We won’t win over young women voters in 2015 unless we employ the skills of our talented young women activists. Developing young women within the Labour party is vital to mobilising young women more widely.
Speaking on the opening panel at Progress’ Winning with Women conference last weekend, I chose to focus on what we need to do to win over young women ahead of the next general election.
There’s no doubt that policies have a huge role to play, and I could happily list a number of policies that I think are essential to improving young women’s lives, but when young women aren’t engaged in politics our message isn’t going to reach them.
If we really want to reach out to young women, we need to look within our party to the best resource we have: young women activists.
Our young women are our ambassadors among a group that’s often hard to reach. They are uniquely placed to engage and mobilise their peers.
As Harriet Harman said on Saturday, women activists are still pioneers. She said that it was our sisterly duty to break through as women in politics and break down barriers for other women.
And the young Labour women in our schools, colleges, universities and workplaces are pioneers. As young women bucking the trend by being involved in politics, we have a duty to be engaging and mobilising our peers.
But, as young women leading the way, the Labour party has a duty to us: to give us the opportunities to develop; to encourage us; to equip us with the skills we need to get the Labour party’s message out to our peers.
Word of mouth can be a powerful thing. An endorsement from someone you know, trust and empathise with is a strong one. We shouldn’t underestimate the power of word of mouth, especially among young people who aren’t engaged in politics and don’t happen to watch Newsnight every night.
I found that during the 2010 general election, when I was doing my A levels, friends who had not shown an interest in politics before saw that I was involved and started asking questions and taking an interest. Even outside of election time, young women activists in their schools, colleges and workplaces have the ability to engage and mobilise those around them. From setting up feminist societies to debating clubs and mock elections. From unionising workplaces to leading students’ unions. From chats on the school field to debates down the pub.
Young Labour and Labour Students have a huge role to play and are already doing a fantastic job of engaging young people in the run-up to the general election – we’ve already seen impressive voter registration campaigns, youth homelessness campaigns, ‘+1 parties’ and stalls at freshers’ fairs.
And there’s more to come. I could not be prouder that, alongside this outreach activity, we are now doing more in Young Labour to support women activists. During my NEC election, I pledged to secure a conference specifically for young women, and we’ll be holding our first ever Young Labour women’s conference this October, complete with training, policy workshops and inspiring speakers.
But the onus is on all of us, from Ed Miliband and Iain McNicol, to the constituency Labour party chair and campaign organiser, to do more to ensure we’re encouraging young women within our party and breaking down barriers.
I want to see us electing young women to chair our CLPs, represent us on our councils and drive policy forward on our National Policy Forum.
If we want to win with young women in 2015, we need to champion the young women we already have among our ranks. These women are pioneers and their power to engage others should never be underestimated.
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Bex Bailey is the Youth Rep on Labour’s National Executive Committee. She tweets @bexbailey6
or in other words someone give Bex a job..
Jumping on the feminista bandwagon isn’t or at least shouldn’t be the route to success but sadly the perception of I must conform to nonsense including AWS garbage and write rubbish to gain attention appears to be the clear route for some.
A well written and well thought out piece by Ms Bex Bailey. Its so nice to see and read these “breath-of-fresh-air” concepts blow through the old and tatty cobwebs in the murkier, sometimes dank corners of [many] political closets. And through the Westminster Bull****ring. A vigorous advocate for the LABOUR cause is just what LABOUR lacks at present. This young lady will certainly be offered many jobs. Taking “..the LABOUR message..” [wtmb] to women of the age groups, 16-25 is an arduous task [even if they are demented enough to watch Paxo on Newsnight way past the 10h30 bedtime mark for many]. The yooung women also need some “real-time-politics” assistance to kick in and some politicians may even go out of their way to offer advices on,say, (1) How to pay for schooling & the up-bringing costs for their families? (2)How to break their partners’ dangerous drug/drink habits which have spiralled out of control? (3) How to feed their babies proper formula-milk and not a Chinese facsimile version of the real stuff? (4) How to pay the rent before eviction next week? And many other similarly mundane [in political terms] crises and issues confronting the young women [and their partners] today and for which thousands of [prospective¤t] LABOUR voting females have no support whatsoever. With the IDS/DWP-I/T fiascos erupting daily around the UK I bet IDS wishes he were back in 1949 militaristic age of DWP. That Tory-sponsored[izzit??] propaganda programme on how Benefits were dished out in 1949 on Ch4[or was it ch5] had some relevance, last evening, of what the future holds for young women [and their, “Not born in Wedlock” children] if Lib/Con get in again in 2015. Sent to the “Naughty House” for unmarried mothers is on the cards again, if it is left to the Tories and their Victorian sweatshop mentality. ! Perish the thought ! – you think China is tough on Families and Babies? you aint seen nuthin’ yet, dolla, dear Tory DWP’s/IDSs plans for the future of UK are enough to make a grown man puke. [..Retches]. Or, “How to end any, as yet unborn generation, claiming benefits”..from the pen of IDS and the 1949 Cttee.”Don’t allow kids to be born.. I didn’t have children, they are too expensive; we have had no problems”. This last from a 23 year’ old female on Youtube or Twitta. Simple madness to try to play God with unborn kids lives. Others, who have brains stay a mile away from such a QUICKFIX-SOLUTION to welfare&benefits for young women and their families. One of the Dimbleby Bros’ [Dickie or Rickie, I can never tell them apart] recently highlighted the total lack of understanding of young women and their families and the raising of children. Easy for some to say – Have no kids, no problem. To me that is quite unthinkably disgusting and inhuman. These are the type of problems you are stepping into politics today ,Ms Bex. But you know all this. Good Luck in promoting The LABOUR CAUSE. The above facts on treatment of young women a-la 1949 DWP edicts, are enough to scare any prospective voter away from Tories/Lib for a very, very long time? But we need you to get the message across that to go back to the un-enlightened days of 1949 would be a vote for Chinese Communism. Watching Paxo may be enlightening for some aficonados of the political scene but he is a very depressing old Bull. Time they also retired him off. As well as that Dimbleby old duffer.
I’m a Cheshire East Councillor, I’m also mother to a newborn baby boy. I would like to point out that as a young woman, it is not all childcare issues and child tax credit that we young women are also worried about, it’s the economy, job market, our prospects, student fees that we are concerned about.
Nobody is jumping on the feminista bandwagon either, but after centuries of the male only vote, male only parliaments, male only rights, we need change.
Young women are not always engaged within or with politics and this due to very few role models, the high school girls tell me that politicans are boring and ugly, so when I turn up to a meeting with my baby in a sling, I get welcomed by them and by people of my demographic and a few eyebrows are raised by the old boys network.
I get told all the time, how refereshing it is to speak to a fellow mummy as well as being a local politican. It is difficult to achieve the balance with my time between my duties and my family but thankfully, I’m supported by a brilliant group (male) whip, and I’m very proud to fly the flag for the Labour Party for young women everywhere.