gender equality

There is a need for women to organise themselves as a pressure group to be able to carve a niche in the political sphere, three Delhi-based women journalists said Saturday.

Women may get 79 or 14 percent of the total seats in the House of Representatives following April's legislative election; a figure that was lower than the historic high of 18 percent or 103 seats in the 2009 election, researchers said Monday.

This is despite more women candidates, accounting for 37 percent or 2,467 of the total 6,619 candidates, contesting the 560 House seats.

It is already the fifth time today that Rama makes a cross in the last column of the table that is displayed on her monitor screen. The column is reserved for sexual harassment. A 16-year-old girl has just informed her on the phone that she "was threatened with a weapon."

Rama works at "Helpline 181," an emergency service for women. "I like to work here," says the 20-year-old, adding that "in my own case, the police did not help me and I felt being left alone. By working here, I can help other women so that they have it better."

WOMEN will continue to be an integral part of the society, says Fiji Labour Party.

Party assistant general secretary Kini Marawai says FLP, since its inception almost 29 years ago, always advocated and championed the rights of women.

"The party strongly believes in giving women equal opportunities in leadership including empowerment in the political decision making processes," Mr Marawai said.

"In that stance the FLP not only talks the talk but walks the talk all these years as is manifestly inherent in its philosophies, manifestos and actions."

A lack of political support is one of the main barriers to women's participation in local government elections, speakers said at a national seminar yesterday, as data show a huge fall in the number of female candidates over past several years.
Parties' reluctance to nominate and empower their female members is seen as a reason for the decreasing participation of women in upazila and union parishad elections, they said.

There's a long-held assumption that women are more likely than men to collaborate. As the number of women in Congress has increased, however, so has the partisanship and gridlock. So does a woman's touch actually help on Capitol Hill?

There's a lot of academic research that supports the idea that women are better at building bipartisan coalitions. Studies have found that women in Congress not only sponsor more bills but also collect more co-sponsors for those bills.

And that's a major reason why , Craig Volden of the University of Virginia found.

As increasing numbers of women embark on careers as diplomats, the United Nations headquarters in New York is slowly but surely undergoing a big change in demographics: the female-to-male ratio of diplomats is becoming — dare it be possible — more balanced.

As Rwanda began to rebuild itself from the ashes of the 1994 genocide, something unexpected happened: Women began playing a much more influential role on many fronts, including politics.

Traditions that had limited women previously were cast aside, and President Paul Kagame also actively pushed for women to be in more prominent positions.

Today, women make up 64 percent of the country's lower house of Parliament — a far higher percentage than in any other nation, according to figures compiled by the .

Given the chance to vote for the first time in the March primary, 17 year olds turned out at a higher rate in Cook County than voters old enough to be their parents, according to a new study released today.