These Female MPs Marked International Women’s Day With Speeches You Should Know About
Ahead of International Women’s Day on 8 March, female MPs came together in parliament to address some of the most pressing issues faced by women today. Several used a debate on Thursday to share their personal stories, including Labour MP Alex Davies-Jones, who touched on her own struggle to conceive, and raise awareness of specific challenges. The Conservative MP Caroline Nokes demanded better pay for women in order to close the gender pay gap. And Labour MP Jess Phillips continued her annual tradition of reading aloud the names of all the women killed in the UK by a male partner or ex in the past year. There were more than 100 names on her list. Here, Vogue highlights quotes from the most thought-provoking speeches on the floor.
Simone Padovani/Awakening1/6MP Jess Phillips
“In reading the list and thinking every year about having to say the same thing, I cannot help but reflect that had these women all been murdered in terrorist incidents, had these women all died of coronavirus, had these women all died at sports events around the year, there would be a huge inquiry,” Phillips said, while reading out names of more than 100 women killed by men in the last 12 months. “Far, far greater response is made to almost every other epidemic than the epidemic of male violence against women.”
Robert Perry2/6MP Dawn Butler
“Women deserve better pay, increased flexibility and strengthened protections against harassment and discrimination. Women deserve equal pay and equitable recognition,” Butler said. “For too long, politics has been the reserve for a particularly wealthy group in society in the ‘old boys’ club’ and I’m pleased that that is slowly beginning to change,” she said, while calling for a new, separate women and equalities department.
Alex Davies-Jones3/6MP Alex Davies-Jones
“This International Women’s Day, I want to shout out to every woman who has looked at a celebratory pregnancy social media announcement. To every woman who has walked past a glowing bump in the street. To every woman who has been asked: ‘When are you having children?’ To every woman who has sympathetically listened to a friend moan [about] how tired she is after looking after her children, always suppressing the mixed emotions of envy, sadness and self-loathing.
“I want to say to these women that you are not alone. Sometimes, as a woman struggling with fertility issues, you feel like a complete failure. You can’t talk about it with mams without seeming bitter. Without having stigma surrounding you, that your body has let you down, and has prevented you from becoming the mother you always dreamed of being, but know potentially you can never be.”
Bloomberg4/6MP Liz Truss
“[Let’s] remove the barriers for women, so it is your talent, ideas and character that matter and not anything else”.
Barcroft Media5/6MP Caroline Nokes
“Gender pay gap reporting has shone a light on disparity, but we know that some government departments have gone backwards and the disparity today is greater today than it was last year,” Conservative MP Nokes said while addressing the floor. In a bid to make change, Labour’s Harriet Harman suggested working together on it, “so that we can plot together to use the forthcoming Employment Bill as an opportunity to bring in new tougher laws to narrow the gender pay gap”.
Nicola Tree6/6MP Rosie Duffield
Touching on harassment of women and the “vitriol and hatred” directed towards them on social media, Duffield said: “Part of our job as women in parliament is to receive it, filter it, weather it, police it, ignore it, highlight it, talk about it, help other women, deal with it, tackle it so that other women don’t have to, and fight it constantly, with a view to eradicating it completely.”
