Silvio Berlusconi made Spanish socialist politicians splutter the other day when he called the new Spanish Cabinet - more than half of them women - “too pink”. Doubtless the new women in Berlusconi's own government will be dubbed Le Belle de Berlusconi. For the Italians are even more chauvinist than the Brits, and our new female parliamentary intake in 1997 was instantly derided as Blair's Babes. That description was no more accurate than Hague's Hunks would have been of the largely male opposition benches.

But women in politics are still a novelty, and treated quite differently from men. They are expected to look attractive and condemned if they don't. Can you imagine a woman with the girth, ears and general scruffiness of Charles Clarke hacking it in the House of Commons? Nobody pays much attention to male politicians' appearance, but their female colleagues are judged (often spitefully) by hair, suits and cleavage, long before brains, competence and judgment.

This is not just a Westminster phenomenon. Berlusconi caused a stir when he claimed: “The left wing has no taste in women. Our female politicians are more beautiful.” It is no accident, perhaps, that his favourite female politicians include Michela Vittoria Brambilla, a former Miss Italy finalist, and Mara Carfagna, a former showgirl with whom he flirted outrageously last year and then had to apologise publicly to his wife.He joked that Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero would “have problems leading” his women. So it is a promising sign that even this most unreconstructed of male chauvinists has seen the point of making his own Cabinet at least a third female.

That is better than our own administration. Gordon Brown's Cabinet has only six women out of 23, barely an improvement on Tony Blair's first Cabinet in 1997. True, Brown made Jacqui Smith the first female Home Secretary. But the pace of change here still feels slower than a marathon runner shuffling along in an elephant suit.

Britain is fifth bottom of the EU league when it comes to women's representation in Parliament. Just 19.5 per cent of our MPs are female, compared with nearly half in Scandinavian countries and more than 30 per cent in Spain, Belgium, Austria and Germany. If Spain, the father of machismo, can throw off centuries of tradition by having a Prime Minister who declares himself a feminist appointing a seven-months pregnant woman as Defence Secretary, then surely the British political classes should be feeling a little abashed.

Our electoral system doesn't help. Countries with proportional representation can use a “zipper” system to alternate male and female candidates. The Welsh Assembly has done this, and has 28 women out of 60 members: 47 per cent. All three main parties have tried to increase their proportion of women candidates for Westminster, with varying success. The Conservatives suffered constant male carping at their initial decision to have women make up a perfectly fair 50 per cent of their A-list candidates, yet despite a huge effort from the centre 71 per cent of the candidates so far selected have been men. Local Tory associations have had to work out whether they are more racist or sexist: judging by their recent success in adopting ethnic minority candidates, sexism has come out tops.

Increasing women's participation in politics isn't a matter of political correctness, as some of the crustier Conservatives would have it. It is a basic tenet of representative democracy that a parliament should at least roughly represent the people who elect it.

Since Labour's larger female contingent hit Westminster in 1997, the political agenda has changed strikingly. Childcare, flexible working and domestic violence are the stuff of mainstream political discourse now in a way that wasn't the case 15 years ago. And it is not just the female ministers and their shadows who talk about these issues. Brown trumpets extra cash for children; David Cameron makes speeches about work/life balance. At last politics has started to serve the whole population, not just half of it.

And as women become more involved in running the country, the style of politics changes too. Listening to Jacqui Smith being interviewed on the Today programme, you may not always agree with what she says, but you can't help noticing that her manner is eminently reasonable and agreeable. The more equality women will have, the more civilised and tolerant society will be. Not my words, but those of my new hero - the Spanish Prime Minister.

www.maryannsieghart.com

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