Parliaments & Representatives
Attendees of August's Women Political Leaders Summit 2023 conference found themselves targeted by a spoofed event website loaded with a new cyber espionage malware variant called ROMCOM 4.0.
Leaders from all over the world attended the conference to explore the role of women in politics as well as prospects for peace in Ukraine. Specifically, the cyber espionage campaign targeted those helping to further gender equality in the European Union, according to a report from Trend Micro.
Click here to read the full article published by the Dark Reading on 16 October 2023.
Independent states in the Pacific region have the lowest levels of women’s political representation in the world. Fewer than seven percent of Pacific politicians are women, compared to 27 percent globally. The absence of women’s voices in political decision-making has been an issue consistently raised in regional forums, although progress has been slow. Yet in November 2022, a milestone was reached: for the first time, there was at least one elected woman in every Pacific parliament.
Click here to read the full article published by the Australian Institute of International Affairs on 17 October 2023.
The Indian Parliament has recently witnessed a historic moment as both houses have almost unanimously passed the long-awaited Women’s Reservation Bill with support from Members of Parliament (MPs) across all party lines in a special session held in September. More significantly, the women leaders of the country spearheaded the debate on the Bill in Parliament. With the presidential assent, the women’s reservation became a law officially called “Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam, 2023”.
Click here to read the full article published by the Observer Research Foundation on 16 October 2023.
The number of women in Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s latest Cabinet reshuffle, announced Sept. 13, increased from two to five.
This is as high as it has ever been — though not a single woman was chosen for any of the 54 junior ministerial positions.
Click here to read the full article published by The Japan Times on 13 October 2023.
Female lawmakers have voiced their concerns about glaring absence of women in key leadership positions within political parties.
The matter was raised during a breakfast meeting convened by the African Centre for Parliamentary Affairs and attended by members of the Kenya Women Parliamentary Association (KEWOPA).
Click here to read the full article published by The Star Kenya on 11 October 2023.
The death of U.S. Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-Calif.) calls to mind her election to the upper House in 1992, which is remembered as the Year of the Woman. Why is it called that?
“Morning Edition” host Jennifer Lynn checked in with WHYY’s Dave Davies for a quick history lesson and a look-ahead to another possible Year of the Woman.
Click here to read the full article published by Whyy on 3 October 2023.
A new generation of young women is ready and willing to participate in politics.
The UK general election in June 2017 saw a rise in voter turnout among 18- to 24-year-old women, with participation up from 44 to 53 per cent compared with the 2015 general election. However, so far there is little evidence to suggest that this will translate into higher levels of party membership and political representation among women. Despite making up half of the population and voting in the same numbers as men, on average only 34 per cent of women are a member of a political party, typically the first step into participating into local politics.
This is the first in a ‘pattern of thirds’, which runs through candidate selection and election, and then thins out dramatically at the top of local government, with women entirely absent among directly elected mayors and representing just 4% of the leadership of England’s new devolved institutions – the combined authorities.
This report argues that political parties and institutions must seize the recent increase in voter turnout among young women to dramatically increase the numbers of women going into local politics. This must be complemented by a series of radical reforms to improve the pipeline of women rising to the top in local politics, and to correct the absence of women at the top of combined authorities.
Click here to access the report.
Throughout this report, the authors offer a look at the unique strengths that women bring to policymaking and their impact on government is examined. They start by examining women’s representation in government, highlighting the underrepresentation of women both in the Pennsylvania state legislature and national offices. The link between women’s representation and state policy is articulated, and areas of concern are addressed. Sponsorship, bipartisanship, collaboration, and legislative success are each explored. They address questions specific to the role of gender in patterns of bill sponsorship in the Pennsylvania General Assembly by drawing on bill sponsorship data from Pennsylvania’s 2013- 2014 legislative term, as well as insights from women who served in the General Assembly at that time.
Click here to access the report.
This collection of essays addresses the glaring gap between policy commitments and actual investments in gender equality, ranging across sectors and focusing on development aid, peace-building and climate funds. Casting a spotlight on the application of gender-responsive budgeting in public budgetary policies, systems and processes, the contributions to this volume explore the chequered trajectories of these efforts in Africa, the Asia-Pacific, Latin America and Andalucía. Critiquing systems of finance, from adherence to neo-liberal macroeconomic fundamentals which prioritise fiscal austerity, the book makes a compelling case for reframing and re-prioritizing budgets to comply with human rights standards, with a particular view to realizing women’s rights. The authors highlight the paltry funding for women’s rights organizations and movements and examine the prospects for making financing gender responsive. The specific policy, strategy and technical recommendations and the connections across silos which articulate the authors’ suggested operational levers will appeal to researchers, practitioners, students, policymakers, gender equality and human rights activists alike.
Click here to access the book.
A unique visual tool to capture women’s participation in executive government and in parliament on a given date – 1st January 2017. The map of Women in Politics not only provides a country ranking for both ministerial and parliamentary representation, but also statistics on women in political leadership positions – Heads of State or government, women Speakers of Parliament, as well as ministerial portfolios held by women throughout the world. Borders are depicted and used on the map in order to present data. They are not the expression of any opinion concerning the legal status of any country, territory, city or area, or concerning the delimitation of frontiers or boundaries.
Click here to download the map in English.
The annual brochure provides an overview and analysis of progress made and setbacks encountered by women in parliament further to elections and renewals held over a year. Produced every year on the occasion of International Women's Day (8 March), it presents data on women in national parliaments, regional and world trends, information on women presiding officers and women candidates. It also analyses mechanisms aimed at supporting women's access to parliament. The brochure is short and easy to read, providing a snapshot on the situation of women in parliaments worldwide.
Click here to access the brochure.
Gender quotas have emerged globally as a key solution for improving women's political representation. Yet in Britain—where they take the form of all-women shortlists (AWS)—they remain contentious, both within and outside political parties.
In this article, Mary K. Nugent and Mona Lena Krook identify and evaluate nine common criticisms of AWS in the British context, which—similar to predictions made in other cases—focus on dynamics of candidate recruitment and selection, party and voter support and the effectiveness of ‘quota women’ as politicians. The authors do not address purely principled objections (i.e., ‘quotas are unfair’), but rather focus on claims—including some principled arguments—referencing assumed realities that can be assessed using empirical data (i.e., ‘quotas are unfair because they undermine merit’). The nine claims emerged as common themes across extensive interviews and comprehensive searches of news coverage around AWS. The data used to evaluate these claims come from various sources, including qualitative interviews conducted in 2012 and 2013 with men and women from the three main parties; as yet unpublished data on candidate selection collected by the Labour Party; original quantitative datasets constructed from publicly-available sources; and existing quantitative studies by other scholars. The authors also include evidence from international studies, whenever possible, to situate these findings in relation to the conclusions reached in other contexts.
The authors find, in short, that criticisms against these measures do not hold when subjected to rigorous empirical analysis. AWS, much like gender quotas elsewhere, do not facilitate the entry of unqualified women, jeopardise a party's electoral fortunes or lead to the election of sub-par MPs. Rather, they reduce barriers for well-prepared women to stand as candidates, have neutral or positive effects on party vote shares and produce diligent and active MPs.
Click here to access the article.