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.
Men are far outpacing women in the total amount contributed in 2024 congressional races, according to a new analysis from The Center for American Women and Politics (CAWP), a unit of the Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers University.
According to Gulmira Ileuova, a sociologist and the head of the Strategy Centre for Social and Political Research, gender equality in Kazakhstan has severely deteriorated.
Japan could soon have its first female prime minister.
Online threats of death, rape, and physical violence against women in politics and public life have become alarmingly common, and the rise of artificial intelligence may further intensify the scale and reach of such online abuse,
In the mid-1990s, Arizona State University political scientist Kim Fridkin dubbed U.S.
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Women working in politics have spoken of the challenges of juggling work with their family life and caring duties.
The representation of women in Ghana's Fourth Republic Parliament has remained notably low.
