Women's Leadership
Recently, the minister responsible for women, family and community development, Nancy Shukri, reportedly said the 30% quota for women previously set by the government should be reconsidered given the current situation that “42% of women actively participated in decision making roles within the public service sector”.
The minister reportedly said many women now possess the qualifications, including experience and academic achievements, to compete equally with men in decision-making positions across various service levels.
“Considering that we have already surpassed the 30 per cent mark, reaching 42 per cent in the public sector, setting a new target at 50 per cent or beyond should not be hindered by ceilings or limitations,” she added.
Click here to read the full article published by Aliran on 19 February 2024.
Image source: Aliran
On 15 February 2024, an article titled “Why Cambodia needs to incorporate more women into its foreign policy process” was published on the Diplomat and has caught attention from various readers including the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation of Cambodia, which is also now requesting for clarifications from the author. While the article highlighted the significance of having more women in leadership and decision-making positions and some important statistical facts on the disproportionately low number of women in politics and diplomatic field, it failed to acknowledge the efforts and significant progress made by the government over the years to promote and mainstream gender equality in all sectors.
In Cambodia, commitments to empower and increase women leadership come from the highest level of the government. As often heard, women are considered as the “backbone of the society and economy”. Gender equality has been one of the government’s priority agendas, as manifested in various national policies and strategies, the Rectangular Strategy, the National Strategic Development Plan (NSDP), the five-year Strategic Neary Rattanak, and National Plan for Sub-National Democratic Development (NP-SNDD), just to name a few.
Click here to read the full article published by the Khmer Times on 20 February 2024.
Image source: Khmer Times
For standing up to the dangerous elements of today’s political reality—racial and socio-economic disparities and crackdowns on dissent, among them—both Robredo in the Philippines and Márquez in Colombia faced threats online and offline.
The same year, in Colombia, Francia Márquez showed up in tough times. Running for president in a political terrain hardly conducive for a black candidate, let alone a rural single mother, she reduced hundreds to tears with her speech: ‘We’re not descendants of slaves. We’re descendants of free men and women who were enslaved.’
The two women have been strong voices of reason advocating against authoritarian environments in their respective democracies, as two documentaries—belonging to separate parts of the world but bearing themes that rhyme—showed at the Sundance Film Festival in Utah recently. .
Click here to read the full article published by Feminism in India on 19 February 2024.
Image source: Feminism in India
Women's political leadership is evolving, with both progress and challenges. Inspiring figures like Angela Merkel and Jacinda Ardern have made strides, but achieving gender parity is still over a century away. Local leadership and advocacy play crucial roles in this ongoing journey.
In the evolving landscape of global politics, a compelling narrative unfolds, revealing both progress and setbacks in the quest for gender parity in political representation. As we venture into 2024, the strides and struggles of women vying for political leadership positions paint a complex picture of the current state and the road ahead. While some regions celebrate breakthroughs, others confront enduring barriers, underscoring the multifaceted challenges women face in their political journeys.
The Landscape of Women in Politics: A Global Overview
At the forefront of this narrative are the 28 formidable women who, as of this year, helm the leadership as Heads of State or Government across 26 countries. Icons like Angela Merkel and Jacinda Ardern epitomize the resilience and visionary leadership that have paved the way for future generations. Despite these inspiring figures, the sobering reality emerges that achieving gender parity in executive government roles remains a distant goal, predicted to be over a century away. The underrepresentation extends to national parliaments, where women constitute a mere 26.5% of parliamentarians globally. However, there are glimmers of hope, as evidenced by Rwanda's remarkable 61.3% female representation in its parliament, leading the world in this aspect, with Cuba and New Zealand also making notable strides forward.
Click here to read the full article published by the BNN Breakings News on 18 February 2024.
Image source: BNN Breaking News
Ethical principles help us make positive and just decisions that contribute to the common good of all.
Reliability, honesty, integrity, fairness, and collaboration are a few of many ethical behaviors that fulfill basic human needs, prevent harm to people and the environment, and create credibility and trust. The consequences of unethical decisions include loss of trust, authoritarianism, autocracy, nepotism and corruption.
The controversial bill that reduced wetlands protection illustrates the importance of ethical decision-making. Despite opposition from wetland scientists and rejected attempts to amend the bill, legislators passed House Bill 1383 in a party-line vote, 64-30 in the House, 32-17 in the Senate. Some media reports stated that several legislators who voted in favor of the bill have ties to land development companies and lobbyist groups.
Click here to read the full article published by the Daily Journal on 15 February 2024.
Image source: League of Women Voters
In a panel on Feb. 5, Black female scholars from across the country came together to explore the power of Black women in American politics and their nuanced role as actors in the current political climate. The panel titled “Black Women’s Politics,” was hosted by the Women and Gender Studies, African American Studies, and Government departments to commemorate Black History Month.
The panel included Dr. Sharon Austin, professor of political science at the University of Florida; Dr. Ayana Best, assistant professor of political science at Howard University; Dr. Pearl Dowe, professor of political science and African American studies at Emory University; and Dr. Christine Slaughter, assistant professor of political science at Boston University. Alongside the five scholars, Dr. Nadia Brown, chair of the Women’s and Gender Studies department at Georgetown, moderated the discussion.
Click here to read the full article published by The Georgetown Voice on 13 February 2024.
Image source: The Georgetown Voice
A seemingly inescapable feature of the digital age is that people choosing to devote their lives to politics must now be ready to face a barrage of insults and disparaging comments targeted at them through social media. This article represents an effort to document this phenomenon systematically. We implement machine learning models to predict the incivility of about 2.2 m messages addressed to Canadian politicians and US Senators on Twitter. Specifically, we test whether women in politics are more heavily targeted by online incivility, as recent media reports suggested. Our estimates indicate that roughly 15% of public messages sent to Senators can be categorized as uncivil, whereas the proportion is about four points lower in Canada. We find evidence that women are more heavily targeted by uncivil messages than men, although only among highly visible politicians.
Click here to see the paper.
This research report seaks to analyze the use of social media during the 2018 General Election in Pakistan. The report focuses on online participation and harassement of female politicians along with issues pertinent to elections in the digital age: online advertising, misinformation and regulation of social media spaces.
Click here to see the report.
Around the world, women are targeted by violence because of their commitment to vote, their jobs as electoral officials and their aspirations to hold political office. NDI categorizes this kind of violence as “violence against women in elections” (VAW-E), and defines it as any act of violence -- threats, hate speech, assault, blackmail or assassination -- that is unduly directed at someone because of her gender, and that seeks to determine, delay or otherwise influence her engagement in an electoral process.
Election-related violence against women is a separate issue from general electoral violence because it is specifically aimed at preventing women from exercising their voice and agency. Women are targeted specifically because they are women, as opposed to the election violence that stems from differences in candidates’ or parties’ positions on issues.
Click here to see the report.
The Win With Women Political Party Assessment (WWW Assessment) is an initiative designed to help political parties become more inclusive and representative through an assessment that gauges men and women's perceptions of women in leadership, the types of social norms held by members of parties, and the individual, institutional and socio-cultural barriers to gender equality.
Click here to see the report.
This collaborative report between, Lokniti a programme of the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies and Konrad Adenauer Stiftung has attempted to look at women and politics from a multi-track perspective. While the assessment relied quite extensively on existing aggregate data on the theme and an exhaustive review of literature, the key focus of the analysis was the findings of a survey conducted among women across the country. The report is divided into eight chapters including the conclusion and the introduction and relies heavily on Lokniti’s survey data. Having chosen a sample of respondents that helped best mirror the larger `universe` it was meant to represent (Indian women), a range of questions on the patterns of political participation and representation were asked. The survey attempted to assess the perception of women to different dimensions of political participation and representation and the challenges in this regard. The survey findings have helped present the socio-economic and cultural context that define and decide the attitudes and perception of women to issues of political participation and representation. The varied factors that contribute to greater women’s participation in politics and the pathways to greater political representation were also assessed as part of the study. The study examines the perceptions of women to their role as voters. Their views on different dimensions of political participation and the barriers to the same are also studied. The impact of political socialization and the family are also analysed as part of the survey. Factors that influence voting decisions as well as womens’ perception of women as leaders, has also been attempted in this study.
Click here to see the academic article.
Research showing that there is strong correlation between increased female labor force participation and women’s political participation is essentially based on empirical data from Western, democratic, and developed contexts. In this article, we discuss whether these conclusions hold for non-Western, nondemocratic, and developing settings too. Through a study of Ethiopian women’s employment and political agency, we find that employment is actually not significantly related to the level of women’s participation in local political meetings and is negatively related to their interest in politics.
Click here to download the article.
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