What does your vote mean to you?

For the theme of our fourth issue we’ve chosen ‘women and political power’ to mark International Women’s Day on 8 March. From casting your vote to influencing the legislation which shapes women’s lives, participation in the democratic process is a fundamental right, but in many countries – including the UK – women do not have parity of power with men.

In the weeks between now and publication day, we’ll be tweeting some salutatory and shocking facts about the lack of women in positions of power and influence in the UK (look for #power4women). Can this change? And if so, is the democratic process the way to do it? Are you politically active? How important to you is putting your ‘x’ in the box? Or are you disillusioned with the whole democratic process?

In our own country, less than a third of local and regional political representatives are women. In the House of Commons, it’s worse still – less than a quarter of MPs are women, woefully short of the more equal representation in many of our neighbouring European countries. In issue four of Her Edit we’ll be hearing from women across the world about how they engage with their country’s democratic process.

We’d like you to join in our twitter campaign (#powerforwomen) or post your comments here and tell us what your vote means to you.

We look forward to hearing your views.

Jayne Phenton