| Triumph for Harriet Harman as eight women enter shadow cabinet Deputy Labour leader sees fight for sex equality at top of the party pay offIf it is a triumph for any one person, then it is a triumph for Harriet Harman, Labour's deputy leader. The shadow cabinet now has eight elected women and if you count in the three others who were not elected but are there because of the jobs they do – Harman, Rosie Winterton the shadow chief whip and Lady Royall, leader of the Lords,– the shadow team almost reaches Harman's objective of an even gender balance. It is something she has worked for all her political life.This is a long story of slow, hard-fought change. But it would never have happened at all had a handful of determined women not set out more than 20 years ago to make sure it did. They began by breaking down the institutionalised prejudices of constituency selection committees. In 1992, they won the concession of ensuring every short list included one woman. From that grew the campaign for all-women shortlists, bitterly contested in the run-up to every election, transformative in its effects and now sanctioned by law – and almost ruthlessly applied at the last election to ensure that the proportion of women in Labour's ranks did not fall as the party lost seats.Their success has transformed the way politicians think about questions of diversity. The opposition parties have been forced to respond. After their second defeat in 2001, Conservative women began to realise that it was not enough to say change would come by itself. They began to talk less of tokenism and more of positive action. When David Cameron won the Tory leadership in 2005, he prioritised increasing women's representation as a signal of his determination to modernise. As a result, the new record number of 142 women MPs includes three times as many Tories – 48 – as in the last parliament. For Labour, the first and most spectacular result of all-women shortlists – the 101 women MPs in the 1997 Labour landslide – at times appeared more of an own goal than a victory. That generation of women were treated to more dismissive abuse than any of them could have anticipated. Not surprisingly, in the hostile environment some lost heart.Others, though, quickly became stars. Of these, the new shadow foreign secretary Yvette Cooper quickly emerged as among the most talented. She remains the woman most likely to become Labour's first elected leader. Two of her other new shadow cabinet colleagues, Maria Eagle at transport and Caroline Flint at communities and local government, are from the 1997 intake. So was Jacqui Smith, the former home secretary, and a clutch of other cabinet ministers.Changing an institution built on 2,000 years of patriarchy is not likely to happen quickly. There have been setbacks. The battle is not over. Harman's attempt just last month to change the rules so that the shadow cabinet had to represent men and women equally was rejected. But that just serves to make Thursday night's outcome all the more important. The way the business of politics is conducted remains too testosterone-driven, too confrontational. But it is no longer just women who complain.And for the first time it is possible to think that a watershed has been reached. The foundations have been laid. It will soon be a commonplace that there are many women at the top table. And critics of direct action will have to stop challenging the merits of women who have profited by a system that would not have been needed had discrimination not been so deeply entrenched in every aspect of public life. A transformation indeed.Harriet HarmanWomen in politicsLabourEqualityAnne Perkinsguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
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