Women's Leadership
NPR's Ari Shapiro talks to University of Houston's Mirya Holman about why women in political leadership tend to be referred to by their first names more often than their male counterparts.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST: A moment from four years ago might feel familiar to any woman in a position of authority.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
SUSAN PAGE: Kamala Harris - Senator Harris, I mean - I'm sorry.
KAMALA HARRIS: That's fine. I'm Kamala.
PAGE: No, no, no...
HARRIS: (Laughter).
PAGE: ...You're Senator Harris to me.
SHAPIRO: That was the vice presidential debate in 2020, where moderator Susan Page slipped and called Senator Harris by her first name. Research shows that this happens to women in positions of power all the time, whether they are authors, professors or even vice president of the United States. So if you've noticed people referring to Trump, Biden and Kamala, it's not your imagination.
Mirya Holman studies gender in American politics at the Hobby School of Public Affairs at the University of Houston, and I asked her whether this first-name gender gap is simply evidence of a bias against women.
MIRYA HOLMAN: One of the pieces that I think is going on here is that women are not seen as the norm in politics. They're unusual. And so people think about who they are in a different way. I do actually think it is a sign of disrespect in an environment where you have multiple candidates, and you're referring to one by her first name and then all of the men by their last name. You are making her the exception and not giving her that very small piece of respect that we give people in positions of power.
Read here the full interview published by NPR on 24 July 2024.
Image by NPR
President Joe Biden’s decision to end his reelection bid and endorse Vice President Kamala Harris to replace him in the campaign has upended the presidential race and shined a renewed spotlight on Harris.
Her career path from prosecutor to politician has been defined by many firsts: She was the nation’s first Indian American senator and California’s first female and South Asian attorney general. Harris is the first woman to become vice president, as well as the first Black or Asian American person to hold the office.
Now, as momentum builds to position her as the Democratic Party’s 2024 presidential nominee, Harris could be on the cusp of becoming the country’s first female president.
Here’s what to know about Harris’ life and the moments that defined her in politics.
Read here the full article published by CNN on 22 July 2024.
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WASHINGTON (AP) — She’s already broken barriers, and now Kamala Harris could shatter several more after President Joe Biden abruptly ended his reelection bid and endorsed her.
Biden announced Sunday that he was stepping aside after a disastrous debate performance catalyzed fears that the 81-year-old was too frail for a second term.
Harris is the first woman, Black person and person of South Asian descent to serve as vice president. If she becomes the Democratic nominee and defeats Republican candidate Donald Trump in November, she would be the first woman to serve as president.
Biden said Sunday that choosing Harris as his running mate was “the best decision I’ve made” and endorsed her as his successor.
“Democrats — it’s time to come together and beat Trump,” he wrote on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter. “Let’s do this.”
Harris described Biden’s decision to step aside as a “selfless and patriotic act,” saying he was “putting the American people and our country above everything else.”
“I am honored to have the President’s endorsement and my intention is to earn and win this nomination,” Harris said. “Over the past year, I have traveled across the country, talking with Americans about the clear choice in this momentous election.”
Read here the full article published by PBS News on 22 July 2024.
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Less than four months out from the election, Vice-President Kamala Harris found herself in a difficult position.
President Joe Biden's poor performance on the debate stage spurred mounting criticism about his ability to win the election. As anxiety turned to tension within the Democratic party, her name rose up the list of replacement candidates.
With Mr Biden’s announcement that he will be ending his campaign and putting his support behind her, Ms Harris has finally reached a position she’d long sought: the top of the Democratic ticket, and potentially the presidency.
But the journey there has been fraught and full of difficult questions, especially in recent months.
Four years ago, the one-time candidate for the Democratic nomination would have welcomed the party's praises. By July 2024, Harris was in a more precarious position as part of an embattled incumbent ticket, her chances of another term tethered to Mr Biden’s performance.
In the 24 hours after the debate debacle, Ms Harris chose strong loyalty to Mr Biden.
The vice-president spoke on CNN, MSNBC and at a campaign rally. She defended her political partner's record and attacked their opponent, former President Donald Trump.
Read here the full article published by the BBC on 21 July 2024.
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In the run-up to Brazil’s municipal elections, FGV Press has just published an intense and long book featuring the moving stories of a hundred Brazilian women from all over the country who decided to tackle various obstacles and fight for a place in politics.
According to the book, Brazil is currently one of the worst countries in the world when it comes to the presence of women in politics, and the worst in Latin America. Despite often having a minimal chance of success, every two years a huge number of women run for office. They include teachers, small businesswomen, police officers and community leaders, who learn to balance politics with work and family life. They invest a lot of time and energy in this endeavor, but only a handful manage to get elected. As a result, just 17.7% of seats in the House of Representatives are currently held by women and 82.3% are held by men. In practice, men end up making the decisions in all areas, including those that concern women.
Concerned about this huge under-representation of women, Malu Gatto of University College London and Débora Thomé of Fundação Getulio Vargas, both of whom have doctorates in politics, set out in search of answers to try to understand what was happening to women and their struggles to get elected. In the 2020 and 2022 elections, they went out into the field to ask them what made them run for office, how they experienced this process, what types of violence they had faced and what their strategies were for getting along better with their parties.
Based on 188 interviews with 102 candidates (79 women and 23 men) and official data from the Superior Electoral Court, their book, “Candidatas: os primeiros passos das mulheres na política do Brasil” (“Female candidates: Women’s first steps in Brazilian politics”), published by FGV Press, draws on the academic literature to analyze evidence extracted directly from the voices of the protagonists of these stories. It presents the experiences of empowered black, white, young and old women, from all regions of the country and from all parties, with very different backgrounds. Moreover, the book presents the voices of these women. Divided into 10 chapters, it covers everything from the initial factors that make them run for office, their choice of party and relationship with it, election campaigns, political violence, post-election moments, and what happens when they are elected.
Read here the full article published by FGV Brazil on 22 July 2024.
Image by FGV Brazil
Luena — The ombudswoman, Florbela Araújo, highlighted, this Thursday, in Luena, Moxico province, the presence and leadership of women in the country, which is 'in great development'.
Speaking at a lecture on the 'role of the ombudsperson as a defender of women's rights', at the Casa da Cultura do Luena, the official said that today women are demonstrating that they have the physical and intellectual capacities to occupy decision-making positions.
According to the ombudsperson, the President of the Republic, as the Holder of the Executive Power, has been concerned with increasing the presence of women in decision-making positions at all levels, in the Executive, Judicial and Legislative branches.
He reiterated that women are the driving force to leverage a better world, far from the 'such and glaring' gender inequality that has been verified, so there is a need to empower them, as one of the ways to develop an increasingly just society.
He called on women to tirelessly continue to fulfill their role in society, as a way to contribute to the development of an increasingly just and good nation to live in.
Read here the full article published by All Africa on 19 July 2024.
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Inclusive decision-making is necessary in terms of both legitimacy and good policy outcomes. Recognizing this, closing persistent gender gaps in public life has emerged as a critical policy issue as countries increase their efforts to foster inclusive growth and build trust and confidence in public institutions while working towards the SDGs. The public administration determines the manner in which political and economic decisions are implemented and how budgets are planned and spent. Additionally, it is a primary employer for women in many developing countries – particularly in the Arab world. In some countries, women have in fact surpassed parity in terms of public administration employment but still lag far behind the 30% target in leadership positions. Balanced total employment among women and men is important but it is equally important to have women dispersed throughout all the different sectors of administrative governance, as well as equitably represented in all levels of decision-making. Women tend to outnumber men in general positions and decrease significantly in number further up the grade ladder. In addition to the glass ceiling that women face in the public sector, there also appears to be a strong trend of horizontal profiling: "glass walls". Women in the public sector are primarily involved in the traditionally feminized sectors of health, education and social services and almost absent from other sectors such as security and foreign affairs. The status quo represents a challenge to achieving SDGs 5, 8 and 16 and the biggest impediment to adjusting the situation is the absence of relevant data. This paper will examine the gender gap in the public administrations of Arab countries; analyze trends and policy with the ultimate aim of contributing to the development of tracking mechanisms for gender equality in the public administration.
Click here to see the academic article.
The goal of the survey consists in analyzing perceptions and experiences of civil servants in central administration with regard to the level of corruption, its forms, transparency of the decision-making process and impact of these phenomena on the career development practices among men and women.
Click here to see the survey.
Women and girls with disabilities, who make up almost one-fifth of the world’s population of women, face significant barriers to accessing justice, due to discrimination on the basis of both gender and disability, accessibility barriers to the justice system, and lack of reasonable accommodations throughout judicial proceedings. Compared to both men with disabilities and women without disabilities, women with disabilities are disproportionately excluded from legal protection and are more likely to have their credibility questioned, owing to harmful gender and disability stereotypes. Women with disabilities also encounter barriers to attaining positions as lawyers, judges, and other officials in the justice system, and may be excluded from serving on juries. Such barriers not only limit the ability of women with disabilities to use the justice system, but also limit their ability to contribute to the administration of justice to society as a whole. Access to justice is interdependent with a number of fundamental rights. Effective access to justice is essential for challenging human rights violations, such as discrimination in employment or deprivation of parental rights. Lack of access to justice can reinforce vulnerability to rights violations, particularly where perpetrators may feel emboldened when they know the justice system is unlikely to respond to complaints by women with disabilities. Access to justice also depends on the fulfilment of other rights—realization of the right to accessibility, for instance, will often determine whether women with disabilities have effective access to the justice system.
Click here to see the factsheet.
By Ruth Igielnik and Kim Parker,
As moms across the United States celebrate Mother’s Day this weekend, five of the six women vying for the Democratic residential nomination are themselves mothers.
These women, all seeking the same high political office, became mothers at different points in their careers – some while they were starting out in politics and others long before that.
Roughly half of Americans (51%) say it’s better for a woman who wants to reach high political office to have children before entering politics, according to a 2018 Pew Research Center survey on gender and leadership. About a quarter (26%) say it would be better to wait until she is well-established in her political career, while 19% say it would be better for a woman not to have children at all if she plans to seek higher office.
Click here to read the full article published by the PEW Research Center on 9 May 2019.
Public approval is a crucial source of executive power in presidential systems. Does the public support female and male presidents similarly? Combining insights from gender and politics research with psychological evidence, this study theorizes sex-based differentials in popularity based on more general expectations linking gender stereotypes to diverging performance evaluations. Using quarterly analyses of eighteen Latin American democracies, South Korea and the Philippines, the analyses compare the levels, dynamics, and policy performance of macro-approval for male and female presidents. As expected, female presidents are less popular, experience exaggerated approval dynamics and their approval is more responsive to security and corruption (though not economic) outcomes. These findings have clear implications for our understandings of mass politics, political accountability and presidentialism.
Click here to see the report.
May 3: A preliminary gender audit of the South African elections due to be held on 8 May shows that while there will be a slight increase in women’s representation, women are still missing from the top echelons of political parties and from the media.
“On World Press Freedom Day it is an indictment on South Africa that women still constitute just one fifth of those whose views and voices are heard,” said GL CEO Colleen Lowe Morna at the launch of Gender Links report.
At 55% women will constitute the majority of voters in the 2019 South African elections. Gender Links predicts using available data that the proportion of women in the House of Assembly will increase from 40% in 2014 to 44% in 2019.
But, without a legislated quota, and with vacillating commitment by political parties to gender parity, South Africa will again miss the 50% mark. Apart from Agang, the political party formed by anti-apartheid activist Mamphela Ramphele that is expected to garner less than 1% of the vote, none of the political parties contesting has achieved gender parity in its top five.
“Male leaders either oppose quotas; fail to implement them; or backslide into misogynistic slurs despite the lofty language in their political manifestos,” noted GL advisor Kubi Rama who authored the report.
A further measure of women’s lack of #Voiceandchoice in our society is the fact that women sources in news coverage persists at 22% or about one fifth of those whose views and voices are heard in the elections. Despite being one of the most pressing social justice issues of our time, gender equality represents less than one percent of media coverage, according to Media Monitoring Africa.
“The message as South African go to the polls next week are clear,” says Rama. “Political parties need to engage with the fact the women constitute 55% of the electorate and address their concerns in manifestos, party lists and in leadership. The media must do better. Women sources are available but barely accessed.”
Click here to see the report.