Women's Leadership
Adamawa State deputy governor, Professor Kaletapwa Farauta, has highlighted the growing need for female leadership to bring about significant change in Nigeria’s political landscape.
Speaking at the 28th Annual National Conference of the National Association of Women in Colleges of Education (WICE) in Yola, Farauta praised the state’s progress in empowering women in politics. She emphasised the pivotal role women can play in leadership, noting, “Nigeria is waiting for great women to make a change in the political arena.”
Farauta underlined the benefits of female leadership, particularly in terms of accountability and effective governance. She also expressed optimism about the possibility of women becoming local government chairpersons soon.
Read here the full article published by the Daily Trust on 9 October 2024.
Image by Daily Trust
In the remote yet strikingly beautiful Nguruman Escarpment of Kajiado County, Kenya, a transformative initiative is unfolding. Here, in a traditionally patriarchal Maasai community, a group of men—known as the Men Champions—has become crucial allies in the fight for gender equality in leadership. These men are part of a broader effort to challenge deep-seated cultural barriers, offering crucial support for women seeking political leadership in a county where progress has been slow.
Despite Kenya’s constitutional requirement that no more than two-thirds of elective or appointive positions be held by the same gender, Kajiado County remains a striking example of gender disparity. In the 2022 general elections, not a single woman won a political seat beyond the legally mandated women representative position, reflecting the powerful cultural and financial barriers women face when attempting to enter the political arena.
Men as Allies: Supporting Women’s Leadership in Politics
The Expanding Spaces for Women's Political Participation in Kenya project, implemented by Uraia Trust with support from UN Women and Global Affairs Canada, is actively addressing these challenges. One of the most significant elements of the program is the engagement of men in supporting women's leadership aspirations. These Men Champions—community gatekeepers and respected elders—are leading peer-learning forums that bring together male and female gender champions to discuss how to create pathways for women to participate in politics and governance.
For generations, leadership in this region has been male dominated, with powerful clans selecting political aspirants. However, as Paul Ole Koisaba, a prominent elder in Nguruman, explains, “We cannot continue to make decisions that exclude half of our population. Our women have the skills and the vision to lead, and we must stand behind them.”
By challenging the traditional norms that have held women back, these men are setting the stage for women to run for office with the full backing of their communities. In doing so, they are not just supporting women—they are building a future where leadership is more inclusive and representative of all voices.
Read here the full article published by UN Women Africa on 5 October 2024.
Claudia Sheinbaum leads a groundbreaking team of women in Mexico's government, achieving significant gender parity in leadership roles across the country.
Mexico has taken a significant step towards gender parity in leadership, marking a historic milestone with the inauguration of its first female president, Claudia Sheinbaum. As she assumes office, the country stands out as a leader in gender representation, surpassing the United States in this regard. Sheinbaum's administration features a cabinet comprised of 50% women and a Congress that is evenly split between men and women.
Claudia Sheinbaum, 62, elected on June 2 with nearly 60% of the vote, is not only the first female president but also Mexico's first Jewish president. She grew up in a politically engaged family, with her mother, Annie Pardo, being a prominent biologist. After earning a PhD in energy engineering from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), Sheinbaum became active in politics, serving as head of the environment department under then-Mayor Andrés Manuel López Obrador. She later won the mayorship of Mexico City in 2018.
In a recent statement, Sheinbaum asserted, "Never again should we hear the statement, 'You're prettier when you stay silent.' Those days are over in our country."
Read here the full article published by The Latin Times on 6 October 2024.
Image by The Latin Times
Women currently serve as the head of government in just 13 of the 193 member states of the United Nations. This includes Mexico, where President Claudia Sheinbaum was sworn in as the country’s first female executive this week.
Mexico is one of nine countries where the current woman head of government is the country’s first, according to a Pew Research Center analysis.
Overall, 60 UN member states (31%) have ever had a woman serve as head of government. The first was Sri Lanka, then called Ceylon, where Sirimavo Bandaranaike began her first term as prime minister in 1960. Two other countries – India in 1966 and Israel in 1969 – saw their first women leaders during that decade.
Worldwide, the number of countries that have had women leaders has risen steadily since 1990. The biggest single-year increase occurred in 2010, when five countries – Australia, Costa Rica, Kyrgyzstan, Slovakia, and Trinidad and Tobago – were led by a woman for the first time.
60 countries have ever had a woman leader
Mia Mottley, the prime minister of Barbados, is the longest serving woman currently in office. Mottley has been in power for more than six years.
The title of longest-serving woman head of government in modern history is held by former Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. Hasina spent more than 20 total years in power but resigned and fled Bangladesh earlier this year, when mass protests against a quota system for government jobs turned into a more violent movement against her government. (She was also the oldest woman leader, according to a separate Pew Research Center analysis.)
Read here the full article published by the Pew Research Center on 3 October 2024.
Image credits: Pew Research Center
The passing of the presidential sash every six years is always an important and symbolic occasion in Mexico.
But on Tuesday, when it was placed over the shoulder of Claudia Sheinbaum - the first woman to hold the highest office in the country - it was truly an historic watershed moment in more than 200 years of modern Mexican history.
It has been a long road which led the first female mayor of Mexico City to break the glass ceiling in Mexican politics again, this time at national level.
To huge cheers of “Presidenta!” ringing out both inside and outside the congressional chamber, she raised her fist in victory, savouring the moment.
She began her first speech as president by thanking her political mentor and predecessor in the top job, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, calling him “the most important political leader and social warrior in Mexico’s modern history".
He leaves office, she said, with “the greatest love of his people".
On that point, she is not wrong. López Obrador is deeply beloved by his supporters and his popularity ratings in his final days in office were higher than those of any other president in Mexican history.
Read here the full article published by the BBC on 2 October 2024.
Image credits: BBC
MEXICO CITY — Mexico inaugurated its first female president on Tuesday, reaching the milestone before its northern neighbor. Even if the United States elects Kamala Harris as president in November, it will lag well behind this traditionally macho country on broader gender parity.
The new president, Claudia Sheinbaum, will govern with a cabinet that is half female and a Congress evenly divided between men and women. Women head the Supreme Court and central bank and run top federal ministries.
Read here the full article posted by The Washington Post on 01 October 2024.
Image by The Washington Post
Abstract
Extensive research investigates the impact of descriptive representation on women’s political participation; yet, the underlying mechanisms remain unclear. This article develops a novel theory of descriptive representation, arguing that women politicians mobilize women’s political participation by recruiting women as grassroots party activists. Evidence from a citizen survey and the natural experiment of gender quotas in India confirm that women politicians are more likely to recruit women party activists, and citizens report greater contact with them in reserved constituencies during elections. Furthermore, with women party activists at the helm, electoral campaigns are more likely to contact women, and activist contact is positively associated with political knowledge and participation. Evidence from representative surveys of politicians and party activists and fieldwork in campaigns, further support the theory. The findings highlight the pivotal role of women’s party activism in shaping women’s political behavior, especially in contexts with pervasive clientelism and persistent gender unequal norms.
Click here to read the full article published by the Cambridge University Press on 9 October 2023.
This publication is the latest instalment in the annual series jointly produced by UN Women and UN DESA. The report provides a comprehensive analysis of gender equality progress across all 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Halfway to the end point of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the world is failing to achieve gender equality, making it an increasingly distant goal. If current trends continue, more than 340 million women and girls will still live in extreme poverty by 2030, and close to one in four will experience moderate or severe food insecurity.
Click here to read the full article published by UN Women on 8 September 2023.
There is a fast-growing body of literature on women’s political representation in Africa—a continent that often challenges the existing beliefs and common understandings of women’s representation in politics developed in the Global North. A recent addition to this literature is Women and Power in Africa: Aspiring, Campaigning and Governing, edited by Leonardo Arriola, Martha Johnson, and Melanie Phillips. As a result of the research in this book, conventional wisdoms are upended. The book tackles women’s pathways into power, the gendered effects of electoral systems, media coverages of campaigns, gender stereotyping, and women’s access to campaign finances. Other variables such as educational background, family obligations, and organizational capital are also investigated. The book represents a significant contribution to the field of comparative politics and deepens the theorization of women’s representation in politics.
Click here to read the article by the Cambridge University Press on 18 August 2023.
Women have been politically active and have played key roles at times of critical turning points in Sudan’s history, but this has not been translated into official recognition in political processes or substantive representation in government.
The latest example of this is women’s active role in response to the crisis that has evolved in Sudan since 15 April 2023, when the country was plunged into violence amidst the power struggle between the two main factions of the ruling military regime, the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) and Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
Click here to read the full article published by Relief Web on 14 June 2023.
During the Summit for Democracy Year of Action, the S4D cohort on Gender Equality as a Prerequisite for Democracy identified recommendations for strengthening democracy by promoting gender equality, Statement and Roadmap of recommendations. The co-leads of the gender cohort – Sweden, Romania, Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security and International IDEA encourage governments and civil society to consider the recommendations and proposed actions.
The Gender Cohort strongly supports the themes for the Regional Summits for Democracy 2023. The regional themes have a critical link to gender equality and democracy nexus and the Gender Cohort has developed specific briefs on gender for each theme: Youth; Anti-Corruption; Free, Fair and Transparent Elections; Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) and Media Freedom.
Statement and Roadmap of Recommendations
The recommendations and proposed actions were identified in consultation with the cohort consisting of over 100 representatives of governments and civil society from all regions of the world. Governments and civil society are encouraged to consider the recommendations as tools for strengthening democracy by promoting gender equality. The recommendations focus on three pillars: inclusion; legislative and policy frameworks; and conflict prevention, peace and security. Each thematic pillar is fundamental for gender equality in democracy processes.
Read the statement of recommendations >>
Read the roadmap of recommendations >>
Briefs of the Democracy Cohort on Gender Equality
Gender equality is fundamental to the electoral process because it enables women—as voters, candidates and elected officials—to influence public policy and advocate for their interests. However, women face significant obstacles to political participation, including the use of targeted gender-based violence and intimidation meant to discourage them from running for office or exercising their political rights. Challenges and risks are even greater for women from historically marginalized communities. Additionally, women are less likely to be recruited and selected as candidates, are less likely to have equal access to campaign funds and face greater challenges to proportional representation.
Summit for Democracy Cohort on Gender Equality as a Prerequisite for Democracy Anti-Corruption
Corruption undermines democracy and justice because it impedes the ability of the public to benefit fully from government institutions. Combating corruption requires a gender perspective in order to gain a full understanding of its scope and impact. Women have unique (but not uniform) approaches to anti-corruption and are also impacted differently by corruption which drives inequalities and undermines opportunities for healthy democracies.
Summit for Democracy Cohort on Gender Equality as a Prerequisite for Democracy Youth
Youth are the leaders of the future. Yet, people under the age of 35 are rarely found in formal political leadership positions, with fewer women than men in these roles.2 Research by the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) found that out of 2.2 per cent of parliamentarians under the age of 30, less than 1 per cent are young women. The marginalization of youth—including young women— from politics leads to missed opportunities to strengthen democracy-building processes and institutions. Gender equality as a prerequisite for democracy requires tailored efforts to engage both young women and men. Barriers to the inclusion of youth in politics must be addressed, including gendered forms of discrimination and violence.
ICTs have the potential to close gender gaps in women’s political participation. They can serve as tools for women to influence policy agendas, increase women’s access to campaign resources, strengthen networks of solidarity, and increase women’s representation in democratic agendas and processes. With social media, blogs, podcasts and promotional videos, women have bypassed traditional media outlets, such as TV and radio, to elevate their profile directly and access political decision-making.
Summit for Democracy Cohort on Gender Equality as a Prerequisite for Democracy Media Freedom
Media freedom and the safety of women journalists are fundamental to the strength of democratic processes and institutions. Yet, women are not equally represented in the media. A 2020 study of the news media in the UK, US, Kenya, India, South Africa and Nigeria found that women comprised only 15–30 percent of the subjects of news reports.
This book addresses the central question of how right-wing women navigate the cross-pressures between gender identity and political ideology.
The hope has always been that more women in politics would lead to greater inclusion of women’s voices and interests in decision-making and policy. Yet this is not always the case; some prominent conservative women such as Margaret Thatcher have rejected the feminist label while others such as Angela Merkel have reluctantly accepted it. Republican women in the U.S. Congress have embraced social and economic policies contrary to what many consider to be women’s issues while EU Commission president Ursula von der Leyen is a staunch supporter of feminist ideas. Other conservative women, such as Marine LePen in France strategically use feminist ideas to justify their conservative stances on immigration. This brings up an interesting yet understudied question: under what circumstances do conservative women become feminist allies and when do they toe the party line? It is this tension between women’s political representation and conservatism that this edited volume explores.
Click here to access the book.