Various Events for International Women's Day

The middle of Tuesday on the 8th March was mainly dominated by the various events celebrating the 100th anniversary of International Women's Day. There were a series of talks on women and Parliament; including one by the first female Serjeant at Arms, Jill Pay, who is witnessing an ever-growing number of women joining her team.

There was also a presentation about the work of the Suffragette movement, as represented in Parliament's historic collections which was a timely reminder of how much women suffered for the fundamental right to vote - one that is still not experienced all over the world.

And finally, Jo Swinson MP for East Dumbartonshire raised the issue of gender balance and the importance of increasing the number of women MPs.  It is still an evident and unfortunate fact that gender inequality remains in many workplaces across the country, with 18 FTSE 100 companies having no female directors at all and nearly half of all FTSE 250 companies not having a woman in the boardroom. 

After the events of International Women's Day Claire said "along with my female colleagues, I believe that the gender imbalance in the House of Commons is slowly beginning to level but it is still far from equal and I believe we should be actively encouraging more women to join public office. There is still a lot of work to be done to solve the problems of gender inequality but I am glad that we are least moving in the right direction."

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