Cherie Blair says there’s a “backlash” against women after Hillary Clinton loses US presidential election
Cherie Blair has said there's a backlash against women in politics.
Speaking on BBC's Newsnight, Blair was asked about the so-called "golden moment" where Hillary Clinton, Angela Merkel and Theresa May looked as if they were going to make up three of the G7 leaders at the same time.
But Hillary Clinton then lost the US Presidential election to Donald Trump, which Blair said she was "obviously sad" to see.
"It's about what is it that enables women to get to the top," she said.
"There does appear to be some kind of backlash. And what I fear is that we've rather given permission for people to say things which I thought that we'd stopped giving that permission."
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Referencing the Sex Discrimination and Equal Pay Acts as examples, Blair said: "I'm not saying that these laws necessarily change what people think. But what they do do is create a space – a public space – where things that are frankly unacceptable are not said."
The lawyer added that while she does not feel the majority of men are sexist, "we seem to have a culture which sort of shrugs its shoulders and says 'Oh well men, you know men, that's just the way they are'".
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Blair, whose husband was Labour prime minister from 1997 to 2007, also said she didn't think people should talk about "mothering or fathering – we should be talking about parenting".
"We should allow couples to actually be able to organise a way of bringing up their children that suits both of them," she said.
"I have to say that my husband was much a more a hands-on father than his own father – when the idea was that real men went to work and women women stayed at home, and for a man to show caring was regarded as a weakness."