This is I think tangentially relevant:
The co-convenor of the Scottish Greens has launched a stinging criticism of party's attitude to gender balance claiming she has to "fight for airtime" with her male colleagues.
On the eve of the party conference Maggie Chapman, who has been joint leader for the last five years alongside Patrick Harvie, said the Greens are still struggling to close the gender gap and give women the representation they deserve.
Ms Chapman said: “One of the frustrations I’ve had in the party is having to fight for air-time, not just for me, but for other women. When I started as co-convenor, there was this idea that Patrick wold do the external stuff, and I would do the internal stuff. How gender stereotypical can you get?”
She said: "The first year I wasn’t given a conference speech. I just opened the conference. But we’ve moved on from that. We now do have equal minutes.”
HeraldScotland 13 MENU
20th October
Scottish Greens co-leader slams party's gender balance
Alan Simpson
Scottish Greens co-leader slams party's gender balance
Scottish Greens co-leader slams party's gender balance
13
THE co-convenor of the Scottish Greens has launched a stinging criticism of party's attitude to gender balance claiming she has to "fight for airtime" with her male colleagues.
On the eve of the party conference Maggie Chapman, who has been joint leader for the last five years alongside Patrick Harvie, said the Greens are still struggling to close the gender gap and give women the representation they deserve.
Ms Chapman said: “One of the frustrations I’ve had in the party is having to fight for air-time, not just for me, but for other women. When I started as co-convenor, there was this idea that Patrick wold do the external stuff, and I would do the internal stuff. How gender stereotypical can you get?”
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The former Edinburgh City Councillor who is also chief executive of the Scottish Council on Visual Impairment (SCOVI) and rector of Aberdeen University revealed this is only the second year she and Mr Harvie will have the same minutes of speaking time at conference.
She said: "The first year I wasn’t given a conference speech. I just opened the conference. But we’ve moved on from that. We now do have equal minutes.”
Ms Chapman, who grew up in Zimbabwe, first became interested in politics – specifically the Green Party - after watching the UK government ignore mass public protests over war in Iraq.
The 39-year-old won her first election victory in 2007 when she became one of the Scotland's first Green Party councillors to represent Edinburgh's Leith Walk ward.
It was a position she held until mid-2015, when she quit her seat to concentrate on an unsuccessful bid to become an MSP for the North East in the 2016 Scottish Parliament elections. She became co-convenor in 2013, but just two years later had to fight off a challenge by Zara Kitson, who was publicly backed by Harvie.
She is now one of three women to hold political leadership roles in Scotland, along with Nicola Sturgeon of the SNP and Ruth Davidson of the Scottish Conservative Party.
Despite their successes, Ms Chapman believes that gender inequality will always exist until the culture of “patriarchy” changes.
She said: “I think men in politics generally have a hard time giving up space to women. Challenging that is difficult. Patriarchal power structures are so embedded in so much of what we do.
"We can have all the structures in place, like gender-balancing mechanisms, but if we don’t have the culture to match we are going to carry on with this unequal co-convenorship.
“I think it has got better, not for want of trying. I think there are some individuals within the party who need to consider their actions and behaviours quite carefully around what we genuinely mean by equality and sharing power and I’m not just talking about the co-convenorship positions.
www.heraldscotland.com/news/16996280.scottish-greens-co-leader-slams-partys-gender-balance/ (Excerpts)