gender gap

Campaigning for the December 4 Assembly elections in Delhi ended on Monday with around 25 rallies and road shows being organised in the capital.

The public engagement programmers included those by BJP Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi, Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit and Aam Aadmi Party leader Arvind Kejriwal.

While the city was plastered with posters promising safety to women and the issue figures big in party manifestos, only a few women have made it to the candidates’ list for the Delhi Assembly polls.

Lofa County district #4 Representative Hon. Mariamu B. Fofana has frown on the creation of women's wing in political parties in the country. Representative Fofana said putting women on the wing side of political parties deprives them of actively participating in the decision making of the party they belong to.

What, I wonder, explains the gender gap in political corruption?

Women make up almost 20 percent of the current Congress, according to the Center for American Women and Politics, but they don’t come anywhere near that proportion when we are talking about scandals on Capitol Hill.

Will it take breaking news of a female lawmaker doing something truly stupid like former Rep. Anthony Weiner’s tweeting self-portraits of his private parts to strangers to know we are beginning to achieve gender equality?

Following the elections and recent government appointments made by King Mswati and members of parliament (MPs), Swaziland has hit rock bottom in women's representation in government, just at the time when the country should be giving its last push for gender equality before 2015.

There is no hope that Swaziland will reach the SADC Gender Protocol target of 50% women in all areas of decision-making by 2015.

It's raining machismo in France. Chucking it down, in fact.

From parliament to local councils, via national media and regional newspapers, storms have erupted as French men indulge in misogynist outbursts that could have come from the cave age.

Now, thanks to the name-and-shame tactics of social media networks, France's long-suffering women, who might previously have shrugged off such attacks as everyday sexism and machismo, are hitting back.

Why some say the GOP can't compete until it adds more female consultants to its ranks “If you look at the numbers, women are the majority of the population; we’re the majority of voters,” Thompson says. “We have a higher turnout ratio, and we’re the majority of consumers, the majority of television watchers. If you want to talk to the majority of voters, you have to craft a campaign that talks to women.”

The Prime Minister of the Cook Islands says more women should run for Parliament but need to get there on their own merits.

Henry Puna says he strongly encourages women to take up positions of power in Cook Islands communities.

But he says he disagrees with others about how women may get to those positions of power.

We invite you to read the full article published September 3, 2013

This week our Prime Minister will join the leaders of 15 Pacific Island countries at the 44th meeting of the Pacific Islands Forum.

The 16 all-male leaders will meet for three days in the Marshall Islands, and discuss important issues such as climate change and Fiji's progress towards democratic elections next year.

But let's hope they will also find time to discuss gender equality in the Pacific, and why it is that women in the Pacific are worse off, in many respects, than most other women in the world.