Welcome to the latest What About Women campaign update. It’s been a busy few weeks!

The campaign so far…

• All the political parties released their manifestos. Sadly, women continue to be considered in a piecemeal fashion with no party providing coherent explanations of how their policies will impact on women's lives, or how they will address persistent gender inequality. Hear Ceri debate the issues on Women’s Hour or read Fawcett’s full response

• The final list of parliamentary candidates is in and, despite a record total of 4,149 candidates battling for 650 Commons seats, women are once again under represented.

In fact, none of the main Westminster parties has managed to push past the 30 per cent mark when it comes to women candidates – though the Greens have just managed to squeeze ahead on 31 per cent across the country.

Ceri spoke to the Guardian about the lack of representation of women in this election campaign, read the article Women in a very male general election and the Guardian also ran a leader Women and the election reflecting the key points of our campaign.

• Think it's just in real life elections that women are ignored? Politcal website PoliticsHome commissioned a poll of the public's 'fantasy' cross party cabinet. You guessed it: not a woman to be seen. Have your say

• Our partner organisation, the Wales Women's National Coalition, in conjunction with the Wales Assembly of Women, held a pre-election debate with parliamentary candidates from across the political spectrum. Read what happened

• Bristol Fawcett and the University of Bristol held their own election debate, where candidates from across the city debated the ‘Blair's Babes’ / ‘Cameron's Cuties’ approach to women in politics. Learn more

• We’ve been busy battling the dinosaurs too! Read our response to a letter in the Times suggesting women have smaller IQ’s than men and are ill suited to logical reasoning.

• Finally, we’ve written to all of the parliamentary candidates in every English constituency asking for their support for our campaign.

Next week we’ll let you know which of your candidates pledged to work with Fawcett after the general election to ensure that funding cuts to public services do not impact disproportionately on women, and to support efforts to increase equality between women and men by tackling violence against women, the pay gap, and discrimination more generally.

Coming up

• What About Women election special: next week (Tuesday 27th) will see leading women politicians from the main parties go head to head in our election special

Harriet Harman, Theresa May and Lynne Featherstone (of Labour, the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats respectively) will debate what the parties' policies in key areas such as the economy and political reform will mean for women, and face questions as to which party would best progress women’s equality and human rights.

We were inundated with requests for tickets for this event, showing just how keen you all are to hear more about women in this election. If you weren’t one of the lucky ones, never fear – you’ll be able to watch the event online or listen to the podcast shortly afterwards, just keep an eye on our website.

• Campaign 2010 with Jonathan Dimbleby

ITV Studios is looking for audience members for a series of discussion programmes in the run up to the election. It is a chance for you to put your questions to politicians regarding the key issues - including women! The recordings will take place at The London Studios (South Bank) on the following dates:

Tuesday 27 April – 8.00pm

Tuesday 4 May – 8.00pm

For more information e-mail jaine.hilston@itv.com call 020 715 74623 or 07764 446 028 with your name and daytime contact number

• Black Britain Decides

London – ‘Black Britain Decides Political rally with the party leaders: Wednesday 28th April, 2010 6.30 p.m, Methodist Church, Methodist Central Hall, Westminster, London, SW1H 9NH

Register by visiting www.blackbritaindecides.com David Cameron and Nick Clegg have confirmed their attendance.

Manchester Vote 2010 - Monday 26th April, 2010 6.30-9.00 p.m, Mechanics Institute, 103 Princess Street, Manchester M1 6DD

Covering three constituencies: Manchester Withington, Manchester Gorton and Manchester Central. Register by emailing info@raceequalitypolicy.co.uk Prospective Party Candidates from the mainstream parties have been invited and the majority have confirmed their attendance.

Bradford Vote 2010 – Thursday, 29th April 2010, 6.30 -9.00 p.m, Carlisle Business Centre, 60 Carlisle Road, Manningham, Bradford, BD8 8BD. Email aisha@justwestyorkshire.co.uk to register.
Prospective parliamentary candidates Marsha Singh (Labour), Zahid Iqbal (Conservatives), David Hall-Mathews (Liberal Democrats) and Arshad Ali (Respect) have confirmed their attendance.

Take Action

1 minute – if you haven’t already, sign up to support the campaign.
3 minutes – forward the campaign details to 10 women (or supportive men!) you know and get them to sign up too.
5 minutes – look at the parties’ answers to the What About Women Questions and comment on line.

Thanks for your support,
Fawcett