International Women�s Day

Bell Ribeiro-Addy Excerpts

Thursday 6th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Bell Ribeiro-Addy (Clapham and Brixton Hill) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Brent East (Dawn Butler) on introducing this vital debate. She is a true champion of women�s issues and an inspiration to many.

Twenty-one fifty-eight�2,158 is not my number; we have a long way to go before we get to that�is the year when, at the current rate of progress, we will see full gender parity. That is 133 years away and five generations of girls who will continue to live under a system of gender inequality. Imagine if the leaders of the Suffragette movement had known that in spite of their heroic actions it would take another 10 generations before we achieved equality of the sexes. That is why this year�s theme, �Accelerate Action� is appropriate, because the current rate of action is unacceptable.

A number of areas will require focus if we are to accelerate progress, but I want to focus on women�s health. Members will have heard me speak often about racial disparities in maternity care and the disproportionate fatality rate for black mothers, and more must be done to address that. However, issues around maternity are now worsening for all women in this country. When I first raised the issue of black maternal health in the House, black women were four times more likely to die in pregnancy and childbirth. That has now reduced to just over three times. Awareness has played a huge role in that, and I pay tribute to Five X More and other organisations that have done so much to raise awareness. Regrettably, most of that decrease is not because maternity services are improving, and the rate of women and babies of all ethnicities dying in pregnancy and childbirth in this country has increased in the past two decades.

The UK sits in the middle to low range of maternal mortality compared with the global standard, but we should not settle for that, just as we should not settle for racial disparities or poor maternal care, especially when our maternal mortality rate is far higher than that of other-high income countries such as Iceland, Norway, and Finland. It is not just in maternity care where women are being failed, because women�s health issues have long been overlooked, as men have historically been treated as the default.

For many men, as we have heard, there is just a physical exam and a few questions in order to be diagnosed with something such as erectile dysfunction, but it takes eight years for a woman to receive a diagnosis for endometriosis. Every seven and a half seconds a man is prescribed ED medication, but it takes eight years for a woman to be diagnosed with endometriosis. We still know next to nothing about the causes, symptoms and diagnosis for the management of conditions such as polycystic ovary syndrome, despite that impacting one in eight women.

We know so little even about periods, yet almost every person who has experienced one understands the pain and discomfort involved. For any men who are still wondering, yes, a period cramp is typically at least more painful than testicular trauma, while at its worst it is as intense as a heart attack. Only 2.5% of publicly funded research is dedicated to reproductive health, although 90% of women suffer from such issues. Women feel gaslit by their GPs, they are told to go on painkillers, and there is so much more that they are not receiving when they ask for help with their healthcare.

We cannot fight for gender equality when the disparity in the treatment of women�s health conditions is so stark. I do not imagine that by next International Women�s Day we will have complete gender equality, but I hope we will see some concrete steps towards getting there on health.