Dr Grainne McMahon from the University of Huddersfield shared some of her learning from young women in Huddersfield about political participation. Find out more about #Notwestminster 2018 at www.notwestminster.org.uk

1. YOUNGWOMEN, POLITICAL
PARTICIPATION AND CREATING A
NEW POLITICS
Dr Grainne McMahon, 17th Feb. 2018

2. Learning from (1) day with young women in
University of Huddersfield; (2) ongoing project
■ Aim: explore barriers to young women’s political participation
(particularly in formal politics)
– What are barriers to young women’s political participation?
– What would young women like to see (new approaches to
gender-equal political participation)?
– How might/ should/ could we create a ‘new politics’?
■ Young women’s social and political participation (activism)

3. Barriers to political participation
■ What? ‘Even by seeing someone that doesn’t look like you, it might make you feel you
can’t do what they are doing.’
– Terminology, diversity, gender stereotypes, ‘not being taken seriously’
■ Why? ‘The system in which we live allowed women to be looked down upon. [That]
ideology carried on in most politicians minds.’
– Class, stigma, traditions, privilege, access
■ How? ‘If we go in, we have to be angry and fight, we doubt ourselves.’
– Generational factors, irrelevance, isolation
■ Acute awareness of gender and structural inequalities replicating and perpetuating
(also: class, ethnicity, background)

4. New approaches to gender-equal political participation
■ What? Less adversarial system, less ‘tribal’ leadership, less
Westminster-centric, more political engagement as ‘normal’ (and part
of education), representative governments, ‘normal’ politicians, women
role models
■ Why? Policies for everyone, better ideas, breaking down gender norms
■ Who? Media, public, educators, parents, us, you, everyone.
■ How? Political education, ‘pushing through’, action and not just words
(‘deeds not words’), male support (in campaigns), move beyond identity
politics, formal checks and balances (AWS)

5. ‘DEEDS NOTWORDS’:
- Challenging normative
discourses around women
(Corbyn’s activism vs. May’s
marriage)
- Addressing political inertia
(young people and young
women)
- Focusing (genuinely and
proactively) on social justice
and women’s issues
- All-women representation
- More women-only/ women-
focused spaces
- Self-organising, smaller
movements, more movements,
more conversations

6. ‘DEEDS NOTWORDS’:
- Biographies of
activism (‘grievance
mobilization’)
- Importance of anger
and emotions
(‘personal IS political’)
- Protests of the
dispossessed (Butler,
2013) – and
intersectionality
- ‘Altruistic’
movements