Elections
Gender was an important factor in the 2022 election: it shaped the ways the major parties packaged their policies and their leaders. Three years later, as Australians grapple with an uncertain world and a cost-of-living crisis, how might gender shape the 2025 election result?
Ideas about gender have always shaped Australian politics, although male and female political alignments have shifted over time. For example, when Sir Robert Menzies established the Liberal Party in 1944, he crafted messages to appeal to women, in contrast with the Labor Party’s blue-collar masculinity.
By the 1970s and 1980s, as more women entered the workforce and pursued further education, they became more progressive in their voting habits. This trend is evident beyond Australia (for example in the US, and in Europe and Canada).
How gender influenced the 2022 election
Women’s issues were decisive in the last federal election. The gendered impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the emergence of Grace Tame as a fiery advocate for survivors of sexual abuse, and the Morrison government’s poor response to Brittany Higgins’ allegation of sexual assault enraged many women, who took the streets in the March for Justice in 2021.
Read here the full article published by The Conversation on 3 April 2025.
Image by The Conversation
In a recent blog for a leading German newspaper, the president of the German Institute for Economic Research delivered a stark assessment of political parties’ demographic focus ahead of February’s snap elections. His conclusion was sobering: “We cannot afford the future right now,” he wrote, describing a campaign centred on massive redistribution from the young to the old. In other words, younger generations are footing the bill for older ones—regardless of the cost.
Unsurprisingly, this approach does not sit well with those under 30. It also highlights a deeper challenge: political parties must rethink how they campaign to meaningfully connect with young people. Understanding their concerns is crucial, but so is recognising that most political social media efforts fail to engage them effectively. In an era where most under-30s consume news primarily via social media, parties need to move beyond surface-level outreach and develop strategies that truly resonate.
Young Voters and Political Outreach
Following the 2024 European Parliament elections, we researched how parties engage young voters, particularly given the increasing reliance on social media and the success of far-right parties in mobilising young people. We sought to answer key questions: Are political parties using social media effectively? What strategies are they employing? Are far-right parties outperforming others in youth outreach?
To explore this, we analysed Instagram and Facebook posts from political parties in Germany, Hungary, Poland, and Sweden—countries representing different political landscapes. Our study included far-right, green, conservative, and social democratic parties.
Read here the full article published by Social Europe on 28 March 2025.
Image by Social Europe
Last year, an aura of possibility hovered in anticipation of around 60 elections that were held across the world. Today, we face the outcomes of ballot choices that continue to cap women’s political leadership at a global level, as the UN Women's latest report highlights a slowdown of equality between women and men in politics.
Moving the needle on political empowerment
Approximately half of the head of state elections held in 2024 had women running for the top job. Out of virtual parity however, there were three times as many men re-elected than women elected overall. In terms of gender, the balance is slightly more positive. While two economies saw female incumbents replaced by newly elected male candidates, in four economies, electorates chose women to succeed men as head of state. However, when it comes to volume, out of the Global Gender Gap Report’s most populous economies, three elected men, and only one elected a woman as head of state.
For the legislative sphere, results are mixed. Among economies with parliamentary elections in 2024, Mexico and Rwanda continue to lead in female representation, with 50% and 64% of seats won by women in their lower houses, respectively. Belgium, Iceland, Senegal, South Africa, and the UK, achieved just over 40% of female representation. However, 80% of legislatures elected in 2024 selected men to the role of speaker, keeping legislative leadership overwhelmingly male.
Most countries have tackled the lack of female representation in their political decision-making by implementing legal candidate quotas. While this approach increased the proportion of female candidates, no major impacts have been observed on the proportional representation among elected officials. Notably, only two economies achieved higher percentages of elected women compared to female candidates.
Click here to read the full article published by the World Economic Forum on 17 March 2025.
Image by WEF
THE lack of women representation in parliaments across the world remains a vexed and contentious issue.
In Fiji, this problem again surfaced for debate in response to Deputy Prime Minister Manoa Kamikamica’s call for a quota system to increase women’s representation in Parliament.
Mr Kamikamica was speaking at the “Capacity building training for prospective women and youth candidates in local elections” workshop in Suva in November last year.
The workshop was organised by Suva-based civil society organisation, Dialogue Fiji, in collaboration with Emily’s List Australia and funded by Misereor.
Mr Kamikamica noted that women’s representation in Fiji’s Parliament peaked at 20 per cent in 2018, only to drop to 14 per cent after the 2022 elections.
Read here the full article published by The Fiji Times on 11 Janurary 2025.
Image by The Fiji Times
Handicraft market trader Tui Johnson has barely had time to think about politics ahead of Vanuatu’s national election as she struggles to survive after last month’s earthquake.
Fourteen people were killed, more than 200 seriously injured and 80,000 people displaced or adversely affected when the 7.3 magnitude quake struck just off the capital Port Vila on Dec. 17.
As the Pacific nation comes to terms with the devastation of its major city, it will still go to the polls on Jan.16 after a snap election was called in November.
The city center – where Johnson’s handicraft market is located – suffered major damage and access is still restricted for safety reasons.
Read here the full article published by Benar News on 13 January 2025.
Image by Benar News
In recognition of the gender gap in political representation, the Inter-Party Advisory Council (IPAC) Nigeria has expressed support for the passage of a bill before the National Assembly to reserve special seats in national and state legislatures for women.
As part of its commitment to strengthen the country’s democracy, the group has also resolved to intensify its role in promoting credible elections and democratic governance, by supporting more electoral reforms.
IPAC has also resolved to uphold the rule of law, adhere to constitutional provisions by political parties and help to address issues such as voter apathy, electoral violence, and vote-buying through advocacy and civic engagement initiatives.
These resolutions were part of the communique issued by IPAC Nigeria, at the end of a three-day constitution review session held in Ikeja, Lagos recently.
Read here the full article published by The Nation Online on 8 January 2025.
Image by The Nation Online
Women around the world are playing increasingly visible roles in the political processes of their countries as voters, candidates, representatives, protesters, journalists and as civic educators in the home, the community and beyond. However, as emerging democracies struggle to consolidate, overcome violent pasts and address crippling poverty, they often falter and breed disillusionment. Religious and ethnic divisions may appear or intensify. In these complex contexts, electoral violence threatens – or beckons – women in new ways.
In Breaking the Mold: Understanding Gender and Electoral Violence, IFES introduces the concept of gendered electoral violence in transitional democracies and presents a new framework which accounts for all forms of public and private violence committed by and against women. Where current frameworks fail to fully take women into account by neglecting or stereotyping gender-specific forms of violence, IFES’ new framework draws on research in domestic violence and feminist security studies to expand our understanding of types of violence and victim and perpetrator roles. This framework can help ensure that practitioners meet short and long-term needs, such as the protection and education of women candidates and voters in the short term, and better documentation and therefore responses to gendered electoral violence in the long-term.
Click here to see the white paper.
By Ruth Igielnik and Kim Parker,
As moms across the United States celebrate Mother’s Day this weekend, five of the six women vying for the Democratic residential nomination are themselves mothers.
These women, all seeking the same high political office, became mothers at different points in their careers – some while they were starting out in politics and others long before that.
Roughly half of Americans (51%) say it’s better for a woman who wants to reach high political office to have children before entering politics, according to a 2018 Pew Research Center survey on gender and leadership. About a quarter (26%) say it would be better to wait until she is well-established in her political career, while 19% say it would be better for a woman not to have children at all if she plans to seek higher office.
Click here to read the full article published by the PEW Research Center on 9 May 2019.
May 3: A preliminary gender audit of the South African elections due to be held on 8 May shows that while there will be a slight increase in women’s representation, women are still missing from the top echelons of political parties and from the media.
“On World Press Freedom Day it is an indictment on South Africa that women still constitute just one fifth of those whose views and voices are heard,” said GL CEO Colleen Lowe Morna at the launch of Gender Links report.
At 55% women will constitute the majority of voters in the 2019 South African elections. Gender Links predicts using available data that the proportion of women in the House of Assembly will increase from 40% in 2014 to 44% in 2019.
But, without a legislated quota, and with vacillating commitment by political parties to gender parity, South Africa will again miss the 50% mark. Apart from Agang, the political party formed by anti-apartheid activist Mamphela Ramphele that is expected to garner less than 1% of the vote, none of the political parties contesting has achieved gender parity in its top five.
“Male leaders either oppose quotas; fail to implement them; or backslide into misogynistic slurs despite the lofty language in their political manifestos,” noted GL advisor Kubi Rama who authored the report.
A further measure of women’s lack of #Voiceandchoice in our society is the fact that women sources in news coverage persists at 22% or about one fifth of those whose views and voices are heard in the elections. Despite being one of the most pressing social justice issues of our time, gender equality represents less than one percent of media coverage, according to Media Monitoring Africa.
“The message as South African go to the polls next week are clear,” says Rama. “Political parties need to engage with the fact the women constitute 55% of the electorate and address their concerns in manifestos, party lists and in leadership. The media must do better. Women sources are available but barely accessed.”
Click here to see the report.
This Represent Women's report explores how rules and systems, particularly gender quotas and proportional representation systems, have helped nations around the world sustain progress toward gender parity in elected office. Understanding the impact of systems on representation in government is essential to designing strategies that address institutional barriers. The conclusion includes a proposal with tangible, data-driven solutions based on lessons learned from other nations that can move the United States toward reaching gender parity in government - in our lifetime.
Click here to see the report.
Some women candidates may be hesitant to run again because they know that the barriers for women running for office are higher than they are for men - why should the standard after a loss be any different? This research shows that voters think women who have lost their elections are still qualified and likeable (two must-haves for women candidates), and that losing an election can be a good moment for a powerful launch of a woman candidate’s next campaign. It also points to concrete steps for women candidates to help set them up for a future run.
Click here to see the report.
Election violence is an important issue from a number of perspectives. Understanding the causes and consequences of violations of personal integrity is always relevant, but election violence adds a different dimension to this already serious issue: it also violates electoral integrity and decreases democratic quality (Norris 2013). Therefore, election violence should be studied as a simultaneous violation of personal and electoral integrity. In this contribution, I define election violence as occurring when (1) the goal of the act is to affect an electoral outcome or prevent someone from running in an election, and (2) the means by which it is carried out violates the personal integrity of individuals involved in the electoral process.
Click here to see the academic article.