Four out of five MPs are men. Fewer than nine per cent of Conservative MPs are women. Talk about this. What does it say about a country where so few women are active in the law-making body at the centre of the democracy?
Britain is low down the world rankings for political sex equality. Countries such as Mexico and Iraq have far more women representatives in their parliaments than Britain. Discuss possible reasons for this. Is it the way the UK parliament is run? Is it the demands of the job? Or the traditional tastes of selection committees?
In the 1990s, Labour doubled the number of its women MPs by introducing a rule of all-women short lists. Such "positive discrimination" is highly controversial. It succeeds in getting more women MPs, but only by preventing men from standing. Some people who don't like all-women short lists still back them as the only way to bring about change. Do young people agree?
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