Hansard

So here we are, on international women’s day 2018 and, as Christina McKelvie and others have noted, the World Economic Forum’s 2017 global gender gap report tells us that gender parity is still more than 200 years away. It is absolutely right, therefore, that this year’s theme is #PressForProgress, as women have waited far too long already—haven’t we just?

On this international women’s day, we are asked to

“concentrate on 5 specific actions to press for progress for gender parity”

in our own sphere of influence. In that sphere of influence, I am proud to be involved in women 50:50. I believe that that is a good example of using the reach that we as parliamentarians have to demonstrate our commitment to gender parity. To all who are listening to this debate I say, if you have not yet joined us, please do.

Let me say more on those “specific actions”. On this international women’s day, we are called to maintain a “gender parity mindset”. If such a mindset was adopted, welfare reform would not be aimed almost exclusively at women, as if they were a target for cuts. On a more positive note, I believe that the Scottish women’s budget group is that “gender parity mindset” in action.

We are called on to challenge stereotypes and bias and I welcome the light that is being shone on some of the darkest corners of that bias through campaigns such as #MeToo.

We are also called on to influence other people’s beliefs and actions. Women 50:50 is working hard to explain why the lack of women in representative politics, our boardrooms and our public bodies matters. I want people to ask, when they are watching First Minister’s questions or following proceedings in our town halls, “Why are there so few women in here? Where are they?” I say to anyone sitting in the gallery that the chamber does not normally have the gender balance that it has at the moment. We know that girls are doing well in school, and young women are excelling in our universities, so why are they not here in greater numbers, helping to shape the laws that shape our country?

We are asked, too, to forge positive visibility of women. That is something that we can and do, do; thank you colleagues.

Finally, we are asked to celebrate women’s achievements, and I believe that we need to get much better at doing that. Celebrating those achievements will help us to achieve those other four asks.

On this international women’s day, I am delighted to celebrate, first, some very recent achievements. At last week’s world indoor championships, the British athletics team won medals in seven events. The team won 10 medals in all, because the women’s 4x400 team won bronze, and women won nine of the 10 medals. Four of those medals were hard won by the incredible efforts of Scotland’s Laura Muir, who won silver and bronze over two events, Eilidh Doyle, who won her first global individual medal, with bronze in the 400 metres, and Zoey Clark in that 4x400 team.

Those women are incredible role models. Laura Muir will not be competing in the Commonwealth games, which we will be watching soon, because she is completing her veterinary medicine degree. Eilidh Doyle, who recently spoke at the Scottish Athletics event in this Parliament, is a qualified physical education teacher, and her positive influence has been recognised; she is included in the Young Women’s Movement Scotland list of 30 inspiring women who are under 30.

I am proud to report that that inspirational list includes the first Green councillor in the east end of Glasgow, Councillor Kim Long. Kim, like all the other women whom we celebrate today, rises to a challenge. She says:

“as a teenager I really hated PE, but I went on to play hockey for Scotland.”

She was also the moderator of the national youth assembly, where she pushed for young people’s voices to be embedded in decision-making processes. She became the first young person ever to be on a special commission: the special commission on same-sex relationships and the ministry. Members can read about her many achievements on the 30 under 30 website, where Kim says:

“My personal highlight was when I got a bunch of men in Barlinnie to sing in three-part harmony”.

She regards that as one of her stand-out achievements. Kim goes on to say:

“I want to see girls and young women taking up space, whether that is physically or vocally, in boardrooms, sports pitches, stages and classrooms—really wherever they want to be, but taking up space.”

As members said, we need collective empowerment. We also need to realise that some people face even greater challenges because of the structures in which we live.

As Claudia Beamish said, history is written by the winners. Kim Long was at the unveiling of the statue of Mary Barbour in Glasgow today. The statue is long overdue. If the gender gap is bad, the gender statue gap highlights how poor we have been—we have not been good, to put it mildly—at celebrating women’s achievements. Now, I am the deputy convener of the cross-party group on animal welfare. I am passionate about animals and I am very pleased that we have statues of a bear and a dog in this wonderful city, but we can do much better when it comes to gender representation, if we want to continue to mark people and their achievements in that way.

Another young woman on the 30 under 30 list is the writer Kirsty Strickland, who has won awards for her writing on violence against women. She has been a judge on awards on the subject, too. She, too, talks about the need for women to be confident enough to take up space. She says:

“I’ve struggled with ‘imposter-syndrome’ in the past, and wasted far too much time worrying that I’m not good enough, or clever enough, or brave enough to do the things I want to in life. For young women, your time is precious. Please don’t waste a second of it worrying that you aren’t good enough; you ARE. So take up space, make yourself heard, know your worth and go out and achieve your potential. And know that while you are doing that, other women are rooting you on and delighted to see you succeeding.”

There are only 30 women on the list, but we know that there are tens of thousands of young women who should be celebrated. One who is not on the list but who deserves a special mention is Catherine Gemmell, of the Marine Conservation Society, who has done fabulous work on the reduction of plastics in Scotland, through her enthusiasm and passion—many people in this building have met her.

Finally, given that this is international women’s day, I draw attention to the work of Kenyan activist, and a personal heroine of mine, Wangari Maathai. She died in 2011, and I did not know much about her until members of the Kenyan-Scottish community in Edinburgh invited me to plant trees with them in Figgate park, just a couple of miles from here. Wangari Maathai was the founder of the Green Belt Movement, which has planted more than 51 million trees across Kenya, conserving the environment, providing employment for women and reducing poverty. She said:

“It’s the little things citizens do. That’s what will make the difference. My little thing is planting trees.”

Let our little thing be a refusal to accept the status quo and a determination to challenge it in all that we do, working together until women in Scotland and across the globe have our long-overdue equality.