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A special programme about women in politics introduced in the studio by Jon Lander. We see a montage of archive film cut to music tracing the story from the Suffragettes through women working during the war years, the women’s liberation movement and the arrival of Margaret Thatcher as Prime Minister in 1979. A graphic follows which reveals that the percentage of women in Parliament is the same in 1986 as it was in 1945 (4 percent).
In a film report Kaye Adams investigates the issues. She interviews women’s rights spokesperson Jo Richardson and Christine Smith who is a former Sheffield councillor who failed in her bid to be selected as Conservative candidate for the West Derbyshire seat. She blames this failure on sexism. We also see a group of Conservative women meeting Norman Tebbit at an event. Adams visits a meeting of the Leicestershire branch of the 300 Group which is campaigning to get 300 women in Parliament. We see a training session in public speaking led by Kathleen Cox and there is an interview with the 300 Group’s chair, Doreen Miller.
This is followed by clips of Margaret Thatcher talking about women in politics in a Granada Television programme from 1962 and a clip from Spitting Image showing a Thatcher puppet dressed as a man. Kaye Adams then interviews Thatcher about the sexism she has encountered during her career and the way things can be improved. Finally Adams talks to psychologist Professor Anthony Clare and vox pops women in Leicester about the issue.
Presented by Jon Lander
Reporter: Kaye Adams
Production Team: Rob Whitehouse; Philip Tibenham; Jenny Wright; Jo Beard; Janet Pitts
Film Editor: Ian Wilkinson
Graphics: Phill Dunn
Film Director: Keith Haley
Studio Director: Sandra Wainwright
Editor: Mart Gottschalk
Production number 7275/86.