Quotas necessary to address gender inequality across all sectors of UK, says Fawcett Society

Quotas are needed to address the overwhelming and continuing male dominance of legal, political, media and arts roles, the Fawcett Society has said.

Equality campaigners celebrated the unveiling of a statue of suffragist leader Millicent Fawcett in Parliament Square in London on Tuesday – the first ever statue of a woman to stand in the famous public space. But while the statue was long overdue and a cause for celebration, it remains a single exception in a square otherwise dominated by depictions of men – a fact mirrored in the findings of the Fawcett Society Sex and Power Index, which show that men still overwhelmingly control positions of power across all sectors of society.

The research shows that women make up just 17% of Supreme Court justices and 22% of High Court judges. In politics, women make up only 32% of MPs, 26% of peers in the House of Lords and just 26% of cabinet ministers (although the shadow cabinet is made up of 50% women). In business, a mere 6% of FTSE 100 chief executives are women, while in the charity sector this rises to a still unbalanced 28%.

The Fawcett Society recommends “time-limited use of quotas across public bodies and the boards of large corporate organisations enabled by law” to address the imbalance. Its chief executive, Sam Smethers, told The Guardian: “When we see this data brought together it is both shocking and stark – despite some prominent women leaders, men haven’t let go of the reins of power and progress is painfully slow. Equality won’t happen on its own. We have to make it happen.”

Read this feature to learn more about gender inequality in the legal profession and the debate around quotas.