Peer reveals MP 'stroked her neck' as female politicians open up about sexual harassment

Gender balance: Picture credit - Fotolia

A Tory peer has revealed an MP stroked her neck while she drove when she was 22.

Baroness Jenkin was one of a number of high profile female politicians who has spoken out in the wake of allegations of sexual assault and rape made against Hollywood producer, Harvey Weinstein. 

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Former cabinet minister Theresa Villiers revealed she had been groped at a Conservative event when she stood to be an MP in the 1990s. 

While Labour’s Mary Creagh told the Evening Standard she had been sexually abused as a child and Jess Phillips said her former boss had attempted to assault her when she was in her 20s. 

Jenkin said: “I was with an MP once in a car and he was trying to stroke my neck. I was swerving all over the road.'

"Men used to hit on you all the time. They would say, 'I had a dream about you last night'... these things affect people differently. I haven't thought about it for 40 years. I'm not upset about it. I just hope it's not common today."

Villiers told the paper: "I recall one instance in the late Nineties when I was a candidate for the European elections and attended a Conservative function. 

“As I was leaving at the end of the evening after having made my speech, I had to fend off some groping hands from one of the event organisers.”

Creagh said: "I had my underwear torn off during a game of kiss chase and was sexually assaulted by about 12 boys. They were older than me, about ten or 11 years old."

She added that she had had her bottom pinched by a priest when she was in her teenage years. 

Chair of the Women and Equalities committee Maria Miller, who recently said she had been sexually harassed “many times”, added: "I've experienced far more sexual harassment as a member of Parliament than I did in my entire 20-year career in advertising and marketing. It's not about the House of Commons, it's more general than that."

"This is not a thing of the past and we need to see it as a present-day concern and it needs to be tackled in that way. The event around Harvey Weinstein give us an opportunity to do more," she said.