Women's Leadership
On 1 December 1919 a female MP took a seat in the House of Commons for the first time. Political correspondent Kate Proctor went on a mission to find out more about the first women who reported from the press gallery that day, and the many that followed in their footsteps
When Nancy Astor took her seat after the general election in 1919, some male MPs tried to physically block her. Watching the commotion from high up in the press gallery were Marguerite Cody and E Cohn, the first women ever tasked with such a role. These two reporters weren’t the last to make their mark on the lobby, but not much else was known about these pioneers.
The Guardian’s Kate Proctor is joined by Labour MPs Rachel Reeves and Harriet Harman, lobby correspondent Julia Langdon, and Carolyn Quinn and Kate McCann, both formerly chair of the press gallery, to learn more about some of the women who blazed the trail. They also leave anecdotes along the way of what it has been like to work in one of the most competitive jobs in the industry.
Click here to listen to the podcast by The Guardian.
Julia Gillard, you became the first female prime minister in Australian history in 2010. What have been the challenges and opportunities for you as a woman working in politics? Have the obstacles women face in positions of power changed over the years, and if so, how?
I want to start positive and say I’m a huge advocate for people going into politics – particularly women. I believe there’s no better way of putting your values into action than going into politics but I’m not going to pretend that there’s no gender bit.
There still is a gender bit and I experienced that personally. A disproportionate focus on appearance, a disproportionate focus on family structures – for example the fact that I didn’t have kids – and the gendered insults becoming the go-to weapon when politics got turbulent, which inevitably happens, as governments make decisions that not everybody agrees with.
In terms of politics past and politics present, I think a lot has changed for the positive. There are more women in politics now which means more role models for other women. There’s been more of an attempt to have the system offer flexibilities for work and family life too. In Australian politics, famously, the non-members bar was replaced by a childcare centre, so that’s giving you a sense that there has been progress. We’ve also just hit the stage where our Senate is now 50 per cent men and 50 per cent women.
Click here to read the interview published by Chatham House on 6 November 2019.
Khuon Sudary is Second Vice-President of the National Assembly of Cambodia and Chairperson of the Women's Caucus.
This interview was conducted in October 2018 in the margins of IPU’s 139th Assembly in Geneva.
Women Deliver President/CEO Katja Iversen and the first female president of Ethiopia, Sahle-Work Zewde, discuss women in leadership and links between sexual and reproductive health and rights and Universal Health Coverage (UHC) to advance gender equality.
Katja Iversen: You have had a remarkable career, breaking down barriers as the first woman to hold several leadership positions across the UN and now as President of Ethiopia. How did you find the strength, the power, and the resilience to pursue this pathway to change?
President Sahle-Work Zewde: For me strength, resilience and power are all learned and accumulated over time. The more you know about yourself, excel at the work you do and understand the world you live in, the more you realize how nothing worthwhile in life comes without a fight and a lot of patience. When I look back at my life that is what I observe – my resilience and determination grew with every challenge life threw my way. With each opportunity and new position, I had the fortune of holding, I always made sure to be humble enough to learn what I did not know and confident enough to never forget my self-worth. That self belief made me aspire for more while discharging my duties to the best of my abilities.
Click here to read the full interview by Women Deliver on 18 september 2019.
In March 2019, the Council of Europe Committee of Ministers adopted a new Recommendation on Preventing and Combating Sexism. Not only does this text contain the first ever internationally agreed definition of sexism, but it also proposes a set of concrete measures to combat this wide-spread phenomenon.
Sexism is present in all areas of life. From catcalls on the street, to women being ignored during work meetings, to boys being bombarded with aggressive role-models in video games. It is also there when comments are made about politicians on the length of their skirts rather than their latest parliamentary report. When sexist behaviour accumulates, it can lead to an acceptance of discrimination and even violence.
Secretary General Thorbjørn Jagland said that “No-one should be discriminated against because of their sex. This is a basic principle which we are still far from respecting in practice. Through efforts to prevent and combat sexist behaviour, the Council of Europe wants to help ensure a level playing field for women and men, boys and girls.”
Sexism is harmful and lies at the root of gender inequality. It produces feelings of worthlessness, self-censorship, changes in behaviour, and a deterioration in health. Sexism affects women and girls disproportionately. Some groups of women, such as politicians, journalists, women’s human rights defenders, or young women, may be particularly vulnerable to acts of sexism. But it can also affect men and boys, when they don’t conform to stereotyped gender roles. Moreover, the impact of sexism can be worse for some women and men due to ethnicity, age, disability, social origin, religion, gender identity, sexual orientation or other factors.
To address these issues and encourage the full implementation of the Recommendation, the Council of Europe has just launched a video and action page under the hashtag #stopsexism and the slogan “See it. Name it. Stop it.” The aim is to help the wider public identify acts of sexism and take a stand against them.
Click here to watch the video from Council of Europe.
Justice for women and girls is at the heart of the 2030 Agenda, with its commitment to gender equality (SDG 5) and its promise of peaceful, just and inclusive societies (SDG 16). The High-level Group on Justice for Women worked to better understand common justice problems for women, make the case for investment and identify strategies that work. In their report they call to action justice leaders of all countries and sectors, to accelerate implementation of the global goals for gender equality and equal access to justice for all.
Click here to see the infographic.
VVEngage is a Vital Voices signature fellowship supporting outstanding women political leaders making and influencing policy across the globe. Through this fully-funded fellowship, we aim to increase the capacity, decision-making power and effectiveness of women leaders in politics and government, shifting culture around women’s public leadership and moving towards equality in public representation globally. We also aim to work towards a more inclusive and equitable world by advancing the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) through policy.
Through this fellowship, Vital Voices advances women’s political leadership and the SDGs by conducting online and in-person* trainings with experts such as women leaders from the Vital Voices Global Network and professors from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. The fellowship also connects participants to a global network of peers and mentors, such as current and former female heads of state with the Council of Women World Leaders, with whom they can brainstorm and share challenges and best practices.
Click here to learn more and to access application details.
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has developed a 10-Point Action Agenda for Advancing Gender Equality in Crisis Settings (10PAA), a roadmap to guide its development programming towards results that will help transform and advance gender equality in crisis contexts and achieve the Women, Peace and Security agenda. The 10PAA is central to UNDP’s new Crisis Offer, as well as its new Gender Equality Strategy 2022-2025. It represents a strong corporate commitment to addressing the most stubborn roots of gender inequalities.
The 10PAA is the result of a broad consultation process that aimed at finding entry points to strengthen gender-transformational results and women’s leadership and participation in crisis contexts. It is grounded in the understanding that deep-rooted, intersectional discrimination sits at the heart of the multiple challenges humanity faces and reinforces models of dominance that exclude and leave women behind, especially in crisis settings.
Click here to access the publication.
Online violence against women in politics (OVAW-P) poses a deepening challenge to democracy, serving as a key tool of illiberalism and democratic backsliding across the globe. OVAW-P encompasses all forms of aggression, coercion, and intimidation seeking to exclude women from politics simply because they are women. This online behavior seeks to achieve political outcomes: targeting individual women to harm them or drive them out of public life, while also sending a message that women in general should not be involved in politics. This online violence has a chilling effect on the political ambitions and engagement of women and girls, decreasing their presence and agency in politics and public life. Stopping gender-based attacks online is a solvable problem, and it is the fastest and clearest investment toward building an internet that enables everyone to be politically engaged.
This report includes a list of interventions that technology platforms, governments, civil society organizations, and the media can take to make meaningful progress towards ending online violence against women in politics.
Click here to access the report.
The Women in Government Fellowship is a six-month program that is focused on capacity-building, training, and mentorship of women in politics. It seeks to enhance and improve the quality of political participation of women.
The fellows will undergo in-person workshops, intensive virtual learning sessions, and hands-on mentorship by seasoned women politicians. This three-pronged approach will provide an academic grounding of democratic frameworks and policy-making, up-skill them with practical know-hows of electioneering, build the fellows' personal brands through personalised Public Narrative trainings by coaches from Harvard Kennedy School, and learn the ropes of politicking directly from a mentor who is undergoing the realities and tackling the challenges of being a woman in public office.
Application deadline: 30th November 2022
Shortlisted applicants' interviews: 5-15th December 2022
Selected Fellows list: 21st December 2022
Click here to learn more.
A compendium of ideas to reach gender parity in municipal politics
How can we begin to overcome the countless obstacles that are preventing women from fully participating in municipal politics?
The suggestions in this Inventory were compiled following consultations we carried out across Canada, as part of FCM’s Toward Parity Project.
These actions are not official FCM recommendations. They are potential strategies that need to be assessed to determine whether they can be adapted to fit local realities and opportunities.
Click here to access the guide.
To inform our own programming on advancing gender-balanced appointments and to establish a scalable, replicable, transformative model for advancing gender-balanced appointments, RepresentWomen gathered learnings from five similar initiatives around the country.
The following summary reviews these conversations:
- Key ingredients for success
- Stumbling blocks
- What they wish they knew
- Common tactics
Click here to access the guide.
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.
The internet is a tool that can simplify and encourage democratic engagement, but the rise of online disinformation challenges even the world’s most robust democracies. While the most recognizable disinformation campaigns are related to national politics, disinformers frequently employ narratives targeting women’s gender and sexuality in order to disrupt democracy. This is often then amplified by media agents and the general population, who may not have the intent to drive disinformation nor the capacity to discern it. NDI’s robust research in this field concludes that gendered disinformation is the use of false information to confuse or mislead by manipulating gender as a social cleavage to attack women and/or to sway political outcomes. It has three primary goals: to keep women out of politics; to change the views of women and men about women’s political participation; and specifically to change party policies or political outcomes. In short, it aims to undermine women’s free and equal participation in politics to the detriment of inclusive, resilient democracy.
Based on research conclusions, this paper outlines recommendations for NDI, its partners and those working globally to mitigate the democratic harms of disinformation, to ensure women’s safe participation and leadership in politics, and to monitor the social media and information environment in elections.
Click here to access the guide.
This guide is designed to increase the understanding of the legal obligations of countries in the West and Central Africa (WCA) region to achieve gender equality in decision-making. It focuses on strengthening efforts to improve the legal framework in the region to ensure that laws are clearly drafted, implementable and effective. Special focus is devoted to the processes by which laws supporting political participation of women are developed, negotiated, drafted, passed and implemented. It aims to strengthen law-making processes that build and secure the legal rights of women who want to run for elections and who are ready to take over leadership positions in their parliaments and governments. Legal instruments are presented that can be used to advance the political participation of women.
The comparative experiences presented in this guide address both examples of good practices and laws that have failed because their regulations are imprecise, unclear and/or lack effective sanctions. The guide presents also various provisions of laws resulting from different constitutional requirements or electoral systems, assessing their advantages and disadvantages.
Click here to download the guide published by UN Women in 2021.
This Handbook has been developed as publication by register of Political Parties with support from the Papua New Guinea Election Commission and the United Nations Development Programme in Papua New Guinea. This is part of UN Women Make the Change programme funded by the Australian Government’s Pacific Women Shaping Pacific Development Programme.
Click here to download the report.