International Women’s Day

Marsha De Cordova Excerpts

Thursday 7th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)]

It is an absolute pleasure to speak in this year’s International Women’s Day debate, and I thank the Backbench Business Committee for allowing the time.

International Women’s Day provides an opportunity to reflect on how far we have come and on how far we still have to go. We also get the opportunity as sisters to celebrate our sisterhood. The first International Women’s Day was held back in 1911, at a time when women were still considered the property of men and our rights were limited, but, with International Women’s Day organised by an international socialist women’s conference, these pioneering women dared to dream of a world beyond oppression, indignity and subordination to patriarchy, of a world where men and women could stand as equals—imagine that!

It would take a further seven years for some women, and a further 17 years for all women, to win the right to vote. Leading that struggle were women such as Sylvia Pankhurst and Battersea’s own Caroline Ganley and Charlotte Despard—I follow in the footsteps of some fantastic women. Courageous socialists, these women refused to accept injustice. They were oppressed, they fought, they struggled. Charlotte was arrested twice, but she fought on, and, because of what she and others did, we now have the right to stand in Parliament as women MPs. In 1918, Charlotte was the first woman to stand in Battersea North, and while she did not win, she paved the way for others to stand, and in 1945, Caroline Ganley became the first woman to be elected for Battersea.

I come now to the present day. For nine years, women have borne the brunt of austerity: many women services have closed, women have been hit hardest by public service job losses and the pay cap, and according to figures from the House of Commons Library, 86% of the cuts since 2010 have fallen on the shoulders of women. It is a near-decade-long assault on women’s rights and freedoms. Women face sexual harassment and domestic abuse. The gender pay gap stands at 20%. I know that all my sisters on both sides of the House will agree that we have to address these inequalities.

Those inequalities are so much worse for working-class women, black women, women from ethnic minorities and disabled women such as myself, and it is as a disabled woman that I want to share something with the House. I have faced many barriers in my life—in education, in the workplace and so forth—so getting elected was a huge achievement, but unfortunately obtaining the additional support I need in this place to operate as an MP has been challenging. I am continuously fighting for additional support but being told by the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority, “We know you have additional needs, but we are not going to support those additional needs”. It has made it very difficult for me.

The people of Battersea sent me here to represent them, and I should not have to fight the authorities here for the additional support I need, but I will fight on, because that it what I have had to do my whole life. I will keep fighting. It does not stop here. This is the one place where equality should exist and where no one should have to fight for the support they need, whether they are a woman, disabled, a black person, whatever. No one should have to fight that fight.

We have come a long way. We should never forget and never not celebrate it. The struggle and the courage of women such as Charlotte Despard and my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman), who is no longer in her place, paved the way for so many of us, and I am deeply grateful to them. Happy International Women’s Day, sisters, and solidarity!