The environment women operate in in public life is much more hostile than it used to be

Former First Minister of Scotland Nicola Sturgeon opens up on misogyny, miscarriage, menopause - and moving on. By HANNAH STEPHENSON

- HANNAH STEPHENSON

NICOLA STURGEON is no stranger to hitting the headlines, from political fall-outs to personal slurs, questions about her sexuality and a highly publicised police investigation into party finances, from which she was exonerated after nearly two years.

“I've come to the conclusion over my years in politics, that that’s got the capability of holding you back. But if you use it properly it’s also your superpower because it makes you work harder and strive harder and double down on proving yourself.”

The shyness was overshadowed by a burning ambition, from growing up in a working-class family in a former mining village in Ayrshire, the daughter of an electrician and a dental nurse, to becoming First Minister.

There seemed to be little awareness of work/life balance and she talks about the conflict she felt when she became pregnant at 40 and the miscarriage that followed.

Nicola had never possessed an overwhelming maternal instinct to have a child and felt guilty at not being as excited about the pregnancy as her husband Peter Murrell, then SNP chief executive.

“I was conflicted. I got pregnant more quickly than I expected to and, had the pregnancy continued, I would have been six months’ pregnant during an election campaign in 2011.

“We might go, ‘So what?’ now, but back then I don’t think there had been a senior woman in government that had had a baby in office. It wasn’t obvious what the public reaction would have been to that.