International Women’s Day 2016

Lucy Frazer Excerpts

Tuesday 8th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Lucy Frazer (South East Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

I look forward to the day when there is no longer any need for International Women’s Day; when “Woman tipped to become next M&S boss announces she is taking maternity leave” is no longer a newsworthy headline for the Daily Mail; when we have 50%, not 22%, of parliamentarians across the world being women, and we no longer feel any need to measure or report the statistic; and when we do not need to discuss how to encourage more young women into science and maths.

Yes, we have come a long way. Government after Government have brought in legislation to ensure that we have equal treatment, but we are still striving for parity. Why is that? I do not profess to have the answers, but I recently read an article about a transgender person who had therefore experienced life as both a woman and a man. Ben Barres is a biologist at Stanford who lived and worked as Barbara Barres until he was in his 40s. He said that, as a woman, he often experienced bias, but when he became Ben he noticed a difference in his everyday experiences. He said that as a man, people treated him with much more respect. He noticed that he was more carefully listened to and his authority less frequently questioned. He wrote:

“The reasons why women are not breaking into academic jobs at any appreciable rate is not childcare, not family responsibilities.”

He went on to say:

“I have had the thought a million times: I am now taken more seriously”.

So I welcome International Women’s Day, but I would welcome more a time when there is no need to celebrate it, when women are recognised and lauded for what we have done as individuals, not for our achievements as women.