Much has changed since the wannabe prime minister David Cameron pledged to give a third of his first government's jobs to women, thereby ending what he called the "scandalous under-representation" in parliament. Not least the fact that, once in Downing Street, he promptly appointed just five women to his 23-strong cabinet. There may be a female home secretary in Theresa May, but at 22%, the UK ranks 57th in terms of female parliamentary representation, according to the Centre for Women and Democracy.
Since the coalition came to power there has been the leaked internal memo about the Tories' "problem with women", the appointment of an unelected woman to give the feminine perspective to Number 10 and economic policies that see female unemployment at a 25-year high.
Will Cameron make amends with his first major cabinet reshuffle, expected shortly? And, if so, how much will it matter? We ask several leading feminist thinkers.
Read more at The Guardian, published 3 September 2012.
Much has changed since the wannabe prime minister David Cameron pledged to give a third of his first government's jobs to women, thereby ending what he called the "scandalous under-representation" in parliament. Not least the fact that, once in Downing Street, he promptly appointed just five women to his 23-strong cabinet. There may be a female home secretary in Theresa May, but at 22%, the UK ranks 57th in terms of female parliamentary representation, according to the Centre for Women and Democracy.
Since the coalition came to power there has been the leaked internal memo about the Tories' "problem with women", the appointment of an unelected woman to give the feminine perspective to Number 10 and economic policies that see female unemployment at a 25-year high.
Will Cameron make amends with his first major cabinet reshuffle, expected shortly? And, if so, how much will it matter? We ask several leading feminist thinkers.
Read more at The Guardian, published 3 September 2012.