Parliaments & Representatives
Thailand was once regarded as one of the most progressive in fostering gender equality. It was the second country in Asia to grant women the right to vote, as far back as 1932. A recent report, “Freedom in the World 2024”, however, shows that women in Thailand remain overlooked in politics and government at all levels.
The study by Freedom House, a US-based political advocacy organisation, said that women’s interests are generally not prioritised in political life.
The Kingdom got two out of four points in the report’s “political rights and electoral opportunities for various segments of the population” section.
“If we [women] do not work outstandingly either while working in a [House] committee or debating in parliament, we won’t be interested. It seems like we need to try harder than the men,” says Sasinan Thamnithinan, a Move Forward Party MP, in an interview with The Nation.
"Women are not decorative flowers in politics," says Sasinan, 34. “We are capable of talking about serious social issues in parliamentary debates like the men do, such as police and army reform, not just so-called feminine topics like household violence,” she says.
The lawmaker is among 32 female politicians, out of the total of 151, who secured their MP seats under the Move Forward banner in the May 14 general election. Move Forward has the highest number of women MPs among all parties.
Click here to read the full article published by The Nation Thailand on 16 March 2024.
Image source: The Nation Thailand
TOKYO -- A study group headed by Mari Miura, a professor at Sophia University's Faculty of Law in Tokyo, with an objective to achieve gender equality in Japan from local levels, has compiled a Japanese gender gap index by prefecture. Using the same method as the global gender gap index, the group collects data on women's participation in local politics, economy, education and administration. Based on the latest data for the year 2023, the Mainichi Shimbun looked into factors contributing to gender inequality across Japan and efforts to tackle the issue.
Tomoko Kogoshi, 60, served as a Yamanashi Prefectural Assembly member for four terms spanning 16 years and retired in spring 2023. For the latter half of her time in the prefectural assembly, she was the only female member.
Click here to read the full article published by The Mainichi on 19 February 2024.
Image source: The Mainichi
The Ministry of Women in Solomon Islands is looking at new legislation which could guarantee extra seats for women in provincial assemblies.
The SIBC reports in the 45 years of independent governance, 16 women have been voted into Provincial Assemblies and six into Parliament.
Endorsed in December by the now caretaker government, the proposed amendment would establish temporary special measures (TSM) to guarantee additional seats for women in Provincial Assemblies.
The TSM endorsement by Cabinet was the result of approximately six years of work led by several ministries and partner organisations including; Women's Rights Action Movement (WRAM), Solomon Islands National Council of Women (SINCW) and the Honiara City Council (HCC), the SIBC reported.
Click here to read the full article published by RNZ on 13 February 2024.
Image source: RNZ
With the Women’s Reservation Bill being passed in Parliament last year, the debate on whether quota within political parties or in Parliament and State Assemblies may be the best route for increasing women’s representation in politics seems to have come to an end. The Assembly elections in Rajasthan showed that the only way for increasing women’s political participation seems to be to provide them reservation in Parliament and State Assemblies. In the elections, the women candidates of both the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) put up dismal performances.
Click here to read the full article published by The Hindu on 12 February 2024.
Image source: The Hindu
CRRC Georgia surveyed the Georgian public on attitudes towards gender equality in politics and obstacles faced by women in politics in Georgia.
Gender equality in politics is an important issue globally, and Georgian policy on the issue has been developing in recent years. Georgia introduced mandatory gender quotas for proportional party lists in 2020, extending this provision until 2032. The legislation stipulates that at least one out of four candidates submitted to the Central Election Commission, and provides financial support to parties that nominate more women.
Despite these policy changes, much remains to be done to ensure gender equality in practice. In the 2020 parliamentary elections, only three political parties and one electoral bloc benefited from the financial incentive mechanism for nominating more female candidates than the mandatory gender quotas required. A study on mandatory gender quotas in Georgia found that in 2022, women still made up only 19% of Georgia’s parliament.
Click here to read the full article published by the OC Media on 6 February 2024.
Image source: OC Media
You might be mistaken for thinking you’d stepped into the Tardis and been transported back in time 20 years upon seeing two of the headlines from around the world this week.
In one, Japan’s foreign minister was told by the country’s former PM that she “wasn’t that good looking” (he also got her name wrong several times and threw in an ageist slur for good measure). In another, a news channel ran an image of a female Australian MP that had been photoshopped to make her breasts look bigger and her outfit more revealing.
Both are grim examples of the way sexism still permeates through our political systems, even in so-called “developed” countries – but the second story made me physically gasp. In the year of our Lord 2024, how on earth are we still seeing women in politics being subject to this kind of degradation? And what could possibly be the thinking behind augmenting an MP’s chest for a news bulletin on duck hunting?
Click here to read the full article published by The Independent on 31 January 2023.
Image source: The Independent
In this report, UNDP explores a long standing and important focus area - strengthening women’s political participation and gender equality in governance. This report aims to highlight the ways in which UNDP supports women's political participation across the globe. To understand the scale, scope, and range of UNDP's support to women's political participation, the mapping considered 73 current and recently closed projects and programmes.
The mapping and analysis cover key action areas like electoral assistance; parliamentary strengthening; civic engagement and women’s participation in the public administration. It also covers strategic priority areas in UNDP’s Gender Equality Strategy and global programme on governance, projects that address violence against women in politics including online violence; promoting gender quotas to advance women’s public participation; and projects that focus on transforming gender norms.
Click here to read the full report published by UNDP on 19 June 2023.
Women MPs are exposed to daily online harassment, and social media platforms provide unlimited scope for anonymous, hostile and aggressive behaviour to be targeted at them. As the unprecedented cyber abuse of female MPs is known to be detrimental to their personal and professional lives, today’s toxic virtual environment poses a real risk to the future of women in politics, argues Christina Julios.
Online abuse of Members of Parliament is nothing new. An occupational hazard for any public figure, elected representatives have long been targets of attacks and derision from the public. With the advent of mainstream social media, however, there has been an exponential growth of cyber abuse, which has also become more extreme and normalised.
Click here to read the full article published by The London School of Economics on 17 May 2023.
Representation of women in the field of legislative politics is remarkably small and the absence of women has wide-ranging ramifications. In Fall 2019, we surveyed 361 women that we identified as studying legislative politics within political science to understand why women’s representation in legislative studies is so low and what we can do about it. We found that many women study legislatures, but they do not always identify as scholars of legislative studies, often do not join the Legislative Studies Section, and tend to prioritize other journals over Legislative Studies Quarterly, the official journal of the section. In this article, we discuss several solutions to the problem of women’s underrepresentation in legislative studies, including the new Women in Legislative Studies initiative.
Click here read the article by Cambridge University Press on 15 May 2023.
In both politics and public life in the UK, women have historically been underrepresented. In recent years women’s representation has increased, although in most cases men remain overrepresented, especially in more senior positions.
This briefing presents statistics on a range of positions in UK politics and public life held by women. Data on the demographic characteristics of different workforces tends to be limited, so it is not always possible to include intersectional analysis, for example, on disabled women or women from minority ethnic groups.
Click here to access the report.
Despite progress towards gender equality, women’s representation in Canadian politics continues to fall short. With only 30 per cent of seats in the House of Commons held by women, there is still a long way to go for Parliament to capture the diversity of the population it represents.
There are several factors that contribute to the persistent gender disparities in the political process. Research on women in politics has identified multiple obstacles that hinder women’s representation, with three factors emerging as the most prominent explanations.
Three obstacles to women in politics
The first is that voters might have gender bias. This is the idea that, for various reasons, voters might prefer a man over a woman candidate.
The second is that women may not be interested to run as candidates. This is the idea that women might be more risk-averse when it comes to campaigns and elections, or that women may lack self-confidence and have lower levels of political ambition compared to men.
Click here to read the full article published by the Conversation on 10 March 2023.