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.
Image by All Africa
One hundred years ago, on February 6 1918, the UK Parliament passed an act that granted the vote to women over the age of 30.
They had to meet certain qualifications - such as being householders, the wives of householders, occupiers of property with an annual rent of £5, or graduates of British universities - but it was a start that allowed 8.4 million women to vote, after a decades-long fight.
Later that year, Parliament passed another act that meant women could be elected to the House of Commons.
But even now, a century later, we still don't have full female representation in Parliament. Just 208 of the UK's MPs are women - under a third of the 650 who sit in the Commons.
Around the world, things aren't much better. The UK ranks 38th for female representation in each countries' respective Parliaments, according to the World Economic Forum's data for 2017.
Click here to read the full article published by The Telegraph on 5 February 2018.
The objective of this study is to generate evidence-based policy recommendations for Arab States, in order to help them scale-up efforts to meet their commitments as relates to goal 5 of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), pertaining to gender equality, in particular target 5.5, which aims to ensure women’s equal opportunities for leadership at all levels of decision-making in political and public life.
A thorough desktop review was conducted to develop the conceptual framework for the study and establish a knowledge base on the status of women’s presence in decision-making and public life. This was supported by a survey completed by member States on the status of women’s political representation, as well as national measures to enhance it. Interviews were carried out with women who sought to participate in public life, regardless of whether they were successful or not. Case studies were conducted in four countries in the region, in order to establish an in-depth understanding of the status of women’s representation within their national political context.
This study examined women’s representation in the legislative, executive, and judiciary branches, as well as in local councils, with the understanding that the analysis was incomplete in certain cases due to data limitation. Regional analysis was conducted to showcase new forms of women’s representation, such as their participation in peace talks, national dialogues and constitutional committees, which challenge traditional roles and representations.
Click here to access the report.
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Gender equality and the political empowerment of women are key elements for the consolidation of sustainable democracies worldwide.
Global and regional organizations play an important role in the development of legal and policy frameworks, as well as in the design of effective action plans to better support the advancement of the gender equality agenda at the global, regional and national levels.
This report presents key instruments for promoting gender equality and political empowerment of women that are currently in place at the global and regional levels, highlighting the challenges, opportunities and successes that each organization has encounter in the implementation within their respective regions.
International IDEA, the Community of Democracies and UNDP present this report as an instrument to inform policymakers and relevant actors on what is the current situation of gender equality, what has been done in terms of the political empowerment of women, and what is expected from the global community in order to successfully advance Sustainable Development Goal 5 to achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls by 2030.
Click here to access the report.
Why are women still under-represented in politics? Can we speak of democracy when women are not fully included in political decision-making? Some argue that we are on the right track to full gender equality in politics, while others talk about women hitting the glass ceiling or being included in institutions with shrinking power, not least as a result of neo-liberalism.
In this powerful essay, internationally renowned scholar of gender and politics Drude Dahlerup explains how democracy has failed women and what can be done to tackle it. Political institutions, including political parties, she argues, are the real gatekeepers to elected positions all over the world, but they need to be much more inclusive. By reforming these institutions and carefully implementing gender quotas we can move towards improved gender equality and greater democratization.
Click here to access the book.
Business as usual is not an option. To fulfil the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, including Sustainable Development Goal 5 on achieving gender equality and empowering all women and girls, concrete actions and intensified commitments to improve women’s participation and representation are needed.
In early 2016, the International Gender Champions–Geneva started to look closely at the number of women in delegations to governing bodies of Geneva-based international organizations. At its annual meeting in 2016, the United Nations Governing Bodies Secretariat further discussed gender balance in the governing bodies of international organizations and agreed to support efforts to promote women’s participation and advance the goal of gender balance across their conferences and meetings.
This publication aims to build knowledge on women’s participation in national delegations to meetings of international organizations’ governing bodies and their leadership roles in these meetings. It is based on responses to a questionnaire addressed to members of the United Nations Governing Bodies Secretariat and of the International Gender Champions–Geneva. Although the results of the survey may not be representative of all United Nations organizations, they have yielded important information on the current policies and practices in the 23 entities that took part.
Based on the responses, six types of actions to improve women’s participation in governing body meetings have been identified: (a) explicit policies and mandated targets; (b) tracking and reporting; (c) training and capacity-building; (d) financial support; (e) advocacy and networking; and (f) communications strategies.
The survey results are complemented by an overview of intergovernmental and inter-agency frameworks and trends in women’s participation in national Governments and intergovernmental forums. Best practices in promoting women’s participation at different levels – national and multilateral – are also presented with the aim of informing concrete recommendations on the way forward to realize gender balance in international organizations’ governing bodies.
Click here to access the publication.
This book is an overview of women’s activism and political struggles in contemporary Africa, and the ways in which the continent's women are shaping the struggle for women’s rights internationally.
Throughout Africa, growing numbers of women are coming together and making their voices heard, mobilising around causes ranging from democracy and land rights to campaigns against domestic violence. In Tanzania and Tunisia, women have made major gains in their struggle for equal political rights, and in Sierra Leone and Liberia women have been at the forefront of efforts to promote peace and reconciliation. While some of these movements have been influenced by international feminism and external donors, increasingly it is African women who are shaping the global struggle for women’s rights.
Bringing together African authors who themselves are part of the activist groups, this collection represents the only comprehensive and up-to-date overview of women’s movements in contemporary Africa. Drawing on case studies and fresh empirical material from across the continent, the authors challenge the prevailing assumption that notions of women’s rights have trickled down from the global north to the south, showing instead that these movements have been shaped by above all the unique experiences and concerns of the local women involved.
Click here for more information.