Elections

In the landscape of American politics, the pursuit of gender equality has been an ongoing struggle. While progress has undeniably been made, there remains a palpable undercurrent of prejudice about women in leadership roles. 

Despite the growing trend of women achieving higher positions in leadership across the globe, the USA still lags behind its counterparts. According to a report by the Inter-Parliamentary Union, the US ranks 75th out of 189 elected governments worldwide in terms of female representation.

To comprehend the prejudice against women in US politics, one must explore its historical roots. The nation’s early years reflected patriarchal structures, following societal norms. Women were denied the right to vote until the early 20th century, highlighting the deeply ingrained gender biases. Even after suffrage, women faced barriers in entering political spheres, as traditional gender roles perpetuated the notion that leadership was a predominantly male domain.

Click here to read the full article published by the Pressenza in English on 2 February 2023.

Image source: Pressenza in English

The growth of internet users has brought about social and economic benefits on a global scale. However, significant harms such as online violence, disinformation, and hate speech have also proliferated in these online spaces. Discriminatory gendered practices happening offline, often shaped by social, economic, cultural, and political structures, are similarly reproduced online across digital platforms. Kenya is no exception, as online harassment targets both prominent women and everyday social media users.

Click here to read the full article published by Medium on 21 November 2023.

Image by Medium

Fiji has concluded the 2023 elections and the results are in. Although the Melanesian country has achieved the change in power that many had hoped for, the picture is less rosy for women’s representation in parliament.  Could the offensive treatment women politicians received on social media be to blame?

The Fijian Elections Office approved 343 candidates from 9 registered political parties and 2 independent candidates for the 2022 General Elections. Of the total, 56 women ran for the elections, the same number as in the 2018 elections, although as percentage the rate has dropped to 16.3 per cent of the total number of candidates compared to 24.0 per cent in 2018 elections. This decline in the percentage was attributed to the fact that 55 seats were up for grabs compared to 51 seats in 2018. Since the number of seats increased, the number of candidates per party had increased to 55.

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In the 2014 and 2018 elections, the percentage of women contesting the elections were 17.7 per cent and 24.0 per cent respectively. Eight women were elected to the parliament after the election in 2014 and a record ten women were elected to parliament in the 2018 election. The 2022 elections, which were the third election under new electoral system, had the lowest percentage (16.3 per cent) of women contesting the election compared to 2014 and 2018. The result of the 2022 elections saw only six women elected to parliament which is the lowest number so far under the new electoral system. There has been extensive work done to advance women’s leadership skills for several years in a bid to improve women’s representation in parliament by various stakeholders such as civil society organizations, development partners and political parties in Fiji.

Click here to read the full article published by International IDEA on 3 March 2023.

On 18 July  the IPU Gender Partnership Group and the National Assembly of Nigeria held an online briefing on women’s political empowerment to promote women’s participation in parliament in view of the 2023 Nigerian elections. There were 20 participants, including men and women MPs from Nigeria, Benin, the United Arab Emirates and Uzbekistan, representatives from the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), civil society, government, academia and the electoral commission.

The IPU has supported the Nigerian National Assembly in the area of gender equality and women’s political participation since 2020. After the 2019 legislative elections, the Nigerian Senate elected 8 women (7.34%) out of 109 members and the House of Representatives elected only 13 women (3.61%) out of 360 members. These figures fall well below the global average of 26.1% of women in parliament, and the objective of gender parity.

Click here to read the full article published by The Inter-Parliamentary Union on 2 August 2022.

The 2022 midterms have led to some new records for women candidates for the U.S. House, U.S. Senate, and governor in various race and ethnicity groups, according to an analysis of candidate filings from CAWP. Asian American/Pacific Islander, Black, Latina/Hispanic, and white women have all set new candidacy records this year, though not at all levels of office.

CAWP began collecting data on candidate race in 2004 using a system of self-identification for candidate race and ethnicity determination. Because this data relies primarily on candidate response to CAWP’s self-ID query and our queries occasionally go unanswered, there remain a small number of candidates for whom we were unable to determine racial identification. This is alluded to when we say “at least” preceding a reported figure below. Additionally, because candidates may, for various reasons, exit political races and no longer appear on ballots, these numbers can change slightly moving forward. 

Beginning this year, CAWP no longer reports an aggregate number of “women of color” in our data collections on candidates and officeholders and instead provides disaggregated data for all women by race and ethnicity. This change was guided by our desire to move away from treatment of women as monolithic and challenge the centering of whiteness as a default racial/ethnic category. Of particular note here, because multiracial women are included in counts for each group with which they identify, adding the numbers below will not yield the total number of women of color running for various offices in this year’s midterms.

Click here to access the data.

Despite repeated warnings, Australia’s two major political parties continue to make one big mistake – and one MP has issued a scathing rebuke.

The women chosen by Australia’s two major political parties to run in the upcoming federal election are predominantly chosen for seats they are unlikely to win.

Shocking statistics gathered by news.com.au reveal a huge disparity in the chances of women entering parliament compared to their male counterparts, with men more likely to be chosen to run for a seat already held by their party.

Click here to read the full article published by News.com.au on 23 March 2022.

Electoral management bodies (EMBs) are responsible for ensuring a level playing field for political representation and meaningful participation across the entire electoral cycle. Yet, International IDEA data shows that only 22% of EMBs themselves are chaired by women.

When disaggregated by regions (Figure 1.), data from 242 EMBs in 208 countries and territories shows that the percentages indicating the number of women chairing EMBs are below the global average on three continents, with Asia recording the lowest numbers (10%), followed by Oceania (11%) and Africa (19%).

Click here to read the full article published by International IDEA on 7 November 2021.

President Uhuru Kenyatta’s inaction on former Chief Justice David Maraga’s September 2020 recommendation to dissolve Parliament for failure to enact gender parity laws is the latest bump in the long road to equality for Kenyan women in political leadership.

The Constitution requires Parliament to make laws to guarantee that no gender occupies more than two-thirds of elected and appointed positions.

Click here to read the full article published by Nation Africa on 7 January 2022.

As the 2022 midterm election season gets underway, speculation is already mounting that it’s going to be another banner year for female candidates. Early reports suggest that Black women and Republican women are especially poised to make historic gains.

But make no mistake, even if 2022 is another so-called “Year of the Woman,” politics is still a man’s game.

Click here to read the full article published by Brookings on 8 February 2022.

By Roudabeh Kishi

Attacks on women in politics are on the rise around the world. New data and research from the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED) reveal how physical violence targeting women in politics is creating dangerous – and at times lethal – obstacles to women’s participation in political processes. Even as women are engaging in elections in record numbers around the world – both by seeking office and by voting – they are being met with an increasingly violent backlash.

Over the course of 2020 and 2021, Mexico, Colombia, China, India, Brazil, Burundi, Myanmar, Afghanistan, the Philippines, and Cuba top the list of the most violent countries in the world for women in politics. With rapidly evolving political situations as well as upcoming elections in many of these countries, the threat of violence targeting women in politics may only grow in the new year. Examining key trends from the latest political violence data for these countries will provide a glimpse of what to watch for in 2022 when it comes to the risks facing women in politics.

Click here to read the full article published by GIWPS on 28 January 2022.

This year marks the centennial of the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution, which guarantees women the right to vote. But the United States was hardly the first country to codify women’s suffrage, and barriers to vote persisted for some groups of U.S. women for decades. At least 20 nations preceded the U.S., according to a Pew Research Center analysis of women’s enfranchisement measures in 198 countries and self-administering territories. Today, none of these 198 countries and territories bar women from voting because of their sex; some countries do not hold national elections.

Here is a closer look at the history of women’s suffrage around the world. This analysis focuses on when women in each country won the right to vote in national elections, not regional or local elections.

Click here to read the full article published by the Pew Research Center on 5 October 2020.

Violence against women in politics is a substantial threat to the integrity of the electoral process, affecting women’s participation as voters, candidates, election officials, activists and political party leaders and undermining free, fair and inclusive democratic processes.

While women in Bougainville, an autonomous region within Papua New Guinea (PNG), have greater access to politics and decision-making than their counterparts in other parts of PNG, they still face significant challenges as they seek to participate in the electoral process. A new report from the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES) assesses violence against women in elections (VAWE) in Bougainville following the 2015 Autonomous Bougainville Government elections and 2017 PNG national elections, drawing on fieldwork, research and IFES’ experiences operating in Bougainville. The analysis is organized into three key factors that influence the incidence and impact of VAWE:

• Status of Bougainvillean women;
• Their access to election processes; and
• Incidents of, trends and triggers for VAWE.

Click here to see the report.