Merched Plaid Newsletter - English

Policies, proposals...
and the women of
Plaid Ifanc
On a sunny Saturday in February, before
the torrent of floods came crashing
through the valleys, the members of
Plaid Ifanc, Plaid Cymru's youth wing,
came together in Pontypridd to discuss
policy, political theory and vision. One of
the events held was a policy workshop,
exclusively for the young women in
attendance. Sioned James, Co-chair of
Plaid Ifanc, explains why she thought this
session was necessary.
I had a feeling that not enough policy motions by women were being
presented to the Plaid Ifanc conference, but I had no idea of the level of
the imbalance until I looked at the data: in the last four years 41 motions
have come before the Plaid Ifanc conference, and of those, only 5 women
have ever proposed one. To put it another way, of all the motions
presented in the last four years, 22% were by women. Women, therefore,
have very little say in the type of policies we discuss. Like any other
equalities matter, a lack of voices leads to lack of progress and a lack of
ideas. I know that lack of confidence, lack of knowledge about processes,
and lack of encouragement leads to these low numbers. Every woman
has a glowing idea hiding somewhere which requires a little mentoring to
lead to a motion on paper. I created a session for women only at the Plaid
Ifanc Winter School in order to evidence the gaps in our influence, the farreaching
effects of good policy, and practical advice on how exactly to
form policy. I hope that the Plaid Ifanc conference this year will see an
unprecedented number of motions by women. Better still would be seeing
self-confidence bloom within Plaid Ifanc’s youngest women which will
certainly create waves within the whole party.
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