Sexism towards female MPs is sadly still commonplace

You get low-level sexism all the time. I've defended other women in the chamber. I know women who work for me, certainly Black women, have found Westminster to be oppressive.
Lots of men shush me because I'm quite rowdy. I get lots of comments like "calm down, the honourable lady acts with her heart". In the post-Me Too world, you get joking comments like "am I allowed to ask you to pass the milk?" or "I don't know if I'm allowed to say this to me, but you look lovely". ...
Quite a lot of Tory men treat me like I'm some sort of exotic bird. People act like I'm either a pain or something to be marvelled at. You can see sometimes in meetings, women are asked to do things like get the tea. The expectation of them being stupid and annoying is quite common – that is very irritating. There is a power imbalance, there is an element of impunity.

I always resented the people who wrote in and said to new, young women MPs: ‘You ought to be campaigning on X or Y because that’s what a woman politician should do

People weren’t used to the prospect of a woman becoming prime minister so there were attacks about my appearance, my voice and even my clothing. But I found that there was little point dwelling on such criticism. I just had to look straight ahead and get on with the task at hand and, by and large, that strategy worked for me. I think women politicians today are more confident in being able to call out such behaviour than I was at a time when it was very rare to have many women in parliament.

Whenever female members stood up, they were clearly not interested. They [male MPs] started talking on their own.”

Seriously? Our two most senior female politicians are judged for their legs not what they said #appallingsexism

The good thing is now post-Me Too movement, we are not putting up with it. Some of the men have not moved forward. They still think it is acceptable to be sexist and misogynistic.
When I was a whip, an MP was talking about me having a real whip in the tea room in parliament. It happened more than once. It became very uncomfortable and embarrassing for me.
Parliament was designed for men only and there is still that prevailing attitude that this is a man’s place and the women are just window dressing and there is that entitlement to belittle women.

[On dealing with sexism from male MPs] One of our colleagues from the northern group had complained about Mo [Mowlam]'s swearing, and he was in the tea room when we got there. So she said: "Oh, it's all right, I won't swear today. But you need to understand the real problems I'm having with my period." I've never seen anybody run faster out of the tea rooms.

[Referring to women MPs] We're now up to 35 per cent and a lot of men find this objectionable and want to unleash misogyny. [...]
The irony is that the more women you get, the more it triggers some men who whilst they can blot out of their ears a couple of women, somehow it feels like an assault on them to actually have to listen to a number of women in authority talking confidently, and they then do a backlash.

There are many problems we are facing as female MPs of a certain age. We seem to be regarded as an aberration.

In my case, I was kicked off the SNP frontbench for speaking up for women's rights and for lesbian rights.
And I've also received rape and death threats, as is a matter of public record. I've had no public support from my political party, despite those rape and death threats.
So, I think many parliamentarians are just trying to keep out of this debate because they’re afraid to speak up.

As a woman who has worked in male-dominated industries my entire life so far, I am sadly no stranger to casual sexism. Like many women in these situations, I found myself making choices about the way that I act, dress, or carry myself to avoid having sexist interpretations read into my interactions – interactions such as, for instance, deliberately speaking closely with an elder who is very hard of hearing. It is a burden that women should not have to bear while they are simply trying to live their lives and do their jobs. The video of BC Liberal Leader Andrew Wilkinson watching on as a multi-term BC Liberal North Shore MLA sexualized my interactions with another multi-term BC Liberal North Shore MLA is a deeply uncomfortable characterization of my efforts to extend kindness across partisan lines. However, this is not about me. Young women deserve a province that encourages them to take on leadership roles without fear of sexism. If we want more young women and people of colour to enter politics, we must commit to creating environments that respect them. The comments and reactions in that video do the exact opposite.

I remember one of my north‑east colleagues saying firmly in the tearoom one afternoon that there wasn’t a woman in the parliamentary party who was fit to be in the shadow cabinet

This year, I've had about half a dozen legislators tell me women really don't belong in the legislature, and they just can't vote for a bill with a woman's name on it.