Thursday 26 October 2017

Will Tories really celebrate centenary of the first woman member of parliament?

I Apart from the sheer hypocrisy and faux outrage coming from the Tory benches there was  something else Tory MP Nicky Morgan mocking Jeremy  Corbyn about the treatment of female MPs in Parliament. during PMQ time

AS Another Angry Voice points out

 


But let's leave this to one side for a moment
The Express claim that Ms Morgan asked Mr Corbyn:(Except it was questions to the Prime Minister).

 "Next year sees the centenary of the first woman member of parliament.
"Would my right honourable friend tell us what leadership and encouragement to the women and girls in his constituency to take part in public life the member for Sheffield Hallam has shown in his remarks?" 

One wonders how many Tories will  really be celebrating first woman member of parliament because it was of course

Constance Georgine Markievicz,  4 February 1868 – 15 July 1927) was an Irish Sinn Féin and Fianna Fáil politician, revolutionary nationalist, suffragette and socialist. A founder member of Fianna Éireann, Cumann na mBan and the Irish Citizen Army, she took part in the Easter Rising in 1916, when Irish republicans attempted to end British rule and establish an Irish Republic. She was sentenced to death but this was reduced on the grounds of her gender. In December 1918, she was the first woman elected to the British House of Commons, though she did not take her seat and, along with the other Sinn Féin TDs, formed the first Dáil Éireann. She was also the second woman in the world to hold a cabinet position (Minister for Labour of the Irish Republic, 1919–1922).

As we all know the first Women to take her seat was 

Nancy Witcher Langhorne Astor, .She was an American citizen who moved to England at age 26. She made a second marriage to Waldorf Astor as a young woman in England. After he succeeded to the peerage she entered politics, in 1919 winning his former seat in Plymouth and becoming the first woman to sit as a Member of Parliament (MP) in the House of Commons.

Who may ot have been the choice of current left wingers  but it was still groundbreaking.

Indeed perhaps   it should be noted that it took two somewhat eccentric women to stand for and win palimentry seats.

One hundred years later we are still no where near to equal representation in any of our legislators.

Whilst rightly condemning  bigoted remarks  from all quarters maybe MPs should seriously consider as they celebrate  (probably without mention her in person) the election of the first women MP that we have not gone far enough and  are unlikely to get any closer in the near future to something like  50% f our representation from both sexes.




 


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