The only woman candidate fighting for a seat in a council area yesterday urged other women to take up the mantel of local politics, insisting the fairer sex had "deeper understanding" of people's lives.

Labour candidate and married mother-of-three Vaughan Jones is the only woman standing for election in Inverclyde alongside 37 male candidates from across the parties.

Her call came after research, highlighted yesterday in The Herald, showed fewer than one in four local election candidates in next month's polls will be women.

Academics at Edinburgh University said the lack of female candidates on the ballot papers would stifle efforts to force progressive policies on issues such as domestic violence and childcare up the political agenda within local government.

Mrs Jones, a 54-year-old mental health nurse, said she often has more demands on her time than her male counterparts due to family and domestic commitments, but is determined to encourage more women to engage in politics.

She said: "A lot of men have women at home who do all the cooking, cleaning and ironing so they don't have to think about those things.

"A woman tends to have to fit all of those things into her day, whereas men are able to just focus purely on the business of politics.

"However, in my experience, the other candidates have been understanding and realise that I can't always drop everything at a moment's notice."

Mrs Jones stood as a councillor in Canterbury in 1997 before moving to Scotland in 2002. She said that she did not become involved in Scottish politics until now because of her young family.

She added that she believes many women are deterred from standing for election because of the "adversarial style" of politics.

"It would be great to show that a woman can engage positively in politics and show other women that it's actually hugely enjoyable," she said.

"Women make up around 50% of the population so it's only right that that should be reflected in politics."

Candidate lists show 591 women are standing out of a total of 2497 hopefuls, or 23.6%, down from 27.7% in 2003. Females make up around 26% of the 362 standing for the Conservatives, almost 28% of the 497 for Labour, 28% of 247 Liberal Democrats, and 24.3% out of 614 SNP candidates.

The experts cite the Scottish Greens as leading the way in gender balance, with the party running 40.5% female candidates and placing them in winnable seats.

The lack of female contracts is an issue recognised across the political divide but parties are responding in different ways.

Parties admitted last night that more had to be done to attract women into the political process.

Labour has taken the most radical approach by saying that 50% of all vacancies created by councillors standing down should be filled by women, a move that would boost numbers of female candidates by 45% and increase the numbers from 20% to 30%.

This would see the numbers increased to 40% next time and 50% by the next again council election if the plans work. In the short term Labour also hopes to boost numbers in the most winnable seats, another measure which can have a greater effect on final numbers.

SNP chief executive Peter Murrell said yesterday that the party had appointed executive member Julie Hepburn to head a task force looking at the issue, with a view to increasing the number of women who came into politics and standing for office.

He said the SNP had a good record of adopting female candidates but that in common with other parties the problem was the number of women coming forward in the first place.

He said that 86% of women who had sought to become candidates at the council elections had been approved, but the problem was that too few women generally were coming forward.

The Liberal Democrats pointed to leading female figures in Edinburgh, Aberdeenshire, Fife, Renfrewshire and Aberdeen as evidence that the party was ahead on the issue, adding: "We continue to actively promote female participation at all levels of politics through our Future Leaders Programme."

Scottish Conservative local government campaign organiser John Lamont said: "We have increased our percentage of female candidates since the 2007 elections.

"It has been 30 years since a woman became the leader of the UK Conservative Party, and went on to run the country. We now have a young, dynamic female leader of the Scottish Conservative Party and I am sure we will continue to attract the brightest and best women to stand for election."

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