How did you spend your 20s? Partying with friends? Making terrible decisions? Enjoying the absence of responsibility? I’m certainly spending mine doing some of these and more, which is why I was fascinated by what would motivate other women around my age to enter the serious, undoubtably stressful and male-dominated world of politics.
To find out why young women would take on the enormous responsibility of representing the nation, I'm visiting the Houses of Parliament to meet two twentysomething female MPs from the new Labour Government. ‘Gen Z’ MPs Rosie Wrighting and Nadia Whittome, both 27, explain what it’s like being a young woman in Westminster, highlight the issues affecting their generation and share their advice to young people across the nation.
Kettering MP Rosie Wrighting was one of 330 new MPs elected into the House of Commons this summer (and holds one of the 209 additional seats gained by Labour). Then aged 26, she was the youngest female MP elected this year, and the first woman ever to be elected for Kettering.
“It’s going to take some time to fully sink in,” she says of her recent appointment, from a meeting room in Westminster (there are so many new MPs that many of their offices are still being assigned). “It’s been a really incredible few weeks, from the moment I stepped into this building…to getting a letter that said, ‘member for Kettering’, the town I was born and raised in.”
At just 27, Nottingham East MP Nadia Whittome has been re-elected for a second term, but she didn’t always see politics in her future.
“It was never a life dream,” says Nadia from her Parliament office, where our interview is punctuated by the chimes of Big Ben. “It was 2013, when I was 16 years old, and the 'bedroom tax' was introduced [when I first thought about it]. By that point, we’d had three years of austerity and it felt pretty unbearable for our family that our benefits had been cut.”
Nadia stood on issues including wealth redistribution and the climate crisis and was elected as the youngest Member of Parliament, nicknamed the ‘Baby of the House’, in the 2019 snap election.
Rosie was raised by a single mum who was a youth worker. Her decision to stand for election was similarly personal: “I’ve experienced issues that face my generation – our generation – like the insecure renting market, the inability to buy a house (the average age is over 35) [and] a cost-of-living crisis.”
For Nadia, the current housing crisis is also a big concern: “I’ve been fighting for rent controls and that’s not just because it would help my generation, but as there are so many families in my constituency who end up effectively being evicted because they can’t afford rent increases.”
Nadia also highlights climate change as an issue young people are particularly mobilised over, as well as male violence. In July this year, new figures showed violence against women and girls had amounted to a “national emergency” in England and Wales.
“People of all generations, but particularly young people, have taken to the streets to demand justice and accountability from the police, an end to misogynistic policies, and for an end to male violence,” says Nadia.
Both Nadia and Rosie say that being younger than most other MPs helps them voice issues that are important to upcoming generations but that aren’t always understood by older Britons – for instance, the impact growing up on social media can have on confidence and mental health.
“It’s really unique to this younger generation. That’s why it’s so valuable to have young voices in the room who can talk about their experiences and also their peers’,” says Rosie.
In the run-up to the general election, there was much commentary around the influence TikTok and other social platforms could have on young people’s votes, although it’s not definitively clear how much they influenced the final result.
“Social media is really important for reaching different groups of people,” says Nadia. “But I don’t think it’s a substitute for going out into your community and speaking with people face to face.”
The dark side of a social media presence, however, is the potential for online abuse. For Nadia, trolling has even escalated into “nasty, physical threats” in the real world.
“I’ve received some quite horrific abuse. I’m a young woman, I’m a woman of colour, I’m LGBTQ, I’m left-wing, and sometimes those [instances of abuse] have been very serious. Sometimes, the police have had to be involved, and people have been prosecuted for it,” says Nadia.
Offline, there are further challenges to being a young female MP in Westminster – a male-dominated environment where the majority of members are aged between 50 and 59 years old.
“You have to work very hard to be taken seriously,” admits Nadia. “Often you get spoken down to [but] you just have to ignore it and remember that you were elected here by your constituents.”
Despite the challenges, a record number of women were elected as MPs in 2024, meaning there are an increasing number of female role models to look up to.
“I have a lot of politicians on our front bench that I admire, [including Chancellor] Rachel Reeves,” says Rosie, who explains that her mum and Rachel’s grandad both worked in a Kettering shoe factory. “I admire her as a politician and economist.”
She adds that when she campaigned on the doorstep, she actually found her gender and age were often viewed positively by voters: “They spoke to me about the value of having someone who would understand the needs of their children and grandchildren in Parliament.”
But what’s it like balancing a public life and the responsibility of running the country with the everyday experience of being a young woman?
“I do feel a bit like I’ve missed out on my 20s, but I think we all feel like that because of Covid and lockdown,” says Nadia. “I’m very strict about still living my life, like other politicians do.”
Nadia says she still goes clubbing in her Nottingham East consistency and has received positive feedback for doing so: “One night I went out and a woman came up to me and said that she was having problems with her visa, she’d contacted my office and we’d helped sort it out. She was out celebrating that.”
In the 2024 general election, areas where there were more young people were less likely to vote than in areas with an older population, aged 64-plus. In 2019, the picture was similar, with less than half of 18- to 24-year-olds exercising their right to vote. Both Nadia and Rosie are adamant about the difference young people all over the country can make.
“Believe in the power of your own voice,” Rosie urges. “Your vote, your voice can help shape the future for the better.”
“There’s a vicious cycle where politicians and political parties aren’t catering to young people or providing policies for young people and as a result, young people don’t vote,” echoes Nadia. “Break that cycle by voting.”
