Women's Leadership

Women’s political rights and their exercise of political citizenship globally have often expanded more rapidly in times of conflict, crisis, and revolution. The decline of empires after World Wars I and II and the creation of new nations served as a catalyst for the expansion of women’s suffrage. Civil wars and revolutions have had similar outcomes in expanding women’s political citizenship. This essay brings together several disparate literatures on World War I, World War II, wars of independence, revolution, and post-1990 civil wars and expands their scope to show how women’s political rights and citizenship in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries have often been linked to conflict. In doing so, I highlight a notable pathway by which rights expansions occurred: conflict led to changes in the political elite and ruling class, resulting in the necessity to rewrite constitutions and other rules of the polity. During these critical junctures, women’s rights activists gained opportunities to advance their demands. The context of changing international gender norms also influenced these moments. I consider two key moments in the worldwide expansion of political citizenship: the struggle for women’s suffrage and the struggle to expand women’s representation in local and national representative bodies.

Click here to read the article by Cambridge University Press on 12 January 2023.

SARAJEVO, Dec 22 (Reuters) - Bosnia's three-member presidency on Thursday nominated Croat politician Borjana Kristo as the Balkan country's first female prime minister-designate, following a general election in October.

Kristo, 61, is the deputy president of the Croat's largest party, the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ). She has served as the president of Bosnia's autonomous Bosniak-Croat Federation and as deputy in both the regional and national parliaments during her 27 years in politics.

Kristo ran against moderate politician Zeljko Komsic for the job of the Croat presidency member, but Komsic won the election.

Click here to read the full article published by Reuters on 22 December 2022.

Gender equality remains essentially, a question of power, said the UN chief on Monday, but to change the culture of male-domination and bring balance, we need equality in terms of leadership, decision-making and participation at all levels.

Secretary-General António Guterres was speaking at a meeting of the UN Group of Friends on Gender Parity Marking the Fifth Anniversary of his Gender Parity Strategy – a key priority of his first term in office, that remains so now.

He said it was “vital for the United Nations to represent the values it stands for – the values enshrined in the Charter – and to lead by example. Gender parity in our personnel is the only way to achieve gender equality in our work.”

Click here to read the full article published by The United Nations on 12 December 2022.

First-term MP Jackie Jarvis and Wanneroo MP Sabine Winton have been elevated to Mark McGowan's WA cabinet.

They will take the places of retiring party veteran Alannah MacTiernan and outgoing Water Minister Dave Kelly, who announced last week he would be stepping down from cabinet at the request of the premier.

The pair were elected at a special caucus meeting held at Parliament House in Perth this afternoon.

A decision on the allocation of portfolios, which largely rests with Mr McGowan, will be made tomorrow.

Click here to read the full article published by ABC on 13 December 2022.

This e-Discussion raised awareness and collected experiences and knowledge on gender differences in political media coverage, its impact on women’s political participation and representation, as well as gathered good practices and recommendations on ways to counter the negative impact of media portrayals of women in politics with fair and unbiased coverage.

Participants, including local and national lawmakers, former government ministers, journalists, civil society activists, experts, and researchers, joined this e-Discussion from 7 to 30 September 2022. Along with our partners, we thank all the followers who took time to share experiences, practices, and recommendations.

The submission contributed to the elaboration of this e-Discussion summary, expanding the knowledge base available on women in politics and the media.

UN Women and ESCWA conducted in-depth interviews with seven Lebanese women in politics who were all ‘first’s’ in different ways. They include the first female Minister of Interior in Lebanon and the Arab world, the first female Minister to have a child, the first female independent Member of Parliament, the first female Secretary-General of a political party represented in Parliament and the first female Head of party.

This report analyses the set of interviews and explores the stories of each - the barriers they faced to political participation and the opportunities they leveraged.

The report aims to offer policy makers and practitioners a better understanding of the challenges and opportunities that exist when women seek political office in Lebanon.

Click here to access the report.