209 Women Project

“TO REPRESENT AND BE PRESENTED FOR WHAT WE ARE – AS WOMEN, BY WOMEN – IS A VERY SPECIAL THING.

THIS IS WHAT 209 WOMEN IS ALL ABOUT.”

Helen Pankhurst, Great Granddaughter of Emmeline Pankhurst

209 Women marks 100 years since the first general election in which some women could vote. It seeks to champion the visibility of women: particularly in politics, where decisions are made that affect people of all genders. It features new portraits of the UK’s women MPs, shot entirely by photographers that identify as women. 

It launched on 14 December at the Houses of Parliament, 100 years to the day that the first women walked into polling stations to cast their ballots. Now, it opens in Liverpool with the full set being shown for the first time — including Sinn Féin MPs who abstained from showing their images in the Houses of Parliament.

It’s an opportunity to reflect on how much progress has been made towards gender parity, whilst also highlighting how much more needs to be done, across all spheres of society, each and every day. 

Photography is a tremendously powerful medium of communication, yet all too often we see images in which women have had their agency denied. All the women in this project – both MPs and photographers – worked together to create images that communicated their identities on their terms: their own sense of justice, their own vision for a better world. 

Out take 1

The fishing lodge

Out take 2

Michelle Gildernew is a Sinn Féin MP