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#WomenLead (Issue 92): Your weekly round-up on women in politics
Hello, and welcome to Issue 92!
Thank you for all the outpouring of love for our new logo, and we hope you’re also loving the new look of the email! For those of you who missed it, read more about the making of our new logo here.
In today’s edition, we bring updates from Japan, Malta and Scotland, and the spotlight is on the USA. We also resume bringing you a recommendation of the resource of the week (the ‘ROTW’) after a long hiatus, with a resource we’ve had a chance to contribute to! In case you missed last week’s edition, you can read it here.
Quick Updates
🔴 ALL IN A DAY’S WORK: A survey of 200 politicians in Japan has thrown up some rather disturbing findings - several women politicians have revealed instances of sexual harassment. The perpetrators of abuse included voters. Women interviewed shared how they had been groped during campaign rallies, told that they would get votes only if they kissed the voter, and told that young women win elections even if they are not qualified to do so.
Scotland is no better, it seems. Several women councillors - many of whom plan to step away from local politics soon - shared their experience at a Glasgow city council meeting last week, and called upon their male colleagues to “reflect on their behaviour” and to put an end to the toxic atmosphere for women politicians, Glasgow Live reported.
Rhiannon Spear, one of the councillors, shared that soon after she got elected, a male councillor had followed her wanting to “touch and hug” her in the workplace. “Being told that you can ‘squeeze by me anytime’ is disgusting, and going on Twitter and telling female councillors you know where they live is just creepy,” Jen Layden, another councillor, said.
“It is people in this chamber, it is male councillors that are using language, and putting it in the press, and putting it on social media, that puts us at risk. Being called ‘sweetheart’ or ‘darling’ is unacceptable, I am a councillor,” she added.