As a record number of female MLAs take seats at Stormont, is Northern Ireland finally embracing women in politics?

This week Northern Ireland’s freshly elected politicians took to the steps of Stormont to be sworn in for the opening of the next parliament. The election brought few surprises, beyond slight gains in smaller parties, and the traditional parties have returned with largely the same vote share. But in many ways, the parliament’s composition is undergoing a subtle but seismic shift. The number of female politicians sitting at Stormont will now be 50 per cent more than that of the previous parliament. In one of the most traditional corners of the UK, a quiet but undeniable revolution has occurred.

Since power-sharing was devolved to Northern Ireland, the region has always lagged behind its sister parliaments in London, Holyrood and Cardiff and has borne the unfortunate mantle of having one of the lowest levels of female political representation of anywhere in Western Europe. The reasons for this are many and complex; traditional religious views of gender have prevailed and shaped conservative cultural attitudes. A core principle of the peace-process was that people involved in The Troubles era politics had to be given parliamentary seats and as women were much less likely to be involved in violence, they were essentially excluded from the peace process as negotiators felt less of an impetus to include them.

Stormont’s ‘women problem’ was encapsulated when Ian Paisely Junior insisted on shouting ‘moo moo moo’ to mimic a cow when members of the Northern Ireland Woman’s Coalition spoke in peace process talks in an attempt to drown out their voices.

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Just eighteen years on, Stormont appears to be finally breaking free of some of that political baggage. Traditional religious views are relaxing and the violent legacy of the Troubles is becoming less and less a formative force in day-to-day politics. Following Democratic Unionist Peter Robinson’s resignation as party leader and First Minister, his deputy Arlene Foster became the first woman to take either role in January. This parliament, 28 per cent of the MLAs (Members of the Legislative Assembly) are women, compared to 19 per cent at the last parliament.

Of course, this is a long way off 50 per cent equal representation and still hangs behind the Scottish parliament (with 35 per cent women) and the Welsh parliament (with 43 per cent women in the Assembly and 48 per cent of constituency seats), but surpassed even the most optimistic predictions locally.

Danielle Roberts, PHD student at Ulster University and member of the Belfast Feminist Network, says the barriers which have been holding women back historically are changing: “A recent report produced by the Assembly highlighted the adversarial nature of Stormont and also highlighted sexism in the chamber. Both communities have traditionally had socially conservative views of women and their role in society, tending to see women as generally suited for support roles rather than decision making ones- however, this is changing.

“Women who ran were statistically more likely to get elected than men in 2011 as well as 2016, notably every one of the eight women candidates run by the Democratic Unionist Party this year was returned. In previous elections there simply weren’t as many women to vote for.”

She adds that she is reluctant to say whether a greater presence of female MLAs could result in a different laws or policies emerging, including on the controversial abortion ban which is still in place in Northern Ireland, explaining: “Women are not a homogenous group, so it would be wrong to say that more women automatically results in a greater focus on what may be termed ‘women’s issues’, however it does mean different views and experiences are brought to the table.”

Mary Hassan, a local election candidate for the Green Party in the recent election, says watching out of touch politicians at Stormont repeatedly vote against marriage equality for same-sex couples was the cause which propelled her decision to stand: “The traditional ‘pale, male, stale’ politician we are used to seeing in Stormont is getting very tired. I didn't feel represented as a young, gay woman and I was sure others felt the same way. You can't imagine how frustrating or how strange it feels to watch a group of overwhelmingly male, heterosexual people vote five times over on whether or not I as a gay woman should be afforded the same rights as everyone else, to have nobody whose life experience or identity reflects mine there on the floor to make the case that needed to be made. It crushed me. This was so personal and so painful, and yet it was treated as a political football.”

She adds that any suggestion that female election candidates run as ‘tokens’ rather than serious competitors couldn’t be further than the truth: “The Green Party contacted me after hearing about my activism on LGBT issues. They had seen what I had been doing alone and wanted to give me a platform to keep doing it. This wasn’t a case of tokenism and that’s what mattered to me. Every single Green Party candidate this election had a phenomenal breadth of knowledge and experience and I was very proud to stand among them.”

However, while she welcomes progress so far, Hassan says: “the pace of change can feel glacial. I’d like to see quotas in place or a more radical position taken to bring Northern Ireland more in line with the rest of Europe. I’m tired of seeing us lag behind.”