A true role model has to be admired. Encouraging more women to stand for election should not be about 'making up numbers': women are extremely capable of becoming elected without help from male party leaders. Shirley Chisholm, in a famous speech on gender equality to Congress in Washington, U.S., on 21st May 1969, aired a similar sentiment: "women need no protection that men do not need. What we need are laws to protect working people, to guarantee them fair pay, safe working conditions, protection against sickness and layoffs and provision for dignified, comfortable retirement. Men and women need these things equally. That one sex need protection more than the other is a male supremacist myth as ridiculous and unworthy of respect as the white supremacist myth that society is trying to cure itself of at this time"1. Apportioning a quota of seats for women or all-women shortlists will be a patronising implication that women cannot succeed off the back of their own merits, and that men are innately superior. This does not create inspirational role models.  1 Full transcript of speech, 'Equal Rights for Women' by Shirley Chisholm: