Women's Leadership
On election night 2016, Gretchen Sisson was so sure Hillary Clinton would defeat Donald Trump that she and her husband invited 80 people to their San Francisco home for a party. They even had a giant sheet cake made that celebrated suffragists and the Equal Rights Amendment. On the side was written, "Madam President."
That's not how it turned out. Trump won in a stunning outcome, and no one could bear to eat. Afterward, Sisson and her family ended up eating the cake themselves for weeks. It was, she says now, a lesson in hubris.
But as time passed, a despondent Sisson decided to channel her unhappiness into political donating, a world where women like her are increasingly making their voices heard.
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Coming from one of the most backward villages in the country, Sandhya Ray found the support in her progressive in-laws. They didn’t just support her with her studies but also motivated her to join politics. Ray, who wanted to do a regular 9-5 job, is now the Member of Parliament from Bhind as she was elected in the 17th Lok Sabha election in 2019. Not only that, 46-year-old Ray is also the first woman to be an MP from her constituency.
In this candid interview, she bares it all about how she grew up, married early, joining politics and how she fell in love with her profession. She feels that the sole reason for her to work as a politician has been her husband who always deemed her as top priority.
Click here to read the full interview published by Feminism India.
Tanzeela Qambrani (41) created history in Pakistan when she became the first Sheedi Member of Provincial Assembly (MPA) of Sindh Assembly in 2018. Her election to the Sindh Assembly was significant for many reasons.
As the first Sheedi lawmaker, she fought hard to rise above prejudices and discrimination. She was forced out from the position of Chairperson of the municipal council of Matli in Badin district of Sindh by councillors from her own Pakistan People’s Party (PPP). The elite councillors refused to accept a descendent of former slaves as their leader.
Sheedis (known as Sidis in India) are Pakistan’s African minority group who trace their ancestry to slaves brought from East Africa to South Asia by Arab merchants between the 8th and 19th century. Sheedia are estimated to be anywhere between 50,000 to 1 million, mostly in Sindh and Balochistan provinces of Southern Pakistan. Sheedis in Pakistan face multiple marginalizations and racial discrimination for their historical ancestry.
From the bitter dehumanising experience in local politics, she worked hard to rise up within the ranks of the PPP and get elected to the Sindh Provincial Assembly. In doing so, Tanzeela Qambrani has not just destigmatised the Sheedi identity but proudly reclaimed it.
Tanzeela Qambrani talks to BehanBox and Women For Politics, about her experiences growing up as a Sheedi, the dehumanisation in her personal and political life and her fight back. She also talks about her plans for education in Sindh and what the elevation of women politicians like her means for young girls and women in Pakistan.
Click here to read the full interview by Behanbox.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says she will "never" shy away from admitting when the Government has screwed up.
At the weekend the Government's official Unite Against COVID-19 social media channels and website urged everyone in south and west Auckland to get a test, whether they had symptoms or not.
"This is a stressful enough situation for New Zealand without having that added to it," Ardern told The AM Show on Monday, apologising for the mistake which saw thousands of Aucklanders jump in their cars and queue for tests.
Click here to read the full interview.
Diya Kumari is an Indian politician who was elected as the Member of Parliament from Rajsamand constituency in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. She is a member of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and served as a MLA from Sawai Madhopur for the term 2013-18. Kumari is a member of the royal family of Jaipur and daughter of the last Maharaja of Jaipur, Sawai Bhawani Singh and Padmini Devi. She completed her diploma in fine and decorative arts from Parsons Art and Design School, London and runs a museum trust of the palace. She began her career as a politician in 2013 after joining the BJP and currently serves as a brand ambassador of ‘Save the Girl Child’ initiative by the Government of Rajasthan.
As a politician and MP, she has worked extensively for the people in her constituency. She is also involved with the Princess Diya Kumari Foundation, which empowers women from impoverished backgrounds. Diya Kumari came in as a panelist on a discussion, “Technology, Women & Politics: Post-COVID elections, digitisation and women politicians” organised by NETRI Foundation in partnership with SheThePeople.TV. NETRI Foundation is an organisation committed to enhancing women’s political participation at all levels of representation.
Click here to read the full interview.
The COVID-19 pandemic is threatening years of gender equality progress. The United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals 2020 Reportfound that female genital mutilation (FGM) and child marriage are on the rise. Women are also doing more unpaid labor than ever, and access to women’s health care is becoming more limited.
Rather than give up now, leaders see the crisis as an opportunity for countries to step up their efforts to create a more equitable world for women and girls.
Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, executive directorof UN Women, envisions a path forward despite the new set of challenges presented by the pandemic. She spoke to Global Citizen via email about how the latest SDG report’s findings can guide COVID-19 response and future initiatives to achieve gender equality by 2030.
Mlambo-Ngcuka stressed the importance of female leadership, making sexual and reproductive health essential everywhere, addressing the increased risks of harmful practices, rebalancing household responsbilities, and more.
Click here to read the full article published by Global Citizen on 11 August 2020.
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.