Women's Leadership
There are calls for more support for Pacific women to get into politics, while also recognising cultural leadership roles.
Pacific Island Forum Secretariat policy advisor on gender equality Dr Fiona Hukula says Pacific women have to balance expectations that can contradict each other.
“We live and fend in a world where we are also tied to some of our cultural and social obligations, and it in many ways influences the way we think about gender relations, the way we think about leadership.”
In the Pacific region, just 8.8 per cent of MPs are women. In the Marshall Islands, Hilda Heine is the first woman to become president, and the first woman president of any Micronesian country.
Speaking to William Terite on Pacific Mornings, Hukula says the low representation of women in parliament is a longstanding concern.
“We know that our region has some of the highest rates of violence in the world and the lowest rates of women’s political representation, but to be fair, there’s been a lot of work in trying to ensure that women take up leadership roles.”
Louisa Wall is a former Labour cabinet minister, and was the Ambassador for Gender Equality in the Pacific until March when her role was scrapped by the coalition government.
Read here the full article published by the Pacific Media Network News on 14 May 2024.
Image by the Pacific Media Network News
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Why is it important to have more diverse women in spaces of power for democracy in Latin America? How does misinformation and online gender violence operate against them now that they are conquering political spaces? How is artificial intelligence beginning to play a role in the political participation efforts by women and underrepresented groups? These and other questions will be up for discussion this Tuesday in Mexico at the forum ‘Mujeres al poder, representación política y tecnología en elecciones (Women in power, political representation and technology during elections), organized by EL PAÍS América and Luminate, the alliance behind the Women Leaders of Latin America project. The event will feature numerous women with a public voice.
With less than a month to go before a national election in Mexico, where there are two women candidates with a strong chance of winning, the debate becomes increasingly relevant, and even more so because the forum is organized around solutions and an exploration of the challenges and difficulties faced by women who reach positions of power. One of the guest speakers who will discuss online gender violence is Salma Luévano, Mexico’s first trans lawmaker, who has suffered it firsthand; other Mexican speakers include Senator Beatriz Paredes of the PRI party, the politician and feminist Martha Tagle; and Rita Bell López, Advisor for the National Electoral Institute (INE).
Read here the full article published by El País on 14 May 2024.
Image by El País
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Progress towards legal gender equality has stalled in many parts of the world. The data published earlier this year by Women, Business, and the Law report reveals that women, on average, have less than two-thirds of the legal protections that men have, down from a previous estimate of just over three-quarters. This stark reality is a sobering reminder of the challenges that still lie ahead.
For example, the absence of legislation prohibiting sexual harassment in public spaces, such as mass transit, hampers women's ability to access employment opportunities and fully participate in the workforce. The lack of services and financing for parents with young children places a disproportionate burden on women. Furthermore, the effectiveness of gender-sensitive legislation is often undermined by inadequate enforcement mechanisms. In many regions, women's limited political clout fuels a self-perpetuating cycle of restricted legal rights and reduced economic empowerment.
Recognizing the importance of women's representation in political leadership, the World Bank, represented by the Women Business and the Law (WBL) report, Women Political Leaders (WPL), and the Oliver Wyman Forum (OWF), have joined forces to address the challenges faced by women in political leadership positions. Our collaborative efforts under the Representation Matters program aim to foster women’s participation in decision-making positions, and to promote legal equality and economic opportunities not only for women, but for everyone.
The initiative comes at a critical time. Achieving equal opportunity is not only a fundamental human right for half of the world's population; it is also an opportunity to drive faster economic growth, fostering prosperity for all.
Read here the full article published by The World Bank on 14 May on 2024.
Image by The World Bank
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Say you’ve just scored your dream job. And that dream job involves representing your town, county, state, or even country, dedicating your time and energy to making a difference in people’s lives. You’re feeling energized, hopeful, idealistic even. And then, on day one, you face a harsh reality: The majority of governments in this country weren’t set up with women in mind. You knew your job would be tough, but maybe you didn’t realize how tough.
It’s a previously underreported scenario we heard again and again while talking to elected women for How to Succeed in Office. They face far more roadblocks than their male counterparts on all fronts—financial, logistical, physical, mental, emotional, we could go on—with women of color and working parents often being even more affected.
Below are ideas and tangible solutions for the biggest and most common challenges women in office face. We also enlisted veteran politicians to help out a few newcomers with their very specific quandaries. Because we know it takes a village, and we’re pretty sure it’s women who are going to get each other out of this mess.
Read here the full article published by Cosmopolitan on 13 May 2024.
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Can a democracy where women have never been equal ever really thrive? How are attacks on democracy tied to gender equity? What can we learn from past fights to protect and expand women’s rights in order to chart a path forward?
A two-part virtual discussion hosted by Ms. magazine in partnership with NYU Law’s Birnbaum Women’s Leadership Center and the 92Y explored these questions, plus how women’s rights are inextricably tied to the integrity and durability of democratic institutions.
The conversation was moderated by Jennifer Weiss-Wolf, executive director of the Birnbaum Women’s Leadership Center at NYU Law and executive director of partnerships and strategy at Ms. magazine, with panelists:
1. Alexis McGill-Johnson: president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Action Fund
2. Melissa Murray: Frederick I. and Grace Stokes professor of law and faculty director of the Birnbaum Women’s Leadership Center at NYU Law
3. Pamela Shifman: president of the Democracy Alliance
Watch here the full recording published by Ms. Magazine on 02 May 2024.
Image by Ms. Magazine
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The struggle of Black women to be recognized, respected, and welcomed as leaders is an international one. Generally, Black women have been absent and invisible from leadership positions in many countries—including the author’s home country of Nigeria, where a historical dearth of women in political or official positions remains very much the case today, despite purported efforts by the Nigerian government to increase women’s participation in politics.
According to Nigeria’s National Bureau of Statistics, the national average of women’s political participation in Nigeria has remained at 6.7 percent in elective and appointive positions—far below the global average of 22.5 percent. Many of the hurdles Black women face in Nigeria resemble those faced by Black women in the United States, including discrimination, stereotyping, and a lack of support.
But Nigerian women aspiring to leadership face other hurdles more specific to Nigerian culture. Nigeria remains a patriarchal society in which men are considered the “natural” decision-makers in every sector. Women are generally looked upon as mere housewives and homemakers, unfit to lead in any place where men dominate. In Igboland, it is considered an abomination for a woman to even look upon kola nut—a crucial part of many ceremonies, gatherings, and welcomings—or bless it in any event. Instead, it is the duty of the men to pass the kola nuts and bless them.
Women who do attain leadership positions are often antagonized by men, who do not want to take instructions from a woman. It is easy to villainize a Black woman on the basis of her gender, especially if she is challenging the status quo in her career path.
Read here the full article published by the Nonprofit Quarterly on 30 April 2024.
Image by Nonprofit Quarterly
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Violence against women in politics is an intolerable violation of women’s rights which poses fundamental challenges to democratic values and electoral processes. To tackle this issue, the Kofi Annan Foundation commissioned Carmen Alanis, the first female Chief Justice at the Superior Chamber of the Electoral Court of Mexico, and member of the Kofi Annan Foundation’s Electoral Integrity Initiative, to produce a policy paper which highlights the barriers women face in their attempts to access political spaces, as well as the challenges they encounter if elected to public office.
- In attempts to shed light on the extent of the problem, the paper addresses three vital questions:
- Why do women face barriers in exercising their political and electoral rights?
- If violence against women in politics is a global phenomenon with a negative impact on democracies, why is the problem still not being adequately addressed by states?
- Do current models of access to justice engage with the issue effectively?
The paper demonstrates that violence against women in politics undermines electoral integrity by disregarding the principles of universal suffrage and political equality. These principles are not being fulfilled in both newer and older democracies across the world, with various barriers to equal and universal political participation.
Click here to see the report.
Women participating in politics have navigated unique challenges and opportunities from the coronavirus pandemic. Governments around the world should take these steps to safeguard women’s political inclusion during the pandemic and beyond.
The coronavirus pandemic continues to disrupt political processes around the world. Seventy-three elections have been postponed. Many parliaments have suspended or limited their activities, and over a hundred countries have restricted citizens’ freedom of assembly and expression in the name of public health. Authoritarian and authoritarian-leaning leaders have further taken advantage of the emergency to concentrate power in the executive branch.
Few analyses have probed the gendered consequences of these trends. In the media, the main narrative about gender and pandemic politics has centered on the perceived effectiveness of female politicians in responding to the crisis—including Chancellor Angela Merkel in Germany and Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern in New Zealand. Yet these positive headlines conceal a more worrisome global picture: the pandemic’s profound political and socioeconomic effects could halt or reverse advances in women’s political inclusion.
Click here to read the full article published by Carnegie Endowment on 17 November 2020.
Women Political Leaders and Kantar came together in 2018 to create the Reykjavík Index for Leadership– the first measure of perceptions of women and men in terms of their suitability for leadership. The initial findings revealed significant, complex, and deep-seated prejudice towards women – where women were not seen as equally suitable to lead.
When the Reykjavík Index was launched, we acknowledged that progress in equality for women was far from guaranteed. Across the G7 group of countries, and in multiple areas of economic activity, many of the 2018 Index scores fell short of the target score of 100, which indicates a consensus across society that women and men are equally suited for leadership. Nevertheless, we fully hoped at that time to witness improvements in perceptions in the years to come, with scores of countries and sectors approaching the target score of 100.
Unfortunately, in 2020, the third year of Index results, we can only note a striking absence of progress. Indeed, this year cannot be called a period of advancement.
The Reykjavík Index for Leadership 2020-2021 presents findings drawn from the attitudes of over 20,000 people across ten countries – the G7 nations (comprising Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States) along with India, Kenya, and Nigeria. We believe that the addition of new countries to the G7 nations will allow us to better observe whether progress is being made, where stereotypes endure, and where public policy or private sector intervention is making a difference.
A look at the average score for the G7 countries, which we can now track across three years, shows very little change: it remains a 73. This can be regarded as the gap between the ‘birthright’ of equality for men, and the everyday reality of women’s experiences with inequality across the world.
Click here to see the report.
This study applied a conceptual framework that uses a comparative and gendered approach to estimate the cost of politics, using a set of pre-identified variables regularly incurred by both candidates seeking political office and elected representatives while in office. This consideration was in line with the notion that analysis of election delivery and management should not be looked at in the realm of an event but rather as a cycle. The conceptual framework enabled the research team to arrive at both statistical and qualitative evidence regarding the cost of politics in Uganda.
Click here to see the report.
Are elected officials more responsive to men than women inquiring about access to government services? Women face discrimination in many realms of politics, but evidence is limited on whether such discrimination extends to interactions between women and elected officials. In recent years, several field experiments have examined public officials’ responsiveness. The majority focused on racial bias in the USA, while the few experiments outside the USA were usually single-country studies. We explore gender bias with the first large-scale audit experiment in five countries in Europe (France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, and Netherlands) and six in Latin America (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and Uruguay). A citizen alias whose gender is randomized contacts members of parliament about unemployment benefits or healthcare services. The results are surprising. Legislators respond significantly more to women (+3% points), especially in Europe (+4.3% points). In Europe, female legislators in particular reply substantially more to women (+8.4% points).
Click here to see the report.
More than 2.5 billion women and girls around the world are affected in multiple ways by discriminatory laws and the lack of legal protections. In response, UN Women, the African Union, the Commonwealth, Inter-Parliamentary Union, Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie, and Secretaría General Ibero-Americana have jointly issued “Equality in law for women and girls by 2030: A multistakeholder strategy for accelerated action” in close collaboration with the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Equality Now, Global Citizen, Global Campaign for Equal Nationality Rights, International Association of Women Judges, International Development Law Organization, Muslims for Progressive Values, and Women’s Learning Partnership to tackle persisting discrimination in law.
Between 2019 and 2023, the strategy seeks to fast track the repeal of discriminatory laws in six thematic areas—comprehensive reforms, women’s economic empowerment, minimum age of marriage provisions, nationality rights, discriminatory rape laws, and family and personal status laws—in 100 countries and is expected to address the legal needs of more than 50 million women and girls.
Click here to see the report.
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