DESPITE the best efforts of some brilliant women from across the political spectrum, politics remains a pretty misogynistic place to be.

I found this out first hand this week, after I called on the Scottish Parliament to be more reflective of Scotland. Last parliamentary session only 35% of MSPs were women, and that figured hadn’t changed since 2011.

In the BBC’s leaders’ debate I pointed out that we have had too many old, wealthy, white men making decisions. And when I got home I found out that many old, wealthy, white men were very angry with me.

But it isn’t just me they are angry at. From Diane Abbot to Theresa May to Nicola Sturgeon, we’ve seen all kinds of abuse hurled online. No wonder women are far less likely to stand for office in the first place.

Of course, the First Minister now has to contend with an angry man setting up an entire political party as a vendetta against her because she didn’t enable his poor behaviour.

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We need to work hard to secure a good balance of people representing us, because if we don’t the most privileged and entitled will take the place they believe is rightfully theirs.

Decisions made by only one subset of our country cannot be measured, reflective decisions in the interest of everyone. That’s why we need more women making those decisions. We need more people of different ethnic or cultural backgrounds, more workers, more disabled people, more trans people represented in the debates over their own future.

In 2016 the Scottish Greens committed to a gender-balanced candidate list, and we even had gender balance on who topped the regional lists, yet still the electorate returned five men and one woman. We were determined that wouldn’t happen again, so we worked hard since to encourage women to stand and ensure they were in winnable positions.

The Scottish Greens women’s network created a supportive environment for women and non-binary people that would allow people to explore and realise their drive to make our politics more representative.

This work has meant we have far more women in positions to be elected at this election. Polls currently have us winning around 10 seats. If that happens, it will be seven women and three men. If we get 13 MSPs, it will be 10 women and three men and could see our Glasgow candidate Nadia Kanyange become among the first women of colour elected to Holyrood.

It’s clear the more votes the Scottish Greens get at this election, the bigger part we will play in addressing the balance of parliament, and I am very proud of that. We’re making sure that women can succeed and working to improve the diversity of our parliament.

Of course, this isn’t just about politics, but politics has a key role in ensuring women and men have equal opportunities in life, equal access to resources and power and are equally safe and secure from harm. Let’s not kid ourselves, Scotland is not there yet.

I was pleased to take part in the Engender hustings alongside the First Minister and other leaders. The feminist organisation has very interesting figures from its 2020 Sex and Power report about women in positions of power and influence in Scotland.

Despite being 52% of the population, women account for only 4% of the CEOs of top businesses in Scotland. Only 22% of the country’s sheriffs are women and only 13% of Scotland’s senior police officers.

These statistics are only part of the story too. They don’t count women of colour, disabled or lesbian, bisexual or trans women. They do however tell us that women face discrimination in getting promoted and we know that adding any other discrimination on top of that will make it even harder.

I’ve worked hard to tackle under-representation of women in my own party and we can play our part in women’s under-representation in politics. But tackling the clear gap in power in Scotland is about more than who sits in parliament. We need to remove the barriers to promotion and participation at all levels. We need to properly value the work that women traditionally do, in care and education.

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Clearly, I hope to be elected in May to play a part in this transformation, and I will work with any other party that shares this aim. As we’ve found in the Scottish Greens, it is by

women working together to support and lift each other up that we can break through the centuries of privilege, institutional discrimination and misogyny.

I’m worried that the UK is going backwards on this. After more than decade of rule by Etonians we have seen policies like the rape clause, we have seen austerity disproportionately impact on women. The Windrush generation were told they weren’t welcome. The UK Government has pledged to roll back on equalities legislation to protect trans people and just this week its commission on racism tried to rewrite history when it comes to slavery. And in the middle of all that, Theresa May had a spell as the UK’s second woman Prime Minister.

Leadership is not about pulling up the ladder behind you but about recognising the institutional barriers you and others have faced and removing them. Let’s hope a new Scotland does that. Our future depends on it.