I won’t be the only Labour woman to have started the week energised and inspired by the first ever Labour Women’s Network Political Day last Saturday, and ended it dismayed at the Church of England’s contrasting failure to agree that woman make suitable leaders.

Perhaps we should take heart that the official church leadership was on the right side on women bishops. Certainly, the ugly and deep-rooted bias against women that was exposed among those who blocked progress has been met with anger by many. But even if they had succeeded in bringing round the few extra lay members needed to win the vote, the case would remain that a sizeable section of the church’s governing body thinks that women are not fit to lead. Such attitudes poison its culture and, unless overcome, will always make it difficult for women to progress.

We should not kid ourselves that this is a problem confined to religious institutions. While we are rightly proud of Labour’s comparative record in selecting and electing women candidates to public office, we need to ask ourselves what it is about our party’s culture that means we do not fully use our rich pool of talent.

Yes, we are making progress with women leading vital parts of the Labour movement for the first time: Karin Christiansen at the Co-op party; Frances O’Grady at the TUC; Kathryn Perera at Movement for Change. This week Lucy Powell was sworn into parliament as the first Labour woman to be elected in the city of Manchester. But the fact that we had to wait until 2012 for these firsts tells us that we need to get a shift on.

After #LWN2012 on Saturday I’m pleased to be guest-editing ProgressOnline today and showcasing the breadth of talent that we are lucky enough to have available to us. From those already in leadership positions like Liz Kendall MP; to activists like Sophy Gardner, Amina Ali and Jenny Simms; to women who have never written for Progress before like Kathy Peach, Chitra Nagarajan and Councillor Monica Lennon.

The awesomeness of Labour women was on full display last Saturday, trailed in advance by a ProgressOnline special edited by Councillor Claire Reynolds. In a busy, buzzy and brilliant day, some 250 people (mostly women) from every section of the party and area of the country came together to debate politics and share ideas. Part of LWN’s motivation was to overcome the fact that women’s contribution to debate is often limited to policy ideas rather than politics. Of course, the decisions about our political direction are where the true power struggles reside, such as whether our future electoral success lies with targeting our core vote or swing voters in marginal seats. These debates are conducted and commented on almost exclusively by men. But Saturday was different.

Saturday blew apart the myth that there is ever an excuse for an all-male panel at a political event. I would challenge Labour men that they should now refuse to participate in panels made up only of men. All day, every speaker from the platform was a woman – some 30 of them in total. From journalists, authors and campaigners to full-time mums, trade unionists, PPCs and MPs, Saturday decisively proved that there is no shortage of Labour women with something useful to say.

We could have filled the panel slots several times over with an audience that came from all backgrounds and occupations. Full-time care workers spoke of their experiences, councillors told us what they were hearing in their communities and barristers, teachers and bloggers exchanged ideas. Unlike virtually any other Labour event I have been to, shadow cabinet ministers from both Westminster and Holyrood sat in the audience listening all day, in the form of Margaret Curran MP and Kezia Dugdale MSP. We debated every issue from equality to the economy to electoral strategy, including a session with experienced American Democrat strategists.

I wish that more men had been in the audience to listen and hopefully next year more of you will join us. One of the men who was there tweeted, ‘@RDarlo: Noticed the all-female panels at #LWN2012 have a tendency to address issues raised by audience, rather than ignore them and restate their case.’  Another man in the audience has since written a challenge to the men of the party to, ‘Get out of the way and actively look to support talented women.’  Our youngest attendee was also male – a baby boy crawled around quietly at the side while his mum took part in the debate.

So it’s time to challenge ourselves to change our party’s culture once and for all. The day must quickly come when a woman leader is no longer always the first of her gender to make it there. You can start by joining LWN or becoming a supporter if you’re a man. But don’t stop there – we must all work together to ensure that Labour’s untapped female talent can play its impressive part in bringing our party back to power.

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Melanie Ward is treasurer of the Labour Women’s Network. She works in international development, has previously worked for David Blunkett and is a former president of NUS Scotland. She also blogs here on global poverty and tweets @melanie_ward