Oct 23

Where Art becomes grotesque reality in the female form

If you have a spare 6 minutes, go to this YouTube link and watch a video of Ukrainian teenager Anastasiya Shpagina applying make-up to one of her eyes. She is doing so to give the impression that her eye is larger than reality, and almost fantastical, mimicking the female eyes that we are so used to seeing in animated films and features, from Disney to the Japanese cartoons on which she is said to have modelled this look. The video is fascinating, and of itself a work of art; Anastasiya carefully and masterfully uses shades and techniques to create the impression that her eye is significantly wider and rounder than it is, and of itself – in the cocoon of the video, for the 6 minutes you will watch this transformation happen – this is impressive.

But step back from the film, and the story is less appealing. Anastasiya is only 19, and we know little about her other than that she expressly wants to reproduce the Japanese ‘anime’ wide-eyed, large-headed look, to the extent that she has adopted a Japanese name, has reportedly lost weight (she is around 6 stone, reports say), and is said to be considering surgery on her eyes to make them permanently larger. The ‘art’ of her make-up skills suddenly seems less appealing – and grotesque, even – while the thought that younger, impressionable girls (who have been brought up to believe that the doe-eyed Disney look equates to beauty and desirability) might consider adopting this radical approach to their appearance, is quite sinister.

For better or worse – actually, for worse – Anastasiya has become defined in the public eye (and to a large extent, watching her other videos, in her own eyes) by her appearance, and little else seems of importance about her. In itself, this is a terrible message to be sending out, and although many of the comments on her activity reflect that people feel uncomfortable with the unreality of her appearance, many do not, and even those who do, often fall into the trap of commenting largely on how she appears, rather than who she is, and why she is portraying herself as she does. She is of course a real person, and we need a reality check here. As Art, there is nothing wrong with what Anastasiya is doing. As an example to others, however, there is something very wrong. Moreover, looking at the sponsors’ trailers, there is evidence that this may turn into a means of employment for her, and this should make us very uncomfortable, as we witness, once again, the reinforcing, of the connection we have built between success for women and (a narrow definition of) their physical ‘beauty’.

But then maybe I am wrong. Maybe we need such extreme examples to show us how we have gone too far in focusing on women’s external appearance as one of the prime ways by which we judge them. Maybe we need such grotesqueness, masquerading as Art, to shake our sensibilities, and to help us grow up and move beyond the tyranny that grips women – and increasingly men – and that focuses far, far more on how they look than on what they do.

Here’s hoping.

 

Oct 20

Why everyone should experience Shakespearean drama

This has been a very Shakespearean-themed week at St Mary’s Calne. On Monday evening, a group of Year 9 girls battled illness, stormy weather and the curse of the Scottish play to present a succinct and striking Macbeth to a full house at the Egg Theatre in Bath, as part of the Shakespeare Schools’ Festival. I congratulate them all – from an impressive Macbeth and Lady Macbeth to two deadly witches, the entire cast was worthy of praise. Well done!

From Tuesday onwards, our school focus then turned to Hamlet, as our annual school production took place – four performances, with two casts, over three days, involving a third of the school. Twelve hours of Hamlet in all, and I was there for every glorious minute. It was a veritable tour de force: a magnificent feat. The girls are to be congratulated, and although I dare not single out one particular individual (even though both Hamlets were truly breathtaking – exceptional), I reserve a special congratulations for our Year 13 girls, whose acting was so strong, and utterly spellbinding.

Why should anyone in this day and age continue to watch Shakespeare, however – and Shakespearean tragedy, at that? Well, at the risk of sounding like a shortened A Level English essay, there are several reasons, ranging from the cultural to the linguistic, but primarily because Shakespeare touches on, and immerses us in, what it means to be human. His work has passed the test of time because of his skills in portraying the human condition, and the paradoxes of what it means to live on this earth:

“What a piece of work is man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and in moving, how express and admirable in action, how like an angel in apprehension, how like a god: the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals. And yet to me, what is this quintessence of dust?” (Hamlet, Act 2 Scene 2)

What indeed? Well, despite the fogs of depression and madness to which we all (not just Hamlet) succumb at times, man – mankind, humankind – is a true marvel, and this was absolutely captured for all of us who saw these performances by the wonderful girls of St Mary’s Calne. No-one could have put this better than their legendary Director of Drama, Miss Lilian Leadbetter, who wrote this:

“There is no better theatrical universe in which to be immersed than that of Shakespeare – and Hamlet, arguably the greatest of all revenge tragedies, stands at the axis of his work, a towering presence. There are no subjects or thoughts about the human condition in Hamlet which are not references, illuminated or imbued with the most profound insights by Shakespeare, the greatest of all dramatists.

From the tormented soul of Hamlet, ‘sweet prince’ and reluctant avenger, we are given an overwhelming sense of fragmentation and alienation; yet he presents us with the most poignant and beautiful portrayal of human existence. It has been an honour to enter and explore the world of Prince Hamlet. Only with the very best of “new Elizabethans”, the great actors and students of St Mary’s Calne, might we take on the challenge – travelling ‘light years’ across the Renaissance universe – with a ‘double ensemble’ – in just seven weeks.”

Hear, hear! Bravo, St Mary’s Calne!

Oct 17

“We’re students, not slags”. Utterly shocking stories from our universities

I was shocked when I recently read this article by Laura Bates in the Independent. I had read the original article by the same journalist in the previous week’s paper, which looked at the sexist and misogynist antics reported by numbers of students as taking place in Freshers’ Weeks at universities across the country, and that was shocking enough. This follow-up article made it clear that these were not isolated occurrences; Ms Bates was overwhelmed by the number of people who reported similar events – “a deluge of similar stories from hundreds of students”.

What have we done as a society to prepare our young people for university and for adulthood? Clearly not nearly enough if this is how they behave – rape-victim themed parties, events where flashing is a required, or women are pressured into taking off their tops and behaving for all the world as if their sole reason for existence was to be labelled as sexual objects. The argument that this is “just a bit of fun” does not wash in any way; under no circumstances can it ever be right to make fun of rape, for instance. Both men and women can be complicit in these activities; but so too are the universities themselves, who have a responsibility – the main responsibility for the next few years, in fact – for the education, both academic and social, of these particular students.

Universities need to sharpen up: as Laura Bates writes, “these reports suggest a disturbing culture of female students facing sexual objectification and demeaning labels, and the use of such names for official university and student union events sends a powerful message by implying the institutions’ acceptance or approval of this culture.” Is this really how our universities want to be perceived? I suspect not – in fact, I know not. But they are being tarnished by the brush of misogyny. Just as university departments are now having to lay on remedial Maths lessons to cope with the results of grade inflation in our public examinations system, perhaps they need to lay on remedial social lessons to counter the relentless pressures in society that are undermining our drive as a civilisation towards a fairer, more respectful community. In any case, they have to be far, far tougher on students who act in such a way as to degrade women.

It is evident, of course, that we have done something right as a society if enough people feel uncomfortable about these sorts of events to be able to complain. At least we are no longer under the impression, as Jimmy Savile’s victims were – probably correctly – in the Seventies, namely that no-one would listen to them, believe them, or take them seriously. Now we just need to act on these complaints, and make sure we stop this kind of appalling behaviour for good.

 

Oct 14

To assess or not to assess: the great GCSE debacle

Recent announcements regarding the abandonment of GCSEs in favour of an English Baccalaureate should have prompted once again the question of whether or not assessments at this stage of a young person’s career are in fact worthwhile, but these voices have been drowned out as commentators have rushed to deal with the details of the proposed changes: no modules, little coursework, single exam boards for each subject, and so on. There has been little or no space for a sensible discussion about the real question: how useful it is to assess skills and knowledge at the age of 16, an age which is now both too early (as the school leaving age rises to 18, and time is wasted in a needless assessment – a defunct ‘school leaving certificate) and too late – if our young people reach the age of 16 without the core literacy and numeracy skills that GCSEs in practice represent, then for many of them, they hover already on the brink of a difficult future in society.

To be fair, GCSEs (and O Levels and CSEs before them) were created with the best of intentions and to fit the need required of them at the time. O Levels prepared pupils for university and through the grammar schools were one of the greatest means of ensuring social mobility that this country has ever known. CSEs prepared pupils for a trade and a livelihood. Recognising the social divisiveness that resulted from a two tier system, GCSEs were introduced in the late 1980s to be a more inclusive examination, open to all young people, with a range of grades available, from A to G. All young people were to be treated equally under the new system.

The system soon showed strain, of course, as effectively a grade C became the de facto goal. A ‘C’ was the pass mark -something for which the wider aspirations of those sitting above the line and below the line were often sacrificed, in the fight for the magical grade that would open doors to Sixth Form study, and would reflect well in a school’s league tables. In order that standards might be seen to be improving, grade inflation set in; it became easier and easier to achieve a grade C, with the consequence that more and more pupils attained a grade A, which meant in turn that a grade A became more and more meaningless, and necessitated the introduction of a top grade of A* in 1994. The A* too was subject to grade inflation, with steadily increasing percentages each year until 2012; if this ‘improvement’ had been a real one, it is reasonable to expect – limitations of data and international comparisons aside – that the UK’s PISA score would not have dropped in the way in which it has done over the same period. GCSEs have lost much of their credibility, without a doubt.

No more proof of this is needed than the dreadful mess this past summer over the AQA GCSE English grades, which have been subject to interference by Ofqual and artificial manipulation by the exam board in question. The goal posts were shifted – visibly, and, for the pupils concerned, actually most unfairly. They and their teachers had effectively prepared for a certain set of criteria expectations; for those criteria and expectations to be changed at the last minute, after the papers had been sat, has had devastating consequences for many young people, who anticipated access to further study and apprenticeships. The tyranny of the C grade boundary hit again.

So – with an examination no longer fit for purpose, what does one do? Well, instead of replacing one flawed system with another, more rigid, narrower, equally age bound, and potentially equally flawed system, what we should be doing in the UK is questioning why on earth we should be taking an examination at this stage anyway. We should be asking what we want our young people to be able to do and know by the age at which they will leave school, ie 18, and we should be realising, I hope, that we need to be far, far more responsive to their individual needs. Our young people do of course need certain basic skills in reading, writing and numeracy, as well as a basic understanding of the world around them, but they need this much earlier than the age of 16 – and, crucially, different people will acquire these skills at different times and in different ways. By the age of 18, we should be expecting our young adults – for this is what they are – to be free to determine much more effectively their own paths in life, to have developed passions and interests, and to be encouraged as individuals – not cohorts – to follow these in preparation for leading a fulfilling life.

We should be looking critically at the structural shackles that we need to break in order to facilitate this much more individualised and responsive approach – age-related DfE results tables, for instance, as well as exam syllabuses that lock in study over a period of two years – the same two years – for everyone. We should look at different speeds of study, individual mentoring, bespoke education plans, one-on-one tutoring and mentoring. And we need to think long and hard about funding: a great education is costly, but one of the best investments we can make as a society.

Our young people are all different; we live and work in a century which values difference. We should find ways to enable our school system to reflect these principles. GCSEs – and their proposed replacement – have had their day. Time to move on and create a structure that really, really works.

Oct 11

Today is the Day! International Day of the Girl

Today, Thursday 11th October 2012, is the very first International Day of the Girl, and it is most definitely worth celebrating.

How this came about was in part because of extensive lobbying of the United Nations by Plan UK (part of Plan International), the charity which we have been supporting in school over the past 2 years, and it makes complete sense to have a day that focuses solely on girls across the world. Although it is easy for us to forget this, girls across the world face double discrimination due to their gender and their age, and are the most marginalised and discriminated group across the globe. We mustn’t forget that 75 million girls in the world are denied an education.

Girls supporting girls can make a real difference: thanks to the work girls in my school have been doing, and the work that has gone on in other girls’ schools since we also made Plan the GSA charity, when I was President last year, we have together raised over £103,000, which will be used to send no fewer than 1072 girls to school in Liberia who otherwise would not have been able to go. This is a tangible difference, and a cause for celebration in its own right.

This new world day of the Girl will help to prioritise girls’ rights as the salient issue in the coming decades – as the Plan Chief Executive Officer said, “By designating October 11th as Day of the Girl we are all agreeing to put a special focus on the rights of girls throughout the world. We know that in many countries girls get left behind in all areas of life from school to work and many are prevented from fulfilling their true potential by severe discrimination and prejudice.”

Let’s not forget the facts, and some of these are not reserved for the developing world. We still have some way to go in the whole world to get things right for girls and women. Take illiteracy, for example – by 2015, females will make up 64% of the world’s (adult) population who are illiterate and who cannot read. This needs to be tackled in schools, with girls’ access to education. But only 30% of girls in the world are enrolled in secondary school.

Part of the reason for this is forced and early marriage, against which Plan has been campaigning. One in seven girls in developing countries is married off before age 15, and 1 in 3 by the age of 18. But it is happening here in the UK too – the Forced and Early Marriage Unit of the Home Office dealt with almost 1500 cases in the UK in 2011.

Violence against girls is a real issue. In the US one in five high school girls has been physically or sexually abused by a boyfriend. Worldwide, estimates have as many as 1.2 million children being trafficked every year. These are shocking figures.

I could write more – and at length – about the objectification of women, and the pressures placed on girls which are not placed on boys, to look, act and appear in certain ways, but I would run out of space here. Suffice it to say that globally, we need to look after girls more, and not at all at the expense of looking after boys. This isn’t about being better, it is about being fairer. Girls across the world need our help.

So – let’s remember this today. Let’s help to make the world a fairer, better, more harmonious place. Play your part on this fine October day.

 

Oct 08

“This was never just about Jimmy Savile.” What we are realising about the perception of women in TV over the past few decades.

Today’s Daily Mail contains a thoughtful but hard-hitting piece by Janet Street-Porter about the rumours and revelations surrounding the late Jimmy Savile’s alleged sexual activities involving young girls. Whether true or not – and the evidence, it has to be said, appears to be mounting – these reports leave an unsavoury impression not just of a man whom many regarded to be a great role model in his charitable work, but also of a culture in television and radio which appears to have dominated in the sixties, seventies and eighties, and which appears to have persisted into the nineties and up to the present day.

More and more high profile women have been speaking out about the sexual harassment they have experienced in the profession during their careers – Liz Kershaw and Sandi Toksvig are the latest to do so. In describing their experiences, these women are exposing practices which have not only discomforted them and other women, but which have also denigrated them: the use of male sexual power to prevent women from achieving the work environment to which they are entitled, and for which we have all worked hard as a society – men as well as women – for well over a century. These practices are wrong; what is especially wrong, however, is that however isolated, they have been allowed to go on unchecked and unquestioned, because this is revelatory about the underpinning assumptions of the culture in which they occurred.

The media is extremely powerful in our country. It is the means by which we hear most of what happens in the world, and it is by default the filtering mechanism for our values and perceptions of what is happening and why. No news outlet can claim to be truly ‘neutral’, for no such position can possibly exist – the choices that producers make about which stories to highlight in themselves speak of choices and values. Open any newspaper, analyse the layout, the pictures and the stories themselves, and you will find yourself awash with shared values. We have invested the media and those who run it with this power; this power should be used with great responsibility.

Many of these values are ones with which we all feel comfortable: values which are testament to a sound, liberal, healthy society; but on the matter of how women and girls are perceived in this society, they are manifestly not. Ms Street-Porter, exploring the history of women’s employment in the media, gives several examples of this unhealthy culture; quite apart from the tales of direct sexual assault on her colleagues and other women and girls, she emphasises the pervasiveness of a set of expectations about how women should behave which treated women as little other than sexual objects: “The Sixties saw women used as set dressing to add sexual spice to primetime shows. From Benny Hill to Freddie Starr to Larry Grayson, the BBC and ITV bosses (all male) saw nothing wrong in using semi-naked women to chase better ratings”. Worryingly – but unsurprisingly – she does not feel that these days are entirely past, and her conclusion is one that should prey on our minds: “Talent contests and reality TV have replaced the pop programmes and variety shows of yesteryear – but there is still the nagging suspicion that men in powerful positions can abuse the very young and needy. I’m not at all confident that the BBC and ITV can be sure attitudes have changed for the better. All that’s happened is that powerful men in the entertainment industry have got better at hiding their secrets”.

I really, really hope that she is wrong. But we can’t afford to assume that she is. We do not want to turn this into a McCarthy-ist witch hunt, but we do want to make sure that abuse, harassment and sexual objectification of girls and women just stop. For good. Let’s make sure that we don’t let this slip from our attentive gaze.

 

Oct 05

Why teacher-pupil relationships are never right

In the aftermath of the Jeremy Forrest affair – not that there can ever really be an end point, given the huge fractures which have cut across the lives not just of the girl involved and her teachers, but of their respective families and communities – it has been instructive to watch and read how people have responded. In the fallout, an array of similar stories have emerged, like this one; tales of affairs that seemed like romantic fairy tales, but which ended in disappointment and betrayal. Commentators have discussed how teenagers are always likely to fall in love with their teachers, how age gaps should not matter, how it is somehow better because he didn’t actually teach her directly – all sorts of opinions have circulated.

Underlying these opinions is a sense that it probably wasn’t really the right thing to do (hence, one assumes, the disapproving public reaction to Anne Diamond’s dismissal of the story as “a bit of so-what-ish”), but it has been quite remarkable how few people in the public eye have been prepared to commit themselves to saying that this relationship was always, and still is, wrong. Dani Garavelli, writing in the Scotsman, offered perhaps the most sensible comment on why this is so: “Pupils are off limits … always remember: where someone is in a position of trust, the age of consent rises to 18. Just as rape is rape is rape, when it comes to their relationship with teachers, children are children are children.”

And this is absolutely right. A teacher is a significant person in the life of school children of any age – up to and including (arguably beyond) the time at which they leave school. A teacher is in a position of authority – a position of power, even – and this brings with it a moral duty to respect the boundaries of relationships in much the same way as a parent respects the boundaries of relationships with his or her own children. It can never be an equal relationship. Teachers should of course be engaged – very closely engaged – in the lives of their pupils, for they should care deeply about what happens to them, but (as the vast, vast majority of teachers know and understand entirely) they cannot and should not become more significant than this. They should not become their lovers or their partners. I say again – it can never be an equal relationship, and it is incumbent upon the adult to ensure that it never develops in a way where this may be called into question.

So – there is no “moral dilemma”, as Jeremy Forrest is reputed to have said. Teacher-pupil relationships are never right.

 

Oct 02

How long does it really take to “master motherhood”?

An article in last Friday’s Daily Mail made for interesting reading: according to a recent survey by a baby products company, the average time that it takes for new mothers to get on top of the changes that have occurred in their lives is – on average – four months and 23 days. Up to this point, life can be a bit of blur – a mixture of sleep deprivation and of worry about the baby. After this point, various ‘watershed moments’ seem to happen which reassure a mother that all is on track and she is doing not badly really:

Of course, a report like this comes with various caveats, most notably the fact that statistics are dangerous. To begin with, statistics on previous performance are not necessarily a guide to future performance. ‘Mastering motherhood’ is not something that happens simply by waiting around for a magical date – that 4 months, 23 days – to arrive; motherhood comes with a lot of hard work, unconditional love, and help. Statistics that identify ‘averages’ are particularly dangerous: for those who beat the date, there can be an unrealistic sense of euphoria; for those who miss it, there can be an unreasonable sense of failure. Motherhood is not a competition, and yet so many elements of our society seem to encourage us to think of it as such, to the inevitable detriment of the mothers themselves.

Above all, though, motherhood is arguably not something that you can and should ‘master’ (do notice the androcentric language used in this phrase, if nothing else!). Motherhood is a biological, emotional, social, cognitive state of being and of action. It is necessary for the survival of the human race, and it is a hugely important role that many women are able to be, just as many men are able to be fathers, giving both them and their children a deep and fulfilling dimension to their lives. Motherhood is also a process, for life, not a stage to be completed and left behind. Mothers are incredibly important people in our world; we should value them in their roles throughout their lives – we should honour and encourage them, and we should support them.

And this is what really came through for me in the survey reported in the Daily Mail – the sense of loneliness and lack of support for new mothers. 20% of the mothers surveyed said that they didn’t talk to anyone about their fears because they did not want to be thought of as a failure (the curse of our competitive parenting culture striking again), and the result of this was that they must have felt lonelier and more isolated in the very days when they needed most help. 60% felt for a time that they weren’t capable of being a mother. Imagine the loneliness and feelings bordering on despair that will have descended at those times.

Women have been having babies for millennia. As a human race, we know a huge amount about having babies; more so now than ever before, with advances in technology, psychology and medicine, to name but a few. Mothers today should feel empowered, supported and surrounded by understanding. That they don’t is a failing in our society. It is society that is preventing mothers from feeling supported and cared for: a lack of extended families with wise women who have gone before, a cut-throat ‘winner takes all’ culture, and – although I hesitate to say it – a residual, often subconscious, but very real sense that motherhood keeps women in a socially inferior place.

So – plenty to do, still. And we can start by ignoring surveys that tell us how long it takes to “master motherhood”.

 

Sep 29

What do you call a collection of 5 Headmistresses?

Thursday this week marked a momentous occasion – the hosting in school of a meeting and lunch for no fewer than five Headmistresses of St Mary’s Calne: past, present and future. Their tenure spanned a period of over 40 years, from Joyce Walters (now Joyce Lynn) (1972-1985) through Delscey Burns (1985-1996) and Carolyn Shaw (1996-2003) to myself (2003-present) and Felicia Kirk, my successor, who takes up her post in January. All the past Headmistresses have completed pretty decent stints in post, from 7 to 13 years; it will not be often that it is possible to have so many long-serving Heads of the same school together at the same time in the same place. The photo of all five of us in a chronologically correct line in front of the school crest will be one for the history books; the only other existing photograph in the school archive of more than two Headmistresses together is a picture taken in 1985, as Delscey Burns took up her post, and it shows Delscey Burns, Joyce Walters and the great Elizabeth Gibbins (now sadly deceased).

It felt like a moment in history, and it was indeed a special occasion. What struck me was how different the Heads were, but how we all related to the same sense of what was special about the school. Each of us has seen through, or will see through, different eras of social history, and each of us has different approaches to leadership, guiding the school in uniquely different ways … but the essence of the school itself is deeply embedded and self-perpetuating, and runs through all of our time and our actions. Our role as Heads is as guardians and stewards of this essence, as much as it is as leaders of the people who make up the school at any given moment. I say often that my role at school is to ensure that the heart of the school lives and beats.

And there is more: when St Mary’s Calne was founded in 1873, it was part of the movement which liberated the education of girls and young women and helped set them on track to become equal with their male counterparts. There is still much work to be done in our society in this respect, and girls’ schools have an enormous role to play in freeing girls to become confident, self-assured young people who have an understanding that their potential is limitless, and that they have a distinct and unique role to play in the world. I feel that it is my privilege to help guide them on this journey.

So, what do you call a collection of Headmistresses? I have had many suggestions; my favourite so far, however, is “a vanguard”.

Much to do in life and work. Onwards and upwards …

Sep 26

Live the message, be the message, communicate the message: how to ensure gender equality in the UK

I very much enjoyed my day last Friday at the isbi conference at Woldingham School. As part of the day, I was honoured to be invited to give a keynote address, in which I talked about the importance of communication, and I reflected for a few minutes as I did so on how the message about gender equality really isn’t coming across from our political leaders in the UK. Personally, I fear that despite the incredible amount of ground women have covered in the last 50 years as far as our social history goes, we will still be light years away from true equality as long as our own Prime Minister, David Cameron, seems unable to back the cause he once so publicly espoused – a better platform for women in politics.

It really saddened me to see that of 121 posts in Government – including Minsters and Whips – just 23 are now filled by women following the recent high-profile Cabinet reshuffle – that’s just 19% – whereas Mr Cameron promised us that a third of Government posts would be filled by women by the end of this Parliament.

Ceri Goddard from the Fawcett Society lambasted the Prime Minister for having a “blind spot” and marginalising women’s role in politics, and I agree with her. Even Nick Clegg recently admitted that the Houses of Parliament are especially off-putting to women. It is obvious to all of us involved in the education of girls and young women. And it actually makes me really angry – and more motivated to speak out. How can we respect the Prime Minister’s once much-vaunted promises to increase women’s role in public life when he practises his own form of NIMBY-ism in his own Government?

If quotas have to be introduced into our top institutions in our society, so be it. It is not ideal, but it may be the only way. It remains shocking that one in ten of the UK’s biggest financial firms still have all-male boards while just 16.7% of the FTSE 100 directors are women. We shouldn’t get too self-congratulatory that it looks like we are on target to reach 25% by 2015 – the target was, after all, only 25%!

But if our Prime Minister is giving out the message that it is acceptable not to give women positions of power, then he is giving tacit approval to all those sexist dinosaurs who still rule the roost in those City bastions and steadfastly retain their all-male boards – whether he means to or not. He is undermining his own message. And that begs the question, rightly or wrongly, of whether he really believes it and stands for it in the first place.

We should be holding our political leaders to account. So – time to step up to the mark, Mr Cameron, and show women what you’re made of, because otherwise you lose the respect of the next generation – of women in particular. When a stated vision is not lived out in reality, you may as well give up and go home.

Live the message, be the message, communicate the message … if our Prime Minister did this, it would go a long way towards ensuring that women have genuinely equal representation in this country.