‘I needed women’ – Kate Forbes emphasises importance of single-sex spaces

Kate Forbes has said she did not fully appreciate the importance of single-sex spaces until she was in labour with her daughter.

The deputy finance minister said it was the “most vulnerable” she’d ever felt as a woman and it was important for her to be surrounded by other women.

In an interview with Holyrood, she said many politicians were being prevented from saying what they “instinctively feel” on questions of sex and gender because of a “very fearful culture” which had been created.

But that for her, her difficult labour brought into sharp relief why such issues need to be thoroughly examined.

She said: “There isn’t a human being in the land that hasn’t arrived as a result of a pregnancy and yet, considering it’s a universal experience in terms of everybody’s creation, it’s quite remarkable how little people understand it.

“That’s the most vulnerable I've ever felt as a woman. And you look to other women in that room for your help and support.

“And I think it's a good example of the need for a single-sex place, which in the moment I would not have thought through the political implications of what I was asking for, but I tell you, that in that vulnerability, in that place, I know what I needed, and it was the help of other women.”

And asked why she feels so many politicians have failed to engage with serious questions about single-sex spaces, Forbes said part of the issue was social media and the “soundbite generation”.

She added: “Instinctively there's lot of politicians that know the right answer but have bought into phrases.

“The other thing is that we live in a very fearful culture. And I think, again, there's a lot of politicians that know what they instinctively feel, but they are very scared of expressing it.”

Forbes gave birth to her daughter Naomi in August 2022. At the time she was finance secretary in the Scottish Government, though was on maternity leave.

She has since spoken about her struggle with post-natal depression, describing feelings of “intense sadness, feeling extremely vulnerable and being wracked by terror”.

Now, speaking to Holyrood editor Mandy Rhodes, Forbes has opened up about her difficult labour, saying at times it felt like it was “getting the better of me” and “was fast becoming a big fat ‘F’ for fail”.

She added: “I'm somebody that has always tried to achieve. I've always been somebody that's measured my performance. And I guess having a baby knocked both of those things. I wasn’t in control, and I could not work my way out of how I was feeling. It came as a huge shock to me.”

But she said since then she had become a “different person” with “more sympathy and empathy” for others.

She said this had enabled her to go back into the Scottish Parliament after taking part in a bruising leadership election, during which a number of colleagues sought to distance themselves from her, and reconnect and restore friendships.

She said: “I definitely had to work hard when I came back into Holyrood after maternity leave, to build bridges and to restore friendships. And I did that very intentionally.

“I was on the back benches and sitting in committees so that gives an opportunity to talk and you're chatting to people in the coffee queue and so on. You know, I was really intentional in it all. I went along to social things and so on. I made the effort… I'm not reducing that feeling that I had of wanting to hide away. But I hate feeling like a coward.

“And so, I have done my level best to – in the moments that I wanted to hide – propel myself forward and spoken to somebody or given the speech in the chamber, or whatever it is.”

You can read the full interview with Kate Forbes in our Annual Review special edition.