Parliaments & Representatives
Federation of Women Lawyers in Kenya (FIDA Kenya) is engaging with the female leaders and citizens, to enlighten and make them understand their role in the democratic process and also for the women leaders to have the courage to interact with the public and take up political leadership.
The ongoing town hall meetings bring together FIDA, women leaders and grassroots women to interact and discuss the role of the citizens when it comes to promoting women in political participation.
FIDA Kenya programme Officer Virginia Kibunja, speaking in a meeting in Kirinyaga West Sub-County, said with support from other partners such as USAID and ElGIA, they have initiated a project that works towards eliminating the barriers that hinder the participation of women in politics.
“So today we are here to understand what is Kirinyaga doing in terms of promoting women in political participation, and what barriers are they experiencing, and how best they can be solved in order to increase the number of women joining political leadership in this region,” Ms Kibunja said.
Read here the full article published by the Kenya News on 8 April 2024.
Image source: Kenya News
On the eve of India’s independence on August 14th, 1947, a momentous gathering filled the parliament gallery, eagerly awaiting Jawaharlal Nehru’s iconic address, his famous Tryst with Destiny Speech.
However, the session commenced with Sucheta Kripalani, a revered freedom fighter and later India’s first woman Chief Minister, singing the patriotic anthem “Vande Mataram” to set the stage for the historic occasion.
Why are we discussing her today? Because since India gained independence, significant progress has been made, including the rise of women leaders, chief ministers, and even a woman Prime Minister.
However, despite these advancements, women’s representation in politics still lags behind. While women dominate local bodies at the grassroots level, the question remains: what about leadership positions at the highest levels?
Read here the full article published by Mahabahu on 5 April 2024.
Image source: Mahabahu
In a compelling dialogue from a GZERO Global Stage discussion on gender equality in the age of AI, Lucia Nicholsonová, former Slovak National Assembly vice president and current member of European Parliament for Slovakia, recounts her harrowing personal experiences with disinformation campaigns and gendered hate speech online.
Ms. Nicholsonová read example messages she receives online, such as, "Damn you and your whole family. I wish you all die of cancer."
She also has faced false accusations of past criminal activity through deliberate online misinformation campaigns, which she says led to endured public humiliation and threats, even experiencing strangers spitting on her in the streets. These attacks were fueled by misogyny and prejudice and took a toll on her mental well-being and family life.
As Ms. Nicholsonová recalls, “It was a real trauma because I mean, at some point I wasn't able to go out of my home because I felt so threatened.”
The conversation was presented by GZERO in partnership with Microsoft and the UN Foundation. The Global Stage series convene heads of state, business leaders, technology experts from around the world for critical debate about the geopolitical and technology trends shaping our world.
Read here the full article published by GZERO Media on 21 March 2024.
Image source: GZERO Media
As part of Strathclyde Women's Week 2024, we are focusing on the work of Humanities & Social Sciences academics whose research relates particularly to the experiences of women and girls.
Dr Stefanie Reher is a Reader in Politics at the University of Strathclyde, working within the Department of Government & Public Policy. Dr Reher's research focuses on political representation, behaviour, and attitudes.
She is currently working on several projects about the representation of disabled people in politics. Last year - in collaboration with Prof. Elizabeth Evans of the University of Southampton - she published Gender, disability and political representation: understanding the experiences of disabled women in the European Journal of Politics and Gender.
We asked Dr Reher about the barriers disabled women face to participation in representative politics, the methods behind the research and what needs to be done to improve inclusion.
Click here to read the full article published by the University of Strathclyde on 20 March 2024.
Image source: University of Strathclyde
It is common knowledge that despite the invaluable contribution of women to Nigeria’s electoral process since the return to civil rule in 1999, the system has not given them their fair share of reward and recognition that they deserve.
Nigeria’s women have historically had low participation rate in political party positions, whether elected or appointed.
More than two decades after the Beijing Declaration from the Fourth World Conference on Women, governmental and non-governmental groups have tried to boost female engagement in politics. Unfortunately, the issue of underrepresentation has remained.
In every election circle, many women submit nominations for various political offices, only a few receive the nod of their parties to run in the general election due largely to financial limitations, cultural preconceptions and socio-political marginalisation by men.
Click here to read the full article published by the Business Day Nigeria on 18 March 2024.
Image source: Business Day Nigeria
SPOKANE, Wash. – International lawmakers met on March 13 to discuss ways of increasing women’s political participation as disparities in representation between men and women continue on local, national and international levels.
The 68th Session of the Commission on the Status of Women, which included US, Canadian, Colombian and British leaders, focused on broad strategies to increase women’s civic representation.
“[Experts] highlighted how longstanding barriers to women’s political participation and leadership—including lack of access to political networks and resources as well as gender-based violence both online and offline—continue to undermine their inclusion and advancement in democratic processes,” the US Department of Justice (DOJ) said.
According to Pew Research Center data from March 2023, less than a third of United Nations member states have ever had a woman leader.
Click here to read the full article published by Fox 28 on 16 March 2024.
Image source: FOX 28
In August 2013, RepresentWomen launched the Gender Parity Index (GPI) to help researchers and advocates track progress toward gender-balanced governance and identify opportunities for increasing women’s political representation in the U.S. Each year, we assign all 50 states a Gender Parity Score, letter grade, and ranking according to their proximity to parity. One of the key takeaways from this exercise is that progress toward gender balance is slower and less stable than it first appears.
Click here to read the full report published by RepresentWomen on 7 August 2023.
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.