Girlguiding Advocate Niamah, 17, gave this speech at our Celebrating Women MPs event in Parliament in June 2023.
My name is Niamah, I’m seventeen, and I’m an advocate for Girlguiding. Girlguiding helps all girls know that they can do anything. With their aid, thousands of girls, myself included, have been presented the opportunity to progress in areas that have previously been male dominated.
As a young woman interested in pursuing law, which relies heavily on precedents, I’ve always been interested in changemakers. Among women, there are many: Sophia Duleep Singh, who campaigned alongside Emmeline Pankhurst for the vote, Nancy Astor, the first woman to accept a seat in the House of Commons, and Anneliese Dodds MP, the first woman to serve as Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Sophia Duleep Singh, through her campaigning, gave women greater autonomy by enabling them to make their own decisions concerning issues that have tangible effects on them. She, alongside her contemporaries, is the reason we’re here today. Beyond gaining the vote, women’s representation in Parliament is extremely important, especially given the bias towards men in our society.
We need women politicians so that the experiences of the 30.4 million women in this country are captured and appropriately represented through fair legislation that addresses the root cause of inequity.
Without these women, women’s experiences could be ignored. We would not be able to write and pass legislation concerning our physical and mental health, we would not be able to set in place programmes to aid and help at-risk women, and we would not be able to progress, as a nation, when half the population is denied a voice.
It’s important to celebrate the achievements of women – as a reminder of what we have achieved and of what more can be done. Currently, only a third of the people in the House of Commons are women despite women making up 51% of our population, showing that we are not being appropriately represented.
As well as this, women are often over-scrutinised in the media and by their peers, as Theresa May MP was during her time as prime minister. There are many barriers to overcome, but events like these, which unite and uplift women, which draw attention to the women in politics, give me hope. Because it shows that there is an active interest in this area, that there are women out there succeeding, and that the attitude towards women as leaders is slowly changing.
There may be more to achieve but we are getting closer.