Across social media I have seen questions asking why this happens, when there is no equivalent Labour Men's Conference. That's a good question. Perhaps some of my memories are worth sharing to show where attitudes have (or have not) changed in the intervening years and why the Labour and Trades Union movement has long had women-only meetings and shortlists.
Here's one of those memories to begin with...
Many years ago, as a young delegate to the USDAW annual conference, I wanted to speak on the debate about abortion that took place there.The point of the story is that women faced, and possibly still do face, discrimination even within the Labour and trades union movement, so using the women-only meetings and conferences is sometimes their only way to get their message through. That is actually an indictment of the attitude of some of the men in the movement, and until all men and all women regard each other as equals things will not change.
The conference Chair was male, and he called male delegates to speak on the motion. I was sat right on the front row opposite the Chair and every time I could I stood and raised my hand to speak, every time he ignored me and called another male speaker. This despite USDAW being (certainly at that time) a Union of more women than men (something like a 70% to 30% ratio).
Eventually conference delegates decided that I had been ignored long enough and a chant began in the hall, "Call the woman, call the woman, call the woman" and so the Chair reluctantly had to call me to speak. By that time I was hopping mad, and the speech came out in a much more fiery manner than I had originally planned!
