Parliaments & Representatives
The Speaker of the House Papalii Lio Masipau made a bold statement about why he thinks gender inequality exists in politics. He views the matai system and customs as prohibiting women from traditional governance impacting their chances to run for office.
Papalii just returned from touring the parliament in New South Wales, Australia. It was an eye-opening experience for him to see more women involved in politics and at a policy level. He must have thought hard before making this bold statement.
He may not be off the target. He is right in saying that the village setting is proving to be a difficult hurdle faced by women wanting to enter the political arena.
“Our matai system should treat women equally as men so that we don’t need to have the 10 per cent requirement…there is no equality in our matai system and some village setups don’t allow our mothers to participate or sit in village councils,” Papalii said.
According to the Speaker, the Legislative Assembly is made up of 51 representatives from the districts and the reason for extra seats is to meet gender equality in the House.
He added the constitutional requirement to have 10 per cent women representation in the House would not be needed if mothers were treated equally within villages.
Read here the full article published by Samoa Observer on 22 July 2024.
Image by Samoa Observer
The underrepresentation of Nigerian women in governance and politics has been a longstanding issue in political discourse.
Currently, women occupy only a small fraction of the seats in Nigeria’s National Assembly, with 3 out of 109 senators and 15 out of 360 members of the House of Representatives being female while, there are five appointed women ministers out of 45. Since gaining independence in 1960, Nigeria is yet to have a female president.
On the 9th of July the House of Representatives advanced a bill to its second reading, aiming to create 74 seats for women in the National Assembly.
The bill, sponsored by Deputy Speaker Benjamin Kalu and 12 others, proposes amendments to Sections 48, 49, 71, and 117 of the 1999 Constitution (as amended) to establish “Special seat reserved exclusively for women in the Senate and House of Representatives for each state of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).”
The news stirred mixed emotions as the 9th National Assembly dismissed all 5 gender bills, leaving women perplexed about the obstacles they face in achieving equal representation to contribute their share to national development, akin to their male counterparts.
Read here the full article published by Radio Nigeria on 19 July 2024.
Image by Radio Nigeria
Tamika Davis is a first-term MP from Jamaica, part of the historic high of 29% of incoming women MPs in the House of Representatives and the first woman to be elected in her constituency. The CIP team spoke with Ms Davis about her views on digital technologies.
MPs have become digital content creators, as well as legislators
Campaigning for the next election, expected to be in September 2025, is already underway. Ms. Davis spoke of how MPs need to be present on different social media channels, such as Facebook and TikTok, to engage with constituents. Even if they have lots of in-person interactions, MPs also need to be on social media, since “If you are not out there you are not visible”, she said.
Ms. Davis showed examples of digital content posted by MPs, including videos, highlighting the need for MPs to be creative and to have access to content creation skills. In her own case, she has a two-person team helping her to produce digital content. She feels that with the current mobile apps, there are no excuses for not creating good-looking content.
Disinformation and online abuse take their toll on MPs
Deepfakes, disinformation and online abuse, particularly against women MPs, has entered the digital space of Jamaican politics, Ms. Davis says. She wants more action to deal with online attacks and abuse against women MPs, noting the mental health issues that can arise from this.
Ms. Davis showed the CIP a very recent video, where an opposition MP is purported to be having a fictional (and ridiculing) telephone call with a member of her party. However, the MP’s voice had been sampled from a recording in another context several years ago. She also highlighted the example of another female MP who suffered a breakdown due to similar attacks and temporarily withdrew from politics. Ms. Davis is glad that this issue is becoming more recognized locally and globally, and called for more action to better protect and resource women MPs.
Read here the full article published by the Inter-Parliamentary Union on 22 July 2024.
In my journey as a Member of Parliament (MP), I’ve faced firsthand the multifaceted challenges that women in politics encounter — challenges that extend well beyond legislative duties and reveal entrenched societal perceptions and biases. There have been instances where my presence was seen as symbolic rather than substantive. Men would often direct their conversations to my husband instead of engaging with me, assuming he held more authority in discussions — an assumption based solely on his gender.
During interviews, I’ve encountered condescending questions about balancing political responsibilities with being a wife, questions rarely posed to male counterparts. Such experiences highlight the persistent double standards that ambitious women in politics navigate. Navigating societal attitudes towards marriage has been another hurdle, exemplified by being labeled as “nakli Dalit” due to my inter-caste marriage. This label underscores how deeply ingrained stereotypes about women’s social identities can overshadow their individual achievements and capabilities.
Read here the full article published by The Indian Express on 20 July 2024.
Image by The Indian Express
Mongolia's electoral reforms have significantly transformed the political landscape, ushering a record number of women into Parliament. This change follows the May 2023 constitutional amendment, which expanded parliamentary seats from 76 to 126 and introduced a mandatory 30 per cent candidate quota for women. As a result, the number of female MPs has increased dramatically, from 13 to 32.
The elections on 28 June 2023, were the first under this new system; introducing the parallel system in which 48 out of 126 were elected through proportionate representation. Mongolia's political landscape has long been dominated by two major parties, the Mongolian People's Party (MPP) and the Democratic Party (DP), the MPP winning the last two elections by a large margin. Although the MPP retained dominance with 68 seats, the margin was narrower than in previous elections. The DP increased its representation from 11 to 42 seats.
The reform was motivated by an intent to bolster multiparty democracy by allowing easier access for smaller parties into Parliament, preventing any single party from achieving a ‘supermajority’, and enhancing female representation. This goal of including smaller political parties was realized as the other three parties; the National Labour Party (HUN), National Coalition, and Civil Will – Green Party secured seats as well.
Read here the full article published by International IDEA on 11 July 2024.
Only three percent of women are directly engaged in politics, while 11 percent have no interest in involvement at all. This is what the research findings of the "Friedrich Eber" foundation say, which were presented by professor Besa Luzha. At the international conference "Boundaries of freedom of speech", hosted by KosovaPress News Agency, she said that the struggle of women for inclusion in the political and media scene continues.
In the second panel on the topic "Steps of innovation in economic, social and cultural development", Luzha said that the findings about women's willingness to work are worrying.
"It was worrying for us as researchers when we saw a result that about 49 percent of women who declared that they would work only if they were forced, in the sense that they have difficult conditions. This has worried us much more than perhaps the fact that there are still many unemployed women", declared Luzha.
University of Pristina professor, Besa Luzha, at the international conference "Boundaries of freedom of speech", added that the struggle of women to be included in the political scene and in the media is continuing.
"In the beginning, it was a challenge to increase the participation and commitment of women in political life, I believe that it has more or less increased because we have had a commitment, society in general, to ensure once the presence through the quota in the parliament. However, gradually the women who have been engaged have managed to win the votes of the citizens even without a quota even by being present. And this is the scheme that appears when we focus on the political part. It is interesting, the battle still continues because until we see that political scene in the media, the presence is a little bigger than before", she said.
Read here the full interview published by the Kosova Press on 16 July 2024.
Image by Kosova Press
The performance of women legislators is analysed by looking at the nature of questions posed by them over a span of 20 years (1999–2019) in the lower house of the Indian Parliament. The analysis, however, is a contestation of claims that suggest women act as silent members, and if at all they speak, they do on “softer issues” like women and child development, food processing, health, and sanitation, thus trying to escape the discussions on national security, finance, agriculture, railways, etc. These are otherwise considered as male bastions. This paper is a quantitative analysis of women’s political performance during the Question Hour session, which is considered as an important plenary space where legislators act on their own, free from the party regulation.
Independent India claims to be the world’s largest democracy, turbulent and vigorous but ever so evolving. Elections form the animating spirit of Indian democracy. It is held religiously every five years with enough pomp and show. Indian democracy flourishes with exceptional rates of citizen participation. The Lok Sabha elections of 2019 manifested 67% voter turnout with decreasing rates of gender gap (ECI 2019). These figures indicate the undying credence citizens have in Indian politics and its democracy, despite the limitations of electoral democracy. The Indian Parliament acts as a theatre of democracy regardless of the people’s sneering disbelief and despondency in political institutions of the country to which Parliament is no exception (Rai and Spray 2019: 2). Electoral democracies all over the world are faced with criticism about their substantive representation1 to which they retort by translating democracy into electoral representation. How can the democratic institutions in India include all its citizens? In other words, how can these institutions be representative of its entire population? (Jayal 2013: 25). Here, what concerns this paper is the study of the impact of systematic exclusion of women from the political life on their political representation and in turn on their political performance.
Click here to read the full article published by Economic and Political Weekly on 1 August 2022.
In this study, we report results of a survey of U.S. state senators about their experiences of psychological abuse, physical violence, and sexualized abuse and violence on the job, as well as gender differences among senators. Overall, our results indicate that more than 80% of state senators reported having faced abuse and violence, and women senators reported more physical violence than men. Moreover, we found differences in the factors that contributed to abuse and violence among women and men state senators. Most notably, women with higher levels of power (party or committee leaders) were more likely than other women to experience psychological abuse and sexualized abuse and violence, and Democratic women senators faced more sexualized abuse and violence than Republican women. The implications for continued service by state senators in the face of these experiences, the likelihood of attracting future candidates, and the implications for gender diversity in office are explored.
Click here to read the full article.
The third Global Parliamentary Report examines public engagement in the work of parliament. This report takes a detailed look at why engagement matters and how parliaments globally are engaging with the people they represent. It outlines trends and priorities for public engagement and considers key principles for ensuring better and deeper engagement into the future, in support of the 2030 Agenda.
Click here to access the report.
Number and Percentage of Women in State Legislatures, 1980-2022
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Current State Legislature
2,300
(1,516D, 764R, 13NP, 5Ind, 2Prg)
31.2% of 7,383 seats
Since 1971, the number of women serving in state legislatures has more than quintupled.
NP = non-partisan, Ind = Independent, Prg = Progressive
State-by-State Summary Data on Current Women State Legislators
Click here to access the data.
How does the gender composition of the Australian parliament compare with parliaments around the world, and how has it changed over the past two decades
International comparisons
The Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) has published international rankings of women in national parliaments since 1997. The IPU’s rankings are based on the representation of women in the lower (or single) houses of national parliaments only. The representation of women in the Australian Senate is therefore not factored into Australia’s ranking.
As illustrated in Figure 1 below, Australia’s IPU ranking for women in national parliaments was 27th in 1997, rising to 15th in 1999. In 2022 Australia’s ranking has fallen to 57th.
Click here to read the full article published by Parliament of Australia on 20 April 2022.
In late March 2022, 16 years after she was first elected to the Isabel Provincial Assembly in Solomon Islands, Rhoda Sikilabu became the country’s first female premier. The four-time MPA and former Deputy Premier replaced Leslie Kikolo who resigned a day before he faced a motion of no confidence.
The local coverage of Solomon Islands’ first female premier – in the Solomon Times, the Island Sun, Twitter, as well as the Australian and New Zealand Pacific outlets – was pleasantly surprising and suggests that women’s political leadership is finally becoming newsworthy.
Click here to read the full article published by DevPolicy Blog on 27 April 2022.