Miliband and Cameron gender quarrel disguises true parliamentary failings

Labour leader Ed Miliband has criticised the lack of promotion of women by David Cameron's ruling Conservatives in a fiery Prime Minister's Questions session.

Describing the Conservatives as an "old boys' network", Miliband slammed a decision by the party to deselect long-serving Member of Parliament Anne McIntosh for the next General Election.

Embarrassingly for the Prime Minister, his front bench was full of male MPs for the session, while Miliband packed his front bench with women.

Miliband also noted that there are just as many members of David Cameron's cabinet from two fee-paying schools as there are female members. The ruling coalition has been criticised in the past for hindering social mobility, with the current cabinet the least diverse in years, if not decades.

There has been activity in all of the major UK political parties in recent years to promote more women to Parliament, occasionally controversially in the form of 'all-women shortlists' in some parliamentary constituencies.

The coalition parties have been wholly unsuccessful in returning women to Parliament though. In the aftermath of the 2010 General Election, 31 percent of Labour MPs were female, compared with 16 percent of Conservatives and 12 percent of Liberal Democrats.

This deficit has given the government a headache, as Labour has a broad pool of female talent to draw from. In contrast, promising female MPs on the government benches have largely fallen by the wayside.

Louise Mensch was part of the parliamentary committee charged with interrogating Rupert Murdoch over the phone-hacking scandal that engulfed his newspapers. Following that role, she suddenly stood down as MP citing family reasons and now writes for Murdoch's Sun newspaper.

Other promising female careers in the coalition government have also fizzled out, including that of Sarah Teather - now a regular rebel against government policy. Teather has announced she is stepping down at the next election.

Others, including Nadine Dorries, have also taken to frequently opposing their own party. Indeed, Dorries has also criticised the Conservative leadership, dismissing them as "posh boys."

However, there must inevitably be an allowance for the prospect that any MP, regardless of gender, may fail to fulfil early promise - at best serving as a good constituency MP. The problem for the coalition is there are still not enough female MPs to source talented potential cabinet members in sufficient numbers.

The true failing, it would seem, is not just the failure to get enough talented women into high-profile government roles, but getting them into Parliament in the first place.

Why feminism must free itself from people like Louise Mensch

Louise Mensch, former Conservative MP for Corby, never struck me as much of a feminist, despite what she may say. Real feminism engages with serious issues, such as the vote, pay, workplace and violence. Yet, when put to the test, self-styled feminists such as Louise Mensch fail to campaign effectively for their comrades. Her feminism, if it can be described as such, is more of the individualist variety.

Other than pointing out occasional outbursts of male chauvinism, I am uncertain what her principles are. That is, of course, a more general criticism of her that Labour, and even some Tories, would offer. On the whole, the sum total of her feminist achievements seems to be a demonstration that she can climb up any corporate ladder. That is not solidarity though with women who are aiming to achieve equal pay, trying to campaign against domestic violence, or protesting for more effective rape convictions.

Unfortunately Mensch is not alone. From the heavyweights of the past, we now have those who write about matters so trivial it barely qualifies as feminist scholarship. A great place to start for the evidence gathering is Mensch's Twitter page. (No link provided - it's easily searchable, and I do not wish to give her any more hits than necessary.)

The page is a masterclass in light Internet trolling. It is not the sort of trolling associated with vile people who, for example, threaten others. It is trolling of the variety where Mensch, as a conservative, has digs at her political opponents, then retweets the inevitable reactions she gets. Dare I say it, some of the responses use sexist language.

Bravo! That's how to change the world! Mensch tweeted and retweeted reactions for hours because Labour peer Lord Sugar called her "dear" on Twitter. This was certainly not the most outrageous act of sexism that Mensch has been subjected to, but of course she - as Sugar's political opposite - was deeply offended by it. I am frequently called "dear" by older women. I am no longer sure how to interpret it. Maybe I will dismiss it as a generational thing and be a little less chippy than Mensch.

The problem is, there is something decidedly "me, me, me" about Mensch's individualist ravings. The truth is, as someone on the right, Mensch cannot begin to appreciate the oppressor/oppressed dynamic that often constructs gendered interactions.

When put to the test, Mensch falls down. While her feminist comrades are campaigning for The Sun to abolish the antiquated (and rather embarrassing, it has to be said) daily topless page 3 girl, Mensch is writing for the newspaper.

This is the newspaper owned by Rupert Murdoch - the man who she was drafted upon to interrogate as part of a parliamentary committee into the conduct of his newspaper researchers in the phone-hacking scandal. The outcome saw Mensch as one of the MPs who publicly distanced herself from the eventual report condemning Murdoch's suitability to run a newspaper. Now she is working for Murdoch.

That is not just a middle-finger to the feminism she supposedly stands for, that is a sequence of events ripe for a parliamentary inquiry.

Also counting against Mensch is her decision to quit as an MP little over two-years into her term for family reasons, something else which is not going to help the cause of other ambitious women hoping to enter Parliament in future. However, apart from marriage, little seems to have changed in her circumstances. It is now widely reported that it was fear of inevitable defeat from the embarrassed and angered Corby electorate that led Mensch to step down.

In summary, I feel that feminism is better off without Louise Mensch. However, as a male, I am no feminist writer and as I explain in this article I believe it is not for the place of men to speak on behalf of women. Therefore, all I offer here is mere advice, and a narrative into how I believe one particular bad apple can bring with it many contradictions.

Can men write and engage with feminism?

I was intrigued by an interesting proposition the other day, a notion that men could be feminists. Is it possible? Can men champion the female cause? In theory, it is possible. For instance, racial oppression has been defeated in the past, with help from sympathetic white people who challenged the racist structures that allowed it to flourish. However, for reasons I will explain, I do not share the same optimism with gender relations.

Though men can take the position of gender theorists, it is far more difficult for them to be specifically feminists. To make it a little bit clearer, I am attempting to explain that men can research and write feminist scholarship, but they risk being seen as disingenuous (in particular, trying to court female interest), lacking in credibility, or participating in a movement that is none of their business. In other words, while it is technically possible for men to produce feminist research, they risk rejection.

I am going to use a simple example, perhaps a little too simple, but it is the most straightforward way of explanation. Take a look at the following picture. What do you see?

Source: The Sun (who else?!!)

Visually speaking, it is a photograph of Katie Price. The photo here shows in limited clothing, in front of an audience, positioned in a highly provocative pose. Two different feminists could have a two unique opinions of this image, depending on how liberal their feminist standpoint is.

The first feminist may see the picture as Price using her sexuality to promote her wealth and fortune, and enjoying the freedom of expression afforded to the modern woman. Another feminist may see the picture as Price bringing women's liberation into disrepute, playing up to male fantasies and causing women's rights campaigners - such as Emily Davison - to spin in their graves.

Herein lies the problem. The two feminist critics could engage in this debate, with the most likely outcome a stalemate and neither compromising towards the other's position. At least both leave with their credentials intact. Men engaging in such debate would not have that luxury.

A man could take either position in the debate, but they can easily be discredited by women who take the alternative view. By biological default, the man's strength of argument is weakened by the fact he is debating a feminist point when not female. If a man and a woman discuss women's politics from differing viewpoints, whose account appears to be most credible?

I enjoy reading about feminism. For the above reasons, I choose not to produce it or contribute to the literature. Maybe I feel it is not my place to, and it is a subject more appropriately and effectively tackled by women. Ultimately, men could create feminist scholarship, but with it comes a risk of it not being fully accepted as authentic.