Women's Leadership

For its inaugural Solutions Summit, RepresentWomen gathered experts in election administration, voting rights, and democracy reform to discuss the viable, scalable, and transformative initiatives that will strengthen our democracy. Over the course of three days, they held sessions on fair elections, fair access, and fair representation, ending each day with ways we could take actions to advance the solutions discussed that day.

They compiled all of those ideas, resources, and guides into one place to create this 2022 Solutions Summit Resource Guide, which provides a plethora of take-action options so you can be a part of the solution. 

Click here to download the guide. 

When Colombians on Sunday elected their first leftist president ever, they also voted for their country’s first Black vice-president. Francia Marquez, a Black single mother who worked as a maid before challenging international mining interests as a fiery environmentalist, now becomes Colombia’s first Black female vice-president. Her victory marks a turning point in a country plagued by social inequalities and historically governed by conservative elites.   

On the campaign trail, she was exuberant and unabashedly dazzling. In brightly coloured Afro-Colombian garments teamed with big jewellery, Francia Marquez embraced her identity, challenged the status quo and proposed a brighter future.  

"It's time to move from resistance to power," the 40-year-old candidate would chant, raising her fist – with a smile.  

Click here to read the full article published by France 24 on 20 June 2022.

The message seems quite clear that politics in Nigeria is a game for rich, old men, to the detriment of the real change-making demographics - women and youths.

Politics has almost become an exclusive club of male actors, who prevent the participation of women and youths through all sorts of schemes, even in distortion of such significant mileage attained with the NotTooYoungToRun law and movement to enable a freer field of participation in politics by removing eligibility restrictions. For instance, in a number of political parties, the gate-keepers, who are largely rich, old men, have set up ridiculous entry-level requirements, such as the costs of expression of interest and nomination forms, etc.

Almost three decades after the ground-setting decisions of the Beijing Platform of Action, in which the position of women was affirmed positively and there was the determination that, being a very significant half of the world population, they deserve to be at the centre of political decision-making processes that would make the world evolve and grow in a more sustainable manner, it is quite disconcerting what the lot of women, and the youths, remains in Nigeria.

Click here to read the full article published by Premium Times on 7 June 2022.

A new study about women in politics by Professor Parimal Maya Sudhakar, Head of the School, MIT School of Government, MIT World Peace University reported the disparity between the number of male and female politicians in India.

The study revealed that in India, women in politics still struggle to become change-makers and that reform is required to ‘break the glass ceiling’. According to the World Bank, in 2021 the proportion of seats held by women in national parliaments was at a disappointing 14 per cent. The highest proportion of seats held by women in national parliaments in 2021 was 61 per cent in Rwanda.

Click here to read the full article published by She The People on 10 June 2022.

Women are more likely to hold interim leadership roles in federal politics, but clinching the top role remains elusive.

INTERIM LEADERS HOLD a strange position in party politics. They’ve advanced to one of the highest offices in the country, but at a cost: these leaders are generally not allowed to run in the following leadership race due to the unfair advantage they would have. Few end up making it to the real top spot in the party at a later date. And, as history has shown, interim leader is as high as most women politicians make it. The brass ring remains frustratingly out of reach.

After Erin O’Toole was ousted as leader of the Conservative Party of Canada, on February 2, Candice Bergen was quickly elected interim leader, picking up the reins of a party that seems to be having trouble deciding what it is, what it represents, and how it will take back power from the Liberals. The long-time Manitoba MP for Portage–Lisgar and former deputy leader joined an exclusive list: highly qualified women considered good enough by their parties to put things back together after a crisis but whose names often disappear when a permanent leader is discussed.

Click here to read the full article published by The Walrus on 9 June 2022.

Julia is joined by feminist icon Gloria Steinem. Gloria has been at the vanguard of the women’s rights movement and has been questioning the status quo and pushing against the patriarchy for almost 60 years. They discuss Gloria’s career as a political activist, journalist, writer, and editor, the erosion of reproductive rights in the US, and what feminism means today.

Click here to listen to the podcast on Spotify.