One of the things that women typically bring to leadership is their willingness to reflect on life rather than to rant and rave about it.

We also heard about her own political journey which led her as a leader to transform her state’s approach to childrearing – creating a year’s shared maternity and paternity leave.

We also heard about an important part of her legacy to her nation.

And from Kim Campbell we heard of the need for women leaders to stay visible – to become and to remain, schema busters – people who change the way other people see the world.

And that last point of how we can be schema busters is the first theme I want to develop today.

Kim talked about why it is often hard for a single powerful woman leader to achieve all the changes she may wish to for all the women in her own country

Many of you will be familiar with the idea of a tipping point.

But despite all these important legislative advances the British Parliament itself does not look like British society.

Less than one in five of the members of the British Parliament are women.

But ten years ago something important happened when Tony Blair became Britain’s Prime Minister.

Let me tell you a little of what women have done in the last seven years in the Scottish Parliament.

But what does it all add up to?

Let me not be too idealistic.

Of course change at the top does not always mean change everywhere.

For example when it comes to the workplace we are only in the foothills of meeting the challenges facing today’s women.

As Kim said on Monday – generalising about human nature is always a risky business – as she said not all women are short, and not all men are tall.

I believe the signs are encouraging for the emergence of a new type of politics.

When Scotland looks to its Parliament it sees powerful women listening, learning and determined to keep changing the rules.

Here in the Emirates just look at what has been done in the last thirty years.

So in years to come your own daughters will say they also stood on their mother’s shoulders.

Scotland, as some of you may know, is a small nation, part of the Britain.

Indeed Scotland’s position as part of Britain is not so different from Dubai’s position as part of the Emirates.

And that is not all that we might have in common – but I will come to that later.

We are coming to the end of our time together and so I wanted to begin my remarks by reflecting on some of what we have learned together over the last three days.

One of the things that women typically bring to leadership is their willingness to reflect on life rather than to rant and rave about it.

So I want to start by reflecting on what we have heard together.

Because unless we each take some time today to reflect, to crystallise our own memories – we will look back on this conference as simply a series of interesting sessions and seminars – but not as a seminal event.

But if we take time to reflect our time together becomes less of a seminar and more of an experience — an experience that can help us know what we are about as women, and what we plan to be about in the years ahead.

So I want to begin by sharing with you a couple of my reflections on the last 3 days.

Gro Harlem Bruntland opened our proceedings with the powerful assertion that women are bringing about a global transformation in the world affairs – and that we were all part of that movement — a movement that can only go forward and not back.

We also heard about her own political journey which led her as a leader to transform her state’s approach to childrearing – creating a year’s shared maternity and paternity leave.

We also heard about an important part of her legacy to her nation.

By appointing 40% women to her cabinet – she created another area where there is now no going back in Norway.

We heard from Tipper Gore a very moving testimony, about her personal odyssey – a speech that only a woman could make, about how any of us can bring leadership to wherever life’s journey takes us.

And from Kim Campbell we heard of the need for women leaders to stay visible – to become and to remain, schema busters – people who change the way other people see the world.

And that last point of how we can be schema busters is the first theme I want to develop today.

Kim talked about why it is often hard for a single powerful woman leader to achieve all the changes she may wish to for all the women in her own country

And the same is true for a lone woman trying to change her company or her profession.

Because however famous, however brave and however determined — a lone women leader often has to worry that by delivering for other women will lead her to being accused of improper favouritism to her own kind.

So when a lone woman tries to change the rules – to be a schema buster in her own right – she is often written off as an exception to the rule.

My theme today is how a group of women cannot be dismissed or written off in that way.
I want to describe from my own experience how it is often easier for a group of women – whether in politics, or business or education – to act together to become successful schema busters.

I have been lucky enough in the last seven years to be one of a generation of Scottish women politicians who in a brand new Scottish Parliament have changed the face of Scottish political life forever.

And I hope that our experience as women in Scotland mainly in our 30s and 40s changing our own political culture forever can inspire, in particular, some of the young women here in their teens and twenties about what they might achieve in their own lifetimes in their own countries.

And the key factor in making us successful schema busters – was to create a tipping point in Scottish politics.

Many of you will be familiar with the idea of a tipping point.

A tipping point is when you achieve significant change quickly.

At a tipping point something that long looked impossible becomes possible – you find them in all walks of life – in business, politics, and in society.

So how do you create a tipping point for women in politics?

Well there is is no consensus but many observers suggest that once a third of any Parliament is made up of women, that parliament suddenly “feels” and acts differently with respect to women’s issues.

I want to illustrate this tipping point theory with respect to the British and Scottish Parliaments. T

The British Parliament is very old, over 500 years although there have only been women members of the British Parliament for less than 100 years.

And in the eighty yeas since women have had the vote much has been achieved in terms of landmark legislation for women, beginning with the right to vote then family support paid to the mother, new marriage and property laws for woman, new divorce laws, an equal pay act and a sex discrimination act.

But despite all these important legislative advances the British Parliament itself does not look like British society.

Less than one in five of the members of the British Parliament are women.

With only 18% of members as women Britain comes 51st in the international league table for the number of women elected to its national Parliament.

So even though it is more than 20 years since Mrs Thatcher became Britain’s first woman Prime Minister — a woman in the British Parliament can still sometimes feel a little bit like an outsider – as if she is stepping into a man’s club.

But ten years ago something important happened when Tony Blair became Britain’s Prime Minister.

Tony Blair began a radical program of constitutional change.

Par of this programme of constitutional change was to make Britain more of a federal country -again like the US or Canada or the Emirates — by giving each of the smaller countries within Britain – Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland — each their own elected Parliaments.

So ten years ago the women in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland knowing that Parliaments were about to be created in their own countries, looked around the world to see Best Practice.

And so we looked particularly to Scandinavia, admiring what Gro and her colleagues had done in getting the highest proportion of women elected to Parliament.

In Scotland we realised suddenly that with the creation of a brand new Parliament in Edinburgh we could do something special and have a brand new start.

We could create, from the beginning, a Parliament that “looked” like Scotland.

So in my party, the Labour party, the main governing party in Britain and in Scotland, we decided to select equal numbers of male and female candidates to contest the elections in the new Scottish Parliament – this was to try and create a parliament that would be 50% women.

Now not all other smaller parties followed our lead, but as a result, of Labour’ s strong electoral position Scotland’s Parliament has 40% women.

By electing a new Scottish Parliament seven years ago with 40% women, Scotland was catapulted instantly into the Bronze medal position in the International League of women’s Parliamentary representation.

Today it still lies in third place, just behind Rwanda and Sweden. Norway and Denmark come next with 38% and 37%.

By Scotland’s main political party deciding to have equal numbers of men and woman candidates — from the first day the Scottish Parliament opened seven years ago we broke the old schema.

From the beginning we have had a Parliament that looks more like the nation as a whole.

As one women member put it: “It does not feel as if we have crept into a male preserve.”

The sheer number of women MSPs has fundamentally changed the feel of the institution from the beginning.

The Parliament itself has more family-friendly working hours, less reverence for outdated traditions and a modern, more inclusive style.

But of course the acid test is whether having 40% women in the Parliament really does make a difference in how the country is governed, its policy priorities and its spending plans?

The answers are yes, yes and yes.

Just as in Norway with lots of women in the Parliament it’s hard to keep women out of the Cabinet. 30% of Scotland’s Cabinet is now women – not as good as Gro, but getting there.

Let me tell you a little of what women have done in the last seven years in the Scottish Parliament.

Over the past seven years there has been decisive action on childcare, a law affirming the right to breast feed in public places, new laws to combat violence against women, new family and divorce laws, action on prostitution, homelessness, charity law, sexual health and the treatment of women prisoners.

In all these areas, action came as a result of women members of Parliament – in committees, through private bills, in the government, in the opposition, and in the Parliamentary Chamber itself – putting issues on the agenda and compelling, the government, often itself sympathetic to respond positively.

But what does it all add up to?

If I were to sum up the approach the Parliament when it came to action on women, it would be to say that our first big priority has been to tackle the worst injustices.

To tackle the circumstances where women have been wrongly victimised or unjustly treated by society, sometimes with the consent of the law.

But in many ways we are already moving on.

Of course it was right to make the first priority righting past wrongs.

But today the Scottish Parliament has embarked on a new phase which is less about protecting women from becoming victims, and more about supporting women to be powerful and independent in their own right.

We are working it out as we go along but it means new laws to support women in work, more family friendly policies for men and women, encouragement for woman entrepreneurs, and systematic monitoring of spending priorities to ensure they reflect issues that are important to women.

Let me not be too idealistic.

I do not want to suggest that we have created a small spot of Scottish heaven on earth.

It is not always the case that women will always make better decisions – but we will not on average make worse decisions either.

And the important ‘Big Picture’ is that women in Scotland no longer feel shut out of the Parliament that governs them.

This we should celebrate.

Of course change at the top does not always mean change everywhere.

The old schemas do not crumble overnight. Much superficial stereotyping still goes on.
 

More than seventy years ago in America Eleanor Roosevelt, a role model to many women politicians, observed that women, who enter public life, need “to develop a skin as tough as rhinoceros hide.”

And seventy yeas later it is still true.

We still have a special vocabulary reserved for women in public life.

Women politicians are described as “difficult”, whilst the men are “decisive”.

Women are “aggressive”, whilst men are “powerful”.

Women are “opinionated”, whilst men are “strong minded”.

A woman a “humourless harridan”, a man a “conviction politician”;

And a “lightweight” woman is indistinguishable from a “likeable” man.

All that lies ahead if you go into politics – but it still worth continuing the battle against the old schemas – because women across the globe continue to face discrimination and old fashioned assumptions about their role and place in society.

For example when it comes to the workplace we are only in the foothills of meeting the challenges facing today’s women.

Indeed we so mismanage these challenges that workplaces the world over lose mid-career women who are trying to balance work and family life.

And this despite the fact that it is often women who have what it takes to succeed in today’s modern labour market.

As I come towards the end of my contribution I want to share with you my own experience about how women do life, business and politics differently from men.

As Kim said on Monday – generalising about human nature is always a risky business – as she said not all women are short, and not all men are tall.

Generalising about gender is difficult.

But in my experience men and women do often approach life differently and these differences also show up in politics and professional life.

100 years ago those who campaigned for women to have the right to vote had a motto, “deeds, not words.”

That motto still resonates today.

It was one of the world’s best known women leaders, Mrs Thatcher who captured the essential difference when she said, “If you want anything said, ask a man. If you want something done, ask a woman”.

Therein lies an enduring truth.

Women in politics and leadership positions are often more interested in getting things done, rather than just talking about it.

So women are doers in politics, as in life.

And getting things done in politics means seeking out consensus. It is often judged dull and lifeless by the media who prefer conflict and confrontation — yet making common cause is often popular with the voters.

And as we break the old schemas — women politicians are creating the space to do it their way in future.

My fellow women MPS in Scotland now imagine inventing new rules.

As one woman MP said to me “Wendy, we are lousy impersonators of men – so let’s stop trying!

“We want, our public life, in future to better value humility and empathy as signs of true leadership.

Will we succeed – I do not know – but I am certain that with a group of committed women, you can together create a tipping point whether in politics, business or education and start changing the rules, together.

I believe the signs are encouraging for the emergence of a new type of politics.

When Scotland looks to its Parliament it sees powerful women listening, learning and determined to keep changing the rules.

Significant women’s representation in the parliament has made a real difference to women’s lives in just seven short years.

We have created a tipping point.

Let me conclude.

There is a phrase you used to hear in the feminist movement that we all stand on our mother’s shoulders.

That is what each one of us who is here has done – and look how far we have come already.

So as you reflect today recall the words of Marie Curie, the pioneering scientist, who once said:

“One never notices what has been done; one can only see what remains to be done.”

Before we all head home – I hope we each get the chance to reflect on what has been done already.

Here in the Emirates just look at what has been done in the last thirty years.

I was an industry and education minister in Scotland and I can only marvel at what you have already achieved in these fields.

No nation can tell another nation what is right for them.

All that we can do is what we have been doing this week, which is to share our experiences, create new friendships and learn from each other.

Perhaps only a tiny number of you here today will know of the strong links between Dubai and Scotland – which led to the establishment five years ago of the Al-Maktoum Institute.

Indeed I have been accompanied here by some students from the Institute and from other Scottish Universities.

Each summer we now welcome women students from Zayed University to a summer school in Scotland.

And so this summer and in the years ahead I look forward to welcoming many more of you to Scotland — to continue the important dialogue begun this week at this conference.

And so today – before you depart for home – pause to reflect on what you have heard and what you will carry back home with you.

So in years to come your own daughters will say they also stood on their mother’s shoulders.

Thank you for your patience and enjoy your lunch.