Male speakers are outnumbering women by two to one on political panels during party conference season, a new report has estimated.
Women in Public Affairs (WiPA) made the finding after examining the gender ratios at Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat conferences last year.
It also discovered there were around five times as many fringe events without any female speakers as there were without men.
The report said Labour had the most equal representation, with around 39% of panellists being female speakers, compared with 35% for the Lib Dems and 27% for the Conservatives.
Across the three parties, it found that two of every three chairs of fringe events were male. It did not include analysis of the SNP, Ukip or Green fringes.
Ahead of the Labour and Tory conferences this year, the group called for the parties to guarantee that 90% of their events had at least one woman on the panel and urged MPs to challenge organisers if there was a lack of female representation.
There were also almost five times more fringe events without any female speakers than without male speakers.
Laura Gilmore, the co-founder of WiPA, said the parties ought to be setting a better example.
“During high-profile party leader speeches, it is glaringly obvious the effort party communications teams go to to ensure their leader is framed by a diverse selection of people – men, women; old, young; black, white,” she said.
“Therefore, it is all the more disappointing to find that this conscious effort to promote diversity stops here and does not reach the abundance of fringe speaking opportunities.”
Sophie Walker, the leader of the Women’s Equality party, said the figures showed the “extent to which mainstream politics is about men’s ideas, men’s needs and men’s voices”.
“That’s exactly what brought the Women’s Equality party into existence. WE represent the other 51% of the population,” she said. “And it’s why at our party conference, in Manchester at the end of November, most of the speakers will be women, represented in all their glorious diversity.
“It’s a small step towards redressing the imbalance of speakers across conference season, but it’s another huge step towards building an inclusive politics that works for everyone.”
