Parliaments & Representatives
A UNITED NATIONS committee has highlighted the low representation of woman in the Dáil and at Cabinet as “priority issues” that must be addressed by the state.
The Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission stated that it welcomed the findings of the UN Committee, which is tasked with “the Elimination of Discrimination against Women”.
The Irish Commission had previously provided submissions to the UN Committee on the issue and communicated its concerns. Today, the Committee has recommended that the government amend the Electoral (Amendment) (Political Funding) Act 2012 to require 50% gender parity in the quota on political party candidate selection.
At present, political funding available to parties is dependent whether the party meets the gender quota for candidates. Payments are reduced by 50% unless at least 40% of the candidates whose candidatures were authenticated by the party at the preceding general election were women, and 40% were men.
Full article available here.
In a video address to the Committee on Gender Equality, which is currently reviewing an initiative to increase the quota for the underrepresented gender in the electoral law from 30% to 40%—with the additional requirement that at least one out of every three candidates on electoral lists be from the underrepresented gender—Prime Minister Milojko Spajić expressed his full support.
I fully support raising the quota for the underrepresented gender from 30% to 40% in the electoral legislation, said the Prime Minister in his message to the Chair and members of the Committee.
Spajić stated his belief that Europe Now Movement (PES) is already living this principle, noting that 40% of the PES ministers in the current Government are women who, as he emphasized, lead their respective ministries with great competences – often outperforming their male counterparts.
Full article available here.
During a motion of no confidence in March 2025, opposition member of parliament Fuiono Tenina Crichton heckled Samoan Prime Minister Fiame Naomi Mata’afa, saying that her ‘leadership would have been remarkable’ if only she ‘had gotten married’ and had someone to ‘advise’ her.
Fiame defeated the motion comfortably by 32 votes to 19. The episode did not directly result in a prime ministerial resignation, but within three months, Samoa’s Head of State, His Highness Tuimaleali’ifano Vaaletoa Sualauvi II, dissolved Fiame’s minority-held parliament.
Though not new anywhere in the world, it remains important to consider the manifestations of, and motivations behind, these kinds of deliberately provocative, sexist statements in politics. Is there something peculiar to the expression of sexism in Pacific politics?
To unpack this, we must understand Samoan voter sentiment, the legacy advantage Fiame has always had and the purpose of sexist discourse in politics.
In a 2021 survey of over 1300 Samoans, 88 per cent expressed support for women’s involvement in politics. Even before Fiame was promoted to the highest office, 85 per cent of survey respondents agreed that a woman should become prime minister. At the local level, while 37 per cent agreed with the sentiment that women should not speak in village councils, 63 per cent disagreed.
These figures show that the Samoan community purports to be extremely welcoming of female political leadership. In 2021, Fiame became Samoa’s seventh prime minister, leading the newly established Faʻatuatua i le Atua Samoa ua Tasi party to a historic democratic victory. She was the first female Head of Government in the Pacific, following Hilda Heine’s lead as the region’s first female Head of State.
Plus, Samoa is the only sovereign country in the Pacific to institute a gender quota at the national level, ensuring that women hold a minimum of 10 per cent of parliamentary seats. Public contestation — both in parliament and in the courts, including public calls for clearer wording of the reform — over this quota following the 2021 election demonstrates local support.
Full article available here.
Extract
The 2024 elections made US history in numerous ways. Vice President Kamala Harris became the first Black and South Asian woman to be nominated by a major party for the presidency. Former president Donald Trump made history by becoming the oldest person and the first convicted felon to become president. 2024 marked the first presidential election following the historic Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision in 2022.
The 2024 elections made US history in numerous ways. Vice President Kamala Harris became the first Black and South Asian woman to be nominated by a major party for the presidency. Former president Donald Trump made history by becoming the oldest person and the first convicted felon to become president. 2024 marked the first presidential election following the historic Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision in 2022.
We asked leading experts in the field to reflect on the gender and racial dynamics of the 2024 election cycle and consider which aspects of the election are illuminated by gender scholarship. We asked what theories help explain the dynamics of the campaigns, voting behavior, and the outcome, as well as which election aspects were unanticipated. We asked about the larger lessons and challenges for the study of gender, LGBTQ+ identities, race/ethnicity, elections, and politics. As Politics & Gender celebrates its 20th anniversary, we wanted to know what new questions should be addressed and whether new theories about gender and US elections are needed.
Full article available here.
OpenAI has banned a network of ChatGPT accounts originating from the Philippines that used its platform to generate social media comments praising President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr as the crackdown highlights how artificial intelligence (AI) could be misused to conduct influence operations.
The US-based AI pioneer said it had identified the accounts using ChatGPT to generate short comments in English and Filipino, which were later posted on Facebook and TikTok. It dubbed the operation “High Five” because many of the comments included emojis, according to a report released on June 5.
“The comments this operation generated and posted online were brief but partisan. Typically, they praised President Marcos and his initiatives, or criticised [Vice-President Sara Duterte-Carpio],” OpenAI wrote in its report.
Full article available here.
On this International Day of Parliamentarism, observed on 30 June under the 2025 theme ‘Achieving Gender Equality, Action by Action’, Pacific nations stand at a critical juncture. Parliaments across our region average just 8.2 percent women's representation, the lowest globally. In some Pacific Island countries, not a single woman sits in the chamber.
This is not just a crisis of numbers. It is a crisis of representation, policy inclusion, and missed potential.
In Vanuatu, only one woman sits among 52 Members of Parliament, the Hon. Marie Louise Milne. That’s less than two percent. Yet, despite this, her voice has been powerful. She has championed rural women’s concerns, pushed for stronger protections against gender-based violence, and called for equitable access to essential services in remote islands.
Systemic barriers remain: entrenched cultural expectations, campaign financing hurdles, and the lack of childcare support for MPs are just a few of the challenges. These barriers limit not only women’s entry into politics but also their full participation and leadership.
The Speaker of the Parliament of Vanuatu has previously emphasised that symbolic representation alone is not enough. We must pursue systemic inclusion.
Efforts are underway. Vanuatu’s Department of Women’s Affairs, civil society actors, and the Parliament’s own Civic Education Unit, with support from partners like UNDP, are working to advance legal reforms, conduct outreach, and train aspiring women candidates. Cross-party discussions on reserved seats and targeted financial support are also being initiated.
There is also much to learn from within the Pacific.
Read here the full article here.
One potential consequence of increasing women’s numeric representation is that women elected officials will behave differently than their men counterparts and improve women’s substantive representation. This study examines whether electing women to local offices changes how local government expenditures are allocated in ways that benefit women. Using compositional expenditure data from more than 5,400 Brazilian municipalities over eight years, we find significant differences in the ways men and women mayors allocate government expenditures. Our findings indicate that women mayors spend more on traditionally feminine issues, and less on traditionally masculine issues, relative to men mayors. In regard to specific policy areas, we find that women spend more on women’s issues, including education, health care, and social assistance, and less on masculine issues, including transportation and urban development, relative to men mayors. We further find that women’s legislative representation significantly influences the allocation of expenditures as a larger percentage of women councilors increases spending on traditionally feminine issues, as well as education, health care, and social assistance, relative to other policy issues. These findings indicate that women local elected officials improve women’s substantive representation by allocating a larger percentage of expenditures to issues that have historically and continue to concern women in Brazil.
Click here to read the full article published by Sage Journals on 16 May 2018.
Pakistan’s constitution makes no distinction between genders but women in parliament know that’s not the reality in politics. Despite impressive records of women in the legislative assembly, female parliamentarians still face barriers to entry that their male colleagues don’t - keeping many women, save for a few with family members in politics, out of these positions.
The current makeup of Pakistan’s parliament is only 21 percent female. In the National Assembly, which consists of 342 members, female representation is only around 3 percent if reserved seats are excluded; There are 60 seats reserved for women. These numbers are emblematic of a male-dominated political culture which - along with other socio-economic factors - creates a glass ceiling for women’s political advancement.
Click here to read the full article published by the Tribune Magazine on 6 February 2022.
How do quotas for women in Sri Lanka’s local government institutions affect key governance indicators such as perceived fairness, institutional trust, and perceived performance? These dimensions of governance are underexplored in the context of gender quota policies in patriarchal societies like that of Sri Lanka. The study hypothetically varied the quota provision for women (decrease to 10%, increase to 45%, or keep at the current 25%) in local government, and then tried to understand people’s opinions about the three governance indicators. When examining the results of the experiment (around 1,200 samples), it was found that perceived fairness, institutional trust, and perceived performance increased along with the greater quota provision. Possible mechanisms for the increases in institutional trust and perceived performance may be associated with the signal of fairness generated by the increase of quota provision for women.
Click here to download the report.
This working paper presents data and analysis on women’s representation in local government by UN Women as the sole custodian agency for Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) indicator 5.5.1b. It provides a comprehensive overview of women’s political participation at the local level for the first time, helping to shift the global narrative from national to local decision-making power, a less known but critical level of governance.
Data available for 133 countries and areas indicate that women’s representation in deliberative bodies of local government is higher than in parliament, but still not on equal terms with men. The paper also analyses the use of legislated gender quotas and types of electoral systems in local elections as factors impacting women’s political participation.
Remaining data gaps on women’s political participation at local level, including data disaggregation issues, underused electoral data, and the need for new data collection tools to capture women’s full and effective participation in local government are also discussed.
Click here to access the report.
Representing more than 447 million people across 27 countries, the European Parliament should be the poster child for the European Union’s “united in diversity” motto. However, the representation of women in the parliament and its key positions remains weak and change is slow. While the parliament has seen a steady increase in the proportion of female members (MEPs) over the years, from 16% in 1979 to 39.5% in 2021, this is far from the whole picture when it comes to women’s representation.
Click here to download the paper.
By Anoa Changa
For Rep. Barbara Lee, part of Chisholm's legacy is how she inspired and empowered other Black women to reach higher.
Fifty years since Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm announced her run for president, she remains a shining example for Black women in politics and beyond. More than simply a campaign slogan, “unbought and unbossed” has become a mantra for Black women in politics and their daily lives.
Click here to read the full article.