Women's Leadership
Shortly before the start of this year's 20th anniversary edition of the Bled Strategic Forum international conference, Minister of Foreign and European Affairs Tanja Fajon hosted a high-level women's forum comprising foreign ministers, senior representatives of international organisations and members of national parliaments and the European Parliament. Their discussions focused on decency in politics, a highly relevant matter in the current climate of rising authoritarianism.
The distinguished participants included Latvian Foreign Minister Baiba Braže and Kosovo Foreign Minister Donika Gërvalla-Schwarz, European Commissioner for Equality, Preparedness and Crisis Management Hadja Lahbib, WTO Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, NATO Deputy Secretary General Radmila Shekerinska, MEP Irena Joveva, The Baroness Helic of the British House of Lords, Vice President of the National Assembly Meira Hot, Ambassador of the EU to Kazakhstan Aleška Simkić and Head of Delegation of the EU to Afghanistan Veronika Bošković Pohar.
"Since we are few in number, it is particularly important that we set a good example for young people in order to strengthen trust in politics and encourage women to assume leadership roles," underlined the Slovenian Foreign Minister. The distinguished participants concurred that female politicians, irrespective of their political affiliations, must provide mutual support, address complex challenges collectively and conduct themselves in a dignified, respectful and empathetic manner. They agreed that it is imperative for them to uphold and strengthen political standards, particularly by insisting on the fundamental principles of respectful interpersonal relations and humanity.
Full article here.
In times of great political turmoil, it can be instructive and reassuring to read about people who have been in similar situations, and have persevered in fighting for something better. While writing my new book about the contributions Black women have made in the global struggle for human rights, I was humbled to see, over and over, how many of these women did not come from rich families, or hold positions of great power, or even have all that much education. But they did the hard and dangerous work required, day in and day out, because they believed in equal rights for everyone, around the world.
Closer to home, I’m recommending here five books that everyone should read about Black women in the United States who have persevered against great and terrible odds, to try to make the world better for the next generation. Their stories are just the inspiration we need today.
Full article here.
In her rightfully celebrated 1969 article, “The Political Economy of Women’s Liberation,” Margaret Benston articulated several of the enduring themes and theoretical insights of feminist theories, especially those developed by socialist and Marxist feminists. For example, she located the material basis of women’s secondary status in their responsibility for the production of use values for home consumption and their ensuing economic dependence upon male breadwinners; the effects of domestic responsibilities on women’s opportunities; and the material conditions for women’s liberation, that is, equal access to employment and an end to the privatized nature of housework and child rearing.2
As a graduate student in the late 1960s, I struggled to make sense of the notion that women were oppressed as women and that men or patriarchy were the source of their oppression—an idea that, at the time, seemed strange to me.3 In contrast, Benston’s perspective that the causes of the secondary status of women were structural, rooted in the capitalist economy, and resulted in women’s responsibility for child care and the production of use values for family consumption, made sense to me. It showed how the functioning of the capitalist economy, given that the organization of social and biological reproduction remained still in a “premarket stage,” placed working-class men and women in different structural positions. This, I inferred, gave some men power over women. Working-class men had to earn wages to survive economically, whereas working-class women, whether married or unmarried, could theoretically either work for wages or work at home, unpaid and dependent on the wages of the male head of the household.4 Abstractly, under capitalism, being an unpaid domestic worker is for working-class women a functional alternative to earning wages.5 In retrospect, having read her article again, I can say that my account of the oppression of women and conceptualization of what, in the early 1970s, I called the mode of reproduction, owes much to Benston’s views about the “structural definition of women” and the household as a place of production and reproduction.6
Full article here.
Respected figure: Baroness Margaret Thatcher. Personal goal: To become Japan's Iron Lady.
It was only after two failed attempts that, on Saturday, Sanae Takaichi finally achieved her long-held ambition.
The 64-year-old was elected leader of Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) on its 70th anniversary - putting her on course to become the country's first female prime minister.
A former government minister and TV host, and once a drummer in a heavy metal band, she will now face the challenge of leading not only a party struggling to regain voter trust after scandals and battling with the far right - but a country facing low birth rates and rising geopolitical tensions.
Born in Nara Prefecture in 1961, Takaishi's father was an office worker and her mother a police officer. Politics was far removed from her upbringing.
Once an avid heavy metal drummer, she was famous for carrying many sticks because she would break them during intense drumming. She was also a scuba diver and a car enthusiast - her beloved Toyota Supra is now displayed in a Nara museum.
Sanae Takaichi is poised to make history as Japan’s first female prime minister. Having lost to Fumio Kishida in 2021 and again to Shigeru Ishiba last year, she emerged victorious on her third attempt in the male-dominated contest to lead the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) on 4 October. As the LDP remains the biggest party in parliament despite substantial losses in the last election, Takaichi is widely expected to be elected prime minister when the parliament meets on 15 October.
Takaichi’s triumph marks a significant milestone in Japanese politics, opening the door for women to reach top political office. Currently, the incumbent cabinet under Ishiba includes only two female ministers, and women make up just 16% of parliament. Takaichi has pledged to improve gender balance in her cabinet to “Nordic levels”, and introduce family-friendly policies such as partial tax deductions for babysitting fees and corporate tax breaks for companies that provide in-house childcare.
Voters under 50 are the least open to electing a female president, and four in 10 Americans personally know someone who would not elect a woman to the White House, a new poll finds.
The American University poll, shared first with POLITICO, reveals a complicated portrait of how voters view women in politics. A majority supports electing more women to office, yet female politicians face persistent headwinds over trust on key issues like national security. They also run up against double standards, with voters saying a female president must be both “tough” and “likable.”
Nonetheless, most voters support electing more women and believe the government gets more done with women in office, according to the national poll of 801 registered voters conducted last month. It was commissioned by the university’s Women and Politics Institute and had a 3.5-point margin of error.
Nearly one in five voters said they or someone they are close to would not elect a woman presidential candidate. That includes one-quarter of women under 50 and 20 percent of men under 50, who said they would not back a qualified female candidate for president, while 13 percent of men and women over 50 said they wouldn’t be open to supporting a woman for president.
Full article here.
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.