Pregnant North Shore MP Felicity Wilson calls for more women in politics
WOMEN belong in Parliament in every way. This is the message of North Shore Liberal MP Felicity Wilson — and she’s out to prove it. Six months pregnant with her first child, the MP is putting her money where her mouth is.
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WOMEN belong in Parliament. This is the message of North Shore Liberal MP Felicity Wilson — and she’s out to prove it.
Six months pregnant with her first child, the MP is putting her money where her mouth is.
“You can’t be what you can’t see and I wanted people to see (female representation) and go — this is a place for women,” Ms Wilson said.
With female Liberal MPs only accounting for just over 20 per cent of the party in state parliament, Ms Wilson, who won the North Shore state seat at last year’s by-election, is the first to admit there is a problem.
“In preselections women get asked things like, are you thinking of having a family? or if they have children, how are you going to take care of your kids? So you still get asked those questions, and men don’t and you have to prepare for them,” she said.
This line of thinking isn’t necessarily coming from within the Liberal Party, which Ms Wilson maintains is very supportive of women and mothers in politics, but a reflection of societal attitudes, she said.
These attitudes “don’t come from a bad place but they’re an unconscious bias that says, does it impact your ability to do the job and I want to be able to show people that it doesn’t impact a woman’s ability to do the job,” Ms Wilson said.
While two sitting Liberal MPs have had newborns in the last term, there just aren’t as many women to point to in order to show this, she said. With her baby due in December, Ms Wilson is hoping to be re-elected at next year’s March state election and will face preselection while pregnant and a campaign with a newborn.
But, Ms Wilson says, this is nothing out of the ordinary for most of her electorate — many of whom are young professionals juggling work and family.
The treatment of women in politics has come under a spotlight in the past fortnight, with federal Liberal MPs including Julie Bishop and Julia Banks speaking out about bullying, intimidation and inequality.
“Do women in the community look at that and go, that’s not a place for me? Because I think it is a place for them, in every way, including as a parent,” was Ms Wilson’s response.
So getting more women into Parliament will take more than targets, which “without teeth do nothing” — it will take leadership, training and development to address the issue, she said.