---

Women, Justice and Gender Equality

This has been an interesting debate, which has teased out a lot of aspects of the life of women in this country. The title of the debate is ““Women, Justice and Gender Equality””. I shall focus my remarks on gender equality, and in particular on the questions of what that really means and, to be provocative, whether it can be achieved. Women certainly have numerical equality—we form 50 per cent. of the population—and certainly as a society we regard women as of equal value and equal importance. I find gender competition rather tedious, in the workplace in particular. I do not regard myself as a woman MP; I regard myself as an MP who just happens to be a woman. I can vouch that I have never encountered any gender prejudice in my journey through application and campaigning and so forth. [Interruption.] Several female Members do not agree, so clearly I have been fortunate. Perhaps people treat us the way we allow them to treat us.