Equality | Cherie Blair told not to have career because of her gender

Cherie Blair has revealed that she was discouraged from pursuing her high-flying career in law because of her gender in a recent video interview.

Blair, who is a prominent Queen's Counsel (QC), said she was called to the Bar in 1976 and invited to make a speech. However, Lord Denning then told her that ‘the Bar really isn’t the place for women’. “It wasn’t exactly the most encouraging way to start,” Blair said.

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Year later, when she was pregnant with her first child Euan, she described being “so determined to prove to those men in chambers that I was going to come back [after giving birth]. I came back very quickly… The only previous time they had a woman in chambers, as soon as she had babies, she left.”

She also faced sexism when filling in the details on her Bar certificate. She explained that she did not want to put my father’s name and occupation on the certificate.