Debate contribution: International Women’s Day 2025

Debate contribution by Ms Kellie Armstrong on 4 March 2025.

MLA

Ms Kellie Armstrong

Party at the time

Alliance Party

Date

4 March 2025

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Private Members' Business

Heading

International Women’s Day 2025

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4833611

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I congratulate Aoife on her maiden speech. I remember when I made mine. It was during a Budget debate with Máirtín Ó Muilleoir. Unfortunately, his response was not as kind. I spoke during an untimed debate on legislation, so I did not have the nerves of meeting the time limit. Well done. I had not intended to speak, but I will add some information to the debate. Many years ago, before I was elected either as a councillor or as an MLA, I spent some time with colleagues across all parties under the then Speaker, Mitchel McLaughlin, looking at barriers to politics for women. At that stage, we concluded that it was not the case that, when the electorate had the opportunity to vote for a woman, it did not take it. Many women who are put on the ballot are elected. What was happening was that there was a disparity between the parties. We spoke to all parties at that time, including mine. One of the things that came to light was that, when you ask a woman whether she is interested in standing, she is more likely to do so. The Women's Caucus recently held an event in the Long Gallery. At the table that I was sitting at, all the women, from different parties, admitted that they had been asked by a man to step forward for a political position. They had done so and had been successful. Why were they asked by a man? If we are talking about accelerating women, we as women need to do more to encourage our sisters to come forward and do as we have done. It can be difficult to be a woman in politics and in leadership. Other Members have mentioned the difficulties with social media — the bullying, the trolling and all the nasty side of things — but the role comes with such benefits. We can make changes across Northern Ireland when we come together, and we have come together to do amazing things. Some of the work that is being done today by all of us on domestic violence is testament to that. If we want to accelerate women and gender equality across Northern Ireland, we are missing a trick.

The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) has not been included enough in the underpinning of all strategies and policies across Northern Irish government. If that was included, everybody would have to think, "How are we doing? What are we doing to eliminate discrimination against women?". I sit in this place. While it is not a bad place to be a woman in, I am sick to the back teeth of somebody having difficulty with the term "Chair". They will call a woman, "Madam Chairman" and things like that. I do not get why it is so difficult. There is a wee bit of difficulty in the House.

Another thing — it is difficult, as a woman, to understand why we cannot get over this — is how we measure section 75 impacts. The equality impact assessments that are brought forward for our policies and strategies look at who we are not doing damage to, when, in fact, it would be a massive change if it was turned around and all Departments and we as elected officials were asked to say how we are making improvements in equity under section 75 and how we are ensuring that equitable productive and proactive issues are being brought forward for women, older people and people with dependants. If we want to accelerate gender equality, we have to put our shoulders to the wheel. Part of that is progressive and proactive actions to ensure that equity is as important as equality. As someone who represents housing, I ask Members to look at domestic violence. We have victims fleeing domestic violence, but, because the name of their perpetrator is on the lease of the house, it is the victim who has to leave. Is that right? If we are going to accelerate action, protect everyone and have a gender-equal society, we need to rethink some of our policies.

693 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

Not flagged

Jev’s structured answers

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 12:06 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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