There has been the scary-film appearance of Margaret Thatcher, which no one described better than she did as The Mummy Returns. But women who can walk and talk; women who are not some bolt-on appendage: women who are of the future, not the past... well, have you seen any? Any day now I'm expecting my intray to be hit by an appeal for an endangered species not the lapwing or the skylark, but Labour Woman. "This rare and colourful breed, often to be seen in fuchsia pink or scarlet at the chattering grounds of Blackpool or Brighton, has suffered a sudden and perhaps irreversible decline. Reasons for her disappearance are currently unknown, but concerned observers are putting it down to the re-colonisation of her habitat by that old predator, the well-known Grey Suit."In contrast, do you remember the last election? I must admit I can hardly believe that there was a time when we thought things were going to change, that the great, slow, inexorable political juggernaut driven by men was going to be halted in its tracks by a few women in bright jackets, but I have some old cuttings to remind me Cuttings that speak of a sea-change The sea-change happened, alright. But it turned out to be a relentless current that washed away the hopes of women throughout Britain that politics could ever wear a female face.In this campaign, the tide has turned for good.
Day after day, women switch on the Today programme and hear John asking William whether he's embarrassed about Oliver, or grilling Tony about Keith; we switch on the evening news to see Peter ask Andrew if John was right to get so riled by Craig. In the last election, the Fawcett Society surveyed party political broadcasts. They found that 84 per cent of all voices were male, and that you had to listen to 19 male politicians before you heard one female politician speak. If they did the same this time around, do you think the figures would be any better? Worse, I'd say.But during the last campaign there was a touch of optimism. Because we knew that a record number of women was going to be elected, and some of us believed that might make a difference. When over 100 women took their places in Parliament in May 1997, things seemed to be looking up.
But 100 women in a parliament of over 600 does not make for fair representation. It makes for a swamped minority that was bound to experience as it did intense hostility from journalists and fellow-politicians.If things had gone according to the optimistic vision, those 100 Labour women MPs would have been just a beginning. The beginning would have been built on, with women taking on new power in the Cabinet, wresting debates about health and education, housing and transport, employment law and benefits to a different point of view. And built on again, so that alliances would have been formed between female politicians, campaigners and journalists to make sure that issues that matter to women would never slip too far down the agenda. And built on yet again, to see more women being selected next time, so revivifying the political culture further and encouraging more female voters to feel that politics spoke to them.Yes, the election of those 100 women MPs would have been just the beginning Except that it wasn't That was the high point. As the few important departments entrusted to women were quickly snatched back again, the women in Cabinet were ever more sidelined, and New Labour begin to solidify in the old mould as a purely masculine culture in which women were made to feel distinctly unwelcome unless, of course, they were the sort of women who were happy to carry out the boys' decisions and never say a word out of turn.Although the women in Parliament have managed to help through a few, a very few reforms the beginnings of the child-care strategy, though it is still at such an embryonic stage; the introduction of the minimum wage, though it is still set at such a low level; reforms on parental leave, although so much more still needs to be done at every point women have found that the paths to real power remain blocked.And now there is a conspiracy of silence.
