Aims:Aims:
•Understand how we are represented•Stereotypes•Look at women in the House of Commons•Ethnic Minorities in the House of Commons
• Britain is made up of different groups of people, e.g.
Old and young Rich and poor From different races• Each of these groups have different needs – MPS
should try to meet the needs of all these people.
• Is it really like that though?
• The stereotype of a politician would be a white middle class, middle aged man…..
• This is actually true – in 2001 most MPS were the above!!!
• In 2005 the population of women in the UK stood at 51%.
• If the House of Commons reflected this there would be 330 women MPS, however the number is only 128.
• 20% of the seats in the House of Commons.• Why is this?
Picture:All the female Labour MPS with Tony Blair.Labour have the highest number of female MPS.
• Constituency parties may be reluctant to choose female candidates.
• House of Commons seen as a male club.
• Family commitments mean working in London is hard.
• Unsociable hours make it hard to bring up a family.
• Does not provide child care to female MPS
• Career breaks after children would leave them out of politics.
• Number of British people belonging to Black or Asian minority groups is over 2.5 million.
• 5% of the population• In the House of Commons there were
15 Black or Asian MPS elected which represent 2.32% of all MPS.
• Why is this?
• Difficult for them to be selected by constituency parties.
• Racism exists at all levels of society.• Political participation and education - % of
Blacks continuing education is lower than Whites.
• Predominantly white culture in House of Commons may put Black MPS off.
• Institutionalised racist practices – often not obvious or intentional.
• Finish activities on page 11.
• Page 16 – Questions 1-6
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