IN response to the letter 'Patronising and insulting'.

I was surprised to read the views of a Flixton resident in last week's paper regarding the Labour Party photo shoot outside Urmston Library on February 21.

The idea of encouraging women to use their vote isn't patronising at all. The number of women choosing to vote at each election is dwindling and there are more than a million missing women voters. Only 39 per cent of young women (18-24) choose to use their vote.

It is important to remind women that the suffragettes fought for them to have the right to vote. They were often beaten, abused and imprisoned in the process. I don't think Emmeline Pankhurst's great granddaughter, Dr Helen Pankhurst, would agree that Labour is trying to patronise women.

In a recent interview she stated that she didn't want to tell women what to do, and say that her grandmother nearly died for you to vote. But she wanted to say that women have an opportunity that they didn’t have in the past and still don’t have elsewhere.

"Being cynical about politics and abdicating responsibility seems such a waste. If only women understood the power they have".

Lyn Davies