Why are women loosing the fight to be politicians?

The IWA has warned that the current tally of 28 women AMs is poised to fall to 20 or fewer at the next election. Already labour have chosen men to replace two retiring women. The near-50% number of female Assembly Members could drop below 30% in 2011 amid retirements and changes in party selection procedures. There are also a few women in very marginal seats.
IWA Women group chair Professor Laura McAllister said Wales was "in danger of retreating to its traditional male dominance of politics and public life as a result of many assuming the battle is won on gender equality". She added: "There is an underbelly of discrimination in all aspects of Welsh public life as regards gender, amongst other things."The figures for Wales and the National Assembly actually belie some pretty awful statistics in other fields."Only eight of our 40 MPs are women and half of those were selected through all-women shortlists."Only a quarter of our local councillors are women, 90% of our council leaders are men: "This idea that there's a meritocracy is quite abject nonsense." Stern words indeed
But what’s happening, are the women not coming forward, no say the parties, but the ones who are being pushed are party hacks and constituencies are not having it. That fair enough, remember Maggie Jones, hey she got her reward she is now in the Lords
What do the high profile women do to encourage other women, very little that I can see? When was the last time Lady Kinnock, or Elin Jones or Angela Burns or Kirsty Williams visited constituencies and rousted the troops .....Ummmmmm
Having worked with Joan Ruddock et al to ensure training and mentoring was available for women when I was in the Labour party, I didn’t see much of that move out of the South East of England.
It is not a level playing field and we have to ask ourselves why this is a never-ending story. May be like the fairy tale we need the Orin to help us out and see why half the populations fails to get half the seats to run the place. May be it needs changing from male club to a modern place of business, national business. How quaint would that be? And its not about buildings its about mindset and realising the need to mobilise the talent and skills women have
I quote Kirsty Williams -She said the Lib Dems had "rejected any form of positive action for women" and were "taking softer measures" to encourage gender balance. "We've established a diversity fund, which helps women financially if finance is a barrier to seeking selection as well as looking at individual mentoring schemes and we've changed our selection process by which people are approved as candidates...[to make it] very much skills-based rather than experience-based," Any evidence this is succeeding ?