Elections

On 26 September 2021, Germans elected the 20th Bundestag. This election was special in many ways. The article analyses the electoral campaign, voting behaviour, turnout, and the formation of a new coalition government by using a gender and intersectional lens. Against the conceptual background of descriptive, substantive, and symbolic representation, we outline the implications of the election for gender and intersectional politics in the new German Bundestag and the government. In descriptive and symbolic terms, we find higher numbers of women (and of minorities) in the Bundestag and its leadership as well as in government; in substantive terms, we observe the presence of ‘critical actors’ and the commitment to progressive politics in the new ‘Ampel’ coalition. Hence, we see at least a chance for change in several key policy areas and social progress in the next 4 years.

Click here to read the full article published by Sage Journals on 7 July 2022.

In 2019, Aiko Usui was 28 years old and running for a seat in a ward assembly election in Tokyo. But instead of being treated as an aspiring politician by some of the voters she was canvassing, she instead felt like a pop idol being targeted for abuse.

During one rally, a man approached her several times to touch her arms while shaking her hands. Another man followed Usui around as she made stump speeches across town and then sent her photos of herself via Instagram with messages such as “I wish I could come closer to you” and “I think a ponytail hairstyle would look really good on you.”

Click here to read the full article published by The Japan Times on 6 July 2022.

TOKYO - A record number of both women and LGBTQ candidates are campaigning to win over voters in the House of Councillors election on Sunday and potentially bring change to Japan's male-dominated political landscape.

While some advocates have hailed the unprecedented number of female and openly LGBTQ hopefuls, the candidates' policies will be put to the test as surveys have shown that issues such as rising prices and social security will likely be at the forefront of voter concerns.

Out of 545 candidates, 181 women are campaigning in the triennial elections, attempting to win one of the 125 seats up for grabs in the 248-seat upper chamber of parliament.

Click here to read the full article published by Kyodo News on 7 July 2022.

It's been four years since the gender parity law was passed in Japan, with an aim of fielding an equal number of female and male candidates in elections. Still, the male-dominated political environment has not changed.

Women make up 33.2% of all candidates running in the July 10 House of Councillors election. This is the first time the ratio of female candidates has topped 30% in any Diet election. Considering that half of voters are women, however, it's only natural to have the same proportion among candidates.

Click here to read the full article published by The Mainichi on 30 June 2022.

During the 2020 caucus cycle, I heard it a lot, the refrain of the cautious Democratic voter. I want to vote for her, but I don’t think she can win. It wasn’t, people reasoned, because they were sexist, but they worried that America was. The calculus never seemed to add up to me. Women win races all the time. In fact, 2020 was a historic year for Republican women winning elected office. As Elizabeth Warren pointed out during a presidential nominating debate in Des Moines, the men on the stage that night had lost 10 elections among them. The only people who hadn’t lost an election were the women. (…)

In 2017, when Regina Bateson, a former diplomat and academic, ran for office, she heard that logic too. The circular reasoning from voters who liked her and wanted to vote for her but were worried about the sexism that she’d face in a general election. It was a frustrating logic, one that wouldn’t be swayed by truth or actualities. Women did win. They could win. 

For example, The Reflective Democracy Campaign found that in 2018 women of color comprised 4 percent of candidates and 5 percent of all winners, white women made up 28 percent of candidates and 29 percent of all winners, men of color were 6 percent of candidates and 7 percent of all winners and white men represented 61 percent of candidates and 60 percent of all winners. 

Click here to read the article published by Men Yell At Me on 22 Jun 2022.

(CNN)In 2018, Stacey Abrams came within 1.4 percentage points of clinching the governor's mansion in Georgia. Her stinging loss to Republican Brian Kemp is still on the hearts of many of her most fervent supporters some four years later. Though Democrats across the country face a difficult midterm map this year, Abrams is likely their best hope to elevate a Black woman as governor for the first time in the nation's 246-year history.

"I am proud to be a Black woman whose experiences and whose qualifications and whose efforts can result in me becoming the governor of Georgia. It matters what we see," she told CNN on the campaign trail earlier this spring.

As a record number of Black women run for statewide office and Congress in the 2022 election cycle following the historic elections of Vice President Kamala Harris and more recently Virginia Lt. Gov. Winsome Sears, there is renewed hope that one of the candidates will finally ascend to the governorship in 2022.

Click here to read the full article published by CNN on 25 June 2022.