It would be better if women weren’t told that Open selections were ‘only for men’

Recently LabourList revealed that “open” selections are overwhelmingly won by male candidates. This piece was was written by a female candidate for an “open Labour Party parliamentary selection. She has asked to remain anonymous:

Standing for parliamentary selection is always going to be hard, because, frankly, being an MP is hard. But there are things that would make it easier.

It would be better if women weren’t told that Open selections were ‘only for men’. It would be better if women weren’t put on shortlists in Open selections just so that there could be more men on the shortlist, wasting that woman’s time and money. It would be better if women standing in Open selections weren’t told that they were doing well for a practice run, and that they’d be great for a nearby AWS selection.

And it’s not just Open selections.

It would be better if women weren’t told only to stand in AWS selections. It would be better if progressive men, who support AWS, didn’t express such delight when the seat they want is chosen as an Open selection. It would be better if women in AWS selections weren’t told that they weren’t selected because ‘you’re not a mother’. When was the last time a pregnant woman was selected? I suspect it’s never happened.

None of these situations are perfect, and some aren’t even understandable. But we are in a better position than we were before – we have more women getting selected, and we certainly have more diverse women getting selected (arguably a lot more diverse than the men who have been selected).

Women obviously don’t all have the same views, but many have similar experiences in being discriminated at work, not being taken seriously, struggling to get better jobs or promotions because someone assumes ‘you’ll just get pregnant’, fitting childcare around work. And that’s before we get on to issues about domestic violence and abuse, rape, female genital mutilation. Do you think those issues were raised in politics before more women were involved?

 So, it’s not perfect. We are getting somewhere, but we could be a lot better, and that would make the party better.

Don’t you want to try?