Our political female role models: disillusioned, demonised and out of office

By Rowenna Davis / @rowenna_davis

I’m past caring what the last week has done to Gordon Brown and the Labour Party. But I’m terrified about what it’s done to women in politics. The last seven days have seen four female ministers resign from the cabinet, leaving Westminster’s most powerful inner-circle grossly unrepresentative. Worries deepened when Caroline Flint broke her resignation with a tirade of allegations of sexism at the heart of government. In today’s Observer, she said that Brown “used” women as little more than a “smokescreen”; a “way of making it look like you’ve got a lot of women round the table”. The reality for women in cabinet, she said, is one of “constant pressure” and “negative bullying.”

But it’s not just what’s been happening inside Westminster that’s so terrible; it’s how it’s been covered outside it too. Across the media, Flint has been portrayed in starkly sexist terms. She’s “flounced out” of the cabinet in a “hissy fit“, throwing “a stiletto in the heart of government“. Even the broadsheets’ coverage was irresponsible – the Guardian’s decision to use Flint’s red dress photo shoot to accompany such a grave set of allegations wasn’t just objectifying; it was belittling the serious points she was making.

Think what you will of Flint’s resignation – but don’t put your criticisms (or your photos) in gender-loaded terms. Personally I think Flint’s resignation was opportunistic, badly orchestrated and ultimately self-defeating; but I don’t think it was a “silly woman” losing her head because of oestrogen and an X chromosome. When James Purnell resigned he was criticised, but he was never accused of living up to “macho” stereotypes in the same way. When a woman makes a serious feminist argument, she shouldn’t be dismissed in a sea of sexist stereotypes, she should be listened to and challenged with the respect shown to her male colleagues.

After the expenses scandal, the public wants to see a politics that is more representative of the people, not less. I worry that the events of the past week will make this less likely. The political female role models we had weren’t exactly inspirational; now they’re also disillusioned, demonised and out of office. If we’re going to fix our broken politics, we’ll need to utilise the best talents of our women as well as our men. Neither our government nor our media can afford to reduce them to “window dressing”.