Why politicians are always men? mummy.

[lemon888]

How would you answer a 8/9 y o dd?
My dd asked me this tricky queston a few day ago after watching news.

They're not always, but most of them are. It depends who gets voted for. Does he/she know about elections?

Sorry, just reread the OP.

*Does she

www.ukpolitical.info/female-members-of-parliament.htm 191 out of 650 MPs are women. Then there are others such as Nicola Sturgeon, Angela Merkel, Sarah Palin...

Mine is a woman and her kids go to the same school as my dd, my dd sees her when she drops her kids off. We say hi but I didn't vote for her, shhhh! Lol

Just tell her about the women mp's.

Yes, She said it s not fair that children dont have the right to vote yet they make all the decisions and we 'children' have to live with them!

Wait till she asks, 'why are they nearly always rich public schoolboys mummy?' Because that is more problematic at this point.

Hirple.... thats less than 1/3! and about 1/3 conservative mps went to private schools.

"Because many men don't like women telling them what to do. That's why local parties, who are usually full of men, don't let women run for parliament in case women and other men vote for them."

Because the patriarchy

I know it's less than a third, but it does mean that politicians aren't always men. The Scottish Government's Cabinet is 50/50, for example, and groups like Women for Indy were very politically active in the run up to the indyref. (They still are, as part of RISE.)

A few high profile female politicians are very prevalent though. Harriet Harman acting Labour leader, Nicola Sturgeon leader of the SNP, Natalie Bennett leader of the Green Party, Leanne Wood leader of Plaid Cymru.

Teresa May is very prominent in the Conservatives, and two women are standing in the Labour leadership contest along with the two men.

It's not all bad.

It is a societal issue. Women are approved of in ground roots caring roles. If they move into 'now I shall tell you what to do' roles, people get miffed. That's why female politicians come in for so much more spite and hate than most of their male counterparts. Men really have to fuck up to cop as much vitriol as the women do for just being there.

I would, like others, say they are not all men, but add that historically people have not wanted women to be in positions where they can influence things and there used even to be laws stopping them; now we (as a society) have realised that was wrong, but it takes a long time for the old thinking to change or die out.

I have said similar to my now 10yo in analogous discussions (not about politicians, because we live in Germany and the one politician all children have heard of, Angela Merkel, is obviously a woman, but about other prominent/prestigious careers). I've also started pointing out to him ways in which the male is regarded as the 'norm' and women as 'different' - easy when you have the German language to deal with on a daily basis...

You could explain that it comes down to who people vote for. When people say they want 50% of MPs to be women, I do wonder how this would be achieved in practice, given that you could have 50% of the candidates being women and in theory people could still vote for all the men.

Some useful stuff here on the breakdown of candidates in the last election. Greens had the most women candidates, still under 40%.

I don't have any information on whether the number of women elected to parliament is in proportion to the number standing.

I know this doesn't exactly make up for everything else Thatcher did, but when I was the same sort of age as your DD (1983?) I asked my dad if men were allowed to be prime minister

During a talk at Georgetown University Law Center last week, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg spoke to the crowd about her experience as a woman in the profession. "In the ancient days when I was going to college, the law was not a welcoming profession for women," she declared.

"In those days, in the Southern District, most judges wouldn't hire women. In the U.S. attorney's office, women were strictly forbidden in the Criminal Division," Ginsburg said. "And the excuse for not hiring women in the Criminal Division was they have to deal with all these tough types, and women aren't up to that. And I was amazed. I said, 'have you seen the lawyers at legal aid who are representing these tough types? They are women.'"

On the subject of women on the Supreme Court, Ginsburg was unequivocal: "People ask me sometimes, 'When do you think it will be enough? When will there be enough women on the court?' And my answer is when there are nine."

Why not get her to write a letter to a politician to ask what they think on the issue of female representation in parliament?

Because many women prefer to be at home with their children in the evening - I do.

Because many women prefer to be at home with their children in the evening - I do.

What a terrible thing to say to a kid. Reinforcing the ideas that women can't do important jobs and instead prefer to stay home.

Load of crap.

Because men are more likely to be chosen to stand as an MP where the party is capable of winning a seat.
And not just any man, but white men.

Because society has problems with sexism and racism.

This is not just a problem in parliament, but also in industry.

Her primary teachers are likely to be female, but primary heads are disproportionately male.

Teach her about Thatcher

That should quell her thirst for knowledge

Show her this video? Elle magazine have got a campaign for more women at the top.