Women's Leadership
Countries all throughout the world struggle with providing equal opportunities and positions in regards to women when compared to their male counterparts (Brennan & Elkink, 2015). The People’s Republic of China is not an exception to this trend. In order to combat gender inequality in politics, a quota for women cadres was introduced in 1995. This would ensure that at least one woman holds a head or deputy position in regional governments (Jiang et al, 2023). Despite this quota, women in China still struggle to participate in politics. This statement will be supported by these following arguments; (1) The society and culture in China view women as subordinate, thus lacking support and belief in women when in leadership and political positions, (2) The few women that do end up in positions in government struggle to receive prestigious promotions compared to their male counterparts; and finally (3) In order to attain these promotions these women need to outperform and display similar characteristics to their male colleagues in order to attain similar positions. This issue is important to understand in order to see whether mere gender quotas are sufficient in solving gender inequality in politics or are there other factors we as a society must willingly work to fix.
Click here to read the full article published by Modern Diplomacy on 6 February 2024.
Image source: Modern Diplomacy
Women’s underrepresentation at all levels of government is a persistent problem in the United States. RepresentWomen’s research shows that although we have made progress towards parity, this progress is slow and inconsistent, meaning we are unlikely to reach gender balance within our lifetimes. Increasing and sustaining women’s leadership in elected office requires us to remove the barriers women candidates and legislators face. This drives our research at RepresentWomen to identify the barriers and system-level solutions we can implement to create a more representative, gender-balanced democracy.
Click here to read the full article published by LA Progressive on 22 November 2023.
Image by LA Progressive
The Gender Equality Index developed by the European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE) in 2013, is recognised in the European Union as an important tool for analysing the state of gender equality in a society as well as comparing current trends and the current situation at the European Union (EU) level. Since 2016, the Agency for Gender Equality of Bosnia and Herzegovina within the Ministry of Human Rights and Refugees of Bosnia and Herzegovina together with the Agency for Statistics of Bosnia and Herzegovina have been engaged in activities that have led to the development of a Gender Equality Index for Bosnia and Herzegovina. The Gender Equality Index for Bosnia and Herzegovina 2022 presents the full index scores for two full domains, Knowledge and Power and the partial index scores for the domains of Work and Health. With the development of this report, Bosnia and Herzegovina will for the first time be able to rely on a statistically legitimate, objective and up-to-date statistical tool for the comparison of the state of gender equality in the country wth countries in the region and in the EU. The combined efforts of the Agency for Statistics of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Agency for Gender Equality of Bosnia and Herzegovina within the Ministry for Human Rights and Refugees of Bosnia and Herzegovina, under the invaluable guidance of EIGE and supported by UN Women and financed by the European Union, have resulted in the development of this Gender Equality Index.
Click here to access the report.
Across Kenya, local conflicts driven by diverse factors have one thing in common: they’re increasingly being mediated by women. From ethnic tensions to land disputes, some of these conflicts stretch back decades; remaining unresolved despite the lasting instability and violence they create among communities. So women are stepping up to end longstanding strife through local dialogues and outreach, approaches male-dominated leadership has not always been willing to take. But in order to build lasting peace, they need support from both their communities and the state—which some are receiving, and many are not.
Old conflicts, new harm
In the country’s western region, longstanding tensions are driving new security risks in the neighbouring counties of Kisumu and Nandi. Their predominant ethnicities mirror the tribal background of the two leading presidential candidates in this year’s election, and the border region has been identified as a hotspot for elections-related violence.
Click here to read the full article published by UN Women on 24 October 2022.
After national news coverage of a COVID-19 mask requirement controversy in Dodge City, Kansas in December of 2020, Mayor Joyce Warshaw received numerous threats such as “Burn in hell”; “Get murdered”; and “We’re coming for you.” Fifteen days later, Mayor Warshaw resigned saying that she and her family no longer felt safe.
Four important questions arise from the circumstances in which Mayor Warshaw and other mayors find themselves.
- How prevalent is violence against mayors from the public?
- Are there gender and race-based differences in violent experiences of mayors?
- Is the violence experienced by mayors causing them to rethink their service?
- What are the wider implications to representation of exposing public servants to abuse and violence? Will fewer people, especially women and women of color run, for and stay in office?
This research seeks answers to these questions.
Click here to access the report.
More than 100 years after women gained full citizenship rights through the 19th Amendment, women are still under-represented in government. While it is widely known that no woman has become president, it is not only the highest executive offices where women have not had access: women also face barriers at the state level.
Even in 2022, the vast majority of state cabinets are dominated by men. Cabinet members hold a vital position of power: running state agencies and serving as trusted advisors to the governor, helping them make important decisions. In nearly all states, most, if not all, cabinet members are appointed by the governor.
Click here to access the report.
WARNING: PROFANE LANGUAGE
The fabricated sex videos posted online purportedly of Aika Robredo and Tricia Robredo, daughters of Vice President Leni Robredo, are among the recent cases of disinformation circulating in cyberspace that are framed in the vitriol of misogyny. The attack on the young Robredos is obviously an attempt to damage their mother’s bid for the presidency. Many are shocked but not surprised, given the increasingly heated campaign in which the only female candidate is perceived to pose a formidable threat to the nine other presidential aspirants, all male. That the disturbing fakery was not exactly unexpected indicates the alarming yet taken-for-granted consequence of any form of political engagement by women – both in the real world and in virtual space.
This analysis is premised on the observation that misogyny – the intense prejudice against and contempt for women – has become more ferocious in cyberspace in recent years, particularly against those critical of President Rodrigo Duterte, and now during the lead-up to the 2022 elections. This report analyzes a relatively small but significant sample of the appalling number of misogynistic memes, posts, and comments that fan the flame of misogyny, with an equally sickening number of likes and shares from like-minded users, from 2015 to 2020. The following will be discussed as I work through the argument that cybermisogyny violates human rights. It is a disruption of peace, an affront to dignity and equality, and a threat to safety and security. It jeopardizes women’s right to work. As it tends to silence women, cybermisogyny undermines democracy.
Click here to read the full article published by The Daily Guardian on 22 May 2022.
Political gender equality is a central pillar of democracy, as all people, independently of gender, should have an equal say in political representation and decision-making. In practice, democracies are generally better at guaranteeing gender equality than most non-democratic regimes. According to International IDEA’s Global State of Democracy Indices, 41 per cent of democracies have high levels of gender equality, while this is the case in only two of the world’s authoritarian regimes (Belarus and Cuba). The democracies with low levels of gender equality are also exceptional (only four, all weak democracies - Iraq, Lebanon, Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea). Low levels of gender equality are much more common in non-democracies – more than one third of them fall into this category.
Despite more than half the countries in the world being democracies of some form, levels of political gender equality have not kept pace with democratic progress. In 2022, only 26 per cent of legislators in the world are women, according to the Inter-Parliamentary Union. At the current rate, gender parity will not be achieved until 2062, according to International IDEA’s estimate. The proportion of women heads of state is even lower. In 2022, only 19 countries in the world have women in the highest office of executive power. Of these, all except four are democracies. Moreover, as global democratic progress is threatened by rising authoritarianism and democratic backsliding, fragile levels of gender equality, further weakened by the pandemic, are at risk of more setbacks, as gender is increasingly used as a weapon in such processes.
Click here to read the full article published by International IDEA on 7 March 2022.
Fawcett's Sex and Power 2022 Index is a biennial report which charts the progress towards equal representation for women in top jobs across the UK. Yet again, the report reveals the pace of change is glacial in the majority of sectors and shows that women are outnumbered by men 2:1 in positions of power.
Women of colour are vastly under-represented at the highest levels of many sectors and alarmingly, they are missing altogether from senior roles such as Supreme Court Justices, Metro Mayors, Police and Crime Commissioners and FTSE 100 CEOs.
Click here to download the report.
RepresentWomen's Arab State Brief reviews the extent to which women are represented in Arab countries, the history of Arab independence and revolutions - and their impact on women's rights and representation; and country-specific information that covers the history of systems reforms and their impact on women's political rights and representation in the region.
Click here to read the full report.
New Zealand was the first country in the world where women won the right to vote and it’s now a leader for gender parity in politics.
Following the October 2020 elections, Prime Minister Rt. Hon. Jacinda Ardern leads the most diverse government in New Zealand’s history. Today there are more women, people of colour, LGBTQ+ and indigenous MPs than ever before. This diversity is reflected in the 20-person Cabinet, of which eight members are women, five are Māori, three are Pasifika, and three are from the LGBTQ+ community. In New Zealand, the government now better reflects the diversity of its population, and it is forging a path for other nations to follow.
Click here to read the full article published by IPU.
With less than a decade to go to 2030, the deadline for the Sustainable Development Goals, women constitute just 11% of MPs and 18% of councillors in Botswana: well below the gender parity target and among the lowest proportions in Southern Africa.
This situation analysis of WPP in Botswana is part of the consortium's work and aims to provide a comprehensive overview of the state of women's participation in political decision making at all levels, including in political parties, the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) and the media.
Accelerating women representation in political decision making requires an inter-sectional approach involving government, civil society, the media, academia, the private sector, youth and men. The upcoming Constitutional Review- the first since independence in 1966 - provides a unique opportunity to re-write herstory in Botswana; review the electoral system with a gender lens, and adopt the special measures that have proven necessary in every country in the world that has succeeded in increasing WPP. The time is indeed now!
Click here to access the analysis.