Male councillors outnumber women two-to-one at Dorset Council
One Dorset Councillor says the local authority needs more diversity to represent the county.
Last updated 8th Mar 2022
Male councillors outnumber women two-to-one at Dorset Council.
Fewer than a third of Dorset's councillors are female, figures show, as equality campaigners urge more women to stand for election for International Women's Day on March 8.
At Dorset County Council, 26 of 82 councillors were female – at 32%, a smaller proportion than was recorded five years ago, when 57 of 165 councillors were women.
West Purbeck Councillor, Laura Miller was elected in 2019. She's the portfolio holder for Customer and Community Services.
"I think until you have 50:50 that isn't going to reflect the make-up of our county.
"There are so many different perspectives that we want to bring to council and council should represent the area that it serves. You basically just can't do that unless your representatives are representative.
"There's barriers in all sorts of ways but mainly it's women thinking 'I could be a councillor, I could be elected', and what are the barriers to women thinking that?"
With research by the Fawcett Society and Democracy Club showing women make up just a third of councillors across England's local authorities, campaigners say more needs to be done to ensure female voices are heard in council chambers.
Frances Scott, founder of the 50:50 Parliament campaign group, said women have been consistently outnumbered in political systems nationally and called for more to be done to boost the number of female politicians and ensure their voices are heard.
She said: "Women's experiences of local transport, of education, of juggling a career and parenting, of violence, of healthcare and maternity services are simply not properly represented and society is losing out.
“We need to support women to stand for elected office so that our local governments and Parliament can draw upon the widest possible pool of talent and the 32 million women who live and work in the UK can have an equal share of voice."
The number of female councillors across England has grown in recent years, with 6,021 now in council chambers, up from 5,802 in 2017. That means 35% of council seats nationally are held by women, up from 33% five years ago.
But Jemima Olchawski, chief executive of the Fawcett Society, described the pace of change in local government as "glacial".
She said: "The 2021 local elections saw a lot of new councillors elected but we saw more of the same.
"Almost all councils continue to be dominated by men.
"It's not good enough – we need to see our political parties setting out, and committing to, action plans which will improve diversity and improve society for us all."
Laura Miller added:
"I would really like to see more diversity amongst councillors full-stop. Not just women, people with lived experience of disability, people with lived experience of being on benefits.
"The broadest brush possible, so that we really reflect our communities that we serve.
"That diversity across the spectrum is just what we're striving for."