Women's Leadership
There is a pervasive narrative “that women are running for office in record numbers,” says Erin Loos Cutraro. “People hold onto that. They think it’s still true today.”
Except it’s not.
As the founder and CEO of political engagement nonprofit She Should Run, she should know. Loos Cutraro’s organization recently published a study, “The State of Women,” finding that 2018’s much-publicized “Year of the Woman” – when a record-breaking 103 women were elected to the U.S. House of Representatives – was an anomaly. “We haven’t seen that type of momentum for women’s representation since,” Loos Cutraro stated in a release of the study’s findings.
Click here to read the full article published by The Story Exchange on 14 November 2023.
Image by The Story Exchange
ElectHER, a civil society organisation (CSO), says without women in politics, Nigeria is limiting the extent to which it can develop.
Addressing a press conference in Abuja on Tuesday on the forthcoming off-cycle elections, Ibijoke Faborode, founder and chief executive officer (CEO) of ElectHER, said there is a need for “improved consideration” for women’s participation in politics and governance.
Click here to read the full article published by The Cable on 7 November 2023.
A lack of gender diversity among decisionmakers in the UK prime minister’s office meant that women were not adequately considered in pandemic-related policymaking, likely leading to preventable deaths, a former top official has told the Covid-19 inquiry.
Helen MacNamara was deputy cabinet secretary – one of the UK’s most senior officials – between 2020 and 2021. In a written statement submitted to the independent public inquiry into the UK government’s response to the pandemic she said the “exclusion of a female perspective led to significant negative consequences”, noting lack of thought for domestic abuse victims, pregnant women and around childcare in the context of school closures.
Click here to read the full article published by the Global Gov Forum on 2 November 2023.
At a time when women around the world are lauded for their ever-growing achievements as peacemakers, the Arab region is marred by armed conflicts causing an increasing number of victims, particularly among women and children. As part of its mission to empower women and achieve sustainable development in the region, the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) provided a platform for women leaders and pioneers to share their opinions on the role of women in achieving peace in times of conflict, in the context of the ongoing situation in Palestine.
Click here to read the full article published by Relief Web on 30 October 2023.
To what extent has the glass ceiling in global governance been shattered? To answer this question, we need to look beyond the numbers on women’s representation and study how far women are perceived as inspiring and visionary leaders in global governance. This article offers an analysis of perceptions of inspiring and visionary leadership in global multistakeholder initiatives from a gender perspective. Based on 467 interviews with participants in a leading multistakeholder initiative, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), it presents four findings: (1) respondents identify more men than women as inspiring and visionary leaders, with the difference roughly corresponding to the share of women in leadership roles; (2) respondents tend to ascribe more leadership attributes to women than to men when explaining why they find them inspiring and visionary; (3) both feminine and masculine leadership traits are appreciated in relation to both men and women leaders at ICANN; (4) female respondents identify more women as inspiring and visionary leaders than male respondents. These findings contribute novel insights into gendered perceptions around leadership and the importance of role models in global governance. They also shed much-needed light on the demands and expectations from leadership in global multistakeholder arrangements.
Click here to read the full report published by the Cambridge University Press on 26 October 2023.
Tulia Ackson of the United Republic of Tanzania has been elected as the 31st President of the IPU by the IPU’s Governing Council, its main decision-making body made up of parliamentarians from around the world.
She takes over from Mr. Duarte Pacheco, a parliamentarian from Portugal, who concluded his three-year mandate at the end of the 147th IPU Assembly in Luanda, Angola.
Click here to read the full article published by the Inter-Parliamentary Union on 27 October 2023.
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.
In 2018, a record number of women were elected to Congress, but it’s a different story when you look at governorships. Today, only nine women serve as governor, tying a previous record first set in 2004.
Twenty states have never had a woman governor, whereas only one state has yet to send a woman to Congress. The numbers are even more stark when it comes to women of color and LGBTQ women: only two states have ever elected a woman of color governor, and there has only been one openly LGBTQ woman elected governor.
When running for executive office, women face obstacles that men running simply do not. The Barbara Lee Family Foundation has consistently found that voters have been more comfortable seeing women serve as members of a legislature than they have been electing them to executive offices—positions where they will have sole decision-making authority.
This research, which asks about hypothetical Asian Pacific Islander American, Black, Latina, lesbian and white women candidates of the two major political parties, comprehensively examines what it takes for a woman to prove to voters she is ready to serve in executive office. For context, it also includes some of the lessons learned from interviews with 2018 gubernatorial candidates and their campaign staffs.
Click here to see the report.
Americans elected more than 100 women to office in the 2018 midterm elections, but women still hold less than a quarter of the seats in Congress.
Why are women so poorly represented? Theories include: women are less politically ambitious; there is a lack of support from political parties and donors; voter prejudice and a dearth of information about female politicians influence votes.
UCLA Anderson’s Melanie Wasserman was interested in a less-understood piece of the puzzle: Do women breaking into politics react differently to an electoral loss than men? If so, does this contribute to the low percentage of women who hold office?
Her analysis of 11,466 candidates in closely won local races in California between 1995 and 2014 (including city, county, and school districts) finds women new to politics were less likely than men to run again within four years of losing a close race. For men, losing an initial election caused a 16-to-19 percentage point decline in the probability of their running in another election within the next four years. Women exhibited an additional 7-to-11-percentage point decrease in the probability of running again, relative to the male candidates.
Click here to read the full article published by UCLA Anderson Review on 1 November 2019.
Political parties act as gatekeepers, meaning that improvements in the representation of women depend on parties’ willingness to nominate women candidates. Previous research suggests that party characteristics and gender quotas largely explain women’s nominations, but overlooks the political context in which parties operate. This study highlights the gendered outcomes that occur when parties make nomination decisions in times of public discontent, namely increasing political distrust and increasing perceived corruption. We theorize that parties hold similar biases to voters: gender stereotypes that regard women as more trustworthy and honest should advantage women as political trust falls and perceptions of corruption rise. We hypothesize that parties nominate larger percentages of women in these circumstances. Using two waves of data from over 100 political parties in 18 Latin American countries, we find that parties nominate more women when a large proportion of the public distrusts the national legislature, providing support for the theory.
Click here to see the academic article.
From mayors to MEPs: new study reveals women’s representation across Europe.
Women make up half of humanity, yet account for only 1/3 of political decision-makers in Europe and around 15% of mayors. A new study by the Council of European Municipalities and Regions (CEMR) shows that despite some gains, politics remains a man’s world.
One-of-a-kind, “Women in Politics: Local and European Trends” provides in-depth analysis of women’s representation in 41 European countries and all levels of government, from local councils all the way up to the European Parliament.
Covering a ten-year period, the study breaks down the data by country, shows where and how women have made gains and provides recommendations on how to make further progress.
Click here to see the report.