Five women tell us their ambitions for women in Scotland

Today marks the end of Women’s History Month – a month celebrating the vital role of women in our society, past and present.

Here, a selection of women who are helping shape our movement across the country, tell us what they would like to see happen for women.

Councillor Christina Cannon, Glasgow

My ambition for women in the coming years is quite simple. I want every woman to be able to walk into their job knowing they’re being paid equally to their male colleagues; to be able to go out with their friends without having misogynistic comments made at them or without being harassed; and for a change in legislation so women do not have to prove they were raped to receive tax credits for their third child.

I want women everywhere to be able to look in the mirror and feel confident about themselves and to not feel the need to conform to what our patriarchal society says they should be. I hope women of the future do not have to endure hashtags such as #MeToo because sexual harassment cases will be completely unheard of.

Christina McKelvie, MSP for Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse

Gender parity is at least 200 years away says the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report. That’s twice as long as it has taken us to get this far.

Now is the time for us to move forward with as much determination as the suffragettes did a hundred years ago.

I don’t want the world’s women to wait 200 years for what they deserve. Women will continue to fight discrimination wherever we see it until the need for fighting has gone because inequality has gone.

Erin Mwembo, SNP member, North Berwick

Over the last hundred years, women have made strides in battling the glass ceiling and giving women a voice. They have paved the way for my involvement in politics today. But there is so much more to do and without progressive change, we won’t see economic gender equality for 217 years.

In my lifetime, I strive to see the eradication of the gender pay gap and a shift in workplace culture to accommodate women, making sure sexism and misogyny is called out. I can’t wait for to the day the glass ceiling is shattered to smithereens. I look forward to working towards a more equal world for us all.

Councillor Cecil Meiklejohn, leader of Falkirk Council

I want women to be recognised as confident, caring and empowered individuals who are able to use all their all their knowledge, skills, life experience and sense of humour to benefit others as well as themselves in creating a more equal and fair society for Scotland.

Màiri McAllan, SNP member, Biggar

Those revolutionary advances in women’s modern history – including gaining the right to vote, to own property and to access contraception – have all centred on liberating women and allowing us to take control of our lives, health and future.

My hope is that, in not so many years to come, we can finally end violence against women and close the gender pay gap. And I hope that we can do so in an independent country where Scotland, just like the women who make their lives here, can chart its own future.