In this blog Girlguiding advocate Katie, 17, shares the woman MP who inspires her.
A woman MP who inspires me is the late Baroness Shirley Williams, who, among many other achievements, was the first woman to found a major political party.
In 1964, she was elected as MP for Hitchin. From here, she continued to climb the political ladder, holding roles in the Shadow Cabinet such as Shadow Home Secretary. Later, in government, she held roles including Secretary of State for Education and Science. Williams founded the Social Democratic Party (SDP) in 1981 along with three other Labour party members. The SDP later merged with the Liberal party to form the Liberal Democrats. Williams was later made a life peer in 1993, retiring in 2015.
It’s important to note here that Baroness Williams argued against equal marriage in the Lords. While I support equal marriage and may not agree with all of her views, the reason I am so inspired by Shirley Williams is because she achieved so much in a time where women were still not treated equally. She was also extremely well educated and studied in the UK and in the USA. To have achieved so much academically is inspiring considering that in the 1960s, less than one in ten women attended university. She overcame so much stigma around her gender to achieve so much, which has had a lasting effect up until today in the form of the Liberal Democrat party.
In today’s society, we don’t have the levels of stigma that were present in the 1960s, but gender stereotypes still hold girls and women back. We are told that we are not as strong, or not as smart, or not as capable, because we are not men. Personally, I think if we all took an attitude of ‘I’ll prove I can’ then we could achieve so much more.
In a society where so many people tell us what we can achieve and what we need to do, Williams proved that women can do what men can do, and can do it even better. She proved that actions can have a lasting effect, and her impact has continued almost 60 years after first being elected as an MP.