Women's Leadership
STRASBOURG — Roberta Metsola has been reelected as president of the European Parliament.
First elected to the post in January 2022, the Maltese European People’s Party (EPP) politician will remain in the role for 2.5 more years after gathering the support of a majority of the newly elected 720 members of the European Parliament, with 562 votes in her favor.
She was widely expected to be reelected as she ran virtually unopposed. Only The Left’s Irene Montero, Spain’s former minister of equality, symbolically submitted her candidacy against Metsola. Montero got 61 votes.
The Parliament president’s five-year mandate has been traditionally split in two between the center-left Socialists and Democrats (S&D) and the center-right EPP.
When it comes time for the S&D to pick a successor to Metsola, options include Spain’s Iratxe García, leader of the S&D group in Parliament, or a leading figure within Italy’s Democratic Party, which is the largest force in the S&D.
Read here the full article published by POLITICO on 16 July 2024.
Image by POLITICO
Despite progress in codifying women’s rights into law, advances in gender equality around the world have been halting, at best. This, despite the additional attention that the #MeToo movement brought to incidents of sexual assault and harassment in parts of the Global North—and increasingly in the Global South.
In South Africa, President Cyril Ramaphosa made news in 2019 when he appointed a Cabinet that included as many women as men. Later the same year, the European Commission also achieved the European Union’s self-imposed goal of gender parity. The thinking behind gender parity in government is that with greater levels of representation, women policymakers and legislators will pay more attention to issues that are often ignored by men, like gender-based violence or inheritance laws that discriminate against women.
But where quotas are used, they have failed to achieve parity for women in all but a few cases. Nor are they a panacea. Even with increased representation, policymakers must figure out how to turn good intentions into change on the ground, so that removing restrictions on education, to take one example, actually leads to improved school attendance rates for girls and young women.
Read here the full article published by the World Politics Review on 16 July 2024.
Image by World Politics Review
"I really like these angry green women,” a French friend said recently, as the assembly elections approached. It’s a funny phrase, redolent of She-Hulk, but I knew exactly what – and whom – she meant.
It’s impossible to overstate my crush on Marine Tondelier, the French Green party leader. Tondelier has been a revelation in the past few feverish, fretful weeks; she has cut through French politics like a hot knife through butter. Forensically, forcefully articulate and unafraid to show her emotions, she is “cash”, as the French say – frank, funny and down-to-earth.
Tondelier comes across as a real (albeit brilliant) person, not a cautiously on-message robot. She talks, to paraphrase the musical Hamilton, like she is running out of time. I have watched endless clips of her verbally demolishing opponents with off-the-cuff zingers, relished her clinically detailing of the worst National Rally candidates and been moved by her obvious distress when a centre-right politician refused to commit his party to blocking the far right.
Read here the full article published by the Guardian on 14 July 2024.
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Skopje, North Macedonia, 24 June 2024 – UN Women in North Macedonia, for a second consecutive year in partnership with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, marked the International Day of Women in Diplomacy with a high-level panel discussion highlighting the pivotal role that women play in international relations and diplomatic efforts.
By commemorating this day, we as UN Women, reaffirm our commitment to gender equality and highlight the importance of inclusive policies that encourage women’s participation in all levels of foreign policy.
A diverse panel of ambassadors spoke at the event, sharing their experiences and insights on how their countries support gender-inclusive policies and empowerment programmes for feminist foreign policy, and advocating for the advancement of women’s roles in foreign policy in North Macedonia.
“Women are still largely excluded from positions of power and diplomacy, globally only 20.54% of all ambassadors are women. This day is a call to recognize critical contribution of women and their indispensable role in diplomacy, and we all, every day shall support equal opportunities for all women in all fields of life, including in diplomacy,” said Vesna Ivanovikj-Castarede, Head of the UN Women Office in North Macedonia.
The outgoing Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs, Fatmire Isaki, in her opening address underlined that “women are ambassadors of peace, they have the wisdom to soften the temper through their calmness and gentleness, speaking with their kindness. Peace reigns in their spirit and their intellect produces warmth. Therefore, it is in our collective responsibility to continue to uplift and empower women-who are the change makers across the globe. It has been proven time and time again that without the involvement of women, sustainable peace and security cannot be achieved.”
A relatively recent development in international politics, ‘feminist foreign policy’ is the result of a growing recognition of gender issues. From development policy, the gender focus has gradually extended to human rights, security, conflict resolution, and now foreign policy.
Read here the full article published by UN Women on 27 June 2024.
Another election, another round of politicians who tout the same ideas, speak the same way, wear the same suits and, possibly, the same aftershave. Another round of politicians who, a little too often, claim to represent women’s interests, or be outraged on the basis of familial connections – being a “father of daughters”, a “husband of a wife”.
Maybe I’m being cynical here, but women’s interests aren’t yet adequately represented in British politics. This under-representation can partially be attributed to a pervasive culture of misogyny, which continues to shape modern politics. It is a culture that bleeds into both women’s personal and professional lives, a culture in which former Home Secretary James Cleverley can “joke” about spiking his wife’s drink, where women are labelled, as Theresa May was, “bloody difficult”, and threats and intimidation are endemic.
Read here the full article published by Vogue on 5July 2024.
Image by Vogue
Welcome to the first installment of the new "International Election Series," where they explore the vital role women play in shaping democratic processes around the world. In this episode, they delve into the recent Mexican elections, examining how women candidates influence politics.
RepresentWomen’s Communications Director Ashley Thurston, International Research Manager Fatma Tawfik, and Mexican scholar interviewed Jennifer Piscopo and Catherine Reyes-Housholder about the historic Mexican elections.
See here the full episode published by RepresentWomen on 8 July 2024.
Image by RepresentWomen
How to Include the Missing Perspectives of Women of All Colors in News Leadership and Coverage — a new report from Luba Kassova.
From Outrage to Opportunity: How to Include the Missing Perspectives of Women of All Colors in News Leadership and Coverage is a solutions-focused sequel to the award-winning independent reports, The Missing Perspectives of Women in News/COVID-19 News, authored by Luba Kassova and commissioned by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. It examines the harsh realities facing women of all colors in news leadership and coverage in India, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, the UK, and the USA.
In both editorial leadership roles and in news coverage, women continue to be significantly under-represented in an industry persistently dominated by men. While women in news have it hard, women of color have it even harder. In countries with multi-racial populations, women of color experience greater exclusion in the news industry.
Click here to access the report.
With the support of UNESCO, the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) has published a groundbreaking, book-length global study on online violence against women journalists, documenting alarming trends and offering solutions to this pernicious problem.
The Chilling: A global study of online violence against women journalists is the most geographically, linguistically and ethnically diverse research ever published on the theme. Publication of the 300-page book, concludes a three-year research project originally commissioned by UNESCO in 2019.
Click here to access the report.
Violence against women in all its forms is perceived by the OSCE as one of the most pervasive impediments to women’s full, equal and effective participation in political and public life and as a threat to human security. Yet, it is prevalent across the OSCE region, and it is especially, but not exclusively, affecting young, disabled, ethnic minority women. Women are targeted with violence not only for their political views but also to prevent current and aspiring women politicians from engaging in politics and decision-making altogether. Violence is not a price women should have to pay in order to enjoy their political and civil rights. In addition to individual suffering and violation of women’s rights, this violence weakens democratic governance, political pluralism and the inclusivity of public institutions. This toolkit provides recommendations for legislators, governments, parliaments and political parties as well as guidance for civil society and women politicians affected by violence. It consolidates existing definitions and compiles examples of promising practices on preventing violence against women in politics from a variety of States. The toolkit is based upon international standards and OSCE commitments.
Click here to access the report.
This paper proposes replacing the United Nations Development Programme’s (UNDP) Gender Inequality Index with two new gender indexes: the Global Gender Parity Index (GGPI) and the Women’s Empowerment Index (WEI).
The proposal builds on a review of concepts of gender equality in the capability approach that underpins UNDP’s human development paradigm and the international policy frameworks of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, the Beijing Platform for Action, and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. It also implements current proposals for reform, which emphasize measuring gender inequality in capabilities (rather than institutional inputs or resources that enable or constrain these capabilities) and measuring gaps in achievements between women and men and the level of women’s potential for empowerment by different indexes.
Evaluating the options for measurement, the paper identifies several Sustainable Development Goal indicators and novel data as potentially useful in translating the selected capabilities into new indexes. The first index, the GGPI, is a relative measure of well-being, which encompasses the dimensions of health, education, decent standard of living and decision-making. The second, the WEI, focuses solely on women and measures freedom from early motherhood, reproductive choice, and freedom from intimate partner violence as well as women’s capabilities to seek education, pursue science, technology, engineering, and math degrees, have voice in national and local governing bodies, and hold economic leadership positions.
Click here to access the report.
UCC research, carried out on behalf of Cork City Council’s Women’s Caucus, has recommended that gender quota legislation be introduced before the next local government elections to help increase the number of female councillors around the country.
Gender quotas are in place for national elections but not at local government level. The authors called for legislation to introduce a 40% gender quota for the 2024 elections so that Ireland is in line with other European countries. At present any gender quotas are informal, as agreed by individual political parties.
The authors of ‘Women’s Voice in the Council Chamber’ Dr. Aodh Quinlivan, Dr Fiona Buckley, Olajumoke Olumwaferanmi Igun and John Ger O’Riordan, also recommended that maternity leave and paternity leave be extended to councillors, that of the three councillors nominated by each local authority to the Association of Irish Local Government (AILG), that at least one should be a woman. They also called for a specific mentoring programme for newly elected women councillors and community-based education around the role of local government and the councillors.
Click here to access the report.
Building on the data in the global report on Gender Equality in Public Administration (GEPA), this policy brief looks at women's participation in and leadership of environmental protection ministries as well as all ministries tasked officially with each country's response to climate change. While progress in women's participation in public administration across many other sectors has improved, there are still significant gaps – with the largest ones affecting environment and climate spheres.
Click here to access the report.