International Women’s Day

Debate between Jackie Doyle-Price and Maria Miller

Thursday 9th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Jackie Doyle-Price]

The hon. Lady makes her point very powerfully. The way the media reports these things is like a soap opera, not a crime. It is about creating a story out of someone being the victim of a hideous act of violence. She is quite right to highlight the fact that people say, “Oh, it’s a family man who has done this”, and “Well, they were feeling so diminished because they’d lost their job”. That happens, and at the same time we have female sex workers murdered every week of the year who do not even merit a mention. That just illustrates the pervasiveness of the culture in this country that still treats women as objects, and it is still very much a world that runs according to men.

I am standing here listening to myself, and thinking, “God, what happened to you, Jackie?” When I was growing up in the 1980s, I thought the battles of feminism were won. I never thought I would be standing here banging on about the rights of women, but as time progresses I just think we are going backwards. It is almost as if Parliament has passed these laws to establish equality, and that means it is all right—job done—but the job has not been done at all. In many respects, this has gone backwards. I do not want to be treated like a delicate little flower, but, because we have a law that does not do that and that establishes my rights, that has given a lot of men a behavioural excuse not to treat me with respect and not to recognise the fact that, being a woman, I do have vulnerabilities. I do have vulnerabilities, and I am quite happy to accept that. I know some of my male colleagues think that I do not, but I do.

[Dame Maria Miller]

Does my hon. Friend agree with me that one of the things the Government have done in the last 10 years, by making relationships and sex education mandatory for all school-age children, is to start to embed in the education of all our children in this country what a good relationship looks like, which is going to be very pertinent when it comes to the treatment of women in the future?

[Jackie Doyle-Price]

I agree with my right hon. Friend, but I have a word of caution on that, because it has to be with the right materials. I am afraid that we have a bit of a wild west out there, because we have had all kinds of organisations bidding for Government money to produce materials for this space, and I certainly feel that some of the materials I have seen are not appropriate to be shared with school-age children.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dame Maria Miller]

Would my hon. Friend join me in urging Ofsted to do a deep dive on this issue, so that it can look at exactly the point she has made? It is an issue I have raised with Government Ministers and with Ofsted directly.

[Jackie Doyle-Price]

I think that point is actually a very good one. To guarantee the quality of these tools and the content there needs to be a degree of inspection. We know we will find bad actors everywhere in society, and perhaps in schools we need to make sure that we do have that protection.