A North East police boss has demanded “real action” to combat sexism, amid outrage over accusations that Labour’s Angela Rayner tries to distract Boris Johnson in the House of Commons by crossing and uncrossing her legs.
Claims made by anonymous Tory MPs and reported in the Mail on Sunday about the deputy leader of the Opposition have sparked widespread condemnation this week. Kim McGuinness, the Northumbria Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC), has now spoken out about the misogyny she has faced as a woman in politics and has called on men to “take responsibility”.
The Labour PCC was described shortly after her election in 2019 as a “Barbie doll” by one of her opponents and has been angered by a “real focus” on whether or not she will have children. Ms McGuinness, formerly a councillor in Newcastle, was “not surprised” by the claims about Ms Rayner by some fellow MPs, but says such attitudes are “not exclusive to politics – it is something experienced by women in every workplace and in everyday life”.
Read More: Labour chief Nick Kemp pledges Newcastle Council 'reset' to shift focus away from city centre
The PCC said: “There will not be a woman out there who hasn’t got out of bed in the morning and thought ‘if I wear that today what will be the reaction? If I change my hair will it be all about that rather than my performance at work? Will I be harassed today?’.”
She added: “There is often a real focus on whether or not I will have children. It feels like it is everyone’s business, but it is nobody’s business.
"I consider every day how I present myself and what I wear and how that will affect how I am listened to and treated. Then there is some of the more overt discrimination, people saying things that are openly sexist and personal things rather than actually speaking about the job that I do.
“In my first election as PCC there was a young man running too, Robbie Moore – my age was commented on over and over, but his was never a factor.”
Ms McGuinness told the Local Democracy Reporting Service that women wanting to enter politics today have to “decide that you are okay” with being subjected to sexist abuse online and has called for action now to ensure the next generation are not forced to put up with the same hate.
She said: “What we need is to get to a point where men are taking it seriously and take on the mantle of being a solution, rather than just being shocked and appalled like I have heard from so many male figures. We need to move to them actually doing something about it. Men need to take responsibility.
“A lot of it is about education and attitude changes and actually I think the uproar about this [the Mail on Sunday article] is positive – people are saying in large numbers that it is not acceptable and that there is no place for it in our democracy and our society. But it has to translate into real action.”
Asked about the deeper impact of misogynistic attitudes among male MPs and in wider society, Ms McGuinness added: “We have problems in society that stem from misogyny – violence against women and girls is too prevalent, we don’t get the prosecutions we should for rape, we currently have a massive crisis in supply of HRT.
“All of these things are bracketed as women’s issues, but women are half of the population and these are meaty, substantial problems that mean that many people are ill every day, that people don’t get convictions when they have been victims of the most serious crimes, that too many men get away with things that they shouldn’t.”
Ms Rayner, the MP for Ashton-under-Lyne, said on Tuesday that she was left “crestfallen” by the “completely untrue” claims about her.
The article included a quote from one MP, saying the Labour deputy “knows she can’t compete with Boris’s Oxford Union debating training, but she has other skills which he lacks”. The Prime Minister has pledged that those behind the accusations will face “the terrors of the Earth” if they are identified.
