 The fine light of business is a member's business debate on motion 12252 in the name of Ruth Maguire on the Citizen Girl initiative. The debate will be concluded without any questions being put. Can I ask those members who wish to speak in the debate to press their request to speak buttons now and I call on Ruth Maguire to open the debate. Ms Maguire, please. Presiding Officer, it's a pleasure to have time in the chamber this evening to debate Girlguiding Scotland and Women 5050's Citizen Girl campaign. I thank all the members who signed the motion to make that possible and look forward to hearing contributions from across the chamber. I'd like to acknowledge some visitors in the gallery. We have Caroline and Talot from the 5050 campaign and along with Mari we have Girlguiding representatives from Edinburgh, from Stirling, from Graham D's constituency in Angus. We have Girlguiding representatives from Queensferry and Girlguiding young spokeswomen. Presiding Officer, I'd like to say to our visitors and to all girls and young women like them that this is your Parliament and politics is for you. You're powerful and you're important and your voices, ideas and opinions matter. Citizen Girl is a campaign led by two fantastic partners and champions of girls and women, Girlguiding Scotland and the 5050 campaign. In this year of young people and 100th year since the first women got the vote, Citizen Girl is about ensuring that the 50,000 or so girlguides in Scotland know that their voices matter and know how they can speak up, how they can campaign and how they can take action on things that are important to them. Citizen Girl is also about calling for real and meaningful change to ensure that today's girls and women can look forward to a more equal future. Research from Girlguiding Girls Attitude Survey 2018 backs up why this campaign is important by highlighting the impact a lack of female representation has on the views and experiences of girls and young women. 57 per cent of girls aged 11 to 21 don't think politicians understand the issues that are facing them today, and 53 per cent think that political parties should make sure that half of their politicians are women. To tackle underrepresentation in politics, at the same time as dismantling structural barriers in their way, we need girls to see that politics is for them. We have a woman as First Minister and a female Prime Minister, but there's no getting away from the fact that women remain stubbornly underrepresented in politics and in public life. Women make up 52 per cent of the population, but only 35 per cent of MSPs, 25 per cent of local councillors and 16 per cent of council leaders. It's fair to say that there still aren't enough of us in the room, and it's really hard to be what you can't see. For those of us who are here, we have to do everything in our power to remedy that. It's not enough just to get here ourselves. We have to take the lead, and we have to be powerful, persuasive, tenacious and strong advocates for change in this chamber, in our own political parties and in our communities. Women and girls, and in particular I think young women and girls, face sexism and objectification at frankly horrific levels these days. Even our First Minister and Prime Minister don't escape that. At a time when they were meeting to negotiate significant important business to our countries, a newspaper thought that it was okay to run a front page splash, focusing on their legs, not their views, not their political positions, but a part of their body. That sends a really poor message to young women and girls. I think things are actually worse than when I was a young woman, not better. In 2018, when we were making such strides to equality, it was completely unacceptable. The online abuse faced by any woman who puts her head above the parapet can also seem quite terrifying, and I can understand why that would be off-putting for many. It's designed to keep you down, to make you feel unimportant, and like you have no business in politics. I know first hand that it's not always easy, but girls, we can't let them win. Simply we mustn't accept it. Block, mute, unfollow, unfriend. Your voice is too important to be silenced. Here's the good news though. If you surround yourself with brilliant friends, with supporters, with allies, with people who value you even if they disagree with you, if you find a mentor and learn from them and they'll learn from you too, you will do it, and each time you speak out it gets a little less scary, and the voices of folk who would do you down feel a little less important. Stick together and you will be unstoppable. Presiding officer, in closing, I'd like to remind colleagues whether they are contributing to the debate tonight or not of a couple of ways that they can get involved. Parliamentarians and councillors can show their support by doing something that I know we all love doing, taking a photo of themselves, taking a selfie, with the Citizen Girl sign and endorsing the campaign online through their social media channels. I know that girl guiding Scotland members in their constituency would be delighted to meet them and to show some of the great work that's going on. I understand that Daniel Johnston has experienced that and received a gift of a pink cape, which I was quite intrigued to learn about. I've not seen him wear it yet, but those are the sort of things that he can experience. On the centenary of some women getting the vote this year of the young people, 50,000 girls and young women growing in confidence, reaching for the stars, having fun and being a powerful force for good seems just about perfect for me. I'll say it again, Presiding Officer. Politics is for you. Your voices are important. Go for it girls. You'll be awesome. Thank you. As always, I gently say to those in the public gallery that applause, although I understand why you're doing it, is not permitted from the public area. I now call on Ash Denham to be followed by Alison Harris. Ms Denham, please. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I'd like to start my contribution to this debate by thanking Ruth Maguire for securing time in the chamber today to debate this really important initiative. A full disclosure, I was never a girl guide. I was a brownie, but not a girl guide. I remember—it's quite a long time ago now, and I don't remember very much about it, but I do remember sewing the badges onto my uniform when I achieved a new badge, which I always found very exciting. I remember going away to camp as well, but that's about all that I can remember. Through the brownies and through girl guiding, whichever you've been a part of, girls are enabled in learning and working together to develop skills and to grow their independence, which is obviously always a good thing. The story of the girl guides illustrates this very well. Gate crashing, the first rally of the Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts demanded something for the girls, refusing to believe that scouting was just for boys. Out of that direct and collective action, the girl guides were established. We can also look close to here, Edinburgh, quite a while ago now, though, the Edinburgh 7 trailblazers for the rights of women to practice medicine. That was in the 1870s, and their campaign resulted in legislation that allowed women to qualify as doctors in the UK and in Ireland. As we celebrate the 100th anniversary of the first women gaining the right to vote, we can see both how far we've come in that time, but we can also recognise, I think, how much we still have to do. A more recent example of things that the girl guides have been doing was that they supported the campaign to end page 3, which finally, through pressure, came to an end in 2015. That's why I'm delighted to see the Citizen Girl initiative encouraging girls and young women to use their voices to enact change in Scotland, to encourage them to become directly involved in changing the world around them, encouraging them to know their place—indeed, a place in the science lab, a place in the editorial office, the boardroom or perhaps especially a place in this chamber. By telling girls and young women that their places wherever they want it to be can sometimes ring a little bit hollow when this chamber, in 2018, is still only 35 per cent female. That's why I think it's crucial that all political parties commit to a 50-50 split for candidates that they stand in elections. Some people here may know, but the SNP brought in gender balancing mechanisms for candidates for the 2016 elections. It certainly wasn't universally accepted. There were many people in the party who didn't think that it was a good idea, but I think that the results certainly speak for themselves. The SNP group in the chamber went from 27 per cent female to 42 per cent female. That is a huge step forward and it shows that those measures really work. I would encourage any parties that are in this chamber who don't currently have any gender balancing mechanisms to really look at this and consider it. I think that that's a matter of urgency. In closing, I note that the girl guys, one of their aims is to build confidence in girls and to raise expectations. As someone who felt lacking in confidence at times when I was a girl and also when I was a young woman and I just share this in case it's helpful to anyone else, I've learned that confidence comes through doing. So join that club, join that political party, say yes to giving that speech, run for election in student politics and yes giving that first speech is really scary, but the next time it gets that little bit easier and so on and so on, confidence builds up. So I would congratulate girl guides and women 50-50 on the Citizen Girl initiative and I look forward very much to seeing what you will achieve together. It's my pleasure to speak in this evening's debate and when you think 100 years after some women were first given the right to vote and stand for election, we are still underrepresented in many areas of our political and business life. The number of women serving on our councils and in our two parliaments is still far below the equal balance that we should all be seeking to aspire to and I join others in welcoming any initiative that highlights that politics needs more women and especially young women. So Deputy Presiding Officer, it is particularly good that tonight we are celebrating the Citizen Girl initiative. Good and also very appropriate that in this year of young people, one of our largest and most respected young persons organisations, Girl Guiding Scotland, is highlighting the empowerment of women to show that the voice of a young woman does matter and to encourage them to use that voice in all walks of life. Young people are the future of our country and of course we need to encourage every person to play a part in civic life, but we do have to acknowledge that with women and young women in particular, there are still unnecessary hurdles, real and perceived, that are still waiting to be removed and this initiative will play a part in that. Despite the fact that we have had two female Prime Ministers and currently two women serving in this Parliament as both First Minister and Leader of the Opposition, it is obvious that work still needs to be done to bring more women into public life. Political parties may have different approaches on the best way to achieve this and we may disagree in some areas, but one thing that we are united on is the belief that a Parliament needs to look at the country that it represents and hence the balance of genders in both our Parliaments is something that we need to strive for. Within my own party we welcome the launch of Women to Win and they are leading the campaign to elect more conservative women to Parliament. Women to Win aims to increase the number of conservative women in Parliament and in public life and is committed to identifying, training and mentoring female candidates for office. As MSPs we regularly go into schools and discuss politics. We tell the pupils about how it is to be an MSP, we answer questions, but those questions often reveal the perception and stereotyping that this initiative sets out to challenge. So whilst we can all play our own part in convincing others to follow in our tracks, it is great to have an organisation such as Girlguiding trumpeting the same message that whether in politics, business, the media, opportunities are there for women to play an important role and to make their mark. Opportunities for them to learn to play a part not only in political life but in business and the media as well. We need to encourage more young women to realise their own potential. Women remain underrepresented in senior management roles and on the boards of public companies, but only 28 per cent of board positions of the FTSE 100 companies are women. Whilst there has been an improvement over the years, there is obviously still much more needing to be done. Though never complacent, I want to finish on a positive note. In 1998, Mary Pitcaithley became the first woman to hold the post of chief executive of a Scottish local authority. That local authority was actually my own constituency of Falkirk. This month, over two decades after she blazed the trail for women at the top level of government, Mary retires from that post. However, she leaves knowing that, amongst the ranks of the chief executives of Scottish councils, there is almost an equal gender split. I would like to congratulate Girlguiding Scotland on their campaign and my colleague Ruth Maguire for bringing the debate forward tonight. I thank you very much. I would also like to congratulate Ruth Maguire on bringing forward the debate, and I would like to pay tribute to Girlguiding Scotland and Women 5050 for starting the Citizen Girl campaign. It is very important that we encourage girls to put themselves forward to become future leaders. While our society instinctively does that with boys, girls are often left behind. We legislate for equality, but we also need to understand that societal norms still promote inequality on their deeply ingrained. From a young age, girls are given messages about being homemakers, mothers and carers. We just need to look at children's toys. The next time that you are in a shop, take a look at the toys that are meant for boys. There will be the blue ones, and toys meant for girls. There will be the pink ones, and see how we brainwash children on to taking those roles. I have struggled trying to buy toys that do not gender stereotype children, and that surely cannot be right. It needs to stop. How can we say to girls that they can be leaders when everything else they see and hear tells them that they cannot? To counteract that, we need to empower girls, and that is what the campaign is doing. While they have their work cut out, given the societal stereotyping that tells girls that leadership roles are not for them, the activities that Citizen Girl is carrying out will help to build leaders for the future. Learning about politics, how they can become legislators and politicians, meeting with councillors, MSPs and MPs. While working to empower girls, the campaign also calls on change from today's leaders. It calls on political parties to put forward a list of candidates that are gender balanced. I am proud that the Scottish Labour Party is gender balanced in this Parliament, but that has taken positive action on our part to do this. The campaign also calls on politicians to ensure that young people are consulted on decisions impacting on them. I would argue that young people should be consulted more widely than that, because they will inherit what we have put in place. While they may lack life experience, they should have a say on the direction of travel. That lack of knowledge and life experience can often make young people idealistic, but sometimes we lack that in modern-day politics. We need to aspire as much as we need to manage. The campaign also calls for increased female representation in all walks of life. If female representation is increased, it will give girls role models, not just in politics but in everyday career choices. There should be no barriers to what a girl or a woman can aspire to. Girls need role models to be able to see themselves and own the role as leaders go forward. If all they see is men in suits, they immediately discount that role for themselves. They do not identify themselves with that person. In the girl guide and briefing for this debate, the one thing that really struck me as the most devastating was the information that, at the age of between 7 and 10, 86 per cent of girls thought that they could be successful in their chosen career. That fell to 35 per cent between the ages of 17 and 21, the group believing that employers preferred to hire men. What on earth happens to girls as they grow up? Why do young girls have the ambition and outlook, and why is that destroyed? Is that the reality that they face? Our aim must be to ensure that opportunities are there for girls to be what they want to be. They should be encouraged as they get older, not discouraged. That, I believe, is a task for us all. I am glad that girl guiding and women 5050 have taken that on. I hope that they will continue to work with young girls and with today's leaders to make sure that we really do change the world for girls and the next generation of women. I thank Ruth Maguire for securing this debate. For full disclosure, I was a brownie, I was also a former girl guide, but as it was only yesterday, I remember it very well indeed. I am also a proud co-founder of women 5050 and part of the campaign to increase the representation of women in political life. I have said it before and I will say it again as a councillor in Edinburgh and as an MSP representing Lothian. It is notable that, when schools, nurseries and hospitals are under threat, when there are big issues to be debated, my surgeries and meetings are full of women—absolutely full of women, often the majority are women—but when it comes to making votes, where are the women? They are absent in this chamber, they are absent across our town halls in the numbers that they should be there in. We have got to take action. I am really so proud that women 5050 have linked up with girl guiding Scotland. I just really wish that this had been an initiative that was available when I was a girl guide. I did not get involved in politics until my 30s. I think that this is something that will help young women to engage in and will give them the courage and confidence to do so. I should say that, in my first ever council meeting, I will always remember that a senior male councillor referred across the chamber to a senior woman councillor as a fishwife. That would be absolutely unacceptable today, so changes are under way but, in no doubt, that change is due to the campaigning that has been going on in recent days. That is an important step in the right direction. The girl guiding girls attitude survey shows us exactly why the citizen girl initiative matters. More than half of girls and young women feel that gender stereotypes have a limiting effect on the activities that they can do now and how they can express themselves. They feel the influence of those stereotypes in most areas of their lives, from teachers' beliefs and expectations to messages in the media. I should say that one of the least pleasant experiences that I have had on social media was when I dared to speak in the no more page 3 debate. It is important that we continue to challenge those who would like us to be quiet and speak up loudly. 57 per cent of girls and young women who are aged 11 to 21 do not think that politicians understand the issues that are facing them today. It is clear that we have to get better at listening and make sure that we are engaging fully. Citizen girl helps girls and young women to learn about the political process, to help to amplify their voices and realise how they can make changes happen. As part of this, one of the outcomes that Citizen girl is calling for is for politicians at all levels to consult with young people on all the decisions that impact their lives. It is fair to say that we do not do that well enough. The year of young people in Scotland should be a real impetus to change that and make sure that we incorporate young people's perspectives from all backgrounds in the decisions that we take. I think that the resources that are developed for the Citizen girl initiative give young people a great starting point in understanding what the responsibilities of councillors, MSPs and MPs are and the kind of issues that they can help with and actions that young people can take from sending an email to starting a petition, organising events, raising funds for a cause that they believe in. There is no substitute for political engagement and I am delighted to support this campaign, which encourages young women and girls to become directly involved in politics. To really change the conversations that we are having about representation of women in society, we have to think about what opportunities women have to develop careers in the media or even to be as represented as an expert in the media because the media influences the debate. Last year, the BBC launched its expert women initiative, looking for women who would like to contribute to news content as experts. That acknowledged that the vast majority of voices that we hear on the radio and TV are male, and in some ways it is a welcome step to redress that balance. However, the initiative was criticised and rightly, in my view, because it required interested women to submit a CV and a short film showing them present on their area of expertise. To pitch an idea for a story, the general public would find interesting. Why should women and not men be required to prove their expertise in this way? Why is their specialist knowledge in doubt until proven? Why should interested women have to do so much unpaid labour to generate contacts for media organisations? A real bugbear of mine is the absolute lack of visibility of women in sport. Look at the back pages of your newspaper today. You will be hard pressed to find a woman in there. You might if she is some sportsman's girlfriend, but we must do better. I met a newspaper to discuss the lack of coverage of women sports role models. I was asked to do that very same thing. Could I contact them when I had details of a successful woman or pitch a story to them? Do we really think that that happens with male sports events and efforts? In many cases, those achievements of women are at a higher level. I know that you would like me to close. I am pleased to do so. I very much hope that citizen girl initiatives like it fill young women with the confidence to act on the issues that they care about now and to play an ever-fooler part in public life as they grow older. If I had more time, you could have gone on for 10 minutes, but I don't. I call Gillian Martin to be followed by Rachael Hamilton. Ms Hamilton will be the last speaker in the open debate. Ms Martin, please. Thank you to Ruth Maguire for getting this debate into the chamber. The girl guides have certainly come a long way. Last night, as I was thinking about this debate, I had a wee smile to myself as I thought about the badges that were sewn on to my guide uniform. I remembered one with a picture of an iron on it, which was the laundry badge. I was not a girl guide in the Victorian era. It was only in the 1980s. I was taught how to wash an iron clothes. Do not get me wrong, I have used those skills, and I still know how to get chewing gum off a jumper. Despite the wry smile that I had about thinking about that quite old-fashioned achievement that I did with the girl guides, I gave myself a bit of a telling off. I remember how empowering the guides have always been and how being a girl guide for seven years empowered me. It was obvious that they should join with women 50-50 in leading the charge for the empowerment of the next generation of female representatives. The girl guides taught me how to be independent, how to lead a group of other girls and take responsibility for them. Most memorably, they taught the girl to be formally quiet and shy—yes, I was a formally quiet and shy girl—to use her voice without fear because that voice was always there. It just needed the right conditions to come out. My parents still tell the story of how open-mouthed they were to turn up at the first Nubilla guide concert, not to find their awkward shy girl at the back dressed as a tree or something, but as an exuberant, confident MC for the evening, kind of like a 12-year-old Doric Liza Minelli. My former guide leader, Pat Begg, had not told them beforehand because she wanted to see their faces. I want to thank Pat Begg for that. The guides gave me the space to find out that I could stand up in front of a crowded hall, and they are largely to be either thanked or blamed, depending on your perspective, for me standing up in this room now. I have spoken many times on the empowering nature of women, only spaces, and the girl guides have been that for decades, and I am 100 per cent behind the three asks of the Citizen Girl campaign. They ask of 50 per cent of election candidates to be female, yes, yes and yes again, but as the campaign recognises, we will never get to that stage without early work with girls to ready their aspirations and confidence to look upon candidacy as an option. I say that as someone who spent a great deal of last winter cajoling excellent but reluctant women into going forward for council candidacy. Women who are now elected and making a difference in their local communities and a refreshing or rather stale council group, I am sorry for anyone who takes offence at that, but it is true. Those who know me will know that I am a strong advocate for the increase of female representation in management and boards, and I have been both an MSP and in my working life before the election. This week, I am ranked to every girl guide group in my constituency to offer to come and meet with them to discuss their work, that work that they are doing and their work on those issues. It is not easy when most girl guide sessions are held when I am 160 miles away in Edinburgh midweek, but we will work something out and maybe I will be able to work out how to get some of Aberdeenshire East guides into the gallery where so many of their fellow guides are today. As for your voices, well, they are stronger than ever. The closed focus group discussion on sexual harassment and bullying that I joined caught the save and invitation from the convener of the equality and human rights committee, Christina McKelvie, featured some of the most engaging, persuasive and assertive voices that I have heard in this place, and they were the voices of girl guides. The girl guides work alongside those of us who are campaigning quite successfully, I might add, to take down the barriers to period products is absolutely inspiring. I saw your new end-period poverty badge online this week, and I have to say that I wish I had been able to sew that on instead of the long-dress one all those years ago. That shows us how far we have come in overturning stigma and recognising the powerful voices of girls and young women and what are forced to be reckoned with the girl guides continue to be. That badge in this campaign are proof. The girl guides aren't just moving with the times, they're leading the change of the times, and I can't wait to be watching a debate in this chamber and hear a new female MSP stand up and say it was Citizen Girl that inspired them to go for the election. Thank you very much. I call Rachel Hamilton, Ms Hamilton, please. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I'm going to try and do a minister, Michael Curry, to use my tablet like he did the sermon at the Royal Wedding, so I'm going to try and be modern. I apologise also to Rhoda Grant for wearing pink, and I love pink. I really welcome this debate, and I thank my colleague Ruth Maguire for securing it tonight. As a former girl guide myself, I'm proud to be associated with the Citizen Girl campaign, which aims to bring voices together and to become the next generation of leaders in politics. Together, our voice is louder, and it is stronger. By bringing debates like this to Parliament, we can knock down those barriers that women and young girls face. 100 years ago, not all, but some women got the right to vote for the first time, and this is fitting because 2018 is also the year of young people. Women have come so far, but are we truly equal? Isn't it staggering that, in 2018, women still battle against inequality and sexism and that gender pay gap still exists? The Fawcets Society, a group that campaigns for equality, says that caring responsibilities can play a big part, and women often care for young children or elderly relatives. That does sometimes, as they say, hold them back. It also means that women are likely to work in part-time roles, which often are lower paid or have fewer opportunities for progression. Under a Conservative Government, I am proud that we have brought forward that UK companies must now publish the gender pay gap for those employing more than 250 people. When it comes to equality in politics, the Conservative Party has an outstanding leadership record. However, we acknowledge that we have a steep hill to climb, and our party is ready to work towards greater diversity and gender equality. In Scotland, as my colleague Alison Harris said, we have set up a group of women to win with the objective of attracting more female candidates to step forward, coining the phrase on social media, hashtag, ask her to stand. Through engagement with women groups, we want to identify, recruit, train, mentor, support and advance women into elected positions at all levels of Parliament and local government. Minority groups and women will experience different journeys into politics, and there is not really a standard approach. What we aim to do is give individuals confidence by mentoring, training and also giving support. As well as that, Baroness Nishina Mabarak is heading up a commission to ensure greater gender and ethnic diversity in the party's ranks at the next Hollywood election. If we want to be the next Government, we need to demonstrate greater diversity. I represent a boarder's constituency and was recently invited to join a women in leadership event organised by the principal. She, of course, is a woman. Every woman was asked to bring a young person to that event, and we were asked to join together to agree common goals and make commitments such as pledging to mentor a young woman. Crucial to involvement is the involvement of young girls. Girlguiding plays an important role to encourage young females to speak out and to be heard. That means that politicians have to listen to those young female voices. The girls' attitudes survey revealed that 55 per cent of girls aged 7 to 21 say that gender stereotypes affect their ability to say what they think. 57 per cent of girls aged 11 to 21 do not think that politicians understand the issues that girls and young women face today. It is vital that politicians engage with those young voices and take note of what they have to say and also take action. That voice is threatened by online trolls and often male, often chauvinistic, misogynistic, sexist and aggressive. I am set to defeat those trolls that target female politicians and candidates. I am working with other MSPs in this place to create a platform to combat these incidences of abuse and work with social media platforms to make sure that their voices do not drown out our own. I, for one, as well as my colleagues, continue to do all we can to support and encourage young women both in and outside of politics. It is important to keep promoting female and young female voices. We need to give young women the confidence and the means to success in any role and in anything that they want to do. I thank those involved in the Citizen Girl campaign. As a former girl guide, I pledge my support to you. I now call Angela Constance to close to the Government. Thank you very much. I want to add my thanks to Ruth Maguire for securing this very important member's business debate tonight. I would like to thank all members for their contributions tonight. Alison Johnstone gave a complete and utter rant, which I enjoyed every minute of. It was very interesting to hear the reflections from Rachel Hamilton, Ash Denham and Gillian Martin on their time as girl guides. At this point, I am going to gloss over my very brief career in the girl guides, the brownies and the girls brigade. I am afraid that I was not involved in either of those organisations for long enough for reasons that I will not go into to stay around and sew a badge on any uniform. However, it is remarkable to listen to how, no doubt, the organisation girl guide in Scotland has changed over the years. Nonetheless, Gillian Martin was able to speak very personally and powerfully about how her time as a girl guide had helped her to blossom into a confident young girl and young woman. On that note, I am pleased to add my congratulations on behalf of the Scottish Government to girl guide in Scotland and women 50-50 on the launch of their citizens girl campaign, an extended very warm welcome to our visitors in the gallery to Parliament. That is, of course, your Parliament, and it is your Parliament as much as anybody else's Parliament. I also want to start by thanking all those who are involved with girl guide in Scotland, who, of course, is a volunteer's week. Volunteers ensure that girls and young women can take part in the guiding movement and participate in activities such as citizens girl. I understand that more than 2,000 girls have completed or are currently working on the citizens girl challenge badge so far, and that is quite a remarkable achievement. As many colleagues have said, this is absolutely the right moment for this initiative. 100 years since some women won the right to vote and to stand for election. Of course, it is Scotland's year of young people, a year to celebrate young people's achievements and to say to them that their voices are not just important, but they are absolutely central to the future of this country. I absolutely agree with the motion that the rights of women have advanced considerably over the past 100 years, and there is indeed a lot to celebrate—a lot to be proud of. However, we must acknowledge that inequality still exists. Ruth Maguire was quite right to say that the business that we have to be in is the business of real, meaningful and lasting change. Her contribution struck a chord when she articulated that there are some things that are much better for women and girls today, but, like her, I also fear that there are some things that are worse and, of course, the objectification of women and, of course, the issues in and around online abuse are very pertinent. Like Rhoda Grant, I was deeply struck by the fact that girls between the ages of seven and ten years old were really hopeful and confident that they had the same chance of success. 86 per cent of them thought that they could be up and at it on the same level as their male peers. Then, when you ask the same question to young girls and women between the ages of 17 and 21, that reduces to 35 per cent. Like Rhoda Grant, it begs the question what happens, what are the knocks in life that are happening here, what is putting down our girls and young women, what is oppressing them and, indeed, what still oppresses them today. It is quite clear that women's representation in Parliament and local government and in other senior positions is not where it should be and it is not enough to say that we are okay, we are here as women, we have to be thinking about the women that are missing, the women that are absent and we need to be thinking about the future of this country and the future generations of women that should be stepping into our shoes and, indeed, stepping into the shoes occupied by some men. We have to take action to addresses that require action and action and not just words. I was very struck at the end of last month that the BBC ran a story online highlighting the worst excuses given by FTSE 350 companies for not appointing women executives. It was quite depressing reasoning. We had the same old excuses and mythologies that I do not think women would fit comfortably into the board environment or the other quote. There aren't that many women with the right credentials and depth of experience to sit on the board. The issues that are covered are extremely complex. There is a whole list of excuses, one after the other, even while we have one woman already on the board, so we are done. Is it not somebody else's turn? When you read that type of commentary, it would make you think that it was actually 1918 and not 2018. For that reason, I was very proud to work with others across this Parliament and to take through the Gender Representation and Public Boards Act last year. It is also important that we acknowledge the fact that, for some groups of women, progress is seriously slow and seriously lacking. We have to improve our understanding of the particular experiences of women living with a disability and women from ethnic minority communities so that we can challenge the very specific issues that they face. On a very basic level, Parliaments are meant to serve the people. If you look on the one hand at who makes up the people and on the other hand who serves them, if those two groups look pretty different and sound pretty different, then there is something quite clearly in my mind that is not right. A really positive development over the last few years is extending the franchise in Scotland to its 16-17-year-olds. That has given an interest and an energy that young people have shown for political engagement. Given young people the vote can, I believe, peak their interests and keep them engaged in politics throughout their life. By empowering girls to use their voices and to see and feel the impact that they can have by doing so, citizen girls tap into that energy. It does so in a way that is fun and accessible for young women and girls. It also does so by what Ash Denham described by growing confidence through doing and giving young women the confidence to challenge and confidence to change the community around them. I know that many girlguides units have visited this Parliament. I understand that, currently, the average is one unit visit per week. That is wonderful. I commend Girlguide Scotland and its local leaders and volunteers for engaging in the Parliament this way. I am particularly intrigued by the concept of an edible Parliament. I hope that members might get a chance to sample a bit of Parliament, as we have never seen it before. If there was a competition to judge the edible Parliament, I would certainly be happy to oblige. I thank Ruth Maguire once again for bringing this motion to Parliament. It is a great example to send to young women and girls that their voices can make a difference, their voices will make a difference and that politics is indeed something that they can get involved in. They can be an MP, an MSP, a local councillor, a future Prime Minister or a First Minister, but they can also use their voices in lots of different ways to make a real difference. On International Women's Day this year, we held a debate where the focus was very much on young women and girls. We highlighted a number of examples of where young women have just done that and made a huge difference to their communities. The Glasgow girls have been one example. Of course, Bessie Watson is another, often considered to be the youngest suffragette. Bessie was also known for playing the bagpipes. She grew up in Edinburgh and she played her bagpipes at suffragette marches and rallies. Her parents were big supporters of the suffrage movement, and she even played outside the old Cotlinhill jail to keep the spirits of the women up who would have been held there. Of course, we will see the procession in Edinburgh on Saturday as well, which will give another aspect to the celebration of the 100 years of some women getting the vote. Once again, thank you very much to Girlguiding Scotland, women's 50-50, Ruth Maguire and other colleagues who have contributed this evening. As one of the female Deputy Presiding Officer of the Parliament, that concludes the debate, and I close this meeting of Parliament.