Women's Leadership

The first time a man stopped Marlène Schiappa and said something obscene, she was 14 years old and walking down a street in Paris’ northern 19th arrondissement. Shocked, she rushed home to her apartment and told her family. They were unsurprised. “They just told me, ‘Oh, that’s normal. It’s always like that,’” says Schiappa, who has served as France’s Minister for Gender Equality since May 2017. When it happened again, she didn’t bring it up.

Daring to join the male-dominated world of Nigerian politics was a tough decision for Ladi Mamman Watila, particularly in the conservative north-eastern state of Borno. But in 2003, Watila ran for a seat in the House of Representatives (the lower house of the National Assembly of Nigeria) on behalf of the All Nigeria People’s Party. Most of her opponents were men who felt she was better suited to the kitchen than the rough and tumble of national politics.

Despite progress, gender gap in leadership still persists, a new study has found. 

According to the study by researchers of University at Buffalo School of Management, men are more likely than women to emerge as leaders. 

Though women account for over 48 percent of India’s population, the number of female parliamentarians in the country is disproportionately low (12.5 percent). The alarming figures and increased awareness over women's rights have led to the Congress pushing for the passage of the Women's Reservation Bill during the recently-concluded Monsoon Session.

Five years back something historic happened. The 2013 Rwandan Parliamentary elections ushered in a record-breaking 64 per cent of seats for women candidates, making Rwanda the top country for women in politics.

Gender quotas should be introduced next year for the local elections, the National Women’s Council of Ireland (NWCI) has said.

Just 21 per cent of local councillors are women and it would take another 200 years to achieve gender parity at the current rate, NWCI director Orla O’Connor told the Parnell Summer School in Avondale, Co Wicklow.

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres has nominated Michelle Bachelet, a former president of Chile, to become the next UN high commissioner for human rights. The nomination has been sent to the General Assembly for approval.

Bachelet, who is 66, was Guterres’s top choice all along in the selection process, which began informally in the spring, after the current human-rights commissioner, Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, a Jordanian diplomat, announced he would not seek a second term.

The president of the Pan African Women's Organisation (PAWO), Assetou Koite, says Africa must recognise and honour the contribution of women to the decolonisation of the continent and take action to advance gender equality.