What are the main barriers preventing women from diverse backgrounds from participating in politics?

Diverse women, women with different intersections like me, for example, religion, race or ethnicity, if you want to call it, sexual orientation, disability, face a number of barriers. There are more than triple barriers when it comes to social norms, when it comes to financial barriers.

I'll start with the financial barriers because women who have different social backgrounds or women who have all these intersections usually do not have easy access to finances. So this really hinders their participation in social life, but especially their participation in political life.

Another barrier is women with migrant background, or women who are not originally born in the country that they are being a candidate, political candidate for, sometimes do not have any knowledge of the political system. So mentoring or some form of education that helps them have a crash course in what the political system is and how to navigate this would really help. Another social barrier or another barrier to women participating in politics in countries where they were not originally from is when they have to deal with social norms.

Because women who come from countries that are different from where, who participate in politics, in countries that are different from where they were born, usually have to tackle, if they're from the Global South and they're in the Global North, they have to tackle what we call stereotypes. And these stereotypes vary because, especially, for example, as a black woman, we have the stereotype of the angry black woman.

When I'm passionate about something as a black woman, I tend to speak with my hands.

And this can be misinterpreted, especially in the global north, where people tend to have a different way of speaking because of the cultural differences, as I am now showing the angry black woman stereotype. Then we have the stereotype of the hypersexual Jezebel.

Now, because of the cultural differences, Global North and Global South, Global South women people sometimes tend to show more temperament, but also love a lot of color.

Now, this can also be interpreted and the wearing of color and the way they dress, their sense of style can be interpreted as, it's actually hyper-sexualized, so it can be interpreted as being more sexual than is necessary in the political arena.

This hinders them a lot because when you're speaking to people and they're concentrating more on how they can try and teach you not to wear more color, how they can try and teach you to dress down. They portray this in answering what you're trying to politically tell them, and this can be a really big barrier also to political participation, because they do not take people from the Global South, women from the Global South, them seriously.

What changes are necessary to increase women’s presence in parliament?

Now, women in Parliament should actually try and work together in such cases, because what women with different intersectionalities go through. Also, women without the intersectionalities go through, maybe only in a lesser degree.

Now, if women come together and decide to change the narrative, rewrite the narrative by educating their male counterparts on what hypersexualization of women who have all these intersections is and that they shouldn't do this, or what it means to not be taken seriously because you look different, what it means not to have financial access, what it means not to have the knowledge of the political system, if we can come together and have a sort of schooling system, a sort of not just mentoring, but co-leadership, women to women, and let's work together in educating our male counterparts and the general public about this, could really work. We cannot do this without the male NPs, because really, they're the ones who know half of the time what they are thinking and how they are reacting to who they see in front of them.

Now, if we could get more allies to help us teach each other what it means to be female in the LGBTQIA+ group, what it means to be female with a migrant background, with a different religion, with a different ethnicity. This would really help because sometimes as somebody who comes from this marginalized group, it is harder for you to voice it. But when a male counterpart voices it, let's say a male counterpart from the LGBTQIA plus group voices what it feels like to be marginalized as a female because they could a little bit relate to that, it helps us more. Sometimes it's the allies who can voice what we are going through better to the other male and to the rest of the community. And this comes out much stronger.

Why does diversity in parliament matter?

In different cases, we have female MPs who are actually elected, so they do get the seat at the table, but they do not get the power, meaning they don't have the resources. If we could try and think about more intersectional inclusive frameworks that include not just the seat at the table, but the power. We are being voted in, but learning the process, and we have different intergenerational and intercultural mentorship this could really work.

What would you say to inspire more women to get involved in politics?

I would really, really encourage other women, other intersectional women to join politics because we do need the diversity. It does not help us when there are not enough women who are disabled, who are in the LGBTQIA plus group, who are racialized, who are not in parliament in politics, it helps us to have the diversity, then we have a stronger voice. It is difficult in the beginning, but with the help of the other women, with the solidarity, we can really do this. We should give more visibility to these women so that those who are there do not feel so much alone.

I always say, I may have come in as one, but I will not be the last one.