 goodnessday, and welcome to the Scottish Parliament. I'm Alison Johnstone, Presiding Officer of this Parliament, and I would like to share a warm welcome to this year's festival of politics, particularly the thrill that we are back together in person this year. This year's event celebrates 18 years off the festival, and we have been inspiring and engaging audiences from every walk of life to i wyf i gyd i'r ein gweithio ar gyfer amser ac mae'r gwrth defnyddio'r ffordd o'r gwanhau eich gwneud a phob i'r gwirioneddau. Felly e'n pihaf arnyn amddangoswyddiad yma, maen nhw'n zes warrioriaethol ac mae'r gyrfa grapes wedi sylwyddiad yn i gweithio'n ddiwrn yn gwybodol i chi'n gweithio â'r panel hynny. Rydym yn ymwneud i chi'n gylleneddur ychydig i wellichtawr am hyfforddau cyfrydydau ymddangoswyd mewn Mae Gwysig Echydig, y gwahanol yw'r gwasanaeth yw eu cyfnod i gael i gynnwys gweithio gyda phrofiadau i gael eu cyfnodau a gweithio i gydigol i gaelio i gaelio'r gwneudol, i gydigio'r gwahanol, i gaelio'r gwahanol, i gaelio'r gwahanol, i gaelio'r gwahanol, i gaelio'r gwahanol i gaelio'r gwahanol i gaelio'r gwahanol. A llawer, mae'n meddwl i'r gwaith yn frangosu, ac mae'n oes ar y llwyddiad o ran gwneud o'r gwaith yn y dynol. Ac, wrth gwrs, rydych chi'n gweithio i gweithio'r ddechrau, rydych chi'n gweithio'r hashtag FOP 2022. Dwi'n fawr i'n ddweud o'r ddau'r ddau'r ddau o dr Merill Kenny, o Talat Y Cwp, o Sophie Reid i o Fiona Matavu. Dr Merill Kenny is a lectora'r seiniol yn ysgrifennu i ddweud, ar y Cymru yma ym Mhwylodau Feddenbryd a ysgrifennu ym ysgrifennu'r ddau'r ddau'r ddau'r ddau. I seem to have my notes in alphabetical order, so we will switch to Fiona. Fiona Matauw is the co-founder of the award-winning social enterprise Radiant and Brighter Community Interest Company and a leading voice on diversity and inclusion. Fiona is also a women's enterprise Scotland role model ambassador. Sophie Reid is the chair of the Scottish Youth Parliament, a trustee with YouthLink Scotland and a spokesperson for Girlguiding Society. Tala Jakub is a campaigner, a commentator and an independent consultant. She is co-chair of the First Minister's National Advisory Council on Women and Girls and a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. Please join me in welcoming our panel. Thank you. I would also like to welcome our BSL interpreters for today's session, Sharna Dixon and Heather Graham. Thank you and welcome. Now there will be an opportunity of course for you all to put questions and views to the panel throughout this event, but if I may I'd like to start by asking and I'll put this to all members of the panel and we'll start with yourself Fiona and move this way. Can I ask what difference you think it makes having women in the political room making decisions and policy? It's funny you start with that question because we had a discussion with my husband who sat right there as we were coming today. I said to him, do you know what, it does make a difference. There's a reason as to why. Just bear with me here, indulge myself. I gave birth to boys and girls. I know the pain of both men and women, right? And he said, excuse me, I was part of it. I think it makes a difference because we make half the population here in Scotland. We have the lived and learned experience of how we live here in Scotland and what we do and the way we do things here. If we are not in the room, how could we possibly represent the views and the perspective of half the population? So it does make a difference because it ensures that we are not encoding the biases that we have within ourselves in the policies that we are developing. It also matters that we have women of different backgrounds and different ethnicities. Obviously as a black woman I've got to say it's important that we think about all women from different perspectives, from different areas, from different backgrounds so that we are sure that we are working to enshrine what we need changed, what we need done in a way that includes everybody in a meaningful and relevant way, which I don't think is happening when we're not in the room. Thank you Fiona, Sophie. I think that the changes within the political system ripple out into wider society and I think we see large problems when women are left out of policy making. I think a really prominent area and the discussion around women's safety is urban policy. You see urban areas designed for and by men and that's caused use problems even in the smallest of not having enough street lighting in areas. So we see the real life problems that happen when women are left out. I think one of SIP's key values is diversity and I'm really proud to be a female chair of the organisation and we have a female vice chair as well and our gender split is quite equal with 50% female, 45% male and 5% non-binary and gender fluids and I think that that makes us able to truly represent everyone across Scotland and ensure that everyone's voices are included. Thank you Sophie, tell that. Obviously I agree with my panel, I think you're going to see quite a lot of that on this panel so if you're looking for back and forth it might not happen quite in the same way. I think the question is about having women in positions of power does change the culture that occupies that space of power but one of the things that's really important that I like to point out as much as possible is I want to see women in positions of power because it reflects barriers and sexism, misogyny that exists in society that means that they don't get positions of power but I don't only want to see women in power, I want to see women who are feminist, anti-racist with an intersectional perspective in positions of power and what we tend to see and research has told us this time and again is that there's two things that happen as a consequence of women being in power there is a ripple effect across society like you've said so we see more women who are likely to come forward to be part of political systems both locally at the community level within the public sector more widely so there is a representation effect that it has but there's a second effect about which issues are on the table to discuss so I firmly believe if we had had fair representation of women for generations childcare would be considered an economic core issue, caring and unpaid care would be considered a core economic issue rather than this thing that happens on the side of the economy these issues that disproportionately women are experiencing would more likely be at the forefront of politics and what we see is when there are more women there there's more likely to have those experiences and those conversations around positive policy change happening but that happens both with women there but women who have the interests of other women in politics as well Thank you and Meryl Yeah, unsurprisingly echo what my fellow panellist has said and I think it points to the potential for women that they can and I say can and not will because I think that's a complex relationship that depends on the institutions they're in, the parties they're in, whether they're new, whether they're experienced politicians etc but that they can have impacts on or rather more gender balanced parliaments can have impacts on ways of working and how you do politics outcomes in terms of policy but also just to pick up what Tyler has just said around political interest and engagement with politics more broadly not only in terms of women's political engagement and feeling more engaged with politics but actually there's research that suggests that both men and women have more positive views for example of democracy when you have more gender balanced parliaments so I think that it's actually tied up with not only questions about political inclusion but also about representation and democracy more broadly and those questions are really important right now when democratic principles and institutions are under threat in many parts of the world A recent report you may be well aware of it produced by the Global Institute for Women's Leadership identified that political parties themselves were one of the biggest barriers to women standing for election I'd be interested to learn what changes you'd like to see in our political parties to encourage more women and a more diverse range of women into politics and I'll go to Sophie first I think that's a really important step is the culture within political parties themselves I'm welcoming women into possessions I think we've seen moves to have 50-50 candidates on the electoral register and I think that's a really great step forward but I don't think we've seen that across the boards and I think there's a lot more work to be done ISYP is a politically impartial organisation and we work with all types of parties and it's really important to get women's views from across the spectrum to make sure that they are totally represented but yeah I think that the culture that needs quite a swift change within all political parties Tella, do you refuse? So political parties are a problem I'm just going to be completely honest political parties are a problem and there are problems in lots of different ways If you see women as a numbers game what you will have is a revolving door of women participating experiencing horrible cultures and leaving what you need to do is create cultures where women want to participate stay and progress so the issue isn't so I say this as somebody's part of women 50-50 but we advocate not just for women to be on the ballot paper but for women to be in winnable seats it doesn't matter if you're just saying that there's a women here so we've ticked the box where are they in the winnable seats where are they when they get decision making positions within political parties or are they sidelined whilst the men have their meetings in the kind of old boys club type ways that continues to this day so political parties have understood that there is scrutiny on the numbers around election time but what they haven't understood is what are you doing to support and empower women and create cultures where they are safe to participate outside of election time that's when you see a political party take things seriously and what I need them, the question was what they need to change I have many ideas political parties have been written to about all of these ideas multiple times but a few things one, reporting mechanisms of sexual harassment, sexism, misogyny, bigotry, abuse, transphobia needs to be written and then taken seriously not a process where you don't feel that things are transparent are safe for you to participate or that the issue won't be acted on so that's one, reporting needs to be dealt with when it comes to experiences that women have within parties two, you have to invest in women not just two months before elections because you realise you need them on the ballot paper but throughout your existence as a political party and the third thing they can do is start considering the issue around financial contribution when you are participating in political parties and you want to run as a candidate it takes a fair amount of money to actually be a candidate and if you are a woman, women are more likely to be in low-paid precarious work and doing unpaid care how do those things work when you have to put in time and a lot of money to be a candidate so what are we doing to be able to invest in women to be candidates in the first place Maryl, on political parties Yeah, I think there's a lot to say here I think the main thing to say is just to emphasise that particularly where we are in the UK and in most countries in the world it's not just a case that you can stand up one day and say I want to run for office, you have to be selected by a party so they're the key gatekeepers and what parties will often tell you if they have low numbers of women is look they're just not enough women out there but then you find when they're required to select women through measures like gender quotas for example that they manage to find them so I think there's things about it's about flipping the focus to parties this is where change needs to happen it's not a matter of women fixing politics it's a matter of parties changing their cultures as others have said I think one of the biggest and most successful measures to increase numbers of women's representation is gender quotas but as others have highlighted those need to be measures with teeth that actually select women and diverse women for winnable seats but alongside that are all the kind of things and quotas can have an impact on culture because once you start to change presence and you change the kinds of people you're getting into politics that can also have an effect in terms of your ways of working but also things around opening up the criteria the application forms what do you think a good candidate is and how do those kind of criteria map onto particular kinds of professional people with unbroken work records which map onto particular people but also things like how do you organise your activities and this gets to Talbot's point about resources if everything is happening late at night and it requires you to shell out a lot of money and you don't have childcare and those kinds of things and it prioritises a kind of speechifying kind of model of politics who are you excluding so it's about thinking of those things in the round and quotas is a really important mechanism but situated within a wider reform strategy Thank you and Fiona what changes would you like to see from our political parties to encourage more women more diverse women into politics First of all I think we've been sold a lie it doesn't have to be about political parties increasingly what we see and what we know is that being in a political party requires you to tread a political line actually the change that I'd like to see is for us to be an ethics driven society where we value those that come with ethics and values that we believe in increasingly what we know now is that whoever says what is politically right or what who treads the line wins we need to change that thinking it's not about who thinks they can lead wins it should be who has the representation the ability to represent our values our ethics what we believe in what we believe to be core to society what does humanity really mean to us and I think we need to change that thinking in every era there is a change in thinking if the pandemic hasn't changed us then we've not learned anything we need to start thinking about our ethics we need to start thinking about who we want to represent us because they have the values that we believe in they have the thinking that we believe in and we need to stop putting leaders into roles just because they won and start putting them into roles because they believe in what we believe in and we believe in what they believe in because they can represent us in a way that is value-based Thank you and I think following on from that there are concerns that the political culture what people see the tones of debates social media discussions can be very off-puting they can seem hostile aggressive it can be an environment where people are looking at the best if ethics if I might put it like that so many women speak about the microaggressions if you like that they face as they make their political journey as they try to take part as fully as they might wish I'd be interested in your views on how these women should deal with this kind of behaviour or even blatant direct discrimination that they might face do you think they should do that in the moment it occurs? how do you think they should tackle that issue? because obviously we are here to discuss the fact that we don't have representation we don't have a fully representative parliament at the moment we were all very thrilled that it was 45% but what does that say at the moment? we have 45% women it's never been so good but we shouldn't be jumping for joy at that we should be using it as an absolute it's an achievement here we should do something too so as we push for this parliament that truly reflects the people of Scotland how do we better empower people to deal with these aggressions and go to TALAP first? I think if we talk about it in terms of how do women better deal with it we again put the onus on women to deal with the discrimination that they face and much rather the focus was on perpetrators and the social media platform owners that have abdicated themselves of responsibility now social media is some ways wonderful women 50-50 wouldn't exist with attraction it has been given if it wasn't for Twitter but at the same time Twitter is a horrifying experience many many times I have been at the receiving end of racism Islamophobia and misogyny and a mix of all those things at the same time when I have deigned to have an opinion women already are opting themselves in those spaces or they are protecting themselves by putting their comments on private mode or they are already restricting themselves in a platform that is meant to be public and free for use the onus has to be on reporting mechanisms that are fit for purpose but on social media platforms that have some kind of global accountability for how they exist right now not to get into too much detail of it all but the way in which it has been created are the algorithms favour toxic debate they favour retweets they favour what is hostile conversations that are doing lots of back and forth so they amplify the disagreement and that's not a safe space for most people to participate in and also Twitter is where nuance goes to die so that also makes it quite a difficult place to debate in when it comes to the experiences on social media there have been numerous reports on this and we see this all the time women time and time again say when I put my opinion out there I get so much flack for it that I don't think I want to really participate in politics and social media performance has become such an intrinsic part of politics despite the majority of what was actually not being on Twitter and it being an echo chamber but it's become a real performance but what we do know is women disproportionately get disproportionately high levels of misogynistic abuse and violent abuse on social media and if you are a woman of colour it's even higher so in a case work that was done with research done by Amnesty UK they assessed the 2015 general election and they assessed how women MPs were treated on social media Diane Abbott as a black woman the first black woman in Westminster received so much abuse that she skewed the results and she had to be taken out of the research analysis and given two pages of analysis of her own because she got so much more abuse than the average women who was participating so it's an issue of the intersection of racism and misogyny there but the issue is with political parties taking it seriously in social media platforms being taken to task for and accountability created Thank you, Talot I'll go to Sophie next we're seeing an incredible array of talent and young women coming forward and everything from our climate activists and we're really becoming part and parcel of all the debates really making progress but is there anything that you think we could be doing to better encourage that too? I think that something I've found really important going through as a young woman in politics is the support networks that you build I think that's something that's kept me going a lot I think within SIP we've had groups we use the phrase in the jar so if you say something like finishing a sentence with does that make sense or doubting yourself because you're a young woman in that space we'll say in the jar and that's a check on each other that we aren't doubting each other in that space but I also think that the onus shouldn't be on women to encourage each other the discussions that we were having earlier about the systematic change that needs to happen I think that is the key to encouraging young women to go into politics I think on social media myself I've experienced abuse when I was 15 I wrote an article on the 16 days of activism for sexual harassment and abuse of women or violence against women for a national newspaper and there was a photo included of me wearing a dress and there was comments from men as a 15 year old girl commenting on the length of my dress and making sexual comments about it I think it's such a difficult thing to deal with and there isn't anything that you can do in that moment and I think the points about how to deal with social media are so valid because there isn't anything an individual can change about that and we need systematic change in accountability from social media companies Thank you, Merrill I agree with all the points raised and I think also it's also a case where political institutions have some responsibility because part of the reason women may opt out of running for candidacy is not just what might happen to them in the campaigning but what it might be like when they get there right and whether it's compatible I'm just going to keep going whether it's compatible with them this is what happens when clothes don't have pockets this is a... I'm just going to say so it's also about institutional reform and it's about thinking whether our political institutions are fit for purpose because there are also questions about what institutions do in terms of security and policies around these kinds of things et cetera that's really important to the overall question around violence against women in politics which has a spectrum of what that form that takes but I think also some of the kind of disengagement that women are participating in sometimes gets read as women don't have as much interest as politics there was a study that women don't use hashtags you know like your hashtag for first full politics or hashtag for elections or things like that they don't use them as much as men on Twitter and the first read of that was well women aren't as politically interested as men but actually it was because if you use a public hashtag you open yourself up to quite a lot of barrage of sexist, racist and other abuse so there's a question there about how we conceptualize politics and where politics is happening and that women are sometimes finding different spaces ways of organizing that and whether social media is a productive space to be engaging with politics Fiona would you like to comment on that? I completely agree with the systemic change we need to focus on the systems and the processes there is a saying and we will I think we will identify with this but there is a saying that no matter how beautiful a coffin is no one will be attracted to get into it now if our systems look like death no one is going to want to get into it so we need to be thinking about how we make them life giving how we create spaces that are life giving that when I get into that space I feel safe, I feel secure and so we can I could say here are the things that you could do and you could protect yourself look out for your well-being bring women around you have people that support you all those things I could say but if you have all those things and you're going into a coffin it's a whole different ballgame so we really need to focus on the systems the processes, what is there in place what will make women feel safe how do we create those safe spaces how do we ensure that the reporting systems do not victimize the people I think that should be the focus I think I'm learning a lot today I think there are phrases that we're sharing today that will come up again and for very good reason I'm going to go out to you and ask if there's anything that you would like to put to our panellists at this point any questions or comments Yes, please to juggle finances care of children and parents and supporting partners, male partners perhaps and a third of suffered abuse so there's a lack of confidence there very often and there's bullying often from older women not done just from men and how can we empower empower women support the safe spaces to recognize this it's getting harder because women are the ones who are feeding and nurturing often on their own Thank you for that point, would you like to respond Meryl? I think it's a really broad point and it's about thinking about our pathways into politics have tended to reflect particular backgrounds for both women and men in terms of professionalized backgrounds educational backgrounds income brackets so it's really thinking about that stage before you're selected as a candidate when people are tapping people on the shoulder or when you're getting people to think about standing is that really crucial stage is when people move from thinking about standing for politics to standing and that's where I think both parties but also groups can meaningfully invest in terms of both capacity building like you're talking about but also financial support in terms of the campaigning et cetera required but it really does require rethinking what we think a candidate is and what we think a politician is which have been made in a particular mould to reflect a particular kind of privileged background and there are also things I think to explore that have been suggested in other reports around for example job sharing between politicians and things like that there's a lot of stuff that we have done in the employment world that politics has been kind of insulated from but I think actually we could learn more to think about politics as a job and to think about then how we create diverse pathways into those jobs I think that point about the particular mould is very pertinent because I believe some 75% of parliamentarians across the globe are men so there's certainly work to do there now there was another hand up would you please hi thank you very much for the discussion I came a little bit late so I was trying to catch up with everybody I love the way you guys spoke your points and you're quite practical about things and you did touch on a few different topics so I'll try to keep my train of thought and ask my question directly so first of all I love the idea that you say that the responsibility should not just be on women having to deal with the situations but I wanted to ask from you the first question would be in your parties do you have anything in place like a training or like programs, innovations programs because when you create spaces for women ideally you want them to be equipped so that they could get into that position it's not just about numbers but being sure that the person would be able to fully take their role and do what they're going to do and secondly the next question I was going to ask is in your positions what what influence are you going to make moving forward because we've had the problems we know that it's the systematic problems, the individual problems but the question is I really would love to know is what influence are you going to make moving forward it's nice to know that we've got 45% of women in parliament but the question is what are those 45% of women going to do to ensure that they are going to be changes within the ways of working within the parliament itself and I know it's a process but we need to start somewhere okay thank you I'm going to put that question to Talat and you can pick up too on the first question there about the challenges that women face anyway on a day to day basis okay so I'll try and do your questions justice so when we are so the pandemic over the COVID-19 women were disproportionately more likely to do more unpaid work women are more likely to be unpaid carers we have reached a million unpaid carers in Scotland a number we weren't meant to reach until 2030 as a consequence of the pandemic now the reason I put this information out there is to be able to show the extent of care work that is still disproportionately falling on the shoulders of women women are more likely to be stuck caught in undervalued low paid work we see them more represented in those spaces we can do things to be able to boost the confidence of women but the system is not interested in a confident woman so it's almost like lean in theory which is bad which is putting the onus on women doing the work to be there but if you're not interested in a woman leaning in you're going to push her back out again the system isn't working for you so we have spaces like Elector who do development and some of those safe spaces for women that's what they exist for that's brilliant and that's necessary that has to be matched by system change happening by gatekeepers and those in positions of power people who are leading political parties people who are making economic decisions about the value of care and paid work those two things have to happen at the same time for us to meet in the middle and create transformative change so that there's both those things happening thank you the question that you asked about what are political parties doing so we don't represent any political parties but women 50-50 asks this quite often of all political parties what are you doing almost all of them have some kind of training programme almost all of them have a women's network my question is how much power does the women's network have within the party how much resource and investment does the women's network have within the party and do you do the training two months before you need a candidate or are you doing training development support and engagement throughout the time of your existence so there's that the second question you asked was about influence we have do you know a little while ago I had to do this thing with school children and they were between the ages of six and eight and they asked me questions about how long have you been doing this how much do you get paid because you've got no filter so they just asked me everything and one of the questions is do you actually think you've made any change and after a short existential crisis I replied to them but it's much the same as the question you're asking what influence do we have we're using the influence that we have which is about holding to account and publicly asking questions for transparency of political parties women 50-50 advocates for legislated candidate quotas so we push for political parties to sign up to that four out of five political parties have we're also pushing for changes at local council level because a vast majority of local councils do not have have a in place maternity policy for women councillors who need to take maternity leave or partners and family leave so there are practical things that we are trying to influence as best we can I know Merrill is keen to come in at this point Can I just say as a follow up to that and why women 50s advocating for legislative candidate quotas is because underneath that 45% figure that you saw and that we talked about earlier is that actually there's a lot of variation across parties so not every party is close to that threshold and when you have an overall number that's contingent on how different parties are doing things that means you could go up or you could go way down and that's why legislative candidate quotas are so important because those would require if put in place all parties to nominate and select a certain number of women and if they had teeth they would also require them to select them for winnable seats right and there would be sanctions for non-compliance so that's also in terms of the longer term aims why that's so important Sophie I think of those points are really important I think within SYP the board of myself has our key priority for our term is diversity and inclusion and as part of that we're working on two different programs so an anti-racist action plan and a women's empowerment program to help support and develop young women within our organisation to grow their confidence and skills I have had so many wonderful opportunities for my involvement and I've been able to develop my confidence and skills and so we're trying to make that a systematic thing that all women involved can take part in and I think that's really important to grow and develop young women and yeah I think the influence question is really important I'd like to say that I think I'm influenced just to change even internally within our organisation by having two women at the top of the organisation I think that it leaves a lot of room for us to work on lots of different important things to us for example myself and Molly who's our vice chair worked a lot on sexual harassment policies that we have within our organisation last term and creating easy access documents to explain how anyone can report a harassment or assault that they face to us and I think these changes are really important even just internally within our organisation Fiona, your comments on both of the questions challenges put to the panel yeah so as an organisation radiant and brighter we were formed directly out of our own lived experience of being excluded from the systems and from the policies and everything really were completely excluded and not allowed to work due to immigration controls for a period of five years and when everything we do is really to bring about change when we started we thought we need to fix ourselves to fit within the system and we completely believed that and we thought we are the problem we need to think about how we do things we need to change our ways we need to be educated and we did all that and ten years later I'm still here and I think what we know for sure is that there is a need for system change but what we also know now is that there needs to be we need to be more system aware because when we are not system aware going back to the fast question as well when we are not system aware we ourselves become the enemies of each other because when the systems beat you and butter you and throw you about you find yourselves in a position where you are fighting each other again one of those sayings when the elephants fight the grass suffers so we end up getting carried away in a system which has been designed to keep us in those positions that are difficult challenging and at the bottom and so our work at Radiant and Brighter includes challenging the systems and processes and also educating ourselves on the systems and on our own understanding of ourselves so the more we become self aware and the more we become system aware the more we are able to challenge in a way that is meaningful, educational and in a way that the system does not come back on us against ourselves okay thank you there's a hand there asking my question I would like to say how nice it is to see a woman presiding officer my question is this given that misogyny and chaubynism are terribly embedded is there actually something in this and I am thinking of the work of the goodness and the poor for example the goodness and the good is there something surely in the curriculum and in the fact that modern studies is not taught in all schools that we are not adequately from the outset preparing women for their role and when I say in public life I don't mean necessarily by being presiding officer but having a public role and a visibility and a status and a value in their community whether that's a hamlet a village, a town or a city a city we've surely got to get this going from the cradle I think I'll pass that one to Meryl in the first instance given your your daily work yeah I mean I think is a really important point and it's about there's been some interesting studies for example in the US that look at school students and look at how early these ideas about whether or not you might want to participate in politics whether that's running for office or as you say public life more broadly how early those gender differences set in in terms of socialization and other things so I think your point about thinking about the pipeline and thinking about that much earlier and then in terms of what the curriculum is and I'm thinking about things when was it several years ago when they tried to remove feminism things like that right? so there are things both about what's the content of teaching but also the visibility of prominent role models etc talking about careers so I think it's really important it's important to think about the pathway and at the moments in which particular groups or intersectional identities might decide this is not for me actually maybe much earlier than we kind of think they are so it's important to think about the kind of pipeline in the round I think that's really important I can see that people all want to answer this question I'll go back to Fiona then to Sophie and Talat the question you ask is very pertinent because we know that when children go to school they get taught by women a lot of the times and so we see that the children see a woman in a position of authority and in a position of power but what happens along the way is the question we need to ask why does that not translate into a society that sees women with the value that we should and I think what we need to be thinking through is not only do the young women need to be educated through their experiences at home they need to be educated in the school environment within the classroom and outside of the classroom and some of the things that we are teaching we are not focusing and that's where as a society we need to start changing what are we teaching where are we so focused and fixated on some theories that do not translate into the world that we live in I come from a culture where we were taught to just go to school and study there is no critical thinking until you grow up you come out of university and you still haven't had any critical awareness of the world that you live in and so we need to be educating ourselves and educating our young people our young women throughout school, throughout the education system we need to be talking about the things that matter the importance of valuing women, of appreciating women and the importance of knowing that we are human beings that can be part of the society that we live in and contribute equitably regardless of the gender Sophie I think education is quite a complex topic I left school a year ago I think it must have been and I think there is a lot of things that come into play about young people's interests and different topics whether you like your teacher whether lessons are engaged and I think a lot of that comes into play so there's a lot of factors but I also think it's the importance that the school system places on different topics so obviously we all know maths and English at the centre but I think that comes down a lot to those who are in senior management within schools I've lost my train of thought there but yeah I think that there's something to think about as well and the kind of curriculum and what has been taught and if it's up to date or not on the issues that young people are finding important so for example climate change that's a great example that could be used within modern studies but it's whether teachers are including that or not so I think that yeah I think the curriculum needs to stay up to date to young people's interests to make sure that they are engaged with learning about politics and talent So there's a couple of things in here about how we do schooling within Scotland the curriculum for excellence was meant to be the space where young people were given a more well-rounded education there were things about citizenship and social participation and community within it but when teachers are so stretched and when classrooms are it's one teacher to 30, 35 pupils how much of that space to do anything other than the kind of core things that are taking up taking the box in your exams do you actually have capacity and space for we tend to do a lot of add-in things in schools like we're going to talk about climate change we're going to talk about physical education we're going to talk about politics we're going to talk about all of these different enterprise but the school curriculum needs space and resources to be able to do that well so I think there's about how we invest in education and what is prioritised within education and I think that links to the attainment gap for example in all of this the second point is whilst we do tend to focus a lot on education I think that there's space for that given the fact that I think there was a report recently I don't remember the details of it but expressing how many young women have experienced sexual harassment in the playground and in their classrooms so there is a response as to how we deal with young men and boys that perpetuate that and how girls are unable to fight against it so there's that issue within schools but it can't all be directed at schools because then we're waiting for generational change it has to meet somewhere in the middle someone can leave school but then if they're given the same messages of objectification of misogyny if social media that they participate in still allows the objectification of misogyny and racism to exist actually they will grow into the same issue that we have now so there has to be a multi-intervention approach across the lifespan Any more questions? I'll take on the third row and then at the front yeah thank you I think there are I have two questions one is when we say elector we need the electorate the people who have the ballot papers which means all of them need to think about her I think if this is the sample we have around 10% of I really thank and the men who have come here with an interest to elect her we need to create an interest in the public for electing her and strengthen the women power empower her give confidence to her at the same time we need to give the idea to the public that we need equal percentage of women on the power of authority and so on and my second question is what are we going to do for that that is one question the second one is is the glass ceiling in the hierarchy of politics is very strong stronger than what we have in the employment sector or whatever where rising in the various levels of power is it going to is it very difficult to crack that glass ceiling because we see several women showing interest raising their voice showing to interest in the politics but they never get to enter into it once they get once they enter they stop at the first level or at the second level not reach at the different levels I mean at least I see in several governments we see we see a woman minister I mean at least in our different countries women is given a social welfare now we have a finance minister in India of course but how many of them rise to that level is another thing why is that glass ceiling very very very hard to crack okay thank you so those questions the focus on elect her focus on her and how do we convince more people that this matters and also the glass ceiling I'll go to tell that in the first instance sure so you're quite right if we talk amongst ourselves or we talk to people who understand it and are on site how are we going to create any kind of social change and we do need to create more of a public narrative around this and we do need to tackle the kind of the myths particularly around quotas the idea that quotas are giving an unfair advantage to women they're levelling a playing field that is unfair they promote merit that's the point there's this myth that we exist in a meritocracy and those people who have the skills are the ones that get to the top but no it's who has opportunity in networks financial privilege etc we do need a wider conversation in polling about would you like to see a more representative parliament would you like to see people from working class backgrounds from communities of colour disabled people women in politics the general polling is yes we think that's a good idea where we don't see that change with those people who are the gatekeepers what we're seeing is a lot of pushback often called any push for progress dismissed as being woke which by the way means pursuing social justice so I'm not sure why that's dismissed but the point is is that actually progress is dismissed and othered by those who stand to lose out if it actually became a meritocracy so we've got to the people that are needed in the room that we need to get on side and we need to hold questions and accountability are gatekeepers who have had more of the slice of the pie than they should have the whole time the question that you asked is about the glass ceiling you're absolutely right when women are in positions what tends to happen is that you will see they are less likely to get positions that have budgets associated with them so they're not the ones that are in charge of the money they're often given stereotypical roles when there are in politics and again that is about gatekeeping because money is power money is decision making money is influence so it's the same issue about who gate keeps and how we tackle their gatekeeping Sophie would you like to respond I think to follow on that point although we do see women in positions of power that's not ingrained within the system I think that's the key point although we do have a female First Minister and have had female leaders of parties are we seeing that within the system and I don't think that's the case I think a lot of work needs to be done on that and I think it goes back to everything that we've been saying about change in the system that's the key problem that we're seeing there is a willingness for progress but it's not being reflected by those who can actually make change or make progress Fiona would you like to comment particularly in your own work on that glass ceiling question the glass ceiling for the black woman is a concrete ceiling you don't even see what's there and I think there's several things we've said here around that we need to work with but two things that I will say the first is around the culture that we have here in Scotland I'm trying hard not to use father's sayings but I can't hold back and so a roaring lion does not mean just because it's roaring it will catch game so a roaring lion will only catch game if it acts and I think we talk a lot about what we intend to do we have so many policies and recommendations and we have all these fantastic strategic documents they speak they do not act they remain intentions on paper and so we need us here in Scotland and all the agencies to act on what we are saying we do not need any more recommendations on top of recommendations when we have ones that we've not acted upon so we need to see some action and consequently the second thing is we need to hold account those that have said they will act because when we stop the behavior of uploading what I am going to do and challenging me to what I said I'm going to do then we will see some action so we need to hold account when we say we are going to act have we acted and why have we not acted if we haven't and if we have what we learn from it so it has to be that we need to start thinking around the way we are proactive in what we say we are going to do and be held account to every word that we say so that we can break that glass ceiling so that we can start to see more progress otherwise we are continually clapping our hands because they said they are going to do because we said we are going to do but actually nothing is happening and if it is, it is very little compared to what was said is going to be done Mary, would you like to comment? Yeah, I think and many of the points come back to both the points about needing to have multiple strategies or having a wider range of strategies strategies that are around attitude change education as you mentioned things around performing party culture and institutional culture together, I think what we have to be cautious of is assuming that once we get to a certain progress will be straightforward and we get a lot of these kind of edicts it will take 65 years for women to be 50-50, you know, right kind of thing but that assumes progress is straightforward and actually the story of our political institutions precisely because these norms are hardwired into them and they were created by particular groups for particular groups is actually one of backlash resistance so often times what you'll see and I think some of the sexual harassment stories for example coming out of Westminster and others are an example of backlash resistance to progress and so that in part comes to your second question about why not more women at the top because in the Scandinavian institutions they talked a lot about when those high numbers of women got in in the Scandinavian countries kind of power moved to other places, right and there's a really interesting example of a really great study of US state legislatures where influx of women came in and they got positional power in the committees and what men did is they talked more right, so the women were there and they were in positional power but men dominated the conversation they actually measured, right how many did they talk so I think it's also about thinking about again this cycle this pathway and this multi-prong reform strategy because it's not just about getting women in but it's about supporting them when they're in there which then also has a cyclical effect on who wants to go into politics going back to our earlier point so that's kind of where I see these points as coming together on that point I think points have been made by our panellists about the need to look at outcomes what do people say they're going to do but what do they actually do one of the things that Parliament is doing at the moment is undertaking an audit which seeks to better understand what the barriers to equal representation in the Parliament are and as part of that work we've actually been looking at who's making contributions on which subject some of it perhaps isn't as surprising as you might like it to be but very interestingly for the first time we've been looking at interventions who makes them who takes them and I think one of the figures that have come back that have been quite striking is that both men and women in the chamber are more likely to take interventions from men and interventions from women are refused more frequently but also that our male politicians are making I think 63% of the interventions so there's a marked difference there and it's really important to me to make sure that everyone has optimal opportunity to represent their constituents as fully as they're able in the chamber to make sure that democracy is working and it's clear I've had a long interest in this session I'm not a party representative but previously I just think it's really important that we continue to have these discussions until we're at a situation where it's wholly normalised and the outcome is clear for everyone to see we have in this last session finally we have two women of colour in the Parliament but that's taken over 20 years our first permanent wheelchair user in the Parliament the Parliament is more diverse this session and I think it would be a real backward step if we lost that momentum so I think these discussions are very key you've had your hand up for some time at the front and we'll come back out to get as many questions in as possible I'm really lucky that I want to go into politics I'm really lucky that I've had the inspiration sorry I wasn't holding the microphone close enough but I'm really lucky that I've had women in Parliament to look up to and I didn't even know that politics was an option until I was 18 years old about to go into university and even though when I'm in university I have a lot of female students who are studying alongside me but I never see that represented in politics so it's like more the transition between 18 to graduating more women within that age I guess it goes back to all the questions but like how would you specifically inspire or talk to those women saying well yes research is important but you do have an option in politics Sophie would you like to pick up on that I think I've just finished my first year at university studying politics and sociology and I would echo that you do see a lot of women in those rooms but it isn't bridging the gap into the real world and I think it's a really interesting point to bring up I think that we are seeing a lot more role models for women but I personally don't want to go into politics at the moment because of the toxicity especially with party politics and I think that's probably a case for a lot of women I'm really interested in the subject and I'm really interested in social issues but actually going into the role an elected office is quite a daunting thought and I'm sure that echoes with a lot of young women and yeah I think that a lot of what we talked about needs to happen before it is a safe environment that young women want to go into and I think that's probably one of the main problems why we're not seeing the transition of the amount of women who are interested actually taking up our standing for elections Thank you, I'm aware there are a few hands going up so I'm going to try and get in more questions can we go to the back row there first, thank you Hi, I arrived slightly late so this question may have been asked already but it was just to ask I think from personal experience I think young people who want to go into opposite or young women who want to go into a position of power normally have someone to look up to or someone maybe in their family who inspires them so it's more a personal question to the panel who has inspired you to go into your position of power as a female and also how do you think we can implement that so every young woman has that Thank you, I think we'll start with Fiona and work back this way Thank you I think the aspect of role models is really key we talk about it and sometimes you feel like it's talked about a lot but for me it's a thought it's the thinking around role models not necessarily on the outside role models on the inside so I fell into this I thought because I got into a situation that pushed me to think about change but there are certain things that happened on the way that I realized said something to me first of all when we came to Scotland with my family 15 years ago and I'd lived in London nearly 10 years already when we came to Scotland I thought that being that I needed to work hard to integrate into the society to work hard to assimilate, to be part of the community and then I made fantastic and I need to say white women and white people that welcomed us and said why are you in this situation why are you not allowed to work we don't understand and they educated me on understanding that the system was failing me but I didn't know that so having people around me and women around me and in my actual role I have women that have sponsored me, that have mentored me that have spoken for me in the rooms where I have not been allowed as a black woman but the influence for me to be in a position and I am in some ways privileged because I didn't know that women are not allowed so you can't speak in certain areas because I was brought up by a single mother we never had dad in the house from when I was little she never remarried she never met anybody I mean when she speaks everybody shuts up so even now I mean she'll speak and we'll all shut up regardless whether a man or a woman so subconsciously I must have taken that in because I thought the only person I was supposed to speak back to was my mum everybody else I'm not necessarily afraid and maybe cautious because I know the consequences but I was never quite that afraid and then there's something somebody else asked about speaking to the wider audience I am privileged to have a husband that actually will go so far to make sure that I am supported I don't underestimate that but I think that we need that encouragement we need those role models we need to know I subconsciously knew that it's okay for me to speak and it's okay for me to challenge and I am privileged that way but I think we need to pass that on so passing it on to my daughter has been more challenging because she's a black girl in a school where she's experienced racism but we need to continue that domino effect and try and encourage that support mechanism Sophie? I think a lot of my role models are the young women that I'm surrounded with my role at SOIP as chair of a charity is a really unique one you don't meet a lot of 19 year old girls who are also chairs of charities it's normally slightly older men and white but yeah so I think that's really interesting and a possession to take and someone who's really inspired me is Molly who's my vice chair she is an incredible speaker and she is continuously advocating for the voices of young women and I really look up to her and her abilities and skills to speak on such important issues and I also think someone who came before me to Sookie was a previous SOIP chair and I really look up to her and the work that I do now in the role and I think she was a perfect example of what you should make the role into and yes so those are just two young women who are also in my life who have inspired me Thank you Talat So it's interesting you know you talked about having somebody else in the family who maybe is interested in politics I am my parents are migrants here from Pakistan and I'm second generation here so we weren't their second language is English we weren't a family were growing up you know it was the Sunday newspapers and coffee and it wasn't it wasn't a politics wasn't conversational politics was being lived politics was being lived through the experiences of poverty politics was being lived through the experiences of racism through inequality and so those conversations were had so I think the way we create role modelling is actually we need to expand what the term politics is so we need to start talking about it not in a what's happening in the chamber of the Scottish Parliament what's happening in our lives and what are the consequences of politics what's politics within our communities what's politics within our streets in our neighbourhoods in our green spaces I think if we can make our own politics become synonymous with our everyday lives because it is all of these decisions having a drip drip effect to everything happening in our lives the transport that you've got to get here the experience you're going to have when you leave here the pay that you take home at the end of the month all of these are political consequences and decisions so rather than finding somebody else who is in the political arena to be a role model we all need to be role models in reclaiming what politics is Meryl I think Tal is really nice they brought the two questions together which is that we are on this panel and we tend to focus a lot on formal political institutions but that actually politics is more encompassing and that politics is richer if people bring those experiences from small P politics to big P politics it walks of life and I think there's a lot of work about why do people want to stand for office and men are more likely to cite power and recognition and women are more likely to cite things around collective goals or cooperation that doesn't mean I'm making essentialist arguments about who wants what but also women are more likely to say that their kind of influences come through conversations with family members and others rather than for example a political person tapping them on the shoulder in terms of my own career I can't say that I'm in any kind of position of power I think that's probably a misreading of my relative influence but my I study politics at an undergraduate institution in the United States where there were no classes on women in politics at all and I did a semester abroad as a young fresh phrase student in 2002 as an intern in the first term of the Scottish Parliament and I needed a project to work on and the MSP I was assigned to was Linda Fabiani of the SNP, formerly Deputy Presiding Officer and she gave me a big folder with all of the documents of the first 50-50 campaign for the Scottish Parliament and now I research women in Scottish politics so I think there are moments that tip us on to particular paths and I'm grateful for that one I'm going to take yourself there I will come to those who have had an earlier opportunity if at all possible So this is possibly a slightly niche question but to link back to education I go to traditionally all girls school and the kind of philosophy behind that is to make young women more confident statistically women when they're in the classroom or young girls when they're in the classroom perform better away from like the male gaze or male teachers or you know what have you and I think, I mean I'm quite I would say I'm a pretty confident person I think it has worked to a degree but then if you rely on all girls schools in that way you're not actually stopping the problem at its root you're just delaying the problem until like we go into wider society so I'm just wondering what are everybody's thoughts on the role of all girls schools and how they feed into misogyny and also women being ambitious in the workplace OK, thank you and what your reviews are there I mean I don't know much about all girls schools but I think that framing that as a solution is not the answer we're not working on women's behaviour, what needs to change is men's and just segregating isn't going to stop that I think rather than that more needs to be done and schools with all children on bettering boys and men's behaviour I know in our school we had the white ribbon campaign coming and they talked to all the boys in our year on their behaviour and how to change that so I would say although it might help develop skills I think that just delays the problem for later on interestingly I went to an all girls school and it was also one of the best schools in the country in Uganda where I come from and it only came to my attention recently that research around an all girls school but the girls school I went to and I hope my gorgeous old girls won't hear me saying this but I don't feel like it made me confident I think it still comes down to the culture in which we are maybe it did I don't know but I think it still comes down to the culture in which we find ourselves there is there's if anybody's aware of the monkeys experiment where the person that did the experiment brought some monkeys into a cage and put bananas at the top and every time they went for the bananas they splashed water on them and later on they brought in other monkeys that hadn't had that experience and they pulled down the monkeys that the older ones pulled down the new monkeys because they thought they felt there was that thinking within the cage that if you went for the bananas you would be splashed water on so it was a bad experience the reason I bring that is because the culture that we've cultivated will determine what we play out even in a girls school to an extent whilst that might do something it is not going to do much to separate the girls because where I come from we girls are taught to be submissive to not speak up to listen to the men regardless of whether they are speaking rubbish or not and I say that gently just in case my kids people hear me no but seriously we were brought up in a culture where you dare not speak up where you have to be carried in a setting some fantastic things of course you see girls step up to leadership and you have the girl leaders and everything but there is a culture that we need to change that is about thinking not just what we have cultivated which is women have a certain place in life or a certain place in society where we place them and they have to accept that we need to be thinking about how women contribute equitably and the importance and value that women bring to society if we change our culture it does not matter where we do it whether it is just in an old girls school or outside of that it will change and transform the way we behave and yes I take on board the aspect that along the men and everybody else with us because it is not us that perpetuated it is the society that has created that thinking and we are buying into it sometimes without thinking about it if you find a woman who thinks that way they will still behave that way because they have been in a system that thinks that way so we need to change the systems we need to change our culture and we need to change our thinking around who women are they don't know who we are because sometimes we ourselves don't know who we are so we need to know who we are the same way the systems need to know who we are thank you any other questions okay I'm going to take there's a question at the back thank you hi this question might have been answered in part but just before this I was at a discussion on how strong men in politics and how that impacts our democracy and I was wondering what do you say to women but more specifically young women who look to politics right now and they see a world of johnsons and trumps and how do we bring that sort of authentic self to our politics without feeling we need to compete with this sort of idealised strong man that we see in our day to day politics in the UK, in the US and elsewhere and you were obviously having a date the festival of politics Talat would you like to address that one? sure okay so politics doesn't need more strong men it doesn't need and even the idea of the the Trumpian politics the dismissing of expertise very very hierarchical model of politics where it's this man at the top we have actually fallen back into that and that's a consequence of a rise of populism so if we want to talk about strong and healthy democracies we have to talk about the backlash that we're getting towards progress okay we are making I like to console myself by saying this is the last push against social justice from people who are losing their power that's how I like to console myself with everything that's happening so I usually rock back and forth in the fetal position and say it to myself quite often currently but the point is the last thing we need is for more people to model themselves on what is currently there and for women to have to feel like they also have to perform in that way to be politicians we're seeing a little bit of that in certain leadership elections that might be happening I'll stop talking but the fact is there's a game being played here a competition that is looking at traditionalist authoritarian type politicians and the strong men and trying to replicate that it's not what we need healthy democracies need different types of people working in different types of ways and they need to reflect the way that we are working most of our time in our lives which is not in that method so we need to invite people from marginalised backgrounds people with intersecting inequalities young people and women into politics we have to change what we expect of politicians and then what we allow politicians to do when we're there as well so there's an accountability issue and we need to challenge and change what we think of as leadership I'm very conscious of time and I know two members of our audience have had their hands up so I'm going to take one I'll take you both together and put your question to Merrill to see what we can do with time remaining Thank you very much I'm really enjoying the conversation so don't mind my questions my question would be what you just touched on about that if we're going to allow women to shine we need men in the room and also men have to take the responsibility you also spoke about strategies I also wanted to find out from you guys if there are any strategies that you think can help men come on the table and be partakers for allowing women to shine as I know that men may be the barriers in politics for some women yes but I do know that men also need to support women empowerment so do you have any strategies or ideas that you think could help Thank you and forward here too we'll take those two together Thank you, Presiding Officer Mine wasn't a question so much as to say having heard Merrill refer to this question about the proportion of women interrupting men, men, women and so on I thoroughly recommend as a good read and if you don't want to buy it force your own public library to buy it the authority gap by the respected journalist Mary Ann Seacart it's a good read she's done various talks including one of the RSA lots of bits online take a read, take a look Thank you, over to you Merrill Yeah, that's a I think your question also taps into the previous question your question about kind of what can men do but it's also about that we in terms of and this has come up a few times that we tend to focus on women's political underrepresentation flip the question and focus on men's overrepresentation not only in terms of making that the problem but also in terms of interrogating the ways in which that is maintained right and I think then your question one slightly provocative suggestion I'd have which comes from a great gender politics scholar Rainbow Murray is we should stop talking about quotas for women right in terms of parties to select a certain proportion of women we should start talking about quotas for men right Thank you, one clap Someone minute that because it's about reframing the question and it's about making it about quality legitimacy democracy for all and there's some very interesting stuff coming out of Sweden for example in research that shows that when we implement quotas what happens is the quality of male candidates increases because what happens is a lot of they call it the fall of the mediocre man right but that once you have quotas that the quality of candidates overall increases because often times women candidates are more qualified than their counterparts but that also the quality of men increases so I think it's reframing it's going back to those core questions about meritocracy about democracy about representation flipping the question and doing that requires as you say looking at men's overrepresentation not just women's underrepresentation I think I'll maybe come in there when I first got involved in politics which is accidentally in my 30s joined a local campaign with neighbours to try and save a playing field so do not come from a political background had previously only engaged really with electoral politics in that I voted and would never not do that but just found the whole prospect actually pretty terrifying and it's fair to say I've been very well supported along the way by by women and men but the fact of the matter is here we are in 2022 and we just have to look at representation globally and in our own country to see that we need to do far more and we've obviously had a pretty good discussion this afternoon about what some of that might look like I think it's probably fair to say that mentoring and training is not going to get us where we need to be I've taken part in meetings as an elected representative where I think Talat's point earlier about childcare being seen as a women's issue not an economic one is sort of pertinent to to my own experience where I would have a roomful of women who were really upset about the closure of a particular local asset whether it be a nursery or a just something that was very well used but then we'd go into that decision making space and those voices weren't there so I think it's why this is such an important issue and one that we have to keep talking about but I do think it's gaining more attraction I think the days where we would see an all male panel are they're less frequent aren't they there are people now who will not take part in that panel because they understand the importance of diversity so there's change on the way but you know we don't want to be waiting and waiting and waiting and your point about there's very much that's sent to you you can't be what you can't see I think it's very it's obviously the point you're making where are the young people in our political spaces our parliament should be representative of everyone I'm aware that a recent electoral webinar organisers were told by the disabled women present that they need allies and I think it would be useful if we just have a we sort of as we round off our discussion about how we can be better allies for disabled women for women who face prejudice as a result of being from an ethnic minority for those who fear, who face even greater barriers than I might have experienced I think it's fair to say if you'd I often say this, my teachers might say no not at all that's absolute nonsense but I feel like when I was at school if they'd said in the classroom so who's least likely to ever find themselves in the parliament I kind of feel they would have pointed to me and that you know my journey has only been possible as a result of a great amount of support from a great amount of people but that is one thing as the point is being made but we need to make sure these things are absolutely embedded and that it is possible for a representative parliament to become the absolute norm but on that point of how we can be better allies to those who want to get involved I think I'll start with Merrill and work that way and we're probably going to run out of time after that I would say two things which is one always asking the other questions so always asking which women and interrogating the assumptions that we're making about particular things and who's included who's not included and the second would be tying back to our earlier discussion is part of the part of the reason that we don't have equal representation is because it involves people giving up power right to others so I think part of that question also ties into being allies giving space to others giving power to others so Yeah I completely agree I think you know the term privilege tends to get people's backs up but what it means is understanding where you may have experienced this advantage whether it's because of the fact that you are white and you're in a place where you haven't experienced racial prejudice as a consequence of that whether it's because you're a man whether it's because you are not disabled whether it's the fact that you're straight you have to acknowledge your own privileges to be able to understand somebody else's oppressions so part of the work that allyship does is make itself knowledgeable about experience and experiences one of the hardest things that I come across is when I have to explain why something was sexist when I have to explain why something was racist why something was islamophobic to those people who think of themselves as being progressive and understanding and on board so actually if you want to be an ally you have to be educated on the issues as they are faced by those who are minoritised and you have to be willing to put your own privilege on the line by being the person who shouts about it rather than the person who's marginalised always having to be the person that has to put themselves on the line so how much of your power are you willing to share are you going to be how are you going to educate yourself and how are you going to be an active bystander in dealing with it rather than the person who's experienced the discrimination the oppression, the inequality having to be the one who has to shout against it all the time that's allyship for me Thank you Sophie I think saying that you're an ally is not enough it's the actions that count and I think that it's so important to give room to the voices from seldom heard groups with an SYP we're doing a lot of work making sure that they're at the front and centre of consultations and also on the topic of education I think that's really important as well at SYP we've worked with intercultural youth Scotland to run a series of trainings anti-racist trainings for our membership to better understand how to support and advocate for the voices of people of colour but yeah I think a lot of that is making sure that the space is there in any room that you are in for people from seldom heard groups to have to come in and be able to speak for themselves if you want to So three things that I would say and with everybody what everybody has said I think one of the things is just to educate ourselves so educating yourself or educating myself allows me to become more self aware why do I want to do why do I want to be an ally and secondly what does that look like but the second aspect of that is that it allows me not to be a perpetrator of it why because sometimes when we internalise things we don't know or we don't understand or we don't realise what they are and we perpetrate those things we just do those things because that's what we've seen so understanding and being self aware is key the last thing that I would say on the issue of allyship is we must understand it and understand ourselves and be self aware because the danger is that we start talking about allyship and in fact what we are saying is that those that are not marginalised validate those that are marginalised so whilst it's really important for somebody to speak about antiracism when he spoke about antiracism it was quite powerful because first of all you're young I'm older so you're young and you'd represent for me what we need to be seeing in society but what I have also heard is from my fellow black people saying we don't need to speak about antiracism because it is a negative term because they've internalised that and so being self aware will change how we do things but it ensures that the white person for example does not validate my point that I don't get not hard because they have to hear the white person that the disabled person doesn't get not hard until the me who is not disabled cannot speak for them so we have to understand what is allyship and what is it not and where are we going with it Thank you I think at that point we have to very very quickly I'm pretending I can't see the people at the back just carry on Can I just say to parents and grandparents here make sure you teach the boys the respect of girls and women and tell them they're equal bring them up that way I was a teacher but I was a teacher here and often it's the mother that makes the boys superior to the girls Okay, thank you We are absolutely going to we're going to end there I'd like to thank you all for taking part for your questions, for your contributions and to thank our partners and I'm sure you'll want to join me in thanking our panellists Fiona Matoovo, Sophie Reid Tala Ykuwb, and Dr Meryl Kenny for giving up their time to take part Bravo I know too you'll want to thank our BSL interpreters Shorna Dixon and Heather Graham Thank you Can I just take this opportunity to remind everyone that the Festival of Politics continues with many events including a reading from the National Theatre of Scotland on Care Experience People an in conversation with the bestselling poet and playwright, Lem Sisi about his memoir, My Name Is Why that will take place tomorrow as well as what I know will be lively discussions on trust in politicians and another on the state of the UK Union so we look forward to welcoming you all back tomorrow in the meantime, thank you so much Thank you Thank you all