100 years on: women and the vote
Long gone are the days, thankfully, where women had to fight tooth and nail to have a voice in politics, and the revolution leading to women being given the right to vote in 1918 will forever remain a poignant landmark in the nation's history. So, almost 100 years later, where are women now when it comes to British politics? And was the dedication and suffering of early 20th century feminists for women's suffrage all in vain?
In 2010, when the last UK general election took place and everybody thought Nick Clegg was the answer, 64% of women turned up to vote â most of them over 35. It only takes a quick bit of maths to work out that more than a third of women, for whatever reason, didn't. Similarly, new research from the BBC suggests that 35% of women are still yet to decide who to vote for this time round â and with less than 100 days to go.
The figures, although a little disheartening, aren't necessarily an indication of apathy - no matter how many times comedian-cum-politician Russell Brand uses the word. Manifestos are long and complicated and policies get lost amidst streams of political jargon. We hear speech after speech, read news story after news story, and it all becomes one big blur of politicians and promises (and lies) and slanging matches back and forth and sorry â what was that?
But regardless of the reason - whether it be lack of interest, confusion, or even laziness - a significant number of women are up for party grabs. Enough votes, in fact, to sway the entire election. So how can parties effectively target, and encourage, this highly influential demographic to cast their votes in May?
For a start, coverage of the run up to the general election â be it hours upon hours of news broadcasts, or lengthy articles in newspapers â no longer accommodates our digitally-savvy, pressed-for-time generation.
If the UK is to get more people to vote, then things need to change.
We are a world online, constantly connected via our mobile phones, tablets and laptops. We expect to be able to get information quickly and easily. We're on the move; our attention spans are short because of the way we expect to consume content; we don't want to read pages and pages of manifestos and spend evenings watching political broadcasts to be able to make up our minds.
Party information and policies need to be able to be accessed instantly and set out in a clear and easy-to-digest manner; people want, and need, to be able to decide quickly which party best aligns with their views and hopes for the future of the country.
The current ballot box voting system is both a laborious and outdated process. In 2015, where Brits spend more than 4 hours a day on digital devices, why is there no digital equivalent? Digital isn't the future; digital is now, and our current political system does nothing to reflect this.
By all means, keep the traditional system for those that prefer voting in person â and I imagine that's still a significant number of the population â but by failing to adapt and modernise, our Government is missing out on a huge number of voices, and therefore does not represent a true democracy.
Politics, thankfully, is no longer just a man's game â and living in the Western world means that we are lucky enough to have freedom of speech and expression, something that many live their entire lives without.
Our generation, and a successful migration to digital, is key to a better representation of democracy in British politics.
To compare 2015's general election party candidates, their policies, performance, and to help make sense of an already-complicated political system, sign up to TickBox and make sure you're at the heart of British politics.
Your voice can make a difference.
