So I decided to see if I could find out some stuff about representation of women in local politics, particularly those with children (who will perhaps be overrepresented on MN).
First here's a little background information on demographics to put this into context: Roughly 34% of the population are aged 18 to 45. (I've only chosen age 45 because of the documentation I've found). So that makes about 17% of the population women who are aged 20 to 50 [source: 2011 census]. Remember that number. (Also for reference approximately 18% of population were over 65).
Anyway there have been a number of census of local authority councillors. They were in 1997, 2001, 2004, 2006, 2008, 2010 and 2013.
So it seems that in theory we are rather over due for another one. (and we might have reason to question why there hasn't been one for 5 years and what changes might have happened since then).
Anyway the last one from 2013 can be found here:
www.nfer.ac.uk/publications/LGCL01/
The very first thing I spotted is that they used gender not sex in doing this research. So biology was already erased in local politics some 5 years ago.
One of the key findings was that:
Councillors’ gender profile, ethnic origin, disability status and caring responsibilities have changed very little between 2001 and 2013. In 2013, 67.3 per cent of councillors were male.
So already we have an overrepresentation of men.
Delving a little deeper there are some interesting figures in here:
Councillors had an average age of 60.2 in 2013, similar to 59.7 recorded in 2010, and up a little from 57.8 in 2004. Around one in eight (12.0 per cent) were aged under-45, a proportion which has changed little since 2004. The proportion aged 70 or over has increased from 13.8 per cent to 22.2 per cent over this period
and
The proportions of retired councillors have increased slightly year-on-year from 36.8 per cent in 2001 to 46.6 per cent in 2013. At the same time, the proportion of councillors in full-time employment has decreased steadily from 27.2 per cent in 2001 to 19.2 per cent this year, whereas there has been very little variation in the proportions of councillors who are self-employed or work part-time between 2001 and 2013
So working age people in particular have decreased their participation in local politics (see the little graph). And people under 45 have always been consistently under represented (12% of councillors in 2013) whilst those who are retired seem to be increasingly over represented. And women in general are particularly underrepresented (33% of councillors in 2013). REMEMBER: 17% of the population were women aged 20 - 45.
It doesn't take a genius to work out from this, that yes women aged 20 - 45 are one of the least and most under represented groups out there. This isn't a surprise in the slightest to me and I'm sure it won't be to most of you.
Of course conflating gender and sex won't help. If that trend of people who are working age participating in politics has continued since 2013 combined with efforts to force women into work and economic pressures to work more hours, I also think that there is a strong possibility that this lack of representation has got worse not better.
Whilst political parties all go on about how they have got more female MPs than ever before, and how we have a female PM, perhaps given cuts to services tend to happen and be prioritised at a local level, then perhaps it really is worth reflected on just HOW much women in this age group are being underrepresented, and then reflect on what political parties are doing to rectify this.
Given the recent treatment of women in relation to the trans debate and attitudes by political parties to MN and AWS, this really needs to be flagged up. It looks particularly poor.
It also does much to explain why polling like YouGov consistently is showing around 20% of women currently unsure of who to vote for which is considerably higher than it is for men.
I do think a lot more has to be done to involve women (and more generally people who are from poorer backgrounds) at lower levels, as I suspect the trend is going in wrong direction rather than improving.
I am going to try and think of how I can make some noise about this on MN and draw attention to it, and do a bit of brainstorming because clearly every political party out there really doesn't give a shit about this.