London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Thursday, Sep 18, 2025

NI election 2022: Campaigners say change needed to get more women into Stormont

NI election 2022: Campaigners say change needed to get more women into Stormont

A record number of women - 87 - are standing in the Northern Ireland Assembly election on 5 May.

That is 17 more than the last election five years ago and is just one example of how things have changed since the assembly was set up 24 years ago.

At the first election in 1998, just 14 women were elected as members of the legislative assembly (MLAs) - representing 13% of the total of 108. It is now just under one-in-three.

Campaigners say it is a welcome improvement but much more needs to be done to break down the barriers which stop many women running for office.


'It wasn't a pleasant place'


Monica McWilliams served as an MLA from 1998 to 2003


One of the 14 women elected to the first assembly was Monica McWilliams, who was one of two MLAs from the Northern Ireland Women's Coalition.

She was co-founder of the party, which was formed in the 1990s as talks to bring the Troubles to an end intensified. A professor of women's studies at Ulster University, she said that at the time it was difficult for women to enter the political arena.

"I felt like I had to put on body armour because there were so few women there," she told BBC News NI.

"It wasn't a pleasant place, but we had to stand up and speak out. It almost seemed we had to remind them that democracy meant inclusion, it meant having more women as role models.

"It was misogyny, we were coming from a patriarchal culture where a women's role was as as mother, not a decision-maker - but politics is better for it when we combine those roles."

She added she was glad the number of women in politics in Northern Ireland had risen significantly since she was an MLA.

"Things happen to women that don't happen to men, and it needs to be on the agenda - I am delighted to see so many women standing and I hope we'll have even more of them returned after the election," she said.


'Women face many barriers'


50:50 NI is a group that works to increase the number of women represented at all political levels across Northern Ireland.

Its chief executive, Aoife Clements, said while the increase in the proportion of women in the assembly was welcome, there was much room for improvement and that there were still many barriers to women standing for election.

"Some of the biggest barriers are that it is not the most women-friendly profession, it does not really fit with women's lived realities very well," she said.

"There are long hours, childcare is really hard to get for these strange hours MPs and MLAs are doing."

Ms Clements said when she spoke to women through 50:50 NI, every one of them had told her they did not think they could get involved in politics.

"They say: 'I wouldn't have done it if it had not been for someone encouraging me, I didn't think I was qualified enough, I didn't think I was smart enough'," she said.

"Women don't take it for granted that they can do it, but men seem to do that."

She added that abuse on social media - including harassment, trolling and sexually inappropriate messages - was a major problem.

"Some members of Stormont have told me they would not have stood for election if they had known how bad it was going to be and that they might not run again, which is not good enough," she said.

Ms Clements said men "needed to wake up and realise that a woman's place is in the assembly" and that while things would improve as more women were elected, men also needed to push for change.


The slow pace of change


It took a while for the number of women in the assembly to increase significantly after the election of just 14 in 1998.

At the second assembly election in 2003, four more women were elected, bringing the total to 18, or 16.7%.

The figure remained the same in 2007 and rose by two to 20 - 18.5% - in 2011.

But then there was a big increase - in the 2016 election a total of 30 women took office, meaning 27.8% of the assembly was now made up of female MLAs.


That election was also the first contested by a sitting female first minister, Arlene Foster.

A year later a snap election came along after the assembly collapsed. It was the first election where fewer seats were being contested after the number of MLAs was cut from 108 to 90, so even though the number of women decreased to 27, they made up more of the total - 30%.


How does the assembly compare?


By the time the assembly was dissolved in March ahead of the upcoming election there were 33 women, including those who had taken office to replace MLAs who had died or resigned during their term.

That represented 36.7% of the total size of the assembly - a figure higher than the 34.6% of women who are MPs in the UK Parliament at Westminster.


The Scottish Parliament has the highest proportion of female representatives of the UK legislatures - 45% - while in the Welsh Parliament 43.3% of members are women.

In the Republic of Ireland's lower house of parliament - the Dáil - 23% of TDs (MPs) are women.

Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
Massive Strikes in France Pressure Macron and New PM on Austerity Proposals
Trump Seeks Supreme Court Permission to Remove Fed Governor Lisa Cook
Hillary Clinton’s Reckless Rhetoric Fuels Division After Charlie Kirk’s Assassination
NASDAQ Rises to Record as Intel Soars More Than 20%, Nvidia Gains 3%
Nvidia’s $5 Billion Bet on Intel Reshapes AI Hardware Landscape
Trump and Starmer Clash Over UK Recognition of Palestinian State Amid State Visit
Trump’s Quip on Biden and Google Lawsuit Revives Debate Over Antitrust Legacy
Macron and his wife to provide 'scientific photographic evidence' that she is a real woman
US Tech Giants Pledge Billions to UK AI Infrastructure Following Starmer's Call
Saudi Arabia cracks down on music ‘lounges’ after conservative backlash
DeepMind and OpenAI Achieve Gold at ‘Coding Olympics’ in AI Milestone
SEC Allows Public Companies to Block Investors from Class-Action Lawsuits
Saudi Arabia Signs ‘Strategic Mutual Defence’ Pact with Pakistan, Marking First Arab State to Gain Indirect Access to Nuclear Strike Capabilities in the Region
Federal Reserve Cuts Rates by Quarter Point and Signals More to Come
Effective and Impressive Generation Z Protest: Images from the Riots in Nepal
European manufacturers against ban on polluting cars: "The industry may collapse"
Sam Altman sells the 'Wedding Estate' in Hawaii for 49 million dollars
Trump: Cancel quarterly company reports and settle for reporting once every six months
Turkish car manufacturer Togg Enters German Market with 5-Star Electric Sedan and SUV to Challenge European EV Brands
US Launches New Pilot Program to Accelerate eVTOL Air Taxi Deployment
Christian Brueckner Released from German Prison after Serving Unrelated Sentence
World’s Longest Direct Flight China Eastern to Launch 29-Hour Shanghai–Buenos Aires Direct Flight via Auckland in December
New OpenAI Study Finds Majority of ChatGPT Use Is Personal, Not Professional
Hong Kong Industry Group Calls for HK$20 Billion Support Fund to Ease Property Market Stress
Joe Biden’s Post-Presidency Speaking Fees Face Weak Demand amid Corporate Reluctance
Charlie Kirk's murder will break the left's hateful cancel tactics
Kash Patel erupts at ‘buffoon’ Sen. Adam Schiff over Russiagate: ‘You are the biggest fraud’
Homeland Security says Emmy speech ‘fanning the flames of hatred’ after Einbinder’s ‘F— ICE’ remark
Charlie Kirk’s Alleged Assassin Tyler Robinson Faces Death Penalty as Charges Formally Announced
Actor, director, environmentalist Robert Redford dies at 89
The conservative right spreads westward: a huge achievement for 'Alternative for Germany' in local elections
JD Vance Says There Is “No Unity” with Those Who Celebrate Charlie Kirk’s Killing, and he is right!
Trump sues the 'New York Times' for an astronomical sum of 15 billion dollars
Florida Hospital Welcomes Its Largest-Ever Baby: Annan, Nearly Fourteen Pounds at Birth
U.S. and Britain Poised to Finalize Over $10 Billion in High-Tech, Nuclear and Defense Deals During Trump State Visit
China Finds Nvidia Violated Antitrust Laws in Mellanox Deal, Deepens Trade Tensions with US
US Air Force Begins Modifications on Qatar-Donated Jet Amid Plans to Use It as Air Force One
Pope Leo Warns of Societal Crisis Over Mega-CEO Pay, Citing Tesla’s Proposed Trillion-Dollar Package
Poland Green-Lights NATO Deployment in Response to Major Russian Drone Incursion
Elon Musk Retakes Lead as World’s Richest After Brief Ellison Surge
U.S. and China Agree on Framework to Shift TikTok to American Ownership
London Daily Podcast: London Massive Pro Democracy Rally, Musk Support, UK Economic Data and Premier League Results Mark Eventful Weekend
This Week in AI: Meta’s Superintelligence Push, xAI’s Ten Billion-Dollar Raise, Genesis AI’s Robotics Ambitions, Microsoft Restructuring, Amazon’s Million-Robot Milestone, and Google’s AlphaGenome Update
Le Pen Tightens the Pressure on Macron as France Edges Toward Political Breakdown
Musk calls for new UK government at huge pro-democracy rally in London, but Britons have been brainwashed to obey instead of fighting for their human rights
Elon Musk responds to post calling for the murder of Erika Kirk, widow of Charlie Kirk: 'Either we fight back or they will kill us'
Czech Republic signs €1.34 billion contract for Leopard 2A8 main battle tanks with delivery from 2028
USA: Office Depot Employees Refused to Print Poster in Memory of Charlie Kirk – and Were Fired
Proposed U.S. Bill Would Allow Civil Suits Against Judges Who Release Repeat Violent Offenders
Penske Media Sues Google Over “AI Overviews,” Claiming It Uses Journalism Without Consent and Destroys Traffic
×