Women's Leadership
Amalia Alvarez-Benjumea is a Ramón y Cajal Research Fellow at the Institute of Public Goods and Policies at the Spanish National Research Council. Her research explores the emergence and evolution of social norms, particularly the impact of social feedback and contextual information on norm perception and conformity. Amalia Alvarez-Benjumea joined a two-day Expert Group Meeting organized by UN Women to address one of the most persistent barriers to gender equality in political and public life: discriminatory social norms. The event held on 4 and 5 February 2025, brought together feminist scholars, policymakers, activists, and practitioners to chart a path forward for transforming social norms and ensuring women’s full and effective political participation. This experts’ meeting was organized under the WYDE | Women’s Leadership, funded by the European Union, which is a collaborative global effort aimed at advancing women’s full and effective political participation and decision-making at all levels, especially those most often left furthest behind.
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How do social norms shape the way we view women in politics?
This is a complex issue because social norms are part of broader cultural frameworks that include expectations, roles, and stereotypes. Unfortunately, gender norms and stereotypes often work against women in politics. There is a deeply rooted belief that women belong in the domestic sphere rather than the public one, or that they are not well-suited for positions of power, management and leadership.
Meanwhile, stereotypes about men tend to reinforce the idea that they are “naturally fit” for leadership roles, they are expected to excel in positions of power and be comfortable with decision-making authority. This contrast creates an uneven playing field, making it significantly harder for women to enter and succeed in politics.
Beyond that, when individuals step outside of societal expectations, they are often scrutinized and judged more harshly. Women in politics frequently have to prove themselves as more competent than average, while also facing disproportionate criticism if they make mistakes.
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What are some of the biggest barriers women face when stepping into leadership roles, and how can they be addressed?
There are both material and societal barriers. Gender norms dictate that women should prioritize caregiving and domestic responsibilities such as taking care of the children, which directly impacts the time and resources they can dedicate to politics. The reality is that women often have fewer hours available for political engagement compared to their male counterparts.
Beyond time constraints, women in politics also face intense backlash, especially online. My research has shown that female politicians and activists, especially those involved in feminist movements, are frequent targets of harassment and hate speech on digital platforms. This hostility discourages women from fully utilizing online spaces for political engagement, limiting their ability to express opinions freely and harnessing the potential of digital platforms for political outreach.
To address these barriers, we need both systemic changes—such as policies supporting work-life balance and political representation quotas—and cultural shifts that challenge harmful stereotypes and normalize women’s leadership. Online harassment must also be tackled through platform regulations that are better designed and drawing from evidence, as well as stronger support networks for women in public life.
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What lessons can we draw from your research to reduce sexism and biases in political and online spaces?
While not everyone actively confronts gender-based hate speech, there is always a segment of people who push back against it. Encouraging this kind of intervention is essential and has a very positive effect actually.
When individuals counteract sexist remarks, stereotypical statements such as “you belong in the kitchen”, whether online or in public discourse, they help reset societal norms. If someone publicly challenges statements like, “women don’t belong in politics,” it signals to bystanders and observers that this perspective isn’t universally accepted and should not be the norm. It reinforces the idea that women have every right to participate in political spaces and increases the likelihood of other bystanders to intervene as well. Creating and promoting these counter-narratives is a crucial strategy in dismantling biases and reducing discrimination. The more people speak up against sexism, the more we normalize gender equality in leadership.
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How do intersecting identities—such as race, ethnicity, age, or disability—affect women’s experiences in political spaces?
Intersectionality plays a major role in shaping women’s experiences. A woman in politics is not just navigating gender norms—she is also navigating additional layers of stereotypes based on other aspects of her identity.
For instance, women from marginalized racial or ethnic groups, younger women, or women with disabilities often face compounded biases. If a woman also belongs to the LGBTQ+ community, she may be perceived as “deviating” from traditional gender expectations in multiple ways, making her even more vulnerable to scrutiny and discrimination.
These overlapping biases create unique challenges that require intersectional solutions. Representation matters—not just for women in general, but for diverse women from different backgrounds.
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What advice would you give to young women entering politics, particularly regarding online harassment?
Despite the challenges, there are reasons to be optimistic. My advice would be: build a strong support network or a reference group. Identify the people you can rely on, whether it’s colleagues, mentors, or allies who share your values and who can create narratives that you can use when facing this sort of hatred.
Also, develop a set of prepared responses for moments when you face harassment or pushback. Having a “toolkit” of responses can help you navigate difficult interactions, online or in person. At the same time, make sure you have people who can step in to defend you when needed. The reality is that online harassment is a major issue, but by preparing for it and surrounding yourself with a reliable support system, you can focus on making an impact rather than constantly being on the defensive.
Original interview published on Capacity4Dev.
Abosede George-Ogan is the Founder of the Women in Leadership Advancement Network in Nigeria and a seasoned development professional with over 20 years of experience across the non-profit, private, and public sectors. Specialized in media and narratives, she also hosts a TV show focused on shaping the perception of women leaders in Nigeria with 17 million views. Her work centers on fostering women’s leadership across all levels. Abosede joined a two-day Expert Group Meeting organized by UN Women on 4-5 February 2025 to address one of the most persistent barriers to gender equality in political and public life: discriminatory social norms. This experts’ meeting was organized under the WYDE | Women’s Leadership, funded by the European Union, which is a collaborative global effort aimed at advancing women’s full and effective political participation and decision-making at all levels, especially those most often left furthest behind.
“The media plays a crucial role in shaping narratives and transforming gender and social norms. From a young age, we are constantly exposed to media, and today, with people consuming content directly through their phones, its influence is stronger than ever. This is why we must pay attention to how media shapes perceptions.
The reality is that media can have both a positive and negative impact. Unfortunately, we’ve seen it mostly reinforcing existing discriminatory social norms. However, there is a real opportunity to actively recruit the media as agents of change. Media have the power to reshape narratives and help society see the collective benefit of having women in leadership.
One major shift that needs to happen is in how the media portray women. Headlines must move beyond focusing on appearance or traditional caregiver roles and instead highlight women's competence, accomplishments, leadership, and abilities. Our Representation Matters campaign aims to demonstrate—through facts and compelling storytelling—that excluding women comes at a cost and that showing them in leadership role actually has a knock-on effect. The media becomes the vehicle to drive this message forward. We also produce a television show designed to spark conversations about gender norms and leadership in Nigeria. It encourages viewers to interrogate their own perceptions—where do these ideas come from? Why do people believe that leadership is a male domain? Why do they admire their mothers but struggle to see women as leaders? If our show gets people talking, it’s a win, because that’s how change begins.
If we want to reshape social norms, we must bring the media along. This means equipping them with the right language, tools, research so they can tell better stories. Lastly, it is not just about content—it is also about ownership. Who controls media platforms? Who has decision-making power? Media ownership remains largely male-dominated, and ensuring diversity in ownership will accelerate the change we want to see. We need more women entrepreneurs in the media space. Yet this is challenging, considering media is capital-intensive: you need infrastructure, equipment, and significant funding, which is why many women remain in supporting roles in media rather than taking the lead in media business ownership.
Ultimately, when women lead influential companies that employ thousands across various regions, they can shape media to offer more substantive, unifying, and enriching content. This can serve as a counterbalance to today’s political media, which often thrives on division and polarization. By reshaping the media landscape, we have the power to reshape society."
Original interview published on Capacity4Dev.
By Clarisse Sih and Bibbi Abruzzini
For over 30 years, women in the Horn of Africa have fought tirelessly against violence, discrimination, and systemic oppression. One of the leading voices in this struggle is Hala Al-Karib, a Sudanese activist and the regional director of the Strategic Initiative for Women in the Horn of Africa (SIHA).
At the heart of her work is a profound belief: “We are not just imagining power. We are claiming it.”
As part of the Forus March With Us campaign, Al-Karib shares her insights on the state of women’s rights, the barriers they face, and the unstoppable force of grassroots feminist movements shaping the future.
A life shaped by struggle and resistance
Growing up in Sudan, Al-Karib witnessed firsthand the deep inequalities and ethnic divisions that fueled systemic oppression. Her activism began early, inspired by the resilience of the women around her:
I learned early on that oppression exists in many forms — against women, against marginalized communities, against those who challenge power. And I also learned that to survive, we must resist.
Full article available here.
High on the slopes of Mount Meru, in Tanzania’s Arumeru District, lies the quiet village of Mulala. With just 2,000 residents, it is easy to miss — but it is here that one woman, known simply as Mama Anna, has reshaped what local development can look like.
Her transformation from subsistence bean farmer to community educator and entrepreneur began with one unexpected gift: a cow.
Mama Anna — Anna Pallangyo — is a Meru woman, a mother of six, and one of 717 women in the FAIDA Small Enterprise Promotion network. With only a primary school education and limited resources, she began by growing beans to support her family. But the returns were modest, and she saved what she could, determined to find another way.
When a development worker brought her a cow, she wasn’t sure what to do. “What can I do with a gombe [cow]?” she asked aloud. Then she learned to milk it.
Each day, she served milk to her family and friends. When the milk began to overflow, she made a decision: “I’ll sell the maziwa (milk).” Every morning, she walked down the long hill to town; every afternoon, she climbed back up, coins chattering in her pockets “like monkeys.”
Full article published here.
In 1983, Maria da Penha Maia Fernandes, a Brazilian biopharmacist, survived two homicide attempts at home. The first one left her paralyzed from the waist down after she was shot while she was asleep. In the second attempt, she was almost electrocuted in the shower.
In 1991, Penha saw the trial, which convicted her ex-husband of the attacks, being annulled. Five years later, a new trial found him guilty again, but he walked free. It took 19 years and six months, risking the statute of limitations to have him arrested. In 2006, her name became one of the best-known in Brazil when it became associated with a federal law that aims to protect women from domestic and family violence.
The path between the violent episodes that changed her life and the law that tries to avoid this type of crime was possible mainly due to international pressure, Penha acknowledges in a video conversation with Global Voices. In 2001, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) convicted Brazil of negligence and omission in her case, and this led to the law’s creation.
Penha’s name is now also linked to police patrols and other public policies regarding gender violence in the country. A poll by the Brazilian Senate, from 2023, however, pointed out that three out of four Brazilian women know little or nothing at all about the law itself. It also showed that around 30 percent of women in Brazil have suffered domestic violence at the hands of a man.
Full article published here.
GIESSEN, Germany / BETH NAHRIN — On the sidelines of the Syriac Women’s Conference held last Saturday simultaneously in Beth Zalin (Qamishli), North and East Syria; Ankawa, Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI); and Giessen, Germany, under the slogan No Equality Without Justice, No Justice Without Women, our newsdesk conducted interviews with several women to discuss the conference’s significance for Syriac (Aramean–Assyrian–Chaldean) women.
Siham Quryo, Co-Chair of the People’s Democratic Council within the Democratic Autonomous Administration of the Region of North and East Syria (DAARNES), stated that the Syriac Women’s Conference was held across all regions where the Syriac (Aramean–Assyrian–Chaldean) people reside, with the goal of establishing a Syriac Women’s Council to represent Syriac (Aramean–Assyrian–Chaldean) women globally and to ensure their active role in shaping the future.
She emphasized the urgent need for Syriac (Aramean–Assyrian–Chaldean) women’s participation in building a new Syria that reflects justice, equality, and inclusion.
Full article published here.
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.
Our report, with U.S.-based National Democratic Institute (NDI), outlines a new framework for understanding how disinformation is being used online to exclude women from public life, in the first major study into this threat to democracy.
The report has found that online spaces are being systematically weaponised to exclude women leaders and to undermine the role of women in public life. Attacks on women which use hateful language, rumour and gendered stereotypes combine personal attacks with political motivations, making online spaces dangerous places for women to speak out. And left unchecked, this phenomenon of gendered disinformation, spread by state and non-state actors, poses a serious threat to women’s equal political participation.
In this research, we investigated state-aligned gendered disinformation in two countries, Poland and the Philippines, through an analysis of Twitter data. The research found evidence of disinformation campaigns which attacked women and used gendered narratives to undermine women who oppose or criticise the state.
For the first time, researchers identified core themes of gendered disinformation, and common strategies used by those engaged in it, finding that campaigns relied not just on false information, but used highly emotive content to try to undermine their targets politically.
The report found that gendered disinformation is parasitic on news events, existing rumours, and underlying social stereotypes, and can be extremely successful in reaching a broad audience to reshape public discourse in a way that harms women.
Demos is calling for systematic improvements to be made to how platforms operate in facilitating, promoting and moderating online speech. Existing responses to disinformation, such as fact-checking, while important, are ineffective in solving this problem.
Click here to access the report.
COVID-19 and conflict: Advancing women’s meaningful participation in ceasefires and peace processes
This brief addresses the importance of women’s full, equal, and meaningful participation to an effective pandemic response and to peacemaking efforts, and how the women, peace and security (WPS) agenda can provide a critical framework for inclusive decision-making and sustainable solutions. While efforts to flatten the pandemic’s curve unfold around the globe, violent conflict remains a deadly reality for far too many people.
In March 2020, the UN Secretary-General called for a global ceasefire to allow the world to address COVID-19. Since the outbreak of the pandemic, women have been at the forefront of effective COVID-19 prevention and response efforts—from frontline service delivery to the highest levels of decision-making. With women’s participation central to achieving sustainable solutions, the pandemic has brought into sharp relief how critical the WPS agenda is to inclusive and effective decision-making.
This brief recognizes the vital role of women’s civil society organizations in mobilizing support for an urgent cessation of hostilities, inclusive ceasefire processes, and comprehensive peace talks. It also provides a preliminary analysis of the impact of COVID-19 on women’s participation in ceasefires and peace processes and offers a series of recommendations, including on “building back better”.
Click here to see the report.