Odin's Eye Blog

The Islands Matter webinars are the result of a collaboration between Dr Andrew Jennings Institute for Northern Studies UHI, Professor Frank Rennie Lews Castle College UHI and Dr Beth Mouat Shetland UHI. This series of webinars was set up to address the hunger in the Scottish islands to hear from experts based in other islands worldwide, and to help inform the UHI Islands’ Strategy.

‘Women in Manx Politics: Small island democracy?’ With Prof Peter Edge (Oxford Brookes University), Dr Alex Powell (Oxford Brookes University) and Dr Catriona Mackie (University College Isle of Man).

On Thursday 3rd March, three members of a multidisciplinary team discussed a new project, Women in Manx Politics. The project aims to explore the changing trends in Manx politics and identify any barriers to women becoming involved, through a series of talks, focus groups, interviews, articles and blogs on women and politics. The webinar will focus on the context for the project, the key aims and methodologies, and the potential outcomes. When the House of Keys Election Act was passed in 1881, the Isle of Man became the first country in the world to extend the vote to women. However, it wasn’t until the introduction of universal suffrage in 1919 that women became eligible to stand for election, and it was 1933 before the first woman was elected as Member of the House of Keys (MHK). Since then, only 23 women have served as MHKs. The lack of female representation was noted by Lord Lisvane, in his 2016 review of the functioning of Tynwald, the island’s legislature. At that time, only two of the 24 MHKs were women, and no women sat in the upper chamber, the Legislative Council. Since then, there has been a shift towards a more representative government, although there is still some way to go. The 2021 General Election saw ten women elected to the House of Keys, and four of the eight elected members of the Legislative Council are currently women.

A new multidisciplinary project funded by Culture Vannin aims to explore the role and experiences of women in Tynwald and consider ways of facilitating more women in Manx politics. The project has both a historical strand and a contemporary strand. The historical strand will seek to discern trends in women standing for the House of Keys and their representation in the Manx press. The contemporary strand will explore the experiences of women in Manx politics since 2000, through a series of qualitative interviews with women who chose to stand for election and those who were elected. Using focus groups, the decision-making processes of those women who considered standing for election, but ultimately chose not to do so, will also be studied. A third strand will examine the Manx position in light of broader academic research on women in democratic politics.

The Project Team

Prof Peter Edge (Oxford Brookes University)

Dr Alex Powell (Oxford Brookes University)

Dr Catriona Mackie (University College Isle of Man)

Dr Mari Hughes-Edwards (Edge Hill University)

This discussion is chaired by Dr Catriona Mackie Dr Catriona Mackie is a Lecturer in History & Heritage at the University College Isle of Man (UCM) where she is Programme Leader for the BA (Hons) History & Heritage which is delivered at UCM and validated by the University of Chester. She is also Visiting Research Fellow and Associate Tutor at the University of Chester. She moved to the Isle of Man in 2008 to take up position as Lecturer at the University of Liverpool’s Centre for Manx Studies, based in Douglas, Isle of Man. In this role she has taught and supervised undergraduate and postgraduate students, managing the postgraduate MA in Manx Studies, and organising the Centre’s seminar series.