Democracy and the equal participation of men and women in the political arena are closely intertwined. No parliament or any decision-making body can claim to be representative without the participation of both men and women. As stated in the Universal Declaration on Democracy adopted by the Inter-Parliamentary Union’s Member Parliaments in 1997, "The achievement of democracy presupposes a genuine partnership between men and women in the conduct of the affairs of society in which they work in equality and complementarity, drawing mutual enrichment from their differences."
Recent years have seen a steady increase in the number of women in parliament, though the world average of less than 22 percent remains far from the goal of parity between women and men. The election of women to the highest positions of state and government in several countries has also contributed to the changing face of politics.
While the road to election is a difficult one, the challenges for women do not stop there. Once women enter parliament or other bodies, they are faced with many new challenges. Parliament is traditionally a male-oriented domain where the rules and practices have been written by men. It is, therefore, an ongoing challenge to transform parliament into a gender-sensitive environment, to ensure that actions are gender-sensitive and to guarantee that gender is mainstreamed throughout the legislature.
On 26 September 2021, Germans elected the 20th Bundestag. This election was special in many ways. The article analyses the electoral campaign, voting behaviour, turnout, and the formation of a new coalition government by using a gender and intersectional lens.
Linda Reynolds’ newfound enthusiasm for quotas ignores the many reasons women are turning away from her party.
If we want more women with children to become MPs, we need family-friendly policies for parents like me in the Commons.
Local politicians across Japan feel that more needs to be done to help women enter and remain in politics, from combatting sexual harassment to beefing up maternity leave policies, according to a new survey.
In 2019, Aiko Usui was 28 years old and running for a seat in a ward assembly election in Tokyo. But instead of being treated as an aspiring politician by some of the voters she was canvassing, she instead felt like a pop idol being targeted for abuse.
TOKYO - A record number of both women and LGBTQ candidates are campaigning to win over voters in the House of Councillors election on Sunday and potentially bring change to Japan's male-dominated political landscape.
It's been four years since the gender parity law was passed in Japan, with an aim of fielding an equal number of female and male candidates in elections. Still, the male-dominated political environment has not changed.
On the eve of the International Day of Parliamentarism and the IPU’s 133rd anniversary on 30 June, a snapshot of the state of parliaments and parliamentarians offers mixed results.
During the 2020 caucus cycle, I heard it a lot, the refrain of the cautious Democratic voter. I want to vote for her, but I don’t think she can win. It wasn’t, people reasoned, because they were sexist, but they worried that America was.