Nan Sloane (Leeds, Centre for Women and Democracy): Does it really matter that only 19.8% of our MPs are women, that women constitute a mere 31% of local councillors, and that BME women are even more poorly represented at these levels? After all, women have the vote, and are free to stand for local councils or parliament if they want to. If they don't choose to, why should it be a problem?
Or, let's put it another way. Can a representative democracy in which - for whatever reason - 51% of the population is under-represented truly be called either representative or democratic? Should we not actually be slightly ashamed of a political system which effectively marginalises half of the population?
Women both pay for and consume public services, but their voices are not heard equally when making decisions either about levels of taxation, or how those taxes should be spent. Electoral law recognises women's equality, but in actual elections they are sometimes almost invisible - in 20% of wards in this year's local government elections, for instance, there were no women candidates at all.
The fact is that, historically, our political system was developed by men for men, and the political parties which grew out of it - and which still win the majority of seats - remain very male institutions. Most candidates at all levels are male, and although political parties genuinely want to change that, some of their members remain rather cautious and still harbour a lurking suspicion that women are less electable, and less interested in politics.
But there is a considerable body of evidence which suggests that women are at least as likely as men to be successful, that turnout increases where there are women candidates, that the electorate wants to see women politicians, and that, whilst many women find party politics a turn-off, they are very interested in the issues themselves.
So perhaps it does matter - but in that case what can we do about it? Well, given that the problem seems to be more about getting women onto the ballot paper than getting them elected, we perhaps need to take a long hard look at ourselves as well as our political system. Despite current mythology, the electorate actually quite likes political parties, and continues to prefer to vote for them. Parties - and our perceptions of them - may be part of the problem, but they may also be key to the answer. Perhaps their need to change is matched by our need to change our relationship with them.
And we also need to convince women themselves that political activity is something worth overcoming all the barriers we know about for - that serving the community as an elected representative either locally or nationally is an honourable and productive thing to do. If we don't our democracy will continue to come about 47th in the league table of women's representation - better than many but not good enough yet!
