Two Newcastle MPs have demanded action to recognise more “woefully underrepresented” women with the city’s highest honour.
Catherine McKinnell and Chi Onwurah have united in a call on International Women’s Day for more females to be given the Freedom of Newcastle. Only a handful of women have ever been granted Newcastle’s top honorary civic status since it was first awarded in 1642.
The first female recipients were honoured in 1966 and there have been only 10 in total recognised for their contribution to life on Tyneside, not including several babies born on the first day of the new millennium who were also given the honour. Since the year 2000, only four women have been recognised – but 20 men have been honoured by Newcastle City Council in that time, on top of dozens more in the preceding centuries.
Read More: International Women's Day photos profile Wallsend community champion with 'activism in her blood
One of the women most recently chosen was former Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi, but her award was subsequently revoked in 2018. That leaves charity champion Joan Silcox, training and employment leader Olivia Grant, and former Bishop of Newcastle Christine Hardman as the only three females added to the list of city luminaries in the 21st century.
Meanwhile, the far more extensive list of men added in that time includes sporting heroes like Alan Shearer and Jonny Wilkinson, ex-hospitals boss Len Fenwick, architect Terry Farrell, the king of Norway, and Nobel Prize-winning physicist Peter Higgs. The most recent recipient was music legend Stevie Wonder, whose freedom of the city was approved by the council last week.
Ms Onwurah, the MP for Newcastle Central, said it was “really important that we recognise the work of women across every sector who make Newcastle the city it is”.
She added: “So many contemporary women are deserving of more publicity for the work they have done in and around Newcastle - whether it's Ann Cleeves bringing wonderful mysteries set in our city's streets to national TV, Professor Jackie Kay, the former National Poet of Scotland, who has taught creative writing at Newcastle University, sporting stars Victoria Pendleton and Tanni Grey-Thompson who also have connections to our brilliant universities, as well as community champions like Mrs T of Blakelaw. Brilliant women deserve public recognition and I hope that this International Women's Day is the beginning of a wider conversation on who we honour in our fantastic city."
Fellow Labour MP Ms McKinnell, who represents Newcastle North, urged more people to nominate women for the freedom of the city in recognition of their contribution to Tyneside life.
She said: "Recognising women for their contribution to our fantastic city - whether in business, culture, science, technology, health, education, and across our public services - is not just important in acknowledging those achievements, but also in celebrating our past and inspiring future generations. Yet women have long been woefully underrepresented when it comes to honours, monuments and public recognition, and sadly this is true when we look at those granted the Freedom of the City.”
City residents are able to nominate people for the Freedom of Newcastle and can obtain nomination forms from the lord mayor’s office at Newcastle Civic Centre or by emailing lord.mayor@newcastle.gov.uk. The council’s equalities champion, Labour councillor Irim Ali, agreed that the small number of women given the award “does not fairly reflect their contribution” to Newcastle.
Cou Ali said: “Whilst women’s voices are often underrepresented in all aspects of society – politics, science, and the arts to name just a few - here in Newcastle the majority of the council’s ruling group, cabinet and corporate leadership team are women. We have a female chief executive and deputy leader of council, and two of our three MPs are women. We continue to encourage women to apply for jobs with the council and to stand for election to ensure women are involved in decision making at every level.
“However, we accept that far fewer women have been granted Freedom of the City compared to men and this does not fairly reflect their contribution to the life of the city. Nominations for this honour are made by the public and councillors. We will look very carefully at this process to see how we can actively encourage more women to be granted the city’s highest honour.”
Read More:
- Crucial court verdict awaited in battle over controversial Newcastle Quayside apartment block
- Gosforth High Street bollards to be removed but replacement plan branded 'extremely dangerous'
- Grainger Market roof restoration finally finished as traders promised scaffolding will disappear in weeks
- 'Important for the community, important for the children' – Pleas to save Birtley Swimming Centre from axe
- North East promised transport 'revolution' as anger mounts over train and bus chaos
