from. However, the main point I want to make is that around the world we need to start conversations about equality sooner rather than later, if the upcoming generation will have the chance of telling a better story.

Of course, political regimes and legal frameworks drive ultimate outcomes but these are themselves often borne of deeply engrained cultural behaviours and beliefs about gender and the relationships between men and women, who of course start off as girls and boys. My eldest daughter, the seven year-old, knows now that Malala was shot by the Taliban on the school bus. The look of sheer bewilderment on the face of a seven year-old, who takes going to school completely and utterly for granted—although she moaned about it as usual this morning—throws into sharp focus all over again the scale of the violence and injustice faced by Malala and millions like her. We rightly celebrate the courage of women who have demanded and driven a change in attitudes but we must continue to be appalled that they have been forced to find this courage within themselves because of what they faced simply as a result of being born female.

We often talk about gender equality as though it is a women’s issue, when what we need to talk about is the way in which girls and boys, men and women, live alongside each other in understanding and mutual support. I pay tribute to young men around the world who are challenging accepted norms and power structures, including those involved in Plan International’s Champions for Change project, which trains young men to become peer supporters, often using social media to converse with their peers and tackle entrenched attitudes about the role of girls and women. I shall quote Luciano, who is 19 and part of Plan International Brazil’s Goals for Peace project:

“If we want to prevent women from suffering violence, children need to start learning why violence must not be tolerated from a young age”.


He explained:

“I’ve also witnessed violence in my house. My dad has violent traits, which he picked up from his father—it’s cultural. I’ve decided that when I have children, my approach will be completely different”.


This caught my eye because I know that the Government are looking at the role of technology in delivering aid, and I encourage a similar focus on the role of social media and technology in attitudinal change.

While in the UK we can rightly be proud of our record in driving progress on gender equality at home and abroad, we have no room for complacency. We see ourselves as a forward-thinking nation, yet we enable a culture in which young people can readily access images of violent, hard-core pornography and abuse. This goes beyond internet safeguarding. Again it is about challenging attitudes before it is too late. I strongly support the Government’s focus on relationships through PSHE in schools but respectful attitudes cannot sit in a silo. There is an onus on everyone in public life and in the public eye to speak up and tell our young people—boys and girls, men and women—that some of the images they are seeing of women online are not what women’s bodies generally look like, and that much of what they can be exposed to online is not sex but abuse.

As to women in public life in the UK, during my time in Downing Street I worked with my now noble friends Lord Maude of Horsham and Lady Finn, at that time in the Cabinet Office, and a range of officials and advisers who did crucial work on the Government’s diversity plan. It was a privilege to play a role in helping to increase the representation of women on public bodies and to hear their personal stories at the outreach events that we organised. I am pleased to see that the number of women on public bodies has continued to increase, and urge the Government to ensure that momentum is maintained.

I also want us to learn from the problem we had to solve—the fact that many women told us that they were lacking in confidence, perhaps after time out bringing up children, or that they did not feel ready to take on senior roles despite ample experience. How did these highly intelligent women with a wealth of experience come to hold these beliefs about themselves? With this in mind, I was shocked by a study from the University of Illinois showing that, by the age of six, girls are more likely to attribute intelligence to men than women. If girls think this by the time they are six, why are we realising that there is an issue only by the time they are 26, 36, 46 or older? Happily it is now in vogue to tell little boys and girls all about historic female role models and storybooks are thankfully moving away from the “rescued by a handsome prince” narrative.

This is all well and good until I reflect on the throwaway comments I regularly hear from men and women alike. When I tell them about my children, they say, “You will have your hands full when they are teenagers because girls are so bitchy”. My husband is told, with apparent genuine sympathy, that our house will be a mass of hormones and angst with three teenage girls and a menopausal woman—this is in the future—and I have probably been guilty of saying something like that myself because, let us face it, it is ingrained in all of us. I have to keep saying to myself that nothing is inevitable. I do not believe girls are instinctively bitchy. We are supposed to be the role models so let us recognise that we need to challenge every throwaway assumption, otherwise the most powerful public campaigning messages are hollow.

We can support and learn from those inspiring young women and men who have faced depression and abuse but have become all the more determined to challenge assumptions and face down stigma. Let us celebrate today and share their optimism but, above all, let us make sure it is absolutely justified.