Hundreds of women from all walks of life descended on Westminster on Wednesday, to mark the moment women first got the right to stand for parliament 100 years ago.

At the final count, 317 women came to the Houses of Parliament to visit 238 MPs as part of #AskHerToStandDay, and were bombarded with messages of positivity to encourage them to consider a career in politics.

Theresa May told a gathering of female politicians from around the world that “a woman’s place is in elected office” as she urged them to work together to make sure their voices were heard.

The British prime minister admitted that getting the political system to work in a male-dominated environment was “never easy” but warned that less representative parliaments operated with “one hand tied behind their backs”.

A young Bosnian MP who denounced her uncle’s war crimes, a member of the Syrian opposition and a Gambian women’s rights campaigner are among the female parliamentarians who will sit in the House of Commons chamber this week.

A landmark event on Thursday will celebrate the centenary of women’s suffrage in the UK, involving more than 100 female politicians from around the world, from Afghanistan to the Vatican.

John McDonnell said he wanted a woman to become the next leader of the Labour party, a day after senior party figures were accused of failing to take allegations of sexual harassment seriously enough.

The shadow chancellor defended Labour’s record on representation of women, pointing out that the party was the first to have a gender-balanced shadow cabinet and had more female politicians than any other political party.

More than 100 female politicians from around the world, from Afghanistan to the Vatican, will sit in the House of Commons for a landmark event to mark the centenary of women first winning the right to vote in the UK.